18 Sep 90—DENVER
Consortium International. The CI of the powerful logo had been designed by a firm that did such things. It featured a stylized globe embrace by the C and slashed across with the I. The logo was rendered in brass in the lobby and again in smaller brass on the mahogany door to the suites on the twelfth floor.
Denver was bright and pretty in the afternoon sun and office workers held picnics on benches along the Sixteenth Street mall. There were streaks of snow in the higher elevations of the Front Range, which formed the perfect backdrop to the glittering cityscape.
Gandolph had called him in for a two P.M. appointment. Kurt Heinemann felt uncomfortable in the offices of CI the few times he had been there. He did not know these people; therefore, he did not trust them.
He always presented himself to the secretary as a stranger. Mr. Henry Dodge. All his dealings with CI were through Gandolph, the CEO.
She led him into an empty office and assured him that Mr. Gandolph would be there shortly. It was always the same with Gandolph; he made entrances, usually five minutes behind schedule. It annoyed everyone and was meant to do so.
Kurt did not sit down. He crossed to the window wall and looked down at the sunny street full of office workers enjoying the sunshine. He saw everything and thought nothing of it; his thoughts were all interior, formed by Ruth and Denisov and by the job at hand. It was a way to get through it all, to never look around or deviate from the path chosen.
“Mr. Dodge.”
He turned and Gandolph stood at the doorway smiling. Gandolph always smiled. He wore a rep tie and light blue oxford cloth shirt and ran thirty miles every week. Kurt thought he didn’t have any flab on his body and yet it looked soft anyway. His resentments—of fleeing the GDR, of working for Pendleton—focused themselves now on Gandolph.
Gandolph closed the door and turned on the noise machine. The offices were all swept for bugs at least weekly but the noise machines were part of the security.
“How are you?”
“He says it is close, within weeks. He wants one million dollars for operations delivered in five days.”
“Nice day, isn’t it?” Gandolph’s smile was strained.
Kurt Heinemann waited. He hated pleasantries.
Gandolph went around the desk to the credenza and poured himself a cup of decaffeinated coffee. He didn’t bother to offer Kurt a cup.
“That’s a lot of money, Kurt.”
“Come on. You knew what this would cost in the beginning.”
“And you still trust your… contact.” Gandolph did not know Denisov, not even his location.
“The customer is satisfactory. I think he will try tricks but I know all the tricks.”
“I bet you do, Kurt.”
“One million.”
“You can pick up the money tomorrow.”
“I think not. I don’t want to come to this place twice in the same week. I want to be anonymous.”
“I appreciate your caution. Even more this morning.”
Kurt Heinemann picked up the change in tone. He studied Gandolph’s face. He did not want surprises and he thought a surprise was coming.
“We have a little problem. A very little problem. At least, I think it’s a little problem,” Gandolph said. He was smiling absently like an idiot or a daydreamer. He reached in the pocket of his sports jacket and took out a piece of paper.
“We’ve been running a security check. On some of the new employees, less than a year. Routine. We get records from the telephone company on their home calls.”
“Who?” he said.
“My secretary,” Gandolph said. “Miss Browning. She let you into my office. Actually, she’s worked for me less than a month but she worked in operations prior to that. We hired her last November.”
“And she made calls.”
“Yes. Three calls last month. To New York. She’s from Arizona originally. Family there.”
“Who did she call?”
“We don’t know.”
Kurt stood very stiff and still and tried to blot out the image of this grinning idiot and to keep the image formed by the words. He saw Miss Browning in his mind: Brown suit, white blouse, low brown heels, blond hair, light brown eyes. Yes.
“They were all placed to a bar of some sort on Eleventh Avenue in New York. The barman answered each time. It’s called Dougherty’s. We called in six times and that was all we got, some voice saying, ‘Dougherty’s.’ ”
“What is that place?”
“There’s a man named Mickey Connors who runs an organization that doesn’t even have a name. No offices. An untraceable man of many parts who would love to do harm to Consortium. We’re… business rivals, you might say.”
“I never heard of him.”
“You would in time. He started in business as an arms dealer. He doesn’t make things, he sells things. Things and services. A traveling salesman. He’s never been much bother to us because he never had the patience to go after hardware. Stuff like the stuff we’re dealing for with your contact. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“The problem is, we think she is a spy for Mr. Connors.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fire her.”
“And she will go to New York then and tell this Connors man everyone you meet with? Describe them, give them names? Give them my name?”
“Mr. Dodge.”
“Ja, ja, Mr. Dodge, who is six feet tall with a white scar on his face and who has black eyes and weighs about one hundred sixty-five pounds. Mr. Dodge with a valid German passport who entered the country less than a year ago. And where did Mr. Dodge who is Mr. von Mannheim really come from? Good, Mr. Gandolph, that is a very good idea.”
“You don’t have to use that tone.”
“I have to because you keep smiling like this is a joke.”
“It is no joke. I’m a pleasant person and I smile a lot.”
“And Miss Browning. Does she smile a lot, too?”
That stopped the smile.
Silence save for the gurgle of the noise machine.
“Well, then. What should I do in this case? Allow her to continue her espionage?”
“I think you should give Miss Browning a package tomorrow morning and ask her to deliver it. To Mr. Dodge. That is what I think.”
“And then what?”
“And then nothing.”
Silence again. Gandolph fingered his tie in a characteristic gesture.
“Any… untoward act would trace back to Consortium. She works here. We sign her checks.”
“Ja, ja. But she had turned in her notice two weeks ago, isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you do in this country when you take another job?”
A nervous tic replaced the smile. The tic started at the corner of Gandolph’s right eye. Kurt stared at him the way he might stare at a television screen. He thought then that Gandolph would have to be involved and it was a good way to start it. With Miss Browning’s disappearance and Gandolph’s lies to cover her disappearance. For the first time, Kurt saw his way clear, saw exactly what he would do to cover all his trails when the time came, to win both the fifteen million dollars and the Japanese code machine and—more important—to get away with it.
“All right. Just nothing to lead to us?”
“No. Does she live alone?”
“In an apartment out south.”
“Ja. Okay.” Wearily. Another complication. “I want you to have Miss Browning deliver the money in the morning. To the house on Eighteenth.”
“And then what?”
“Then… nothing.”
“I don’t want to be involved with murder.”
It was incredible. What did he think this was all about? The details of murder and terror were never spoken of in polite society. That was garbage work left to someone like Kurt Heinemann to take care of. Kurt could not help it; cold contempt froze his features for a moment and even Gandolph saw it.
“You won’t be involved. It won’t even be murder if it is done correctly. Just have her go to the house on Eighteenth Street in the morning at eleven.”
“All right.” Gandolph looked away from the hard German face and black eyes. He walked to the window wall and looked down at the sun worshipers.
“There is something else,” he began.
Another surprise.
“Fifteen million dollars,” Gandolph said.
“It was the price from the beginning. He wouldn’t haggle it down. He said it was worth more than that. To us and to whomever we sold it to.”
“We only have one government customer who would pay for it,” Gandolph said. “Maybe we couldn’t get the price.”
“You have more than one customer in any case,” Kurt said. “Sell it back to Masatata Heavy Industries if you want.”
“You mean the Japanese would buy it back?”
“Why not?”
“They’d… lose face.”
“Face? The Japanese lost face when they lost the war. They have the honor of thieves. They pretend to honor but it is pretense, Herr Gandolph. They would grovel, ja. They would pay just like that.”
Gandolph smiled then. The tic disappeared. “I suppose you would know about that. The Germans, I mean.”
Kurt Heinemann felt the insult but it was a pathetic thing, like a child’s slap. “Ja, some Germans lost their honor and traded it for television sets and Mercedes sedans and full bellies, just like the Americans. But there are still Germans, Herr Gandolph, you can believe that. And the Japanese code machine will have many buyers, you can believe that. My… contact… is not impatient. If we don’t deal with him, he can find another to deal with. Maybe this Irish man in New York who put a spy on your staff.”
Gandolph flushed. “Mickey Connors never got into anything this big.”
“Perhaps he is… expanding.”
The flush stayed on Gandolph’s face and deepened.
“You see, Herr Gandolph?”
“I also see this fifteen million, Mr. Heinemann. Fifteen million is real money, not toy money. What if your… seller… could be persuaded—in some way—to relinquish the machine and give back the fifteen million dollars?”
Ja. Kurt smiled at that. “Everything is possible but he isn’t a stupid man. He has a Swiss account. He wishes you to deposit the money in the Swiss account at the time of his choosing, when the code machine is turned over.”
“Zurich accounts can be… breached. We’ve done that before.”
“Is that possible?”
“Oh, yes.” The superior smile returned. “Everything isn’t rough and ready in this business. There are subtle aspects.”
Ja, ja. Kurt managed to look puzzled while trying to block another siege of contempt overcoming him. Who did Gandolph think he was, a baby? A simple wet contractor? When the time came, it would be Kurt Heinemann with the fifteen million as well as the code machine, the wonderful code machine that would change the very nature of cryptography. Who wouldn’t want the machine? And with all the money from selling it combined with the money he would steal from Denisov, Kurt Heinemann would be very able to go back into business, this time not for the Russians but for his own German network.
“Then let us see when the time comes,” Kurt Heinemann said. “You will tell me what to do when the time comes.”
Kurt saw that Gandolph liked this. The bureaucrat instructing the garbageman, the contractor giving out his wet contracts and thinking he somehow shared the danger of them in that moment. Ja, ja, Herr Gandolph, and let me doff my hat to you.
“Well…” Gandolph looked around him. “I suppose we shall have to wait on your… client. And not very long, eh?”
“Not too long,” Kurt said.
“All right. Then I’ll send along… the money tomorrow morning. By special courier.” He smiled, pleased at his euphemism. It sounded very inside, very much in espionage.
“As you say,” Kurt said. He was being dismissed. He inclined his head once, quickly, a gesture of assent. He went to the door and opened it. Miss Browning was behind her desk. Eyes gray, not brown, he had not been as observant as he thought. Miss Browning smiled at him. “Mr. Dodge,” she said. The smile was very bright and Kurt returned it.
Gray eyes, not brown, he thought, leaving the outer office and entering the hall.