Masquerade (14 page)

After that was a terse sentence: “The Carnivore accepts U.S. offer.” A series of dates followed. The most recent was today's. Sansborough was acting as go-between in Paris, delivering the Carnivore's “proof” of sincerity on those dates.

Which meant Liz Sansborough couldn't be here at the Ranch, too. Or could she?

The Ranch infirmary smelled of chemicals and antiseptic. It was in a long Quonset hut behind personnel and had a six-bed ward, a private room, an examination room, and a lab.

Asher sat politely but impatiently in the tiny waiting room. When the doctor from last night, Allan Levine, came in from the back somewhere, Asher asked to see Liz Sansborough.

“I'm afraid not. She's unconscious. We're going to keep her that way a while.”

“Why?”

In his mid-fifties, Dr. Levine had a long, bony face, a concave chest, and a gruff manner. He stopped writing on his clipboard long enough to wave one of his little hands irritably at Asher.

“Young man, I'm the doctor. I'll say when she can have visitors.”

“I have to ask her something. It'll take only a minute. It's important.”

“Her health is far more important.” Dr. Levine turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“Nice talking to you,” Asher grumbled at the white-coated back as it disappeared down the corridor.

If she was that bad off, Asher decided, she must be in the private room. He checked the hall, listened at the door, and opened it.

Gordon Taite was sitting at the window, writing in a notebook. He scowled. “What in hell—”

“Good,” Asher improvised. “I've been looking for you. What's all this about Liz Sansborough?”

“What are you talking about?” The scowl deepened.

“I've been told she's asking for me. Where is she?”

Gordon Taite blinked. “That's ridiculous. She doesn't even know you. What're you trying to do—jump her in bed? Get the hell out of here, Flores!”

Asher smiled. It had been worth the try. At least he now
knew she was in the ward. It was the only place left. He decided to try being straight with Taite:

“Look, old buddy. What's really going on with Sansborough? She doesn't look like any nutbar to me. She seemed to be doing real well in training. I've just been reading her file, and—”

Gordon Taite stood up. He strode across the room. Unconsciously Asher backed up. Taite was pissed. He was actually very menacing when he was a hair out of control.

“She's on a top-secret, need-to-know operation. Got that? It's none of your damn business. Now get out of my face before I report you to Langley!” Taite breathed heavily. He'd really worked himself up.

“Guess that's good enough for me.”

Asher retreated to personnel. He sat again at his desk. At noon, when everyone left, he phoned Hughes Bremner at Langley. But Bremner wasn't there. He was in Paris on something need-to-know and wasn't expected back until much later. Hell.

Asher scratched his grade-six beard, which was growing in as black as the black curly hair on his head. Bremner was in Paris, and according to Sansborough's Langley file, Paris was also where the messages came in from the Carnivore. In fact, one was coming in today. It didn't take an Einstein to figure Bremner had probably gone to Paris to see some doll who was calling herself Liz Sansborough and to pick up the Carnivore's newest tidbit.

While he ate lunch in the cafeteria, Asher put on his earphones and listened to the Dodgers. They were losing to Houston, three-to-one. He ate two tuna-fish sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, a kiwi, and drank two iced teas with lime. When he finished, the Dodgers were still losing, three-to-one. It was the bottom of the eighth. He decided to see how the game turned out. He polished off three brownies. The Dodgers lost, four-to-one.

What a shitty day.

He headed for the infirmary. Maybe this time he'd get in to see Sansborough. But as he was rounding the flag circle, Gordon
Taite was leaving administration, sporting a huge Cheshire-cat grin.

“Flores, I've got something for you. It just arrived.”

Taite handed him a sheet of paper. It was faxed orders from Langley telling Asher to report immediately to Spitsbergen, an island in the Arctic Ocean so far north it was even north of Norway. Its greatest claim to espionage fame was its boredom, flash-in-the-pan summers, and freezing, suicidal winters. It was Langley's ultimate version of the Gulag.

“Your new assignment.
Bon voyage
, Flores.” Gordon Taite had used his one notch of superiority to pull a fast one. He crossed his arms. His Cheshire-cat grin was really disgusting.

“Thanks, Gordon. May I kiss you?”

Back in personnel again, Asher convinced Langley's CM-5 to show him the Carnivore's file. He read it rapidly. Nothing much of interest, just the standard speculation about the Carnivore's mysterious identity and the wet jobs he was suspected of doing.

One interesting note: The Carnivore apparently had done no contract work in the last three years. Three years ago was supposedly when Sansborough moved in with him. That was too much of a coincidence. There had to be a connection.

As Asher printed out the Carnivore's file, he watched the door. Gordon Taite could show up at any moment with the marines, toss him into a truck, and order him shipped the hell out of here. Speed was of the essence. So, as the computer printed out the stuff on Sansborough, he told it also to print the files of any of the people named in Sansborough's file who appeared in the Langley supercomputer as well.

The personnel staff looked at the printer, then they looked at Asher. They looked back at the printer. Asher couldn't tell whether they were impressed or worried.

“A little assignment Langley shot me,” he explained.

They smiled. Since they returned to work as usual, he decided word he was on Langley's shit list must not have reached them yet. As the printer hummed away, he contemplated the “top-secret,
need-to-know operation” for which Langley wanted Liz Sansborough. Obviously some woman in Paris who claimed to be Sansborough was already involved with bringing in the Carnivore. But what did the one in Paris have to do with the one here?

It seemed to Asher the Sansborough in Paris must have the Carnivore's confidence, since she was his chosen go-between. The Carnivore must believe she was real. And Langley must believe it, or else it wouldn't be in her file.

But what if the woman here in Colorado was the actual Sansborough? Did that mean the Parisienne had been posing as her for the last three years, while she was unstable? He supposed it was possible. Yet Sansborough's file definitely said she had fallen in love with the Carnivore and crossed over to him three years ago. The Carnivore ought to know his own lover. Unless it hadn't been the real Liz Sansborough in the first place.

Asher shook his head. The puzzle pieced together wrong because there were too many pieces. Too many Liz Sansboroughs.

When printing finished, Asher tore off the tractor margins, stapled each file together, and tucked them into a folder.

What stuck in his mind was bugger-head Taite. Where Gordon Taite went, good seldom followed. Was it possible Taite was screwing up Langley's plan for Liz Sansborough? If so, and Asher could document it, Asher would be off the hook for Spitsbergen. And he might get a shot at bringing in the Carnivore himself. Now
that
was a challenge for a field operator.

Chapter 16

That morning in Arlington, Virginia, Lucas Maynard was sweating like a glass of iced Jack Daniel's. He told himself it wasn't the terror. It was the shock and his damned diabetes.

But it was the terror.

He was in Leslee's kitchen. He'd just poured himself a cup of black coffee, sat at the table, and opened the
Washington Post
. Instantly his chest had contracted and the sweating had begun. There on the front page, above the fold, was a recent head-and-shoulders photo of Undersecretary of State Clarence Edward and the headline in huge block letters:

TOP GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL
MUGGED AND KILLED

The night before, Maynard had tried for hours to reach Clare at his Georgetown home. Now he knew why he'd gotten only the answering machine. His stomach knotted. With Clare Edward had died his and Leslee's best chance to get out clean.

He wiped his face with a dish towel and read the story. According to the newspaper, there'd been no bystanders, but a few drive-by witnesses claimed to have seen a blond young man on Rollerblades knock down a well-dressed older gentleman as he headed up the sidewalk toward Clare Edward's address. The police said the murderer had stripped off the undersecretary's valuables and knifed him to death.

The story continued on page two, where a photo of the crime scene showed the undersecretary's splayed corpse.

Where was his fancy briefcase?

Fresh sweat covered Maynard. Surely Clare would have left the manilla envelope with the numbered accounts locked in his safe at State. He wouldn't have carried home such hot evidence in a simple briefcase with no precautions.

Or would he have worried someone in the office would see the list and cut himself in? That would've been like Clare. So would the cockiness that got the better of him sometimes. Just enough cockiness and lack of sense to bring the list home in his briefcase. If Clare had any real sense, he'd have given up thinking every pretty woman at State was his own personal toy.

For a moment Maynard was hopeful: Maybe one of the women's boyfriends had killed him. That would be poetic justice, and it would mean Hughes Bremner wasn't behind the undersecretary's death.

But Maynard knew better. Hughes Bremner had ordered the undersecretary killed. Bremner had the manilla envelope that contained the Sterling-O'Keefe paper trail. And Bremner would get Maynard next if he didn't move fast. Very fast.

In the bedroom Leslee was still asleep. Maynard looked down at her pale, tousled hair and heart-shaped face. It wasn't only his life, it was hers, too.

She'd arrived home from the newspaper at one o'clock in the morning, blue circles under her eyes, exhausted. But she'd finished her big investigative piece. Now she was taking the day off and would sleep late into the morning.

And she should wake up alone. As long as he was here, her life was in danger, too.

He studied her sweet face, and his love made a spot at the back of his throat ache. He'd found her after all the lonely years; he couldn't lose her now.

It was time to run. Forget exposing Sterling-O'Keefe and M
ASQUERADE
. Forget immunity. Cut and run. Fast.

Since Leslee was planning to take the day off to catch up on groceries, laundry, lunch with a friend, the day-to-day details she ignored when wrapping up a big story, Maynard had told her he was taking comp time, too, to catch up on her, and that's why he was staying over. She hadn't believed him, but he knew she'd wait until he told her . . . or her impatience grew too great.

While Leslee slept on, Maynard made four trips to a phone booth to call “friends” in Liechtenstein to make arrangements for a safe, secret exit from Washington early the next morning. At least his security precautions had paid off. Her neighborhood was clean. Which meant they were both relatively safe for the moment.

Without the IOUs he'd collected over the last forty years, he couldn't have pulled it off. For the rest he'd paid big money. The results were official courier status for him and Leslee on Swissair. They'd fly into Zurich, which had the nearest airport to Liechtenstein, and drive into the tiny, mountainous principality above the Rhine River. This would be a simple matter, since there were no border-crossing formalities between Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

That evening he and Leslee ate dinner, talked, and made love in her bed. Briefly, the pleasure of it seemed to wipe away his dread. Except that he had to tell her what was going on, explain the plans he had made, and he was running out of time.

Her small, compact body was soft and flushed from sex, pliable as a kitten in his arms. The dim bedside lamp sent long shadows across her air-conditioned bedroom. The room was like her—small, well-furnished, intelligent, terribly alluring.

“Do you like Europe, Leslee?”

“Love it. Why, honey?”

“Would you like to fly over tomorrow morning?”

Her little hand uncurled on his naked chest. Her fingers were tiny, like a child's, but her mind was completely adult. Maynard had always found the contrast exhilarating. But now it unnerved him as she looked into his eyes.

“What's wrong, Lucas?”

“I hope you'll say yes.” He squeezed her to him. “I need to leave the United States, and I'd like you to go with me. I'm getting out of the business. I'm past due, I guess. Anyway, I made all the arrangements today. I've got some money saved up in Liechtenstein, enough to take care of us. We'd be comfortable.”

She was silent. “There are only two things for sale in Liechtenstein—scenery and secrecy. Do you have so much money that you had to set up one of their shell corporations with bank accounts managed by a local attorney who's really a front man?”