Quiller Barracuda

by Adam Hall

  The bodyguard was waiting for her outside and she came past him and caught up with me at the elevator. 'Who?'

  'I haven't time,' I said, 'to make appointments.'

  She wasn't biting her lip but it looked like that. Her make-up girl had taken off the heavy studio masque and fluffed the gel out of her hair and she looked younger and more human. 'How much time do you have?'

  'We'll play it by ear.'

  'I need to make one short call, okay?' Turned to the man in the blue serge. 'Is the car there?'

  'Yes, ma'am.'

  'Go down and wait.'

  It was 11:40 when we came out of the building into the street and got into the limousine.

  She leaned across the small marble-topped table. 'When did you see him last?'

  Ferris had told his people to check on the second most frequent number on George Proctor's telephone bills and it had been unlisted but they'd got around it through contacts and the name they'd come up with was Erica Cambridge.

  'Two nights ago.'

  She looked away. 'Was he with anyone?'

  I think she regretted it immediately but of course it was too late.

  'Yes.'

  She'd learned already, and just went on watching the people. 'Has he contacted you since then?'

  'No.'

  'Have you contacted him?'

  'No. He's missing.'

  I was watching her carefully and there was a lot of reaction in the eyes as she brought them back to me and looked down, too late again. 'You can't say someone's missing when you saw them so recently.'

  'He took everything with him.'

  'I see.' She straightened up, pulling the white silk stole round her bare shoulders. 'Have you been here before?'

  I suppose I'd looked interested in the environment, which was true enough: two of the Bureau people had come in here soon after we had and taken up station near the doors. I didn't recognise anyone else but that didn't mean I was safe. I hadn't seen the marksman on the quay or anyone else in his cell and they could be in here now, sitting with a coffee, playing the juke box, using one of the payphones.

  'No,' I told her. Hadn't been here before. The neon sign outside had said Kruger Drug.

  'It's rather like Schwarb's Pharmacy,' she said, 'on the Strip in LA, but that's gone now. This was just a drugstore at first but it stayed open all night so people came in here for company – night-club types looking for something different, late-night workers, actors, that kind of crowd. Now there's just everyone – Cuban traders, cops, drug dealers, the survivors of family fights, you name it. Coffee?'

  'Yes.'

  'They have nineteen different kinds.'

  She waved to someone and the brilliant smile flashed and died again, leaving the nerves showing just under the skin. It could have been because of her job, or her temperament; I didn't know anything about her, except that she might know where Proctor was.

  That remains your immediate objective. Ferris.

  Not really. My immediate objective was to stay on my feet and run through this town while they watched me, followed me, waiting to see if there were anything left inside my head, any traces of the subliminal material that had been put in there, waiting to see if the worm were still in the apple, eating its way through.

  Waiting over there by the doors.

  Sat here feeling the chill but I'd have to get used to it for Christ's sake, deal with it. Find Proctor and the rest would take care of itself. Proctor had been turned and gone to ground and for all I knew he'd been the principal who'd set me up for the kill down there on the quay.

  'Hi, Dorothy.' The smile flashed again.

  She liked being seen, came in here, probably, to be seen, but at the same time wanted privacy, which was why she'd chosen this table right in the corner and put her bodyguard close enough to fend off anyone she didn't want to see.

  'I liked your show,' I said.

  'Thank you. Which of the nineteen?'

  'What? Oh. Whatever you're having.'

  The girl went away with the order. 'I had to tape it because there's a meeting tomorrow evening with the Senator's campaign manager and I'm invited.'

  The presence of her bodyguard two tables away would not, of course, do me any good if anything started; nor would the presence of the two Bureau people. The whole town had become a red sector two days after the mission had begun running and that put me at great risk but there hasn't been a single operation in the Bureau records that didn't go through the end-phase with the executive working on the very edge of extinction: it's the nature of the trade; and there was the obvious possibility that if I could find Proctor at some time during the last hours of this night I could turn him in for interrogation and give them a chance to shut down the board for Barracuda if they could get him to break.

  'That little scene,' I said, 'in New Hampshire. Was it true?'

  She looked down. 'In this business, truth is what you make it. That's the only way to play. Who else was there, that night?'

  'With Proctor?'

  'Yes.'

  'A friend, just leaving.'

  'A woman.' It wasn't a question.

  'Yes. I think they'd been having a row.' As a gesture.

  'And she doesn't know where he's gone?'

  'I haven't asked her. I don't know where she lives.'

  The bodyguard stood up suddenly, turning two women away. In speech at a distance the vowels stand out better than the consonants, and when we'd come in here I'd heard ameidge from several tables, and now there was au-oh-ah from one of the women, with small moans of disappointment.

  The guard sat down again.

  'Sugar?'

  'No.'

  'I want,' she said without looking at me, 'to find George Proctor, very much.'

  'So do I. Perhaps we can help each other. If you want to tell me the places where he used to go, I can have them checked out.' It wasn't necessarily a thin chance. Proctor was a top-echelon executive and he knew how to go to ground without leaving a trace, but he could be operating as part of a cell or part of a whole network and he'd have to keep in contact and that would be where I could find him: by catching a stray signal, tripping on a wire, crossing a courier line and working inwards from there.

  I knew one thing: it could be fatal to underestimate Proctor. Monck, briefing me in Nassau three days ago: What it does concern is the upcoming American election, in which of course Senator Mathieson Judd is actively engaged. It also concerns the balance of power between East and West as it exists at the present time, which is precariously. Let me put it this way. If the extent of things proves as far-reaching as we've begun to believe, I shall find it difficult to sleep soundly in my bed.

  Proctor had been turned and gone over to the Soviets and for all we knew he could be at the very centre of the opposition network, the centre of an organisation that had moved in on me the instant they felt I was a danger – the instant when I'd telephoned Proctor to say I wanted to see him. They'd searched my room and tagged me through the streets and put me in the cross hairs and infiltrated my brain within hours of my arrival in Miami. Whoever Proctor was operating for now, they were important, perhaps international, even multi-national, and he would have a major role to play.

  'I can tell you,' Erica Cambridge said, 'the places where he used to go, yes, but I doubt if you'll find him there.'

  'We could find traces. That's all we need.'

  'I think I should tell you -' a moment of hesitation, but she decided to go on – 'I think I should, tell you that my need to find that man isn't… personal.'

  She was looking down again; she did it a lot. I said, 'Are you sure?'

  'Oh yes. Yes, in spite of my asking you -' she left it.

  Asking me about the woman.

  'If it's not personal,' I said, 'it's political?'

  'In the United States of America within ten days of the presidential election, the way a dog scratches a flea is political. But with George Proctor -' hesitation again – 'it's something even more than polit
ical. There's something going on that -' this time she broke off and her eyes became wary. 'Mr Keyes – did I get your name right? – I don't have the slightest idea who you are or what you were doing in the Newsbreak studios.'

  'I'm looking for George Proctor.'

  'Sure, but a minute ago you said that "we" could perhaps find traces of him.'

  'My organisation.'

  'There's no deal, Mr Keyes.' Her eyes were hard now. 'Unless you're prepared to name names.'

  'I may do that later,' I said. 'Not now.'

  Her head turned to look at the bodyguard, then back to me. 'I have to go soon, Mr Keyes. I come here sometimes to – you know – unwind, be by myself.'

  I didn't get up. 'You won't find him,' I said, 'by yourself.'

  'Will you?'

  'Not immediately. Not for a day or two. But we'll find him.'

  'Then why did you come to me?'

  'Because you might have helped us to find him sooner. If we pooled our information we'd shorten the time. We'd rather not wait two days, but it won't be more than that. You'll need longer, and you may be too late.'

  Looking down, running a fingertip round and round the rim of the little espresso cup, her breath quickening, the lift and fall of her breasts under the white silk catching the light from overhead, a vibration in her that I half-caught through the senses, half-felt across the space between us at the small round table, an emanation from her etheric body, from her nerves.

  Then she looked up, and I caught a touch of fear. 'Only two days?'

  'No more than that.'

  'When you find him, what will you do?'

  'We'll get him out of the country, very fast.'

  Watching me steadily, the fright still there. 'It's – important for me to see him first.'

  'We couldn't allow that.'

  Looking away now, trapped. I waited.

  'Hi, Erica!'

  A woman waving, the bodyguard on his feet and turning for instructions, Cambridge giving a quick little shake of her head.

  It was going to be all right but I put three dollar bills onto the check as a gesture.

  'It would be very helpful to you,' Cambridge said, leaning closer, 'if you let me see him before he leaves. I have a great deal of information on him.'

  'Then give it to me now and you'll see him before he leaves. That's guaranteed. I'm sorry, it's the best I can do.' Stood up, buttoned my jacket.

  'Mr Keyes, is your "organisation" the British government?'

  'I would have thought it was rather clear. Proctor's a British national. But look, get in touch with me some time tomorrow, if you want to – though I'm not easy to reach. We -'

  'May I see some kind of ID?'

  I chose the card with the Foreign Office crest and dropped it onto the table and she looked at it carefully.

  'May I keep this?'

  'By all means.'

  Took a purse out of her snakeskin bag, put the card away. 'It's difficult to talk to you if you're standing up.'

  'We've talked enough, I think, and you were working late. It was a pleasure -'

  'Mr Keyes.' The fright in her voice now. She was looking down again, her small hands flat on the marble top of the table with the fingers spread, the voilet nail varnish glinting under the light. 'I'd be glad if you'd sit down for a moment – is that too much to ask?'

  I was surprised because I hadn't expected her to break so completely, but this was simply because I didn't know the Proctor background and her connection with it. It looked critical, because as I sat down again I could see that she was having to make an effort to keep control, and her voice was shaky now.

  'Look, you've caught me at a crucial time. I – I need help, if that doesn't sound too melodramatic.'

  She waited for me to say something.

  Said nothing.

  'There's no one I can trust, you see. I mean I've got friends, sure, associates,' pressing the table hard, 'and they're all good people but – but I don't know how strong they'd be if things got really rough. And none of them know about George Proctor – okay, we were close, yes, but they don't know about – this thing that's happening.' Driving her hands against the marble, her eyes wide now, then changing, narrowing as she caught an inward glimpse of herself and looked up at last and around her in case anyone were watching, her eyes coming back to me, her voice soft, suddenly, fierce – 'Are you listening to me, for God's sake?'

  'Yes.'

  'You goddamned British, you won't give an inch will you?' Her hands off the table now, restless, brushing the air – 'But I'm going to take a risk and trust you because I'm gullible enough to feel reassured by the Queen of England's crest on the card you gave me.'

  No. Going to trust me because she desperately wanted information on Proctor and I'd guaranteed her a meeting with him as soon as we found him.

  Looking around her, then back to me, 'The next ten days are going to be critical for the United States of America and by extension for the rest of the world. Not politically critical because Mathieson Judd is a Republican and if he gets into the White House there won't be any change. But critical internationally, globally. I have a question, since you know George Proctor. Is he a small fish, or a big fish?'

  'It depends on the pond.'

  'It's a very big pond, so let's try this: would you say he's capable of becoming a big fish, in a very big pond?'

  I looked away. One of the Bureau men near the doors was different. Midnight shift. 'Proctor,' I said, 'is capable of anything that requires cold courage, risk and endurance. He shouldn't be underestimated.'

  'That's also my opinion. He and I -' she looked down, spreading her hands on the table again, perhaps wanting to feel its stability, wanting to borrow from it – 'he and I were close personally until -quite recently, close enough for me to be quite sure he wasn't the advertising man he purported to be – though he used his connections with Newsbreak pretty well as a front. But he still had a reserve I couldn't get through, and I believe he was doing things unknown to me that would have surprised me – correction, alarmed me, frightened me – not just personally, I mean on a geopolitical scale.' Pause. 'I want to get this right. On a clandestine geopolitical scale.'

  'For instance?'

  'I'm not saying he's the biggest fish in this thing, by any means, but I believe he's being used as the prime mover. You remember a man called Howard Hughes?'

  Said I'd heard of him.

  Someone over there was pointing in this direction, one of the waitresses.

  'He had a mad dream,' Cambridge said. 'He wanted to buy America.'

  'In what sense?'

  'He wanted to control it, by buying up its major companies, the machinery behind the throne. He went a long way, but it was the wrong way, the hard way.'

  The bodyguard was getting to his feet again.

  'There's an easier way.' Her voice quieter, intense, her eyes on me the whole time now. To buy America, all you have to do is buy one man. The president. But first you have to -'

  'Excuse me, ma'am.' The bodyguard held out a remote telephone. 'You taking calls?'

  'Who is it?'

  'Mr Sakamoto.'

  'Yes, I'll take it.' Surprise but no hesitation. 'Excuse me, Mr Keyes.'

  I picked up a menu.

  So first they'd tried her home and been told Miss Cambridge was at the studio, and then they'd tried the studio and been told that if she weren't home she could be anywhere, but she sometimes went to Kruger Drug, and then they'd tried Kruger Drug, so they must have wanted to talk to her quite urgently, at five minutes to midnight.

  'You mean right away?' Looking at her diamente watch, 'Oh sure, no problem. Has anything -' then she corrected it and said, 'I'll be there in fifteen minutes,' and gave the phone back to her bodyguard. 'I'm sorry, Mr Keyes, it's something I'm unable to pass up.'

  'Of course. This isn't the place, anyway, to talk.'

  We left the table, the bodyguard ahead of us. 'When can we meet again?' She sounded torn, under pressure. A woman calle
d Hi, Erica, but she didn't turn.

  Tomorrow,' I said. 'I'll phone you.'

  She gave me her card and as we got to the doors I passed close to one of the Bureau men, 'Car,' and he left his table and went out in front of us while I was talking to Cambridge in the lobby.

  'It's absolutely vital,' she said softly, 'that we get together as soon as possible.' Her eyes with fright still in them. 'I'll make a point of staying in until noon. Call before then.'

  The limousine was at the kerbside with a chauffeur at the rear door. 'Can I drop you somewhere?' she asked me.

  'I feel like a walk.'

  A last glimpse of her face at the smoked window, no more than a featureless smudge, leaving me with the odd impression that she'd been trapped in the big black car, obliterated.

  Midnight plus seventeen, the late-night traffic rolling with very little sound through the streets, gathering at the lights and waiting, finding release, changing lanes to go round the work gangs still clearing debris left by the hurricane, the black Lincoln ahead of me with two other cars between until the limousine slowed, letting them past and turning into the driveway of 1330 West Riverside Way.

  Chapter 10: CONTESSA

  There was nothing I could do.

  This was a residential street, large balconied houses, stucco and porticos behind trimmed hedges, wrought iron gates, the residences of old Miami money. Shadows everywhere thrown by the trees and hedges, one of the tall ornate street lamps out, like a dead eye in the night. Heat still rising from the stones and the tarmacadam after the day's unremitting sun, the air moist from the vegetation, from the sea.

  I wish to Christ it didn't affect me but it always has, always will, and don't try telling me it's all in the day's work, I'm not standing for that.

  Seed pods dropping, big ones, spiralling down through the lamplight and hitting the sidewalk with the sound of autumn hail.

  12:34.

  He must have been under their own surveillance for quite a time because they didn't ask any questions – they used one car and two men and the snatch didn't take more than ten seconds and the car was gone again, more than a snatch, because the first man to reach him had broken his spine at the first vertebra and they'd dragged him across the sidewalk and thrown him into the back.