Agent in Place

by Helen Macinnes

  “The blue-prints were excellent. They met all building specifications. Who’s objecting to them?”

  “One of your rivals in real estate. He has an eye on your property. An aggressive type. The Achilles complex, you might call it. Remember Achilles? He was the fellow who killed poor old Hector and dragged his corpse around the walls of Troy.”

  “I’ve read my Homer,” was Gerard’s icy reply.

  “And so you have. Stupid of me to forget. Three years ago—was it? Yes, three years ago you used to have a passionate interest in the Trojan heroes.”

  There was a short but painful silence. “Achilles is actually in—”

  “Intolerable, at times,” Tony broke in, blotting out any mention of Menton. “I agree. A memorable character, though: not easily dismissed. Stays in mind, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said Gerard. He began to recover. “I’ll make arrangements to join you.”

  “Good. And you’ll inform the others about the time of arrival?”

  “They won’t like it. It means a very early start.”

  “A proper nuisance,” Tony commiserated, and gave Georges, listening-in with an earphone, a slow and solemn wink. He rang off abruptly before any other question about Achilles might come blundering forth.

  “Okay?” he asked Georges.

  “Not for me,” Georges smiled. “Gerard won’t like me giving away the name of Hector—or ‘three years ago’, either.”

  “How else could we have warned him that Gorsky is here?”

  “But not one word about Parracini’s true identity? You could have disguised it, meshed it in with your reference to Gerard’s special project.”

  “Sure, I could have said his pet project had changed shape, got twisted, had an ugly face, turned into a monster to haunt his dreams.”

  “Don’t you trust Gerard?” Georges asked bluntly.

  “That isn’t the point. If I had told him the truth about Parracini, how do you think he would have behaved? Kept quiet? No. He’d now be sending messages, sounding the alarm, putting his department on red alert—other departments, too. He’d have started some action. And coopered ours. Look, I’m hungry.” Tony settled himself at the table, checked the St Emilion label. “Not a bad year,” he said, and began breaking bread.

  * * *

  They made a good supper. “It will help keep us awake,” Tony suggested, serving a second portion of Brie along with a large slice of Chèvre—the ham already sliced to the bone, the St Emilion at its last glass. There hadn’t been much talk during the meal. But even as it ended and Georges lit a cigarette, his silence continued. “My voluble French friend,” said Tony, relaxed and expansive, “what’s worrying you now?”

  “Gerard. Do I meet him at Nice airport tomorrow?”

  “You meet all three, and give them the full report as you drive them to the Menton dock. You’ve got all the facts. I don’t need to be there. I’d like to stay near the harbour.”

  “I wish you had trusted Gerard more. He’s no fool.”

  “Not always.”

  Georges said sharply, “It was a good debriefing in Genoa. Gerard handled Parracini well. Nothing slipshod, I assure you.”

  “I believe you.”

  Georges tried some diplomacy. “If it hadn’t been for you, Tony, we’d still be accepting Parracini at face value. I know that. He’d even be on his way to a post in Gerard’s department. But—”

  “But nothing! How could he have been accepted in Genoa? That’s the first question to ask.”

  “He came guaranteed all the way. Made his first contact with us in Istanbul. He knew the address of our agent there, gave all the right identification signals. That was Palladin who reached Turkey.”

  Was it? Tony wondered. He said, “How long was he in Istanbul?”

  “Several days. Had to get passport and documents, clothes, money—all that.”

  And in Istanbul, too, he was given the right recognition signals for his next contact in Lesbos, passed on from agent to agent, each giving him the next name to contact, the next signal to use. Guaranteed all the way—beginning with our agent in Istanbul who had accepted him as authentic. Tony said slowly, “Didn’t any of you in Genoa know him personally? Was there no one who had been in Moscow and could identify him?”

  “Palladin was a careful character. Didn’t meet foreigners, avoided all contacts with the West. How do you think he stayed safe for twelve years?”

  “There must be someone in NATO Intelligence who saw him in Moscow, knew him as Palladin.”

  “Palladin wasn’t his real name. A cautious type, I told you.”

  “Even so—there must be someone who could have identified him. What about our agents who recruited him twelve years ago?”

  “He recruited himself—as his private protest about the renewed campaign against Russian intellectuals. He volunteered, using a Polish journalist to contact a NATO agent who was briefly in Moscow. He wasn’t really taken seriously at first, but the information he started sending—using his own methods to get it out to us—was of excellent quality.”

  “Where’s the Polish journalist now?”

  “Dead.”

  “Where’s that NATO agent?”

  “Retired. In London. He was hospitalised over Christmas—badly smashed up in a traffic accident. So he couldn’t attend the debriefing in Genoa.”

  “Such a convenient and well-timed accident,” Tony murmured. “What did they use to run him down—a truck?”

  Georges let that pass. “It seemed merely a piece of bad luck at the time,” was his only comment. “And now, of course, even if the old boy came out here on his crutches—well, we’ve seen how Parracini has changed his appearance. Right under our eyes, too. Ironic touch, isn’t it?”

  Tony had risen and was moving over to the balcony door. “I could wish the irony wasn’t always turned against us these days. Time to start dealing out some of it, ourselves. Switch off that light, will you, Georges?” As the room darkened, Tony prepared to step on to the balcony. “Coming?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll stay here and watch for a radio signal. What’s troubling you now? The Sea Breeze again?”

  Tony closed the door gently behind him. Yes, the Sea Breeze. And Palladin’s arrival in Istanbul, too. Or had Palladin actually arrived there? He could have been trailed to Odessa—taken into custody and questioned under torture. A substitution wouldn’t be too difficult: find a KGB officer who worked in Palladin’s department and knew the same files. He only needed to be Palladin’s approximate age—and possibly close to his height too, in case someone out in the West recalled that Palladin was of medium size. (Colouring could be faked or changed. Heights were always the give-away.) Facial differences wouldn’t matter: it was the impersonator’s photograph and general description that would appear on the new Palladin travel documents. Odessa... Yes, that could be the place. There had been a delay there, before the next step had been made to Istanbul. And the man who was to replace Palladin could have increased that delay. He didn’t need to make a tortuous journey from Odessa to Istanbul; he could have flown to Turkey direct, at the last moment, giving him that extra time he needed to question Palladin. And Palladin himself? If not dead then, certainly by this time.

  Tony stared down at the harbour and its protecting walls. All was silent, all was at peace. Within the giant horseshoe of black water, white hulls floated side by side, gently, easily. Neatly-spaced lights, like hard bright nailheads, studded the edge of land, secured it from the dark bay. The sea was gentle; small ripples, glinting even and constant under the gibbous moon, stretched to the dark rim of the horizon. The stars were brilliant, barely veiled by the thin clouds teased over the night sky. Silent and peaceful, Tony thought again. He gave a long last glance at the Sea Breeze before he stepped back into the warm room.

  “All quiet out there?” Georges asked, as he switched on all the lights again. “No signal, so far, on my receiver.”

  “If we have to use the Sea Breeze tomorrow—
”

  “Better wait for Brussels’s answer before you start thinking about that.”

  “Tomorrow,” repeated Tony, “we’ll have Emil check under the water-line.”

  “What?”

  Tony saw once more the quiet line of boats, all neatly moored, dark waters lapping at their sides. We aren’t the only team around with an experienced underwater swimmer, he thought. He said, his smile self-deprecating, “I keep thinking of an explosion set off by remote control. Don’t look at me like that, Georges; it was you who gave me the idea to start with. When do you think we might hear from Brussels?”

  “It’s barely midnight. And the longer we have to wait for an answer, the better. A flat refusal comes back in no time at all.”

  “Midnight?” Tony asked, suddenly remembering Tom Kelso. “Damnation.” He reached for the telephone, dialled from memory. No answer. “Georges, look up the local directory—under Maurice Michel. I must have got the number wrong.” But the telephone-book listed the same number he had dialled. He tried again, more slowly. And still there was no answer. He waited for the space of twenty rings before putting down the receiver. “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “They’re asleep. Or perhaps they turned the ’phone off.”

  “Tom said he’d be awake to take my call—whenever it came.”

  “They may have gone for a late-night stroll.”

  “I don’t like it,” Tony said. He held out his hand. “The car keys, Georges.” He was pulling on his jacket as he moved towards the door. “Not alone,” Georges warned him.

  “How else?” Tony pointed to the electronic gear on the table. “You keep your ear on that.”

  “And if questions come in?”

  “We don’t budge from our requests. I’ll stay in touch with you. Have you a spare transceiver?”

  Georges produced it from a drawer, along with a small automatic. “For reassurance,” he said with a grin, knowing Tony’s objections to firearms.

  Tony didn’t argue. He slipped the pistol into his belt. With a parting nod, he closed the door carefully behind him.

  20

  The house lay in darkness. Tom Kelso drew up beside the deep shadow of the orange-trees, stepped out of the Fiat, and opened its trunk for Chuck’s suitcase. His earlier emotions, a paralysing mixture of grief and rage, had left him. The visit to the Casino and the brief talk with Tony Lawton had actually been good for him: pain had been cauterised, mind braced. He could look at the facts, as far as he knew them, and see the shape of things that had to be done.

  Thea had carried out his final instructions almost too well. Not only had she drawn curtains and closed shutters and locked doors both front and back; she had also bolted them, so that his keys were useless. He returned to the kitchen entrance—the one they generally used, near their parking space—and knocked hard. Perhaps she was asleep upstairs, and he’d have to go round to the side of the house and throw pebbles up at the bedroom window. He knocked again, called her name, had a moment of real fear—his emotions weren’t so deadened after all, he admitted—before he heard her voice answering. Fear subsided as quickly as it had risen. As he waited for her to open the door, he looked around him at the sleeping hillside. Down by the nursery, lights glinted cheerfully from the close group of three small cottages where Auguste and his two married sons lived. Lights, too, from the houses scattered up and down the Roquebrune road. And brighter by far was the rising moon, almost full, silvering the open ground, blackening the shadows of trees and bushes. Nothing stirred. Even traffic sounds were thinned and muted. Peaceful and quiet and reassuring. The door opened, and he could take Thea in his arms and hold her.

  “Gardenia,” he said, kissing her neck. “So you were having a bath. I was beginning to think I’d need a battering-ram to get in here.” He lifted Chuck’s suitcase across the threshold, closed and locked the door behind him.

  Relief spread over Dorothea’s face as she heard him sound so normal. She matched her mood to his. “I heard the car, but I had to dry myself and get some clothes on—”

  “And that isn’t warm enough, either,” he told her. She had only a thin wool dressing-gown, belted and neat, over silk pyjamas.

  “I’ll be all right.” And her outfit was practical, chosen, in spite of haste to get downstairs, to let her cook something for Tom’s supper. Besides, with all those windows and doors closed—

  “Not warm enough,” he repeated, “once you’ve cooled off from your bath.” Her face was flushed to a bright rose, her hair was pinned up with damp tendrils curling over her brow and at the nape of her neck, her smile delighted with his concern but totally disbelieving. She was fastening a checkered apron around her waist, getting eggs and parsley out of the refrigerator. “I’m really not hungry, Thea,” he said gently. “And I’ve some work to do.”

  “No trouble—and no time at all.” She glanced at the suitcase in his hand. Was that the work he had mentioned? “I’ll have an omelette ready in five minutes. Why don’t you wash and have a drink?”

  He nodded, dropping the suitcase on a kitchen chair before he went into the pantry and poured himself a single Scotch. That was something, he thought, a gesture of trust—the first time Thea had suggested a drink in the last five or six weeks. He went to wash in the study’s small bathroom, took off jacket and tie, replaced them with a sweater, listening to the clank of a pan on the stove and the sound of eggs being beaten. The smell of the omelette cooking in butter, and coffee beginning to percolate, spread through the house. Appetising, he had to admit as he returned to the kitchen. And a normal scene, with Thea at the stove gently shaking the heavy pan, her face intent as she judged the omelette’s consistency. Now she was snipping the parsley into its centre, working deftly. Tom put out the mats on the kitchen table, napkins and forks, resisted a quick visit to the pantry for another drink. “I’m hungrier than I thought,” he told her as she folded the omelette, prepared to slip it on to a plate. We’ve stepped back into our own lives, he thought—except for the closed doors and windows, except for the suitcase lying on the chair.

  Thea had guessed something of his thoughts. “Must we keep everything locked up tight?” she asked as she joined him at the table, with a triumphant omelette, oval and golden, green-flecked with parsley, firm on the outside—slightly bavant within.

  “It’s cosier,” he said, evading the true explanation. “Come on, darling, share it with me. You must be hungry too.”

  “Tony’s idea, I suppose,” she said, discarding the apron, still thinking of closed windows and locked doors. “But isn’t he being over-anxious? Poor Tony... I suppose that’s his way of life—an obsession with danger.” She shook her head in amused disagreement, a lock of hair escaping further over her brow. “We had a telephone call from New York—Brad Gillon—he had just heard.” And as Tom dropped his fork and was about to rise, she added quickly, “Brad will call again as soon as he gets home from the office. That should be around eleven o’clock our time. I told him you’d surely be back from Menton by then. It’s only half-past nine now. So we can eat in peace. What about a mild Camembert to follow—and some Châteauneuf du Pape? Then fruit and coffee, and you can tell me what happened down in Menton.”

  “Feed the brute?” Tom asked, but he was actually smiling. He felt better, much better. Nerve-ends were being smoothed down. “I’ll start telling you right now.” So he began a full account of his visit to the town.

  Dorothea listened in silence. As she rose to clear the table, she said, “You must look through Chuck’s suitcase tonight? Oh, really—” she frowned angrily as she stacked dishes into the washer—“Tony is impossible.” Hadn’t he any imagination, any sensitivity? “Why all this rush? Couldn’t he have left us alone—”

  “I’d like to know myself, just why Rick Nealey wanted to get hold of that suitcase,” Tom reminded her. “I must search through it. No way to avoid it, Thea.”

  “Then let me help,” she suggested, glancing worriedly at Tom. He sounded fully in con
trol, but—even with food and wine relaxing him—his face was haggard and drawn as he lifted the suitcase and heaved it on to the table. He opened it, looked down at the neatly-packed contents, and hesitated. Slowly, he picked out a small book and two manila envelopes.

  “I’ll look through the clothes, if you like. The diary—”

  “It isn’t a diary. Just addresses and engagements.” But there were some pages at the back that were headed Memoranda, partly filled by very small writing, close-packed, words abbreviated. “Expenses,” was Tom’s first judgment. “Chuck always kept a close account of what he spent in restaurants and theatres and—” He stopped short. There were other items, too, and a few notes. “I’ll need some time to decipher all this. Let’s move into the living-room.”

  “Decipher? Is it in code?” Dorothea asked as she turned off the kitchen lights, checked the door’s lock and bolt. Tom was already carrying the suitcase through the pantry. He had it open again, placed on one of the couches to let her more easily examine the clothes, before she reached him.

  “No,” he answered, as he took the address-book and envelopes over to the writing-table in the corner of the room. “Not code. Just abbreviations—an old habit of Chuck’s. He used to put as much news on a postcard as most people could get into a couple of pages.” He sat down, turned on the small light at his elbow, and began reading.

  Dorothea looked down at the opened suitcase. She shivered, and then forced herself to start unpacking the dead man’s clothes. Unfold, shake, search every pocket, she told herself. It would be a heart-wrenching job. Chuck had crowded a lot into his suitcase, ready for his winter vacation: ski pants and jacket, turtleneck wool sweaters. The only touch of formality was a navy blue blazer, grey flannels, dress loafers, and a white shirt and three ties—for special evenings, presumably. Or perhaps as a concession to Menton, if his stay had lasted a full week-end.