The Gemini Contenders (43 page)

“Maybe,” said Fontine casually. “It’s not important.”

“By which you mean it is.” The Italian smiled his thin, bloodless smile. “Dakakos is in Italy, you know.”

Fontine concealed his surprise. “Is he really?”

“So you
do
have business with him. Is there anything else?”

“No.”

The banker rose and walked rapidly into the crowds of the Via Veneto.

Andrew remained at the table. So Dakakos was in Italy. Andrew wondered where they would meet. He wanted that meeting very much; almost as much as he wanted to find the vault from Salonika.

He wanted to kill Theodore Annaxas Dakakos. The man who had destroyed Eye Corps did not deserve to live.

Andrew got up from the table. He could feel the bulge of papers in his jacket pocket. His father’s recollections of half a century ago.

Adrian shifted the soft leather suitcase into his left hand and fell behind the surge of passengers in the wide corridor of London’s Heathrow Airport. He did not wish to be
among the first in the passport line. He wanted to be in the middle group, even the last section; he would have more time to look around, be less conspicuous doing so. He wondered who among the scores of people in the terminal had him in their sights.

Colonel Tarkington was no fool; he’d know within minutes of the application that one Adrian Fontine was at the emigration offices in Rockefeller Center waiting for the issuance of a substitute passport. It was entirely possible that an IG agent had picked him up before he’d left the building. If no one had, he knew it was only a question of time. And because of that certainty, Adrian had flown to London, not Rome.

Tomorrow he would begin the chase, an amateur against professionals. His first step was to disappear, but he wasn’t sure how. On the one hand it seemed simple: a single human being among millions; how difficult could it be? Then came second thoughts: one had to travel across national borders—that meant clearly one had to have identification; one had to sleep and eat—that meant shelter and purchases, places that could be watched, alerted.

It wasn’t simple at all; not if the single human being in question had no experience. He had no contacts in the underworld; he wouldn’t know how to behave if he met them. He doubted that he could approach someone and say the words
“I’ll pay for a false passport,”
 … or
“Get me to Italy illegally,”
 … or even
“I won’t tell you my name but I’ll give money for certain services.”
Such boldness belonged in fiction. Normal men and women did not do such things; their awkwardness would be laughed at. But professionals—the sort he was up against—were not normal. They did such things quite easily.

He saw the passport lines. There were six in all; he chose the longest. Yet as he walked over to it, he realized that the decision was amateurish. True, he had more time to look around, but conversely, so did others.

“Occupation, sir?” asked the immigration officer.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Here on business?”

“In a manner of speaking. Also pleasure.”

“Anticipated length of stay?”

“I’m not sure. No more than a week.”

“Do you have hotel accommodations?”

“I didn’t make reservations. Probably the Savoy.”

The official glanced up; it was difficult to tell whether he was impressed or whether he resented Adrian’s tone. Or whether the name Fontine, A. was on a concealed list somewhere in the drawer of his lectern, and he wanted to look at the face.

Regardless, he smiled mechanically, stamped the pages of the newly issued passport, and handed it to Adrian. “Have a pleasant stay in Great Britain, Mr. Fontine.”

“Thank you.”

The Savoy found him a room above the court, offering to switch him to a suite on the Thames side as soon as one became available. He accepted the offer, saying he expected to remain in England for the better part of the month. He would be traveling around—away from London for much of the time—but would like a suite available during the period of his stay.

What astonished him was the ease with which he lied. It all flowed casually, with a certain businesslike assurance. It wasn’t an important maneuver, but the fact that he was able to do it so well gave him a sense of confidence. He had seized an advantage when it was presented; that was the important thing. He had spotted an opportunity and acted on it.

He sat on the bed, airline schedules scattered over the spread. He found what he wanted. An SAS flight from Paris to Stockholm at 10:30
A.M
. And an Air Afrique from Paris to Rome. Time: 10:15
A.M
. The SAS left from the de Gaulle field, the Air Afrique from Orly.

Fifteen minutes between flights, departure before arrival, from adjacent airfields. He wondered—almost academically now—if he was capable of conceiving a deception, organizing the facts and executing the manipulation from beginning to end.

Odd things would have to be considered. Items that were part of the … “dressing,” that was the word. Part of the ruse that would draw the proper attention in a crowded, bustling airport. He picked up a Savoy note pad and wrote:

The last item—the beard—caused him to smile uncomfortably, embarrassed at his own imagination. Was he crazy? Who did he think he was? What did he think he was doing? He moved the pencil instinctively to the left of the line, prepared to cross it out. Then he stopped. He wasn’t crazy. It was part of the boldness he had to absorb, the unnatural with which he had to be comfortable. He took the pencil away and without thinking wrote the name: “Andrew.”

Where was he now? Had his brother reached Italy? Had he traveled halfway around the world without being found? Would he be waiting for him at Campo di Fiori?

And if he
was
waiting, what would they say to each other? He hadn’t thought about that; he hadn’t wanted to think about it. Like a difficult summation in front of a hostile jury, he could not rehearse the words. He could only marshal the facts in his head and trust his thought processes when the moment came. But what did one say to a twin who was the killer of Eye Corps? What was there
to
say?

 … 
Bear in mind, the contents of that vault are as staggering to the civilized world as anything in history
.…

His brother had to be stopped. It was as simple as that.

He looked at his watch. It was one in the morning. He was thankful that he had gotten little sleep during the past several days. It would make sleeping possible now. He had to rest; he had a great deal to do tomorrow. Paris.

He walked up to the desk clerk in the Hôtel Pont Royale and handed him the room key. He hadn’t been to the Louvre in five years; it would be a cultural sin to avoid it since it was so close by. The clerk agreed politely, but Adrian saw the shaded curiosity in the man’s eyes. It was further confirmation of what Adrian suspected: he was being followed; questions were being asked.

He walked into the bright sunlight on the rue de Bac. He nodded, smiling, at the doorman and shook his head in response to the offer of a taxi.

“I’m going to the Louvre. I’ll walk, thanks.”

At the curb he lit a cigarette, turning slightly as if to
avoid a breeze, and let his eyes wander over to the large windows of the hotel. Inside, through the glass, obscured by the sun’s reflection, he could see the clerk talking to a man in a light-brown topcoat. Adrian was not certain, but he was fairly sure he had seen that gabardine coat at the airport two hours ago.

He started east down the rue de Bac, toward the Seine and the Pont Royale bridge.

The Louvre was crowded. Tourists mingled with bus-loads of students. Adrian climbed the steps past Winged Victory and continued up the staircase to the right, to the second landing, and into the hall of nineteenth-century masters. He fell in with a group of German tourists.

The Germans moved in unison down to the next painting, a Delacroix. Adrian was now in the center of the group. Keeping his head below the level of the tallest German, he turned and looked between the sagging bodies, beyond the impassive faces. He saw what he was both afraid and wanted to see.

The light-brown topcoat.

The man was fifty feet away, pretending to read from a museum pamphlet, relating it to an Ingres in front of him. But he was neither reading nor relating; his eyes kept straying up from the paper to the crowd of Germans.

The group turned the corner into the intersecting corridor. Adrian was against the wall. He parted the bodies in front of him, excusing himself, until he was past the guide and free of the group. He walked swiftly down the right side of the enormous hall and turned left into a dimly lit room. Tiny spotlights shone down from the dark ceiling on a dozen marble statues.

It suddenly occurred to him that if the man in the light-brown gabardine topcoat came into that room, there was no way out.

On the other hand, if the man entered there was no way out for him, either. Adrian wondered which of them had more to lose. He had no answer and so he stood in the shadows at the farthest end of the room, beyond the shafts of light, and waited.

He could see the group of Germans go past the doorway. Seconds later there was the blur of the light-brown topcoat; the man was running, actually running.

Adrian went to the door, paused long enough to see the
Germans swing left into yet another intersecting corridor, turned right and walked rapidly toward the hall to the stairs.

The crowds on the staircase were denser than before. There was a contingent of uniformed schoolgirls entering the steps. Behind the girls was the man in the light-brown gabardine topcoat, frustrated in his attempt to pass and reach the steps.

It was suddenly clear to Adrian. The man had lost him and would wait at the exit.

There remained the obvious: reach the main doors first.

Adrian hurried down the steps, doing his best to look unhurried; a man late for a lunch date.

Out on the steps in front of the entrance a taxi was disgorging four Japanese. An elderly couple, obviously British, was walking across the pavement toward the cab. He ran, overtaking the couple, and reached the taxi first.

“Dépěchez-vous s’il vous plaît. Très important.”

The driver grinned and started up the car. Adrian turned in the seat and looked out the rear window. On the steps the man in the light-brown topcoat stood looking up and down, confused and angry.

“Orly Airport,” ordered Adrian. “Air Afrique.”

There were more crowds and more lines but the line he was in was short. And nowhere in sight was the light-brown topcoat. No one seemed interested in him at all.

The Black girl in the Air Afrique uniform smiled at him.

“I’d like a ticket to Rome on your ten fifteen flight tomorrow morning. The name’s Llewellyn. That’s two
l
’s in front, two in back, with a
y
. First class, please, and if it’s possible, I’d like seat location now. I’ll be very rushed in the morning, but hold the reservation. I’ll pay in cash.”

He walked out the automatic doors of the Orly terminal and hailed another taxi.

“De Gaulle field, please. SAS.”

The line was longer, the service slower, there was a man staring at him beyond a row of plastic chairs. There’d been no one looking at him like that in Orly terminal. He wondered; he hoped.

“Round trip to Stockholm,” he said arrogantly to the SAS attendant behind the counter. “You have a flight tomorrow at ten thirty. That’s the one I want.”

The attendant looked up from his papers. “I’ll see what
we have, sir,” he replied in muted irritation, his accent heavily Scandinavian. “What would be the return date?”

“I’m not sure, so leave it open. I’m not interested in bargains. The name’s Fontine.”

Five minutes later the tickets were processed, the payment made.

“Please be here an hour prior to departure, sir,” said the clerk, smarting under Adrian’s impatience.

“Of course. Now, there’s a small problem. I have some valuable, very fragile objects in my luggage. I’d like—”

“We cannot take responsibility for such things,” interrupted the attendant.

“Don’t be a damn fool. I know you can’t. I just want to make sure you have ‘Fragile’ stickers in Swedish or Norwegian or whatever the hell it is. My bags are easily recognized—”

He left the de Gaulle terminal convinced he’d alienated a very nice fellow who would complain to his colleagues about him, and got into a taxi.

“The Hôtel Pont Royale, please. Rue de Bac.”

Adrian saw him at a table in a small sidewalk café on the rue Dumont. He was an American, drinking white wine, and looked like a student who would nurse a drink because of the price. His age was no problem; he seemed tall enough. Adrian walked up to him.

“Hello!”

“Hi,” replied the young man.

“May I sit down? Buy you a drink?”

“Hell, why not?”

Adrian sat. “You go to the Sorbonne?”

“Nope. L’Ecole des Beaux Arts. I’m a bona-fide, real-life painter. I’ll sketch you for thirty
francs
. How about it?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll give you a lot more than that if you’ll do something else for me.”

The student eyed him suspiciously, distastefully. “I don’t smuggle anything for anybody. You’d better beat it. I’m a very legal type.”

“I’m more than that. I’m a lawyer. A prosecuting attorney, as a matter of fact. With a card to prove it.”

“You don’t sound it.”

“Just hear me out. What can it cost? Five minutes and some decent wine?”

At nine fifteen in the morning, Adrian emerged from the limousine in front of the glass doors of SAS at de Gaulle terminal. He was dressed in a long, flared Edwardian overcoat of white fabric; he looked like an ass, but he couldn’t be missed. On his head he wore a matching white, wide-brimmed fedora, the cloth pulled down over his face in Barrymore style, his features in shadow. Beneath the hat were huge dark glasses that covered far more than his eyes, and below his chin was a blue silk scarf, billowing above and out of the white coat.