The Hidden Target (13 page)

Strange, thought Renwick, that it takes a string of oaths and a voice raised like a drill sergeant’s to make people listen. As for the fact that he would look like a bloody fool if the cane turned out to be harmless—well, he’d just have to sweat that one out.

He poured himself a scotch and settled down to wait for Evans’ report. The grip of his right hand was still painful, a sharp reminder of that short desperate struggle in the lobby. The man had recognised him, had come forward to meet him without waiting for a signal from Renwick. The man had known in which building he’d find Renwick’s office—and in the huge complex of NATO’s sprawl, that was quite an achievement. Especially when Renwick’s office was in no official listing, and when his name was in no directory. But what really perturbed Renwick now was the feeling that he had seen the man before. Just once. Fleetingly, yet in circumstances that had stamped the solemn face—grey hair, tight lips, pointed jaw line, high-bridged nose—on Renwick’s memory.

***

His ’phone rang. It wasn’t Evans. It was Millbank, whose office lay at the other end of the hall. “I’ve got Vroom here,” Millbank said. “He’s down from The Hague arranging a memorial service for Crefeld. You knew Crefeld didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll bring Vroom along to meet you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“We’ll be with you in three minutes flat.”

“Okay.”

But nothing was okay at this moment. Delayed shock, Renwick told himself. The attack had shaken him more than he had been willing to admit: a near thing. Much too near. Much too quickly arranged. Someone—and who the hell was someone?—had wanted to deal with him before he left for America, make sure he’d never return. One moment more and he might have lost that battle if the assailant’s will power hadn’t suddenly weakened and let his grip loosen. That was all it would have taken, one moment, in a crowded lobby with only two or three bystanders even noticing—and not understanding a damned thing.

The door opened and closed. “Are you all right?” Vroom was asking as he waited for Renwick’s greeting. It wasn’t given. Vroom noted the untouched drink, the half-packed bag, and drew up a free chair to face Renwick. He might have congratulated me, Vroom was thinking, on the way I managed to see him—no attention drawn to this particular visit, buried as it was among all the other interviews I’ve been conducting in the last two hours. “Sorry I couldn’t contact you before this. But I do have some results to give you. First, about Crefeld’s death.”

That captured Renwick’s attention.

“It was murder. A close examination of Crefeld’s body and clothing showed a matching puncture on both. A miniature pellet no bigger than a pinhead was found under his skin.”

“What poison, this time?”

“No definite opinion, as yet. Does that matter so much?”

It didn’t. Dead was dead.

“Secondly,” Vroom went on, “about the Rotterdam report. It was easier to approach the police inspector than I had thought: their files on the safe house near the docks are missing, too. The Narcotics Squad is blaming the anti-terrorist section, and they in turn are blaming Narcotics. But what isn’t missing is the final report on the escape route of that man who came off the freighter from Duisburg. For the simple reason that no report has yet been drawn up. There are just pieces of information from the detectives who were trying to follow his trail from the house in Rotterdam.”

“Trying to? They didn’t succeed?”

“Not altogether. Again we had the conflict between two different departments: the anti-terrorist section taking over midway—almost at the end of the trail, in fact. Which was at Schiphol Airport, in Amsterdam.”

“An international flight? To the United States?”

“No. At the time he disappeared, there was only one flight scheduled to leave—for London. En route to New York, possibly. That could be... Why else did he study so much about the United States in that safe house in Rotterdam?”

Renwick nodded a tentative agreement. “But how the hell did he manage to dodge the cops at Schiphol?”

“By way of the men’s room. It had only one entrance, no window. He was only one minute there. Walked out with a couple of strangers. No longer wearing a raincoat or his black wig. They were found later, stuffed into a cistern. And he had help. Someone ran interference for him—collapsed against the cop just as he was about to enter. A grey-haired man who seemed to have lost his balance.” Vroom paused, frowned. He was getting ahead of himself. Further information about the grey-haired man belonged in the next segment of his story. He liked things in their proper order, neat and clear. He was saved from his indecision by the telephone.

Renwick reached for it at once. “This should be Evans—I hope. Pour yourself a drink, Johan,” he said quickly, and gave his full attention to the message. “Better contact Security,” he told Evans. “Make sure that they don’t release that man, and they don’t spread the word around about assault with a deadly weapon. Once you’ve tracked down that substance, the charge could be attempted murder. Meanwhile, tell them to keep it quiet, will you? Also, you’d better get in touch with New Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad. The poison their scientists found in a similar pellet was ricin.” Renwick replaced the receiver, looked at Vroom’s startled face. “So I wasn’t a damned fool, just damned lucky.” He picked up his glass and drank deeply. “Go on. He took a flight to London?”

Vroom recovered from his bewilderment. Murder? Whose murder had been attempted? He said, “That was the deduction, once he couldn’t be found anywhere in the airport.”

“Any attempt to check the passenger list of that flight?”

“Not until later. Much later,” Vroom conceded unhappily. “I made my own inquiries, but remember that all this happened five—almost six weeks ago. And the carrier was British Airways. We should have any further checking done in London.”

“What about immigration?”

“I checked with them, too. They have a record of eleven American citizens travelling to London that day from Amsterdam. No names.”

“They had no warning to keep a watch for any American?”

“The man wasn’t
known
to be an American. And the policeman who was watching the passengers loading had a different description in mind. Not just clothes and hair, but also the wrong age. When he was wearing a raincoat, the man had seemed middle-aged—hunched shoulders, slow movements, heavy around the waistline.”

Renwick nodded. “An adept performance.” More than police routine had been necessary. If only Crefeld’s department had been alerted five weeks earlier... Well, it hadn’t been. “I’ll see what help Gilman can give us in London,” he said, but without much hope. The trail was cold by this time. And yet—Renwick’s thoughtful grey eyes studied Vroom’s unhappy face. He said, “There may be one link, one connection. Someone, tried to eliminate me today. He was using a cane, not an umbrella.”

“The grey-haired man in the lobby?” Vroom burst out. “Attempted murder? Was that the one? My God, I never realised... Just saw him being taken away by the guards. I was coming in with Millbank, stopped at the desk for identification—” Vroom broke off, shook his head. “I thought—we all thought—it was someone trying to gain unauthorised entry. Kept it quiet, didn’t you?” Then Vroom’s thin dark face broke into a wide grin. “I think we’ve got that link. Two, in fact.”

“Two?” The obvious one was quite enough, thought Renwick: the identity of the man who had been followed from Rotterdam to Schiphol Airport had to be protected at all costs. Crefeld had known of his importance; I could know; so, get rid of us both along with any existing copies of that police report.

“Two,” Vroom insisted, now enjoying himself. “And that grey-haired man is both of them. Attempted murder today; running interference at Schiphol five weeks ago. It’s the same man, Bob. What do you think I was doing at the Rotterdam police station a couple of days ago? Studying a composite drawing of the man’s face, reading his description. Grey hair, sharp jaw line, narrow lips, thin, high-bridged nose.”

That could be the man, all right. Renwick stared at Vroom. “Why didn’t you tell me—”

“I was just coming to that. He is part of our investigation on the informer in our department.” There was no disguising the triumph in Vroom’s voice.

“So you’ve traced him.”

“Her.”

“Luisa?” Jake’s devoted secretary? It was hard to believe.

“Not too difficult to uncover, once I started thinking the unthinkable and delved into Luisa’s private life. Her first reaction to Crefeld’s death was embarrassing—that was the night I returned from Amsterdam with the news and told her I was convinced it was murder.” Vroom was thinking of that scene. Luisa waiting in Crefeld’s office, hours later than her usual routine allowed, her face contorted with the shock, her abnormal protest, a voice rising into hysteria: “But why— why? They didn’t have to kill him, they didn’t have to kill him!” Vroom shook his head. “She went to pieces. Excessive anguish. Yet the news about the stolen briefcase had left her quite unmoved.”

“You told her a lot.” Renwick’s quiet voice held a touch of reprimand.

“I trusted her,” Vroom said simply. “But after that hysterical reaction—well, we started investigating. Hard. Intensively. She’s been living secretly with a man called Maartens. Younger than she is. Handsome. Ardent. Most flattering for a woman over forty who isn’t particularly attractive.”

“Was she aware she was being investigated?”

“We made sure she was aware. And we got results. She asked for sick leave, pleaded doctor’s orders, a visit to a clinic in Switzerland. But we caught her yesterday at the German border, on a train for Berlin.”

“You’ve had a busy week,” Renwick observed wryly.

“Unpleasant,” Vroom admitted. “Most unpleasant. Except that Maartens is an important discovery. We had his telephone tapped. He has been very busy in these last eight days since Crefeld was murdered. He has connections here in Brussels as well as his little love nest in The Hague. He works on women, and through them.” Vroom drew a snapshot from his pocket, handed it over to Renwick. “Ever come across him?”

The photograph was poor—hazy background of café tables—but the fair-haired man, face turned for a quick moment towards the hidden camera, was clear enough. I’ve seen him, Renwick thought: I’ve seen that face. Once. Briefly. With the grey-haired man? Renwick kept his voice normal. “Works on women, does he?”

Careful now, Vroom warned himself. He said. “That’s his specialty. Some through sex. Some—” he hesitated slightly, avoided Renwick’s eyes—“through money. Subsidises a failing business, brings it new clients and success.”

Renwick’s face was unreadable. “Any connection with the grey-haired man?”

“Luisa admitted she had seen him once, when he paid a late-night visit to Maartens. She never learned his name, but her identification of him—we showed her a copy of the composite drawing made by the Rotterdam police artist—was definite.”

“So that’s how he got directions to this building? From Maartens, by way of Luisa?”

Vroom shook his head. “Not through Luisa. She didn’t know where you worked. That information must have come from—from someone in Brussels.” His voice was hesitant. He almost spoke again, and then cut himself off.

Renwick looked at him sharply. Vroom was the voluble man, quick-witted, with phrases to match that often covered his nervousness. Tonight he had been showing a new assurance— perhaps the prospect of promotion, a sense of accomplishment, had added to his confidence. So why all this backing and filling now? “Did Maartens telephone Brussels?”

Vroom nodded. “He wanted information about you. His call—again there was that agonising hesitation—“was to an interior decorator here. To a business he subsidised eighteen months ago.”

And suddenly the long-buried memory of those two men rose to the surface. A cold bitter evening in November just after he had met Thérèse Colbert—a visit to her apartment an hour earlier than intended—two strangers stepping out of Thérèse’s door into the elevator, brushing past Renwick as they pulled on their overcoats. Grey hair, blond hair, one with a sharp beak of a nose, a pointed chin; the other, smoothskinned, even-featured. Clients, Thérèse had told him without any prompting, two men who were in the hotel business giving her a contract as their decorator.

Vroom was saying, “The name of that firm is...” Again the tactful hesitation.

“Colbert et Cie,” Renwick said.

“Of course, Madame Colbert would have no idea what his real purpose was. He’d ask information about your office, your movements, in a roundabout way.”

“Of course.” Renwick rose abruptly. And there, in Thérèse’s apartment, Maartens would have made sure of a photograph for his files. Together with a photograph taken as Renwick left Crefeld’s building, his identification had been easy. Small wonder the grey-haired man could recognise him on sight. Renwick drew a deep breath, slowly poured out two more drinks. “One for the road,” he said as he handed Vroom his glass.

Vroom took the hint, got to his feet, spoke hurriedly. “Yes, we’ve spent too much time together. But I’d like to question the grey-haired man. Can that be arranged?” He finished his drink quickly. “I’ll see you on your return from America. There is still a lot to clear up.”

“A lot,” Renwick agreed. “Can I keep this photograph of Maartens? You’ve other copies?”

“Of course. And one thing more—” Vroom remembered as he reached the door—“did you ever come across the name Herman Kroll? This man Maartens was one of his young men. That was some time ago—in East Germany—before Kroll was killed in a helicopter crash.” With that, Vroom was out of the door, leaving Renwick to stare after him.

Kroll—Otto Remp—Theo; and the man Maartens. Renwick set aside his glass. In that last second, Vroom had given the most important piece of information of all. Unwittingly. Didn’t he know Kroll’s death had been faked? That Theo was alive and functioning? Of course he couldn’t have known: talk of Kroll had been only between Crefeld and Renwick, and Crefeld had never lived to take Vroom into his confidence. I was too slow, too damned stupefied, Renwick thought, too shocked by Vroom’s information on Thérèse... I ought to have told him about Theo. I ought to have warned him. And why didn’t I even get around to telling him about Interintell? Or asking him to take Jake Crefeld’s place? I was just too damned stupefied.