It meant they must have had one of their own people watching the airport. “My guess would be that he is an intelligence officer. British or American.”
“What is being done about him?”
“Nothing. I don’t consider him a threat at this point. Although Boorsch will be identified and probably traced back to us, we can handle the inquiries. And your position with us is very well insulated.”
“What about Switzerland?”
“We have the parts.”
“I see,” the Japanese man said after a brief hesitation. “And why have you not delivered them?”
Spranger had been expecting the question. He’d hoped it would not have come so soon, but he wasn’t going to hedge. “The parts are in a safe place, where they shall remain until we have gathered everything you contracted for. Only then will we make delivery.”
“Why?”
“Insurance,” Spranger said bluntly. He looked over at Liese. She was watching him, a faint smile on her lips.
“Against what?” the man asked.
“You.”
“Do you consider us a threat to your well-being? We are, after all, allies once again.”
“Allies, but not friends,” Spranger said. “Is there anything else?”
“We could replace you, if you refuse to cooperate.”
“No one else could do the job.”
The man laughed. “I believe we could find someone capable. A person such as Miss Egk, for example.”
“She could do the job,” Spranger said, once again surprised. “Unless I killed her first. Then you might never get your little toys.”
Liese’s smile broadened. She was seated on a low couch across the salon from him.
As he watched, she crossed her long, lovely legs.
“Do we still have a contract?” Spranger asked after a moment.
“Yes, of course. But I am worried about the man in the tweed coat, and I believe you should be worried as well. Look into it.”
“If you think it’s important.”
“I do.”
“I will have to divert some resources. It will cost you…
“Money is no object. I have already made that quite clear.”
“Very well,” Spranger said.
“How soon do you expect to be in a position to fulfill the terms of our agreement?”
“Soon.”
“How soon? Days? Weeks? Months?”
“Soon,” Spranger repeated, and he hung up.
Chapter 16
On Sunday morning Swissair quietly reinstituted its flight 145 to Geneva, and though Orly had reopened almost immediately, passenger traffic on all airlines was sharply down.
McGarvey had spent most of Saturday in the clippings library of Le Figaro, France’s leading daily newspaper, looking for background information on the STASI and what had become of its top officers. But he’d not found much beyond a series of articles published last week in which a French journalist reported that there were still thousands of KGB men and officers operating throughout what had once been East Germany, and that only the East German secret service itself had actually been dismantled by the mobs.
Early this morning he had checked out of the Latin Quarter hotel where he’d holed up out of Tom Lynch’s way, and took a cab out to Orly.
Mati was dead. That irrevocable fact began to settle over him like a dark, malevolent cloud as his taxi came within sight of the airport. In his mind’s eye he could see the big plume of smoke rising into the morning sky. And he could see the Stinger’s contrail. No one aboard the Airbus had so much as one chance in a million of survival.
The destruction had been so complete that authorities were admitting they might never be able to properly identify even half the bodies.
Poor Mati. She could never have envisioned that her life would end that way. Or that her death would be so misused.
“Frankly, the sooner you are out of France the better I will feel,” Marquand had told him bluntly.
“Are you so sure I’m interested?” McGarvey asked.
The French intelligence officer nodded. “Had you continued to Paris after one-four-five was destroyed, I would have not been so certain. But your own actions have betrayed you, as they do all of us in the end.”
Mati had come from Lausanne. The CIA had been sending its people at least as far as Geneva. And Marquand told him that the organization of ex-STASI officers (if such an organization existed) maintained its bank accounts in Bern and Zurich. All roads, it seemed, led to Switzerland.
“Show your face in Lausanne, and if you are spotted by Boorsch’s friends they will assume that you are investigating them. They will come for you, then, no matter where you go or what you do.”
Even Marquand had known about poor Mati. Everyone had, and somehow she was being used as the key, or as a lever to pry him loose from… what?
He was out of the business. He’d told them that a dozen times. He had nothing left to give. He was, like the Cold War, an anachronism. A man whose time had passed.
An idea that no longer fit. An ism that had become too dangerous in what was being called the “new world order.”
McGarvey paid off his driver and went directly through the terminal to the Swissair boarding area. He’d made his reservations yesterday at the airline’s downtown office under his real name, giving the opposition, if there was any, time enough to react.
Tom Lynch was waiting for him across from the gate, and he pulled McGarvey into the cocktail lounge that was half-filled with travelers. They got a table where they could watch the boarding.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Paris chief of station asked. “We’ve turned this town upside down looking for you.”
“I’m going to Lausanne,” McGarvey answered, watching Lynch’s eyes. The COS was an organization man. He put the Agency before personal feelings.
“The Swiss will kick you out,” Lynch said, betraying nothing.
“I’m going to pay my respects, Tom. Any other reason I’d be going there?”
“I don’t know. But Murphy is screaming bloody murder for you. He’ll have your head on a platter if you don’t show up in Washington.”
“He doesn’t have the authority.”
Lynch looked at him with a smirk. “You’ve been around long enough to know better than that, McGarvey. The man has a long reach.”
McGarvey leaned forward. They were calling his flight. “So do I, Tom.”
“Are you threatening me?” Lynch demanded.
“I had a friend aboard that flight. I’m going to Lausanne, as I said, to pay my respects.
Afterward I’ll go to Washington to see Murphy. I was leaving Paris in any event.”
“Yes, I know. We’ve been to your apartment. Your concierge said you gave it up. She also said the police had been there.”
McGarvey waited.
“Marquand is suddenly unavailable. Did you happen to see him, by chance?”
McGarvey nodded. “He told me to get out of Paris.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“That I was leaving this morning.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
McGarvey’s flight was called again.
“I didn’t tell him much, Tom, other than about my relationship with one of the passengers.”
“And about me? About our little talk?”
“No.”
“It would be too bad if I found out differently.”
“What about the pair you sent to Geneva? Care to comment?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lynch said with a straight face.
“That shooter wasn’t gunning for Marta. My guess is that he was after your people.”
“What’ll I tell the general?”
“Tell him that I’ll drop by in the next couple of days,” McGarvey said getting to his feet. “Soon as I’m finished with my business in… Lausanne.”