The little machine had caught it all. The confusion and muffled comments as they poisoned Tenney were brutally plain, as was the sound of Tenney retching afterward. The listeners studiously avoided looking at one another.
When Tenney got out Harvey Schenler’s name, Jake motioned to Toad to turn off the tape. “Get the senior chief and fire up the TACSAT,” Jake told him. “Send that tape to General Land.”
“You heard Herb, CAG. They’ll crack the code.”
“Send it. Use the TACSAT. In the meantime we’ll deliver a message of our own to Harley McCann.”
“What about the ambassador? He wanted to see you.”
Jake glanced at his watch. “The night’s young.”
Jake was still in his flight suit when he entered the ambassador’s outer office and encountered Agatha Hempstead. She sniffed gingerly, no doubt slightly appalled at Jake’s aroma, then opened the door to Lancaster’s office.
The ambassador looked coldly across the top of his glasses at Jake Grafton and said, “I asked to see you when you returned to the embassy, Admiral.”
“Yessir. I apologize. I didn’t have much to tell you two hours ago, except to report that Lieutenant Moravia destroyed the weapons at the Petrovsk facility and a transport that was probably Iraqi. We were intercepted by four Russian fighters on the way down there.”
“But you evaded them. Obviously.”
“Yessir. Is Senator Wilmoth still in Moscow?” Wilmoth was the U.S. senator who wanted a peek at the KGB files.
“He’s staying at the embassy, but he’s leaving tomorrow. The KGB slammed the door today after Shmarov died. I’m afraid Yeltsin doesn’t have a lever big enough to pry it open.”
“I might be able to help. Could you ask the senator to come here to your office now? I have a tape I would like for you both to listen to. Then we’re going to have to have a lengthy chat.”
Lancaster looked dubious, but he picked up the telephone. Jake took the cassette player from his pocket and sat it on the desk. Hempstead helped him find a plug.
When Wilmoth arrived, Jake started the tape. He had to stop it at numerous places and explain. Lancaster wanted to know what in the world Admiral Grafton was forcing into Herb Tenney’s mouth, so Jake displayed the two pill bottles, even dumped the tablets onto Lancaster’s polished mahogany.
After the first run-through, Jake played the tape again without interruptions. Then a third time at Senator Wilmoth’s request.
It took some digesting. The fact that the Old Guard junta had blown up the Serdobsk reactor infuriated Wilmoth, who swore in a manner that Jake Grafton found most gratifying. Finally he said, “Wait until the president hears this!”
“I suspect he’s listening to it right now, sir,” Jake told him. “I’ve already sent this via a TACSAT unit to General Land at the Pentagon. He said he would take it to the White House immediately.”
“What about Harley McCann?” the ambassador said. “Was he in on this?”
“Captain McElroy has him outside in your waiting room. Why don’t you ask him?” McElroy had taken four marines with him to the CIA spaces. They had found McCann and his deputies merely sitting at their desks, waiting. “Apparently after Toad snatched Herb Tenney this morning, they talked it over and decided that they didn’t want any part of whatever was going down. They appear to be quite ready to talk.”
“I have a few questions to ask them,” Wilmoth said heatedly.
“I suggest, Senator, that you send a team of your investigators to the CIA office and impound the files. I don’t know what the CIA puts on paper, but some of that stuff might be interesting reading.”
Wilmoth grabbed for the telephone.
Lancaster reached for the white tablets on the desk and examined them. Finally he put them back on the desk next to the pill bottle.
When Wilmoth got off the phone, Jake said, “Perhaps, Mr. Ambassador, tonight would be a good time for President Yeltsin to call on the American Embassy. We can make a duplicate tape for him to keep. He might be able to find a good use for an artifact like that.”
Lancaster nodded. “And?”
“Well, I need a plane to get to Saudi Arabia. I need to get there without being intercepted and attacked by Russian fighters. Perhaps after Yeltsin listens to the tape, we can discuss that problem with him.”
“On the tape you said you killed four men today. Who?”
“We were intercepted by fighters. Rita and I are still alive.” Jake Grafton shrugged.
Lancaster grinned wolfishly. “I’m beginning to understand why General Land holds you in such high regard, Admiral. Agatha, while we’re talking to Mr. McCann, would you see if you can get President Yeltsin on the telephone?”
“Start scribbling.”
“Scribble what?” Jack Yocke was down on his hands and knees with a sponge and a bucket trying to clean Herb Tenney’s vomit from the carpet. He leaned back on his heels and looked up at Jake Grafton.
“How the Old Guard blew up the Serdobsk reactor and murdered a half-million human beings. How the Old Guard sold nuclear weapons to Saddam Hussein. How they used the money to bribe elected Russian politicians to vote Yeltsin out. That story. Write it.”
“An agent of the U.S. government tortured for information can hardly be quoted as a ‘reliable, high-placed government source,’ ” Yocke pointed out acidly. He dabbed at the wet place in the rug. “I don’t know if there was a single word of truth in what he said.”
“I thought you were a red-hot reporter.”
Yocke threw the sponge in the bucket and got to his feet. He sat down in the chair he had occupied during Tenney’s interrogation. He dried his hands on his trousers. “I don’t want to write it.”
Grafton gazed at Yocke for a moment, then found a chair. “Maybe you’d better explain.”
“The world is full of bad people. I write about them every day. They rob, steal, cheat, take drugs, bribes, beat their kids to death, kill their spouses in drunken rages or gun the bitches on the courthouse steps when they’re stone-cold sober. Those people I can understand. They’re human. These people here, people like Tenney, Shmarov, Yakolev…” Yocke’s voice trailed off.
“They’re human too. Their crimes are just worse.”
“No. They aren’t human. They are evil. They have no humanity.” Jack Yocke shuddered.
“They’re human all right,” Jake Grafton told him. “If anything, too human. What you don’t want to face is that everyone has a little Hitler, a little Stalin in him. Given the means and motive, a lot of people could become absolutely corrupt. What’s the difference between killing a man and ordering his death? What’s the difference between ordering one death or a half-million? Or a million? Or five million. Or ten million. With a stroke of a pen you can kill all the Jews — all the educated people — all the rich people — all the poor people — all the homosexuals…whoever. Evil and sin are exactly the same thing — you just need to convince yourself that the ends justify the means. Every human alive is capable of that little trick.”
“I don’t want to write it.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m making the decisions around here. Get out your computer and plug the damn thing in. If necessary, I’ll write the story for you.”
“Just who the fuck do you think you are, Grafton?”
“I’m a public servant trying to do his job. You are a newspaper reporter who wants to get famous by writing the truth. We’ve got a bucketful of truth here and you are going to write it because people need to come face-to-face with it. What they do with the truth is beyond my controclass="underline" I’m not taking responsibility for the human condition. But by God they are going to see it smeared all over the front page of every newspaper in the world. Then if they refuse to face it they are just as evil and just as guilty as the men you’re writing about.”