Topaz - Leon Uris [27]
“You are working with a Tessina?”
“Yes,” he answered, showing the camera strapped on his wrist like a watch.
“If all goes well, you should be out of New York by eight o’clock.”
“Fine with me.”
“As soon as you have finished the job, take a taxi to La Guardia Airport. Purchase a TWA flight bag and put the film in it. I’ll be waiting near the main newsstand and will also have a TWA bag. We’ll switch by the paperback book racks.”
Pepe pocketed the bills and shoved the door open.
“Good luck,” Maurice said.
“Thanks.”
7
ANDRÉ GLANCED AT HIS watch as Nicole applied her never-ending finishing touches.
As in any plan in this state of motion, he wondered if and when and how he had left loopholes. Perhaps it was a mistake to put the “dead-letter drop” on a flying aircraft, but he had to move Pepe in and out of New York quickly. If the Americans got wind, they might accuse him of espionage or, at best, be very angry he had not advised them in advance. Furthermore, he wanted the film out of New York because he did not trust it to that jackass, Gustave Prévost.
The sitting in the dark, the not knowing, this brought on the tension. Pepe is a good man, André thought. Why the hell am I reviewing him now? At any rate, nothing to do but sweat it out.
Nicole made her entrance. He admired her, kissed her cheek, and they left the house and drove off.
His thoughts were on the contents of Rico Parra’s attaché case. It would be a windfall if they were not deliberate fakes. Rico Parra had recently returned from a conference in Moscow in which a number of new pacts had been negotiated. Certainly Rico Parra carried papers to discuss with the Soviet leaders while they were all in New York at the United Nations.
“Michele phoned today. She’s terribly unhappy about this fight with Tucker.”
“Eh?”
Michele ... fight ... Tucker ... Sarah ... blah ... blah.
Damn him! Nicole thought. Nothing is important. Not me. Not his daughter. Look at him, detached, in another world. And I’ve always been shut out from it.
“What did you say, dear?”
“I said the New York Yankees lost to the Washington Redskins.”
He stopped at Wisconsin and M streets, where the car parker greeted him familiarly and Blaise, the owner of the Rive Gauche, ushered them in.
Tonight it was an intimate dinner of six. All ININ people. His Italian and German counterparts and their wives. The Italians were palatable. A dull old married pair with flocks of children. The Baron and his wife were something else. In a word, André detested most Germans, and the Baron was no exception. Only an overdue social obligation compelled him to share a table with a German.
It was the Baron’s wife who annoyed Nicole. A little dumpling, not yet thirty, with a figure unmarred by childbearing. She displayed her bosom to the nth degree. Well, Nicole thought, she was keeping more than one bed warm in Washington, and small wonder. The Baron was an utter, total washout. She wondered if André had gotten around to sleeping with German women, or this one in particular.
They approached the table. The Baron and the Italian stood, smiling. Nicole’s hand was kissed, and André kissed the hands of the ININ wives.
Damn her, Nicole thought through smiles, look at the way her dress hangs open.
André looked at his watch again. Pepe Vimont should be in a taxi now, he thought, heading for the San Martín Hotel.
8
“OH, JESUS,” BENNY GARCÍA moaned. He crossed himself. He hadn’t crossed himself for many years. When he entered the ring he used to do that. Suppose something goes wrong, he thought. I should have never got mixed up in this. These Intelligence guys are dangerous.
He twisted his neck, trying to break loose the kinks. Benny García was queasy in the guts and perspiration popped out over his lip. It was like the night he fought Lupe López. He was stiff and could find no way to break loose. If he could have gotten past Lupe López, it might have meant a title shot. At least, every old