“You’ve actually got it” Ivan Yegorov said, his eyes bright. He’d changed his name, but he was a swarthy Georgian with deep-set dark eyes.
“Cover our back” Kurshin snapped, and he hurried back to where Dieter Schey, a former East German rocket engineer, was setting up the plastique explosives around the rocket casing, about two feet forward of the recessed vanes. Schey worked methodically as if this were his normal duty. He strapped a broad plastic collar around the forty-inch rocket, and to this he attached the separate shaped plastique charges into which he inserted a radio-controlled trigger. He was finished within ninety seconds, and Kurshin helped him down from the trailer bed. “Now it begins” Schey said. His eyes seemed dead, totally devoid of any human expression. Kurshin nodded. “Everything is in readiness” Schey shrugged, the thinnest of smiles coming to his bloodless lips. “Ivan”
Kurshin shouted, and the three of them hurried back to the tractor and climbed inside, Yegorov getting behind the wheel. The instant after Kurshin had closed and dogged the hatch, Yegorov slammed the tractor in gear and headed down the highway, the road banking into a long, sweeping turn, a pine forest coming up darkly on both sides of the cut through a shallow hill. Schey took the backseat, pulling out the radio controller for the explosives, and Kurshin took the righthand seat, studying the radio equipment for just a moment before switching to the Missile Control Squadron’s TAC ONE frequency. “Whiz Bang, this is Flybaby Six-P-Two, you copy” Kurshin said into the microphone.
Kirk Collough Mcgarvey had known for several days that someone was coming for him. Call it a sixth sense or simply the intuition of a man who had been a long time in the field, he had begun picking up signs on Wednesday outside the Louvre at the edge of the Tuileries, when he spotted someone watching him. It had lasted only a fleeting moment. A short, nondescript man in a sport coat, his tie loose, was getting into a cab as McGarvey was coming out of the museum. The man gave a quick backward glance and then was gone. McGarvey had stepped back into the building, remaining for a few minutes just within the doorway, watching, waiting for someone else to show up. It had been a front tail, he’d been almost certain of it at the time.
On Thursday, coming out of his apartment just off the Rue de la Fayette in the Tenth Arrondissement, he’d spotted a Mercedes sedan slowly passing, and he’d been even more certain that someone was coming. The man in the passenger seat had changed his coat and now wore no tie, but he was the same one from the Louvre. McGarvey was a tall, well-built man with a thick shock of brown hair and wide honest eyes. Although he was in his early forties, he maintained an almost athletic physique, not because of any regular workouts-though he tried to make a practice of running a few miles each morning-but more because of the luck of some genetic draw. He was a loner these days, more out of circumstance than out of choice. He had come out of Kansas State University more years ago than he wanted to remember and had joined the Central Intelligence Agency as a case officer. An operation that had gone sour for him in Santiago, Chile, during the Carter days had cost him his job. They were bad times, he remembered now walking from his apartment toward the quaint Cour des Petites tcufies. To this day he remembered the face of the general he’d been sent to assassinate. The man had been responsible for thousands of deaths in and around the capital city and the only solution was his elimination. But McGarvey’s orders had been changed in midstream without him knowing about it. He returned to Washington not a hero but a pariah. He had run to Switzerland where for five years he’d maintained a relatively quiet life operating a small bookstore in Lausanne, and living with Marta Fredricks, a woman who’d turned out to be a Swiss Federal police officer assigned to watch him. Ex-CIA officers, especially killers, made the Swiss very nervous. Across the narrow street from the Brasserie Flo, McGarvey stopped a moment to adjust his tie before he crossed and entered the restaurant’s charming courtyard. McGarvey, pour deux, s’il vous plat the told the maitre d’. The strait-laced Frenchman glanced over McGarvey’s shoulder to see if the second person in his party was coming. “Monsieur”
“It’s a friend. He’ll be arriving shortly”
“Very well” McGarvey followed the maitre d’ back through the courtyard to a pleasant table and ordered a bottle of red wine. He sat back and lit a cigarette while he waited, the pressure of his gun reassuring at the small of his back. They were missing on Friday, but they had been there this morning down the block from his apartment. Watching. Waiting to see if he was alone, to catalogue his moves. The same man as before was behind the wheel, but someone else had been seated in the back.
Because of the angle from his secondfloor window he could only see the man’s waist and a part of his torso, but he knew who it was and he knew what was coming. He even had a fair guess what his old friend was coming here for. It had happened almost like this two years ago, he remembered as the steward brought his bottle of wine and opened it for him, pouring half a glass. It was a house special wine so he was not invited to taste it. “Mercy” McGarvey said politely. The steward nodded and hurried off.
It was noon and the popular restaurant was beginning to fill up.
McGarvey caught the maitre d’ giving him severe glances. If monsieur’s friend didn’t show up soon, McGarvey figured he would be asked to move to a smaller table. Then, in Lausanne, as now, he’d been watched for several days so that his habits and routines could be established before he was picked up. Then, as now, the moment he realized that something was about to come down he had run for his gun. It’s what had ruined Switzerland for him. “Only assassins who are still active run for their weapons” Marta had told him. Unlike Lausanne, where after five years he had become complacent, these past two years in Paris had been different.
He’d not allowed himself to lose his edge. It was simple survival, he told himself often. Because the business that had begun in Lausanne had never been finished. Not in Washington, not in Miami, and certainly not in Mexico City. He was still out there. Waiting. Biding his time. The familiar face and figure of John Lyman Trotter, Jr., a thin briefcase in his left hand, appeared at the entrance to the courtyard, hesitated a moment, and then said something to the maitre d’, who turned. Trotter followed the man’s gaze, spotting McGarvey seated alone, and he nodded, said something else, then threaded his way between the tables. McGarvey didn’t bother to stand. He hadn’t seen his old friend in two years, but the man had the same look on his face as he had had in Switzerland-one of worry and concern. “Hello, Kirk” Trotter said. He was a tall, very thin man, all angles, with a huge misshapen nose and bottle-thick glasses. He could have been classified as truly ugly, but he’d always had a sharp mind. He had begun his career with the CIA but then had gone over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working his way up to an associate directorship. “I thought it was you” McGarvey said. Trotter sat down, laying the briefcase on his lap. Languidly, McGarvey reached out and poured him a glass of wine. Their waiter came, handed them menus, and left. “Don thought you might have spotted him on Wednesday.
“Outside the Louvre” Trotter nodded. “And Thursday outside my apartment. Not very professional. II Professional enough” Trotter said, looking around at the other diners. “Nice place”
McGarvey shrugged. “I can watch the door from here” Trotter managed a slight smile. “Nothing changes, does it”