COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  Scratching his head aimlessly, Chapin turned and started back toward the gates, acting as if he’d forgotten something.

  When he reached a staircase, he went down, walked across the terminal area, and then climbed back up. He looked across the terminal and saw Chalmers in the same spot.

  Chapin exited the terminal and waved to a taxi. He got into a blue Citroen, leaned forward and, in perfect Parisian French, gave the driver the address of a restaurant in Montmartre.

  Once clear of the airport, Chapin allowed himself a moment’s respite from his tension. Now, he told himself, he had completed the first step of his escape.

  The drive took twenty minutes. After Chapin paid his fare, he walked to the corner.

  Montmartre was, as always at night, alive with people. Chapin went to the first side street he found empty of people. He went over to a trash can and dropped the over-night bag and the attaché case into it.

  Then he backtracked to a somewhat empty bistro, went directly to the single bathroom, and washed the makeup off his face. When he emerged, he took a table in the rear. The only part of his disguise remaining was his sallow complexion. That would be gone with a few minutes beneath a sun lamp.

  He ordered coffee and, when it was served, sipped it slowly and waited to see if he had been followed. When he was sure he was in the clear, he paid for his coffee and went outside where he hailed another cab.

  He gave the driver an address near the Eiffel Tower. The drive took seven minutes; the timing of his arrival was perfect.

  Chapin left the cab and walked to the doorway of the small apartment building. A couple came out, and the man held the door for Chapin, nodding as if he knew him.

  Chapin returned the nod and stepped into a narrow hallway. He stopped at the registry and looked at the names next to each of the six apartments. He found the one he wanted, 2-A, and went up to the second floor.

  There were only two apartments on each floor. “A” stood for front and “B” for the rear. He went to the door at the front of the stairs, and knocked.

  He waited for a full minute, and when there was no response, he knocked louder.

  “Moment, s’il vous plait,” he heard faintly through the door.

  Chapin waited patiently until he heard the latch click. The door opened slowly. When it was wide, he heard a startled gasp.

  “Hi,” he said to a surprised Abby Sloan.

  Instead of responding, she went into his arms. They kissed deeply, passionately. Then she drew him inside. She closed the door and turned to him.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”

  He smiled, taking in the soft lines of her face. Then his smile faded. “Abby, there are things I need to tell you. Things you have to know about me.”

  She stepped close to him and looked up into his eyes. “Later.”

  <><><>

  Curled against him, her head rested on his chest and her warm breath washing across his skin, he caressed her naked back.

  They had made love as if they had not seen each other in a year. Her passions caught him by surprise, and he had responded in kind. They had taken each other powerfully, and when the lovemaking ended, neither had been able to speak for a long time.

  He glanced around the bedroom. A single lamp was on. The low-wattage light cast a pale yellow glow. “I want you to know that I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said.

  Abby kissed his left nipple. “Your being here told me that,” she said without looking at him.

  He almost disagreed with her, but realized she was right, to a degree. He had come to her, not to the safe house he’d set up years before.

  “There’s more to it than that. I’m not an analyst with the CIA.”

  She turned, lifted her head, and stared into his eyes.

  He met her open gaze, moistened his lips, and said, “Abby, I’m an intelligence officer, I spy for the CIA.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Paris

  Abby held the bone white porcelain cup between her palms, its hand-painted green fronds all but hidden. She wore a deep blue Chanel suit. Her eyes were clear and alert and showed no lack of sleep.

  The sun was well up, brightening the view of the Eiffel Tower, framed within the window. “I’m still trying to absorb everything you’ve told me. But it’s hard.”

  “You’re doing remarkably well,” Chapin said. “You haven’t screamed or called the police, yet…” He had been surprised at how calmly Abby accepted his situation. She hadn’t demanded proof of his innocence; rather, she’d looked deeply into his eyes and asked him if he had done it. He’d answered with the truth: she accepted it without further question.

  “But what will you do? Considering everything you’ve told me, how will you be able to prove that you didn’t kill the Soviet defector and you aren’t a traitor?”

  His laugh was low and bitter. “My record should have been enough to prove I’m not a traitor. But I’ll have to find substantiating evidence of what I learned in Russia. My only hope is by exposing the person behind the plan, and the plan itself—whatever that may be.”

  Abby blew a stream of air from between her lips. “When all is said and done, I still don’t understand how you can do anything. You have no leads to follow and no one to back you up. Where would you go?”

  “Nowhere, yet. I’m waiting for some information. There are still people who believe in me. I asked one of them to send me certain information. It should arrive in Paris today.”

  “You had it sent here?” she asked, surprised.

  “No,” he said, gazing steadily at her. “I didn’t know whether or not I would be welcomed here. It’s coming to a drop in Paris.”

  She put the cup down. Her expression held a hint of disappointment. “You should have known,” she whispered. Then she smiled. “Will this information help?”

  He reached across the table and covered her hand. “It has to.”

  Shortly after breakfast, Abby left for work. Chapin accompanied her to the Metro. They parted there, with Abby promising to be home early.

  Once she was on the train, Chapin retraced his steps up to the surface of Paris. Then he walked through the park, staying within the shade of the Eiffel Tower, and breathing the scents of a Paris morning.

  Chapin understood he didn’t have a lot of time. Eventually, someone would spot him, and word would be out. He could only hope it would be later, and Abby would not be caught in this.

  Across the park from Abby’s apartment, he hailed a cab, giving the address of the Banque du Cavalier. Chapin had chosen the Banque du Cavalier because it had suited his needs perfectly: It was a privately owned bank, affiliated with a Geneva bank he’d done a lot of Company business with.

  When the taxi pulled to a stop, Chapin paid the driver but did not get out; he looked cautiously around. The street was busy, there were no loiterers.

  He left the cab, bypassed the bank, and went into a luggage store three doors from the bank. He purchased an expensive black leather attaché case with the last of his American money.

  Then Chapin left the luggage store and entered the bank. He walked past the main section and toward the vaults. A uniformed woman sat behind a desk. An open book set before her. Chapin signed the book in a name known only to him.

  After the guard compared his signature to the one on file, she opened the gate and admitted him. He followed her to the safety-deposit vault room, where she used his key and the bank key to withdraw the steel box.

  She led him to one of three private rooms. She locked the door and left. The air was stale. There was an oak desk and matching chair. Light came from a glass-shaded brass desk lamp. On one edge of the desk was a bottle of Evian water and two glasses. Next to it was a plastic stand holding deposit and withdrawal slips.

  Chapin sat at the desk and opened the box. He withdrew its contents in the order he had placed them. On top was a nine-millimeter Beretta. Next to it was a clip and a box of shells. He put both into the attaché case and pull
ed the leather separator over them.

  The next item was a sealed manila envelope. He opened it and poured its contents onto the varnished surface of the desk.

  He spread three passports, a variety of identification cards, three birth certificates, and half a dozen credit cards across the desk. He chose two sets of identification and put the third back in the envelope.

  The two sets of ID’s he retained were complete opposites. One set showed him to be an Australian by the name of Roger Ludlow; the other set identified him as Lucien Monach, a French-Canadian.

  He put the Australian passport in his jacket pocket. The driver’s license and credit cards went into his wallet; and, slipped the French-Canadian identification into his attaché case.

  Next, he withdrew a blue velvet case and opened it. Gold glinted beneath the lamp. He took out forty gold Krugarrands, put them in an envelope, and then into a pocket in the attaché case.

  The last item he extracted was his bankbook. He opened it, read the balance, and took a withdrawal slip from the plastic stand. He made the slip out for the equivalent of ten thousand dollars, which left twenty-five thousand dollars plus whatever interest had accrued, as his balance.

  Finishing, he closed his attaché case and the safety-deposit box, and then opened the door. The guard appeared a moment later. He watched her until the box was safely inserted into its niche in the wall. Then Chapin returned to the main part of the bank and asked for a bank officer.

  When he was seated across from a fifty-year-old man with gray hair, gray eyes, and a gray suit, Chapin handed him the withdrawal slip and asked for the money to be equally divided into American dollars and francs.

  The man was gone for seven minutes, a long enough time for Chapin to become nervous and suspicious. Chapin wondered if the man was a CIA contact reporting Chapin’s whereabouts right now. But, when the bank officer returned, the man brought two envelopes, which Chapin placed in his attaché.

  “Merci, monsieur.”

  The officer replied graciously and asked if there was any other service he could render. Saying no and hoping no hidden metal detectors would go off as he left, he exited the bank.

  There were none.

  Chapin walked five blocks to the post office where he kept an unknown box in a name different from the one he used at the bank. He checked and found the mail drop empty. He inquired as to the next delivery time and was informed it would be at four P. M.

  After dropping off the case, he went shopping. He did not take the pistol.

  He acquired a new wardrobe by three. At ten past four, he returned to the post office, opened the box, and found two items. The first was an Express Mail envelope addressed to a Kenneth Chapman. The second was a letter from American Express.

  He dropped the letter in the garbage and returned to the waiting cab. Fifteen minutes later, and with one more stop for an American newspaper, he returned to Abby’s apartment.

  Chapin made himself a drink, sat down at the dining room table, and opened Tanaka’s thick package.

  He looked at the first report, a computer run on the name Sokova.

  Vladimir Sokova Rastov born 1873: died 1918 minister of finance: 1898-1905 ambassador to France: 1906-1908 ambassador to Germany: 1908-1909 personal counsel to Tsar Nicholas: 1913-1918

  Rastov, son of Irena Sokova, a Romanov and third cousin to Nicholas II, grew up with Nicholas. Rastov was educated in Germany, served in the Russian army with the rank of colonel and showed himself to be a tactician of immense talent but a leader of dubious quality.

  It is said that their friendship was the reason for Rastov’s high career. In the waning years of Nicholas’s reign, Nicholas became more and more dependent on Rastov’s advice and friendship. It is thought that Rastov, although he died a month before Nicholas in uncertain circumstances, had been the guiding force behind the throne, and if it had not been for Rastov, Nicholas would have been persuaded to abdicate sooner.

  All other information on the Rastov family was lost during the revolution and the destruction of the records of the imperial court.

  More information:

  See Russian revolution see Bolshevik movement.

  He read it carefully. At the end, he shook his head. The man he’d read about had been dead for almost seventy years. He flipped the page and looked at the next sheet. This report had a preface written in Ann Tanaka’s precise handwriting.

  Kevin, when I accessed certain files on the name Sokova, I came across an MI-5 notation. I called Tim Latham at the Brit embassy, and he looked up the information he had on Sokova and verbally passed it on to me. It’s not much more than rumor, but it may help. The information comes from an old MI-5 file on Leon Trotsky.

  According to Tim Latham, there is an unsubstantiated connection between Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Sokova Rostov, which shows a possibility exists that Rastov was a Bolshevik supporter, a spy for the revolution, and for Lenin himself. According to a diary written by Trotsky in the late 1930’s, the Tsar or his advisors never suspected Rastov of being a spy.

  Also according to Trotsky, Rastov lived ten years past the date of his attributed death and, under an assumed name, worked with Lenin to bring about the perfect communist order for the Soviet Union.

  That’s all I could get from MI-5, but I did come across one other tidbit. Whether it helps or not, I don’t know. It came from the Encyclopedia of Chess.

  Chapin paused, his brow furrowing as he lifted the next sheet of paper.

  VLADIMIR SOKOVA RASTOV:

  BORN: 1873 DIED: 1918

  Rastov is considered the best Russian chess player of the early twentieth century, and the developer of a strategic convention utilizing the false and masking movement of one knight to allow the second knight to be maneuvered into a position giving the second knight the checkmate move. THE SOKOVA CONVENTION, named after Rastov’s mother, was popular until the late 1920’s, when Herman Cribner, of the Manchester Chess Club, developed the Cribner Counter.

  Chapin put the report down. What the hell did a chess convention have to do with the presidential election?

  He wasn’t sure, nor was he about to try and figure it out now.

  He went on to the next report. It was the confidential OSS file on the Mathews kidnapping attempt. The report was fascinating and written with absolute precision.

  It detailed every event, from the inception of the original death threat against Michael Mathews by the Russian agent to the deaths of one doctor, Mathews, and Mathews’ wife.

  In the report, Walter Hirshorne held himself responsible for what had happened. Chapin expected no less from the man, and was not disappointed in the report. Michael Mathews had been Hirshorne’s lifelong friend, and Hirshorne, by his nature, would hold himself responsible for Mathews’ death as well as the kidnapping.

  Finishing the report, Chapin picked up the next one. It was a follow-up report on all people involved in the Mathews kidnapping. He stared at it, wondering what Ann Tanaka had been thinking when she’d done this particular report. A few minutes later, he knew.

  The second doctor, Steven Ginsberg, died eleven months after delivering Robert Mathews into the world. The report listed his death as an embolism. He was thirty-seven years old.

  Lieutenant Emily Peters, one of the three nurses in attendance during the operation, died two and a half months after the operation. Her death attributed to a hit-and-run traffic accident in Paris.

  Nurse Julienne Patchouli, the woman who helped with the kidnapping, died with Vladim Koshenski, the SMERSH chief, when Walter Hirshorne rescued Robert Mathews.

  There was no information on Bernadette Luvelle, the third nurse in the operating room. Luvelle was a French nurse working at the OSS hospital. There were no records showing her present whereabouts, or any information to whether she was still alive.

  When he put the report down, he realized that the only two people connected with Robert Mathews’ birth who could answer any questions were Walter Hirshorne and the third nurse, if she was s
till alive. Everyone else was dead, a fact that in itself was unusual.

  Was Mathews’ birth and kidnapping part of Sokova’s plan? Was that it? But how?

  Knowing that he couldn’t talk to Hirshorne until he cleared his name, he underlined Bernadette Luvelle’s name, and put a question mark above it.

  Chapin went through the rest of the reports, but found nothing worth following up. When he finished, he went back to the OSS report on Michael Mathews’ death.

  Mathews had been a good man. What had happened to him was unfair; but, Chapin was certain Mathews had known the score.

  He picked up the American paper and started to read. He found what he was looking for on the second page. His picture stood out in stark contrast to the newsprint surrounding it. The story gave his true name, and said Kevin Chapin was wanted in connection with the blackmailing and murder of a Soviet embassy clerk.

  He put the paper down. His stomach clenched. Now he had more to worry about than The Company. He was, officially, an open target. The CIA, by making Chapin public, had given the Soviets carte blanche on his head.

  Chapin picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew from memory. A familiar deep and husky female voice answered.

  “It’s Chapin,” Chapin said in French.

  “My God, Kevin,” the woman replied. “You are crazy to call me.”

  “I need some help.”

  “I can’t give you the kind of help you need,” she said.

  “How much?”

  “The Soviets will pay a quarter million American for you… alive. The Americans will pay the same for you, dead.”

  Chapin swallowed hard. “I need to find someone. All I have is a name over forty years old.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  Chapin exhaled slowly. “I heard you. The person I need to find is Bernadette Luvelle. Last known reference, OSS special hospital, Chaumont, France, nineteen forty-seven.”