The Brotherhood of the Rose (34 page)

But his perceptions were undistracted, heightened, totally pure, his nervous system tingling. Jab, block, and circle. Years ago his karate instructor, had said, "There is nothing more exhilarating than to fight in the dark, facing death." At killerinstinct school, Rothberg had said, "If both opponents have equal knowledge and skill, the younger man with the greater stamina shall be the victor." Chris, who was thirty-six, judged his opponent to be twenty-nine.

The cardinal rule in a knife fight is don't allow your opponent to back you into a corner, Slowly, relentlessly, Chris's hunter forced him against the cliff. Chris found himself wedged between ridges of chalk. He jabbed in a frenzy. His hunter ducked, then lunged beneath Chris's arm, The blade plunged in to its hilt. Chris gagged. His larynx snapped. An artery burst. His mind went blank as he choked on his blood.

"You're sure?" Eliot sounded hoarse as he clutched the phone in his greenhouse. "There's no mistake? No chance of error?"

"None. The kill was verified. I examined the body myself," Landish said on the scramblerprotected long distance line. "The man who helped destroy my roses- Remusis dead."

Eliot's chest felt cold. In desperation, he distracted himself by thinking of business. "You cleaned the area?"

"Of course. We burned the cottage to destroy their fingerprints. We left before the authorities arrived. They'll never know who was there."

"And the body?" Eliot had trouble swallowing. "It's been taken to my private plane. The pilot will truss it with weights and drop it at sea, too far out for the tide to bring it in."

"I see." He frowned. "You seem to have thought of everything. "What's wrong? Your voice sounds strange."

"I didn't realize I- Nothing."

"Eliot!"

"It's not important."

"We've still got to deal with Romulus and the woman."

He struggled to pay attention. "I've already made arrangements. The moment I have word, I'll call you."

Eliot's arm felt numb as he set down the phone. He didn't understand what was happening in him. For the past three weeks, since the Paradigm hit, his single purpose had been to find Saul and eliminate him before he could reveal who'd ordered the job. The president could never be allowed to learn why his friend had been killed. In the process, Chris had become a danger too, but now that problem was solved. With one of them dead and the other located, he'd almost achieved his goal, had almost protected himself. Then why, as he'd tried to tell Landish, did he feel remorse?

He remembered the first time he'd taken Chris and Saul camping-Labor Day, 1952. The boys had been seven then, two years under his influence. He vividly recalled their innocent excited faces, their desperate need for affection, their eagerness to please him. More than any of his foster children, they'd been his favorites. Strangely, his throat aching, he felt gratified that Chris, though doomed to fail, had postponed his death so well. Yes, he admitted he had no right, but after all he'd taught the boy, and he couldn't help feeling proud of him. Godspeed, he thought.

Thirty years? Could so long a time have gone so fast? Did he mourn for Chris, he wondered... or for himself?

Soon Saul would be dead as well. The KGB had been warned. If they acted quickly, they'd spring their trap. The crisis at last would be over, the secret safe. Only two more foster children would remain, Castor and Pollux, now guarding.the house. The others had died in faithful service.

I might outlive all my sons, he thought, sadly wishing Saul could be reprieved.

But that was impossible. He suddenly felt uneasy. What if Saul escaped? Unthinkable.

But what if he did? He'd learn Chris was dead. And come for me. He'd never give up. I truly think nothing could stop him.

Book Four RETRIBUTION FURIES Saul stared through the windshield toward a misty streetlight, his rented Citron parked in the middle of a line of cars along a residential block. He sat close to Erika, his arm around her, apparently just another couple in the City of Lovers. But he didn't allow himself to enjoy being near her. He couldn't become distracted. Too much depended on -this mission. "If Landish told the truth, we'll soon have some answers," Erika said.

Her Mossad informants had learned that Victor Petrovich Kochubey would be at the Soviet embassy tonight, performing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto at a reception in honor of the new Franco-Soviet alliance. "But you can't grab him there" the informants had said. "Various intelligence networks ha e set up surveillance cameras around the clock to watch all the entrances. If anyone looks suspicious, the police'll arrest them. No one's supposed to embarrass relations with the Soviets. France and Russia are getting along too well these days. Your best bet's to grab him later when he returns to his apartment on the Rue de la Paix."

"But won't he be guarded?" Saul had asked. "A violinist? )Why would he need protection?"

At eight minutes after one, Kochubey drove past in his Peugeot, its headlights flashing. Erika got out and walked along the street. Kochubey-in his fifties, tall, with sensitive but heavy features-locked his car, carefully holding his violin case. He wore a tuxedo. Erika approached him as he reached the stoop to his apartment house. The street was deserted.

He spoke first. "This late at night, a lady shouldn't be out alone. Unless, of course, you have a proposition---"

"Victor, shut up. In my purse, I've a very large pistol aimed at your crotch. Please go to the curb and wait for a car to pull UP."

He stared but did so. Saul stopped the car, climbing from the driver's seat into the back where he searched Kochubey and took the violin case. "Gently! It's a Stradivari!"

"It'll be safe."

"As long as you cooperate." Erika drove. "Cooperate?" Kochubey's mouth opened and shut nervously. "How? I don't even know what you want!"

"The messages."..What?"

"The ones you gave to Landish."

"You remember," Erika said. "To pass to Eliot."

"Are the two of you insane? What are you talking about?" ) Saul shook his head, rolled down his window, and balanced the violin case on the rim. "I said be careful!"

"The messages. What was in them?" Saul tilted the case out the window. "A Stradivari can't be repaired!"

"Then buy another one."

"Are you crazy? Where would I find-?" Saul took his hands from the case. It started falling. Kochubey wailed and grabbed for it. Saul pushed him away and snatched back the case. "The messages."

"I never knew what was in them! I was a courier, nothing more! You think I'd risk execution by breaking the seal?"

"Who gave them to you?" Saul held the case out the window. "A KGB bureau chief!"

"Who?"

"Alexei Golitsin! Please!" Kochubey's hands trembled to grab the case. "I don't believe you. Golitsin was shot for treason in '73."

"That's when he gave me the messages!"

"In '73?"

Saul frowned. Hardy had said Eliot disappeared in '54, then again in '73. What did a KGB officer shot for treason have to do with Eliot's disappearance? What had happened in '73?

-It's the truth!" Kochubey said. "Perhaps."

"The Stradivari!

Please!" Saul balanced it out the window. Headlights flashed by. He thought about it, shrugging. "This is pointless. If I dropped the case, what reason would you have to change your story? With Amytal, we'll soon learn what you really know." He set the case on the floor. "Thank God."

"Thank me."

They drove from Paris. "Who do you work for?"

"No one."

"Where are you taking me?"

"Vonnas.

Kochubey's sudden mood shift bothered Saul. "You know it?"

The musician nodded, strangely pleased by the thought of visiting the small town fifty kilometers north of Lyon. "Perhaps you'll allow me the pleasure of eating at Le Cheval Blanc."

"It's not on the expense account."

Kochubey abruptly scowled. "You Americans are skinflints. Truth serum leaves such a bad aftertaste-like liver without butter or bacon. Very well." He squinted angrily. "We've a good three hours of driving ahead of us. Since you won't discuss your credentials, I'll talk about mine."

Saul groaned, sensing what was coming, and wished he could sedate him, but that would interfere with the Amytal.

Kochubey leaned back, smiling perversely, his large head framed by long, prematurely white hair in the style of composers and musicians from the previous century. He loosened his tie and rested his hands on the cummerbund of his tuxedo. "I don't suppose you attended my performance."

"We weren't on the guest list, I'm afraid."

"A pity. You'd have been given a lesson in Soviet idealism. You see, Tchaikovsky was like Lenin, and the similarity shows itself in the violin concerto, for the great composer had a theme in mind, as did Lenin. To arrive at his goal, he wove in transitional phrases, just as we in the Soviet Union have an ideal, and we move toward it, not in constant revolution, but in transitional phrases due to adjustments we've had to make because of the war and our economy. I won't say we've reached our finale, but we've come a long way in sixty-five years, have we not?"

"I'll admit you're well organized."

"An understatement. But I was talking about the great composer. The concerto opens simply, and you think the obvious strains contain the message. But underneath, other strains lie hidden, half-heard, half-guessed, as if the master were saying, "I've a secret to tell you-but not a word to others.' It's like a whispered code to a member of our espionage network, or a sign of brotherhood among the people."

Saul grew tired quickly, fighting off sleep as Kochubey went on and Erika raced along the Autoroute du Sud toward Lyon. Forty minutes before reaching the city, she turned on the gravel access road that would in the next year become the Geneva-Macon spur of the expressway. Along the route, heavy road equipment had been parked for the night. The sharp crack of gravel pelting the underside of the car made Saul apprehensive.

He peered past the Citrodn's headlights toward a heavy tanker hunk that rumbled in his direction. Frowning, he watched it suddenly veer.

It blocked the road. Vans streaked from behind the heavy equipment, flanking the Citrodn. Arc lights blazed from the dark. "My eyes!" Hand up to shield them, Erika swerved to miss the truck, stamping the brakes'. The Citroan skidded, jolting against a bulldozer, throwing her forward. Her head whacked the steering wheel, spewing blood.

The impact knocked Saul down. Scrambling up from the floor, he stared at her, moaning, unconscious. He couldn't carry her and get away, he realized. His frantic hope was to force the occupants of the vans to chase him, lose them, and double back for her. He grabbed at Kochubey's lapel as he opened the door, but the fabric tore away.

On his own, he leapt out, dodged the bulldozer, and raced to avoid the spotlights. Doors banged over on the vans. He heard a car skidding to a stop on the road. Men shouted. Footsteps crunched on the gravel, The spotlights tracked him, throwing his urgent shadow across the muddy field. He stumbled in a rut, flailing his arms for balance, charging forward, desperate to reach the murky trees beyond the spotlights. Metal scraped. He tensed his shoulders, anticipating the wallop of a high-powered bullet, feeling a sting instead. In his neck: a dart. A second dart stung his hip. He flinched from an excruciating jolt. His vision failed. "He fell to the mud, his knees jerking up to his chest, his arms twisting inward, convulsing. And that was all.

When he wakened, he knew enough to keep his eyes shut and listen. Groggy, he lay on a wooden floor. The pain in his left forearm must have been a puncture wound from a hypodermic. With enough Brevital in him, he could have been out for hours, only to be wakened by Kochubey's urgent shouts to someone else in the room. The handcuffs at his wrists behind his back were cold, not yet warmed by his body. Whoever was in the room must have recently brought him here and cuffed him.

Kochubey kept shouting. "What are they after? Why haven't you protected me better? You obviously knew I was in danger!"

Saul heard a different voice, deep and smooth. "Comrade, if you play a scale with your left hand and a contradictory scale with your right..."

"It's impossible to tell if the mode is major or minor! Any school boy-but what's that got to do with-?" "The left and right hands had to be incompatible. If you'd known my intention, you wouldn't have been convincing to Romulus, whose faulty interpretation was essential to the trap. Now please stop shouting, or perhaps you'd enjoy practicing your music in the port of Hoddida in Yemen."

Saul peered through barely open lids in time to see Kochubey's face go pale. "Relax, Victor," the voice said. "I'll supply you with a nice warm overcoat and send you on the high-speed train back to Paris."

While the man addressed Kochubey, Saul was able to recognize the ferretfike face between a black leather Tyrol hat and the high collar of a green loden coat. Boris Zlatogor Orlik, GRU colonel and Paris section chief for the KGB. Orlik prided himself on never having directly killed or stolen secrets or passed disinformation. Instead he was a theorist, a methodical planner whose exploits rivaled those of Richard Sorge, the master Soviet operative against Japan in the Second World War. It was Orlik who'd proven that GRU Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Popov was a spy for the CIA from '52 to '58, and that GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was a spy for MI-6 in '62. ' As Kochubey left, Saul didn't close his eyes fast enough. "Ali, Romulus, I see you're awake. Forgive me for raising my voice, but sometimes with men like Kochubey it's necessary."