The Predators Part 22

'You're surely not thinking of the amba.s.sador again?' said Burt Harrison, coming into the discussion.

'Not directly,' said Claudine. 'He they are just the route. From now on I want them to focus on me.'

She had arranged to meet Henri Sanglier at the Metropole hotel to show him the two listening devices before he went to James McBride, and Claudine had expected Blake to return there with her. But as they broke up Blake said that although it would almost certainly be unproductive he thought he should attend the identification parade including the two convicted women s.e.x offenders.

'And Harding says there's something he wants to talk to me about.'

John Norris was tight with excitement, his overriding feeling oddly one of relief that he was at last going to achieve so much in such a short time. He didn't have the slightest doubt that it would all fall into place precisely as he'd planned it would. That was all it needed, precise and detailed planning, and Norris had all that in order: all the sessions s.p.a.ced out according to their priority, all the evidence a.s.sembled, memorized and ready to be presented. The amba.s.sador first, then the Carter woman. The Iceman myth was going to be well and truly established after today.

During the drive back to the emba.s.sy Norris waited, testingly, for the chief of mission to refer to his impending appointment with the amba.s.sador but Burt Harrison said nothing, which Norris regarded as important. McBride obviously hadn't mentioned it, anxious to contain things between the two of them. A further indicator, Norris decided, to go with the familiar uncertainty he'd detected in McBride's voice when the amba.s.sador had agreed to see him, that hesitant intonation of nervous guilt he'd heard a thousand times and never once been wrong about.

There was still time to spare when they got back to the emba.s.sy and Norris went first to the FBI office, determined everything should be ready there. He carelessly cleared Harding's desk, with only one exception, opening and filling drawers at random until all that remained on its top was an unmarked blotter, a multi-lined telephone and the overnight Was.h.i.+ngton dossier he intended carrying intimidatingly into his confrontation with the amba.s.sador. The exception was the top right-hand drawer of Harding's desk, which Norris withdrew and closed several times to ensure its smoothness before installing its unaccustomed contents, the tape recorder uppermost. His final act, before leaving the room, was to position a single chair directly opposite the one he would occupy on the far side of the desk.

James McBride was alone, stiffly upright and blank-faced behind his overpowering desk, which by comparison with the one Norris had just left was cluttered with papers and files and doc.u.ments. Norris at once identified the ploy, the workplace of a busy man with little time to spare. It was all so predictable, like a soap opera script.

'What is it you want me to do?' demanded McBride briskly.

Clever, conceded Norris: predictable again but still clever. 'I'd like you to help me about certain things.' Abruptly there was the briefest sweep of dizziness, gone as quickly as it had come.

'Harrison's just told me there were no real developments this morning?'

'It's not about your daughter.' This was what he'd always liked best, the thrust and parry of interrogation. He had it all marshalled in his mind, dates and times ready for any challenge or evasion. He felt very hot: probably the reason for the dizziness.

'Mr Norris,' said McBride, with threatening condescension. 'As well as being a very busy man I'm also a very worried one. There is, in fact, only one concern on my mind at the moment and only one thing I want to talk to you about. And that's Mary Beth: our only necessary point of contact. I'll give you all the time you want if it's to do with her. But if it isn't I'm going to have to ask you to let me get on with being an amba.s.sador.'

Time to kick the struts away, to bring everything cras.h.i.+ng down. 'Can you tell me about Luigi della Sialvo?'

The question was like a physical blow, low in the stomach: McBride actually came close to feeling breathless. 'Who?'

'Don't you know a Luigi della Sialvo?'

He'd already said he was too busy to discuss anything but Mary Beth, so he could demand the man leave. But if he did that he wouldn't learn just how much Norris or the FBI back home knew. 'I don't recognize the name. Who is he? What's this about?'

That wasn't right: not the reaction it should have been. McBride should have been more unsteady when the name was thrown at him. It was important to keep up the pressure. He went to speak but then didn't, his mind suddenly thick, as if it was filled with mush. Forcing himself, he said: 'Illegal arms dealing.'

McBride told himself not to panic; not to betray any awareness. Not yet. He had to wait for the accusation: demand the proof. Even then he could deny knowing the man, pleading the pa.s.sage of time. 'What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?'

'Luigi della Sialvo is currently under Grand Jury indictment on five counts of illegal arms dealing with the regime of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. A fugitive, in fact.' That was better. Clear-headed again. Everything a.s.sembled in his mind.

Fugitive! McBride seized on the word. Not under arrest, likely to horse-trade or plea-bargain, spilling his guts for a lenient sentence. The sensation of breathlessness began to recede. 'All my stock is in a blind trust escrow account, but I would have been informed of any investigation into my former corporation ...'

Norris had wanted a definite sign by now: the twitching s.h.i.+ftiness that always came just before a collapse. 'Your own records show your corporation actively traded with Luigi della Sialvo five months prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.' Was it five or seven? The dates he'd wanted to be so pedantic about, showing he knew everything, wouldn't come. 'Two deals worth about ...' Norris's mind blanked again, stranding him '... worth many millions of dollars.'

It was right that he should show total shock, decided McBride: appear to be momentarily unable to respond. When he did speak it was loudly, in furious indignation. 'Are you accusing me executives in my corporation of illegal arms dealings? Telling me my companies are under investigation?'

The response came half formed in Norris's mind, then slipped away again. 'No accusation ... just asking about a man currently under indictment. There isn't an investigation yet.'

Yet, thought McBride. It was a fis.h.i.+ng expedition: the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was looking for a confession! 'On whose authority or instructions did you request this meeting?'

'I am ranked as a senior field executive of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a deputy division director. I have sufficient personal authority.' That was better: thinking properly again. He wished the muzziness would stop coming and going: that it wasn't so hot in the room.

The man had left himself wide open, thought McBride. So which course should he take? Outraged, amba.s.sadorial-level dismissal, or the astonished disbelief of an innocent man at a horrifying possibility of embarra.s.sment? He'd learn more playing the innocent. 'Which company is named in the indictments against this man?'

Norris couldn't remember! One moment he had the name, the next it had gone, his head thick. Not mush; as if it was filled with cotton waste. 'Lextop,' he finally managed.

'Lestrop,' corrected McBride, curious at the mistake. It was a pa.s.sing thought, replaced in a moment. So this was the unspecified rumour that was causing the Lestrop stock to slide: where della Sialvo had gone after he'd told the Italian to go f.u.c.k himself! It still didn't help McBride gauge the danger he faced.

'That's it, Lestrop,' accepted Norris gratefully. This wasn't going at all as it should have done: how he'd planned it. By now McBride should have broken, made a mistake he could have picked up and used to trap the man into making more. It was so difficult, keeping things straight and in the order he intended. He didn't want at this late stage actually to consult the Was.h.i.+ngton dossier but he couldn't afford another mistake. At once came the contradiction. The file was intimidatingly thick. Consulting it now might convince McBride it contained more about him than it really did. He dropped one of the indictments taking them out of the folder and had to grope awkwardly under his chair to retrieve it. 'There's an international arrest warrant out against della Sialvo. He's thought to be somewhere here, in Europe.'

Where he'd be relatively safe and able to operate, McBride knew: international arrest warrants were notoriously difficult to enforce, particularly in countries with different legal systems. He would have known of an active investigation: it would have been inevitable. 'How did Was.h.i.+ngton discover the trading with my company?'

Norris realized the amba.s.sador was questioning him, not the other way round as it should have been. Had to get the order reversed: get everything back on track. It was difficult to keep the loose papers from sliding off his lap, the facts from slipping out of his mind. 'I asked for an in-depth examination, checking for enemies you might have made. I mentioned the possibility, remember?'

So it wasn't yet properly official, a Was.h.i.+ngton operation. There never had been any secret about the two deals he'd done with della Sialvo. They were totally legal, a matter of public record, apart from the Zurich bank commission payments and that was a problem for Sialvo's native Italy, not the United States. And the Italian was free and likely to remain so. McBride was glad he'd played the innocent. It made the rest of the meeting easy. He said: 'This is potentially very worrying.'

Here it comes, thought Norris triumphantly: it had taken longer than he'd expected he'd begun to feel uneasy, which was ridiculous but the first trickle had just seeped through the breach in the dam. It would come in a tidal wave now. It always did. 'The more you can tell me the better it will be.'

'Quite so.' MrBride's mind veered sideways, off on a sharp tangent. Thank G.o.d there'd been the confrontation at the beginning, taking the negotiations for Mary Beth's freedom away from this b.u.mbling, almost incoherent idiot! When it was all over when Mary was safely back he'd have the FBI Director's a.s.s for sending someone like Norris.

'I always think it's best ... what I prefer ... what I'd like us to do would be to set it out chronologically, from the very beginning,' said Norris.

'The Gulf War was a long time ago. Seven, eight years.'

'There's no hurry. Your own time.' He'd won, beaten an amba.s.sador friend of the President!

There wasn't any purpose in prolonging this charade: it was almost cruel, like a cat taunting a captured mouse. 'I don't have any official position in the corporation any more but obviously in the circ.u.mstances the board will do as I ask. I'll send them a very full explanation, immediately. Ask them to cooperate in every way with the Bureau. And advise your Director, of course: send both sides copies of what I've told the other. And tell State and the President.'

Norris sat staring at the other man, his mind wiped clean once more. 'No,' he said dully.

'No what?' McBride frowned.

'I want you, now ... to tell me, now. It's my case.'

'There's nothing to tell you. After so long I can't remember anyone named Luigi della Sialvo but if he's an indicted criminal ... a fugitive from American justice ... then quite obviously my former colleagues have to cooperate in every way they can ... as I will if it turns out that I dealt with him personally ...' McBride rose, ending the encounter. 'You're to be congratulated for digging deep enough to find this, Mr Norris.'

Norris rose, without any positive intention of doing so, and papers cascaded on to the floor. He had to kneel to pick them up. Still kneeling he said to the other man: 'Please. Tell me!'

'I've told you, there's nothing I can help you with at the moment,' McBride said. 'It's too long ago. But your people in Was.h.i.+ngton will get every help: I guarantee it.' He came round the monstrous desk to put his hand on Norris's shoulder, physically urging the man from the study.

In her room at the Metropole, Claudine was disconcerted when the telephone rang. She stared at it for several moments, unwilling to pick it up. It wouldn't be Hugo. She'd spoken to him much earlier, from the security of the Belgian police headquarters, explaining how and why it had been difficult for her the previous night. It was far more likely to be Peter Blake.

'Something important has come up,' said Norris, when she finally lifted the receiver. 'Can you come down here to the emba.s.sy?'

'What is it?'

'I don't want to talk about it on the phone.'

Claudine hesitated. Henri Sanglier still hadn't arrived and the American emba.s.sy was where they were going anyway: she could leave a message for Peter to show Sanglier the devices. 'I'll be there in half an hour.'

The emba.s.sy's rezidentura the quarters of the CIA and the FBI was far away both in distance and appearance from the lavish amba.s.sadorial officialdom Claudine had seen on her first visit, a series of identical, box-like rectangles, four of which now formed part of the emergency communications centre. Those of Rampling and Harding were at the very rear of the complex, slightly larger than the rest to designate their local status of controller, but each restricted by only one door and no windows to outside light. Rampling saw Claudine as she was escorted past and waved but she didn't see him. To Robert Ritchie, who was with him, Rampling said: 'You know something I don't?'

'I don't know nothing,' said Ritchie. 'It's called staying alive.'

Norris checked his watch as she entered Harding's clear-desked room and Claudine at once registered both signs. Excessive cleanliness and rigid conformity, particularly to time, were both features of severe obsession: she had, in fact, made the journey within the promised thirty minutes but she should have avoided the self-imposed stipulation. She was aware of the brief frown when the indicated chair sc.r.a.ped slightly sideways as she sat. There was a sheen of sweat on the man's sallow face and unusually his jacket was open.

The chair movement wasn't sufficient to cause a problem, Norris decided. The microphone he'd fed round the desk, taping out of sight beneath its rim the lead to the recorder in the right-hand drawer, was sensitive enough to pick up everything she said.

'So,' began Claudine enthusiastically. 'What's the big mystery you couldn't tell me on the phone?' She'd had misgivings on the way there: not so much misgivings as belated curiosity. The arrangement was for Jean Smet to bring them together if there was a development: Norris, in fact, was the last person who should have done it. But in the man's mental state there could be a dozen explanations: she hoped at least one of them was useful.

Norris declared: 'Technically this emba.s.sy is American property.' He was quite sure of the technique to use with her: hit her hard, without giving her any room for manoeuvre.

She'd made a mistake, Claudine knew at once. She said: 'I know, John. We went through the question of jurisdiction at the beginning, didn't we?'

'So you're in America.' She had to realize how trapped she was.

'Listen to me,' urged Claudine gently. 'You telephoned me at the hotel. Asked me to come here because you had something to tell me. What was it you wanted to tell me?'

'That!' insisted the man irritably. 'That you're subject to American law because you're in America.' Why was she being so stupid!

She could walk out, Claudine supposed: leave the emba.s.sy and get back to the hotel before Sanglier and Blake. She felt a sweep of embarra.s.sment. No one would be able to understand her coming here like this: she couldn't understand it now. He was a sick man, she reminded herself: a sick man who was going to be confronted very soon with the demand that he be removed from the investigation. She wouldn't walk away from a sick man. She said: 'There isn't anything, is there? Nothing you needed to tell me about the case?'

'I know,' Norris announced. He had to maintain the pressure, constantly keep her on edge.

'What do you know, John? Tell me. Let's talk about it.' This wasn't any sort of treatment it couldn't be but there would be an element of paranoia, his confused mind overcrowded with disjointed delusions, and if she could coax some of them out she might, temporarily, ease his burden.

'Why don't you tell me?' He wasn't going to lose control, as he'd lost control with the amba.s.sador: find himself answering questions instead of asking them. Couldn't understand how that had happened. A trick. Wouldn't do McBride any good.

'What do you want me to tell you?'

She was giving up! Far easier far quicker than he'd expected. But it happened sometimes. You could never tell. 'All of it. How you managed to get in, on the inside. Where she is, so I can get her out. Everything.'

Claudine felt the first pop of unease, deep in the pit of her stomach. The moment of collapse at the highest point of tension, she thought. 'We've got to work together, John. Help each other. I want to help you and I know you'll help me.'

'Just do as I ask. Tell me where Mary Beth is. She's been missing for too long. I've got to get her back.' Why couldn't she understand!

Claudine knew she had to establish a central thread, something he could recognize and hold on to. 'We're trying to find Mary Beth together.'

She was trying to trick him! The muzziness, the cotton waste feeling, was coming back. And it was hot again. It was the artificial light that had to be on all the time. There should be air conditioning somewhere. Too late to look for it now. 'You know where she is ... who they are ...'

'I don't.'

'You do!' Norris grabbed sideways, for the other item he'd carefully installed in the top right-hand drawer alongside the tape recorder: not the new-issue 9mm that a lot in the Bureau carried because of its stopping power but the Smith and Wesson he'd always preferred. He saw the fear in her eyes when he brought it out and laid it on the table between them, keeping his hand on the b.u.t.t. 'If you don't tell me you'll be obstructing a federal officer in pursuit of his duties and I am legally authorized, in the United States of America in which at this moment we both technically are, to use whatever force is necessary to make you comply with my requests.' He brought the weapon up, pointing it directly at her. 'So, answer my question.' He had thought he wasn't going to get through the formal warning twice he'd almost lost it but he had. The warmth was satisfaction now, a feeling of complete power. He was legally authoritzed to shoot to kill if she tried to escape. He'd only wound her: put a round in her arm, to break it. Prove he wasn't making empty threats. He wanted very much to fire the gun: feel the kick and hear the explosion. 'I'm waiting ...'

Five streets away Robert Ritchie shouldered his way into the familiarly crowded bar on the rue Guimard, checking himself at the unexpected sight of the Englishman at the same table as Harding and McCulloch. He realized at once that they'd seen him so he had to continue, saying 'Hi' and glad-handing as he made his way through the crush.

Ritchie didn't say anything when he reached their table. McCulloch said: 'He'd already found the wire: both of them. And made you, the first night. I always said you were s.h.i.+t at surveillance. Their commissioner's coming in this afternoon to stop the whole f.u.c.king nonsense.'

'She's with Norris at the emba.s.sy now,' disclosed Ritchie. 'I checked the transcript. He called her room, just over an hour ago: said something had come up that was too important to tell her over the phone.'

'Nothing has come up,' said Blake.

She had to bring him back from the edge, give him the thread. Her life hung upon her being able to open whatever door there might be to what remained of his rational, reasoning mind. If nothing did remain, then it was almost inevitable he would shoot her. From a metre away, he couldn't miss. 'We were supposed to work as a team, you and I.'

'Inveigled yourself in, so they'd know everything we were doing, right?'

It would be a mistake to pander to the delusion, letting it grow. 'I'm not involved with those who've got Mary Beth. I couldn't be.'

'No one saw it but me.'

He was closed off against her. 'What did you see?'

'You getting inside. Knowing everything we were doing.'

'It made you angry, didn't it, my replacing you?'

Trying to change the order, making him answer questions again. 'Didn't replace me. Thought you did but you didn't. I'm still in charge.'

Why wasn't she frightened when a gun was being held unwaveringly on her from point blank range? There were feelings anger at being tricked, frustration at not being able to reach him mentally but no actual gut-dropping fear. She isolated the pride the boastfulness in the man's remark, wondering if it might be the c.h.i.n.k she was seeking. There was the sudden flurry of movement behind her, obviously from the only door. She didn't turn.

'John!' said a voice she recognized as Harding's. 'What's the problem here, John?'

'No problem: sorting everything out,' said Norris, his eyes flicking over Claudine's shoulder. 'No need for you here: no need for any of you. Get out!' The gun came up towards her.

'We don't need the gun, John. Let's put the gun down, OK?'

'Get out!'

'Do as he says,' insisted Claudine, still not turning.

'John, I tell you what I'm going to do,' said Harding. 'I'm going to come on in here. Help things along a little.' There was a nervous laugh. 'It's my office, for Christ's sake! Guy's gotta be able to get into his own office.'

'Don't need help!' shouted Norris, his voice cracking. 'My case. I'll bring it in.' The gun abruptly shook, in his fury.

'OK! OK!' said Harding urgently. 'Everything's down to you.'

There was renewed sound from behind and Claudine guessed more people had arrived. She heard McBride say: 'Norris! John! This is the amba.s.sador. You hearing me?'

'Of course I'm hearing you.' He wasn't looking away from Claudine now.

'What's going on here?'

'Getting your daughter back, sir. That's what I was sent here to do.' The gun wavered up and down, gesturing to Claudine. 'She knows where Mary is. She's going to tell me.'

'Good man,' said McBride. 'Well done. I want you to put the gun down and we'll take Dr Carter back to my office and she can tell me herself. Then I'm going to cable your Director just how d.a.m.ned well you did on this.'

'She's got to tell me, no one else!' Norris's thumb moved, visibly, flicking off the safety catch.

At the doorway McBride whispered to Harding: 'Could you hit him from here? Disable him?'