Frederick Forsyth - The Negotiator

The motorcade into London was worse. He rode up front in an American limousine half a block long with a pennant on the nose. Two motorcycle outriders cleared a path through the early evening traffic. Behind came Lou Collins, giving a ride-and a briefing-to his CIA colleague Duncan McCrea. Two cars back was Patrick Seymour, doing the same for Sam Somerville. The British in their Rovers, Jaguars, and Granadas tagged along.

They swept along the M.4 motorway toward London, pulled onto the North Circular, and down the Finchley Road. Just after Lords roundabout, the lead car swerved into Regent’s Park, followed the Outer Circle for a while, and swept into a formal entrance, past two security guards who saluted.

Quinn had spent the drive gazing out at the lights of a city he knew as well as any in the world, better than most, and maintained silence until at last even the self-important Minister/counselor lapsed into quiet. As the cars headed toward the illuminated portico of a palatial mansion, Quinn spoke. Snapped, really. He leaned forward-it was a long way-and barked into the driver’s ear.

“ Stop the car .”

The driver, an American Marine, was so surprised he did exactly that, fast. The car behind was not so smart. There was a tinkling of glass from taillights and headlights. Farther down the line the Home Office driver, to avoid a collision, drove into the rhododendron bushes. The cavalcade made like a concertina and stopped. Quinn stepped out and stared at the mansion. A man was standing on the top step of the portico.

“Where are we?” asked Quinn. He knew perfectly well. The diplomat scuttled out of the rear seat behind him. They had warned him about Quinn. He had not believed them. Other figures from down the column were moving up to join them.

“Winfield House, Mr. Quinn. That’s Ambassador Fairweather waiting to greet you. It’s all set up: You have a suite of rooms-it’s all been arranged.”

“Unarrange it,” said Quinn. He opened the trunk of the limousine, grabbed his valise, and started to walk down the driveway.

“Where are you going, Mr. Quinn?” wailed the diplomat.

“Back to Spain,” called Quinn.

Lou Collins was in front of him. He had spoken with David Weintraub on the enciphered link while the Concorde was airborne.

“He’s a strange bastard,” the DDO had said, “but give him what he wants.”

“We have an apartment,” Collins said quietly. “Very private, very discreet. We sometimes use it for first debriefing Soviet bloc defectors. Other times for visiting guys from Langley. The DDO stays there.”

“Address,” said Quinn. Collins gave it to him. A back street in Kensington. Quinn nodded his thanks and kept walking. On the Outer Circle a taxi was cruising by. Quinn hailed it, gave instructions, and disappeared.

It took fifteen minutes to sort out the tangle in the driveway. Eventually Lou Collins took McCrea and Somerville in his own car and drove them to Kensington.

Quinn paid off the cab and surveyed the apartment block. They were going to bug him anyway; at least with a Company flat the hardware would be installed, saving a lot of lame excuses and redecorating. The number he needed was on the third floor. When he rang the bell it was answered by a burly, low-level Company man. The caretaker.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m in,” said Quinn, walking past him. “You’re out.” He walked through the apartment, checking the sitting room, the master bedroom, and the two smaller ones. The caretaker was frantically on the phone; they patched him through to Lou Collins in his car, and the man subsided. Grumpily he packed his things. Collins and the two bird dogs arrived three minutes after Quinn, who had selected the principal bedroom as his own. Patrick Seymour followed Collins. Quinn surveyed the four of them.

“These two have to live with me?” he asked, nodding at Special Agent Somerville and GS-12 McCrea.

“Look, be reasonable, Quinn,” said Collins. “This is the President’s son we’re trying to recover. Everyone wants to know what’s going on. They just won’t be satisfied with less. The powers-that-be just aren’t going to let you live here like a monk, telling them nothing.”

Quinn thought it over.

“All right. What can you two do apart from snooping?”

“We could be useful, Mr. Quinn,” said McCrea pleadingly. “Go and fetch things-help out.”

With his floppy hair, constant shy smile, and air of diffidence, he seemed much younger than his thirty-four years, more like a college kid than a CIA operative. Sam Somerville took up the theme.

“I’m a good cook,” she said. “Now that you’ve deep-sixed the Residence and all its staff, you’re going to have to have someone who can cook. Being where we are, it would be a spook anyway.”

For the first time since they had met him, Quinn grinned. Somervillethought it transformed his otherwise enigmatic face.

“All right,” he said to Collins and Seymour. “You’re going to bug every room and phone call anyway. You two take the remaining bedrooms.”

The young agents went down the hall.

“But that’s it,” he told Collins and Seymour. “No more guests. I need to speak to the British police. Who’s in charge?”

“Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cramer. Nigel Cramer. Number two man in Specialist Operations Department. Know him?”

“Rings a bell,” said Quinn.

At that moment a bell did ring-the telephone. Collins took it, listened, and covered the mouthpiece.

“This is Cramer,” he said. “At Winfield House. He went there to liaise with you, just heard the news. Wants to come here. Okay?”

Quinn nodded. Collins spoke to Cramer and asked him to come ’round. He arrived in an unmarked police car twenty minutes later.

“Mr. Quinn? Nigel Cramer. We met once, briefly.”

He stepped into the apartment warily. He had not known about its existence as a Company safe-house, but he did now. He also knew the CIA would vacate it when this affair was over and take another one.

Quinn recalled Cramer when he saw the face.

“ Ireland, years back. The Don Tidey affair. You were head of Anti-Terrorist Branch then.”

“S.O. 13, yes. You’ve a good memory, Mr. Quinn. I think we need to talk.”

Quinn led Cramer into the sitting room, sat him down, took a chair opposite, and gestured around the room with his hand to indicate it was certainly bugged. Lou Collins might be a nice guy, but no spook is ever that nice. The British policeman nodded gravely. He realized he was effectively on American territory, in the heart of his own capital city, but what he had to say would be fully reported by him to the COBRA.

“Let me, as you say in America, level with you, Mr. Quinn. The Metropolitan Police have been granted full primacy in the investigation into this crime. Your government has agreed to that. So far we have not had a big break, but it’s early days and we are working flat-out.”

Quinn nodded. He had worked in bugged rooms before, many times, and spoken on tapped phone lines. It was always an effort to keep conversation normal. He realized Cramer was speaking for the record, hence the pedantry.

“We asked for primacy in the negotiation process and were overruled at Washington ’s request. I have to accept that. I don’t have to like it. I have also been instructed to give you every cooperation the Met. and the entire range of our government’s departments can offer. And that you will get. You have my word on it.”

“I’m very grateful for that, Mr. Cramer,” said Quinn. He knew it sounded terribly stilted, but somewhere the spools were turning.

“What exactly is it you want?”

“Background first. The last update I read was in Washington…” Quinn checked his watch-8:00 P.M. in London. “Over seven hours ago. Have the kidnappers made contact yet?”