Assassin

by David Hagberg

  “Sending me back won’t make it any better,” Elizabeth said. Her father didn’t like Ryan, but he’d never mentioned Lynch.

  “Do you have an idea where he is?”

  “No, but I wanted to talk to two people who might know something.”

  “Who are they?” Lynch asked with renewed interest.

  “Jacqueline Belleau, the woman he was living with.”

  “If she knew anything they’d have him by now.”

  “Is she in love with him?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Has anyone asked?”

  “Ms. Belleau is a trained French intelligence officer. She wouldn’t have fallen in love with your father. In any event she’s not subject to an interview by us. Who’s the second person?”

  Elizabeth hesitated. Ryan was a jerk, but Lynch seemed to be genuinely concerned with helping her father. “I’ll tell you, but I want you to keep it confidential. At least until we can talk to him. I’ll need your help.”

  “All right,” Lynch said. “That’s why you were sent here. Who have we missed?”

  “Otto Rencke. He’s supposed to be living somewhere near Paris.”

  A look of amazement crossed Lynch’s features. “Jesus. We never thought of him.”

  “He might not talk to you, but if you can find him I’ll go out there.”

  “Damn right you will,” Lynch said. “He’s in Bonnieres, about thirty or forty miles away.”

  “Can we go there now?”

  “It’s not going to be that easy. First of all I don’t know exactly where he’s living. But I can find that out. In the meantime it’s going to take a couple of hours to get you out of here. The French are almost as bad as the Germans when it comes to paperwork.”

  “I’m warning you, Mr. Lynch, if you bring Rencke in he’ll clam up. He won’t talk to anybody.”

  Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry about it. I have my homework to do. When you get out of here, someone will drive you back to your hotel. Get a couple hours of sleep, and then come over to the embassy, and we’ll do this together.”

  Elizabeth hoped she hadn’t made a mistake by trusting Lynch, but it was too late now to do anything but go along with him. “Okay. But try to get me out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Hang in there, kid,” Lynch said. “You did the right thing after all.”

  Bonnières

  Three hours later Lynch stood in the doorway of the farmhouse surveying the damage that had been done to the interior. The battered remains of what had been several pieces of computer equipment lay scattered around the floor. Lynch was a computer expert himself. It was obvious to him that the room had once held a great deal of equipment. Power cables snaked throughout the house and he could see a half-dozen spots on the floor and along the walls where desks or computer consoles had stood.

  “He had a visitor,” Colonel Galan said, coming from the courtyard in back. He had picked up the butts of two Marlboro cigarettes. “There is no evidence that Rencke smokes, and according to McGarvey’s file, this is his brand.”

  “The cigarette papers were crushed but not weathered. We must have just missed them.”

  “His daughter didn’t warn them from anywhere in France,” Galan said. “Which might mean that he’s getting inside information from somewhere.”

  “We didn’t know that we were coming out here until this morning. It would have taken them much longer to do this much,” Lynch said.

  “How do you see it?”

  “McGarvey is definitely taking Yemlin’s assignment, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it now. But he needs help, so he hired Rencke and got him out of here. By now they could be anywhere. Even out of France.”

  Colonel Galan laughed humorlessly. “Don’t try to make me feel good, Tom. Once he leaves France he’s no longer my problem.”

  “Might be a moot point in any case. France is where he wants to live out his retirement, if what he told Jacqueline is true. I don’t think he’d do anything to make that impossible. He’d know that the CIA would help you hunt for him if he screwed up here.”

  “Finding this computer expert will be just as difficult as finding McGarvey, now that they’re together,” Galan said glumly. “What about your station in Moscow? Is there any possibility of getting to Viktor Yemlin?”

  “At this point I don’t think it’s been passed along to Moscow. So far as Langley is concerned, we’re merely helping you find McGarvey for questioning. Unless you want to take it a step farther.”

  “Frankly I don’t know what to do,” Galan said. “I’ll have to take it up with my boss. But I have a gut feeling that this is not going to turn out so good for anybody. Why the mec didn’t remain in the States, or return to Switzerland is beyond me.”

  Lynch had flown from Paris with Galan and a half-dozen Action Service troops aboard a Dessault helicopter. He could hear the men searching the grounds, calling to each other and joking now that they understood their quarry was long gone. The French were efficient in some matters, Lynch thought, but they tended to operate with blinders on. If France or French citizens were involved they would go to great lengths. But they tended to turn a blind eye toward anything or anyone outside of their borders.

  Another thought occurred to Lynch. “Maybe we should change our tactics, Guy.”

  Galan looked up, interested. “Oui?”

  “Instead of us trying to find McGarvey, why don’t we arrange for him to come to us, voluntarily.”

  “Are you planning on using his daughter?”

  Lynch nodded. “I’m thinking about letting her stay in her father’s apartment. He might be keeping a watch on the place.”

  Galan smiled. “Jacqueline can move in with her. Hein, two women might be more irresistible than one.”

  “You told me that Jacqueline was in love with McGarvey. Isn’t there a danger that she might end up helping him?”

  “Jacqueline is a Frenchwoman. I will control her, and you can control his daughter.”

  “That might be a handful.”

  Again Galan laughed. “We’re not schoolboys,” he said. “In any event we have no other choice. But let’s first give them a few days to get to know each other.”

  “Agreed,” Lynch said. He didn’t know who he disliked the most, the French collectively, or McGarvey.

  Le Bourget

  Elizabeth was allowed to freshen up in the bathroom under the watchful eye of a large-bosomed matron, after which she was moved to a larger, more comfortable, though plainly furnished office, where she was given a pot of tea and a plate of croissants and buns. A window looked down from the second story onto a small parade ground. When the sun came up, four soldiers marched to the flagpole in the center, raised the French tricolor, then stepped back, came to rigid attention, and crisply saluted as the national anthem blared from loudspeakers.

  Twenty minutes later a helicopter came in low from the south and set down somewhere behind the building Elizabeth was in. Ten minutes after that the door opened and a slender woman dressed in a simple skirt and yellow sweater came in.

  “Good morning Mademoiselle. I’m happy to see that they gave you breakfast.”

  Elizabeth recognized her all at once, and it showed on her face, because the woman smiled brightly.

  “I’m Jacqueline Belleau, but evidently you know this.” She held out her hand, and Elizabeth took it despite herself.

  “I think I’m supposed to hate you,” Elizabeth said.

  “Whatever for?” Jacqueline asked, surprised.

  “You work for the French intelligence service, and you seduced my father.”

  “The first part is certainly true, but as for the rest of it your father did his part. He is a formidable man.”

  Elizabeth knew the woman was forty, but she would never have guessed her age. She seemed self-assured, an intelligent, but amused, expression in her wide eyes.

  “My father kicked you out of his apartment, then went to ground. Now you’ve been as
signed to convince me to help you find him.”

  “You’ve gotten nearly all that correct too,” Jacqueline said, her face falling a little. “I never lived with your father, although it’s something I wanted. He merely told me that he was leaving and then he was gone.”

  Elizabeth said nothing, realizing that her remark had hurt the woman. It made her sad because she instinctively felt that her father had left because he wanted to protect Jacqueline. Keep her out of harm’s way, as he was fond of explaining himself. It was one of the very few faults she could find about her father, his inability to trust the women in his life.

  “If you’re ready to go, I’ll take you back to your hotel,” Jacqueline said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jacqueline’s expression softened again. “That’s okay, I bark when I’m cornered too.”

  Elizabeth had to sign a release statement downstairs when her purse was returned to her. They did not, however, return her Elizabeth Swanson passport and papers.

  Rush-hour traffic was in full swing on the Autoroute du Nord as they headed back into the city. Elizabeth saw an airport that she did not recognize.

  “Where are we?”

  “Le Bourget,” Jacqueline said. “Charles Lindbergh landed just over there when the airport was nothing more than a wide grass field with a control tower and a few buildings. But all of Paris came out to welcome him.”

  They drove for a few minutes in silence, Jacqueline concentrating on the traffic while Elizabeth tried to sort out her feelings. If Lynch could find out where Rencke was living, she would go out to see him. Maybe he knew something and would agree to help. It was a long shot, but for the moment there wasn’t much else she could do. Or much else that she ought to do. Nobody had explained to her yet that whatever her father had been asked to do by Yemlin was wrong. If her dad were planning on killing Tarankov he’d be doing the world a favor. Certainly nobody in Washington—including the Russian diplomats—could find much fault in such an event. From what she’d read in the Russian media, Tarankov’s broad-based support among the people and the military was based on a pack of lies. He told the people that Russia’s problems were the fault of a western- influenced government in Moscow. Hitler had blamed the Jews, Stalin had blamed the peasants, and Tarankov was blaming the West. Of the three, Tarankov’s message was the easiest to defend because in a way what he was saying had a grain of truth to it. Russia’s current problems were indeed being caused by the upheaval in changing from one form of economic system to another. The Russian economy was having growing pains. If the people stuck with the reformers long enough, there was a good chance they’d come out of their depression. Russia was finally joining the rest of the major nations of the world with ongoing financial defeats and triumphs. It was called a free market economy. Everyone took their chances.

  But Tarankov was convincing the rank-and-file Russians that once he was leader of the nation he could solve all their problems by going back to the old ways. The people forgot what their lives had been like before Gorbachev. They had forgotten the repressions, the gulags, the shortages. They were being dazzled by the possibility of once again becoming a superpower. It was a message that the people were taking to heart, and one that the industrial-military establishment embraced.

  “Why do you want to talk to my father?” Elizabeth asked.

  Jacqueline glanced over at her. “Me personally, or my government?”

  “The government.”

  “Your father had a meeting with a Russian intelligence officer who asked him to take an assignment. We’d like to know what that’s all about.”

  “What if it has nothing to do with France?”

  Jacqueline shrugged. “Then we have no problem.” She smiled wanly. “I don’t think your father knows that you work for the CIA. It’s going to come as a shock to him.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Elizabeth said. “How about you? Do you want to talk to him?”

  “Most certainly.”

  “Why?”

  “I think for the same reason you do,” Jacqueline said. “Your father is probably going to assassinate someone for the Russians, which will place his life in grave danger. I don’t want that to happen. Or at the very least I want him to convince me that what he’s going to do is worthwhile. I don’t want him to throw his life away.”

  “What if it was worthwhile?” Elizabeth asked.

  Jacqueline didn’t answer at once, concentrating on her driving instead. She was having trouble keeping her emotions in check, and it showed on her face.

  She turned finally and glanced at Elizabeth. “Then I would probably help him, for the same reason you came here to help him, and not merely find him for the CIA. I love him, and I’ll do whatever it takes to be at his side when he needs me.”

  Elizabeth was touched to the bottom of her soul. “Even if it meant lying to your own government?”

  Jacqueline smiled crookedly. “You’ve lied to protect him, and so have I.”

  “How do I know that I can trust you?”

  Jacqueline shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you Elizabeth, because I don’t even know if I can trust myself to do the right thing. Right now I don’t know what’s right or wrong. I only know that I love your father, and everything else is secondary. I’ll sell my soul for him, and if need be I’ll give my life. But I don’t want him to be destroyed. I want him to retire, so that I can have all of him all the time.”

  Elizabeth reached out and touched Jacqueline’s hand on the steering wheel. “My father will never retire.”

  Jacqueline’s eyes began to fill. “That’s what I’m afraid of, my lovely man lying dead somewhere. I see it at night in my dreams and it frightens me so badly that sometimes I don’t know how I can go on.”

  “I know what you mean,” Elizabeth said. “Believe me, I know.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Moscow

  The interim president of Russia was a deeply troubled man. He turned away from his visitor across the desk and looked out the window at Spassky Tower rising into a leaden sky as he considered his options. Whatever action they took would seriously affect the nation’s future which was, at this moment in history, in more jeopardy than it had ever been. He was having a recurring dream in which he was flying over the charred, smoking remains of what had once been Moscow, a mammoth mushroom cloud roiling fifteen thousand meters above this very spot. Russia had fallen to Tarankov, who in his attempts to regain the old Soviet Union had brought on thermonuclear war. At the outskirts of the city the dead and dying lay in smoldering piles like cordwood that stretched for as far as the eye could see. The worst of the nightmare was the stench of scorched human flesh. Each morning he awoke with the horrible smell still in his nostrils, and the taste of it at the back of his throat.

  “It was a mistake on my part, Mr. President,” the man behind him said.

  Kabatov turned back to face Yuryn, whose normally florid complexion was even more red than normal this afternoon. “There were no survivors among the crews of those six helicopters?”

  “None.”

  “I hold you fully responsible—”

  “I take the responsibility,” Yuryn interrupted. “I’d hoped to stop his train with the minimum use of force, and therefore the minimum loss of life before it reached Nizhny Novgorod. An estimated one million people showed up for his speech. Had we tried to arrest him, the carnage would have been beyond belief. The nation would never have survived such an attack. Neither would this government have emerged intact. I made a decision, and I was wrong.”

  “Was he warned?”

  “He may have been, but it would not have mattered had the attack come as a surprise, because his train is more heavily armed than we’d suspected. He has SS-N-6 missiles, and radar-guided rapid-fire cannons of some sort. I still don’t have all the details.”

  “Next time use jet fighters with bigger missiles,” Kabatov said, keeping his voice in control.

  “We’re working on several scenarios. But
if your wish remains to take him alive so that he can be placed on trial, our options are severely restricted. Destroying the train poses no real problem. Stopping it without harming Tarankov will be difficult if not impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Kabatov shot back. “And yes I want him taken alive. It’s our only option. Anything else and we lose the nation.”

  “In that case, Mr. President, we have another more serious, more immediate problem,” Yuryn said heavily.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Viktor Yemlin has hired an assassin to kill Tarankov.”

  It didn’t come as a complete surprise to Kabatov, still he found that he was shocked. “Is the SVR behind this?”

  “No. Apparently Yemlin is working alone, but on the advice of Konstantin Sukhoruckin and Eduard Shevardnadze.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I didn’t believe him when he said he went to Paris and Helsinki to do some shopping, so I arranged to place him in a position that he willingly told the truth.” Yuryn took a thin report from his briefcase and handed it to Kabatov. “If Yemlin does remember the encounter it’s not likely he’ll say anything to anybody.”

  Kabatov opened the report and started to read, bile rising up in the back of his throat, making him almost physically ill. He looked up, unable to finish and unable to hide a look of disgust from his face. “Where is Yemlin at this moment?”

  “At his office. He’s done nothing outwardly to indicate he remembers what happened to him, beyond the fact that he had a pleasant evening at the Magesterium.”

  “We know the assassin’s name, and we know that he lives in Paris. I’ll instruct our people to grab him, or short of that, kill him.”