Assassin

by David Hagberg

  “That’s what I was told.”

  Rencke jumped down from the table, and hopped from one foot to the other, his face lit up like a kid’s at Christmas. “They do that … If they could pull it off, the whole country would go down the dumper. Be a two-flusher at least. But if they keep their mitts off he’ll take over anyway, and maybe the whole world will take a crap.” Rencke stopped, his face suddenly serious. “He’s a bad man, Mac. The worse. If he gets into power he’ll make Stalin and old Adolph look like pikers. Amateurs, know what I mean?”

  “It’s their problem, Otto. I’m not shedding any tears. They did everything in their power over the past seventy-five years to get to this point.”

  “Bzzz. Wrong answer recruit. He gets in and it becomes our problem,” Rencke said. A sad, wistful expression came over his face, and he smiled. “The only solution is for someone to assassinate the bastard before it’s too late. Someone has come to ask you to do it. Friend or foe?”

  “Former foe.”

  “Yemlin. As in Viktor Pavlovich. He did you a favor with his Tokyo Abunai network, and now he’s calling in the chips. He’s a born again democratic reformer, is that it?”

  “I’m out of the business,” McGarvey said for his own benefit as well as Rencke’s.

  “How’d you manage to sidestep your little spook?”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “You called me that once before, Mac. Just not true. My mother was a good woman. But I am a real shit, and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. But the question is valid.”

  “I managed.”

  “Does she suspect?”

  “Probably.”

  “Not so good to have the French on your back,” Rencke said, looking away momentarily. “What’d you tell him, Mac?” he asked dreamily.

  “I told him no.”

  Rencke turned his wild eyes back to McGarvey. “Then what’re you doing out here? Looking for a conscience, because if that’s all it is, forget it. Tarankov is a bad, bad dog. I could show you things, Mac. Real things that’d curl even your gray hair.”

  “That’s what I came out here for,” McGarvey said.

  “Research or justification?”

  “Just research …”

  Rencke wagged his finger at McGarvey. “As you’re fond of saying, Mac, don’t shit the troops. If you want my help you’ll have to level with me. Because if you’re going to do it I’ll have to backstop you, which’ll put my ass on the line. I’ve got a right to know.”

  “Just research for now, Otto. Because I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. I want to stay retired.”

  Rencke shook his head, the sad expression back on his face. “We both wish that were true, my friend. But the fact is you’re getting bored again. I saw it the last time you came out here. And listen to me, without you there would have been a lot more bad guys killing a lot of really good people. You have made a difference, Mac. In a lot of people’s lives. Don’t ever doubt it.”

  “I do every day,” McGarvey said.

  “Comes with the territory,” Rencke said. He turned abruptly and went into the house.

  McGarvey waited outside for ten minutes, smoking a cigarette, enjoying the warmth of the afternoon. His ex-wife Kathleen had once called him the “last boy scout.” Now Rencke had called him the same thing.

  One thing was certain, he thought as he rose and went into the house, whoever agreed to kill Tarankov would have less than a one-in-a-thousand chance of pulling it off and escaping. It was an interesting problem.

  The windows in the main room were boarded up and the fireplace blocked. Fluorescent lights had been installed in the ceiling, and air conditioning kept the house cool, almost cold. Computer equipment was scattered everywhere. A dozen monitors, one of them a forty-inch screen, were set up next to printers and CPUs around the room. In a corner what looked like a smaller version of a Cray supercomputer was processing something. The lights on its front panel flashed at a bewildering speed.

  “I built that one myself,” Rencke called from where he was seated at the big monitor, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “The lights are useless, but they impress the hell out of people.”

  “Who’s seen it?” McGarvey asked, walking over.

  “Nobody,” Rencke said. “Take a look at this.”

  A map of Russia came up on the screen with all the major cities pinpointed in yellow. Starting with Yakutsk in Siberia and working its way west toward Moscow, the cities flashed red, and a number between ten and a hundred appeared beside each one.

  “I won’t bore you with details, but those are the cities Tarankov’s commandoes have hit in the past couple of years. The figures are the number of people he’s killed in each place.”

  Rencke erased the screen, and this time brought up a map of the entire old Soviet Union. “I designed a probability program from the basic premise that Tarankov succeeds in taking the Kremlin by force or by the ballot box. Either scenario made no difference.” He looked up. “Ready for this, Mac?”

  “Go ahead,” McGarvey said.

  Rencke hit a key. For a few moments nothing seemed to happen, until one after another, spreading outward from Moscow like some malignant growth, cities large and small began to glow red, numbers, some in the thousands, began to appear beside them. The figures next to Moscow and St. Petersburg showed the most growth, rising into the tens of thousands, but then Kiev and Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd blossomed. The cancer spread next to Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius in the Baltics. Finally into Romania, and Bulgaria and Poland. The numbers were staggering, in the millions.

  “The people will have jobs, they’ll eat regularly, they’ll have free medical care and free education all the way up to the doctorate level,” Rencke said.

  “How accurate is this?” McGarvey asked.

  “Based on my primary premise, very,” Rencke said. “How about nuclear accident projections, because they’ll be reactivating their nuclear missile force, including their subs? Or, if you want to see something pitiful, how about projected NATO responses? Almost nil. How about the biggest one of all, Mac?” Rencke looked up, a maniacal glint in his eyes. “Thermonuclear war. Because if Tarankov takes power the nuclear countdown clock will start ticking again, a few seconds before midnight.”

  Images and numbers and bright white lights blossomed over a map of the entire world, faster and faster, until it was impossible to follow.

  Suddenly the screen went blank, and turned a rich hue of lavender.

  Rencke sat back in his chair. “My telephone here is secure. I’ve set up a backscatter encryption device that’ll work both ways. Whatever telephone you use will be encrypted as well.”

  It was starting again as McGarvey knew it would. There were always alternatives to war, to acts of terrorism, to assassinations. Problem was nobody thought of them until afterwards.

  “I haven’t played fair with you, Mac,” Rencke said. “I knew that you’d met with Yemlin, and I knew that you would be coming out here to see me.”

  “How?” McGarvey asked.

  Rencke brought up another program. “You’re my friend, so I keep track of you. When your name pops up somewhere, my snoopy systems take note.”

  The CIA’s logo appeared on the screen, followed by the Directorate of Operations designator, and then Paris Station.

  The text of a message sent to Langley from Tom Lynch came up.

  “They know that you met with Yemlin,” Rencke said, as McGarvey stared with disbelief at the name of the addressee. “The SDECE managed to pick up a portion of your conversation, and they handed it over to Lynch. They knew that you were asked to assassinate someone for the Russians. They don’t know who. Their only concern is that it doesn’t happen on French soil.”

  “Is this a fucking joke?” McGarvey demanded.

  “What?” Rencke asked confused.

  McGarvey stabbed a blunt finger at the screen. “Howard Ryan is the deputy director of operations?”

  “I thought you knew.�
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  McGarvey stepped back a pace. It was like the old Santiago days all over again. Everything changed, yet nothing changed.

  “I’ll keep in touch,” he said at last.

  “I’ll be here, Mac,” Rencke said. “Just watch yourself, will ya. But it’s really good news about your parents.”

  TEN

  Paris

  McGarvey returned his rental car to the agency downtown, and walked a few blocks over to the Gare St-Lazare where he got a cab. The early evening was still pleasantly warm and the parks and sidewalk cafés were jammed with people. Under normal circumstances he and Jacqueline would have gone out to dinner this evening. Thinking about it deepened his already dark mood.

  Howard Ryan was a pompous ass, who nevertheless had done a good job for the CIA as its general counsel. He knew his way around political Washington, and during his tenure the Agency maintained the best relationship it’d ever had with the Congress.

  But as a spy he was a meddling fool who didn’t know what he was doing. Eighteen months ago he’d nearly gotten himself killed by an East German gunman because he’d barged into a situation he knew nothing about. McGarvey had even saved his life after Ryan had shot him in the side.

  Afterward Roland Murphy had actually apologized for the man, but McGarvey never dreamed that Ryan would be promoted to deputy director of operations. It was insanity, and he felt sorry for the poor bastards who had to work for him. Their lives were in danger. He wondered how many of them would have to be killed before someone finally saw the light and sent the lawyer back to New York. It was a chilling thought.

  Another part of McGarvey was already beginning to work out the logistics of assassinating Tarankov, however. The odds against success were not very good. Maybe even worse than a thousand-to-one.

  Killing someone was very easy, even someone as heavily guarded as a political figure. Rabin’s assassin had simply walked up to the Israeli leader and pumped three bullets into his back, and one of the best security services in the world had been unable to prevent it.

  The hard part was getting away afterward.

  He paid off his cabby a block from his apartment and went the rest of the way on foot as he usually did. Out of long habit he scrutinized the traffic, studied the parked cars and scanned the rooflines for a sign that someone was interested in him. But there was nothing out of the ordinary tonight.

  Lights were burning in his apartment windows. He stopped in the shadow of a doorway across the street and watched to see if he could detect any movements. Jacqueline had not officially moved in with him yet, but often she spent nights at his apartment. A few of her things were hanging in the armoire, and in the bathroom. Had their relationship continued to develop it would only have been a matter of time before she gave up her apartment. She’d been hinting about it for the last week or so.

  He figured that she’d be worried about him now, and would be watching the street. But she didn’t come to the window, and after five minutes McGarvey went up.

  Only one light was on in the living room, and the bedroom door was ajar, the television playing inside. The air smelled of mentholated spirits.

  “Jacqueline?” McGarvey called softly, as he moved across the room taking care to stay out of a sightline through the window.

  “In here,” she answered, her voice husky.

  McGarvey pushed open the door and went in. Jacqueline was propped up in bed, a bottle of mineral water and some medicine bottles on the nightstand. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said. “I feel like merde. I’ve got a fever, my head is about to explode and every bone in my body aches. Anyway, where have you been all day, I’ve been worried about you.”

  McGarvey went to her side and felt her forehead. Her skin felt clammy. “You are sick,” he said. He picked up the medicine bottles, which contained French over-the-counter cold and flu drugs. “Have you been here all day?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And I wanted some sympathy. Where were you?”

  “Shopping,” he said, giving her a wistful smile.

  “Oh? What’d you buy?”

  “Nothing much. Too many people, and I wasn’t much in the mood.”

  “Are you still in your black ass from the weekend?” she asked. “If you are, I wish you’d get out of it. You’re not very much fun to be around when you’re like this.”

  McGarvey went to the writing desk, and inspected his failsafes on the cabinet beside it. They’d not been tampered with. He could feel Jacqueline’s eyes on his back. “Printemps was very busy today,” he said. He unlocked the cabinet and took out his Voltaire manuscript.

  “What time were you there?” she asked.

  “About two-thirty.” McGarvey brought the manuscript back to the bed and handed it to her. “Unless you’re a Voltaire fan this may be a little dry.”

  She was watching him, trying to gauge his mood.

  “I saw a couple of people I knew.”

  “Who’s that?” she asked calmly.

  “You, of course. And Colonel Galan. I didn’t know that he was an agent runner, I thought he was a desk jockey running R-Seven.”

  She set the manuscript aside. “How long have you known?”

  “I suspected something from the beginning,” he said.

  “Yet you let me make a fool of myself,” she flared. She tossed the covers back and got out of bed. She was wearing nothing but one of his shirts.

  “At first it didn’t matter, but then I started to care for you and I didn’t want you to go.”

  She’d started toward the bathroom, but she stopped. “Is that why you followed me today?”

  “Something’s come up …”

  “You met with the Russians on Saturday and they want you to kill someone for them,” she blurted. She’d expected him to react, but when he didn’t her eyes narrowed. “You know about that too?”

  He nodded.

  “How?”

  “It’s what I do, Jacqueline. It’s my business.”

  She nodded warily. “Don’t fool around, Kirk. Colonel Galan is a tough man. The Service doesn’t care what you do outside France as long as it doesn’t involve one of our citizens. But we take a very harsh stand on criminal acts inside the country.”

  She was a pretty woman, and bright. He was going to miss her even more than he first thought he would.

  “You could be brought in for questioning,” she said.

  “Yes, I could,” he replied evenly.

  “I don’t think Langley would interfere.”

  “Probably not.”

  “You’d be kicked out of France. Permanently.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Mon cul!” Jacqueline swore. She ripped off his shirt, tossed it at him, and making no effort to hide her nakedness, strode across the bedroom to where she’d laid her clothes and got dressed.

  “Don’t forget your things in the bathroom,” McGarvey said.

  “Are you kicking me out?” she demanded.

  “No, but you’re leaving.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes glistening, then went into the bathroom, tossed her perfumes and lotions into a cosmetics bag, and came out. “What shall I tell Colonel Galan?”

  “Whatever you’d like. But tell him the truth because he’s heard everything.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “There are three bugs. One in the living room, one in the bathroom and one in the wall over the bed.”

  Some color came to her cheeks. “Take care of yourself, Kirk.”

  McGarvey nodded. “You too, Jacqueline. Je t’embrasse.”

  “Je te l’aussi.”

  After she was gone, McGarvey sat by the window in the living room while he smoked a cigarette and looked down at the busy street. For the most part he’d managed to put thoughts about his parents in the compartment of his mind that he rarely visited. The pain was very great; at times so great he couldn’t stand it. If what Yemlin had told him was true, he would be relieved of a burden
he’d carried with him all of his adult life. After his parents had died in an automobile accident he’d discovered what he thought was proof that they’d spied for the Russians. It had nearly killed him. But now he was being given a reprieve.

  A bus lumbered by on the street below, trailing a cloud of blue exhaust. He’d wanted to talk about this with Jacqueline, but of course that was impossible, considering what she was. A relationship, any sort of a relationship, was the bane of a spy’s existence. A woman was excess baggage, and he’d always thought of them in that vein, which he supposed was one of the main reasons he’d never been able to sustain a relationship. It was an either/or situation, and he seemed incapable of giving up his profession. At least for now.

  When he finished the cigarette, he turned off the television and switched on the stereo to Radio Luxembourg which beamed popular music all over Europe. He turned the volume up so that he could hear it in the kitchen while he fixed a three-egg cheese omelet and made some toast in the oven.

  He took his time, setting a place at the small table and opening a bottle of white wine. He hadn’t eaten much all day, and the food tasted good. When he was finished he read the morning’s Le Figaro, then washed up and put away the clean dishes.

  Jacqueline’s case officer would have notified Colonel Galan as soon as McGarvey returned to the apartment. He would also have notified the colonel when Jacqueline left.

  McGarvey glanced at his watch. If they were going to bring him in for questioning tonight they’d be showing up within the next hour or so.

  Starting in the living room he cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, making no effort to mask the noises of what he was doing. In effect he was cleansing the place of Jacqueline’s presence. He’d found out she was a SDECE spy sent to watch him, and he was ridding himself of her.