“I do not like doing violence in a foreign country,” said Viktor Vagaman, adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I do not like doing violence at all. But there are times when service to the Motherland demands it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said the stocky man sitting across from him in the window of the small café across Connecticut Avenue from the Yenching Palace.
The killer sipped his coffee. “Ideally, we would do harm only to the traitor Fomin. Others are doing what for them seems normal, even loyal. Fomin is a different matter. He has betrayed our own country.” His associate had an objection. “My impression is that Colonel Fomin is acting under the orders of General Secretary Khrushchev.”
“Is that your impression?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are a fool.” He spoke so quietly that none of the nearby diners could overhear. “The Comrade General Secretary would never be a party to this conspiracy. It was he who approved the operation to place the missiles in Cuba, for the purpose of defending the Motherland against surprise attack by the war faction.”
The stocky man was unpersuaded. “Cooperating with the capitalists in this fashion is not like Fomin, either. He would not do this without authorization.”
“Then the authorization does not come from the Comrade General Secretary.”
“Comrade Fomin has been misled, my friend. If he paid more attention to doctrine and less to what he calls pragmatism, he would realize that no one in the Central Committee would give these orders. His failure to appreciate the extent to which he has been misled is itself the act of a man predisposed to treason. No,” he concluded, as if his associate had argued, “we cannot spare him.”
“And the girl?”
“We will do what is necessary, of course, to prevent a final deal. But she is fundamentally an American problem.”
Had Viktor’s associate been more inquiring, he might have asked—later, in the postmortem, he himself was asked, and not gently—how it was possible that Fomin could at the same time be misled about the source of his orders and in a position to make an actual deal. But by that time the purge had become general, and the principal concern among surviving members of the intelligence directorate was saving their own skins.
The meeting with Fomin was set for half past six, and she was to proceed to the townhouse immediately after. At a quarter to the hour, she sat with Ainsley in the car, three blocks south of the restaurant and two blocks to the west, so that casual surveillance along Connecticut Avenue wouldn’t spot them.
“Are you sure you understand the plan?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“I just did.”
“Then tell me again.”
Margo chanced a glare, but she understood the purpose of his browbeating. If they ever had a margin for error, it had vanished when a friend he called to look in on his apartment reported back that checking was impossible, so tight was the surveillance.
“I wait in the car while you study the area. At six-fifteen, I get out and start walking. If you see anything you don’t like, you’ll get me out. Otherwise, I meet with Fomin, I leave, I walk four blocks north, and you’ll drive past me on the side street to take me to the meeting with Kennedy.”
“And?”
“Don’t trust anyone who says he or she has been sent for me.”
“And?”
This final instruction was the only one hard for her to pronounce. “If anything happens to you, run.”
Bundy had at last acceded to Bobby Kennedy’s repeated demands. He had agreed to put one eye—one only—on Margo. A lone Secret Service agent would be dispatched to the scene. Any more would spook Fomin, but one man alone should be able to remain concealed. He was worried that McCone might have the same idea. Once the Agency had the secret of the back channel, Bundy didn’t think it would take much work for their analysts to track down the location of the meetings. And if Hoover, too, were somehow to winkle out what was going on, the neighborhood around the Yenching Palace might be downright crowded tonight.
Jack Ziegler was several miles away from the Yenching Palace. He hated being far from the action, but he also appreciated the wisdom of Viktor’s construction. Viktor had diplomatic immunity. Should any violence transpire, Viktor could not even be questioned by the authorities; he could only be confined to his embassy and then deported. Whereas Jack Ziegler—well, he had a larger picture in mind. He had come to realize that preventing GREENHILL’s message from getting through wouldn’t be enough. He and his associates could not act properly unless they knew the actual content of the message.
He needed GREENHILL herself—her living, breathing body—so that they might have another talk.
Viktor would take care of that.
At six-sixteen, Margo stepped out of the car, locked the door, and began her walk. Jerry Ainsley had warned her not to be overcautious. Anybody watching would expect a degree of nervousness, he had explained, so she shouldn’t try to hide moderate anxiety. But Fomin had to see her confident and calm, or he would start wondering whether there was something he, too, should be worried about.
A brisk northerly wind smacked her across the face as she turned up Connecticut Avenue. She leaned into it, shortening her stride. She went over both plans in her mind—Bundy’s and Ainsley’s—and marveled at how many heads she was wearing under her single hat.
At six-twenty-eight, she vanished into the restaurant. Three separate watchers dutifully whispered the fact of her arrival into three walkie-talkies.
Everybody settled down to wait.