Masquerade (51 page)

She said, “Okay, I guess you've got us, Gordon. Very clever to have your people herd us to the garage.”

“Everyone's predictable under pressure.” His sense of triumph made his Rock-of-Gibraltar face seem more solid than ever. Certainty was a drug. “People try to escape a trap. The only way for you, once we shot out your tires, was the garage.”

“How'd you know we were at Jack O'Keefe's?” Asher was playing the act out.

“No games, Flores. Drop your guns and lie face down.”

Asher's voice whispered, “Door.”

“I said drop those guns! Janet, take—”

Asher kicked the garage door behind him. It slammed shut.
Gordon and the woman, Janet, tensed. Sarah made a move as if to drop her gun, then she pitched forward on her good shoulder and rolled right down the middle between Gordon and the woman.

Bullets ripped the ground after her, but none hit. They weren't making it easy to fake resistance. Then Sarah looked up into Gordon's granite face. His lips had stretched back across his teeth as if he were a wild animal in the midst of a good kill. His gun was aimed straight at her. Was his hate going to blind him to his goal of taking her in alive?

His gun swung away and aimed directly at Asher.

She fired.

Gordon's right side spurted blood. He spun back and fell.

Asher shot the woman. She arched up and then collapsed in a pool of crimson.

Behind them, the side door of the garage slammed open, but no one came in. The attackers were being cautious.

“We can't look as if we gave up,” Sarah whispered.

“Let's try for the cars,” Asher said softly. They ran to inspect the line of four. “The Peugeot has keys in the ignition.”

“How careless of Jack,” Sarah said. “A Gordon trap.”

“Let's be dumb.”

They jumped into the Peugeot. Asher started the engine. The garage door was closed, but the heavy sports car would have the power and weight to crash through and keep on going. Instantly attackers swarmed in through the open side door. Gordon was up, his face twisted in rage, holding his bloody side as he shouted orders.

Asher put the car in gear—and nothing happened! The Peugeot moved not an inch.

“Surprise,” Sarah said quietly.

Then there was no more time to talk.

They jumped out, guns raised, but it was like jumping into the center of a tornado. A dozen men and women converged, guns aimed directly at Sarah and Asher. They froze. She looked at him and tried to smile. He took her hand and squeezed it. She memorized his angular face, the black beard, the black curly
hair, the smoldering dark eyes that could be so tender. She touched his cheek. It was over.

Gordon barked an order, and the Languedoc people stripped away their guns.

“On the car. Lean and spread your legs.”

“Hughes Bremner's gone bad—” Asher began, his hands on top of the Peugeot's hood, his legs spread.

“I'm Sarah from the
Herald Tribune
story,” Sarah tried. She looked back as a tall woman patted her down. “Bremner's using you. He's out for himself—”

“I know all the tricks, so stow it.”

Gordon moved in front of Sarah, holding a hand over the wound on his right side. She looked into his narrow, enraged eyes and realized only Bremner's need for her was saving her life. Without Bremner, he would kill her instantly.

He said, “I have an offer to make.”

“Since when does Bremner negotiate with words?” Asher's voice was sarcastic.

Gordon ignored him. “I've been instructed to let Flores go free.”

“No! Not without Sarah!” Asher was furious.

Sarah said, “What's the condition?”

“You come with us voluntarily and cooperate fully.” His harsh, enraged face softened into the kind smile Sarah remembered from Santa Barbara and the early days at the Ranch. “It's really all been a mistake, dar . . . Sarah.” He stopped, and his smile became sad. “I wanted to call you darling, didn't I? But I know I'll have to earn that right again. It really is all a mistake on your part, Sarah. Come with us and we'll prove it to you.”

Asher was beside himself. “Don't do it, Sarah! We'll go in together. There's got to be somebody at the Languedoc who'll listen—”

Gordon nodded. Two men grabbed Asher, and in an instant a woman knocked him unconscious with a hard karate chop. The men dropped Asher unconscious at Sarah's feet. The woman pointed her pistol down at his temple.

Gordon told Sarah, “If you don't come willingly, she'll shoot him. It makes no difference to her, Sarah. Asher's turned, and she sees no reason to let him live.”

Sarah inhaled. “How do I know you won't kill him later?”

“We'll leave him here. You'll see he's alive. What more do you need?”

Outside the helicopter chopped to a landing near the garage. It was there to take her to Paris, where Dr. Levine would put her on LP48. She'd already taken the blocking antidote, but still she shuddered as she listened to the thundering chop of the blades. The garage walls seemed to vibrate with the noise. She thought of the tiny tracking device Dirk had surgically planted beneath her scalp, the fresh stitches hidden by her hair.

“I'll go with you, Gordon.”

She refused to go until she saw everyone else vacate the garage, leaving Asher alone. Then she went outdoors, the armed woman on one side, Gordon on the other. She watched them lock the garage to make sure Asher didn't escape right away. Two men loaded the body of the woman Asher had killed into a dark-windowed van and drove away.

That was it. Asher was alive. She boarded the helicopter.

In the garage, Asher Flores awoke to a throbbing headache. God. Lights streaked through his brain. He lay in a fetal position on the cold stone floor and tried to understand the chopping roar he heard.

A helicopter. It was taking off. Sarah was on it!

He noticed muffled sounds from somewhere in the back of the garage. He opened his eyes.

He heard the sound again. He rolled under the Peugeot and on under the next car until he could see the recesses of the dusky garage. There were two pairs of feet. Male. The feet moved toward him.

His smile was that of a fox. Two people left behind by Hughes Bremner and Gordon Taite, liars to the end. They would handle the final detail: Killing him.

Asher searched the shadows, spotted a workbench, and
crawled silently toward it. He picked up a heavy wrench and an axe.

The feet were closing in. He raised the axe, when suddenly the garage door burst open. Jack O'Keefe and four
compadres
rushed forward, weapons drawn. The explosion of their gunfire was atomic.

Then there was silence. Dust and the stench of gunfire filled the air. Asher walked over to Jack O'Keefe. He was staring down at two bullet-riddled corpses on the floor in front of him.

“Had to let that chopper get out of sight, Jack?”

O'Keefe nodded his silver head. “I was certain you could handle yourself until then.” He gave Asher a wicked grin. “Bremner trained you well, my boy.”

Jack O'Keefe turned and walked nimbly out through the side door, followed by his cavalcade of fellow spies. George was waiting for them in a light plane in a field on the other side of the forest. The plane would fly the group to Paris. To Sarah.

Chapter 59

Arlene Debo sat at Hughes Bremner's Languedoc desk, holding his private telephone to her ear. Her heavy cheeks trembled with outrage and worry as she reported to the President: “Yes, sir. The problem is the Carnivore claims the French Prime Minister's slated to be assassinated tomorrow, and our assets have confirmed the plan. The economy over here is deteriorating, and there's a group of knee-jerk reactionaries that believes the only way the country can be saved is to eliminate him.”

She listened, then: “The reports from our assets are very definite about the day. Tomorrow for sure. Fortunately, Hughes has worked fast. He offered the Carnivore a coming-in tonight, and the Carnivore's accepted. The show starts at eight o'clock. We can turn the Carnivore over to the French government as soon as we get him—”

Handing the assassin immediately to the French had been Bremner's idea, but Arlene Debo was presenting it as her own. Silently Bremner sneered at her vanity. And her blindness: The reports from assets were fake. The Carnivore would be dead before anyone could ask any questions about Bremner's story that Vincent Vauban was to be assassinated.

Arlene hung up. “The President doesn't like it, but it's a go. France gets the Carnivore.” She leaned back, crossed her arms over her ample chest, and mused, “When I think back to my predecessors, Bill Casey stands out. He was a hands-on DCI.
Legendary, really. None of his people could figure out how to bug the Soviet ambassador's private apartment, so Casey invited himself to dinner. He sat on the sofa, and when no one was looking he stuck an oversized ‘needle' into a cushion. Of course, it was a miniaturized, long-stemmed mike and transmitting device.” Debo chuckled at the former DCI's audacity.

Bremner chuckled right along with her. He said smoothly, “Yes, Bill Casey was one of the absolute best. But you're certainly in his league, Arlene, if not better.”

Arlene Debo's savvy gaze leveled on Hughes Bremner. Her voice was sharp: “The President wants the public to find no fault later with what we're doing about this matter, and I want to see for myself the Carnivore's immediately turned over to the French. Therefore I'll be accompanying you to the Carnivore's coming-in tonight. I'm sure that will cause you no problems, Hughes.”

6:01
P.M
.

“Of course the Carnivore's alive.” Hughes Bremner glanced at Walker as she lay strapped to the table in the Languedoc. He was pacing the room, full of nervous energy, as he coped with Arlene Debo's announcement that she'd be at his side during the coming-in.

The stark-white infirmary was devoid of color or compassion. With Sarah were Hughes Bremner and a seething, waxen-faced Allan Levine, who was preparing the intravenous drip for her arm. She thought of the antidote to the LP48 she'd taken and silently thanked Jack's friend Dirk for his thoroughness.

She tried again. “My uncle was the Carnivore.”

“Yes,” Bremner agreed impatiently.

“I saw him die.”

He dismissed her with a gesture. “If you saw someone die this morning, it wasn't the Carnivore. My people picked up a message from Liz this afternoon. She and the Carnivore are coming in at eight o'clock tonight, as scheduled.” He glared at
the doctor. “Aren't you ready to start yet, Allan? I got you the two hours you said you needed, and now you're fussing around and wasting them.”

“No one told me she was injured!” Levine snapped. “Trauma could cause problems. I'm trying to deal with that.”

“Dammit, stop making excuses. Get on with it!”

“What's going to happen in two hours?” Sarah demanded.

Bremner moved to the foot of the bed. “You have no need to know that, and remember our bargain. Your cooperation in exchange for Asher's life. We've done what we agreed. You're an honorable woman. I know I can trust you to keep your word, too.”

She didn't for a second trust Bremner to keep his word, but if Bremner was going to be stopped, she had no choice but to cooperate.

In his Languedoc office, Hughes Bremner finished instructing the agents who would accompany him to the coming-in. He watched them file out. They were his people, loyal and eager. They'd do exactly what he ordered.

Two doors down the hall, Arlene Debo was occupied with individual briefings from Mustang agents assigned to other tasks throughout Europe. Bremner had arranged their arrival earlier.

Now he sat back in his chair, his high-boned face immobile as he considered the curve Arlene had thrown him. Damn her and her ambitions! She wanted to leave a mark as big as Wild Bill Donovan's. He closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against them, willing his fatigue to vanish. With his usual self-discipline he concentrated on the problem of Arlene. He turned it over in his mind.

Suddenly a rare smile creased his severe, patrician features. Of course. He should have seen it before: The bitch had actually done him a favor. She—Arlene Debo—the powerful Director of Central Intelligence—was the best cover he could ask for himself, for Sterling-O'Keefe, and ultimately for G
RANDEUR
.

She'd be an unimpeachable eyewitness.

No one would question her personal report that “Liz Sansborough,” the Carnivore's “girl friend,” had gone mad and shot the Carnivore, and that he, Bremner, had been forced to eliminate her before she murdered anyone else.

Yes. If the Carnivore came in exactly, precisely, as planned . . . if Arlene were convinced of the legitimacy of the Carnivore's death . . . then there'd be no investigation.

Tomorrow G
RANDEUR
would proceed unimpeded.

And whatever mark DCI Arlene Debo left on history would be microscopic compared to the mark Hughes Bremner was about to make.

Dr. Allan Levine was an arrogant man, and he enjoyed it. After all, intellect was what separated the elite from the stupid, owners from employees, mankind from monkeys. He was unusually gifted, with an I.Q. near 200 and a photographic memory. As he stood over Sarah Walker, he relished the fear in her too-lovely face. The dark mole above the right corner of her lip was darker, even more beguiling, against the sudden paleness of her skin.

“You enjoyed drugging me last night, didn't you?” he said icily. “I wonder how you're going to enjoy what happens next.”

She refused to give him the satisfaction of a response. All she had to do was stay alive long enough for Asher, Jack O'Keefe, and his colleagues to track her to the coming-in.

The doctor brought an intravenous needle to a vein on her wrist. He jabbed it in, far more roughly than necessary, and he watched her face for a reaction.