“You’d think a man as experienced as Kurt Vermulen might know better,” Horabin said. “Do we warn him he’s been compromised?”
“No, sir,” retorted Jaworski. “On the contrary, I propose we find out why the Russians have gone to so much trouble to compromise him. They think General Vermulen justifies their attention. We think he may be involved in some kind of project that involves miniaturized nuclear weapons. Put those two things together and what you get looks very much like Russian suitcase nukes. We’ve been tasked to find those nukes. I think this is the lead we’ve been waiting for.”
“Dear Lord,” muttered Horabin. “What’s Vermulen doing now?”
Jaworski grimaced.
“That’s the problem. We don’t know. We don’t believe he’s still in Rome. He left his rental car at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, but he hasn’t taken a commercial flight out that we know of, and there’s no record of him chartering any private aviation. There is one other possibility, though. Da Vinci’s located at a place called Fiumicino, about eighteen miles out of town. It’s right by the coast and there’s also a harbor there, with a yacht marina. It’s possible he could have departed Italy by sea.”
“What do you mean ‘it’s possible’?” rasped Horabin. “Are you telling me you don’t know?”
“ ’Fraid so,” said Jaworski. “I haven’t had the resources to uncover that information. For security reasons, and frankly for political reasons, too, our investigation of this matter has been limited to a very small number of people. General Vermulen is a decorated war hero who has never been suspected of wrongdoing, let alone arrested or indicted.”
“I’m well aware of that,” snapped Horabin.
Jaworski kept going.
“My view, and I think I speak for Tom, too, is that if we’re going to commit ourselves fully to this investigation, with the resource allocation that would entail, and the strong possibility of political fallout, we need authorization… from the top.”
Horabin was about to speak, but was interrupted by a cough from halfway down the table. It came from the uniformed colonel representing the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Excuse me, sir… but before anyone makes that determination, there’s something else you should know. It’s a matter whose relevance only became apparent once I’d heard today’s briefing.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you. It concerns a former Czech military intelligence officer named Pavel Novak. Back in the day, Novak was a double, worked as an agent for us. Late last night, Novak fell to his death from the roof of his apartment building in Vienna. Now, Tom mentioned General Vermulen had been in Vienna recently. I don’t know-maybe it’s just coincidence. But when the general was attached to the DIA, he was Novak’s handler.”
Tom Mulvagh muttered, “Holy shit,” under his breath. There were similar murmurings right around the table. Leo Horabin brought the meeting back to order.
“Thank you, Colonel,” he said. “I will take all this under advisement. And yes, Ted, it will go right to the top.”
75
Samuel Carver got out of Le Bar-sur-Loup and drove the car down a zigzag succession of country lanes to the southeast of town before finding a field where he could park without being observed. A quick change of clothes- ironically, back into the suit he’d worn for Kenny Wynter’s lunch with Vermulen-a pair of shades, and suddenly he looked a lot less like the madman who’d just shot down a helicopter from the old viaduct.
He took the bag with Wynter’s remaining clothes and toilet kit out of the trunk of the car. That, and the jerry can that held all the acetone that had been left over after he’d finished his homemade bomb. He left the can open on the driver’s seat. On top of it, he placed the car’s red-hot cigarette lighter. Then he closed the door and started running. He got about two hundred yards down the road when the can exploded, followed, shortly afterward, by the gas tank, still three quarters full. There was no one else on the lane to watch as he dusted himself off, wiped a trace of sweat from his brow, then strolled about half a mile back up to the main road. Not long after that, he found a Bar Tabac, where he ordered a well-earned glass of ice-cold beer and called for a cab. He took his time over his drink, finishing it just as the cab pulled up. Half an hour later, he was standing in the shower of his junior suite at the Hotel du Cap.
It was only after he’d washed that he finally prized open Bagrat Baladze’s briefcase to discover what he’d gone to so much trouble to steal. There it was, a brown file folder, just like countless others. It had the tired, flimsy look that comes with passing time, and the Russian script written across it had faded. The seal was still intact. Vermulen would be happy with that. Though what it was that he hoped to find inside this sad bureaucratic relic, Carver couldn’t imagine.
Not that he gave a damn at this point. His mind had turned to Alix. He examined himself in the mirror. Considering what he’d just been through, he didn’t look too bad. A hell of a lot better than the last time she’d seen him-that was for sure. As he put on his jacket and straightened his shirt collar, he felt as excited as a kid on Christmas morning, and he couldn’t wait to open his present.
He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock precisely.
Showtime.
76
The bar opened right off the hotel lobby, in one continuous, airy, white-painted space. Carver spotted two men sitting in the lobby, another leaning oh-so-casually against the paneled-wood bar counter, a black dude the size of a wardrobe. He realized it was Reddin, the man from the Venice photograph. Vermulen had ignored Carver’s instructions and sent some muscle to watch over his courier and the package she was collecting, just as Carver had
