Labyrinth (24 page)

Chapter 19

LOCKE COULDN'T BELIEVE IT
when Dogan presented him with his passport Monday night.

“A Russian friend of mine retrieved it from the train station at Vaduz” was all he said. “Without it, travel at this point would prove extremely difficult.”

“I thought you guys had contacts all over the world who could whip one up in no time.”

“And all of them are being watched hoping I'll do just that.”

“So I remain Sam Babbit.”

“Felderberg was the only one who knew you under that name so it should be safe to keep it.”

“Burgess knows about it too,” Locke reminded him. “He set the identity up, and you expressed reservations about him before.”

“But from what you've said, I doubt we have anything to fear from him. Besides, we haven't got much choice.”

“Then maybe I should call the contact number and fill him in.”

“No. By now someone has probably linked him to Charney, which means they'll be watching him. You'll only throw Burgess into more danger and risk exposing yourself at the same time.”

Locke lowered his eyes to the ceramic floor of his room's balcony. “I suppose the same can be said about contacting my family.”

“Even more so,” Dogan said softly, trying to comfort Locke as best he could. “They would ask questions you couldn't answer, ask for reassurances you couldn't give. Worse, contacting them could place their lives in jeopardy.”

“And what if that's already the case?” Locke demanded suddenly. “The Committee stops at nothing—you said that yourself. My family are sitting ducks for them.”

“Only as leverage against you, leverage they didn't think they needed until yesterday and leverage that means nothing since they have no idea where you are. The Committee stops at nothing, true, but none of its motions are wasted. You can count on that.”

“Excuse me if I don't.” Locke sat down wearily. “God, this is crazy. A week ago I hated my life. Everything was falling apart and I would have grasped for anything just for the sake of change. That's probably what drove me to accept Charney's offer more than anything else. Now I find myself trapped in a labyrinth, and everywhere I turn there's another wall. This may sound nuts, but all of a sudden I realize maybe I didn't have it so bad. Maybe my problems at home weren't worse than anybody else's.”

“I know how you feel.”

“Do you? Do you have a life back in the States that you'll probably never make it back to?” Locke challenged, feeling guilty even before the hurt appeared on Dogan's face.

The agent looked away. “A family never meant much to me, just something to tie me down. We can't have that in my profession, can we?”

“Brian tried. It didn't work.”

“It seldom does. The profession has to be everything.” A bitter tone entered Dogan's voice. “Especially for me because I was the best. But the only thing being the best does for you is set you up as a target, for the opposition and for your own people. And it's your own people who are the worst. When you're too good, they start to fear you've gained too much control. That's when you become expendable. You work your whole career to attain something and then they take it away because to them you're just a machine; no, less than a machine—a number, a number they can delete from the central computer with one touch of a key. Then you don't exist anymore because maybe you never did in the first place.”

Dogan was breathing uncharacteristically hard. Locke found himself smiling.

“Is this the moment we cry on each other's shoulders?”

Dogan chuckled, then checked his watch. “Not if I want to make my plane. It leaves for Bogotá in an hour and yours leaves for Rome tomorrow morning. After landing, you'll enjoy a scenic train route north into Florence. I've already contacted the Dwarf's people. He's expecting you.”

“So I just walk right into his office and tell him you sent me… .”

“Hardly. Something seems to have spooked the little man rather badly and he's gone into hiding. You can bet it won't be easy to get into see him. He'll have you checked out carefully. It may be a long afternoon.”

“I've heard Florence is beautiful this time of year.”

“That's good because you might be seeing a lot of it. Standard procedure in this situation dictates you'll be run around a bit to make sure you're alone. Just follow their instructions. The Dwarf takes precautions, but if you cooperate, you'll see him.”

“And then?”

“Back to Rome and the Hilton Hotel, where a reservation for you has already been made. You'll stay put there until you hear from me. We'll set up a contact code through the hotel manager. I've worked with him before and he's very reliable. If he doesn't present a warding-off signal, I'll know it's safe to come in. I don't expect to be in San Sebastian long anyway. I should be in Rome by late Wednesday with any luck.”

“We haven't had much yet.”

“We're alive, Chris, and that's a start.”

Calvin Roy finished going over Brian Charney's file for the sixth time. The feeling that something was missing was still very strong in him. His eyes tired and bloodshot, Roy started his seventh survey.

What he sought was there, he felt certain of that. The problem was to find it. Proof positive that a high-security file had been tampered with could confirm his, and Charney's, greatest fears: Whatever was happening had deep roots in the United States government.

Roy kept reading.

Charney would have sent Locke to someone in England, a person who had to be present in the dead agent's file. The key was there, the answer sure—

Roy's eyes froze. He went over the section a second time, a third. He flipped the page over and studied it closely.

He had found what he was looking for!

The file had been tampered with, all right. The evidence was quite clear. The question was why? And by whom? Something was very wrong here and somehow an innocent college professor had been thrust into the middle. Roy reached for his phone and hit one button.

“This is Roy. Put me through to the Secretary on the scrambler, wherever the hell he is.”

Locke's train from Rome deposited him in Florence at four o'clock in the afternoon. The trip had been hectic but, incredibly, nothing had gone wrong. He hailed a cab and gave the driver his destination: the Palazzo Vecchio. Chris felt he was prepared for anything.

The palazzo was a medieval palace in a large piazza. Its single tower rose the length of a football field into the sky and featured a huge, ancient clock. Statues of varying sizes and constructions adorned the palazzo's front, while its insides were dominated by artistic treasures unaffected by the centuries. Locke would not be entering, though. His instructions were to wait outside among the statues, pigeons, and horse-drawn carriages. He mingled with the natives and other tourists. Someone would contact him there. Chris had to make himself seen but not obvious.

He was strolling amid the pigeons, amused by their boldness, when a horse-drawn carriage pulled up near him.

“A ride, mister?” the driver asked in poor English.

“No thanks,” Locke said, turning away.

“A ride, mister?” the driver repeated.

“Not right now,” Locke said as politely as he could manage.

The driver smiled faintly and moved his right arm over the side of the carriage, holding the reins with only his left.

“A ride, mister?” he repeated a third time.

“Look, I told you—”

Locke's eyes strayed down and fixed upon a tattoo on the driver's right forearm, an impression of a small man standing between two large ones. A very small man.

A dwarf.

Locke looked up. The driver winked.

“A ride, mister?” he offered yet again, and this time Chris climbed into the back.

The horse trotted through the center of the old city, undaunted by the small cars surging past blaring their horns. The horse pranced as if it owned the streets and the machines were intruding. Soon it passed onto narrow streets where automobile traffic was prohibited. The ride lasted just over five minutes and ended in a square before what Chris recognized as the famed Baptistery, one of the oldest buildings in Florence. The driver yanked the reins hard, thrusting Chris forward a little. The man signaled him to get out. Locke reached into his pocket for some of the
lire
he had obtained in Zurich, but the man waved him off and slapped the horse gently with the reins, taking his leave.

Locke moved into the square.

The Baptistery was a striking, octagonal building made of different-color marbles and surrounded by a collection of pilasters that supported its arches. Locke started toward it, watching the numerous pigeons maneuver to avoid his feet without giving up their precious share of ground and breadcrumbs. An old, white-haired woman tossed feed to the birds by the handful, and their movements were dictated by the motions of her fingers.

Chris passed her and felt a batch of crumbs fall against his feet. The pigeons approached tentatively, grabbing their feed but pecking clear of his pants and shoes. Locke looked up at the old woman to find her sauntering away. He looked back down. A rolled-up piece of paper rested between his feet. Cautiously he knelt down and retrieved it, keeping it hidden from anyone close by as he unrolled it. The paper's few words provided his next destination:

Uffizi Gallery, Madonna Enthroned
…

The gallery was located back near the Palazzo Vecchio in the Square of the Uffizi. It contained some of the greatest art treasures in the world, the
Madonna Enthroned
by Giotto as great as any. As he snared a cab back beyond the Baptistery square, he mused that the Dwarf must be an art lover.

Because it could not use the mall streets and had to negotiate through dense traffic, the cab took ten minutes to get him to the Uffizi Gallery. The gallery was surprisingly empty and Locke had no trouble locating the massive
Madonna
. The painting dominated an entire wall, which Chris had all to himself. He was glancing at the painting, expecting a nudge to his shoulder or note stuck in his pocket, when he noticed a flicker of white sticking out from beneath the
Madonna
's frame. Pretending to inspect the wood, he reached under and snatched it free. An envelope! Glancing around him to reassure himself no one was watching, Locke withdrew its contents.

West side of Ponte Vecchio Bridge. White Alfa Romeo
.

The walk across the bridge, past a variety of open-air shops set up along it, took only ten minutes but seemed much longer. The spring warmth of Florence had begun to take its toll on Chris. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and he resisted the temptation to strip off his jacket for fear it might cause the Dwarf's men to lose him. His mouth was dry and he was horribly thirsty. He realized his last drink had been a mouthful of water from a fountain before boarding the train from Rome.

Locke reached the far side of the bridge. An engine kicked on somewhere up the narrow street. Locke swung quickly, senses alert.

A white Alfa Romeo was inching its way into traffic. It stopped right next to Chris, doors snapping unlocked. He couldn't make out the driver clearly through the tinted glass, but he opened a rear door and climbed into the backseat anyway.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Locke. We are satisfied you are who you say you are and that you have come alone,” the driver said in decent English. Locke was about to respond when he spoke again. “I will take you to the Dwarf now.”

They followed a winding road as it bent around the bank of the Arno River, then swung right into the hills above the ancient city. They wound up a road enclosed by lavish greenery, cars coming from the opposite direction seeming to miss the Alpha only by inches. Locke flinched with each pass. The driver seemed unbothered. Before long, he turned onto a private road and a sign made their destination clear:
FORTE DI BELVEDERE.

The driver disregarded a smaller sign beneath it announcing
Chiuso in Restauro
and continued on until they reached four armed guards at the fort's entrance waiting to meet any tourists who had not heeded the earlier warning. One of the guards spoke briefly in Italian to the Alfa's driver, a chain was lowered, and the car slid forward into an impenetrable fortress built nearly four hundred years before.

The Forte di Belvedere consisted of one large central building surrounded by huge fortified parapets offering a fantastic view of the city below and the hills in which it was nestled. Obviously, though, the Dwarf had chosen it for its strategic advantages rather than its aesthetic ones. The Alfa came to a halt and Locke noticed a makeshift tent set up in the center of the fortress's courtyard. A small man eyed him from beneath it. A giant flanked him on either side.

Locke stepped out of the car and was met by a smiling, tanned man with a rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Welcome to Florence, Mr. Locke. We apologize for any inconvenience our precautions may have caused, but I'm afraid I must now also ask you to submit to a search.”

Chris obliged and as the hands ruffled along his body and clothes, he noticed far more precautions had been taken. Stationed on the parapets were a number of armed men. A sandbagged station at each end was occupied by two men and a tripod-held heavy machine gun. The guards were everywhere, including on the roof of the central building and in the bell tower. The Dwarf was prepared to fend off a full-scale attack.

“You approve of my choice of retreat, Mr. Locke?”

The hands holding Chris allowed him to turn round and face the small man behind him.

“I'm happy to be at your service,” the Dwarf pronounced, extending a thick, miniature hand.

Locke took it and found the grasp surprisingly firm. The Dwarf's features were not twisted or scarred at all. Instead, his face was dominated by a perfectly trimmed mustache and goatee, eyes above it full but somehow tired. He wore gray slacks and a blue sports shirt.