But it was pointless to imagine a confession that had not been made. She had not spoken to him about these things, not even when she suspected that, somehow, this crisis in Peking was connected with the men who had first come to see her last winter. It was in this current crisis that Shen-yang was to be destroyed. Somehow. Some way. She was certain of it, yet she had kept her silence. Fear was stronger than affection. Terror drove out love. After he had given her so much pleasure, while his warm semen was still oozing from her, she had let him walk out the door to his fate without giving him one word of warning.
She loathed herself.
She wished that she had the courage to commit suicide. But she knew that she was too much of a coward to even prick her skin. She would collapse at the sight of blood.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the cool brick floor, and she wept.
And she prayed that however her master was to be destroyed, he would go quickly, with dignity, and without pain.
In the book-lined first-floor study of his elegant town-house in the Georgetown section of the capital city, Robert McAlister poured himself a third bourbon on the rocks and returned with it to his desk. He sat down and had time for one sip before the telephone rang. It was the call that he had been waiting for since ten o'clock. He said, “Hello, Mr. President.”
“I'm sorry to be late, Bob.”
“That's all right, sir.”
“It's this flare-up in the Mideast.”
“Certainly.”
“Ever since they discovered those new Israeli oil deposits, it's been a nightmare.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President sighed and clicked his tongue. “Any progress on your end of the Dragonfly mess?”
“Not much,” McAlister said. “It's been a bad day right from the start — thanks in part to your Mr. Rice.”
The President clicked his tongue against his teeth again. “Andy? What did Andy do?”
McAlister closed his eyes and held the glass of bourbon against his forehead. “I'm sorry, sir. It's a small thing. Inconsequential, really. I shouldn't even have mentioned it. But I'm so tensed up—”
“I want to know.” He clicked his tongue.
“Well, he was supposed to round up a dozen federal marshals—”
“He didn't?”
“He did. But he didn't call them until around ten o'clock last night. Now, some of them weren't scheduled for duty, and they'd made plans for an extra-long weekend. They went home yesterday and packed suitcases and loaded up campers… and then had to unload and unpack when Rice called them late last night. They weren't happy this morning, and the apologies were mine to make.” He lowered the glass of bourbon to the desk. “Oh, what the hell, it's really nothing. I'm just frustrated by all of this, and I'm trying to find a convenient punching bag.”
“No, you're right, Bob. There was no reason he couldn't have called the marshals before five yesterday. I'm going to mention this to Andy in the morning.” Click! went his tongue.
“Well, it really is petty of me. After everything that has happened today, the murder and all—”
“Murder?” the President asked.
“You don't know about that?”
“I've been tied up on this Mideast thing.”
McAlister swallowed some bourbon. “The best investigative lawyer I have is a man named Bernie Kirk-wood.”
“I've met him. He's done a great job for you these last six months,” the President said. He didn't click his tongue.
What was he doing instead? McAlister wondered. Boring at his ears? Drumming his fingers on the desk? Or perhaps he was picking his nose—
“Bob? Are you there?”
“Sorry, sir. Wool gathering.”
“Bernie Kirkwood.”
“Yes, sir. Early this afternoon Bernie came up with what we thought was a damned good lead. He was working on a list of names — scientists with experience in biological-weapons research. And he discovered that a man named Potter Cofield had once worked for Dr. Olin Wilson. Furthermore, Cofield had received a promotion at the Pentagon almost entirely on the recommendation of Wilson.”
“Ah,” the President said.
“Next, Bernie learned that Dr. Cofield had retired from his job at the Pentagon two years ago.”
“How old was he?”
“Fifty.”
“It's possible to retire from government service that young.”
“Yes, sir. But Cofield wasn't the kind of man to pack it up and lie in the Caribbean sun. Bernie studied his record and talked to a few of Cofield's friends. The man lived for his research.”
“I see.”
“So Bernie, two other lawyers, and the federal marshal who's protecting them, went to talk to Cofield. He was dead.”
“How?”
“Stabbed repeatedly in the chest and throat.”
“My God!”
McAlister swallowed some bourbon. He felt lousy. “His house had been torn up a bit. As if a burglar had been going through the drawers looking for cash and valuables.”
“But you don't think it was a burglar?”
“The place hadn't been torn up enough. It was a very hasty job, a cover, nothing more. Besides, Co-field still had his wallet, and there was seventy dollars in it.”
“Any clues?”
“We brought in the FBI,” McAlister said. “They've got some of the best forensic men combing the house. But I don't have much hope that anything'll come from that. For one thing, we can't trust everyone in the FBI. And for another, these killers are professionals. They don't leave fingerprints.”
“What about the police?”
“We didn't inform them,” McAlister said. “If we had, the press would have been crawling all over the house. And sure as hell, someone from the Times or the Post would pick up on the whole Dragonfly mess by tomorrow morning.”
“They're good reporters,” the President said.
“One other thing about Cofield.”
“What's that?”
“He was killed no more than half an hour before we got to him.”
The President clicked his tongue: he had come full circle. “So it isn't just a case of The Committee routinely killing off the men who worked with Wilson.”
“That's right. Cofield was killed because the other side knew we wanted to talk to him. And the only way they could know that is if they've got somebody inside my organization.”
“Who?”
“I haven't any idea.” He rattled the ice cubes in his glass and wished he could put the phone down to go get another drink. He was ordinarily a light drinker, but these last several months had given him a taste for Wild Turkey.
After clicking his tongue twice, the President said, “What are you going to do?”
“Just be careful, watch everyone closely, and hope the damned son of a bitch will trip himself up sooner or later.” Ordinarily, he was no more of a curser than a drinker. But that had changed too.
“It's not likely that he will,” the President said after a few seconds of thought. “Trip himself up, I mean.”
“I know. But I don't see how else I can handle it.”
“What about the agent that Berlinson killed out there in Carpinteria? Anything on him yet?”
“No leads at the moment. Not on him or his partner. We're verifying the whereabouts of every current and ex-agent, but this is going to take a good deal of time.”