“You look like hell,” Matthews said. “You all right?”
“Ate something that came back at me,” O’Farrell said, easily. He realized, gratefully, he was feeling better.
“Food in England is shit,” Matthews declared. “Hardly had a decent meal since I got here.”
It didn’t seem to be having much effect upon the man’s weight problem; perhaps it was glandular. O’Farrell said, “There’ll be stuff arriving for me, packed, in the pouch. It shouldn’t be opened, of course. I’ll collect.”
“Understood. Anything else?”
“Nothing,” O’Farrell said. He hoped.
Matthews escorted O’Farrell through the barred, marine-guarded inner sanctum. His verbal authorization was enough. No note was made in the log in which all entries and exits were supposed to be recorded.
O’Farrell used a priority number to reach Langley and was quickly patched through to Petty. The section chief answered the telephone coughing and O’Farrell wondered if the pipe had been just lighted or extinguished. “How’s it look?” the department head began.
“I’ve decided the way,” O’Farrell announced.
Petty grunted. “It has to be coordinated with the move against Belac, don’t forget. We haven’t heard from the Bureau or from Customs yet.”
“The opportunity won’t last,” O’Farrell said. Jesus, don’t say they were going to pussyfoot around when he had the chance to do it and get out!
“It’s got to be in the proper sequence,” Petty insisted. “Which is Belac first.”
“What if it can’t be that way!”
“We don’t want to spook Belac.”
“So what’s more important?”
“Both,” Petty said infuriatingly. “How much time have we really got?”
“I don’t know,” O’Farrell admitted. “Not long.”
“If it goes, you’ll have to find another way,” Petty said.
Just like that! O’Farrell thought. “This isn’t easy, you know!”
“No one ever said it was,” Petty said. “What do you need?”
O’Farrell listed the materials he wanted shipped from Washington. He added, “And I want the watchers withdrawn. I don’t want an audience.”
Petty went silent for a few moments. He said, “Just the usual precaution.”
“It isn’t necessary. And they’re amateur. Get them off my back.”
“Okay.” The clumsy sons of bitches, Petty thought. But then O’Farrell always had been good; it was encouraging to know that he still was.
“I mean it,” insisted O’Farrell. “No watchers.”
“Speak to me before you move,” Petty said.
“All right.” He was definitely on hold, O’Farrell knew.
“And well done.”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“I know it will,” Petty said. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re our best man?”
Crap, thought O’Farrell. He said, “You don’t have to bother.”
“Another thing,” Petty said, as if he’d suddenly remembered, which O’Farrell knew couldn’t be, because Petty never forgot anything. “Got a query channeled through from Florida. DA’s talking deals with the pilot, Rodgers, in exchange for testimony to a grand jury against the Cuban. DA wants to know if we’ve got a mitigating recommendation, to go with his.”
You my man, thought O’Farrell. He said, “What’s the District Attorney offering him?”
“No idea,” Petty said. “An indictment against Cuadrado has political mileage; it’ll make some waves and headlines here in Washington. So I guess it’ll be worthwhile.”
“Nothing!” O’Farrell announced shortly. “I don’t think we should recommend any mitigation at all.”
There was a further silence from the other end. Then Petty said, “I thought Rodgers told you all he could.”
“He played with me,” O’Farrell said. “Acted out some B-movie bullshit. What he told me he’s telling the DA. So why does he get the same favor twice?”
“Your decision,” Petty said. “Don’t move without us talking again, okay?”
“I’ll wait,” O’Farrell said, resigned.
Back in the outer section, O’Farrell thanked Matthews, and the station chief said he’d like to offer O’Farrell a drink but knew he couldn’t. O’Farrell, who would have liked to accept and have someone briefly to talk with, said he would have enjoyed it, too, but he had to decline.
The BMW was still in the rear parking area at the Cuban embassy, and O’Farrell settled himself for an indeterminate wait, which in the event wasn’t long at all. Rivera himself came out of the rear door to take the car, and O’Farrell guessed the destination within minutes of the departure. The door of the Pimlico house opened and closed quickly, and O’Farrell thought they had to be pretty anxious to risk a quickie in the afternoon but then remembered they hadn’t been together the previous night and guessed it was a case of catching up.
It was a quickie. From Pimlico, Rivera went back within the hour to Hampstead, where again the car was left outside. Rivera departed at the same time the following morning—and the morning after that—and again the car was parked outside at night. And again there was a complete absence of security.
All O’Farrell could do was wait, like he’d promised Petty. He was reluctant to do that; he’d gotten through the last few days, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last.
He attended a church in Kensington on two consecutive mornings, but it didn’t help, not like it usually had. On the second occasion a cleric tried to get into a conversation, but O’Farrell cut the man short, although not rudely.
Church visits were an excuse, he decided. Like a lot of other things.
Apart from the very first few months—or maybe weeks—of their marriage, Rivera could not recall things being easier between himself and Estelle. Her attitude towards him changed completely, to one of friendship he had never known from her, and he positively relaxed in her company, as she relaxed in his. They attended two official receptions. At both she was dazzling and attentive to him, and he actually enjoyed them, and when she went to her assignations with the Frenchman, she did so more discreetly than she had before, not Haunting her early departure and late return as a challenge. They talked about Lopelle only once after her drawing-room revelation. Estelle said his wife had agreed to a divorce and Lopelle himself had accepted Rivera’s terms, believing it would be better for his own diplomatic position, too. Rivera said he was glad everything was going to work out. Rivera was curious to see what the man looked like but had not asked if he were at the two receptions; he didn’t think the man could have been, from the closeness with which Estelle stayed with him.
Estelle even began breakfasting with him, which was something she had never done, and it was at breakfast that she said, “Maxine’s ill.”
Maxine had come to them as a nanny for Jorge and stayed on to act as housekeeper when the boy had grown older.
“What’s wrong?”
“Some flu-type virus,” Estelle said. “The doctor says it’s contagious, so I’m keeping her away from Jorge.”
“Do that,” Rivera said, immediately concernéd. “How long will she be off work?”
“I don’t know,” Estelle said.
John Herbeck had worked for them all—Apple and Hewlett Packard and IBM—as a development engineer and still considered himself the best, even though the last of them, IBM, had been a few years ago now. He kept up with everything—all the trade mags and the in-house publications that were slipped to him by friends still in the business—and knew he gave value for money to those who retained him as a consultant on technological innovations. And as a spotter, too, directing buyer to seller. That was the easiest money of all. Less now than there had been, in the halcyon days of Silicon Valley, but still enough to keep him comfortably in the style to which he had become accustomed. But only just. It seemed to be getting more difficult, with every passing month. He was becomi
ng quite anxious to attract new clients.
SEVENTEEN
TOO MANY things were going wrong too quickly, and Belac was making mistakes. Which he acknowledged, and which further upset him; that it was all costing him money upset him most of all. By now he should have gained his entire profit but he hadn’t, because of that damned ten-percent withholding. And trying to handle the Swedish business by letter—actually trying to save money by not going—was a mistake. It had taken nearly a month of correspondence, Belac using the cover of his Swiss shell company, before it became clear from Epetric that the blocking of the VAX order was not their decision but that of the California company, which refused to supply any more material until they were better satisfied with die documentation, as required by the American export authorities.
Nearly a whole month wasted! And now he had to confront the biggest problem of all. America.
Belac conducted his special trade fully aware of its risks and knew every detail of the indictments outstanding against him in the United States. He genuinely considered both to be ridiculous, like so much that COCOM prohibited, because each indictment was for supplying the communist bloc with computers that could be manufactured from components available over shop counters practically anywhere in the West. Ridiculous or not, however, the indictments remained two very good and convincing reasons why he should not risk entering the country.
But he hardly had any choice. He’d built a clear $2.5-million profit into the VAX order alone and laid out a nonreturnable deposit of $250,000. If he didn’t supply and Rivera had to purchase elsewhere, it meant not only his losing almost three million. It meant the all-important word getting around among the other dealers: it meant losing his reputation and possible future customers. The considerations didn’t end there. Belac had to know why Shepherd Industries was objecting to documentation that at this stage was foolproof, whether the objection indicated that he was definitely being targeted by U.S. agencies. He’d gone in and out of America, since the indictments had been handed down; he had enough passports for a dozen trips. But this time it would be more dangerous; he’d have to use his own passport at some stage to run hare to their hounds to see if there were a pursuit. It was time to stop making mistakes, time to start being very careful.
Belac went three days after receiving the explanatory letter from Sweden.
A man of habit, which disastrously lulled the CIA watchers into carelessness, Belac began the evening as he normally did by going to the fixed-price restaurant in which he normally ate. But after half an hour, he left through its rear door for the waiting taxi that took him directly to the railway station, where he caught the Swiss-bound trans-European express with minutes to spare. He was fifteen minutes into the train journey before the CIA discovered that he had left the restaurant, but some days would pass before they would admit losing him completely.
Belac crossed the Swiss border on a valid German passport in the name of Hans Krebs. In the same name he booked into Zurich’s Baur au Lac Hotel. In the morning he flew to London.
Belac flew into the United States by a circuitous route, from London and through Toronto, so that he entered from Canada. It was on the last leg of the journey, into Seattle, that he took the big risk, booking the ticket in his real name of Pierre Réné Belac. But he went through passport and immigration control on the Krebs document, knowing passenger manifests are not compared against the passports of arriving passengers. There was not the slightest hindrance, and within forty-five minutes, his trail having been laid, he was waiting by the boarding gate of the last San Francisco flight of the day. Deciding not to press his luck, he traveled on the German name.
He changed back again to his real identity at San Francisco airport and used his own driver’s license to rent a Lincoln Continental from the Hertz office. He stopped in San Jose, parking the car in a shopping mall, and continued his journey by taxi, although not into San Francisco. In Milpitas he found a cheap motel, which, in comparison to his apartment in Brussels, was practically luxurious. At last he slept, exhausted by traveling for so long and drained by the nervous strain as well.
He woke in the morning feeling refreshed. From Brussels he’d carried the names of three consultants known within the arms trade to have responded to hi-tech inquiries in the past. With the first he got an answering machine. The second was John Herbeck, who came on to the line as soon as Belac explained his requirements to the secretary. After a few minutes’ conversation they arranged to meet for cocktails at the Mark Hopkins, on Nob Hill.
The consultant turned out to be a swarthy, deeply suntanned man with the tendency to laugh after speaking, as if he were nervous of his listener disagreeing with what he said.
Belac knew his business and was easily able to keep the conversation going about technology developments throughout Santa Clara Valley and the tightness of the industry compared to a few years ago. Then Belac mentioned the restrictive problems of COCOM.
Belac waited for the American to pick up the lead, and Herbeck took it.
“It’s a mine field,” Herbeck said, in clumsy cliché. “Commerce and Customs seem to change their minds day by day; it’s hell keeping abreast of it.”
“Which is why I need somebody here, on the spot,” Belac said. “In Europe it’s impossible for me to keep track.”
“A retainer, you mean?” Herbeck pounced.
“If we come to a satisfactory arrangement, then most certainly it would involve a retainer,” Belac said.
Spotting, thought Herbeck: what he enjoyed doing most. He said, “I’d like to get some idea of your activities.”
So would a lot of people, Belac thought. He smiled his sparse smile and said, “I think it’s best summed up as being a middle man between interested parties.”
“I see,” Herbeck said slowly, believing that he did. “What, specifically, would be my part in the operation?”
Belac shrugged. “Variable, I would imagine,” he said. “At the moment I would see myself contacting you if I had a tentative order, to get your advice on the most likely supplier and for guidance upon any export infringements.”
“Would you have me become involved in any negotiations?” the American asked.
“As I said, it might be variable. The normal way for my company is to deal direct.”
No illegality! Herbeck thought. If all he did was identify companies, he wasn’t breaking the law; if he set out the COCOM restrictions every time, he would actually be observing it. “What sort of retainer are we talking about here?”
“Something else I seek your advice about,” lured Belac. “What’s the normal scale?”
Don’t go too high but don’t go too low, either, Herbeck thought. He said, “Again it would depend on the work involved, but I would think something in the region of thirty-five thousand a year.”
The absurdity of paying anyone money like that! Belac kept any reaction from his face and said, “That would be quite acceptable. I would expect to meet your expenses as well.”
Happy days are here again, thought Herbeck. He said, “What more, then, can we talk about?”
“I can’t make a positive decision tonight, you understand,” Belac said. “You’re the first consultant with whom I’ve opened discussions. I have other appointments.”
“I understand,” Herbeck said, miserably. “Is there a number where I could reach you?”
“I’ll call you in a few days,” Belac said.
“I’ll be waiting,” the consultant assured him hopefully.
Belac left the Mark Hopkins and hailed a cab, bitterly regretting the money he was spending on taxis but knowing it was necessary. He paid the vehicle off in San Jose and went on foot through one of the mall entrances to check for any surveillance upon the car. He gave himself an hour, wandering in and out of stores, and finally decided he would have identified the watch had any been imposed.
He hailed a taxi and returned to his motel, ate watery scrambled eggs and drank gray coffee in the motel diner, and reflected
, unamused, that the whole artificial performance could easily be an expensive waste of time.
Belac waited until ten the following morning before ringing Shepherd Industries. There was the briefest of pauses when he identified himself as a representative of Epetric before he was connected to Bernard Shepherd himself. Epetric was sending him from Sweden to resolve the problem of the VAX contract, Belac lied. Could they meet in two days’ time? Shepherd agreed, almost too quickly to have consulted a diary. Noon was convenient to both.
Shepherd’s immediate nerve-jangled reaction was to call Morrison’s San Francisco number, but he had a second thought. The connection to Stockholm was swift, as was the assurance from Epetric’s chairman that no executive of theirs was being sent to California.
The number must have been direct to Morrison’s desk, because the FBI man answered at once.
“It’s worked; he’s coming!” Shepherd announced. And you bastards can get off my back, he thought.
“When!” Morrison asked.
“We’ve arranged a meeting in two days’ time.”
Customs and FBI had their first planning meeting an hour later.
“Maximum airport watch, everywhere we can think of,” said Morrison, addressing the assembled agents. “Let’s not lose the son of a bitch this time.”
O’Farrell had coped so far with the screwing around in Washington but only just. Like so much else on this assignment, it hadn’t happened before. It had always been the same routine: satisfy himself, go in, complete the job, and get out. Clean, expert, no loose ends. Not like this. It was ridiculous for Petty to insist, as the man had insisted on O’Farrell’s second contact from the London embassy, that there was a problem assembling the requested material; in twenty-four hours the CIA could gather together enough weaponry and ordnance to start a war.
O’Farrell had found an answer in keeping himself busy. And not by concentrating on Hampstead or High Holborn or Pimlico; he actually reduced his surveillance there, worried that it might cause suspicion. He did ordinary, even touristy things, instead. He visited the Houses of Parliament and took a river trip on the Thames and saw a ludicrous movie about spies. He changed boardinghouses and rental cars and at the end of the week he carefully worked out the time difference to ensure that Jill would be home and called her collect from a telephone box. She asked when he would be returning and O’Farrell said he wasn’t sure, but soon, he hoped. Patrick appeared to be contesting the alimony in rebuttal, so it looked like a protracted and nasty legal situation and Jill wished he were home. O’Farrell said he wished it, too, and promised to call again, when he had a definite return date.
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