by David Wind
They’d stopped in Stuttgart for the night, and when they’d woken this morning, the rain was still coming down and stayed with them all the way to Salzburg.
“The hall of records will be open for another two hours,” he said, turning from the window.
“That should be enough time to find Herr Lorbaugh,” Abby said confidently. “You just make sure you stay here.”
He smiled and kissed her. He liked the feeling the concern in her voice brought out in him. “I will.”
When Abby was gone, Chapin returned to the window. The drive from Paris had been good for him. It had given him a chance to think and to analyze the reports from Tanaka, as well as discuss them with Abby and use her as a sounding board.
While Chapin wasn’t sure he was following the right trail, both he and Abby agreed it was the only trail, for now. He went to the bar and poured himself a scotch. Then he took out the reports from the attaché case and sat down in the large armchair.
He took a long sip of the scotch, rolling the sharp and woody liquor over his tongue as he went back over the things he knew.
Joel Blair had died because he had been looking into Robert Mathews’ background. Davidov had been certain that whatever the Sokova plan was, it was tied to the elections, and the plan itself had been started over forty years ago.
The only thing he had to tie the current election to an event in the past was the strange birth and kidnapping of Robert Mathews, and the unusually high death rate of the people involved in it.
How was it connected and why?
He drained the scotch. He hated inactivity, hated to sit and wait while someone else did his work, but he knew that Abby was right. He couldn’t take the chance.
He looked at his watch. Only a half hour had passed since she’d left. He stopped thinking about Abby and concentrated on Sokova.
He separated Hirshorne’s report on the birth and kidnapping of Robert Mathews and read it again.
“Herman Lorbaugh died two years ago,” Abby said when she returned to the suite. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” she added, handing him several sheets of paper.
He looked them over. One sheet was a copy of Lorbaugh’s death certificate; the other sheets were the tax records on the house in Salzburg, and his voting papers. “And Bernadette?”
“There was no mention.”
“Let’s go to the house,” he said abruptly. Picking up the phone, he dialed the concierge, and ordered a taxi.
Downstairs, they went from the enclosed lobby into the taxi. “Thirty-eight Heimmer Strasse,” he told the driver.
Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled to a stop in front of an old stone house. “Wait here,” he said to Abby.
He went to the door and rang the bell. Several seconds later, the door opened, and a woman in her thirties, tall, thin, and regal, stared at him with puzzlement.
“Ya?”
Speaking German, Chapin asked for Bernadette Lorbaugh. When the woman frowned and shook her head. He acted puzzled. “But my aunt lives here.”
The woman’s eyes filled with understanding. “You mean the widow?” When Chapin nodded, she said, “Yes, the old woman returned to France when we bought the house.” Chapin shook his head sadly. “I have been in the Orient for several years. I only learned of my uncle’s death a few weeks ago. By any chance, do you know where my aunt went?”
“I haven’t the slightest—” The woman stopped herself. She smiled, and nodded. “Wait, I may still have the forwarding address. I’ll be right back.”
She closed the door, and Chapin looked at Abby framed in the window of the taxi and shrugged. When the door opened again, the woman handed Chapin a slip of paper.
“That is the address the widow left me.”
“Thank you,” Chapin said, looking down at the paper and feeling an abrupt sense of exhilaration. When the woman closed the door, Chapin went to the taxi.
<><><>
Chapin’s eyes snapped open. He felt the warmth of Abby’s body against his back. But she hadn’t woken him.
What?
He held his breath and listened. A floorboard creaked. He tensed, waiting.
He heard a footstep, and then another. He lay still, keeping his breathing steady and rhythmic as if he were asleep. He half closed his eyes, looking for shadows.
He found the shadow. It came around his side of the bed. Chapin shifted his arm slowly, until his hand gripped the pillow.
When the shape solidified above his head, and the intruder raised his arm, Chapin acted. In one fast movement, he pulled the pillow from under his head and whipped it up at the man. He heard the deadly yelp of a silenced pistol, and the ricochet of the bullet off the wall a foot above the headboard.
Rolling from the bed, he tackled the gunman and carried him down to the floor. Then he grabbed the gunman’s wrist with his left hand and hit the man in the face with his right.
The attacker twisted under him. Then the man hit him on the side of the head. He was stunned, and lost his grip of the gun hand.
He recovered just as the man raised the pistol. Chapin grabbed the wrist again and, using the heel of his right hand, struck the man’s nose.
The force of Chapin’s blow smashed the cartilage and sent bone fragments upward into the man’s brain. The man’s body arched and then went flaccid.
Chapin rolled off just as the lights came on and Abby screamed.
“Off! Shut them off!”
The room turned dark. Yellow and orange spots floated before Chapin’s eyes as he felt for a pulse. The man was dead.
A moment later, when he was sure there was no one else, he told Abby to turn the lights on. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he looked down at the dead man’s face.
Even with the man’s nose crushed, and blood draining from it, he recognized the face from the picture he’d seen at Langley. The dead man was James Smirley, aka Aleksandr Grubov.
Chapin stared at him, wondering how the agent found him. But the how wasn’t important; the fact that he’d been found was paramount. They had to leave Salzburg. If the KGB agent knew where he was, so did the man’s control—Sokova!
He turned to Abby. She was staring at the dead man, her face pale and taut. Her lower lip quivered. He went to her and held her. Her body trembled.
“He tried to kill you,” she whispered.
“Us,” he said as he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. Her pupils were still dilated with fear.
“What do we do now?”
“We go back to France.”
<><><>
Chapin looked out the window. Behind him, Abby slept in the large brass bed. Thirty hours had passed since the KGB agent had tried to terminate him.
Within an hour of the murder attempt, Chapin and Abby had gone to the airport, and rented a new car. Chapin had his second set of papers, which named him one Lucien Monach of Canada.
Then they drove the four hundred miles to Chaumont, France, and had arrived just before midnight.
And now it was Sunday. Church bells pealed their call to the residents of Chaumont and Chapin wondered if Bernadette Lorbaugh was among the men and women who were walking to church.
Earlier, he’d gone down to the lobby. The innkeeper had greeted him with a smile and the offer of coffee, which he had accepted.
Sitting together at a table in the dining room, Chapin had asked the man if he knew Bernadette Lorbaugh.
The man had shaken his head. But when Chapin had given him her address, the man had nodded. “Ah,” he’d said. “That is the old Morlain cottage. It is on the other side of town,” he had explained, and had then given Chapin directions. After politely finishing his coffee, Chapin had returned to the room.
He looked at Abby and studied her sleeping form. In Austria, when her initial shock had faded and she had regained her composure, she had done whatever Chapin had asked without question. He was certain the Russian’s death had given her a new perspective on their situation. He went to the window and looked at the sun-soaked
countryside.
A few minutes later Abby called his name.
Turning, he smiled at her.
“What time is it?”
“Almost noon.”
Abby sat up. The quilt slipped to her waist. Chapin gazed at the perfection of her breasts and his passions stirred.
Without a word, he went to the bed.
<><><>
Chapin pulled to a stop and looked at the small brown cottage. It was a picture-perfect gingerbread house, set deep within a copse of woods, ivy vines, clinging to its walls, added to the picture.
Chapin got out of the car and went around to Abby’s door. When he opened it, she said, “Do you want me to wait here?”
“No,” he said, helping her out.
They went along the stone walkway to the front door. He used the heavy brass knocker, and then waited.
The door opened to reveal a white-haired woman in her late seventies. Her eyes, magnified by thick glasses set upon a heavily lined and wise face, showed puzzlement at their presence. “Yes?”
“We apologize for disturbing you. We are looking for Bernadette Luvelle. Are you she?”
“I am,” the woman said with a smile. “But it has been a long time since someone has used my maiden name. Who are you, and how may I help you?”
Chapin introduced himself as Lucien Monach, a reporter. He introduced Abby as his assistant and said, “We are doing a story, and would like to talk to you about an incident that happened when you were a nurse at the old hospital at the chateau.”
She blinked and took a half step backward. “It has been a long time.”
“Madame Lorbaugh, it is very important.”
She studied him for several seconds before making up her mind. “Please, come in.”
Chapin and Abby followed her into the warmly decorated interior of the cottage. The main room was larger inside than it appeared from outside. “Would you like some tea?” the woman asked as she led them to the couch.
“We don’t want to trouble you,” Chapin began.
The old woman waved a hand at him. “I already have the water on. It is no trouble. I’ll be right back.”
She left them, crossed the room, and disappeared through a doorway. “She’s nice,” Abby said.
“Yes.” He glanced around the room, its walls decorated with oil paintings, mostly landscapes. A large cherry-wood hutch was set against the far wall. China, glassware, and several pictures occupied its shelves.
Chapin went to the hutch and studied the pictures. He paid particular attention to one showing a young and beautiful blond woman in her twenties. This was the Bernadette Luvelle of the past. The picture next to it was Bernadette with a tall and angular man.
“My late husband,” Bernadette said, emerging from the kitchen with a tray. “Very handsome, no?”
Chapin matched her smile. “Very.” He followed her to the couch, sitting as she poured the tea.
When she sat in the wingback chair across from him and Abby, he asked about the time she had worked as a nurse for the American Army.
“A year I was with them.” Her eyes went distant with her memories. When they cleared, she fixed him with a focused stare. “What is it that you want to know?”
Chapin met her gaze openly “I want to know about the killings and the kidnapping that happened in nineteen forty-seven.”
Bernadette Luvelle looked from Chapin to Abby and back. “Somehow, I knew that was what you were here for. It has been a long time.”
“I know. But you are the only one left. All the others are dead,” Chapin said.
“All?”
“Except for yourself and Walter Hirshorne.”
Bernadette Luvelle leaned back: her eyes closed. She spoke in a low voice, and told the story of what had happened. At times her voice faltered with the pain the memories brought back.
“It was a terrible thing,” she added after describing the abduction and the killings. “To see the parents murdered like that. I have often wondered what happened to the child.”
Chapin looked from the woman to Abby and back again. “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That child who you helped bring into the world may become the vice president of the United States.”
Bernadette Luvelle Lorbaugh raised her hand and wagged her index finger slowly back and forth. “No… Not that one. I speak of the other baby—the one they kidnapped. Robert was born two minutes after he stole the first baby. We were all taken away from the hospital that very day—those of us who lived. We never went back. I never knew what happened to him”
Chapter Twenty
The sign over the entrance to the red brick building read LaCrois & Sons. The old chateau was gone: In its place stood a clothing factory.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why did he hide the fact there were twins? Why did he lie?”
“There could be any number of reasons.” The uncertainty in her voice came through. “Hirshorne can’t be a Soviet mole.” Chapin closed his eyes. His hand tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles turned a pasty white.
Walter Hirshorne was too much the patriot, too many times the power behind the throne to be a Soviet mole. No, there had to be another explanation. But what?
He pulled out from the side of the road. “What now?” Abby asked.
He glanced at her. Her features were drawn; her skin was pale. “Dinner.”
She turned to him, “Kevin, please.”
He exhaled sibilantly. “I don’t know what, specifically, but I’ll have to go home and try to find out what Hirshorne did after the kidnapping, and why the reports had been falsified.”
“You said the mole was someone important in Washington.”
“Yes,” Chapin agreed as he negotiated a turn, “it is someone important; but the mole can’t be Hirshorne. There would have been too many checks, too many situations in which he would have been found out.”
“I don’t understand,” Abby said. “Why couldn’t he be a mole.”
Chapin pulled the car to the side of the road. He turned to face Abby. “There are two categories of moles: The first is a sleeper, and the second is someone who was recruited and turned into an agent for a foreign power.
“A sleeper is someone placed inside a sensitive area, years in advance of any need, and left alone until the need for that person becomes urgent. The second type is recruited in the field, and feeds information back to the controlling power.
“I believe Sokova is a sleeper, and if not, he is not a mole in the accepted sense of the word. Hirshorne doesn’t fit either category.”
Pausing to take her hands, he squeezed them gently. “Hirshorne is American born and raised. Every aspect of his life—especially his life, is well documented. To become the type of spy our mole is, would mean he’d spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union. He was there, before World War Two, but the circumstances are wrong. There would have been intensive training, and he would have disappeared for a long stretch of time. I saw no lapses in his records.”
“Then, why would he have lied?”
“For any number of reasons, and I intend to find out what his reason was.”
“How?”
“By going home.”
Alarm spread across Abby’s face. Her fingers tightened around his. “They’ll kill you.”
“They’ll try,” he agreed as he drove to the inn. They had dinner in their room, and spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms. They left just after sunrise, returning to Paris.
Chapin was uneasy on the drive. Hirshorne’s involvement twisted things. Somehow, he had to find out what really happened in nineteen forty-seven.
He was also worried about Abby. By taking her with him, he had exposed her to danger. Yet, he was as sure as he could be that once he left Paris, Abby would be safe. She was a civilian.
“When I go back, I want you to move into the embassy for a few days. All right?”
Her head whipped toward him. Her eyes became haun
ted. “Why?”
“A precaution. The KGB agent in Salzburg obviously knew you were with me. If he reported about you, it’s a possibility they will come after you to find out about me.”
What he didn’t tell her was that he planned on setting a false trail for those looking for him to follow. But he needed a couple of days to prepare things, and would not take the chance they would go after Abby before then.
“Will you do that for me?”
Abby moistened her lips. “If you think it best.”
“I do.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Soon.”
<><><>
Ann Tanaka handed the Deputy Director Central Intelligence the dispatch she had finished reading less than a half hour before. She waited, watching his face carefully. When he finished, he leaned back and looked at her. “And?”
“Doesn’t it seem coincidental that the very person Chapin was checking on last week turned up dead in a Salzburg hotel room?”
“The man was a KGB agent. Anything is possible.”
“Yes,” Tanaka agreed. “But when I sent Peter Crest to check on things, he reported that when he showed Chapin’s photograph to the concierge at the hotel, the man identified Chapin as Roger Ludlow, the man who was registered in that room.”
“Get to the point,” the general said.
“I’ve never believed Chapin was turned; I believe he was set up.”
The DD shook his head. “I wanted to think that as well, but after what he did to Mitchell… No.”
“Sir, all I’m saying is that this man’s death lends some credence to Chapin’s claim that he was set up.”
The deputy director rubbed the fingers of his right hand across his chin. “Ann, I know how you feel about Chapin, and I applaud your loyalty; but it’s time to face facts. Chapin was turned by the Soviets. He’s given up his apparatus, which means they have no further use for him. I’m sure the KGB agent who tried to terminate Chapin underestimated him.”
“It’s more than that,” Tanaka said. “I feel it.”
<><><>
“Why can’t I go with you?” Abby asked, alternately glaring and pleading at him.
