Chameleon (16 page)

Second, there is only one person I feel qualified to represent both you and me in this matter. His name is Frank O’Hara. O’Hara is disarmingly honest, he is a former member of the intelligence community, he is a recognized and respected news reporter, and he has known me for more than five years. For these reasons, I feel he is uniquely qualified not only to judge my veracity but to properly appraise the information.

I have not seen, talked to, or communicated in any way with O’Hara for more than a year.

There is an additional problem with respect to O’Hara. I am sure you will recall his series of articles two years ago, exposing a network of illegal covert actions conducted by the CIA in Africa and the Middle East. The stories resulted in the embarrassment, humiliation and demotion of O’Hara’s former CIA section chief, Ralph Dobbs, a,k.a. the Winter Man.

As a result, Dobbs sanctioned the assassination of O’Hara and offered a fee to several professionals to carry out the job.

I know, I was one of them. I refused the sanction.

O’Hara has been on the dodge ever since. To my knowledge, nobody has turned him up yet.

You will find, attached hereto, a notarized statement concerning Dobbs’s offer to me. Since this is a personal vendetta, and in no way officially concerns the CIA, you might threaten to publish the facts. This will neutralize Dobbs and force him to lift the sanction.

If you can find O’Hara and he is interested in the assignment, tell him to contact the Magician. If I have heard nothing by April 1, I will assume you are not interested.

Yours very truly,

Anthony V. Falmouth

The affidavit was attached by paper clip to the letter. O’Hara turned it over, checked out the envelope.

‘How was it delivered? There’s no stamp on it.’

‘One of my correspondents was in Jamaica. It was in his box when he came in from dinner one evening.’

O’Hara reread the letter and the affidavit, then put them on the table in front of Howe. He finished his coffee.

‘Well?’ said Howe.

‘Well what?’

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I’ll tell you what I don’t think. I don’t think I’m going to assume responsibility for your two hundred and fifty thou, or anybody else’s.’

‘We can get to that. What about the letter?’

O’Hara shrugged. ‘A toss-up. Falmouth’s either on to something or he’s trying a fast sting and he figures he can suck me into it with him or floss me. Either way, I don’t like it.’

Having finished his breakfast, Howe carefully put down his knife and fork and pushed his plate a few inches away with a finger. He leaned toward O’Hara and said, almost in a whisper, ‘What do you think it could be?’

‘Hooked ya, hunh?’

‘Enough to bring you in.,

‘And you put it to Dobbs, eh?’

‘Just as Falmouth suggested. We had lunch in my jet, flyin’ around over Washington. Dobbs fell apart very quickly. About the time the salad was served.’

‘Well, I owe one to Tony for that. And to you.’

‘I wouldn’t forget the young lady.’

‘Gunn? Yeah, she looked pretty good in there.’

‘I have a feeling about this, Lieutenant. My instincts’re buzzing. Have been ever since I got the damn letter.’

‘You must be on every mail-order list in the world.’ ‘Really, sir. You do me an injustice. Give me credit for something. I’ve been in the news business since I was twelve, setting type for my grandfather’s weekly up in Maine.’

‘I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that I know the territory.’

‘It’s an adventure, by God. If I were twenty years younger and had two good legs under me, I’d be off with you.’

‘I told you, I won’t be responsible for your money, or anybody else’s, for that matter. Besides, it’s not an adventure, it’s madness. The whole damn Game is mad and the Players are all a bunch of fucking lunatics.’

‘Makes for a great story,’ Howe cried exuberantly.

‘You may be as nutty as they are,’ O’Hara said.

‘It’s my money, Lieutenant. So it’s my problem, right? Thus far, Falmouth has been on target. You said so yourself— if you could trust anyone, it would be him.’

‘One helluva big “if.”

‘What the hell, it’s a write-off, anyway. And I’ll meet your price. Name it.’

‘I told you I don’t want in.’

‘A thousand a week, with a guarantee of one year.’

‘I said no.’

· O’Hara got up and walked to one of the portholes and stared out at the ocean. The sky was darkening and thunderheads were rumbling down from Provincetown. He felt thunderheads roiling inside him, too.

They’re gonna get me into this, he thought, and the very idea made him angry and it was difficult to explain his feeling to Howe, this overwhelming sense of anger that was growing inside him. He knew the scenario before it was recited, knew the characters, the locations, could even recite a lot of the dialogue. It was not just the pervading sense of dishonour; not the excesses of a Game in which people kill, maim and steal with impunity, a blood sport in which the score was kept in head counts, not numbers. No, O’Hara’s anger sprang from acceptance. He was angry because he was accepted by the Players in this community of hyenas. He was part of it, like it or not. His escape had failed and subconsciously he was angry at Howe for reminding him of the fact. So when he blew up, it came so suddenly and without warning that Howe was stunned by the outburst.

‘I said no, goddammit. NO!’ O’Hara slammed his fist on the solid oak table with such fury that the ice in the glasses rattled.

‘Lieutenant, you’re a journalist. ‘Whatever you fear ain’t gonna be solved by raising dogs in Japan. Or, for that matter, by turning down a chance any self-respecting reporter would commit murder to get.’ Howe took a sip of his vodka-laced tea and said, grinning, ‘Fifteen hundred_ Plus expenses. That’s seventy-eight thousand for the year. And a hundred-thousand- dollar bonus when you turn in the story.’

‘You sure make fast judgments there, Mr Howe. And here we just met.’

Howe picked up the letter and looked it over again. I was sure about you before I sent Gunn after you. This isn’t the Game, Lieutenant. I trust you.’

‘I’m not even sure I have the news judgment. What the hell story is worth a quarter of a million dollars?’

‘Well, if Deep Throat had come to me with Watergate and offered me the story for half a million dollars, I would have taken it like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘That give you an idea?’

O’Hara turned and leaned against the bulkhead. Outside, the first drops of rain began to pelt the deck.

‘Well, shit,’ O’Hara said.

Howe’s eyebrows arched. ‘Uh . . does that mean you’re interested?’

‘I owe you one, for getting me off the hook with Dobbs.’

‘Not on your life. I did that on my own, no obligation.’ But not Tony. He knew Falmouth. He had neutralized the Winter Man, and for that, O’Hara owed him. And even though Howe denied it, he felt an obligation there, too.

‘Shikata ga nai,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘An old Japanese expression,’ O’Hara said.

‘And what does it mean?’

‘Freely translated, “fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.”

‘Well, now, sir, I don’t mean to...’

But O’Hara wasn’t listening. He had made the decision. ‘Six days,’ he said half aloud. ‘The first of April is six days away.’

‘You can get anywhere in the world in six days,’ Howe said quietly.

O’Hara paused for a few more moments.

‘Okay, Mr Howe. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll go find Falmouth and see what he’s got. But even if his info is worth the two hundred and fifty grand, I still want the option to walk away from it, let somebody else do the dirty work.’

Howe’s black eyes twinkled again. He held out the vise. ‘Done. Here’s my hand.’ And they shook. Then he said, ‘Son, you’re too good a reporter to walk away from any yam worth a quarter of a million dollars.’

‘Not if it’s gonna put me back in the middle of Shit City again.’

‘You’re a reporter, lad, not a goddamn spy.’

‘Call it what you will, I’ll be dealing with Tony and the Magician and that puts me back in the Game, like it or not.’

‘You know how to find this Magician?’

O’Hara smiled. ‘I can find the Magician.’

‘And is he also an agent?’

‘The Magician?’ O’Hara laughed. ‘Oh yeah. He’s the last of the red hot spies.’

7

The green-blue Caribbean gleamed below him like a jewel nestled in the hand of God. The Lear jet banked gracefully in the cloudless sky and soared down toward the island of St Lucifer. Coral reefs swept beneath the plane, shimmering deep in the clear sea, like bunches of tiny boutonnieres. Ahead of them, St Lucifer squatted in the blazing sun, a tiny island dominated by a single mountain peak cloaked in bright-green foliage. The main town, Bonne Terre, lay before them, its five-thousand-foot runway beckoning from the edge of town, like a long, bony finger.

From ten thousand feet it had stilt looked like the paradise he remembered, a fertile and unspoiled refuge hidden away between Guadeloupe and Martinique. Although still a French dependency, the island had its own governor and a police force of six. But as the plane whistled down to its landing, O’Hara saw the grim signs of encroaching civilization.

Two years before, when O’Hara had last been to St Lucifer, there was one hotel, which attracted erstwhile journalists, fishermen, expatriates, drunks and mercenaries, who preferred to call themselves soldiers of fortune. Even travel agents had ignored the island, finding it much too dull to recommend to anyone. So it had also become the perfect crossroads for peripatetic intelligence agents assigned to the Caribbean sector, most of them culled from the dregs of their respective agencies: alcoholics, misfits, over-the-hill operatives and men on the verge of mental breakdown, sent to this sunny Siberia, where they spent most of their time spying on one another. When something big came up, the first team was usually sent in. But routine intelligence business vas left to the misfits.

Two years had changed St Lucifer. The commercial lepers had finally discovered it, and the blight was evident from the air as they swept onto the runway. Hilton and Sheraton had invaded its lazy beaches, and condominiums had begun to spring up along the jungled coast, a harbinger of the Styrofoam and Naugahyde invasion that was imminent. O’Hara could see a golf course stretching out beside the once virgin west beach, and swimming pools glittered like vinyl puddles among the fancy homes on the outskirts of town. Even the main road, which twisted, like an eel, the hundred or so miles around the perimeter of the island, had been paved.

O’Hara could guess the rest: the gaining tables, with their semiliterate mobster overlords accompanied by sleek, overdressed, over-jewelled, classless broads. St Lucifer had become just another tacky, tasteless colony for the fat and ugly nouveaux riches and the ephemeral jetsetters. So much for paradise lost.

O’Hara was thinking about the Magician as the plane was taxiing on the runway. What was it Howe had asked — did he know the Magician?

O’Hara smiled to himself. Oh yes, he knew the Magician alright, the one the French called le Sorcier. And oh, what a yarn he could write about him. But the Magician’s unique success lay in the fact that nobody ever talked or wrote about him.

Nobody.

The has-been spy community protected his integrity because they needed him. The Magician was their encyclopaedia, a listening post for au.

Fate had chosen to throw the Magician, the Game and the Caribbean into the same pot, and in so doing, had created a marvellously catastrophic brew; a concoction of sheer madness. The Magician’s macabre sense of humour manifested that madness, while the Caribbean became a bizarre capsule of the insanity of the entire intelligence community. The Magician, a man with no training, no background in the Game, and no particular interest in it, was to become the master Monopolist of Caribbean intelligence; the owner of Boardwalk and Park Place with hotels; King Shit of the territory.

What were his objectives?

None. He had achieved this unique position for the sheer hell of it. It was his hobby. Michael Rothschild, alias Six Fingers, alias the Magician, alias le Sorcier, was wonderfully eccentric.

The Magician had been delighted to hear from O’Hara, delighted his old pal was still alive.

‘Sailor! So you fucked the goddamn Winter Man, after all,’ the Magician had cried out when O’Hara finally reached him via one of the most archaic and unreliable telephone systems in the world. As they spoke, static crackled along the line, like popcorn popping.

‘Poor help,’ O’Hara said.

‘Come on down!’ the Magician cried enthusiastically.

‘I’m looking for Falmouth.’

‘I got all the details.’

‘I’m running out of time.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s cool. I’ll put you with Tony.’

‘Can’t we talk on the phone?’

‘Yeah. But you’re gonna end up here, anyway. So . . . come on down. It’s right on the way.’

‘Okay, pal, warm up the ice cubes.

Howe had supplied the Lear. And tow, as it taxied toward the shack they called a depot, O’ Hara’s adrenaline was pumping furiously. Falmouth was somewhere nearby, and for the first time since he had accepted the assignment, he was eager to find out what was up his sleeve.

II

The man was absolutely unmemorable. He was neither tall nor short, fat nor thin, handsome nor ugly. He had no scars or noticeable defects. His accent was basically bland, he could have been from Portland, Oregon, or Dallas, Texas, there was no way of telling. He wore gray: a gray suit, a gray-and-wine tie, a gray-striped shirt. In short, there was nothing in his carriage, demeanour or dress that would either attract attention or make an impression on anyone.

The office was on the twenty-second floor of a sterile glass-and-chromium New Orleans skyscraper that had all the warmth and pizzazz of a fly swatter. He checked his watch as he got off the elevator.

Two minutes early. Perfect.

He entered the office of Sunset Oil International.

‘My name is Duffield,’ he told the secretary. He did not offer a card.

‘Oh yes, Mr Duffield, you’re to go right in,’ she said. ‘Mr Ollinger is expecting you. Do you care for coffee or something cool to drink’?’

‘No, thank you.’

She ushered him into the office. Ollinger was a man in his early forties, with the baby-skin face arid soft hands of the easy life. His soft brown eyes stared bleakly from behind lightly tinted, gold-rimmed spectacles. He was tall and erect and in good physical shape, clean-shaven with short-cropped blond hair, and he was in his shirt sleeves. The city stretched out behind him, a panorama framed by floor-to-ceiling windows. His walnut desk was a study in Spartan organization: ‘in’ boxes and ‘out’ boxes and not a sheet of paper out of place. On the credenza behind him was a single photograph of a woman and two children, and beside it a small brass plaque with ‘Thank you for not smoking’ printed on it. There was not one other personal effect in the room. It was as if Ollinger had just moved in and had not unpacked yet. His manner was cordial but distant. Some might have thought him intimidating, but to Duffield, he was just another executive with a problem.

‘Thanks for getting up here so fast’ Ollinger said after the introductions.

‘You indicated there is some urgency to the matter.’

‘You might say that,’ Ollinger replied with a touch of sarcasm. He sighed, and straightening his arms, placed both hands on his desk, palms down. ‘Before we start,’ he said, ‘I would like it understood that this conversation never happened.’

Duffield smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. Ollinger was new at this, and uncomfortable in a situation that was totally out of his control.

‘Good,’ Ollinger said, with a sense of relief. He opened the desk drawer and took out a yellow legal pad with notes scrawled au over the top page. ‘I hope I can decipher all this,’ he said. ‘I was scribbling notes as fast as I could.’

‘Why not just tell me the basic problem,’ Duffield said.

‘The basic problem is that one of our people has been kidnapped by terrorists in Venezuela,’ Ollinger said, still studying his notes and not looking up.

‘I see.’

‘Actually, he’s a consultant attached to our office in Caracas. It was a mistake. They meant to take the manager of the plant and got the wrong man.’

‘You know that for sure?’

Ollinger nodded. ‘Our manager’s name is Domignon. He was going to take Lavander on a tour of the facilities but something came up at the last minute. He let Lavander use his car and driver and it was raining, so he loaned Lavander his slicker. They jumped the car less than a mile from the main gate.’

‘Lavander’s the one got lifted, then’?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he the oil consultant?’

Ollinger nodded. ‘Yes. You know him?’

‘Only by reputation. When did this happen?’

‘Eight-twenty this morning.’

‘Have you heard from the bastards?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do they want?’

‘Two million dollars.’

‘What’s the time frame?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘How much time do you have?’

‘Forty-eight hours.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Make that forty-five.’

‘So we have until approximately eight-thirty the day after tomorrow. Are they aware of their error?’

‘They don’t care. It’s put up or shut up.’

‘How badly do you want him back?’

‘Well, I ... uh, we have to treat him as if—’

‘Mr Ollinger, is he worth two million dollars to your company?’ Ollinger seemed shocked by Duffield’s candour. ‘There’s a man’s life at stake here.’

‘Yes, yes, but that’s not What I asked you. Is the man worth two million dollars to Sunset?’

The weight of events seemed to press down on Ollinger. His shoulders sagged and he looked at his hands. ‘I don’t know anybody that is,’ he said forlornly.

‘Is this political?’

‘Political?’

‘You know, do they want anything else? Do they have prisoners they want released? Is there a union problem in the plant? Are these people revolutionary types? Do they want to nationalize your operation? Is it political?’

‘No. All... all they want’s two million dollars.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or they’ll kill him, take another hostage and raise the ante to four million.’

‘Typical. Do you know these people? Is it a group? A solo with a few hired hands? Some employee with a hard-on?’

‘They call themselves the ... uh, Raf...’ He looked at his notes.

‘Rafsaludi?’ Duffield filled in.

‘That’s it. You know them?’

‘We’ve dealt with them once or twice before. It’s a loose-knit, terror-for-profit group trained by Gaddafi’s people in Libya. They’re not politically motivated.’

‘So it has something to do with oil, then...’

‘Not necessarily. They prey on big American companies. Our last experience with them involved a soft-drink company in Argentina. The Rafsaludi is motivated by greed, not social reform. That’s a help.’

‘A help?’

‘Well, there’s an attitude of fanaticism among political revolutionaries. Tends to make them a bit unpredictable. A greedy terrorist is always easier to deal with.’

‘Oh,’ Ollinger said. It was obvious that he was uneasy dealing with the problem. ‘Can it be done without, you know, a lot of — uh, unnecessary, uh...’

‘You’re new at this,’ Duffield said. It was not a question.

‘Yes. I was in the legal department until they made me vee-pee in charge of international operations two months ago.’

‘You’d better get used to this kind of thing,’ Duffield said. ‘These are cretins. Unless the situation is dealt with harshly, it will happen again.’

Ollinger rubbed his forehead. He was growing more uncomfortable by the minute.

‘I assume you want the man back,’ Duffield said briskly, changing the subject.

Ollinger looked at him with arched eyebrows. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Mr Ollinger, let’s be candid. Of course you want this Lavander back. What I mean is, you want him back, but you don’t want to pay two million dollars for him, right?’

‘That’s why I called you. Derek Frazer recommended—’

‘Yes, yes, I talked to Derek. My point is, this man is only a consultant, he’s not a salaried executive with the company.’

‘We have to think of him as an employee,’ Ollinger said. ‘If word got out that we let terrorists kill a contract consultant...’ He let the sentence trail off,

‘Yes, it would be regarded as a moral responsibility.’

‘You don’t have to remind us...’

‘Excuse me,’ Duffield said quietly, ‘that wasn’t meant to sound like a moral judgment. Tam merely trying to get a proper fix on the situation.’

Ollinger cleared his throat and then nodded. ‘Yes, uh your analysis is quite correct. If possible, we’d like to do this without any media coverage. Lavander himself is a bit reclusive. Very private. I doubt that he would talk about it — that is, if we can get him out and—’

‘It’s not an “if’ situation. We’ll bring him in, if that’s what you want.’

‘We can’t afford to lose him.’

‘So, I repeat, you want him back, but you don’t want to spend two million dollars doing it. Is that a proper appraisal of the situation?’

Ollinger began to fidget. He flexed his shoulders as though he had a stiff neck. Drops of perspiration appeared along his hairline. The armpits of his shirt were black with sweat. Finally he said, ‘Yes, that’s accurate. Also, we’d like to, uh, think it won’t... you know, happen again.’

‘Perfectly understandable. How many people know about this?’

‘No more than seven or eight. The executives at the plant, the driver of the car, who was released after they grabbed Lavander, and the head of plant security.’

‘No Venezuelan cops?’

‘No.’

‘State department? CIA, FBI.

‘No, none of that.’

‘Excellent. Well, Mr Ollinger, I’d like to suggest you leave this matter in our hands. Inform Señor Domignon that he’ll be getting a call sometime within the next hour. I’ll need some basic information, names of executives, phone numbers, location of plant ... uh, we may need to slip some equipment into the country without having to deal with customs. But, basically, all you need to do is call Domignon and tell him I’ll be in touch. Then you can forget about it.’

Ollinger smiled hesitantly. ‘That’s wonderful, really. Now, about the price...’

‘The price will be three hundred thousand dollars. I’ll need it in cash before I leave. My briefcase is empty, you can put the money in there.’

Ollinger seemed shocked. ‘Three hundred thousand!’

Duffield smiled. ‘Look at it this way, Mr Ollinger: you’re investing three hundred thousand and saving one million seven. If there should be a repeat of the situation, we’ll handle it at no additional cost. Oh, and by the way, if the operation should fail for any reason, your money will be cheerfully refunded.’

‘Quill.’

‘Duffield here.’

‘What’s the situation?’

‘First of all, this Ollinger is a wimp. New on the job and very unhappy he has to handle this. Doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. Actually, he was so relieved when I told him to forget it and let us handle the thing, I thought he was going to jump across the desk and kiss me.’

‘Any danger he may violate security?’

‘No, he’s quite aware of the need for silence.’

‘What are the details?’

‘The Rafsaludi grabbed a consultant named Lavander in Caracas by mistake; they were after the manager, a man named Domignon. They want two mu by the day after tomorrow, eight-thirty AM., or they snuff the ho-stage, grab another and raise the ante to four mu.’

‘Fairly routine for them.’

‘Yes, very little imagination. The hook is that they lifted the wrong man. But it’s just a wrinkle, nothing that would affect the overall operation.’

‘Media? Police?’

‘No, so far it’s clean. A few executives and the driver of the car Lavander was taken from.’

‘Excellent. State department isn’t involved, or CIA?’

‘No, it’s under wraps. We have the contract and I’ve handled the funds in the usual manner. Three hundred thousand less my commission.’

‘Excellent, I’ll take it from here.. As usual, you did an excellent job, Mr Duffield. At the beep tone, please feed Master all names and contacts and any other information we’ll need.’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘Thank you for moving so quickly. Good day, sir.’

‘So long.’