Agent in Place (19 page)

For a moment he felt sorry for them, kindly and blundering as they were. And then he repressed his touch of emotion. Sympathy was treacherous, self-defeating. He had been Americanised, Oleg would say. Next time he heard that, he would have a reply ready for Oleg: “Just part of my job.” Or would he ever meet Oleg again? I hope not, he admitted to himself.

And there she was, in view, exactly on time, sitting at a small table near the window of the café, smooth dark head bent over the
International Herald Tribune
, one hand holding a cigarette, the other about to raise her cup of mid-morning coffee to her lips. She was frowning either in complete concentration on the paper’s English, or in bewilderment over some of the news.

Tony Lawton stepped out of the cool breeze that blew along Menton’s waterfront, entered the café, looked for a vacant table, and chose one a short distance from the girl. She didn’t look up. They had worked together often enough in the past, so that old routines came back quite naturally. He slipped off his leather jacket as he ordered his coffee, and prepared to settle down for a pleasant half-hour like the other Riviera visitors scattered around the room... Naturally, he glanced around him. Naturally, he became aware of the girl. He gave an obvious second-glance, a double-take, and looked both astounded and delighted. “Nicole!” he said, rising and coming over to where she sat.

Nicole’s dark brown eyes stared up at him, at first blankly, and then with astonishment. Pink lips parted in a real smile. “But how extraordinary! What are you doing here?” She spoke in slightly accented English, with emphasis on the “r’s” as any Frenchwoman would.

Now don’t overdo it, darling, Tony admonished her silently. “I’m on holiday—supposed to be sailing along the blue Mediterranean with a couple of friends.” He signalled to his waitress to bring the coffee to this table. “May I?” he asked Nicole as he took the chair opposite her.

“Sailing? What happened to that idea?”

“The engine. It began hiccupping just as we rounded Cap Martin yesterday, so we made for the nearest port, and here we are.”

“Your friends?”

“They are still over at the harbour, trying to fix what has gone wrong. They know boats. Frankly, I don’t. We had hoped to leave today, but the experts aren’t sure about that. I think if we make it out of Menton by tomorrow, we’ll be lucky.”

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” she reminded him. “The week-end is taken seriously here. If your experts aren’t already at work, you’ll be ashore until Monday at least. Why don’t you use the sails? You have sails, I suppose.”

“We’ve already had a taste of a south-easter off Cannes. Thank you, but I’m no enthusiast about sails when the blowing gets rough. But what about you, Nicole? On holiday, too?”

“I live here.”

“You do? So you have deserted Paris?”

“I prefer the weather in Menton. Besides, I have a job. I’m secretary—really a research-assistant—to a writer: an American. W. B. Marriot. You must have heard of him.”

“You know me. I never open a book unless it’s to sign a cheque.” Tony drank the last of his coffee and lifted the two tabs which had been tactfully tucked under a saucer. Prepare to move out, was his unspoken suggestion. “And what is your Mr. Marriot working on now? Or perhaps he is just enjoying a happy life like a thousand other writers and artists on the French Riviera.”

“Côte d’Azur,” Nicole corrected in liquid French. “Actually, Mr. Marriot is writing a script for a movie about the Americans who landed in Menton and joined up with the French Resistance.”

“Way back then?”

“Well, if Dunkirk and Normandy are worth a war movie, so is the Côte d’Azur. In fact, it was a marvellous operation.” She had to laugh at her own enthusiasm.

“So you are now an expert on World War II,” he teased her. He studied the tabs as an added prod: establishing your cover was all very well—and necessary—but it was time for more serious talk.

Nicole got his message, and began folding up the
Tribune
to slip it into her large leather bag.

“And this is your day off?” he went on. “My luck has turned. Let’s have lunch together.”

“It isn’t my day off. I came in to collect the mail and buy some typewriter ribbon.”

“So I see.”

“But I always come here for a cup of coffee when I’m shopping in town,” she protested. “I’ve stayed too long today. Your fault, Tony. I must go.”

“What about dinner tonight?”

She had risen, picking up her cardigan—a bulky thing of giant stitches, the newest chic this spring—and smiled her goodbye to the couple, man and wife, who stood behind the counter. They wished her a warm good-day. The waitress echoed it, politely ignoring the five francs that Tony had dropped beside the tabs on the saucer. Even allowing for the fifteen per cent tip already added to the bill, the prices came high these days. “I’m sorry,” Nicole was saying. “If only I had known you were in Menton, I could have rearranged this evening.”

She began walking to the door, followed by several appraising glances from various tables. She was a fragile-looking girl, small-boned, who could carry the latest fad in fashion: a casual shirt topped by a heavy sweater, covered by an outsize cardigan above a wide skirt, its mid-calf hemline flaring over her long dark-red leather boots. Yes, thought Tony, as he jammed one arm into his jacket and hurried after her, she was very good in every way: a natural part of the prevalent scene. And all her words, chosen carefully, had told any listening ears (possibly innocent in their curiosity, but always interested: a part of the nothing-much-to-do holiday feeling when the weather, if sunny and bright, was still too cool for the beaches) only what the local people already knew and could verify if questioned.

“Well,” he said as he reached the heavy glass door in time to push it open for her, “perhaps you could rearrange something tomorrow?”

“If you are still here,” Nicole said over her shoulder.

Standing on the scrimped sidewalk, jammed tight with rows of empty tables and chairs hopefully set out with bright-patterned table-cloths fluttering in the breeze and hanging on by a miracle, Tony Lawton only paused to zip up his jacket and say, “I’ll walk you wherever you are going.”

“To the market. I parked my car not far from there. It’s a small red Opel, second-hand, just the right price for a secretary’s salary.”

“Which direction? East?”

“Yes. Towards the port.”

Couldn’t be better, he thought. The street, fronting the Mediterranean, was a one-sided affair, with a continuous row of small cafés and bars crowding the sidewalk. On its opposite side there was a promenade edging the shore, only a few strollers now taking the salt air along the wide curve of Menton’s west bay. The port and the market were some distance ahead. Nicole and he would have ample time to talk without any danger of being overheard. And on the promenade they’d be protected, by the constant rush of cars along the narrow street, from any observant eyes across the way in one of the interminable cafés. “Let’s walk by the sea,” he said, catching her arm, choosing a moment when the cars and taxis slackened their pace. They ran, hand in hand. She was laughing as if he had just made one of his better jokes, and he was smiling: two carefree and happy people, not a thing in the world for them to worry about.

* * *

“Well arranged,” he told her when they reached the promenade. He squeezed her hand affectionately as he released his grip. A few couples, women with children, retired people having their morning constitutional, resident English still clinging to their favourite Riviera town in spite of inflation, several visiting foreigners. Not too many at this time of year—today was the last day of February—but enough. In summer this promenade would be pure jammed-up hell. What vacation place wasn’t, nowadays? “Couldn’t be better.”

Nicole’s face, always pale-skinned even in deep-tanning weather, flushed slightly with his compliment. He gave them rarely. “I was worried,” she admitted, “that my description of the café hadn’t been clear enough to let you find it easily.” Now her English was both fluent and perfect, although a Londoner might have quibbled at a touch of American in an occasional phrase. But she had spent four years in New York as well as ten in England. Her French was authentic: she had been born in Paris and lived there for the first fifteen years of her life. Her Russian was better than adequate: her grandparents had come from Moscow, settled in France as Czarist exiles in 1912 and rejected Lenin in 1917 as no solution for any true liberal. Her father was Swiss, and internationally minded. She believed fervently in the necessary survival of the West. And with equal sincerity she saw NATO as its main defence.

“No problem,” Tony assured her. “That yellow-striped awning over the pink and green tablecloths would have been hard to miss.”

“When you called me this morning, I just couldn’t think of any other place where you could find me quite naturally. Was it all right?”

“It was your usual morning routine, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was best to stay with it and raise no questions.” She relaxed then. So now he could get down to business. “And how is our friend?”

The sudden change in Tony’s voice caught her by surprise. “He is well.”

“No new developments?”

“None. He really has recovered. He feels safe here.”

“Has he remembered any further details to pass on to you?”

“No. And I don’t imagine there is anything to add. He was thoroughly debriefed in Genoa.”

Tony nodded. Genoa was where Palladin had stopped running. He had insisted that the NATO team of debriefing experts come to him. He wasn’t going anywhere near Paris or Brussels, or even into Switzerland—all too obvious, all dangerous. He was ill, exhausted, and had come far enough by difficult routes. He had had enough of travel and tension: from Moscow to Odessa, to Istanbul where he made contact with a NATO agent. From Istanbul, his journey had been arranged for him, step by step—to the island of Lesbos by fishing-boat and then on a mail-boat to the Piraeus, with a quick change to a decrepit freighter bound for Brindisi near the heel of Italy. Italians had smuggled him by truck westwards to Reggio, and then north to Naples: another freighter—this time bound for Genoa; and there, in a safe-house, he decided to call a halt for three weeks. He had won that battle of wills. The specialists slipped into Genoa one by one, in order to gather all the information that was still so fresh in his mind. And he had won the second battle too: Menton, just across the French-Italian border, was where he had decided to start his new life.

“And he really is safe,” Nicole went on, “as safe as a man like him can expect to be.” Palladin had been one of the most important NATO agents in Moscow, a top-ranking KGB official. “He has changed his appearance, of course. He will really astound you when you see him.” Then, as Tony still kept silent, she said, “You do want to see him, don’t you?”

“I wish I could. But I think not. Your report will be enough.”

“But—”

“It isn’t necessary. Let’s keep his visitors to a minimum.” Especially the ones who might be traced, at some time, in some way, to NATO Intelligence. Nicole, of course, had been chosen for this assignment because her cover was secure and her connection with NATO unsuspected. W. B. Marriot (“Bill” to his friends) was also unknown to Soviet agents; and his household help, Bernard and Brigitte—a reliable couple from Switzerland, where Bill had supposedly spent the winter—were an efficient part of the team. Palladin completed the W.B. Marriot ménage as chauffeur—his own choice of occupation for his new identity as a French-Italian from Nice, name of Jean Parracini. (Bill carried his arm until recently in a sling, and leaned on a cane when he walked—a skiing accident last winter, the story went. It was obvious to everyone that he needed a driver.)

“But we’ve made arrangements to take care of any special visitors. They’ll bow in as Bill’s associates from the movie world—dropping in to see him for consultations on his new film-script. So, if you want to come up to the villa, it would be safe enough. Look—” she searched in her bag and found a small tourist folder with a map of Menton—“I’ve marked our house, very lightly. It’s a difficult place for strangers to find.”

He knew where it was—high on the eastern side of the town, where houses and gardens were scattered around on a steep hill-slope. But he took the folder without comment and slipped it into his pocket. “And you’ve noticed no unusual interest in you or Bill?”

“Just ordinary French curiosity—no more. It dropped away within two weeks.”

“And no interest in Brigitte or Bernard—or the chauffeur?”

She shook her head. “We’ve been accepted as part of the local scene.”

“And Brigitte and Bernard don’t know Jean Parracini’s real identity? Or any of his past history?”

“Nothing. He insisted on that right from the beginning. And the set-up
is
working. He is very pleased about that.”

“I bet he is. He wrote most of the scenario, didn’t he?” Palladin had insisted on that too, including exchanging his original role as W.B. Marriot the writer, for Bill’s part as Jean Parracini the chauffeur. Tony could see the reason behind Palladin’s change—any interest in the household would be focused on the writer. A chauffeur wouldn’t arouse much local speculation or gossip.

“And you still don’t like it.” She shook her head, half-amused by Tony’s excessive concern.

“There isn’t enough protection for him. It’s too open, too simple. And why did he choose Menton?”

“He says simplicity is his greatest protection. No one will expect him to be living in a busy little resort town with so many approaches.”

“Far too many. It’s impossible to watch them all.” Tony glanced at the small port ahead of them, with its moles and jetties and anchorage for fishing vessels and pleasure-boats. And beyond that crowded harbour, lying at the far eastern end of Menton under the shadow of a giant wall of red cliffs that marked the French-Italian frontier, was a new large marina, filled with yachts and cruisers. The land view was equally disturbing. There was this shore road, linking all the towns along the whole stretch of the French Riviera. And there was the old Corniche, and the new Corniche topping it, each twisting its tricky way along steep hillsides above the coast. And then there was the Marseilles—Genoa expressway, that had been completed three years ago straight across the mountain slopes, way high up there, supported on tall cement legs as it crossed ravines and deep glens, as direct and fantastic as any Roman aqueduct. They all had their own tunnels, too, to let them stream through the red cliffs,
Les Rochers Rouges
, and pour right into Italy. Even the damned railway-line, thought Tony, had its tunnel. “Just too many quick ins and outs,” he said to Menton. “And too many bloody foreigners wandering around.” He glowered briefly at two innocuous visitors from West Germany.