Ride a Pale Horse (13 page)

“So he’s out and in transit.” Bristow was thoughtful. “How did he manage it?”

“Our agent reports that Vasek was scheduled officially to leave for Rome this past Monday—a special assignment. He advanced his visit by four days on the pretext of an emergency and left last week. He used his travel pass and all his credentials to fly to Italy in comfort.” Menlo was much amused. “He arrived there and vanished. He’s entirely on his own. Where—we can’t even guess. We are looking, though. But with the greatest discretion—we can’t alert the Russians that we haven’t got him. They are searching, too, although they were forced to assume we must be in touch with him when our delegation arrived so quickly and were so sure of their facts.”

Bristow was thinking about Vasek’s timing. Advanced his Rome visit by four days... “Then he left Prague one day after Karen. When were the letters discovered missing?”

“Quite soon after he had gone. But not in time to have him arrested at the Rome airport. Cool as they come, your Farrago. Must have planned everything for weeks, even months.”

Bristow continued his own line of thought. If Vasek had left early on that Thursday and the disappearance of the letters was discovered a few hours later, then the Vienna incidents around Karen’s handbag—along with Rita’s questions and Kellner’s probe—proved she was under suspicion as one of Vasek’s last contacts. Even with the problem of the letters resolved in the Moscow agreement, she could still be in bad trouble. As long as the KGB was looking for Vasek, she was in danger. “If they could link Karen with the delivery of the envelope,” he began slowly, and halted.

“Did anyone see her deliver it to you?” Menlo asked.

“No one saw her actually hand it over. That took place in a car she had rented. She took every precaution.”

Something was still worrying Bristow. Menlo said sharply, “Did anyone see you together last Saturday? Anyone who knows you?”

“We weren’t together—I made sure of that—when I handed the envelope to Fairbairn. Shaw was with him, but he stayed in the car.”

“Could they have seen her at all?”

“They drove pretty close to her—she was on her way to the cafeteria. They were parked there, waiting for me to appear. They were early. They could have seen us arrive.”

“And Fairbairn also saw the Czech censor’s stamp on that envelope,” Menlo said, speaking the words that Bristow had avoided. “So could Shaw, for that matter. He probably noticed its markings, too, when Fairbairn brought it back to their car.”

Why the hell had Shaw accompanied Fairbairn? They were friends, sure. But it wasn’t necessary for both of them to be there. Unless Shaw didn’t allow anyone else to handle his car. Some men were like that.

“Vasek told Miss Cornell he had a mole to name when he talked with us,” Menlo said smoothly, but the furrows on his brow deepened. “Someone who knew the name you had given to his file. Someone in your unit, Peter.”

“I’ve been promoted. Peter...” But Bristow’s growing depression didn’t let him take any comfort in Menlo’s unexpected thaw. “I’m aware of that.”

“Ease up, Peter. Suspicion is an ugly business. The quickest way to end it is to find the truth.” He hesitated, then made a decision as he watched Bristow’s troubled face. “We have to realise that the KGB doesn’t accept assumptions permanently. They’ll search for Vasek until there’s no doubt left; either he is safe here or dead. If they can terminate him, we have no witness, only Miss Cornell’s word that he did pass her the letters, that he did say he wrote them. And then—”

“I know,” Bristow said. Then Karen might be eliminated, too. Might? Damn Vasek to bloody hell; he had given the letters to Karen, hadn’t taken the risk of carrying them himself. That’s something I’ll never forgive him for, thought Bristow. He controlled his voice. “We had better find Vasek before they do.”

Menlo nodded. Bristow, he was thankful to discover, knew exactly what could be at stake. “I have learned of Miss Cornell’s destination. Aitchison’s men followed her taxi to Kennedy yesterday evening. One tailed her inside the airport. She made a telephone call. And then she took the flight to Rome.”

“Rome? What the hell is she doing there?”

I agree, thought Menlo. Vasek should be far from Rome by this time, and yet—I wish I didn’t have the feeling that the pot has only been simmering and is now reaching boiling point. He said nothing.

Bristow was on his feet. “I’ll see Schleeman. He must know.” He glanced at his watch. “Too late to meet him for lunch. Better make it for dinner or a drink.” Not a visit to Schleeman’s office—too unusual. Not questions over a telephone, either. No alarm sounded. Play it loose.

Menlo approved. “Here’s my number. I’ll be at home. Call me anytime between eight and midnight. Let me know why she’s in Rome.” He was scribbling on a note pad as he spoke, handed the page to Bristow.

“One thing I’d like to know—and perhaps your Prague agent could find out. What other foreigners were contacted by Vasek just before he defected?”

“You think they could be under suspicion, too? We can’t go looking out for everyone, Peter.”

It was an admission, thought Bristow, that Menlo had Karen on his mind. “Another thing—my leave. I’m due two weeks. I’d like to take them.”

“Starting when?” Menlo sounded casual.

“Tomorrow. Can that be arranged?”

“I’ll see to it. Here—don’t forget this!” Menlo lifted the
Blitz
folder from his desk, hefted its bulk. “We are thought to be a little eccentric in keeping our files in steel cabinets. But how do you computerise the kind of data we gather and manage to compare twenty newspaper clippings simultaneously?”

Once, Bristow had thought Menlo’s insistence on old-style files was more than eccentric, but after working in disinformation, he had changed his mind. There was only one way to examine a variety of news reports and articles: spread them out, side by side, on a large flat surface where a paragraph, even a sentence, and sometimes only a phrase, could be collated, cross-referred or contrasted, and traced. The human eye, backed by instinct and memory, was still a necessity, and thank God for that.

Menlo had a parting word for him. “Remember—anytime between eight and midnight.”

He’s more worried than he admits, Bristow thought as he closed Menlo’s door behind him.

Bristow entered the file room and met Fairbairn shepherding Frederick Coulton out. All three were equally surprised.

“Just showing our forgery expert where we slog out the day,” Fairbairn said and waved vaguely in the direction of the other offices. “He doesn’t believe we do much work. I told him he shouldn’t judge conditions by the two hours we take for lunch.”

A nice allusion to the emptiness of the rooms, thought Bristow. “Occasionally, we do some work,” he told Coulton.

Coulton glanced back at the steel cabinets lining the small file room. Each held four deep lockers with its own combination for opening them. “You’re strong on security, I see. Impressive. But”—his eyes were now on the
Blitz
folder—“what happens when you run out of space?”

“Menlo will find some more,” Fairbairn said with a laugh. “Where’s Shaw, for God’s sake? He’s been giving Coulton lunch, and now he’s making some ’phone call.” He looked along the corridor impatiently.

“Why not use the computers?” Coulton asked Bristow. “Or d’you think some hacker playing around with his two-bit machine will obtain access?” He spoke with amusement.

Bristow only smiled. It had been done, but not by hackers.

“Anything that simplifies work,” said Fairbairn, “is detrimental to the brain. That’s Menlo’s dictum.”

“Which reminds me,” Bristow said. “We’d better have a session this afternoon, Wallace. That Athens editorial you analysed last week seems to have had its origins in
Blitz
last month.”

“Well, I’m free once I deliver our friend to Shaw.”

Coulton said, “Sorry if I’m holding up any momentous decisions. Why don’t I find Shaw and let him escort me out? Or simply make an exit by myself—if I don’t lose my way in this labyrinth.”

“Here he comes,” Fairbairn said as the young man trotted down the corridor. “Get ready for some more questions, Coulton. Shaw,” he added in an aside to Bristow, “has discovered the fascinations of forgery.”

Shaw, annoyed and breathless, said, “Sorry, Freddy. It was a wrong number—didn’t find out for several minutes—some crank at the other end of the line—a real foul-up.”

Freddy... Bristow had never seen Frederick the Great with Shaw before. Chummy, he thought as the two of them left for the elevator. To Fairbairn he said, “Give me forty minutes. Once I dump this folder, I’m going to lunch.”

“Thought you’d given up the habit. How was Menlo?”

“Admonitions and advice.”

“As usual,” Fairbairn said with another of his easy laughs. “See you later, Pete.”

“See you.” Bristow went into the file room and locked up
Blitz.
He could find no sensible reason why he should have waited until Frederick Coulton had left. Except that Coulton had no business here, even if young Shaw had been trying to impress his visitor from State. As Menlo had said, suspicion was an ugly business, but he still wondered why Coulton was wandering around the file room.

He didn’t use the telephone in his office but called Schleeman from the cafeteria. Schleeman was at his desk; a lot of work to clear up, he explained, before he left for the Maryland shore this evening. That forestalled any dinner invitation. “I’d like to see you,” Bristow insisted. “Can you manage an early drink? Somewhere near your office?”

Schleeman considered that. “Something important to discuss?”

“I’m taking a vacation and thought I’d talk with you before I leave tomorrow.”

Talk? Schleeman was interested. “It will be a very short drink—my wife is giving a party tonight, got to be there this time. Meet me at my dub. Five thirty.”

“Five thirty is fine. But at your club?” Bristow had doubts about that. A private meeting was what he needed.

“We’ll probably be the only people around at that early hour. Besides, it’s dead in the late summer—everyone out of town. See you at five thirty. You know the routine if I’m delayed.”

“Yes. I wait for you in the visitors’ room.”

“And don’t you be late or it’s my head on the block.” Schleeman ended the call with a short laugh.

Bristow had a quick sandwich and coffee, now wondering how he’d break the news to Fairbairn and the others about the leave he was taking. They shouldn’t be too surprised—he had postponed it twice since June. Rome, he kept thinking, why had she chosen Rome?

To enter Schleeman’s club at this time of day in late August was like stepping into a church in midweek: space abounding and no one to fill it. There was the same hush, a silence surrounded by pillars, a ceiling that soared over frescoed walls, a marble staircase leading not to a pulpit but to dining-room and bar. There was little sign of life, with Congress in recess and bureaucracy at half-staff. No one was in the entrance hall except the porter behind his mahogany desk and another guest who was early—like Bristow himself—and waited alone in the visitors’ room, its wide doors permanently open. The stranger was thin and tall, with thick brown hair and dressed in a light-coloured gabardine suit that hadn’t been sitting in an office all afternoon. That much Bristow’s quick glance had told him. The man’s equally quick glance veered away in disinterest as he walked to a chair, picked up a magazine, and began leafing through its pages.

Bristow went to the desk, introducing himself as Schleeman’s guest. “Not much business tonight,” he added, and stayed where he was. He’d rather remain here than face another guest, be caught in a polite exchange of chitchat.

“No, sir. But it’s early. Later there will be a few—the gentlemen whose wives are in the country.”

Or, to quote the old adage, when home became intolerable there was always the club. But better not say it aloud. The porter, correct to the last button, might see no humour in his club being merely an alternative to the sound of TV or hot rock played at fever pitch.

“Perhaps you would care to join the other gentleman in the waiting room?” the porter suggested, as elderly and dignified as the vaulted ceiling above him. “His name is Mr. Jones.”

Bristow had another unobtrusive look at the lanky figure, who was discarding one magazine for another. Waiting seemed to make him impatient. “I don’t think he’s much in the mood for conversation.”

The porter dropped his voice. “He has been waiting ten minutes, and he will probably have to wait ten minutes more. Mr. Coulton is usually a little late. Now your host, Mr. Schleeman, is always on time. I take it you were a little early tonight?” he asked anxiously.

“Five minutes.” That relieved the porter. His Mr. Schleeman had not been guilty of keeping a guest waiting. “Is it Mr. Frederick Coulton who is usually a little late?”

“Yes, sir. A recent member. A very pleasant gentleman. Is he a friend of yours?” The porter’s rising curiosity was cut short as he looked at the front door and saw Schleeman mounting the half-dozen steps that led up into the hall. “I think Mr. Schleeman is now arriving, sir.”

“Exactly on time, too.”

The porter nodded approvingly and then allowed himself a brief stare. Schleeman had glanced towards the visitors’ room as he reached the hall. He stopped abruptly, whirled on his heel, retreated down the steps, and only then—well hidden from the guests’ waiting room—signalled for Bristow to follow him and made a rapid exit into the street.

The porter looked at Bristow, who said as casually as possible, “There seems to have been a change in plans.” And with a parting nod, he followed Schleeman. A last quick glance at the stranger in the empty room showed nothing changed there. The man was still thumbing through the magazines.

He found Schleeman waiting just outside the club’s entrance. “The quickest drink I’ve ever had,” said Bristow, trying to relieve Schleeman’s definite agitation.

Schleeman, his face set, took Bristow’s arm in a firm grip and urged him to increase his pace. “My car is around this corner. We can talk there. My God, Pete, did you know who that was?”