Brian Garfield: Hopscotch

Kendig said, “You size up pretty well. I’m sorry I’ve made things hard for you. I’d like you to get a message to Joe Cutter for me. He probably won’t believe a word of it but tell him anyway. Tell him he may as well call it off because I’m going to ground.”

He reached Dover at five in the morning and racked the Volks into a curb space on a quiet street. He walked down to the waterfront and went into an all-night sailors’ eatery where he had a cup of too-strong coffee and brought out the handcuffs. He’d bought them in a magic shop-they were trick manacles for escape acts. He didn’t have any leger-dermain in mind but it had been the handiest place to buy handcuffs that looked real. He locked one cuff to the handle of the heavy briefcase and chained it to his left wrist.

At six-forty he was in the dawn queue at the hovercraft landing. He bought his ticket and walked toward the customs-and-immigration door. It was close cover by three stakeouts he could discern; he picked the American one and walked right up to him and flashed Oakley’s ID. It wasn’t that much of a risk; the Agency had nearly 200,000 employees and the likelihood this man knew Oakley was remote.

The man was young, blond, brisk. Kendig said drily, “It’s official business and I’d kind of like a countersign, fellow.”

The youth flushed to his hairline and showed Kendig his card. Kendig said, “The Comrade over there giving you any hassle?”

“No sir.”

“We’re setting up a CP in Calais, we’ll be posting men along the Channel ports. If you’re at all uneasy about anybody you let pass through here, give us a ring across the Channel and we’ll double-check them as they come off. Make a note of the number.”

The youth got out a pocket note-pad and pulled the attached pencil out of its tube in the pad’s hinge. Kendig rattled off a number and glanced around. “It’s a lousy patchwork arrangement but it’s the best we can do for now. Pass that number on to your relief, all right?”

“Yes sir. But he won’t get through here.”

The fact that the Agency stringer accepted him meant that the Russian and Chartermain’s man wouldn’t detain him. He walked past both of them, cold-shouldering the Russian and nodding briefly to the Englishman; he cleared customs with his official-business passport and went on board ten minutes before departure time.

At the French end they were stuffy. He wasn’t State; he didn’t have diplomatic immunity; they insisted on opening the briefcase. He put the key in the flimsy lock and showed the manuscript. He’d spent an hour in the British Museum at the public typewriter yesterday, typing a phony cover-page and a few introductory pages. Report on United States Immigration Policy Western Europe, Updated 7/17/74. And a covering half-page: Copy 14. To: United States Consulate, Paris, France. Not classified. Hand-deliver. Priority Five.

There was no surveillance at the French end; they thought they had him bottled up in England. He discarded Oakley’s face in the ferry pier’s men’s room and walked off the pier ready to begin the final phase of the game.

Ross could sense the tension in Glenn Follett, who crouched like a beast ready to spring. Myerson watched Cutter, his eyes distended with rage. Myerson lowered himself cautiously between the arms of the chair as though he feared there was a bomb under it-or inside himself.

Nerves near snapping point, Ross jumped when Cutter walked past the back of his chair and sat down in the next one. Cutter’s suit looked slept in; his shoes were scuffed. He rotated the fingertips of both hands against his temples and dropped his hands onto the chair arms. His shoulders seemed to droop or perhaps it was only Ross’s imagination; for the first time Cutter looked as if he could be beaten. He looked drab and uneasy, almost listless. To Ross it made him a little more real, more human.

The walls were thick but there was the thin stink of kerosene fuel pervasively in the room and dimly Ross could hear the jets whining outside. The chartered Lear was fueling up for them and there wasn’t much time.

Ross had been talking; now he went on:

“According to the introductory material it’s probably the chapter on how the Agency first installed Magsaysay as President of the Philippines and then decided he wasn’t playing ball and had him assassinated. Incidentally is that true?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Myerson murmured. “It wouldn’t have been our department.”

Cutter said, “Everything else has been true so far. He’d have had no reason to make it up.”

Ross said, “It was mailed two days ago in the post office two blocks from the hotel. One of the desk clerks did it. Kendig gave him a big tip. It’ll probably start showing up in today’s mail deliveries.”

There was no damming the flood of Myerson’s anger. “What the hell difference does it make what the chapter’s about? The man walked out right under our noses. He’s on the Continent right now and we’re sitting here with hundreds of people holding empty bags.” His face congested with blood. “He walks right into a public building and kidnaps one of our own agents in full view of fifty people. He uses our own man’s identification to get himself out of the country. He’s carrying the rest of the Goddamned manuscript around in a little brown case as if it was a bag of groceries. He’s one stinking man, unarmed and fifty-three years old and none of you high-paid geniuses can lay a finger on the son of a bitch. It’s my head that’s going to roll but I’m going to make good and Goddamn sure it’s not the only one. You comprenez that, Joe?”

Cutter spoke; he sounded as hoarse as if he’d spent weeks in a cell without talking. “There’s one thing I can still try.”

“Then you’d by God better try it because it’s your neck that needs saving right now. What is it?”

“We’ve played him by the book right along. We’ve used cold logic and detective work and saturation manpower. We’ve made all the right moves. But he’s anticipated every one of them-precisely because they were the right moves. Like the FBI trap, the post offices.”

Follett said, “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You want to make a wrong move on purpose.”

Cutter ignored it. “I want to forget forensics and go after him on sheer instinct.”

Myerson snorted. “Toss a coin? Throw darts at a map? That’s easy to say-what’s it mean?”

“I’m not getting anywhere trying to manage this stinking huge field army. I want to dump the command structure and the impedimenta and get out there on the pavement. I think you ought to turn my job over to Glenn here-turn me loose on my own. I’ll take Ross and we’ll see what we can smell out.”

“That’s clutching at straws for God’s sake.”

“Can you think of anything better to clutch at right now?”

Glenn Follett said, “I can. I already have.”

Myerson glared at him. “Well? Do you need to be prompted?”

“I called Laurier this morning, SDECE Paris. I’ve asked him to put a crowd into every bank in the city.”

“Why?” Myerson snapped.

“Before he started this caper he withdrew a lot of money from his bank in Zurich. He was living in Paris at the time. He laid out his plans there. It’s his most logical base of operations, and so far it’s the only place he’s returned to since he started playing hopscotch.” Follett held out his hand and jiggled the fingers as if he were bouncing a ball on his palm. “He gave your man Liddell a lot of cash to pay him for taking that ocean voyage for him. There’s a limit to how much cash a man can carry around. Stands to reason he must have been pretty broke by the time he went from Georgia to Spain. But someplace between Madrid and London he replenished his finances-remember the money belt? Well when he flew from Madrid to Copenhagen he picked a flight that gave him several hours’ stop-over in Paris. It’s a pretty good bet he’s got a bank in Paris-a cash account or a safe-deposit box. And right now he’s flat broke except for whatever small change he’s boosted to keep himself going. If he told Oakley the truth about going to ground then he’ll want to clean out his stash-but even if he was lying he’s still got to have money. I’m betting the money’s in a bank in Paris. I’ve had SDECE saturation on every bank in town since they opened their doors this morning.”