Ride a Pale Horse

by Helen Macinnes

  In the corridor there was another kind of smoke, a haze: gas of some kind. Two policemen lay motionless on the floor, weapons gone. Bristow, shoving his pistol into his pocket, clamped a hand over Karen’s mouth. “Hold your breath!” He held his own as he urged her at a run towards the street’s exit. No door was left, just a gaping hole where the first explosion had taken place. Shots were still being fired out there in heavy bursts. So he halted just inside the demolished doorway, removed his hand from Karen’s face. “We can breathe,” he told her. And choke and cough, as the fresh air cleared their lungs.

  The firing ceased. They could step out into another small scene of bedlam. He looked around. No sign of Martita, but two young men in jeans and loose shirts were stretched at the doorstep of a trattoria across the street. Like most restaurants in this quarter, the trattoria had its CLOSED MONDAY notice displayed, now dangling from a shattered window. It had been the way of retreat for two of Martita’s comrades, the unlucky ones abandoned to die on the sidewalk—perhaps the place where they had gathered to set off the first explosion and then attack the corridor with gas grenades. On the street itself, three men—probably detectives—were scattered over the pavement, wounded and bloody, moving feebly. A fourth lay as dead as the two terrorists who had covered Martita’s escape. Sweet, helpless Martita had managed it. Managed it in more senses than one, Karen thought.

  Karen took a few unsteady steps and slumped against him. He caught her, held her, looked for a place to let her rest. The kerb and sidewalk were littered with shattered glass and splintered wood; jagged fragments lay on a paneless window sill behind them. But there he could sweep the shards aside with his sad-looking jacket. With his arm supporting her, they sat on the edge of the sill. Her face, like his, was smoke-streaked. She had lost her jacket. Her shoulder bag had twisted its strap around her bare arm, cut into it painfully, making her wince as he freed her. Tightly held in her other hand was her notebook. She raised it, said in a small voice, “I can’t let go. Peter—” He eased her fingers loose. That’s the wrist I gripped, he thought. He rubbed it gently, wondering when the bruises would start showing.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I was desperate.” He looked up from the wrist to find her watching him. He tightened his hold of her waist, his other arm went around her. He kissed her gently. She didn’t draw back, didn’t resist. He kissed her again, long and hard.

  Other survivors were stumbling out from the hallway’s entrance. The first ambulances and a fire truck arrived; police swarmed around, cleared the street of people who were now venturing out, sent them back inside their houses and shops. Karen’s head rested against his shoulder, his arms still enfolding her.

  For almost half an hour they watched the turmoil as it gradually decreased into business-like movements, commands, trained efficiency. “We’ll soon be out of here,” he told Karen. And he thought, as he looked at the smudges on her cheek and felt the grime streaking his own face, it was one helluva place to give your first kiss to the girl you damn well intended to marry. Then his lips tightened. I nearly lost her, he thought, I nearly lost her.

  A voice said, “Thank God, you’re safe! Should have known.” It was Giovanni, elegant as ever, relaxing into a wide grin. “Levinson sent a car. Come on—can you walk?” he asked a startled Karen. “If not, we’ll carry you. The car’s just beyond the roadblock.” He gestured to the end of the street, where the curious were already gathering behind a barricade.

  “News does get around,” Bristow said, eyeing the crowd. He handed his jacket and Karen’s bag and notebook to Giovanni, renewed his firm support of Karen. “We’ll make it.”

  You certainly have, thought Giovanni. A hundred questions he’d like to ask. Later, later... He began clearing a path for them through the groups of worried officials, of journalists still in shock, dodging the hurrying stretcher-bearers, steering clear of the injured, avoiding the fire hoses, and hoped that Karen hadn’t noticed the burned remains being carried in body bags out of the hall.

  16

  They entered the Imperial by a rear door, Giovanni guiding them through a labyrinth of corridors. “Levinson suggested this,” he told them. “Thought you could do without a grand entrance through the lobby.” Karen nodded gratefully. She hadn’t spoken on the journey back to the hotel—none of them had. She was in shock, Bristow was buried in thought, Giovanni was tactful. She felt chilled, even in the midday heat with the warmth of Peter’s arm around her.

  “Where’s Levinson?” Bristow demanded when they had reached Karen’s rooms. “Still with that business-man?” He was bitter and didn’t disguise it.

  “A big fish. Levinson hooked him in midstream and is now playing him into the bank. He’ll be netted soon, another hour or so. It took us five months to make the catch.” His explanation ended, Giovanni turned on the TV and chose the most comfortable chair. “I’ll wait here.”

  Bristow, at the door of Karen’s bedroom, said sharply, “Not necessary.” Then he added, “Sorry. Thanks for what you’ve done, Giovanni. A great help.” My nerves must be a bit shattered, he thought. Levinson might not have appeared himself, but at least he kept us in mind.

  Giovanni settled deeper into the chair. “I’ll wait,” he repeated as Bristow left. A lot of questions to ask, and Levinson would want to hear the answers.

  In the bedroom, Karen stood paralysed before the long mirror. “Look at me! Just look!” She gave a shaky laugh. “And you kissed a face like this!”

  Bristow caught his own reflection in the glass and shook his head over the picture he, too, presented. “A pretty pair, aren’t we?”

  Karen’s laughter was breaking into tears. “You saved my life.”

  “You’d have made it out yourself. The exit was near enough.” And was it her gratitude that had let him kiss her?

  His brusque reply steadied her. “You chose to sit there. You wouldn’t let me take the chair I was supposed to have. Beside Aliotto.” She shuddered. Her voice weakened. “Those men—those poor men! I don’t remember—not much—not now. Just the noise, the screams. Oh, God, it was hideous.” She began to weep. “Without you, Peter—” She broke off, tried to regain control.

  “We’ll clean up,” he said gently, “and then we’ll talk. Have a shower, Karen. Or a bath.” Play it cool, he warned himself. Gratitude was not enough. Yet, in that shattered street, suddenly safe together, he had felt as he drew her close that she, too, knew the swift, overwhelming emotion that had mastered him. But he had been wrong.

  She turned away from the mirror. “A shower,” she decided, then stood irresolute.

  “Steady enough?”

  “Almost normal. Just slow-thinking and freezing.”

  He pulled the quilted cover from a bed, dropped it on a chair near the bathroom door. “Wrap yourself in that when you come out of the shower. I’ll find some brandy and leave it on the dressing-table. Okay?”

  “Peter—” She looked at him.

  “Yes?”

  She touched his shoulder, slid her arms around it. Then she reached up and kissed him. “I owe you two,” she said softly, and kissed him again.

  “Look,” Giovanni said when Bristow returned to the sitting-room, “I’ve questions to ask and then a call to make. Levinson wants to know.”

  Bristow took his room keys from his jacket’s pocket and tossed them over. From the other pocket he drew out the Beretta and placed it on the desk. The jacket, after a last glance at its black stains and wrenched seams, he dropped on the wastepaper basket. “Fetch me some clothes from my room after you have your talk with Levinson, will you? Pants and shirt will do.”

  “What’s your report for Levinson?”

  “Tasso will give him that.”

  “He’s in the hospital. He was thrown by the explosion, broke his shoulder. Minor burns, too. Would have been worse if he hadn’t been blown flat on the platform. How did it happen? Everyone was searched, weren’t they?”

  “We were. Thoroughly. I thought about that, all the
way back to the hotel.”

  “Come up with anything?”

  “Two chairs were brought in by a janitor just before Martita’s ‘cousins’ arrived. One was placed in the front row, on the aisle, and the other behind it. They were near the door. The cousins sat on them. Briefly. Then moved farther to the rear.”

  Giovanni nodded: the scene was fixed in his mind.

  “The gun must have been taped under the chair in the second row and picked up by the man who did the killing. The explosive device was beneath the seat of the other chair, set off by the second man.”

  “Remote control,” Giovanni said. “How?”

  “Concealed in a small cassette recorder he was carrying.” Bristow was searching through the refrigerator’s stock of miniature bottles. He found two with brandy, picked up a glass, and headed for the bedroom. He halted at its door, pointed to the Beretta. “Had to use it. Trouble ahead, I guess.”

  Giovanni stared openly. “Did you smuggle it into the room?” How? What about the search?

  “Tasso did that for me. Thank him, will you?”

  “But you didn’t kill the man.”

  “Chest wound. The other escaped by the main hall.”

  “Attempted to escape. He was shot dead.”

  “Pity. He might have talked. Eventually.”

  “A terrorist talk—after Giorgio was killed as an example?”

  “Terrorists... I wonder. I’m still puzzling out that one. Two questions for Levinson. When did Martita’s lawyer suggest that meeting to the police? When was the suggestion accepted? A timetable is what I need. Can you get it?”

  “I’ll try.” Giovanni was astounded. “If not terrorists, who else?”

  Bristow said nothing, carried the brandy and the glass into the bedroom, and returned within a minute to start stripping off his shirt. Giovanni was on his feet, but not ready to leave. He had poured out a stiff Scotch for Bristow, placed it beside the Beretta.

  “Thanks,” Bristow said. He took a long draught; it had as much effect as water. “Guess I was three drinks below par,” he admitted.

  “Who else?” Giovanni insisted.

  “That’s for you and your friends to find out. I’ve no facts. Just guesses from what I saw.”

  “They’d be useful to us.”

  “All I can tell you is this. The bomb was carefully placed to hit the first row where Aliotto was sitting. And Karen should have been there. Her empty chair puzzled one of the men. He moved back to the third row, caught sight of Karen, spoke to the gunman, who looked her way, marked her position on the fourth row. After three rapid shots at the platform, he swung around and took aim at her. I spoiled it.” Bristow finished his drink. “That’s what I know now. Hindsight’s invaluable, isn’t it? Pure twenty-twenty vision. At the time, I couldn’t figure it out—just sensed something odd, menacing.” Bristow’s anger increased. He slammed the empty glass back on the table. “I had all the small pieces of the puzzle, couldn’t fit them together and prevent the killing.”

  But no one else had put the small pieces together, hadn’t even noticed them, thought Giovanni. As for the killing—it would have taken place. Not Giorgio’s perhaps, but possibly Bristow’s. And Tasso’s. Giovanni could see these two, trying to outflank the two “cousins.” Which brought him sharply back to the question that needed an answer. “So you ask, would terrorists have a reason to kill Aliotto and Karen? And your reply is a loud ‘No!’ Right?”

  “You’ve got it.” Bristow was discarding trousers and shirt on top of his jacket. “Now get the hell out, Giovanni. And remember that timetable!” He was into the small bathroom, turning on its shower as Giovanni closed the sitting-room door. The cold water felt good, cleared his thoughts.

  There was yet one question, perhaps unanswerable: why Karen? Aliotto could have been eliminated because he was useless: no more information on Vasek was obtainable. And dead men could bear no witness. But Karen?

  Twice, ineffectually, the Bulgarians had tried to abduct her. She was still a source of information—their only source—so why kill her? Senseless murder was the terrorist’s way, but a trained hitman did not strike at random. So why Karen?

  He scrubbed himself clean, towelled himself briskly. His body felt fine—a stiffness in one shoulder where he must have wrenched it and God knew when, and little enough—but his mind had bogged down in that question. He could find no solution.

  It was fully two hours before Giovanni returned and found Bristow relaxing on the couch with softly played music from the radio and a tray of sandwiches and coffee on the table beside him. “Thanks,” Bristow said, taking the grey flannels and checked shirt from Giovanni. He dropped the towel tucked around his waist and pulled on his clothes.

  “How is she? Asleep?”

  “Deep into it. Didn’t even stay awake for her sandwich.” “Haven’t had my own lunch. D’you mind?” Giovanni lifted a sandwich, watched Bristow as he finished dressing. With respect. He had been right about several things, the young man thought, and I hope I look as fit as he does when I’m his age. “How d’you keep in shape?”

  “Worrying,” Bristow said with a grin. “I’m a world champion in that department. So what’s new?”

  “A lot. But first, your boss wants to have a chat with you. Scrambled, of course. So be in Levinson’s office at five o’clock. On the nose. Can’t keep a call from Langley waiting.”

  Menlo... “Then you’ll have to stay with Karen.” I’m not leaving her alone, not for Menlo or anyone else. “Who’ll see me through Levinson’s gate?”

  “The Contessa will be airing her dog at four forty. Okay?”

  Bristow glanced at his watch. “I’ll leave here at four thirty. That gives us about half an hour.”

  Between bites on a second sandwich, Giovanni began. First, the timetable Bristow had wanted. The lawyers for Giorgio and Martita had made the suggestion for the meeting three weeks ago when the two terrorists (Giorgio already beginning to talk, Martita concurring with everything he said) had been brought together in Rome for further questioning. Together, because that is what Martita stipulated. She would give no testimony without Giorgio beside her. It seemed logical—they had been lovers for three years and were still in love. When they were together in Rome, the lawyers argued, why not let them face a few carefully chosen journalists? The prisoners had already agreed, so why not use this opportunity for good public relations? Giorgio and Martita would be seen to be in excellent health, contrary to rumours, and make their statements freely, not under duress. Ten days ago, the authorities had consented. Four Italian journalists had been approached, and at the request of one—made last Monday, a week ago exactly—an American journalist was also given permission to attend in his company. A good idea, public relations had decided: foreign coverage, particularly in the United States where there was a large population of Italian descent, was always important. “That’s it,” Giovanni ended. “Any help?”

  Bristow nodded. The initial plan had been made long before the two lawyers had approached the authorities. Ten days ago, their suggestion was accepted. Last Monday, Aliotto had ’phoned Schleeman with his invitation for Karen. The call had been genuine, probably; made in good faith. But by Tuesday, Aliotto was intimidated, his mistress held hostage by the Bulgarians. For on that day Vasek had telephoned him and sensed that something was far wrong. Why else had Vasek warned Karen about Aliotto? Vulnerable. That had been Vasek’s word.

  Giovanni repeated, “Any help?”

  “A lot of help.” As Giovanni waited expectantly, Bristow relented. “Originally, the plan was a terrorist idea and simple: kill Giorgio as a warning to others who’d like to talk, and explode a bomb to cover Martita’s escape! Then last Monday, certainly by Tuesday, the professionals muscled in—someone talked about it, perhaps Martita’s lawyer; who knows?—the Communists have their connections. The Bulgarians proposed a joint operation, bigger and better and with sure chance of success. Quick planning, but the professionals have been trained for that:
they’ve money behind them; they’ve contacts; they’ve people they can use like that janitor. So Martita and her friends listened. The lawyers—one, at least—were the intermediaries. The Bulgarians added Aliotto and Karen to their target list. Everyone would believe they had died in another terrorist attack. Smart operators.”

  Giovanni sat very still. “A joint operation,” he said at last. “That explains it. Four known terrorists took over the trattoria opposite the police station early this morning, just as its owner and family were closing the place. That outside explosion must have been prepared days before—they used plastic and remote control. They rushed the entrance, threw in a gas bomb while people were picking themselves up from the street. Two terrorists were killed covering Martita’s escape. They’ve been identified—members of her old group, all Italian. The man who detonated the bomb inside the room had a passport as a Czech tourist who arrived on Friday from Vienna. The gunman you wounded arrived from Zurich on Saturday—his passport says he’s a Bulgarian student. So international terrorism is now the accepted explanation. But—” Giovanni paused, his smile growing. “You and I saw the car that the Czech tourist had rented. On Via Ludovisi, just after we left Armando’s.”

  You had it traced, thought Bristow. The car that had come too close to Karen as it had slowed. “Good for you, Giovanni.”

  “Just one thing—can’t figure it—why were Aliotto and Karen targets for the KGB? That’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? Czechs and Bulgarians are their surrogates.”

  “Have you heard of a KGB defector who was recently stationed in Prague?”

  “Sure. Rumour is he’s around—pretty near here, at least.”