Duel of Assassins (29 page)

“You have found something,
monsieur?”

“Yes, I have. A picture of the man she was with.”

There were two large cartoon faces on the drawing. One was
Charlie. The other was Marcus Jolly. The artist had captured both of them with
minimal exaggeration. Beneath their smiling faces he had drawn miniature
cartoon bodies—in bathing suits, holding hands and riding surfboards.

Darkness descended on Taras’ mind. A black screen on which
he saw from floor level across a room the dead body of Eva Sorokina, ghastly
white in the sepulchral light of a Siberian winter morning. Only it was no
longer Eva’s nightmare-empty face turned toward his eyes, but Charlie’s.

Standing in that hushed corridor, he heard an anguished
scream echoing from a dozen years earlier. Eva’s screams—before the monster
strangled her—surely Taras must have heard them that night echoing down the
dark corridors of his alcoholic stupor. Because sometimes, like now, he thought
he heard them echoing still.

It wasn’t over. The Cowboy had come again to kill his girl.

What do you want with her, you bastard! Let her go! I’ll kill
you if you touch her, you know I will!
But not only would Marcus know that,
Taras realized, he would count on it. Hadn’t he hinted, in his letter to Taras,
of “one more enticement” to make Taras come after him again? Taras stared down
at the picture of the two of them together, knew with terrible certainty that
Charlie was that enticement and that Marcus was going to kill her.

The manager had returned, his elegant face only slightly
marred with concern.
“Monsieur
, shall I call a doctor?”

Taras brought his eyes into focus, stilled the trembling
paper in his hand. “I’m fine. This signature on the cartoon, a local artist?”

 “Yes, Etienne. His studio is right along the beach, the
Boulevard de Lattre de Tassigny. Between a
glacier
—you understand, ice
cream?—and a
boite à couture
, what I think you call a haberdashery.”

*

Taras parked the Fiesta on a side street, two wheels up on
the sidewalk like everybody else, then sprinted around a corner to the artist’s
closet-sized studio.

The damn place was shuttered. Taras stared in the window. A
hand-lettered sign advertised PORTRAITS, FROM 150 FR. PASTEL, BLACK &
WHITE. There were samples taped all over the glass. Another sign in the door
said Etienne would be back at two. But it was a quarter to three and the lazy
bastard was still out to lunch.

Taras swore, stepped back, nearly lost his balance and swore
again as his shoe skidded in dog shit. Behind him someone giggled. Taras
whirled angrily and a fat kid in a bathing suit backed away, licking an ice
cream cone. Taras scraped his shoe on the low cement curb and felt despair
sapping even his rage.

What the hell was he doing here, surrounded by somnolent,
sunblasted holidaymakers and blinding Kodachrome vistas? He was killing
time—and perhaps killing Charlie—when he should be alerting the world and
rushing off for Berlin. What did it matter what the sketch artist said about
them? But Taras wanted to know. He hurried across the street to a
brasserie
telephone,
deciding to call John Tully in Washington while he waited another few minutes
for Etienne to show up.

But the fucking French phone wouldn’t work. The barman
gestured at him violently, then a nearby patron explained the telephone only
swallowed
jetons
—tokens. Taras spilled out some change to buy some, when
out of the corner of his eye he noticed a bent-over man in walking shorts
poking a key into the portrait shop door.

Before Etienne had pocketed the key, Taras was beside him
displaying the drawing.    

“Yes, yes, of course I remember them. I have captured their
essence.”

“What were they like together?”

“Very much in love. Exactly as I show them here.”

“But—but I found this in the trash. One of them threw it
away. If they had been lovers—”

“That is only a color Xerox. They make around the corner.
They bought several, I think. Perhaps this one was damaged. I am sure they have
kept the original. She is older, but was like a very young girl with him. You
know her?”

“Yes.”

Etienne peered more closely at Taras, blinking rapidly as if
from a nervous tic. “But I perceive,
monsieur
, that what I have said
causes you great distress. I regret it.”

Taras finally reached Tully from the PTT on Avenue de
Gaulle. It was ten in the morning in Washington. “John, Charlie’s in terrible
danger.” Taras gave the briefest explanation, promising to call back with more
as quickly as possible. “Where is she going? You’ve got to tell me.”

“Hold on, Taras.” Tully was back in a few seconds. “Taras,
who are you calling next?”

“The CIA.”

“Christ! Okay, but get back to me damn fast. Where the hell
are you?”

“In a
Postes
and
Télecommunications
in Le
Lavandou. You can’t reach me. I’ll call you.”

“You damn well better. You’re giving me a fucking heart
attack here. If there’s anything we can do—”

“I promise, John. Give it to me.”

“Charlie’s due at the Kempinski tonight. It’s right on the
Ku-damm, in Berlin.”

“I know it. Thanks. I’ll call you right back.”

When it took several maddening minutes for the PTT to place
a simple call to Langley, which then got disconnected, Taras bolted out of the
booth, drove back up the street to the Auberge,   buttonholed the manager and
exchanged a credit card for an hour in an empty room with a phone. He got
through to the Agency’s deputy director at once, spoke for twenty hectic
minutes, then dialed John Tully back at the newspaper.

*

A half-hour later Taras was squinting into the afternoon sun
as he drove west on motorway A-50 to Marseille, racing to catch a direct flight
to Berlin. His panic hadn’t abated, his right foot squeezing every millimeter
of speed out of the little Fiesta; but he had at least the comfort of knowing a
contingent of CIA and plainclothes German federal police was en route to the
Kempinski, ready to swoop down and save Charlotte, then take out Marcus.

Taras prayed they would show up.

He called the Kempinski from Marseille, again from the air
and finally from Berlin, only moments after his plane landed at the Tegel
Airport.

His Agency contact prepared him for extremely bad news.
Lufthansa had just confirmed that Charlotte had arrived in Berlin on a flight
from Paris and had rented an Opel Omega at the airport, giving the Kempinski as
her local address.

“So what’s wrong?” Taras cut in.

“Unfortunately a few minutes ago a man with an American
accent called the hotel to cancel Fräulein Walsh’s reservation."

Marcus drove the luxurious Opel south from Berlin, past the
dismantled Checkpoint Bravo at Kontrollpunkt Drewitz and onto the E6 Autobahn
toward Leipzig and Nuremberg. Charlotte, close beside him in darkness pulsing
with a Mozart divertimento, gestured ahead at the lighted sign for the
Babelsberg-Potsdam turnoff.

“I see it,” Marcus said.

“
Ciao
, Potsdam,” she laughed as they flashed past.
“I’ll be back.”

No, you won’t,
Marcus thought.

There would be, alas, one less scribe to chronicle the
historic conclave four days hence, when the U.S. and Soviet leaders joined
those of the major European countries a few kilometers off to their right,
beyond the dark precincts of Babelsberg and the Potsdam woods, in the
Cecilienhof Palace. In the meantime, at Charlotte’s suggestion, she and Marcus
were heading south, fleeing both duty and detection, sixty kilometers down the
Autobahn to Coswig, where they would turn east onto a smaller road a few
kilometers to Wittenberg. There Charlie had reserved a modest hotel room for them—under
the name of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sanderson.

An interesting charade, Marcus thought, and, again, mainly
of Charlie’s devising. Could he imagine such a union? No, he could not.
Charlotte was attractive, amusing and erotically imaginative. Their time together
had not palled, as was so often the case when Marcus found himself in the
uninterrupted company of a woman, no matter how lovely, beyond a day or so.
Once the conquest was made, it was Marcus’ experience, each frenzied repetition
or coital variation counted for less, until he was merely going through the
motions, while his eye wandered to fresh conquests. Worst of all were the
tedious hours between sex, enduring all the ceaseless feminine prattle with its
inevitable and pathetic romantic overtones.

But Marcus had not wearied of Charlotte. Thus far she had
contrived to keep them both in a protracted state of light amusement and
coincidentally recurring horniness; and, of course, all this only further
sweetened Marcus’ ongoing triumph over his rival. His worry with Charlotte was
rather the other way around—that she might tire too quickly of him.

To prevent this, he had exerted himself in several ways. Her
sexual appetite must be gratified, yet constantly stimulated, so that he didn’t
cure the addiction he had created. His intellectual shortcomings—as compared to
her sparkling erudition—must be minimized, concealed by his best insouciant
manner and baritone chuckle. And never for an instant must she glimpse him
without his mask of masculine charm.

He played upon her carefully, dismissing his own fictitious
life with an occasional deprecatory anecdote, while plying her with questions
about the political celebrities she had interviewed, the vagaries of her
journalistic career and the latest Washington party gossip. Charlie was a
wonderful raconteur, and Marcus had little trouble maintaining a fascinated
gaze and responding with loud and frequent laughter. In so doing, he saw in her
eyes her reciprocal delight at the conquest she had made of him. So far, at least,
his own general reticence hadn’t seemed to bother her, beyond an occasional
comment.

There were other ways in which Marcus had catered to
Charlotte. He surfeited her with compliments, sometimes offhand, sometimes
thoughtful, never formulaic. At times he had even flirted with servility,
running her bathwater, enquiring about her favorite scent, the details of her
toilette, makeup and wardrobe, until she began to give him queer looks and
accuse him of having quite lost his mind.

“Perhaps so,” he had responded once. “But since I am
obviously fascinated by your nakedness, and by you fully clothed and coifed...
well then...”

“Well then, what?”

“Why not be fascinated by the magical transition from one
state to the other?”

Marcus had his private reason for these intimate questions,
and, having so thoroughly established his masculine credentials, he dared to
pursue them, convinced they could only further endear himself to her.

He intended to continue this amorous performance for at
least three more days and the opening ceremonies at Potsdam. Even under ideal
conditions, Marcus thought, their affair could not last much longer than that.
Even if his fascination somehow endured, Charlie would begin to tire of him and
seek her freedom. But it would not have to come to that. Three days would do
it.

Marcus felt now a sudden and unexpected pang, glancing over
at her determined profile in the subdued glow of the dashboard lights, and
knowing the unfortunate fate that awaited her at his hands. Charlotte had given
him a great deal of pleasure, and, in many ways, he had come to cherish the
creature.

Getting rid of her, however, if not an enjoyable task, would
be an astringent and appropriate one for launching his new freelance career.
For sentimentality or personal preference must play no part in the
acceptability of his future victims. That was what professionalism was all
about.

He reached over and found Charlotte’s hand, enveloped its
warmth, basked briefly in the soft gleam of her eyes.

*

The following morning Taras Arensky was standing beside the
Holy Lake, the
Heiliger See
, in Potsdam’s two-hundred acre
Neue
Garten
, watching a line of mallards peevishly abandon a thicket of reeds
and take to the water in a series of splashlets, apparently upset by the
approaching footsteps. A hundred meters down the waterside path the
half-timbered bulk of the Cecilienhof Palace was just visible through the
trees. A slight breeze riffled the glassy lake surface, which otherwise
mirrored the hazy early sun with opaline serenity. It was a lovely vista, one
laid out and landscaped expressly to tranquilize Prussian nobility, but Taras
saw none of it. His eye was inward, and his spirit stretched taut on a rack of
self-torture. He turned to the trim, bespectacled man beside him:

“Goddammit, Bob, she’s here somewhere, and she’s got to be
found!”

The man, who had very hard eyes in a deceptively soft face,
only shook his head. As the Berlin CIA station chief, Robert Strotkamp had just
delivered to Taras all the news there was on the subject of Charlotte Walsh’s
disappearance and possible whereabouts. If there were any further developments,
the pager on Strotkamp’s belt would immediately announce the fact with an
insistent vibration.

The federal police had checked every hotel in Berlin
overnight without uncovering any trace of the journalist or the Opel Omega.
Either she had registered under another name—perhaps whatever Marcus was
using—or had simply driven beyond the radius of the search, which was, in
consequence, being widened.

However, as the two men started back along the path to the
Cecilienhof, Strotkamp had a further thought:

“You know, if it were still the ‘bad old days’ of Honecker
and company, we could have eliminated the entire GDR by now. They were damn
efficient, the
Stasi
and the
Vopos
. All tourists passports were
confiscated at their hotels and delivered overnight to the local
Volks
Polizei
for checking. We would know exactly who is staying where and for
how long. But with a new Germany and the state security apparatus all but
dismantled, nobody is tracking random movement.”

“What about the car? The Omega is a luxury model.”

“Exactly. Before the Wall came down, a big Opel like that
would have stuck out over here among all those midget Trabants and Wartburgs,
like an honest man in Congress. Now, of course, people are used to seeing fancy
cars in the east, even if they’re still too expensive for most folks. But
you’re right. Sooner or later somebody’s bound to spot it.”

“Yeah, sooner or later,” Taras echoed dismally.

“Don’t worry. She’ll either show up here today, or call in.
She’s a pro. She’ll be in touch with someone.”

That was precisely what was eating away at Taras. Charlie
would
get in touch—if she were still alive. Not knowing was the worst part. Taras
had to keep fighting off nightmare images of her suffering at the Cowboy’s
hands.

Instead, Taras tried desperately to share Strotkamp’s
confidence that Charlie would surface at the Cecilienhof Palace to pick up her
press credentials. She had three full days to do so in order to be able to
cover the conference on the fourth day; but, in Taras’ opinion, after today the
chances of her appearing would drastically diminish.

The other hope, of course, was that she would call John
Tully, who was primed to alert her to her danger, unless he suspected Marcus
might be eavesdropping, find out her location and instantly relay the
information to any of several numbers here or in Berlin. Taras had talked to
Tully within the hour. The foreign editor had heard nothing from his
correspondent, but hastened to explain that her actual filing deadline wasn’t
until the following day, for release the morning the conference opened.

Some earlybird journalists were already on the scene, their
cars and vans crowding the asphalt car park in front of the Cecilienhof. But a
negative head shake from a security man stationed near the entrance signified
that Charlotte was not among them, so Taras and Strotkamp continued to stroll
along the palace front.

The palace had been built before and during World War I by
Kaiser Wilhelm as a pleasant hundred-and-seventy-odd-room country retreat. For
some reason, he’d had it done all in Tudor style, with half-timbered gables,
stone portals and a profusion of tall, narrow chimneys. Locally it was
overshadowed by Sans-Souci, the far grander palace of Frederick the Great on a
hill overlooking all of Potsdam and the river Havel. But the Cecilienhof had
won its surprising place in history during seventeen days in the summer of 1945
when Stalin, Truman, Churchill and later Attlee had gathered here to decide the
fate of the defeated Germany.

Taras paused to inspect the noisy queue of journalists
outside the palace’s hotel entrance. The Hotel Schloss Cecilienhof had been
closed for the conference, and its reception hall set aside for the issuance of
credentials. Everything so far was being handled with typical Teutonic
efficiency, but Taras couldn’t help wondering where in hell the Germans were
planning to stick all the reporters when the event began. Some recent summits,
he knew, had attracted an international press corps of more than two thousand.
Potsdam invitations had apparently been restricted to half that. Even so, the
conference rooms were extremely modest in size. Was the fourth estate to be
relegated to bleachers on the back lawn? Or would they watch the proceedings
via closed-circuit TV from the hotel dining room?

Actually, those ideas weren’t in the least farfetched, as
Taras found out an hour later tagging along with Strotkamp on a Secret Service
walkthrough of the arrival ceremony. The limousines would start pulling in at
9:45—on Friday, three days hence. There would be pooled television coverage at
the entrance and in the large interior courtyard, which was emblazoned with a
giant star formed of hundreds of red begonias, a blatant design originally
planted by the Russians in 1945. The various delegations would proceed down a
corridor and into the White Salon, a long, vanilla-rococo reception hall with
red Turkish carpets, white-and-gilt Louis XVI decor and neo-Corinthian
pilasters.

There would be brief welcoming remarks made here, but only a
select media coterie could be accommodated, roped off alongside the French
doors. The bulk of the press corps would be outside on a garden terrace, just
as they had been in 1945, and some farther away yet, massed on the lawns that
sloped down to the
Jungfern See
, one of the lakes formed by the river
Havel. And indeed, closed-circuit monitors would be mounted in various public
rooms.

And although the first plenary session wouldn’t be till
Friday afternoon, the delegation would continue on into the main conference
hall, a high-wainscoted, two-storied hammer-beamed space that reminded Taras of
some of the larger Tudor rooms at Hampton Court. Again, only pool video would
be allowed in, as the conferees and their aides settled into the red plush
chairs and posed for the TV lights around the same red-baize-covered table used
by the postwar Big Three.

Retracing his steps through the White Salon beside the
Secret Service men, Taras had the sudden sense of being watched. He glanced
through the lace-curtained French doors in time to catch the distinctive
profile of Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Starkov moving away on the garden path. But
later, outside, Starkov had come straight up to him.

“I am surprised to see you here, Major Arensky.”

“Are you?”

“May I ask in what capacity you are here?”

“Unofficial.”

“Good. Professional security officers, such as your escorts
over there, don’t usually tolerate amateurs who lack the nerve to pull the
trigger on assassins. But perhaps you now regret that you allowed Marcus to
escape?”

“Yes, I do.” God, how he regretted it! And yet, on that
fateful night on the Crimea, how could he have done other than he did?

“If you’ll permit me a suggestion, Major?”

“Go ahead, Colonel.”

“If there is an attempt made on President Rybkin on Friday,
I suggest you stay out of my line of fire.”

“Thanks. I’ll try and remember that.” Taras turned to leave,
but turned back when he heard Starkov’s chuckle.

“That ugly ring,” the KGB officer said, “you’re still wearing
it.”

Taras glanced down at the monstrosity on his index finger as
if seeing it for the first time. The truth was, he wore it with a strange
purpose. After getting Marcus’ fiendish letter, Taras had sworn to rid himself
of the cursed thing only by sliding it back on Marcus’ lifeless finger.