The Pigeon Project (38 page)

“I’ve been sitting next to the phone for hours, expecting to hear from you,” she said. “Did it work with Felice Huber? Is Davis on the mainland?”

Jordan shook his head. “No, it didn’t work with Felice. And we’ve been on the run ever since, so there’s been no chance to call you.”

“Where is Davis? Is he all right?”

“For the moment,” said Jordan. “I don’t know for how long. There’s that $150,000 reward on his head.”

Alison was stunned. “A hundred and fifty thousand?”

“I told you about it last night.”

“You didn’t mention the amount. Why, it’s a fortune.”

“That’s what went wrong this morning. They posted the reward. Felice saw it. She recognized MacDonald. She went for the police. MacDonald and I got out of there in a hurry. He’s in a safe place now. And I think I have another means of getting him out of here tonight.”

He then proceeded to bring her up to date. MacDonald was hidden in the glassware shop owned by Sembut Nurikhan. Alison remembered him from the San Lazzaro escapade. Jordan went on to tell her his latest inspiration. The idea of dropping a helicopter in the middle of the Piazza San Marco. She listened wide-eyed. He reported on his meeting with Signor Folin.

“You think hell come through?” Alison asked.

“For $20,000? I think so.”

“Can the—the getaway work?”

“I hope so. Now, about the $20,000. Obviously, we can’t cash the professor’s checks. But let’s cash all you have. Leave yourself a few hundred dollars. I’ll cash most of mine. Then I’ll write some personal checks against my New York account.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Just cash those checks of yours downstairs. Then go over to Nurikhan’s shop, go to the office in the rear and keep your professor company. Do you know how to get there?”

“I’m not sure I remember.”

“It’s not far away. I’ll draw you a map.”

He drew her a map.

“Now I need a shower and a change of clothes.” He began to unbutton his shirt. “Then I’ve got to catch the banks, look in on my office, and meet with Signor Folin at seven o’clock. After that, I’ll come straight to Nurikhan’s, and well dig in there until it is helicopter time—if it is helicopter time. See you soon.”

* * *

By now, the route was familiar to Major Boris Kedrov. He strode briskly along the lagoon on the Riva degli Schiavoni, mounted and descended the bridge from which could be seen the Bridge of Sighs, passed the well-guarded Hotel Danieli, climbed and came down one more bridge, then turned into the short street that opened into what the Venetians called Campo San Zaccaria. Here, to the right, was his immediate destination, the unpretentious rust-colored building with the stone-arch entrance and the white plaque beside it reading, COMANDO GRUPPO CARABINIERI.

The building, barracks and headquarters of the local carabinieri, was the one place in this ridiculous carnival city where Major Kedrov felt most at home. Although he frowned on the fact that the carabinieri, who could marry after eight years of service or at the age of twenty-eight, were permitted to live with their wives and children in apartments inside the barracks—distracting, soft, unprofessional—still, Kedrov appreciated the place as a military outpost.

About to enter the headquarters, Kedrov hesitated, held back, and wandered farther into the quiet square, wishing briefly to collect his thoughts. He stopped before the solemn Church of San Zaccaria. He had not bothered to visit it, but had been told it was the relic of a 7th-century convent that ages ago had lodged the loose-living daughters of the wealthiest Venetian families. Venetians, he thought, were not the best allies in the task at hand. They were too easygoing, casual, unaggressive. Perhaps Colonel. Cutrone was a step above his colleagues, but even he did not measure up fully. Had this assignment and hunt taken place in Kiev or Odessa or Leningrad, Kedrov’s KGB agents would have captured Professor MacDonald in twenty-four hours. There would have been none of the laxity and lack of cooperation that existed here.

He had tried to explain the situation this morning in his daily telephone call to his superior in Moscow. He had tried to explain that these people were a different breed of Communists. They adhered to the party in principle, but there was no proper discipline, no dedication. As a result, their police forces were relatively inefficient. The best of them, the carabinieri, recruited from the poor families of southern Italy, looked upon their work as a job, not a cause. The KGB general in Moscow remained uncomprehending. “You are there, Kedrov. You are KGB. You must make them understand the importance of this assignment. You must inject yourself more fully into the action. I cannot tell you how vital this has become to the premier and the Politburo. They want MacDonald and his formula in Moscow under the protection of the party. They will not allow his discovery to fall into the hands of the capitalist pigs and be exploited by them. Kedrov, our leaders—they know your name now. They are aware of you. You cannot fail them or me. Once you succeed, there will be ample rewards. A promotion, certainly. A transfer to Moscow. A dacha for vacations with your wife and sons. Kedrov, the premier cannot believe that a fumbling old man can continue to elude you. Find him. Bring him back. I expect good news in your next report.”

This exhortation had inspired Major Kedrov to speak to Colonel Cutrone again. There was one pattern that had appeared and possibly deserved more thorough investigation. Cutrone himself had pointed it out. Three different persons, on different days, had come to the police with information on where MacDonald could be found. The American novelist had revealed to them that the fugitive MacDonald was being hidden in the palazzo of the Contessa De Marchi. When the police stormed the palazzo, MacDonald had not been there. Then the Italian actress Teresa Fantoni had promised them that their quarry would be found in the apartment of a musician named Oreste Memo. The apartment had been surrounded, searched, with no sign of MacDonald. Finally, this very day, a tourist guide, Felice Huber, had actually set eyes on MacDonald before the Bauer Grunwald hotel. Yet by the time the police had arrived and swarmed over the area, MacDonald had vanished.

There was too much smoke for no fire, Major Kedrov concluded. Their informants had not been fanciful publicity-seekers or crazy psychotics. They had been, as far as the evidence revealed, solid citizens. One thing was apparent. MacDonald had accomplices, and possibly a network of sympathetic persons who were taking turns hiding him. The problem was to penetrate this network—once. Toward this end, Major Kedrov had reviewed the transcript of the interrogations of the informants to date. The interrogations, by KGB standards, had been superficial, especially the recent one with Felice Huber, who had been questioned only a few minutes before her interrogators had rushed away to join the chase and permitted her to go off with her group of businessmen to Mestre.

And so, mindful of what Moscow was expecting, it was Major Kedrov who had suggested to Colonel Cutrone a second interrogation of the persons involved, the informants and the suspects. Colonel Cutrone had been insensitive to the implied criticism and had been surprisingly agreeable. He would order the persons involved to appear in his office for another round of questioning at five o’clock in the afternoon.

Now it was five o’clock.

Major Kedrov left the church square, went inside the cool and dark carabinieri headquarters. A guard opened the inner electric gate and directed the Russian to the capitano’s office, where the meeting was to be held. Passing through the red plaster corridor, decorated with engravings and photographs of heroic moments in the history of the carabinieri, Kedrov reached the office and entered it.

The small office Colonel Cutrone had borrowed, unexpectedly plain and functional for a Venetian office—no Murano glass anywhere, the walls bare except for a photographic portrait of Cutrone and a photograph of marching carabinieri—seemed filled with people. Actually, by Kedrov’s count, there were six persons present. Colonel Cutrone was behind the desk, absorbed in a file of papers, with a uniformed carabinieri guard standing at attention nearby. Seated irregularly before the desk were four whom Kedrov vaguely recognized—a spindly old birch of a woman draped in a floral dress, the contessa; next to her the voluptuous actress, wearing a pout, Fantoni; then the large, effeminate writer in an ice cream-colored suit, Foster; and at the far end the aesthetic, blond musician, Memo.

With a curt nod at the group, Major Kedrov, feeling unmilitary and uncomfortable in his dark suit, proceeded to the desk.

Colonel Cutrone half-rose to welcome Kedrov and indicated a straight-backed chair in the corner behind him. “We’re just about ready,” he said. “Everyone’s here except Felice Huber. She went right out to guide another tour after returning from Mestre. Her office promised to send someone to locate and relieve her. She should be arriving any minute. Should we wait or just go ahead?”

“Go ahead,” Kedrov replied.

He settled in the straight-backed chair, tilted it against the wall in a corner of the room, and made ready to watch and listen.

Colonel Cutrone cleared his throat, surveyed the group unsmilingly, and began. “We have summoned you here to discuss again the matter of the fugitive we seek. We have advertised him as a man named MacGregor, a foreign spy. By some means or other, you all know his true identity, Professor Davis MacDonald, a British-American scientist. He has committed a grave crime against an ally of ours, made off with a scientific discovery that rightfully belongs to our ally, and is now in hiding somewhere in this city. As you know, he must be found, and he will be found, and brought to justice. We have sought the cooperation of every inhabitant of Venice, and, indeed, three of you—two now present and the woman who will arrive any moment—have cooperated. We need your cooperation once more. As to the two who had been accused of giving refuge to MacDonald and have denied it, we urge you to reconsider whether you have been wholly truthful in your first interrogation. If you now remember something that you had forgotten or overlooked in your first interrogation, we urge you to speak of it, and we guarantee it will not be held against you.”

At this point, Major Kedrov raised his own voice, addressing the group. “On the other hand, you must know, to withhold information useful to the police would make any one of you an accomplice in the crime. Truth cannot harm you. Subterfuge can send you to jail.”

“Yes, thank you, Major,” said Colonel Cutrone. He swung back to the group. “Now we will review together your roles in this investigation. I will try, when possible, not to cover all the same ground covered in our first interrogation. But if I repeat myself, please answer again with absolute honesty. I will begin with you, Mr. Cedric Foster. You were the first to come to us with a clue to Professor MacDonald’s whereabouts.

What gave you the impression that the Contessa De Marchi was harboring the criminal?”

“It was not an impression, it was a fact,” said Foster with fervor. “The contessa gave a dinner party in my honor. Miss Fantoni and Mr. Memo were also guests and will confirm what I am about to say. After the dinner, the contessa began to speak of a fascinating man she had recently met—”

“Met where?”

“In Venice. He was a famous scientist, she told us, who was on the verge of discovering a means of prolonging human life. I challenged her story, but she insisted it would soon be true. I remained doubtful, yet wondered about it. The following morning, I confronted the contessa alone and pressed her hard for more facts. At last, she confessed that the scientist was not only in Venice but under her very roof.”

“Did you ascertain this?” inquired Colonel Cutrone. “Did you actually set eyes on Professor MacDonald?”

“I wanted to. I begged the contessa to let me see MacDonald. She refused to let me see him. Angered, I left her and went to you.”

Cutrone bobbed his head and faced Contessa De Marchi.

“Well, Contessa, what do you say to that? Why didn’t you let your friend and guest see Professor MacDonald?”

The contessa dismissed the question with an impatient wave of her bony hand. “I’ve already told you once, twice, ten times. I couldn’t let Mr. Foster see Professor MacDonald because there was no Professor MacDonald to see. His presence was a figment of my imagination, just like my story about him the evening before. I made up the story to entertain my guests—”

“Made up the story?”

“There had been some gossip throughout the week someone—one of my many friends—had heard it—I think from Mayor Accardi’s wife, I am not sure—that the fugitive being sought was not a spy but a renowned scientist, a gerontologist, who had discovered a means of doubling the human lifespan. That is all I knew about it. So I repeated the gossip at the party. When Mr. Foster doubted my veracity, I tried to strengthen my story, and perhaps titillate him further, by saying I had the fugitive in my residence. I am sorry my gossip caused so much trouble. But it was gossip, and no more. I not only have never seen this MacDonald, but do not know what he looks like, except from your posters.”

Major Kedrov had been studying the old lady as she spoke. Was she lying? Had she been a Russian, he would have known. But these thin-blooded, blue-blooded types, new to his experience, were more difficult to read. Of course, he knew, the truth could be learned from this woman if she were interrogated privately and with a certain degree of physical pressure. But Kedrov also knew that the Venetian commandant would never consent to that. To torture the truth out of a fellow Venetian, and an aristocratic one at that—no, Cutrone would abhor and reject the idea.

Well, Kedrov hoped, perhaps one of the others would have more to say.

Colonel Cutrone was speaking to the actress. “Miss Fantoni, if you please, there are several questions.” Kedrov noticed that Cutrone’s voice had softened, become more deferential.

“I am ready,” said Teresa Fantoni. “You went to the police, who sent you to the mayor,” said Cutrone. “You were certain you knew tie whereabouts of the fugitive MacDonald. How did you know this?”