Ride a Pale Horse (38 page)

Taylor looked at him, nodded, moved silently down the hall, stopping to bend over Hansen’s chair and whisper.

He got the message, Bristow thought, and entered his bedroom: emergency situation—be ready for anything.

Karen had been trying to read by flashlight, but she had fallen asleep, half-propped up on the pillow, her book lying spread-eagled on the floor. He placed the larger flash he had brought from the kitchen on his bed table, turning its powerful beam away from the window. Gently, he eased her head into a more comfortable position, then slipped off his shoes, dropped quietly beside her, lay staring up at the darkened ceiling. A few slow deep breaths, a loosening of his spine and shoulders, and he felt his body gradually ease. Lightly, he placed his hand over Karen’s, let it rest there. His mind began to come out of shock.

Menlo... Menlo... No, don’t think of Menlo and the venomous lies that were being woven around him: deal with that later. Now, think only of Vasek. Vasek and his connection with his embassy—was that why he had wanted to know the address of the safe house, so that it could be reported to the “chauffeur” in the car? So that his people would know where to find him and “abduct” him when he gave them the signal? Yet they had waited until the final stages of his plan. And he had been hunted by other members of the KGB. Their search had been intense, his danger as a “defector” had been real enough. Witness his alarm tonight when he found that Hansen and Taylor were Security and realised he had entered an apartment that needed to be guarded; or his panic and reaction when he entered and thought he was trapped, betrayed by me. It wasn’t the first time that an intelligence officer had let a difficult and unwelcome guest be given that raw deal as the simplest solution.

Vasek—the man who took chances—his defection planned weeks ago as one sure way to get at Gregor, render Gregor’s information suspect. Gregor was the target; everything else—Menlo and his section, our mole—was peripheral. And to be accepted as an honest defector, Vasek took his biggest chance: perhaps half a dozen, at a very high level, even fewer, knew of his plan. The rest of the KGB were told he was defecting, and their search for him only made his myth seem true and acceptable. But would they have killed him when he was found? I doubt that, thought Bristow. Their orders are probably to seize him and return him alive to Moscow. Even a man who is proud of the chances he takes might not want the risk of being shot by one of his own. Although tonight he seemed to have no qualms about killing a KGB officer in Zurich, some poor bloody fool who got in the way of his master plan.

And if I’m right, Bristow concluded, his pulse racing, his smile broadening, then he has no connection with the Sam Waterman cell—with Coulton or Shaw or any others who have been brought in to prevent their disclosure. They are peripheral, too. Only, the Russian who claimed diplomatic immunity tonight is one of the few who knows Vasek is not a defector. He has used us all—the KGB and the CIA, Karen and me, everyone—but he didn’t foresee one thing: we’ve got him. Yes, we’ve got him.

Bristow laughed softly. Karen, who had been watching him for the last five minutes, raised herself on an elbow and touched his cheek. “Do I share the joke?”

He turned, drew her close to him, put a finger on her lips to warn her to speak low, pointed to the wall behind which Vasek lay.

“Later?” she asked. Always later—security, safety, security.

“Perhaps not so much later.”

“When?”

“With luck, by tomorrow.”

“And I’ll hear the joke?”

“You’ll hear everything.” Sure, it broke the rules, but she had been in this case from the beginning. Karen knew more about it than most.

“I’ll hold you to that promise,” she warned him, her arms around him, her kisses on his lips. Then she laughed. “Are you going to sleep with your clothes on, darling?”

“I’m staying awake. A report I have to give—” he looked at his watch—“in thirty-five minutes.” He would tell Doyle the essential facts: Vasek a fake but must be treated as genuine; one suspicion, and he will cut his losses and escape; special care, tightest security requested; full details will be given tomorrow morning—eight
A.M.

“You do need sleep.”

“Forgotten about it.” He wouldn’t be the only one who’d be forgetting sleep once Doyle passed on his warning. There would be several lights burning late tonight, and several tempers, too. “What about you?”

“Wide awake.”

“Would you listen to this, honey?”

What now? she wondered, as he freed her from his arms and slipped out of bed. He opened the drawer of his night table, found the two mini-cassettes he had placed there along with the three white tablets before he had joined Vasek at dinner. Then he lifted the large flashlight and handed it to Karen as he got back into bed. “Hold that, darling. Give me some light on these things.” He examined the miniature cases of tapes. “I brought them from Joe’s—my answering service. He had two intruders but recorded their voices. Just want you to listen, say nothing. Raise your hand if you recognise either of them.” He found the small switch that would start the tape. “Okay,” he said encouragingly and took the heavy light away from her. “I’ll play it at lowest volume, so keep the machine close to your ear. This is a recording made between four and six o’clock this afternoon.” Waterman’s voice should be on the earlier half of it—Joe had returned to his office by five. Bristow turned on the replay mechanism, held the mini-cassette to Karen’s cheek.

She listened to various sounds; an unknown voice; more noises of movements. And then, her eyes dilated in astonishment. She raised her hand.

Bristow stopped the replay. “Well?”

“Sam Waterman.”

“Definitely?” He ran back the tape just enough to play the Waterman voice once more.

“Definitely,” Karen said. “He may call himself Winston, but he
is
Waterman. What on earth was he doing in Joe’s office?”

“Snitching tapes of ’phone calls to me. Now, try this recording, honey. It may be difficult.” Perhaps impossible, Bristow thought. It had been twelve days since Karen had heard Rita’s voice in a Vienna café.

He played the second tape. First came Joe’s ’phone call, telling Bristow about Winston’s visit. Next, sounds of a wheelchair moving around; Joe’s voice angry; Ken’s voice defensive as he left to buy some groceries. Movements again. Then a woman speaking American but with a slight foreign accent picked up and emphasised by the microphone.

Karen was suddenly alert. Puzzled, too. She signed for the tape to be stopped, said, “Replay it, Peter. I have to be sure.” Again she listened intently. She looked at him. “It can’t be—”

Bristow switched off the recorder. “Can’t be—?”

“The girl who came into the café with Waterman and Andreas Kellner. Rita.”

“Are you sure that’s her voice?”

“Rita said ‘interesting’ to rhyme with ‘arresting’—said it often. One of her favourite words. And that woman on the tape—the same light voice, the suspicion of an accent, and ‘interesting’ used three times just the way Rita drooled it out. But—she isn’t in Washington, is she?”

“I think you’ve just proved it.” He replaced the mini-cassettes in the nightstand’s drawer.

“And after she was so sweet and charming, she held Joe up—threatened to blow his head off if he didn’t give her your recorded ’phone calls? That was Rita?”

“You heard her.”

“What was that noise at the end? A blow?”

“With her revolver butt on the back of Joe’s head. Nothing too serious. He sensed it coming, dodged a little. Could have been worse.”

“The running footsteps were Rita’s?”

“Yes. To meet her friend in the car that was waiting for her. A broad-faced man, light hair, looking hot and uncomfortable in a suit never meant for late summer in Washington.”

“Andreas Kellner—”

“We don’t know.”

“It could be. With a tightly knotted tie?”

“He was pretty red in the face, I heard.”

“It was Kellner,” Karen said. “They go together—a team, I have thought. But why in Washington? Why your telephone messages?” I don’t like this, she told herself. I don’t like this one bit.

“Because,” Bristow said, taking her hands in his, calming her sudden fear, “they are after Vasek. And Vasek made two calls to me, both of which they have stolen.”

“Why? Did he arrange a meeting on either of them?”

“No. He promised another call tomorrow—at four o’clock—to set up time and place.”

“Four o’clock—another lie,” she said scornfully.

“He’s an expert.” Bristow looked at his watch again. “I’d better get moving. Lock the door. Open it only when I give that special knock.” He hesitated, then moved quickly to a closet, found his Beretta in his jacket pocket. “Do you know how to use this?”

“No.”

“Simple. Release this safety catch. You point, arm at full length, and squeeze the trigger gently. Got that?”

“I—honestly, Peter, I—”

“Take it, darling.”

“What about you—if you think there’s danger here?”

“Taylor will have a spare I can borrow.”

“Danger from what—from him?” She nodded towards the living-room.

“No more, I think. Not directly from him.” The danger could now come from his KGB comrades who had been searching for him. Or from his co-conspirator, the friend with diplomatic immunity, who might be deciding that it was already the time to stage an abduction: better to have their plan aborted, and Vasek would agree, than be a prisoner of the Americans. “I’ll get him away as soon as possible.” I’ll move up his timetable, Bristow decided. Ambulance at three, even two o’clock or earlier if Doyle can arrange that. He laid the Beretta on the table beside Karen, who was lost in her own thoughts.

“Peter—if they stole the tapes with Vasek’s ’phone calls—” She hesitated, then plunged. “Perhaps they want to blot out any evidence that he had been in contact with you. Someone doesn’t want him to
look
like a defector. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Unless he isn’t really a defector.” The implications of that hit her. “Oh, no! It couldn’t be all lies—a fake—and I was the innocent stupid little dupe—oh, no?”

He could only shake his head. “You’re far from stupid, my love.”

“Everything a deception—a pretence? Oh, God, no!”

“The three letters are no pretence—they are intended for use—a time bomb. But we’ll defuse it.” And as she looked at him, crushed and woebegone, he added, “Without you, darling, we’d never have got him here. We have him. He’s caught.”

Yes, she thought, caught with his own lies. And I aided them. “I’ll recover,” she said, trying to sound normal. “Just suffering from a wounded ego.”

“If you’ll cure mine, I’ll cure yours. Miss Cornell, I love you. I love you very much.”

“And I love you, Mr. Bristow.”

“Show me—in half an hour,” he said and entered the hall with a smile on his face that astonished Hansen.

By ten o’clock that Tuesday evening, Cherry Lane was at rest. Most automobiles were either garaged or parked in the short driveways of the neat well-spaced houses that lined this sleeping street—only a few were scattered along the kerb where dinner guests had left them. Lighting was sparse, chiefly supplied from windows and front porches, and dappled by the shadows of the trees. Peaceful, thought Doyle’s man as he finished a liverwurst sandwich and the last of the coffee from his thermos. He pulled out his transceiver, spoke to the three men who were waiting around the Fairbairn house. From his car he had a clear view of its front entrance. “Jim here. All quiet,” he reported. “How’s it with you?”

“Quiet. The family is inside. We’ve scouted around the property line at the back of the house. Nothing.”

“Nothing in Sussex either?” Sussex was the street that paralleled Cherry Lane, lay beyond it. It was new, some houses now occupied, two still in construction.

“Nothing.”

“A false alarm?”

“Could be.”

It will be a long dreary night, thought Jim, and signed off. He prepared for it by slumping down on his seat and lighting a cigarette. Two minutes later, he slid farther out of sight, dropped his cigarette in the ashtray. A car was travelling slowly along Cherry Lane, its headlights looming up behind him. He didn’t risk raising his head until it had passed. Dark blue, he judged by the street lamp near Fairbairn’s driveway—definitely a Maryland plate. Impossible to see if there was one man or two sitting in front of those damned headrests. No one in the rear seats, that was certain. He might have considered it only a car in search of a friend’s home—and in this district people could easily be wandering—but it was the second time in the last fifteen minutes that the dark-blue automobile had been driven steadily along this street. Completely lost or surveying the area?

Jim switched on the transceiver. “Walt? Dark-blue two-door, Maryland plate, proceeding for second time along Cherry. Now making a left into Devon.” From Devon Road, it could swing left again into Sussex. He waited, transceiver in hand, until Walt reported back that no car had entered Sussex Street.

“Must have stayed on Devon,” Jim said. “I’ll alert the van. But keep watching.”

“You, too.”

Again, silence and boredom descended on Cherry Lane.

* * *

The man known as Barney had been an impatient passenger. “Look, Connie,” he told the driver of the dark-blue Plymouth, “we’ve mucked around that road enough. You’ve told me the setup. I covered the whole area in daylight. I
know
it, I tell you. Let’s get on with it.”

“Nervous?” asked Shaw as he brought the Plymouth to a halt in Devon Road and switched off its lights. Sussex Street lay at the corner just ahead of them.

“I don’t like waiting. I don’t like two nights in a row. You should have let a few days go by—”

“We can’t and we won’t.”

“How long do we sit here?”

“While I make sure you know exactly—”

“White house, black shutters, two storeys, steep roof, two chimneys. Kitchen at one side, terrace at back with garden and chairs, low hedges separating neighbours’ houses, trees all around.”

“And a house almost completed to the rear—beyond his property line. That will give you a mark on his place.”