“Sam Waterman with the Bulgarian!”
“Identified by Bristow. My boy was at Armando’s, too. He identified the Bulgarian. Interesting combination, wouldn’t you say?”
“Where’s Bristow now?”
“At the Imperial, recovering and keeping close watch on the girl. She’s an attractive piece, I hear.”
“I’ll talk with Bristow at—” Menlo paused, calculated. First, he must see what arrangements could be made to get Bristow and the girl out of Rome. Immediately.
“At when?”
“Give me a couple of hours. I’ll call at five. Your time.”
“Suits me,” said Levinson cheerfully as Menlo ended the call and reached for pad and pencil.
Quickly, he scrawled a memorandum, heading it with a large question mark. Waterman or Coulton as control? The mole—Fairbairn? Or Shaw? Incentives blackmail, money, ideology? Check. Then he selected a fresh envelope, sealed the four pages of notes and the memorandum inside, and signed it Frank Menlo. As an afterthought, he wrote on its face, “To be collected only by me—or Peter Bristow.” The addition of Bristow was instinctive, yet reasonable enough: he needed Bristow’s quick eye to review these notes, and by tomorrow at that. And if it was yet another day to entangle him in ’phone calls, Bristow could collect the envelope and set to work without delay.
This time, he’d make sure of the notes. And the tapes of Sunday’s interviews, too. He tied them into one package, the envelope on top, and placed it in his safe temporarily, after he had altered the combination lock. When he left for the day, he would leave the package with Miriam Blau, give her the instructions about Bristow. He was taking no more chances with a mole who seemed to have had some expert training in opening an office safe.
Before eleven o’clock and the scheduled call to Bristow in Rome, he was summoned upstairs for the conference he had requested. He had just time to postpone his call for an hour (the conference would be brief, mostly a matter of impressing the need for Bristow’s and Cornell’s safety; they must be found space for tonight’s flight) and install a secretary in his office to type out some written letters while he was absent. “Stay here. Wait until I get back,” he told the girl, whom he knew well. She knew his ways, too, and showed no surprise.
The conference was satisfactory. Menlo returned to his office within the hour. “Have something to eat now,” he suggested to the secretary. “Come back at one thirty. I’ll need you until three.” That, he reflected, would let him have lunch with Doyle as arranged.
At noon, his delayed call to Rome took place. The talk with Bristow was more difficult than he had expected, and abrupt. But Levinson gave him the details of the bombing. It was then he learned that a definite bullet had been intended for Karen Cornell. And the man who had fired it was a Bulgarian.
In black depression, he left his office in the secretary’s charge and met Doyle. They talked over a small table in a large room that was now almost empty. The white-haired Irishman, neat and compact in his light summer suit, studied his old friend as he emphasised the need for extra precautions tonight on Karen Cornell’s arrival. They had worked here a long time, Doyle thought, were due to retire in the same month three years from now, had shared many an emergency before this, but he had never seen Menlo so much on edge.
“She worries me,” Menlo was admitting, the food on his plate scarcely touched. “Bristow can take his chances like the rest of us, but she’s vulnerable. We’ll have to find her a safe house for the next few days, but some place that no one in my section has heard about. No one at all, if possible. The less she can be connected with us, the safer she’ll be.”
“A tall order—we haven’t much time before she arrives. Two A.M.?”
“Pretty close to it—if I’ve calculated correctly. Damn those time zones.”
Doyle agreed completely. “Last June, my daughter had to make a quick trip back from Paris. Took the Concorde. Left at eleven in the morning, arrived at eight forty-five A.M.—almost two hours earlier than her departure.”
But Menlo wasn’t even listening. He was saying, “We’ll need two cars at the airfield: mine and one of yours. Bristow will leave with me. Your men can escort Miss Cornell to the safe house and stay on guard. Can’t have her using her address in Washington—or in New York. Nor can she check into a hotel without being noticeable at that early hour.”
“Surely you don’t mean to be at the airfield yourself. At two in the morning, for God’s sake.” And the man doesn’t like night driving anyway. “You’d be better in bed, see Bristow on Tuesday.”
“I’ve a lot to discuss with him. I’m leaving an envelope and three tapes with Miriam Blau. He’s authorised to take them out, work over them. But before he does—well, I’d like to give him some extra background. And admit,” Menlo added slowly, “that I was wrong and he was right about using the cassettes as bait.”
“How else get any leads?” And that was the truth, Doyle thought. No answer from Menlo, either. “Not easy to watch your suspects,” he went on. “Fairbairn sometimes uses his Buick, sometimes his wife’s station wagon. But Shaw’s the bigger problem: that apartment house of his, six floors spreading out like a pancake mix. Four separate entrances and eighty families as tenants. It’s one of those modern-style rabbit warrens. He uses his own car, but it’s parked all around the place—often blocks away.”
Menlo’s frown deepened.
“Look—” Doyle said, “I’ll meet Bristow and Miss Cornell this morning.”
“I’m meeting Bristow.” Menlo was determined.
“Then,” said Doyle, equally determined, “I’ll send a car and a driver for you. Pick you up at your place and get you to the airfield in plenty of time. I’ll be in the other car with a couple of good men—they’ll be assigned to look after Miss Cornell wherever she’s staying. Agreed?”
“Unmarked cars.”
“We’ll rent them, if necessary,” Doyle said with a wide grin. “We’ll collect you at one A.M.”
“Make that twelve thirty.”
“You’ll have to wait at the—”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. There may be a tailwind.”
From east to west? Doyle didn’t argue that point. Menlo was already on his feet and talking about the prospects of Australia in the America’s Cup races as they left their table.
* * *
Menlo took Doyle’s parting advice to shut up shop and leave for home. He locked his office at four o’clock.
Fairbairn and Shaw saw him passing their open door. He halted, nodded, and went on his way.
Shaw said, “He’s early. A record.” Fairbairn didn’t share his amusement. “Briefcase as usual tucked under his arm,” Shaw went on. “Probably sleeps with it. That package—did you notice? What’s your guess, Wallace? Special homework for tonight?” Shaw laughed. “Could be that envelope holds all the notes he was taking down yesterday.”
“Don’t forget the tapes,” Fairbairn said sourly.
“Why would he need them?” Shaw was astounded.
“To go over what we said. Word by word.”
Shaw stared. “Why should he—”
“Why not? Someone got into the file room and stole Bristow’s cassettes.”
“We weren’t told about that. How the hell do you know?”
“Why else were we questioned?”
“Then he does suspect us,” Shaw said. His jaw tightened. “You or me?”
“I’ll toss you for the honour,” Fairbairn said bitterly and went back to work. That lasted only ten minutes. “I’m leaving, too. Can’t get my mind settled.”
“Why worry?”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I’m not worried. I’m just damned mad. Tapes checked—what next?” Shaw’s vehemence subsided into another laugh. “Shaved heads and numbers stamped on our forearms?”
19
Karen came slowly out from her deep sleep. For a few minutes, she lay oblivious to everything except the comfort of this bed, the peace of this shade
d room. But where? Then she remembered. The Imperial, Monday afternoon, and Peter—she raised herself on an elbow. No one beside her. But near, she thought, and relaxed as she heard faint music from the sitting-room. She rose, drawing on her dressing-gown, and crossed to the windows, pulled back the shutters to let sunshine stream in. There was none. Just a bustle of evening traffic down on Via Veneto and the sun dropping towards the west. It was still daylight, but the street lay now in the shadow of the building opposite. The neon lights were already in full brilliance to welcome the coming dusk. Late—almost six thirty—what happened to this afternoon?
She opened the sitting-room door, saying, “Darling, I—” and stopped in confusion. A dark-haired man sat on the couch with his feet propped on a table. As he turned his head, she recognised him: the young man who had run such expert interference for her as she left Armando’s on Saturday evening; the young man she had first seen with his beautiful if slightly middle-aged Contessa at Doney’s.
He was rising to his feet as he said, “Not to worry. I’m a friend of Peter’s. Left me here as your watchdog while he was away. He’ll be back soon—a bit delayed—but that happens.” He had a most engaging manner.
“I’ll dress,” she said, backing into the bedroom. “Just a few minutes. What’s your name?”
“Giovanni.”
Giovanni who? Peter had some extraordinary friends. She closed the door and dressed quickly. Her working clothes, she called the jeans and shirt she was pulling on. For tonight, there would be no partying in town. They’d be staying here, as they had done yesterday, avoiding people such as Sam Waterman. And she’d set to work, start writing an account of this morning’s bombing while the facts were fresh in her mind. Hubert Schleeman wouldn’t have the articles he expected, but he’d have at least something to fill two pages in the Spectator. Aliotto... She had picked up her portable typewriter, ready to carry it to the sitting-room, where there was a desk, sturdier than the thin-legged little writing table in here. Aliotto, she thought again, and wondered if she could ever write about today’s events. She was too near to them, had been a part of them. It was one thing to be a reporter arriving at a disaster scene, observing, describing the horrors of a six-car smash-up on the Long Island Expressway—she had done that for the TV cameras. But it was something else to have been trapped in noise and smoke and flames, to have heard voices screaming around her, to have felt death reaching, spreading, engulfing... She closed her eyes, set down the typewriter at her feet, and began to weep.
She forced herself to recover, wiped the tears from her cheeks; then at last she entered the sitting-room.
Giovanni was quick to notice. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Just beginning to remember. Odd, isn’t it? At first, I could think only that I had escaped, that Peter and I were alive. The rest was confusion in my mind. All I could feel was bewilderment—and relief. But now—” She broke off, walked over to the window, kept her back turned. “When did he leave?”
“An hour ago or so. No problem. Pete had to talk on the ’phone to Washington—in my boss’s office. He won’t be long.”
“I’m really ruining your day.” She came back to the couch, emotions under control. “But thank you for staying with me. Frankly, don’t you think Peter is worrying too much about me?”
“No.”
She looked at him in surprise. “But he has other things to think about. And I really can do my own worrying.”
Giovanni studied her face. “Didn’t you know that a bullet was intended for you?”
Her eyes widened.
“This morning?” she asked faintly.
“This morning.”
“When? When I was down on the floor? Yes—I heard two shots. Very close. At me?”
“One at you, the other at the man who fired.”
“Peter shot him?”
“Yes.” Giovanni hesitated. His voice softened. “I wasn’t meant to tell you. But—”
“I’m glad you did.” She was completely bewildered. “They actually tried to kill me?”
“Forget about it.”
“Forget!” She was indignant.
“Well, don’t think about it. Not now. Later, when it’s farther away from you—”
“It will make an amusing anecdote?” she asked coldly.
“Well—we all like to tell an interesting story when it involves ourselves.”
“We cast ourselves in the leading role, grab our moment of stardom?” She was on the defensive.
Giovanni only said equably, “We enjoy it. Don’t we?”
Her annoyance vanished. “I suppose we do,” she admitted. Listen to me, my friends, and hear how I escaped, how I felt, how I suffered. “Self-centred, all of us.”
“Not all. Not everyone,” he reminded her.
No. Not everyone. “How long have you and Peter been friends?”
“A couple of days. Since Saturday.”
She began to smile. “You waste no time—either of you.”
“Well, you can like—or dislike—at first sight. No explaining it. It happens.”
Like love, she thought.
“What d’you want to drink?” At least the tears have dried and her smile is back, Giovanni thought. But where’s Pete? That ’phone call from Washington was at five o’clock or wasn’t it? Six twenty now. Keep talking, keep her from watching the clock, keep her from thinking about that goddamned bombing.
* * *
Bristow found them both laughing over one of Giovanni’s tall tales. “Sorry, darling,” he told Karen. “There was a delay.” And a circuitous route back to the hotel. His arms went around her as she came to meet him, and they kissed.
He wastes less time than I do, Giovanni thought with amusement as he drained his glass and rose. “Time to push off. I’m meeting Maggie—” he cleared his throat—“La Contessa at seven.” He looked at Karen. “I think you saw us at Doney’s.”
“Yes. But you aren’t what I thought you were.”
“Were we that good?”
Bristow said, “I’d like your help, Giovanni. In fact, I need it. We’re leaving tonight. Quietly.”
“By NATO express?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you have travel orders, papers?”
“I came away from Levinson’s office in too much of a hurry. Think he’ll provide something for us?”
“Will try. When d’you fly out?”
“Midnight.”
“I can drive—”
“No. Better not. Just hire us a car, have it waiting around the corner—on Via Boncompagni. We should leave the hotel at ten, I think. But how do we get the bags down to the car? I’d like to have us walk out the front door as if we were going to dinner. I’ve paid the bills, told the cashier that we had an early start tomorrow so I’d square everything tonight. I’ll pay cash for dinner when we have it in this room. Any ideas, Giovanni?”
“I’ll get a bellhop to collect your bags at nine thirty and have them packed in the car. I’ll wait with it until you come.”
Karen said, “I’m slightly bewildered.” We don’t sleep here tonight although it’s all paid for. We don’t use our Pan Am tickets tomorrow morning. “Why the rush, Peter?”
“A change of plans. Sorry to spring it on you. There’s a small crisis at Langley. Menlo wants me back there as soon as possible.”
“Menlo,” Giovanni said, “is his boss. Never met him, but I hear that when he requests, you jump.”
“Well,” Karen said, “if we must look as if we’re only going out to dinner, then I’ll play the part. A sleeveless dress and my lace stole, I suppose.” And I’ll shiver to death on the plane, she thought.
“Night flying at thirty-five thousand feet can be chilly,” Bristow said. “You’ve nothing warmer?”
“Just summer things. I packed for late-August weather in Rome.”
“Wear what you’ve got on now. Add a sweater. We can say we’re visiting Trastevere—there are plenty of little
eating places across the Tiber. I’ll look as casual as hell, too. Okay, Giovanni? You’re the expert.”
Giovanni grinned. “She might even look too chic for Trastevere—but she’ll pass. You do have a sweater?” he asked Karen. “You can’t arrive home with pneumonia.”
“A thin cardigan. One with a beaded collar.” That amused her.
“I’ll find something,” Giovanni said. “Leave it with your luggage in the car.”
“Sorry about all this, but you know women.” She began to laugh. “We never have anything to wear, do we?” She left them smiling as she went towards the bedroom. “I’ll pack before dinner, Peter.”
“Can you stay another five minutes?” Bristow asked Giovanni. “I’ll get packed, too, and bring my bag along here.” He was already at the door, opening it.
“Sure,” Giovanni said as Bristow closed the door behind him. He thought for a moment, then ’phoned down to the bar, where la Contessa would be holding court with two businessmen whom Levinson was investigating. “A little late,” he excused himself. “Can you find me a sweater, your size—bulky and droopy and warm? I’ll meet you at nine. Your place. Okay?”
“Of course, dear boy. Simply delighted,” Maggie said in her best Italian for the benefit of her table. “And just wait till I see you!” she added sotto voce in pure Midwest American.
It went as planned. Karen and Bristow made the midnight flight, with travel papers complete and the bulkiest of sweaters draped around her shoulders.
“How d’you like being a third-class aide’s secretary?” he asked her as they found their allotted space.
“I thought they’d have made you at least a second-class aide. Aiding what?”
“Some agriculture department. Foot-and-mouth disease.” Trust Levinson and his sense of humour, he thought as he shook his head.
She pulled on the sweater before she buckled the safety belt. “Très chic, tres snob. I’m all set for Gstaad. Did you notice la Contessa walking her poodle past the car as we were getting in? I suppose it was her way of saying goodbye.”
“Or of having a look at the girl who was going to wear her prize sweater.”
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