Labyrinth (6 page)

Three days into the exercise, Locke chose a path that formed a shortcut through part of the complex. The quicker they got out, the quicker the exercise would end. Lubeck resisted, urging caution. Locke was hearing none of that and started down the path, alert and ready, he thought, for anything.

The ground split beneath him thirty yards later, a ragged crevice that shook and rumbled. Chris managed to hold fast to the surface only to realize with horror that the crevice was closing, threatening to crush him. Then Lubeck was reaching down for the collar of his jacket, lifting with incredible strength as the vise continued to tighten. Locke's breath had been squeezed away but at least he was rising, safe, he thought, until the vice closed on the lower portion of his leg.

He screamed in agony as Lubeck's meaty left hand reached lower to free his jammed calf and foot. The crevice continued to close, jagged halves starting to meet once more. Only his foot was still trapped. Chris jerked it free with the last of his strength.

Another scream punctured the woods, Lubeck's this time. His left hand, the one that had saved Chris's life, was wedged in the crevice an instant away from locking tight once more. Locke fought frantically to free the Luber's hand, though there seemed no space left to yank it through. He found a gap in the crevice wall and pulled with all his might.

Lubeck's scream bubbled his ears.

The hand came free, a sickening mass of crushed bones and flesh, painted red from areas where the skin had receded altogether. Chris covered it immediately with a spare sweater. Lubeck slipped into shock and then passed out, regaining consciousness only sporadically in the day and a half that followed as Locke carried him through the mazelike woods, skirting obstacle after obstacle. Lubeck was rushed to a hospital from the base camp. Doctors saved his life but not his hand. Chris quit the Academy a week later, his drive gone, indecision and guilt replacing it.

He plunged back into the unvarying, uncomplicated world of college and academic rigors to pursue his masters and later his doctorate. Ivy-covered walls were as good a place to hide behind as any, insulated from the outside world if nothing else. A series of teaching positions followed, Chris never quite finding what he was looking for and inevitably moving on or being forced to.

He met Beth when she was a senior and he was coming to the end of his third teaching position. Chris married her two months after graduation and life had been relatively simple at first. The three children had come. Then something had started to turn their marriage stale and perfunctory, something Locke couldn't put his finger on. They drifted apart slowly, not in leaps and bounds but in small strides neither took much notice of. Eighteen years had passed and they were both vastly different people from the two who had met in an American literature class. They were virtual strangers to each other now. The facade was convincing enough, though, making it easy for them to live the lie quite comfortably and to feel fortunate for that much.

Still, Locke had to admit that no matter what the situation of their marriage at present, it had been Beth who'd settled him down and helped him find the discipline and persistence required to win the position at Georgetown. Whether he ever really loved her, he couldn't honestly be sure. But he knew she had brought warmth to his life at a time when the cold threatened to consume him. If he hadn't loved her, he had at least desperately needed her, and when you came right down to it, wasn't that the same thing?

Beth's car was in the driveway when Locke swung his LTD in. The children were away.

“We have to talk,” he said to Beth. She was sitting comfortably on the living-room couch studying a brochure featuring the latest designs in kitchen cabinets.

“I'm due at work. Can it wait?”

“No, it can't.” Chris paused. There was no sense holding back. “I'm leaving the university.”

She looked up at him dumbfounded. “You can't be serious.”

“Never more so.” Locke sat down next to her. Amazing how you could live with someone so long and know them so little. “The administrative pressure's become too much. They created an impossible situation for me.”

“And now you've gone and made it even more impossible.”

“Hear me out for a while. I've had other offers.” He paused, collecting his thoughts, trying to appear convincing. “I've known this was coming and I've prepared for it. Other universities have already expressed interest.”

“Where? Where are these universities?”

“All over.”

“Not Washington, though. We'd have to move, uproot the whole family. God, Chris, think of the kids. Is it fair to them?”

“Other kids adapt. Why can't ours? They're perfectly normal.”

“We should have talked about this.”

“We're talking.”

“What about me? I have a job too, you know.”

“They've got real estate in other states.”

“You're using this as an excuse to move, aren't you?” Beth snapped out suddenly.

Locke knew his strategy was blown. He had to let on more. “We might not have to move at all really. There's new interest in my novels and if things work out, I think I'll give up teaching for a while, maybe check out George Washington for a part-time position.”

Beth eyed him curiously. “I thought they were still in the closet.”

“I mailed out fresh copies.”

“Who's the publisher?”

“I don't want to jinx myself by telling you until things are definite.” Locke took a hefty gulp of air. “But I will say that this publisher has expressed enough interest in me to finance a two-week trip to Europe.”

“Really!” Beth's face brightened. “When?”

Locke had failed to consider Beth's assumption she'd be coming along. “They're, er, just sending me,” he stammered, “this time, that is. It's just a two-week preliminary trip anyway. Very bookish. Sightseeing oriented. Gotta find new locales for number three.”

“I never realized locales were so important in your books.”

“They are if the books are going to keep improving. This is a golden opportunity, Beth. I don't want to blow it.”

Beth's eyebrows flickered and Locke thought he could read her mind. Being married to a published novelist of potential acclaim—she'd like that.

“When do you leave?” she asked.

“Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Things developed rather suddenly. I've got a seven-thirty flight.”

“But you'll be gone two weeks,” Beth moaned. “We've got an important dinner a week from Friday.”

“Please express my regrets.”

His wife shrugged. “I suppose it's for the best.”

“I
know
it is.”

For a long while neither said a word, only tension passing between them. Somehow Locke wanted her to question him more, to demand an explanation more substantial than the obviously thin one he had come up with. The fact that she hadn't indicated how little she knew him … or cared how far apart they had grown. It had been months since they had been lovers and Locke had come to accept life without sex. It was life without love that was bothering him.

“I could drive you to the airport,” Beth offered limply.

“Someone's picking me up” came Chris's reply. “Thanks anyway.”

Locke finished carrying his bags down the stairs just as Brian Charney pulled up in the driveway.

“Need some help with those?” he asked when Locke opened the door.

Chris checked his watch. “Absolutely. It's almost six thirty. We're running late.”

“The plane will be held if necessary.”

“You never cease to amaze me.”

When Charney opened the trunk, Locke noticed the absence of his friend's baggage.

“You won't be coming along?”

“Not on this flight, Chris. Too risky. I'll follow you out on a later one. We've got to avoid any even remotely direct links once in London. If the opposition's good, they'll know the Luber worked for me, which means they'll be watching. That's why I couldn't pick up the trail myself.”

“Then I'll be on my own for a while in London.”

“Proceed just as we discussed. Check into the Dorchester and call Alvaradejo immediately. Then call the contact number and leave word about the meet. I'll be in just hours after you.” Charney hesitated. “Believe me, it's for your own good.”

Dulles Airport was crowded with early-evening traffic. This was a comfort to Charney, who much preferred crowds to open spaces. As soon as the bags were checked through, he wished Locke luck and took his leave, appearing to be merely one friend dropping another off.

Locke had started for the gate, toting a single piece of carry-on luggage, when a man wearing a plaid sports jacket stepped up to a pay phone and dialed an overseas exchange.

“He's on his way,” the man said simply and hung up.

Part Two:
Paris and London, Thursday Morning

Chapter 5

ROSS DOGAN'S GAZE
shifted rapidly as he strolled in the Placedu Tertre trying to appear as much a tourist as possible. The Russian had wanted a public site for his defection, and Dogan had chosen this place because it was certainly public, but reasonably confined as well.

The tables of several sidewalk cafés sat on the ancient cobblestones of the square. Artists sold their work from makeshift stands. Some had arrived at sunrise to assure themselves of a choice spot near a tree or storefront. Others created on the premises, adding a new and unique tourist attraction. But the Place du Tertre was no modern outdoor mall. The charming demeanor of the shopkeepers and sidewalk vendors provided the quiet feeling of a place where people could linger over their food and drink, soaking up the sun and the air. No one hurried.

Dogan found Keyes seated at one of many tables covered with red tablecloths. He took a chair across from him.

“Everything set?” Dogan asked.

Keyes looked at him deferentially. “Yes, sir.”

“Don't call me sir.”

“Yes, everything's set.” Keyes touched the miniature walkie-talkie in his lapel pocket. “All units in place. I've stationed four men at both the front and rear of the street, so we should be covered from there. And I've spread another dozen out in the general vicinity of the meet.”

“Here,” said Dogan, glancing at the tables cluttered around him.

“Here,” acknowledged Keyes. Fifteen years Dogan's junior, he represented the new breed of Company agents, the first full generation of field men who hadn't used Southeast Asia as a training ground. Langley had tried to take up the slack with various entanglements in South America and Africa but the media was keener now, so efforts had to be curtailed. Field men were nonetheless cockier than ever. The CIA had become fashionable again.

Dogan ordered café au lait and surveyed Keyes. Six feet tall, perfectly built, able to kill efficiently with any weapon or his hands. What the Company's new recruits lacked in experience was made up for in training. Or so they thought. Dogan had no patience for men like Keyes. The only way to understand the field was to give a little, but these new recruits seemed to have no give in them at all. Everything was black and white. And the desire to score points with the brass had become an overriding goal that clouded the true nature of the job. Keyes was like all the rest and Dogan despised them all.

Without Nam, it had fallen on senior field agents like Dogan to field-train under actual conditions recruits for the Company's Division Six, the rather mundane equivalent to MI-6's fictional double-0s. Extraordinarily few recruits were considered good enough for Division Six. Keyes was one of them. Dogan had his doubts. The kid had too many edges, from the way he wore his short-cropped black hair to the way his tautly coiled fingers flexed into fists and then opened again. Keyes's vision was narrow. Dogan would have to break him of that.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Keyes asked him suddenly.

Dogan's eyes stopped sweeping the end of the Place du Tertre where the defector would be making his approach. “Go ahead.”

“You know anything about this Russian?”

“Weapons division research chief, I heard. Bringing with him a microfilm of all sorts of drawings and schemes. I try not to listen much. Doesn't help the job.”

“You don't seem impressed.”

Dogan's eyes bore into the younger agent's. “Son, I've been at this a long time and seen us get hurt by defectors more than anything. We lose more than we turn. The Russians are just better at this sort of thing than we are. Use the photocopying machine over there without clearance and you lose a finger or two and end up with a one-way ticket to Siberia. Most of the defectors we get are plants.”

“This one?”

“Won't know that until the debriefing.”

Keyes hesitated. “Can I ask you something else?”

Dogan glanced around him. “We've got time.”

“Your code name—Grendel—did you choose it yourself?”

“It was chosen for me.”

“Grendel was the monster who ate human flesh, right?”

“And terrorized countrysides,” Dogan elaborated. “People lived in fear of him. Nobody dared to cross him.”

“And that's the way it is for you?” Keyes asked, mugging up to Dogan like a Little Leaguer would to Dave Winfield.

“That's the way it's got to be. Intimidation is everything. The opposition is afraid to send their guns after you because failure means you'll send your guns after them, and that's too high a price to pay. No one wants escalation, people killing each other over personal things. Above all, men like Vaslov and me, we're professionals.”

“Vaslov,” Keyes muttered. “I've studied his file.”

“A fine gentlemen. My opposing and equal number for the Soviets.”

“You sound as if you like him.”