第 48 页

He turned into Old Church Street and right again on the King?s Road.

?Quinn, he?s going to try to kill you. He?s wiped out two of his own men already. With them gone he gets to keep all the ransom for himself; with you out of the way the hunt dies. He obviously reckons you?re more likely to trace him than the FBI.?

Quinn laughed shortly.

?If only he knew. I haven?t the faintest idea who he is or where he is.?

He decided not to tell her he no longer believedZack was the killer ofMarchais and Pretorius. Not that a man likeZack would balk at eliminating his own kind if the price was right. Back in the Congo several mercenaries had been wasted by their own kind. It was the coincidence of the tim-ing that worried him.

He and Sam had got toMarchais a few hours after his death; fortunately for them, there were no police about. But for a fluke crash outside Arnhem they would have been in Pretorius?s bar with a loaded gun an hour after he died. They would have remained in detention for weeks while the Den Bosch police investigated the case.

He turned left off King?s Road into Beaufort Street, heading for Battersea Bridge, and ran straight into a traffic jam. London traffic is no stranger to snarls, but at that hour on a winter?s night the run south through London should have been clear enough.

The line of cars he was in edged forward and he saw a uniformed London policeman directing them around a series of cones that blocked off the nearside lane. Turn and turn about the cars heading north and those heading south had to use the single remaining lane in the street.

When they came abreast of the obstruction Quinn and Sam saw two police cars, the blue lights on their roofs flash-ing as they turned. The police cars hemmed in an ambu-lance, parked with its doors open. Two attendants were climbing out of the rear with a stretcher, and approached a shapeless mass on the pavement, hidden under a blanket.

The traffic control policeman impatiently waved themon.Sam squinted up at the face of the building outside which the form on the pavement lay. The windows on the top floor were open and she saw a policeman?s head poking out as he gazed down.

?Someone seems to have fallen eight floors,? she re-marked. ?The police are looking out the open window up there.?

Quinn grunted and concentrated on not hitting the tail-lights of the car in front of him, whose driver was also gawp-ing at the accident. Seconds later the road cleared and Quinn gunned the Opel over the bridge across the Thames, leaving behind him the dead body of a man he had never heard of and never would: the body of Andy Laing.

?Where are we going　 asked Sam.

?Paris,? said Quinn.

?

Coming back to Paris for Quinn was like coming home. Though he had spent a longer time based in London, Paris held a special place in his life.

He had wooed and wonJeannettethere, had married her there. For two blissful years they had lived in a small flat just off therue de Grenelle;their daughter had been born at the American Hospital in Neuilly.

He knew bars in Paris, dozens of bars, where after the death ofJeannetteand their baby Sophie on theOrl?anshigh-way he had tried to obliterate the pain with drink. He had been happy in Paris, been in heaven in Paris, known hell in Paris, waked up in gutters in Paris. He knew the place.

They spent the night at a motel just outside Ashford and caught the 9:00A.M.Hovercraft from Folkestone to Calais, arriving in Paris in time for lunch.

Quinn checked them into a small hotel just off theChamps-Elys?esand disappeared with the car to find a place to park it. The EighthArrondissementof Paris has many charms, but ample parking is not one of them. To have parked outside theH?tel du Colis?ein the street of the same name would have been to invite a wheel-clamp. Instead he used the twenty-four-hour underground parking lot in rue Chauveau-Lagarde, just behind the Madeleine, and took a cab back to the hotel. He intended to use cabs anyway. While in the area of the Madeleine he noted two other items he might need.

After lunch Quinn and Sam took a cab to the offices of the International Herald Tribune at 181 Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle in Neuilly.

?I?m afraid we can?t get it in tomorrow?s edition,? said the girl at the front desk. ?It will have to be the day after. Insertions are only for the following day if entered by eleven-thirtyA.M.?

?That?ll be fine,? said Quinn and paid cash. He took a complimentary copy of the paper and read it in the taxi back to theChamps-Elys?es.

This time he did not miss the story, datelined out of Moscow, whose headline read:GEN. KRYUCHKOVOUSTER.There was a sub-headline:KGB CHIEF FIRED IN BIG SECU-RITYSHAKE-UP. He read the story out of interest but it signi-fied nothing to him.

The agency correspondent reported that the Soviet Pol-itburo had received ?with regret? the resignation and retire-ment of KGB Chairman General Vladimir Kryuchkov. A deputy chairman would head the Committee pro tem, until the Politburo appointed a successor.

The report surmised that the changes appeared to have been in response to Politburo dissatisfaction, particularly with the performance of the First Chief Directorate, of which Kryuchkov himself had been a former head. The re-porter finished his piece with the suggestion that the Politburo?a thinly veiled reference to Gorbachev himself? wished to see newer and younger blood moving into the top slot of the U.S.S.R.?s overseas espionage service.

That evening and through the following day, Quinn gave Sam, who had never seen Paris before, the tourist?s menu. They took in the Louvre, theTuileriesGardens in the rain, the Arcde Triomphe,and the Eiffel Tower, rounding off their free day at the Lido cabaret.

The ad appeared the following morning. Quinn rose early and bought a copy from a vendor on theChamps-Elys?esat seven to make sure it was in. It said simply: ?Z.I?m here. Call me on ... Q.? He had given the hotel number, and warned the operator in the small lobby that he expected a call. He waited for it in his room. It came at nine-thirty.

?Quinn　 The voice was unmistakable.

?Zack,before we go any further, this is a hotel. I don?t like hotel phones. Call me at this public booth in thirty min-utes.?

He dictated the number of a phone booth just off the Placede la Madeleine. He left Sam behind, still in her night-gown, calling, ?I?ll be back in an hour.?

The phone in the booth rang at exactly ten.

?Quinn, I want to talk to you.?

?We are talking,Zack.?

?I mean face-to-face.?

?Sure, no problem. You say when and where.?

?No tricks, Quinn. Unarmed, no backup.?

?You got it.?

Zackdictated the time and the place. Quinn made no notes?there was no need. He returned to the hotel. He found Sam in the lounge-cum-bar, with croissants and milky coffee before her. She looked up eagerly.

?What did he want　

?A meeting, face-to-face.?

?Quinn, darling, be careful. He?s a killer. When and where　

?Not here,? he said. There were other tourists having a late breakfast. ?In our room.?

?It?s a hotel room,? he told her when they were up-stairs. ?Tomorrow at eight in the morning. His room at theH?tel Roblin. Reserved in the name of?would you believe it　Smith.?

?I have to be there, Quinn. I don?t like the sound of it. Don?t forget I?m weapon-trained too. And you are definitely carrying the Smith & Wesson.?

?Sure,? said Quinn.

Several minutes later Sam made an excuse and went down to the bar. She was back after ten minutes. Quinn re-called that there was a phone on the end of the bar.

She was asleep when he left at midnight, the bedside alarm clock set for six in the morning. He moved through the bedroom like a shadow, picking up his shoes, socks, trou-sers, shorts, sweater, jacket, and gun as he went. There was no one in the corridor. He dressed there, stuck the pistol in his belt, adjusted the windbreaker to cover it, and went si-lently downstairs.

He found a cab on theChamps-Elys?es and was at theH?tel Roblin ten minutes later.

? La chambre deMonsieur Smith, s?il vous pla?t,?he told the night porter. The man checked a list and gave him the key. Number 10. Second floor. He mounted the stairs and let himself in.

The bathroom was the best place for the ambush. The door was in the corner of the bedroom and from it he could cover every angle, especially the door to the corridor. He removed the bulb from the main light in the bedroom, took an upright chair and placed it inside the bathroom. With the bathroom door open just enough to give him a two-inch crack, he began his vigil. When his night-sight came he could clearly make out the empty bedroom, dimly lit by the light from the street coming through the windows, whose curtains he had left open.

By six no one had come; he had heard no footsteps in the corridor. At half past six the night porter brought coffee to an early riser down the corridor; he heard the footsteps passing the door, then returning to the stairs to the lobby. No one came in; no one tried to come in.

At eight he felt the sense of relief washing over him. At twenty past the hour he left, paid his bill, and took a cab back to theH?tel du Colis?e. She was in the bedroom and nearly frantic.

?Quinn, where the hell have you been? I?ve been des-perate with worry. I woke at five ... you weren?t there. ... For God?s sake, we?ve missed the rendezvous.?

He could have lied, but he was genuinely remorseful. He told her what he had done. She looked as if he had hit her in the face.

?You thought it was me　 she whispered.

?Yes,? he admitted. AfterMarchais and Pretorius he had become obsessed with the idea that someone was tippingoff the killer or killers; how else could they twice get to the vanished mercenaries before he and Sam did? She swallowed hard, composed herself, hid the hurt inside her.

?Okay, so when is the real rendezvous, may I ask? That is, if you trust me enough now.?

?It?s in an hour, at ten o?clock,? he said. ?A bar off the ruede Chal?n, right behind theGare de Lyon. It?s a long haul?let?s go now.?

It was another cab ride. Sam sat silently reproachful as they rode down the quays along the north bank of the Seine from the northwest to the southeast of the city. Quinn dis-missed the taxi on the corner of the ruede Chal?n and the Passagede Gatbois. He decided to walk the rest.

The ruede Chal?n ran parallel to the railway tracks heading out of the station toward the south of France. From beyond the wall they could hear the clang of trains moving over the numerous points outside the terminus. It was a dingy street.

Off the ruede Chal?n a number of narrow streets, each called Passage, connected up to the bustling Avenue Daumesnil. One block down from where he had paid off the cab Quinn found the street he sought, the Passagede Vau-trin. He turned into it.

?It?s a hell of a dingy place,? remarked Sam.

?Yeah, well, he picked it. The meeting is in a bar.?

There were two bars in the street and neither was any threat to theRitz.

Chez Hugo was the second one, across the street and fifty yards up from the first. Quinn pushed open the door. The bar counter was to his left; to his right, two tables near the street window, which was masked by thick lace curtains. Both tables were empty. The whole bar was empty except for the unshaven proprietor, who tended his espresso machine behind the counter. With the open door behind him and Sam standing there, Quinn was visible, and he knew it. Anyone in the dark recesses at the rear would be hard to see. Then he saw the bar?s only customer. Right at the back, alone at a table, a coffee in front of him, staring at Quinn.

Quinn walked the length of the room, followed by Sam. The man made no move. His eyes never left Quinn, except to flicker once over Sam. Eventually Quinn stood above him. He wore a corduroy jacket and open-necked shirt. Thinning sandy hair, late forties, a thin, mean face, badly pock-marked.

?Zack　said Quinn.

?Yeah. Siddown. Who?s she　

?My partner. I stay, she stays. You wanted this. Let?s talk.?

He sat down oppositeZack, hands on the table. No tricks. The man stared at him malevolently. Quinn knew he had seen the face before, thought back to Hayman?s files, and those of Hamburg. Then he got it. Sidney Fielding, one of John Peters?s section commanders in the Fifth Commando at Paulis, ex-Belgian Congo. The man trembled with a barely controlled emotion. After several seconds Quinn real-ized it was rage, but mixed with something else. Quinn had seen the look in the eyes many times, in Vietnam and else-where. The man was afraid, bitter and angry but also very badly frightened.Zack could contain himself no longer.

?Quinn, you?re a bastard. You and your people are ly-ing bastards. You promised no manhunt, said we?d just have to disappear and after a couple of weeks the heat would be off. Some shit. Now I hear Big Paul?s gone missing and Janni?s in a morgue in Holland. No manhunt, hell. We?re being wasted.?

?Hey, ease up,Zack. I?m not one of the ones who told you that. I?m on the other side. Why don?t we start at the beginning? Why did you kidnap Simon Cormack　

Zacklooked at Quinn as if he had just asked if the sun was hot or cold.

?Because we was paid to,? he said.

?You were paid up front? Not for the ransom　

?No, that was extra. Half a million dollars was the fee. I took two hundred for me, one hundred each for the other three. We was told the ransom was extra?we could get as much as we could, and keep it.?

?All right. Who paid you to do it? I swear I wasn?t one of them. I was called in the day after the snatch, to try and get the kid back. Who set it up　

?I dunno his name. Never did. He was American, that?s all I know. Short, fat man. Contacted me here. God knows how he found me?must have had contacts. We always met in hotel rooms. I?d come there and he would always be masked. But the money was up front and in cash.?

?What about expenses? Kidnappings come expensive.?

?On top of the fee. In cash. Another hundred thousand dollars I had to spend.?

?Did that include the house you hid in　

?No, that was provided. We met in London a month before the job. He gave me the keys, told me where it was, told me to get it ready as a bunk-hole.?

?Give me the address.?

Zackgave it to him. Quinn noted it. Nigel Cramer and the forensic scientists from the labs of the Metropolitan Po-lice would later visit the place and take it apart in their search for clues. Records would show it was not rented at all. It had been bought quite legitimately for ?200,000 through a firm of British lawyers acting for a Luxembourg-registered com-pany.

The company would prove to be a bearer-share shell corporation represented quite legally by a Luxembourg bank acting as nominee, and who had never met the owner of the shell company. The money used to buy the house had come to Luxembourg in the form of a draft issued by a Swiss bank. The Swiss would declare that the draft had been bought for cash in U.S. dollars at their Geneva branch, but no one could recall the buyer.