by Jack Higgins
For more than twenty years he had lived multiple lives and yet the separate personae had never inhabited his body. They were roles to be played out as the script dictated, then discarded.
He slipped the stole around his neck and whispered to his alter ego in the mirror, 'In God's House I am God's priest,' and he turned and went out.
Later, standing at the altar with the candles flickering and the organ playing, there was genuine passion in his voice as he cried, 'I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault.'
And when he struck his breast, asking blessed Mary ever Virgin to pray for him to the Lord our God, there were sudden hot tears in his eyes.
At Charles de Gaulle Airport, Tony Hunter waited beside the exit from customs and immigration. He was a tall man in his mid-thirties with stooped shoulders. The soft brown hair was too long, the tan linen suit creased, and he smoked a Gitane cigarette without once taking it from his mouth as he read Paris Soir and kept an eye on the exit. After a while, Devlin appeared. He wore a black Burberry trenchcoat, an old black felt hat slanted over one ear, and carried one bag.
Hunter, who had pulled Devlin's photo and description off the wire, went to meet him. 'Professor Devlin? Tony Hunter. I've got a car waiting.' They walked towards the exit. 'Was it a good flight?'
There's no such thing,' Devlin told him. 'About a thousand years ago, I flew from Germany to Ireland in a Dornier bomber on behalf of England's enemies and jumped by parachute from six thousand feet. I've never got over it.'
They reached Hunter's Peugeot in the car park and as they drove away, Hunter said, 'You can stay the night with me. I've got an apartment on the Avenue Foch.'
'Doing well for yourself, son, if you're living there. I didn't know Ferguson handed out bags of gold.'
'You know Paris well?'
'You could say that.'
'The apartment's my own, not the Department's. My father died last year. Left me rather well off.'
'What about the girl? Is she staying at the Soviet Embassy?'
'Good God, no. They've got her at the Ritz. She's something of a star, you see. Plays rather well. I heard her do a Mozart concerto the other night. Forgotten which one, but she was excellent.'
'They tell me she's free to come and go?'
'Oh, yes, absolutely. The fact that her foster father is General Maslovsky takes care of that. I followed her all over the place this morning. Luxembourg Gardens, then lunch on one of those boat trips down the Seine. From what I hear, her only commitment tomorrow is a rehearsal at the Conservatoire during the afternoon.'
'Which means the morning is the time to make contact?'
'I should have thought so.' They were well into Paris by now, just passing the Gare du Nord. Hunter added, 'There's a bagman due in from London on the breakfast shuttle with documentation Ferguson's having rushed through. Forged passport. Stuff like that.'
Devlin laughed out loud. 'Does he think all I have to do is ask and she'll come?' He shook his head. 'Mad, that one.'
'All in how it's put to her,' Hunter suggested.
'True,' Devlin told him. 'On the other hand, it would probably be a damned sight easier to slip something in her tea.'
It was Hunter's turn to laugh now. 'You know, I like you, Professor, and I'd started off by not wanting to.'
'And why could that be?' Devlin wondered, interested.
'I was a captain in the Rifle Brigade. Belfast, Derry, South Armagh.'
'Ah, I see what you mean.'
'Four tours between nineteen seventy-two and seventy-eight.'
'And that was four tours too many.'
'Exactly. Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, they can give Ulster back to the Indians.'
'The best idea I've heard tonight,' Liam Devlin told him cheerfully and he lit a cigarette and sprawled back in the passenger seat, felt hat tilted over his eyes.
At that moment in his office at KGB Headquarters in Dzerhinsky Square
, Lieutenant-General Ivan Maslovsky was seated at his desk, thinking about the Cuchulain affair. Cherny's message passed on by Lubov, had reached Moscow only a couple of hours earlier. For some reason it made him think back all those years to Drumore in the Ukraine and Kelly in the rain with a gun in his hand, the man who wouldn't do as he was told.
The door opened and his aide, Captain Igor Kurbsky, came in with a cup of coffee for him. Maslovsky drank it slowly. 'Well, Igor, what do you think?'
'I think Cuchulain has done a magnificent job, Comrade General, for so very many years. But now…'
'I know what you mean,' Maslovsky said. 'Now that British Intelligence knows he exists it's only a matter of time until they run him down.'
'And Cherny they could pull in at any time.'
There was a knock at the door and an orderly appeared with a signal message. Kurbsky took it and dismissed him. 'It's for you, sir. From Lubov in Dublin.'
'Read it!' Maslovsky ordered.
The gist of the message was that Devlin was proceeding to Paris with the intention of meeting with Tanya Voroninova. At the mention of his foster-daughter's name, Maslovsky stood up and snatched the signal from Kurbsky's hands. It was no secret, the enormous affection the General felt for his foster-daughter, especially since the death of his wife. In some quarters he was known as a butcher, but Tanya Voroninova he truly loved.
'Right,' he said to Kurbsky. 'Who's our best man at the Paris Embassy? Belov, isn't it?'
'Yes, Comrade.'
'Send a message tonight. Tanya's concert tour is cancelled. No arguments. Full security as regards her person until she can be returned safely to Moscow.'
'And Cuchulain?'
'Has served his purpose. A great pity.'
'Do we pull him in?'
'No, not enough time. This one needs instant action. Signal Lubov at once in Dublin. I want Cuchulain eliminated. Cherny also, and the sooner the better.'
'If I might point out, I don't think Lubov has had much experience on the wet side of things.'
'He's had the usual training, hasn't he? In any case, they won't be expecting it which should make the whole thing rather easier.'
In Paris, the coding machine in the intelligence section of the Soviet Embassy started whirring. The operator waited until the message had passed line-by-line across the screen. She carefully unloaded the magnetic tape which had recorded the message and took it to the night supervisor.
'This is an Eyes Only signal from KGB, Moscow, for Colonel Belov.'
'He's out of town,' the supervisor said. 'Lyons, I think. Due back tomorrow afternoon. You'll have to hold it anyway. It requires his personal key to decode it.'
The operator logged the tape, placed it in her data drawer and went back to work.
In Dublin, Dimitri Lubov had been enjoying an evening at the Abbey Theatre, an excellent performance of Brendan Behan's The Hostage. Supper afterwards at a well known fish restaurant on the Quays meant that it was past midnight when he returned to the Embassy and found the signal from Moscow.
Even when he'd read it for the third time, he still couldn't believe it. He was to dispose not only of Cherny, but Cussane, and within the next twenty-four hours. His hands were sweating, trembling slightly, which was hardly surprising for in spite of his years in the KGB and all that dedicated training, the plain fact was that Dimitri Lubov had never killed anyone in his life.
Tanya Voroninova came out of the bathroom of her suite at the Ritz as the room waiter brought her breakfast tray in; tea, toast and honey, which was exactly what she'd asked for. She wore a khaki-green jumpsuit and brown boots of soft leather and the combination gave her a vaguely military appearance. She was a small, dark, intense girl with untidy black hair which she constantly had to push back from her eyes. She regarded it with disfavour in the gilt mirror above the fireplace and twisted it into a bun at the nape of her neck, then she sat down and started on breakfast.
There was a knock on the door and her tour secretary, Natasha Rube
nova came in. She was a pleasant, grey-haired woman in her mid-forties. 'How are you feeling this morning?'
'Fine. I slept very well.'
'Good. You're wanted at the Conservatoire at two-thirty. Complete run-through.'
'No problem,' Tanya said.
'Are you going out this morning?'
'Yes, I'd like to spend some time at the Louvre. We've been so busy during this visit that it might be my last opportunity.'
'Do you want me to come with you?'
'No thanks. I'll be fine. I'll see you back here for lunch at one o'clock.'
It was a fine soft morning when she left the hotel and went down the steps at the front entrance. Devlin and Hunter were waiting in the Peugeot on the far side of the boulevard.
'Looks as if she's walking,' Hunter said.
Devlin nodded. 'Follow her for a while then we'll see.'
Tanya carried a canvas bag slung from her left shoulder and she walked at quite a fast pace, enjoying the exercise. She was playing Rachmaninov's Fourth Piano Concerto that night. The piece was a particular favourite so that she had none of the usual nervous tension that she sometimes experienced, like most artists, before a big concert.
But then, she was something of an old hand at the game now. Since her successes in both the Leeds and Tchaikovsky festivals she had steadily established an international reputation. There had been little time for anything else. On the one occasion she had fallen in love, she'd been foolish enough to choose a young military doctor on attachment to an airborne brigade. He'd been killed in action in Afghanistan the year before.
The experience, though harrowing, had not broken her. She had given one of her greatest performances on the night that she had received the news, but she had withdrawn from men, there was no doubt about that. There was too much hurt involved and it would not have needed a particularly bright psychiatrist to find out why. In spite of success and fame and the privileged life her position brought her; in spite of having constantly at her shoulder the powerful presence of Maslovsky, she was still, in many ways, the little girl on her knees in the rain beside the father so cruelly torn away from her.
Along the Champs Elysees and into the Place de la Concorde she went, walking steadily.
'Jesus, but she likes her exercise,' Devlin observed.
She turned into the cool peace of the Jardin des Tuileries and Hunter nodded. 'I thought she would. My hunch is that she's making for the Louvre. You go after her on foot from here. I'll drive round, park the car and wait for you at the main entrance.'
There was a Henry Moore exhibit in the Tuileries Gardens. She browsed around it for a little while and Devlin stayed back, but it was obvious that nothing there had much appeal for her and she moved on through the gardens to the great Palais du Louvre itself.
Tanya Voroninova was certainly selective. She moved from gallery to gallery, choosing only works of acknowledged genius and Devlin followed at a discreet distance. From the Victory of Samothrace at the top of the Daru staircase by the main entrance, she moved on to the Venus de Milo. She spent some time in the Rembrandt Gallery on the first floor, then stopped to look at what is possibly the most famous picture in the world — Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa'.
Devlin moved in close. 'Is she smiling, would you say?' he tried in English.
'What do you mean?' she asked in the same language.
'Oh, it's an old superstition in the Louvre that some mornings she doesn't smile.'
She turned to look at him.'That's absurd.'
'But you're not smiling either,' Devlin said. 'Sweet Jesus, are you worried you'd crack the plate?'
'This is total nonsense,' she said, but smiled all the same.
'When you're on your dignity, your mouth turns down at the corners,' he said. 'It doesn't help.'
'My looks, you mean? A matter of indifference to me.'
He stood there, hands in the pockets of the Burberry trenchcoat, the black felt hat slanted over one ear and the eyes were the most vivid blue she had ever seen. There was an air of insolent good humour to him and a kind of self-mockery that was rather attractive in spite of the fact that he must have been twice her age at least. There was a sudden aching excitement that was difficult to control and she took a deep breath to steady herself.
'Excuse me,' she said and walked away.
Devlin gave her some room and then followed. A darling girl and frightened, for some reason. Interesting to know why that should be.
She made her way to the Grande Galerie, finally stopped before El Greco's 'Christ on the Cross' and stood there for quite some time gazing up at the gaunt mystical figure, showing no acknowledgement of Devlin's presence when he moved beside her.
'And what does it say to you?' he asked gently. 'Is there love there?'
'No,' she said. 'A rage against dying, I think. Why are you following me?'
'Am I?'
'Since the Tuileries Gardens.'
'Really? Well, if I was, I can't be very good at it.'
'Not necessarily. You are someone to look at twice,' she said simply.
Strange how suddenly she felt like crying. Wanted to reach out to the incredible warmth of that voice. He took her arm and said gently, 'All the time in the world, girl dear. You still haven't told me what El Greco says to you.'
'I was not raised a Christian,' she said. 'I see no Saviour on the Cross, but a great human being in torment, destroyed by little people. And you?'
'I love your accent,' Devlin said. 'Reminds me of Garbo in the movies when I was a wee boy, but that was a century or so before your time.'
'Garbo is not unknown to me,' she said, 'and I'm duly flattered. However, you still have not told me what it says for you?'
'A profound question when one considers the day,' Devlin told her. 'At seven o'clock this morning, they celebrated a rather special Mass in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The Pope together with cardinals from Britain and the Argentine.'
'And will this achieve anything?'
'It hasn't stopped the British Navy proceeding on its merry way or Argentine Skyhawks from attacking it.'
'Which means?'
'That the Almighty, if he exists at all, is having one hell of a joke at our expense.'
Tanya frowned. 'Your accent intrigues me. You are not English, I think?'
'Irish, my love.'
'But I thought the Irish were supposed to be extremely religious?'
'And that's a fact. My old Aunt Hannah had callouses on her knees from praying. She used to take me to Mass three times a week when I was a boy in Drumore.'
Tanya Voroninova went very still. 'Where did you say?'
'Drumore. That's a little market town in Ulster. The church there was Holy Name. The thing I remember most was my uncle and his cronies, straight out from Mass and down the road to Murphy's Select Bar.'
She turned, her face very pale now. 'Who are you?'
'Well, one thing's for sure, girl dear.' He ran a hand lightly over her dark hair. 'I'm not Cuchulain, last of the dark heroes.'
Her eyes widened and there was a kind of anger as she plucked at his coat. 'Who are you?'
'In a manner of speaking, Viktor Levin.'
'Viktor?' She looked bewildered. 'But Viktor is dead. Died somewhere in Arabia a month or so ago. My father told me.'
'General Maslovsky? Well, he would, wouldn't he? No, Viktor escaped. Defected, you might say. Ended up in London and then Dublin.'
'He's well?'
'Dead,' Devlin said brutally. 'Murdered by Mikhail Kelly or Cuchulain or the dark bloody hero or whoever you want to call him. The same man who shot your father dead twenty-three years ago in the Ukraine.'
She sagged against him. His arm went round her in support, strong and confident. 'Lean on me, just put one foot in front of the other and I'll take you outside and get you some air.'
They sat on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens and Devlin took out his old silver case and offered her a cigarette. 'Do you use these things?'
'No.'
'Good for you, they'd stunt your growth and you with your green years ahead of you.'
Somewhere, he'd said those self-same words before, a long, long time ago. Another girl very much like this one. Not beautiful, not in any conventional sense, and yet always there would be the compulsion to turn and take a second look. There was pain in the memory that even time had not managed to erase.
'You're a strange man,' she said, 'for a secret agent. That's what you are, I presume?'
He laughed out loud, the sound so clear that Tony Hunter, seated on a bench on the other side of the Henry Moore exhibit reading a newspaper, glanced up sharply.
'God save the day.' Devlin took out his wallet and extracted a scrap of pasteboard. 'My card. Strictly for formal occasions I assure you.'
She read it out loud. 'Professor Liam Devlin, Trinity College, Dublin.' She looked up. 'Professor of what?'
'English literature. I use the term loosely, as academics do, so it would include Oscar Wilde, Shaw, O'Casey, Brendan Behan, James Joyce, Yeats. A mixed bag there. Catholics and Prods, but all Irish. Could I have the card back, by the way? I'm running short…'
He replaced it in his wallet. She said, 'But how would a professor of an ancient and famous university come to be involved in an affair like this?'
'You've heard of the Irish Republican Army?
'Of course.'
'I've been a member of that organization since I was sixteen years of age. No longer active, as we call it. I've some heavy reservations about the way the Provisionals have been handling some aspects of the present campaign.'
'Don't tell me, let me guess.' She smiled. 'You are a romantic at heart, I think, Professor Devlin?'
'Is that a fact?'
'Only a romantic could wear anything so absurdly wonderful as that black felt hat. But there is more, of course. No bombs in restaurants to blow up women and children. You would shoot a man without hesitation. Welcome the hopeless odds of meeting highly trained soldiers face-to-face.'
Devlin was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. 'Do you tell me?'