The Matarese Circle (15 page)

He had sworn to do so after Prague; the message had been clear:
You’re mine, Beowulf Agate. Someday, somewhere. I’ll see you take your last breath.

A brother for a wife. The husband for the brother. It was vengeance rooted in loathing and that loathing never left. There’d be no peace for either of them until the end came for one. It was better to know that now, thought
Bray, rather than find out on a crowded street or a deserted stretch of beach, with a knife in the side or a bullet in the head.

The courier’s death was an accident, Taleniekov’s would not be. There
would
be no peace until they met, and then death would come—one way or the other. It was a question now of drawing the Russian out; he had made the first move. He was the stalker, the role established.

The strategy was classic: tracks clearly defined for the stalker to follow, and at the chosen moment—least expected—the tracks would not be there, the stalker bewildered, exposed—the trap sprung.

Like Bray, Taleniekov could travel anywhere he wished, with or without official sanction. Over the years, both had learned too many methods; a plethora of false papers were out there for purchase, hundreds of men everywhere ready to provide concealment or transportation, cover or weapons—any and all. There were only two basic requirements: identities and money.

Neither he nor Taleniekov lacked either. Both came with the profession, the identities quite naturally, the money less so—more often than not the result of having been hung by bureaucratic delays in the forwarding of payments demanded. Every specialist worth his rank had his own personal sources of funds. Payments exaggerated, monies diverted and deposited in stable territories. The objective was neither theft nor wealth, merely survival. A man in the field had only to be burned once or twice to learn the necessity of economic back-ups.

Bray had accounts under various names in Paris, Munich, London, Geneva and Lisbon. One avoided Rome and the Communist bloc; the Italian Treasury was madness, and banking in the Eastern satellites too corrupt.

Scofield rarely thought about the money that was his for the spending; in the back of his mind he supposed he would give it back one day. Had the predatory Congdon not flirted with his own temptations and made the official termination so complicated, Bray might have walked in the next morning and handed him the bankbooks.

Not now. The undersecretary’s actions ruled it out. One did not hand over several hundred thousand dollars to a man who tried to orchestrate one’s elimination while remaining outside the act itself. It was a very professional
concept. Scofield recalled that years ago it had been brought to its zenith by the killers of the Matarese. But they were assassins for hire; there’d been no one like them in centuries, since the days of Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah. There would be no one like them ever again, and someone like Daniel Congdon was a pale joke in comparison.

Congdon. Scofield laughed and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. The new director of Consular Operations was not a fool and only a fool would underestimate him, but he had the upper-Washington mentality so prevalent in the management of clandestine services. He did not really understand what being in the field did to a man; he might mouth the phrases, but he did not see the simple line of action and reaction. Few did, or wanted to, because to recognize it meant admitting knowledge of abnormality in a subordinate whose function the department—or the Company—could not do without. Quite simply, pathological behavior was a perfectly normal way of life for a field man, and no particular attention was paid to it. The man in the field accepted the fact that he was a criminal before any crimes had been committed. Therefore, at the first hint of activity he took measures to protect himself before anything happened; it was second nature.

Bray had done just that. While the messenger from Taleniekov had been seated across the room in the hotel on Nebraska Avenue, Scofield had made several calls. The first was to his sister in Minneapolis: he was flying out to the Midwest in a couple of hours and would see her in a day or so. The second was to a friend in Maryland who was a deep sea fisherman with a roomful, of stuffed victims and trophies on the walls: where was a good, small place in the Caribbean that would take him on short notice? The friend had a friend in Charlotte Amalie; he owned a hotel and always kept two or three rooms open for just such emergencies. The fisherman from Maryland would call him for Bray.

So, for all intents and purposes, as of the night of the sixteenth, he was en route to the Midwest … or the Caribbean. Both more than fifteen hundred miles from Washington—where he remained unobserved, never leaving the hotel room across the hall from the Soviet drop.

How often had he hammered the lesson into younger, less experienced field agents? Too many times to count. A man standing motionless in a crowd was difficult to spot.

But every hour escalated the complexity. All possible explanations had to be examined. The most obvious was that the Russian had activated a dormant drop known to him and his messenger; instructions could be sent quietly to Bern, the suite of rooms leased by cable. It would take weeks before the information was filtered back to Moscow—one drop among thousands around the world.

If so—and it was perhaps the
only
explanation—Taleniekov was not merely acting alone, he was acting in conflict with KGB interests. His vendetta superseded his allegiance to his government, if the term had meaning any longer; it had little for Scofield. It
was
the only explanation. Otherwise the suite of rooms across the hall would be swarming with Soviets. They might wait twenty-four or thirty-six hours to check out FBI observation, but no more than that; there were too many ways to elude the bureau’s surveillance.

Bray had the gut instinct that he was right, an instinct developed over the years to the point where he trusted it implicitly. Now he had to put himself into Taleniekov’s place, think as Vasili Taleniekov would think. It was his protection against a knife in the side or a bullet from a high-powered rifle. It was the way to bring it all to an end, and not have to go through each day wondering what the shadows held. Or the crowds.

The KGB man had no choice: it was his move and it had to be in Washington. One started with the physical connection and it was the dormant drop across the hall. In a matter of days—perhaps hours now—Taleniekov would fly into Dulles Airport and the hunt would begin.

But the Russian was no idiot; he would not walk into a trap. Instead, another would come, someone who knew nothing, who had been paid to be an unknowing decoy. An unsuspecting passenger whose friendship was carefully cultivated on a transatlantic flight; or one of dozens of blind contacts Taleniekov had used in Washington. Men and women who had no idea that the European they did well-paid favors for was a strategist for KGB. Among them would be the decoy, or decoys, and the birds. Decoys knew nothing; they were bait. Birds
watched, sending out alarms when the bait was being taken. Birds and decoys; they would be Teleniekov’s weapons.

Someone would come to the hotel on Nebraska Avenue. Whoever it was would have no instructions beyond getting into those rooms; no telephone number, no name that meant anything. And nearby, the birds would be waiting for the quarry to go after the bait.

When the quarry was spotted the birds would reach the hunter. Which meant that the hunter was also nearby.

This would be Taleniekov’s strategy, for no other was available; it was also the strategy that Scofield would me. Three or four—five at the outside—persons readily available for such employment. Simply mounted: phone calls placed at the airport, a meeting at a downtown restaurant. An inexpensive exercise considering the personal value of the quarry.

Sounds came from beyond the door. Voices. Bray got out of the chair and walked quickly to the tiny glass circle in the panel.

Across the hall a well-dressed woman was talking with the bell captain who carried her overnight bag. Not a suitcase, not luggage from a transatlantic flight, but a small overnight case. The decoy had arrived, the birds not far away. Taleniekov had landed; it had started.

The woman and the bell captain disappeared into the suite of rooms.

Scofield walked to the telephone. It was the moment to begin the counterexercise. He needed time; two or three days were not out of the question.

He called the deep-sea fisherman on the Maryland shore, making sure to dial direct. He capped the mouthpiece with his right hand, filtering his voice through his barely separated fingers. The greeting was swift, the caller in a hurry. “I’m in the Keys and can’t reach that damned hotel in Charlotte Amalie. Call it for me, will you? Tell them I’m on a charter out of Tavernier and will be there in a couple of days.”

“Sure, Bray. On a real vacation, aren’t you?”

“More than you know. And thanks.”

The next call needed no such artifice. It was to a French-woman he had lived with briefly in Paris several years ago. She had been one of the most effective undercover personnel at Interpol until her cover was blown; she worked
now for a CIA proprietary based in Washington. There was no sexual attraction between them any longer but they were friends. She asked no questions.

He gave her the name of the hotel on Nebraska Avenue. “Call in fifteen minutes and ring suite two-eleven. A woman will answer. Ask for me.”

“Will she be furious, darling?”

“She won’t know who I am. But someone else will.”

Taleniekov leaned against the brick of the dark alleyway across from the hotel. For several moments he let his body sag and rolled his neck back and forth, trying to ease the tension, reduce the exhaustion. He had been traveling for nearly three days, flying for more than eighteen hours, driving into cities and villages finding those men who would provide him with false documents that would get him through three immigration stations. From Salonika to Athens, Athens to London, London to New York. Finally a late afternoon shuttle flight to Washington after visits to three banks in lower Manhattan.

He had made it; his people were in place. An expensive whore he’d brought from New York and three others from Washington, two men and an older woman. All but one were well-spoken
nichivo
, what the Americans called hustlers. Each had performed services in the past for the generous “businessman” from The Hague, who had a proclivity for checking up on his associates and a penchant for confidence, both of which he paid for in large sums.

They were primed for their evening’s employment. The whore was in the suite of rooms that was the Bern-Washington depot; within minutes Scofield would know it. But Beowulf Agate was no amateur; he would receive the news—from a desk clerk or switchboard operator—and send another to question the girl.

Whoever it was would be seen by one or all of Taleniekov’s birds. The two men and the older woman. He had provided each with a miniaturized walkie-talkie no larger than a hand-held recorder; he had purchased four at the Mitsubi complex on Fifth Avenue. They could reach him instantly, unobtrusively. Except the whore. No risk could be taken that such a device would be found on her. She was expendable.

One of the two men sat in a booth in the dimly lit cocktail lounge with small candle lanterns on each table. Beside him was an open attaché case, papers pulled out and placed under candlelight; a salesman summarizing the events of a business trip. The other man was in the dining room, the table set for two, the reservation made by a highly placed aide at the White House. The host was delayed; several apologetic calls were received by the maitre d’. The guest would be treated as befitted one receiving such apologies from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But it was the older woman Taleniekov counted on most; she was paid well above the others and with good reason. She was not a
nichivo
at all. She was a killer.

His unexpected weapon. A gracious, articulate woman who had no compunction about firing a weapon into a target across the room, or plunging a knife into the stomach of a dinner companion. Who could, on a moment’s notice, change her appearance from the dignified to the harridan—and all shades in between. Vasili had paid her thousands over the past half-dozen years, several times having flown her to Europe for chores that suited her extraordinary talents. She had not failed him; she would not fail him tonight. He had reached her soon after landing at Kennedy Airport; she had had a full day to prepare for the evening. It was sufficient.

Taleniekov pushed himself away from the brick wall, shaking his fingers, breathing deeply, forcing thoughts of sleep from his mind. He had covered his flanks; now he could only wait.
If
Scofield wanted to keep the appointment—in the American’s judgment, fatal to one of them. And why wouldn’t he? It was better to get it over with rather than be obsessed with every patch of darkness or each crowded street in sunlight, wondering who might be concealed … taking aim, unsheathing a knife. No, it was far more desirable to conclude the hunt; that would be Beowulf Agate’s opinion. And yet, how
wrong
he was! If there was only some way to reach him,
tell
him! There was the
Matarese!
There were people to see, to appeal to, to convince! Together they could do it; there were decent men in Moscow
and
Washington, men who would
not
be afraid.

But there was no way to reach Brandon Scofield on neutral ground, for no ground would be neutral to Beowulf
Agate. At the first sight of his enemy, the American would instantly use every weapon he had mustered to blow that enemy away. Vasili understood, for if he were Scofield, he would do the same. So it was a question of waiting, circling, knowing that each thought the other was the quarry who would expose himself first; each maneuvering to cause his adversary to make that mistake.

The terrible irony was that the only significant mistake would come about if Scofield won. Taleniekov could not let that happen. Wherever Scofield was, he had to be taken, immobilized,
forced to listen.