Line of Succession
- Автор: Гарфилд Брайан
- Год: 1972
- Язык: английский
- Год: Delacorte Press
- ISBN: 978-0440048473
- Жанр: Политические детективы
Электронная книга - «Line of Succession». Краткое содержание книги:
It all happened so fast: the terrorist bombings of Congress which killed nearly a hundred senators and congressmen; the incredible kidnapping of the President-Elect, Clifford Fairlie.
Tough, veteran agent David Lime was summoned to track down the kidnappers, who threatened to kill Fairlie if the captured terrorists were not set free. And behind the scenes, ruthless men battled for the glory of the highest office in the land.
The rescue efforts swung into high gear. It became a vast, global manhunt. The entire world watched in frozen horror.
But only two men had the power to shape the end of this chilling, savage drama — agent Lime and the terrorist leader for whom hate had become a holy mission.
“She wants to know why we haven’t got him back yet.”
“Understandable.”
Brewster was striding back and forth. “We haven’t even got five full days left. Ethridge picked a hell of a time to die, didn’t he.” He stopped and yanked the cigar out of his mouth and stared belligerently at Satterthwaite. “You’re convinced you know the identity of this man who’s got Fairlie?”
“Sturka? We’re morally certain.”
“Do you think he’ll keep his word?”
“Only if he thinks it’ll profit him.”
“Otherwise he’d kill Fairlie. Whether or not we turn the seven loose. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I can’t read Sturka’s mind, Mr. President. I don’t know what his plans are. He’d kill without hesitation if he thought he had reason to.”
The President circled his desk and slumped into the big chair. “Then let’s not give him an excuse.”
“You want to recall the doubles?”
“I think we’d better.”
“We can still send them along to Geneva. Keep them out of sight, use them if things look right for it.”
“Only if you can be damn sure nobody ever sees them.”
“We can do that,” Satterthwaite said. “Easy enough. If they go in singly nobody will give them a second glance anyway.”
“Play it tight, will you?” Brewster made a face at his cigar and put it down in the ashtray. “Milt Luke might survive a few days as interim President but God knows we couldn’t afford him for four years.”
Sunday,
January 16
9:00 A.M. Continental European Time Lime pressed the field glasses into his eye sockets and made a square search pattern until he found the window he wanted. It was across the town common a good hundred yards away but the high-resolution lenses brought it up to arm’s length. It was a Mark Systems gyroscopic binocular that had cost the Government something over four thousand dollars.
His breath poured from his nostrils like steam. He hadn’t thought to pack clothes for the subartic; Chad Hill had scraped up scarf and gloves and tweed overcoat at Stockmann in Helsinki and Lime had borrowed an earflap cap from a local cop. The gloves were too small but the coat was a reasonable fit.
The Englishman said, “Well?”
“He’s reading the Herald Tribune.”
“How frightfully unsporting of him.”
Mezetti hadn’t drawn his drapes. He sat in the hotel room beside the telephone reading yesterday’s Paris edition.
“Fat lot of good.” The Englishman drew his collar away from his jowls. They had the window wide open because it steamed up if they closed it. Mezetti’s room evidently had double-pane windows. They were frosty in the corners but clear enough to see through.
The Englishman was fairly high up in MI-5. He was spherical and bland and appeared boneless; he wore a sandy officer’s moustache and a striped regimental tie.
CIA kept a stringer in Lahti but like most of his kind he was so well known Lime didn’t want to use him. All competent authorities, both Finnish and otherwise, would be expected to have dossiers on him and there was no point taking the chance of frightening Mezetti’s contact away.
If there was a contact.
It stood to reason, if only because Mezetti had finally come to rest after leading them erratically across the length of Europe. He had checked into the hotel yesterday and taken all his meals in his room. He seemed to be waiting for the telephone to ring. Lime had a tap on it.
The Englishman said, “Have a look down there.”
Cars were parked haphazardly along the curbs; an East German Wartburg was slipping into a space.
“Ridiculous. Getting like a bloody business convention down there.”
“You know him?”
“He’s with the Vopos. Plainclothes.”
The driver wasn’t getting out of the car. The passenger had walked into the hotel lobby. After a moment he came out again, got back into the car and sat there. The car didn’t move.
“Does he wear Moscow’s collar?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Not any more.”
There was a Renault containing a spook from the French SDECE and a four-door Volkswagen containing four large members of Bonn’s BND. Lime swept the square with the 20X binoculars and spotted occupants in five other cars. He recognized one of them — a Spanish agent he’d met in Barcelona three days ago.
It was a comic-opera medley. The Englishman was right; it was ridiculous.
Lime reached for the phone. “Chad?”
“Go ahead.”
“The square’s crawling with spooks. Let’s get them out of the way.”
“I’ll try.”
“Use muscle.”
“They won’t like it.”
“I’ll apologize later.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
Lime went back to the window, preternaturally drained. Sleeplessness glazed his eyes; his lids blinked slowly with a grit-grainy sort of pain.
The Englishman sat by the window like a Buddha. Lime said, “It bothers me, the Russians not being down there. Everybody else is.”
“Perhaps you’ve got a point.”
“This is still Yaskov’s area, isn’t it?”
“You know him?”
“I’ve been here before. A while ago.”
“Yes, it’s still his bailiwick.”
Yaskov was around here somewhere, Lime thought. Not as brutally obvious as these others, but around somewhere. Watching, biding.
He resumed his seat at the window beside the Englishman. Had a quick look through the glasses — Mezetti hadn’t stirred; he was turning a page and Lime could read the headlines effortlessly through the gyros.
He set them aside and leaned forward to look down over the sill. A Volvo had entered the square, unobtrusive and quiet; it pulled over to the curb and four uniformed Finns got out and began to saunter along the storefronts. They approached the Volkswagen and Lime saw one of them stoop to talk to the occupants. The three remaining Finns continued up the walk; one of them approached the parked Wartburg and made a cranking motion with his hand to indicate he wanted the passenger to roll down his window.
Evidently there was some acrimony at the Volkswagen but in the end the Finn stood up and saluted stiffly and the VW’s starter gnashed. It pulled out and rolled across the square, moving very slowly like a child dragging his heels; it disappeared into the southbound high road and the Wartburg left soon after.
The Finns continued on their rounds and presently seven cars had left the square. The Finns went back to their Volvo and drove away.
“Quite neat,” the Englishman applauded.
“We’ll catch hell for it.”
“Well one could hardly have them falling all over themselves, could one.”
It would mark the end of whatever international cooperation there had been. But Lime had known that at the outset. Henceforth the cooperation would take the form of lip service. Nobody liked being insulted.
The Englishman was smug. By openly volunteering his services he had forestalled similar eviction. That was all right; Lime needed to keep a few friends.
He rubbed his eyes. Yaskov’s not showing himself wasn’t very surprising. Yaskov wasn’t fool enough to crowd in with the pack.
He’s around here somewhere.
Forget it, he thought. Other fish to fry. Where’s Mezetti’s contact? What do you suppose the bastard’s waiting for?
There were other leads and they weren’t altogether standing still. The “Venezuelan handyman” who’d been hired by the chief groundskeeper at Perdido — the one who’d evidently sabotaged Fairlie’s original helicopter and killed the Navy pilot — had been identified by the groundskeeper from mug shots: Cesar Renaldo.