“You’ve got time,” Ramsey Douglass said. “Floor it.”
Forrester’s watch read six-ten. It was more than a mile to the airport.
Spode slowed for a red light at Ajo Road but nothing was in sight on the crossroad and Spode gunned through the stoplight. The big car lunged along the dips, bobbing and swaying. Ramsey Douglass was slumped in the front passenger seat. “See that clump of cottonwoods? Drop me there—I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
Spode took his foot off the gas and pulled off the road in the shade. “Half-mile walk from here.”
“I’ll make it.” Douglass opened the door but Spode pointed the pistol at him and Douglass nodded wearily. “All right. He’s sitting in a parked Oldsmobile on the Nogales Highway right across the road from the Matthewson-Ward front gate. I picked the spot for him because you get a good reception there and it’s only a mile from here.”
Spode said, “If he ain’t there we’ll know where to get our hands on the rest of you.”
“I’m trusting you.”
“Yeah,” Spode said dubiously.
Douglass got out of the car and Spode hit the accelerator and left him standing flatfooted by the side of the road. They broke out past the cottonwoods with the speedometer needle quivering toward eighty. “Time’s it?”
Forrester had been watching Douglass cross the road and dog-trot along the shoulder in the low lancing sunlight. He looked at his watch and said. “Fourteen after six.”
“Jesus.”
A little more than an hour before, Orozco’s men had picked up Douglass’ Volkswagen coming out of the Davis Monthan gate. They had forced him off the road and taken him at gunpoint.
They had held Douglass in the bricked-in back lot of a motorboat dealership on Twenty-second Street. Forrester and Ronnie and Spode had crashed three stoplights getting there.
Top had put his gun on Douglass and told the two operatives they could go: they weren’t to know what it was about.
Forrester had started without preamble: “Tell us where Belsky is.”
“Belsky?”
Spode said, “Dangerfield.”
“Sure,” Douglass said.
Forrester told him, “You’re finished anyway. You may as well.”
Why? Because this bitch has blown my cover?” Jittery or not he had absorbed a great deal very quickly. He wasn’t even asking questions about Ronnie’s presence; the fact that she was with Forrester and Spode was enough. Douglass shook his head. “Forget it.”
“If Belsky goes through with it now the United States will know Moscow was behind it. You see that, don’t you? The United States will annihilate Russia. Do you want that? You can stop it, Douglass.”
Clearly Douglass hadn’t thought of that. His face changed slowly; a creeping pallor drained his cheeks. But then he scowled and stabbed a finger toward Ronnie. “Where’s Les Suffield?”
She appeared almost drowsy; she only shook her head, mute, and Forrester said, “Dead.”
“How?”
“Accident,” Forrester answered.
“That’s why she went over to you?”
Ronnie’s face came up. “Nicole is dead too, isn’t she? You’re like me, Ramsey—you’ve nobody left to lose.”
Douglass’ head shook like a metronome. After a moment Top Spode said, “Not much time. I’ll have to start prying him open.”
Douglass looked up with a glance of petty irritation. “You could try.” Then a crafty new thought tightened his face. “Listen—what’s in this for me, then?”
They had discussed that earlier. Spode wanted to lock him up, muzzle him until it was all done, but Forrester had vetoed it: They’re expecting him to show up. If he doesn’t they’ll get jumpy and God knows what they might decide to do.
Spode had objected: Outside of Ronnie he’ll be the only one who’ll know you uncovered their network. If he tells the rest of them it puts you in a hell of a spot. You’ll get all of them on your ass like a ton of bricks, trying to shut you up.
But Forrester had an answer to that. Douglass could hardly finger him without raising suspicion against himself: Forrester wouldn’t have turned Douglass loose unless Douglass talked—that was the way Belsky would see it. No; Douglass wasn’t going to say anything about Forrester. And anyhow if Forrester did reach Belsky then Belsky would know; so Douglass offered no threat to anyone but himself.
Douglass asked again, “What’s in it for me?”
“Give us Belsky,” Forrester answered. “We’ll turn you loose. You can escape on the plane with the rest of them.”
Douglass turned a slow circle on his heels, head down, thinking. When he looked up he said, “What about her?”
“Ronnie stays behind,” Forrester said. He was watching her but he saw no change in her expression.
“Oh that’s ducky,” Douglass said, but it was easy to see his thoughts: Ronnie would be the only Russian who knew Douglass had betrayed them; if Ronnie wasn’t aboard the plane there would be no one to accuse Douglass. Nevertheless Douglass said, “If she’s not on the plane they’ll figure she’s gone over—blown all of us. The rest of us will suffer for it when we get home.”
“Home,” Ronnie said under her breath.
Spode said, “You’ll just have to take your chances about that. Ronnie’s not the only one who won’t be there. What about Nicole and Trumble and Craig?”
“Dangerfield knows about them. He saw them dead.”
“What about Les Suffield, then?”
“Is he honest-to-God dead? I thought you were trying to put one over.”
“He’s dead. So’s Ronnie. They both died in a car crash this morning. That’s what you’ll tell them.”
“Now I don’t know what to believe. Anyhow Dangerfield won’t buy it.”
“He’ll have to.”
Forrester said, “He’ll have other things to think about.”
“Not him. He’s never missed a trick, that one.” Douglass ran his tongue over his lips. “Look, you’re saying you’ll pretend you never heard of me—you’re saying I can get on the plane and nobody will ever find out you busted me.”
Spode said, “You’ve got one other choice. You refuse to lead us to Belsky and you’ll stay right here till you rot. You know what happens to you then—from our side or from theirs.”
Douglass filled his chest slowly.
“You were heading for the airport,” Spode said.
“Was I? You tell me.”
“We’ll take you down there. You’ll have to walk in—tell them you had a flat tire just outside. When we let you out of the car you’ll tell us where to find Belsky.”
“What if I do? You won’t budge him, you know. He’s got his orders and that’s all he knows. He’s that kind.”
“Let us deal with him,” Forrester said. “Where is he?”
“I’ll think about that. You want to drive me to the airport? Fine. I’ll let you know when we get there.”
Six-seventeen. After Douglass had told them where to find Belsky they had sped down to the highway and now Spode said, “There’s the Olds. Douglass was telling the truth.”
“Let me have your gun, then,” Forrester said.
“Nuts. We’ll do this my way—both of you get down below the windows back there. Belsky knows this is Suffield’s car. If he sees just me driving he’ll think it’s Suffield. I’ll pull his teeth and then you can have him.”
There was a fair flow of traffic on the highway; Spode made the left turn and rolled slowly along the shoulder to ease up behind the parked Oldsmobile. Before Forrester bent down below the level of vision he had a glimpse of a man with a walkie-talkie in the driver’s seat.
Ronnie trembled violently. He held her tightly down and heard Spode open the door and get out, the crunch of Spode’s shoes on the gravel. Spode’s voice floated back, harsh: “Remember me? Now open up real slow and step out.”
Forrester whispered, “Stay down and stay quiet.” And he sat up and opened the door.
There was nothing alive in Belsky’s round face except the eyes: eyes hard as glass. They came around toward Forrester like the slowly swinging gun turrets of a battle cruiser.