The Matarese Circle (17 page)

The maid watched in silence as the woman walked rapidly down the corridor. Then she closed the door, remaining inside.

The matronly looking maid had been paid well; she would be paid better in the morning by a guest across the hall. The negotiations would begin quickly the second she stepped out of the suite.

The string was drawing tighter, everything was patience now. And staying awake.

Taleniekov walked the streets, aware that his legs were close to buckling, struggling to stay alert and avoid colliding with the crowds on the sidewalk. He played mental games to keep his concentration alive, counting footsteps and cracks in the pavement and blocks between telephone booths. The radios could not be used any longer; the citizen-bands were filled with babble. He cursed the fact that there had not been time to purchase more sophisticated equipment. But he never thought it could possibly go on so
long!
Madness!

It was twenty minutes past eleven in the morning, the city of Washington vibrating, people rushing, automobiles and buses clogging the streets … and still the insane telephone calls kept coming to the suite at the hotel on Nebraska Avenue.

Brandon Scofield, please. It’s urgent that I speak with him
.…

Insanity!

What was Scofield
doing?
Where
was
he? Where were his intermediaries?

Only the old woman remained in the hotel. The whore had revolted, the two men long since exhausted, their presence merely embarrassing, accomplishing nothing. The woman stayed in the suite, getting what rest she could between the maddening telephone calls, relaying every word spoken by the caller. A female with a pronounced “foreign” accent, probably French, never staying on the line more than fifteen seconds, unable to be drawn out and very abrupt. She was either a professional, or being instructed by a professional; there could be no tracing the number or the location of the calls.

Vasili approached the phone booth fifty yards north of the hotel’s entrance on the opposite side of the street. It was the fourth call he had made from this particular booth, and he had memorized the graffiti and the odd numbers scratched on the gray metal of the edge. He walked in, pulled the glass door shut, and inserted a coin; the tone hummed in his ear and he reached for the dial.

Prague!

His eyes were playing tricks on him! Across Nebraska Avenue a man got out of a taxi and stood on the pavement looking down the street toward the hotel. He knew that
man!

At least, he knew the face. And it
was
Prague!

The man had a history of violence, both political and nonpolitical. His police record was filled with assaults, thefts, and unproven homicides, his years in prison nearer ten than five. He had worked against the state more for profit than for ideology; he had been well paid by the Americans. His firing arm was good, his knife better.

That he was in Washington and less than fifty yards from this particular hotel could only mean he had a connection with Scofield. Yet there was no sense in the connection! Beowulf Agate had scores of men and women he could call upon for help in dozens of cities, but he would not call on someone from Europe
now
, and he certainly would not call on
this
man; the streak of sadism was conceivably unmanageable. Why was he here? Who had summoned him?

Who had
sent
him? And were there others?

But it was the
why
that burned into Taleniekov’s brain. It was profoundly disturbing. Beyond the fact that the Bern-Washington depot had been revealed—undoubtedly, unwittingly by Scofield himself—someone knowing it had reached Prague for a walking gun known to have performed extensively for the Americans.

Why?
Who was the target?

Beowulf Agate?

Oh, God! There
was
a method; it had been used before by Washington … and strangely enough there was a vague similarity to the ways of the Matarese.
Storm clouds over Washington
.… Scofield had run into a storm so severe that he had not only been terminated, but conceivably his execution had been ordered. Vasili had to be sure; the man from Prague might himself be a ploy, a brilliant ploy, designed to trap a Russian, not kill an American.

His hand was still suspended in front of the dial. He pressed down on the coin return lever and thought for a moment, wondering if he could take the risk. Then he saw the man across the street check his watch and turn toward the entrance of a coffee shop; he was going to meet someone. There
were
others, and Vasili knew that he could not afford
not
to take the risk. He had to find out; there was no way to know how much time was left. It might only be minutes.

There was a
pradavyet
at the embassy, a diplomatic assistant whose left foot had been blown off during a counterinsurgency operation in Riga a number of years ago. He was a KGB veteran and he and Taleniekov had once been friends. It perhaps was not the moment to test that former friendship, but Vasili had no choice. He knew the number of the embassy; it had not changed in years. He reinserted the coin and dialed.

“It’s been a long time since that terrible night in Riga, old friend,” said Taleniekov after having been connected to the
pradavyet’s
office.

“Would you remain on the line, please,” was the reply. “I have another call.”

Vasili stared at the telephone. If the wait was more than thirty seconds, he’d have his answer; the former friendship would not serve. There were ways for even the Soviets
to trace a call in the national capital of the United States. He turned his wrist and kept his eyes on the thin, jumping hand of his watch.
Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one … thirty-two.
He reached up to break the connection when he heard the voice.

“
Taleniekov?
It
is
you?”

Vasili recognized the echoing sound of an activated jamming device placed over the mouthpiece of a telephone. It operated on the principle of electronic spillage; any intercepts would be clogged with static. “Yes, old friend. I nearly hung up on you.”

“Riga was not that long ago. What
happened?
The stories we get are crazy.”

“I’m no traitor.”

“No one over here thinks you are. We assume you stepped on some large Muscovite feet. But can you return?”

“Someday, yes.”

“I can’t believe the charges. Yet you’re
here!”

“Because I must be. For Russia’s sake, for all our sakes.
Trust
me. I need information, quickly. If anyone at the embassy has it, you would.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve just seen a man from Prague, someone the Americans used for his more violent talents. We kept an extensive file on him; I assume we still keep it. Do you know anything—”

“Beowulf Agate,” interrupted the diplomat quietly. “It’s Scofield, isn’t it? That’s what drives you still.”

“Tell me what you know!”

“Leave it alone, Taleniekov. Leave
him
alone. Leave him to his own people; he’s finished.”

“My God, I’m
right
,” said Vasili, his eyes on the coffee shop across Nebraska Avenue.

“I don’t know what you think you’re right about, but I know three cables were intercepted. To Prague, Marseilles and Amsterdam.”

“They’ve sent a team,” broke in Taleniekov.

“Stay away. You have your revenge, the sweetest imaginable. After a lifetime, he’s taken by his own.”

“It can’t happen! There are things you
don’t know.
”

“It can happen regardless of what I know. We can’t stop it.”

Suddenly, Vasili’s attention was drawn to a pedestrian about to cross the intersection not ten yards from the telephone booth. There was something about the man, the set expression of his face, the eyes that darted from side to side behind the lightly tinted glasses—bewildered, perhaps, but not lost, studying his surroundings. And the man’s clothes, loose-fitting, inexpensive tweeds, thick and made to last … they were French. The glasses were
French
, the man’s face itself
Gallic.
He looked across the street toward the marquee of the hotel, and hastened his step.

Marseilles had arrived.

“Come in to us.” The diplomat was speaking. “Whatever happened cannot be irreparable in light of your extraordinary contributions.” The former comrade from Riga was being persuasive. Too persuasive. It was not in character between professionals. “The fact that you came in voluntarily will be in your favor. Heaven knows, you’ll have our support. We’ll ascribe your flight to a temporary aberration, a highly emotional state. After all, Scofield killed your brother.”

“I killed his wife.”

“A wife is not blood. These things are understandable. Do the right thing. Come in, Taleniekov.”

The excessive persuasion was now illogical. One did not voluntarily turn himself in until the evidence of exoneration was more concrete. Not with an order for summary execution on one’s head. Perhaps, after all, the former friendship could not stand the strain. “You’ll protect me?” he asked the
pradavyet.

“Of course.”

A lie. No such protection could be promised. Something
was
wrong.

Across the street, the man wearing tinted glasses approached the coffee shop. He slowed his pace, then stopped and went up to the window as if studying a menu affixed to the glass. He lit a cigarette. From inside, barely seen in the sunlight, there was a flicker of a match. The Frenchman went inside. Prague and Marseilles had made contact.

“Thank you for your advice,” said Vasili into the phone. “I’ll think it over and call you back.”

“It would be best if you didn’t delay,” answered the diplomat,
urgency replacing sympathetic persuasion. “Your situation would not be improved by any involvement with Scofield. You should not be seen down there.”

Seen down there?
Taleniekov reacted to the words as though a gun had been fired in front of his face. In his old friend’s knowledge was the betrayal! Seen down
where?
His colleague from Riga knew! The hotel on Nebraska Avenue. Scofield had not exposed the Bern depot—unwittingly or otherwise.
KGB had!
Soviet intelligence was a participant in Beowulf Agate’s execution.
Why?

The Matarese? There was no time to think, only act … The hotel! Scofield was not sitting alone by a phone in some out-of-the-way place, waiting to hear from intermediaries. He was in the
hotel.
No one would have to leave the premises to report to Beowulf Agate, no bird could be followed to the target. The target had executed a brilliant maneuver: he was in the direct range of fire, but unseen, observing but unobservable.

“You really
must
listen to me, Vasili.” The
pradavyet’s
words came faster now; he obviously sensed indecision. If his former colleague from Riga had to be killed, it could be done any number of ways within the embassy. That was infinitely preferable to a comrade’s corpse being found in an American hotel, somehow tied to the murder of an American intelligence officer by foreign agents. Which meant the KGB had revealed the location of the depot to the Americans, but had not known the precise schedule of the execution at the time.

They knew it
now.
Someone in the State Department had told them, the message clear. His countrymen had to stay away from the hotel—as did the Americans. None could be involved. Vasili had to buy minutes, for minutes might be all he had left. Diversion.

“I’m listening.” Taleniekov’s voice was choked with sincerity, an exhausted man coming to his senses. “You’re right. I’ve nothing to gain now, only everything to lose. I put myself in your hands. If I can find a taxi in this insane traffic, I’ll be at the embassy in thirty minutes. Watch for me. I need you.”

Vasili broke the connection, and inserted another coin. He dialed the hotel’s number; no second could be wasted.

“He’s
here?
” said the old woman incredulously, in response to Taleniekov’s statement.

“My guess would be nearby. It would explain the timing, the phone calls, his knowing when someone was in the suite. He could hear sounds through the walls, open a door when he heard someone in the corridor. Are you still in your uniform?”

“Yes. I’m too tired to take it off.”

“Check the surrounding rooms.”

“Good heavens, do you know what you’re asking? What if he …”

“I know what I’m paying; there’s more if you do it. Do it! There’s not a moment to be lost! I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

“How will I
know
him?”

“He won’t let you into the room.”

Bray sat shirtless between the open window and the door and let the cold air send shivers through his body. He had brought the temperature of the room down to fifty degrees, the chill was necessary to keep him awake. A cold tired man was far more alert than a warm one.

There was the tiny, blunt sound of metal slapping against metal, then the twisting of a knob. Outside in the hallway a door was being opened. Scofield went to the window and closed it, then walked quickly to another window, his minute lookout on a narrow world that soon would be the site of his reverse trap. It
had
to be soon; he was not sure how much longer he could go on.

Across the way, the pleasant-looking elderly maid had come out of the suite, towels and sheets still draped over her arm. From the expression on her face, she was perplexed but resigned. Undoubtedly, from her point of view, an unheard-of sum of money had been offered by a foreigner who only wished her to remain in a grand suite of rooms and stay awake to receive a series of very strange telephone calls.

And someone else had stayed awake to make those calls. Someone Bray owed a great deal to; he would repay her one day. But right now he concentrated on Taleniekov’s bird. She was leaving; she was not capable of staying in the air any longer.

She had abandoned the drop. It was only a question of time now and very little time at that. The hunter would be forced to examine his trap. And be caught in it.