The Lie (39 page)

“You’ll hear it for yourself, Mr. President.”

A moment later Paulie put on the tape recorder and they listened without interruption.

President Dunster was the first to speak, his voice pure dry ice. “The vice president of the United States.”

“Yet he was the one who called to warn us at the end,” said Cortlandt. “Which probably saved your life.”

“Only Paulie saved my life.” Dunster’s face was flushed. “But any way you look at it, the bastard still tried to kill Maggie
and me at Wannsee.”

“We really have no proof of that yet,” said the director.

Jimmy Dunster looked at him. “Who needs proof? What am I, a goddamn court of law? My wife may die.”

“What do you want to do about him and Ken Harris?” asked Tommy Cortlandt.

“Don’t ask me that yet. Just get Jay Fleming the hell out of the White House and let the presidency revert to me here. I can
handle what I have to.”

Dunster sighed and his thin frame seemed to further diminish beneath the sheets. “In the meantime,” he said, “we’re literally
sitting on a bomb. So let’s just concentrate on that.”

In the cafeteria later, Paulie and the CIA director carried some food to a corner table and huddled over a meal of sorts.

Paulie couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten.

“I’ve been away from it all afternoon,” he said. “How have the money arrangements been going?”

“The usual haggling. I finally told them we’d put up all the cash ourselves and collect later. They loved that. No matter
what, we always end up as the world’s banker of choice.”

“When will the drop be made?”

“One o’clock tomorrow afternoon, Paris time.”

Paulie watched Cortlandt over his coffee. “Then you’ve called the woman, Beatrice, at that number she gave us?”

“Twice. And she’s gotten back to me each time in under ten minutes. She seems reliable.”

“Who’ll be making the drop?”

“Two of our Paris agents.”

“They won’t try to be heroes and tail the car?”

“Their orders are to dump the bags in the Citroen and take off. Period. If they try one thing more, they know they’re finished.”

They ate for several moments in silence.

“I have a favor to ask,” said Paulie. “I’d like a few days on my own.”

Cortlandt stared at him. “Does this concern Mainz?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Unless you insist on more.”

They looked at each other in a curious way.

“You should know me by now,” said Cortlandt.

W
ITH LITTLE TIME TO WASTE
, Paulie Walters moved fast. He wondered briefly what Tommy Cortlandt thought about his sudden desire to go off on his own.
But from that point on, all he had on his mind was Kate.

He caught a 9:30
P.M.
Lufthansa flight from Tempelhof and landed in Paris at a bit past 11:00.

Renting a Mustang at the terminal, Paulie drove to the Left Bank apartment of an old contact to arm himself. He broke into
a cold sweat. What was he expecting to do? Shoot her?

At 2:35
A.M.
he swung into the big, twenty-four-hour parking garage at the corner of the Boulevard de la Chapelle and the Rue de Flandre.
He took a ticket from an automated dispenser and waited for the barricade to rise. Then he circled up the ramp to the third
level.

The garage was mostly empty at this hour. But as Paulie drove past space 26 on aisle B, he saw that a blue Renault occupied
that spot.

Probably Kate’s switch, he thought, to keep her chosen space from being taken by another car.

Paulie parked his Mustang against a far wall and sat there for a moment. Then he took a small electronic homing device from
his bag and slipped it onto the Renault’s radio antenna like a tiny ring. Its matching chrome finish made it all but invisible.

There was an elevator off to the right. Paulie left his Mustang and rode the cage down to street level. Then he walked
across the street into an all-night bistro that would allow him a clear view of any car entering or leaving the garage.

He ordered black coffee and sat at a small table watching the garage entrance. There were about a dozen people in the place,
and a few couples were dancing to slow, recorded music.

I’ve never even danced with her
, he thought.

At 3:20
A.M.
he saw a gray Citroen turn slowly into the garage, stop at the ticket dispenser, and proceed up the ramp and out of sight.
He was able to make out the shape of a woman at the wheel, but that was all. He could only assume it was Kate.

Less than ten minutes later, he saw the blue Renault that had been in space 26 come down off the garage exit ramp and stop
at the checkout booth. Then the car swung right onto the Rue de Flandre and drove off.

This time Paulie was able to see that it was Kate. It was just a quick glimpse of her in profile, but it was enough.

Moments later Paulie left the bistro, walked back across the street, and rode the garage elevator to the third level.

With the blue Renault gone, the gray Citroen was parked in space 26. Paulie went to his Mustang, got another homing ring out
of his bag, and slid this one down over the Citroen’s radio antenna.

He was prepared to follow either car.

Four hours later Tommy Cortlandt’s two agents arrived.

They came in a black van at the heart of the morning rush. Traffic was noisy and impatient and cars were circling the garage,
searching for spaces.

Watching from the Mustang in its far corner, Paulie saw the van stop behind the Citroen and the two agents take out three
large suitcases. Then they opened the Citroen’s trunk, arranged the three bags inside, and slammed the lid shut.

With the transfer completed, the men got back into their van, drove down the exit ramp, and disappeared below.

Waiting now, Paulie flicked on a palm-sized computer screen and prepared the latest in high-tech tracking systems that he
had picked up along with his weaponry.

He hit a button and a tiny red bleep appeared in the center of the computer screen. A graduated scale marked it as being at
a distance of forty-three meters, which represented the signal sent by the miniature transmitter ring that Paulie had slipped
over the Citroen’s radio antenna. Its effective range went all the way up to a full kilometer, and it could indicate changes
in direction as well as distance.

When the Renault in which Kate had driven off earlier came back within range, its transmitter signal would appear on the computer
screen as a green bleep. Paulie was gambling that Kate would be driving one or the other of the two cars.

At exactly 8:32
A.M.
, the green bleep appeared in the upper right-hand corner of his screen at an indicated distance of just under a kilometer.

The bleep moved steadily closer, going very slowly because of the traffic, and changing direction several times. Ten minutes
later, Paulie saw the blue Renault drive up the ramp and double-park in the aisle directly behind the Citroen.

The red and green bleeps on the screen were now side by side.

Kate slid out of the Renault and Paulie tugged the peak of his baseball cap lower over his eyes.

It was going to be the Renault.

Paulie saw Kate open the Citroen’s trunk, wrestle out the three suitcases, and work them into the trunk of the other car.
With that done, she got back into the Renault, started the engine, drove off down the exit ramp, and disappeared from Paulie’s
sight.

Watching his computer screen, he saw the green bleep of the Renault slowly pulling away from the red marker of the Citroen,
abandoned now in Space 26, aisle B.

When the distance indicator on the green bleep showed a reading of exactly one hundred meters, a safe enough surveillance
interval for heavy city traffic, Paulie turned on his engine and started after it.

A
T
6:30
A.M.
the Virginia woods were still. There was not so much as a breeze. The only sound Daniel Archer heard was an occasional drop
of moisture falling from a leaf.

He watched the path stretching in front of him at the place where it faded into gray mist. He felt his first rush of uncertainty.

Was this really so smart after all?

Leave it alone
, he told himself.
You’re here
.

Moments later, Archer heard the faint, distant sound of someone running.

Continuing to focus on the place where the path disappeared, he heard the runner’s footsteps long before he would see the
runner. The disciplined regularity of the beat was that individual. Even during his morning workout, Ken Harris allowed no
break in his precision. There was a purity to the man that might have been beautiful if it were not so frightening.

Daniel Archer rose from the rock where he had been sitting. He stepped onto the path and stood waiting until he saw the deputy
director of the CIA emerge from the mist. Then he started toward him.

Archer walked slowly, almost lethargically, keeping his hands in plain view at his sides. Although he still wore his elderly
man disguise, his carriage and stride remained his own. To anyone watching, he would not have appeared at all threatening.
All possibilities had to be considered, and
Archer could not be sure that Harris would not have some sort of security detail following him.

Nothing about Archer looked different from any other area resident out for an early-morning stroll.

Yet seeing Daniel Archer from a distance of almost a hundred yards, Ken Harris abruptly broke stride and cut his pace. Gradually
he slowed until he was no longer running but walking, a tall, straight-backed man in a gray warm-up suit.

They were both moving so slowly now that the distance between them hardly seemed to be closing. They came together, two large
carnivores of the same species, cautious but not unfriendly, meeting in a quiet mood somewhere in the jungle.

They stopped and just stood looking at each other.

Ken Harris spoke first. “Danny?”

Archer nodded. “Hello, Ken.”

“It’s a funny thing. At about a hundred yards I felt it was you. Your walk, your build and all. And fifty yards closer I knew
it was you. Yet when I was close enough to see your face, I had doubts.” Harris’s smile was cold. “Good disguise. No wonder
you weren’t spotted coming in.”

“You mean you had people watching the airports for a dead man?”

The deputy director was silent. If he had noticed the automatic that had appeared in Daniel Archer’s hand, he gave no sign.

“Or maybe you weren’t quite sure I was dead,” said Archer. “Maybe you just wanted to play it safe in case it was Hans who
somehow ended up dead, instead of me.”

Ken Harris shook his head in a tacit denial of everything. “What happened, Danny? I’ve never known you to mess anything up
as you did at Wannsee.”

“Let’s get off this path and I’ll explain it.”

Harris stood there.

“Move or I’ll shoot you right here,” said Archer.

Harris slowly turned and walked into the woods with Archer a few steps behind.

“All right,” said Archer when they came to a small clearing.

They stood about six feet apart, but their eyes met and stayed together.

“Why are you going to so much trouble?” said the deputy director. “Why didn’t you just pick me off as I jogged by?”

“Is that what you’d have done?”

“You know it.”

“Then that’s where we’re different,” said Archer.

“You actually think I deserve a few last words?”

“Whatever you’d like.”

“I can’t believe you’re this sentimental.”

“We’ve put in a lot of years together. Until Wannsee, you’ve never been anything but fair and decent to me. I was angry before,
but not now.” Daniel Archer shrugged. “Maybe because I’ve come out of this OK in spite of you.”

The deputy director shook his head. “I have no last words. I’d rather hear what went wrong at Wannsee.”

“Part of that was my own fault. But not the way you think.” Archer stood with the automatic steady in his hand. “I never set
out to kill the president and his wife like you said. Just Mainz and the old man. I figured to make us both heroes. Which
was how I measured and placed my charge. But Mainz had some of his own stuff planted in the same area. That was what ruined
everything. But at least the Dunsters are still hanging on. So it wasn’t all bad.”

Ken Harris gazed at Archer as if he were far off in the mist. “Christ! You’re still trying to be a goddamn patriot.”

“It’s better than trying to blow away a friend, Kenny.”

“It was nothing personal. I simply couldn’t have you floating around, knowing what you did. You of all people should be able
to understand that.”

“I understand it all right. It’s just that I can’t see killing a friend as ‘nothing personal.’”

Coming near to it now, Archer’s mouth was dry and an almost pleasurable sadness worked its way through him.

The deputy director seemed to see it in his face. “You’re getting soft, Danny boy. If you’re going to do it, then fucking
do it.” He paused. “OK if I get a last smoke out of my warm-up jacket?”

“Which pocket?”

“Left.”

Archer looked and saw a zipper on it. Also, the pocket was flat. “Very slowly and carefully,” he said.

Ken Harris opened the zipper with two fingers. Then he gently slid the same two fingers inside the opening and fired three
times through the pocket. The explosions were so fast and blurred that they might have come from a single shot.

It was a small-caliber pistol, but all three shots were squarely in the killing zone.

Working quickly, the deputy director stripped Archer of his wallet, money, identification, and some papers, which he stuffed
into his own pockets to go through later.

Then he ran back to his car and returned with a tire iron.

Scraping out a shallow trench behind some bushes, Harris covered over Daniel Archer’s body with soil, leaves, rocks, and dead
branches. Eventually it would be uncovered by a prowling animal, but by that time it wouldn’t matter.