Masvidal calculated briefly. “I’ll have to gather the men together at my base in Spain and leave en masse. Say Saturday afternoon.”
“The operation is scheduled to begin sometime Sunday,” Locke reminded him. “That doesn’t give us much time.”
“We won’t need much,” Masvidal said. “I have been waiting for years for the chance to destroy my greatest enemy.”
“Then we’re all agreed so far,” Dogan concluded.
“Sure, boss,” Locke snapped sarcastically, “except what am I supposed to do about my son?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Mandala wanted some answers from me back in Rome. He thought showing me one of the boy’s fingers might do the trick.” Chris steadied himself, backed off. “Nikki stashed him with a doctor in Devon.”
Dogan turned to Nikki.
“I’ve used him in the past,” she explained. “Just me. Mandala doesn’t even know he exists.”
Dogan looked back at Locke. “Then your son’s safer where he is for now. When this is over, the U.S. government will fly him home in Air Force One.”
“Unless we fail and there’s no one left to make the reservation.”
“We won’t fail, Chris. We can’t.”
“I’m going after Mandala,” Nikki said suddenly. “No trips to Texas on my agenda.”
“So you’ll leave Chris to make it there on his own?”
She hesitated at that. “You saw what the bastard did to my mother. I owe him.”
“And I’m the only one who can find him,” Dogan told her. “But he won’t be in Texas; that part of the operation has been planned like clockwork all along. It can easily proceed without him. Mandala will be in South America preparing to get the second stage of his plan underway.”
“San Sebastian?”
Dogan nodded. “That explains the presence of those guards down there who tried to kill me. Mandala burned the town but he always knew he’d be coming back.” He held Nikki’s eyes with his own. “But all this is speculation on my part. There’s no sense in both of us wasting our time on what might turn out to be a wild goose chase. You’re a professional. God knows you’ve proved that much. A professional’s place is with Chris. Leave Mandala to me.”
“And his giant?”
“He’s not indestructible.”
“Where will you be while the rest of us are in Texas, Ross?” Locke wondered.
“Washington. Trying to pry some people off their asses.”
“My mother said that would be a mistake,” Nikki reminded.
“For you maybe, but not me. Up until last week, Washington paid my salary. I’ll find people who’ll listen. I know the right buttons to push.”
Nikki nodded. “Insurance, right?”
Dogan said nothing.
“Ross, what does she mean by insurance?” Locke asked anxiously.
It was Nikki who answered the question. “I mean if we don’t get the job done in Keysar Flats, he’s going to try to have somebody standing by who can.”
“They might supplement your efforts,” Dogan said. “And there’s San Sebastian to consider also. This whole thing’s much too big for us to handle alone.”
“Why not let me take my people to San Sebastian?” Masvidal suggested. “It is my territory.”
“But Keysar Flats is the key, the U.S. is the key. We’ve got to concentrate our forces there. Both of us will have to succeed anyway if Mandala is to be stopped altogether.” Dogan met the eyes of Nikki and then of Locke. “I should reach Washington tomorrow about the same time you reach Texas. I’ll start knocking on doors immediately.”
“And hope somebody answers,” said Locke.
“Someone who won’t put a bullet through your head,” added Nikki.
Chapter 31
Before Locke and Nikki departed for America, Dogan gave them a number to call once they reached Paris. They would be speaking into a tape machine and need only state anything that had come up along the way. Dogan would need Vaslov’s help in establishing the line, so he cautioned them not to bother calling it until Paris. It would surely be in place by then.
Next a site had to be found for the rendezvous with Masvidal and his people on Saturday. A guidebook provided them with a roadside motel just off Route 83 that would be perfect. Masvidal would arrive there with his men and equipment sometime after three but before five on Saturday. If he was going to be any later, he would get word to Locke through a messenger.
At Vienna Airport, Chris let Nikki take care of purchasing the tickets and obtaining their boarding passes. While she was at the ticket counter, he busied himself with watching the people. Airports were fantastically uniform locales. All cities in all countries featured the same luggage and the same people carting it in a rush to make their flight, nervously checking their watches as if their eyes might make the hands move slower.
Locke’s attention was caught at a small café. An older man with little hair was seated at the counter. Chris felt a tingling in his spine, a warning of recognition. He tried to place the man, couldn’t, and stared harder. The man swung round briefly and their eyes would have met if Chris hadn’t looked away.
Nikki was by his side seconds later and when he turned back to the coffee counter the man was gone.
“Something wrong?” she asked him.
“No. I just thought I saw someone I recognized.”
“Well, we’ve got forty-five minutes before the flight leaves,” she said, placing their boarding passes in her shoulder bag. “A drink should settle those nerves of yours.”
Chris went with her to the bar but ordered soda. They sat on stools at the end of the small bar, a vantage point that gave him clear view of the airport lobby.
“The flight has a stop-off at Geneva and then goes to Paris,” Nikki was saying. “We’ll be in by early Friday morning.”
Chris didn’t hear her. Something had caught his eye, a head, no, a hat — a green porkpie hat. The man from the coffee counter was visible only from the rear at a newsstand but the hat reminded Locke where he had seen him before. It was the man who’d sat next to him on the flight from London, the man who had spent the trip doing crossword puzzles. Locke slid from his chair.
“Chris?” Nikki called after him.
But Locke was already in motion, pushing through a swarm of debarking passengers crowding into the terminal and hurrying toward the newsstand. What was the man doing back at the airport? Had he been following them all along?
Chris reached the newsstand, but the man with the porkpie hat was gone.
A hand grasped his shoulder. Locke swung quickly.
“Take it easy,” Nikki said. “What’s going on?”
“The man I sat next to on the plane from London, I thought I saw him standing over here.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Same size? Height?”
“Just a hat, a green porkpie hat. The overcoat too, I think, but I can’t be sure.”
“You didn’t get a good look at his face?”
“I was too far away. That’s why I came over here.”
Nikki didn’t seem overly concerned. “I think all this is starting to get to you.”
“It already has. I still think it was him.”
“And what if it was? This airport is known for delayed and canceled flights. No one followed us to or from the castle; I’d bet anything on that. He’s probably just a stranded traveler.”
Locke shrugged. Nikki led him away from the newsstand back toward the bar.
“You could have stayed at Kreuzenstein,” he said when they were seated once again on their stools. “You could have stayed with … your mother.”
“She’s your mother too.”