The Holcroft Covenant (17 page)

Holcroft stiffened; it wasn’t difficult to convey his anger. “And I don’t imagine too many have had men like you knock on their doors and been accused of paying off assassins. If this were New York, I’d haul you into court. You
do
owe me.”

“Very well. A pattern was uncovered, at first too obvious to warrant examination until we studied the man. For several years, Tennyson consistently appeared in or near areas where assassinations took place. It was uncanny. He actually reported the events for the
Guardian
, filing his stories from the scene. A year or so ago, for example, he covered the killing of that American in Beirut, the embassy fellow who was, of course, CIA. Three days before, he’d been in Brussels; suddenly he was in Tehran. We began to study him, and what we learned was astonishing. We believe he’s the Tinamou. He’s utterly brilliant and, quite possibly, utterly mad.”

“What did you find out?”

“For starters, you know about his father. One of the early Nazis, a butcher of the worst sort …”

“Are you sure about that?” Noel asked the question too rapidly. “What I mean is, it doesn’t necessarily follow.…”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” said the gray-haired agent. “But what does follow is, to say the least, unusual. Tennyson is a manic overachiever. He completed two university degrees in Brazil at the age at which most students would have been matriculating. He has mastered five languages; speaks them fluently. He was an extremely successful businessman in South America; he amassed a great deal of money. These are hardly the credentials of a newspaper correspondent.”

“People change; interests change. That
is
circumstantial. Pretty damned weak, too.”

“The circumstances of his employment, however, lend strength to the conjecture,” said the older man. “No one at the
Guardian
remembers when or how he was employed. His name simply appeared on the payroll computers one day, a week before his first copy was filed from Antwerp. No one had ever heard of him.”

“Someone had to hire him.”

“Yes, someone did. The man whose signature appeared on the interview and employment records was killed in a most unusual train accident that took five lives on the underground.”

“A subway in London.…” Holcroft paused. “I remember reading about that.”

“A trainman’s error, they called it, but that’s not good enough,” added the red-haired man. “That man had eighteen years’ experience. It was bloody well murder. Courtesy of the Tinamou.”

“You can’t be sure,” said Holcroft. “An error’s an error. What were some of the other … coincidences? Where the killings took place.”

“I mentioned Beirut. There was Paris, too. A bomb went off under the French minister of labor’s car in the rue du Bac, killing him instantly. Tennyson was in Paris; he’d been in Frankfort the day before. Seven months ago, during the riots in Madrid, a government official was shot from a window four stories above the crowds. Tennyson was in Madrid; he’d flown in from Lisbon just hours before. There are others; they go on.”

“Did you ever bring him in and question him?”

“Twice. Not as a suspect, obviously, but as an expert on the scene. Tennyson is the personification of arrogance. He claimed to have analyzed the areas of social and political unrest, and followed his instincts, knowing that violence and assassination were certain to erupt in those places. He had the cheek to lecture us; said we should learn to anticipate and not so often be caught unawares.”

“Could he be telling the truth?”

“If you mean that as an insult, it’s noted. In light of this evening, perhaps we deserve it.”

“Sorry. But when you consider his accomplishments, you’ve got to consider the possibility. Where is Tennyson now?”

“He disappeared four days ago in Bahrain. Our operatives are watching for him from Singapore to Athens.”

The two MI-Five men walked into the empty elevator. The red-haired agent turned to his colleague. “What do you make of him?” he asked. “I don’t know,” was the soft-spoken reply. “We’ve
given him enough to send him racing about; perhaps we’ll learn something. He’s far too much of an amateur to be a legitimate contact. Those paying for a killing would be fools to send the money with Holcroft. The Tinamou would reject it if they did.”

“But he was lying.”

“Quite so. Quite poorly.”

“Then he’s being used.”

“Quite possibly. But for what?”

According to the car-rental agency, Portsmouth was roughly seventy miles from London, the roads clearly marked, the traffic not likely to be heavy. It was five past six. He could be in Portsea before nine, thought Noel, if he settled for a quick sandwich instead of dinner.

He had intended to wait until morning, but a telephone call made to confirm the accuracy of the MI-Five information dictated otherwise. He reached Gretchen Beaumont, and what she told him convinced him to move quickly.

Her husband, the commander, was on sea duty in the Mediterranean; tomorrow at noon she was going on “winter holiday” to the south of France, where she and the commander would spend a weekend together. If Mr. Holcroft wished to see her about family matters, it would have to be tonight.

He told her he would get there as soon as possible, thinking as he hung up that she had one of the strangest voices he had ever heard. It was not the odd mixture of German and Portuguese in her accent, for that made sense; it was in the floating, hesitant quality of her speech. Hesitant or vacuous—it was difficult to tell. The commander’s wife made it clear—if haltingly so—that in spite of the fact that the matters to be discussed were confidential, a naval aide would be in an adjoining room. Her concerns gave rise to an image of a middle-aged, self-indulgent
Hausfrau
with an overinflated opinion of her looks.

Fifty miles south of London, he realized that he was making better time than he had thought possible. There was little traffic, and the sign on the road, reflected in the headlights, read
PORTSEA
—15
M.

It was barely ten past eight. He could slow down and try to collect his thoughts. Gretchen Beaumont’s directions
had been clear; he’d have no trouble finding the residence.

For a vacuous-sounding woman, she had been very specific when it came to giving instructions. It was somehow contradictory in light of the way she spoke, as if sharp lines of reality had suddenly, abruptly, shot through clouds of dreamlike mist.

It told him nothing. He was the intruder, the stranger who telephoned and spoke of a vitally important matter he would not define—except in person.

How
would
he define it? How could he explain to the middle-aged wife of a British naval officer that she was the key that could unlock a vault containing seven hundred and eighty million dollars?

He was getting nervous; it was no way to be convincing. Above all, he had to be convincing; he could not appear afraid or unsure or artificial. And then it occurred to him that he could tell her the truth—as Heinrich Clausen saw the truth. It was the best lever he had; it was the ultimate conviction.

Oh, God! Please make her understand!

He made the two left turns off the highway and drove rapidly through the peaceful, tree-lined suburban area for the prescribed mile and a half. He found the house easily, parked in front, and got out of the car.

He opened the gate and walked up the path to the door. There was no bell; instead there was a brass knocker, and so he tapped it gently. The house was designed simply. Wide windows in the living room, small ones on the opposite, bedroom side; the facade, old bride above a stone foundation—solid, built to last, certainly not ostentatious and probably not expensive. He had designed such houses, usually as second homes on the shore for couples still unsure they could afford them. It was the ideal residence for a military man on a military budget. Neat, trim, and manageable.

Gretchen Beaumont opened the door herself. Whatever image she had evoked on the telephone vanished at the sight of her; it disappeared in a rush of amazement, with the impact of a blow to his stomach. Simply put, the woman in the doorway was one of the most beautiful he had ever seen in his life. The fact that she was a woman was almost secondary. She was like a statue, a sculptor’s ideal, refined over and over again in clay before chisel was put to stone. She was of medium height,
with long blond hair that framed a face of finely boned, perfectly proportioned features. Too perfect, too much in the sculptor’s mind … too cold. Yet the coldness was lessened by her large, wide eyes; they were light blue and inquisitive, neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“Mr. Holcroft?” she asked in that echoing, dreamlike voice that gave evidence of Germany and Brazil.

“Yes, Mrs. Beaumont. Thank you so much for seeing me. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Come in, please.”

She stepped back to admit him. In the doorway he had concentrated on her face, on the extraordinary beauty that was in no way diminished by the years; it was impossible now not to notice the body, emphasized by her translucent dress. The body, too, was extraordinary, but in a different way from the face. There was no coldness, only heat. The sheer dress clung to her skin, the absence of a brassiere apparent, accentuated by a flared collar, unbuttoned to the midpoint between her large breasts. On either side, in the center of the swelling flesh, he could see her nipples clearly, pressing against the soft fabric as if aroused.

When she moved, the slow, fluid motion of her thighs and stomach and pelvis combined into the rhythm of a sensual dance. She did not walk; she glided—an extraordinary body screaming for observation as a prelude to invasion and satisfaction.

Yet the face was cold and the eyes distant; inquisitive but distant. And Noel was perplexed.

“You’ve had a long trip,” she said, indicating a couch against the far wall. “Sit down, please. May I offer you a drink?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“What would you care for?” She held her place in front of him, momentarily blocking his short path to the couch, her light-blue eyes looking intently into his. Her breasts were revealed clearly—so close—beneath the sheer fabric. The nipples were taut, rising with each breath; again in that unmistakable rhythm of a sexual dance.

“Scotch, if you have it,” he said.

“In England, that’s whiskey, isn’t it?” she asked, walking toward a bar against the wall.

“It’s whiskey,” he said, sinking into the soft pillows of
the couch, trying to concentrate on Gretchen’s face. It was difficult for him, and he knew she was trying to make it difficult The commander’s wife did not have to provoke a sexual reaction; she did not have to dress for the part. But dress for it she had, and provoke she did. Why?

She brought over his scotch. He reached for it, touching her hand as he did so, noting that she did not withdraw from the contact but, instead, briefly pressed his curved fingers with her own. She then did a very strange thing; she sat down on a leather hassock only feet away and looked up at him.

“Won’t you join me?” he asked.

“I don’t drink.”

“Then perhaps you’d prefer that I don’t.”

She laughed throatily. “I have no moral objections whatsoever. It would hardly become an officer’s wife. I’m simply not capable of drinking or of smoking, actually. Both go directly to my head.”

He looked at her over the rim of the glass. Her eyes remained eerily on his, unblinking, steady, still distant, making him wish she’d look away.

“You said on the phone that one of your husband’s aides would be in an adjoining room. Would you like us to meet?”

“He wasn’t able to be here.”

“Oh? I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

It was
crazy
. The woman was behaving like a courtesan unsure of her standing, or a high-priced whore evaluating a new client’s wallet. She leaned forward on the hassock, picking at an imaginary piece of lint on the throw rug beneath his feet. The gesture was foolish, the effect too obvious. The top of her dress parted, exposing her breasts. She could not have been unaware of what she was doing. He had to respond; she expected it. But he would not respond in the way she anticipated. A father had cried out to him; nothing could interfere. Even an unlikely whore.

An unlikely whore who was the key to Geneva.

“Mrs. Beaumont” he said, placing his glass awkwardly on the small table next to the couch, “you’re a very gracious woman and I’d like nothing better than to sit here for hours and have a few drinks, but we’ve got to
talk. I asked to see you because I have extraordinary news for you. It concerns the two of us.”

“The two of
us?
” said Gretchen, emphasizing the pronoun. “By all means talk, Mr. Holcroft. I’ve never met you before; I don’t know you. How can this news concern the two of us?”

“Our fathers knew each other years ago.”

At the mention of the word “father,” the woman stiffened. “I have no father.”

“You had; so did I,” he said. “In Germany over thirty years ago. Your name’s Von Tiebolt. You’re the oldest child of Wilhelm von Tiebolt.”

Gretchen took a deep breath and looked away. “I don’t think I want to listen further.”

“I know how you feel,” replied Noel. “I had the same reaction myself. But you’re wrong.
I
was wrong.”

“Wrong?” she asked, brushing away the long blond hair that swung across her cheek with the swift turn of her head. “You’re presumptuous. Perhaps you didn’t live the way we lived. Please don’t tell me I’m wrong. You’re in no position to do that.”

“Just let me tell you what I’ve learned. When I’m finished, you can make your own decision. Your knowing is the important thing. And your support, of course.”

“Support of what? Knowing what?”

Noel felt oddly moved, as if what he was about to say were the most important words of his life. With a normal person the truth would be sufficient, but Gretchen Beaumont was not a normal person; her scars were showing. It would take more than truth; it would take enormous conviction.

“Two weeks ago I flew to Geneva to meet with a banker named Manfredi.…”