Kuykendall’s head veered around and his chin lifted questioningly; then he shrugged and lifted both arms-a signal to his partner at the far end. Kuykendall made a sweeping motion with his left hand, ordering the partner around the block; then Kuykendall trotted away, forward along the line of cars to go around the opposite end of the block.
Kendig watched until Kuykendall turned the corner. He looked back through the rear window but the partner was long gone. He climbed out of the Renault and went back in through the broken window, back along the stinking hallway and out the unlocked door; back past the garbage cans and then across the street swiftly, retracing his exact path because it was least likely they’d look for him where they knew he’d already been and gone.
In just a few more minutes they’d know for certain they’d lost him and they’d beat their way back to their car and stake out the street because they’d reason that he might have something in one of the cars there that he’d have to come back for. In the meantime if there was a two-way they’d want to be there to brief the reinforcements the minute they arrived; after that the whole area would be suicidal for him because the SDECE and the Surete and half the flics in Paris would comb it house to house.
He threw off the overcoat in the alley and hunched his back like an old man and moved purposefully afoot into the street where he’d left the van. There was no car double-parked and none of the parked cars had light on but spotting their car was ludicrously easy; the frigid cold gave it away. It was one among many parked vehicles but the driver had the engine running to warm himself and the windshield was clear from the defroster.
As if he had business there Kendig walked straight along the sidewalk with his old man’s stoop. They were looking for an erect fugitive in an overcoat.
He had the door open before the driver could react to his turn; he hauled the man right out of the seat. In that brief broken instant under the streetlight Kendig saw the wild-eyed look: he’d seen it on a man’s face once before but that had been on a thundering battleground below Cassino. Kendig’s jaws flexed; he hauled the driver right out against his own upraised knee and when the man fell back against the car Kendig locked his left hand around his right fist and drove his right elbow into the driver’s ribs. It collapsed the wind out of the man and when his head dipped in anguish Kendig pushed him right down onto the sidewalk and got a surgical grip around the base of the skull and pressed firmly with fingers and thumb. It closed off the flow of the carotid artery and starved the brain and after a moment the driver went limp. He wouldn’t stay unconscious for more than two or three minutes but he’d be dazed for a while after that.
Kendig pulled the ignition key partway out and broke it off with the tip jammed in the lock. He plucked the microphone off the two-way and tore it out by the cord and dropped it on the seat. Then he pushed the door shut and walked swiftly the twenty paces to his 2CV van and drove away.
They might have a make on the van; he couldn’t keep it. There were thousands of the cheap Citroens in Paris but they’d be distraught enough to tear into every one of them at this point.
He drove as far as the tangle of streets behind the Invalides and parked the van in a dark side-passage. It took him fifteen minutes to walk to the Laennec Hospital. A handful of cars stood parked on the doctors’ lot near the emergency entrance. A doctor in a hurry to reach a critical case didn’t always lock his car or take his keys; Kendig was counting on that and he found a Peugeot still warm and ready to go and he drove it off the lot without looking back. The owner would find it missing pretty fast but what counted was that, the theft wouldn’t be connected with Kendig for a while.
He parked right behind the van and transferred everything into the Peugeot. He put the dead clochard in the trunk, slammed the lid and drove away into the boulevard Montparnasse, forcing himself to drive at moderate speed.
He left Paris by way of Charenton and the Bois de Vincennes; he ran along southeast with the map imprinted on his eyelids. It was somewhere past three in the morning; the well-tuned sedan ran eagerly and there was no traffic on the curving country road. Farmhouses rushed by vaguely, smeared by speed; heavy trees blurred and vanished into the onrushing darkness.
Around four o’clock he crossed the Yonne at Auxerre and took the road toward Chablis: The vineyards made an icy spindle tracery above the highway; occasionally a chateau loomed on the hill.
The gate was fastened with a padlocked chain-he was reminded of the bootleggers’ road in Georgia. He drove right through it, splintering the gate and extinguishing one of the Peugeot’s head-lights. He switched them off. It didn’t matter if he left evidence of destruction now; he expected them to trace him this far.
The Lafayette Escadrille had used it, and then the French training commands and then the Luftwaffe and the American Warhawks; after the war it had been judged too short for the jet generation and it had passed out of government hands into the private aviation sector. The wineries kept their executive planes here and there were planes of all sizes belonging to-and sometimes built by-Sunday fliers. The flying school had three single-engine trainers and a twin Apache.
The field had two runways laid out in an X; they were graded earth strips and there was no radar or strobe-light strip-it was strictly a daylight field for small craft. There were two maintenance hangars but if you wanted major work done you had to go to one of the bigger airstrips that had overhauling facilities. The planes were parked at hard-stands along the verges of the runways in high yellow grass. Some of them were tied down against the danger of high winds that might tip them over and snap a wing.
They’d never kept a night watchman and he assumed they’d had no reason to hire one since he’d taken his lessons here. He drove without lights right up to the dark hangars and switched off.
According to Oakley’s watch it was four-twenty. This time of year nothing would begin stirring here until at least seven-thirty, more likely eight. There was plenty of time. He checked out the hangars cursorily and then went down the line of aircraft to pick out a plane. He knew what sort he wanted but he wasn’t sure there’d be one. He’d settle for something else in that case.
But there was one. It was an old PBY Catalina amphibian-a small twin-engine flying boat on wheels. Some of the vintners liked to use amphibians because it made for handy access to quiet shores along the inlets of Lake Geneva on trips to Swiss banks they preferred not to advertise. It was a service Kendig had used a few times to get his money in and out of Zurich.
He took note of the civil air numbers painted on the plane and he went back to the hangar and broke into the office. He didn’t want to turn on a light; there were two chateaus on heights within less than a mile. He lighted a wooden match and found the key on the pegboard by the number on its tag. Nobody stole airplanes; they were too traceable; so there was no security imposed.
He pocketed the PBY key and got back in the car and drove it out the runway, racked it alongside the Catalina and got to work. He checked the fuel gauges and found it full; that was standard procedure-you filled after you landed, not before you took off; that way you were ready to go on short notice. He took out the three logbooks-by regulation there was one for the airframe and a separate one for each engine-and left them askew on the floor by the right-seat rudder pedals. He didn’t care what shape the plane was in but it had to look as if he did. Cutter wasn’t going to give him any help if he left too many doors open.
He put the suitcase in the plane, belt-strapping it onto one of the pry-rigged passenger seats in the midships blister. The manuscript was in the suitcase. He had to give it up to them or they wouldn’t buy any of it; and it had to be the real manuscript, not a fake and not a partial-no tricks, nothing withheld.