Frederick Forsyth - The Negotiator

There was a rasp as two bolts were pulled back and the door opened. The man who came in was short, chunky, with close-cropped hair and a white jacket, like a steward. He said nothing. Just marched in bearing a plain deal table, which he set down against the far wall. He went back out and reappeared with a large tin bowl and a pitcher from whose top a wisp of steam emerged. These he put on the table. Then he went out again, but only to the corridor. Quinn wondered if he should flatten the man and seek to escape. He decided against it. The lack of windows indicated he was below ground somewhere; he wore only shorts, the servant looked as though he could handle himself in a fight, and there would have to be other “heavies” out there somewhere.

When the man came back the second time he bore a fluffy towel, washcloth, soap, toothpaste, a new toothbrush still in its wrapper, safety razor and foam, and a self-standing shaving mirror. Like a perfect valet, he arranged these on the table, paused at the door, gestured to the table, and left. The bolts went home.

Well, thought Quinn, if the British undercover people who had snatched him wished him to look presentable for Her Majesty, he was prepared to oblige. Besides, he needed to freshen up.

He took his time. The hot water felt good and he sponged himself right down. He had showered on the ferry Napoléon , but that had been forty-eight hours ago. Or was it? His watch was gone. He knew he had been kidnapped about lunchtime, but was that four hours ago, twelve, or twenty-four? Whatever, the sharp mint of the toothpaste felt good in the mouth. It was when he took up the razor, lathered his chin, and gazed in the small round mirror that he got a shock. The bastards had given him a haircut.

Not a bad one, either. His brown hair was trimmed and barbered, but styled in a different way. There was no comb among the wash things; he could not push it the way he liked it except with his fingertips. Then it stood up in tufts, so he pushed it back the way the unknown barber had left it. He had hardly finished when the steward came back again.

“Well, thanks for that, pal,” said Quinn. The man gave no sign of having heard; just removed the wash things, left the table, and reappeared with a tray. On it was fresh orange juice, cereal, milk, sugar, a platter containing eggs and bacon, toast, butter, and orange marmalade, and coffee. The coffee was fresh and smelled great. The steward set a plain wooden chair by the table, gave a stiff bow, and left.

Quinn was reminded of an old British tradition: When they take you to the Tower to chop your head off, they always give you a hearty breakfast. He ate anyway. Everything.

Hardly had he finished than Rumpelstiltskin was back, this time with a pile of clothes, fresh-laundered and pressed. But not his. A crisp white shirt, tie, socks, shoes, and a two-piece suit. Everything fitted as if tailor-made for him. The servant gestured to the clothes and tapped his watch as if to say there was little time to lose.

When Quinn was dressed, the door opened again. This time it was the elegant businessman, and he at least could speak.

“My dear chap, you’re looking a hundred percent better, and feeling it, I hope. My sincere apologies for the unconventional invitation here. We felt that without it you might not care to join us.”

He still looked like a fashion plate and talked like an officer from one of the Guards regiments.

“I’ll give you assholes credit where it’s due,” said Quinn. “You have style.”

“How very kind,” murmured the businessman. “And now, if you would come with me, my superior officer would like a word with you.”

He led Quinn down a plain corridor to an elevator. As it hummed upward, Quinn asked what time it was.

“Ah, yes,” said the businessman. “The American obsession with the hour of the day. Actually it is close to midnight. I fear that breakfast was all our night-duty chef was very good at.”

They got out of the lift into another corridor, plushly carpeted this time, with several paneled wooden doors leading off it. But his guide led Quinn to the far end, opened the door, ushered Quinn inside, withdrew, and closed the door.

Quinn found himself in a room that might have been office or drawing room. Sofas and armchairs were grouped around a gas-log fire, but there was an imposing desk in the window bay. The man who rose from behind it and came to greet him was older than he, mid-fifties he guessed, in a Savile Row suit. He also wore an air of authority in his bearing and in his hard, no-nonsense face. But his tone was amiable enough.

“My dear Mr. Quinn, how good of you to join me.”

Quinn began to get annoyed. There was a limit to this game-playing.

“Okay, can we quit playing charades? You had me jabbed in a hotel lobby, drugged unconscious, brought here. Fine. Totally unnecessary. If you British spooks had wanted to talk to me, you could have had a couple of bobbies pick me up without need of hypodermic needles and all that crap.”

The man in front of him paused, seeming genuinely surprised.

“Oh, I see. You think you are in the hands of Mi-Five or Mi-Six? I fear not. The other side, so to speak. Allow me. I am General Vadim Kirpichenko, newly appointed head of the First Chief Directorate, KGB. Geographically you are still in London; technically you are on sovereign Soviet territory-our embassy in Kensington Park Gardens. Won’t you sit down?”

For the second time in her life Sam Somerville was shown into the Situation Room in the basement below the West Wing of the White House. She had barely been off the Madrid plane five hours. Whatever the men of power wanted to ask her, they did not wish to be kept waiting.

The Vice President was flanked by the four senior Cabinet members and Brad Johnson, the National Security Adviser. Also in attendance were the Director of the FBI and Philip Kelly. Lee Alexander of the CIA sat alone. The one other man was Kevin Brown, repatriated from London to report personally, something he had just finished doing when Sam was shown in. The atmosphere toward her was clearly hostile.

“Sit down, young lady,” said Vice President Odell. She took the chair at the end of the table, where they could all see her. Kevin Brown glowered at her; he would have preferred to conduct her debriefing personally, then reported to this committee. It was not pleasing to have his subordinate agents interrogated directly.

“Agent Somerville,” said the Vice President, “this committee let you return to London and released the man Quinn to your charge for one reason: your assertion that he might make some progress in identifying Simon Cormack’s abductors because he had actually seen them. You were also told to stay in touch, report back. Since then… nothing. Yet we’ve been getting a stream of reports about bodies being left all over Europe, and always you and Quinn a few yards away at the time. Now will you please tell us what the hell you’ve been doing?”

Sam told them. She started at the beginning, Quinn’s vague recall of a spider tattoo on the back of the hand of one of the men in the Babbidge warehouse; the trail via the Antwerp thug Kuyper to Marchais, already dead under a pseudonym in a Ferris wheel in Wavre. She told them of Quinn’s hunch that Marchais might have brought a long-time buddy into the operation, and the unearthing of Pretorius in his bar in Den Bosch. She told them of Zack, the mercenary commander Sidney Fielding. What he had had to say, minutes before he died, kept them in riveted silence. She finished with the bugged handbag and Quinn’s departure alone to Corsica to find and interrogate the fourth man, the mysterious Orsini, who, according to Zack, had actually provided the booby-trapped belt.

“Then he called me, twenty hours ago, and told me it was over, the trail cold, Orsini dead and never said a word about the fat man…”