“You remember how that equipment was stolen in Vienna, Sauer. It was a shell game. It was all gone long before anyone knew that it was stolen. You can do the same thing.”
“No thanks. ’Kay? I have to go to sleep now.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea, Sauer. Sleep on it.”
Gogol had never known such tension before, had never wanted to succeed so badly before, never before feared failure so much. Sauer, loaded with drugs, could collapse. He might turn himself in. Might be a setup. Gogol’s own motel phone number might have been traced.
A tap on the door could come at any moment.
Gogol called Sauer an hour later. There was no answer. He waited another hour and tried again. There was no answer. It turned out to be the longest night in Gogol’s life.
After six hours of calling Sauer, the suspense and tension had become so great, Gogol decided to leave the premises. To flee to Europe. But his eagerness for revenge in Moscow, his fear of losing face in Moscow, his pride, his thirst for power, his love of money, his great need for adulation, all forced him to stay and brave it out.
It was a nightmare. He packed his bags and put them in the car. He decided that if he didn’t get Sauer by four A.M., he would move to another motel. He watched his parking lot for U.S. agents. He watched people come and go in the motel complex. The ladies came and went in their cabs. Young men in sneakers and zippered jackets tapped on doors, passed small white envelopes, and hurried away counting money. At three A.M. pizza trucks were as busy as ever.
At four A.M., with his bags at the door, it was time to go. He decided to try Sauer once more.
“Hullo,” Sauer said.
Gogol suppressed an audible sigh. “I’ve been trying to get you.”
“And I’ve been trying to get some stuff. I’m all out.”
“Did you get any?”
“Some. Not much.”
“You can’t make it without money, Sauer.”
“I know, I know. You don’t need to tell me.”
“Well?”
“Send me a package.”
“Tell me your answer first.”
“Shit,” Sauer said.
Gogol waited.
“Shit,” Sauer said. “I mean, man, this is the worst. You see what I’m saying? I’m really not up to this. See what I’m saying?”
“Are you up to the rest of your life the way things now stand?”
“No. I don’t want to be sick and old and broke.”
“Who does, Sauer? You simply have to put yourself first. I must tell you. If you don’t do this, someone else will. And that means that someone else will get the half million.”
“Okay,” Sauer said. “I’ll do it.”
“Marvelous.”
“For one million dollars.”
“A million? One million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Agreed.”
“You said it would be easy and safe.”
“Guaranteed, Sauer. Guaranteed.”
“Send me a package. And hurry.”
Gogol hung up his phone. For the first time in his life his hands were trembling.
Gogol ordered his pizza with pepperoni and a bottle of vodka. He had a solitary celebration, eating the pizza, swilling the vodka from the bottle, and crooning softly several Russian lullabies.
He woke in the morning with the sun on his face. His mouth was dry and he had a faint headache. But he woke happy for the first time in a long time. Later he drove to Mobius Laboratories and, for several hours, studied the building and its operations with care. He saw exactly how to get Cassandra out of the building.
Sauer decided to make himself a Bloody Mary for breakfast. He was sitting in the cafeteria waiting for Brewer to arrive. When the waiter brought him a large tomato juice, he poured a stiff shot from his hip flask and stirred it with a knife.
“To all the sunshine in the Riviera,” he said softly to him self, and took a long pull on the tomato juice. He signaled the waiter to bring him another.
He’d just managed to pour a shot into the second tomato juice when he saw Brewer come swinging through the front door. And Brewer had no more than seated himself when here came Limoges. He walked along the line of booths aided by a cane and stood before their table.
Limoges asked, “Has Gogol offered you a bribe, Brewer?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Has he tried to blackmail you?”
“No.”
“Have you found out where he is?”
“No.”
“Has Gogol made any sort of a move?”
“No.”
“Contacted you in any way?”
“No.”
“And he isn’t going to.” Limoges rapped a knuckle on the table. “We’ve waited too long. He’s made his move elsewhere.”
“He’ll make his move soon enough,” Brewer said.
“No. We’re through. I’m scrubbing this operation.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Give me five more days.”
Limoges hesitated.
“Three more days,” Brewer said.
“I’ll give you until tomorrow morning. That’s it.”
“Two days.”
“Tomorrow morning the test ends,” Limoges said. “We’ll put the unit back in the vault and lock it away until I take care of Gogol.” He looked pointedly at Brewer. “In the manner I originally planned. And that’s it. Tomorrow morning. You’ve taken too many risks.”
Limoges turned and walked away. “That’s it,” he said over his shoulder.
Sauer drained his glass of spiked tomato juice.
As arranged, Gogol called Sauer at six that evening.
Sauer was not happy. “If you want it, you have to make your move tonight. The test ends in the morning and they’re putting Cassandra in a vault.”
“Don’t panic, Sauer.”
“But we can’t get it. Once they take the real brain out of the mainframe and store it, you’ll never get at it.”
“Yes we can.”
“It’s rigged.”
“That’s okay,” Gogol said. “Listen to me. All you need is an empty carrying case. There must be plenty around there.”
“So what?”
“It’s Vienna all over again.”
“Huh. Don’t remind me.”
“It’s the same shell game. Switch the two Cassandras.”
“You mean take the real one out of the mainframe and put the fake in its place?”
“Yes.”
“But the fake won’t work.”
“Oh, yes it will, my friend. You can be sure that it will do almost everything the real one will do. Almost.”
“Then what?”
Was Sauer that dense? Gogol wondered. “Then take the Cassandra you got from the mainframe and put it in another carrying case. And leave the empty Cassandra case standing in the vault. Okay so far?”
“Yes.”
“Now, you have the fake Cassandra in the mainframe. In the vault you have an empty Cassandra carrying case that’s supposed to hold the fake. Right?”
“Okay.”
“And you have the real Cassandra in another case with some kind of false identification label on it. Is that not so?”
“Yes.”
“Put it in a cardboard carton.”
“But I can’t walk out of the building with that. They check everything.”
“Someone else will carry it out for you.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
“Put it in the trash.”
“Trash!”
“That’s right. The maintenance crew will carry it out of the building for you and throw it in the trash bin.”
“Oh, I see …”
“Of course you see, Sauer. All you have to do is go back later to the trash bin and retrieve it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“It’s absolutely safe, Sauer. You see that, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”<
br />
“It’s the easiest million you’ll ever make.”
“Then what?”
“The rest is as easy as shit through a goose, Sauer. Take it to Dulles Airport and drop it off. I will tell you more about that later.”
“When do you want to do it?”
“Tonight,” Gogol said. “You said we have to do it tonight.”
“Okay. Tonight.”
“Now there is just one more matter we have to discuss, Sauer. There must be no slipup. Understand?”
“There won’t be.”
“I’m not sure you understand. I am delighted to pay you one million dollars into your Swiss bank account. I am delighted that you will be comfortably fixed. But I must warn you, there must be no slipup tonight. I must be absolutely sure that I receive the real Cassandra. Not the fake. The real thing.”
“Why would I want to give you a fake? We have a deal.”
“I will tell you why you don’t want to give me a fake, Sauer. Because if you do, I will first of all expose you and ruin you. And secondly, my clients will personally take vengeance on you and your family. No one will be spared. Your entire family, Sauer. Down to the third generation. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you understand? If you give me a fake, we will soon enough discover it, and we will find you. You cannot hide from us anywhere. I believe you know how true that is. No place to hide.”
“Take it easy,” Sauer said. “I want to walk away from this as clean as possible. If I give you a fake, I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Living on the run. And I don’t want my family hurt. See what I’m saying? I’m no fool. I know who I’m dealing with. You’ll get the real Cassandra. Don’t worry. ’Kay?”
“’Kay,” Gogol said.
Chapter 51
Gogol called his contact at the Washington office of the Soviet airline, Aeroflot.
“I will have a package tonight,” he said.
“It’s very important.”
“I understand,” the contact said.
“You must hold the flight for it, no matter how late it is,” Gogol said.
“I understand,” the contact said. “Those are my orders.”
At ten o’clock Gogol drove to Sauer’s apartment and waited in his car. A few minutes later Sauer emerged from his apartment and drove off. His course was obvious and he was easy to follow; he drove directly to Mobius Laboratories. But his driving was erratic.
“The whole world holds its breath,” Gogol said to himself, “as we watch History ride on the back of a staggering, overdosed drunken, drug addict.”
Gogol parked on the incline of the service road behind the laboratories and with binoculars watched Sauer moving inside. A night staff was working with a test model of a computerized railroad, and Gogol could see small H.O.-gauge trains running through complicated patterns of trackage as the engineers watched their consoles. They were completely absorbed in their project.
In another room the cleaning staff was at work. Gogol looked at his watch. It was twenty-nine minutes after ten. Abruptly it began to snow.
Sauer’s job was quickly done. He entered the vault and a few moments later emerged with a black case which he carried into the computer room. He opened several panels in the main frame, removed Cassandra, and replaced it with the fake Cassandra.
He placed the real Cassandra in the carrying case and carried it to the shipping room. There he placed it in a shipping carton and taped it shut. He wrote TRASH in large letters on the carton with a felt pen then carried it to a trash barrel and pitched the carton into it.
His work was done. It was, as Gogol had said, the easiest million Sauer would ever earn.
Sauer went back through the security check point at the main entrance, where he opened his attaché case for the guard. He got into his car and drove off.
Gogol waited anxiously. The snow, fine-grained and wind-driven, was accumulating quickly, and soon it could shut down Dulles Airport. He watched two cleaning crews progress from office to office, dusting, vacuuming, and emptying trash. To the impatient Gogol they seemed to move like men underwater.
“Come come,” he said. “Hurry it up.” The snow seemed to be thicker than ever.
The largest quantities of trash came from the shredding machines. These were dumped into wheeled trash carts, along with all the other debris of the offices and laboratories. As the cleaning crews went from office to office, they pushed the rapidly filling trash carts ahead of them. The two crews were converging on the loading platforms at the rear of the buildings.
Eventually they worked their way to the railroad-model room, where the engineers waved them off. The two cleaning crews then went to the last room, where Cassandra was, and put on all the lights. They stopped for coffee.
Gogol groaned. If anything, it seemed to be snowing harder. He sighed impatiently.
It was after eleven before the cleaning people resumed their cleaning. They dusted the furniture and cleaned the glass partitions. Then they vacuumed the floors. And they emptied the wastebaskets and the shredding machines. Two of them picked up the trash barrel containing Cassandra and dumped it into the trash cart. Another crew dumped the contents of a shredding machine on top of that. The cleaning crews now had four trash carts filled, and they wheeled them out on the loading platform. They stood looking at the snow fall. Then they went back into the offices, leaving the trash carts on the loading platform, to clean the rest rooms.
The last job they did before they finished for the night was wheeling all the trash units to the huge metal trash bin. They pushed the units up a ramp and tipped them over to spill the contents into the large metal bin. Then they closed the metal flaps on the bin and wheeled the units back inside. Their work was done.
Gogol watched them through the binoculars as they went through the security check and out on the parking lot. They chatted briefly, turned away from the driving fine-grained snow, swept the snow off their windshields, and drove off. It was eleven forty-five.
Out on the highway Gogol could see the flashing yellow lights of a salt truck, sowing the main road. The snow was getting deeper by the minute.
Gogol waited for Sauer to return. He waited until twelve-fifteen. Sauer was ominously late. Gogol drove off, looking for a pay phone. He found one in a gas station and dialed Sauer’s phone. There was no answer. Gogol wondered if it were possible to go instantly mad from suspense and frustration. He drove back to the laboratories. Still no Sauer.
He waited until quarter to one. Then, in a rage, he drove off, through more than three inches of new snow, following the route back to Sauer’s apartment. There was not much time left; the airport would close down soon.
The interchange ramps of the highways were treacherous, and he skidded down them. When he got to Sauer’s apartment, he saw Sauer’s car still parked at the curb. He went to a pay phone and called. There was no answer. He drove back to Sauer’s apartment and sat looking up at the lighted windows. If Sauer wasn’t in there, where was he? And if he was in there, why didn’t he answer his phone?
Gogol studied the street—the parked cars and the doorways. This was the first time he had ever been confronted with this problem. The greatest coup of his career was stuffed into a trash bin waiting to be picked up and carried to Dulles Airport by an out-of-control addicted weakling who was—where?
Gogol pulled out the key to Sauer’s apartment and considered it. He could either go into Sauer’s apartment, find out what had happened to him, and try to push him into completing the job. Or he could himself return to the trash bin, retrieve the case, and carry it to the airport.
Confronting Sauer meant revealing himself. Sauer would see his face, be able to identify him. But retrieving the package from Coles’s trash bin meant exposing himself to a possible trap.
Gogol considered both alternatives for a few moments. Then he acted.
For the first time in his career Gogol departed from his ironclad plan
; for the first time he broke his rule of always concealing himself, always making others take the risk. He got out of the car and walked to Sauer’s door. He let himself in with the key and mounted the stairs to Sauer’s apartment.
He listened, then tapped on the door. He tapped again. Reluctantly, he pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open.
There was a lamp lying on its side on the floor, and beyond it lay Sauer. Scattered around him on the floor were his pills. Gogol stepped over to him and crouched. Sauer snored. The odor of alcohol was heavy. The man was drunk and high on pills both. He was going to be useless for hours. Gogol looked at Sauer indecisively.
The fine grains of snow tapped on a window: hurry hurry. He was running out of time. Gogol stood, hurried out of the apartment and into the street. He got into his car and drove back through the deepening snow toward Mobius Laboratories.
He was down to two options. He could either run the risk of walking into a trap by trying to recover the carton, or he could get on the Aeroflot flight to Russia empty-handed.
He knew he couldn’t go to Russia without the unit. He knew he couldn’t try to regroup, find another Sauer, and steal another unit. In a day or so the theft would be discovered and he wouldn’t get such a golden opportunity again, wouldn’t easily find another Sauer again. It was simply now or never.
For the first time Gogol was exposing himself to the danger of capture. This time there was no telephone to hide behind, no one to be blackmailed or bribed into doing the risky work. Gogol himself had to step forward and do the job. His mouth was dry and his hands shook. For the first time in his life he really knew how a relief pitcher felt with the bases loaded in the ninth and no one out. For the first time he was betting everything on one pitch. On one roll of the dice.
He drove back up on the service road behind the Mobius Laboratories. The tracks of the trash carts that led along the ramp to the trash bin were half filled in. The train-model crew was long gone. The security guards sat at the desk in the lobby reading and looking out at the falling snow. The grains tapping on the roof of his car were like the tickings of many clocks. It might already be too late.
He decided not to touch it. Too dangerous. If he were stopped, his career was over. He would spend years in an American prison. The committee would be overjoyed. Nothing—not even Cassandra—was worth that. He started his car and drove away.
Triple Trap Page 32