O'Farrell's Law (25 page)

He consciously slowed when he reached the edge of Rivera's property, ears strained for any movement or sound—guards, dogs, whatever he had missed in his surveillance. There was a dog barking but it was far away; nearer, and louder, water was running. A fountain, O'Farrell guessed; it might have been in Rivera's garden but could have been in that of a neighbor. He stopped just short of the gate so as not to be silhouetted by it, but able to reach out to test if it were locked after all. As he did so, far up the road, he saw the black, moving outlines of two pedestrians—it had to be the returning policemen. He did not hurry. As close to the wall as he was, he would merge completely with it. The latch lifted with barely an audible click and there was no sound at all as the gate gave inward, on oiled hinges. O'Farrell opened it only enough to ease through, closing it just as soundlessly before moving sideways to the protection of the shrubbery, and off the crunching gravel. He dropped, perfectly comfortable, into a squatting crouch, waiting for the police to pass, ears again tensed to hear a voice or a footstep. Unaccountably he was swept by a feeling of déjà vu and searched for the memory. It came very quickly. How he'd learned to crouch, for hours if necessary, and how he'd listened on deep reconnaissance missions behind the lines in Vietnam, he recalled: in Vietnam, where for the first time he—O'Farrell closed his mind to the recollection.

The sound came indistinctly at first, meaning the officers were a long way off, and O'Farrell was pleased; if he'd been unaware of their approach, the warning would have been more than early enough to evade or avoid. Overhead an airliner growled toward London airport and O'Farrell was able to see the triangle of its landing lights. Less than twenty-four hours, he thought, this time tomorrow, in fact, he would be home in Alexandria, with the newly preserved archive to go back to and the cars to clean on Saturdays and only die problems—the seemingly easier, ordinary problems—of Jill and Ellen and John to worry about. Normality, blessed normality.

“… know she's screwing around,” came a voice, at last.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I've got nothing to confront her with,” came a policeman's reply.

“So you're going to wait until she gets pregnant or catches the clap?”

“‘Course not,” said the voice, fading.

“What then?”

The reply was too indistinct to hear. Forty-five minutes, O'Farrell calculated. The BMW was not directly in front of the house, as it usually was, but to the side near the garage. It was a doubtful advantage. The vehicle was out of the direct line from the road, making it easier to work on undetected either from the house or by any passerby, but increasing the distance, he had to move across the noisy gravel. O'Farrell used the grassed garden border until there was no more and hesitated with each seemingly echoed step toward the car. Around him everything slumbered, undisturbed.

O'Farrell squatted again, this time with his back against the vehicle's fender, to prepare the charges. Before separating the plastic into three, he put on the rubber gloves,-flexing his fingers against their thickness, wishing he had the thinner surgical type. He didn't attempt to get into the car to reach the electrical system from the front; it would have brought the light on and meant lifting the hood, both impossible. O'Farrell waited until he was beneath the vehicle before turning on his flashlight. The gas pump was clearly visible, about eighteen inches from the fuel tank. O'Farrell taped the charge into the space between the two, and then, with the penknife, stripped the gas-pump lead back to its wires; the positive was the nearest to him. He scraped away the blue covering, attached the contact from the detonator to the bare wire, and sealed the join with adhesive tape. From this detonator he trailed a lead tightly along and beneath the car to a point directly under the driver's seat, where he attached against the chassis his second charge. From it O'Farrell brought his continuous lead up through the engine housing to meet with the explosives he had already introduced through a bigger access and strapped in front of where the driver sat. A perfectionist, O'Farrell checked the placing and the connections from the rear to the front. The ignition activated the gas pump and the gas pump activated the detonator-placed charges. The entire vehicle was one huge bomb.

O'Farrell, finally satisfied, came crabwise from beneath the car. He was not hurrying, knowing he had to wait another passing of the police before he could leave. This was the first time, he reflected idly, that he had used his knowledge of cars and engines professionally, and wondered why; what he'd fixed up tonight was infallible. But this was no place for idle reflection. O'Farrell gathered everything back into the briefcase, propping it against his legs. There was absolutely no question of his being allowed to pass any police with it in his hand, he decided; it might be sufficient to cause an insomniac resident to raise an alarm, too. O'Farrell carefully cleaned the handle, trie only part he had touched with his bare hands, and went beneath the car again, strapping it tightly to the fuel tank in die recess available around the exhaust-pipe arch.

He settled down on his haunches in the shrubbery, where he had before, for the police return, unable to see but using the time to brush off the grit and dirt that stuck to him from being beneath the car. The cleanup wouldn't. he knew, withstand any close scrutiny, but he didn't expect there to be any.

The police pacing approached, as monotonously repetitious as their conversation.

“… why not ask the wife to have a word with her?”

“What if I'm wrong?”

“So you're mistaken.”

“Not something I like talking about to the wife.”

“Don't talk about sex to your wife!”

“Rarely a subject that comes up between us, as a matter on fact.”

O'Farrell was against the gate as the sound faded, edging into die road as soon as he felt it safe to do so; they were a blurred, moving blackness, as mey had been when he first saw them. O'Farrell went in the opposite direction, walking just short of the pace diat would have attracted attention, eager for the first corner. He slowed slightly when he rounded that and relaxed further when he turned into the road where the rental car was parked. For several moments, when he got inside, he sat without firing the ignition, letting the tension seep away.

The car started, first time, and O'Farrell drove a roundabout route, not taking the roads that would bring him past Rivera's house again. The constables might note the number of a car driving so late. And he had a feeling beyond the need for such caution. He didn't want any association, not even the association of driving by again. It was over. Finished. He was going home.

Petty considered the FBI debacle reason enough to suggest another meeting with McCarthy, although he didn't say that when he called to arrange it. The Plans director of the CIA said he thought they did have things to talk about, although his schedule was blocked out for lunch for a month. Petty suggested the rooftop bar of the Washington Hotel for an evening drink, and McCarthy agreed at once; had Petty seen what the
Post
had written after its summer reopening a few weeks back? Petty said he hadn't.

Petty arrived early, to get a suitably private table near the rail before the usual cocktail invasion, wondering if his ulcer would resist the happy-hour snacks that were available. Those he could see seemed to be in a fair amount of sauce, so he postponed any decision. He asked the waitress, hopefully, if pipe smoking were permitted and was told no. He ordered mineral water.

McCarthy arrived late, bustling expectantly past the line that had formed, confident Petty would have a table and ignoring the hostile looks from the people waiting.

The wickerwork seat creaked under his weight. “Kept you long?” he asked, the nearest he'd get to an apology.

“Not at all,” Petty said.

The Plans director signaled for a waitress, ordering a Bloody Mary. Gesturing to the Treasury Building and the White House beyond, and then encompassing the monument as well, McCarthy said, “Great view, isn't it? That's one of the things the
Post
said. Great view.”

“Great,” said Petty. He could actually see the spot where he'd briefed O'Farrell; it seemed a long time ago.

Their drinks were served, and the waitress left. McCarthy said, “Didn't work out at all well in California, did it?”

“Many recriminations?” Petty asked.

“Practically a permanent tribunal,” McCarthy said, drinking noisily. “We can't feel very good over it, though. Our guys fell on their ass in Brussels.”

“Picked him up yet?”

McCarthy shook his head. “He'll have gone back into the woodwork now.”

“What about O'Farrell?” Petty asked. “I could have one of the surveillance teams make contact if you wanted to call it off; we've let him run, but we know from the early days the places where he's staying.”

McCarthy gestured for refills, shaking his head against the suggestion as he turned back to the other man. “That's why I wanted to see you. So far the score for our side is zero.…” He nodded in the direction of the White House. “At the moment everyone is down the toilet together; a success would be good for us*. You spoken?”

“And cleared him, in anticipation of California working as it was supposed to.”

“Remember Makarevich?” McCarthy demanded, without warning.

Petty didn't, not at first. Then he said, “Of course.”

“Been running a check, the last few weeks,” the Plans director disclosed. “That put the Soviets back a lot: a hell of a lot.”

“So?” Petty queried, frowning.

“Just think it's interesting, that's all.”

TWENTY-ONE

T
HE BOARDINGHOUSE
in Queens Gate Terrace proved the worst—professionally—that he'd chosen. It was run by a widow who insisted that all her guests call her Connie and who set out to be a mother figure to the unattached and a what-I-remember-about-London landlady to all. O'Farrell had stayed aloof and guessed she was offended, but didn't think it mattered, now that he was leaving.

He had refused any meals, as he had in those before, but the last morning was different. He needed a news broadcast, and the television ran permanently in the breakfast room, which would normally have been sufficient reason to avoid the meal anyway.

O'Farrell was up and packed early, downstairs to pay her ahead of anyone else, and asked if he could change his mind and have coffee and toast maybe. Connie beamed and offered eggs, but O'Farrell said toast would be fine.

All the morning papers were displayed on a table just inside the room and O'Farrell flicked through them, apparently unable to choose. He guessed it would have been front-page and there wasn't a report in any of them: too late, he guessed. He chose the
Times
and then orange juice, nodding to the four people already in the room, who, thankfully, ignored him. O'Farrell took a table near the wall. He went through the motions of reading the newspaper, seeing nothing. Predictably the television was on; the set was attached to a support arm suspended quite high on the wall, so the lift of the watchers' heads gave them all an attitude of piety. O'Farrell supposed it was fitting, for the awe in which television was held.

A rock group plugged their latest release, a trade-union leader insisted some labor dispute was the government's fault, and a tongue-tied gardener tried to explain how he grew prizewinning produce. Then the anchor person started “… extended news because of last night's horrific incident in Hampstead …”

The first picture on the screen was a long shot of Rivera's house from the far side of Christchurch Road. The house itself had sustained hardly any damage apart from broken windows, but the front of the garage was completely blown in, with firemen still dowsing the embers. What remained of the BMW, a pressed-flat piece of metal attached to one wheel and a few engine parts, was propped oddly on its edge against the garage wall, and a large area of the gravel was scorched black.

The camera panned in closer. A reporter stood at the gate next to a policeman self-consciously aware of being on camera.

“… no explanation yet for the outrage,” the reporter was saying. “What is known is that because of this morning's rain Mrs. Estelle Rivera”—here the screen was filled with a still photograph of the woman, obviously at a reception with Rivera—“wife of the Cuban ambassador, José Rivera, went to their BMW car to get it closer to the house to pick up their son, Jorge, to deliver him to the lycée. I understand the explosion, which in turn created a fireball, was immediate. Death would have been instantaneous. Forensic and bomb-disposal experts have recovered parts of an explosive device but are disclosing no details, although one expert has told me it was clearly planted by an expert to cause …”

A swirl of dizziness engulfed O'Farrell, so much so that he could not clearly see the television screen, and a sickness rose through him, like it had after the stupidity of the brandy, and a coldness, a chilling, shivering coldness tightened around him, taking his breath. Mouth clamped, he tried to push the sensation back, wanting to see and to hear everything before the newscast finished.

“We have learned,” came the voice distantly, through a fog, “that the housekeeper who normally drives the boy to school in her car has recently been ill and unable to do so. Jorge, twelve, was at the rear of the house at the time of the explosion and was fortunately uninjured, although he is being treated for shock. Señor Rivera is also said by the household to be deeply shocked.…”

With the promise to report further as information became available, the remote broadcast returned to the studio. O'Farrell let the screen recede into a blur again, trying to think—to create another order of priority as he had so very recently done—but nothing rational came through the cold sickness.