Labyrinth (25 page)

“I'm impressed,” Locke said, glancing around him.

The Dwarf followed his eyes. “This structure was originally built to protect Grand Duke Ferdinand I. I appropriated it recently because it remains a superb defensive fortress. You can't be too careful these days.”

“Especially with the information you possess.”

The Dwarfs eyes dimmed. “I possess much information, Mr. Locke, and every piece of it brands me someone's enemy. In my business there are no friends, only associates. No matter. People have never done anything but disdain me. So I turned to art and history. There I found a refuge where size didn't matter and prejudice never entered in. You should see my villa, Mr. Locke. I make vast sums of money and great portions of it go into the purchase of original art treasures. There are days when I do nothing else but stare at them, trying to appreciate their fantastic beauty. They are timeless and exquisite, a welcome relief from my dealings with men.” The Dwarf took a deep breath. “But you have not come all this way to listen to my ramblings. We shall get out of this hot sun. You look thirsty.”

Locke kept his pace slow to allow the Dwarf to keep up with him. The little man's legs were turned outward at the knees, and Locke detected a slight grimace with each step. But not a single complaint emerged from his host's lips. They moved into the cool shade provided by the tent and sat down at a table. The Dwarf's guards backed off a little but their eyes remained alert.

“What would you like to drink?” the Dwarf asked.

“Anything cold and nonalcoholic.”

“Two iced teas,” the Dwarf called behind him. “Bring a pitcher.” Then his eyes returned to Locke. “You have nothing to fear from my guards. They are here to ward off any assault on the part of the Committee.”

Locke tried to wet his lips, but his tongue was also dry. “You know that's why I've come here.”

“Dogan hinted as much but I wasn't sure until I saw the fear in your eyes when I mentioned their name. The Committee is quite good at stirring fear in men's souls, though few live long enough to express it. My compliments in that respect, Mr. Locke.”

Chris shrugged his thanks. “Felderberg believed you'd know much about them. He sent me to you just as he sent my friend Lubeck.”

“And now both of them are dead. An unfortunate legacy.”

“I don't plan on joining them.”

“And you won't if I can help it. But first you must highlight for me what you have learned so far.”

When Chris finished, the Dwarf was nodding. “You are to be complimented on your resourcefulness, Mr. Locke, and now I will tell you just what I told your friend. But beware of information. It's like an anchor. After you have dragged it from the water, it must be carried on your back.”

Strangely, Locke didn't feel frightened, just more determined. “But the weight can be spread out. Knowledge can balance it.”

The Dwarf looked impressed. “Spoken like a true scholar.”

“A long time ago I used to be a college professor.”

“I know,” said the Dwarf with a slight smile.

A burly man set down a tray containing two glasses and a pitcher misted with ice. He filled both glasses with iced tea, allowing several cubes to slide out and clink together.

“I was never involved with the Committee in a direct sense,” the Dwarf began. “I was one of many middlemen retained by them for a specific purpose, in this case to provide sensitive information pertaining to certain South American leaders.”

“For purposes of blackmail?”

“And assassination. Sooner or later the land deals Felderberg spoke of had to be extended beyond paper transactions into active development. At that point governments would raise questions, present barriers, create inconveniences.” The Dwarf sipped his tea. “Consider, Mr. Locke, that the Committee is trying to achieve in South America what no one has ever dared attempt before: the fullest development of its agricultural resources. But the land is spread out, much of it isolated. To achieve their full goal of production and export, then, a strong central organization was necessary, apart from and above the governments of the individual nations. They needed
absolute
control.”

“So leaders were replaced.”

“Entire governments were toppled. Check the pattern of communist-terrorist activities in that part of the world. It was too precise, too organized to be random.”

“Organized by the Soviets, most thought.”

“Which is exactly what the Committee wanted people to think. The Soviets were responsible for enough of it to provide the screen, and they deny everything anyway. The Committee has mastered the art of misdirection. That explains how they have survived unnoticed for so long. Much of the unrest in South America was arranged by the Committee to distract attention from what was really going on.”

“And to place puppet leaders in positions where they could manipulate decisions and affect policy.”

“All toward the successful end of the operation you have stumbled upon,” the Dwarf completed. “Exactly, Mr. Locke. I'm impressed with the degree of expertise you've gained.”

Chris took several large gulps of his iced tea and reached for the pitcher. “Desperation makes a better teacher than I could ever be.”

The Dwarf leaned forward. “And now we come to the greatest lesson of all: What was the Committee to do about North America? Here they were with millions of farmable acres and a means of turning them full of crops almost overnight. Yet the United States presented a seemingly impenetrable obstacle, for how could they possibly hope to compete with the world's greatest crop producer? A factor was missing.”

“Something to do with the U.S. no doubt.”

“Yes,” the Dwarf acknowledged. “Its economic destruction.”

Chapter 20

THE GLASS OF
iced tea supped and tilted in Chris's hand. A pair of ice cubes toppled over the side to the ground below.

“Understand, Mr. Locke,” the Dwarf continued, “I have no proof of this, only speculation. But the evidence exists and it is overwhelming. To begin with, the Committee has been moving its vast deposits from U.S. banks for some time now. The process has been too gradual to stand out, but billions and billions have been either withdrawn or divested from U.S. holdings. Much of the money has shown up in Euro-dollar transfers and in new accounts from England to Switzerland. But more has been used to purchase gold, diamonds, silver, even oil resources, along with tremendous quantities of land all over the world.”

“All natural resources …”

“As if an impending collapse of the dollar-based economy was imminent.”

“Inevitable because the Committee made it so. But how?”

“That I don't know,” the Dwarf replied. “All I have is a word one of my people stumbled upon in the course of work:
Tantalus
.”

Locke's eyebrows flickered. “Greek mythology …”

“Then the term is familiar to you.”

Locke nodded. “The Gods punished Tantalus for his crimes by placing him chin-deep in water he couldn't drink. Over his head were fruit-filled branches he couldn't reach. It's where the word tantalize comes from.”

“Yes,” added the Dwarf, “and as I recall the punishment was to last for eternity.”

“With no chance for a reprieve. But what does that tell us about the Committee's plan?”

“Their recent financial resettlements indicate a plot to render the United States as helpless as Tantalus was in determining its own fate.”

“Food,” Locke muttered. “The allusions all come back to food. Food that can't be eaten, lying out of reach for …”

“Eternity,” the Dwarf completed.

Locke returned to Rome some hours later on a private plane arranged for by the Dwarf. The shape of what he was facing was clear now, and he found himself more frightened than ever.

Tantalus
… .

The Dwarf's portrait of the Committee painted them as invulnerable. This was the ultimate criminal organization, for its crimes lay less in action than in the ways in which forces around them were manipulated. Those ways were always subtle, the shadowy sub-layer behind them hiding their true intentions behind screen after screen.

In the cab from the airport to the Rome Hilton, Locke determined Dogan was probably in San Sebastian by then and his family was God knows where. It was afternoon in Washington. If all was well, Greg would be dragging through the last hours of school thinking about baseball practice, Whitney would be passing notes in math, Bobby would be pounding out guitar riffs, and Beth would be showing a house in Bethesda. Locke prayed that was the way things were because it would mean the Committee hadn't touched them.

He'd know for sure soon enough, because he was heading home. As soon as Dogan reached Rome, Chris would advise him of his plans and refuse to be talked out of them. Charney had told him to trust no one. The arguments had seemed valid when the enemy had been merely a shadowy outline. But now that enemy had taken a shape that held terrifying implications. Someone in Washington would listen. Information relayed by the Dwarf and Felderberg could be confirmed. The Committee would not be allowed to condemn the world to the fate of Tantalus.

Locke checked into the Hilton exhausted, craving a shower and a long sleep with the air conditioning turned on high. He had only the one bag from the Vaduz Station locker that Dogan had returned to him, so he told the desk clerk a bellhop would be unnecessary; the fewer people who saw him, the better.

His room was on the sixth floor, and in his fatigue he neglected to press the proper button in the elevator until it stopped on two. Four floors later he moved thoughtlessly for his room. The key slid in easily, the door just clearing the carpet as he swung it open.

A light was on in the far corner. A shape was seated not far from it.

“Good evening, Mr. Locke,” greeted the shape.

Panic seized Chris and blood rushed to his head. He swung quickly back toward the door and found himself facing the biggest man he had ever seen.

The giant stepped forward. Locke moved backward. The giant, a grinning Chinese wearing a white suit, closed the door and threw the bolt.

“We have some business to transact, Mr. Locke” came the voice of the shape, and Locke turned back toward it. The speaker was on his feet now. He was a tall, striking man with perfectly styled jet-black hair and dark eyes. A cigarette in a gold holder danced in his right hand. The man pressed the cigarette out in an ashtray. His features were not American, European, or Oriental but somehow a combination of all three.

“Who are you?”

“Ah.” The dark man smiled and Locke felt the giant draw up close to his rear. “The standard question. Who I am doesn't matter,” the man continued. “I suspect you know who I represent.”

Locke said nothing.

“The Committee is most unhappy with this crusade you've been waging. We thought we'd give you the opportunity to agree to a business arrangement between us. You possess some information we wish to purchase.”

Locke held his ground, coiling his fingers into fists to still their trembling. Escape was clearly impossible. His greatest weapon was his calm,
if
he could keep it.

“A purchase implies you have something to offer in return,” he said coolly.

“An accurate analysis.” The dark man's eyes moved toward the giant. “Show him, Shang.”

Locke turned in time to see the Chinese giant pull a handkerchief from his pocket. He unraveled the layers and held it forward for Locke to see its contents.

Chris saw the blood first, dried and purple, and then the object.

Bile bubbled in his throat. The object was a small finger with a—

“Oh, my God!”

—ring still wedged past the middle joint. Greg's Little League championship ring.

“We offer the life of your son,” Mandala said flatly.

But Locke had already sank to his knees, opening his mouth for a scream that was choked off by the giant's hand.

The jeep crept down the last of the desolate stretch toward what remained of San Sebastian. Dogan could still smell the residue from the fire in the air, could feel the death it had brought in the hot wind. The closer the jeep drew to the site of the massacre, the more uncomfortable he became.

At the wheel was Marna Colby, a CIA operative who had spent the last four years at substations throughout South America and the six before that working under Dogan at Division Six. There were few women he had ever allowed himself to become attracted to; Marna was one of them because she tempered tenderness with strength. Dogan responded best to strength and a woman who showed it. Marna was as brave and skillful an operative as he'd ever worked with, and he had genuinely lamented her reassignment, both for her talents in the field and in bed. For Dogan, sex had seldom proved fulfilling. Marna provided an exception. But sex was the furthest thing from their minds now.

The jeep had behaved like a loyal animal, pushing past or climbing over debris tossed into the road by the fire. One mile before they reached the remains of the town, the vehicle met its match in a series of huge branches charred black as charcoal. They climbed out and started walking.

“Why so much interest from Division over a dead town?” Marna prodded Dogan. “I know we're the last to hear things down here but if San Sebastian's important, I should have been informed.”

“The interest isn't Division's, it's mine. And the interest comes from the hope that the dead might be able to tell me what the living can't.”

“It's good you're not expecting to find anyone alive. The fire got them all.”

“Something else got them all. The fire was just a cover.”

Dogan's grim tone silenced her as much as his words. They continued walking, and with each step Dogan felt his heart thudding harder. Death was something you never got used to, and he could feel the agony of those butchered in the hail of bullets Lubeck had described. Maybe their ghosts walked the charred land. Maybe they could tell him what the hell it all meant.