by James Church
The man shook his head. “No filthy pictures, Inspector. You live like a monk, it seems, or most of the time, anyway. That’s not the point, is it?”
“Go on.”
“The point is, your stay in Spain didn’t go well at all. I’ve seen the reports. You did only part of the job you were sent in to do. That is a disappointment. It also puts you in a bad place. You know enough to be a problem, but you haven’t done enough to be paid.”
“Paid?” I was only a few hours back from Spain, and the man had already seen reports? Either it was a much better network than it appeared, or the man was lying through his teeth. “I get paid?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know Yuri, would you? Sure you would! He’s your boy, isn’t he? Did he send you a report?”
“Very funny, Inspector. Yuri is dead. That’s not good. It’s not good for you. And it’s not good for us. Yuri was inside, very well placed. It took a lot of doing.”
“I hate to tell you, but your Yuri may not have been as much on your leash as you seem to think.”
The man rubbed his chin. “And what makes you think that?”
“Just a hunch. He kept going out of focus, if you know what I mean.”
“I guess I don’t know what you mean. What I do know is that you seem to have screwed things up, exposed him somehow, maybe trashed the whole operation.”
I was standing on the very edge of the cliff, my back to the ocean and also the wind, which was picking up. In front of me, off in the distance the sky was still brightly lit, but black clouds were rolling overhead and piling up inland.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t expose Yuri, and I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re about to say.” I decided to leave out the part where he bumped his head and I took his keys. “He was in good shape when I left him. In fact, we had worked out an agreement. He wasn’t sure of me, and I wasn’t sure of him, so we compromised.”
“Compromise. Not always smart.”
“In this case, it was.” I didn’t like standing so close to the edge of the cliff. It made my ankles twitch. “We agreed he would remain behind and continue to watch things in the factory. I would get out and report what I had seen. Of course, I haven’t had time to write a report. Do I send it to you after I have a chance to do that, or just leave it under a rock?”
The tall man shook his head and motioned to his driver to bring the car. He got in just as the rain started. “Someone will pick you up and drive you back to your hotel, Inspector. Think about things while you’re waiting, will you? The wind doesn’t play around out here. Neither do I.”
The other car started and fell in behind the white one. The two of them bounced across the field onto the road and roared off. Being left alone on the far edge of Europe wasn’t much of a plan. It was storming too hard to stand around thinking. I spotted a building about half a kilometer away, on the far edge of the field, and with no thought other than to get out of the rain, I set off for that.
Chapter Six
“It’s near the beach.” That was all the driver would say when I asked where we were going.
The ocean was on our right once we got down from the hills, so I figured we were heading south. The rain had let up a little by the time we got to a town. As we slowed at a roundabout, I caught a glimpse of a long beach with a line of orange umbrellas, but the place was deserted. No one likes the ocean on a rainy day.
“Gloomy,” I said to the driver. He looked at me in the mirror, then back at the road. A few minutes later he turned onto a street lined with tall trees, swung through a short alley, and stopped under a covered entrance of a hotel. An elderly porter held the front door open. He glanced at me, and then quickly turned away. The place was fancy enough so at the front desk they pretended not to notice that I was soaking wet and had no luggage. The clerk silently handed me a room key, and a woman in a pale yellow blouse and tan pants walked in front of me up half a flight of stairs and down the hall to my room. As I put the key in the lock, she reached down and retrieved an envelope that was partially under the door.
“Have a pleasant stay, senhor,” she said as she handed me the envelope. “Breakfast is downstairs at seven A.M. The bar is open until midnight. The weather is supposed to clear by tomorrow afternoon, but until then I’d stay off the balcony if I were you.”
I opened the door and looked inside. The room had a high ceiling with tall windows offering a view of a fashionable group of palm trees that looked as if they were vacationing together. The bed was huge; the furniture had been picked to look expensive. The walls were hung with watercolors of country scenes. It didn’t feel like the places where I normally stayed.
The woman looked me over. “You might want to take off those wet clothes. There’s a bathrobe in the closet. If you call housekeeping, they’ll pick up your shirt and trousers to dry them. If you want the pants pressed, they can do that, too.” She pointed at my pants. “I think you might want to try that.”
“That’s fine,” I said. Just before she turned to go, I held up the envelope. “You sure this is for me?”
“I’m sure I don’t know who it’s for.”
“My wallet must have fallen out of my pants when I got out of the car,” I said. “Otherwise I’d give you a tip.”
She bowed slightly. “We are here to serve our guests, senhor, not to collect money. I’ll tell the doorman to look for your wallet. Will there be anything else?”
“Just out of curiosity, are you from around here?”
“Press three-zero for housekeeping,” she said, and after a few steps down the hall, disappeared into a doorway.
In the room, I stripped off my wet clothes, put on the bathrobe, and went to the glass door leading to the balcony. It was raining hard again. Down below, I could see that a few of the chairs by the pool had blown over in the wind. I called housekeeping, gave the girl at the door my clothes, and sat down on the bed. It was clear to me that whatever was in the envelope would only complicate my life. Whatever it was could wait until I took a nap, had some dinner, and found my way to the bar. They were unhappy with what happened in Spain, but so was I, and I didn’t like being told it was my fault. José, or whatever his real name was, had been a dangerous character, like a spider with a smile drawn on its face. He wasn’t in charge, though. Someone else was running whatever went on at the factory. Yuri had said it was nuclear. If he was right, and I had no reason to believe anything Yuri said, that might explain why no one would tell me what was going on. My guess was it was something else. And whatever it was, it was enough to get several noodle eaters killed half a world away.
2
The hotel dining room was dim and completely empty. The waiter told me that since it was off-season, the menu was restricted to pork cooked with little clams, or fish cooked with bits of pork. Both came with a choice of potatoes or some sort of squash. There might be a serving of grilled octopus left over from the meal the chef had made for the staff, the waiter said, but on checking it turned out there was none. I could have as much red wine as I liked, with olives and bread freshly baked in town. Dessert was up to the chef, who hadn’t committed to anything yet so we would all be surprised, the waiter said, and chewed his lip for a moment. “The chef is from France,” he said at last, and rolled his eyes.
I had the pork with little clams, half a bottle of wine, a small plate of olives, and two baskets of bread. I told the waiter I didn’t need the surprise dessert. When it came time for the check, the waiter told me it was already taken care of.
“Did you find your wallet?” he asked as he cleared the table.
“No. You looked in the kitchen?”
“So that means no tip.” He shrugged.
“I thought your purpose was to serve the hotel guests.”
“That’s what the bell staff likes to say. They are like snakes. Do you think I can live on what they pay me here?”
“Apparently not.”
“That’s why I have to
hold down more than one job.” He lowered his voice. “People tend to talk a lot at dinner.”
I looked around. “I suppose they do. When they show up. You have other diners?”
“We get enough. A couple of times a year there are car rallies. Sometimes there is a busload of tourists who stay here to gamble at the casino next door. You gamble?”
“I don’t have my wallet.”
“The better for you. Anyway, like I said, I listen and learn.” He leaned over and pretended to straighten the tiny salt and pepper shakers. “Listen and learn, you know what I mean?”
“Good for you,” I said as I pushed back my chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll stroll around the hotel.”
“The bar doesn’t open for another hour. You could sit in the meeting room if you like. The couches in the lounge area aren’t very comfortable. Mostly for looks, but that’s a matter of taste.”
The lounge area was dark, except for some flashes of lightning from a storm that didn’t seem far off at sea. The door to the bar was locked. I decided to go back to my room. On my way to the stairs I passed a room with a glass door. I looked in and saw a long table, bookshelves covering all the walls, and a floor lamp that cast its light on a man sitting with a small notebook on the table in front of him. He was watching the door, and as soon as he saw me he motioned that I should come in.
“Sit down, Inspector,” he said. “Shut the door behind you.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You found my wallet.”
“Your wallet?” He looked puzzled. “No, I’ve been waiting for you. Didn’t you read the note I left under your door?”
“Forgive me, but it slipped my mind.” I took the envelope out of my coat pocket and tore it open. “You can understand, I’m sure. We’ve met, by the way?”
“In a manner of speaking. My name is Tomás.” He bowed his head slightly and then looked at his watch. “We don’t have much time. A car will be here to pick you up in an hour.”
“An hour? I just arrived. I was looking forward to breakfast.”
“Well, it can’t be helped. Plans have changed. You have to go back to Barcelona.”
I stood up. “No. I don’t have to go anywhere. Where is Luis, by the way?”
“Luis is busy. We’re all busy thanks to you and your sloppiness. Sit down, Inspector. I’m not here to argue. You were told on the bench in Lisboa that you could choose not to take part in this, but you declined that offer. So you’re in, up to your neck. And so is your nephew.”
I took a step toward the door. It was amazing, beyond belief actually. These people didn’t have the slightest idea how to run someone in an operation. They were constantly threatening, and when they weren’t threatening they were being obscure. If they had studied anything about me, they’d know I didn’t respond well to threats. Luis would have told them that if they’d bothered to ask.
“Let’s leave my nephew out of this,” I said. “As far as that goes, leave me out of it, too. If you think I’ve been sloppy up to now, you won’t want to see what’s coming.”
Tomás laughed. Then he pulled a pistol from his coat and laid it on the table. “I am not aiming this at you, Inspector, because I like you. But I want you to see that it is present and available.”
“I’m impressed,” I said. Idiots! Who would point a pistol at someone whose help they wanted? Not only wanted but needed. It was becoming clear that for all their lolling and complaining and pretending to yawn, for some reason they needed me. “You always do this with people on your payroll?”
“The one thing I don’t care is whether you are impressed, believe me. I tell you plain and simple, if you take another step out the door, I will shoot you in the back. The hotel staff will tidy up. They are very good at what they do. Your body will never be found. Actually, no one knows you are here. You never signed in. There are no other guests. Come to think of it, maybe neither of us is here. An illusion, perhaps?”
I edged nearer the door. “Maybe you have mistaken me for someone else, because you’re right. I’m not here. I’m in my room.” I had my hand on the door handle. I should have just followed my instinct and left. Instead, on the craziest of impulses, I turned and said, “Good night.”
“Sit down, Inspector, I beg you, and make things easy for both of us. The hardest part is over. The next time you are in Barcelona, it will be much more pleasant, believe me. Much better than a bullet between the shoulder blades.”
I thought it over. Tempting fate at the right moment was something I had done more than once in my life. But this wasn’t the right moment. “All right.” I returned to the table and sat down. “I don’t believe a word you say, other than that you will shoot me in the back. Mr. Big said Yuri is dead. I don’t care about Yuri, but if anything has happened to Luis, you will wish you had never dragged me into this crazy operation.”
“Mr. Big?”
“The man who met me on the edge of the cliff.”
“Oh, Vincente. He’s tall, not big.”
“He speaks like a Russian tank tread going over a kitten.”
“He’s not Russian.”
“I didn’t say he was. All I said was he sounded like one. He left me in the rain. I take it you don’t like him either.”
“You are jumping to conclusions, Inspector. Vincente and I work together.”
“Lots of people work together. It doesn’t mean they like each other. He seems more in charge than you, if you don’t mind my saying.”
Tomás smiled. “Believe what you wish. Just pay attention to what I am about to tell you. It is the only time you’ll hear it. I don’t know why it wasn’t made clear to you before. Of course you’re annoyed. How can you take part in an operation if you don’t know what it is about? This isn’t the first time we’ve had this sort of breakdown in communications. The results are not pleasant. I’ve been trying to remedy the problem.”
“Good. Nice to hear. But you have a ways to go.”
“Tell me, what do you know so far about the operation?”
I froze. Was this how they ran things in the West? “I have no idea who you are,” I said. “No idea how you fit, or even whose side you are on, assuming there are sides to this thing. And you expect me to tell you what I know? Not likely. Let’s try it the other way around. You tell me what you know about the operation. I’ll decide if it fits with what I know. If we have a match, we can both relax.”
The man who wanted me to call him Tomás looked at his watch again. “I don’t give a damn who goes first, Inspector. But we are running out of time. I’ll start if you like, it makes no difference. In some circumstances I might applaud your caution. Not now, it wastes the tiny opportunity we have. If we squeeze our options any more than they already are thanks to your bumbling, we’ll likely never recover.”
“My bumbling? First it’s sloppiness, now it’s bumbling. Everyone is moaning about my performance. Let’s get things straight, you sent me on a mission with no information, no backup, no communications, not even a shred of an idea of left from right.”
“May I remind you that you accepted?”
“I played along, all right? I needed a change of scenery. That’s different. Now I’ve had enough.” I stood up again.
“Sit down, for the love of God, Inspector.”
I sat again. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Walking out would mean they had won, that they’d worn me to my limit. I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction.
“That’s better. You’re in, and you know it. You were selected because you have worked with British intelligence before.”
“What?” I bolted out of my chair. “Who told you such a thing?”
“Sit down, will you! Twice, three times actually, you worked with them. Twice in Prague, once in your capital.”
This time I decided not to sit. It was time to show that I didn’t have to listen to everything they told me to do. Actually, it was past time for that. I paced around the table. “Did you pay for that inf
ormation? I hope it was not very much, because it’s wrong, completely wrong. I never worked for the British. Never, ever, and I’m not going to. They tried a recruitment once, in Prague. It didn’t work.”
The man picked up the pistol. “I said sit down, and I’m serious. Believe me, the file is thick, Inspector. I know all about Prague.”
Thick? That was hard to believe. Where would they have collected so much information about me? I thought back to trips overseas. Prague, Helsinki, Budapest, Macau, Geneva. There would be wisps of scraps they might pick up from receipts here and there, but not much more.
“Don’t spend time wondering how we collect what we collect. Believe or not, we are efficient, and everything has been checked, double-checked, and triple-checked. I wouldn’t expect you to admit anything. Anyway, it’s not important.” He looked up and pointed the pistol in the general direction of my head. “For the last time, will you sit!”
“Not important to you, maybe. It is to me.” I sat down in the chair closest to the door. I wanted to hear more about what they thought they knew about me. It would be laughable.
“Ah.” Tomás tapped his forehead lightly with the pistol. “I see the problem. Notice, Inspector, I didn’t say you worked for the British. I merely said you worked with them. That gave us an idea.”
“Where does Luis come into this?” Luis had been the bait, the long line, the procurer. From what I had seen of him in Macau, he didn’t seem to fit any one of those assignments. If I hadn’t been his friend, and owed him a favor, he would have been the most inept recruiter I’d ever seen. I kicked myself. That’s why they picked him. They knew enough about me to bet that I’d see through his story but come along anyway.
“Luis is a good man.” Tomás looked at his watch and frowned. “He has small needs, understands the world as it is, and best of all, sits in Macau out of sight and mostly out of mind.”
“He doesn’t have an uncle in Harbin. He never did. It was a lame story. Incidentally, you might want to put the pistol back on the table. I don’t like having a discussion when I have to watch a trigger finger.”