“Which is exactly what we were telling you, the reason we’re here, that the president was…!” Something in Wolfe’s expression made him stop. “The president was murdered, but…?”
“The president was murdered by a conspiracy, a conspiracy led by Senator Robert Hart.”
Chapter Seventeen
Austin Pearce was angry, as angry as he had ever been in his life. This was worse than a mistake, this was an outrage: this was insane. He was on his feet, glaring at Aaron Wolfe.
“Who is the idiot responsible for this? What fool decided that Bobby-that Senator Hart-could have had anything to do with this? He’s the one who has been trying to find out what really happened, for Christ sake!”
“I don’t know,” insisted Wolfe, who then turned immediately to Hart. “All I know, Senator, is that if you don’t leave right now, you won’t get out of here at all.”
Hart sat staring straight ahead, frozen to the spot, a dozen different thoughts racing through his mind. If he ran, tried to get away, everyone would think he was guilty, that he had done what they said he did: took part in a criminal conspiracy to murder the president. If he was charged with a crime-any normal crime-a crime for which he could be certain of having a chance to prove his innocence, have a trial with all the protections given a citizen, there would not be any doubt what he would do. His brain was spinning, pictures of courtrooms, of judges and juries, flashed in front of him, but they did so at a distance, pictures of a place he knew he could not go.
He was being accused of something he did not do, and the only people who would do that were the people who were trying to protect themselves; powerful people who could manufacture the evidence they needed to place the blame for what they had done on someone else, and do it so effectively that agents of the government, the government of which he was an important part, were about to place him under arrest and take him, bound and shackled, back to the United States. But not to stand trial. Whoever was doing this, whoever was involved in the murder of Robert Constable, could not afford to let him tell anyone, much less a crowded public courtroom, what he had learned. An hour after they had him, he would be shot while trying to escape.
“Call Laura for me,” he said to Austin Pearce as he started toward the door. “Tell her I’ll be all right.”
“Where are you going? What will you do?” asked Pearce in a plaintive voice.
Hart looked back at Aaron Wolfe.
“I’m going to trust you. I’ll be at your place this evening. I need you to find out something for me.”
Wolfe did not hesitate.
“Yes, of course-anything.”
“Jean Valette. Where does he live-how can I get to him?” Hart thought for a moment. “How are you going to explain this? What are you going to say about why I didn’t come with you? You could lose your career-and maybe more than that.”
Wolfe was so certain of Hart’s innocence, so certain that he was doing the right thing, that the thought that he might be about to destroy his career made him only more eager to take the risk. The sense of liberation was intoxicating, and for once in his careful life he felt the thrill of flamboyance.
“Maybe I’ll just tell them the truth: they’ll never believe that.”
And he almost did. He and Austin Pearce waited until Hart was safely gone down the backstairs, and then, as if they had nothing on their minds more pressing than the weather, came down the main staircase speaking French to one another. The ambassador was waiting just inside the front entrance, along with three of the embassy guards-marines in their dress blues-and two men in dark suits. Pearce guessed they were CIA. The ambassador’s mouth was rigid, and his face had turned to chalk. His eyes darted past Pearce to the stairs.
“The senator will be coming down in a minute?”
The head of the political section looked at the ambassador first with surprise, then with a deeper sense of puzzlement.
“He didn’t come down this way? As soon as I went back in the room-just after we talked,” he said in a way that suggested that the nature of their brief conversation was still secret, “-the senator said he was running late and had to leave. But you didn’t see him?”
The veins on Malreaux’s temples began to throb violently. His eyes became intense. He could barely control himself.
“You just let him go!-After what I told you? Don’t you know-?”
“You really didn’t see him?” interjected Wolfe, with a brazen smile that registered astonishment at the incompetence of the ambassador. “And you just waited down here, didn’t send anyone to make sure that he didn’t get away?”
“Get away?” asked Austin Pearce, with a look of incredulity that, under the circumstances, was not hard to produce. “What are you talking about? What’s going on, Andrew?” he demanded. “Why do you have these guards here? Are you going to have me locked up?-Because if you are, I’d damn well like to know the reason!”
Malreaux was almost too flustered to talk.
“No, of course not,” he replied, angry with Pearce for even asking.
“Then maybe you’ll be good enough to tell me why you’re taking that tone with me!” insisted Pearce, showing some anger of his own.
“What? Why I’ve taken…? Sorry, it isn’t you that’s in trouble.” He was trying to figure out what to do next, but he was not someone who could easily deal with two things at once, and Austin Pearce kept demanding that he deal with him. “It’s not you that’s in trouble,” he repeated as if he needed to give assurances.
“That’s nice to know,” said Pearce in a harsh, caustic voice. He locked his eyes on Malreaux to keep his attention. “I come all the way from New York, bring with me one of the most distinguished members of the United States Senate, come to you because, as I explained earlier, there was something extremely important we had to do; and now, instead of having a few minutes to say goodbye, you stand here with an armed guard and tell me that I’m not in trouble. That’s a fairly strange way to treat someone who has always regarded you as a friend!”
The three marines, trained to a rigorous discipline, stood still as statues, but the two others-the ones Pearce thought were CIA-were screwed as tight as drums, up on the balls of their feet, leaning forward, working their jaws, desperate to stop talking and act.
“I told you, this has nothing to do with you. This-”
But nothing could stop Austin Pearce from dragging things out. It was the only way he had to help Bobby Hart get away.
“We came here to follow a lead.” He stepped closer until he and the ambassador were not six inches apart. “The president did not die of a heart attack, Andrew-he was murdered. That’s why we’re here. Hart is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He thinks he knows who is behind this, so whatever you think you’re doing, think twice about it.”
The ambassador’s eyes went blank. Now he did not know what to believe. One of the CIA agents put his hand on Pearce’s arm.
“Do you know who I am?” demanded Pearce, as he jerked it free.
But the agents were not listening anymore. They barreled past, and with the marine guards right behind, ran up the stairs, shouting directions to each other as they started a search.
“Hart is the one they’re looking for,” said the ambassador. His eyes were blinking rapidly. He bit hard on his lip. “Hart’s the one that had the president killed. I just found out. They call came in just a few minutes ago. I was supposed to hold him, I was supposed to-”
“Who called? Who told you this, who told you that Hart was involved? He wasn’t-but who said he was?”
“The secretary called; he-”
“The secretary of state?”
“Yes, the secretary-he said it was in the papers.”