Yet, thought McBride. It was a fishing expedition: the bastard was looking for a confession! ‘On whose authority or instructions did you request this meeting?’
‘I am ranked as a senior field executive of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a deputy division director. I have sufficient personal authority.’ That was better: thinking properly again. He wished the muzziness would stop coming and going: that it wasn’t so hot in the room.
The man had left himself wide open, thought McBride. So which course should he take? Outraged, ambassadorial-level dismissal, or the astonished disbelief of an innocent man at a horrifying possibility of embarrassment? He’d learn more playing the innocent. ‘Which company is named in the indictments against this man?’
Norris couldn’t remember! One moment he had the name, the next it had gone, his head thick. Not mush; as if it was filled with cotton waste. ‘Lextop,’ he finally managed.
‘Lestrop,’ corrected McBride, curious at the mistake. It was a passing thought, replaced in a moment. So this was the unspecified rumour that was causing the Lestrop stock to slide: where della Sialvo had gone after he’d told the Italian to go fuck himself! It still didn’t help McBride gauge the danger he faced.
‘That’s it, Lestrop,’ accepted Norris gratefully. This wasn’t going at all as it should have done: how he’d planned it. By now McBride should have broken, made a mistake he could have picked up and used to trap the man into making more. It was so difficult, keeping things straight and in the order he intended. He didn’t want at this late stage actually to consult the Washington dossier but he couldn’t afford another mistake. At once came the contradiction. The file was intimidatingly thick. Consulting it now might convince McBride it contained more about him than it really did. He dropped one of the indictments taking them out of the folder and had to grope awkwardly under his chair to retrieve it. ‘There’s an international arrest warrant out against della Sialvo. He’s thought to be somewhere here, in Europe.’
Where he’d be relatively safe and able to operate, McBride knew: international arrest warrants were notoriously difficult to enforce, particularly in countries with different legal systems. He would have known of an active investigation: it would have been inevitable. ‘How did Washington discover the trading with my company?’
Norris realized the ambassador was questioning him, not the other way round as it should have been. Had to get the order reversed: get everything back on track. It was difficult to keep the loose papers from sliding off his lap, the facts from slipping out of his mind. ‘I asked for an in-depth examination, checking for enemies you might have made. I mentioned the possibility, remember?’
So it wasn’t yet properly official, a Washington operation. There never had been any secret about the two deals he’d done with della Sialvo. They were totally legal, a matter of public record, apart from the Zurich bank commission payments and that was a problem for Sialvo’s native Italy, not the United States. And the Italian was free and likely to remain so. McBride was glad he’d played the innocent. It made the rest of the meeting easy. He said: ‘This is potentially very worrying.’
Here it comes, thought Norris triumphantly: it had taken longer than he’d expected – he’d begun to feel uneasy, which was ridiculous – but the first trickle had just seeped through the breach in the dam. It would come in a tidal wave now. It always did. ‘The more you can tell me the better it will be.’
‘Quite so.’ MrBride’s mind veered sideways, off on a sharp tangent. Thank God there’d been the confrontation at the beginning, taking the negotiations for Mary Beth’s freedom away from this bumbling, almost incoherent idiot! When it was all over – when Mary was safely back – he’d have the FBI Director’s ass for sending someone like Norris.
‘I always think it’s best… what I prefer… what I’d like us to do would be to set it out chronologically, from the very beginning,’ said Norris.
‘The Gulf War was a long time ago. Seven, eight years.’
‘There’s no hurry. Your own time.’ He’d won, beaten an ambassador friend of the President!
There wasn’t any purpose in prolonging this charade: it was almost cruel, like a cat taunting a captured mouse. ‘I don’t have any official position in the corporation any more but obviously in the circumstances the board will do as I ask. I’ll send them a very full explanation, immediately. Ask them to cooperate in every way with the Bureau. And advise your Director, of course: send both sides copies of what I’ve told the other. And tell State and the President.’
Norris sat staring at the other man, his mind wiped clean once more. ‘No,’ he said dully.
‘No what?’ McBride frowned.
‘I want you, now… to tell me, now. It’s my case.’
‘There’s nothing to tell you. After so long I can’t remember anyone named Luigi della Sialvo but if he’s an indicted criminal… a fugitive from American justice… then quite obviously my former colleagues have to cooperate in every way they can… as I will if it turns out that I dealt with him personally…’ McBride rose, ending the encounter. ‘You’re to be congratulated for digging deep enough to find this, Mr Norris.’
Norris rose, without any positive intention of doing so, and papers cascaded on to the floor. He had to kneel to pick them up. Still kneeling he said to the other man: ‘Please. Tell me!’
‘I’ve told you, there’s nothing I can help you with at the moment,’ McBride said. ‘It’s too long ago. But your people in Washington will get every help: I guarantee it.’ He came round the monstrous desk to put his hand on Norris’s shoulder, physically urging the man from the study.
In her room at the Metropole, Claudine was disconcerted when the telephone rang. She stared at it for several moments, unwilling to pick it up. It wouldn’t be Hugo. She’d spoken to him much earlier, from the security of the Belgian police headquarters, explaining how – and why – it had been difficult for her the previous night. It was far more likely to be Peter Blake.
‘Something important has come up,’ said Norris, when she finally lifted the receiver. ‘Can you come down here to the embassy?’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it on the phone.’
Claudine hesitated. Henri Sanglier still hadn’t arrived and the American embassy was where they were going anyway: she could leave a message for Peter to show Sanglier the devices. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’
The embassy’s rezidentura – the quarters of the CIA and the FBI – was far away both in distance and appearance from the lavish ambassadorial officialdom Claudine had seen on her first visit, a series of identical, box- like rectangles, four of which now formed part of the emergency communications centre. Those of Rampling and Harding were at the very rear of the complex, slightly larger than the rest to designate their local status of controller, but each restricted by only one door and no windows to outside light. Rampling saw Claudine as she was escorted past and waved but she didn’t see him. To Robert Ritchie, who was with him, Rampling said: ‘You know something I don’t?’
‘I don’t know nothing,’ said Ritchie. ‘It’s called staying alive.’
Norris checked his watch as she entered Harding’s clear-desked room and Claudine at once registered both signs. Excessive cleanliness and rigid conformity, particularly to time, were both features of severe obsession: she had, in fact, made the journey within the promised thirty minutes but she should have avoided the self-imposed stipulation. She was aware of the brief frown when the indicated chair scraped slightly sideways as she sat. There was a sheen of sweat on the man’s sallow face and unusually his jacket was open.
The chair movement wasn’t sufficient to cause a problem, Norris decided. The microphone he’d fed round the desk, taping out of sight beneath its rim the lead to the recorder in the right-hand drawer, was sensitive enough to pick up everything she said.
‘So,’ began Claudine enthusiastically. ‘What’s the big mystery you couldn’t tell me on the phone?’ She’d had misgivings on the way there: not so much misgivings as belated curiosity. The arrangement was for Jean Smet to bring them together if there was a development: Norris, in fact, was the last person who should have done it. But in the man’s mental state there could be a dozen explanations: she hoped at least one of them was useful.
Norris declared: ‘Technically this embassy is American property.’ He was quite sure of the technique to use with her: hit her hard, without giving her any room for manoeuvre.
She’d made a mistake, Claudine knew at once. She said: ‘I know, John. We went through the question of jurisdiction at the beginning, didn’t we?’
‘So you’re in America.’ She had to realize how trapped she was.
‘Listen to me,’ urged Claudine gently. ‘You telephoned me at the hotel. Asked me to come here because you
