Line of Succession (36 page)

“Is that a fact.”

Menshikov tugged at his earlobe. It was one of Mikhail Yaskov's gestures and obviously that was where this one had picked it up. Yaskov was the kind of man who inspired imitation by his people. This fat goon with his clumsy efforts at elegance was poor fodder—a fifth-rate agent pretending to be a second-rate one, filled with conspiratorial mannerisms. A bureaucrat; but then everybody had the same problem with personnel these days.

“I am instructed to give you an address and a time.”

Lime waited patiently.

“Riihimäkikatu Seventeen. At sixteen hours and forty-five minutes.”

“All right.”

“Alone of course.”

“Of course.”

Menshikov smiled briefly, trying to look villainous. Bowed his head, inserted his heavy rump into his car and drove off.

The wind rubbed itself against Lime. He took the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it into the snow at his feet. Menshikov's red taillights receded, turned the bend and disappeared. Lime walked over to the Volvo.

He settled wearily into the car, put a cigarette in his mouth, jerked at his tie and opened his collar button and said to Hill, “Yaskov wants a private meet with me at four forty-five.”

That was an hour hence. Chad Hill started the car. “Do you think they've got Mezetti?”

“It's one theory. I'm willing to take an option on it but I'm not buying it yet. I was hoping we wouldn't get stuck in this kind of flypaper. We haven't got time. I hope I can sell that to Yaskov—he's reasonable.”

“He is, maybe. Sometimes his bosses aren't.”

“Sometimes our bosses aren't.”

“Uh-huh. You don't think they're going to want anything big in trade, do you?”

“They're careful. That wouldn't be like them. The price won't be out of line. It's all a game, isn't it.” Lime didn't care; he was too tired. “At least we haven't lost him. We thought we had. Better the familiar enemy.…”

He dry-scrubbed his face violently, fighting the red wash of fatigue that kept sliding down across his eyes.

He got out of the car a block up from Number Seventeen. He had a
pointilliste
view of the street through the slowly drifting mist; moisture gleamed on the pavement like precious gems. He felt the weight of the stubby hammer less .38 that was snugged into the clamshell under his arm. At least Yaskov was a professional. There was a bit of comfort knowing he wasn't going to get killed accidentally by a trigger-happy amateur.

He turned up his collar and put his hands in his pockets and walked down the black sidewalk, avoiding puddles, his heels echoing on the wet concrete. Lights sparkled along the street and he saw a few blocks away the high lamps that outlined the town's landmark, the high restaurant built on top of the tall phallic water tower.

The emptiness of the street hardened his gut. He fought down the sour spirals coming up from his stomach and lifted his shoulders defensively.

Just as he went by Number Twenty-one a man came out its door and stood there. It could have been coincidence. The man gave Lime the quick distracted smile of a polite stranger. Threw his head back and drew in a loud breath.

Lime went on a dozen paces and looked back at the steps of Number Twenty-one. The man was still there.

A sentry, and a warning to Lime. The man was posted there to watch the street and give the alarm if reinforcements appeared.

Seventeen was a two-story structure, elderly, colorless. It looked as if it probably contained eight or ten flats. Here and there lights burned behind drawn shades. Lime uneasily pictured guns aimed at him from the shadows.

The door admitted him to a corridor at the foot of a flight of wooden stairs. Menshikov came forward from the hallway beside the staircase; smiled and swept his arm toward the stair. It was all dreary and tedious. Lime went up the stairs and Menshikov remained at the front door like a cheap gangster in a Bogart movie.

The stairs creaked when he put his weight on them. At the top there was a landing and a corridor that ran the length of the building front to back. Toward the front a door stood open and General Mikhail Yaskov stood there smiling amiably in comfortable English slacks and a gray turtleneck sweater.

“Hallo David.”

Lime crossed the distance between them and glanced into the room behind Yaskov. It was a dismal flat, the kind that rented furnished. “They must have cut your budget again.”

“It was available. Housing shortage you know.”

Mikhail Yaskov spoke English with a London accent. His smile revealed a chrome-hued tooth; there was humor in the steady gray eyes. He was a tall easygoing man, but the aristocratic face was deeply and prematurely lined.

At one time Lime had felt affection and respect for Mikhail. He had learned better; every face was a mask.

“Well then David. You look God-awful.”

“I haven't been sleeping well.”

“Pity.” There was a bottle of
akvavit;
Mikhail tipped it toward a glass, handed the glass to Lime and poured another for himself. “Cheers.”

“I haven't got time to play Oriental games.”

“Yes. I realize there's a shortage of time. You're rather rigid about having your leaders keep their appointments.”

“Have you got Mezetti?”

The Russian settled into the armchair and waved him toward the sofa. The room was poorly heated and Lime kept his coat on. Mikhail said, “Let's say I might be able to help you find him.”

“I'm not carrying a microphone.”

“Well if you were you'd find anything it picked up had been jammed to gibberish.” Mikhail touched a device on the end table by his chair. It looked like a transistor radio; it was an electronic jammer.

“No time for scavenger hunts. Have you got him or haven't you?”

“I have an idea where you might find him.”

“All right. And the price?”

Mikhail grinned. “How quickly you come to my point.” He sipped the liqueur and watched Lime over the rim of the glass. “The Organs had a signal the other day from Washington.” The Organs was KGB in Moscow. “We've been instructed to cooperate with you. It was all very correct you know—everyone being polite to one another in cool voices.”

“Where is he, Mikhail?”

“Abominable weather we're having isn't it.” Mikhail set the glass down, steepled his fingers and squinted. “Let me tell you a bit of local history, David. Your man Mezetti drove to that lake cottage with the evident expectation of meeting his friends there. Or perhaps I should say the hope, if not the expectation. If he'd been certain of it he'd have brought the money with him, wouldn't he? I mean, for a tourist with a definite itinerary he was a trifle short on luggage.” The quick smile, a fast remark: “No, let me finish please. It's one hundred thousand dollars, isn't it? Yes. Well then, Mezetti comes to the lake cottage empty-handed. Why?”

“To find out if his friends are there.”

“One must assume his friends were supposed to make contact with him at the hotel before a certain hour. When the deadline passed he drove out to the meeting place to find out what had gone wrong. Correct?”

“Did he tell you all this or are you just trying it on for size?”

Mikhail tugged his earlobe. “There was another car you know. Mezetti switched cars at the lake cottage.”

Lime became attentive. “Then you didn't put the snatch on him?”

“I had no orders to detain the man, David. He's probably still unaware he's under surveillance.”

“Where did he go?”

Another sip of
akvavit.
“He arrived at the lake, he poked around. He looked at his watch several times and sat in his car watching the dock as if he were waiting for something. An airplane to collect him? We don't know that, do we? The point is no one came. There was no airplane. After a while Mezetti went over and looked inside the other car. He found a note fixed to the steering wheel. He then drove away in this second car.”

“Make and model?”

“A Volkswagen,” Mikhail said drily. “A rather old one I should judge.”

Lime was beginning to see now. It was Mezetti who had been sent out on a snipe hunt. The scavenger hunt was once-removed. They had played it cleverly and it had bought Sturka at least four days.

It reduced Mezetti's importance markedly but this still had to be played through to the finish. “What's the price then?”

“Mezetti evidently thought someone would be there to meet him.” Mikhail leaned forward and peered. “Who, David?”

“Whoever left the note in the Volkswagen, I imagine.”

A thin smile, and Mikhail got to his feet and went to the window to peer past the blind.

The entire performance was sad. Mikhail was imprisoned in this dingy room because the Finns hated the Soviets and officially Mikhail—a known KGB operative—was
persona non grata;
officially, no doubt, he wasn't in Finland at all. So he had to play at these back-street games: secret meetings, sleazy hideouts, second-string underlings to do his legwork for him. Yet in spite of all those handicaps he had got a jump on everyone else. He had isolated Mezetti from his shadowers without alerting Mezetti and was now the only man alive who could put Lime back on Mezetti's trail.

And naturally there was a price.

“Of course you know who they are, Mezetti's people.”

“If we knew who they were would we be bothering with Mezetti?”

“You don't know
where
they are,” Mikhail said smoothly. He smiled to show he
knew;
he wasn't just guessing. Well it was understandable. The Soviets would have had little trouble piecing together the fact that the Americans knew the identity of the quarry. It surprised Lime a little that they hadn't already picked up the name as well. But then he realized Sturka's name hadn't been mentioned at all except in scrambled transmissions and those were virtually impossible to tap. The Russians would know Sturka was being sought for the Capitol bombing but they wouldn't have reason to tie him into the Fairlie case too.

“We'd like a name or two,” Mikhail said, returning to his chair.

“Why?”

“In the interests of peaceful coexistence. Open cooperation between allies, so to speak.” The smile this time was to show the falsehood of it.

“Look Mikhail, you've thrown a little roadblock at us but I don't think it entitles you to voting stock in the corporation. Suppose I publicize the fact that the Russians are being obstructive?”

“We'll deny it of course. And how are you going to prove it?”

“Let's put it this way. I can see what your people are worried about. Some of the satellites have come loose of their moorings and Moscow wants to make sure none of the troops are being bad boys. It would give you a black eye if it turned out Romania or Czechoslovakia was involved in this. All right, I'll give you this much. We have no reason to believe any government's behind the kidnapping. No government, and as far as we know there's no national liberation movement behind it either. Is that enough for you?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“I'm playing fairly loose as it is.”

“I know you are.” Mikhail's mouth became small and mean until he no longer seemed to have lips. It was anger not so much against Lime as against his own superiors. “One has one's orders.” It was almost an epithet.

You could picture them in the Kremlin, uniforms buttoned to the choke collars, refusing to take compromise for an answer. They held the ace and they knew it, and if Mikhail didn't take the trick they'd throw him in the Lubianka.

Lime really had no option. “Julius Sturka. He's got a little crew of amateurs. Raoul Riva may be in on it, maybe not.”

“Sturka.” The Russian's thin nostrils flared. “That one. We should have taken him out years ago. He's an anarchist. But he calls himself a Communist. You know he's probably done more harm to us than to you, over the years.”

“I know. He doesn't exactly contribute to your good name.”

“And you have no idea where to look for him?”

“No.”

“That's a pity.” Mikhail drained his glass. “Mezetti has taken lodgings in the railway hotel in Heinola. We have three cars covering him. Two or three men in the lobby at the moment. They're expecting you—they won't interfere.”

“Tell them to pull out when I arrive.”

“Of course.”

“I don't suppose you people have a decent photo of Sturka in your files.”

“I doubt it.”

Lime had one—the snapshot Barbara Norris had taken with her Minolta. But it was a 16mm negative, grainy and not in sharp focus.

When they parted they didn't shake hands; they never did.

Snow came up onto the windshield in lumps of gray slush and the wipers flicked it away. It was falling hard on a slant, lashing the windows. Chad Hill leaned forward over the wheel trying to see; they were crawling. It was a convoy, four cars and a police van.

Lime had watched the teletype operator word his message before they got in the cars and set out for Heinola.

FROM: LIME

TO: SATTERTHWAITE

IGNORE PREVIOUS SIGNALS X HAVE

CORNERED MM IN DEAD END X IN VIEW

OF TIME FACTOR AM TAKING MM INTO

CUSTODY FOR INTERROGATION X

It would be an open transmission for part of the way so he hadn't said anything about the Russians.

Only six o'clock but the world seemed adrift in the formless subartic night. The darkness had the viscosity of syrup.

Chad Hill drew in at the curb; the lights of the railway hotel flickered in the falling snow.

A man in knee boots and fur hat was shoveling snow clear of the exhaust pipe of his Volkswagen; another man was scraping frost off its windshield. Lime walked over and spoke to the man at the windshield.