Quinn fixed the Arab with a sharp stare. "Describe him."
The man shrugged. "Large, one hundred thirty kilos, maybe more. He has a scar here." He drew a finger in a quick slash across the left side of his face.
Quinn nodded. The description fit. Shadrach had been a key Israeli informer in Lebanon at the time of the 1978 invasion. That was the last Quinn had seen of him. The souring of relations between the U.S. and Israel that followed the invasion put a crimp in CIA-Mossad cooperation, and he’d had only limited contacts with the Jewish homeland since.
"I'm acquainted with the man called Shadrach. What's your name?"
"Ahmed Ali Nassar," he said with a bow.
"All right, Ahmed. Did Shadrach send you after me?" The scattering of fluffy clouds above had taken on a reddish hue with the deepening sunset. Quinn shifted his position to get a better view of Ahmed's face. He took advantage of the movement to let his eyes make a quick sweep of the hills beyond. He still saw nothing to alarm him.
"Yes, go to Mersin, take the ferry to Girne, he said. Get word to Pachinko." Then, anticipating Quinn's next question, he added, "He doesn't ask for money. He says he owes you something in return."
In return for what? Quinn quickly searched his memory but could think of no reason the Lebanese would feel obligated to him. He had only participated in a few meetings with Shadrach along with a Mossad officer. Maybe he took that as an indication that American money was backing the payments he received from the Israelis.
"Tell me about Jabberwock," Quinn said.
"Shadrach says the Mossad has something called Operation Jabberwock. They are directing it against their friends as well as their enemies. He says—"
Quinn heard a distant muffled sound and a dull thud as Ahmed's voice choked off. His face twisted with a look half shock, half terror. At the same instant, his chest seemed to explode and he crumpled to the ground.
Quinn threw himself to the beach, reaching for the gun in his pocket as he fell. He counted on the navy jacket to make him almost invisible in the near-darkness. He turned his face toward the rocks on the hill, attempting to judge the trajectory of the bullet that had struck Ahmed in the back. It must have been a high-powered rifle with a silencer. Possibly an infra red scope. Damn fool, he cursed himself. Going against your instincts.
Then he heard a rasping attempt at speech and realized the man wasn't dead, though surely he couldn't last long. Quinn pushed with his elbows and knees to slither the few feet to Ahmed's side. The wounded Arab lay motionless, his head turned toward Quinn. His lips moved, but Quinn had to push an ear close to hear the halting words.
"Mossad… double… cross… "
That was all. No more sound came from what he now knew was a lifeless corpse.
Suddenly, over the intermittent roar of the nearby surf, he heard the splat of two more bullets, both kicking up the gravel a few feet away.
Quinn pushed himself to his feet. Crouching by instinct, he began to run back along the beach toward where he had left the car. For an instant, he had a flashback to a railroad yard in southern France a few months before D-Day in 1944. He had been running from German rifle fire then. And he had been more than forty years younger. Now he had to breathe in gulps with his mouth open, but he ran with the surge of adrenalin, covering the distance quicker than he would ever have thought possible. He thanked God there was no moon to pin-point him against the brown pebbles that lined the shore. And the surf undoubtedly covered the sound of his feet.
He was not sure whether any additional shots had been directed at him, but he finally reached the car, chest pounding, jerked open the door, jammed the key into the ignition and spun the wheels as he raced for the road.
Chapter 8
A few days later, Cameron Quinn stopped his rental car at a rusty, battered mailbox. He almost missed it but the letters "BH" caught his eye. He knew he had found the right place. The mailbox post leaned at an angle, nearly covered with weeds. On the left side of the narrow country road, opposite the box, an iron gate opened onto a set of Jeep tracks that wound back into a heavily wooded area.
He followed the rutted tracks and shortly came to a sudden jog to the right, where he faced a once-white old frame farmhouse with a narrow porch stretched across its front. Now a forlorn relic of another era, the house had been patched like a moth-eaten quilt, with newer boards nailed in a random pattern. A mud-spattered Jeep sat in a weathered wooden shed beside the house.
Quinn parked in front and started toward the porch. As he did, the front door swung open and out stepped a long-haired man with a matching salt-and-pepper beard. Quinn stopped and stared.
"Burke?"
Burke Hill shook his head in disbelief. "Cam Quinn. What in God's name—?"
"You old reprobate!" Quinn's voice boomed. "I'd hardly have recognized you. That beard. And look at you; you've finally learned to eat." He remembered how he used to call Burke skinny. That had changed.
Burke bounded across the porch and grabbed the outstretched hand. He stared at the oversized waistline. "You damn sure haven't forgotten how, Cam. What the hell are you doing here? Still working for the Company? We don't have any Russkies around these parts. Or are you still interested in them?"
Quinn remembered him as something of a chameleon. His speech had taken on the easy drawl of the mountain people. "I'm still on the payroll, let's say. I'd wondered for a long time if you were the Burke Hill whose pictures I kept seeing in the National Geographic and Smithsonian."
"Yeah, they help keep me in film and fodder. That where you got my address?"
"No. I got that from Le Conte Gallery. You'd never guess where I got the gallery name, though."
Burke shook his head. "Where?"
"From Kingsley Marshall."
"The DCI?"
"Right. He has a picture of yours on his office wall. A mink. Said he got it as a birthday present back in November. I guess I've been avoiding that office the past few months. Anyway, I looked at the photo and saw a little plaque under it that identified the photographer as Burke Hill. One thing led to another, and here I am."
Burke's smile faded with the rumpling of his brow. "One thing led to another, huh? That sounds sort of ominous. Maybe we'd better go inside."
His voice rambled on in the manner of a monk suddenly freed from his vows of silence. Quinn wondered if he might have begun to question this reclusive existence, like the first faint sign of the body's rejection of something foreign to its own makeup.
"Sorry I got no Scotch,” Burke said. “I've got a little moonshine the neighbor boys gave me. Only trouble is it'd probably take the enamel right off your teeth."
Quinn chuckled as he followed his old friend inside. "Thanks, but I'll pass on that. Actually, I'm attempting to stay off the hard stuff."
The living room was plastered with a wall-size mosaic map of the mountains. There was a sofa, a chair and a TV, each draped with an item of clothing that appeared to have been stripped off while Burke walked through the house the night before. At one end, next to a window, stood a large oak rolltop desk and beside it a tall metal shelving unit. The shelves were packed with a well-thumbed collection of hardbacks and paperbacks.
"Make yourself at home, Cam. I'll only be a minute." Burke headed for the small kitchen beyond, continuing the conversation as he went. "You on the wagon? That's hard to take."
It had been more than twenty years since the two worked together.
"To be honest, it wasn't easy. But it was something I had to do." Quinn relaxed in the chair. It was good to be back with someone who had no axe to grind.