The Negotiator

The chair formed four sides of a hollow box, the other two sides being the floor and the wall. Inside the box was the tape recorder.

“We can talk now,” he murmured.

“Don’t want to,” whispered Sam and held out her arms.

Quinn swept her up and carried her to the bed. She sat up for a second and slipped out of her silk nightgown. Quinn lay down beside her. Ten minutes later they became lovers.

In the embassy basement the engineer and two FBI men listened idly to the sound coming from the baseboard outlet two miles away.

“He’s gone,” said the engineer. The three listened to the steady, rhythmic breathing of a man fast asleep, recorded the previous night when Quinn had left the tape recorder on his pillow. Brown and Seymour wandered into the listening post. Nothing was expected that night; Zack had phoned during the six o’clock evening rush hour—Bedford railway station, no sighting possible.

“I do not understand,” said Patrick Seymour, “how that man can sleep like that with the level of stress he’s under. Me, I’ve been catnapping for two weeks and wonder if I’ll ever sleep again. He must have piano wire for nerves.”

The engineer yawned and nodded. Normally his work for the Company in Britain and Europe did not require much night work, certainly not back-to-back like this, night after night.

“Yeah, well, I wish to hell I was doing what he’s doing.”

Brown turned without a word and returned to the office that had been converted into his quarters. He had been nearly fourteen days in this damn city, becoming more and more convinced the British police were getting nowhere and Quinn was just playing footsie with a rat who ought not to be counted among the human race. Well, Quinn and his British pals might be prepared to sit on their collective butts till hell froze over; he had run out of patience. He resolved to get his team around him in the morning and see if a little old-fashioned detective work could produce a lead. It would not be the first time a mighty police force had overlooked some tiny detail.

Chapter 8

Quinn and Sam spent almost three hours in each other’s arms, alternately making love and talking in low whispers. She did most of the talking, of herself and her career in the Bureau. She also warned Quinn of the abrasive Kevin Brown, who had chosen her for this mission and had established himself in London with a team of eight to “keep an eye on things.”

She had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep, the first time in a fortnight she had slept so well, when Quinn nudged her awake.

“It’s only a three-hour tape,” he whispered. “It’s going to run out in fifteen minutes.”

She kissed him again, slipped into her nightgown, and tiptoed back to her room. Quinn eased the armchair away from the wall, grunted a few times for the benefit of the wall microphone, switched off the tape recorder, rolled onto the bed, and genuinely went to sleep. The sounds recorded in Grosvenor Square were of a sleeping man shifting position, rolling over, and resuming his slumbers. The engineer and two FBI men glanced at the console, then back to their cards.

Zack called at half past nine. He seemed more brusque and hostile than on the previous day—a man whose nerves were beginning to fray, a man on whom the pressure was mounting and who had decided to exert some pressure of his own.

“All right, you bastard, now listen. No more sweet talk. I’ve had enough. I’ll settle for your bloody two million dollars but that’s the lot. You ask for one more thing and I’ll send you a couple of fingers. I’ll take a hammer and chisel to the little prick’s right hand—see if Washington likes you after that.”

“Zack, cool it,” pleaded Quinn earnestly. “You’ve got it. You win. Last night I told them over there to screw it up to two million dollars or I’m out. Jesus, you think you’re tired? I don’t even sleep at all, in case you call.”

Zack seemed pacified by the thought that there was someone with nerves more ragged than his own.

“One more thing,” he growled. “Not money. Not in cash. You bastards would try to bug the suitcase. Diamonds. This is how ...”

He talked for ten more seconds, then hung up. Quinn took no notes. He did not need to. It was all on tape. The call had been traced to one of a bank of three public booths in Saffron Waiden, a market town in western Essex, just off the M.11 motorway from London to Cambridge. It took three minutes for a plainclothes policeman to wander past the booths, but all were empty. The caller had been swallowed in the crowds.

At the time, Andy Laing was having lunch in the executive canteen of the Jiddah branch of the SAIB. His companion was his friend and colleague the Pakistani operations manager, Mr. Amin.

“I am being very puzzled, my friend,” said the young Pakistani. “What is going on?”

“I don’t know,” said Laing. “You tell me.”

“You know the daily mail bag from here to London? I had an urgent letter for London, with some documents included. I need a quick reply. When will I get it? I ask myself. Why has it not come? I asked the mailroom why there is no reply. They tell me something very strange.”

Laing put down his knife and fork.

“What is that, old pal?”

“They tell me all is delayed. All packages from here for London are being diverted to the Riyadh office for a day before they go forward.”

Laing lost his appetite. There was a feeling in the pit of his stomach and it was not hunger.

“How long did they say this has been going on?”