5 Nov 76—ZURICH
Eyes open.
Devereaux struggled up. In bed. Same windowless room. Dead bodies.
Ruth. Ruth was gone.
Stared at the bodies.
Then saw the man in the chair with the Uzi.
A small white scar from the left temple to the ear. Narrow face, high cheekbones, black eyes. Burning black eyes and short, brown, spiky hair.
Devereaux wet his lips with a dry tongue. “Kurt Heinemann,” he said.
“Ja, ja,” Kurt Heinemann said. A thin smile. “You hurt Ruth.”
“Your sister.”
“Ja, my sister.”
“And I fucked her.”
The smile faded until the face was completely neutral except for the eyes that could melt steel.
“Who were they?”
“Mossad,” Kurt Heinemann said. “I didn’t expect you to kill them for me but I thank you. I only wanted them to find me in a place and a time of my choosing. Mossad killed by an American agent. It is wonderful. I thank you very much.”
“You sold Pendleton a load of bullshit.”
“No. It is true that Mossad is after me but this will hurt them very badly. These were good men, both of them. They thought you were meeting me and they might have killed you. In any case, you killed them. No, I only sell the blackie a half of a load of bullshit. I am not ready to become an American just yet, Devereaux.”
Devereaux caught it; he knew the name, not the code name. What the hell was going on?
“I don’t want you to die just yet even if you make love to my sister.”
“Is she really your sister?”
“You were so suspicious of her that you forgot about me.”
“She sold me but at least I got her to suck me off,” Devereaux said. He was waiting and watching the muzzle of the Uzi.
Kurt let the neutral face fall into a frown. “I don’t like that talk.”
“We didn’t talk a lot. We just did it.”
“But I won’t kill you, Devereaux. You see?”
“I’d kill you.”
“But that’s the difference. You’ve done me the great favor of killing Mossad. I want you to take the credit for it. And then you can explain how you were fooled by the Double Eagle again. It’s a good joke on R Section. And the blackie in Paris, he can explain how he was fooled.”
Ishmael again. He would be the witness against himself, the witness from Albania transformed into the witness in a whorehouse in Zurich.
“Ruth fooled me,” he said.
“Ja, ja, believe that even if it is not true. Ruth did not understand what I wanted to do. Not about you, about them. Ruth can only tell you the truth.”
“Where is she?”
“In a car going home. I send her home with Hans and she says I should not hurt you. I should cut off your balls for what you told me. She is eighteen years old. You are really a swine.”
“And you’re a Nazi pimp. You use your sister like a two-dollar whore, you Jew-killing bastard,” Devereaux said in a soft voice, a voice without any edge to it except in the content of the words.
“No, Devereaux. You killed the Israelis, not me. You did me a service.”
Devereaux decided he wouldn’t wait any longer. He rolled from the bed and Kurt Heinemann stood up as he hit the floor. Devereaux rose with coiled quickness, the kind of karate move they taught the agents in Japan before shipping them with the other advisors into Vietnam. It almost worked.
Kurt staggered back from the kick blow but held the Uzi and fired a single shot. The bullet caught Devereaux in the chest; it spun him around and slapped him to the floor.
Kurt took two steps to the body curled against the wall.
“Goddamnit,” he said in clear English. He pushed at Devereaux to see his chest and see the wound. Devereaux’s eyes were rolling back in his head. “Don’t you die yet, you bastard,” Kurt Heinemann said.
He went into the corridor and looked at his watch. Eight A.M. and the bastard was late; it was running behind, all of it. For a moment he felt panic. And then he took a deep breath and let the calm spread over him. Minutes ticked and he didn’t count them. Waited. Heard a moan from the bedroom. Devereaux dying.
And then the man he waited for filled the doorway to the courtyard at the end of the hall of doors.
“You’re late,” Kurt Heinemann said, training the Uzi on the other man.
“Or you were too early,” the large man said. “What happened?”
“Mossad. He finished them off.”
“Boy got himself a gun. Told him he didn’t need one.”
“He did me a favor,” Kurt Heinemann said. “Then I had to shoot him.”
“Is he dead?”
“No. And you get him help.”
“Why should I?”
“You dumb bastard, what do you think? Devereaux is the stooge for this. Otherwise, they will strip your black ass.”
Pendleton said, “All right, Kurt. I see what you mean. But where’s part two?”
Kurt stared at him for a moment and then went down the long, empty corridor to the black man standing in the courtyard door. Kurt made a face that was an inaudible snarl and took the paper from his pocket.
Pendleton looked at the list. Ten names in ten places; ten similar occupations.
“This is good shit,” Pendleton said. He folded the list and put it in his pocket. He smiled a broad smile. “I don’t get you, Kurt, I really don’t. You could come home to Uncle and we’d treat you better than you have been treated. You give me a list of ten Russian agents in my bailiwick just like that, but you won’t come over to my side.”
“Russians,” Kurt said.
“Beg pardon?”
“You never understand. Those are Russians. I do not work for Russians.”
“Yeah, yeah, you work for Stasi which is a stooge for the KGB.”
A small smile of pure contempt crossed Kurt Heinemann’s thin, scarred face. Pendleton saw it, even understood it. Pendleton shook his head.
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Kurt Heinemann said in a flat voice. “We may do business again.”
Pendleton stared at him with those cold, blue eyes set in the glowing brown face.
“I am sorry you have to sacrifice your agent,” Kurt said. He was in no hurry.
“November is not as important as this, this list. You had a problem with Mossad, I use November to take care of it for you. And we both don’t leave a trail so there’s no connection of you to me or me to you. November was our… necessary loss, you might say.”
“It is the way of things. Soldiers get used,” Heinemann said, still waiting, still trying to fathom the man he was dealing with.
“You might come over to our side sometime.”
“I don’t think so, Herr Pendleton. Maybe I do what I do because…” He paused. What should he say?
Pendleton grinned. “Because you’re a patriot, right? God and Lenin bless the GDR. Yeah, the last good German, ain’t you?”
Heinemann did not understand the smile. It was a smile of contempt and he resented it but he did not understand it. What did Pendleton believe in then? What was this game to him then?
And he thought he should leave now, before the grinning American began to speak again.