The Snake Flag Conspiracy

Chapter Fourteen

“And how did you get away?” Hawk asked me, peering through the foul smoke of his cheap cigar.

“I was still dressed in colonial costume,” I answered. “So were more than a hundred other men. And everyone of them had the same idea. To get the hell away from that place before they had to explain what was going on to the police. It was just one mad exodus!” I smiled at the recollection. “I stopped long enough in Bradford’s suite to pick up Hugo. I’d hate to lose him. Then I went down and joined the throng.”

“It was that easy?”

“Would you believe,” I asked, “that I actually was given a ride all the way back to Boston by three of them? And in a Cadillac El Dorado at that!”

Hawk made a harrumphing sound. It was about as close to a laugh as he ever came.

“By the way, sir,” I said. “I still have eleven days coming to me from my last vacation. Now that I’ve finished this assignment, am I entitled to another couple of weeks?”

Hawk looked at me from under his shaggy eyebrows.

“You’ll find your French girlfriend waiting for you in Aix-en-Provence,” he said before turning away. “Take the extra two weeks. You deserve it.”

I made my travel arrangements with Air France, but I made one stop in Boston first. There was a loose end to tie up.

The house at 21½ Louisburg Square seemed peaceful and serene in the morning sunlight.

Sabrina answered my ring. She looked at me silently and held the door open so I could enter.

I shook my head. “It’s not necessary,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you in person.”

“I can explain, Nick,” she said pleadingly, and then as my words sunk in, she asked, “What do you have to tell me?”

“You killed Julie,” I said. “That’s why I made the telephone call.”

“What call? What are you talking about?”

“To a friend in Marseilles,” I said coldly. “He’ll pass the word on to a double agent. We use him when we have to communicate with the KGB.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sabrina. The sunlight struck her hair and her face, and she truly looked like an elegant woman at that moment, a woman whose greatest concern would be her shopping trip to Shreve, Crump and Low, or to Bonwit Teller or Lord & Taylor.

“I passed on the word about Alexander Bradford’s ultimate plan to the Russians,” I told her in a conversational tone. “And I also emphasized that it was you who subverted him from his mission as a KGB officer.”

Sabrina’s face went pale.

“It isn’t true!” she gasped.

“I know that,” I said evenly, no emotion in my voice.

“They’ll kill me!”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, they will.”

With that I turned and walked away from the house on Louisburg Square and from Sabrina. I took a cab to Logan Airport and Air France Flight 453 for the first stage of my journey to Aix-en-Provence and the waiting arms of Clarisse.