"I'll do what I can. . . ."

'I assume that means 'yes,' " McVey said, hanging up.

Two hours and seventeen minutes later a British Royal Air Force medevac jet landed at Aerodrome Lyon-Bron. As it did, an ambulance carrying a British diplomat who'd suffered a heart attack raced out to the tarmac to meet it.

Fifteen minutes after that, Lebrun was airborne for England.

At five minutes past seven, a car pulled up in front of Vera Monneray's apartment building at 18 Quai de Bethune and Philippe, weary and ragged from a long, unsuccessful night of staring at photographs of known criminals, got out. Nodding to the four uniformed policemen standing guard at the front door, he entered the lobby.

"Bonjour, Maurice," he said to the night man behind the desk he was late to replace, and begged an extra hour to shave and get a little sleep. Maurice," he said to the night man behind the desk he was late to replace, and begged an extra hour to shave and get a little sleep.

Pushing through a door and into the service hallway, he went down a flight of steps to his modest basement apartment at the far end of the building. His key was out and he was almost to the door when he heard a noise behind him and someone call his name. Starting, he whirled around in fear, half expecting to see the tall man standing there with a gun aimed at his heart.

"Monsieur Osborn," he said in relief as Osborn stepped out from behind a door to a room that housed the building's electrical meters.

"You should not have left your room. There are police everywhere." Then he saw Osborn's hand, bandaged and held like a claw near his waist. "Monsieur-"

"Where's Vera? She's not in her apartment. Where is she?" Osborn looked as if he'd barely slept. But more than that, he looked frightened.

"Come inside, s'il vous plait." s'il vous plait."

Quickly Philippe unlocked the door and they entered his small flat.

"The police took her to work. She insisted. I was only going to the toilet and then up to see if you were there. Mademoiselle was equally concerned."

"I have to talk to her. Do you have a phone?"

"Oui, of course. But the police may be listening. They will trace the call back here." of course. But the police may be listening. They will trace the call back here."

Philippe was right, they would. "You call her, then. Tell her that you are very concerned the tall man may find her. Tell her to ask the inspectors guarding her to take her to her grandmother's house in Calais. Don't let her argue. Tell her to stay there until . . ."

"Until when?"

"I don't know-"Osborn stared at him. "Until . . . it's safe."

65.

"I'M G GOING secure now." McVey punched a button and a light on the oversize "secure phone" in Lebrun's private office at police headquarters came on confirming the line was safe from wiretap. "Can you still hear me?" secure now." McVey punched a button and a light on the oversize "secure phone" in Lebrun's private office at police headquarters came on confirming the line was safe from wiretap. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes," Noble said from a similar phone in the London Special Branch communications center. "Lebrun arrived about forty minutes ago, courtesy of the RAF. We've got him at Westminster Hospital under an assumed name. He's not in the best shape but the doctors seem to think he'll make it."

"Can he talk?"

"Not yet. But he can write or at least scrawl. He's given us two names. 'Klass' and 'Antoine'-Antoine has a question mark after it."

Klass was Dr. Hugo Klass, the German fingerprint expert working out of Interpol, Lyon.

"He's telling us it was Klass who requested the Merriman file from the New York Police Department," McVey said. "Antoine is Lebrun's brother, supervisor of internal security at Interpol headquarters," McVey said, wondering if the question mark after Antoine's name meant Lebrun was concerned about his brother's safety or that he might have been involved in the shooting.

"While we're at it, let me enlighten you about something else," Noble said. "We've got a name to go with our neatly severed head."

"Say what?" McVey was beginning to think the term good luck good luck had been snatched from his vocabulary. had been snatched from his vocabulary.

"Timothy Ashford, a housepainter from Clapham South, which you may or may not know is a working-class district in South London. He lived alone and worked as a day painter from job to job. His only relative is a sister living in Chicago but evidently they didn't have much to do with each other. He disappeared two years ago next month. It was his landlady who reported it. Came to the authorities when she hadn't seen him in several weeks and he was behind in his rent. She'd rented his flat but didn't know what to do with his belongings. He'd got his skull smashed by a billiard cue in a pub fight. It's our luck he also punched a bobby. Patching him up, they had to put a metal plate in his head; it was a matter of police record."

"That means you've got his fingerprints."

"You are absolutely correct, Detective McVey. We've got his fingerprints. Trouble is, all we've got of the rest of him now is his head."

There was a buzz and McVey heard Noble pick up the line to his office.

"Yes, Elizabeth," McVey heard him say. There was a pause and then he said, "Thank you," and came back on the line. "Cadoux is calling from Lyon."

"Is he on a secure phone?"

"No."

"Ian," McVey said quietly. "Before you pick up. Can you trust him? No reservations."

"Yes," Noble said.

"Ask him if he's at headquarters. If he is, find a way to tell him to leave the building and call your private line from a public phone. When you get him, plug me in, make it a three-way call."

Fifteen minutes later Noble's private line rang through, and Noble quickly picked up. "Yves, McVey is on the line from Paris. I'm putting him on with us now."

"Cadoux, it's McVey. Lebrun is in London, we got him out for his own safety."

"I presumed as much. Although I must tell you the hospital security people as well as the Lyon police are more than a little upset about how it was done. How is he?"

"He'll make it." McVey paused. "Cadoux, listen carefully. You have a mole at headquarters. His name is Doctor Hugo Klass."

"Klass?" Cadoux was taken aback. "He's one of our most brilliant scientists. The one who discovered the Albert Merriman fingerprint on the glass shard taken from the Jean Packard murder scene. Why would-?"

"We don't know." McVey could see Cadoux, his burly frame squeezed into a public phone booth somewhere in Lyon, twiddling his handlebar mustache, as understandably perplexed as they were. "But what we do do know is that he requested the Merriman file from the NYPD, via Interpol, Washington, some fifteen hours know is that he requested the Merriman file from the NYPD, via Interpol, Washington, some fifteen hours before before alerting Lebrun that he'd even come up with a print. Twenty-four hours later, Merriman vas dead. And very soon after that so were his girlfriend in Paris, and his wife and her entire family in Marseilles. Somehow Klass must have learned Lebrun had come to Lyon and traced the file request. So he had him shut up." alerting Lebrun that he'd even come up with a print. Twenty-four hours later, Merriman vas dead. And very soon after that so were his girlfriend in Paris, and his wife and her entire family in Marseilles. Somehow Klass must have learned Lebrun had come to Lyon and traced the file request. So he had him shut up."

"Now it starts to make sense."

"What does?" Noble asked.

"Lebrun's brother, Antoine, our supervisor of internal security. He was found shot in the head this morning. It appears to have been suicide, but maybe not."

McVey cursed to himself. Lebrun was in bad enough shape himself without having to be told his brother was dead. "Cadoux, I doubt very much you're looking at a suicide. Something's going on that involved Merriman but reached a lot further. And whatever it is, whoever's behind it, is now killing cops."

"Yves, I think it's best you take Klass into custody as soon as possible," Noble said, directly.

"Excuse me, Ian. I don't think so." McVey was standing up, pacing behind Lebrun's desk. "Cadoux, find somebody you can trust. Maybe even from some other city. Klass doesn't suspect we're on to him. Get a wire on his private line at home and put a tail on him. See where he goes, who he talks to. Then work backward from Antoine's death. See if you can follow the line from the time he died until the time Sunday he met Lebrun. We don't know which side he was on. Finally, and very judiciously, find out who Klass got at Interpol, Washington, to make the Merriman file request to the New York police."

"I understand," Cadoux said.

"Captain-watch yourself," McVey warned.

"I shall. Merci. Au revoir." Merci. Au revoir."

There was a click as Cadoux hung up.

"Who is this Doctor Klass?" Noble asked.

"Beyond who he appears? I don't know."

"I'm going to contact M16. Perhaps we can find out a little about Doctor Klass ourselves."

Noble clicked off and McVey stared at the wall, angered that he couldn't get some definitive grasp on what was going on. It was as if he'd suddenly become professionally impotent. Immediately there was a knock at the door and a uniformed policeman stuck his head in to tell him in English that the concierge from his hotel was on the phone. "Line two."

"Merci." The man left and McVey turned from the "secure phone" to lift the receiver on Lebrun's desk phone. "This is McVey." The man left and McVey turned from the "secure phone" to lift the receiver on Lebrun's desk phone. "This is McVey."

"Dave Gifford, Hotel Vieux," a male voice said.

As he'd left his hotel earlier McVey had slipped the concierge, an expatriate American, a two-hundred-franc tip and asked to be informed of any calls or transmissions that came for him.

"I get a fax from L.A.?"

"No, sir."

What the hell was Hernandez doing with the Osborn information, hand-delivering it to Paris? Sitting down, McVey flipped open a notebook and picked up a pencil. He had two calls from Detective Barras, an hour apart. One from a plumber in Los Angeles confirming his automatic lawn sprinklers had been installed and were working. But wanted McVey to call back and let him know what days and length of watering time he wanted them set for.

"Jesus," McVey said under his breath.

Lastly there was a call the concierge felt was a crank. In fact the caller had rung back three times, wanting to speak to McVey personally. Each time he'd left no message, but each time he'd sounded a little more desperate.

He'd given his name as Tommy Lasorda.

66.

JOANNA F FELT as if she had been drugged and lived through a nightmare. as if she had been drugged and lived through a nightmare.

After her marathon sexual regatta with Von Holden in the mirrored pool room, Von Holden had invited her to come with him into Zurich. Her first reaction had been to smile and beg off. She was exhausted. She'd spent seven hours earlier that day with Mr. Lybarger, working him hard, and often against his will, to make him confident enough to walk without his cane. Trying to make Salettl's crazy Friday deadline. By 3:30 she'd seen he had done as much as he could do and had taken him to his quarters to rest. She'd expected he'd nap, have a light dinner in his room and probably go to bed very early. But, there he'd been, formally dressed at dinner, bright and alert and with enough reserve to listen to Uta Baur's never-ending chatter and then, afterward, walk to the second floor to attend the piano recital by Eric and Edward.

If Mr. Lybarger could do it, Von Holden teased, Joanna could certainly drive into Zurich for some infamous Swiss chocolat? Besides it was barely ten o'clock.

Their first stop had been at one of James Joyce's favorite restaurants on Ramistrasse, where they had chocolat and coffee. Then Von Holden had taken her to a crazy cafe on Munzplatz, just off the Bahnhofstrasse, to see the nightlife. After that they'd gone to the Champagne Bar at the Hotel Central Plaza and then to a pub on Pelikanstrasse. Finally they walked down to watch the moon over the Zurichsee.

"Want to see my apartment?" Von Holden smiled mischievously as he leaned on the railing and tossed a coin into the water for good luck.

"You're kidding!" Joanna thought she could never walk again.

"Not kidding at all." Von Holden reached out and touched her hair.

Joanna was amazed at her arousal. Even giggled out loud at it.

"What's funny?" Von Holden said.

"Nothing-"

"Come, then."

Joanna stared at him. "You are a bastard."

"Can't help it." He smiled.

They had cognac on his terrace overlooking the Old Town and he told her stories of his boyhood and growing up on a huge cattle ranch in Argentina. After that he'd taken her to his bed and they'd made love.

How many times has it been tonight? Joanna remembered thinking. Then remembered him standing over her, his penis still enormous, even in repose, and, smiling and embarrassed, asking her if she would very much mind if he tied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts. And then he'd stumbled around in a closet until he'd come out with the soft velvet straps he wanted to use. He didn't know why he wanted to, but always had. The thought of it excited him immensely. And when she'd looked and seen how immensely, she'd giggled and told him to go ahead if it would please him.

It was then, before he did it, that he'd told her he'd never had a woman do to him what Joanna did. And he'd dribbled cognac over her breasts and, like a Cheshire cat in heat, slowly licked them clean. In physical ecstasy, Joanna lay back as he bound her to the bedposts. By the time he lay down on the bed next to her, bright pinpoints of light were sparkling in the back of her eyes and she was beginning to feel a lightheadedness she'd never before experienced. Then she felt his weight on her, and the size of him as he slid so massively into her. And with each thrust, the pinpoints of light grew larger and brighter and behind them she saw incredible colored clouds floating in wild and grotesque formations. And somewhere, if there was a where, in the surreal kaleidoscope engulfing her-in the center of it, the center of her-she had the sensation that Von Holden had gone and that another man had taken his place. Struggling against her own dream, she tried to open her eyes to see if it was true. But that kind of consciousness wasn't possible and instead, she fell only deeper into the erotic whirl of light and color and the sensation of her own experience.

When she woke, it was already afternoon and she realized she was in her own bed at Anlegeplatz. Getting up, she saw her clothes from the night before, neatly folded on her dresser. Had she had a dream of dreams, or had it been something else?

It was a short time later, when she was showering, that she saw the scratch marks on her thighs. Looking in the mirror, she saw there were scratches on her buttocks as well, as if she had run naked through a field of thorn-bushes. Then she had the vaguest memory of running naked and horrified from Von Holden's apartment. Down the stairs and out the back door. And Von Holden had come after her and finally caught her in the rose garden behind his building.

Suddenly she didn't feel well at all. A wave of nausea swept over her. She was freezing cold and unbearably hot at the same time. Gagging, she flung open the toilet and threw up what was left of the chocolat and last night's dinner.

67.