2–3 Oct 90—SAN FRANCISCO
Kurt Heinemann was in a killing mode.
He wore it like a uniform.
His clothes were night dark, his sallow face paler because of his outfit. People did not look at him directly when he looked like this. He frightened them, not for what they knew but because something deep and terrifying had colored his features.
He had taken a United flight from Denver to San Francisco International and then spent over two hours booking a confusing trail.
He and Ruth would be on that trail on the night of the third.
They would fly by private helicopter to SFX from Santa Barbara and from there they would take the Delta flight to Seattle where they would change to an Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage. They would spend the night in Anchorage and wait for a Japan Airlines flight through from Tokyo to Frankfurt. He had liked that last touch most of all, using Japan Airlines.
He had checked with the hotel in Santa Barbara and, no, Mr. Dever was not in but he was still registered and would there be a message? No message. Mr. Dever-Devereaux would get the message in the morning just as Kurt Heinemann had delivered it to him in that Zurich whorehouse fifteen years ago.
Pendleton had been useful and Pendleton thought it would be like that day in Zurich with an eye for an eye and a trade for a trade.
But this was very different. He would kill Devereaux for Pendleton and Pendleton would have his alibi about infiltrating the Mickey Connors gang and the death of a spy.
When it was over, Pendleton could convince his business rivals at Langley that Mickey Connors had stolen the machine, but he would not have either the machine or Heinemann.
Pendleton would probably survive in good shape but he would be unable to admit that the German ex-Stasi had worked for him on unofficial staff or that the German had betrayed him. It was a neat box, made with Pendleton’s own hand.
Heinemann left the San Francisco airport in a large, fast car from Avis and started south after ten P.M. Highway 101 plunged down the coast through San Jose and Salinas toward the jewel cities of San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria and then down to Santa Barbara. He had the device of his choosing. It was a hotel room bomb that was simple: Plastique and a primer set off when a door is opened or a suitcase unzippered.
He also had a Beretta automatic fitted with a silencer. If Devereaux was sleeping in his own bed, he would die; if he had not returned when Heinemann arrived, there would be the booby trap.
In any case, the pistol would be used on Denisov when they transferred the funds. Ruth had assured him two days ago she was leaving Denisov and would not be in the way when the transfer was made. Everything was prepared.
Except that Ruth had not answered the telephone all day from the safe house they had set up in Los Angeles. She might have found someone else to like.
Kurt thought of his mother then and their shared last talk in the dim twilight of that living room in Leipzig with the world crumbling around them.
Ruth, Ruth.
He settled on the bomb because Devereaux was not in his room in Santa Barbara. He called Ruth again at the safe house in Los Angeles and she didn’t answer. He fell into a troubled and brief sleep in the few hours before dawn.