Why wasn't a level-one put on him? Why wasn't continuous visual contact maintained?" The man from Int~mal Security answered haltingly. "That wouldn't be my decision, sir, but I think I can understand it. If a Ievel-one was put on Scofield, he'd spot it and... well, sheer perversity would make him mislead us." "What the bell do you think he's just done? Find himl Report your progress hourly to this office!" Congdon sat down angrily, replacing the phone with such force that it jarred the bell. He stared at the instrument, picked it up, and dialed again.
"Overseas Communications, Miss Andros," said the woman's voice.
"Miss Andros, this is Undersecretary Congdon. Please send a cipher specialist to my office immediately. Classification Code A maximum security and priority." "An emergency, sir?" "Yes, Miss Andros, an emergency. The cable win be sent in thirty minutes.
Clear all traffic to Amsterdam, Marseilles... and Prague."
Scofield heard the footsteps in the hallway and got out of the chair. He walked to the door and peered through the tiny disk in the center. The figure of a man passed by; he did not stop at the door across the way, the entrance to the suite of rooms used by Taleniekovs courier. Bray went back to the chair and sat down. He leaned his head against the rim, staring at the ceiling.
It had been three days since the race in the streets, three nights since he'd taken the messenger from Taleniekov-messenger three nights ago, killer on the Unter den Linden ten years before. It had been a strange night, an odd race, a finish that might have been otherwise.
The man could have lived; the decision to kill him had gradually lost its urgency for Bray, as so much had lost urgency. The courier had brought it upon himself. The Soviet had gone into panic and pulled out a four-inch, razor-sharp blade from the recesses of the hotel chair and attacked. His death was due to Scofield's reaction; it was not the premeditated murder planned in the street.
Nothing ever changed much. The KGB courier had been used by Taleniekov. The man was convinced that Beowulf Agate was coming over, and the Russian who brought him in would be given the brassiest medal in Moscow.
"You've been tricked," Bray had told the courier.
"Impossiblel" the Soviet had yelled. "It's Taleniekovl" "It certainly is. And he chooses a man from the Unter den Linden to make contact, a man whose face he knows I'll never forget. The odds were that I'd lose control and kill you. In Washington. I'm exposed, vulnerable.
And you've been taken." "You're wrong! It's a white contactl" "So was East Berlin, you son of a bitch." "What are you going to do?" "Earn some of my severance pay. You're coming in." "Noll, It "Yes.
The man had lunged at Scofield.
Three days had passed since that moment of violence, three mornings since Scofield had deposited the package at the embassy and sent the cipher to Sevastopol. Still no one had come to the door across the hall; and that was not normal. The suite was leased by a brokerage house in Bern, Switzerland, to be available for its "executives." Standard procedure for international businessmen, and also a transparent cover for a Soviet drop.
Bray had forced the issue. The cipher and the courier's dead body had to provoke someone into checking the suite of rooms. Yet no one had; it did not make sense.
Unless part of Taleniekov's cable was true: he was acting alone. If that were the case, there was only one explanation: the Soviet killer had been terminated, and before retiring to an isolated life somewhere in the vicinity of Grasnov, he had decided to settle an outstanding debt.
He had sworn to do so after Prague; the message had been clear: You're mine, Beowulf Agate. Someday, somewhere. I'll see you take your last breath.
A brother for a wife. The husband for the brother. It was vengeance rooted in loathing and that loathing never left. There'd be no peace for either of them until the end came for one. It was better to know that now, thought Bray, rather than find out on a crowded street or a deserted stretch of beach, with a knife in the side or a bullet in the head.
The courier's death was an accident, Taleniekov's would not be. There would be no peace until they met, and then death would come-one way or the other.
It was a question now of drawing the Russian out; he had