Diplomats said to be linked with fugitive terrorist known as Carlos 16 страница

'Where did they go?'

'I didn't know they went anywhere.'

'She left with him!'

'Why?'

'He knows I He'll kill her!'

"What?

'It's him! I'd swear to it! That man is Cain!'

'The man is Cain,' said Colonel Jack Manning bluntly, as if he expected to be contradicted by at least three of the four civilians at the Pentagon conference table. Each was older than he, and each considered himself more experienced. None was prepared to acknowledge that the army had obtained information where his own organization had failed. There was a fourth civilian but his opinion did not count He was a member of the Congressional Oversight Committee, and as such to be treated with deference, but not seriously. 'If we don't move NOW,' continued Manning, 'even at the risk of exposing everything we've learned, he could slip through the nets again. As of eleven days ago, he was in Zurich. We're convinced he's still there. And, gentlemen, it is Cain.'

'That's quite a statement,' said the balding, bird-like academic from the National Security Council as he read the summary page concerning Zurich given to each delegate at the table. His name was Alfred Gillette, an expert in Personnel Screening and Evaluation, and he was considered by the Pentagon to be bright, vindictive, and with friends in high places.

'I find it extraordinary,' added Peter Knowlton, an associate director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a man in his middle fifties who perpetuated the dress, the appearance, and the attitude of an Ivy League of thirty years ago. 'Our sources have Cain in Brussels, not Zurich, at the same time – eleven days ago. Our sources are rarely in error.'

'That's quite a statement,' said the third civilian, the only one at that table Manning really respected. He was the oldest there, a man named David Abbott, a former Olympic swimmer whose intellect had matched his physical prowess. He was in his late sixties now, but his bearing was still erect, his mind as sharp as it had ever been, his age, however, betrayed by a face lined from the tensions of a Lifetime he would never reveal. He knew what he was talking about, thought the colonel. Although he was currently a member of the omnipotent Forty Committee, he had been with the C.I.A. since its origin in the OSS. The Silent Monk of Covert Operations had been the sobriquet given him by his colleagues in the intelligence community. 'In my days at the agency,' continued Abbott, chuckling, 'the sources were as often in conflict as in agreement.'

'We have different methods of verification,' pressed the associate director. 'No disrespect, Mr. Abbott, but our transmissions equipment is literally instantaneous.'

'That's equipment, not verification. But I won't argue; it seems we have a disagreement Brussels or Zurich.'

'The case for Brussels is airtight,' insisted Knowlton firmly.

'Let's hear it,' said the balding Gillette, adjusting his glasses. 'We can return to the Zurich summary, it's right in front of us. Also, our sources have some input to offer, although it's not in conflict with Brussels or Zurich. It happened over six months ago.'

The silver-haired Abbott glanced over at Gillette. 'Six months ago? I don't recall N.S.C. having delivered anything about Cain six months ago.'

'It wasn't totally confirmed,' replied Gillette. 'We try not to burden the Committee with unsubstantiated data.'

"That's also quite a statement,' said Abbott, not needing to clarify,

'Congressman Walters,' interrupted the colonel, looking at the man from Oversight, 'do you have any questions before we goon?'

'Hell, yes,' drawled the congressional watchdog from the state of Tennessee, his intelligent eyes roaming the faces, 'but since I'm new at this, you go ahead so I'll know where to begin.'

'Very well, sir,' said Manning, nodding at the C.I.A.'s Knowlton. 'What's this about Brussels eleven days ago?'

'A man was killed in the Place Fontainas, a covert dealer in diamonds between Moscow and the West. He operated through a branch of Russolmaz, the Soviet firm in Geneva that brokers all such "purchases. We know it's one way Cain converts his funds."

'What ties the killing to Cain?' asked the dubious Gillette.

'Method, first. The weapon was a long needle, implanted in a crowded square at noontime with surgical precision. Cain's used it before.'

That's quite true,' agreed Abbott. "There was a Rumanian in London somewhat over a year ago; another only weeks before him. Both were narrowed to Cain.'

'Narrowed but not confirmed,' objected Colonel Manning. 'They were high-level political defectors; they could have been taken by the K.G.B.'

'Or by Cain with far less risk to the Soviets,' argued the C.I.A. man.

'Or by Carlos,' added Gillette, his voice rising. 'Neither Carlos nor Cain is concerned about ideology; they're both for hire. Why is it every time there's a killing of consequence, we ascribe it to Cain?'

'Whenever we do,' replied Knowlton., his condescension obvious, 'it's because informed sources unknown to each other have reported the same information. Since the informants have no knowledge of each other there could hardly be collusion.'

'It's all too pat,' said Gillette disagreeably.

'Back to Brussels,' interrupted the colonel. 'If it was Cain, why would he kill a broker from Russolmaz? He used him.'

'A covert broker,' corrected the C.I.A. director. 'And for any number of reasons according to our informants. The man was a thief, and why not? Most of his clients were too; they couldn't very well file charges. He might have cheated Cain, and if he did, it'd be his last transaction. Or he could have been foolish enough to speculate on Cain's identity; even a hint of that would call for the needle. Or perhaps Cain simply wanted to bury his current traces. Regardless, the circumstances plus the sources leave little doubt that it was Cain.'

There'll be a lot more when I clarify Zurich,' said Manning. 'May we proceed to the summary?'

'A moment, please.' David Abbott spoke casually while lighting his pipe. 'I believe our colleague from the Security Council mentioned the occurrence related to Cain that took place six months ago. Perhaps we should hear about it.'

'Why?' asked Gillette, his eyes owl-like beyond the lenses of his rimless glasses. The time factor removes it from having any bearing on Brussels or Zurich. I mentioned that, too.'

'Yes, you did,' agreed the once-formidable Monk of Covert Services, I thought, however, any background might be helpful. As you also said, we can return to the summary; it's right in front of us. But if it's not relevant, let's get on with Zurich.'

Thank you, Mr. Abbott,' said the colonel. 'You'll note that eleven days ago, on the night of February twenty-seventh, four men were killed in Zurich. One of them was a watchman in a parking area by the Limmat River; it can be presumed that he was not involved in Cain's activities, but caught in them. Two others were found in an alley on the west bank of the city, on the surface unrelated murders, except for the fourth victim. He's tied in with the dead men in the alley – all three part of the Zurich-Munich underworld – and is, without question, connected to Cain.'

That's this Chernak,' said Gillette, reading the summary. 'At least, I assume it's Chernak. I recognize the name, and associate it with the Cain file somewhere.'

'You should,' replied Manning. 'It first appeared in a G-Two report eighteen months ago, and cropped up again a year later.'

'Which would make it six months ago,' interjected Abbott, softly, looking at Gillette.

'Yes, sir," continued the colonel. 'If there was ever an example of what's called the scum-of-the-earth, it was Chernak. During the war be was a Czechoslovakia!! recruit at Dachau, a trilingual interrogator as brutal as any guard in the camp. He sent Poles, Slovaks and Jews to the showers after torture sessions in which he extracted – and manufactured – "incriminating" information Dachau's commandants wanted to hear. He went to any length to curry favour with his superiors and the most sadistic cliques were hard pressed to match his exploits. What they didn't realize was that he was cataloguing theirs. After the war he escaped, got his legs blown off by an undetected land mine, and still managed to survive very nicely on his Dachau extortions. Cain found him and used him as a go-between for payments on his kills.'

'Now just wait a minute!" objected Knowlton strenuously. 'We've been over this Chernak business before. If you recall, it was the agency that first uncovered him; we would have exposed him long ago if State hadn't interceded on behalf of several powerful, anti-Soviet officials in the Bonn government. You assume Cain's used Chernak; you don't know it for certain any more than we do.'

'We do now,' said Manning. 'Seven and a half months ago, we received a tip about a man who ran a restaurant called the Drei Alpenhauser; it was reported that he was an intermediary between Cain and Chernak. We kept him under surveillance for weeks, but nothing came of it; he was a minor figure in the Zurich underworld, that was all... We didn't stay with him long enough." The colonel paused, satisfied that all eyes were on him. 'When we heard about Chernak's murder, we gambled. Five nights ago two of our men hid in the Drei Alpenhauser after the restaurant closed. They cornered the owner and accused him of dealing with Chernak, working for Cain; they put on a hell of a show. You can imagine their shock when the man broke, literally fell to his knees begging to be protected. He admitted that Cain was in Zurich the night Chernak was killed; that, in fact, he had seen Cain that night and Chernak had come up in the conversation. Very negatively.'

The military man paused again, the silence filled by a slow soft whistle from David Abbott, his pipe held in front of his crag-lined face. 'Now, that is a statement,' said the Monk quietly.

'Why wasn't the Agency informed of this tip you received seven months ago?' asked the C.I.A.'s Knowlton abrasively.

'It didn't prove out.'

'In your hands; it might have been different in ours."

'That's possible. I admitted we didn't stay with him long enough. Manpower's limited; which of us can keep up a non-productive surveillance indefinitely?'

'We might have shared it, if we'd known.'

'And we could have saved you the time it took to build the Brussels file, if we'd been told about that.'

'Where did the tip come from?' asked Gillette, interrupting impatiently, his eyes on Manning.

'It was anonymous.'

'You settled for that?' The bird-like expression on Gillette's face conveyed his astonishment.

'It's one reason the initial surveillance was limited.'

'Yes, of course, but you mean you never dug for it?'

'Naturally, we did,' replied the colonel testily.

'Apparently without much enthusiasm,' continued Gillette angrily. 'Didn't it occur to you that someone over at Langley, or on the Council, might have helped, might have filled in a gap? I agree with Peter. We should have been informed.'

'There's a reason why you weren't' Manning breathed deeply; in less military surroundings it might have been construed as a sigh. 'The informant made it clear that if we brought in any other branch, he wouldn't make contact again. We felt we had to abide by that; we've done it before.'

'What did you say?' Knowlton put down the summary page and stared at the Pentagon officer.

'It's nothing new, Peter. Each of us sets up his own sources, protects them.'

'I'm aware of that. It's why you weren't told about Brussels. Both drones said to keep the army out'

Silence. Broken by the abrasive voice of the Security Council's Alfred Gillette. 'How often is "we've done it before", Colonel?'

'What?' Manning looked at Gillette, but was aware that David Abbott was watching both of them closely.

'I'd like to know how many times you've been told to keep your sources to yourself. I refer to Cain, of course.'

'Quite a few, I guess.'

'You guess?'

'Most of the time."

'And you, Peter? What about the Agency?'

'We've been severely limited in terms of in-depth dissemination.'

'For God's sake, what's that mean?' The interruption came from the least expected member of the conference; the congressman from Oversight 'Don't misunderstand me, I haven't begun yet. I just want to follow the language.' He turned to the C.I.A. man. 'What the hell did you just say? "In-depth what!"'

'Dissemination, Congressman Walters; it's throughout Cain's file. We risked losing informants if we brought them to the attention of other intelligence units. I assure you, it's standard.'

'It sounds like you were test-tubing a heifer.'

'With about the same results,' added Gillette. 'No cross pollinization to corrupt the strain. And, conversely, no crosschecking to look for patterns of inaccuracy."

'Some nice turns of phrase,' said Abbott, his craggy face wrinkled in appreciation, 'but I'm not sure I understand you.'

'I'd say it's pretty damned clear,' replied the man from National Security, looking at Colonel Manning and Peter Knowlton. 'The country's two most active intelligence branches have been fed information about Cain – for the past three years – and there's been no pooling for origins of fraud. We've simply received all information as bona fide data, stored and accepted as valid.'

'Well, I've been around a long time – perhaps too long, I concede but there's nothing here I haven't heard before,' said the Monk. Sources are shrewd and defensive people; they guard their contacts jealously. None are in the business of charity, only for profit and survival.'

'I'm afraid you're overlooking my point.' Gillette removed his glasses. 'I said before that I was alarmed that so many recent assassinations have been attributed to Cain – attributed here to Cain – when it seems to me that the most accomplished assassin of our time – perhaps in history – has been relegated to a comparatively minor role. I think that's wrong. I think Carlos is the man we should be concentrating on. What happened to Carlos?

'I question your judgment, Alfred,' said the Monk. 'Carlos's time has passed, Cain's moved in. The old order changes; there's a new and, I suspect, far more deadly shark in the waters.'

'I can't agree with that,' said the man from National Security, his owl-eyes boring into the elder statesman of the intelligence community. 'Forgive me, David, but it strikes me as if Carlos himself was manipulating this committee. To take the attention away from himself, making us concentrate on a subject of much less importance. We're spending all our energies going after a toothless sand shark while the hammerhead roams free.'

'No one's forgetting Carlos,' objected Manning. 'He's simply not as active as Cain's been.'

'Perhaps,' said Gillette icily, 'that's exactly what Carlos wants us to believe. And, by God. we believe it!'

'Can you doubt it?' asked Abbott. The record of Cain's accomplishments is staggering.'

'Can I doubt it?' repeated Gillette. That's the question, isn't it? But can any of us be sure? That's also a valid question. We now find that both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have been literally operating independently of each other, without even conferring as to the accuracy of their sources.'

'A custom rarely-breached in this town," said Abbott, amused. Again the congressman from Oversight interrupted. 'What are you trying to say, Mr Gillette?'

'I'd like more information about the activities of one Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez. That's...'

'Carlos,' said the congressman. 'I remember my reading. I see. Thank you. Go on, gentlemen.'

Manning spoke quickly. 'May we get back to Zurich, please. Our recommendation is to go after Cain now. We can spread the word in the Verbrecherwelt, pull in every informer we have, request the co-operation of the Zurich police. We can't afford to lose another day. The man in Zurich is Cain!'

Then what was Brussels?' The C.I.A.'s Knowlton asked the question as much of himself as anyone at the table. The method was Cain's, the informants unequivocal. What was the purpose?'

To feed you false information obviously,' said Gillette. 'And before we make any dramatic moves in Zurich, I suggest that each of you comb the Cain files and recheck every source given you. Have your European stations pull in every informant who so miraculously appeared to offer information. I have an idea you might find something you didn't expect: the fine Latin hand of Ramirez Sanchez.'

'Since you're so insistent on clarification, Alfred,' interrupted Abbott, 'why not tell us about the unconfirmed occurrence that took place six months ago. We seem to be in a quagmire here; it might be helpful.'

For the first time during the conference, the abrasive delegate from the National Security Council seemed to hesitate. 'We received word around the middle of August from a reliable source in Aix-en-Provence that Cain was on his way to Marseilles.'

'August?' exclaimed the colonel. 'Marseilles? That was Leland! Ambassador Leland was shot in Marseilles. In August!' 'But Cain didn't fire that rifle. It was a Carlos kill; that was confirmed. Bore markings matched with previous assassinations, three descriptions of an unknown dark-haired man on the third and fourth floors of the waterfront warehouse carrying a satchel. There was never any doubt that Leland was murdered by Carlos.'

'For Christ's sake,' roared the officer. 'That's after the fact, after the kill! No matter whose, there was a contract out on Leland, hadn't that occurred to you? If we'd known about Cain, we might have been able to cover Leland. He was military property! Goddamn it, he might be alive today!'

'Unlikely,' replied Gillette calmly. 'Leland wasn't the sort of man to live in a bunker. And given his life style, a vague warning would have served no purpose. Besides, had our strategy held together, warning Leland would have been counterproductive.'

'In what way?' asked the Monk harshly.

'It's your fuller explanation. Our source was to make contact with Cain during the hours of midnight and three in the morning in the rue Sarasin on August twenty-third. Leland wasn't due until the twenty-fifth. As I say, had it held together we would have taken Cain. It didn't; Cain never showed up.'

'And your source insisted on co-operating solely with you,' said Abbott. To the exclusion of all others."

'Yes,' nodded Gillette, trying but unable to conceal his embarrassment 'In our judgment, the risk to Leland had been eliminated – which in terms of Cain turned out to be the truth and the odds for capture greater than they'd ever been. We'd finally found someone willing to come out and identify Cain. Would any of you have handled it any other way?'

Silence. This time broken by the drawl of the astute congressman from Tennessee.

'Jesus Christ Almighty... what a bunch of bullshitters!'

Silence terminated by the thoughtful voice of David Abbott.

'May I commend you, sir, on being the first honest man sent over from the Hill. The fact that you are not overwhelmed by the rarefied atmosphere of these highly classified surroundings is not lost on any of us. It's refreshing.'

'I don't think the congressman fully grasps the sensitivity of...'

'Oh, shut up, Peter,' said the Monk. 'I think the congressman wants to say something.'

'Just for a bit,' said Walters, 'I thought you were all over twenty-one; I mean, you look over twenty-one, and by then you're supposed to know better. You're supposed to be able to hold intelligent conversations, exchange information while respecting confidentiality, and look for common solutions. Instead, you sound like a bunch of kids jumping on a goddamn carousel, squabbling over who's going to get the cheap brass ring. It's a hell of a way to spend taxpayers' money.'

'You're oversimplifying, Congressman,' broke in Gillette. 'You're talking about a Utopian fact-finding apparatus. There's no such thing.'

'I'm talking about reasonable men, sir. I'm a lawyer and before I came up to this godforsaken circus I dealt with ascending levels of confidentiality every day of my life. What's so damn new about them?'

'And what's your point?' asked the Monk.

'I want an explanation. For over eighteen months I've sat on the House Assassination Subcommittee. I've ploughed through thousands of pages, filled with hundreds of names and twice as many theories. I don't think there's a suggested conspiracy or a suspected assassin I'm not aware of. I've lived with those names and those theories for damn near two years, until I didn't think there was anything left to learn.'

'I'd say your credentials were very impressive," interrupted Abbott.

'I thought they might be; it's why I accepted the Oversight chair. I thought I could make a realistic contribution, but now I'm not so sure. I'm suddenly beginning to wonder what I do now.'

'Why?' asked Manning apprehensively.

'Because I've been sitting here listening to the four of you describe an operation that's been going on for three years, involving networks of personnel and informants and major intelligence posts throughout Europe – all centred on an assassin whose "list of accomplishments" is staggering. Am I substantively correct?"

'Go on,' replied Abbott quietly, holding his pipe, his expression rapt. 'What's your question?"

'Who is he? Who the hell is this Cain?'

The silence lasted precisely five seconds, during which time eyes roamed other eyes, several throats were cleared and no one moved in his chair. It was as if a decision was being reached without discussion: evasion was to be avoided. Congressman Efrem Walters, out of the hills of Tennessee by way of the Yale Law Review, was not to be dismissed with facile circumlocution that dealt with the esoterica of clandestine manipulations. Bullshit was out.

David Abbott put his pipe down on the table, the quiet clatter his overture. 'The less public exposure a man like Cain receives the better it is for everyone.'

'That's no answer,' said Walters. 'But I assume it's the beginning of one.'

'It is. He's a professional assassin – that is, a trained expert in wide-ranging methods of taking life. That expertise is for sale, neither politics nor personal motivation any concern to him whatsoever. He's in business solely, to make a profit and his profits escalate – in direct ratio to his reputation.'

The congressman nodded. 'So by keeping as tight a lid as you can on that reputation you're holding back free advertising.'

'Exactly. There are a lot of maniacs in this world with too many real or imagined enemies who might easily gravitate to Cain if they knew of him. Unfortunately, more than we care to think about already have; to date thirty-eight killings can be directly attributed to Cain, and some twelve to fifteen are probabilities.'

'That's his list of "accomplishments"?'

'Yes. And we're losing the battle. With each new killing his reputation spreads.'

'He was dormant for a while,' said Knowlton of the CIA. 'For a number of months recently we thought he might have been taken himself. There were several probables in which the killers themselves were eliminated; we thought he might have been one of them.'

'Such as?' asked Walters.

'A banker in Madrid who funnelled bribes for the Euro-politan Corporation for government purchases in Africa. He was shot from a speeding car on the Paseo de la Castellana. A chauffeur-bodyguard gunned down both driver and killer; for a time we believed the killer was Cain."

'I remember the incident. Who might have paid for it?'

'Any number of companies,' answered Gillette, 'who wanted to sell gold-plated cars and indoor plumbing to instant dictators."

'What else? Who else?'

'Sheikh Mustafa Kalig in Oman,' said Colonel Manning.

'He was reported killed in an abortive coup.'

'Not so,' continued the officer. 'There was no attempted coup; G-Two informants confirmed that Kalig was unpopular, but the other sheikhs aren't fools. The coup story was a cover for an assassination that could tempt other professional killers. Three troublesome nonentities from the Officer Corps were executed to lend credence to the lie. For a while, we thought one of them was Cain; the timing corresponds to Cain's dormancy.'

Who would pay Cain for assassinating Kalig?'

'We asked ourselves that over and over again,' said Manning. 'The only possible answer came from a source who claimed to know, but there was no way to verify it. He said Cain did it to prove it could be done. By him. Oil sheikhs travel with the tightest security in the world.'

"There are several dozen other incidents," added Knowlton. 'Probables that fall into the same pattern where highly protected figures were killed and sources came forward to implicate Cain."

'I see.' The congressman picked up the summary page for Zurich. 'But from what I gather you don't know who he is."

'No two descriptions have been alike,' interjected Abbott. 'Cain's apparently a virtuoso at disguise.'

'Yet people have seen him, talked to him. Your sources, the informants, this man in Zurich; none of them may come out in the open to testify, but surely you've interrogated them. You've got to have come up with a composite, with something:

'We've come up with a great deal,' replied Abbott, 'but a consistent description isn't part of it. For openers, Cain never lets himself be seen in daylight. He holds meetings at night, in dark rooms or alleyways. If he's ever met more than one person at a time – as Cain – we don't know about it. We've been told he never stands, he's always seated – in a dimly lit restaurant, or a corner chair, or parked car. Sometimes he wears heavy glasses, sometimes none at all; at one rendezvous he may have dark hair, at another white or red or covered by a hat.'

'Language?'

'We're closer here,' said the C.I.A. director, anxious to put the Company's research on the table. 'Fluent English and French, and several Oriental dialects.'

'Dialects? What Dialects? Doesn't a language come first?'

'Of course. It's root-Vietnamese.'

'Viet? Walters leaned forward 'Why do I get the idea that I'm coming to something you'd rather not tell me?'

'Because you're probably quite astute at cross-examination, sir.' Abbott struck a match and lit his pipe.

'Passably alert," agreed the congressman. 'Now what is it?'

'Cain,' said Gillette, his eyes briefly, oddly, on David Abbott. 'We know where he came from.'

'Where?'

'Out of South-east Asia,' answered Manning, as if sustaining the pain of a knife wound. 'As far as we can gather, he mastered the fringe dialects so as to be understood in the hill country along the Cambodian and Laos border routes, as well as in rural North Vietnam. We accept the data; it fits.'

'With what?'

'Operation Medusa." The colonel reached for a large, thick manilla envelope on his left. He opened it and removed a single folder from among several inside; he placed it in front of him. 'That's the Cain file," he said, nodding at the open envelope. This is the Medusa material, the aspects of it that might in any way be relevant to Cain.'

The Tennessean leaned back in his chair, the trace of a sardonic smile creasing his lips. 'You know, gentlemen, you slay me with your pithy titles. Incidentally, that's a beauty it's very sinister, very ominous. I think you fellows take a course in this kind of thing. Go on, Colonel. What's this Medusa?'

Manning glanced briefly at David Abbott, then spoke. 'It was a clandestine outgrowth of the search-and-destroy concept, designed to function behind enemy lines during the Vietnam war. In the late 'sixties and early 'seventies, units of American, French, British, Australian and native volunteers were formed into teams to operate in territories occupied by the North Vietnamese. Their priorities were the disruption of enemy communications and supply lines, the pinpointing of prison camps and, not the least, the assassination of village leaders known to be co-operating with the Communists, as well as the enemy commanders whenever possible.'

'It was a war-within-a-war,' broke in Knowlton. 'Unfortunately, racial appearances and languages made participation infinitely more dangerous than, say, the German and Dutch undergrounds, or the French Resistance in World War Two. Therefore, occidental recruitment was not always as selective as it might have been.'

There were dozens of these teams,' continued the colonel, 'the personnel ranging from old line Navy chiefs who knew the coastlines to French plantation owners whose only hope for reparations lay in an American victory. There were British and Australian drifters who'd lived in Indochina for years, as well as highly motivated American army and civilian intelligence career officers. Also, inevitably, there was a sizeable faction of hard-core criminals. In the main, smugglers – men who dealt in running guns, narcotics, gold and diamonds throughout the entire South China Sea area. They were walking encyclopaedias when it came to night landings and jungle routes. Many we employed were runaways or fugitives from the States, a number well-educated, all resourceful. We needed their expertise.'

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