“A custom rarely breached in this town,” said Abbott, amused.
Again the congressman from Oversight interrupted. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Gillette?”
“I’d like more information about the activities of one Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. That’s—”
“Carlos,” said the congressman. “I remember my reading. I see. Thank you. Go on, gentlemen.”
Manning spoke quickly. “May we get back to Zurich, please. Our recommendation is to go after Cain now. We can spread the word in the Verbrecherwelt, pull in every informer we have, request the cooperation of the Zurich police. We can’t afford to lose another day. The man in Zurich is Cain.”
“Then what was Brussels?” The CIA’s Knowlton asked the question as much of himself as anyone at the table. “The method was Cain’s, the informants unequivocal. What was the purpose?”
“To feed you false information, obviously,” said Gillette. “And before we make any dramatic moves in Zurich, I suggest that each of you comb the Cain files and recheck every source given you. Have your European stations pull in every informant who so miraculously appeared to offer information. I have an idea you might find something you didn’t expect: the fine Latin hand of Ramirez Sanchez.”
“Since you’re so insistent on clarification, Alfred,” interrupted Abbott, “why not tell us about the unconfirmed occurrence that took place six months ago. We seem to be in a quagmire here; it might be helpful.”
For the first time during the conference, the abrasive delegate from the National Security Council seemed to hesitate. “We received word around the middle of August from a reliable source in Aix-en-Provence that Cain was on his way to Marseilles.”
“August?” exclaimed the colonel. “Marseilles? That was Leland! Ambassador Leland was shot in Marseilles. In August!”
“But Cain didn’t fire that rifle. It was a Carlos kill; that was confirmed. Bore-markings matched with previous assassinations, three descriptions of an unknown dark-haired man on the third and fourth floors of the waterfront warehouse, carrying a satchel. There was never any doubt that Leland was murdered by Carlos.”
“For Christ’s sake,” roared the officer. “That’s after the fact, after the kill! No matter whose, there was a contract out on Leland—hadn’t that occurred to you? If we’d known about Cain, we might have been able to cover Leland. He was military property! Goddamn it, he might be alive today!”
“Unlikely,” replied Gillette calmly. “Leland wasn’t the sort of man to live in a bunker. And given his life-style, a vague warning would have served no purpose. Besides, had our strategy held together, warning Leland would have been counterproductive.”
“In what way?” asked the Monk harshly.
“It’s your fuller explanation. Our source was to make contact with Cain during the hours of midnight and three in the morning in the rue Sarrasin on August 23. Leland wasn’t due until the twenty-fifth. As I say, had it held together we would have taken Cain. It didn’t; Cain never showed up.”
“And your source insisted on cooperating solely with you,” said Abbott. “To the exclusion of all others.”
“Yes,” nodded Gillette, trying but unable to conceal his embarrassment. “In our judgment, the risk to Leland had been eliminated—which in terms of Cain turned out to be the truth—and the odds for capture greater than they’d ever been. We’d finally found someone willing to come out and identify Cain. Would any of you have handled it any other way?”
Silence. This time broken by the drawl of the astute congressman from Tennessee.
“Jesus Christ Almighty … what a bunch of bullshitters.”
Silence, terminated by the thoughtful voice of David Abbott.
“May I commend you, sir, on being the first honest man sent over from the Hill. The fact that you are not overwhelmed by the rarefied atmosphere of these highly classified surroundings is not lost on any of us. It’s refreshing.”
“I don’t think the congressman fully grasps the sensitivity of—”
“Oh, shut up, Peter,” said the Monk. “I think the congressman wants to say something.”
“Just for a bit,” said Walters. “I thought you were all over twenty-one; I mean, you look over twenty-one, and by then you’re supposed to know better. You’re supposed to be able to hold intelligent conversations, exchange information while respecting confidentiality, and look for common solutions. Instead, you sound like a bunch of kids jumping on a goddamn carousel, squabbling over who’s going to get the cheap brass ring. It’s a hell of a way to spend taxpayers’ money.”
“You’re oversimplifying, Congressman,” broke in Gillette. “You’re talking about a utopian fact-finding apparatus. There’s no such thing.”
“I’m talking about reasonable men, sir. I’m a lawyer, and before I came up to this godforsaken circus, I dealt with ascending levels of confidentiality every day of my life. What’s so damn new about them?”
“And what’s your point?” asked the Monk.
“I want an explanation. For over eighteen months I’ve sat on the House Assassination Subcommittee. I’ve plowed through thousands of pages, filled with hundreds of names and twice as many theories. I don’t think there’s a suggested conspiracy or a suspected assassin I’m not aware of. I’ve lived with those names and those theories for damn near two years, until I didn’t think there was anything left to learn.”
“I’d say your credentials were very impressive,” interrupted Abbott.
“I thought they might be; it’s why I accepted the Oversight chair. I thought I could make a realistic contribution, but now I’m not so sure. I’m suddenly beginning to wonder what I do know.”
“Why?” asked Manning apprehensively.
“Because I’ve been sitting here listening to the four of you describe an operation that’s been going on for three years, involving networks of personnel and informants and major intelligence posts throughout Europe—all centered on an assassin whose ‘list of accomplishments’ is staggering. Am I substantively correct?”
“Go on,” replied Abbott quietly, holding his pipe, his expression rapt. “What’s your question?”
“Who is he? Who the hell is this Cain?”
16
The silence lasted precisely five seconds, during which time eyes roamed other eyes, several throats were cleared, and no one moved in his chair. It was as if a decision were being reached without discussion: evasion was to be avoided. Congressman Efrem Walters, out of the hills of Tennessee by way of the Yale Law Review, was not to be dismissed with facile circumlocution that dealt with the esoterica of clandestine manipulations. Bullshit was out.
David Abbott put his pipe down on the table, the quiet clatter his overture. “The less public exposure a man like Cain receives the better it is for everyone.”
“That’s no answer,” said Walters. “But I assume it’s the beginning of one.”
“It is. He’s a professional assassin—that is, a trained expert in wide-ranging methods of taking life. That expertise is for sale, neither politics nor personal motivation any concern to him whatsoever. He’s in business solely to make a profit—and his profits escalate in direct ratio to his reputation.”
The congressman nodded. “So by keeping as tight a lid as you can on that reputation you’re holding back free advertising.”
“Exactly. There are a lot of maniacs in this world with too many real or imagined enemies who might easily gravitate to Cain if they knew of him. Unfortunately, more than we care to think about already have; to date thirty-eight killings can be directly attributed to Cain, and some twelve to fifteen are probables.”
“That’s his list of ‘accomplishments’?”
“Yes. And we’re losing the battle. With each new killing his reputation spreads.”
“He was dormant for a while,” said Knowlton of the CIA. “For a number of months recently we thought he might have been taken himself. There were several probables in which the killers themselves were eliminated; we thought he might have been one of them.”
“Such as?” asked Walters.
“A banker in Madrid who funneled bribes for the Europolitan Corporation for government purchases in Africa. He was shot from a speeding car on the Paseo de la Castellana. A chauffeur-bodyguard gunned down both driver and killer, for a time we believed the killer was Cain.”
“I remember the incident. Who might have paid for it?”
“Any number of companies,” answered Gillette, “who wanted to sell gold-plated cars and indoor plumbing to instant dictators.”
“What else? Who else?”
“Sheik Mustafa Kalig in Oman,” said Colonel Manning.
“He was reported killed in an abortive coup.”
“Not so,” continued the officer. “There was no attempted coup; G-Two informants confirmed that. Kalig was unpopular, but the other sheiks aren’t fools. The coup story was a cover for an assassination that could tempt other professional killers. Three troublesome nonentities from the Officer Corps were executed to lend credence to the lie. For a while, we thought one of them was Cain; the timing corresponds to Cain’s dormancy.”
“Who would pay Cain for assassinating Kalig?”
“We asked ourselves that over and over again,” said Manning. “The only possible answer came from a source who claimed to know, but there was no way to verify it. He said Cain did it to prove it could be done. By him. Oil sheiks travel with the tightest security in the world.”