The Apocalypse Watch (54 page)

“Oh, no, madame, your French is excellent.”

“My friend, André, constantly tutors me, but sometimes I think André is too gentle. Yes, he must be firmer with me.”

“André?” asked the short man in the jodhpurs, looking hard at Janine.

“Yes, he said you might know him.”

“It’s such a common name, is it not, madame? For instance, a customer named André left a pair of boots here and they were repaired the day before yesterday.”

“I believe André may have mentioned it.”

“Please come with me.” The manager walked to his right behind the counter, emerged through a green velvet curtain that covered a narrow entrance, and beckoned his new client. Together they went into a deserted office. “I presume you are who I—presume you are?”

“Not by my identity, monsieur.”

“Of course not, madame.”

“A man in Washington instructed me. He said I should also use the name Catbird.”

“That is sufficient, it’s an alternate code changed every few weeks. Again, follow me. We’ll go out the back entrance and you will be driven a short distance outside of Paris to an amusement park. Pay your way into the south entrance, second booth, and protest, stating that a courtesy ticket should have been provided by ‘André.’ Do you understand?”

“South entrance, second booth, protest in the name of André. Yes, I have it.”

“A moment, please.” The manager reached down and pressed a button on a desk intercom. “Gustav, we have a delivery for Monsieur André. Go to the vehicle immediately, if you please.”

Outside, in the small alleyway parking area, Janine climbed into the first backseat of a van as the driver jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine. “There will be no conversation between us, please,” he said as he drove out of the alley into the street.

The manager returned to the deserted office, again reached for the intercom, pressed a second button, and spoke. “I’m leaving early today, Simone. It’s slow and I’m exhausted. Lock up at six, and I’ll see you in the morning.” He went out to his motorbike in the parking area behind the row of shops. He jammed his foot on the ignition pedal; the motor erupted and he sped down the alleyway.

Inside the leather boutique the telephone rang. A clerk at the counter picked it up. “
La Selle et les Bottes
,” he said.

“
Monsieur Rambeau!
” yelled the man on the line. “
Immédiatement!
”

“I’m sorry,” answered the clerk, offended by the arrogance of the caller. “Monsieur Rambeau has left for the day.”

“Where
is
he?”

“How the hell would I know? I’m not his mother
or
his lover.”

“This is
important
!” screamed the man on the phone.

“No, you’re not important, I am. I sell the merchandise, you merely interrupt, and there are customers in the store. Go to the devil.” The clerk hung up the phone and smiled at a young woman who wore a Givenchy cocktail dress obviously designed for her obviously expensive body. She oiled her way across the parquet floor and spoke in the half-whispered voice of a well-kept mistress.

“I have a message for André,” she intoned seductively. “André will wish to hear it.”

“I am desolate, mademoiselle,” said the clerk, his eyes straying to her swelling décolletage. “But all messages for Monsieur André are delivered to the manager alone, and he has left for the day.”

“What am I to do, then?” cooed the courtesan.

“Well, you could give the message to me, mademoiselle. I am a confidant of Monsieur Rambeau’s, the manager.”

“I don’t know that I should. It’s very confidential.”

“But I just explained, I am a close confidant, a
confidential
associate of Monsieur Rambeau’s. Perhaps you would rather tell me over an aperitif at the café next door.”

“Oh, no, my friend watches me wherever I go, and the limousine is right outside. Just tell him that he’s to call Berlin.”

“
Berlin?
”

“What do I know? I gave you the message.” The Givenchy-dressed young woman, buttocks swiveling, walked out of the store.

“Berlin?” said the clerk to himself. It was crazy, Rambeau hated Germans. When they came into the shop, he treated them with contempt and doubled the prices.

*   *   *

The Deuxième agent walked calmly out of the leather store, then rushed up the pavement to the unmarked car. He opened the door, quickly climbed in beside the driver, and swore. “Dammit, she wasn’t there!”

“What are you talking about? She didn’t come outside.”

“I assume that.”

“Then where is she?”

“How the hell do I know? Probably in another arron-dissement across the city.”

“She made contact with someone and they left by another exit.”

“My God, you’re smart!”

“Why bite my head off?”

“Because we both should have known better. Places like this have delivery entrances; when I went in, you should have driven around and found it, then waited.”

“We’re not psychic, my friend, at least I’m not.”

“No, we’re stupid. How many times have we done this sort of thing? One of us follows a subject, the other covers the rear.”

“You’re too hard on us,” protested the driver. “This is the Champs-Élysées, not the Montmartre, and the woman is the wife of an ambassador, not a killer we’re stalking.”

“I hope Director Moreau sees it that way. For reasons he will not explain, he seems almost obsessed with this particular ambassador’s wife.”

“I’d better call him.”

“Please do. I forgot the number.”

The fashionably dressed man in the Peugeot several hundred feet across the wide boulevard was more than impatient, he was deeply troubled. Nearly an hour had passed and Frau Courtland had not emerged from the leather shop. He could accept the time; women were notoriously sluggish shoppers, especially the wealthy ones. What troubled him was the fact that the Deuxième vehicle had sped away,
sped
away, thirty-odd minutes ago, apparently prompted by the second Deuxième agent’s running to the
car and conferring with his colleague, the driver. What had happened? Something, certainly, but what? He had been torn between following the official automobile and waiting longer for the ambassador’s wife. Remembering his orders, and the intensity with which they were delivered, he had decided to wait. “Kill the woman as soon as it’s humanly possible!” His control in Bonn had been apoplectic; the assassination was to be immediate. The meaning was clear: dire consequences would result if there was a delay.

As the assassin of record, he dared not fail. From being the monitor of the Blitzkrieger unit, he had suddenly been thrust into its deadly line of work. Not that he wasn’t a trained killer, he was; he had come from the Stasi, one of the first to switch alliances from hard-core Communist to committed Fascist. Labels, merely labels that were meaningless to men like him. He craved the access and the power to live beyond the laws, the exhilaration of knowing he was not accountable to the dictates of small-minded officials. Such bureaucrats, no matter their positions, had been terrified of the Stasi, just as the ministers of the Third Reich had been petrified of the Gestapo. That knowledge, then and now, was truly exhilarating. Yet to remain in their enviable positions, such men as he
were
accountable to the structures that nurtured them.

Kill the woman as soon as it’s humanly possible! Kill her!

A bullet in the head at close range in the crowded Champs-Élysées was an attractive option. Perhaps a collision, followed by a small-caliber gunshot, easily drowned out by the traffic, yes, it was feasible. Then, grabbing her purse, a trophy to be sent to Bonn, and disappearing among the crowds of afternoon strollers, time elapsed, no more than two or three seconds. It would work; it
had
worked four years earlier in West Berlin when he had taken out a British MI-6 officer who had made one too many sorties behind the Wall.

The man in the Peugeot unlocked the glove compartment, withdrew a short-barreled .22 revolver, and shoved it into his jacket pocket. He started the engine, swung into
the street, and circled at the first break in the traffic. He pulled into the curb as a blue Ferrari lurched away from the space; the entrance to the expensive leather shop was diagonally to the left, in full view, no more than ten meters away. He could be out of the car and within feet of the woman in seconds, the moment he saw her, but not spotting her between the bodies of the erratic strollers was too great a risk. He got out of the Peugeot and made his way to the elaborate front windows of the Saddle and Bootery. He studied the extravagant items behind the glass, constantly aware of those leaving the entrance only several arm’s lengths away.

Eighteen minutes passed and the fashionably dressed assassin’s patience was coming to an end. Suddenly the pleasant face of a clerk looked at him through the window, from behind the banquette of the tasteful display. The killer shrugged amiably and smiled. Seconds later the youngish man came out of the entrance and spoke.

“I noticed you’ve been looking over our merchandise for quite a while, monsieur. Perhaps I could help you?”

“In truth, I’m waiting for someone who is quite late. We’re to meet here.”

“One of our clients, no doubt. Why not come inside, out of the sun? My word, it’s broiling.”

“Thank you.” The former Stasi officer followed the clerk through the door. “I believe I’ll look over your boots,” he continued in perfect French.

“There are none better in Paris, sir. If you need assistance, please call me.”

The German glanced around the store, at first not believing his eyes. He then slowly studied the women individually; there were seven, either standing in newly purchased equestrian finery or sitting in chairs being fitted for riding boots. She was not
there
!

That was why the Deuxième official had raced back to the Bureau’s automobile! He had learned what the assassin-of-record had just found out nearly an hour later. The ambassador’s wife had escaped the surveillance! Where
had she gone? Who had made it possible for her to leave unseen? Obviously someone in the shop.

“
Monsieur?
” The killer, standing over a row of polished boots, beckoned the clerk. “A moment, please.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the employee, approaching with a smile. “You’ve found something to your taste?”

“Not exactly, but I must ask you a question. I was not entirely direct with you outside, for which I apologize. You see, I’m with the Quai d’Orsay, assigned to escort an important American woman, protect her from the vagaries of Paris, if you like. As I mentioned, she was late, but she cannot be
this
late. The only answer is that she came inside before I arrived, then left, and I missed her.”

“What does she look like?”

“Medium height and quite attractive, in her early forties, perhaps. She has light brown hair, neither blond nor brunette, and, I’m told, was wearing a summer dress, white and pink, I think, and obviously very expensive.”

“Monsieur, look around you. You could be describing half the women shoppers here!”

“Tell me,” said the assassin in the pinstriped suit, “could she have left another way, through a rear exit, perhaps?”

“That would be most unusual. For what reason?”

“I don’t
know
,” answered the would-be killer, his tone of voice conveying his anxiety. “I merely asked if it was possible.”

“Let me think,” said the clerk, frowning and looking around the store. “There was a woman in a pink dress, but I did not notice her later, as I was with the Countess Levoisier, a lovely but most demanding client.”

Again the assassin was torn. His control had called the Saddle and Bootery the “André conduit.” If he pursued his questioning too far, word of his carelessness might be sent back to Bonn. On the other hand, if the ambassador’s wife was in the back of the store or had been taken somewhere else, he had to know. Frau Courtland had left the embassy unprotected, not in a customary limousine driven by an armed escort. The circumstances were optimum and might not be repeated for days. For
days
! And the kill was not to
be delayed. “If I may,” he said to the accommodating clerk, “since this is official business and the government would be most appreciative, could you tell me if ‘André’ is on the premises?”

“Good Lord, that name again! ‘André’ is very popular today, but there is no André here. However, when messages come for him, whoever he is, the manager, Monsieur Rambeau, accepts them. He’s left for the day, I’m afraid.”

“ ‘Very popular … today’?” repeated the killer, stunned.

“Frankly,” said the clerk, lowering his voice, “we think the mysterious André is Rambeau’s lover.”

“You said very popular … 
today
—”

“Oh, yes. Barely minutes ago, an adorable young lady with a body one could
kill
for gave me a message for André.”

“What was it? Remember, I’m an official of the government.”

“I doubt the government would be remotely interested. It’s really quite harmless, even amusing, if I’ve figured it out correctly.”

“Figured what out?”

“Cities, probably countries, as well—destinations—they’re the substitutes.”

“Substitutes for what?”

“Hotels most likely. ‘Call London’ could mean the Kensington or the d’Angleterre; ‘call Madrid,’ the Esmeralda; ‘call Saint-Tropez,’ the Saint-Pères; do you see what I mean?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Rendezvous for lovers, monsieur. Hotel rooms where strangers of either persuasion can meet without alarming those they live with.”

“The
message
, please!”

“This one’s really quite simple. The hotel Abbaye Saint-Germain.”

“What …?”

“The English for
Allemagne
, Germain—Germany.”

“
What?
”

“That was the message for André, monsieur. ‘Call Berlin.’ ”

In shock, the assassin studied the soft face of the clerk. Then, without a word, he raced out of the store.

K
arin de Vries moved in with Drew at the Hotel Normandie. “We just want to save the State Department money, Stosh, and as a taxpayer, I insist upon it!”