Paris Match by Stuart Woods Page A

were not.”
    “I thought you said Simpson was expert at… persuasion.”
    “Oh, yes, Simpson did his job, all too well.”
    “I’m sorry?” Lance asked.
    “The Russian expired before Simpson could persuade him to tell us the name—apparently of some preexisting condition of which we were not told.”
    “How long were Simpson’s… attentions applied to the subject?”
    “For about three hours. We came and went from time to time to check on his progress.”
    “If not the name of the informant, what else did you learn from the Russian gentleman?”
    “Nothing, not even his name. He would not speak.”
    Nobody said anything for about a minute.
    Holly broke the silence, and she was incredulous. “Simpson… persuaded the man for three hours and he revealed nothing ?”
    “I’m afraid that is correct.”
    “What happened after the interrogation ended?” Lance asked.
    “I telephoned the number we had, the man answered, and we told him the subject had unexpectedly died. He asked if we had learned anything at all, and when I told him we had not he said that we should remove the body from Paris and dispose of it carefully. Then he hung up.”
    “That was it?” Lance asked.
    “I telephoned the number again, and it was out of service.”
    “What did you do then?”
    “Two of my colleagues and I returned to our hotel, Simpson having said that he would deal with the body. He returned late that night, and we all flew back to Berlin the following morning.”
    “And what did Simpson have to say about his efforts? Did he tell you where and how he disposed of the body?”
    “Nothing. We never spoke of the incident again.”
    “Where did the interrogation take place?” Lance asked.
    “In a garage in the twentieth arrondissement, near the Père-Lachaise cemetery. We arrived there to find the subject alone,bound and gagged. We never learned who brought him there or how.”
    “Well, it’s all very neat, isn’t it?” Lance said. He stood and picked up his bags. “I’m going to get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll be at the Plaza Athénée.” Then he left.
    “Well,” Holly said, “that was bizarre.”

      26
    S tone had just finished a room-service lunch when his cell phone rang. “Hello?”
    “It’s Ann,” she said.
    “How are you? How’s the campaign?”
    “I’m not sure about either of those.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m not sure about that, either. Everything seems fine, except Kate is dropping in the polls.”
    “Why?”
    “We don’t know for sure, but we suspect some sort of surreptitious campaign of lies. We just can’t get a handle on it. Kate was up seven points in the polls and gained two more after the first debate, then the balloon started leaking air witheach successive poll. We’re down to a one-point lead, and with the margin of error at six percent, we’re not even sure we’re ahead.”
    “What are you doing about it?”
    “We don’t know what to do, except maintain a steady offense. I wish you were here.”
    “You don’t need a lawyer, you need an operative who’s just as sneaky as the opposition to figure this out.”
    “We’re working on that. It’s driving the press crazy, too, so they’re working overtime to find out what’s happening. The only good thing was the interview with the French deputy prime minister.”
    “The elegant Frenchwoman with the red hair?”
    “That’s the one.”
    “What was the interview?”
    “She was being interviewed on Bloomberg TV, and she was asked what she thought of the economic policies of the Republican candidate, Hank Carson. When she answered the question, she referred to Carson as ‘Honk.’ Nobody heard anything after that, because we were all laughing so hard. Since then, everybody here, and some of the press, has been calling him ‘Honk.’ It’s lifted our spirits a bit.”
    Stone laughed, too. “Somehow, it seems to fit him.”
    “Carson has tried so hard to get people to call him ‘Hank,’ to