Confessor

by John Gardner

  “And by then you knew he was devious?”

  “Sure. Devious like barrel of monkeys. Devious is too good a word. Gus was the best. Guileful, shifty, underhanded, sneaky. That was Gus. Had all the good attributes for interrogator—Confessor, like we called him—or for a case officer in the field. Yeah, I knew then how devious he was. Secretive also.”

  “Secretive, like a magician.”

  “Didn’t have any idea about that. Not until I found out when he was dead. What you getting at, Bex?”

  She raised her face, and for the first time Herbie saw that she could look quite beautiful. A line of poetry slid through his mind:

  And beauty making beautiful old rime.

  In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights.

  He thought it was probably Shakespeare, yet, out of context, it had a certain poignancy for him. “What you getting at?” he repeated.

  “It seems to me that your old friend Gus was even more devious than you ever imagined. The fact that he was a performing magician, under a pseudonym, makes a great deal of difference. He obviously thought like a good magician, and while I don’t find that breed terribly amusing as entertainers, I do appreciate their certain skills. The thought has crossed my mind that Gus Keene’s been leading us by the nose. He left a document where, if you followed certain clues, you’d find it. I’m talking about the Jasmine thing you unearthed. I also wonder—and it’s just a kind of sneaking thought—if Gus the magician and Gus the intelligence officer managed to disappear. To leap from the world in which you knew him into another world.”

  “You mean he could be alive?”

  “Maybe. It’s an option, isn’t it?”

  Herbie looked as if he were suddenly and completely fatigued with sorrow. “There was a body,” he said, as though this were all he needed to prove that Gus had died in the inferno.

  “So?”

  “There was his watch, his Zippo, the stick pin. A body is a body.”

  “Perhaps he met another body—coming through the rye,” she added.

  “So that would make Gus a murderer. A killer.”

  “In deceit he wouldn’t have the stomach for that?”

  Herbie thought for a long time. “Yes,” he said, low and with a voice that seemed old beyond his age. Old and sad. “Yes. Yes, I guess Gus was ruthless enough if the stakes were really high.”

  “Then I’d put money on it as a possibility. Just a possibility.”

  “That makes for more problems. Why, Bex? Why, if you’re right, why would he do this? It couldn’t have been sudden, like the spurs of the moment. Something like this calls for great planning. If you’re right, he would have had to know what he was about to do for weeks before.”

  “Yes.” Then quickly, as though reassuring him: “It’s only a possibility, Herb. Not necessarily true.”

  Kruger grunted and reached for the telephone.

  “Don’t tell anyone yet.”

  “Not going to tell anyone. Wait.”

  He dialed the Office and they put him through to Worboys. “Hey, Tony, you running those numbers through the magic machines yet?”

  “Since we got them, Herb.”

  “Make any sense? Got a match on some map reference yet?”

  “No matches as yet, Herb. I’ll get back to you as soon as we have anything—even if it’s nothing, if you follow me.”

  “Sure, Tony. Thanks.” Then, as though he had just thought of it: “Can you get me the telephone logs for this place—big house and this one—over the period of, oh, a month before and a week after Gus died?”

  “You’re not thinking of an inside job, are you?”

  “Not going to tell you, Tone. Just get me the logs. Is possible, yes?”

  At the distant end, looking out on the view of the Thames and the London skyline, Worboys thought, That’s the old Big Herbie I know and love. Aloud, he said, “Okay, Herb. I can get the lot to you by the morning.” Privately, he thought, After I’ve had a sniff of them.

  “Not tonight?”

  “No way, Herb. First thing in the morning. I’ll get them to you by courier. Incidentally, I don’t suppose you’ve seen or heard the news yet?”

  “Which news we talking about?”

  “Two car bombs. Big. One directly outside the Luxembourg Palace, the other close to the Bourbon Palace. A lot of damage.”

  “This is direct attack on the government, then?”

  “That’s what it would seem like.” The Luxembourg Palace is home to the French Senate, while the Bourbon is the meeting place of the French lower house of parliament—the National Assembly or Chamber of Deputies.

  “Responsibility?” Herbie asked.

  “Nobody as yet.”

  Kruger responded with his favorite obscenity. He replaced the receiver and turned to Bex. “Let’s go to the movies,” he said.

  Ramsi, Samira and Nabil had left London on an early British Airways flight to Paris. They hired a car and drove in from Charles de Gaulle. They left the car in the underground park near Notre-Dame and took a taxi across to the Gare du Nord, where they picked up the explosive devices—two heavy steel cases left for them in two different lockboxes.

  Samira and Nabil ate lunch at the station while Ramsi went off and stole a car—a small elderly British Austin. Samira took one of the cases, set the timer and left the car as close as she could get to the Luxembourg Palace. She then headed back to Notre-Dame, which was shrouded in scaffolding. Half Paris seemed to be under reconstruction, but the great church was open and she passed the time inside while Nabil was stealing a second car—a Citroën this time. Nabil and Ramsi both took the second car to the Bourbon Palace, set the bomb and took their time to find an empty parking slot.

  Both bombs were set to explode at 6 P.M., and by then all three of them were on an Alitalia flight to Rome, where they checked into the Cavalieri Hilton. All three were smartly dressed and carried expensive overnight bags. In the Cavalieri Hilton they were invisible.

  Later in the evening they watched the Sky Channel on television and saw the police and rescue services dealing with the bodies and devastation in Paris.

  Walid and Khami went down to the ground floor. They could hear the police talking with the night doorman.

  “So there’s only one way out? This way?” The voice conjured up too many nights of booze and smoke. Rough, as though he was telling the doorman, not asking him.

  “Only way.” The night man spoke very halting English. “No back way out. Have to come out front here.”

  “Well, thank Christ for that.” The cop gave a laugh. “Means we don’t need to put anyone in back of the place.”

  Walid took Khami’s arm, pulling her back towards a little bathroom at the rear of the building. Being a very careful man, Walid had checked every possible entrance and exit. The bathroom—for the staff—had a small unsecured window, low above the toilet. He climbed up and opened it, then helped Khami out. Below the window was a narrow alley that ran behind the building, and one further block. When they reached Park Avenue, they could see the police were concentrating on their building. Nobody had thought of its twin, even though they must have plans of the whole complex.

  “What now?” Khami asked.

  “I must telephone Yussif. Also we have to get new clothes and luggage. The best thing for us is to hide in plain sight at a big hotel.” They stopped at the first bank of public telephones they came to, and from there Walid called the Parker Meridien on West Fifty-seventh near Sixth Avenue—which is what all New Yorkers call Avenue of the Americas. This hotel had been recommended by Baghdad as being luxurious, large, well-appointed and ridiculously expensive. Always best, they had said, to hide in plush and expensive American hotels. One of the briefing officers—who was now part of Yussif in the United States—had said that the Americans rarely suspect freedom fighters of staying in vast comfort. According to this man, the agencies in America would look in down-at-the-heel places first. Staying at very cheap hotels had been the downfall of many so
-called terrorist groups the world over.

  Walid reserved a suite in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Jaffid. He knew they had passports and Legends in those names. Now, he told Khami, they would have to do some shopping.

  They took a cab to Saks, where they both went on a shopping spree, buying dresses, suits, shoes, shirts, underwear, socks and every possible accessory. Four items needed alterations and Walid asked for them to be sent, under the name Jaffid, to the Parker Meridien. They also bought Louis Vuitton luggage, into which they loaded most of their purchases. When they left the store, Khami was wearing a dark blue business suit, while Walid looked every inch a businessman on vacation: gray slacks, good shoes, a navy double-breasted blazer with white shirt and a tie that looked suspiciously like the tie of a well-known British regiment.

  They took a cab to the Parker Meridien and—because of the exorbitant cost of the suite—were treated like arriving royalty.

  The moment they were left alone in the suite, Walid turned on the CNN Headline News. After fifteen minutes the anchor cycled back to the police raid on two apartments in the building on Park Avenue. The police spokesman said they had raided the two apartments following a tip-off. They had found two men and one woman dead from gunshot wounds. There were pictures of the bodies being carried out in bags.

  Walid immediately punched in the telephone code for Yussif, America, and far away in the Hudson Valley one of the group picked up.

  “Better Bread Company, Joe speaking, how can I help you?”

  “Joe, it’s Bobby Jaffid here.”

  “Yes?” Startled.

  “You’ve seen the news?”

  “Yes. The price of most commodities will rise, I reckon.”

  “I’m here, at the Parker Meridien in New York, with Sylvia. We’re not getting the full story. We were out and about until the early hours. Peeled off when we saw the action. I think the fox killed the chickens. Anyway, we’re ready to take on anything you might want overwritten. We’ll be here for a week or two. Here and waiting.”

  There was a long pause. Then: “We have work for you. Quite a lot. Glad to hear you’re okay; we’d already figured that the story wasn’t quite true. I’ll get something couriered to you. Probably tomorrow. We’ll try to bring in other help, but it will be difficult, okay?”

  “We’ll be waiting.”

  Downstairs, at the bell captain’s desk, one of the younger porters remarked on the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Jaffid’s luggage had no tags on it. “In fact,” he said, “it looks like the stuff has just been bought. Not even an airline label.”

  “Well, some folks are funny about that kinda thing,” the bell captain replied. “I know wealthy people who get the tags clipped off their luggage the moment they arrive any new place. Baggage thieves go for bags that have lots of stuff hanging from the handles.”

  “Yeah? Well there wasn’t no little bits of string left on those bags. Not a dent in them. Not a scratch neither.”

  “Live and let live, Barney.” As he said it, the bell captain thought to himself that this might warrant a report to the duty manager. Just in case they had got a pair of hustlers.

  The duty manager merely shrugged and said that the husband had given them an Amex Platinum card. It had been swiped and come up grade A. Prosperous.

  In England it was the middle of the night now, but neither Big Herbie Kruger nor Detective Chief Inspector Bex Olesker could sleep. The video of Gus Keene’s lecture had contained things that might puzzle the most astute intelligence officer.

  17

  THE FIRST SHOTS ON the video showed the audience. The camera closed in on particular people, and Herbie muttered something about high-powered talent. He recognized faces of men and women he had not seen for years. People he thought long dead. The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service was there, of course, as was the Director General of the Security Service, MI5. There were also politicians and ranking officers of other services—notably the American CIA and NSA. The main body of the people there were outstanding field officers and folk who had worked in dangerous secrecy during the Cold War. Men like Oleg Gordievsky, who had escaped the old Soviet Union by the skin of his teeth, having been a British asset within the KGB for over nine years. Kruger saw that the camera held his face for a few seconds, as it did with two other exceptionally well-known former agents. Gus had drawn a capacity crowd of highly select members of the Secret World.

  Herbie did not recognize the theater, but thought it was probably a facility below the old SIS HQ in Century House. It certainly was not in the new building—Vauxhall Cross on the South Bank. Wherever, any terrorist group wanting to blow away some of the Western world’s best members of the Intelligence Community would hit the bull’s-eye here.

  The video was obviously directed and shot by a professional team—again, Herbie considered, probably one of the three crews the SIS used for these things. His mind drifted back to the videos shot and tampered with at the time of Cataract. Once more he saw the bodies of the three victims. He saw again the wrecked corpse of Mary Frances Duggan being turned over to reveal the Browning pistol. A magic trick, he thought. A magic trick that had turned back on itself and now had led to himself, among others, being sought out as victims for revenge.

  The old Chief rose from the front row. Lord, Herb thought, he really did look old.

  Climbing onto the stage, the Chief beamed around the room and the buzz of conversation died.

  “This is a very special evening.” The old Chief’s voice had a thin, reedy quality. “This is graveyard stuff, being given to us by a man who I have known and worked with for many years. You’ll not recognize him, but I can tell you that his knowledge of the way we operate in the field is encyclopedic. Heed him well and, as I say, it’s graveyard. You do not speak of this to anyone outside this room. Never. Please understand that.” Again he gave his beaming smile.

  Of course, Herbie thought. The old Chief, like Deputy Maitland-Wood, was Magic Circle. The pieces were beginning to come together.

  “I am simply going to introduce to you …” the thin voice rose, “… Ladies and gentlemen, the Great Covert.”

  Then, the house lights went down and there was an undeniable sense of expectancy among the audience. It was as though they were about to watch a theatrical performance—which, in many ways, was exactly what they would see.

  Softly the familiar music began—Falla, the “Ritual Fire Dance” from Love, the Magician. This must have been Gus’s signature music.

  The curtain went up to reveal, center stage, a large solid-looking chest with locks, brass corners and hinges. A man appeared from stage right, dressed casually in black evening trousers and a white open-necked silk shirt. Gold flashed at his wrists from watch and cuff links. At first Herbie did not recognize him as Gus. It took him a minute to realize that it was, indeed, his old friend. The disguise was exceptional. Not the one he used as Claudius Damautus. This was completely different: the man looked the very model of an old-time magician. A little like the great performer Dante. Herb had only seen photographs of him—white hair, beautifully groomed goatee and mustache. Straight-backed and completely in command of his own universe.

  The music went on as he dragged the chest around in a circle, knocking heavily on the sides and top. Herbie recalled his first meeting with Carole after Gus’s death. How she had locked herself in the main living room of the Dower House and played the “Ritual Fire Dance” again and again.

  As he thought of the moment, Carole appeared from stage left wearing a very skimpy costume that looked like leather bikini briefs and bra. Only this was not the Carole Herb knew. This girl was taller—lifts in her shoes, he thought—and had long platinum-blond hair reaching to her shoulders. For a few minutes Herbie could even forget that it was Gus and Carole. Their appearance was wonderful to behold.

  Gus flung back the lid of the chest and Carole pulled a bright blue sack from within. She held the sack inside the chest while Gus climbed in, Carole pulling together the sack’s mou
th, binding it closed with strong white rope, then padlocking the rope, the ends of which were fitted with metal eye sockets.

  She pushed on Gus’s head as he lowered himself into the trunk, then she slammed down the lid, knocked down the brass clips on the front of the trunk and slapped large padlocks through the fitments, finally sealing the lid with a long steel rod.

  Carole then picked up a cloak of thin, silky black material, mounted onto the lid of the trunk, and lifted the cloak above her head. At the moment the cloak stopped rising, it was violently torn in two and there was Gus standing where everyone had seen Carole just one moment, less than a second, before.

  Gus yelled in triumph, “Operation Fortitude!” Leaped to the stage, slid out the steel rod, undid the padlocks, threw open the lid, clicked the key into the padlock attached to the sack, unwound the rope and helped Carole out of the trunk. All the time he yelled, “Operation Fortitude! …Operation Fortitude!”

  The audience had audibly gasped. Then, as his meaning became clear to some of them, they laughed.

  (Herb leaned towards Bex Olesker and whispered, “Best people I ever seen do that were Pendragons. Good illusionists. Fastest in the world.” He smiled, because Bex had obviously also been stunned.)

  Gus, bowing charmingly and pushing the applause towards Carole, came downstage and began to talk.

  “Operation Fortitude,” he began, “was, as you know, the catchall final name for what had originally been Operation Bodyguard, the deception operation for Overlord, the dramatic and courageous assault upon Hitler’s Fortress Europe in June 1944—Bodyguard having been first chosen because of Winston Churchill’s remark in 1943, only months before Overlord—‘In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’