Inside the airport, as Gustav shook his hand, he told Brewer, “Think about it. I can tell you you’re exactly what the consortium is looking for. You say yes and you’re in. You’ll be rich before long.” He shook Brewer’s hand once more. “Give me a call in a day or so. If you have questions in the meantime, call me. Anytime. But you have to make up your mind soon.” He tapped his chest. “I can’t put off this operation much longer.”
Brewer stood leaning against a wall, waiting to board his plane. He slung his overcoat over one shoulder, folded his arms and tried to think about Gustav and his twenty-five-mile playground and all the toys in it—the tidal flats, the Jersey meadowlands, the piers and docks and the freighters and trucks and freight trains and fences and security cameras and the unremitting warfare—the thefts, the smuggling, the bribery, the subornation, the savage beatings behind packing crates, the power plays and the swollen savage egos, the muscle and the cunning.
“Beat the system,” Gustav had told him. “Get out while your ticker works, your pecker works, and you still have your sanity. Come play in the world’s biggest sandbox.”
He tried to think about the playground, but his mind was elsewhere. It was on Gogol.
He suspected he knew how Limoges would do it. Using expert help, Limoges would try to make Gogol’s death look like an accident. Limoges was hoping that if the death were convincing enough, it could preclude reprisals from Directorate T. Or maybe he hoped that Directorate T would think Gogol’s death was a reprisal for the two attempts to kill Brewer. Even-Steven. But Gogol was their paladin. They would not accept his loss casually. He would not be easy to replace.
Then as he stood there leaning against a wall in Newark Airport waiting to board his flight, Brewer saw that killing Gogol was all wrong. Inviting reprisals from Directorate T was all wrong. He now knew what the answer was. There was a better idea. A better way. Gogol was worth infinitely more alive than dead.
He walked over to a telephone and made a call, then came back in time to join the crowd climbing on board the Washington shuttle. Gustav’s waterfront security business was far from his thoughts.
The man waited all morning, sitting at a table in the glassed-in café, reading Swiss newspapers and drinking demis of strong coffee. The skiers came and went, and the sun climbed in the cloudless sky. It was just after noon when the phone call came. Gogol had left Zurich and was driving his Porsche on the mountain roads, homeward bound.
The man had lunch in the café, a cheese omelette with a glass of white Burgundy. He was having another demi of coffee when she entered with her daughters and the two boys and another woman. She cast another look at the man. During lunch, while she was watching, he put the key to his room on the edge of the table.
The two daughters, chattering gaily, went off skiing with the two boys. The other woman went away with several magazines. The woman finished her coffee, stood and walked by him, plucking his room key from the table as she passed.
When he got to his room, she was standing by the window, nude, looking out at the mountain. Her figure was superb, and she watched with delight as he drank it in. She kissed him ardently, hungrily. They never spoke.
When the late afternoon sunlight was on the wall of his room, and she was half asleep in his arms, the second phone call came. Gogol had driven through the little ski town on the other side of the mountain. In about a half hour his red Porsche would crest the mountain pass and start down the switchback road.
He turned and looked at her inviting smile. Half an hour. He kissed her.
He awoke abruptly to look at the sunlight on his wall. He leaped from the bed. Less than ten minutes. He quickly shrugged into his clothes, yanked on an extra sweater, and hurried from the room. The woman waved a hand at him as she sat up.
He cursed himself for a fool. He’d let himself be distracted. He could fumble this gig and lose his reputation.
The man hurried down to his small sports car and sped out of the little village and along the road to the promontory. He parked well off the road, to conceal the car, then hurried out to the ledge with his binoculars. Gogol’s red Porsche was not in sight. Had he gone by so soon? Gogol would have had to have driven like a demon to do that.
The man quickly checked the terrain. Shrubs half buried in snow completely hid him from the road. He lay down on the snow and looked across at the switchback road. The site was satisfactory. But now there were complications: a strong wind was out of the northwest. He returned to his car, took out a small anemometer and set it up. The small hemispheres whirled in the breeze, measuring a steady twenty knots and rising, a cold wind pressing against his left side as he lay on the shooting ground cloth. The sun was behind him and dropping quickly. It would be a bitter cold night.
He looked up at the top of the switchback road where Gogol’s Porsche would first appear. He looked at his watch. It should be right now. But no Porsche appeared. It was already a little past prime light. Darkness would come with that mountain abruptness, and if Gogol was delayed, the man would have to scrub the shoot. The possibility that Gogol had already passed by nagged at him. Fool. For a woman. He might have jeopardized everything.
The four right-hand curves stuck out at him stacked like the four knuckles of a fist. No traffic. A bird circled high up.
He returned to the car, took the Dragunov from the trunk and carried it back to the ledge. He checked it out by the numbers, then checked out the sniperscope before fitting it to the rifle.
He was reluctant to do any firing, but he needed to do some check shots for correcting the gun sight and for wind drift. In waning sunlight he picked out a small white spot on an exposed rock more than one hundred seventy yards away. He checked the gun sight, aimed prone, and fired. It made a pinhole in the snow. Off by a half foot. He adjusted the sight and aimed again. Squeeze. The white spot disappeared. He chose next the dried seed pod on a windblown stalk. He corrected for wind and fired. The seedpod disappeared. He wished for a moving target.
The bird in the sky he judged to be a predator of some type, looking for ground animals in the failing light. It drifted lower along a lengthy slope of mountain, then began to drop faster and faster. The man sighted, adjusted, sighted again, leading the bird, anticipating its rate of speed, then squeezed. A moment later the bird tumbled and fell, kicked up a little puff of snow when it crashed.
He felt no elation. The shot at the tire was infinitely more difficult. He was going to try to hit a band of rubber little more than four inches wide, spinning at very high speed and moving through three planes—coming directly at him, turning broadside on the curve, then swinging sharply away from him. He had at best a second. More likely a fraction of one second. With a capricious, rising crosswind, in bad light.
If his shot was just a few inches off, he would hit the roadway—a complete miss—or hit the metal wheel rim itself, or even the hubcap, to no effect.
It was growing colder. The sun was dropping fast. The man zipped up his sleeves and ankles and pulled up the padded hood of his parka. His fingers were cold, and he pulled on his shooting mittens, flexing the trigger finger on his right hand. There were only about five more minutes of usable light.
He decided that Gogol had already passed. He’d blown it.
Back at his inn the skiers would be coming in, glowing, feeling loose, gathering around the crackling fire in soft chairs with drinks, talking about the runs as dusk filled the streets.
The man checked his watch. It was almost too late. Gogol should be cresting the ridge. Minutes went by. The man gazed anxiously behind him at the setting sun. Already part of the sun was below the mountain peak.
The switchback road was still lit from top to bottom in a soft golden light. But the shadow in the valley was rapidly climbing the side of the mountain. Two or three minutes left. That was all. Lights gleamed in the windows of the widely scattered ski lodges.
He looked once more at the setting sun. When he looked back, a car crested the mountain and began its descent
. It was not Gogol’s car. The man watched it with attention as it swung through the curves, descending. The third curve was the steepest and sharpest, the perfect place. With binoculars he watched the left front wheel turn into the third curve. “Fttttt!” he said as he mentally pulled the trigger. The car turned at the far end of the road and came around toward the fifth curve, swung around and made a long run to the next curve, into the twilight, out of range.
At last the light was past its prime. The man sat up. He’d blown it. Gogol had already gotten by him. And even if he came now, it was too late. The northern slopes were already in dark shadow. Gogol had unwittingly saved his own life. The man stood up.
The red Porsche appeared. It crested with its headlights on. One glance through the binoculars told the man it was Gogol. He looked appraisingly at the road, at the last glow of sunset above the crest. Might there be enough light? He decided against it, watching Gogol descend. He was approaching the first curve. The sound of his engine and the shifting gears carried clearly. The fifth curve was too dark, but the third … There might be enough light.
The man seized the Dragunov, put his arm through the sling, dropped to the prone position and put his eye to the telescopic sight. He could just make it. Gogol’s car turned through the first curve. He took it cautiously. He approached the second curve. The gunman aimed, then paused to watch Gogol wheel through the second curve. He watched the red car drive back across the face of the mountain toward the third curve. It was a perfect position; the wind had died back but the light was inadequate. With a great deal of luck and one squeeze on the trigger, he would tumble Gogol down the side of the mountain.
The gunman raised his rifle and aimed. Gogol reached the curve accelerating. Distantly, the gunman could hear the gears shifting as the Porsche shot into the curve. The gunman had the car in his gunsight. He put his finger on the trigger. No. Not enough light.
He squeezed. The rifle jerked. He watched. The Porsche spun through the curve and kept going. He’d missed. Missed. He looked at the fifth curve. There was even less light down there. He would never make it. It was over.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up behind him.
A man in a skier’s outfit stood over him.
“The shoot’s been scrubbed,” he said.
Without a word the man stood up and carried the rifle and the anemometer and the shooting cloth back to his car. He glanced once at the red Porsche as it reached the eighth curve and drove off into the darkness of the valley. There was just a touch of sun on the tip of the mountain.
Now, no one would ever know that he had missed. He promised himself a warming brandy at the inn.
“Buy you a drink,” he said.
Chapter 40
At Brewer’s insistence Limoges met him in the Air and Space Center of the Smithsonian. Crowds of schoolchildren brought by the busload were darting from one exhibit to the next. The din of shrill voices would make voice recording impossible.
Limoges bared his teeth at the noise. He stood in the middle of the main room, his watch chain across his bulging vest, the familiar cigar in his right hand unlit, his hat in his left hand, his heavy overcoat draped over his left arm. He looked tired and old, and his face sagged over his blue polka-dot bow tie. His chest was heaving from the short walk from the entrance.
“Okay,” he said to Brewer. “So far all you’ve done is save Gogol’s life. He was less than one second away from Good-bye Mommy on that switchback road. This idea of yours better work.”
“Your prayers are solicited,” Brewer said.
“It’s not up to me, Brewer. You’re going to have to sell this idea to someone else a lot more knowledgeable than I am. If he doesn’t buy it, I send my man right back to that switchback road in Switzerland and blow your Mr. X away.”
“Blow him away.” Brewer looked sourly at Limoges.
“I didn’t invent this game, Brewer,” Limoges said. “I inherited it.”
“I hope you don’t have any heirs.”
“Truth be known, Brewer,” Limoges said, “we’re both addictive games players. The play is more important than the principle.”
Brewer nodded. “And you have to play the game according to the personality you’ve been dealt. Shooting Gogol or slipping him a fake, they’re both the same size to you.”
“Don’t play the holy innocent with me, Brewer. Some things have to be done to win. It’s the weight of office.”
“Win,” Brewer echoed. “Win what? What do you think it is—a giant soccer game? The Moscow Monsters versus the Washington Frankensteins? History isn’t going to care much who wins.”
“I care who wins,” Limoges said.
“There’s something more fundamental I care about,” Brewer replied. “If you can kill a Gogol, you can kill a Brewer.”
Limoges stood looking at him. Then he nodded. “Okay, Brewer. I’m going to arrange for you to meet someone. And you can try to sell your plan to him. To do that you’ll have to be the world’s best salesman, because this guy is the world’s toughest skeptic. You know whom I’m talking about?”
“I’d guess it’s the man who invented Cassandra.”
It was Sauer who arranged the meeting.
“Be at the deli on M Street at three this afternoon,” he told Brewer, “and I’ll take you to the guy personally. ’Kay?”
Sauer arrived complaining. “Can you believe this?” he demanded when he saw Brewer. “More snow.” He shook his overcoat. “I hate it. I hate the snow. I hate the cold. I hate the winter.”
Two waiters stood at the window, looking out at the storm. Behind them the delicatessen was nearly empty. One of them walked back to take Sauer’s order while the other yawned and stretched.
“Coffee,” Sauer said. He hung his coat on a wall hook and sat down across from Brewer. “Why can’t we hibernate like bears?”
Behind the counter, with scissoring hands, a bored sandwich man skimmed a knife blade along a sharpening wand.
“’Kay,” Sauer said. “This guy you’re meeting—he’s a computer scientist, maybe the top computer scientist in the world right now. ’Kay?”
“Go on.”
“’Kay. The bad news is, he’s flat-out crazy. Owns his own two-wing airplane and loves to barnstorm at air shows. Stunt flies it all over the place. Everytime he gets into that old kite, the government wets its pants. ’Kay? What else can I tell you?”
“His name.”
“Coles,” Sauer said. “His name is Coles. Ever heard of him?”
“Of course.”
“I never did.” Sauer watched two policemen enter the delicatessen, slapping the snow off their greatcoats. They sat in a booth near the door. “That’s all I know,” Sauer said. “No one told me why you’re meeting him or what you’re supposed to do or what. From here on in you’re on your own. See what I’m saying?”
Brewer nodded at him.
“Now,” Sauer said, “if you want to meet him, just walk down to that booth with the two cops in it and sit down. He’s the one with the gray hair. The other one is a bodyguard.”
“Costumes,” Brewer murmured.
“Be thankful for the snow,” Sauer said. “Limoges wanted you to be decked out like a firefighter, but the uniform rental closed on account of the snow. Lucky you.”
Brewer walked to the booth. As he approached, one of the policemen got up and walked past him to go sit with Sauer. Brewer stood looking down at Emmett Coles, head of the world-famous computer-sciences research center, Mobius Laboratories.
The man was very big. He had a large shaggy head set on a full barrel chest, and heavy arms and thick fingers. It was hard to picture him fitting himself into the cockpit of a biplane. Even more improbable was picturing him in front of a computer, designing new software configurations. He didn’t look as though he could comfortably add two numbers together. What he looked like was a tough, no-nonsense career policeman.
“I’m disappointed,” Coles said. “I expected at least a pirate or a gob
lin.”
“Saved by the snow,” Brewer said as he sat down.
“I wasn’t that lucky.” Coles patted his uniform. “But this isn’t so bad. My grandfather was a New York policeman. He’s probably getting a big laugh out of this.”
“I’m glad someone is,” Brewer replied.
Coles studied Brewer frankly. “So you’re the latest solution to the big problem.”
“Am I?”
“How about telling me about your background?”
“There’s not much to tell,” Brewer said.
Coles pointed a thick finger at him. “No games, Brewer. I came a long distance in a snowstorm and put on this silly uniform to talk to you. I have to know what kind of a background you have.”
“Am I auditioning for a job?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“What’s the job? Maybe I don’t want to apply.”
Coles looked curiously at Brewer. Then he gave his head a short shake. “Maybe I don’t want to apply.” He shook his head again. “Give me a hint, Brewer. Just a little thumbnail of yourself.”
“Come on,” Brewer said. “You’ve been thoroughly briefed on me. My background is primarily arms control. Lately, sophisticated weaponry and high-tech capability. Do you want to talk about this plan or play twenty questions?”
“Okay,” Coles said. “Before we get off on the wrong foot, Brewer, let me say I’m very interested in a plan to stop the Russians from swiping Cassandra. What I’m not interested in is another idiot from U.S. intelligence with another unworkable plot.”
“And you think I’m the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel?” Brewer said.
“Well, let’s say you’re the latest in a long list.” Coles looked thoughtfully at Brewer. “I’ve got a personal case against the Soviets,” he said. “They’ve stolen a number of inventions of mine. Some of my colleagues have had their life’s work stolen and used by Moscow. So we’re taking this looting as a personal affront. You understand?”
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