A bookshop in St. Johnsbury yielded an atlas that showed three Rockcastles in the United States. But one was in the Deep South, another the Far West. Sam’s accent was nearer to the East Coast. The third Rockcastle was in Goochland County, Virginia.
Telephone inquiries clinched it. They showed a Reverend Brian Somerville of Rockcastle, Virginia. There was just the one listing-the comparatively unusual spelling of the name kept it apart from the Summervilles and Sommervilles.
Quinn left his hideout again, flew from Montpelier to Boston and on to Richmond, landing at Byrd Field, now renamed with glorious optimism Richmond International Airport. The Richmond directory right in the airport had the usual yellow pages at the back, showing that the reverend was incumbent at the Smyrna Church of St. Mary’s at Three Square Road, but resident at 290 Rockcastle Road. Quinn rented a compact and drove the thirty-five miles west on Route 6 to Rockcastle. It was Reverend Somerville who came to the door himself when Quinn rang the bell.
In the front parlor the quiet, silver-haired preacher served tea and confirmed that his daughter was indeed Samantha and worked for the FBI. Then he listened to what Quinn had to say. As he did so, he became grave.
“Why do you think my daughter is in danger, Mr. Quinn?” he asked.
Quinn told him.
“But under surveillance? By the Bureau itself? Has she done anything wrong?”
“No, sir, she has not. But there are those who suspect her, unjustly. And she does not know it. What I want to do is warn her.”
The kindly old man surveyed the letter in his hands and sighed. Quinn had just lifted a corner of a curtain to reveal a world unknown to him. He wondered what his late wife would have done; she was always the dynamic one. He decided she would have taken the message to her child in trouble.
“Very well,” he said. “I will go and see her.”
He was as good as his word. He took his elderly car, drove sedately up to Washington, and visited his daughter at her apartment without announcement. As briefed, he kept the conversation to small talk and handed her the single sheet first. It said simply: “Keep talking naturally. Open the envelope and read it at your leisure. Then burn it and obey the instructions. Quinn.”
She nearly choked when she saw the words and realized Quinn meant her apartment was bugged. It was something she had done in the course of duty to others, but never expected for herself. She gazed into the worried eyes of her father, kept talking naturally, and took the proffered envelope. When he left to drive back to Rockcastle she escorted him to his car and gave him a long kiss.
The paper in the envelope was just as brief. At midnight she should stand next to the phone booths opposite Amtrak boarding platforms H and J in Union Station and wait. One phone would ring; it would be Quinn.
She took his call from a booth in St. Johnsbury exactly at midnight. He told her about Corsica, and London, and the phony letter he had sent her, convinced it would be redirected to the White House committee.
“But, Quinn,” she protested, “if Orsini really gave you nothing, it’s over, just as you said. Why pretend he talked when he didn’t?”
He told her about Petrosian, who even when he was down, with his opponents staring at the chessboard, could persuade them he had some master stroke in preparation and force them into error.
“I think they, whoever they are, will break cover because of that letter,” he said. “Despite what I said about not contacting you anymore, you’re still the only possible link if the police can’t find me. As the days pass they ought to get more and more frantic. I want you to keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll call you every second day, at midnight, on one of these numbers.”
It took six days.
“Quinn, do you know a man called David Weintraub?”
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s the Company, right?”
“Yeah, he’s the DDO. Why?”
“He asked to meet me. He said something’s breaking. Fast. He doesn’t understand it, thought you would.”
“You met at Langley?”
“No, he said that would be too exposed. We met by appointment in the back of a Company car at a spot near the Tidal Basin. We talked as we drove around.”
“Did he tell you what?”
“No. He said he didn’t feel he could trust anybody, not anymore. Only you. He wants to meet you-your terms, any time or place. Can you trust him. Quinn?”
Quinn thought. If David Weintraub was crooked, there was no hope for the human race anyway.
“Yes,” he said, “I do.” He gave her the time and place of the rendezvous.
Chapter 18
Sam Somerville arrived at Montpelier airport the following evening. She was accompanied by Duncan McCrea, the young CIA man who had first approached her with the Deputy Director of Operations’ request for a meeting with her.
They arrived on the PBA Beechcraft 1900 shuttle from Boston, rented an off-road Dodge Ram right at the airport, and checked into a motel on the outskirts of the state capital. Both had brought the warmest clothing Washington had to offer, at Quinn’s suggestion.
The DDO of the CIA, pleading a high-level planning meeting at Langley that he could not afford to miss, was due the next morning, well in time for the roadside rendezvous with Quinn.
He landed at 7:00 A.M. in a ten-seater executive jet whose logo Sam did not recognize. McCrea explained it was a Company communications plane, and that the charter company listed on its fuselage was a CIA front.
He greeted them briefly but cordially as he came down the steps of the jet onto the tarmac, dressed in heavy snow boots, thick trousers, and quilted parka. He carried his suitcase in his hand. He climbed straight into the back of the Ram and they set off. McCrea drove, Sam directing him from her road map.
Out of Montpelier they took Route 2, up through the small township of East Montpelier and onto the road for Plainfield. Just after Plainmont Cemetery, but before the gates of Goddard College, there is a place where the Winooski River leaves the roadside to make a sweep to the south. In this half-moon of land between the road and the river is a stand of tall trees, at that time of year silent and caked with snow. Among the trees stand several picnic tables provided for summer vacationers, and a pull-off and parking area for camper vehicles. This was where Quinn had said he would be at 8:00 A.M.
Sam saw him first. He emerged from behind a tree twenty yards away as the Ram crunched to a halt. Without waiting for her companions she jumped down, ran to him, and threw her arms ’round his neck.
“You all right, kid?”
“I’m fine. Oh, Quinn, thank God you’re safe.”
Quinn was staring beyond her, over the top of her head. She felt him stiffen.
“Who did you bring?” he asked quietly.
“Oh, silly of me…” She turned. “You remember Duncan McCrea? He was the one who got me to Mr. Weintraub.”
McCrea was standing ten yards away, having approached from the truck. He wore his shy smile.
“Hello, Mr. Quinn.” The greeting was diffident, deferential as always. There was nothing diffident about the Colt.45 automatic in his right hand. It pointed unwaveringly at Sam and Quinn.
From the side door of the Ram the second man descended. He carried the folding-stock rifle he had taken from his suitcase, just after passing McCrea the Colt.
“Who’s he?” asked Quinn.
Sam’s voice was very small and very frightened.
“David Weintraub,” she said. “Oh, God, Quinn, what have I done?”
“You’ve been tricked, darling.”
It was his own fault, he realized. He could have kicked himself. Talking to her on the phone, it had not occurred to him to ask whether she had ever seen the Deputy Director of Operations of the CIA. She had twice been summoned to the White House committee to report. He assumed David Weintraub had been present on both, or at least one, of those occasions. In fact the secretive DDO, doing one of the most covert jobs in America, disliked coming into Washington very often and had been away on both occasions. In combat, as Quinn well knew, assuming things can present a serious hazard to health.