by Adam Hall
She dropped onto the floor, facing me in the lotus position, her thigh muscles carved out of ebony, wrists across her knees and both hands hanging with the fingers wide, making a black and gold screen. 'You're taking a risk,' she said.
'Not really.'
'I go blabber-mouthing that to the FBI, trying to look good, trying to get in there?'
'That wouldn't be very intelligent, would it, at this stage? The FBI are going to be working on the Cambridge hit in any case, and I shouldn't think it'll take them terribly long to find the helicopter and start from there. Tell them if you like that it could be a Mafia hit. It's only my supposition.'
She watched me from the shadows of her lashes. 'Not too many people outside the Mafia go and make a hit like that. Takes money, and it's very exposed. Shows how cool they are, giving us guys the finger, part of Toufexis's personality, he's like that, always keeps just out of reach. So that's all you got to show me?'
'It's dynamite, and you know that. Because of the Judd connection. And the Soviet.'
'Jeeze,' she said in a minute, 'you seen the FBI badge?'
'No.'
'It's real pretty.' Looking down, frowning a little, 'Okay, show you mine. I knew he was calling the Soviet Embassy because once when we got in from the Black Flamingo Club there was a message on his machine and I was near enough to watch the numbers he touched on his phone, next day I checked them out and it was the embassy.'
'He was on coke at that time?'
'Sure, he was riding right along.'
Or he would have waited until he was alone before he made that call. He was still slipping, getting cocky in the coke fumes, some of the Mafia braggadocio rubbing off on him, perhaps it'd give me a chance, take him when he was high, if I could do it before he or the mob had another go and brought it off.
'What did he say on the phone?' I asked her.
'Nothing too much, no names or anything, he was just making a rendezvous.'
'Did you surveille it?'
'The timing was wrong – I was on duty.'
'You didn't sent someone else to cover it?'
'Send someone else and I'm giving the whole deal away, you don't watch your ass in this service you get kicked.'
'That was the only time you heard him phoning the Soviet Embassy?'
'Right. But there were other things.'
She told me she'd followed Proctor once to Quay 19 and saw him board the cutter, nothing new, and told me he'd been going with a girl named Harvester before Cambridge had moved in, nothing new, and then she began talking about the canisters.
'He used to bring them back from the Newsbreak studios, couple of times a week, and a guy came for them and returned them later. He -'
'Do you know what was in them?'
'Sure, I checked a couple for drugs, but they were just video tapes. It could be the guy that came for them took them to Riverside Way, because I saw one of them there that time I checked the place out. It seemed -'
'Did you put them into a VCR?'
'I couldn't do that. They were sealed, besides which, I was looking for a big stash of merchandise and tapes didn't turn me on too much. Anyway they were just commercials.'
'How did you know?'
'They'd got labels. Honi-du, Syn -'
'What's that?'
'Uh? Skin cream. Syncrest, that's an earphone unit, Pizzarita, that's a chain of chic pizza stops. Discreet, that's pads for gals.'
'Go on,' I said.
'What's so big?'
I was dead-pan, but it must be showing in my eyes. 'It might be nothing,' I said. I didn't think so.
'Okay, there was Orange Sunset, Yummies, and Tuxedo Junction, that's a soft drink and a junk bar and a cologne for men. They're all I can remember.'
'They're all you saw.'
'You got it.'
In a moment I asked her, 'Where is Proctor now?'
'Last time I saw him he was climbing up your ass in a Corvette.'
'If you know where he is,' I said carefully, 'and don't want to tell me, I could understand that. But if you know, and choose to tell me, I could give you much more -'
'I ain't lying.'
She didn't put on any false resentment. I thought it was probably true.
'Is there any way,' I asked her, 'you could go into the house again, the one on Riverside?'
'Not without a warrant.'
'And you can't get one.'
'I don't have no reason.'
'There is no way, then, that you could get hold of one of those canisters.'
'No way. They're private property.'
It was nearly three o'clock when I looked at my watch.
'When are you back on duty?'
'Varies, on undercover. Maybe eight, maybe nine, report in.'
'Can I use the phone?'
'Go ahead.'
I went across the room and dialled.
'Yes?'
'DIF.'
'Hang on.' Tench's voice.
In a moment: 'Yes?'
'Just reporting in,' I said.
'Where are you?'
'Oh, not long.'
Any kind of answer will do, as long as it doesn't make sense. Means someone is listening. Then they've got to take it from there, asking suitable questions until they make a hit.
'You need support?'
'No.'
'Medical attention?'
'No.'
'Congratulations.' The last time we'd talked over the phone I'd been in the limousine, waiting to ditch. 'You need transport?'
'No.'
'A rendezvous?'
'Yes.'
Silence for a bit. 'It will have to be in the open.'
I didn't like that but I'd been expecting it. I'd become a security risk. It happens a lot of the time, when the shadow executive becomes so exposed and so vulnerable that the whole of the field becomes a permanent red sector. He is then a danger to his director, and must keep his distance from every base and safe-house because he could be followed there. He becomes a pariah dog, unwelcome at any door and therefore without shelter. Ferris would have a bolt-hole for me but it wouldn't be an established safe-house because I could contaminate it.
'All right,' I told him.
He couldn't say where are you so he said, 'How far are you from where you ditched?'
'More explicit.'
'Five miles?'
'No.'
'More?'
'No.'
'Three?'
'Roughly.'
'Give me a minute.'
Getting a map.
She hadn't moved. Her reflection was in the black lacquered cabinet with the gold inlay, stylised peacocks. She was watching me. She would realise I was shielding the content of my talk with Ferris but I couldn't do anything about that. At worst, it was discourteous: we had established trust.
'You're without transport?'
'Yes.'
'You'll rdv on foot?'
'That's right.'
'Then I'll be at SW 21st Avenue and SW 11th Street, by the school. In ten minutes?'
'No.'
'More?'
'Yes.'
'Thirty?'
'No.'
'Forty?'
'Yes.'
'Right. Look for two vehicles, a dark blue Saab and a black Chevrolet Blazer van, both fairly new. I shall be in the Blazer, and you will therefore rdv with that. You'll take it over. Questions?'
'No.'
'Forty minutes, then, at 03:35.'
'Yes.'
I went back across the room. She was still in the lotus position, her hands spread like fans, a beam of light floating across one of her eyes, brightening its translucent orb like a jewel before it moved away.
'Will you dance more,' I asked her, 'as time goes by? And finally turn in your badge?'
'Think I should?'
'Yes.'
'Look,' she said, and unfurled her legs and rose with the grace of a swimmer surfacing, 'this is the body my spirit chose, but my spirit is feisty and ass
ertive, and I hate men, because they've always called the shots. Most men, sure, not all of them. So it gives me a kick, see, to order them face down on the floor and then have them hustled into the van and sent to the slammer. And it gives me a kick because they're dangerous, and I've got to be good to beat them at the game we play. So maybe I'll dance more, as time goes by, but for now I'm the happiest little gal alive, kicking the shit outa those mother-fuckers. You going?'
'Yes.'
'You don't want to jump in the Jacuzzi with me?'
'Of course I do.'
'But you gotta go.'
'That's right.'
'Some other time. Get you a taxi?'
'I'll find one.'
'Couple of minutes from here,' she said, 'right in front of the hotel, just go left on the sidewalk.' Turning to face me at the door with a quick swing of her hips that went through me like a wave, 'I don't know what it is about you. It ain't the looks – I prefer blacks. I guess it's the brand of pheromones you send out. I'm in most nights, after twelve. Call me?'
I'd asked for forty minutes to give me time to get to the rendezvous absolutely certain I was alone. The taxi dropped me off at SW 11th Terrace and SW 23rd Crescent and I walked from there, covering two blocks and using doorways and double-tracking, making certain, making absolutely certain. Since I've been with the Bureau only three executives have inadvertently blown their directors in the field and the one who survived his mission was fired the day after debriefing.
The Saab and the van were already there and I gave it another five minutes, scanning the whole of the environment until I was sure. Then I walked across the street to the van and got in.
Ferris was alone, sitting at the wheel with his long body slightly hunched, held in on itself, and his hands folded on his lap. I hadn't ever seen him like this before, and I suppose I should have been warned. I began debriefing but he stopped me almost right away and got it over, said I'd been withdrawn from the mission.
Chapter 22: WINDOW
'There are some new clothes for you,' Ferris said, 'in the back. I thought a van would be easier to change in than a car.'
The night was quiet. This wasn't one of the main streets that casino and night-club traffic used. There was only one light that I could see, in a window, apart from the street lamps. The only other vehicle in sight was the dark blue Saab, waiting to take Ferris away when we'd finished the debriefing.
The programme is,' he said, still hunched at the wheel with his eyes on the street, 'to fly you by private jet to Nassau, and put you on a plane for London. You'll be smuggled -'
'Purdom can do nothing.'
First time I'd spoken since he'd told me the news. I think it sounded fairly normal, my tone. Bit of an effort, though, as you can well believe, my good friend.
'You'll be smuggled through to the London plane with great care. For one thing we don't want you seen and shot at before you can get out of the field, and for another thing Croder wants the opposition to believe you're still in operation, in the hope that Proctor will waste his time trying to find you, and Purdom can proceed under the cover of your assumed continuing presence.'
And that is exactly the way that bastard Croder talks, assumed continuing presence, nibbling the words over in his small rat's teeth and then spitting them out.
'You'll be at the airport here,' Ferris said, 'at 06:00 hours, outside the private departure lounge. I'll get into the van and tell you where to go.'
'There is nothing Purdom can do. If I go, the mission goes. You know that.'
I realised I'd got my hands tucked under my folded arms, that I was feeling cold on this sultry Miami night. I suppose that was why Ferris sat hunched over the wheel. He'd directed me in five missions, major ones, and we understood each other, worked well with each other, had mutual respect and trust. It's not always like that – take bloody Loman for instance. But he'd got more to deal with than losing an executive he could rely on. He'd told me that if I got fired from Barracuda he'd go back to London.too. I wouldn't keep him to that – it had been a gesture on his part, bit of civility. But it wouldn't make any difference: if he stayed on here he'd be stuck with a new executive who couldn't make a move. It doesn't always happen but it was true now: I was indispensable to the mission.
'We've got to get Proctor,' I said. 'And we've got to put him under a hood and sweat the whole thing out of him. He's the major objective, in fact the only objective, now that we've lost the Cambridge brief. And the only way we can get Proctor is to let me go on running till I get in his way and draw his fire, expose him, pull him into a trap. Stop me running and Barracuda's dead.'
It didn't hold water but I thought I'd at least try.
I wasn't sure Ferris would trouble to answer, but if he just sat there and let the silence go on it'd leave me looking stupid, and he wouldn't do that.
'It would work,' he said, 'yes, if Proctor were the only danger. But the pre-eminent Mafia family in this town is actively searching for you and they've got your photograph. They total, by the way, ninety-four members. So if you go on moving in the streets it's going to lead to another situation like the one we saw tonight, and that is what brought Croder to his final decision.' He sat back at last and turned his head and watched me with his expressionless amber eyes. 'You've become a danger to yourself, to the mission, and to the overseas Bureau network on this coast, whose main task is to assist the Americans by monitoring British and European underground activity. You are therefore a danger to our hosts, and that is also why Croder has come down on you. It's not London's policy, I hope you'll admit, to run a mission to the point of open street battles inevitably involving the police, which is why Croder had second thoughts on sending in interceptors tonight.' He waited for me to say something. I could think of nothing to say. 'In my opinion he's justified in withdrawing you and sending you home. At least you'll have survived the mission.'
The light up there, the light in the small high window, went out. I'd been watching it, and the thought had been in my mind that as long as it stayed there, as long as it didn't go out, I would somehow manage to stay with Barracuda. So you will understand the state of my mind, my good friend, as I sat there with my director in the field in the small black Chevrolet van, lost in the vastness of the night-quiet streets. I had descended to rabid superstition.
The silence was drawing out, so I asked him, 'What happened to Hood?'
'He's in hospital with concussion, nothing major.'
Treader?'
'The police booked him for speeding. He told them he thought he was being chased by a drug gangster who took him for someone else. He'll be all right.'
'I'm sorry,' I said in a moment, 'for Purdom.'
'I'll tell him that.'
'Tell him I wish I could have left him with at least a direction to take. I've done nothing, you know, since I came here, except stay alive. So I can quite see Croder's point of view.'
Got that over. It hadn't been easy but had to be done, for the sake of the records. The shadow executive is the most important member of a mission, and his personal views are sought at critical times. What I had just said would go down as: The executive has evaluated the decision made by the Chief of Signals and fully understands its necessity.
From the Chief of Signals himself I expected no comparable manners. He could have sent for me and personally explained the situation but had simply told Ferris, instead, to order me out of the field. But then Croder was a worried man, and I didn't envy him. In the normal way he doesn't lack common courtesy.
In a moment Ferris said quietly, 'Final debriefing?'
'What? Yes.' I thought for a minute to get it straight. 'It doesn't amount to much. There's a policewoman on undercover work in the narcotics division, name of Monique Lacroix, a lieutenant. She took up with Proctor in the hope that he might lead her closer to Toufexis, the Mafia chief. She confirms that he telephoned the Soviet Embassy in Washington at least once. She would be helpful to you in finding Proctor, and you should consider lettin
g her have any information on his connection with the Trust. She'd like to get into the FBI.'
'All right. Do we need a recorder?'
'No. All I've got for you is this. Proctor brought canisters of video tapes back to the apartment from the Newsbreak studios and someone called for them and brought them back later. Lt Lacroix said they contained video tapes of commercial ads. You'd better note these.' He got the mini Sanyo out of his pocket and pressed for record. 'Syncrest, Honidu -' I spelt that one for him – Discreet – Pizzaria – no, Pizzarita – wait a minute.' I had to recall her voice, light and husky, as a context for the mnemonics. 'Orange Sunset, Tuxedo Junction.'
The light in the window went on again, and the nerves leapt for an instant as hope came, touched off by superstition. It's remarkable, it is quite remarkable, how sensitive the web is, where we sit enmeshed with our environment: someone up there had pressed a switch and activated the nervous system of a man down here in the street, hidden inside this little black van. The superstition itself, of course, rated no more than a cheap laugh: the stranger up there behind the high window hadn't intended to rekindle hope in this poor creature's breast; he'd intended simply to have another pee.
'Is that it?'
'What? Yes. No, I've missed one.' In a minute, 'Yummies.'
'Yummies?'
There was an odd sound coming from my throat, presumably a kind of strangled laughter. If there's anything that makes me fall about more than a pratfall it is bathos.
Watching me, Ferris said, 'You're in better condition than I thought.'
He meant that as an executive just thrown out of the mission and ordered home I didn't appear to be ready to cut my throat.
'Never better,' I said stoutly.
'So what's your thinking on these commercials?'
I believe he'd got it, but had decided to leave the big number to me, which was nice of him. I said, 'It could be a long shot, but if you had those ads analysed on the screen for subliminal content, at either visual or audible wave lengths or even both, you might possibly come across things like Vote for Judd in any number of variations. And if you did, you could then work out the potential impact of those programmes on the American population, to the nearest hundred million.'
