by Gulvin, Jeff
‘I don’t know the why. Perhaps they’ve got something else planned for us. We’ve been led by the nose from the start, and we still don’t really know why.’ Swann swallowed beer. ‘As to the how, maybe he doesn’t know for sure. Maybe he’s just guessing. But Boese’s canny, George. He’ll have worked this whole thing out. Somebody as good as Storm Crow must have had access to intelligence at the highest level.’
‘Like the CIA, you mean.’
Jorge Vaczka’s priest was shown into the interview room where he would be allowed to speak to his parishioner. He stooped, leaning heavily on his cane, his neck hanging in folds of grey flesh from his tattered dog collar. His black jacket, shiny at the elbows, smelled of a bachelor’s sweat and pipe tobacco. His blue eyes were yellow at the edges and age lines crisscrossed his face. He had to be helped into the chair by the young constable. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Boese patted his chest and wheezed into a handkerchief.
‘You won’t have very long, I’m afraid, Father. He’s being interviewed at length today. You’re lucky to get this chance at all.’
‘I know. I’m very grateful. But you see, his mother is ill in Warsaw. She may not last and I need to break the news to him.’ He looked up then, eyes watery. He dabbed at them with the handkerchief. ‘I suppose two minutes of privacy is out of the question.’
The constable made a face, and Boese coughed again, then laid a hand across his chest.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the constable said. ‘But it’ll be up to the custody sergeant.’
He left him alone then and Boese stared at the walls, the walls he had seen before, when he had sat across the table from Swann, and made his telephone call. That had been then, however, and many things had happened since that day. He had been paid, had been assured, had seen the depth of the Polish operation, and then he had been betrayed. Again, he saw Mannero’s face when he gave up the names of Valentin and Vaczka. Abu Nidal selling guns to the FALN and using the young Pole to do it. Ironic, but it made perfect sense now that all the pieces, but one, were set in place. From the Pole to him; via Valentin, Mannero, Jefferson and poor Mary Greer, the girlfriend of his mother.
The door opened and the young constable stood there, smiling. ‘They’re bringing him down now, Father. And you’re in luck, you can have that two minutes, but literally only two. You’ll need to tell him straight away.’
‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ Boese cracked a smile. ‘It’s nice to know there is still a sensitivity about these things, even in circumstances such as these.’ A few minutes later the door opened a second time and Vaczka was brought in, hands cuffed together in front of him. He stared at Father Graucas. He knew him, but had never set foot in his church. He looked old and tired, at death’s door almost. His cane leaned against the leg of the table.
The custody sergeant pressed Vaczka into a seat. ‘Two minutes only,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
The door closed, the room slipped into silence and Boese stared at Vaczka.
‘Father,’ Vaczka said. ‘What is it?’
Boese leaned towards him, then crooked his index finger, drawing Vaczka closer. ‘Look closely,’ he said, his voice a sliver of ice.
Vaczka’s features sharpened, and then he frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Josef El Kebir.’
Vaczka’s eyes grew wide, and the light of unease settled deep in the pupils. ‘Corneja Tormenta?’ he whispered.
Boese nodded once.
Then cold fear filled those eyes and Vaczka shrank back from the table. ‘We were betrayed,’ he said. ‘But I did what you asked. I provided the soldiers.’
‘I know.’ Boese looked at him again, arms folded now. ‘The guards here think your mother is dying, so be sad when the time comes.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You know what I’ve been doing?’
‘On the TV, yes.’
‘You understand why?’
‘No.’
Boese paused again. ‘Tell me, who is the Irishman?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘“Fuck the Queen” tattooed on his fingers. He spoke to you?’
‘Yes. To set up your escape.’
‘No. No. He spoke to you once before, long ago, perhaps?’
‘No.’
‘Never?’
‘No.’
‘He told you to speak to Henrique Valentin.’
Vaczka shook his head. ‘I was in prison with Valentin by coincidence.’
‘Yes, but you spoke to him again, later.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Who commanded it so?’
Vaczka stared at him, his eyes bunched, as if unsure of himself. ‘You did.’
‘Me?’
‘In the cathedral, the Greek Orthodox priest.’
Boese sat very still, aware that time was short. He thought hard for a moment. ‘Listen very carefully,’ he said. ‘Soon you will be interviewed by a detective whose name is Swann. The FBI may be with him.’ He bent forward then, as the keys rattled in the lock. ‘I want you to tell them this.’
Swann was at the Yard early, and briefed the team on everything that had happened in the United States. Logan arrived with Byrne shortly afterwards, and they prepared to go and interview Vaczka. Webb told them about the visit from the priest that morning.
‘Priest?’ Swann looked carefully at him. ‘Has he been vetted?’
‘Of course he has, Jack. Something about Vaczka’s mother. She’s dying, or very ill anyway, in Poland.’
‘You’re sure that’s all it was.’
‘They are. That’s all that matters.’
They were unaware of it, but Tal-Salem watched Byrne and Logan get out of their taxi at Scotland Yard, and he also watched them all leave the underground car park in Webb’s car. He picked up the phone, dialled a cloned cellphone and reported everything to Boese. They had decided to let the priest live. He would not talk all the time he thought his sister was in jeopardy, and even if he did, it would not harm them now. Tal-Salem then made two more phone calls to the remnants of Vaczka’s gang, who were only too pleased to assist them.
Swann stared out of the window of Webb’s car at the familiar, yet unfamiliar streets of London. ‘Nothing changes, does it,’ he said.
‘No.’
He looked at Byrne over his shoulder. ‘Boese’s here, I can feel it.’
Byrne nodded, briefcase on his lap. ‘It’s more than likely, yes.’
‘No. I can feel him, Louis. It’s like cancer returning. They say you know when you’ve got it again.’
They pulled up the ramp at Paddington Green and got out of the car. Swann questioned the custody sergeant about the priest, and was satisfied. Vaczka was already in the interview room, with his solicitor, waiting for them. He sat with his arms folded and his face sullen and closed. Swann sat down, Byrne alongside him. Logan was seated against the wall. Swann opened the file and placed a fresh tape in the machine. He went through the formalities and then looked hard at Vaczka.
‘Tell us about Henrique Valentin, Jorge.’
‘I don’t know him.’
‘Yes, you do. You were in Rikers Island Prison with him in New York.’
Vaczka said nothing.
‘Don’t tell me you can’t remember.’ Swann pointed to Byrne. ‘He’s with the FBI. He remembers.’
‘Selling weapons to the FALN,’ Byrne said quietly. ‘Or trying to anyways.’
‘You were working for Abu Nidal,’ Swann went on. ‘You still work for him. He funds you all the time you’re in this country. Tell me something, Jorge. Did Storm Crow borrow you from the ANO, or were they in on it too?’
Vaczka’s face was sour. He glanced at his solicitor. ‘So I did some time in the States. So what.’
‘So everything.’ Swann leaned closer to him. ‘You met Valentin in prison, and my guess is, a little later on, somebody asked you to contact him again.’
‘Did they?’
‘I think so.’ Swann pressed the ends
of his fingers together. ‘I’ll tell you what else I think, Jorge. You broke the wrong man out of jail.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘Have you ever wondered who told us you were here?’
Vaczka stared at him.
‘Ah, a nerve at last.’ Swann bent his head towards him. ‘Boese isn’t Storm Crow, Jorge. Didn’t you know that?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Sure you do. You see, you’re one of the main links in the chain. Somebody spoke to you, you spoke to Valentin, Valentin spoke to somebody else, and a little way down the line, we have Ismael Boese, the protégé of Carlos.’ He paused, arms folded. ‘But not Storm Crow. We were handed Boese on a plate, so the real Storm Crow could retire without any fuss. The only thing that spoiled it was you subcontracting. Put the cat right among the pigeons, that did.’ Swann sat back in the chair. ‘He double-crossed you, Jorge. He tipped off the security services about you—guns to the Loyalists in Ulster, Abu Nidal, the whole nine yards.’ He stopped talking and looked Vaczka in the eye. ‘You went and spoiled his plan and now Boese is out there looking for him. You know something else, this is probably the safest place for you right now, because he knows exactly what you did.’
Vaczka was staring at him, a strange light in his eyes.
‘Who spoke to you, Jorge? Who spoke to you all those years ago?’
For a moment Vaczka just sat there, saying nothing, looking through Swann at the wall. Suddenly he sat forward. ‘I’ll tell you what, Swann,’ he said. ‘Geronimo was the master of illusion. Ask the Jackal if he ever ate with the Crow. And who is El Kebir?’
Swann stared at him for a long moment. Vaczka was smiling now, laughter, merriment almost, in his eyes. Swann could feel the tingling across his back, the sweat in his palms. He did not say anything, just kept looking at Vaczka’s smiling eyes, then he nodded, switched off the tape and stood up. They took Vaczka back to his cell and Swann brooded quietly. Logan rested the flat of her palm on his shoulder. He got up then and they followed him to the custody sergeant’s desk, who looked up from the report he was writing. ‘I want the address for that priest,’ Swann said.
They found him locked in his bedroom, a frail old man with weak, water-filled eyes that he dabbed at constantly. He was dressed in a faded, striped dressing gown, and he told them what had happened. ‘They threatened my only sister in Poland,’ he said, a choked breath in his voice. ‘What could I do?’
‘It’s OK,’ Swann told him.
‘I had to lie. I had no other choice. They made me get in contact with the police, took pictures of me and then he came.’
‘He?’
‘A small, dark man with black eyes.’
‘Ismael Boese,’ Swann said.
‘He didn’t tell me his name.’ And then the priest’s face buckled into itself. ‘The Storm Crow. The man that was responsible for killing those poor people in Rome?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
He stared round the room. ‘He was here, in this house, wearing my clothes. He ate my food.’ He shook his head, as if not believing his own words.
Swann got up. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m going to arrange for someone to come down here and get a statement from you. OK?’
The priest nodded. Again Swann patted him on the arm. ‘And don’t worry. It really wasn’t your fault.’
Tal-Salem saw them drive into the underground car park and he picked up the phone.
‘They’re back,’ he said. ‘They went to Paddington, then on to the priest’s house.’
On the other end of the phone, Boese stared at the wall. ‘Keep a watch at the airport,’ he said.
On the fifteenth floor, Swann and Webb sat with Colson, Swann briefing him on what had happened with Vaczka, the priest and everything. Colson shook his head wearily.
‘To be fair to them, we know how good Boese can be,’ Swann said. ‘Apparently, he was a dead ringer for the priest—face, hair, the lot.’
‘Must’ve gone to make-up college or something,’ Webb muttered.
The question is, what’re we going to do about it,’ Swann went on. ‘Ask the Jackal if he ever ate with the Crow. And who is El Kebir.’
Webb furrowed his brow. ‘I’ve heard that somewhere.’ He left them then and went back to his desk, where he started going through papers. He had seen it or something like it, but he could not remember where.
Swann was still talking with Colson. ‘Sir, Boese has been leading us by the nose throughout all this. He’s telling us that in one way, at least, Dubin was right—the only person who knows the true identity of Storm Crow is Carlos the Jackal.’
Colson tilted his head to one side. ‘Jack, are you asking me what I think you are?’
‘Yes, sir. I want to get permission to go and interview him.’
Colson went to put the diplomatic wheels in motion. Antiterrorist officers had interviewed Carlos before, over the shooting of Edward Sieff in 1974, so it ought not to be a problem. Meanwhile, Swann had other things to consider. He went back through the Storm Crow files and found the copies of Harrison’s product from the time he was in Idaho. Byrne was working with Logan on reports for the FBI, and Webb was still looking through his own files. The phones were quiet today and an air of concentration filled the squad room.
Swann found what he was looking for: the photograph of the receipt and the Winthrop directions beneath it. He went looking for Christine Harris in the Special Branch cell. She showed him everything that they had got so far from the US Secret Service regarding the movement of money.
‘I’m interested in the money that was paid to Vaczka,’ he said, ‘the two lots of five thousand dollars from Japan and Israel.’
Harris located the electronic transfer forms, and Swann studied the handwriting carefully, then he looked at the scraps of letters from Harrison’s product. ‘What’re you thinking, Jack? That whoever wrote those, wrote on these bank forms?’
Swann did not say anything for a moment. He had a magnifying glass and was looking at the slant of the letters. ‘These are capitals,’ he said. ‘So are the bank forms.’ He laid the magnifying glass down then. ‘You said the US Secret Service had uncovered more of these, more companies with the same handwriting on the transfer request forms?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A Mexican bank involved?’
‘Yeah, branches in the southern United States.’
‘Can I copy these?’
‘Sure.’
Swann photocopied the forms and went back to his desk. Byrne was talking to Webb. They were studying a single sheet of paper.
‘What’s that?’ Swann asked them.
Webb showed him. It was the passenger manifest from the Washington to Detroit flight in August 1997.
Swann ran his index finger down the list of names and felt gooseflesh rise on his cheeks. J. L. Kebir. He stared at Webb and Byrne in turn.
Webb spoke quietly. ‘I knew I’d seen it before. It’s not El Kebir, but too similar for comfort.’
Byrne’s face was grave. ‘Dubin was in Washington. That flight was two days after the Shrivenham conference.’
Swann turned to him then. ‘What happened to the copy I gave you, Louis?’
‘I passed it on to Kovalski. His team were checking on it.’
‘D’you want to make a call, see what’s going on?’
‘You bet.’ Byrne picked up a phone.
Swann showed Logan the transfer forms. ‘I’m going to fax this lot over to Harrison,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get him to give it to CJIS and see what they say. I’m going to do the same with the Questioned Document Section at Lambeth.’
‘You think there might be a link?’
‘I wouldn’t, if there hadn’t been those two payments to Vaczka. It still might be nothing, but nobody has ever got a handle on the money trail after that ten million dollars was dumped at the Virginia City Overlook.’
‘It’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘By the way, if you get to go to Paris, I want to
come with you.’
‘Deal,’ he said, and kissed the end of her nose.
He went down to the exhibits office to phone Harrison. Quite why, he did not know, he just felt he wanted the privacy. He told him what he planned to do and then faxed the copies of the bank forms over to him. Then he packaged the rest and sent it down to Lambeth, priority one.
That evening, he introduced Logan to his children. Rachael, his former wife, brought them over, and they came bounding up the stairs and into the living room. Logan dropped to one knee. ‘Hey, how you doing?’ she said.
Charlotte, the youngest, shrank back from her for a moment. ‘You talk funny,’ she said. Joanne was watching her carefully, as if not sure what to say.
‘Cheyenne works for the FBI,’ Swann explained. ‘She’s from America, Charley.’
‘Cheyenne’s an Indian name, isn’t it,’ Joanne said.
Logan nodded. ‘That’s right. It is.’
‘But you’re not an Indian.’
She sat down on the settee, with the girls on either side of her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m African-American.’
That started them into a great conversation about America and the people and what happened to the Indians, slaves and everything. Swann made some food and poured wine into two, full-bellied glasses. The phone rang as he was about to dish the food.
‘Swann,’ he said, as he picked it up.
‘Colson, Jack. You’ve got the all clear. The DST will meet you when you get to Paris.’
27
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, HARRISON phoned Swann before they left for Paris. He told him to stand by the fax, as he had a sample of handwriting coming over. Harrison had already sent it to his own people in Virginia, but he wanted a second opinion on whether it matched the bank transfer forms and maybe the Winthrop directions. When the page came through, Swann packaged it and sent it off to Lambeth. Then he, Webb and Logan were driven to Heathrow Airport.
They were met at Orly Airport by Yves Mercier from the DCPJ, together with an officer from the DST. Swann and Mercier knew each other from various operations in the past, most notably when Mercier’s police artist drew the likeness which exposed Pia Grava as Brigitte Hammani, the Palestinian terrorist. They had a brief discussion with the DST officer, then Mercier drove them to the prison on the outskirts of Paris, where Carlos the Jackal would spend the rest of his life. Twenty-two years after murdering three DST agents in the Rue Toullier, he had finally been caught and convicted.