The Valkyrie Project, page 19
Laidlaw stopped again, this time before a grave on which someone had strewn flowers. They were quite fresh, as though left only moments before.
“If you already know all this and the Russians have my number, just what in the hell am I doing here?” Spencer asked. “What good am I?”
“You are a wild card in this game, Mr. Spencer. A very valuable one. They may know you’re in our hand, but they don’t know how we’re going to play you.”
“Well, how are you going to play me?”
“Mr. Spencer. Where is Krog?”
“Still in Iceland. Near Akureyri, or Reykjavik, or somewhere in the wilds. He fled because he had no choice, not because he had anything to do with the murder. The Russians came for him and killed her. We, obviously, can’t be trusted. We sent him to that cabin. The Icelandic police won’t listen to him. I’m trying to spread the word that I’m the one American who can be trusted, who knows he was set up, who knows he’s innocent. I’ve been going all over the country doing that. I’ve also been working on the police. The acting superintendent of detectives seems to hate my guts, but he doubts Krog is guilty. If I can get him to drop the charges, we may get Krog to come in. Still, there’s all that evidence. And this new murder.”
“Evi Kekkonen. A Finnish woman. A friend of Krog’s. Once his mistress.”
“You know that, too,” said Spencer.
“Our station chief can be very effective—at times.”
“Her killer was a real butcher. I don’t know why they were so cruel about it. Perhaps they were just trying to provoke Krog. If they did it to … to somebody of mine, I’d go berserk. She seemed quite a nice woman. I met her. She’s a client of my lawyer, George—”
“Peterson,” said Laidlaw, “who is in Iceland. What have you told him?”
“I stayed within my cover,” said Spencer, lying. He needed a wild card of his own, and Peterson was all he had.
“He’s an old friend of yours,” Laidlaw said.
“We still lie to each other.”
The young couple were approaching. The man was tall, with long hair and glasses, Jewish or Italian. She was much shorter, a freckled face and red hair gone frizzy in the misty rain. They were dressed like students, though they looked to be in their late twenties.
Laidlaw’s glance and assessment of them took a millisecond.
“All these men here died because of one man,” he said to Spencer as the couple passed behind them. “Otto Skorzeny. We called him the most dangerous man in Europe, and he was. He almost made the Battle of the Bulge work.”
The couple were out of earshot.
“I met him once—Skorzeny,” Laidlaw said. “Years after the war.” He fell silent, then looked up at Spencer, his glasses slightly fogged from the weather. “Krog,” he said. Demanded.
“I really think he’s in Reykjavik, or near it,” Spencer said. “If he isn’t, he will be soon. He’s not the sort of a man to hole up in a cave. Certainly not after Evi Kekkonen.”
Laidlaw started walking again. “Your story isn’t finished, is it?” he said. “It’s full of holes. You haven’t the half of it, and you couldn’t print half of what you do have because you need corroboration. You need to talk to Krog. He’s your only source.”
“You sound like my editor.”
“I am your editor. Mr. Spencer, you must understand the difficulty under which we labor. The Watergate syndrome is still with us. We are still a discredited branch of government. Our best intelligence is dismissed as suspect. We must be as convincing as possible. In this Iceland matter, it is absolutely essential that we convince them.”
“Them?”
“The gentlemen in the Executive Mansion. They simply will not pay any attention to the real danger.”
“And what is the real danger?”
“Catastrophe.”
“That’s an ambiguous word.”
“The particle beam weapon is the ultimate defensive weapon, Mr. Spencer. It is not merely a toy with which to knock down satellites.”
Spencer only kept walking, waiting for the end of the pregnant pause.
“A few of them deployed in the right places would make a nuclear exchange initiated by the Russians extremely one-sided.”
Another pause.
“Iceland is one of the right places, Mr. Spencer.”
“Why are you telling me this? Do you let all your little operatives in on the Big Picture? Or is this just to inspire courage and resolve? John A. Spencer, savior of the western world.”
“You needn’t return to Iceland. You are three hours from Brussels. You could be back in Washington by evening.”
“You’d let me walk out on you? I might actually write a story, you know. I might put all this in the papers. Tell the world. I’ve already filed one piece about Krog and the murders.”
“It was read to me,” Laidlaw said. “Foreign-affairs analysis masquerading as a fairly sensational account of a sex murder. A rather deft piece of work.” He walked a few paces more. The mist had given way to drizzle. “It should help your cover with those who still believe in it.”
“What about those who don’t? What good am I to you if the other side has me marked? How many more days am I going to get to live?”
“I’m sure they are as interested in keeping you alive as I am, especially if they see you as a means of getting to Krog.”
“And if I find him?”
“I’m going to provide you with protection, Mr. Spencer. One of the best.”
“You once mentioned a Karin Nielsen.”
“You’ll find her an inordinately attractive woman, in a demure, fresh-faced, rather youthful way.”
“She’s my protection?”
“I think I can guarantee satisfaction. She’s multitalented, but her specialty is being—I suppose the appropriate term nowadays would be a ‘hit person.’ Very good at it.”
Spencer took a sharp, deep breath.
“You’re complicating my life,” he said.
“You’re to go to the EEC this afternoon,” said Laidlaw, “to pick up some data on European industrial energy consumption from the information office.”
“The information office?”
“From a Monsieur De Vore. He’ll have a package waiting for you. You’ll have dinner tonight at the Greiveldinger, in the Avenue de la Porte Neuve, arriving after eight P.M. and not leaving before ten. After that, go to the Place d’Armes and a smoky little wine bar called Le Cellier.”
“I know it. Wine, cheese, and girls.”
“It’s a logical place to meet strangers. Karin will join you there. Later, you are to take her to your hotel—in your inimitable fashion.”
“And?”
“She will deal with ‘and’ in her inimitable fashion. You’re to travel back to Iceland separately. Contact me through her. Do not use the New York number again. If it’s crucial, use the Scotland number. Once. The instant you locate Krog, I am to know.”
They climbed the steps to the terrace. The rain was coming down harder and there was no time for a prolonged conversation.
“You really do want to keep me on?” Spencer said.
“Yes. Very much.”
“What if your superiors won’t let you?”
“It will then become very difficult to contact you. It may in any event.”
There were only three cars in the parking area. Spencer had rented a Ford Escort. Laidlaw was moving in the direction of a black Peugeot. The other car was a Volkswagen bus.
Laidlaw paused, removing his glove to shake Spencer’s hand. “Your efforts will not go unappreciated, Mr. Spencer. I will see you again soon. It will have to be soon.”
“You haven’t told me what Karin Nielsen looks like.”
“She’ll find you.”
Spencer grinned sarcastically and started to turn, then stopped.
“‘Hit person’?”
“We use another term for it, actually.”
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
“Eleven?”
“Six of them were on the same airplane. Good-bye, Mr. Spencer. You’re in safe hands.”
Safe hands. Spencer sat waiting a moment before starting his car, waiting to watch Laidlaw leave, to watch the young couple run by in the now-heavy rain. The tall young man looked at him. What did that mean? Was he going to be sweating Volkswagen buses in his rearview mirror?
He turned the ignition key but let the Ford sit with its engine running. Why had Laidlaw told him so much? Not all that Spencer wanted to know, of course, but more than any regular agent would be told. This was a business in which people were killed just for walking around with rolls of film in their pockets, for passing on messages that meant nothing to them. What would happen if he found himself in some KGB cellar with an electric wire stuck up his rectum? It was his nature, his professional impulse, to reveal information.
Perhaps Laidlaw was right. He was safe until he found Krog, or Krog found him. Then he would be superfluous. They might both be superfluous. In many eyes.
Six on the same plane. Spencer had wondered about the psychological consequences of deliberately taking a human life. What were the consequences of taking eleven?
He wanted to meet Karin Nielsen.
The Volkswagen bus was moving out onto the road. Spencer put the Ford in gear and followed. He’d let the tall young man sweat a car in his mirror.
Peterson was driving his rented Audi extremely fast, even for him, but Elisabet seemed not to notice or care. She was talking about Spencer. She had been talking about him since Peterson had picked her up outside her apartment in Reykjavik.
“You may miss your flight,” he said.
“I have faith in you, George.”
“It was impossible, just impossible, to get away any sooner.”
“I understand.”
“You could have taken a taxi, or an airport bus.”
“George, as I said. I have faith in you.”
Peterson splashed the speeding Audi through a wide puddle. A snow shower marched toward them from the west. Behind it, a weak sun shone vaguely through a screen of thin cloud. Peterson glanced at his watch, calculating how soon he could be back in Reykjavik.
“The flight I’d like you to miss is the one you’ll be taking back to Iceland,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Sonja wants me to keep you out of danger. The best way to do that is to keep you out of this country. Skip the flight back.”
“And stay in Chicago?”
“Go to Baltimore and stay with Sonja.”
“George. This is my job.”
“Take an emergency leave. You have enough seniority to do that. If you have any problem, I can call …”
“But why?”
“Just to be out of harm’s way. Until this blows over.”
“Until what blows over?”
She had turned up the collar of her blue raincoat. Peterson reached to the dashboard and increased the heat.
“Until Krog is found and the funny men in Mercedes all go away and John August Spencer goes back to Washington.”
“So that’s it. You disapprove of my relationship with John. You, who were trying to get us together for dinner at your house just a few days ago.”
“It is not for me or Sonja to approve or disapprove of anything. John is our good friend. You are our good friend. John happens to have the sexual habits of an alley cat, which is one of the reasons his wife left him. But if that doesn’t bother you, it certainly is none of our business.…”
“It certainly is not.”
Peterson fell silent, his rocklike face devoid of expression. He pressed harder against the accelerator. The sun itself could no longer be seen, but its light was pouring forth from beneath the layers of cloud, the pools and puddles on the road reflecting it into his eyes.
“Elisabet. This is no time to get mixed up with John Spencer. He’s involved in something that can only mean trouble for you. Serious trouble.”
“Would you please explain that?”
“I can’t.”
“That’s very helpful.”
“Think of Evi Kekkonen, Elisabet. Think of that girl in Heklafjordur.”
“Are you saying John is the murderer?”
“What I’m saying, damn it, is that you are plunging headlong into the biggest mistake of your life! You told us you’ve reached a turning point in your life, that you’re thinking hard about how you want to spend the rest of it. Well, John Spencer can offer you nothing for the future. The reason he can be so cavalier about the danger you’re both in—”
“He’s not been cavalier.”
“—is that he doesn’t have to worry about the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s ill. He’s very seriously ill.”
“I guessed that.”
Peterson let the car slow a little. Gray cloud now closed the horizon entirely, and snow was falling.
“He’s terminally ill, Elisabet. It has something to do with his cardiovascular system. He has a bad artery in his brain. Very bad. The odds against him are not pleasant.”
“Is that why he drinks so much?”
“In part. And it only makes his condition worse.”
“Poor dear John,” Elisabet said. She squeezed Peterson’s hand, then slipped hers away. “Thank you for telling me. I know what friends you are.”
“I wish you and John could have met under different circumstances. I truly do.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“We’ll call Sonja from the airport.”
“What for?”
“To tell her you’re coming.”
“Oh no, George. I’m returning here.”
“What?”
“I love him, George. I wasn’t really able to admit it to myself until now. But I do. I love him.”
There were few things as satisfying as a Luxembourg meal. Spencer had passed over the roast thrush and minced liver balls on the menu, settling for a carré de porc fumé with sauerkraut, which he washed down not with wine but with several glasses of dark Mousel beer, one of his favorites. Afterward, he ordered a glass of the local firewater, an ultrastrong plum brandy called Quetsch. It came icy cold in a very large glass. He decided to content himself with just one. If Luxembourg was the Grand Duchy of Fenwick in The Mouse That Roared, Quetsch was the Q-bomb.
He left at five minutes after ten, having failed to see anyone he even remotely suspected of being Karin Nielsen. The streets were still glistening with the damp, but the rain had stopped and the night skies were clearing. He set off for the Place d’Armes at the pace of a man interested in nothing more than walking off a heavy dinner. It was good to maintain cover. His may have been blown, but there was an advantage in his pretending not to be aware of that lamentable fact. It gave him another wild card.
Luxembourg was a very old city, a onetime medieval fortress on a fairytale hill that overlooked what was for centuries the most important crossroads in Europe. For a brief time, the country had been one of Europe’s major powers, just as Norsemen from Iceland had briefly ruled the seas. Such countries were remarkable, not only for being small but also for having survived.
Spencer was fondest of small countries. Ireland was the largest a country need get. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to die for a country any larger.
The streets narrowed as Spencer approached the square. He passed one street off to the left that was scarcely three feet wide. A claustrophobic dread came over him. He shook it off.
Le Cellier was as smoky as he had remembered, but only half-full, offering an ample choice of seats. He took a table off to the side that had a clear view of the door. Ordering a glass of local Moselle, he searched the room with careful glances. No Karin. No one who could be Karin. No Karin. No Krog. No Evi Kekkonen. No point to all this.
He wanted something stronger than wine. His head was beginning to throb; he hoped only from the Quetsch. This was no time for one of those desperate headaches.
A girl who certainly could not be Karin sat down at the next table. She was blond and dressed like an American tourist—sweater, wool skirt, raincoat, loafers. She was small—five feet three or four, a hundred pounds or less. And so young. It was dark in this part of the room, but she looked for all the world like a high school cheerleader. It seemed a wonder they had let her in. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t noticed her enter.
Spencer put her out of his mind and turned back toward the door. It was getting late. And no Karin.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the cheerleader light a cigarette. A second later the lighter slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She leaned over to retrieve it but it was beyond her reach. It was within his. As he bent to pick it up, his head came close to hers.
“Good evening, Mr. Spencer,” she whispered. There were lines he had not seen around her mouth and eyes, but she could be no older than twenty-five or twenty-six, he guessed. Eleven dead.
He leaned back and handed her the lighter, a Zippo with some sort of collegiate insignia on it. “May I buy you a drink?” he said.
She smiled—a cheerleader’s smile—and moved to his table. “Let’s talk about Luxembourg,” she said. “I think Luxembourg is really neat.”
He ordered a bottle of St. Julien. It went very quickly. She suggested a nearby disco. Following orders, he agreed. He withstood the din for half an hour, then suggested a quiet walk around the square. She shrugged compliantly. It was turning colder, and as they started down the sidewalk she pulled his arm around her, moving close to his side. All he needed was a letter sweater.
“Shall I give you a fill?” he said quietly.
“A fill? Another drink?”
“I’m talking newspaperman talk. I mean, shall I bring you up to date?”
“I’m very up to date, thank you. I’ve even listened to you talking on tape. You have a really terrific voice. I wondered whether you’d look as good as you sound. You certainly do.”
“That’s really terrific of you to say.”
They walked slowly, almost in step. The shoulders beneath his arm were not frail and bony, as he had expected, but muscular and hard. He wondered whether she played tennis or climbed mountains.
