The Lie (40 page)

P
AULIE
W
ALTERS DROVE
through the heart of Paris with only an occasional glimpse of the Renault in the heavy traffic ahead. He kept a long interval
between the two cars, using the green bleep on his computer screen as both assurance and guide.

There were few changes in direction. Kate simply kept heading north until she reached the St. Denis area. Then she swung slightly
northeast.

When the traffic began to thin, Paulie dropped back to a full four-hundred-meter interval, allowing about a dozen cars and
trucks as a buffer.

At nine-thirty he saw signs indicating a turnoff ahead to Charles de Gaulle Airport. He knew this would not be where Kate
was going. She was not about to be checking a hundred million in cash into the baggage hold of some commercial jet.

The city was behind them now and there were only scattered houses dozing peacefully in the sun. Between them were fields and
patches of woods, trees black against the sky.

Paulie saw the bleep on his screen suddenly angle off to the right and continue in that direction.

When Paulie reached the crossroad, he turned onto a well-surfaced two-lane blacktop to Langley-le-Sec that wound through long
stretches of woods. There were only three vehicles between the Renault and the Mustang now, and Paulie slowed until the interval
had stretched to about half a kilometer.

The sun flickered among the leaves and grasses, and the air was piney and aromatic as if it had rained during the night. Paulie
began to catch glimpses of lake water through the trees, and he cut his speed a little more. Because of the winding road,
he began losing sight of the Renault for long periods.

Then he saw the green marker move to the left.

Moments later Paulie took the first left turn that he came to and slowed the car to a crawl. In the near distance he caught
sight of the lake once more and the blur of a house in front of it. He did not see the Renault. But on his screen the bleep
had come to a stop at an indicated range of half a kilometer.

He braked to a halt and sat watching the green marker. When it had remained still for several moments, he drove off the road
and parked out of sight.

The only sounds were those of birds.

Paulie drew the automatic he had picked up in Paris. He checked the ammunition clip and slid a round into the firing chamber.
Then he put the piece back into its shoulder holster.

Slowly, with effort, he opened the car door and got out. He suddenly was in no great hurry. Newly conscious of the loaded
weapon against his body, he felt almost lethargic, as if the proper delay at this point would miraculously change everything
that lay ahead.

I’m getting more foolish by the minute
, he thought, and started toward the distant house.

Paulie stayed within the woods, keeping low and out of sight of the road. He moved slowly, listening to the forest sounds,
the hum of insects, the calls of birds in the upper branches of trees. Occasionally he heard cars pass on the road, which
was on his left. Then he heard a car traveling off to his right where the road curved parallel to the lake.

A flicker in the branches ahead made Paul Walters stop abruptly. But it was only a bird swinging on a branch tip, and he continued
on. He could feel his heart pounding.

He saw the house through the trees and began to circle
around to the right. At one point he had to cross the road. He waited in the brush as two cars passed, then he ducked low
and quickly crossed over.

At fifty meters, he peered around a tree and saw the blue Renault.

The only car in sight, it was parked on the side of a traditional stone house with high, shuttered windows. It was bordered
by shrubs and trees. To Paulie it was suddenly the center of the earth.

Who was inside it?

Of course Kate was there. What about Klaus Logefeld? Was he with her, or off somewhere else? Might there not be others involved
as well?

Paulie felt himself in need of calming. His brain suddenly brought too much agitation to every possibility. He almost believed
that Klaus had been gifted with secret powers, a special grace. After all, he alone among the four in Wannsee’s surveillance-room
explosion had escaped death or serious injury. It was hard to imagine him being caught off guard like this.

Klaus Logefeld’s nearness alone seemed to give off signals, seemed to create its own psychic warning in the woods.

As if forced to fulfill his own malevolent prophecy, Paulie thought he heard a faint sound behind him.

Before he could turn, a man’s voice at his back said in English, “Put your hands over your head and don’t move.”

Paulie weighed his chances of going for his gun and getting off a quick shot. They were nonexistent.

He raised his hands.

“Now turn around. Slowly.”

Paulie did as ordered and found himself looking into the muzzle of an automatic being aimed at him under the dark eyes of
Dr. Nicholas Vorelli. All he could do was stare dumbly.

I’m close to dying and I’ve never learned a damn thing
.

“Open your jacket,” ordered Nicko. “Take out your gun with two fingers, and drop it on the ground.”

Paulie obeyed.

Then they just stood gazing at each other.

“I know,” said Nicko. “I’m afraid it’s a very unhappy surprise for us both.”

“Where did I go wrong?”

“By even attempting something this foolish in the first place.” Nicko’s quiet anger showed through his surface calm. “I’d
have expected you to know better.”

Paulie was silent. He could be dead in anywhere from seconds to perhaps half an hour. It depended on how much Nicko wanted
to find out from him first. And if it was done out here in the woods, Kate might never learn what had finally happened.

Motioning with his gun, Nicko said, “Let’s go inside.”

He picked up Paulie’s pistol in passing and slid it inside his belt.

Walking with Nicko’s gun at his back, Paulie began breathing again. He felt a numbness all through him. And he still understood
nothing.

K
ATE OPENED THE FRONT DOOR
of the house and saw the men walking toward her out of the woods.

“Dear, sweet God,” she whispered.

They approached slowly, Paulie in front and Nicko about five paces behind with the gun in his hand. Watching them, Kate felt
all brightness drain from her life.

No one spoke as they walked past her into the house, nor did anyone appear to look directly at anyone else. One wrong word
or glance might have provided enough of a spark to send everything up in flames. Without knowing a single detail of how Paulie
had ended up here like this, Kate knew he was dead.

Maybe we’re all dead
.

Nicko took Paulie into a room overlooking the lake and motioned him into a chair.

Kate trailed after them. A mute, forgotten waif.

“Your friend followed you all the way from Paris,” Nicko told her. “When I finally picked him up, he was just about fifty
meters from the house. Carrying a gun.”

Nicko carefully sat down facing Paulie.

Kate remained standing. She stood a short distance behind Nicko at a point where she could see both men. Nicko held the automatic
in his lap like an extension of his hand.

Paulie just sat there. He seemed nothing but eyes.

Those dark, solemn eyes, Kate thought, and suddenly saw them staring at her with so poignant a look that they ate holes in
her.

So far neither of them had said a word.

“We need some answers, Paul,” said Nicko. “Give them honestly, and you can still come out of this better than you might think.
Lie, and you’ll simply disappear. Clear enough?”

Paulie said nothing.

“To begin with,” said Nicko, “can we assume you knew Kate would be picking up that money in Paris this morning?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know?”

“Tommy Cortlandt had recorded her call to the president. When he ran the tape for me later, I recognized her voice.”

“Did you tell that to Cortlandt or the president?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was Kate. And I wasn’t sure what her involvement might be.”

“What did you
think
her involvement might be?”

Paulie glanced at Kate, but she stood staring out the window.

“Klaus Logefeld had pressured her before,” he said. “He might have been doing it again with some new kind of gun at her head.
I had to find out.”

“Find out for whom?”

“Myself.”

“That’s why you followed her here?”

“Yes.”

“And what have you found out?”

Paulie’s mouth was a thin, hard line. “Nothing. So far I haven’t even seen Klaus Logefeld. All I’ve seen is you. And the only
gun in sight is the one in
your
hand.”

“Then you think
I’m
the one pressuring Kate into this?”

Paulie sat wordless. Where these two were concerned, he no longer was sure
what
he thought.

“If you have any doubts,” said Nicko, “Kate is right here. Why don’t you ask her?”

Kate turned and looked at Paulie. “You don’t have to ask
me, Paulie. Nobody is pressuring me. Nobody has a gun at my head. Not Nicko, not Klaus, not anybody.”

She spoke so low her voice was almost inaudible.

“I’m doing this only because I can’t think of anything on God’s earth that needs doing more. My only real pain comes from
your having found out and blundered in here like this.”

Paulie looked at Nicko, who had been studying him with total absorption. At that moment they could have been brothers. What
two men deserved such closeness more? Hadn’t they shared the love and body of the same woman? Surely a special intimacy existed
in that alone.

Paulie saw how it would have to be. Nicko absolutely could not let him walk out of here knowing what he did.

In a sense, who could blame him?

Paulie was not even angry.

It was just that there was no way that he was going to let himself die sitting here in a goddamn, straight-backed parlor chair.

Paulie vaulted out of his chair without a sound, legs pushing off the floor, arms outstretched. He saw Nicko’s eyes widen
and his automatic rise up out of his lap. For an instant Paulie sailed free, until something exploded against his head and
he hit the floor and rolled through sudden patches of light and dark.

When he stopped rolling, Paulie squinted past the blood trickling down into his eyes. He saw Nicko fumbling with the safety
on his automatic and realized he had only been clubbed by the gun barrel and not shot by it.

“Nicko, don’t!”

It was Kate crying out from behind a fine red haze as Paulie lay there on the floor, shaking his head to clear it.

“Nicko!”

Kate again.

Save your breath
, Paulie thought.

Then Nicko had the safety off and was aiming with both hands. Paulie met his eyes above the dark hole of the muzzle.

“Go to hell,” he said.

Paulie’s eyes closed at the gunshot.

An instant later his eyes opened.

Nicko sat slumped in his chair, staring at nothing. Kate stood white-faced behind him. She was still pointing a revolver at
Nicko’s back.

As Paulie watched, she slowly lowered the gun. Then she came around and closed Nicholas Vorelli’s eyes and kissed him on both
cheeks.

“He knew how I felt about you,” she said quietly. “I’d told him I loved you. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He should have
known I could never let him kill you.”

Still blinking his own blood, Paulie struggled to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“For what?”

“For making you choose.”

Kate Dinneson came and held him. Finally, she wept. “Ah, Paulie, don’t you know?”

“What?”

“It was never really a contest.”

G
ENTLE AS A MOTHER
, Kate fed him brandy and cleaned and treated what was bleeding. Her fingers trembled and Paulie saw double. Still, it gave
him two of her to watch.

The sweat on his back was as cold as snow.

Kate was no longer crying, although some tears still dimmed her eyes.
Look what I’ve done to her
, Paulie thought.

Paulie’s forehead was swollen and discolored. But when Kate was through, it was covered by a neat, remarkably small bandage.

She took the brandy and led him to another room facing the lake.

“We have to talk,” she said.

Paulie shook his head and felt slightly dizzy. “I’m not sure I can deal with any more surprises today.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to.”

Paulie sat there.

“It’s all a lie,” Kate said. “There’s no Professor Mainz anymore. And no Klaus Logefeld. He’s dead.”

Paulie was silent.

“It’s true,” said Kate. “He died in the explosion that killed his grandfather and almost killed the president and his wife.”

“Where’s his body?”

“In a hidden tunnel under Wannsee.”

“And this whole idea of taking over in his name? Who came up with that?”

“Nicko, of course. Although I was happy to agree. Why let all the good that Klaus started go to waste?”

“Who knows about all this?”

“Just Nicko, me, and one other man who’s been handling the explosives. And he’s suddenly become a problem.”

“How?”

“He has the clocks ticking on the next targeted building, and I can’t seem to reach him to get them turned off.”

“Where’s the building?”

“Washington,” said Kate.

Paulie looked at her. “You had no fail-safe arrangements?”

“Of course we did. But he didn’t make his last three scheduled calls, and he hasn’t been at his hotel to receive ours.”

Paulie checked his watch. “He still has more than twenty hours to call in. It’s not exactly panic time.”

“No. But he’s always right on schedule. I’m afraid something has happened.”

“You know which building is set to go?”

“Yes.”

“And the exact location of the charge?”