Free Assassin by David Hagberg Page B

apartment, or go back to your own place and stay there. I have something to do.”
    She was torn by indecision, he could see it in her eyes. But finally she nodded. “Don’t be long.”
    â€œCome on, I’ll get you a cab.”
    â€œI can manage,” she said, pulling away from him. She searched his face for a clue, then walked over to a cab, climbed in the back, and the taxi headed away. As it passed she looked straight ahead.
    McGarvey waited until the cab was out of sight, then went back to the tower, where he bought another ticket for the fourth floor.
    Upstairs, he leaned against the rail in front of the windows and lit a cigarette. The observation deck was busy. A few minutes later the man from the Citröen joined him.
    â€œShe is a very pretty woman,” he said.
    McGarvey focused on the man’s reflection in the glass. “Hello, Viktor Pavlovich. Yes, she is.”
    â€œFrench secret service?” Yemlin asked.
    â€œProbably.”
    â€œI figured that was why you sent her away when you spotted me. She’ll wonder why.”
    â€œWill it matter if the French know that we’ve met?”
    Yemlin thought for a moment. “Yes, it will matter very much. It will be a question of your safety.”
    â€œAre the French after you for some reason?”
    â€œNo, but they wouldn’t be so happy if they knew why I’d come to see you,” Yemlin said. He stared down at the street and the river.
    â€œI’m retired,” McGarvey said. “Anyway you’d be the last person I’d help. We go back too long on opposite sides of the fence for me to so easily forget.”
    â€œEighteen months ago you came to me to ask a favor. And I did it for you, Kirk. Gladly. And as it turns out you did very well because of the information I provided you. All I’m asking now is that you hear me out.”

    McGarvey turned to look at the Russian. In eighteen months he’d aged ten years. He no longer seemed to be the dangerous adversary he’d once been when he’d headed the Illegals Directorate of the KGB, and later when he’d headed Department Viktor, the Russian assassination and terrorist division.
    He’d been fighting capitalism, he’d told McGarvey. Fighting to save the Rodina —the Motherland—as they’d all been in those days. But there had been hundreds, even thousands of deaths. Tens of millions of deaths counting the ones Stalin massacred.
    But who was innocent, McGarvey asked himself now as he had then. He had his share of blood on his hands. More than his share. Was fighting to save democracy any less noble for an American, than fighting to save socialism was for a Russian? He didn’t have the answer.
    â€œAll right, Viktor, I’ll listen to you. But that’s all. I promise you that I’m out of the business.”
    â€œWhat about the woman?”
    â€œI’ll make my excuses. It’ll be okay.”
    Yemlin glanced out the windows. “Let’s walk in the park. Heights make me dizzy.”
    They took the elevator back down, then crossed Quai Branly and descended to the river walk where McGarvey and Jacqueline had been heading. An odd state of affairs, McGarvey thought. But then his entire life had been a series of odd affairs.
    Traffic on the river, as on the streets, was heavy. The weather was bringing everybody outdoors. The river walk too was crowded, which was better for their purposes. It gave them anonymity.
    â€œThe situation is becoming very bad in Russia,” Yemlin said.
    â€œI know,” McGarvey replied. “Have you caught Yeltsin’s assassin yet, or did he get out of the city and return to Tarankov’s protection?”
    â€œPresident Yeltsin died of a heart attack—”
    â€œThat’s not true. Nor do your security people carry any type of ordinance in their chase cars that would explode like that. The public may have bought it, but there isn’t