Extraordinary Powers (25 page)

“From whom?”

He leaned back in his wheelchair. “The most treacherous people in the intelligence business are one’s own. You know, there was a great nineteenth-century entomologist named Au guste Forel who once observed that the greatest enemies of ants are—other ants. The greatest enemies of spies are other spies.”

He laced his fingers into a church steeple. “Whatever deal Vladimir Orlov struck with Hal Sinclair, I’m sure he does not want it revealed.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Toby,” I said. “You don’t believe Hal was innocent.” He exhaled almost soulfully. “No,” he admitted, “I don’t I wish I could believe otherwise. But at the very least you might be able to find out what Hal was up to before he died. And why.”

“What Hal was up to?” I thundered. “Hal is dead!”

Startled, Toby looked up. He seemed frightened, though by my outburst or by something else I couldn’t tell.

“Who killed him?” I demanded. “Who killed Hair “Former Stasi employees, I would guess.”

“I don’t mean the wet work. Who ordered his death?”

“We don’t know.”

“These CIA renegades—the “Wise Men’ Alex told me about?”

“Possible. Although perhaps—I know you hate to hear this, but consider it anyway—perhaps Sinclair was one of them. One of the so-called Wise Men. And perhaps there was a falling out.” “That’s one theory,” I said coldly. “There must be others.”

“Yes. Perhaps Sinclair made some sort of deal with Orlov, something involving a great deal of money. And Orlov—out of greed or out of fear—had Sinclair killed. After all, wouldn’t it be logical that some of these former East German and Romanian thugs would do some freelance work for the man who used to be their boss?”

“I need to talk to Alex Truslow.”

“He’s unreachable.” “No,” I said. “He’s at Camp David. He’s reachable.”

“He’s in transit, Ben. If you must speak to him, try tomorrow. But there is no time to lose. This is a matter of the gravest urgency.”

“You plan to keep Molly, is that it? Until I deliver the goods?”

“Ben, we’re desperate. Things are too vital.” He inhaled deeply. “It wasn’t my idea, by the way. I argued against it with Charles Rossi until I was blue in the face.”

“But you went along with it.”

“She’s being treated exceptionally well, I promise you. She’ll confirm that. The hospital has been told she’s been called away on an urgent family matter. She’ll have a peaceful rest for a few days, which she badly needs.”

I felt the adrenaline surge, and struggled mightily to keep my composure. “Toby, I believe it was you who once told me that when an ant nest is under attack, the ants don’t send out the young-men ants as guards, as soldiers. They send out the old-lady ants, you told me.

Because it’s okay if the old ladies get killed off. That’s called altruism—it’s better for the colony. Right?”

“We will do everything we can to protect you.” “Two conditions,” I said.

“Yes?”

“First, this is the only assignment I will undertake for any one. I will not be made a guinea pig, or an errand boy, or anything else for that matter. Is that understood?” “Understood,” Toby said equably. “Although I should hope at some point we could induce you to change your mind.”

I ignored him and went on. “And second, you receive the information only after Molly is released. I’ll work out the exact terms and arrangements.

But it’s going to be my game, with my rules.”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Toby said more loudly.

“Perhaps. But it’s a deal-breaker.”

“I can’t allow it. It’s against all accepted procedure.”

“Accept it, Toby.”

Another long, long pause. “Dammit, Ben. All right.” “All right, then,” I said. “We have a deal.”

He put both palms flat on the table before him. “We’ll fly you to Rome in a few hours,” he said. “There’s not a minute to lose.”

PART 4.

Iv tuscany Leader of Germany’s National Socialist Party Assassinated

BY ISAAC WOOD NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE BONN—Jurgen Krauss, the fiery chairman of the reborn Nazi Party, who was the leading contender in the race for Chancellor, was shot and killed this morning in a rally here.

No one has yet claimed responsibility.

That leaves only two men in the contest to lead Germany, both of them considered centrists. While voicing sorrow at the violent end of Mr. Krauss, diplomats expressed relief … THIRTY.

I had been to Rome several times before, and never much liked it. Italy is without a doubt one of my favorite countries in the world, perhaps my single favorite, but I’ve always found Rome grimy, congested, and despondent. Beautiful, yes—Michelangelo’s Campidoglio, St. Peter’s, the Villa Borghese, the Via Veneto, are all striking in different ways, ancient, luxuriant, opulent—but overwhelming, threatening. And virtually everywhere you go in the city you somehow always end up at the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, a horrific typewriter-shaped structure of white Brescian marble, on the Piazza Venezia, shrouded in malign traffic fumes. Mussolini delivered his harangues here; I preferred to avoid it whenever possible.

The day I arrived was rain-swept and unpleasantly chilly. In the driving rain, the taxi stand in front of the international terminal at Fiumicino seemed a bit too forlorn to brave right away.

So I found a bar and ordered a cafe lungo, savored it for a long while, feeling the caffeine do battle with my jet lag. I had entered the country on a false passport, provided for me by those wizards of forgery in CIA’s Technical Services section (in cooperation, let it be said, with the U.S. State Department).

My cover was Bernard Mason, an American businessman here to make some arcane arrangements with my corporation’s Italian subsidiary. The passport they’d supplied me was admirably dog-eared; if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought it had indeed been used on many international trips before, and by a slob. But of course it had been dummied up just for the occasion.

I polished off a second cafe lungo and a comet to and made my way toward the rest room. The facility was simple, black ami white, and clean.

Against one wall, below a large mirror, was a row of sinks; facing them on the other side of the small room were four toilet stalls, the doors to which were painted a glossy black and went from floor to ceiling without a gap. The leftmost stall was occupied, and although the center one was vacant, I stood at the sink for a while, washed my hands, my face, and combed my hair, until the door to the left stall opened. A pudgy middle-aged Arab emerged, tightening his belt against his ample gut He left without washing his hands, and I immediately entered the stall he had just vacated and locked it I lowered the toilet seat, climbed up on it, and reached up to the molded-plastic compartment near the ceiling. It lifted open easily, as promised, and there it was, a fat bundle. A padded manila envelope that contained, swaddled in clean cotton rags, a box of fifty .45 ACP shells and a sleek, matte black .45 semiautomatic pistol, a Sig-Sauer 220, brand-new and still oily from the manufacturer. The Sig is, I believe, the best pistol made. It has tritium night-sights, a four-inch barrel, six rifling grooves, and weighs around twenty-six ounces. I hoped I’d have no use for it.

I was in a foul mood. I had sworn I’d never return to this terrible game, and now I was back. And once again I would have to draw upon my dark, violent side, which I thought I had buried once and for all.

I wrapped it back up, slipped it into my carry-on bag, and left the envelope in the compartment, which I pressed closed.

As soon as I left the rest room and headed for the taxi stand, however, I felt something wrong. A presence, a person, a stirring. Airports are chaotic, hectic, bustling places, and so they are perfect for surveillance. I was being observed. I felt it I can’t say I heard or read anything far too many people in too many little throngs, a Babel of foreign languages, and my Italian was only serviceable. But I sensed it.

My instincts, once so finely tuned, then so long out of use, were slowly returning.

There was someone.

A compact, swarthy man, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties, wearing a green-gray sports jacket, lounging near the farmacia, his face mostly hidden behind a copy of the Corriere detta sera.

‘ I hastened my pace somewhat until I was outside. He followed me out: very unsubtle. Which concerned me. He didn’t seem to worry about being noticed, which probably meant there were others. Probably also meant that they wanted me to notice.

I got into the next available cab, a white Mercedes, and said, “Grand Hotel, per favore.”

The watcher was in a cab immediately behind mine, I saw at once.

Probably by now there was another vehicle involved, perhaps two or three. After about forty minutes of crawling through the morning rush-hour traffic, the cab pulled up the narrow Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and in front of the Grand Hotel. At once, four liveried bellmen descended upon the cab to remove my luggage, load it onto a cart, help me out of the car, and escort me into the hotel’s subdued, elegant lobby.

I tipped each one of them more than generously and gave my cover name at the reception desk.

The clerk smiled, said, “Boon giorno, signore,” and quickly inspected his reservation sheets. A troubled expression crossed his face.

“Signore … ah, Mr. Mason?” he said, looking up apologetically.

“Is there a problem?”

“There appears to be, sir. We have no record “

“Perhaps under my company’s name, then,” I offered. “Transatlantic.”

After a moment he shook his head again. “Do you know when these were made?”

I slammed my open palm down on the marble surface of the reception desk.

“I don’t care, dammit!” I said. “This damned hotel screwed up “

“If you need a room, sir, I’m sure “

I signaled to the bell captain. “No. Not here. I’m sure the Excelsior doesn’t make these kinds of mistakes.” To the bell captain I commanded: “Bring my bags around to the service entrance. Not the front, the back.

And I want a taxi to the Excelsior, on the Via Veneto. At once.”

The bell captain bowed slightly and gestured to one of the bellboys, who turned the cart with my luggage around and began to push it toward the back of the lobby.

“Sir, if there is some kind of mistake, I’m sure we can straighten it out very quickly,” the reception clerk said. “We have a single room available. In fact, we have several small suites available.” “I don’t want to trouble you,” I said haughtily as I followed the luggage cart to the rear of the lobby, toward the service entrance.

Within minutes a cab pulled up to the rear of the hotel. The bellboy loaded the suitcase and carry-on bag into the Opel’s trunk, I tipped him handsomely, and got in.

“The Excelsior, sign oret the driver said.

“No,” I said. “The Hassler. Piazza Trinita dci Monti.”

The Hassler overlooks the Spanish Steps, one of the most pleasant locations in Rome. I had stayed here before, and the Agency had booked a room for me here, at my request. The Grand Hotel episode, of course, had been a ruse, and it seemed to have worked—I had lost the followers.

I didn’t know how long I could stay here unobserved, but for the time being, things seemed to be okay.

Exhausted now, I showered and collapsed onto the king-size bed, slipped between the luxurious, crisply ironed linen sheets, momentarily at peace, and drifted into a deep, much-needed sleep, which was troubled by apprehensive dreams about Molly.

A few hours later I was awakened by the distant honking of a horn somewhere near the Spanish Steps. It was midafternoon, and the suite was flooded with light. I rolled over, picked up the phone, and ordered a cappuccino and a bite to eat. My stomach was growling.

I looked at my watch and calculated that the business day was just beginning in Boston. I placed a call to a bank in Washington where I still maintained an old but active account I’d opened years ago. My broker, John Matera, had indeed wired my Beacon Trust “earnings.”

(Earnings, of course, was the one thing they weren’t.) No sense, I figured, in making it easy for the CIA to monkey around with my money. I knew their tricks and was determined not to trust them fully.

The coffee came fifteen minutes later, served in a large, deep gold-rimmed cup, with beautifully presented sandwiches: thick slices of moist white bread topped with paper-thin slices of prosciutto, arugula, a few slices of pecorino fresco, and ringed with beautiful deep red slices of tomato, glistening with fragrant olive oil.

I felt as alone as I’d ever felt Molly, I was sure, was fine-was, in fact, being protected as much as she was being kept hostage. Still, I worried about her, about what they were telling her about me, how scared she was, how she was holding up. But I was convinced that she would not buckle; she would instead make her captors’ lives hell.

I smiled to myself, and just then the phone rang.

“Mr. Ellison?” came the American-accented voice.

“Yes.”

“Welcome to Rome. You’ve picked a nice time to come.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s much more comfortable here than it is in the States this time of year.”

“And a lot more to see,” my CIA contact said, completing the coded exchange.

I hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, in the soft light of a late Rome afternoon, I came out of the Hassler. The Spanish Steps swarmed with people, standing, sitting, smoking, taking pictures, shouting at each other, laughing at one another’s jokes. I surveyed the bustling scene, felt terribly out of place amid the vivacity, and, my stomach already knotted with tension, got into a cab.

THIRTY-ONE.

t the Piazza della Repubblica, not far from Rome’s main train station, I rented a car at Maggiore, using my phony Bernard Mason driver’s license and gold Citibank Visa card. (Actually, the credit card itself was real; but the bills run up by the fictitious Mr. Mason were paid, through a Fairfax, Virginia, law firm, by the CIA.) I was given a gleaming black Lancia as big as an ocean liner: the sort of car that Bernard Mason, nouveau riche American businessman, would undoubtedly hire.

The cardiologist’s office was located a short drive away, on the Corso del Rinascimento, a noisy, traffic-snarled main street just off the Piazza Navona. I parked in an underground lot a block and a half away and located the doctor’s building, whose entrance bore a brass plaque that was engraved dott. aldo PASQUALUCCI.