Murder in the CIA (29 page)

“That is correct.”

“But now I’m to understand that he’s the one who is identifying a security leak in Banana Quick.”

“Right,” said Breslin. “You know who we’re talking about, Collette.”

“Eric Edwards.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Collette said.

“Why?” Breslin asked. “Edwards has been a prime suspect from the beginning. That’s why you were …” He stopped. The rules were being broken. Take everything you could from the other side but offer nothing.

Collette was having trouble controlling her emotions. She didn’t want to mount an impassioned defense of Edwards because it would only trigger in Breslin the question of why she was doing it. She imposed calm on herself and asked Breslin, “How do you know what Barrie was carrying? Maybe it had nothing to do with Banana Quick … or Eric Edwards.”

Breslin ignored her and nodded at Hegedüs, who said regretfully, “I was wrong, Miss Cahill, about Dr. Tolker.”

“Wrong?”

“I was misled, perhaps deliberately by certain people within my professional ranks. Dr. Tolker has not been disloyal to you.”

“Just like that,” Cahill said.

Hegedüs shrugged. “It is not such a crime to be wrong, is it, not in America?”

Cahill sighed and sat back. “Collette,” Breslin said, “the
facts are written on the wall. Barrie was coming here to …”

She said, “Coming here to deliver a message that had been implanted in her mind by Jason Tolker.”

“That’s right,” said Breslin. “Tell her, Mr. Réti.”

Réti said, “I was to say something to her when she arrived that would cause her to remember the message.”

“Which was?” Collette asked.

“That this Eric Edwards in the British Virgin Islands has been selling information to the Soviets about Banana Quick.”

“How do we know that’s what she was carrying?”

“Tolker has been contacted,” Breslin said.

Cahill shook her head. “If Tolker can simply tell us what he knows about Eric Edwards, why did he bother sending Barrie with the information? Why didn’t he just go to someone at Langley with it?”

“Because …” Breslin paused, then continued. “We can discuss that later, Collette. For now, let’s stick to what Mr. Réti and Mr. Hegedüs can provide us.”

“Well?” Cahill said to the two Hungarians.

“Miss Cahill,” Réti said, “first of all, I did not know what Barrie was to tell me when I said to her the code words.”

“What were those words?” Cahill asked.

Réti looked to Breslin, who nodded his approval. “I was to say, ‘The climate has improved.’ ”

“The climate has improved,” Cahill repeated.

“Yes, exactly that.”

“And she was then to open up to you like a robot.”

“I do not know about that. I was simply following instructions.”

“Whose instructions?”

“Mr.…” Another look at Breslin.

“Stan Podgorsky,” Breslin said. “Stan’s been the contact for Barrie and Mr. Réti since the beginning.”

“Why wasn’t I told that?” Cahill asked.

“No need. Barrie’s courier duties had nothing to do with you.”

“I wonder about that.”

“Don’t bother. It’s the way it is. Accept it.”

“Árpád, who has caused you to change your opinion of Jason Tolker?”

“Friends.” He smiled. “Former friends. There are no longer friends for me in Hungary.”

“Collette, Mr. Réti has something else to share with us,” Breslin said.

Everyone waited. Finally, Réti said in a low, slow monotone, “Barrie was bringing me money, too.”

“Money?” Cahill said.

“Yes, to pay off one of our officials so that the earnings from my books could reach me here in Hungary.”

“This money was in her briefcase?”

“Yes.”

“Joe, Barrie received her briefcase from Tolker. Why would he …?”

“He didn’t,” Breslin said. “The money wasn’t from Mr. Réti’s fund in the States. It was Pickle Factory money.”

“Why?”

“It’s the way it was set up.”

“Set up … with Barrie?”

“Right.”

“But she had Réti’s own money, didn’t she? Why would she need CIA money?”

Breslin lowered his eyes, then raised them. “Later,” he said.

“No, not later,” Cahill said. “How about now?”

“Collette, I think you’re becoming emotionally bound up in this. That won’t help clarify anything.”

“I resent that, Joe,”

What she was really feeling was a sense of being a woman, and disliking herself for it. Breslin was right. He’d read her; she wasn’t taking in and evaluating what was being said at the table like a professional. She was bound up in protecting a man, Eric, a man with whom she’d slept and, incredibly, with whom she’d begun to fall in love. It hadn’t seemed incredible at the time, but it did now.

She took in everyone at the table and asked, “Is there anything else?”

Hegedüs forced a big smile, his hand still resting on his lover’s hand. He said, “Miss Cahill, I would like you to
know how much I appreciate … how much Magda and I appreciate everything you have done for us.”

“I didn’t do anything, Árpád, except listen to you.”

“No, you are wrong, Miss Cahill. By spending time with you, my decision to leave the oppression of the Soviets was made clear, and easier.” He stood and bowed. “I shall be forever grateful.”

Cahill found his demeanor to be offensive. “What about your family, Árpád, your beautiful daughter and bright young son? Your wife. What of her? Are you content to abandon them to the tenuous life you know they’ll lead in Russia?” He started to respond but she went on. “You told me you wanted more than anything else for your son to have the advantage of growing up in America. What was that, Árpád, all talk?” Her voice was now more strident, reflecting what she was feeling.

“Let’s drop it,” Breslin said with finality. Collette glared at him, then said to Réti, “What happens to you now, Mr. Réti? The money never reached you.”

Réti shrugged. “It is the same now as it was before. Perhaps …”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps you could be of help in this matter.”

“How?”

“We’re working on it, Mr. Réti,” Breslin said. To Cahill, “It’s one of the things I want to discuss with you when we leave here.”

“All right.” Collette stood and extended her hand to Magda Lukács. “Welcome, Miss Lukács, to freedom.” Hegedüs beamed and offered his hand to Cahill. She ignored it, said to Breslin, “I’m ready to leave.”

Breslin got up and surveyed the bottles on the table. “Souvenirs?” he asked, laughing.

“If you would not be offended I would …”

“Sure, Mr. Hegedüs, take it with you,” Breslin said. “Thank you for being here, all of you. Come on, Collette, you must be exhausted.”

“That, and more,” she said, opening the door and walking into the smoky barroom. The lady in red was standing at the door.

“
Jó éjszakát
,” Breslin said.

“
Jó éjszakát
,” she said, nodding at Cahill.

Collete said “Good night” in English, walked past her, and stood in the cool, refreshing air outside the club. Breslin came to her side. Without looking at him, she said, “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“I thought you were beat,” he said, taking her arm.

“I’m wide awake and I’m filled with questions that need answering. Are you up to that, Joe?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Somehow, she knew his best wouldn’t be enough, but she’d take what she could get.

They’d driven out of the city to the Római fürdö, the former Roman baths that now constituted one of Budapest’s two major camping sites. The sky had clouded over and was low. It picked up the general glow of the city’s lights and was racing over them, pink and yellow and gray, a fast-moving scrim cranked by an unseen force.

“You said you had questions,” Breslin said.

Cahill had opened her window and was looking out into the dark. She said into the night, “Just one, Joe.”

“Shoot.”

She turned and faced him. “Who killed Barrie Mayer?”

“I don’t know.”

“Know what I think, Joe?”

“No, what?”

“I think everybody’s lying.”

He laughed. “Who’s
everybody
?”

“
Everybody!
Let’s start with Réti.”

“Okay. Start with him. What’s he got to lie about?”

“Money, for one thing. I knew Barrie was supposed to pay off some government bigwig on Réti’s behalf, but I didn’t know until tonight that Barrie was actually carrying the money with her in the missing briefcase. Oh, that’s right, you said you’d discuss with me later why the Company used its money to buy off the official, instead of Barrie using what she’d already collected of Réti’s earnings. This is later, Joe. I’m ready.”

He scrutinized her from where he sat in the driver’s seat, ran his tongue over his lips, then pulled a pipe from his raincoat pocket and went through the ritual of lighting it. This was all too familiar to Cahill, using the pipe to buy thinking time, and tonight was especially irritating. Still, she didn’t interrupt, didn’t attempt to hasten the process. She waited patiently until the bowl glowed with fire and he’d had a chance to inhale. Then she said, “Réti’s money. Why the Company?”

“To make sure he knew who he owed,” Breslin answered.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why would he owe anyone? The money is his. His books earned it.”

“That’s what he said, but we educated him. He’s Hungarian. His big money is earned out of the country. Puts him in a tough position, doesn’t it? All we did was to set up a system to help him get his hands on some of it.”

“If he played the game with us.”

“Sure. He thought Barrie would take care of it as his agent.” Breslin smiled. “Of course, he didn’t know up front that she worked for us, and would do what we told her to do. We struck a nice deal. Réti cooperates with us, and we see that he gets enough money to live like a king here.”

“That is so … goddamned unfair. He earned that money.”

“I suppose it is unfair, unless you’re dealing with a Socialist writer and a capitalist agent. Come on, Collette, you know damn well that nothing’s fair in what we’re called upon to do.”

“ ‘Called upon to do.’ You make it sound so lofty.”

“Necessary. Maybe that’s more palatable to you.”

She drew a sustained, angry breath. “Let’s get to Hegedüs and Jason Tolker. Why do you buy Hegedüs’s change of mind about Tolker?”

“Why not buy it?”

“Why
not?
Joe, hasn’t it occurred to you that Árpád might have come over to feed us disinformation? What if Tolker has been cooperating with the other side? How convenient to have Hegedüs defect and get us to look the other way. No, I can’t buy it. When Hegedüs told me earlier that Tolker was not be to trusted, he meant it. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying now. He’s lying.”

“Prove it.”

“How do you prove anything in this stupid game?”

“Right, you don’t. You look at everything you’ve got—which sure as hell never amounts to much—and you feel what your gut is saying and listen to what your head says and you make your decisions. My decision? We’ve got ourselves a defector, a good one. Sure, we’d all prefer he’d stayed in place so he could keep feeding us from the inside, but it’s okay that he’s with us now. He’s loaded with insight into the Soviet and Hungarian psychological fraternity. You did a good job, Collette. You turned him nicely. He trusted you. Everybody’s pleased with the way you’ve handled him.”

“That’s terrific. Why don’t
you
trust me?”

“Huh?”

“Why can’t you put some stock in what my gut feels and my head says? He’s lying, Joe, maybe to protect his family back in the Soviet Union, maybe to play out his own brand of patriotism to his government. Don’t you question why the Soviets have let him off the hook? He was supposed to go back to Russia because they didn’t trust him. He doesn’t go, and he neatly defects. He’s lying. They’ve plopped him into the middle of us, and one of his jobs is to get Jason Tolker off the hook.”

“Pure speculation, Collette. Ammunition. Give me something tangible to back it up.”

She spread her hands. “I don’t have any, but I know I’m right.”

“What about Réti?” Breslin asked. “What’s he got to lie about?”

“I don’t know. But remember, he was in London when Barrie died.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning maybe he killed her because he knew her briefcase was loaded with cash.”

“His cash. Why kill her for it?” A long, slow drag on his pipe.

“Did he know how much she was bringing to him?”

“Not sure. Probably not.”

“Maybe Mr. Réti figured out that he was never going to get a square count from us. Maybe he figured out that he’d
only get a small piece of what she was carrying. Maybe he wanted to get his hands on the money while he was outside Hungary and stash it.”

“Interesting questions.”

“Yes, aren’t they?”

“What about Hubler back in Washington? Réti sure as hell didn’t kill him, Collette.”

“He could have arranged it if Hubler knew what had happened. The Soviets could have done it. Then again, maybe it was pure coincidence, nothing to do with Barrie.”

“Maybe. What other theories do you have?”

“Don’t dismiss what I’m saying, Joe. Don’t treat me like some schoolgirl who’s spewing out plots from bad TV shows she’s watched.”

“Hey, Collette, back off. I’m a white hat, remember? I’m a friend.”

She wanted to question what he’d said but didn’t. Instead, she asked if he had a cigarette.

“You don’t smoke.”

“I used to, back when I was a schoolgirl watching bad TV shows. Got any?”

“Yeah, in the glove compartment. Every once in a while I get the urge.”

She opened the compartment and reached inside, found a crumpled pack of Camels, and pulled one from the pack. Breslin lighted it for her. She coughed, exhaled the smoke, then took another drag, tossed the cigarette out the window, and said, “You think Eric Edwards is a double agent?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he killed Barrie?”

“Good chance that he did.”

“Why would he do that? He was in love with her.”

“To save his skin.”

“What do you mean?”

“Barrie knew he was a double agent.”