The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [39]
He’d had the rifle for some time—bought it under a false name, “A. Hidell,” on 13 March, by mail order.
On 1 November, he rented P.O. Box 6225, Terminal Annex, Dallas.
After our little dance on the sidewalk, I began to think about what you’d said. Maybe we’re the ones with illusions, but it doesn’t matter. See what you can do; if you succeed, I’d like to hear about it. But that’s up to you.
The money in Geneva represents less than the total of your magazine salary over the past five years. We never found a way to give it to charity (something about accounting regulations), so it’s been lying in a safe all this time. I found a way to give it back to you as a “termination bonus.” As long as we call it that, it seems to be okay. There’s more if you need it.
I wish I could arrange a nobler gesture. It’s not possible. I do advise you to stay out of this country for a while. Your highly placed friend won’t be in “power” forever, but while he is, you might as well realize you have no one here who can help you. He’s serious about the straitjacket.
I’ve told Tom about your “resignation,” to prevent his sending me cables asking where you are. He’ll keep it to himself, even if asked directly. He knows nothing else, and shouldn’t.
Good-bye.
Christopher read the first part of the note again to memorize it, and dropped it in the fire. Webster said, “What’s all this about, Paul?”
“A word of farewell from David.”
Webster brushed aside Christopher’s reply with a motion of his hand. “I mean, what brought this on so suddenly?”
“Tom, it’s not so sudden. You get tired of the life. I’ve been hanging around alone in hotel rooms in central Africa and Afghanistan ever since I got out of college. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
“It’s not too convenient for the rest of us, you know. There are twenty-six principal agents in eighteen different countries out there who won’t talk to anyone but you.”
“They’ll get along. Ninety percent of what they do, they do out of their own resources. They aren’t photographing documents, they’re running political movements. I’ve held their hands for a long time—let them go on alone.”
Webster sat down heavily. “I’m not used to operating against you, Paul, and I don’t like to do it. I think this smells very, very funny. Patchen doesn’t give a shit about your agents, either. He wouldn’t discuss handing them over to somebody else. It’s like he expects you back after a short vacation.”
“I won’t be back, Tom. David knows that.”
“Then what’s he waiting for? He doesn’t want word of your leaving to get around, isn’t that right?”
“You read Patchen’s mind if you want to. I’ve never been able to do it. What do you mean by operating against me?”
“Trying to get you to open up,” Webster said. “Sybille may think things have changed, but I don’t. We’ve never lied to each other, Paul.”
“Then let’s not start now.”
“All right, I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t think you’re out. I think you and David have got something going. You went to Washington without even telling us. I didn’t know you’d been there until Patchen showed up on the doorstep day before yesterday.”
“When I went to Washington, it seemed the thing to do, Tom. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—but I go a lot of places without telling you, when I pay for my own ticket.”
“So you fly home at your own expense, resign, make plans to shack up in Rome for the rest of your life with that Australian you’ve got, right?” Webster said. “And a week later I spot you in La Coupole, with Nguyen Kim, with no French surveillance closer than wherever you lost it. The French are on him like ten pots of glue, all the time. You’re telling me they took a night off so you two could eat oysters and gossip about old times?”
“Tom, I’m not telling you that—you’re making it up.”
“Well, I’m not making this up. Kim has run just over two million dollars through the Banque Sadak in Beirut in the last ten days. He