Snare of the Hunter Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “What about that letter?” David asked suddenly.
    “What about some food?” countered Bohn. He led the way to the kitchen. The late Caroline had left some improvements here, he thought as he headed for the refrigerator. Did Dave know she was divorcing her second husband, and had already staked out her third? No, better not mention it tonight. Dave had to be kept in a serious mood, and Caroline was a comic character.
    * * *
    They ate a quick meal, and Bohn began talking as they finished their coffee around the heavy wooden table at one end of the kitchen.
    Late in June a letter had reached Bohn in Washington. It was mailed in Vienna and it came from Irina. It had been written in Czechoslovakia and—this was Bohn’s fairly obvious assumption—smuggled out of that country by one of Irina’s friends in some resistance group. The letter stated that her mother was dead, her two children were dead, she had left her husband who was now divorcing her, and she had contacted some friends who were willing to help her leave the country. They could take her as far as Vienna. From there she needed help to reach her father, wherever he was. She was enclosing a note for Bohn to forward “to anyone who can reach my father.” The note was brief. Please let me see you . I need you . She gave a Vienna telephone number which Bohn could use to make contact with her. Any message sent there, using the name Janocek for identification, would be passed on to her. She begged him to let her know if he was willing to help her. If so, she could leave in a matter of weeks.
    “Everything stated clearly and simply,” Bohn said.
    “And that telephone number was real.”
    “You telephoned?” David asked.
    “Why not? I wanted to test that letter. The Janocek dodge worked. And I also learned that they plan to get Irina out of Czechoslovakia by early August. So that’s our target date: the first week of August. My guess is that she will be hidden in a safe house in Vienna by her Czech friends until we can pick her up.” He noticed David’s frown. “No compliments on my efficiency? Come on, Dave, what’s bugging you?”
    “You actually telephoned you were going to help her? Even before you had anything lined up?”
    “What would you have done—left her unanswered?”
    “No. I’d have said I was trying. I’d have said I had got the letter, and I’d let her know if I could get something worked out.”
    “But I was working on it,” Bohn said with some annoyance. “I began that very day. I went out to Langley and saw one of my CIA pals. The letter was passed on to someone else out there, presumably higher up. I heard that other agencies were consulted too. Big huddle. But Jaromir Kusak is a big name, and now more than ever.”
    As Bohn paused to pour himself some brandy, McCulloch leaned over to David and said quietly, “I can fill you in on the increasing importance of the name. Later. Along with any other points you may want developed.” He went back to drinking his coffee.
    Bohn again took centre stage. “I was pretty sure that one of our intelligence outfits would come to the rescue. I was wrong. I was even told that they didn’t know where Kusak was. So I called George Sylvester on the ’phone—that’s the London publisher who must be in contact with Kusak, or else how could Kusak’s manuscripts reach him? I told him I had a note from Irina for her father, and I had just mailed it to him; he’d better make sure he was the only one to open it. I asked him to call me back when he had received it, and let me know how he could help. I thought his friends in Whitehall might be interested and could arrange for everything to be handled efficiently. I also said I was ready to fly to London as soon as he had something definite to suggest, have a private discussion, and show him a letter I myself had received from Irina.” Bohn drew a deep breath. “Yes, I think you can say I did go to work on it.” He looked pointedly at