第 49 页

The house, moreover, was not north of London at all; it was in Sussex to the south, near East Grinstead.Zack had simply been motoring around the orbital M.25 to make his phone calls from the northern side of the capital.

Cramer?s men would scour the place from top to bot-tom; despite the cleaning-up efforts by the four mercenaries, there were some overlooked fingerprints, but they belonged toMarchais and Pretorius.

?What about the Volvo　 asked Quinn. ?You paid for that　

?Yeah, and the van, and most of the other gear. Only theSkorpion was given us by the fat man. In London.?

Unknown to Quinn, the Volvo had already been found outside London. It had overstayed its time in a multistory parking lot at London?s Heathrow Airport. The mercenaries, after driving through Buckingham on the morning of the murder, had turned south again and back to London. From Heathrow they had taken the airport shuttle bus to London?s other air terminus at Gatwick, ignored the airport, and boarded the train for Hastings and the coast. Separate taxis had brought them to Newhaven to catch the noon ferry to Dieppe. Once in France they had split up and gone to earth.

The Volvo, examined by the Heathrow Airport police, was seen to have breathing holes punctured in the floor of the trunk, and a lingering smell of almonds. Scotland Yard was called in, the original owner traced. But it had been bought for cash, the change-of-owner documentation had never been completed, and the description of the buyer matched that of the ginger-haired man who had bought the Ford Transit.

?It was the fat man who was giving you all the inside information　 asked Quinn.

?What inside information　 said Sam suddenly.

?How did you know about that　 askedZack suspi-ciously. He evidently still suspected that Quinn might be one of his employers-turned-persecutors.

?You were too good,? said Quinn. ?You knew to wait until I was in place, then ask for the negotiator in person. I?ve never known that before. You knew when to throw a rage and when to back off. You changed from dollars to dia-monds, knowing it would cause a delay when we were ready to exchange.?

Zacknodded. ?Yeah, I was briefed before the kidnap on what to do, when and how to do it. While we were hiding, I had to make another series of phone calls. Always while out of the house, always from one phone booth to another, ac-cording to an arranged list. It was the fat man; I knew his voice by then. He occasionally made changes?fine-tuning, he called it. I just did what I was told.?

?All right,? said Quinn. ?And the fat man told you there?d be no problem getting away afterward. Just a man-hunt for a month or so, but with no clues to go on, it would all die down and you could live happily ever after. You really believed that? You really thought you could kidnap and kill the son of an American President and get away? Then why did you kill the kid? You didn?t have to.?

Zack?s facial muscles worked in something like a frenzy. His eyes bulged with anger.

?That?s the point, you shit. We didn?t kill him. We dumped him on the road like we was told. He was alive and well?we hadn?t hurt him at all. And we drove on. First we knew he was dead was when it was made public the next day.I couldn?t believe it. It was a lie. We didn?t do it.?

Outside in the street a car cruised around the corner from the ruede Chal?n. One man drove; the other was in back, cradling the rifle. The car came up the street as if look-ing for someone, paused outside the first bar, advanced al-most to the door of Chez Hugo, then backed up to come to rest halfway between the two. The engine was kept idling.

?The kid was killed by a bomb planted in the leather belt he wore around his waist,? said Quinn. ?He wasn?t wearing that when he was snatched on Shotover Plain. You gave it to him to wear.?

?I didn?t,? shoutedZack. ?I bloody didn?t. It was Orsini.?

?Okay, tell me about Orsini.?

?Corsican, a hit man. Younger than us. When the three of us left to meet you in the warehouse, the kid was wearing what he had always worn. When we got back he was in new clothes. I tore Orsini off a hell of a strip over that. The silly bastard had left the house, against orders, and gone and bought them.?

Quinn recalled the shouting row he had heard above his head when the mercenaries had retired to examine their dia-monds. He had thought it was about the gems.

?Why did he do it　 asked Quinn.

?He said the kid had complained he was cold. Said he thought it would do no harm, so he walked into East Grin-stead, went to a camping shop, and bought the gear. I was angry because he speaks no English and would stand out like a sore thumb, the way he looks.?

?The clothes were almost certainly delivered in your absence,? said Quinn. ?All right, what does he look like, this Orsini　

?About thirty-three, a pro, but never been in combat. Very dark chin, black eyes, knife scar down one cheek.?

?Why did you hire him　

?I didn?t. I contacted Big Paul and Janni ?cos I knew them from the old days and we?d stayed in touch. The Corsican was sicked on me by the fat man. Now I hear Janni?sdead and Big Paul has vanished.?

?And what do you want with this meeting　 asked Quinn. ?What am I supposed to do for you　

Zackleaned forward and gripped Quinn?s forearm.

?I want out,? he said. ?If you?re with the people who set me up, tell ?em there?s no way they need to come after me. I?d never, never talk. Not to the fuzz anyway. So they?re safe.?

?But I?m not with them,? said Quinn.

?Then tell your people I never killed the kid,? saidZack. ?That was never part of the deal. I swear on my life I never intended that boy to die.?

Quinn mused that if Nigel Cramer or Kevin Brown ever got their hands onZack, ?life? was exactly what he would be serving, as a guest either of Her Majesty or of Uncle Sam.

?A few last points,Zack. The diamonds. If you want to make a play for clemency, they?d better have the ransom back for starters. Have you spent them　

?No,? saidZack abruptly. ?No chance. They?re here. Every single bloody one.?

He dived a hand under the table and dumped a canvas bag on the table. Sam?s eyes popped.

?Orsini,? said Quinn impassively. ?Where is he now　

?God knows. Probably back in Corsica. He came from there ten years ago to work in the gangs of Marseilles, Nice, and later Paris. That was all I could get out of him. Oh, and he comes from a village called Castelblanc.?

Quinn rose, took the canvas bag, and looked down atZack.

?You?re in it, mate. Right up to your ears. I?ll talk to the authorities. They might accept your turning state?s evidence. Even that?s a long shot. But I?ll tell them there were people behind you, and probably people behind them. If they believe that, and you tell all, they might leave you alive. The others, the ones you worked for ... no chance.?

He turned to go. Sam got up to follow. As if preferring the shelter the American gave him,Zack rose also and they headed for the door. Quinn paused.

?One last thing. Why the nameZack　

He knew that during the kidnapping, the psychiatrists and code breakers had puzzled long over the name, seeking a possible clue to the real identity of the man who had chosen it. They had worked on variations of Zachary, Zachariah, looked for relatives of known criminals who had such names or initials.

?It was really Z-A-K,? saidZack. ?The letters on the number plate of the first car I ever owned.?

Quinn raised a single eyebrow. So much for psychiatry. He stepped outside.Zack came next. Sam was still in the doorway when the crash of the rifle tore apart the quiet of the side street.

Quinn did not see the car or the gunman. But he heard the distinctive ?whap? of a bullet going past his face and felt the breath of cool wind it made on his cheek. The bullet missed his ear by half an inch, but notZack. The mercenary took it in the base of the throat.

It was Quinn?squick reflexes that saved his life. He was no stranger to that sound, which gave him an edge. Zack?s body was thrown back into the doorpost, then forward on the rebound. Quinn was back in the door arch before Zack?s knees began to buckle. For the second that the mercenary?s body was still upright, it acted as a shield between Quinn and the car parked thirty yards away.

Quinn hurled himself backwards through the door, twisting, grabbing Sam, and pulling them both down to the floor in one movement. As they hit the grubby tiles a second bullet passed through the closing door above them and tore plaster off the side wall of thecaf?. Then the spring-loaded door closed.

Quinn went across the bar?s floor at a fast crawl, elbows and toes, dragging Sam behind him. The car moved up the alley to straighten the rifleman?s angle, and a volley of shots shattered the plate-glass window and riddled the door. The barman, presumably Hugo, was slower. He stood open-mouthed behind his bar until a shower of splinters from his disintegrating stock of bottles sent him to the floor.

The shots stopped?change of magazine. Quinn was up and racing for the rear exit, his left hand pulling Sam by the wrist, his right still clutching the bag of diamonds. The door at the back of the bar gave onto a corridor, with the toilets on each side. Straight ahead was a grubby kitchen. Quinn raced through the kitchen, kicked open the door at the end, and they found themselves in a rear yard.

Crates of beer bottles were stacked, awaiting collection. Using them as steps, Quinn and Sam went over the back wall of the yard and dropped into another backyard, which itself belonged to a butcher shop on the parallel street, the Passagede Gatbois. Three seconds later they emerged from the es-tablishment of the astounded butcher and into the street. By good luck there was a taxi, thirty yards up. From its rear an old lady was climbing unsteadily, reaching into her bag for small change as she did so. Quinn got there first, swung the lady physically onto the pavement, and told her:? C?est pay?, madame.?

He dived into the rear seat of the cab, still clutching Sam by the wrist, dropped the canvas bag on the seat, reached for a bundle of French banknotes, and held them under the driver?s nose.

?Let?s get out of here, fast,? he said. ?My girl?s hus-band has just showed up with some hired muscle.?

MarcelDupont was an old man with a walrus mous-tache who had driven a cab on the streets of Paris for forty-five years. Before that he had fought with the Free French. He had bailed out of a few places in his time, one step ahead of the hard squad. He was also a Frenchman and the blond girl being dragged into his cab was quite an eyeful. He was also a Parisian and knew a fat bundle of banknotes when he saw one. It had been a long time since Americans gave $10 tips. Nowadays most of them seemed to be in Paris on a $10-a-day budget. He left a stream of black rubber smoke as he went up the passage and into Avenue Daumesnil.

Quinn had reached across Sam to give the swinging door a hard tug. It hit some impediment, closed at the second slam. Sam leaned back in the seat, white as a sheet. Then she noticed her treasured crocodile-skin handbag from Harrods. The force of the closing door had shattered the frame near the base, splitting the stitching. She examined the damage and her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

?Quinn, what the hell?s this　

?This? was the jutting end of a black-and-orange wafer-thin battery, of the type used to power Polaroid cameras. Quinn?spenknife slit the rest of the stitching along the base of the bag?s frame to reveal the battery was one of a linked set of three, two and a half inches wide, four inches long. The transmitter and bleeper were in a printed circuit board, also in the base, with a wire leading to a microphone in the stud that formed the bottom of the hinge. The aerial was in the shoulder strap. It was a miniature, professional, state-of-the-art device and voice-activated to save power.

Quinn looked at the components on the rear seat be-tween them. Even if it still worked, it would now be impos-sible to pass disinformation through it. Sam?s exclamation would have alerted the listeners to its discovery. He emptied all her effects from the upturned handbag, asked the driver to pause by the curb, and threw the handbag and electronic bug into a garbage bin.

?Well, that accounts forMarchais and Pretorius,? said Quinn. ?There must have been two of them; one staying close to us, listening to our progress, phoning forward to his friend who could get to the target before us. But why the hell didn?t they show up at this morning?s phony rendezvous　

?I didn?t have it,? said Sam suddenly.

?Didn?t have what　

?Didn?t have the purse with me. I was having breakfast in the bar?you wanted to talk upstairs. I forgot my purse, left it on the banquette. I had to go back for it, thought it might have been stolen. Wish to God it had been.?

?Yeah. All they heard was me telling the cabdriver to drop us on the ruede Chal?n, at the corner of the street. And the word bar. There were two in that street.?

?But how the hell could they have done that to my bag　 she asked. ?It?s been with me ever since I bought it.?

?That?s not your bag?that was a duplicate,? said Quinn. ?Someone spotted it, made up the replica, and did the switch. How many people came to that apartment in Ken-sington　

?After you ran out? The world and his mother. There was Cramer and the Brits, Brown, Collins, Seymour, an-other three or four FBI men. I was up at the embassy, down at that manor house in Surrey where they kept you for a while, over to the States, back again?hell, I?ve been every-where with it.?

And it would take five minutes to empty the old bag, put the contents in the duplicate, and effect the switch.

?Where do you want to go, mate　 asked the driver.

TheH?tel du Colis?e was out; the killers would knowof that. But not the garage where he had parked the Opel. He had been there alone, without Sam and her lethal handbag.

?Placede la Madeleine,? he said, ?corner of Chauveau-Lagarde.?

?Quinn, maybe I should head back to the States with what we just heard. I could go to our embassy here and insist on two U.S. marshals as escort. Washington?s got to hear whatZack told us.?

Quinn stared out at the passing streets. The cab was moving up therue Royale. It skirted the Madeleine and dropped them at the entrance to the garage. Quinn tipped the friendly cabdriver heavily.

?Where are we going　 asked Sam when they were in the Opel and heading south across the Seine toward the Latin Quarter.

?You?re going to the airport,? said Quinn.

?For Washington　

?Absolutely not for Washington. Listen, Sam, now more than ever you should not go back there unprotected. Whoever?s behind this, they?re much higher than a bunch of former mercenaries. They were just the hired hands. Everything that was happening on our side was being fed toZack. He was forewarned of police progress, the dispositions in Scotland Yard, London, and Washington. Everything was choreographed, even the killing of Simon Cormack.