Marseilles. You can't call the police, or risk the chance that the management will; we both know that. Go find your proof, Scofieldl See if this enemy is lying. You'll get as far as your first turn in the corridorl If you live-which is unlikely -I'm on the fifth floor. Room five-zero-five. I've done what I can!" Vasili slammed down the phone, the gesture equal parts artifice and anger. Anything to jar the American, anything to make him think.
Taleniekov needed every second now. He bad told Beowulf Agate that he had done all he could, but it was not true. He knelt down and tore off the black overcoat from Amsterdam's unconscious body.
Bray replaced the phone, his mind was churning, If he'd only had sleep, or if he had not gone through the totally unexpected violence of the old woman's attack, or if Taleniekov had not told him so much of the truth, things would be clearer. But it had all happened and, as he had done so often in the past, he had to shift into a state of blind acceptance and think in terms of immediate pur. pose.
It was not the first time he had been the target of faotions distinct from each other. One got used to it when dealing with opposing partisans from the same broadbased camps, although killing was rarely the objective. What was unusual was the timing, the converging of separate assaults. Yet it was so understandable, so clear.
Undersecretary of State Daniel Congdon had really done it! The seemingly bloodless deskman had found the courage of his own convictions. More specifically, he had found Taleniekov and Taleniekov's moves toward Beowulf Agate. What better reasoning existed for breaking the rules and eliminating a terminated specialist he considered dangerous? What better motive for reaching the Soviets, who could only favor the dispatch of both men.
So clear. So well orchestrated he or Taleniekov might have conceived of the strategy. Denials and astonishment would go hand in hand, statesmen in Washington and Moscow decrying the violence of former intelligence offi- cers-from another era. An era when personal animosities often superseded national interests. Christ, he could hear the pronouncements, couched in sanctimonious platitudes made by men like Congdon who concealed filthy decisions under respectable titles.
The infuriating thing was that the reality supported the platitudes, the words validated by Taleniekov's hunt for revenge. I swore I'd kill you, Beowulf Agate, and perhaps one day I will.
That day was today, the perhaps without meaning for the Russian. Taleniekov wanted Beowulf Agate for himself; be would brook no interference from killers recruited and programed by deskmen in Washington and Moscow. I will see you take your last breath.... Those were Taleniekov's words six years ago; he meant them then and he meant them now.
Certainly he would save his enemy from the guns of Marseilles and Prague.
His enemy was worthy of a better gun, his gun. And no ploy was too unreasonable, no words too extreme, to bring his enemy into that gunsight.
He was tired of it all, thought Scofield, taking his hand away from the phone. Tired of the tension of move and countermove. In the final analysis, who cared? Who gave a godamn for two aging specialists, dedicated to the proposition that each's counterpart should die?
Bray closed his eyes, pressing his lids together, aware that there was moisture in his sockets. Tears of fatigue, mind and body spent; it was no time to acknowledge exhaustion. Because he cared. If he had to die---and it was ,always an around-the-corner possibility-he was not going to be taken by guns from Marseilles, Prague or Moscow. He was better than that; he had always been better.
According to Taleniekov he had eleven minutes; two had passed since the Russian had made the statement. The trap was his room and if the man from Prague was the one Taleniekov had described, the attack would be made 'quickly, with a minimum of risk. Gas-filled pellets would precede any use of weapons, the fumes immobilizing anyone in the room. It was a tactic favored by the killer from Prague; he took few gambles.
The immediate objective, therefore, was to get out of the trap. Walking in the corridor was not feasible, perhaps not even opening the door. Since it was Amsterdam's function to draw him out, and he had not been drawn, Prague and Marseilles would close in. If there was no one in the hallway-as the absence of sound indicated-tbey had nothing to lose. Their schedule would not be