In the bedroom he tossed out the few remaining traces of her, including the mineral water and medicines on the nightstand. He did the same in the bathroom, scrubbing out the shower and the toilet, and cleaning the sink and mirrors.
When he was finished he took the garbage downstairs and stuffed it in one of the cans in the back alley.
Back in the apartment he sat by the window again and had another cigarette and glass of wine, cleansing his mind, as he had his apartment, of her. In effect she was a prostitute. Her pimp was the French Secret Service, and her john was McGarvey. He’d known that from the start. But as with Marta Fredricks, his watchdog in Switzerland a few years ago, he’d come to have a genuine feeling for Jacqueline despite himself. A feeling, he told himself firmly, that could go nowhere.
Marta had lost her life chasing after him. He was glad now to be rid of Jacqueline, at least in that respect. She would be a lot safer away from him.
Nobody was coming tonight, he decided finally. They weren’t going to arrest him, they were simply going to watch him.
He went in the bathroom and urinated. When he was done he got up on the edge of the tub and carefully lifted the mechanism and false bottom out of the overhead gravity tank, causing the toilet to flush. He pulled out a flat, plastic-wrapped package from inside, and as the last of the water ran out of the tank, replaced the mechanism so that the tank would refill normally.
He opened the package on the bed and took out his Walther PPK, two spare magazines of ammunition, a silencer disguised to look like a small flashlight, ten thousand dollars cash in American money, British pounds and Swiss francs, a spare set of identity papers, a small plastic squeeze bottle containing hair coloring, and a set of light blue contact lenses.
These last he took back into the bathroom, where he cut his hair short with his electric razor, careful to rinse all the hair down the sink, then colored it a light gray. He put in the contact lenses, and when he was finished he looked like a somewhat older man, which matched the photographs in his false papers.
He took a long, hot shower, made certain that the bathroom was clean, then got dressed in a nondescript pair of slacks, turtleneck and leather jacket. He stuffed the plastic package and half-full hair coloring bottle, his laptop computer and a few extra items of clothing into an overnight bag which he set by the front door. He quickly checked the apartment one last time to make sure everything was shut off, then let himself out, silently closing and locking the door behind him.
He took the stairs two at a time to the top floor, where from a window at the end of the corridor he studied the shadows in the alley.
Five minutes later, certain that no one was down there, he climbed out onto the fire escape, and scrambled down to the alley and headed away, not at all sure when or if he’d ever be back.
Paris, The Left Bank
The Hôtel Trois Frères was a half-block off the Rue Vaugirad near the Gare Montparnasse. It was small, but clean, and catered mostly to European travelers on a budget who wanted peace and quiet in the middle of Paris for a reasonable price. The back rooms looked down on a pleasant terrace with a small fountain that ran all night. In the morning the hotel served a continental breakfast next door at a patisserie. It served wine in the evening from six until seven. Everyone, staff and guests, was polite but reserved. Europeans were not as a rule as snoopy as Americans.
McGarvey checked in under the name Pierre Allain, a political writer from Spa, Belgium, with the spare passport and credit cards he kept in reserve.
A lot depended on Jacqueline, her control officer and Colonel Galan. Galan had asked for help from the CIA. But when Ryan started to push there was no telling how the French would react. They wanted information, but they might resent interference. The French were sometimes touchy on the subject. Officially the CIA did not maintain a presence in France. It was a fiction that everybody could live with. Unless somebody started to get too aggressive.
The SVR, which was the foreign intelligence gathering arm of the new Russian secret service, also maintained a station here. McGarvey was not a hundred percent convinced that Yemlin had been able to mask his true purpose for coming to France. So it was possible that the Russians would be looking for him as well.
Before he went to bed for a troubled night of sleep, he disassembled his gun, wiped it down, then reassembled and loaded it.
For better or worse, he was back in the field, no longer a civilian. Anyone could be gunning for him.
In the morning over breakfast he scoured Le Figaro for any mention that the police were looking for him, then walked a dozen blocks over to the Boulevard St-Michel on the east side of the Jardin du Luxembourg where he called his apartment from a pay phone. When his answering machine kicked in, he entered the code to retrieve any messages. There were none. Next he entered a three digit code which monitored noises in the apartment for thirty seconds. The place was silent. They weren’t coming after him yet. But they would be if for no other reason than to ask him some questions.
He spent the next few hours before lunch shopping at the big department store, BHV, across from the Hôtel de Ville, where he bought a sport coat, a couple of shirts, a couple of pairs of slacks, and a few other items.
Dropping his purchases back at his hotel, he had a light lunch at a sidewalk cafe, then went over to the Bon Marché, the left bank’s only department store, where he picked up a sturdy leather suitcase. He paid for his clothing with the Allain credit card, but paid cash for the suitcase. A visitor from Belgium might buy a sport coat and slacks in Paris, but it was less likely that he would buy a suitcase. It would be presumed he came with one.
Before he went back to his hotel, he called his apartment again. Jacqueline was on his answering machine.
“Don’t hang up, Kirk. I want to talk to you. Hit five-six and your call will be rolled over to me—”
McGarvey hung up. He’d made the opening move, and they were countering. The next few days would see how serious they were.
He went back to the hotel, where the desk clerk, a pleasant looking woman in her early forties, flashed him a smile.
“Monsieur Allain, it is rare to see a man who enjoys shopping as much as you do.”
The woman was flirting with him, he decided. “Not really, Madame, it is necessary. For the children, you know. And for my wife. They expect me to send them something from Paris.”
She lowered her eyes. “Do you travel much, then?”
“Too much. I miss them.”
The woman’s eyes went to his left hand, and she smiled. He wore no ring. “Have a pleasant afternoon.”
“And you, Madame,” McGarvey said, and he went up to his room on the third floor where he laid the package containing the suitcase on the bed.
It was unlikely that the SDECE would get onto his Allain identity very quickly. Though every hotel registration card was collected by the police each night, there simply were too many visitors to Paris for all the cards to be thoroughly checked. As a safeguard, however, he could seduce the desk clerk, and have her include a registration card in the next bundle that showed he’d checked out.
Something to be considered, he thought. But it wasn’t necessary just yet.
He unwrapped the suitcase, took all the tags off the new clothes, then packed them in the suitcase, which he rewrapped and addressed to Madame Suzanne Allain in Spa. He took the package downstairs and laid it on the desk so the woman could see the address.
“Could you tell me where the nearest post office is,” McGarvey asked.
“We could take care of it for you.”
“It’s better if I do it myself. It has to be insured.”
“Of course,” the woman said, and she gave him directions to a post office a half-dozen blocks away.
McGarvey walked a few blocks from the hotel, unwrapped the suitcase and discarded the packing paper in a trash container, after first marking out the address. Then he took a cab to an Avis agency near the Gare de Lyon where he rented a mid-sized Renault
for two weeks, paying extra for international insurance. He placed the suitcase in the trunk, and drove back to a car park that was attended twenty-four hours per day a few blocks from his hotel. He paid Avis with the Allain credit card, and paid cash for the car park.
Before he returned to his hotel he telephoned his apartment again, and got the same message from Jacqueline, but the place was still quiet.
He got back in time to have a couple of glasses of wine with a few of the guests in the lobby. The desk clerk, whose name was Martine, served them.
“Did you mail your package?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Have you made dinner plans for this evening?” She smiled. “There are several good restaurants nearby that I could recommend.”
“Unfortunately I have to meet with some editors this evening, and then make an early evening of it.”
“Too bad,” she said, flashing him another seductive smile.
“Yes,” he said. “Too bad.”
McGarvey got his laptop computer from his room, and walked a few blocks to a pay phone near a metro station where he telephoned Otto Rencke.
“Hi ya, Mac,” Rencke said.
“How’d you know it was me?” McGarvey said. His voice was scrambled in the handset. Rencke was using his back scatter encryption device.
“Somebody calls me from a pay phone in the middle of the Left Bank on this number it’s gotta be you. Did you move out?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re taking the job, then?”
“I’m thinking about it,” McGarvey said. “Has Langley responded to the SDECE’s query on me?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure Ryan is working on it. You got your laptop with you? I’ve got everything you’re going to need ready to download to you.”
“How long will it take?”
“Ninety seconds.”
“Okay, let me set it up.”
“Mac?” Rencke said. “Remember what I said. Watch your ass, ’cause I think this is going to be a humdinger.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll be here when you need me.”
McGarvey opened the computer and laid the telephone’s handset beside it. A moment later, the computer screen lit up, and data began to flow from Rencke’s computer into his.
ELEVEN
Paris, The Left Bank
In his hotel room McGarvey spent the next two days studying the material that Rencke had downloaded from his computer files. Besides the probability program which he’d developed to predict the outcome of a coup by Tarankov, Rencke had sent a complete dossier on the Tarantula, the people he surrounded himself with, and the armored train he used to make his strikes.
A number of things became very clear almost from the start of his studies, the first of which was Tarankov’s intelligence. Although he had the brute strength and the unshakable determination of a Stalin or a Hitler, he was not a stupid man. In fact he was brilliant, something even his enemies begrudgingly admitted. Which meant he wasn’t running around the countryside hoping that by some miracle the people would rise up and put him in power. He had a plan. A definite timetable.
If he wasn’t stopped he would manage to take over the entire country with two hundred commandoes, his East German wife and Leonid Chernov, a former KGB Department Viktor assassin whose name McGarvey had never heard.
On Thursday night he called Rencke from a pay phone several blocks from the hotel.
“Have you tried calling your answering machine in the past thirty-six hours?” Rencke asked as soon as he picked up the phone.
“No.”
“Don’t. Langley sent the SDECE the information on you they wanted, and it’s got them shook up. In their view you’re a very dangerous man whom they would like very much to talk to right now. They put an automatic trace on your phone line. At this point they don’t know if you’re in Paris or not, but if you call from the Left Bank they’ll be down there in minutes.”
“Are they watching the airports?”
“Yup. And the train stations. But the border crossings haven’t been alerted yet. You could get out that way. Either that or use a disguise.”
“Have they issued a warrant for my arrest?”
“The street cops haven’t got a warrant, I don’t know about the Service,” Rencke said. “You gotta understand, Mac, that to this point all my knowledge about the French is second hand. I can tap into the CIA’s computers, and I can play with the French phone system, but I can’t do much about the SDECE. They’ve got computers, don’t get me wrong. But they’re smart enough to know that they have to treat the really important stuff manually. The old fashioned way. If you want to know what they’re doing you have to break into one of their offices and steal their paper files. It’s almost un-American.”
“Is anybody making any guesses who Yemlin wants me to kill?”
“Not yet. Leastways they’ve put nothing in their computers that I can find. But this morning Lynch sent a second query about you to Ryan. The French can’t find you and they’d like the CIA to help.”
“Have they ordered my expulsion from France?”
“It doesn’t sound like it. They just want to talk to you, that’s all.”
“How about you? Has your name come up?”
“Knock on wood, but not yet,” Rencke said laughing. “I still have my super virus in place and the silly bastards don’t suspect a thing. But if they push me the CIA’s entire computer system will crash, and crash good. Maybe for good.”
“You’d do it, too.”
“Why not? I’ve had to start over. It’s good for the soul. Maybe they wouldn’t be so arrogant, because good old Rick Ames didn’t teach them a damn thing.”
“I need some more information,” McGarvey said.
“Leonid Chernov,” Rencke said matter-of-factly. It was as if he could read minds. “You’ve got the whole enchilada, which worries me too. You’re going to have to go head-to-head with him, but nobody knows anything about him. Not the CIA, nobody.”
“How about the old KGB computer files?”
“Ha,” Rencke said. “You ever try running through maple syrup on a cold day, Mac? It’d be easier than trying to wade through the mess they’ve created for themselves.”
“It’s a big organization, Otto. Some of their systems must be up and running.”
“Without a central director, or a specific CPU for me to start from, I’d have to initiate a program search for every possible telephone number combination in Moscow. I could do it, but it might take a while. Maybe fifty years, give or take a decade.”
“What if I get you a number?”
“Then we’re in. Leastways through the first portal. Do you think Yemlin will hand over the keys to the castle just like that?”
“Won’t hurt to ask,” McGarvey said. “Keep your ears open, Otto, I’m going to be out of town for a couple of days.”
“Will do, Mac. Good luck.”
The desk clerk Martine was waiting for him in his room when he got back. She’d brought a bottle of wine and two glasses, and was propped up in bed, her shoes off, her silk blouse unbuttoned.
“You come as something of a surprise,” McGarvey said, masking his irritation.
“You’ve been working entirely too hard, Monsieur,” she said, and she giggled. She was tipsy.
McGarvey put his laptop on the writing table and glanced at his overnight bag. It had been tampered with, but he didn’t think that the woman was a spy. She simply found him attractive and wanted to seduce him. And she was nosy.
“I am married.”
“You don’t wear a ring. And when you opened your wallet to withdraw your credit card I saw no photos of your wife or children.” She smiled coyly at him over the rim of her wine glass, and shifted on the bed, parting her shapely legs. “You don’t carry much clothing for a man who travels so much.”
If she’d been in his overnight bag, she’d seen the spare magazines of ammunition. She wouldn’t have recognized the sil
encer for what it was, because it was disguised as a working flashlight. But she knew that he wasn’t a writer.
“What do you expect me to do?”
She set her wine glass aside. “Make love to me,” she said huskily. “Dangerous men excite me. And from the moment I saw you I knew you were such a creature. Maybe you are a policeman here on a secret investigation. Or perhaps a private detective. Maybe even a spy.”
McGarvey took off his jacket, then poured a glass of wine for himself. He sat on the edge of the bed and brushed his fingertips across her lips. She shivered.
“What will the management do if they find out that you’re snooping around and trying to seduce the guests?”
“They’d certainly fire me. That wouldn’t be so good. I’m not a wealthy woman.
McGarvey smiled. “Then we both have a secret to keep.” He took a drink of his wine, and then opened her blouse and kissed the tops of her breasts.
She arched into him, a soft moan escaping her lips. “Don’t hurt me,” she cooed. “Not too much.”
En Route To Helsinki
McGarvey checked out of his hotel around eight in the morning after securing his gun and two spare magazines of ammunition in a special compartment of his fake laptop computer that Rencke had designed and constructed for him. The compartment was shielded with sections of lead foil that appeared to airport security scanners as electronic circuitry. The computer would have to be completely stripped down to reveal what it contained. If it was turned on, the screen would light up with a convincing display. But that’s all it would do. Instead of innards, the device only contained his weapon and spare ammunition.
He walked over to the car park, retrieved his Avis Renault, and was on the busy N2, heading north, past Le Bourget Airport by 9:00 A.M., the morning extremely pleasant.
Sometime over the past two days he had made his final decision to go ahead with the assassination of Tarankov, though he’d known that he would probably do it after Rencke had shown him his probability program. He no longer maintained any self-doubts, nor was he going to beat himself up over the decision. Second thoughts would come much later; in the night when he would see the faces of every person he’d ever killed, Tarankov’s would be included.
Assassin Page 11
