O’Farrell chose local brandy, harsh to his throat. The glass wobbled with the unsteadiness of his hands as he lifted it, like the glass had the previous night. Watch, he thought; he’d have to watch and see it happen. Hear the roar and see the metal tear and split and know a body was being torn and split and—
No! He wouldn’t do it! Never again! It wasn’t right; it had never been right, and he’d always known it. Why so long! Why had he for so long postured about patriotism and hidden justice, and sought parallels with a long-dead relative when there weren’t any parallels! He didn’t know; so much he didn’t know. Or want to know. Maybe he could rationalize it, in time. Rationalize but never excuse it. What about now, this very moment? That was the pressing consideration, the problem he had to solve first. There was a way out. Simple, in fact, Easy. Perhaps not the way to conclude his active career in the eyes of a very few people back in Washington—Petty and Erickson and the others he knew existed, although he didn’t know who they were—but that’s all. Very few indeed. They might suspect, he supposed. It was practically inevitable that they would suspect. But suspicion wasn’t proof, and there certainly wouldn’t be any proof. He’d ensure that well enough. Nothing they would be able to do. Nothing at all.
O’Farrell gestured for another drink, sure that already there was less movement in his hands. He certainly felt better; felt great. He’d have to make the right moves, in their proper order. Petty first then. Describe the supposed plan and stress the problems as strongly as possible, without making it sound like excuses in advance. Ask for the explosives and timing device at the same time. Then reserve a car. All so easy, so incredibly easy. He was free! It became another word to lodge in his mind. That was exactly how he did feel, free of a burden physically grinding him down, like a weight that was too great for him to support anymore. Overly dramatic, O’Farrell decided. But just how it was.
O’Farrell telephoned the embassy to advise that he was on his way, instinctively cautious on an open link, so the station chief was waiting when he arrived. The air conditioner had broken, and Lewis was redder-faced than before, puffing in his distress.
“Sometimes it’s days before they fix it,” the man complained. “You don’t know what it’s like to be without it until you don’t have it.”
“I can imagine,” O’Farrell said sympathetically. Preparing the ground for any later inquiry from Langley or Petty, he said, “You were certainly right about security. The Spanish are locking this place up tighter than a drum.”
“Trying to,” the fat man qualified. “Something will happen. Mark my words.”
“You warned the State Department?” O’Farrell pressed.
“Three separate memoranda,” Lewis said. “The Secret Service increased their escort because of it.”
A bonus, O’Farrell reflected. The secure communication area was in the basement of the embassy and the clear telephones were isolated in small cubicles. The lack of air-conditioning made it ovenlike. The connection, as always, was immediate. As he invariably did at the beginning of such contact, Petty remained completely silent while O’Farrell talked himself out. This time Petty was waiting for O’Farrell to make some reference to Belac’s death, in Holland, but there was nothing. He shook his head to Erickson, on the other side of the room.
“A lot of obstacles,” Petty agreed.
“A car bomb is the only way,” O’Farrell said.
“Just like London,” Petty mused. “That’s not a bad idea; it’ll send the investigators around in circles.”
“Semtex explosive, like before,” O’Farrell requested. “And a remote control, like I said.”
“In tonight’s pouch,” the division head promised. “I’m sorry there wasn’t time for more preparation.”
O’Farrell took the opening. “To be absolutely safe I needed it.”
“You’ve got all the routes and timings?”
“Yes.”
“Check them thoroughly, every morning and night,” Petty instructed. “Those schedules can screw up.”
“Of course,” O’Farrell said.
“You got the job,” Petty said.
The announcement was so abrupt and O’FarreH’s mind so occupied elsewhere that initially he did not comprehend what he was being told. “What?”
“Your promotion here, to join Erickson and me. It’s been confirmed.”
“That’s wonderful news,” O’Farrell managed, his throat working up and down. How could it be! There was no moral difference between initiating a killing in the comfort of a Washington office and carrying it out in some backstreet part of the world. One thing at a time, he told himself; concentrate upon evading this assignment before worrying about anything else.
“Congratulations,” Petty said. “We’re looking forward to your joining us. You take care now, you hear?”
Practically an invitation for what he intended to do! O’Farrell thought He said, “You know I will.”
“All luck.”
“Thanks.”
O’Farrell left the embassy, still promising to drink sometime with Lewis, deciding he might as well occupy the afternoon renting the car. He ignored the big agencies, as he had in London. On the outskirts of the city, on the road toward Las Rozas, he rented a Seat from a broken-toothed garage owner grateful for the cash transaction, and considered himself lucky to make it back to central Madrid. The drinking that night was quite different from before. It was for pleasure, relaxation, and not for oblivion, and although he had a bottle of wine with dinner and brandy afterward, O’Farrell went to bed feeling quite sober.
The following day, the last before the conference began, O’Farrell repeated his earlier surveillance and climbed the incline toward the embassy, knowing that the brief moment of Rivera’s car slowing upon entry and departure really would have been the only opportunity had he intended going through with it. It would, of course, be necessary to continue making it appear that he was: monitor the daily movements, as Petty advised, and create the bomb and park the Seat in the street he had selected. There was always the possibility of a watch squad that he hadn’t bothered this time to locate, and they would have to support his account that he’d done everything possible before aborting the attempt because his own detection and seizure would have been inevitable. The taking care that Petty had insisted upon.
O’Farrell hid himself among a small crowd watching Rivera’s departure that first morning and, afterward, in his hotel room, watched the television coverage of the formal opening, although he couldn’t understand the commentary. He saw Rivera on three occasions, each time enclosed by security men. He checked the man in and out of the embassy during the luncheon adjournment, saw more television coverage in the afternoon, and was standing on the pavement again in the evening when Rivera returned. It was interesting, O’Farrell reflected, that the scheduled timings had been remarkably accurate, the only difference being in the evening, and that by Rivera being just two minutes late.
The sealed, eyes-only package containing the Semtex and the timer would be at the embassy by now. It would be wrong if he didn’t collect them sometime the following day. He’d do it after seeing Rivera away. It would mean his carrying a bomb around a city on full security alert, but by itself Semtex looked like gray cement, and he could leave it in the trunk. The timer he would keep in his room, a rather elaborate alarm clock to anything but the closest of examinations.
O’Farrell was awake early, once more without any discomfort from .the previous night’s intake, setting out in good time for what was becoming routine. He was attracted by a perfume shop on the opposite side of the road and crossed, spending several minutes looking at the window selection, trying to decide upon a present for Jill. Definitely perfume, because she enjoyed perfume. And something for Ellen, too. Her birthday, he remembered; the birthday for which Billy had been saving. They could say it was from both of them.
The window-shopping had delayed him and the crowd had already formed ahead as he approached. He was still about
thirty yards away when the gates of the embassy opened and the diplomatic vehicles began emerging. The timing’s off today, thought O’Farrell. Rivera’s car was just clear of the entrance when the explosion came, a window-shattering eruption with an immediate after-punch blast of air that knocked him heavily into the bordering wall. Rivera’s limousine disintegrated in front of his eyes: O’Farrell was just able, to its left, to see the other car that had formed the bomb, its cratered and burning shell visible through the debris and dust.
O’Farrell’s training automatically took over. He rebounded off the wall, already turning to get away from a scene of violence. What the hell! What or who in the name of Christ had—
It was as far as O’Farrell’s bewilderment ever got. The shot was perfect, absolutely professional, a spread-on-impact, high-velocity shell that caught him midchest, gouging the life from him. It was too quick for there to be the slightest pain. He was dead before his body landed, half on the pavement, half on the road. But his face was frozen by shock. His eyes were wide open, staring, an expression of astonishment.
THIRTY-FOUR
IT WAS the first bad day of a Washington autumn, gray and sullen with a spiteful wind strong enough to howl through the larger catafalques and burial vaults. There was a lot of security because of the Secretary of State’s attendance, secret servicemen with their walkie-talkies and earpieces standing point around the entire grave area. The official cars had been allowed to pull very close, a further precaution, but McCarthy’s vehicle, a long stretch limousine to accommodate all the people, had been allowed to park on a promontory separate from the rest. Against the smoke-glassed windshield were attached sufficient passes and official clearances to allow it to go anywhere it wanted.
There were five men in the vehicle. All were dressed solemnly, although just short of funeral black. The elevation of the vehicle enabled them to see everything.
“There’s the family,” Petty said as a group got from one of the huddled cars and slowly led the way to the grave edge. “Billy’s the one to the right.”
The boy was in fact holding his mother’s hand and weeping bitterly. Ellen was walking with difficulty, trying to support her head-bowed, sobbing mother on her other arm. John was helping on the other side, and Beth was holding tightly to their son. Mother and son were crying, too.
“You put the fix in, with Chicago?” McCarthy asked.
Petty nodded. “Patrick’s payments are being computer-monitored. There’s no chance of his falling behind.”
“That’s good,” the Plans director said absently.
There was a flurry of movement from cameramen as the Secretary of State and his party came into shot with the family.
“We can’t go down there. We could be photographed too easily,” Sneider said from behind the wheel. He was driving because of the need for absolute security within the vehicle.
“I’m still not sure that O’Farrell had cracked completely, that he would have fouled up some way,” Petty said. “He’d made all the right moves.”
“He would have cracked,” Lambert said, with quiet, expert insistence. “My guess is that he wouldn’t have fouled up; he was still too good for that. My guess is that in the end he wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
“We owe a lot to you, doctor,” McCarthy said, the architect of everything that had happened. “If it hadn’t been for you, O’Farrell would have stayed a basket case after London, and none of the rest would have been possible. Not so perfectly as it has turned out.”
“He certainly developed a strong dependence,” Lambert agreed modestly. “It was too strong for him to continue on his own anymore. The doubt was too deep.”
“So often the way it happens.” McCarthy sighed.
“He was doing every thing he should have done in Ma drid,” Erickson insisted, coming out in support of his division chief.
“What was the point in taking the risk!” McCarthy said, with strained patience. “This way everything is boxed and tied with ribbon. Rivera’s dead, as we intended. The speculation about the who’s and why’s of that killing will go on for weeks, and every day it’ll act as the warning we always planned it to be to Havana. And in Spanish custody is a man provably a Soviet assassin; it doesn’t matter a damn that the guy won’t talk or admit anything. They got him in the room with the gun still in his hand, for Christ’s sake! It fits perfectly with the history of O’Farrell’s mother; Moscow pursuing relentlessly the son of a nationalist dissident. We can even seed the doubt that the murder-suicide verdict on the parents was wrong. That their deaths were Soviet orchestrated, too …” McCarthy looked at Petty, as the doubter. “You see anything hanging loose from that?”
Petty wished he could. He still believed absolutely in the correctness of what he and his department had to do, but this was the first time they’d turned on one of their own people. It frightened him. He said, “I agree it wraps everything up.”
“Maneuvering the Soviet involvement and then alerting the Spanish authorities was brilliant,” Sneider said syco-phantically, stroking McCarthy’s favorite hobbyhorse.
“Didn’t I say that’s what the Russians would do when we leaked O’Farrell as the killer of Leonid Makarevich?” McCarthy said.
The arrested Soviet assassin was named Vladimir Kopalin, Petty knew. He knew, too, that the Agency had monitored the man’s arrival in Madrid and watched him stalk O’Farrell and let it happen: wanted it to happen. He said, “We’re going to keep O’Farrell’s State Department appointment, right? It wasn’t just a way to guarantee the media hype by getting the Secretary of State here today?”
“Sure, why not?” The Plans director shrugged. “That way Mrs. O’Farrell collects a nice fat pension as well as the insurance.”
“What about the new man, who really took Rivera out?” Lambert queried.
“What about him?” Erickson demanded. He was as unsettled as Petty.
“He okay?”
“He said it was easy; called it a piece of cake,” Petty reported. “Actually it was the way suggested by O’Farrell.…” He paused and added defiantly, ‘The way he was going to do it.”
Lambert appeared to miss the jab. He said, “We’d better tell Symmons to keep an eye on him. Let’s not recruit someone who enjoys it. That’s dangerous.”
“I thought everything we did was dangerous,” Petty said. He felt oppressed within the limousine and desperately wanted a pipe. Below them, through the protectively black windows, he saw that the interment was almost over. The mourners were shifting, about to leave, and the limousine drivers were standing ready to open the doors. Abruptly Petty announced, “I’m going down to speak to her.”
“That’s not wise,” Sneider said.
“A lot of things aren’t,” Petty said. “I’ll make my own way back.”
He left the car before there could be any more objection, shivering at once as the wind cut through his topcoat. It was too strong to attempt lighting a pipe, he realized miserably. He shrugged his collar up further and took a pathway to bring him out by the other official cars, as if he had emerged from one of them.
The family group were still some way away when he got there and he hung back from the media rush as the Secretary of State spoke briefly to them. Mrs. O’Farrell was shiny-faced and very red around the eyes, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She didn’t appear to speak a lot, hardly at all, but nodded and even smiled faintly at what was being said to her.
Petty waited until the woman had almost reached her car before stepping forward. “Mrs. O’Farrell?”
Jill hesitated, looking toward him, waiting.
“I knew your husband; worked with him,” Petty said, awkwardly. “I wanted you to know how sorry I am.”
“Thank you,” said the woman. Her voice was quite resolute.
“You’ll have all the State Department material: telephone numbers and references. If you need any help, please use them.” State would automatically channel any communication through to him.
“I’ll remember that,” Jill promised. “I’m thinking of selling out here and moving to Chicago. I’ve a daughter there, you know.”
“No,” Petty lied. “I didn’t know. It would probably be a good idea.”
“There’s a church in Evanston that’s been very kind to me since it happened,” Jill said, the dam unblocked, wanting to talk now. “We attended church regularly, Charles and I. We both found it a comfort.”
Petty’s throat moved and he was glad his coat collar was high. “Yes,” he said inadequately. Beside her the child he knew to be Billy had stopped crying, too, but the breath was going into him in sobs that made his tiny shoulders shudder. “Please don’t forget,” Petty urged. “Any problem at all, just get in touch.”
“Yes,” Jill said.
Petty doubted that she would. He pulled away and watched until her car led the cortege out of the cemetery, eventually following toward the exit. He was quite close before he realized the figure there was Erickson, hunched for protection by the gate pillar.
“I thought we could get a cab back together,” the man said.
“I didn’t like that,” Petty declared. “I didn’t like that one little bit.”
Erickson began waving for a cab. “McCarthy says he wants to talk. Another assignment, I guess. He said it was important.”
“Aren’t they all?” Petty queried wearily. It wasn’t until he was inside the cab and it was moving away that he realized it was festooned with No Smoking stickers.
Everything was completely alien to Jorge; he could remember none of it. It was very hot and his clothes stuck to him and the streets stank of sewage and gas fumes, making his chest tighten. He’d been escorted from England by a woman as well as a man from the Foreign Ministry. She kept trying to hold him and he wished she wouldn’t.
“Your father is a hero,” the man said in the car taking them from the airport. “He is to be honored. There is already a place for you in a state academy.”
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