Highnote said something away from the phone. “Just Merrilee and me. Are you in the city? Can I come and get you?”
“I need some answers, Bob.”
“So do I. Where the hell are you?”
“Here,” McAllister said. “At your desk in your study.”
“Good lord,” Highnote said after the briefest of hesitations. “I’ll be right in.” He hung up. McAllister put down the phone and picked up the Walther. Whom to trust? He didn’t know any longer. Perhaps he never really knew. The door opened seconds later and Robert Highnote, deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, entered the study. He was a man of medium height, with a mostly bald head, wide honest eyes, and a manner of speaking and bearing that were almost old-worldly elegant. He was a Harvard graduate, a Rhodes scholar, and a deeply religious man. Every evening of his adult life he had spent at least one hour studying the Bible. He was something of an expert on it. His life was a story, but then so was everyone else’s in the Agency; the business seemed to attract them like flies to honey. His eyes went to the gun in McAllister’s hand. “Do you mean to shoot me too, Mac?” he asked softly.“I didn’t shoot Carrick and Maas. I think ballistics will bear me out,” McAllister said.
Highnote came the rest of the way into his study, closing the door behind him. He was coatless, but he still wore his tie. He’d probably just returned from his office. He sat down across from McAllister and reached for the desk light.
“No,” McAllister said.
Highnote stayed his hand, hesitated again, then sat back in his chair. He shook his head. “You have come as a surprise, Mac. A very big surprise.
“They were waiting for us when we got off the plane. Two of them, in ground-crew uniforms. Our pickup car was late. Carrick and Maas never had a chance.”
“But you did,” Highnote said. “I was lucky.”
“You were seen with a gun.”
“Carrick’s. I managed to wound one of them.”
“But they got away.”
“They had a car waiting for them, Bob,” McAllister said. He leaned forward a little. “They were waiting for us, goddamnit. How did they know?”
“I can’t answer that….” Highnote pursed his lips, his eyes suddenly wide. “What are you trying to say?”
“Who knew that I was coming in on that particular flight?”
“A lot of people. Smitty and his crowd. They made the actual arrangements. Finance. The crew chief.”
“And the FBI office in New York?”
Highnote nodded. “They were supposed to take you over to the shuttle terminal right there at JFK.”
“How, Bob? What was my status?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What were the FBI told about me? And why bring them into it?
I could have walked with Carrick and Maas over to the shuttle.”
“We wanted to avoid customs.”
“You didn’t need the FBI for that… not unless I was being brought back as a criminal and you wanted no publicity.“Highnote reacted. McAllister could see it in his old friend’s eyes. Was it fear? Disgust?
“Is that it, Bob?” McAllister asked, softening his voice. “Do you think I’m a traitor because I caved in? They had me for a month, and they’re very good. Even better than they taught us out at the Farm.”
“We suspected that from the beginning,” Highnote said. “Because of… what started to happen. What’s still happening.”
“Our networks?” McAllister asked, the words catching in his throat because he knew the answer even before Highnote gave voice to it. He’d known it instinctively. Miroshnikov was more than good. The man was the devil.
“Our foreign operations are in a complete shambles. Years of work gone down the drain. A lot of good men have fallen. There’ve been a few killings, but mostly arrests, exposures, expulsions. Under the circumstances not much of a public fuss has been made, but we’ve been devastated. You can’t believe how bad it’s become.”
“Because of me.”
Highnote nodded sadly. “They went to extraordinary lengths to keep you. The President even canceled his meeting with Gorbachev in Zurich, over it. Still they didn’t budge.”
“I was a gold seam.”
“The mother lode,” Highnote said, nodding. “Once we realized what was happening, we began pulling our people out of the way, but it was already too late.”
“Christ, you can’t know how sorry I am, Bob. I tried. God help me, I tried.”
There was no compassion in Highnote’s expression, only a distant coolness and something else. His eyes went again to the gun in McAllister’s hand. “Let’s go back to the office. See what we can put together. If we know what you told them, we might be able to minimize some of the continuing damage.”
“I don’t know what I told them,” McAllister said. “But that’s not it, anyway, is it. They released me. That’s what has you worried. No exchange, no concessions, nothing, they just handed me over to our people at the airport and let me leave.”
“It worried us,” Highnote said dryly.“Then who tried to kill me in New York and why?”
“Maybe they weren’t gunning for you, Mac. Maybe they did exactly what they set out to do.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” McAllister said with frustration. “No, it doesn’t,” Highnote agreed, the same odd look in his eyes. It suddenly dawned on McAllister what Highnote had to be thinking. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “About the two men in New York”
“No one saw them,” Highnote said patiently. “I fired back and hit one of them. You’ll find a pair of bloody coveralls in a service cart at the Eastern baggage handling area.” McAllister explained exactly where it had been parked. “Has a ballistics check been made on the bullets that killed Carrick and Maas?”
“I haven’t seen the report.”
“Well do that much at least for me.”
Highnote nodded. “We’ll do that and more if you’ll come in with me. I’m on your side, Mac. So is Gloria. I talked to her again this morning. She told me that no matter what happens, no matter how it turns out, she’ll stick with you if you’ll just turn yourself in. Before it’s too late, Mac. For God’s sake.”
The words stung worse than the wet Turkish towel his Soviet guards had used on him in the prison corridor. “What was Gloria told?”
“Under the circumstances, I couldn’t do anything but tell her the truth. Surely you can understand that.”
“What truth?” McAllister asked, his voice rising. “That there was a very good possibility that you’d been turned. That they were sending you home in the hope that you would somehow come through your debriefings with a clean bill of health. That there was a possibility you would actually become operational again. They’d gotten everything they needed from you, and now they were hoping for a little gravy, a little frosting on the cake.”
“Is that what you think, Bob?” McAllister asked. Highnote looked at him for a very long time. “What else can I think?”
McAllister pushed back his chair and got heavily to his feet. Highnote started to rise too, but McAllister motioned him back. “Check with ballistics, and find the coveralls, and you’ll see that I didn’t kill Carrick and Maas. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“I can’t let you leave here.”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t have a choice in the matter right now.” Highnote bared his teeth. “Goddamnit, Mac, I trusted you! We all did. But it’s not your fault. Those bastards pumped you so full of drugs you didn’t know what you were doing. We can fix it for you. Trust me, Mac, for God’s sake..”
McAllister yanked the two phone cords out of their wall sockets.
It would only take Highnote a few seconds to get to one of the other telephones in the house, but it was something. Highnote had watched with narrowed eyes. At the window McAllister looked back at him.