Labyrinth Page 5

  “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 y
ounger 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.”

  “Respect is closer to it. He’s been at this as long as I have, maybe longer. We’re both anachronisms. I’d bet he feels the same way about me.”

  “Ever talk to him?”

  Dogan looked Keyes over again. Big, strong, and smart. Yes, the Company was choosing well these days, but Dogan wasn’t ready to entrust the country’s safety to men like him. There was something missing in men like Keyes, a genuine regard for what they were doing and an understanding of the total picture—something like that. Dogan couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Keyes’s walkie-talkie began to squawk.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Dogan said, and the youth handed the box over reluctantly with an “I wanted to do it myself stare. Dogan lifted the plastic to his lips. “This is Grendel.”

  “Grendel,” a voice boomed. People at neighboring tables looked over.

  “Don’t talk so damn loud!” Dogan ordered in a whisper.

  “Grendel,” the voice started, softer, “subject has entered Place du Tertre from Sacré-Coeur side.”

  That would be the front from his vantage point, Dogan calculated. The speaker was thorough.

  “Is he alone?” Dogan asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Clothing?”

  “Black overcoat, unbuttoned. Tan suit.”

  Damn! thought Dogan. It was eighty degrees and the Russian bastard was wearing an overcoat. Must have thought he was still in Moscow. That would make him stand out. A shield was in order.

  “Detach two of your team to his rear. Understood?”

  “Understood, Grendel. They’ll be in his shadow.”

  “No! Not too close. If we spook him he’ll stand out even more. I don’t want him to know they’re there.”

  Sweat slipped down Dogan’s back and stuck to his shirt. He felt sticky. Something was wrong about this, all wrong. His eyes swept the area around the Place du Tertre, the street bordering it across which lay a row of shops and stores. Everything looked routine.

  “What’s the matter?” Keyes asked. “Do you see something?”

  “Shut up!” Dogan barked. His eyes kept sweeping. Artists with paintbrushes in hand doodled across canvas as they talked nonstop to wide-eyed tourists hoping to turn them into buyers. A mailman bicycled down the street. A blind beggar stuck his cup in the faces of approaching tourists. A single car with an old woman driving crept down the neighboring street, stopped to let two men wheeling baby carriages pass, and then stalled. The woman fought to restart it. Behind her, horns honked.

  “Where is he now?” Dogan asked into the walkie-talkie.

  “Halfway down the street” came back the voice. “Should be in your view now.”

  “Is anyone else following besides us?”

  “Negative. Do you want me to move the rest of my team in?”

  “Absolutely not!” Dogan ordered. “Stay where you are until you hear different from me. Keep your eyes and your men on the head of the street. We’re not home free yet.”

  Dogan glanced down the place. The man in the black overcoat was shouldering his way through the crowd, the agents at his rear much too obvious in their attempt to keep up. The defector reached one of the artists’ booths and stopped.

  The men with the baby carriages, dressed like butlers, had started toward the red-clothed tables.

  “We move,” Dogan told Keyes.

  The younger agent looked frazzled. “That wasn’t the plan.”

  The baby carriages squealed closer.

  “Take him!” Dogan shouted at Keyes and into the walkie-talkie at the same time, already propelling himself from the table.

  The baby carriages were just behind him. The walkie-talkie squawked.

  Dogan threw himself at his targets, the move perfectly timed. An instant later he had both men dressed as butlers pinned on the ground, holding them to make extracting a weapon impossible.

  One of the baby carriages teetered on half its wheels, spilled over. A baby slipped out, crying more from surprise than hurt.

  Dogan looked down at the butlers. Their eyes showed fear. They were babbling in French.

  “Grendel, come in! Come in, Grendel! … I’m taking my team in. Repeat, I’m taking my team in!”

  “NO!” Dogan screamed as if the man at the head of the street could hear him, lunging off the butlers back to his feet. Where was the damn walkie-talkie? How had he dropped it?

  Dogan spotted it next to the closest red tablecloth. He jammed it to his lips, the plot suddenly clear to him.

  “No! Do you hear me? Stay where you are! Repeat, stay where you are. We’ve been had. Stay where you are!”

  There was no response. The man had already moved his team in.

  “Damn!”

  Then Dogan was running, hurdling one table and slithering between tight groups of people. By the artist’s booth, Keyes and others were hustling the man in the black overcoat away.

  “Follow me!” Dogan shouted as he passed him.

  Keyes hesitated only slightly, then took off. He had almost caught up with Dogan when the man with the walkie-talkie sped by them and screeched to a halt.

  “Assholes,” muttered Dogan, shoes clip-clopping atop the cobblestone.

  The head of the Place du Tertre was in sight with the dome of the Sacré-Coeur basilica in the background. But so was a white-haired man who might have been a twin of the one agents were holding at the booth forty yards back, except he wasn’t wearing an overcoat. Dogan watched helplessly, still too far away to respond, as a well-dressed man grabbed him on either elbow and spirited him toward a waiting Peugeot. The real defector resisted only slightly before giving in. The car sped off.

  Dogan’s eyes locked on the blind beggar who had somehow gotten fifteen yards ahead of him and apparently was no longer blind. The man tipped his cap.

  Vaslov!

  In spite of himself, Dogan made the semblance of a wave. He didn’t even consider going for the pistol in his belt.

  Keyes roared to a halt just in front of him and digested the scene, eyes blazing.

  “That’s Vaslov!” he screamed. “Vaslov!” The man dressed as a beggar was strolling away from the Place du Tertre, drifting into a crowd. “You’re letting him get away!”

  Keyes rushed forward, drawing his pistol. A goddamn cannon, Dogan saw.

  “Let him go!” Dogan ordered. “Let him go!”

  Keyes was hearing none of that. He sped into the street and angled for a shot into the crowd the blind beggar had become a par
t of. The young bastard was violating a direct order and you just didn’t do that to Grendel. Sure, the kid was a pro; he had recognized Vaslov from file pictures, after all. He was good, far better than Dogan had estimated. But he was too green to understand.

  Passersby saw Keyes’s cannon and started screaming. Dogan crashed into him and shoved him aside but the kid pushed back, still aiming the gun, ready to fire.

  “I said let him go!” Dogan repeated, and something in him broke. He grabbed the younger agent’s wrist at its weakest point and twisted. There was a snap and Keyes howled in pain. He started to swing his free hand at Dogan.

  Dogan’s defense was just as fast. He blocked the strike effortlessly and crashed a set of rigid fingers under the youth’s jaw. Keyes’s head snapped backward and he went down, eyes dimming. His jaw would probably never work right again and his days of bare-hand kills and quick draws were finished as well. All in ten seconds of Dogan’s wrath.

  The rest of the agents had caught up with the scene by this time, two still holding the imposter Vaslov had planted. Passersby stopped, crowding together to observe two men huddled over an unconscious third.

  “Get an ambulance,” Dogan ordered.

  There’d be hell to pay for this, he knew. Keyes represented a substantial investment on the Company’s part and he had ruined it just like that. Probably did them a favor, but they wouldn’t see it that way.

  He walked away from the crowd disgusted, wondering if Vaslov was still watching.

  Chapter 6

  LOCKE FOUND HIMSELF unable to sleep during his flight. He was going back to England, his place of birth but never his home.

  His memory of those days was sketchy. So as the 747 streaked across the Atlantic, he patched the story together for the thousandth time in his mind, taking what he remembered and mixing it with the bits he had been able to pry out of his father as the years wore on. The old man had died at eighty just the year before in a Virginia rest home.

  It was in his last days that the old man became most lucid about their years in London and flight to America. He rambled on and on, jumping from year to year with the passing of a minute and making no connections. It was left to Locke’s scholar’s mind to string events together and put them in context.