He left off the phrase that both men knew was implied: At your age.
Smith hesitated.
The older man knew that it was true. His last fieldwork had been a year ago in South America. Smith might have sent his assistant then, but at that time Mark Howard could not go due to a psychological condition that-at the time-none of them understood. While Smith was gone, his young assistant had inadvertently freed the Dutchman, Jeremiah Purcell, from captivity in Folcroft's security corridor. Once Purcell was gone, the psychic connection he had made with Mark Howard was broken. Howard had returned to normal.
It was one year later now and Mark was fine. A thirty-year-old man in the peak of health.
One year later. Smith, now one year older. The CURE director considered briefly.
"Very well," Smith said all at once. "You may go. I will take over for you here. I'll look into the matter of the two missing assassins Remo told us about and continue to confer with him on the phone. I'll reserve the tickets under your cover identity. Please remember to leave all of your true identification here."
"Yes, sir," Howard said, a flush rising in his cheeks.
"That includes, Mark, anything that might connect you to Folcroft," Smith warned. "I had an...associate who made that mistake years ago."
A flash of confusion crossed Mark Howard's face. He hadn't known of anyone else who had been a regular CURE employee connected to Folcroft. He could see by the strange look on his employer's face that he should not ask.
"I'll call with any news," Mark promised. The young man left the room.
Alone once more, Smith turned to the picture window and Long Island Sound. Lazy eyes tracked a bird in flight, pushed higher, ever higher, on rough gusts of frigid wind.
Smith's thoughts turned to his old associate. Strange. Even all these years later, even in his own mind, he could not bring himself to use the word friend.
The man was dead. Were he still alive, he would have been the first to announce to the world that he and Smith were friends, if only to see how uncomfortable it made Harold W. Smith.
Harold Smith and Conrad MacCleary had a friendship baptized in blood. It was impossible for two men who had been through as much as they had together to not form a bond.
Mark Howard had not even been born when Smith and Conrad MacCleary fought together in World War II in the OSS. Nor had Howard been alive when the two old friends joined the peacetime CIA or even when the two old cold warriors had stepped even farther into the murky shadows of the espionage world to found a new secret organization called CURE.
Howard was everything MacCleary was not-polite, tidy, efficient-sober, in every meaning of the word. Yet in a strange way Smith felt the same sort of connection to this young man, more than forty years his junior, as he had to his long-dead comrade in arms.
It didn't hurt that Mark had saved Smith's life the previous winter. If Smith had needed final proof of the young man's suitability to this job, that was it.
Yet there was more to his relationship with Howard than there had been with MacCleary. Conrad MacCleary was a born espionage agent. Mark Howard was still learning many of the things that had come easily for MacCleary. It was Smith's job to shepherd the young man. MacCleary-a contemporary of Harold Smith-hadn't needed that sort of guidance.
No, the bond between Mark Howard and Harold Smith was similar to that between Smith and MacCleary, yet different.
Years ago some of the uglier duties of the job weren't so easy for Smith. Oh, he did them, always and without complaint, because it was work that had to be done. But it was still difficult to subvert his natural inclinations to the greater good. In the past two years Smith had seen Mark Howard struggle with some of the same demons.
Smith saw shades of himself in his young assistant. And in so seeing, he easily assumed the role of mentor.
Harold Smith studied the dark, churning waves. "Be careful, Mark," he warned the water.
And in his heart he hoped the softly spoken words would carry far into the future, to a time when someone else of good character, strong will and undying patriotism sat in this, the loneliest of chairs.
Chapter 21
Special Agent John Doyle of the FBI's Miami field office wanted to know just exactly what kind of terrorists they were dealing with.
"Al-Qaida, Cubans, Palace Indians, what?" Doyle whispered to his partner. "I mean, it's terrorists, right?"
"Beats me," Allen Horsman replied gruffly. "They just pay me to get my ass shot at by the bad guys. They don't bother to tell me the who or why."
That was typical for Agent Allen Horsman. Running down murderers, drug runners and terrorists was all the same.
But Agent Doyle was curious. This business with apartment 1602 certainly did not constitute a normal FBI day. Given the presence of the mysterious man from Washington, Doyle was certain they were after terrorists.
Their superior from Washington was even younger than Doyle. Pale and of average height, with a wide face that was red from either excitement or anxiety. Probably both.
Weird that Doyle could be older than this temporary boss. Some at the Bureau-including his own partner-still considered Doyle an infant. Whoever the man was, he had clearance higher than anything Doyle or Horsman or anyone else at Miami FBI had ever seen. When they called Washington to confirm their orders, they were told to give the man everything he asked for. They were also told that the phone conversation had never taken place.
"Terrorists," Doyle stated firmly as the bombsquad men continued to saw through the wall. "Has to be."
Like the FBI, the bomb squad had been brought to Boca Raton from Miami. The men were using a short blade to cut by hand. As they worked they swept the wall electronically.
They moved with painstaking precision. On blue display screens that looked like the one on which Doyle had first seen sonogram images of his infant son, the FBI man saw the interior of the wall. The images passed slowly over oversize screws and splinters in the uneven surfaces of two-by-fours.
Agent Doyle knew it was terrorists the moment the man from Washington told him they couldn't use the door or windows. He had warned them about the roof.
The bomb squad had started there. And were horrified by what they found. The apartment next to 1602 was quickly and quietly evacuated so the ordnance folks could get to work.
The rest of the building hadn't been warned. A mass exodus might tip off someone with a remote detonator. The whole block could go up.
"Terrorists," Agent Doyle mumbled as the bombsquad men finished their sawing.
The section of wall was pulled carefully out. The men held their collective breath, knowing there could be any manner of trip wire or triggering device inside. Nothing happened. The men exhaled relief.
Once the wallboard was free and leaning safely against a coffee table, the bomb-squad captain ducked his head inside the hole, shining a yellow flashlight beam all around the interior of the wall and into the adjacent apartment.
"Immediate area looks clear," he grunted.
Agents Doyle and Horsman drew their side arms. Standing at the ready, they waved on the bomb squad. In body armor and with face shields down, a handful of men slipped inside.
There was silence for a long minute. The only sounds to come from the next apartment were soft murmurs. From somewhere down the hall, the drone of a television filtered to Agent Doyle's anxious ears. A sudden hoarse voice carried through the hole. "Sweet Jesus."
An instant later the bomb-squad captain stuck his head back into the room. He was white as a sheet. "Tell your buddy from D.C. to grab a cup of coffee," he warned, voice low. "This is gonna take a while."
FIVE HOURS LATER Mark Howard stepped carefully through the hole into the living room of Benson Dilkes's apartment.