Targets of Deception (32 page)

“Suppose we’re interested in your fairy tales? What do you want, other than the Congressional Medal of Honor?”

“I don’t know. Immunity. Federal protection. A new identity. A girl with really big—”

“Come on Andrioli, we sit here much longer you’re liable to die in that bed. Where’s Sandor?”

Andrioli took a deep, painful breath. “He’s on his way to find Traiman.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Maybe so, but here’s what I really need. I need you to arrange a piece in the papers and on the wire services. Say two international businessmen and an American ex-pat were slain this evening in Montmartre in an exchange of gunfire. Something like that. Give them a good description of me. Make sure they list me as dead. Got it?”

“I got it, but why should we do it?”

“Traiman’s got to believe that I died with those two guys. This way I’d have no way of telling you what his man said, about where he’s going.”

“One of his people told you that Traiman is on the move?”

“Sandor told me you were an asshole. He never said you were slow.”

Covington ignored the taunt. “So what if I have Interpol make a release, the news services run the piece. Then what? Where’s Sandor off to?”

“Not so fast. The immunity, protection—all that bullshit. I want it in writing. Official-like. For Sandor and Christine too.”

“We’ll get it, but right now my patience is running thin. Where are they?” Covington had his own information. He had to know if Sandor was headed in the right direction.

But Andrioli refused to answer. “Just a little while more, then I’ll tell you.” He took another puff of the cigarette and dropped it in the ashtray. “Meantime,” he said, “get me to a hospital.” Then he fell to his side, face down on the bed. He was unconscious.

FORTY-EIGHT

Early the next morning, as Andrioli was recuperating in the infirmary of the United States Embassy, Jordan and Christine were traveling to the port town of Santa Margherita on the Italian Riviera. They had taken an evening train from Paris, spent the night together in the Hotel Meridien in Nice, and now they proceeded by rail into Italy.

The train rolled southeast along the coastline, racing past rocky beaches below and hurtling through cavernous tunnels that had been gouged from the sides of craggy mountains that rose defiantly above the blue Mediterranean. Jordan and Christine, alone in their compartment, paid little attention to the passing scenery. They were reviewing, yet again, the plans for their arrival in the village of Portofino.

“Maybe we should have listened to Captain Reynolds,” Christine said with a wistful smile.

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me to stay out of it. He said I should leave town and let the authorities handle everything.”

Jordan reached across and took her hand. “Well, you certainly left town.”

Christine laughed. “I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”

“It’s not too late,” he told her. “You can turn around when we get there, leave this to me. Or just wait in Santa Margherita.”

She shook her head, never taking her eyes from his. “I told you before, I’m in this to the end.”

“I know, but by now Andrioli has told them everything we know. Covington and his men will fly down here this morning, maybe even get there before we do. You don’t need to do this.”

“I really do.”

Jordan sat back in his seat and studied her face, the pale blue eyes that had not smiled enough in these past several days. “Since everyone has fessed up, as Andrioli would say, how about you tell me the truth now?”

Christine also sat back. They were as far away from each other as they could be in the small compartment. She looked out the window for a moment, seemingly lost in the majesty of the passing mountain range. When she turned back to him, some of the sadness had returned. “I’m not Jimmy’s sister,” she said.

Jordan nodded slowly. Whatever she was going to say next, whoever she was, regardless of the intimacy they had shared the past two days, his instincts were now in control. He thought about the Colt in his waistband, then felt his mind racing back to catalogue her movements since they left Paris. Did she have a weapon? Was she an enemy? He hated himself for the inability to escape his own training, his innate suspicions. Still looking at her, he said, “I know.”

“You know?”

Her surprise seemed genuine. “Yes. I’ve known since the airport in Atlanta.”

Her wonder at his admission turned quickly to anger and she leaned forward. “You knew, but you never said anything?”

Jordan responded with a puzzled look. “That’s a strange reaction, don’t you think? After all, you were the one who lied.”

“I had my reasons.”

“Really? Then you’ll have to believe I had my reasons too.”

She appeared to be considering what he said, then waved it away. “You made love to me.”

“Damn,” Jordan said with a slight smile, “and I thought there were two of us there.”

Christine responded with an embarrassed smile. “I guess we’re a couple of liars,” she conceded. “But mine was just a white lie. You never told me you worked for the government or any of that.”

“Uh huh. And telling everyone you’re Jimmy McHugh’s sister . . . that was a white lie?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” he said.

She shook her head. “It all sounds so crazy, even when I say it to myself. I mean, I really hadn’t heard from Jimmy in years. That was true. But I’m not his sister.”

“I got that part. So who are you?”

“I told you, I’m an assistant art history professor at Penn State.” She sighed. “Jimmy and I grew up together in Wilkes Barre. In Pennsylvania. He was much older. We were from the same town, neighbors sort of, and our families knew each other. Not much good to say about our families,” she added with a dismissive shake of her head. “Anyway, he went off to Vietnam.”

She was staring out the window again, remembering.

“I’m listening,” Jordan said.

“He started writing to me from over there, chatty kind of letters, the kind soldiers write home. Jimmy never had a lot of friends and, like I say, his family wasn’t worth writing to. So I wrote back. We knew each other for so long, it was no big deal for me to send him a note every now and then, tell him about this guy or that girl or what was new in town. But then his letters changed. They started sounding, I don’t know, romantic or something. Not really romantic, that’s not it, but he was writing to me as if we were, well, lovers.”

“And you weren’t?”

“No. Never. I mean, he was like an older brother to me, or a cousin or something. I don’t think he ever really had a girlfriend before he went away, so he began making up this fantasy relationship between us that didn’t exist.”

“So what happened, you wrote him a Dear John letter?”

She turned back to him. “No. I should have. I realized that later, but I didn’t. I was a kid, and it was nice having this guy overseas sending me these beautiful letters. I thought, if it made him feel better, what was it to me? I mean, he was fighting in Vietnam. From one letter to the next, I never knew if I’d ever hear from him again.”

“So you led him on.”

“No, I never did. I would keep writing letters that were like local news reports.” She sighed. “But I guess I never told him to stop being serious in his letters to me. I guess I liked the attention. If that’s leading him on, then I suppose I did.”

Jordan watched as she remembered.

“Then one day he came home.”

She nodded, not looking at him. “He stayed in the service, stationed someplace overseas for a while. But yes, then one day he was back, thinking we had this great romance and that I was going to marry him or something. It was crazy. I mean, I was still in high school.”

“How did he take it?”

“Not very well. And I guess I didn’t handle it the right way.” She paused, and Jordan waited. “He became demanding, angry. It got really uncomfortable. He threatened my boyfriend. The police were involved. It was a real mess.”

She hesitated again.

“Then what happened?”

“You know what happened,” she said. “That’s when he left, went back overseas. Disappeared.”

“Which solved your problems with him.”

“That makes me sound so horrible,” she said. “I felt responsible. I still do. He was heartbroken when he left, and it was all my fault. It was like I cheated a friend, a friend who really loved me.”

“Even if you didn’t love him.”

“Yes.”

“But you were just one of the reasons McHugh left the States again.”

“I know that, in here,” she said, pointing at her head, “but not here.” She held the palm of her hand over her heart.

“Guilt and affection are a lethal combination,” Jordan said, thinking of Dan Peters and Beth, among many others. “So what’s the rest of the story?”

“The rest of it you pretty much know. After some years went by Jimmy began writing to me again. I don’t even know how he found me. I was at Penn State by then. He apologized for everything, wanted us to be friends and all that. I was really careful this time, very particular about what I said.”

“So, when did you decide to become his sister?”

“When he invited me to Paris. He offered to pay for the entire trip, insisting it would be a ‘brother-sister’ visit. I felt like I owed it to him. He made it sound so important. When I got there he explained what he was doing.

“It was only when I arrived that he told me all of his friends believed I was his younger half-sister. He said that if those people thought I was any sort of girlfriend, they might be concerned about him wanting to go home with me. So I agreed to be his half-sister. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

“So he admitted it to you—that he was using you as cover to get him to Paris and then back to the States.”

“Yes. He introduced me to Tony and some other guys. I can’t even remember their names. After a couple of days, he shipped me off to Madrid and disappeared.”

“Until you heard from him again, when he was holed up in Woodstock.”

She shook her head. “No, I heard from Tony. He wanted me to go to Jimmy, said he might need my help to get to Florida. I never spoke to Jimmy again.”

“Didn’t you have any idea how dangerous it could be?”

“Not then.” She uttered a short laugh. “You people, you seem to live with all of this killing and craziness. It wasn’t real to me, not until I got to Woodstock and found out Jimmy had been murdered and they took me down to New York like I was some sort of criminal. Up to then, I actually thought Jimmy had been exaggerating, to make it all seem more romantic or heroic.”

“Heroic?”

“You know what I mean.”

Jordan watched her as she settled back in her seat.

“That’s it, and that’s why I’m here.”

“Paying a debt to a dead man.”

“It sounds morbid, I know, but I guess that’s it. Yes.”

“And you want me to believe all of this.”

“Everything I’m saying is the absolute truth.”

He stared at her for a while. “Then go back home. This isn’t your fight. Go back as soon as we get to Santa Margherita.”

She shook her head, very slowly. “No,” she said. “I told you—”

“I know. You’re in this to end.”

She smiled. “So now you know who I really am. And whoever you really are, Jordan Sandor, I feel like I’m part of the reason you’ve gotten mixed up in this, and I’m not leaving until we’re done doing whatever it is we need to do.”

“Right,” he said quietly. “But remember, this may be your last chance to walk away.”

“Do you want me to walk away?” she asked him.

Jordan turned away from her, gazing out at the hypnotic dance of the ever moving sea, the train swaying gently as it climbed another stretch of mountainside. He knew the answer he should give, but he said nothing at all.

“It’s okay,” she said. “The history of art will still be there when I get back.”

FORTY-NINE

When Andrioli regained consciousness, the first thing he did was ask for John Covington. A few minutes later, the CIA operative strolled into Andrioli’s private room at the embassy clinic.

“What time is it?” Andrioli wanted to know.

Covington told him it was almost seven in the morning. “How do you feel?”

“Seven? We better get going, man.”

“I’m having some trouble getting those guarantees you wanted. It could take some time.”

“Screw the guarantees.” Andrioli was in no mood for an argument today. He was sore and drugged and worried about his friends. “They’re on their way already,” he said, searching his groggy mind for a sense of how far Jordan and Christine would have gotten by now. He had trouble clearing away the morphine haze. “No, they wouldn’t be there yet.”

Covington looked down at him, his thin lips approximating a smile. “When you say ‘there,’ do you mean Portofino?”

Andrioli tried to sit up, a painful attempt that failed. As he grew more alert, the ache in his side became more acute. “Where’d you get that?”

“After a narcotic cocktail, a man can become more talkative than you think. Don’t worry yourself. You only confirmed what we already knew. We’re getting ready to leave now.”

“Good. Gimme a minute to get dressed,” Andrioli said, having another try at pushing himself up.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not? What’d the doctor say?”

“Said you’ll be fine, eventually. Some muscle damage, a fractured rib. Nothing that won’t heal. Your biggest problem is the loss of blood.”

“Fine. Get me something for the pain. I’m going back in the game.”

“Why would I allow that?”

He made another attempt to sit up. “I can think of three reasons. First, I know exactly where Sandor is going and what he’s doing, and I won’t tell you unless you take me along. Second, I know Traiman’s operation better than you do.” He paused to take a breath, still trying to steady his thinking. “Third, I know what Traiman is up to.”

Covington walked to the foot of the bed, where the two men had a good look at each other. “If I move you, you’re likely to die before we get to Italy.”