“Go to Cornwall. Find Burgess. He’ll … get … you—”
That was it. Charney died. The last of his breath poured out in a wisp, as if a vacuum had sucked him dry. His eyes locked open and sightless. Locke eased his head onto the carpet. He wanted to collapse and cry for himself as well as his friend, give up and just sit for a while. But he couldn’t. Whoever had killed Charney was close, in the hotel by now almost surely, coming to the room perhaps. Locke had to act fast but his mind wouldn’t cooperate.
It was too much. Memories of the horrible accident twenty-two years before filled his head, of watching helplessly as the doctors lifted an unconscious Lubeck onto a stretcher and tore away the field dressing to reveal the mangled remains of his hand. It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake from and now the nightmare had returned. He had seen one friend crippled and another killed. Both were dead, and he was so goddamn alone….
But he had to act! Survival called out to him, Brian Charney called out to him, the training from long before called out to him.
They‘re everywhere, everything….
Who had Charney been talking about?
Locke’s mind craved release. He focused on escape, on survival. He had no passport, little money. All he had was an address.
He looked at the tattered, bloodied sheet of paper Charney had given him and read it quickly: Colin Burgess, Bruggar House, Cadgwith Cove, Cornwall.
Chris struggled to recall his knowledge of English geography. Cadgwith Cove was located on a stretch of land called the Lizard at England’s southwesternmost tip. Accessible easily by train. First he would need a cab to get him to the station.
He was getting ahead of himself, though. His clothes were bloodied and demanded changing before he set out. He stripped off the ruined ones he had on, grabbed a fresh set from the floor and changed quickly, tucking all his remaining money in a pocket along with Charney’s paper. He started for the door, glancing at his friend’s corpse one last time. There should have been something else he could do for him. Letting him lie there didn’t seem right, but he had no choice.
Locke stepped into the corridor and advanced slowly. He reached an intersection and stopped, wary of proceeding. He could turn right or keep straight. Which way? He hesitated, but not for long because up ahead two men had just turned onto the hallway. The men from the lobby! Locke ducked to the right and starting running down the adjacent hallway. He had no idea if the men had seen him. Either way, there would be others around.
A diversion, he needed a diversion. Confusion had to be created into which he could disappear. But how?
The answer lay before him at eye level on the wall. Locke hit the lever hard and yanked.
The fire alarm began to blare instantly. At this relatively early hour of the evening, most guests were in their rooms preparing for dinner. In seconds the corridor was lined with milling bodies moving unsurely but rapidly, searching for someone to follow as they tested the air for smoke.
The elevators had shut off automatically. Eight flights of stairs had to be descended, and the unnerved guests clustered toward the nearest exit. Locke let himself be swept up in their momentum, slowed at each descending level as they caught up with more figures and more clutter. By the fifth floor he realized there was no one shoving toward him from the rear. He was breathing easier when he reached the lobby to find people gathered everywhere, the overflow spilling into the street.
Locke joined the spillover, staying among the crowd as he searched for a cab, breaking away only when he was certain the chaos had him totally shielded.
Trust no one….
Locke wanted to go straight to the American Embassy and dump his story on the ambassador’s desk, but Charney’s command prevented him. Who knew how deep this mess went? In Washington, Charney had said there was an army supporting him, reinforcements only a phone call away. Then where were they when he had needed them? Why hadn’t then responded? No, his friend had encountered forces he had not expected and was ill equipped to deal with. And if that were so, what chance would Locke stand against them?
Trembling, he walked further into the night.
Chapter 9
Dogan had been expecting a call from the Commander all day, so when it came he was more relieved than surprised. Best to get things over with. Operatives of Division Six seldom fucked up, and when they did there was hell to pay. And Dogan had fucked up big time.
The Commander requested a nine P.M. meeting at his favorite outdoor café on the Champs-Élysées. Dogan was ready for a typical chewing-out session. He would grit his teeth and nod his way through it.
The Commander was waiting for him at an isolated table for two in the sidewalk café’s rear corner. He looked more French than American with thinning hair, rimless glasses, and a thick mustache sliced off well before it reached the edges of his mouth. As always he was reading a newspaper. His tone would be indifferent; his eyes would seldom leave the print. Funny thing about the Commander, he could chastise you without ever meeting your stare, as if you didn’t even merit the recognition. How he had risen to the position of chief of Division Six’s affairs in Europe was beyond Dogan. Then again, much had been beyond him lately.
“Good evening, Grendel,” the Commander said, not looking up from his newspaper. “Please sit down.” Dogan did as he was told. “A most unfortunate day.”
“I’ve had better.”
“And not many worse, I should hope. I’ve just received the medical report on Keyes. He’ll be manning a desk for the balance of his career, thanks to his wrist.”
“It’s the best place for him.”
“We invested a lot of money believing otherwise.”
“You were wrong.”
“A report would have more than sufficed. An assault was totally uncalled for.”
Dogan felt his anger rising. “I gave him a direct order. He disobeyed it.”
“Yes, Grendel,” the Commander responded. “I’ve read the boy’s report on that. You ordered him to let Vaslov go, correct?”
“Correct.”
“The most wanted number from the KGB and you ordered him let go. Keyes claims he had the Russian dead on target.”
“The shot wasn’t clear. People were everywhere. If I had let that kid start blasting, innocent bystanders would have been dropping everywhere.”
“Along with Vaslov perhaps?”
“Possibly, but the risk was not acceptable,” Dogan explained, trying to justify his actions, though the truth was much simpler: Vaslov had beaten him and deserved to walk. “Shootouts are a thing of the past, Commander, you’ve told me that yourself on more than one occasion.”
The Commander glanced up briefly. “That’s not the point and please don’t talk to me about procedure. You didn’t just stop Keyes from firing into a crowd, you shattered his wrist and made holding a telephone painful for him for the rest of his life. He’s not happy and neither is the department.”
“You’re not expecting me to deny this, I hope.”
“There would be no sense in that. You violated a major rule of the field this morning: You let anger get the better of you.”
“Not anger, Commander, frustration. You gave me a bunch of wet-eared kids who couldn’t follow orders on a simple pickup operation.”
“The operation was yours, Grendel. So is the responsibility for bungling it.”
“And I’m not trying to pass that off. Except the operation wasn’t bungled. It was clean and well conceived.”
“The results seem to indicate otherwise….”
“Because Vaslov and the Russians beat us. They played a better game. They’re superior to us because their agents know nothing about ego gratifications. They have a job to do and it gets done. Simple.”