David Morrell - Brotherhood of the Rose

by Brotherhood of the Rose(lit)

  They weren't. The massive Dobermans came with such deceptive softness Saul would never have heard them if he hadn't been prepared. Their paws didn't seem to touch the grass. Their dark shapes streaked through the night, abruptly materializing at the bottom of the wall. Even then, Saul wasn't sure he saw them till their white teeth suddenly glinted, flashing savagely. Despite their obscene sneers, they didn't growl.

  They couldn't, Saul realized. Their vocal cords had been cut. A dog that barked was useless for protection. Growls alerted an intruder and gave him a chance to defend himself. These Dobermans weren't intended to be a burglar alarm. They served one purpose only-to surprise an intruder.

  And kill him. Erika reached in a knapsack. Pulling out a fist-sized canister, she twisted its top and dropped it among the dogs.

  The canister hissed. The dogs attacked it. Suddenly backing off, they blinked in confusion, then slumped unconscious.

  Saul held his breath as he squirmed off the wall and dropped to the grass, rolling in a parachutist's pose. Retreating from the fumes toward the cover of a hedge, he waited for Chris and Erika. In the moonlight, he studied the lawn before the house. Shrubs had been trimmed to form geometric shapes: pyramids, globes, and cubes, their shadows grotesque. "Over there." Saul pointed.

  Chris nodded at a tree, whispering, "I see the glow. An electric eye."

  "There'll be others."

  "But the dogs had the run of the grounds," Chris whispered. "They'd have passed through the lights and triggered the alarms."

  "The light must be higher than the dogs."

  Saul sank to his stomach on the dew-wet grass, crawling forward, squeezing beneath the almost invisible beam of the electric eye.

  The greenhouse gleamed, before him, gemlike. More spectacular were the roses, their various sizes, their brilliant colors. He watched a lean, stooped, white-coated figure walk among them, recognizing Landish from Hardy's description, especially the shrunken face. "He looks mummified," Hardy had said. It's like he's dead, but his hair's long as if it kept growing." Saul crept to the greenhouse, waiting while Chris and Erika slipped behind bushes, one on each side of the path between the manor and the greenhouse, on guard for anyone coming. He stood and walked inside.

  The lights hurt his eyes. The roses smelled oversweet, cloying. Landish stood at a table, his back to Saul, mixing seed in trays of sand. He heard the door and turned, but he must have guessed it was a servant because his movement was calm. Only when he saw who'd entered did he react, stepping back against the table, his mouth open in surprise.

  Saul was ten feet away. That closer Landish looked ill, his pinched skin waxy, jaundiced. Even so, as his shock diminished, his sunken eyes gleamed. "I wasn't expecting company." His voice sounded frail, but his British accent made it seem, urbane.

  Saul aimed his pistol. "Don't move. Keep your hands and feet where I can see them."

  "You're surely not frightened of an old man harming you."

  "I'm more concerned about this." Saul pointed toward a wire leading up beneath a grafting table. He stepped across. took pliers from his pocket, and snipped the wire. Feeling under the table, he yanked an alarm button free. "My compliments." Landish bowed slightly. "If you're a burglar, I have to tell you I carry no money. Of course, you'! I find silverware and crystal in the house."

  Saul shook his head. "You intend to kidnap me for ransom?"

  "No."

  "Since you don't have the lunatic's glare of a terrorist, I confess to--2' "Information. I don't have time. I'll ask you once."

  "Who are you?"

  Saul ignored the question. "We debated using chemicals."

  "we?"

  "But you're too old. The strain. We thought you might die."

  "Considerate."

  ,,We discussed torture. The problem's the same. You could die before you told us what we want." Why go to such extremes? Perhaps I'll tell you freely."

  "Hardly. Anyway, we wouldn't know if you told the truth. Saul lifted a pair of shears from a bench. "We finally agreed on the way to persuade you." He crossed to a bed of roses, glanced at their first-prize ribbons, and snipped the stem off an exquisite dwarf Yellow Princess.

  Landish groaned, swaying off balance. "That rose was- "Priceless. Sure. But not irreplaceable. You've still got four others - On the other hand, this scarlet Tear Drop over here is rarer."

  "No!"

  Saul clipped it, watching the bloom fall on a plaque it had won.

  Landish clutched a table. "Have you lost your mind? Don't you realize what?"

  "I'm killing your children. This pink Aphrodite here. Beautiful. Truly. How long does it take to grow it to perfection? Two years? Five?" Saul hacked the bloom in half, its petals tumbling over a trophy.

  Landish clutched his chest. His eyes bulged in horror.

  I told you I'd ask only once. Eliot." Landish gaped at the ruined petals, swallowing term. "What about him?"

  "He works for the Soviets."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Saul slashed at a Gift from God, its purple theoretically impossible, Landish shrieked. "No more!"

  "He's a mole, and you're their courier."

  "No! Yes! I don't know!"

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "I delivered messages. It's true. But that was ten years ago. I'm not sure he was a mole."

  "Then why did the KGB get in touch with him?"

  "I haven't any---' Saul stepped toward the masterpiece of Landish's collection. A Harbinger of Joy. Incredibly it was blue. "Eliot was wrong. When I saw him in Denver, he told me no rose has ever been blue."

  "Don't!"

  Saul raised the snips, pausing with the stem between the blades. The lights glinted off their edges. "If he wasn't a mole, what was he? What was in the messages?"

  "I didn't read them."

  Saul squeezed the blades against the stem. "It's the truth!"

  "Since when is MI-6 the delivery boy for the CIA?" I did it as a favor to Eliot!" Landish glanced back and forth from the mutilated roses to Saul, swallowing nervously. "I swear! He asked me to mediate!"

  "Keep your voice down." Landish shuddered. "Listen to me, Eliot said the messages identified a spy in the agency." His voice was strained. "But the informant was nervous and insisted on a courier he trusted. Since I knew the courier, I was the logical choice to act as relay."

  "You believed this?"

  "He's my friend." Landish gestured frantically. "Our networks often cooperate. If you want to know what was in the messages, ask the man who gave them to me."

  "Sure. Just hop on a plane to Moscow."

  "No. Much closer."

  "Where?"

  "In Paris. He works for the Soviet embassy there."

  "You're lying." Saul clipped a leaf. "I'm not!

  Don't you understand how delicate that rose is? Even injuring a leaf can!"

  "Then you'd better convince me you're telling the truth because I'm about to cut off another one."

  "It's the only rose like that in the world."

  Saul poised the shears. "Victor Petrovich Kochubey."

  "A name means nothing."

  "He's their cultural attache. He arranges tours for Soviet orchestras and dance troupes throughout France. He's also a master violinist. Sometimes he plays at the concerts. Sometimes he goes on tours by himself."

  "But of course he's KGB."

  Landish spread his hands. "He disclaims them. Fifteen years ago he was captured attempting to defect to the West. It was clear he'd try again. As a compromise, the Soviets allowed him to live in Paris, provided he used his talents for the good of the Motherland. They reminded him his children would stay in Moscow, where their excellent jobs and living conditions depended on his cooperation."

  "That doesn't answer my question. Is he KGB?"

  "Of course. His attempt to defect was a sham. But it served his purpose. His cover's excellent."

  "And I'll bet you attend a lot of concerts."

  "Not so much anymore." L
andish shrugged but still glanced nervously at his roses. "Ten years ago, however... it wasn't difficult to meet privately with him. While discussing the fine points of Russian music, he passed me messages. On occasion, I gave him one. But they were sealed. I never read them. If you want to know what was in them, you'll have to speak with Kochubey."

  Aiming the shears at the pale blue rose, Saul studied him. "I've told you all I know." Landish sounded sad. "I realize you have to kill me to stop me from warning him. But I beg you not to destroy another rose."

  "Suppose you're lying? What if your information's worthless?"

  "How can I offer guarantees?"

  "You can't, and if you're dead, I can't get revenge. What use would destroying more roses be? A corpse wouldn't care."

  "Then we've reached an impasse."

  "No. You're coming with me. If I find out you've lied, you'll see what gasoline and a match can do to this greenhouse. Think about it as we go. In case you want to change your story - "

  "You'll never get me past the guards at the gate."

  "I won't have to. We'll leave the way I came in. Over the wall. " Landish scoffed. "Do I look like an athlete?"

  "Then we'll lift you."

  "I'm too brittle. My arms and legs would break."

  "All right, no lifting."

  "How then? It's impossible." Saul pointed toward the rear of the greenhouse. "Simple.' "What?"

  "We'll use that ladder."

  Curtains billowed at the open window. Chris squinted toward the bullet-gray sky, his nostrils flaring from the salty air, his shoulders hunched from the damp. An angry wind chased waves across the Channel. He sounded troubled. "I'll take your place."

  "I told you no," Saul said. "We agreed. One of us has to stay here with Landish while the other two get Kochubey. We cut cards to decide who took the risk. You won with the lowest card. You stay."

  "But I don't want to."

  "All of a sudden you feel like being a hero?"

  "No. Of course not."

  "Then what is it? I can't believe it's just because you want to go with Erika." Saul turned to where she had tied Landish to a chair, "No offense. You've got a wonderful sense of humor.

  She stuck out her tongue. He turned back to Chris. "What's wrong?"

  "It's crazy." Chris shook his head, confused. "It's this feeling I've got. I know it means nothing. The trouble is I can't get rid of it."

  "What's it about?"

  Chris walked from the window. "You. I've got this sense, this... call it a premonition. Something's going to happen to you.

  Saul studied him. Neither he nor Chris was superstitious. They couldn't afford to be. Otherwise they'd look for omens everywhere and as a consequence become paralyzed. Logic and skill were what they depended on. Even so, they'd each had experiences in Nam that made them respect "funny" feelings-buddies due to be sent back home who wrote letters to wives or girlfriends or mothers and gave them to teammates, saying, "Make sure she gets this. I won't make it." And the day before they left, they got a bullet through the head. Or other teammates due to go out on a routine surveillance mission, a piece of cake, they'd done it a hundred times, but this time they said, "I won't be seeing you." And they stepped on a mine.

  Saul thought a moment. "When did it start?"

  "At Landish's estate."

  "When you saw the wall?" Chris nodded. "How did you know?"

  "Because I had a similar feeling."

  "What?"

  "I was sure I'd been there before. It took me a while, but I figured it out. The wall. Don't you get it? The same kind of wall we had at Franklin. Remember how we used to sneak over to bring in candy? The night we got beat up? Or the night I slipped on the ice, and you jumped down to help me, but you cracked your head? The streetcar? Remember?"

  "You pulled me away and saved my life."

  "That explains it. Both of us must have been reminded of that night. At Landish's estate, I got worried about you. I started thinking you were in trouble and I'd have to save you. The same thought happened to you, except reversed. Maybe you've always wanted to save my life."

  "I have." Chris grinned. "A couple of times."

  "But the wall made you want to do it again. Relax. Something's going to happen for sure. I'm going to Paris, with Erika and get my hands on Kochubey. That's what'll happen."

  "I want to believe that."

  "Think of it this way. If I got in trouble, what could you do that Erika couldn't?"

  She came over. "Be careful how you answer."

  "And think about this," Saul said. "Suppose I let you go instead of me. Suppose something happened to you. I'd blame myself as much as you would if something happened to me. This second-guessing is useless. We made a bargain. You drew the lowest card. You got the easy job. You stay."

  Chris hesitated. "And as for your premonition, it and a load of manure'll fertilize a garden." Saul turned to Erika. "Ready?"

  "Paris with a handsome escort? You've got to be kidding." Chris wasn't satisfied. "It's almost ten. You ought to be in Paris this evening. Phone me at six and every four hours after that. Don't pick up Kochubey till you talk with me. As Landish thinks more about his roses, he might decide he gave the wrong information."

  "I told the truth," Landish insisted from the chair. "Just keep your mind on the only blue rose in the world."

  The moment arrived. Unable to put it off, they shook hands and grinned self-consciously.

  Saul picked up his bag. "Don't worry. I'll be careful. I want to make sure I'm around to pay back-2' His eyes flashed. "And I'll take care of your brother for you," Erika said. "For both of us." She kissed Chris on the cheek.

  His heart felt swollen. He meant what he said. "Good luck."

  Uncertainly they parted. Troubled, Chris watched from the open door, his throat tight as they got in the rented Austin, his brother and sister, and drove down the weed-covered lane, disappearing past the hedgelined road.

  When he couldn't hear the Austin's motor any longer, he stared at the rocks in the pasture, at last stepped in and closed the door. "They'll be looking for me," Landish said. "But they won't know where to hunt. We're sixty miles from your estate. But London's between, and that's where they'll guess we've gone."

  Landish cocked his head. "This cottage must be on a cliff. I hear surf below us."

  "Dover. I rented this place for a week. I told the realtor I needed a quiet vacation. This was perfect, he said. The nearest cottage is a half mile away. If you scream, no one'll hear you."

  "Does my voice sound as if I'm strong enough to scream. ?" "I'll try to make you comfortable. So you don't get bored, we'll talk about roses." Chris clenched his teeth. "If anything happens to Saul..."

  They'd chosen Dover because it provided easy access by water to France. In a busy terminal that reminded Saul of an airport, he and Erika bought tickets separately and boarded the Hovercraft several minutes apart.

  Uneasy, he went to the lounge in the stern, hoping to blend with the crowd. He knew that MI-6 and other intelligence agencies kept the Hovercraft under surveillance the same as they did major airports and railway stations. Of course, in theory no enemies knew he'd left the United States. With the hunt against him concentrated in America, he had a good chance of not being recognized.

  All the same, he didn't feel reassured. If someone spotted him, there wasn't room on board to run or hide. He'd have to fight, but even if he survived, he'd surely be killed by backup teams waiting for him to arrive in France. With no other choice, he'd have to yank open an emergency hatch and leap out into the Channel. If the undertow didn't suck him to his death, the cold rough water would soon exhaust him, draining his beat till he died from exposure.

  It never came to that. The Hovercraft roared above the waves, crossing to Calais in twenty-two minutes. He felt it tilt as it rose from the water up a concrete ramp to the terminal. Stepping off, he merged with the other passengers. Though he hadn't spoken French in years, he understood most of what he read and heard. No one seem
ed to be watching for him. Customs was uneventful. But he'd left his handgun with Chris so he could get through customs, and he wouldn't relax till he replaced it.

  He joined Erika at a seaside cafd they'd agreed on. They went at once to a black market munitions dealer Saul had worked with in '74, where they were overcharged a mere 200 percent for the equipment they needed. "A favor," the dealer said. "For a friend." Renting a car, they began the southeast drive to Paris 130 miles away.