Frederick Forsyth: The Negotiator

“No. He said he didn’t feel he could trust anybody, not anymore. Only you. He wants to meet you-your terms, any time or place. Can you trust him. Quinn?”

Quinn thought. If David Weintraub was crooked, there was no hope for the human race anyway.

“Yes,” he said, “I do.” He gave her the time and place of the rendezvous.

Sam Somerville arrived at Montpelier airport the following evening. She was accompanied by Duncan McCrea, the young CIA man who had first approached her with the Deputy Director of Operations’ request for a meeting with her.

They arrived on the PBA Beechcraft 1900 shuttle from Boston, rented an off-road Dodge Ram right at the airport, and checked into a motel on the outskirts of the state capital. Both had brought the warmest clothing Washington had to offer, at Quinn’s suggestion.

The DDO of the CIA, pleading a high-level planning meeting at Langley that he could not afford to miss, was due the next morning, well in time for the roadside rendezvous with Quinn.

He landed at 7:00 A.M. in a ten-seater executive jet whose logo Sam did not recognize. McCrea explained it was a Company communications plane, and that the charter company listed on its fuselage was a CIA front.

He greeted them briefly but cordially as he came down the steps of the jet onto the tarmac, dressed in heavy snow boots, thick trousers, and quilted parka. He carried his suitcase in his hand. He climbed straight into the back of the Ram and they set off. McCrea drove, Sam directing him from her road map.

Out of Montpelier they took Route 2, up through the small township of East Montpelier and onto the road for Plainfield. Just after Plainmont Cemetery, but before the gates of Goddard College, there is a place where the Winooski River leaves the roadside to make a sweep to the south. In this half-moon of land between the road and the river is a stand of tall trees, at that time of year silent and caked with snow. Among the trees stand several picnic tables provided for summer vacationers, and a pull-off and parking area for camper vehicles. This was where Quinn had said he would be at 8:00 A.M.

Sam saw him first. He emerged from behind a tree twenty yards away as the Ram crunched to a halt. Without waiting for her companions she jumped down, ran to him, and threw her arms ’round his neck.

“You all right, kid?”

“I’m fine. Oh, Quinn, thank God you’re safe.”

Quinn was staring beyond her, over the top of her head. She felt him stiffen.

“Who did you bring?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, silly of me…” She turned. “You remember Duncan McCrea? He was the one who got me to Mr. Weintraub.”

McCrea was standing ten yards away, having approached from the truck. He wore his shy smile.

“Hello, Mr. Quinn.” The greeting was diffident, deferential as always. There was nothing diffident about the Colt.45 automatic in his right hand. It pointed unwaveringly at Sam and Quinn.

From the side door of the Ram the second man descended. He carried the folding-stock rifle he had taken from his suitcase, just after passing McCrea the Colt.

“Who’s he?” asked Quinn.

Sam’s voice was very small and very frightened.

“David Weintraub,” she said. “Oh, God, Quinn, what have I done?”

“You’ve been tricked, darling.”

It was his own fault, he realized. He could have kicked himself. Talking to her on the phone, it had not occurred to him to ask whether she had ever seen the Deputy Director of Operations of the CIA. She had twice been summoned to the White House committee to report. He assumed David Weintraub had been present on both, or at least one, of those occasions. In fact the secretive DDO, doing one of the most covert jobs in America, disliked coming into Washington very often and had been away on both occasions. In combat, as Quinn well knew, assuming things can present a serious hazard to health.

The short, chunky man with the rifle, made to look even plumper by his heavy clothes, walked up to take his place beside McCrea.

“So, Sergeant Quinn, we meet again. Remember me?”

Quinn shook his head. The man tapped the bridge of his flattened nose.

“You gave me this, you bastard. Now that’s going to cost you, Quinn.”

Quinn squinted in recollection, saw once again a clearing in Vietnam, a long time ago: a Vietnamese peasant, or what was left of him, still alive, pegged to the ground.

“I remember,” he said.

“Good,” said Moss. “Now, let’s get moving. Where you been living?”

“Log cabin, up in the hills.”

“Writing a little manuscript, I understand. That, I think, we have to have a look at. No tricks, Quinn. Duncan’s handgun might miss you, but then the girl gets it. And as for you, you’ll never outrun this.”

He jerked the barrel of the rifle to indicate there was no chance of making ten yards toward the trees before being cut down.

“Go screw yourself,” said Quinn. In answer Moss chuckled, his breath wheezing through the distorted nose.

“Cold must have frozen your brain, Quinn. Tell you what I have in mind. We take you and the girl down to the riverbank. No one to disturb us-no one within miles. You, we tie to a tree, and you watch, Quinn, you watch. I swear it will take two hours for that girl to die, and every second of it she’ll be praying for death. Now, you want to drive?”

Quinn thought of the clearing in the jungle, the peasant with wrist, elbow, knee, and ankle joints shattered by the soft lead slugs, whimpering that he was just a peasant, knew nothing. It was when Quinn realized that the dumpy interrogator knew that already, had known it for hours, that he had turned and knocked him into the orthopedic ward.

Alone, he would have tried to fight it out, against all the odds, died cleanly with a bullet in the heart. But with Sam… He nodded.

McCrea separated them, handcuffed Quinn’s wrists behind his back, Sam’s also. McCrea drove the Renegade with Quinn beside him. Moss followed behind in the Ram, Sam lying in the back.

In West Danville, people were stirring but no one thought anything of two off-road vehicles heading toward St. Johnsbury. One man raised a hand in greeting, the salutation of fellow survivors of the bitter cold. McCrea responded, flashing his friendly grin, and turned north at Danville toward Lost Ridge. At Pope Cemetery, Quinn signaled another left turn, in the direction of Bear Mountain. Behind them the Ram, without snow chains, was having trouble.

Where the paved road ran out, Moss abandoned the Ram and clambered into the back of the Renegade, pushing Sam ahead of him. She was white-faced and shaking with fear.

“You sure wanted to get lost,” said Moss when they arrived at the log cabin.

Outside, it was thirty below zero, but the interior of the cabin was still snug and warm, as Quinn had left it. He and Sam were forced to sit several feet apart on a bunk bed at one end of the open-plan living area that formed the principal room of the cabin. McCrea still kept them covered while Moss made a quick check of the other rooms to ensure they were alone.

“Nice,” he said at last and with satisfaction. “Nice and private. You couldn’t have done it better for me, Quinn.”

Quinn’s manuscript was stacked in a drawer of the writing desk. Moss stripped off his parka, seated himself in an armchair, and began to read. McCrea, despite the fact that his prisoners were manacled, sat in an upright chair facing Sam and Quinn. He still wore his boy-next-door grin. Too late Quinn realized it was a mask, something the younger man had developed over the years to cover his inner self.

“You’ve won out,” said Quinn after a while. “I’d still be interested to know how you did it.”