O'Farrell's Law

required two changes, they traveled through France, going into Luxembourg at Namur and into Germany at Aachen. It was late into the evening before they reached Hannover.

The hotel was very small and dirty, halfway along the Davenshedterstrasse. They went out to eat, choosing a restaurant at random. It was bad. Rivera started to feel vaguely unclean; his skin itched, particularly on his arms, and he went twice to the toilet to wash his hands.

“Has all this really been necessary?” he demanded. Throughout the day he’d had to follow Mendez’s lead and he hadn’t enjoyed that, either. Mendez clearly had, every minute of it.

“If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have insisted upon it,” said Mendez, almost insolently. “There are far more checks at airports than at train border crossings and you’ve no reason, official or unofficial, to be in Holland anyway. Isn’t it better for your presence to remain completely unknown?”

“I suppose so,” Rivera said begrudgingly. “I expected more than just yourself.”

“I’m not alone,” Mendez said. “There are to be others in Amsterdam.”

“From London?”

Mendez pushed away his largely uneaten meal. “Cuba itself. It’s safer that way.”

Rivera felt the first flicker of apprehension. There might be a mistake and he, Jose Gaviria Rivera, might get caught up in an apparently squalid incident. Which wouldn’t remain squalid at all, once the investigation started.

“You mean they’re special…?” Rivera’s voice ebbed away, in his search of the word.

“Yes,” Mendez said helpfully. “What about protection? Belac, I mean. Does he have a lot of people around him?”

Rivera considered the question, recognizing its implication. “Never,” he said, surprised now that he thought about it. “We’ve only ever met alone, just the two of us. And according to what he told me, he’s staying away from Brussels, where he might have some protectors, because of the American investigation. That’s why we’re meeting in Amsterdam.”

Mendez gave a teeth-baring smile. “That’s good,” he said. “We’ll have to make sure, of course. But that sounds good.”

The hotel sheets, white in a long distant past, were gray, and the narrow bath was stained and actually dusty from lack of use. Rivera slept remarkably well, the pillow covered with a clean shirt and the one towel between himself and where he lay. When he showered the following morning, the water created an instant grime scum around his feet from the dirt in the bath.

The hotel in Amsterdam was much better. It was a pension on Wolvenstratt run by a Dutch doll of a woman, white-aproned, big-busted, and with a polished-apple face permanently creased by smiles. She allocated them adjoining rooms and hoped they found everything they wanted in Amsterdam. Rivera said he hoped so, too.

It was a day of pale, near-autumn sunshine and warm breezes, perfect for a country of gardeners and flower growers. Rivera and Mendez found a pavement cafe between the canals, but the intelligence man insisted upon their sitting inside and at a table at the back.

“Belac’s somewhere in Amsterdam,” Mendez said. “You’re not due to be here yet. Coincidence really does occur, sometimes. I don’t want to risk your being accidentally seen by the man.”

Irritating though it was to be subordinate to Mendez, the man did appear to be consummately professional, Rivera admitted to himself. The diplomat nodded understanding and said, “So we’re here. What now?”

“For you, very little until the meeting with Belac,” said Mendez. “I have to locate the others already here, although there’s little preparation we can make until you speak with Belac and make your arrangements.”

“Shall I be involved in the planning?” Rivera tried to make the question natural enough, but he was anxious for the answer. What if the professionals from Cuba seized Belac, instead of what he expected them to do! The truth about the withheld money would emerge in minutes. How could he have been so stupid as to have tried to manipulate it as he had!

“I’d prefer it if you weren’t, but it’s necessary,” Mendez said “They have to follow your lead; they’ve got to know you.”

The warmth of the day, and their sitting inside rather than out in the air, could account for the perspiration bubbling on his upper lip, Rivera decided. He said, “What about me reason for their being here at all? And what they have to do? Do they know I have to recover something, before they move?”

“They’ve been told Belac has cheated us, severely. But not how. Nothing at all about arms shipments. And nothing. either, about Belac’s part in what happened”—Mendez hesitated, considerately—“what happened in London.”

Nothing about the money! Rivera thought hopefully. Nothing, that is, providing Mendez were telling the truth. He said, “Will our meeting be today?”

“Tonight,” Mendez disclosed. He pushed a slip of paper across the table between them. Written on it was the address of a restaurant on Rapenburgerstratt. “There is a private dining room at the rear. Meet me there at seven.”

An order instead of a request, Rivera thought. “Where are you going to be until then?”

“Making contact,” Mendez said dismissively. “I’d like you to go back to Wolvenstraat and stay there, until it’s time to meet. And don’t shop on your way back, buy a gift or a souvenir for Jorge, for instance. There must be no visible record of your ever having been here.”

Rivera did exactly what he was told. Back at Wolvenstraat he stood at the window of his room, staring out at the tree-lined street, watching the early buildup of the rush-hour traffic. After that he sat in the only easy chair until he became bored, which was very quickly, so he went back to the window again. The traffic was heavier, a line stretching back from what he assumed to be a canal bridge.

Because of him—at his instigation—a man was going to die in a few hours, Rivera thought. It was an unreal feeling, now that the moment was almost here; difficult to rationalize. There was no guilt; no doubt, either. What then? He didn’t want to be part of it, not this close a part; he was a diplomat, not a thug. It made him feel dirty, like he’d felt in the German hotel. He was sweating again, too. Dear God, how glad he’d be when it was all over. Not just this. The ambassadorship and the London embassy and arms purchases: everything.

The run of thoughts led him back to the last evening with Jorge. The totally unexpected reference to Estelle was important. It had been more than reference, in fact: a normal conversation. Rivera was relieved. He took it to mean that the shock, the need to block every memory out, was easing at last. He wouldn’t remark about it, of course. He’d continue letting Jorge set the pace. Rivera thought it was important, too, that Jorge wanted to go to Paris for his vacation, knowing it was to be their new home. Perhaps it wouldn’t be boring for the boy to house- hunt. Perhaps that’s what Jorge wanted, a decisive break from a house and from a city that held so much horror for him. Just as he wanted a decisive break. Rivera couldn’t think of anything he wanted to retain from his time in London, apart from his polo. He’d have to put some serious thought to that. Choose the appropriately prestigious club to approach, get the right sort of stabling for the ponies, ship them across well in advance of the season. He didn’t want to enter a new club with animals that were below form, unsettled by their trip.

Rivera became claustrophobic long before the scheduled meeting and impulsively set out to walk to Rapenburgerstraat. Obedient to Mendez’s warnings not to buy anything, Rivera had no street map, but he found a public one on the side of a tourist stand near the canal bridge. It took him several minutes to locate the street he wanted; it seemed to be a long way away. He began walking purposefully, enjoying being out in the open again despite the onset of the evening’s chill, the canal a marker to guide him. Paris would be the place for shopping; Paris would be the place for many things.

Rapenburgerstraat did appear to be a long way away, a much greater distance than he’d calculated from the map. He was beginning to feel the effort of unaccustomed walking and abruptly remembered Mendez’s further remark about a chance sighting by Belac. He looked almost nervously around for a taxi, relieved when he saw one near the Amstel Bridge.

The traffic had eased by now, so Rivera arrived early at the restaurant. For a few moments he remained uncertainly on the pavement, feeling it would be a mistake to enter the private dining room early, to appear in the role of receiving the others. Instead, on the spur of the moment, he posed himself a personal, private test. There was a tree-shadowed bench just past the junction with the main road. Disregarding the chill, Rivera sat there, in the growing dusk, concentrating absolutely on the brightly lighted restaurant entrance, a Cuban sure he could identify other Cubans as they arrived. He remained there for half an hour, until 7:15, without picking out anyone.