Assassin

by David Hagberg

  “This is your honor, Kirk. It is not much, but I think that in the end it is all that we have.” (A101.)

  “What …” (A102. Sentence incomplete.)

  “Your parents were not spies, Kirk. They did not work for us as you’ve believed all these years. They were set up.” (A101.)

  “Go home.” (A102.)

  “Just think about my request.” (A101.)

  SUBJECTS LEAVE AREA. TRANSCRIPT ENDS.

  Jacqueline looked up into Galan’s eyes. He wasn’t smiling.

  “Considering who and what Monsieur McGarvey is, we think that the Russians have asked him to assassinate someone.”

  “He turned it down.”

  “He agreed to think about it, Mademoiselle. We’ll query Washington on this business about his parents being spies, but if the information Yemlin handed over to him is valid—or if McGarvey believes it is—it may be the incentive he needs to take him from thinking about such an act, to doing it.”

  “There’s no mention who the subject might be,” Jacqueline said.

  Galan shook his head. “No. Nor do we know if the subject is here in France, but we must consider that possibility.”

  Jacqueline’s head was spinning. “Expel him. Kick him out of France, now, before he can change his mind.”

  “We won’t do that, and I’ll tell you why,” Galan said. “If McGarvey decides to assassinate someone here in France, kicking him out of the country would do nothing but drive him underground. If we keep him here, we can watch him.”

  “That is your job, Jacqueline,” Levy put in. “You must find out for us.”

  “It may have something to do with this book he’s writing,” Galan said. “I want you to get it for us.”

  “He has safeguards. I’ve inspected them myself. If I open that cabinet he’ll know.”

  “Photograph the safeguards and get the film to us. We’ll take it from there. Believe me, as good as Monsieur McGarvey is, we’re better.”

  Jacqueline nodded. She felt very small at that moment, her feelings confused, and contradictory. A part of her was excited by the new challenge. She’d been well-trained for exactly this sort of operation. Still another part of her felt somehow dirty. She was very mixed up.

  “When he finally came home Saturday afternoon, did he tell you why he sent you ahead?” Levy asked gently. He’d picked up something of her distress.

  “He wanted to buy me a present in secret. A surprise.”

  Levy and Galan exchanged a look.

  “Did you believe him, Jacqueline?” Levy asked. “Or did it seem odd to you?”

  She lowered her eyes. “It seemed odd.” She looked up defiantly. “But there have been any number of little oddities. Nothing significant, except that I think he may suspect what I really am.”

  “I would be surprised if he didn’t suspect,” Galan said. “Why didn’t you contact your control officer if you had a suspicion that something wasn’t completely correct?”

  “Because I wanted to find out as much as I could. I wasn’t sure.”

  “Are you sure now,” Galan said. “I meant before you walked into this office and heard what we had to say, were you sure?”

  “No.”

  “Then you should have called, ma cherie,” Levy said.

  “Perhaps she should be pulled off the assignment—” Galan said.

  “No,” Jacqueline interrupted sharply. “There’s no time to get somebody new. He’d know that we were on to him.”

  “Probably. But on the same token we don’t want you to get hurt. Do you understand what I mean?”

  She nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure she completely understood. But she had a job to do. “I’ll get you the photographs of his failsafes.”

  “It’s very important that we know if he is taking this job for the Russians, and if the subject is in France. Could even be a Frenchman,” Galan said. “Or a visiting dignitary. We must know.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Jacqueline said.

  “Bon. I know you will,” Levy said. He opened a small medicine bottle and gave her a capsule. “Before you leave, take this with some water. You’re going home for the remainder of the week with a light fever and a runny nose. This will induce the symptoms.”

  “Maybe he won’t want me near him if I’m sick.”

  Galan chuckled. “I don’t think Monsieur McGarvey is frightened of a few germs. Besides you won’t really be ill.”

  She nodded and turned to go.

  “Jacqueline, how do you feel about your American?” Galan asked, his tone surprisingly avuncular.

  She looked at him, but could read nothing from his bland expression. “I like him,” she admitted. “I think he is a good man who has worked too long in a very bad profession. He’s retired now, and he wants to remain so.”

  Galan nodded his understanding. “I sincerely hope that you are correct.”

  SDECE Headquarters

  Colonel Galan came to attention in front of the desk of the Director of the SDECE, General Jean Baillot, and saluted smartly. The general, a taciturn old veteran of the French-Algerian troubles, was working on some paperwork. He motioned Galan to have a seat.

  Looking past the general out the leaded glass windows, Galan had a nice view of the Eiffel Tower. The office was palatial, furnished with genuine antiques, and was extremely comfortable. But he didn’t think Baillot ever noticed. He was a man, his subordinates noted, of very little amusement. He would have been just as content working in a tent.

  The general put down his pen and looked up. “Oui?”

  Galan handed him the report he’d typed himself, summarizing everything they’d learned to date, as well as Jacqueline Belleau’s orders to help them steal McGarvey’s manuscript.

  When he was finished, Baillot laid the report down, and once again looked up. “Why have you brought this to me, Colonel?”

  “I need your authorization to ask the American Central Intelligence Agency for help.”

  “You wish to ask them about Kirk McGarvey’s parents in order to see if the Russians are able to provide a motivation for McGarvey to do this job for them?”

  “Oui, Monsieur le General. I would also like to have their latest information on McGarvey and Viktor Yemlin.”

  “Why?”

  “The CIA’s operation in Moscow is better than ours, and McGarvey was one of theirs. I want to know if they have any ideas who Yemlin wants McGarvey to assassinate.”

  General Baillot thought about the request for a moment, his penetrating eyes never leaving Galan’s. “Is there any person presently in France whose death would benefit the Russians?”

  “No one of any real importance, sir. Of course there may be upcoming state visits of a secret nature that my department knows nothing about.”

  “There are none,” the general said flatly. “You have my authorization to ask the CIA for help. But you will do so through their Chief of Station Thomas Lynch here in Paris.”

  “Yes, sir,” Galan said, and the general dismissed him.

  At the door the general recalled him. “Kirk McGarvey is a dangerous man. But he is not an enemy of France. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Perfectly, mon General.”

  EIGHT

  CIA Headquarters

  Deputy Director of Operations Howard Ryan was a man who believed in isometrics. Walking into his third floor conference room at 7:30 A.M. sharp and taking his place at the head of the long table he knew that every man seated there hated him because he pushed. It was exactly as it should be, he thought with smug satisfaction. Hate generated energy. And energy was exactly what the Company had been lacking for many years.

  Besides his assistant, Thomas Moore, the others he’d called to the briefing included the assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Chris Vizanko, whom Ryan considered to be little more than a street thug who didn’t belong here, and the heavyset Director of Technical Services, Jared Kraus, who was a steady if sometimes ponderous presence.

  E
ach man had brought his own “experts,” something Ryan always insisted on. He told his people repeatedly that if they were not willing to bet their lives on the facts then they’d better surround themselves with experts. His staff called it “Ryan’s insulation factor.” If something went wrong, the more underlings around you to absorb the blame the better you’d come out.

  But Ryan had pressures from above, as he was fond of reminding them. His came from the big leagues; the Director of Central Intelligence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the President’s National Security Adviser and the President himself.

  “Gentlemen, the Director is scheduled to brief the President at ten, and in turn he expects me to brief him at nine. It gives us less than a half-hour to come up with a consensus on the facts so that I’ll have time to prepare my recommendations,” Ryan began.

  “If Boris Yeltsin died of a heart attack, he did so in mid-air,” Vizanko said.

  Ryan, who’d started out as an attorney for a prestigious New York law firm, did not like levity of any kind, and he shot the assistant DDI a sharp look of disapproval. “What do you have for me?”

  “Jim Ravn’s people managed to come up with blood and tissue samples from Red Square. The DNA in several of them was definitely Yeltsin’s.” Ravn was the Chief of Moscow Station.

  “It’s been more than forty-eight hours, what took so long?” Ryan demanded. He always wore three-piece suits. He took his ornate pocket watch out and looked at the time as if to make his point. It was a “Ryan” gesture, pretentious as hell.

  “That’s normally a two-week procedure, Mr. Ryan,” Kraus said from his end of the table. “Ravn must have lit a fire under somebody to get it that fast.”

  “He got it from the Russians themselves. And those guys are definitely motivated right now,” Vizanko said. “He also came up with a rumor that a body will be ready for display later today. The operative word is ‘a’ body, not Yeltsin’s.”

  There was more deadwood yet to be cleared out of the Agency, Ryan thought. “Russian science and shaky rumors. This is what the world’s best intelligence agency has managed to come up with?”

  “With no reliable eyewitnesses who actually saw Yeltsin in the back seat of the limo that took the hit, I think it’s the best we can do under the circumstances,” Vizanko said. “It’s Mr. Doyle’s opinion that if Yeltsin had actually died of a heart attack, his body would have been placed on display within twenty-four hours. They just wouldn’t have waited so long.” Tom Doyle was Deputy Director of Intelligence.

  “His bodyguards don’t carry that kind of explosives in any event,” Kraus said. “We think the device was Semtex. Ravn’s people found evidence supporting that.”

  “What evidence?” Ryan shot back. He didn’t like this at all. It was way too loose.

  “Certain chemical compounds consistent with the plastic explosive were detected in the human tissue samples.”

  “Just what compounds? Specifically.”

  Kraus shrugged, and opened a file folder. He passed a report down the table to Ryan.

  “As you can see, Mr. Ryan, page three and four outline the results of mass spectrograph tests on the material. The third and fifth sets of complex hydrocarbons, which you can see, do not match human blood or tissue, and in fact can be identified as—”

  “I can read,” Ryan said harshly. The graphs, columns and rows of numbers, and diagrams of what appeared to be a complex series of spikes and sawtooth patterns made no sense to him. He did not have a science background. But the material looked impressive as hell. It would make for a damn good presentation.

  He ran his finger down several rows of figures, flipped to page four, and studied the graphs.

  “I concur,” he said, looking up. “Do we have any sense of how much Semtex was used?” He liked to toss in an unanswerable question now and then. It kept his people on their toes.

  “That’s on the bottom of page five, sir,” Kraus said. “It was a radio-controlled package weighing in the neighborhood of six kilos. Probably placed inside the car, beneath the rear seat. The body armor would have effectively focused the blast upward.”

  Ryan looked at Kraus and the others to make sure they weren’t having a laugh at his expense, then flipped to the next page. “I see it here,” he said. “Good work.”

  “I don’t think there’s any question who pulled it off or why,” Vizanko said. He passed down a thick folder. “Yevgenni Tarankov. They call him the Tarantula, and for good reason it looks like.”

  “Save me from wading through this, Chris. Do we have hard intelligence to support that speculation?”

  Vizanko sat back, insolently. “Tarankov hit their Riga Nuclear Power Station in the Moscow suburb of Dzerzhinskiy the day before. You’ve already seen that report, and damage estimates. We think that Yeltsin finally got off his duff and ordered Tarankov’s arrest.” Vizanko spread his hands. “The Tarantula retaliated. Sure as hell sent the Kremlin a clear message.”

  “What’s that?” Ryan asked coldly.

  “Tarankov is going to take over in the June elections, if not sooner.”

  “By force?”

  “It’s a possibility that should be considered.”

  “I see,” Ryan said. He turned to his assistant, Tom Moore. “Do you concur?”

  Moore, “Sir Thomas” behind his back, even more staid and pedantic than his boss, took his pipe out of his mouth and studied the contents of the bowl. “I’d have to study the reports at length, Howard. But on the surface of it the possibility has enough merit to be kicked upstairs.”

  “Very well—”

  “But of course I would advise caution. Meddling in Russia’s internal affairs at this moment is fraught with danger, the least of which is our considerable dollar investment over there.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Ryan said.

  “Won’t matter much if Tarankov takes power,” Vizanko said. “That bastard will nationalize everything, and there’ll be very little that we could do to stop him. Half the Russian Strategic Rocket Force officers are on his side. We’ve already seen the analysis of those numbers. It’d take no leap of imagination to envision him scrapping SALT, and reprogramming his ICBMs.”

  “He doesn’t have the money.”

  “I think he could get it, Mr. Ryan,” Vizanko said. He shrugged again. “Anyway, it’s a thought.”

  “Any other comments?” Ryan asked after a few moments. There were none. “Thank you for your help this morning,” he said.

  Ryan was in the DCI’s office a minute before nine with two copies of his lengthy report, one of them in a leather folder for the President. He’d scanned the Directorate of Intelligence report and the Technical Services Division findings directly into his computer under the Directorate of Operations seal, heavily edited the material, added his own conclusions and included full color graphs, charts and maps, along with photographs of Yeltsin and his staff, Prime Minister Kabatov and his staff, Russia’s key generals, and a selection of the few photographs they had of Tarankov. Ryan’s second principle of insulation, was when a report was requested throw as much material into it as possible, then double that amount. The government, he was fond of saying, likes to see something impressive for the trillions it spends.

  General Roland Murphy (retired) had been director of the Central Intelligence Agency for an unprecedented ten and a half years because he was very good, he had no party affiliation, and each president he’d served under found him to be indispensable, whatever his politics.

  He and Ryan went back a number of years together. The general knew the family very well, and he’d hired Ryan away from the law firm to act as general counsel for the CIA, a job which Ryan had loved.

  During his tenure, Ryan had developed an appreciation for, and a real expertise in, the hardball politics of liaison between the Agency and the Hill, an ability Murphy lacked. When the previous DDO had been killed eighteen months ago, and Ryan wounded in the same operation, Murphy had rewarded his friend with the direct
orate.

  Murphy quickly scanned the report, which ran to nearly eighty pages, as Ryan poured a cup of coffee, and went to the big corner windows. The sky was gray, but all the snow was gone and spring was not far away. Ryan was indifferent.

  “Very professional, as usual, Howard,” Murphy said after a few minutes.

  “Thank you, General,” Ryan said, turning back.

  “This’ll impress the hell out of them, but the President likes straight answers. He doesn’t want to be caught flat-footed like he was over the Japanese thing.”

  Ryan’s jaw tightened, and he reflexively touched his face where he’d been shot by a former East German Stasi hit man. By all rights he should have been killed. But for the grace of God he would have been, and he carried the scar not only of his wound, but of the memory of the man who had put him in harm’s way.

  “I understand, Mr. Director,” Ryan said. “I’ve included a summary on the last two pages which should make it clear.”

  “You can tell him that yourself. He pushed the briefing forward to nine-thirty, which doesn’t give me time to wade through this.”

  “I’d be happy to brief the President,” Ryan said, genuinely pleased. One of the keys to acquiring power, he’d always told himself, was to surround yourself with power. Another was knowing how to handle yourself when the time came.

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  The President’s appointments secretary, Dale Nichols, showed them into the Oval Office at precisely 9:30. Ryan had answered tough questions nonstop on the way over from Langley in the DCI’s limousine; as a result he felt much better prepared than he had a half-hour ago. The general might not have been a politician, but he was as astute as he was expedient.

  President Lindsay, a tall, Lincolnesque figure, was seated in his rocking chair across from his National Security Adviser, Harold Secor, Secretary of State Jonathan Carter and Secretary of Defense Paul Landry. Two extra chairs had been pulled up around the broad coffee table.