CIA Fall Guy (6 page)

“Excuse me,” a voice behind him said as the voice's owner bumped into him. “I didn't see you standing there.”

Ah, but Charles had seen the man — his contact — coming from a block away. Just one of the small payoffs for being willing to pause, to study the surrounding environment, to observe the little things.

The man, good-looking in that nondescript way that fitted their business, continued towards the restaurant. Yes, best to let him enter first. Charles would wait another five minutes — so many clocks to admire — and follow the man in.

The diners' chatter rolled over Charles as he entered the fern-filled foyer. Good. He appreciated a noisy place. All the better to camouflage his conversation.

He refused the maitre d's offer of a table. “I just want to have a drink at the bar.” Then walked in the direction the maitre d' indicated.

The man was seated, engaged with his glass of red wine.

“Is that the house wine?” Charles asked him.

“Yes, but it's actually quite good.”

Charles turned towards the bartender. “I'll have the same.”

The peanut bowl was positioned close to Charles' right hand. He slid it towards the other man. “Would you like some peanuts?”

“Don't mind if I do.”

The man's hand received the bowl, then closed quickly over the little slip of paper protruding from it. Charles smiled; the message was delivered.

**

Kathleen worked quietly inside George's office. There were no sounds outside George's office and the cleaning crew wasn't due for another hour. She'd had the standard training in breaking and entering, but since she was not allowed to participate in operations, she hadn't any practical experience. George had locked his files, but as she was frequently the one who co-signed his locking, she'd had ample opportunity to watch the movements of his hand. And she had watched, because she'd known that someday she'd need this information. It had taken her seven-and-a-half minutes to open his file safe.

Of course, she could have tried for access to his computer files. But she hadn't been able to observe his fingerstrokes for his password enough times to even guess, unless it was something easy like the name of his silly parrot Jasper. And George was of the old school, still more comfortable with paper files than he would ever be with computer ones.

She didn't know what she was looking for, but there had to be something. This whole thing with Hans Wermer just didn't make sense. It was almost as if someone was deliberately trying to set up someone else as a fall guy. But why?

George always played his cards close to his chest, sometimes letting Charles in on parts of the game. Besides confiding in Charles, George had several old buddies in different parts of headquarters. They often had dinner together, probably discussing whether something trivial had happened in Taiwan in '46 or Singapore in '52. But George was close to retirement, practically a short-timer. What could he possibly have up his sleeve that could account for this cockamamie story with Hans Wermer? And where did Beth Parsons fit in?

**

Beth brushed the dirt off her hands, readjusted her leather backpack straps across her shoulders, and checked the area. No guys in trench coats leaning against a lamppost pretending to read the newspaper. Kathleen obviously trusted Beth not to take off.

Better luck next time, Beth mouthed as she angled across the parking lot. The street was on the other side of the lot and she'd noticed a Metro stop only two blocks away. Who said amateurs didn't notice things?

During her time in Munich working for the 66th she had only typed secret reports, not participated in any clandestine activities. She had no tradecraft training, but she wouldn't need any. All she wanted to do was get away, away from whatever was going down.

The answer was to lay low, to stay hidden until the CIA figured out where Hans Wermer had gone and what he was up to. George must have had suspected problems when he set up the meet away from headquarters. He was covering his behind, a common government employee procedure. But what had he expected to happen? A murder?

Rustling behind Beth! She swirled, mentally reviewing karate self-defense maneuvers.

No one behind her, the street deserted.

She'd have been worried if it were dark. Given May's hours of daylight, she had ample time to find an inconspicuous motel away from here. First, though, she'd take the Metro to the airport. Rent a car and go from there.

**

Hans settled himself in one of the wooden kitchen chairs in the hut as Frederick reached inside a refrigerator for two beers. They had driven south from Baltimore, almost to D.C., when Frederick pulled the car into a rutted lane that looked like it led nowhere.

Inside the hut German flags, slogans and pictures covered the walls. Hans recognized many of the people, famous Germans dating back over several decades, but there were others he did not recognize. Maybe Frederick's American friends.

“What do you think? Makes you feel like home,
nicht wahr
?” Frederick said.

“English, Frederick. I am practicing English only.”

“Okay, as the Americans say. We will speak only English. And now you must listen carefully.”

Frederick raised his glass to the German flag. “Ach, the Fatherland. United again. Now there is even more work to do.”

Frederick gulped his beer, then stared at Hans. “The Americans beat us — twice. Two World Wars. But we can still win. Like the Japanese, we can beat the Americans where it hurts — in the pocketbook as they say.”

“What do you mean?”

“Economic superiority. We can control the world economy — if we have the information.”

“And how will you get the information?”

“That is my mission. I am the founder of the group Deutsches Uber Alles — we are engaged in economic spying on the United States. And we can use your help.”

**

Kathleen punched the elevator button in the lobby of her apartment building. She wanted to take the stairs, get a little exercise, but her building was one of those security-conscious ones where you could only enter the stairwell to go down, not up.

She made circles with her right wrist while the elevator door creaked open. She'd pawed through so many of George's yellowing files that her wrist felt strained. Yet, for all her hard work, she'd come up with — exactly nothing. Which didn't mean there was nothing to come up with. Just that old George was as crafty as she suspected. Better luck next time, he'd say if she were working on a research assignment for him. Yes, she would need better luck. The question was, where was next?

She locked her apartment door behind her. Beth wasn't in the living room, although her suitcase was where it had been left. Maybe she was taking a nap or using the facilities.

Kathleen kicked off her shoes, flipped through the collection of junk mail retrieved from the lobby mail box, and sank onto the couch. “Beth, I'm back.”

Silence. Kathleen hoisted herself up from the couch. Would she have to play nursemaid, helping Beth recover from a traumatic experience?

The bed hadn't been slept in. The open bathroom door revealed an empty room. The kitchen was uninhabited.

The balcony? It was still hot outside, yet pleasant enough to watch the sun set. The blinds were drawn against the heat of the day's sun, so Kathleen couldn't see out the window.

Kathleen reached for the balcony glass door latch. Unlocked. Good, Beth must be sitting outside, maybe reading a book from Kathleen's collection.

But there was no Beth as Kathleen stepped through the opened glass door.

Impossible! Where could she be? The woman didn't look capable of picking a front door open. And she couldn't just vanish into thin air.

Thin air? Kathleen strode to the side of the balcony with the trellis. She grabbed at the broken leaves crushed around the trellis rungs. Shit!

What to do? What to do? There would be hell to pay for this. George would never trust her with an operation if she couldn't even keep track of one untrained civilian.

Kathleen sat straight up. Okay, there was only one thing to do. Find Beth before George knew she'd gone missing. It wouldn't be like looking for a needle in a haystack — Kathleen could use the Company's connections, get a lead from the credit card trail Beth would undoubtedly leave. Surely she wouldn't be carrying that much cash — Americans believed in their credit lines.

All Kathleen had to do was dash back to headquarters and crank up the search — without George being the wiser.

Easy as pie.

**

The motel clerk slept upright with his head nosedived into the counter. His long hair, pulled into a ponytail, flopped over his face. Beth hated to wake him.

“Excuse me, excuse me, please.”

The clerk, really no more than a kid, jerked awake. “Yes?”

“I need a room for tonight. The sign out front said vacancy.”

“That's right. Room 6, around the corner on the first floor, is available. How are you paying for your room?”

“Credit card. Do you want it now?”

The clerk nodded, took the card from her, swiped it through the automatic authorization machine, and handed it back to her with the slip for her signature.

He handed her the room key and was asleep again before she got out the door.

**

In his rented car outside the motel David Ward adjusted his backpack behind his head. He could expect several hours of sleep — she wouldn't be going anywhere until morning.

He'd give her this much. She'd been plucky to climb over the trellis at Kathleen's apartment. He had expected her to be docile, to accept waiting for whatever came next. Maybe something Kathleen said freaked her.

It was a good thing that he believed in always being prepared for any eventuality. There was too much riding on this to let her out of his sight. He'd waited years for this — he couldn't chance anything messing it up now.

Anything.

Including the tail, presumably from headquarters, who was following Beth. The guy had stayed in the shadows as Beth dusted herself off from her trellis escape and took off across the parking lot. David had spotted him and kept far enough back not to reveal himself, just as his car now was parked far enough away from Beth's tail.

It was almost ludicrous, the three cars in parade on the way to a budget motel near the airport. Of course, he was the only one of the three who knew that the parade had three cars. And he would keep it that way.

**

The phone ringing woke Charles at 11. He'd gone to bed a half hour before, confident there was nothing more he could do tonight. Apparently that wasn't true.

“Charles, did I wake you?”

“No, George, I was just reading in bed.”

“Good, good.”

“Has something happened?”

“That woman Beth Parsons has taken off, fled.”

“When?”

“Several hours ago. I've been sitting in my living room pondering what to do. Thought I'd give you a ring.”

“Very nice of you, George. What's going on?”

“I only know that she and Kathleen visited the murder site before going to Kathleen's apartment.”

“How do you know that?”

“I asked Mark Haskell to keep an eye on the women when they left headquarters. Thought it best to be prepared.”

“He followed them there?”

“Yes, and he actually talked to them at the site, pretended he was there already, rechecking the grounds. He couldn't tell what they were up to, other than morbid curiosity.”

“Then what?”

“They went to Kathleen's apartment. A few minutes later Kathleen left. I've checked with headquarters and she returned to work in her office. A while later Beth appeared on the balcony and climbed down the trellis.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? Maybe she got spooked by something Kathleen said.”

“Where's Beth now? Have you had her picked up?”

“Not yet. I want to see how this plays out. Mark followed her on the Metro to the airport, where she rented a car, then to a cheap motel nearby. We'll just watch her for now, see what happens. Meanwhile, I haven't said a thing to Kathleen. I'm waiting to see how long before she tells me she's misplaced Beth.”

“Oh, goody, this should be something to see.”

“I thought you'd say that. Anyway, I just wanted to fill you in on the latest. Good night, Charles, sleep tight.”

What the hell was going on here? Charles wrapped the belt of his monogrammed robe around his waist and headed for the kitchen. He needed to think, to sort out the possibilities.

The phone rang again. He reached for the kitchen wall phone with one hand while opening the refrigerator with the other.

“We need to meet” the voice on the other end said.

DAY 3

The clock at the diner wall said 3:00. That is, 3 a.m. Charles hid a yawn behind his hand. The sugar he'd added to his coffee punctured the surface in clumps, mountain tops reappearing as the biblical great flood waters receded.

Charles smiled. He often waxed poetic in the wee hours of the morning. Anything to keep awake. And it was important to be alert. As Sherlock Holmes said, “The game's afoot.”

The outside door slammed. Charles glanced at the man who entered. At the bar in Georgetown hours earlier the man had worn urban casual to fit in with the trendy Georgetown professionals. Now the man, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, could pass as a trucker.

“For Christ sake, Charles,” the man said as he slid into the booth, “can't you look a little more like a trucker than that?”

“What's wrong with my outfit, Matthew?”

“It looks like it came from L.L. Bean instead of Sears. You're supposed to be inconspicuous.”

Charles waved his hand around the room. “There's almost nobody here. And the people who are here are too tired to notice that my trucker clothes are somewhat off.”

Matthew shrugged, then signaled the waitress for coffee.

“Why'd you call?” Charles said.

“It's a surprise. We're being joined by two others.”

Charles' expression didn't change, but his mind raced. Who would Matthew have summoned in the middle of the night to meet with them? None of their current projects was far enough along to warrant such precipitous action. What was going on here?