A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the big, modern hotel.
McGarvey paid the cabbie and inside directed Lorraine to the registration desk.
“Get a room in your own name, I’ll be up in a couple of minutes”
“I’ve come this far, I’m not going to let you slip away Lorraine started to say.
McGarvey still held her arm, and squeezed it hard, a sharp expression of pain crossing her features. “Get yourself a room, you goddamned fool.
I’ll come up in a couple of minutes. Do it now” He let her go, then turned on his heel and walked directly across the lobby without bothering to look back. At the bell captain’s desk, he handed over his bag for temporary storage, got his chit, and went into the bar of Berlin’s famous Grill Restaurant, where he ordered a cognac and lit a cigarette. So much for Yablonski’s expertise, he thought angrily. But then the man had been sent out to protect her from harm. He wasn’t in fact her baby-sitter in the sense that he was to watch for her to slip out the back door. By now Trotter would be beside himself. The entire mission could be jeopardized by her presence here. But, he decided, it would be even worse if a fuss were to be made. She was here in Berlin, and this is where she would remain, out of harm’s way (no one would expect her to be here) until he was finished. He waited a full five minutes before he paid his tab, and in the lobby used a house phone to call her. She answered on the first ring. “Yes”
“Are you all right”
“Yes” McGarvey hung up, crossed the lobby, and took the stairs up to the second floor where the hotel’s ballroom and other meeting rooms were located. He waited for a couple more minutes, to make sure he hadn’t been spotted, with someone else on his tail, then took the elevator up to the seventh floor. She let him in immediately. He locked and chained the door. “You followed me from Lykabettos” he said. She was definitely frightened. “I waited outside until you left, and then followed you out to the airport”
“What in God’s name are you doing here”
“I came to … stop you” she said breathlessly. “What”
“You’re going to cross the border to kill someone. I know it. I’m going to stop you any way I can”
McGarvey looked at her in open amazement. “You’re an antinuclear activist, for Christ’s sake”
“It just happened. But it’s not so strange”
“For a nuclear physicist”
“Less strange than you’d think” she said defiantly. “if need be, I’ll go to the newspapers with this story”
McGarvey was shaking his head.
“The only things that would accomplish would be your arrest and most likely my death”
“If you went across But you’re not going to do it. “Yes I am”
“For what” she cried, her voice rising. “Revenge. You’re going to risk your life to kill a Russian spy who made a fool of you”
“You can’t possibly know how wrong, how dangerously wrong you are”
McGarvey said. “I’m not going after Kurshin”
“Then who”
“You don’t want to know”
“Who” she shrieked. He was across the room to her in three steps. He took her by the shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. She wanted to cry out again, but she couldn’t catch her breath. “Goddamnit, Lorraine, don’t do this to me. MY life is on the line. So are the lives of a lot of other people” She was shaking her head. “I can’t let you do this, Kirk” she sobbed. “Please … oh, God, please”
“I’ll telephone Trotter. He’ll send someone over here to place you under arrest. He can do it, believe me”
“No”
“I’m trying to save your life, Lorraine. “And I’m trying to save yours”
McGarvey let go of her shoulders and turned away from her. He stared at the telephone. Trotter would be in transit back to Washington, unavailable until tonight, or possibly tomorrow morning. There was no one else he could trust. if there was a penetration agent within the CIA, another of Baranov’s men, calling Washington would place Lorraine in an impossibly dangerous position here. But he simply could not wait here with her. He was not going to turn his back on this assignment. Too many good people had died because of Baranov, and there would be others.
This opportunity might never present itself again. He walked across the room to the telephone and picked it up. The hotel operator came on a moment later. “Give me an outside line, please i would like to make a transatlantic call”
“Yes, mein Herr” the operator replied. Lorraine had come across the room. Tears were leaking from her eyes, and she was shaking her head.
“No” she said. McGarvey looked at her. “I promise you, Kirk, I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do. I swear to God-”:operator” McGarvey spoke into the phone.
“Sir”
“I don’t need to make that call after all. Thank you”
Valentin Illen Baranov’s black Zil limousine passed the Ukraine Hotel and headed down Kutuzovsky Prospekt at a high rate of speed. It was a few minutes after six in the evening, and the KGB chairman was on his way home his security people rode in chase cars ahead and behind his limo. The only other person in the Zil with him, besides his driver-bodyguard, was his personal secretary, Petr Nikolaievich Borisov, a young KGB major whose loyalty was beyond question. The limousine’s telephone burred softly. Borisov answered it. “Da” he said, and he listened for a full thirty seconds before hanging up and turning to Baranov. “What crisis now, Petr Nikolaievich” Baranov asked He Was a short, extremely stocky man, with a barrel chest, a thick bulldog neck, and a huge head. But his voice was as soft as a gentle wind through a graveyard, and his eyes always seemed to hold a hint of amusement. “It is White Knight. He has attempted to make contact. Direct contact”
WHITE KNIGHT was the code name of Baranov’s personal source in Washington. They’d worked together for a lot of years. “What was he told”
“To stand by for the usual procedure” Borisov replied. Despite his nearness to Baranov, even he did not know WHITE KNIGHT’s true identity.
Baranov shared that with no one.
“Very good” Baranov said, and he settled back in his seat. It was about McGarvey, he was certain of it. Considering what was happening at this very moment in the Mediterranean-did the CIA already know about the Indianapolis? — this call was extremely important. Baranov’s apartment sprawled over the entire top floor of a twenty-five-story apartment building a few blocks from where Leonid Brezhnev had once lived. His private study was directly in the middle of the apartment, with no windows to the outside. The room, and its telephone equipment, was as secure from eavesdropping, electronic or otherwise, as Soviet technical abilities could make it. When he was alone, he made his call. It was answered on the first ring.
“it is me” Baranov said. “What is the matter”
“It is McGarvey” a man said. There was no mistaking his voice. “He has been sent to East Berlin to kill you. It will happen on Thursday night, after the reception. He will be coming across the lake … actually beneath the lake” Baranov smiled. “I will be most happy to finally come face to face with him. Thank you, my old friend”
“There is more”
“Yes”
“The scientist, Dr. Abbott. She is missing”
“Any idea where she might have gotten herself to” Baranov asked, very interested by this latest development. “No, but it would be my guess that she’s followed McGarvey, or tried to”
“is there a thing, then, between them” Baranov asked. Kurshin had mentioned something about it. “I believe so. I thought you should know”
“Yes, thank you. Now, sit tight, my friend. No matter what happens in the next twenty-four hours or so, sit very tight”