'What?'
'Now, you get this straight,' said Varak quietly, raising his automatic and suddenly pressing it into the agent's forehead. 'Whether you live or die means absolutely nothing to me, but there's a man I must find. Tonight.'
'You don't know Grinell—’
'Grinell is immaterial to me, leave him to others. The man I want is the one whose fingerprints you so carefully removed from this apartment. You'll tell me where he is right now or your brains will be all over this desk, and I will not bother to clean them up. The scene will add a further convincing nuance of evil consistent with everything that's taking place out here… Where is he?'
His entire body trembling, his breath short, the red-haired man spat out the words rapidly. 'I don't know and I'm not lying! I was ordered to meet them on a side street near the beach in Coronado. I swear I don't know where they were going.'
'You just called.'
'It's a cellular phone. He's mobile.'
'Who was in Coronado?'
'Just Grinell and this other guy who told me where he walked and everything he touched here in Vanvlanderen's place.'
'Where was she?'
'I don't know. Maybe she was sick or had an accident. There was an ambulance across the road from Grinell's limo.'
'But you do know where they're going. You were about to call the airport. What were your instructions?'
'To have maintenance get the plane ready for takeoff in an hour.'
'Where is the plane?'
'San Diego International. The private strip south of the main runways.'
'What's the destination?'
'That's between Grinell and his pilot. He never tells anyone.'
'You offered to call the pilot. What's his number?'
'Christ, I don't know! If Grinell wanted me to call him, he would have told me. He didn't.'
'Give me the cellular number.' The agent did and the Czech committed it to memory. 'You're certain it's accurate?'
'Go ahead and try it.'
Varak pulled the gun away and replaced it in his shoulder holster. 'I heard a term tonight that fits you, Federal man. Scum-rotten, that's what you are. But as I said, you're of no consequence to me, so I'm going to let you go. Perhaps you can start building your defences as the obedient soldier betrayed by his superiors, or perhaps you'd be better off heading to Mexico and points south. I don't know and I don't care. But if you call that mobile phone, you're a dead man. Do you understand that?'
'I just want to get out of here,' said the agent, bolting out of the chair and running into the sunken living room towards the marble steps and the foyer door.
'So do I,' whispered Milos to himself. He looked at his watch; he was late for the Sound Man downstairs. No matter, he thought, the man was quick and would quickly grasp what he wanted from the tapes and the transcripts. Then he would borrow the Sound Man's car and park it in the lot at San Diego's International Airport. There on a private strip south of the main runways he would find the traitor of Inver Brass. He would find him and kill him.
The telephone rang, jarring Kendrick out of a fitful sleep. Disoriented, his eyes centered on a hotel window and the heavy snow whirling in circles in the winds beyond the glass. The phone rang again; blinking, he found the source, turned on the bedside lamp and picked it up, glancing at his watch as he did so. It was five-twenty in the morning. Khalehla?'
'Yes, hello?'
'Atlanta stayed up all night,' said the hospital's chief of pathology. 'They just called me and I thought you'd want to know.'
