Agent in Place

by Helen Macinnes

  He knew where it was—high on the eastern side of the town, where houses and gardens were scattered around on a steep hill-slope. But he took the folder without comment and slipped it into his pocket. “And you’ve noticed no unusual interest in you or Bill?”

  “Just ordinary French curiosity—no more. It dropped away within two weeks.”

  “And no interest in Brigitte or Bernard—or the chauffeur?”

  She shook her head. “We’ve been accepted as part of the local scene.”

  “And Brigitte and Bernard don’t know Jean Parracini’s real identity? Or any of his past history?”

  “Nothing. He insisted on that right from the beginning. And the set-up is working. He is very pleased about that.”

  “I bet he is. He wrote most of the scenario, didn’t he?” Palladin had insisted on that too, including exchanging his original role as W.B. Marriot the writer, for Bill’s part as Jean Parracini the chauffeur. Tony could see the reason behind Palladin’s change—any interest in the household would be focused on the writer. A chauffeur wouldn’t arouse much local speculation or gossip.

  “And you still don’t like it.” She shook her head, half-amused by Tony’s excessive concern.

  “There isn’t enough protection for him. It’s too open, too simple. And why did he choose Menton?”

  “He says simplicity is his greatest protection. No one will expect him to be living in a busy little resort town with so many approaches.”

  “Far too many. It’s impossible to watch them all.” Tony glanced at the small port ahead of them, with its moles and jetties and anchorage for fishing vessels and pleasure-boats. And beyond that crowded harbour, lying at the far eastern end of Menton under the shadow of a giant wall of red cliffs that marked the French-Italian frontier, was a new large marina, filled with yachts and cruisers. The land view was equally disturbing. There was this shore road, linking all the towns along the whole stretch of the French Riviera. And there was the old Corniche, and the new Corniche topping it, each twisting its tricky way along steep hillsides above the coast. And then there was the Marseilles—Genoa expressway, that had been completed three years ago straight across the mountain slopes, way high up there, supported on tall cement legs as it crossed ravines and deep glens, as direct and fantastic as any Roman aqueduct. They all had their own tunnels, too, to let them stream through the red cliffs, Les Rochers Rouges, and pour right into Italy. Even the damned railway-line, thought Tony, had its tunnel. “Just too many quick ins and outs,” he said to Menton. “And too many bloody foreigners wandering around.” He glowered briefly at two innocuous visitors from West Germany.

  “But that also works for Palla—” She caught herself in time. “For him,” she ended weakly.

  “If he wants to make a quick break for it—yes.”

  “That isn’t what he’s planning.”

  “He’s a great planner, isn’t he?”

  “Wouldn’t you be, if you had spent the last twelve years—”

  “Yes,” Tony said quickly, and silenced her. For twelve years, Palladin had worked right under the sharp eyes of men like Vladimir Konov. With each passing day, he must have wondered at his success in skirting detection, prepared himself for sudden disaster. When it came, he was ready. He had been lucky, luckier than Konov stretched out on a slab in a New York morgue, but he had made his luck. With some help from us, thought Tony, he had made it. But no amount of help could take away full credit from Palladin for brains and guts.

  “You don’t trust his judgment?”

  “It’s Menton that is worrying me,” Tony admitted frankly. “I just wish he hadn’t been so determined about it. That’s all.”

  “But no one, no one, would expect him to come to a small resort town, so open and innocent. The opposition will expect us to send him to a country of our choice—and one where he can speak English. It’s his best foreign language. He knows it well. Also some German, some Italian.”

  “What about French?” Tony asked quickly.

  “He has been learning French. And fast. He spends every free hour on it. Talking records, books, papers, TV, and conversations with me.”

  Tony stared at her. “So he comes to live in France because he doesn’t know French? Does he think the opposition will look in every other direction because of that?” And the opposition was not just the KGB alone, enormous as that intelligence force was. It had control over the intelligence services of the Soviets’ allies. They’d all swing into action.

  “Yes,” said Nicole quite simply. “He believes that the opposition will search in the English-speaking countries. They’ll expect him to be hidden in a large city like London or Liverpool or Toronto or Glasgow—some place where crowds would make him feel safe. And if that fails, they’ll try the opposite extreme—look for a remote Canadian farm, a lonely ranch in the United States.”

  Tony’s pace slowed. They would soon reach the end of the promenade. Near the harbour area a lot of construction work was in progress: men and machines, digging and filling, and bottling up traffic. This was already complicated by the density of people attracted to the market; they cluttered its sidewalks, moved in and out of its giant entrances and gave—from this short distance away—a good imitation of bees swarming around their honeycombs. They were even spreading across the final stretch of promenade itself. Soon no more serious talk would be possible. He halted, looked out at the Mediterranean admiringly. “Okay,” he said, as if his doubts about Menton had been cleared away. He came in on them from another angle. “Does our friend have much to say about Shandon House?”

  Nicole had been startled, but she kept her eyes fixed on a view of blue sky, blue sea. “At first, yes. Now, very little.” She drew the cardigan’s collar more closely across her throat. “His anger doesn’t show any more. And he had every right to be bitter about Shandon’s criminal stupidity. They let someone steal their NATO Memorandum right out of their top-secret files, and it ended up in Moscow. Jean lost two of his Moscow contacts through that piece of idiocy. Arrested in December, executed four weeks ago. Did you know?”

  “I heard.”

  For a long moment, they were silent.

  Then she said, “We have been reading in the local newspapers about a villa owned by Shandon, right here in Menton. The same Shandon—as in New Jersey?”

  “The same. They inherited the villa last year.”

  “Another think-tank?”

  “Mostly a talk-pool—on a very deep level, of course.” His smile had returned. Somehow the idea of Shandon owning a villa on the Riviera appealed to his sense of comedy. Although there were now other villas strung along the Côte d’Azur, quiet retreats in vast gardens, taken over by Institutes of This and That for the Betterment of Thee and Me. Shandon, situated in the wealthy enclave on Cap Martin, was only following a very pleasant pattern. “And what else do the papers report about it?”

  “Not much. It’s all played down. Does that mean Shandon Villa is a hush-hush operation?”

  “Officially, no. The aim is ‘free discussion by delegates from various countries on topics of general concern.’ So they say. But—” Tony paused—“I shouldn’t be surprised if there are some private exchanges between delegates, which deal with very sensitive material indeed. Have you noticed that people just can’t keep their lips buttoned when they want to assert themselves? Or win an argument? Or when they are feeling relaxed—sun and sea and flowers and palm-trees and no journalists around to print off-the-record talk?”

  “Surely Shandon wouldn’t bug its own guests?”

  “Not Shandon itself.”

  She didn’t quite follow. “They’ve been discreet enough about their guest-list for the first seminar. Even the local newspapers weren’t given the names. Security precaution, I suppose.”

  “No names at all?”

  “Only those of the permanent staff in a kind of Welcome-To-Menton paragraph. The director is an American, of course. Now, what’s he called?” Her brow wrinkled.

&nbs
p; “Maclehose. Security officer of the day when the NATO Memorandum was taken out of Shandon House.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Do they never learn?”

  “No blame could be pinned on Maclehose. Unthinkable. He’s a stalwart fellow. His wife and children will love living in Menton.” Tony’s sarcasm ended. “But, secretly, he did embarrass them: so the easiest solution was to kick him sideways across the Atlantic. It’s a cushy job. With some prestige, too. His guests will be cabinet level.” Then Tony asked the question that worried him most. “What is Jean Parracini’s reaction to Shandon-by-the-Sea?”

  “None.”

  “He reads the local papers—part of his French lessons, aren’t they? Didn’t the mention of Maclehose raise any comment?”

  “Maclehose was just a name. Jean didn’t recognise it.”

  “He must have. He saw my report on Shandon.”

  “You gave it to him?” She couldn’t believe it.

  “Not my idea. Someone in Genoa thought he deserved to know how his cover had been blown—he kept asking about that. Naturally enough. And we owe him a great deal.” Tony shrugged. “But not to the point of letting him carry a grudge. In our business, there’s no room for a personal vendetta.”

  “Surely he wouldn’t—”

  “You know him better than I do.”

  “He isn’t a maniac. He has a cool detached mind. He wouldn’t do anything wild and endanger us all.”

  “I hope not.” Tony was remembering the description of Palladin’s sudden rage in Genoa when he had read the report on Shandon. By all accounts, it had been a painful and terrifying scene. “Let’s head for the market,” he said abruptly, and turned away from the laughing sea, little white teeth gleaming in the curving lips of each small wave.

  Nicole shivered. “I feel frozen,” she said. But it wasn’t altogether the cool breeze that had caused this momentary chill. She stepped out smartly, her wide skirt swinging around her red leather boots, her dark hair blowing loose in the wind.

  “By the way,” he said in his most casual manner as they waited to cross the street, “does the name of Rick Nealey ring a bell?”

  “Nealey,” she repeated, frowning. “I’ve seen it.” The frown deepened; and then disappeared. “Yes. He’s on the new Shandon staff, isn’t he?”

  “Executive assistant to Maclehose.”

  She stared at Tony’s expressionless face. “Another name in your report?” she asked, her voice almost inaudible.

  “You may be frozen, but your brain is still cooking,” he said and won a small but delighted smile.

  And then it vanished just as quickly. Jean, she was thinking, must have recognised Nealey’s name in the newspapers. And yet there had been no comment at all. None. And none about Maclehose. None at all... As though he had no interest in them whatsoever. Not natural behaviour, she told herself. A danger signal? But Tony’s hand was on her arm, guiding her, giving her some comfort. “When do you leave?” she asked in mid-street.

  “The boat is going to take some time to fix.” He had seen to that, with a neatly applied hammer. “Georges and Emil will come on shore, take rooms in the Old Town. I’ll wander around.”

  “Will you come up to the villa? Bill would like to see you.”

  “Georges will be in touch with him,” he had time to say before they reached the sidewalk.

  “We could use some extra help,” she admitted. “We now have two problems.” The first was to keep Jean Parracini safe from the KGB. The second—to keep Jean Parracini safe from himself.

  “At least two,” said Tony, thinking of Rick Nealey, and stopped at a mass of flowers for sale. Tables, set up roughly outside the market, were covered with them. “Buy some carnations.” They were the only flowers, apart from roses, that he recognised.

  He waited for Nicole to choose, heard her discussing prices with one of the ruddy-faced women behind the flower display. But his thoughts were still with Nealey: sudden resignation in late December from his job as Representative W.C. Pickering’s aide (nicely explained, of course, no hard feelings), and a quick exit from Washington in early January; nothing against him in FBI files; unknown to CIA’s informants in East Germany (but they’d keep digging); papers in order, according to US Army who had employed him as civilian-interpreter—1963–1965—after his escape to West Germany; 1941 birth-certificate (Brooklyn); total acceptance by grandmother Nealey, sole surviving relative but since deceased, on his return to USA. (A newspaper account of that happy reunion seemed to think it perfectly normal that an eighty-four-year-old woman should recognise a grandson she hadn’t seen for twenty-seven years.) Blank-Wall Nealey: all Tony had got was one large headache from butting his head against it. You didn’t have the evidence, not a shred of hard proof, he told himself. So how did you expect the Americans to act, especially when they were all walking on eggs these days? Nealey’s apartment and his office, too, would have needed to be bugged. Just try that on for size in a newspaper headline.

  “Aren’t they divine?” Nicole asked, thrusting a bunch of red and pink carnations under his nose. “They grow all over the hillsides around here, in plastic-covered greenhouses. Imagine the work!” She dropped her voice. “Do we drift apart now?”

  “Too open. Let’s get under cover.”

  The market was a huge cavern of a building, filled with stalls, rows and rows of them, piled with all varieties of produce. And the crowd was large enough to please him: his leave-taking of Nicole could pass ignored in this mass of people, buying, selling, or simply strolling among the good things to eat. “No one in this part of France will ever starve,” Tony said. “Almost tempts me to take up cooking.” Half the shoppers, he noted, were men. “Admirable place.” And he wasn’t only referring to its gastronomical delights. He relaxed, felt secure.

  Nicole touched his arm. He looked at her sharply as she drew him behind a poultry stall, with ducks and geese and chickens swinging from overhead hooks. It was the first time, he thought, that he had used a screen of plucked hens to dodge behind. “Jean,” she said quietly. “He’s over there, next to the sacks of onions.”

  “What the bloody hell does he think he’s doing?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes were troubled. “He does go out on errands, of course. A chauffeur doesn’t sit in a house all day.”

  There were several people, a mixed group, crowded near that stall. “I don’t see him,” Tony said.

  She laughed, then. “I told you he had done wonders with his appearance. He’s the man in the dark suit. Why don’t you come and meet him—hear his French accent, too?”

  Tony studied the man. No resemblance. Palladin’s hair had been blond, thin on top and straight, above a cheerful round face and pale complexion. He had been a permanent wearer of glasses, and definitely corpulent. Jean Parracini had dark brown hair, thick and wavy. His tanned face was haggard and furrowed, the cheeks fallen, the eyes (with no glasses) deep-set and shadowed. He had grown a moustache, dyed it black. And he must have lost about forty pounds in weight. Even his height, the usual giveaway, seemed to have increased slightly with the way he now held his shoulders. New posture and thick-soled shoes, judicious use of subtle make-up, an expensive hair-piece fitted securely over a head shaved bald, and—above all—a crash diet: these were the complete transformers. “Contact lenses, too,” Tony murmured. He was fascinated. But Jean wasn’t walking around picking up any purchases. Jean was waiting. Even when he moved on a few steps, seemingly engrossed with onions and the neighbouring potatoes, he was waiting. “He may be looking for you. Did you tell him you were going to buy some artichokes?”

  “No. I left as soon as you called me this morning on Bill’s private line.”

  “Would Bill tell him you had gone into town?”

  “Possibly. But not to meet you.” Of that she was sure. “Perhaps he came here to buy something Brigitte had forgotten to order.”

  “He’s pressing his luck too hard.”

 
“I’ll go over and join him,” Nicole decided. “Ease him out of here.” But Jean was already leaving.

  Tony’s eyes still stayed on the dark suit, watched it move slowly towards another entrance.

  “That leads into the town itself. He has probably parked Bill’s car—”

  “What make?”

  “A Mercedes, black, four-door, Nice registration.”

  Jean had almost disappeared behind the fruit stalls. “Think I’d like to get a closer look. See if that disguise is as good face-on as it is at a distance.”

  “Meet him? I thought you were avoiding—”

  “He won’t know me.” A one-way mirror in a small Genoese room, old dodge, had made sure of that. “I hope,” Tony added along with a goodbye smile. “Go buy your artichokes, my pet. And tell Bill what I told you. All of it.” He drifted away, seemingly in an aimless wandering between the rows of stalls. He too was heading definitely for the market’s town-side entrance.

  Once he was far enough away from Nicole, who was now absorbed in the price of poultry, his pace could quicken. But he had delayed too long, and Jean Parracini was no longer visible. Lost between the fruit and the cheeses, Tony thought, and swore silently.

  He came out into the sunshine, wondering which direction to take. He noticed a parked black car, near by. But it was a Citroën, newest model, with a swoop of bonnet to give it a sporting air. The man who was dumping his packages on to the back seat before he stepped in to take the wheel was obviously alone. He wore a suit and tie, too; but he was not Jean Parracini. He was Rick Nealey.

  Slowly, Tony lit a cigarette. The Citroën went slowly into the traffic. And from some distance behind it, a black Mercedes left its parking-place. It increased speed as much as it dared in the busy street, and then—as it came nicely up behind the Citroën—slackened its pace to keep a decent following distance.

  We have a maniac on our hands, thought Tony, and crushed his barely-smoked cigarette under his heel. Better warn Nicole at once; explain Rick Nealey just enough to let her know how deeply Parracini was endangering himself. This was no ordinary American he was following. Nealey could outfox even a Palladin, when he was blinded by bitter rage. And Nealey wouldn’t be here alone. He must have some back-up, a contact... “Hell, bloody hell,” Tony said softly, and turned to re-enter the market.