Free O'Farrell's Law by Brian Freemantle Page B

small arms and ten of the fifty tanks that were not coming from America but from a German arms dealer who had them available for sale. They were far cheaper than he’d have to pay for the American vehicles; Belac guessed $10,000 a tank, although, of course, he wouldn’t tell Rivera that. Belac reckoned that as he was taking the risk, by using his own money, then his should be the unexpected and unshared profit.
    Rivera remained with the arms dealer for less than an hour, walking back to the center of town, where he caught a taxi to the airport, boarding the midafternoon plane to London. There he was followed back into the city. He did not go to his Hampstead home but to a mews house in Pimlico that was already logged on the CIA’s watch list. It belonged to an aging, self-made English newspaper magnate named Sir William Blanchard. Inquiries showed that he was in Ottawa negotiating fresh newsprint prices with Canadian manufacturers. Lady Henrietta Blanchard, twenty-three years her husband’s junior, was at home, though.
    It was nine A.M. the following morning before Rivera left.
    SIX
    T HE HEAD of the CIA’s Plans Directorate was a barrel-chested, bull-necked Irishman named Gus McCarthy. He was thickly red-haired and had a heavily freckled face, with freckles on the back of his hands as well; they were also matted with more red hair. He looked like a barroom brawler—and was able to be—but his looks belied the man. He was a strategist capable of intricate and manipulative schemes, never concentrating upon an immediate operation to the exclusion of how it could be extended and utilized to its fullest advantage. He was perfectly matched by his deputy, Hank Sneider, a precise, slight man who had the ability to recognize the direction of McCarthy’s thoughts almost before the man completely explained them, and correct and improve upon the details. Their nicknames within the Langley headquarters were Mutt and Jeff. They knew it and weren’t offended; there were benefits to being underestimated.
    â€œSo what have we got?” McCarthy demanded, not seeking an answer. “One of the largest arms dealers in Europe, a Cuban ambassador who likes the good life, and a British newspaper owner.”
    â€œI think to include the newspaper owner is confusing,” Sneider said. “Blanchard isn’t involved. Rivera’s just humping the wife is all.”
    â€œMaybe not all,” McCarthy mused. “Couldn’t we use that? Blanchard’s got a hell of an empire: television stations and newspapers and magazines here as well as in Europe. Get ourselves a corner there and we’d have an incredible outlet for whatever we wanted to plant.”
    They were in McCarthy’s seventh-floor office in the CIA building, high enough for a view of the Potomac glistening its way through the tree line. Sneider ignored the view, pouring coffee for both of them from the permanently steaming Cona machine. McCarthy consumed a minimum of ten cups a day. Sneider carried McCarthy’s mug back to the man’s desk and said, “It’s worth thinking through. But we could only achieve that by pressuring the old guy. The shit we’ve got is on the woman.”
    â€œHow much of a lever does she have on her old man?”
    â€œGet things published the way we want, darling, or hubbie gets to know all the sordid details?” Sneider suggested.
    â€œSomething like that,” McCarthy agreed, appreciatively sipping. “Be nice to get a picture of her with her ass in the air.”
    â€œRivera’s too, in tandem.”
    â€œThey discreet?”
    â€œDon’t appear to be, particularly. Rivera shacked up at the family home when the old guy was in Canada and she often accompanies him to polo matches. That’s his sport, polo.”
    â€œSo what’s that?” McCarthy asked, another rhetorical question. “Sheer couldn’t-give-a-damn carelessness? Arrogance?