3 Oct 90—SANTA BARBARA
Devereaux left her before dawn. They kissed but did not speak at all except to say they loved each other.
He put the package in the trunk of the rental car. He slammed the lid in the darkness and slipped into the driver’s seat. The car rattled into life and settled into a slow growl on 101 on the way back to Santa Barbara. The dawn comes late to spots along the coast above the Santa Barbara Channel because of the mountains but you can always see the streaks of light in the water.
He thought about Mickey Connors on the way, thought about the linchpin he was counting on. If Mickey double-crossed him, there was no comeback and he would still have Pendleton and still the threat of blackmail. Then he would have to figure out some way of his own.
He pulled into the courtyard of the large hotel at eight. He needed a shower and he needed to change his clothes. He took the elevator to his floor.
He nearly opened the door all the way. But there had been a time more than a year before when he had carelessly pushed into a hotel room in Washington, D.C., and nearly ended his life because of a bomb blast. Now he was in the habit of opening the door while braced against the wall away from the jamb.
The bomb popped but the force of the explosion was enough to splinter the door into bits of wood, plastic, and pieces of steel. His left hand was cut and the key was destroyed. There wasn’t any time for explanations. He went into the room and removed the suitcase and looked around to see if he had forgotten anything. He was out of the room while doors were still opening on the floor and people in nightclothes were standing around, staring at the opening.
He felt better than he had any time since the thing with Pendleton began.
It would be a long day of waiting for everyone.
Denisov in his apartment on Alisos had decided on the solution of tying up Ruth and gagging her. It was not a cruelty he wished to inflict but it was necessary. She had tried to scream and he didn’t want to kill her. Well, in any case, he did not want to kill her while he still needed her.
He had packed his baggage in the second car, a Porsche. There were tickets waiting for him in Los Angeles at the airport. He had arranged everything and this was his last morning in America. New passport, new identity; it would work out, all of it.
The business associate watching for Japanese gangsters had telephoned at 12:31 P.M. The phone rang in the bedroom and kitchen. Denisov had decided to sleep on the couch because Ruth Sauer, quite frightened now and much more docile, was tied and gagged in the bed. The “business associate” said the night had been quiet.
“Then there were only two of them,” Denisov had said thoughtfully. “You can close the business now and leave the two men in the post office.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Send me the bill. I have to go to Los Angeles over the weekend. I’ll take care of it when I come back.”
A casual conversation, routine business. The second Japanese had shown up at the apartment building shortly before eleven at night and Denisov had a hired gun waiting for him. He had been taken care of in the same way as the first, but with a silencer on the weapon of his hired gun. A thousand dollars was all it had cost Denisov.
Denisov sat at the kitchen table and glanced through the pages of the Los Angeles Times. He did not read any story to the end. He noted there was a report in the business section that Masatata Heavy Industries claimed business rivals were suspected of sabotaging the Fujitsu and that the Japanese government had promised an investigation. The company named no names. For some reason, the stock had risen seventy-five points on the Tokyo Exchange due to Far Eastern rumors of a company breakthrough in a new product area.
Denisov nodded.
A breakthrough. He felt very calm because he had prepared very well. And even the appearance of Devereaux had not really upset his plans.
At three P.M., they met on the bench. The ocean smelled fresh and the air was very warm.
Kurt Heinemann said, “You have the machine.”
“I have it in a safe place,” Denisov said.
“Where is the safe place?”
“In my apartment. Where your sister is.”
“Why is my sister in your apartment?”
“I want to show you a photograph. I took it an hour ago.”
He took out the Polaroid photograph.
It was Ruth. She was bound and gagged. She stared at the camera and there was a bruise around her left eye. On the table next to her was a device with wires and what appeared to be a fuse linked to putty or clay which had spikes embedded in it.
“This was not necessary,” Kurt said, staring at the photograph, feeling anger from the pit of his belly.
“Crudities are necessary. I want you to see. The code machine is in my apartment. You will cross the street to that hotel and make a call that will transfer the money from your account in Zurich to my account. This is the number. And then you will come to my apartment and take the machine.”
Simply said. Without any urgency, as though they might sit on this bench and pass the time of day for the rest of the afternoon. Denisov had waited too long and planned too well.
“And what about Ruth?”
“You will take the machine and we will leave together. I have a car and I do not plan to run a race through Santa Barbara. I will have fifteen minutes and you will have to remove the bomb from the table by your sister. You see? It is my precaution. You gave it to me. You let your sister spy on me and she wanted to live with me and you permitted it. You gave me the idea.”
“What if I just kill you now?”
“On this public street? In the middle of the afternoon. This is not Moscow. You cannot abduct citizens or kill them as you wish.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
“I like it even less to reach this point of mistrust. But I think we agree to mistrust each other, eh? I don’t need the machine but I need that money. You either have it or you don’t.”
Kurt had envisioned something very different.
Traffic crawled by. The beach was full of sunbathers and strollers, it was that warm today.
“And what if you cross me?”
“Then you know where to get me, eh?”
“How do I know you have it?”
And there was a second Polaroid photograph, this time a picture of a small laptop computer machine propped in front of the chair where Ruth sat tied to a bomb.
“Why are you delaying me?” Denisov said. “There is a trigger on the primer and if Ruth becomes too nervous, she only has four inches of slack. The trigger will set off the bomb. Do you want to do that to your sister?”
“The Russian mentality,” Kurt said, sneering the words with contempt. “Crude people.”
“It is true,” Denisov said.
Silence between them.
“Ja, as you say,” Kurt suddenly said and got up. He crossed the boulevard carefully, moving in and out of the slow-moving traffic, and Denisov watched him. Then he got up and walked to his small red car, the first car. He drove up the hillside to prepare the place on Alisos for his reception.
Mickey Connors and Kevin watched him pull away and Kevin swung the big car into traffic behind him. “What about the other fella?” Kevin said to his boss.
“I don’t give a shit about him. I want the code machine and that monkey Russian must still have it. Kurt Heinemann is Devereaux’s problem.”
Denisov went into the apartment and, ignoring Ruth, went to the closet, and the Russian took out the oiled rags that held the gun. It was a killing gun, bigger than it had to be. He fitted the silencer onto the barrel and looked at her all the time. She could not see him because he was behind her and she did not dare move.
He stepped into the front room and went to the window again and looked down. There was no one on the sidewalk.
He walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of milk. He poured the milk into a glass and drank it. Then he put the milk bottle back.
His calm was almost enervating.
He went back to the window and looked down and now he saw Kurt’s car swing up the street. He went to the telephone and dialed.
The bank in Zurich provided a twenty-four-hour international service because it was accustomed to odd customers who dealt in odd hours with heavy amounts of money. The Swiss confirmed, in perfect English, that fifteen million dollars had been transferred into his numbered account.
He nodded to the machine and replaced the receiver. It was done. The peace spread throughout his body. It didn’t matter about Kurt Heinemann now except that Kurt must be killed.
A body slammed against the front door and splintered it down the middle, the deadbolt holding part of the door.
The shock made the walls tremble.
Denisov picked up the pistol and aimed it at the large young man who was standing with his own pistol in the middle of the room. The two men had never seen each other before this day.
Denisov didn’t understand it at all. And Kevin did not understand it either. They stared at each other openmouthed.
“That’s two to one, fella,” Mickey Connors said behind him. He was half-hidden in the doorway behind the big man. “Kevin’ll get you or I will or we’ll have a nice sit-down instead and get to know each other.”
“What do you want?”
“The machine, Denisov. Did I say your name right?”
“You’re Mickey Connors. Devereaux said he worked for you.”
“Well, everyone’s entitled to stretch the truth now and then. In a way, I suppose he thought he did. He figured we had a deal.”
“I don’t have the machine,” Denisov said.
“Is that a fact?”
“Devereaux got the machine. I don’t know how.”
“I don’t know how—”
“His girlfriend knew everything,” Denisov said. “Devereaux must have gotten the machine from her. He called me last night. He said he had the machine. He said he wanted Kurt Heinemann.”
Slowly, carefully, Mickey Connors entered the room. He stared at Denisov. “You was gonna sell it to Kurt Heinemann for CI. I was willin’ to pay for it. Fifteen million.”
“Da. I would have sold it but now I’m sold. Devereaux stole my machine.”
Mickey Connors grinned at that. “In a manner of speakin’, it was your machine. Or anyone else who had his hand on it. The son of a bitch. He was in Solvang and he had the fuckin’ machine while he was jobbing me on the phone. He had the machine and she was with him on it.” He shook his head. And he shoved his pistol back into his leather coat. “I had him by the balls for a while and let him go. Put the pistol away, Kevin. And you, Denisov. We don’t need pistols now.”
“But I do,” Denisov said. “Stand away from the door. There is someone coming for me and he will not be happy about that I do not have a machine.” Only rarely now did the grammar lapse but the wave of calm had passed. The two Irishmen made him nervous now.
“Heinemann?”
Denisov said nothing.
“Look here,” Mickey offered, “we can make a deal on the spot. You let me take Heinemann and I can get the machine for myself.”
“Why would I do this?”
“For money, why else?”
“How much money?”
Quiet.
“Quickly,” Denisov said.
“A hundred grand,” Mickey Connors said.
“You don’t have that money.”
“I can transfer it to you, bank transfer, just pick up a telephone.”
“Two hundred thousand,” Denisov said.
“Done,” Mickey Connors said, and they all three heard the downstairs door and the footsteps on the carpeted stairs.
“Go ahead,” Denisov said.
Mickey Connors made a nod and Kevin stepped away from the middle of the room. The stairs rose to the second floor just to the left of the door to the apartment. Mickey Connors stepped to the head of the stairs and pointed his pistol at the top of Kurt Heinemann’s head just as he emerged from the stairwell. Kevin was behind and took the pistol from Heinemann’s hand. “Inside,” Kevin said.
Denisov said, “You transferred my money and now I do not have to kill you because these gentlemen from New York have taken an interest in you.”
“This is a double-cross,” Kurt said. “I’ll kill you. You know I will, Denisov. Tomorrow or the next day, I don’t care where you run in Europe.”
It was a perfectly reasonable threat coming from a man who had helped run terror networks through the world for twenty years.
Denisov looked at the older Irishman. “What do you want to do with him?”
“I want to see how much he’s worth to Devereaux,” Mickey Connors said. “The man with the code machine wanted him more than the machine. Besides, he can’t job that machine himself. He needs contacts. And he needs me. I ain’t the government; unfortunately, he is.”
Kurt turned and kicked the gun away from Kevin so quickly that no one reacted at first.
Mickey Connors reacted with the skill of a street fighter. He struck the German on the back of the head, hard as a cop using a nightstick, without care for the consequences. Kurt dropped to his knees and held out his arms for balance and Mickey hit him again and this time Kurt Heinemann groaned and fell full-length on the rug.
“Close the door, Kevin. Y’aren’t hurt, lad?”
“I’m not hurt. He surprised me.”
“Happens to the best of them,” Mickey Connors said. He smiled at Denisov. “You shoulda shopped with me in the first place, Russian. I know how to make a deal and keep it.”
“But Devereaux was part of your deal and now he has the machine. Would you keep it like that?”
“Devereaux is a problem,” Mickey said.
Silence. And then Denisov said, “I must leave now.”
“Don’t you want your money?”
“No, no. You do not intend to give me any money, Mr. Connors. You intend to cheat me. You only want my account and then you would kill me and rob me and still try to get the machine. I am not such a fool as that.”
Mickey smiled. “Maybe we’ll just work on you anyway and get the account.”
Denisov took off his glasses then and put them in a case in his coat. It was two to one and had been. They both looked like killers who wouldn’t flinch at a thing. “How much time do you have? You broke down my door. It is afternoon. Maybe people have called the police already. How much time do you think it would take you to find my account number? You don’t even know what city. There is Lichtenstein as well as Geneva. Or Zurich. Or Luxembourg. Or the Bahamas. Would it take you a day? All night? No, you might get it or you might not but you don’t have any time. I think I will leave now.”
Mickey Connors made a chewing motion and bit his lip. He was frowning now and looked at Kevin, who was made for murder.
“He’s right and he’s cool enough. All right, Kevin. I hate to see the money go but we can’t afford it. California isn’t our territory.”
Denisov smiled at him. “I thank you now.”
“You don’t have to thank anyone. You should have dealt with me in the first place,” Mickey Connors said. “It’s a shame. You know where Devereaux is?”
“I know he has my machine. It is your problem now.”
Kevin had murder in his eyes. There was no heat to it, just a cold and even sleepy look that meant killing as a casual act.
Mickey Connors stood aside, straddling the fallen German agent.
“Thank you,” Denisov said. He stepped over the body and through the broken doorway. He pulled the door behind him and it would only partially close on the cracked jamb.
“Why’d you let him go?”
“Because Devereaux does have it and I got the thing Devereaux wants. I don’t understand all of it but somehow this woman, his little girlfriend, she was working with him hand in glove. The fucking devious bastard, he never trusted me.”
“That’s right.”
Devereaux stood in the bathroom door. The pistol was small and dark. “I didn’t think you were going to let him go, Mickey. That was generous of you. It shows a good instinct.”
Slow, surprised. The smile spread across the lean Irish face and lit the eyes.
“You got it, don’t you?”
“It’s safe, Mickey. You did my deal for me, didn’t you?”
“I did. I held my end.”
“You fucking liar. I called Pendleton a half hour ago. He’s out playing golf.”
“That’s where it happens, on the golf course.”
“He doesn’t play golf. He was in his office. You never intended to make an even trade.”
Mickey shook his head. “And neither did you.”
“On the floor, Kevin, facedown, hands and feet spread.”
Kevin got on the floor. He had no doubt about the man with the gun. He had seen him use it on a man he didn’t even know in a basement of a warehouse in New York. And he knew that look in the gray eyes, just as cold as his own. He could be made for killing, too.
Devereaux watched Mickey’s face while he patted Kevin’s body and removed the gun. Then he crossed to Mickey Connors and put the pistol against his nose. “Now yours.”
“At least you didn’t make me get down on the floor.”
“My respect for the Kennedys and your father’s connection with them.”
“You and Rita Macklin cooked this together. You were fucking me over and fucking Pendleton over.”
“No. What I told you was true. But you didn’t want to do me the favor.”
Devereaux stepped back with the piece in his hand and threw the other gun on the desk. “I wanted Kurt Heinemann and you didn’t believe me. Greed got in your way.”
“You don’t kill a government agent like that. It takes time and I didn’t have the time to set it up.”
“But you thought about it,” Devereaux said. Sarcasm was squeezed cold.
“I did, I seriously did, but I didn’t see how I could do you the favor.”
“Kurt had his agenda and you had yours and I had mine and we couldn’t seem to get together. I suppose you can’t trust people like us,” Devereaux said. He wasn’t smiling but something made Mickey smile.
“So you’re going to shop the machine yourself. To Pendleton. Make your brownie points with the smoke.”
“I can’t, Mick. I told you that. Pendleton and I are in this too deep. He’s broken all the rules and he knows it. More important, Kurt Heinemann knows it. Going back fifteen years.”
“Kurt Heinemann? Who you going to give him to? Langley? You think Langley will do you a favor and bust Pendleton for you? You aren’t naïve, are you, lad? The G takes care of itself. It doesn’t go running to tell stories.”
“I don’t need Langley. I need to settle a debt I picked up once and to settle a score at the same time. The trouble is with you, Mickey, thinking I was so far down that I couldn’t see my way up. That’s bad character judgment.”
“I must of liked you,” Mickey Connors said. “I must of believed you.”
“You wanted to use me to find a way to get the machine because you said it yourself, Langley couldn’t make the approach. And you figured that I was a secondary consideration. Especially after our little heart-to-heart in the car the other morning in the rain. I wanted you to take out Pendleton and you knew I was down to my last resource.”
“You figure it that close?”
“That close.”
“What if I had taken you up on it and whacked him?”
Devereaux smiled. The smile was the first one on his face.
“Then, Mick, I would have given you the goddamned code machine,” Devereaux said. He crossed to the desk and punched in a local number.
“Time,” he said. And replaced the receiver.
“You can’t trust Pendleton. You do tricks for him and he’ll take you out just as soon as he has the chance.”
“He had the chance in Zurich a long time ago. And now, in Santa Barbara. If it hadn’t been for Rita deciding to go to Hawaii… if it hadn’t been for a lot of things, I might have been dead in bed this morning. If you get caught by a blackmailer, you have to find a way to put him in your power. You can’t use threats, you have to use other things. I used you and I was lost, I couldn’t figure out how you could work for me. But you had to tell me some things and I made a big mistake.”
“What was that?”
“I trusted someone. I told someone and it worked out.” And he thought of the pain of that moment with Rita Macklin in the apartment in Bethesda when he had let down his guard and confessed some of his trouble to her. Peterson in Hawaii. One name and it had spurred her to save him.
The door opened.
There were three of them, young and nervous in appearance with drawn pistols. One was a woman with dark, darting eyes and a fierce expression on her face. They looked at the two men on the floor and then at Devereaux.
“That’s him,” Devereaux said. He nodded at the unconscious Kurt Heinemann. “And the woman in the bedroom. She’s rigged to a bomb but it’s been deactivated.”
“We thought only the man—”
“They’re brother and sister,” Devereaux said. “Inseparable.”
Kurt groaned and pushed at the floor and began to rise. One of the men stepped toward him and placed an automatic in his left ear.
He stopped rising.
“On the floor,” the man said. And Kurt felt his arm kicked out from under him. He hit the floor hard and an involuntary moan escaped him.
“What is this about then?” Mickey Connors said, his hands apart from his coat, looking around the busy room.
But Devereaux didn’t have time now.
The woman said, “What about the machine?”
“In the trunk of the red Nissan around the corner. Here’s the key,” Devereaux said.
The third man led Ruth from the bedroom. Her ordeal showed in her eyes. He had not taken the gag from her mouth. The presence of four guns displayed in such a small space seemed to overwhelm them all with the tension of violence. Even the gun-holding trio were hostage to it and it made their movements sharp, almost violent.
The woman with the pistol slipped it into her pocket and knelt beside Kurt. She produced a roll of duct tape and wrapped it around his mouth.
“Hands behind your back.”
Tape again.
She pulled him to his feet roughly by pulling his hair.
Mickey Connors seemed amused by all the activity. “More Section agents than I figured you had the clout to get. You must be on Pendleton’s winning team.”
“Pendleton is not on mine,” Devereaux said. “But this was overdue.”
“You didn’t get nothing out of it, lad, not a thing. Pendleton double-crossed you and double-crossed you and he’ll do it again soon as he gets the chance. You want to tell me about that blackmail?”
“No, I don’t think so, Mick. I don’t think we have to go into it now.”
The three with guns were leading the two Germans out of the room but Devereaux held up his hand. He wanted to see their faces. Ruth glared at him but Kurt was different. He was the same as he had been that morning in Zurich when he had thanked him for killing the Mossad on his trail.
Fifteen years. Devereaux had thought about it from time to time in the isolated life he had led, even thought about it in nightmares that visited him after he had met Rita Macklin. He had never told her everything though he had explained the scar on his chest with the sort of clinical detail that did not invite closer scrutiny. There had been a lot of people in between but Kurt had been bad enough.
“Mossad,” Devereaux said.
And was rewarded by the black, calm eyes going wide.