embarrassment is in varying degrees.”
Cutter said, “Before we go on with this I’d like to have Ivanovitch’s camera.”
Ivanovitch jerked as if stricken by an electrode; Ross stood up straight; Yaskov only shrugged and held out his hand, palm up, and a little camera came out of Ivanovitch’s pocket. Yaskov gave it to Cutter. Cutter opened it, removed the film and gave it back, and it disappeared back into Ivanovitch’s pocket.
“Thank you.”
“May we be assured Mr. Smith is not similarly equipped?”
Ross pulled his hands out of his pockets, empty. Cutter said, “We didn’t bring a camera. Or a microphone.”
“Then none of us is wired for sound,” Yaskov said.
Ross murmured, “Are we just going to take his word for that?”
“Why not?” Cutter said offhandedly; then he went back to Yaskov: “You weren’t in earshot when I introduced Smith to Ivanovitch.”
“It might have been Jones, mightn’t it.”
Both of them laughed a little and then Cutter said, “There’s a little problem about all this.”
“I wish you Americans didn’t always think of things in terms of problems and solutions.”
“I’d call this a problem, quite specifically. It’s got more than one solution. That’s where you and I have trouble. You want him alive-you want to milk him. We don’t particularly want that to happen.”
“As a matter of policy it is more important to my government that Kendig be neutralized than that he be brought home for questioning. I hope that clarifies my position?”
“You’d rather have half a loaf than none?”
“Precisely.”
“My, you folks are getting flexible this year.”
“I’m happy you appreciate that. Do we have a basis for cooperation, Mr. Cutter?”
“I’ll put it to my superiors.”
“And your own recommendation to them will be?”
“It will be negative.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I hope you are,” Cutter said.
Yaskov inspected a fingernail. “I do hope nothing’s happened to him.”
“Yes. You’d be embarrassed if some third-rate power reached him ahead of you.”
“So would you, Mr. Cutter.”
“I don’t think you need worry that anything’s happened to him. Things don’t happen to Miles Kendig. He happens to them.”
Yaskov nodded as if on consideration he agreed. Then he said, “I fear your superiors will honor your negative recommendation.”
“I imagine they will.”
Yaskov’s sigh was gentle. “A word in private, then.” He took Cutter away a little distance. Ross saw him lean forward, intending Cutter to listen to him, staring straight into Cutter’s face. The icy ruthlessness of the eyes unnerved Ross; it was a point-blank stare that destroyed the barriers of ordinary defense and pretense. Yaskov spoke, Cutter nodded; then Yaskov crooked his finger and Ivanovitch stirred. Yaskov bobbed his cane toward Ross and went away, Ivanovitch hurrying after.
Ross said, “What did he say?”
“Kendig called him from Stockholm. Yaskov believes he went on to Helsinki from there.”
“A lot of this is going by too fast for me,” Ross said as they turned off the Champs. “Why’d he give it to us for free?”
“Because it’s true he’d prefer half a loaf to none. He’d rather we nail Kendig than not see him nailed at all. He tried to bargain, we called his bluff and he had no choice but to give in to us for nothing.”
“You’ve got to be a Machiavelli in this business.”
“You’ll pick it up as you go along, Ross.”
“What was all that about Ivanovitch’s camera?”
“They haven’t got you taped. They don’t know who you are. I didn’t see any point making it easy for them-we might want to use you in the field after this. Ivanovitch didn’t matter, he’s on tape everywhere west of Warsaw-his name’s Kirovoi, he’s an errand boy. One look at him and you know what he is and what he does.”
“But you brought me along instead of somebody like him.”
“I wanted you to meet Yaskov,” Cutter said.
“I’m glad you did. It was an education.”
“There aren’t many left like him,” Cutter told him. They turned in at the door and The Lemon Taster gave them an acidulous glance. Cutter said to her, “I’ll want six field men upstairs at half-past six. The best you’ve got. Clear it through Follett. And book us eight seats on the first flight to Helsinki after nine tonight.”
“Yes sir. This came for you.”
It was a postcard from Stockholm. Cutter let Ross read it over his shoulder.
Having wonderful time. Wish you were here. M.K.
Cutter’s bark of laughter startled The Lemon Taster.
— 20 -
From a kiosk in Stockmann in Helsinki he made one call to London and then he rode a taxi to the airport and made it onto the British Airways Boeing with only a few minutes to spare. Snow-flakes drifted past in the night when they lifted off. He catnapped most of the way to Heathrow and walked through customs with only a routine glance at the Jules Parker passport. He rode the bus in from the airport to the terminal in Kensington and then did a little charade designed to disclose a tail, transferring from tube-train to red bus to taxi; he left the taxi in Regent Street and backtracked by bus into Kensington and walked down to the Kingston Close Hotel in its mewsish seclusion behind the boutique that used to be Derry amp; Toms.
He told the hall porter he was in London on business from Bradford in the north; he put on a broad Yorkshire accent and therefore wasn’t asked for a passport. He signed in as Reginald Davies and let a porter carry his bag up to the room.
The hotel was comfortable but neither grandiose nor luxurious; it attracted commercial travelers from New Zealand and Scotland, dowager aunts from South Africa. He’d met a contact here once but he’d never booked into the hotel; it wasn’t a place where they’d start looking for him.
He sent down for a pint of Dewar’s. Afterward he had to think a moment why he’d done that-it wasn’t his usual Scotch but it would not have been prudent to order Haig. Then he remembered who it was that drank Dewar’s.
He had a shower and found the bottle in the room; he poured two fingers into a tumbler and sat in the easy chair to think out the moves-his and theirs.
Yaskov knew three things he hadn’t known before. One: he’d seen the manuscript so he realized Kendig knew far more than anyone had thought he knew. Two: Kendig had been in Stockholm fourteen hours ago. Three: Kendig was traveling as Jules Parker and had flown from Stockholm to Helsinki under that name.
Cutter would have him out of Madrid by now; he’d have traced Kendig through Orly at least as far as Copenhagen by now and he too would know the Jules Parker ID. That was because Cutter and Yaskov had their stringers out-they’d have to have them out by now-and it would have been no great trick for them to canvass the airports in the guise of national or Interpol officers; they’d have sifted descriptions and names, eliminated the genuine travelers and narrowed the suspect list to not more than three or four, of whom the only repeat would be Jules Parker.
The teaser phone call he’d made from Helsinki would bring the British into it as well. Yaskov might be a few hours ahead of the Americans, a few hours behind the British; but quite likely they’d all collide at Heathrow. The odds were that within twelve hours both Cutter and Yaskov would bring their physical presences into London.
