The Almighty Part 38

184.

'I'm going along.'

"Then hear this. If the Carlos gang is involved with the Fourth Estate, perhaps I can help you. A long shot. But maybe I can unstymie you and get you going again.'

'How possibly?'

'Let me tell you what happened to me an hour ago. I was up here in the press building alone, having a late drink -'

'Naturally.'

'- when I decide to write down everything that happened when Carlos kidnapped and interrogated me. So I started writing -'

'Are you finally going to file a first-person piece on your encounter?'

'I still wouldn't dare. No, nothing like that. I -' He suddenly sounded embarra.s.sed.'- I got an idea about doing a novel about a character like Carlos. In no way as trite as it sounds. A fresh approach.'

' 'That's wonderful, Nick!'

'Forget I ever mentioned it. When it's done, and if it's good, I'll accept congratulations.' He hurried on. 'Anyway, in the interests of making the novel authentic, I made up my mind to set down all the facts about my meeting with the real Carlos. So I had just started to write when bingo, something happened.' 'What?'

'Remember, after Carlos released me I told both you and Armstead that I heard someone say the gang was moving to a new hangout the next morning. Well, I'd forgotten, simply didn't recall until I was writing things down, that there was more to it, that I'd overheard a fragment more.'

Victoria had her ear clamped to the phone, and was listening intently. 'Go on, go on,' she encouraged Ramsey. 'The Carlos terrorist who said they were moving the next morning also said, "We're moving over to No. 10. We'll be holing up there." Of course, none of them gave much of a d.a.m.n what they were saying in front of me, because I'd been brought in blindfolded, and was being taken out blindfolded, and didn't have the slightest idea where I was in Paris.' Ramsey paused. 'But you did. You knew where they'd taken me.'

'Off the Rue de Paradis, to an apartment at No. 12 Rue Martel.'

'Was there a No. 10 Rue Martel?'

'There certainly was, next door!'

'A long shot, Vicky, a long shot - but wouldn't it be logical -'

She felt feverishly high. 'It would, it sure would.'

'I don't like sending you there, but if you're going on -'

'I'm going on, Nick.'

'Then go take a look. But not alone. I want you to take someone with you, Sid or one of his staff.

Promise me that.'

185.

'I'll try to take someone,' she said.

But she knew that she wouldn't. She was going to prove she could do something important on her own.

'Yes, do that,' he was saying. 'Take a good look. Who knows? But don't get too close. I don't want to lose you.'

'You care?' she asked, happy as an idiot.

He avoided a reply. He said sternly, 'Keep this in mind. You're not after Carlos.'

'I'm after bigger game,' she said quietly.

'Keep in touch,' he said. 'Bonne chance.'

It was a gloomy, rain-swept night in Paris, and most of the life in the Champs-Elysees district was indoors.

Not far off the main artery, the Hotel Lancaster stood in illuminated splendor. It seemed that every guest's room or suite was brightly lighted except for the windows of one suite on the third floor.

In the shaded lamplight of the bedroom of that suite, Edward Armstead tried to stand still as he allowed Gus Pagano to adjust the new ski mask over his head and face. Through the mouth slit, Armstead asked, 'How many did you say are here?'

'Only Cooper and Quiggs this time. They run the show.'

'They have any idea of what I'm bringing up?'

'No,' said Pagano. 'With an operation of this magnitude, I thought you should be the one to present it.'

'I'm ready,' said Armstead.

Pagano opened the bedroom door, and they went into the small living room with its overstuffed period furniture and fireplace. The room was darker than the bedroom had been, and at first Armstead could not make out the occupants. Finally he spotted them on a two-cushioned sofa on the far side of the room.

He went toward them with Pagano, shaking hands with both Cooper and Quiggs before sitting down in a straight chair across from them.

'I want to thank you for everything you've done,' said Armstead. 'I've never dreamed it could go that smoothly.'

'Sorry about Lourdes,' Cooper apologized. T didn't like the odds. Better a miss than a mess.'

'You made the right decision. But all the others were fine.'

'Planning,' Cooper said. 'We're proud we pulled each one off without detection. We did have six fatalities, five on their side, one on ours, but that's a low rate of loss in this business.

We hope you got full value for your money.'

'No complaints,' said Armstead. Then, with a lilt of amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice, 'I'm sure you've already guessed why I commissioned the operations and what I've been after.'

186.

'We may have speculated,' said Cooper evenly, 'but we've never tried to find out. We wouldn't want to be in the position of being tempted to blackmail a client. We feel we've upheld our end, and we're pleased you're happy with your end of the bargain. You've paid us handsomely and we thank you.'

'We all thank you,' said Quiggs.

'Not yet,' said Armstead. 'It's not quite over with. I have one more job for you, one last one before we thank each other and our partnership is dissolved.'

'One last one,' said Cooper. 'Fine. I a.s.sume it must be an operation of importance to bring you over here personally.'

'It's important all right, the most important job of all,' said Armstead, fishing into the pocket of his suit coat. He withdrew a folded sheet of bond paper, and slowly unfolded it. 'I don't believe in committing my a.s.signments to paper. Never have, until now. This one I typed out myself after checking in. I wanted every aspect of the operation to be perfectly clear. Once you've read it, I'll tear it up and flush it. Here it is.'

Extending his hand for the sheet of paper, Cooper said, 'Sounds like a blue-ribbon one.'

'The most useful one of all, for my purpose,' Armstead said.

Cooper and Quiggs read the typed page together. Armstead glanced at Pagano nervously, and then watched Cooper and Quiggs in silence.

After they had scanned the page together, Cooper reread it by himself. At last he neatly folded the sheet once, twice, and handed it back to Armstead. Cooper's soft voice ended the stillness in the room. 'I'm afraid not,' said Cooper. 'Can't do it. Not in our line. Too tough.'

Armstead was breathing quickly. 'You have to do it. You did the others.'

'This one is different.'

'You can't be objecting to the idea.'

'Christ, no. We don't give a d.a.m.n about the operation or the victim. They're all more or less the same to us. That's not it. I'm simply saying this one is too difficult.'

'Even for double the money? I'd guarantee you ten million dollars.'

Cooper shook his head. 'For no amount of dollars. It is basically a technical problem. We're not equipped to undertake this kind of operation. We couldn't get the plane. We couldn't get the pilot you'd need. In fact, no one could -' He hesitated. '- except, of course, Carlos. I've heard he had this kind of person in j.a.pan. Carlos and his gang could probably pull it off. In fact, I'm sure he could.

But not anybody else. Certainly not us.'

Armstead had taken grasp of something. 'But you think Carlos and his gang could do it?'

'I'm certain they could. But they wouldn't.'

'Why not?'

Cooper spoke with evident sincerity. 'Put it this way. Me and my boys, we're in business. We're sensible businessmen. For us, most operations are a living. Not so with Carlos and his loonies.

187.

They're not businessmen. They're fanatics. Your money would never impress them. They're political creatures who perform for causes, like it's a religion. They'd find no real cause involved in this, so they'd have no reason to want to do it.'

Armstead was staring at Cooper through his eye slits. 'I could give them a reason to do it.'

Cooper was at once surprised and curious. 'What possible reason?'

Armstead continued to stare at Cooper. T could ask you to kidnap a man they'd do anything to get their hands on. I could ask you to kidnap this man, and the ransom would be to pull off my blue-ribbon operation. I know where the man to be kidnapped is this minute. I'd pay you the ten million to grab him.'

Interest showed in Cooper's face. 'Grab who?'

Armstead swallowed. 'Carlos,' Armstead said.

The other three were all staring at him now.

Armstead swallowed again. 'Grab and hold Carlos,' he repeated. 'His gang will do anything I want to get him back. What do you say?'

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Slipping into his lightweight plaid topcoat, which had been purchased three years earlier when he was corpulent and was now too large for him, Carlos emerged from the driveway of No. 10 Rue Martel. Automatically he glanced to his left, to his right, both sides empty of pedestrians except for some young woman window-shopping at the corner of the Rue de Paradis.

Satisfied, Carlos took one sniff of the fresh early afternoon air, cleaned by the previous night's rains, and proceeded to the Citroen idling at the curb. Carlos noted that a meter had been installed in the sedan, to camouflage it as a Paris taxi, and the job was a realistic one. Yanking open the back door, Carlos climbed into the rear.

His driver sat stonily awaiting instructions. The driver, wearing a heavy overcoat, a woolen scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower part of his face, his usual cap pulled down to his ears, had a fit of coughing.

'Sound like you've got a cold,' said Carlos.

The driver nodded, coughing once more into his handkerchief.

'Let's go, Jean,' Carlos ordered. 'De Gaulle. Turkish Airlines - THY. No rush. No risks. I've left myself plenty of time to make one stop on the way, then check in, pick up some reading.'

Continuing to nod, trying to m.u.f.fle his cough with the handkerchief in his free hand as he shifted gears with the other, the driver pulled the car away from the curb and started ahead.

Abruptly at the next driveway, which led into the courtyard of No. 12, the driver gripped the steering wheel with both hands, wrenched the car to the left into the darkened entrance, and once off the street jammed on the brakes.

Thrown forward, trying to regain his balance, Carlos bawled, 'You son of a b.i.t.c.h, what the h.e.l.l's going on?'

188.

As Carlos started to speak to Jean again, the driver whirled around, scarf thrown aside, and it wasn't Jean at all but a stranger. He stuck an arm over the back of the front seat and in his hand was an Astra .357 Magnum. He pressed the muzzle of the gun against Carlos's forehead. 'Shut up,' the driver commanded. 'One move and you're dead.'

The trunk of the Citroen was already open, its lid pushed high. A man crawled out, slammed the lid shut as another man joined him, and then both dashed for the rear doors of the car and ducked in, one on either side of the stunned Carlos.

'What is -?' Carlos had started to say, when the Astra was pulled away from his forehead and a swab of ether clamped over his mouth and nose. Carlos attempted to wrestle free, but the powerful men on both sides had him pinned back, while the hand of one exterted pressure on the soaked rag of ether covering his mouth and nostrils.

In short seconds Carlos's resistance subsided and he went limp and unconscious, sagging against one of his abductors. With practised hands the man ran his fingers over Carlos's body, until he found and removed the Skorpion YZ61 gun.

Together, the pair pushed Carlos off the car seat and rolled him over and down to the floor.

'On our way,' one of them called out.

The driver put the Citroen into reverse, and backed slowly out of the driveway into Rue Martel.

As the driver shifted into first, a voice in the rear shouted, 'Hold it - here comes Pagano!'

Across the street a figure had materialized from the shadowed doorway of a closed shop and was running toward the car. The front door on the pa.s.senger side had been thrown open for him, and Pagano leaped in beside the driver and signaled ahead.

Stepping on the gas, the driver asked, 'Anyone at No. 10 see this?'