“You bet your ass I won’t.” The smile, again, was a forced sliver. “Seat thyself, Glenn, and let’s program this thing.”
Follett threw off his topcoat and lunged into a chair. His freckled face was ruddy from the October wind. “I had a vague conversation with my opposite number in French security just now. That’s why I’m a little late. He’s willing to-”
The phone rang again. Ross was at the desk; he answered it.
“Mr. Cutter? There’s a-”
“This is Ross. Can it wait?”
“The caller says it’s urgent, sir.”
“Who is he?”
“He claims to be Mikhail Yaskov.”
Cutter took the call and held it flat against his ear so that Ross couldn’t overhear anything; Cutter’s end of the conversation was monosyllabic and after less than two minutes he said, “Agreed,” and hung it up and went back to his chair but didn’t seat himself; he stood with one hand on the back of the chair and scowled.
Follett said, “Well?”
“He wants a meet.”
“About Kendig?”
“Apparently.”
Ross said, “Maybe they want to make a deal.”
Follett said, “What kind of deal? Do you mean they’ve got Kendig?”
Cutter said, “No.”
Follett began to bluster but Cutter, maddeningly, had lost interest and turned away. Follett flapped his arms. “Are you sure that was really Yaskov?”
“It’s my business to be sure.”
Follett began shaking his head back and forth. “I just don’t understand any of this, I’ll be the first to admit it. I don’t understand Kendig most of all.”
“Of course you don’t. You couldn’t in a hundred years understand a man like Kendig.”
Ross said, “I don’t see where any of us does. So far he hasn’t made any mistakes at all.”
“He’s made one,” Cutter said. “He’s made me mad at him.”
Follett tugged his earlobe. “You may be making a rash assumption, Joe. You’re not brighter than he is-you’re just younger.”
Ross considered that in surprise; it had come out of the blue. But Follett was grinning slyly, knowing he’d scored a point; he’d been waiting for the chance. He got to his feet. “I presume you’ll want to handle Yaskov without me.”
“Correct.”
“Then we’d better hold off the strategy conference until you’ve had your meet with him. How soon’s it to be?”
“This afternoon.”
“He’s in Paris? He must think it’s damned important.”
“Of course he does,” Cutter said in disgust. “All right, be back here at six tonight-we’ll go over it then.”
“Six? I was planning to-”
“I really don’t much care what you were planning, Glenn.”
Ross was happy to see Follett’s back. He didn’t dislike the man with Cutter’s intensity but Follett’s departure lowered the room temperature to something bearable.
Cutter had straight hair that wouldn’t stick down; another man would have been continuously raking it back from his forehead. Cutter never paid it any attention. He said, “We’re meeting him in the Louvre gardens in forty-five minutes.”
“We?”
“I’ll want a witness. So will he. Neither of us wants some third party accusing us of double-agenting.”
“Cozy,” Ross observed.
“The question is, what’s the best way to approach it?”
“What do you think he wants?”
“I expect he wants a pooling of resources. Kendig’s a threat to all of us-it makes a kind of sense. But it’s more attractive to him than it is to me. I know Kendig better than he does-that gives us the edge. So what’s he going to bargain with? We’ll be better armed if we can figure that out before he springs it on us.”
Ross ran it through his mind and shook his head. “Beats hell out of me what it might be.”
“You’re a big help, you are.”
“Well I haven’t been much of a help anywhere along the line that I can see. I let him make an ass of me down in Georgia-that phony gun stunt. I was convinced you’d tie a can to my tail after that. Why didn’t you?”
“He made asses of all of us, Ross. I don’t go in for scapegoating.”
“That’s mighty kind of you but it still doesn’t explain why you’ve kept me on.”
“I’ve been running a string of agents out of Beirut and Ankara.”
“So?”
“You get used to having somebody to yell at,” Cutter said.
“Sure-sure.”
“You’re green, Ross, You make mistakes-but you haven’t made excuses. I like that. You’re also flexible, you’ve got a good brain, you’re a good learner and you’ve got something that seems to pass for a conscience, which is all but unique around here. I like that too.”
“And?”
“I guess what it boils down to,” Cutter said, “maybe I’ve been seeing intimations of my own mortality. A man wants a protege.”
Ross nodded slowly but he couldn’t resist the riposte: “Like Kendig had you.”
“Yes.” Cutter was neither surprised nor angered. “Like that.”
“Well I guess I ought to be flattered.”
“But you aren’t.”
“Maybe I am. I can’t tell yet. I’m not sure I like this business much.”
“That’s what makes you so valuable in it,” Cutter said. “Come on, we might as well walk-it’s a nice day for it.”
Ross had worked for the Agency for quite a few years but it was the first time he’d seen an enemy agent in the flesh.
Yaskov had got there first and was standing in the path studying a linden tree as if he had a genuine interest in it. He appeared to be alone; Cutter pointed him out to Ross when they were still a hundred feet away. Ross said, “I must say he doesn’t look the part. He looks more like he should have been a czarist spy.”
“He would have been.”
Yaskov was elegant, no other word for him.
They were fifty feet short of touching Yaskov when a little man bumped into Ross. It could have been an accident but the little man’s feminine mouth smiled coyly and he fell in step with them. “My name is Ivanovitch.”
“I’m Cutter. This is Mr. Smith.”
Ivanovitch, whatever his name was, had the air of a man perpetually in a hurry. His manner was peremptory, his mannerisms impatient. The jostling he’d given Ross had been designed to find out whether Ross had a gun under his coat; he realized that now. Ivanovitch had cruel black little eyes-a glance intended to be silken, calculated to inspire fear. He was too ferrety to bring it off.
Ivanovitch walked along with choppy little strides but Cutter wasn’t going to be hurried and Ivanovitch reached Yaskov ten paces ahead of them and turned. Cutter happened to be reaching into his shirt pocket at the moment and Ivanovitch moved abruptly, changing stance and bearing, and it was evident he knew the responses of unarmed combat. How expert he was was open to question in Ross’s mind but it was not the time for adolescent contest with the Russian; Ross only shook his head and refrained from ambiguous motion and after a moment Yaskov laughed and Ivanovitch straightened up.
It was a toothpick Cutter produced. Now Ross saw what its purpose had been. If Ivanovitch had gone inside his coat it would have indicated he was armed.
Cutter stopped six feet distant and said immediately, “Either let’s move out of sight of those windows or let’s meet somewhere else.”
Yaskov glanced up. Two of the museum’s windows overlooked the path. Anyone could be there-zoom lens, lip-reader, parabolic microphone, anything.
Yaskov bowed his head and turned; they walked back between the trees of the arbor. “Will this satisfy?”
“It’ll do.”
“We haven’t met but of course we know each other.”
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.”
“Yes,” Yaskov said. He ignored both Ivanovitch and Ross; so did Cutter.
“Our mutual friend Kendig”-Cutter seemed to savor the phrase with sardonic relish-“always had great admiration for you.”
“Kendig and I are among the last of the old wolves,” Yaskov said, “but perhaps there’s still hope. I’m told you conform to the breed more than most of our colleagues.”