The irony struck him. It was not that many years ago when others sat in front of switchboards for him. At his companies in Saigon and in the communications room of his vast plantation in the Mekong Delta. And here he was now in front of someone else’s switchboard in the perfumed surroundings of Saint-Honoré. The English poet said it best: There were more preposterous vicissitudes in life than a single philosophy could conjure.
He heard laughter on the staircase and looked up. Jacqueline was leaving early, no doubt with one of her celebrated and fully bankrolled acquaintances. There was no question about it, Jacqueline had a talent for removing gold from a well-guarded mine, even diamonds from De Beers. He could not see the man with her; he was on the other side of Jacqueline, his head oddly turned away.
Then for an instant he did see him; their eyes made contact; it was brief and explosive. The gray-haired switchboard operator suddenly could not breathe; he was suspended in a moment of disbelief, staring at a face, a head, he had not seen in years. And then almost always in darkness, for they had worked at night … died at night.
Oh, my God—it was him! From the living—dying—nightmares thousands of miles away. It was him!
The gray-haired man rose from the switchboard as if in a trance. He pulled the mouthpiece-earphone off and let it drop to the floor. It clattered as the board lit up with incoming calls that made no connections, answered only with discordant hums. He stepped off the platform and sidestepped his way quickly toward the aisle to get a better look at Jacqueline Lavier and the ghost that was her escort. The ghost who was a killer—above all men he had ever known, a killer. They said it might happen but he had never believed them; he believed them now. It was the man.
He saw them both clearly. Saw him. They were walking down the center aisle toward the entrance. He had to stop them. Stop her! But to rush out and yell would mean death. A bullet in the head, instantaneous.
They reached the doors; he pulled them open, ushering her out to the pavement. The gray-haired man raced out from his hiding place, across the intersecting aisle and down to the front window. Out in the street he had flagged a taxi. He was opening the door, motioning for Jacqueline to get inside. Oh, God! She was going!
The middle-aged man turned and ran as fast as he could toward the staircase. He collided with two startled customers and a salesclerk, pushing all three violently out of his way. He raced up the steps, across the balcony and down the corridor, to the open studio door.
“René! René!” he shouted, bursting inside.
Bergeron looked up from his sketchboard, astonished. “What is it?”
“That man with Jacqueline! Who is he? How long has he been here?”
“Oh? Probably the American,” said the designer. “His name’s Briggs. A fatted calf; he’s done very well by our grosses today.”
“Where did they go?”
“I didn’t know they went anywhere.”
“She left with him!”
“Our Jacqueline retains her touch, no? And her good sense.”
“Find them! Get her!”
“Why?”
“He knows! He’ll kill her!”
“What?”
“It’s him! I’d swear to it! That man is Cain!”
15
“The man is Cain,” said Colonel Jack Manning bluntly, as if he expected to be contradicted by at least three of the four civilians at the Pentagon conference table. Each was older than he, and each considered himself more experienced. None was prepared to acknowledge that the army had obtained information where his own organization had failed. There was a fourth civilian but his opinion did not count. He was a member of the Congressional Oversight Committee, and as such to be treated with deference, but not seriously. “If we don’t move now,” continued Manning, “even at the risk of exposing everything we’ve learned, he could slip through the nets again. As of eleven days ago, he was in Zurich. We’re convinced he’s still there. And, gentlemen, it is Cain.”
“That’s quite a statement,” said the balding, birdlike academic from the National Security Council as he read the summary page concerning Zurich given to each delegate at the table. His name was Alfred Gillette, an expert in personnel screening and evaluation, and was considered by the Pentagon to be bright, vindictive, and with friends in high places.
“I find it extraordinary,” added Peter Knowlton, an associate director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a man in his middle fifties who perpetuated the dressy the appearance, and the attitude of an Ivy Leaguer of thirty years ago. “Our sources have Cain in Brussels, not Zurich, at the same time-eleven days ago. Our sources are rarely in error.”
“That’s quite a statement,” said the third civilian, the only one at that table Manning really respected. He was the oldest there, a man named David Abbott, a former Olympic swimmer whose intellect had matched his physical prowess. He was in his late sixties now, but his bearing was still erect, his mind as sharp as it had ever been, his age, however, betrayed by a face lined from the tensions of a lifetime he would never reveal. He knew what he was talking about, thought the colonel. Although he was currently a member of the omnipotent Forty Committee, he had been with the CIA since its origins in the OSS. The Silent Monk of Covert Operations had been the sobriquet given him by his colleagues in the intelligence community. “In my days at the Agency,” continued Abbott, chuckling, “the sources were often as not in conflict as in agreement.”
“We have different methods of verification,” pressed the associate director. “No disrespect, Mr. Abbott, but our transmissions equipment is literally instantaneous.”
“That’s equipment, not verification. But I won’t argue; it seems we have a disagreement. Brussels or Zurich.”
“The case for Brussels is airtight,” insisted Knowlton firmly.
“Let’s hear it,” said the balding Gillette, adjusting his glasses. “We can return to the Zurich summary; it’s right in front of us. Also, our sources have some input to offer, although it’s not in conflict with Brussels or Zurich. It happened some six months ago.”
The silver-haired Abbott glanced over at Gillette. “Six months ago? I don’t recall NSC having delivered anything about Cain six months ago.”
“It wasn’t totally confirmed,” replied Gillette. “We try not to burden the committee with unsubstantiated data.”
“That’s also quite a statement,” said Abbott, not needing to clarify.
“Congressman Walters,” interrupted the colonel, looking at the man from Oversight, “do you have any questions before we go on?”
“Hell, yes,” drawled the congressional watchdog from the state of Tennessee, his intelligent eyes roaming the faces, “but since I’m new at this, you go ahead so I’ll know where to begin.”
“Very well, sir,” said Manning, nodding at the CIA’s Knowlton. “What’s this about Brussels eleven days ago?”
“A man was killed in the Place Fontainas—a covert dealer in diamonds between Moscow and the West. He operated through a branch of Russolmaz, the Soviet firm in Geneva that brokers all such purchases. We know it’s one way Cain converts his funds.”
“What ties the killing to Cain?” asked the dubious Gillette.
“Method, first. The weapon was a long needle, implanted in a crowded square at noontime with surgical precision. Cain’s used it before.”
“That’s quite true,” agreed Abbott. “There was a Rumanian in London somewhat over a year ago; another only weeks before him. Both were narrowed to Cain.”
“Narrowed but not confirmed,” objected Colonel Manning. “They were high-level political defectors; they could have been taken by the KGB.”
“Or by Cain with far less risk to the Soviets,” argued the CIA man.
“Or by Carlos,” added Gillette, his voice rising. “Neither Carlos nor Cain is concerned about ideology; they’re both for hire. Why is it every time there’s a killing of consequence, we ascribe it to Cain?”
“Whenever we do,” replied Knowlton, his condescension obvious, “it’s because informed sources unknown to each other have reported the same information. Since the informants have no knowledge of each other, there could hardly be collusion.”
“It’s all too pat,” said Gillette disagreeably.
“Back to Brussels,” interrupted the colonel. “If it was Cain, why would he kill a broker from Russolmaz? He used him.”
“A covert broker,” corrected the CIA director. “And for any number of reasons, according to our informants. The man was a thief, and why not? Most of his clients were too; they couldn’t very well file charges. He might have cheated Cain, and if he did, it’d be his last transaction. Or he could have been foolish enough to speculate on Cain’s identity; even a hint of that would call for the needle. Or perhaps Cain simply wanted to bury his current traces. Regardless, the circumstances plus the sources leave little doubt that it was Cain.”
“There’ll be a lot more when I clarify Zurich,” said Manning. “May we proceed to the summary?”