The Hidden Target (17 page)

He would now be under surveillance, of course. That would last until the reports on his movements became dull, repetitious, boring, and he would make them all of that. So his first twenty-four hours as a man who had quit his job at NATO—even Theo’s agents would have little suspicion that his intelligence-gathering wasn’t strictly on Soviet military manoeuvres—were a very tricky period indeed. Yet he had to meet with Gilman, that quiet self-effacing man who had dodged suspicion for his fifteen years of highly classified work. This was not the time for Renwick to draw Gilman to anyone’s attention, far less Theo’s.

So there had been precautions for his visit to London. First, he changed his flight and hoped he had complicated others’ arrangements. Next, he made a brief call to London from the Brussels airport, a couple of unremarkable sentences that let Gilman know he was on his way. Then it was a matter of following their previously set plans: baggage left at Heathrow until the early-evening flight to New York, a long stretch of empty hours ahead of him; why not visit the city, drop into a movie house near the Strand? The place was less than half filled, ill-lighted, and noisy with the bangs and booms from a World War II film. Gilman was already seated in the empty back row, a thin tall figure slouching in his unobtrusive way; no one within listening distance even with any hearing device—the noise of the sound track would take care of that. Renwick slipped into an adjacent seat. He sat in silence for several minutes, making sure he hadn’t been followed. But no one entered the cinema, and they could talk.

There was a succinct briefing of Gilman on Theo; Essen— Kurt Leitner and Section One of the Direct Action terrorists, his tie-up with Theo, his well-arranged escape, his transformation in Rotterdam into an American, his departure for London. “Any possibility about tracing him at this date? Through the airline record of reserved seats, handled by a travel agency that buys them en bloc and pays for them months later? An airline is bound to keep records of what is owed them. Certainly, Leitner wouldn’t risk any delay in buying space at the airport. He must have been booked in advance.”

“June fourteenth, afternoon flight from Schiphol to Heathrow.” Gilman’s face was imperturbable, as usual, but his voice was far from optimistic.

“Then there is another puzzle, smaller, less important perhaps. Ilsa Schlott.” Renwick told what he knew.

“That’s simpler—if she is a student at University College. Anything else?”

“Yes. Now that Crefeld is dead, I’d like you to head Interintell. Any problems about getting an office, a place for files and communications?”

“Not if I can suggest to my boss that the French would like to have the Interintell headquarters in Paris.”

“They’re trying hard. But they already have Interpol in Paris, so they can hardly argue against London having its fair share.”

“Why not in Washington? Why not Frank Cooper in charge?”

“Frank would be the first to agree with me: no security possible with this right-to-know kick they’re on.” What foreign intelligence agencies would trust their secret files on terrorism, their classified information on the doubtful activities of American citizens, to Washington? “That really would dry up our sources of information.” He paused. “How quickly can you set up headquarters? It’s urgent.”

“We’ll make it most urgent. Give us a month.” Gilman already had an office selected, a skeleton staff in mind. “I’ll be on a quick visit to New York at the end of August.”

“See you then. Meanwhile, get the word about Theo to Oslo and Copenhagen. I’ve already briefed Claudel, in Paris, and Diehl, in Germany. And what about Vlakos, in Athens? And we need someone in Ankara.”

“I have a good friend there.” Gilman’s quiet smile lightened his calm face. “It seems that Interintell is really on its way.”

With a file on Theo as its first case. Most fitting, thought Renwick: Crefeld’s death would not be meaningless. “Would you meet with Vroom? Brief him on Interintell, get him to replace Crefeld—if you think he fits in.”

“Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure.” Or, wondered Renwick, is my bruised ego still smarting? “He’s making himself too visible for my taste. Could be a danger—to himself, to us.”

“Justifying his promotion? That may wear off. What other choice do we have?”

“Not much. I was betting everything on Crefeld.” He could sense Ron Gilman’s empathy. It was a good moment to leave. Renwick rose, walking unhurriedly to the nearest fire exit for a quick but safe route back to Heathrow.

Precautions, precautions... They seemed comic, an unnecessary waste of time and energy. Until you remembered a man approaching you in a crowded lobby with a highly sophisticated weapon disguised as a simple walking stick.

***

Arrival in New York was the usual confusion when several major flights descended on Kennedy. It was natural, perhaps, that the attractive young woman who was travelling alone should look so helpless and harried as she waited for her luggage to appear on the roundabout. She had stuck close to Renwick on most of the long journey from the landing area. They had gone through immigration together, so she was American—or at least travelling on an American passport. Customs had separated them temporarily, but here she was beside him again in the main hall with the late-evening sun streaming in from the street outside. The odd thing was that, in all this time, she hadn’t given him one small glance: most of the transatlantic passengers had noticed each other, exchanging the usual cursory look as they angled for the best position to grab their suitcases or compete for the attention of a porter if one did deign to arrive. For someone who was now standing at his elbow, it was strange that she seemed totally unaware of his existence. Their luggage should be arriving any moment now. Would she ask his help, delay him enough to let them leave together? And would she take a taxi to follow his?

Renwick lit a cigarette as she faced his direction briefly. His lighter missed twice, flamed on his third try. He had just time for a couple of drags before he saw his bag near two dark-blue suitcases, a matched set varying only in size, come circling slowly towards them.

“Oh!” she said, pointing to the larger of these cases, which lay far up on the conveyor and needed a long arm to be reached.

Renwick extracted his bag and her smaller case, a nice excuse to let the larger one go majestically on its way. He placed it at her feet. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “The other will come around again.” In four or five minutes. And with an encouraging smile that was met by a look of complete frustration, he left for the door. No porters available, either, he thought with some satisfaction.

Outside was turmoil complete, taxis and buses and a row of limousines with drivers at their wheels. People on the sidewalk, people darting into the roadway to get hold of a cab. It took him several minutes to secure one, and as he threw his baggage inside to stake his claim, he noticed one limousine in particular. Its driver, impatient, stood by its opened door, scanning the crowded sidewalk. As he caught sight of Renwick about to enter a taxi, he slipped back into his seat. But his way out into the turgid stream of traffic was blocked by a tourist bus that halted, no apologies, in the middle of the road to load a group of Japanese business-men. Renwick’s last glance at the sidewalk showed him the young woman emerging, her large suitcase abandoned in her desperate haste. So was her diffidence as she saw Renwick’s taxi ease through a narrow space and then speed off. Now there were two frustrated people left behind him. How nice for them if she could have emerged on his heels, stepped into the limousine with no bus to complicate the easy following of his taxi. Renwick’s smile was broad. He made sure his lighter was safe in his pocket. He could take photographs, too.

He might have judged the woman on a hunch, but there had been no guesswork on the man. Fair hair, thick and waved; smooth handsome face, the type that some women, such as poor middle-ageing Luisa, found irresistible. Maartens, definitely, but no longer pretending to be an embassy employee in The Hague, no longer the big hotel man throwing business in the way of an interior decorator in Brussels. Had Thérèse found him irresistible, too?

Renwick’s smile was wiped from his face. “Grand Central,” he told his driver, “by way of the Queensboro Bridge and down Lexington to Forty-second Street.” And having established the fact that he knew his way around this town, he relaxed and didn’t have to worry about the meter.

He would find another cab at Grand Central Station and drive to the Stafford, a busy hotel in the East Fifties where he could get his thoughts in order before Frank Cooper paid him a quiet visit for intensive briefing on both sides, and a discussion of tactics. (Strategy would come later, when Frank Cooper had gathered information and put the search for Theo into motion.) And that would be all Renwick would see of Frank, for the time being. Discretion was the better part of safety.

Tomorrow, he was heading for Vermont and a visit to his parents’ summer cottage on Caspian lake. (Scattered farms, groves of sugar maples burgeoning for tapping at winter’s end; browsing deer by day, bobcats screaming over the hills by night, skunks dodging under the woodpiles, an occasional bear wandering down from the Canadian border.) Two weeks later, he would jaunt to San Diego for an eight-day stay in nearby La Jolla with his young sister and her husband. (Tennis and scuba diving, flowers for all seasons, people from everywhere.) After that, the mountains of Wyoming for a week with his older brother, wife, seven children, five horses, three dogs. Then a return to the East. August would be almost over. Ron Gilman would be arriving from London with full reports. Frank Cooper’s news-gathering should be producing results. And Maartens, with his interest fixed on Renwick, might even be discouraged: what intelligence officer could be taken as a threat when he spent four crucial weeks in holiday pleasures with no communication, no contacts that were in any way connected with his work?

The end of August... It couldn’t come too soon. Suddenly, his mind was jolted out of all those neatly planned prospects as he remembered his promise to Nina O’Connell for the beginning of September: a message to Daddy for money money money, ready and waiting at Türk Express in Istanbul. Hell and damnation, he thought, how do I put in a call to Francis O’Connell at the Bureau of Political-Economic Affairs in Washington when I’m practising non-existence in New York? It’s the last thing I need, making a call to a State Department number, identifying myself by name to O’Connell’s secretary, being questioned by him about Amsterdam, of all goddamn places.

Then, as the taxi drew up at Grand Central Station and he was hauling his luggage on to the sidewalk, he knew one solution: he’d unload Nina’s message on to Frank Cooper’s broad shoulders. Frank knew O’Connell well. No problem there. Nina, Nina, Renwick was thinking, you do complicate people’s lives in your own sweet little way. In a moment, he had a spasm of sympathy for Francis O’Connell, quickly dissipated as he began wrestling with more practical matters such as counting out the dollars and calculating a sizeable tip. No audible thanks, either. I’m home, he thought as he hefted his luggage out of the pedestrians’ way, and waited for another taxi.

***

A month might not seem adequate enough for a view of America, but on Renwick it had acted like a tonic. No need to judge his country by the headlines any more; now he had a wider frame of reference—people in all their variety, with all their opinions and beliefs and pride in their jobs. Sure there were some weaknesses here and there, even some rents and tears, worrying self-indulgences, but the main fabric was still strong. A good place to live, and worth a good fight. Renwick’s return to New York was definitely upbeat.

“Raring to go,” he told Frank Cooper over the ’phone. “I’ll be leaving by the end of this week. What about having a drink with me? Or lunch? I know you’re a busy lawyer, but...” He left the suggestion hanging. If anyone were listening in to this call, its vacuity might make it seem negligible.

“Just let me have a look at my calendar. Let me see...” Cooper’s deep, rumbling voice hesitated, as if he were really consulting his engagement book. “Washington tomorrow, dammit. A prospective client. That could take until Thursday. Then Friday is the start of the Labour Day week-end. Why not join us in East Hampton? The kids and their friends will be there before they go back to school. A full house. But we’ll always find room for you.”

Renwick had to smile. Frank’s summer cottage had only three bedrooms, a giant living-room where stereo played well into the night, and Frank’s sacrosanct den with everything from trophies to gun rack struggling for space among bookshelves. He took the concealed hint. “I’d like that, but my new job in London begins with September. They don’t allow for Labour Day over there, you know.”

“What about tonight? There’s a cocktail party at my place. We’ve just won a major decision, so I thought I’d have a celebration for my staff and our happy clients.”

“Tonight is pretty well planned—dinner and theatre.”

“Drop in, if you can manage it. It will be a madhouse; you know how these things multiply. Too bad you didn’t let me know when you were planning to pass through New York.”

“I really wasn’t sure myself. Next time, I’ll—”

“The party begins at six. But no one will be there before six-thirty, I hope. I’ve got an emergency meeting midtown at four-thirty—a couple of important clients.”

“Then you’d better hang up. It’s almost four now.”

“So it is, dammit. Hope to see you at my place—it’s the old stand on Sixty-first Street. Remember? Good to hear from you.”

Renwick replaced the telephone on his side table and stretched out on his bed. An emergency meeting at four-thirty... Cooper would just make it from his Wall Street office to his suite at the Stafford, kept for the benefit of out-of-town clients and his own private meetings. Renwick’s room (booked by one of Cooper’s friends) was on the floor below, but the fire staircase near Cooper’s suite had its uses. And Ronald Gilman, who must have arrived from London by this time, would have had similar arrangements made for him. Frank Cooper was a believer in easy access: friends all together under one roof, no visible coming and going.