Masquerade (20 page)

“He's a real sweetheart, the Carnivore. No wonder his name stuck.” She continued reading aloud:

“In 1981 he bombed the offices of Radio Free Europe in Munich, seriously injuring four persons.

“During the late 1980s he is believed to have taken refuge in East Berlin. He is considered responsible for the 1983 bombing of a French cultural center in West Berlin in which one person was killed. According to Stasi reports, the East German government and the Stasi protected the Carnivore as if he were an official visitor.”

Flores whistled. “Jesus-God. The Carnivore was living in East Berlin in the '80s, and the East Germans knew it?”

“According to this, he was there until the Wall fell. The report says, ‘He pursued his affairs from East Berlin with no interference, lived in a Yemeni diplomat's flat, and used a chauffeur hired by the Syrians. His presence seems to have been known only to four top East German officials.' ”

Asher ruminated. “Yeah. Obviously he's very valuable. So not only did the Stasi let him stay, they coddled him. Which made it even more difficult for us to find him, much less take or eliminate him. What I'm wondering now is why he went there in the first place, and then why he left?”

“And where did he go afterward?”

“Good question. Read on.”

She did.

“Perhaps most noteworthy about his
modus operandi
is that he has been credited many times with nearly simultaneous kills in different parts of the globe. This has tended to create fear among more primitive nations
that he has supernatural powers. It is believed, however, such closely spaced executions are probably the work of a highly trained, loyal staff.”

Flores snorted. “Yeah, real fun trying to catch a shadow when he's in two different hemispheres at the same time.”

“You think he's trained other assassins to help him?”

“Could be. He's getting older. Although I think if it were me, I'd give up the reputation for wizardry and stick to solo hits. In his business, decisions are based on security first, money second. Once someone knows more than your code name, you're vulnerable.”

“Maybe no one else does know. Maybe he really is in two different hemispheres at the same time, just like I'm here and in Paris at the same time.”

“Yeah, right. Very funny.”

She allowed herself a smile. She resumed reading:

“Three years ago the Carnivore met CIA operative Elizabeth Sansborough while she was on assignment in Lisbon. She crossed over, and he apparently ceased his assassinations. What is not known is whether their relationship caused the assassinations to stop. It also could be due to injury or to his reluctance or inability to work in the political upheaval that has followed the end of the cold war. It's also possible he died.”

She sighed, disgusted. “God, I'm getting tired of hearing I'm his girl friend.”

“Well, at least you maybe got him to quit murdering people. Must give you a warm, cuddly sense of accomplishment.”

She looked balefully at Flores. “You can be a real pain in the butt, Flores, you know that?”

He waggled his bushy black eyebrows at her. “Anything more in there?”

“ ‘A full list follows of his believed kills. Confirmations are being sought.'” She read the list. They discussed some of the wet jobs, and at last she closed the file.

During the next two hours, Liz dozed on the floor. Flores spotted three more cars driven by Ranch personnel. But as with Gordon, they apparently hadn't identified the pickup and thanks to the sunglasses, Stetson, and Flores's thickened features, they didn't recognize him. Which would have been reassuring to Flores, if his gut didn't tell him there was going to be one hell of a lot more trouble ahead.

It was twilight, and bright stars were blinking on in the charcoal sky. Liz asked, “Think it's safe for me to come up on the seat?”

“Yeah. Can you move?”

“I'd like to know that myself.” She ached everywhere. She pulled herself up and stretched. Gratefully she massaged her legs and then her arms. She'd been thinking about the Carnivore as she dozed. She told Flores what she'd decided. “He's psychotic or amoral. A sociopath. In a symbolic sense, a flesh eater, just as his name implies. Why would someone like me have gone over to the butcher, much less fallen in love with him? There must be some basis for Langley to believe I did. It's in my dossier, and in his. But I don't want to believe it.”

“It has to be in both, if they're trying to fool someone.”

“But who are they trying to fool? Me? It reminds me of a poker saying I heard at the Ranch: If you look around the table and can't figure out who the pigeon is, it's you.”

Behind them the sun set in vibrant reds and purples. Ahead, the sky had darkened into a starry indigo canopy. As they topped a ridge, the great metropolis of Denver spread out below. Looking down from I-70, the mountain city was a vast ocean of twinkling lights. It was a glorious sight, but they were tired and worried, and the visual pleasure of it registered only briefly.

In downtown Denver, Asher Flores pulled off the interstate at a drug-and-fuck motel between the stockyards and the coliseum. Gordon Taite was less likely to find them where rooms rented
by the hour, and the man behind the counter asked no questions and looked no one in the eyes.

In this shabby area the streets were marked by flashing neon, eager prostitutes, and wailing cowboy music. The stench of animals, sweat, and thwarted ambition hung heavy in the humid night. It was just another August night, and metropolitan Denver sweltered in the success it had created.

Asher paid for the room with cash, and they carried in the gym bag, day pack, and thick dossier folder. There was no air conditioner. Liz opened the windows and went into the bathroom to shower, cut her hair, and dye it.

Asher drove away to buy takeout at a Chinese place they'd spotted near the interstate exit. Within a block he saw a phone booth. He stopped, pulled change from his pocket, and dialed. In a moment Langley was on the line. The operator reported Hughes Bremner had returned from Paris. It was after midnight in Washington, but Bremner had left instructions for Asher to be patched through to his home.

Asher heard the phone ring once more.

Bremner picked it up instantly. “Where are you, Asher? I've been worried.” The older man's voice was warm, concerned, reassuring.

Asher began to talk.

Chapter 22

Asher told Hughes Bremner, “I think you've got a major problem, chief. Gordon Taite.”

“Ah, I was afraid of something like that.” In the distance the CIA division chief sighed heavily. “When I got in tonight, Ernie Pinkerton phoned. He said Gordon had transferred you to Spitsbergen. I tried to reach you at the Ranch, but they said you'd disappeared. Tell me what's happened, Asher.”

“Taite's gone off the deep end over Liz Sansborough. I don't know how she fits into the Carnivore's coming-in—”

“You've heard about that?”

“Sure.” Asher's reputation for doing his homework was earned. “I tapped into the CM-5 and found she'd crossed over to him three years ago. Can you explain how in hell she can be in France and at the Ranch at the same time?”

“I can explain it, but I won't. It's need-to-know.”

“Maybe I should be need-to-know, Chief. She won't be worth a plugged nickel if Taite turns her into a zombie.”

“She needs medication.”

“Yeah, well, she says she won't take it anymore.”

“If you're telling me this, can I assume she's with you?”

Some deep instinct told Asher to lie. But his boss had always been straight with him. This recent punishment—banishing him to the godforsaken Ranch—was unavoidable, and both had known it wasn't forever.

“Yeah, she's with me.”

“Bring her in, Asher. She's critical to national security.”

“National security” was one of those catchphrases that came cheap. Richard Nixon had used it to try to cover Watergate. Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and former DCI Bill Casey used it for Irangate. Back in the days when Company murders were legal, it covered them like a shroud. In 1992 the Pentagon art museum even tried to use it to hide the fact some hit-and-run tagger had felt-tipped a mustache onto the dignified oil painting of Air Force Chief of Staff Tony McPeak.

The problem was, “national security” also had legitimate, vital uses. You should be suspicious when someone threw it at you, Asher had long ago decided, but you should also show respect. So he said, “A crazy woman's critical to national security? Kind of hard to believe.”

“Have you fallen for her?” Bremner's cool reserve never cracked, but Asher heard worry behind it.

“Not yet. Think it's a good idea?”

“Knock it off, Asher. Obviously you doubt the woman's deranged. Believe me, she is. She'll act perfectly normal, and then she'll lose control and leave reality. If you don't bring her back you'll find out the hard way. We need her. Our medication will help her. Look, if she were sane, she'd go along with us. Because she's insane, we have to help her to help us.”

As always Bremner was persuasive. Yet in his mind's eye, Asher saw Liz Sansborough's outraged struggle against the doctor's needle. Her determination as she escaped the Ranch infirmary. Her animal fear when the helicopters closed in. Her intelligent study of the dossiers. Her probing questions.

If she were insane, wouldn't so many emotional extremes have caused her to “leave reality,” as Bremner had put it? “I'll think about it, Chief,” Asher said. “But if I bring her in, it's to you. Not to Gordon Taite.”

“Of course.” Bremner was understanding. “It needs to be soon. Tomorrow at the latest. Call me. I'll meet you.”

As they said good-bye, Hughes Bremner complimented Asher on his years with Langley, his contribution, his reliability, his fairness, his resourcefulness. He also promised to fix the Spitsbergen matter and give Asher a field assignment he'd like.

“Just get her to me, Asher.”

Asher had never heard his reserved boss so effusive.

He drove two more blocks to the Chinese place, got food, and returned to the motel. Sansborough had showered and now wore a T-shirt and a towel around her waist. Her hair was short, straight, and black. He speculated about her, unsure what to do. He believed she was as sane as he was, probably a hell of a lot more than Gordon Taite. And he believed Bremner needed her.

“I hate it.” She grimaced at herself in the dusty mirror that hung across from the two twin beds. She put on sunglasses, pulled her wet, short hair back behind her ears, and snapped on big shamrock-green plastic earrings. “I found them in the drawer. What do you think?”

She looked like a dimestore beauty—a girl from the wrong side of the tracks trying to look classy.

He chuckled. “You need three-inch fingernails, orange lipstick, and purple Naugahyde hot pants.”

“I'm a success then.”

“No one will recognize you. That's what we wanted.”

She had a thin body anyway, but her despair made her look like a waif, all elbows, knees, and skinny ankles. Her neck had stretched long and flimsy. With her rounded shoulders, her beautiful breasts had disappeared flat against her rib cage. Her fingers were bony. Actors knew the effect emotion played on the body. Asher, who was proud of his ability to create characters in the field, was witnessing a fine example of this.

He told her what he saw. “The imagination is one of an agent's most vital tools. Actors know it. Ever see Paul Newman play the hobo in
Hemingway's Adventures of the Artist as a Young Man
? Newman was so believable no one recognized him, even though he was a huge box-office star.”

She smiled a little. “It's an accident. I didn't learn it at the Ranch.”

“They should put it in the curriculum.” He smiled back.

They ate spring rolls, hot-and-sour soup, and a double order of beef in oyster sauce. There was no Chinese beer, just Coors. But then, they were in the empire of Adolph Coors. She drank
two bottles; he drank three. It was okay beer if the weather was hot and you had nothing else.

“The real problem with losing your memory,” she said at last, “is when you're rebuilding it you're never sure what's true enough to add and change.”

She had nothing to sleep in, so she went to bed in her T-shirt and underpants. She slid her Beretta under her pillow.

From his gym bag Asher took out his Gunsite Service Pistol. It was a .45 that had begun life as a Springfield Armory 1911A1, all steel and forged to military specifications. Then Gunsite had altered it into a combat service pistol with a big sight, a short and dry trigger, a dehorned rear smooth against hands and clothing, and a bobbed hammer. Asher particularly liked the smaller grip. It felt natural in his small hands. He balanced the gun a moment, his friend, then slid it under his pillow.

“Got any ideas about tomorrow?” Her voice was normal again.

He liked that she bounced back quickly. She'd learn, or she'd get out, or she'd die.

“Depends on what our goal is.” He turned his back, flipped off the light, and stripped to his shorts. He crawled into bed.

She said, “Can we go around Gordon? Get help from Langley?”

“It's a possibility.”

“Where would we go?”

“My boss's name is Hughes Bremner. He's chief of Mustang. We'd go to him.” She didn't realize it, Asher thought, but she was considering just what Bremner wanted. It'd save them all a lot of trouble. Still, there was a part of him that wanted to keep her and the Carnivore to himself.

The most beautiful woman. The most feared assassin.

She said from the distant bed, “I remember the name.
Hughes Bremner
. Gordon said he was watching my progress. That he took a special interest in me. Bremner's important. Gordon faxed him reports all the time about how my training was going.”