“I say, excuse me, old boy,” said the businessman, and he passed through as well.
On the flight he sat in the smoking section, ten rows behind Quinn, took orange juice and coffee for breakfast, and smoked two filter kings through a silver holder. Like Quinn, he had no luggage. At Heathrow he was four passengers behind Quinn at passport control and ten paces behind as they crossed the customs hall where others waited for their suitcases. He watched Quinn take a cab as his turn came, then nodded to a long black car across the road. He climbed in it on the move, and as they entered the tunnel from the airport to the M.4 motorway and London, the limousine was three vehicles behind Quinn’s cab.
When Philip Kelly said he would ask the British for a port watch on Quinn’s passport in the morning, he meant a Washington morning. Because of the time difference, the British received the request at 11:00 A.M. London time. Half an hour later the port-watch notice was brought by a colleague to the passport officer at Heathrow who had seen Quinn pass in front of him—half an hour earlier. He handed over his post to the colleague and told his superior.
Two Special Branch officers, on duty behind the immigration desk, queried the men in the customs hall. One customs man in the “Green” channel recalled a tall American whom he had briefly stopped because he had no luggage at all. Shown a photograph, he identified it.
Out on the taxi rank the traffic wardens who allocate taxis to prevent line-crashing did the same. But they had not noted the number of the cab he took.
Cabdrivers are sometimes sources of vital information to the police, and as the cabbies are a law-abiding breed, save for an occasional lapse in the declaring of income tax, which does not concern the Met., relations are good and kept that way. Moreover, the cabbies plying the lucrative Heathrow run do so according to a strict and jealously guarded rotation system. It took another hour to trace and contact the one who had carried Quinn, but he too recognized his passenger.
“Yerse,” he said. “I took him to Blackwood’s Hotel in Marylebone.”
In fact he dropped Quinn at the base of the hotel steps at twenty to one. Neither noticed the black limousine that drew up behind. Quinn paid off the cab and mounted the steps. By this time a dark-suited London businessman was beside him. They reached the revolving doors at the same time. It was a question of who should pass first. Quinn’s eyes narrowed when he saw the man beside him. The businessman preempted him.
“I say, weren’t you the chap on the plane from Corsica this morning? By Jove, so was I. Small world, what? After you, m’dear fellow.”
He gestured to Quinn to pass ahead of him. The needle tip jutting from the ferrule of the umbrella was already bared. Quinn hardly felt the sting of the jab as it entered the calf of his left leg. It remained for half a second and was withdrawn. Then Quinn was inside the revolving doors. They jammed when he was halfway through; trapped in the segment between the portico and the lobby. He was stuck there for only five seconds. As he emerged he had the impression of feeling slightly dizzy. The heat, no doubt.
The Englishman was beside him, still chattering.
“Damn door, never did like them. I say, old boy, are you feeling all right?”
Quinn’s vision blurred again and he swayed. A uniformed porter approached, concern on his face.
“You all right, sir?”
The businessman took over with smooth efficiency. He leaned toward the porter, holding Quinn under one armpit with a grip of surprising strength, and slipped a £10 note into the porter’s hand.
“Touch of the pre-lunch martinis, I’m afraid. That and jet lag. Look, my car’s outside. ... If you’d be so kind ... Come on, Clive. Let’s get you home, old son.”
Quinn tried to resist but his limbs seemed to be made of Jell-O. The porter knew his duty to his hotel, and a real gentleman when he saw one. The real gentleman took Quinn at one side, the porter at the other. They eased him through the baggage door, which did not revolve, and down the three steps to the curb. There, two of the real gentleman’s colleagues climbed out of the car and helped Quinn into the rear seat. The businessman nodded his thanks to the porter, who turned to attend to other arriving guests, and the limousine drew away.
As it did so, two police cars came around the corner of Blandford Street and headed for the hotel. Quinn leaned back against the upholstery of the car, his mind still aware but his body helpless and his tongue a soggy lump. Then the blackness swam up and over him in waves and he passed out.
Chapter 17
When Quinn awoke he was in a bare white room, flat on his back on a cot. Without moving he looked around. A solid door, also white; a recessed bulb protected by a steel grille. Whoever had set the place up did not wish the inhabitant to smash the bulb and slice his wrists. He recalled the too-smooth English businessman, the sting in the rear of the calf, the slide into unconsciousness. Damn the Brits.
There was a peephole in the door. He heard it click. An eye stared at him. There was no more point in pretending to be unconscious or asleep. He pulled back the blanket that covered him and swung his legs to the floor. Only then did he realize he was naked but for his shorts.
There was a rasp as two bolts were pulled back and the door opened. The man who came in was short, chunky, with close-cropped hair and a white jacket, like a steward. He said nothing. Just marched in bearing a plain deal table, which he set down against the far wall. He went back out and reappeared with a large tin bowl and a pitcher from whose top a wisp of steam emerged. These he put on the table. Then he went out again, but only to the corridor. Quinn wondered if he should flatten the man and seek to escape. He decided against it. The lack of windows indicated he was below ground somewhere; he wore only shorts, the servant looked as though he could handle himself in a fight, and there would have to be other “heavies” out there somewhere.
When the man came back the second time he bore a fluffy towel, washcloth, soap, toothpaste, a new toothbrush still in its wrapper, safety razor and foam, and a self-standing shaving mirror. Like a perfect valet, he arranged these on the table, paused at the door, gestured to the table, and left. The bolts went home.
Well, thought Quinn, if the British undercover people who had snatched him wished him to look presentable for Her Majesty, he was prepared to oblige. Besides, he needed to freshen up.
He took his time. The hot water felt good and he sponged himself right down. He had showered on the ferry Napoléon, but that had been forty-eight hours ago. Or was it? His watch was gone. He knew he had been kidnapped about lunchtime, but was that four hours ago, twelve, or twenty-four? Whatever, the sharp mint of the toothpaste felt good in the mouth. It was when he took up the razor, lathered his chin, and gazed in the small round mirror that he got a shock. The bastards had given him a haircut.
Not a bad one, either. His brown hair was trimmed and barbered, but styled in a different way. There was no comb among the wash things; he could not push it the way he liked it except with his fingertips. Then it stood up in tufts, so he pushed it back the way the unknown barber had left it. He had hardly finished when the steward came back again.
“Well, thanks for that, pal,” said Quinn. The man gave no sign of having heard; just removed the wash things, left the table, and reappeared with a tray. On it was fresh orange juice, cereal, milk, sugar, a platter containing eggs and bacon, toast, butter, and orange marmalade, and coffee. The coffee was fresh and smelled great. The steward set a plain wooden chair by the table, gave a stiff bow, and left.
Quinn was reminded of an old British tradition: When they take you to the Tower to chop your head off, they always give you a hearty breakfast. He ate anyway. Everything.
Hardly had he finished than Rumpelstiltskin was back, this time with a pile of clothes, fresh-laundered and pressed. But not his. A crisp white shirt, tie, socks, shoes, and a two-piece suit. Everything fitted as if tailor-made for him. The servant gestured to the clothes and tapped his watch as if to say there was little time to lose.
When Quinn was dressed,
the door opened again. This time it was the elegant businessman, and he at least could speak.
“My dear chap, you’re looking a hundred percent better, and feeling it, I hope. My sincere apologies for the unconventional invitation here. We felt that without it you might not care to join us.”
He still looked like a fashion plate and talked like an officer from one of the Guards regiments.
“I’ll give you assholes credit where it’s due,” said Quinn. “You have style.”
“How very kind,” murmured the businessman. “And now, if you would come with me, my superior officer would like a word with you.”
He led Quinn down a plain corridor to an elevator. As it hummed upward, Quinn asked what time it was.
“Ah, yes,” said the businessman. “The American obsession with the hour of the day. Actually it is close to midnight. I fear that breakfast was all our night-duty chef was very good at.”
They got out of the lift into another corridor, plushly carpeted this time, with several paneled wooden doors leading off it. But his guide led Quinn to the far end, opened the door, ushered Quinn inside, withdrew, and closed the door.
Quinn found himself in a room that might have been office or drawing room. Sofas and armchairs were grouped around a gas-log fire, but there was an imposing desk in the window bay. The man who rose from behind it and came to greet him was older than he, mid-fifties he guessed, in a Savile Row suit. He also wore an air of authority in his bearing and in his hard, no-nonsense face. But his tone was amiable enough.
“My dear Mr. Quinn, how good of you to join me.”
Quinn began to get annoyed. There was a limit to this game-playing.
“Okay, can we quit playing charades? You had me jabbed in a hotel lobby, drugged unconscious, brought here. Fine. Totally unnecessary. If you British spooks had wanted to talk to me, you could have had a couple of bobbies pick me up without need of hypodermic needles and all that crap.”
The man in front of him paused, seeming genuinely surprised.
“Oh, I see. You think you are in the hands of Mi-Five or Mi-Six? I fear not. The other side, so to speak. Allow me. I am General Vadim Kirpichenko, newly appointed head of the First Chief Directorate, KGB. Geographically you are still in London; technically you are on sovereign Soviet territory—our embassy in Kensington Park Gardens. Won’t you sit down?”
For the second time in her life Sam Somerville was shown into the Situation Room in the basement below the West Wing of the White House. She had barely been off the Madrid plane five hours. Whatever the men of power wanted to ask her, they did not wish to be kept waiting.
The Vice President was flanked by the four senior Cabinet members and Brad Johnson, the National Security Adviser. Also in attendance were the Director of the FBI and Philip Kelly. Lee Alexander of the CIA sat alone. The one other man was Kevin Brown, repatriated from London to report personally, something he had just finished doing when Sam was shown in. The atmosphere toward her was clearly hostile.
“Sit down, young lady,” said Vice President Odell. She took the chair at the end of the table, where they could all see her. Kevin Brown glowered at her; he would have preferred to conduct her debriefing personally, then reported to this committee. It was not pleasing to have his subordinate agents interrogated directly.
“Agent Somerville,” said the Vice President, “this committee let you return to London and released the man Quinn to your charge for one reason: your assertion that he might make some progress in identifying Simon Cormack’s abductors because he had actually seen them. You were also told to stay in touch, report back. Since then ... nothing. Yet we’ve been getting a stream of reports about bodies being left all over Europe, and always you and Quinn a few yards away at the time. Now will you please tell us what the hell you’ve been doing?”
Sam told them. She started at the beginning, Quinn’s vague recall of a spider tattoo on the back of the hand of one of the men in the Babbidge warehouse; the trail via the Antwerp thug Kuyper to Marchais, already dead under a pseudonym in a Ferris wheel in Wavre. She told them of Quinn’s hunch that Marchais might have brought a long-time buddy into the operation, and the unearthing of Pretorius in his bar in Den Bosch. She told them of Zack, the mercenary commander Sidney Fielding. What he had had to say, minutes before he died, kept them in riveted silence. She finished with the bugged handbag and Quinn’s departure alone to Corsica to find and interrogate the fourth man, the mysterious Orsini, who, according to Zack, had actually provided the booby-trapped belt.
“Then he called me, twenty hours ago, and told me it was over, the trail cold, Orsini dead and never said a word about the fat man. ...”
There was silence when she finished.
“Jesus,” said Reed, “that is incredible. Do we have any evidence that might tend to support all this?”
Lee Alexander looked up.
“The Belgians report that the slug that killed Lefort, alias Marchais, was a forty-five, not a thirty-eight. Unless Quinn had another gun ...”
“He didn’t,” said Sam quickly. “The only one we had between us was my thirty-eight, the one Mr. Brown gave me. And Quinn was never out of my sight for long enough to get from Antwerp to Wavre and back, or from Arnhem to Den Bosch and back. As for the Paris café, Zack was killed by a rifle fired from a car in the street.”
“That checks,” said Alexander. “The French have recovered the slugs fired at that café. Armalite rounds.”
“Quinn could have had a partner,” suggested Walters.
“Then there was no need to bug my handbag,” said Sam. “He could just have slipped away while I was in the bath, or the John, and made a phone call. I ask you to believe, gentlemen, Quinn is clean. He damn near got to the bottom of this thing. There was someone ahead of us all the way.”
“The fat man, referred to by Zack?” queried Stannard. “The one Zack swore set it all up, paid for it all? Maybe. But ... an American!”
“May I make a suggestion?” asked Kevin Brown. “I may have been wrong in thinking that Quinn was involved here from the outset. And I admit that. But there is another scenario that makes even more sense.”
He had their undivided attention.
“Zack claimed the fat man was American. How? By his accent. What would a Britisher know about American accents? They mistake Canadians for Americans. Say the fat man was Russian. Then it all fits. The KGB has dozens of agents perfect in English and with impeccable American accents.”
There was a series of slow nods around the table.
“My colleague is right,” said Kelly. “We have motive. The destabilization and demoralization of the United States has long been Moscow’s top priority—no argument about that. Opportunity? No problem. There was publicity about Simon Cormack studying at Oxford, so the KGB mounts a major ‘wet’ operation to hurt us all. Financing? They have no problem there. Using the mercenaries—the employment of surrogates to do the dirty work is standard practice. Even the CIA does it. As for wasting the four mercenaries when the job is over—that’s standard for the Mob, and the KGB has similarities to the Mob over here.”
“If one accepts that the fat man was a Russian,” added Brown, “it all checks out. I’ll accept, on the basis of Agent Somerville’s report, that there was a man who paid, briefed, and ‘ran’ Zack and his thugs. But for me, that man is now back where he came from—in Moscow.”
“But why,” queried Jim Donaldson, “should Gorbachev first set up the Nantucket Treaty, then blow it away in this appalling manner?”
Lee Alexander coughed gently.
“Mr. Secretary, there are known to be powerful forces inside the Soviet Union opposed to glasnost, perestroika, the reforms, Gorbachev himself, and most particularly the Nantucket Treaty. Let us recall that the former chairman of the KGB, General Kryuchkov, has just been fired. Maybe what we have been discussing is the reason why.”
“I think you’ve got it,” said Odell. “Those covert KGB bastards mount the operation to shaft Americ
a and the treaty in one. Gorbachev personally doesn’t need to have been responsible.”
“Doesn’t change a damn thing,” said Walters. “The American public is never going to believe that. And that includes Congress. If this was Moscow’s doing, Mr. Gorbachev stands indicted, aware or not. Remember Irangate?”
Yes, they all remembered Irangate. Sam looked up.
“What about my handbag?” she asked. “If the KGB set it all up, why would they need us to lead them to the mercenaries?”
“No problem,” suggested Brown. “The mercenaries didn’t know the boy was going to die. When he did, they panicked, hid out. Maybe they never showed up someplace where the KGB was waiting for them. Besides, attempts were made to implicate you and Quinn, the American negotiator and an agent of the FBI, in two of the killings. Again, standard practice: Throw dust in the eyes of world opinion; make it look like the American Establishment silencing the killers before they can talk.”
“But my handbag was switched for a replica with the bug inside,” protested Sam. “Somewhere in London.”
“How do you know that, Agent Somerville?” asked Brown. “Could have been at the airport, or on the ferry to Ostende. Hell, it could have been one of the Brits—they came to the apartment after Quinn quit. And the manor house in Surrey. Quite a number have worked for Moscow in the past. Remember Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Vassall, Blunt, Blake—they were all traitors who worked for Moscow. Maybe they have a new one.”
Lee Alexander studied his fingertips. He deemed it undiplomatic to mention Mitchell, Marshall, Lee, Boyce, Harper, Walker, Lonetree, Conrad, Howard, or any of the other twenty Americans who had betrayed Uncle Sam for money.
“Okay, gentlemen,” said Odell an hour later, “we commission the report. A through Z. The findings have to be clear. The belt was Soviet-made. The suspicion will remain unproved but indelible for all that—this was a KGB operation and it ends with the vanished agent known only as the fat man, now presumably back behind the Iron Curtain. We know the ‘what’ of it, and the ‘how.’ We think we know the ‘who,’ and the ‘why’ is pretty clear. The Nantucket Treaty is belly-up for all time, and we have a President sick with grief. Jesus, I never thought I’d say it, even though I’m not known as a liberal, but right now I almost wish we could nuke those Commie bastards back to the Stone Age.”