The Gemini Contenders

by Robert Ludlum

  He walked into the bright sunlight on the rue de Bac. He nodded, smiling, at the doorman and shook his head in response to the offer of a taxi.

  “I’m going to the Louvre. I’ll walk, thanks.”

  At the curb he lit a cigarette, turning slightly as if to avoid a breeze, and let his eyes wander over to the large windows of the hotel. Inside, through the glass, obscured by the sun’s reflection, he could see the clerk talking to a man in a light-brown topcoat. Adrian was not certain, but he was fairly sure he had seen that gabardine coat at the airport two hours ago.

  He started east down the rue de Bac, toward the Seine and the Pont Royale bridge.

  The Louvre was crowded. Tourists mingled with bus-loads of students. Adrian climbed the steps past Winged Victory and continued up the staircase to the right, to the second landing, and into the hall of nineteenth-century masters. He fell in with a group of German tourists.

  The Germans moved in unison down to the next painting, a Delacroix. Adrian was now in the center of the group. Keeping his head below the level of the tallest German, he turned and looked between the sagging bodies, beyond the impassive faces. He saw what he was both afraid and wanted to see.

  The light-brown topcoat.

  The man was fifty feet away, pretending to read from a museum pamphlet, relating it to an Ingres in front of him. But he was neither reading nor relating; his eyes kept straying up from the paper to the crowd of Germans.

  The group turned the corner into the intersecting corridor. Adrian was against the wall. He parted the bodies in front of him, excusing himself, until he was past the guide and free of the group. He walked swiftly down the right side of the enormous hall and turned left into a dimly lit room. Tiny spotlights shone down from the dark ceiling on a dozen marble statues.

  It suddenly occurred to him that if the man in the light-brown gabardine topcoat came into that room, there was no way out.

  On the other hand, if the man entered there was no way out for him, either. Adrian wondered which of them had more to lose. He had no answer and so he stood in the shadows at the farthest end of the room, beyond the shafts of light, and waited.

  He could see the group of Germans go past the doorway. Seconds later there was the blur of the light-brown topcoat; the man was running, actually running.

  Adrian went to the door, paused long enough to see the Germans swing left into yet another intersecting corridor, turned right and walked rapidly toward the hall to the stairs.

  The crowds on the staircase were denser than before. There was a contingent of uniformed schoolgirls entering the steps. Behind the girls was the man in the light-brown gabardine topcoat, frustrated in his attempt to pass and reach the steps.

  It was suddenly clear to Adrian. The man had lost him and would wait at the exit.

  There remained the obvious: reach the main doors first.

  Adrian hurried down the steps, doing his best to look unhurried; a man late for a lunch date.

  Out on the steps in front of the entrance a taxi was disgorging four Japanese. An elderly couple, obviously British, was walking across the pavement toward the cab. He ran, overtaking the couple, and reached the taxi first.

  “Dépěchez-vous s’il vous plaît. Très important.”

  The driver grinned and started up the car. Adrian turned in the seat and looked out the rear window. On the steps the man in the light-brown topcoat stood looking up and down, confused and angry.

  “Orly Airport,” ordered Adrian. “Air Afrique.”

  There were more crowds and more lines but the line he was in was short. And nowhere in sight was the light-brown topcoat. No one seemed interested in him at all.

  The Black girl in the Air Afrique uniform smiled at him.

  “I’d like a ticket to Rome on your ten fifteen flight tomorrow morning. The name’s Llewellyn. That’s two l’s in front, two in back, with a y. First class, please, and if it’s possible, I’d like seat location now. I’ll be very rushed in the morning, but hold the reservation. I’ll pay in cash.”

  He walked out the automatic doors of the Orly terminal and hailed another taxi.

  “De Gaulle field, please. SAS.”

  The line was longer, the service slower, there was a man staring at him beyond a row of plastic chairs. There’d been no one looking at him like that in Orly terminal. He wondered; he hoped.

  “Round trip to Stockholm,” he said arrogantly to the SAS attendant behind the counter. “You have a flight tomorrow at ten thirty. That’s the one I want.”

  The attendant looked up from his papers. “I’ll see what we have, sir,” he replied in muted irritation, his accent heavily Scandinavian. “What would be the return date?”

  “I’m not sure, so leave it open. I’m not interested in bargains. The name’s Fontine.”

  Five minutes later the tickets were processed, the payment made.

  “Please be here an hour prior to departure, sir,” said the clerk, smarting under Adrian’s impatience.

  “Of course. Now, there’s a small problem. I have some valuable, very fragile objects in my luggage. I’d like—”

  “We cannot take responsibility for such things,” interrupted the attendant.

  “Don’t be a damn fool. I know you can’t. I just want to make sure you have ‘Fragile’ stickers in Swedish or Norwegian or whatever the hell it is. My bags are easily recognized—”

  He left the de Gaulle terminal convinced he’d alienated a very nice fellow who would complain to his colleagues about him, and got into a taxi.

  “The Hôtel Pont Royale, please. Rue de Bac.”

  Adrian saw him at a table in a small sidewalk café on the rue Dumont. He was an American, drinking white wine, and looked like a student who would nurse a drink because of the price. His age was no problem; he seemed tall enough. Adrian walked up to him.

  “Hello!”

  “Hi,” replied the young man.

  “May I sit down? Buy you a drink?”

  “Hell, why not?”

  Adrian sat. “You go to the Sorbonne?”

  “Nope. L’Ecole des Beaux Arts. I’m a bona-fide, real-life painter. I’ll sketch you for thirty francs. How about it?”

  “No, thanks. But I’ll give you a lot more than that if you’ll do something else for me.”

  The student eyed him suspiciously, distastefully. “I don’t smuggle anything for anybody. You’d better beat it. I’m a very legal type.”

  “I’m more than that. I’m a lawyer. A prosecuting attorney, as a matter of fact. With a card to prove it.”

  “You don’t sound it.”

  “Just hear me out. What can it cost? Five minutes and some decent wine?”

  At nine fifteen in the morning, Adrian emerged from the limousine in front of the glass doors of SAS at de Gaulle terminal. He was dressed in a long, flared Edwardian overcoat of white fabric; he looked like an ass, but he couldn’t be missed. On his head he wore a matching white, wide-brimmed fedora, the cloth pulled down over his face in Barrymore style, his features in shadow. Beneath the hat were huge dark glasses that covered far more than his eyes, and below his chin was a blue silk scarf, billowing above and out of the white coat.

  The uniformed chauffeur scrambled around to the trunk of the limousine, opened it, and called for skycaps to serve his very important passenger. Three large, white leather suitcases were stacked on a hand rack, to Adrian’s complaints that they were being scuffed.

  He strode through the electronically parted doors and up to the SAS counter.

  “I feel like hell!” he said scathingly, conveying the effects of a hangover, “and I would appreciate as little difficulty as possible. I want my luggage to be loaded last; please keep it behind the counter until the final baggage call. It’s done for me all the time. The gentleman yesterday assured me there’d be no trouble.”

  The clerk behind the counter looked bewildered. Adrian slapped his ticket envelope down.

  “Gate forty-two, sir,” the clerk said, handing bac
k the envelope. “Boarding time is at ten o’clock.”

  “I’ll wait over there,” replied Adrian, indicating the line of plastic chairs inside the SAS area. “I meant what I said about the luggage. Where’s the men’s room?”

  At twenty minutes to ten, a tall, slender man in khaki trousers, cowboy boots, and an American army field jacket came through the doors of the terminal. On his face there was a pronounced chin beard; on his head a wide Australian bush hat. He entered the men’s room.

  At eighteen minutes to ten, Adrian got out of the plastic chair and walked across the crowded terminal. He pushed the door marked “Hommes” and entered.

  Inside a toilet stall they awkwardly manipulated the exchange of clothes.

  “This is weird, man. You swear there’s nothing in that crazy coat?”

  “It’s not even old enough to have lint.… Here are the tickets, go to gate forty-two. You can throw away the baggage stubs, I don’t care. Unless you want the suitcases; they’re damned expensive. And clean.”

  “In Stockholm no one busts me. You guarantee.”

  “As long as you use your own passport and don’t say you’re me. I gave you my tickets, that’s all. You’ve got my note to prove it. Take my word for it, nobody’ll press you. You don’t know where I am and there’s no warrant. There’s nothing.”

  “You’re a nut. But you’ve paid my tuition for a couple of years, plus some nice living expenses. You’re a good nut.”

  “Let’s hope I’m good enough. Hold the mirror for me.” Adrian pressed the beard on his chin; it adhered quickly. He studied the results and, satisfied, put on the bush hat, pulling it down on the side of his head. “Okay, let’s go. You look fine.”

  At eleven minutes to ten, a man in a long white coat, matching white hat, blue scarf, and dark glasses strode past the SAS desk toward gate forty-two.

  Thirty seconds later a bearded young man—obviously American—in a soiled field jacket, khaki trousers, cowboy boots, and bush hat slipped out the door of the men’s room, turned sharply left into the crowds, and headed for the exit door. Out on the pavement he rushed to a waiting taxi, got in and removed the beard.

  “The name’s Llewellyn!” he shouted to the Air Afrique attendant at the lectern by the departure gate. “I’m sorry I’m late; did I make it?”

  The pleasant-faced Black smiled and replied in a French accent. “Just barely, monsieur. We’ve given the last call. Do you have any hand luggage?”

  “Not a thing.”

  At twenty-three minutes past ten, the ten fifteen Air Afrique flight to Rome taxied out toward runway seven. By ten twenty-eight it was airborne. It was only thirteen minutes late.

  The man who called himself Llewellyn sat by the window, the bush hat on his left in the adjacent, empty first-class seat. He felt the hardening globules of facial cement on his chin, and he rubbed them in a kind of wonder.

  He had done it. Disappeared.

  The man in the light-brown topcoat boarded the SAS flight to Stockholm at ten twenty-nine. Departure was delayed. As he walked toward the economy section, he passed the fashionably dressed passenger in the long white overcoat and matching white hat. He thought to himself that the man he followed was a fucking idiot. Who did he think he was, wearing that outfit?

  By ten fifty the flight to Stockholm was airborne. It was twenty minutes late, not unusual. The man in the economy section had removed his topcoat and was seated in the forward area of the cabin, diagonally behind the target of his surveillance. When the curtains were parted—as they were now—he could see the subject clearly.

  Twelve minutes into the flight the pilot turned off the seat-belt sign. The fashionably dressed subject in the first-class section rose from his aisle seat and removed the long white overcoat and matching white hat.

  The man diagonally behind in the economy section bolted forward in his seat, stunned.

  “Oh, shit,” he muttered.

  27

  Andrew peered through the windshield at the sign caught in the dull wash of the headlights. It was dawn but pockets of fog were everywhere.

  MILANO 5 KM.

  He had driven through the night, renting the fastest car he could find in Rome. The journey at night minimized the risk of being followed. Headlights were giveaways on long stretches of dark roads.

  But he had not expected to be followed. In Rock Creek Park, Greene said he was marked. What the Jew did not know was that if IG wanted him that quickly, they could have picked him up at the airport. The Pentagon knew exactly where he was; a cable from the secretary of the army had brought him back from Saigon.

  So the word to take him had not been given. That it would within days, perhaps hours, was not the issue; of course it would. But he was the son of Victor Fontine. The Pentagon would not be hasty issuing any formal orders for arrest. The army did not bring charges against a Rockefeller or a Kennedy or a Fontine lightly. The Pentagon would insist on flying back the Eye Corps officers for corroborating testimony. The Pentagon would leave nothing to chance or error.

  Which meant he had the time to get out. For by the time the army was prepared to move, he would be in the mountains tracing a vault that would change the ground rules as they had never been changed before.

  Andrew stepped on the accelerator. He needed sleep. A professional knew when the body hungered for rest in spite of the high-pitched moment, and the eyes became aware of their sockets. He would find a small boardinghouse or country inn and sleep for most of the day. Late in the afternoon he would drive north to Campo di Fiori and find a picture on the wall. The first clue in the search for a vault buried in the mountains.

  He drove by the crumbling stone gates of the entrance without slowing down, and continued for several miles. He allowed two cars to pass him, observing the drivers; they were not interested in him. He turned around and went past the gates a second time. There was no way to tell what was inside; whether there were any security measures—trip alarms or dogs. All he could see was a winding paved road that disappeared into the woods.

  The sound of an automobile on that road would be its own alarm. He could not chance that; he had no intention of announcing his arrival at Campo di Fiori. He slowed the car down, and turned into the bordering woods, driving as far off the road as possible.

  Five minutes later he approached the gates. By habit he checked for wires and photoelectric cells; there were none, and he passed through the gates and walked down the road cut out of the woods.

  He stayed at the edge, concealed by the trees and the overgrowth until he was in sight of the main house. It was as his father had described: more dead than alive.

  The windows were dark, no lamps were on inside. There should have been. The house was in shadows. An old man living alone needed light; old men did not trust their eyes. Had the priest died?

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came the sound of a voice, high-pitched and plaintive. Then footsteps. They came from the road beyond the north bend of the drive; the road he remembered his father describing as leading to the stables. Fontine dropped to the ground, below the level of the grass, and remained motionless. He raised his head by inches; he waited and watched.

  The old priest came into view. He was wearing a long black cassock and carried a wicker basket. He spoke out loud, but Andrew could not see who he was talking to. Nor could he understand the words. Then the monk stopped and turned and spoke again.

  There was a reply. It was rapid, authoritative, in a language Fontine did not immediately recognize. Then he saw the monk’s companion and instantly appraised him as one might an adversary. The man was large, the shoulders wide and heavy, encased in a camel’s hair jacket above well-tailored slacks. The last rays of the sun illuminated both men; not well—the light was at their backs—but enough to distinguish the faces.

  Andrew concentrated on the younger, powerfully built man walking behind the priest. His face was large, the eyes wide apart, beneath light brows and a tanned forehead that set off short, sun-bleached hai
r. He was in his middle forties, certainly no more. And the walk: It was that of a deliberate man, capable of moving swiftly, but not anxious for observers to know it. Fontine had commanded such men.

  The old monk proceeded toward the marble steps, shifting the small basket to his left arm, his right hand lifting the folds of his habit. He stopped on the top step and turned again to the younger man. His voice was calmer, resigned to the layman’s presence or instructions or both. He spoke slowly and Fontine had no trouble now recognizing the language. It was Greek.

  As he listened to the priest he reached another, equally obvious conclusion. The powerfully built man was Theodore Annaxas Dakakos. He is a bull.

  The priest continued across the wide marble porch to the doors; Dakakos climbed the steps and followed. Both men went inside.

  Fontine lay in the grass on the border of the drive for several minutes. He had to think. What brought Dakakos to Campo di Fiori? What was here for him?

  And as the questions formed, the single answer was apparent. Dakakos, the loner, was the unseen power here. The conversation that had just taken place in the circular drive was not a conversation between strangers.

  What had to be established was whether Dakakos had come alone to Campo di Fiori. Or had he brought his own protection, his own firepower? There was no one in the house, no lights in the windows, no sounds from inside. That left the stables.

  Andrew scrambled backward in the wet grass until all sightlines from the windows were blocked by the over-growth. He rose behind a clump of bushes and removed a small Beretta revolver from his pocket. He climbed the embankment above the drive and estimated the angle of the stable road across the knoll. If Dakakos’s men were in the stables, it would be a simple matter to eliminate them. Without gunfire; that was essential. The weapon was merely a device; men collapsed under its threat.