by Bill Granger
Antonio slashed once, a lazy cutting slash that tore neatly through her coat and grazed her hand with a bright red cut. She dropped the knife with a clatter on the tile floor. She pushed back but there was no place to go. A glass angel on a shelf above the furs fell to the floor and shattered on the tile. There was no other sound.
Rita felt no pain but saw the blood on her hand. Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Rita kicked out sharply with her shoe and caught his shin with the edge of her toe. Antonio winced for a moment and then his hand arced down and Rita, off balance, fell toward him and accidentally muffled the blow. The knife sliced into a fur on the rack and momentarily became entangled.
Rita stepped back again.
“When you are dying, you whore, you will scream and then the screaming will stop, not because you do not feel pain but because you will choke in your own blood,” Antonio said. She saw his eyes fill with pleasure.
She pulled against the rack and a bolt came loose and the furs suddenly were dumped on the aisle between them.
Antonio stepped back. They were six feet apart.
“You stupid fucking whore,” he said and took a step and slipped on a blue fox fur. He took a second step.
He grasped her bloody right hand. “Get on your knees.”
She was stunned; she could not speak or move; terror had turned to a sleepy stupor. She was like an animal suddenly shaken to death in the jaws of a lion; in the moment before death, sleep and calm overwhelm. Her hand had no strength left in it.
The second man filled the aisle behind them; Antonio raised his hand.
Kulak fired twice and the shots were muffled by the furs so that the clerks in the back room did not hear them.
Each bullet kicked into Antonio’s outstretched back; the first broke his spine and killed him and the second lodged in his right lung.
Antonio was off-balance and fell back and Kulak fired a third time, sending the bullet surging into his skull. Antonio’s eyes widened; he turned, the locked knife tearing into furs; he fell against a shelf above the furs and sent a case of glass angels and gargoyles crashing to the floor. He fell in the broken glass. The pieces were around him like flakes of ice; shards of glass cut the flesh of his dead body.
Rita said nothing. She stood and stared at the body and the furs and the broken angels. Silence after the shattering glass.
Kulak stepped into the aisle between the rows of furs and stepped over the body. He took Rita’s bloody hand and wiped at it with a handkerchief.
“This is not so great,” he said gruffly. “It is a little cut.”
“He was going to kill me,” she said without emotion; her face was pale and her voice was quiet.
“Yes. Do you know why?”
“I don’t know,” she said, staring at the handkerchief wrapped around her hand. “He was on an airplane—”
“Yes. You came from Paris this morning.”
She paused and her eyes widened and she looked at Kulak for the first time. “Who are you?”
“I am the police, madam. I am Chief Inspector Kulak.”
“I don’t—”
“Please, don’t say anything now. Come out of this place. I will take you to a place where we can sit down and talk.”
“I’m a tourist—”
Kulak’s cold eyes narrowed. “Madam, you are a journalist. At least, you say this. You are also a spy, too, I think. I know this one now; this is the one who killed Natali. I wish I could have cut him and skinned him the way he cut her. The way he would have cut you.”
“I’m on vacation, I—”
“You are lying to me, madam, but I expect that. I do not want murder in Helsinki. I do not want you… people here. Am I clear? But now I must examine you, myself. First, we will take you to the hospital for your little cut and then we will go to the police headquarters for a talk. You and me, madam.”
“But, I—” and she could say nothing. Devereaux would come and she would be gone. She would extricate herself from the police station eventually but everything depended on timing, Devereaux had said.
For the second time that morning, she thought of the dead man and Devereaux in twin thoughts. No, she would not believe he could betray her; he had saved her life.
But then she understood suddenly. It was what he had meant in Virginia three years ago when he would not accept her because he could not offer her this world of betrayal and shadows. Every thought was suspect now; every alliance was temporary; every truth was only a reformed lie. No matter what they vowed in words, no matter what they gave to each other, there would always be the nagging edge of doubt about him, like an infection that lasts for years, that never kills but slowly poisons every good thing.
One P.M. Melted snow ran down the gutters outside the plaza. Devereaux stood across the way from the Alko store in the shadow of a building full of shops that sold everything from coffee to Marimekko prints.
Something had gone wrong at the rendezvous. The store was filled with policemen. Devereaux had turned away from Stockmann’s and spent the next nervous hour waiting across the wide avenue from the store for any glimpse of her. She had emerged at eleven with Kulak. He had not followed her. They would meet again, later, in the hotel. The fallback position was routine but he had not thought they would need it.
A large man with glittering, arrogant eyes entered the Alko state store at precisely one-ten and emerged ninety seconds later with a bottle wrapped in brown paper. He looked around him and opened the wrapper and removed a precious bottle of Finlandia vodka.
He placed the vodka on the walk next to the door of the store and then walked away.
An amazed derelict who, moments before, had pressed his eyes against the window of the Alko store like a child viewing a Christmas window, gaped at the bottle standing naked on the walkway. He looked after the departing stranger and then at the bottle and then looked all around him.
Without a further moment of hesitation, he crossed the walk, snatched up the bottle and shoved it in his pocket. He hurried away with shambling steps.
Devereaux followed the large man who had purchased the vodka as a signal. It was Tartakoff.
Tartakoff crossed through the bus terminal parking lot and then went into the terminal itself and then out again across the street and down the block to the train station. He descended the stairs outside the red granite station building to the underground plaza.
Devereaux followed loosely behind. He kept looking around him, not so much concerned at losing Tartakoff but at being followed himself. But no one seemed to take more interest in him than in anyone else. He felt the cold grip of the .357 Colt Python in the pocket of his drab brown wool overcoat. He had worn sweaters mostly in Helsinki through the long winter’s wait and today wore a brown turtleneck sweater that was really too warm for the afternoon. But Devereaux was not discomforted by the warmth; it seemed he had been cold too long to ever be too warm.
Tartakoff took a turn toward the department-store entrance in the underground mall. The corridor was not crowded but it was populated and Tartakoff had arranged it long before as the prime meeting site, so it could not be changed. He turned and saw Devereaux approach him. He was smiling.
“You did not meet me yesterday; I thought you had gone,” Tartakoff said in his heavy accent.
“Do you have the prisoner?”
“So. He was important to you after all.”
“Do you have him?”
“He is safe.”
Devereaux stared coldly at the other man. Something was wrong, something had been wrong from the beginning. Why were there policemen today in Stockmann’s?
“There’s no time for games,” Devereaux said.
“It was not a game to me,” Tartakoff replied with disdain. “It is you, Messenger, who put off this contact for too long.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“That could mean inside the Soviet Union as well.”
Tartako
ff shook his head. “Here. In Helsinki now. We are ready. We were ready yesterday.”
Yes, Devereaux thought. You were ready yesterday and you had the luxury of waiting. You are not terrified, Tartakoff. It is I who should be afraid.
“Everything has been arranged,” Devereaux said slowly. “We will separate the two of you—”
“No.”
“Yes,” Devereaux said in a flat, calm voice while his eyes tried to probe the reactions of the other man. “It is the only way. The old man will go to Stockholm. Silja Line tonight. You are going to fly to New York directly this afternoon by Finnair. You have an hour.”
“No,” Tartakoff said suddenly, backing up. “This is too soon. It does not suit me.”
“Too soon?” Devereaux felt the trigger beneath his index finger. He had chosen the coat because of the unusual size of the pockets and the fact that they were not covered with flaps. The pistol could be removed very quickly and replaced just as quickly.
“Too soon. I must show you where the old man is—”
“I trust you. Tell me and here is your ticket and your identity.” He reached inside his vest pocket.
“But I expected to go with you—”
“Look. You’ll be in the air before the old man gets aboard the Finlandia at six tonight.” Devereaux spoke slowly, flatly. “There is no way we can double-cross you. Unless, of course, you are double-crossing us. Is that it?”
“Do you think that? I will take you to the old man myself.”
“Your plane leaves in an hour,” Devereaux said.
“There is no great hurry,” Tartakoff said. “There is a second plane to the United States at four. I know this thing. I study all the timetables of Finnair—”
“All right. Take me to the old man.”
“You know how important he is?”
“Not really.”
Tartakoff looked surprised.
Devereaux smiled. “But then, I’m just the messenger.”
26
AMSTERDAM
“Accounting,” said the Russian, and Penev, the Bulgarian, opened the large accounting book.
They sat in the back room of the shuttered offices of the Balkan tourist authority, which Penev ran. It was raining again in Amsterdam but the day was warm and the windows were steaming. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the first signs of thaw and spring were breaking across the European continent.
Penev had never seen the Russian before. He usually dealt with the Soviet KGB station chief in Rotterdam but this man was from Moscow. It must have been an important matter and Penev had had no idea of the importance of it.
In the accounting book were names and times and places, all rendered in a neat hand.
The names might have been names of customers of the travel service. In fact, there were six legitimate names and departure schedules on a page and then one name and schedule involving another part of Penev’s business. The part that had to do with assassination.
“Should I speak aloud?” Penev said.
“Do you think it is safe?” The Russian was mocking him. “Of course speak aloud or I will not be able to hear you.”
“I do not know what procedures you wanted followed, comrade; that is all,” Penev said, somewhat annoyed. After all, he had upheld his end of the matter. He had never failed. Even if there had been mistakes made along the way.
Penev felt warm and clammy. Sweat spread a stain under his arms.
“As I was instructed,” Penev began.
The Russian waited across the table from him without speaking.
“I contracted Antonio from Reggio Calabria. We have used him before with satisfaction. He is somewhat… odd… in his habits. Cocaine user. I had no reason, based on what he had done for us in the past, to think he would have fouled the operation. I said she was a spy. He never failed before.”
“But he did this time.”
“First, he killed the priest in Dublin.”
“That was satisfactory.”
“I did not understand that part—”
“The priest knew the mission of Crohan in the war. That is all. He was too talkative. He corresponded with the old woman in Chicago. It was better to get rid of him from the first.”
“From there he went to Helsinki. That’s where the mistake was made.”
“Two mistakes,” said the Russian slowly. He removed a cigarette and fitted it into a holder and placed the holder in his mouth. The Bulgarian lit the tip of the cigarette for him.
“He panicked over the whore. So he killed her and he stupidly left the body near the hotel. And then he arranged the murder of the agent so that this American agent, Devereaux, would find him. That was not what he was told to do.”
“I didn’t know about the American agent. I was not instructed,” Penev said.
“No, comrade. But it was a mistake nonetheless. Continue.”
“The third mistake. He was to eliminate Ely, the British agent in Dublin. Ely had the assignment to investigate the matter of the priest. The death of Ely would only frighten the British into thinking the Americans were behind this. Instead, he killed the wrong man. An agent named Sparrow.”
“And so you sent him to Helsinki to kill the American journalist. The fourth mistake. He might have killed her if the Finnish police had not been waiting for him at the airport.”
“The police were the problem,” Penev agreed. “Kulak had to be pulled from the American agent, Devereaux. He might have arrested him. But it was clumsy.”
The Russian saw criticism in this and he frowned. “It was direct. Direct action was needed. Kulak had to be kept away from Devereaux. He was the messenger.”
“Antonio had made too many mistakes,” Penev continued. “Let the police have him in Helsinki for the two murders there.”
“We did not expect the American journalist to be in Helsinki. This was fortunate for us. It allows the disinformation to be applied quickly, before the British can move to stop it. Crohan will tell her the truth once he is certain he is safe.”
Penev glanced up from the book.
“What is the truth, comrade?”
The Russian smiled. “Very simple. The British made a signal to the SS in Vienna four months before we liberated the city. We found the records of it. The Germans save everything, even secrets. The Germans were told the identity of Crohan by the British. It is that simple. It is the reason we could arrest Crohan.”
“But what reason—”
“The American OSS had sent Crohan into Vienna as a spy to save Jews there from transportation to the concentration camps. But he was a spy, nonetheless. And the English were terrified when they found out what the OSS had done. Crohan would have emerged as a national hero in Ireland after the war. He was an agitator against the British; he was a socialist. He would have caused Britain great harm after the war. So the British wanted the Germans to kill him. They betrayed him. That is the great secret.”
Penev frowned. “But this is tied to the submarine base for refueling?”
“There is no such plan,” the Russian said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Let the British worry about the submarine base while the threat comes from another place. The threat comes from the mouth of Tomas Crohan, who will reveal that he was betrayed by the British when he was working for the Americans behind the Nazi lines.”
Penev understood at last and a slow smile spread across his face. “An old man held prisoner was made prisoner because the British betrayed him to protect their own selfish interests.”
“And then, after the war, when we said to the British that we would release this man, they gave us evidence of his anti-Soviet activity on behalf of the Nazis. Until this last moment, we were convinced the evidence against him was genuine.”
The two men were smiling. “And where did we get the evidence? The false evidence?”
“From our mole inside British Intelligence. Very, very important man. I cannot say his name.”
“And the matter is c
losed now?”
“Yes. Tonight, the American will take the Irish prisoner back to his home and the journalist will reveal all that Crohan has been told—”
“It will finally break the American trust of the British—”
“Of course. They will demand separation from British liaison. Even at Cheltenham. Which will make our work much easier.”
“But Tartakoff?”
“Oh. He will be back in Leningrad tonight, I think. Unless something has gone wrong. He has one option he did not have before, before the American journalist came into the picture.”
“What?”
“If he is suspected, he will be able to kill the messenger.”
27
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“I don’t have any time,” Devereaux said.
“Where are you?”
“Just where you think.”
“My God.” Hanley paused. “There are difficulties.”
“Our people are out.”
“You were supposed to come home.”
Devereaux did not speak.
“You know the lines from Helsinki aren’t safe,” Hanley said.
“That seems to be the last consideration of anyone here. Why didn’t you answer all those weeks?”
“There was nothing to say,” Hanley said. “You defied your orders.”
“No, goddamn it, now you listen.” Devereaux spoke low and harsh, an undercurrent of anger in his flat voice like the undertow of a placid sea. “For nine weeks you let me dangle because nothing was supposed to come of this. You thought Tartakoff was a trap and it was convenient to get rid of me for a while.”
Silence crackled on the international line; the silence confirmed everything Devereaux said and both men knew it.
“But mention Tomas Crohan and everything began to change suddenly. Hanley finds a voice at last, just to cover this thing up. ‘Get out, November.’ But now I can’t get out.”
