Frederick Forsyth - The Negotiator

There was silence when she finished.

“Jesus,” said Reed, “that is incredible. Do we have any evidence that might tend to support all this?”

Lee Alexander looked up.

“The Belgians report that the slug that killed Lefort, alias Marchais, was a forty-five, not a thirty-eight. Unless Quinn had another gun…”

“He didn’t,” said Sam quickly. “The only one we had between us was my thirty-eight, the one Mr. Brown gave me. And Quinn was never out of my sight for long enough to get from Antwerp to Wavre and back, or from Arnhem to Den Bosch and back. As for the Paris café, Zack was killed by a rifle fired from a car in the street.”

“That checks,” said Alexander. “The French have recovered the slugs fired at that café. Armalite rounds.”

“Quinn could have had a partner,” suggested Walters.

“Then there was no need to bug my handbag,” said Sam. “He could just have slipped away while I was in the bath, or the John, and made a phone call. I ask you to believe, gentlemen, Quinn is clean. He damn near got to the bottom of this thing. There was someone ahead of us all the way.”

“The fat man, referred to by Zack?”queried Stannard. “The one Zack swore set it all up, paid for it all? Maybe. But… an American !”

“May I make a suggestion?” asked Kevin Brown. “I may have been wrong in thinking that Quinn was involved here from the outset. And I admit that. But there is another scenario that makes even more sense.”

He had their undivided attention.

“Zack claimed the fat man was American. How? By his accent. What would a Britisher know about American accents? They mistake Canadians for Americans. Say the fat man was Russian. Then it all fits. The KGB has dozens of agents perfect in English and with impeccable American accents.”

There was a series of slow nods around the table.

“My colleague is right,” said Kelly. “We have motive. The destabilization and demoralization of the United States has long been Moscow’s top priority-no argument about that. Opportunity? No problem. There was publicity about Simon Cormack studying at Oxford, so the KGB mounts a major ‘wet’ operation to hurt us all. Financing? They have no problem there. Using the mercenaries-the employment of surrogates to do the dirty work is standard practice. Even the CIA does it. As for wasting the four mercenaries when the job is over-that’s standard for the Mob, and the KGB has similarities to the Mob over here.”

“If one accepts that the fat man was a Russian,” added Brown, “it all checks out. I’ll accept, on the basis of Agent Somerville’s report, that there was a man who paid, briefed, and ‘ran’ Zack and his thugs. But for me, that man is now back where he came from-in Moscow.”

“But why,” queried Jim Donaldson, “should Gorbachev first set up the Nantucket Treaty, then blow it away in this appalling manner?”

Lee Alexander coughed gently.

“Mr. Secretary, there are known to be powerful forces inside the Soviet Union opposed to glasnost, perestroika , the reforms, Gorbachev himself, and most particularly the Nantucket Treaty. Let us recall that the former chairman of the KGB, General Kryuchkov, has just been fired. Maybe what we have been discussing is the reason why.”

“I think you’ve got it,” said Odell. “Those covert KGB bastards mount the operation to shaft America and the treaty in one. Gorbachev personally doesn’t need to have been responsible.”

“Doesn’t change a damn thing,” said Walters. “The American public is never going to believe that. And that includes Congress. If this was Moscow’s doing, Mr. Gorbachev stands indicted, aware or not. Remember Irangate?”

Yes, they all remembered Irangate. Sam looked up.

“What about my handbag?” she asked. “If the KGB set it all up, why would they need us to lead them to the mercenaries?”

“No problem,” suggested Brown. “The mercenaries didn’t know the boy was going to die. When he did, they panicked, hid out. Maybe they never showed up someplace where the KGB was waiting for them. Besides, attempts were made to implicate you and Quinn, the American negotiator and an agent of the FBI, in two of the killings. Again, standard practice: Throw dust in the eyes of world opinion; make it look like the American Establishment silencing the killers before they can talk.”

“But my handbag was switched for a replica with the bug inside,” protested Sam. “Somewhere in London.”

“How do you know that, Agent Somerville?” asked Brown. “Could have been at the airport, or on the ferry to Ostende. Hell, it could have been one of the Brits-they came to the apartment after Quinn quit. And the manor house in Surrey. Quite a number have worked for Moscow in the past. Remember Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Vassall, Blunt, Blake-they were all traitors who worked for Moscow. Maybe they have a new one.”

Lee Alexander studied his fingertips. He deemed it undiplomatic to mention Mitchell, Marshall, Lee, Boyce, Harper, Walker, Lonetree, Conrad, Howard, or any of the other twenty Americans who had betrayed Uncle Sam for money.

“Okay, gentlemen,” said Odell an hour later, “we commission the report. A through Z. The findings have to be clear. The belt was Soviet-made. The suspicion will remain unproved but indelible for all that-this was a KGB operation and it ends with the vanished agent known only as the fat man, now presumably back behind the Iron Curtain. We know the ‘what’ of it, and the ‘how.’ We think we know the ‘who,’ and the ‘why’ is pretty clear. The Nantucket Treaty is belly-up for all time, and we have a President sick with grief. Jesus, I never thought I’d say it, even though I’m not known as a liberal, but right now I almost wish we could nuke those Commie bastards back to the Stone Age.”

Ten minutes later the meeting was in closed session. It was only in her car on her way back to her apartment in Alexandria that Sam spotted the flaw in their beautiful solution. How did the KGB know to copy a Harrods-bought crocodile-skin handbag?

Philip Kelly and Kevin Brown shared a car back to the Hoover Building.

“That young lady got closer to Quinn, a lot closer, than I had intended,” said Kelly.

“I smelled that in London, all through the negotiations,” Brown agreed. “She fought in his corner all the way, and in my book we still want to talk to Quinn himself-I mean, really talk. Have the French or the British traced him yet?”

“No. I was going to tell you. The French tagged him out of Ajaccio airport on a London-bound plane. He abandoned his car, full of bullet holes, in the parking lot. The Brits traced him in London to a hotel, but when they got there he had vanished-never even checked in.”

“Damn, that man’s like an eel,” Brown swore.

“Exactly,” said Kelly. “But if you’re right, there could be one person he’ll contact. Somerville; the only one. I don’t like doing this to one of our own people, but I want her apartment bugged, her phone tapped, and mail intercepted. As of tonight.”

“Right away,” said Brown.

When they were alone, the Vice President and the inner five members of the Cabinet again raised the issue of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

It was the Attorney General who brought it up. Quietly and regretfully. Odell was on the defensive. He saw more of their reclusive President than the others. He had to admit John Cormack appeared as lackluster as ever.

“Not yet,” he said. “Give him time.”

“How much?” asked Morton Stannard. “It’s been three weeks since the funeral.”

“Next year is election year,” Bill Walters pointed out. “If it’s to be you, Michael, you will need a clear run from January.”