Maronick made a slight miscalculation. The mistake was understandable, as he was dealing with milligrams of drugs to obtain results from an unknown variable, but he should have erred on the side of caution. When he secretly squirted out half the dosage in the syringe Atwood gave him, Maronick thought he had still used enough to produce unconsciousness. He was a little short. The drug combined with the sodium pentothal as predicted, but it was only strong enough to cause stupor, not unconsciousness.
Malcolm was in a dream. His eyelids hung low over his contacts, but they wouldn’t shut. Sounds came to him through a stereo echo box. His mind couldn’t connect, but it could record.
— Shall we kill him now? (The deep voice.)
— No, on the scene.
— Who?
— I’ll let Charles do it, he likes blood. Give him your knife.
— Here, you give it to him. I’ll check this again.
Receding footsteps. A door opens, closes. Hands running over his body. Something brushes his face.
— Damn.
A pink slip of paper on the floor by his shoulder. The tears fogging his contacts, but on the paper, “#27, TWA, National, 6 A.M.”
The door opens, closes. Footsteps approaching.
— Where are Atwood and Charles?
— Checking the grounds in case he dropped anything.
— Oh. By the way, here’s that reservation I made for you. James Cooper.
Paper rustles.
— Fine, let’s go.
Malcolm felt his body lift off the floor. Through rooms. Outside to the cooling night air. Sweet smells, lilacs blooming. A car, into the back seat. His mind began to record more details, close gaps. His body was still lost, lying on the floor with a pair of heavy shoes pressed in his back. A long, bumpy ride. Stop. Engine dies and car doors open.
— Charles, can you carry him into the woods, up that way, maybe fifty yards. I’ll bring the shovel in a few minutes. Wait until I get there. I want it done a certain way.
A low laugh. — No trouble.
Up into the air, jammed onto a tall, bony shoulder, bouncing over a rough trail, pain jarring life back into the body.
By the time the tall man dropped Malcolm on the ground, consciousness had returned. His body was still numb, but his mind was working and his eyes were bright. He could see the tall man smile in the dimly lit night. His eyes found the source of the series of clicks and snaps cutting through the humid air. The man was opening and closing the switchblade in eager anticipation.
Twigs snapped and dead leaves crunched under a light foot. The striking man appeared at the edge of the small clearing. His left hand held a flashlight. The beam fell on Malcolm as he tried to rise. The man’s right hand hung close to his side. His clear voice froze Malcolm’s actions. “Is our Condor all right?”
The tall man broke in impatiently. “He’s fine, Maronick, as if it mattered. He sure came out of that drug quickly.” The thin man paused to lick his lips. “Are you ready now?”
The flashlight beam moved to the tall man’s eager face. Maronick’s voice came softly through the night air. “Yes, I am.” He raised his right arm and with a soft plop! from the silencer shot the tall man through the solar plexus.
The bullet buried itself in Charles’s spine. The concussion knocked him back on his heels, but he slumped forward to his knees, then to his face. Maronick walked over to the long, limp form. To be very sure, he fired one bullet through the head.
Malcolm’s mind reeled. He knew what he saw, but he didn’t believe it. The man called Maronick walked slowly toward him. He bent over and checked the bonds that held Malcolm’s feet and hands. Satisfied, he sat on a handily placed log, turned off the flashlight, and said, “Shall we talk?
“You stumbled into something and you blundered your way through it. I must say I’ve developed a sort of professional admiration for you during the last five days. However, that has nothing to do with my decision to give you a chance to come out of this alive — indeed, a hero.
“In 1968, as part of their aid to a beleaguered, anticommunist government, the CIA assisted certain Meo tribes in Laos with the main commercial activity of that area, narcotics production. Mixed among all the fighting going on in that area there was a war between competing commercial factions. Our people assisted one faction by using transport planes to move the unprocessed opiate product along its commercial route. The whole thing was very orthodox from a CIA point of view, though I imagine there are many who frown on the U.S. government pushing dope.
“As you know, such enterprises are immensely profitable. A group of us, most of whom you have met, decided that the opportunity for individual economic advancement was not to be overlooked. We diverted a sizable quantity of unprocessed, high-quality morphine bricks from the official market and channeled them into another source. We were well rewarded for our labor.
“I disagreed with Atwood’s handling of the matter from the start. Instead of unloading the stuff in Thailand to local processing labs and taking a reasonable profit, he insisted on exporting the morphine bricks directly to the States and selling them to a U.S. group who wanted to avoid as many middlemen as possible. To do that, we needed to use the Agency more than was wise.
“We used your section for two purposes. We compromised a bursar — not your old accountant — to juggle and later rejuggle the books and get us seed money. We then shipped the morphine Stateside in classified book cases. They fitted quite nicely into those boxes, and since they were shipped as classified materials, we didn’t have to worry about customs inspection. Our agent in Seattle intercepted the shipment and delivered it to the buyers. But this background has little to do with your being here.
“Your friend Heidegger started it all. He had to get curious. In order to eliminate the possibility that someone might find something fishy, we had to eliminate Heidegger. To cover his death and just in case he told someone else, we had to hit the whole section. But you botched our operation through blind luck.”
Malcolm cleared his throat. “Why are you letting me live?”
Maronick smiled. “Because I know Atwood. He won’t feel safe until my associates and I are dead. We’re the only ones who can link him to the whole mess. Except you. Consequently, we have to die. He is probably thinking of a way to get rid of us. We are supposed to pick up those envelopes at the bank tomorrow. I’m quite sure we would be shot in a holdup attempt, killed in a car wreck, or just ‘disappear.’ Atwood plays dumb, but he’s not.”
Malcolm looked at the dark shape on the ground. “I still don’t understand. Why did you kill that man Charles?”
“I like to cover my tracks too. He was dangerous dead weight. It will make no difference to me who reads the letters. The powers-that-be already know I’m involved. I shall quietly disappear to the Middle East, where a man of my talents can always find suitable employment.
“But I don’t want to turn a corner someday and find American agents waiting for me, so I’m giving the country a little present in hopes it will regard me as a sheep gone astray but not worth chasing. My farewell present — Robert Atwood. I’m letting you live for somewhat the same reason. You also have the chance to deliver Mr. Atwood. He has caused you a lot of grief. After all, it was he who necessitated all those deaths. I am merely a technician like yourself. Sorry about the girl, but I had no option. C’est la guerre.”
Malcolm sat for a long time. Finally he said, “What’s the immediate plan?”
Maronick stood. He threw the switchblade at Malcolm’s feet. Then he gave him still another injection. His voice was impassive. “This is an extremely strong stimulant. It would put a dead man on his feet for half a day. It should give you enough oomph to handle Atwood. He’s old, but he’s still very dangerous. When you cut yourself free, get back to the clearing where we parked the car. In case you didn’t notice, it’s the same one you used. There are one or two things that might help you in the back seat. I would park just outside his gate, then work my way to the rear of the house. Climb the tree and go in through the window on the second floor. It somehow got unlocked. Do what you like with him. If he kills you, there are still the letters and several corpses for him to explain.”