Topaz - Leon Uris [2]
“Jens Hansen.”
“Get him on the horn and tell him we need a favor. Large suite at the end of a hallway. Something we can block off and cover from all directions.”
“How soon?”
“Now. Send four or five of the boys down, tape machine and cameras. I’ll meet them there in twenty minutes.”
“Got it.”
Michael Nordstrom was a bit heftier than he would have liked but he still moved with deftness and grace. He wove his way back to the terrace quickly. A scream shrilled out from the roller coaster. “Sorry, fellows, office wants Sid and me back right away.”
The Danish and Norwegian ININ chiefs stood and they all shook hands.
“Have a good trip back to the States,” H. P. Sorensen said.
“See you in Oslo, Mike,” Per Nosdahl said.
Sid Hendricks reminded Sorensen they had a meeting next day and the two Americans departed.
They got into Sid’s car on H. C. Boulevard. “What’s up, Mike?”
“Russian. Maybe a defector. Go right away to the Glyptoteket’s Degas exhibition on the third floor. He’ll be carrying two books, Laederhalsene—and, uh, Rise and Fall, the Shirer book, in English. Identify yourself as Phil, then have him follow you. Waltz him around the Tivoli a few times to make sure he isn’t being tailed by his own people. End up at the Palace Hotel. One of the boys from your office will be waiting and tell you where to take him. If you don’t show in an hour, we’ll know it was a setup. Check him out carefully as you can.”
Sid nodded and got out of the car. Nordstrom watched him cross the avenue. The curtain, a mass of bicycles, closed behind him. Nordstrom emerged from the other side of the car for the short walk to the Palace, then grumbled beneath his breath. This sudden turn of events would force him to cancel a date with a lovely Danish miss.
2
FIFTEEN MINUTES HAD ELAPSED when Sid Hendricks entered the block-long red brick building housing a conglomeration of art treasures, sponsored by a Danish brewery.
He paid a krone admission, bought a catalogue, then made directly up a long flight of stairs on the right side of the main lobby.
The room was empty. Hendricks studied it for unwanted guests but could spot none. He thumbed through the catalogue, then moved around the dozens of Degas wire studies of horses and ballet dancers, each an experiment to capture phases of motion. He stopped before a glass case and looked long at a particularly magnificent piece, a rearing horse.
“Unfortunately, we do not see much Degas in the Soviet Union.”
Hendricks squinted to try to catch in the glass the reflection of the man who had slipped up behind him, but all he could make out was a transparent disfiguration.
“A few pieces in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow,” the Russian accent labored, “and somewhat better in the Hermitage, but I do not get to Leningrad often.”
Hendricks turned the page in the catalogue. “Never been there,” he answered, keeping his eyes straight ahead.
“I have. I’d like to leave.”
“I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Not formally. You are Sidney Hendricks, in charge of the American ININ Division in Denmark.”
“Anyone can get that information out of the Embassy Directory.”
“Then, how about this information? Your boss, Michael Nordstrom, is in Copenhagen to meet the Danish and Norwegian ININ counterparts, Nosdahl and Sorensen, to discuss expansion of an espionage ring of Scandinavian students studying in the Soviet Union.”
With that, Sid Hendricks turned and faced his adversary.
The two stipulated books nestled tightly under the arm of a man of shorter than average height. Russians look like Russians, Hendricks thought. High forehead, suffering brown eyes of a tortured intellectual, uneven haircut, prominent cheekbones, knobby fingers. His suit showed Western styling but was sloppily worn.
“Follow me and keep a hundred-foot interval.”
Hendricks passed from the room through a group of incoming art students and their instructor.
On the street he waited on the corner of Tietgensgade until the Russian emerged from the museum, then crossed to the Tivoli Gardens and paid an admission into the Dansetten.
Cha-cha-cha