Krysalis: Krysalis (39 page)
When at last she had finished, and David had repeated each leg of the journey several times to impress it on his memory, they knew it was time for them to part. “There’s one more thing,” he said as he stood up. “Your FBI contact. What will you tell him—about me, I mean? This talk … and about Gerhard?”
“Tell him …?”
“I need a start. Maybe I won’t make it as far as the airport, but I want at least to
try
and get to Anna before anyone else does. Please don’t say anything about the villa.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold out. I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you.”
The door opened, admitting a breath of air from the street, along with a middle-aged man. For a moment this newcomer looked around the bar, as if seeking someone particular, then he caught sight of Robyn and his eyes narrowed.
While David watched in mounting fear, the stranger made his way to their table, pulled up a chair and sat down. “Larry couldn’t come,” he said to Robyn. “Sends his apologies, and will I do instead?”
David stared at Robyn. “Who is this?”
“David. Oh, David …” He saw with amazement that tears were coursing down her cheeks. “I am so … so very sorry.”
Still he did not understand.
“I didn’t level with you. I told my FBI friend I was coming to meet you, and where. I was so scared. You have no idea. I was so scared.”
The man raised ironical eyebrows in David’s direction. “Tom Burroughs,” he said. “FBI. Glad to know you, Mr. Lescombe.”
30
Shorrocks leaned back to rest his elbows on the arms of his chair, hands steepled in front of him “Run that past me again,” he said softly.
Hayes coughed, the kind of cough, Albert thought, a person uses when he’s nervous and wants to conceal it, not realizing that he only gives the game away. “Lescombe, ah, checked into a Washington hotel on Saturday afternoon around three o’clock and left a tape recorder in his room. It made noises like a guy eating, knives and forks, you know, and then taking a long shower. Fancy editing, acoustics.”
“Fancy my arse,” Albert said. “Anyone could do it. How long before you registered?”
“Say one hour.”
“An
hour?”
“Tape lasted forty-five minutes. Then there was nothing for a while and our guys got suspicious.”
“And then,” Shorrocks said, “you lost him. This civil servant, this … amateur.”
Hayes said nothing.
It was just after dawn on Sunday morning, six days since Anna Lescombe had disappeared. Hayes, Redman, Shorrocks, and Albert occupied a barely decorated cubbyhole without a window on the top floor of the American Embassy in London. Redman’s offices were not deemed sufficiently secure for this meeting. A background hum was supposedly guaranteed to frustrate would-be eavesdroppers, but Albert mistrusted modem technology. He had seen it fall apart too often.
He could scarcely conceal his frustration. The precious contract was slipping away with him, along with the Lescombes, and Krysalis and every other goddamn thing. Even if he got clearance now, this minute, whom should he go after—David or Anna? And all because these stupid, so-called “experts” couldn’t stake out a hotel room.
He didn’t know what he wanted from this meeting. Suppose Redman had changed his mind, was now prepared to sanction Anna Lescombe’s death. Why should he assign the job to Albert, rather than his own side? Albert didn’t like the thought of competition.
On the other hand, if Redman was still wimpish and wielded his not inconsiderable influence, his attitude might yet discourage Shorrocks from sending Albert to Greece in pursuit of his prey. There was never anything in writing on these touchy occasions, the legendary “contracts” were purely gentlemen’s agreements. Albert wouldn’t be truly free to act at will until he’d left England.
He ground his teeth, and kept silent.
Redman and his two English guests sat in easy chairs placed around a coffee table. Each held a copy of Hayes’ report, they might have been actors at a read-in. Hayes alone occupied a stark metal and plastic chair. He was
sitting higher than the others and this should have given him an edge but did not. Perched up there he looked more like a schoolboy on trial before his betters, Albert thought with barren satisfaction, monitors conducting an informal inquiry into misdemeanors among the lowest grade.
“I am sorry, Jeremy.” Redman’s voice was rich with melancholy. “No one’s infallible.”
“Funny.” Shorrocks, at least, was enjoying this, Albert could see. “Funny, I thought that was the point of your people, Louis. Infallibility. Or so we were given to believe.”
“Where is he now?” Albert did not expect a concrete answer, but he wanted the question written into the record. He knew he should have insisted on tracking Lescombe.
“We’ll pick him up, sure thing.” Hayes looked straight ahead as he spoke, not meeting anyone’s eye. “Just a matter of time. He must know people in the U.S.; we can trace them.”
“Then you’ll have better luck than we did,” Shorrocks said in a tone that undercut his polite smile.
“At least we know where we stand,” said Redman. “By running away, Lescombe proves he was in it from the start.” His face brightened. “As we did suggest to you earlier, I seem to remember.”
“You did,” Shorrocks acknowledged. “Although if someone attacked me in a Cornish backwater, I might be tempted to run, too.”
“Well, at least you’d agree it’s unlikely Lescombe wouldn’t have known his wife was consulting a psychiatrist over a long period?”
“He’s not a psychiatrist,” Albert put in, with tendentious appeal to accuracy. “He’s a psychotherapist and
hypnotherapist, as well as being a qualified psychologist.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Louis Redman’s most ambassadorial smile was Albert’s sole reward. “To resume, however, what we have to concentrate on now is, who’s he going to meet and where? His wife?”
“Don’t
think
so, Louis,” Shorrocks ventured. “She went east, he’s gone west. Ne’er the twain shall meet, I fear. Kipling, and so on. Looks like a marital double-cross, after all.”
“Well, okay, Jeremy.” Redman dusted an invisible piece of fluff from his right knee. He did it several times, peering closer with each sweep of the palm, but the fluff was evidently a resistant strain. “Do you have any suggestions, maybe?”
Shorrocks and Albert exchanged glances before simultaneously focusing on Hayes’s hunched figure. It was obvious that they could think of at least one.
“Kleist,” Shorrocks said, “appears to be the key. Albert, you’re a little more up on him …?”
“I went back to that restaurant with a photograph we dug out of his permanent-residence application, old, but they recognized him at once. So there’s a longstanding connection between him and Anna Lescombe. He’s disappeared, too. We’re wiring our photo to Athens, so that they can show it to the airfield people at that place, what was it called?”
“Igouminitsa.”
“Igouminitsa, right. We’ve also got our consul working on it, but we don’t expect much from him.”
“Why not?” Redman asked.
“First, because our consulate on Corfu isn’t geared to this kind of thing; second, because the holiday season’s just starting to build and the place is filling up with
tourists. Greek organization isn’t the greatest, of course. Trying to interest the KYP in tracing what looks like an unhappily married woman running away with her lover requires more ingenuity than we possess. Sony.”
“Even if the woman in question has a NATO file stashed away in her luggage?”
“A joint English and
American
file, Louis.” Albert paused to let the message sink in. “I’m sure it won’t come as any surprise to learn that you’re not terribly popular in Athens at the best of times. In any event, you don’t want us to be too specific, remember? Keep the lid on, and all that?”
“Okay, okay.” Redman sighed. “Didn’t this guy Kleist leave a forwarding address? Contact phone number?”
“We have a problem there. We don’t want to ask too many questions up front.”
“Why?”
Shorrocks cleared his throat and Albert looked across at him, grateful to have the heat taken off. “Policy, Louis. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Kleist could be heading up a cell. If, for the sake of example, his housekeeper—he has a housekeeper, by the way—is in cahoots with him, it would be bad tactics to march up to the front door with a warrant.”
Redman essayed another of his famous diplomatic smiles. Somebody, perhaps a CIA charm expert, had schooled him in the need to reveal all the teeth back as far as the molars when you smiled. Albert wondered if he realized that, since his teeth were big and he suffered from receding gums, the effect could be disturbingly sharklike, the opposite of what he intended. Presumably not.
“Therefore?” Redman inquired.
“Therefore, we intend to enter by the, ah, back door. Which takes a little time to organize. As you know.”
Or should by now, Albert mentally added. Except that you CIA people all seem to possess the two-second memories associated with particularly slow-witted goldfish. My God, but if only I’d had the sense to stick with Lescombe …
“Time is something we do not have.”
“I know, Louis, but—”
“Excuse me, Jeremy, but I’d like to give you the one piece of good news. As far as our detectors on the ground can tell, the Soviets haven’t yet taken a single step that might be consistent with their knowing about Krysalis. State now accepts that the risk of their obtaining the file outweighs any short-term inconvenience factor in Europe from disclosing the Krysalis directives and options to our allies. If it will help obtain their cooperation, tell them what the file contains. As of now nothing, repeat nothing, is barred.”
“Thank you, Louis.”
Albert toyed briefly with the idea of telling Redman that this permission had already been anticipated, which would have given him great satisfaction. But then he caught sight of Shorrocks’ angelic expression and thought better of it. “Albert,” said Redman, “I’d like you to liaise—”
An electric bell set just below the ceiling in one corner of the airless little room suddenly sprang to life. Redman grunted in annoyance and jerked his thumb at Hayes, who went to open the door and returned carrying a sheet of paper.
While he was doing that, Albert’s mind busied itself trying to complete Redman’s sentence for him. Liaise
with whom? About what? His eyes narrowed as he studied the American’s face.
What did that man want?
What might he be persuaded to want?
Redman looked at the sheet of paper, then handed it back to Hayes with a lift of the eyebrows, but the other man shook his head.
“Jeremy, does this name mean anything to you?”
Shorrocks took the paper and shared it with Albert. “Russian?” queried the latter. “Polish, perhaps?”
“I mean, for Christ’s sake …” Hayes sounded relieved to have at last been presented with an outlet for his feelings, “what kind of a name is Melkiovicz?”
31
The minute they arrived at JFK Robyn excused herself, saying she wanted to visit the women’s room. David shot her a quick glance, aware of what was really in her mind: to get to the nearest phone.
“Come,” Tom Burroughs said, taking his arm. “Let’s go bankrupt ourselves.”
Tom bought his own ticket first, careful not to look at David, before rejoining Robyn at their prearranged rendezvous in the cafeteria. When David gave the British Airways clerk his American Express card and her phone call verified his creditworthiness as meriting a ticket for the morning
Concorde
to London, he wondered if life would ever again revert to a semblance of normality.
Tom saw him coming a long way off and was on his feet by the time David arrived back at their table. “Take it easy,” he said softly, guiding him into a chair.
“I’m broke now, I suppose. More than broke.”
“Me too.” Tom glumly waved his own boarding
pass. “But look at it this way. Do you want to find your wife or not? If so, how much is she worth to you?”
David made the effort to smile. “I really can’t thank you enough for offering to come with me. It makes me feel a whole lot safer.”