The Snake Flag Conspiracy Read online

  "What are the men on this list really after?"

  "Not money. For them, money is just a tool. They don't really give a damn about money. Control is what they're after. When you can control the lives of hundreds — hell, thousands — of other men, well, son, that's a pretty heady feeling."

  "Which of them has the most power?"

  Woolfolk stood up slowly. "I can't tell you that, Nick. I just don't know. I guess it's your job to find out, isn't it?"

  "Alright, Calvin. Thanks for the help."

  He shrugged his bony shoulders. "Think nothing of it. You just call on me any time you feel like it."

  I watched him walk off in a loping, loose-jointed stride, quickly disappearing around the curve of the path.

  Five men. Eleven days in which to uncover the KGB "plant." There were two ways to root him out. I could start digging for him — and it might take a year or more to get the information. Or I could make him come after me.

  He wouldn't do it himself. He'd send someone else. And if I could spot that someone else, I'd be able to track him back to the man who'd issued the order, and from that man to the next one higher up. And if there weren't too many in the chain, and if I were lucky and they didn't get me first — well, I'd get my man. Maybe.

  After awhile I got to my feet and walked down Arlington Street to Newbury Street and the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

  Every city has at least one hotel like it. The hotel where people with quiet money and social status stay because of the panache, the atmosphere, the ambience — whatever you want to call it. It's something that takes two or three generations to develop; an individual tradition of superbly efficient but unostentatious, service.

  My bags were already in my room. Hawk had seen to it that they were sent directly from Andrews Air Base even while I was being driven to National Airport to catch the Eastern shuttle flight. All I had to do was sign the register at the desk. The first thing I did after I closed the door behind the bellhop was to put in a transatlantic call to Jacques Crève-Coeur in Marseilles.

  The telephone rang half a dozen times before he picked it up.

  I said, " 'Allo, Jacques?" and before I could go on, the receiver crackled with his curses.

  "You know what time it is here?" he demanded. "Don't you have any consideration at all? Why must you deprive an old man like me of his sleep?" It was not quite 9:00 p.m. in France.

  "You'll get all the sleep you need in your grave. Jacques, were there any repercussions from that little incident on the beach?"

  "Little incident! An understatement, mon ami. No, there were no repercussions. Why?"

  "Do you think the opposition found out I was responsible?"

  I heard him gasp. "Mon dieu! This is an open line! Why are you suddenly so careless?"

  "Trust me, Jacques."

  He caught on quickly. "No, so far they don't know about you, although they're trying hard to find out who it was. Is it that you want me to pass the word along?"

  "As soon as you can, Jacques. Such a channel is available to you?"

  "One of the best. A double agent. He thinks I don't know that he works for the KGB as well as for us,"

  "Let them know that I rescued the Russian, Jacques. Let them know he told me everything he discovered. Also, let them know that I'm now in Boston."

  Jacques said somberly, "They'll be after you, Nick. Take care."

  "Someone will be after me, Jacques. Let's hope it will be soon."

  I hung up. There was nothing more to be said. What I had to do now was to wait, and my hotel room was not the place for it. Not if I wanted action. I had to expose myself and see what happened.

  What happened was that two hours later I met a young woman. She was in her late twenties or early thirties and carried herself with the kind of poise other women envy and try to imitate. Brown hair, neatly brushed so that the ends curled in to frame an oval face. Just enough makeup to accentuate grey-blue eyes and the barest touch of lipstick to outline her full mouth. A blue, rough-nubbed linen jacket and short skirt and a paler blue turtleneck cashmere sweater covered the lines of an exceptionally feminine body.

  Downtown Boston is a city made for tourists. Within a dozen blocks there are half a hundred places of historical interest. I had wandered across the Common to the Granary Burial Ground on Tremont Street — Ben Franklin's final resting place.

  Like most of the other tourists, she carried a camera. As she unslung it from around her neck, she came up to me and held it out. Smiling, she asked politely, "Would you mind taking my picture? It's very simple. I've already set it. All you have to do is press this button."

  The smile was friendly and, at the same time, remote. It's the kind of smile that pretty girls learn to turn on when they want something, and yet still want to keep you at arm's length.

  She handed me the camera and moved back, lithely stepping up onto the edge of Franklin's grave marker.

  "Be sure you get it all in," she said. "The whole monument. Okay?"

  I raised the camera to my eye.

  "You'll have to step back a few feet," she told me, still smiling her warm but impersonal smile. But there was no warmth in those blue-grey eyes. "You're really too close."

  She was right. The camera had a telephoto lens mounted on it. All I could see of her through the finder was the upper part of her torso and her head.

  I started to move back, and as I did so, the weight and the feel of the camera in my hands told me that something was wrong. It looked like any one of a hundred thousand Japanese single lens reflex cameras of that particular popular model. There was nothing outwardly different about it to arouse my suspicions. But my instincts were suddenly screaming at me, telling me that something was wrong. I've learned to trust my instincts thoroughly, and to act on those instincts without delay.

  I took my finger off the shutter release and moved the camera away from my face.

  On the pedestal, the woman stopped smiling. Anxiously she called out, "Is there anything wrong?"

  I smiled reassuringly back at her. "Not a thing," I said and turned to the man standing a few feet away. He'd been watching the little by-play between us with an envious expression on his round face. He was short and bald and wore heavily-framed glasses, and he was dressed in a plaid summer jacket and bright red slacks. The look on his face said plainly that, while he wished she'd chosen him, he was used to the fact that pretty women never noticed him. I guess he might have been a nice guy. I'll never know. He was a loser, one of the world's little people who somehow always wind up with the short end of the stick.

  I pressed the camera into his pudgy hands and said, "Do me a favor, will you? Take a picture of both of us."

  Without waiting to hear his reply, I sprang up onto the base of the marker beside the young woman and put one arm tightly around her waist before she could stop me.

  She tried to twist away. There was real fright in her face. I held her even more firmly to my side, my arm gripping her torso, feeling the softness of her flesh under the softness of the cashmere sweater.

  "No!" she cried out. "No! Don't!"

  "He's just going to take one for my scrapbook," I told her pleasantly, but my arm never relaxed its unbending grip on her in spite of her struggles and the smile on my face was as false as hers had been a moment before.

  Desperately she tried to wrench herself away.

  The man put the camera to his eye.

  "Hey! That's a great shot," he commented admiringly.

  "Damn you! Let go!" she cried out, panic filling her voice. "You'll kill us both!"

  "Hold it," said the pudgy little man. I threw the woman to the ground, with myself on top of her, just as his finger pressed down on the shutter release.

  The explosion fractured our little world with its sharp blast.

  As explosions go, it wasn't much. Just enough to tear the head off the man with the camera and splatter us with his blood. An ounce or so of plastique doesn't take up much space. Neither does the tiny electric battery that m
akes it go off, but together they're enough to do the job if all you want to do is kill the man who's holding it to his face.

  Some part of the camera — I guess it must have been the lens — flew across the few feet and slammed into the side of my head. It was like being hit with an axe handle. Everything went a reddish, hazy black and out of focus. Beneath me, I could feel the woman's body squirming in her frantic attempts to escape. My hands wouldn't respond. I couldn't hold onto her.

  People were shouting. There were a few screams that seemed to come from very far away, and then the noise swallowed me up.

  I wasn't out very long. Just a few seconds, but it was long enough for the woman to pull herself from underneath me and get to her feet. Dimly I could see her run down the path to the gate. She turned left on Tremont Street.

  Groggily I pushed myself to my hands and knees. Someone helped me stand up.

  "Are you alright?"

  I didn't answer. Like a drunk, I staggered down the path after her, knowing that I had to keep her in sight.

  Someone shouted at me, "Hey, you're hurt!" and tried to hold me back. I pushed him aside with a hard shove that sent him sprawling to his knees and continued my staggering run over the graves toward the gate. As I came out of the cemetery, I saw her turn the corner and head up toward Beacon Hill.

  By the time I reached the intersection, she was far up the street. She had crossed to the other side and had slowed to a walk. If a running man attracts attention, the sight of a woman sprinting is enough to turn every head. Whoever she was, she was smart enough to know that. She walked at a quick, determined pace, looking neither to the right nor the left.

  I slowed to a walk, too, staying on the opposite side of the street to keep her in sight. She went up the hill, past the State House, then turned right on Joy Street, still a hundred feet or more in front of me. When I got to the corner, it was just in time to see her turn left onto Mount Vernon Street.

  The streets on Beacon Hill are narrow and not very crowded with people. It's easy to spot anyone trying to follow you. I hung back as far as I dared, gambling that I wouldn't lose her.

  I didn't.

  She came to Louisburg Square, that small, privately-owned enclave that is the home of old Boston families, and turned into it. Two rows of adjoining townhouses that are not very wide and not very pretentious face each other across a small park. You've got to have more than just money to be able to buy one. They're passed down from generation to generation, a legacy to be kept in the family. Outsiders are not welcome.

  I watched the woman pause momentarily to unlock one of the townhouse doors. Not once had she turned her head to see if she were being followed.

  The sidewalks of the Square are of brick, and in the street the original granite cobblestones are only partially covered by a thin sheeting of asphalt that time and traffic have worn away. The whole damn place looks slightly seedy, slightly run down, but you'd better not believe its appearance. Louisburg Square means something special to anyone who knows New England. The people who live there hide behind a facade of genteel poverty, and what they hide is old money. Old money and old family and what Calvin Woolfolk and I had been talking about earlier in the day. Power.

  She'd led me to where I wanted to go.

  Now the question was, which one of those five names on Woolfolk's list lived at 21 1/2 Louisburg Square?

  Chapter Five

  None of the five names was listed as being a resident of 21 1/2 Louisburg Square. Neither the telephone directory nor the reverse directory, which lists by street addresses rather than by names, carried any information about who lived there. All that meant was that whoever it was had an unlisted number. It was too late to check City Hall for the tax records. I'd do that tomorrow.

  It had been a pretty full day, considering that at six in the morning I'd boarded an Air Force fighter jet in Marseilles, had lunch and a talk with Hawk in Washington around twelve-thirty, and had almost had my head blown off before six o'clock that same evening in Boston.

  There was a message for me in my box when I got back to my hotel. Calvin Woolfolk had called and invited me to dinner. He'd meet me at Gaspar's, which was thoughtful of him because the restaurant is only about three blocks from the hotel.

  I showered and changed and walked up Newbury Street to Gaspar's. The maitre d' came up to me before I'd taken half a dozen steps inside.

  "Mr. Carter?"

  "Yes."

  He smiled his professional greeter's smile. "Mr. Woolfolk is waiting for you in the other room, sir. If you'll follow me, please…"

  Calvin's white hair caught my eye as soon as we walked into the far dining room. He looked up and lifted a hand in greeting. There was a woman seated with him, but her back was toward me. When I got to the table, Calvin rose and said, "Nick, I'd like you to meet my niece. Sabrina, this is Nick Carter."

  The woman turned and lifted her face to me, smiling the same kind of smile she'd worn earlier in the afternoon when she'd come up with a camera in her hand at Ben Franklin's grave and asked me to take her picture with it. Warm and impersonal, a facial gesture polite enough to hide behind with impunity.

  She held out her hand. It felt both delicate and strong at the same time.

  I smiled back at her.

  "Sit down, Nick," said Calvin Woolfolk. The maitre d' pulled out the chair between Calvin and his niece. I gave him my order for a drink.

  "I thought there'd be just the two of us," I said to Calvin. "Your message didn't indicate…"

  "…that we'd have the pleasure of Sabrina's company?" Calvin finished. "No, it didn't. I wasn't aware that Sabrina was in town at the time I called you. She stopped by my place as I was leaving. Came as a complete surprise." He reached over and touched her hand affectionately. "But a pleasant one. I hardly ever see her these days. She's gadding about the country, flying from one place to another so a body can't keep track of her."

  I turned to Sabrina. "You must be Mather's daughter."

  "I didn't know you knew Father," she said. Her voice had a husky body to it. Its tone, though, was as reserved as her smile.

  "I don't," I said. "Calvin's mentioned him. I'm assuming Calvin has no other brothers."

  "Thank God," said Calvin. "Mather's enough!"

  The waiter came up with my drink. The three of us touched glasses and made small talk that lasted through the meal.

  Sabrina's poise was perfect. She acted as though I were just another friend of Calvin's. You'd never guess that only a few hours earlier she'd tried to blow my head off.

  Did Calvin know about Sabrina's attempt on my life? Was he part of the conspiracy? Did she deliberately drop in on Woolfolk because she knew he was having dinner with me, or did that turn of events take her by surprise?

  Sabrina. I looked across the table at her. She was completely at ease. It takes a particular kind of murderess to do what she'd done this afternoon and then to act as cool and as poised as she was right now. She knew that I recognized her. Apparently, she just didn't give a damn. Perhaps she felt so sure I'd be dead within hours that I posed absolutely no threat in her eyes.

  Every once in awhile, I'd catch her looking appraisingly at me, though. There was a hint of amusement in her gaze, and mockery, and if I read it right, a touch of scorn.

  Calvin insisted on paying the check. We walked out into the street. The night was one of those pleasant New England summer nights, clear and cool, with the wind coming down the street from the north. Calvin stopped on the corner.

  "Nick," he asked, "would you mind taking Sabrina home? I'm heading the other way."

  I looked at his niece.

  "Not if she doesn't mind."

  Sabrina said politely, "I'd appreciate it, Mr. Carter."

  Calvin patted me on the arm. "Talk to you soon," he said and moved off in that loping, gangly stride that belied his age.

  I took Sabrina by the elbow, turning down Newbury Street toward the center of town.

  We had walked half a dozen steps bef
ore she spoke up. "You seem to know where we're going. Do you know where I live, Mr. Carter?"

  "Beacon Hill."

  "And the street?"

  "Louisburg Square."

  Even in the darkness I could see a faint smile on her lips.

  "And, of course, you know the number."

  "Twenty-one and a half."

  She put her arm through mine. "You're quite a man, Mr. Carter, aren't you?"

  "Nick," I corrected her. "No, it's just that when someone tries to kill me, I find out as much about him — or her — as I can."

  "Do people often try to kill you?" Still the touch of amusement in her voice.

  "Often enough for me to have learned to be careful. And you? Do you often try to kill others?"

  Sabrina ignored the question. "It must seem that way to you," she said thoughtfully. "Looking at it from your point of view, I'm sure it would appear that I did try to kill you."

  "Is there another way of looking at it?"

  Who the devil was she trying to con, I wondered. And how would she try to lie her way out of attempted murder?

  "Did you ever think that I might have been the intended victim? After all, it was my camera that was tampered with."

  "Is that why you ran?"

  "I ran because I can't afford to be involved in any form of scandal," she said. "Mr. Bradford will not stand for any publicity about him — or about anyone who works for him."

  "Bradford?"

  "Alexander Bradford. I'm his executive secretary."

  Alexander Bradford. Another of the names that Calvin Woolfolk had given me.

  "Tell me about him."

  Sabrina shook her head. "That would cost me my job. I shouldn't even have mentioned that I work for him."

  "You do more than just type and take shorthand. Right?"

  "Oh, definitely," she said, the tone of her voice telling me that she was laughing at me now, and it was as if, in that instant, she'd finally made up her mind about me and decided to put me to the final test. She'd issued a challenge to me, daring me to play the game with her.