“Thanks for the words of encouragement.”
“Those are the good parts, Mac,” Albright said. “Seriously, you should have a nice long R and R someplace in the sun, for at least six weeks. Have a checkover by a real doctor.”
“I don’t have the six weeks.”
“No.”
“I’m putting you and your daughter in danger by being here like this.”
Albright nodded. “Yes, you are. But if you haven’t learned by now, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Stephanie gets what Stephanie wants. And at this moment you are the object of her… interests.”
“What did she tell you about me… about the situation?” McAllister asked.
Albright held him off. “Nothing, and that’s more than I want to know. Stay if you will, go if you must, but be honest with my daughter. She’s in danger, you say, so tell her everything so that she’ll know exactly what she’s up against.” He smiled wanly. “She’s no longer alittle girl, you know. She’s grown into a very strong, very capable woman.”
“I know,” McAllister said softly.
Two days later Stephanie brought him a gun. It was Friday and she had the weekend off. When she came in, she laid the bundle on the table by the window where McAllister had been sitting reading the newspapers.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, glancing at the package wrapped in brown paper. “What’s this?”
“It’s for you,” she said. “I borrowed it from a friend. Told him I was tired of being kidnapped off the streets.”
The instant McAllister picked up the package he knew what was inside. He opened it. The gun was a German P38, 9 mm with two loaded clips of ammunition. The weapon was old, but seemed to be in very good condition. He worked the well-oiled slide back and forth a couple of times, then looked up. “A discreet friend?”
“Very,” she said. “We were lovers for nearly a year. He still has a thing for me.”
“He’s in the Agency?” She nodded.
“Would I know him?”
“His name is Doug Ballinger. He works in town for Technical Services.”
McAllister had never heard the name. “You’re sure he won’t mention this to anyone? If it got out somebody might put two and two together and come up with your father’s name.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she said. “Besides, he won’t say anything. Not Doug.”
“I’m going to have to get out of here.”
“I know, Dad said you were starting to make rumbling noises.”
“I’ll need a car.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Something that can’t be traced here.”
“I can do it,” Stephanie said. “The question is, where are you going?”
“I have a couple of ideas.”
“Such as?”
“You’re not included,” McAllister said firmly. “Someone is trying to kill me, and Langley thinks I’m a traitor. To this point you’re not publically involved. The moment they know that you’re helping me, however, you will become their next target.”
“I can handle it…”, Stephanie started to protest, but McAllister held her off.
“Probably. But I don’t think I can. If they grabbed you it would make me vulnerable.”
“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” she flared. “You might not be given that choice,” he said softly. Her eyes went round, but she said nothing for the moment. Get out… traitor! Go back to your Russian friends. Get out before I kill you myself. What had Gloria been told? God… it didn’t make any sense. McAllister got up and went to the nightstand where he’d left his cigarettes. He lit one, drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs.
Look to Washington. Look to Moscow.
He’d been to Moscow, and now it was time to continue looking to Washington. The answers were down there somewhere. At Langley, most likely… or at least he found himself hoping that the answers, if they could be found, would be contained to Langley, and that the sickness hadn’t contaminated another institution… let’s say the Pentagon. That thought was too frightening to contemplate.
“Was Voronin to be trusted?” Stephanie asked. McAllister turned to her-out of his thoughts. “At first he was.”
“But not later?”
“I wasn’t sure. I was starting to have my doubts about him.”
“In fact, you told me that you were finished with him on the night you were arrested.”
“I thought he was talking gibberish.”
“And the Russians never asked you about it? About what you were doing out so late?”
“No.”
“Didn’t that strike you as odd?”
Odd, he thought? At first it had, but then later his body had been so filled with drugs that he’d begun to distrust his own thoughts, his own sanity even. The only reality for him then was the present; whether he was being beaten or being questioned, there had been no past or future, only the present.
“Maybe they didn’t consider it important,” he heard himself saying. “Or so important that they didn’t want to give it validity by questioning you, therefore putting it in the record.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe they already had the answers.”
“Then why was I released?”
“Maybe to do exactly what you’ve done; come back to Washington and look for answers.”
McAllister ran a hand over his eyes. “Answers, hell, I don’t even know the questions. They were Russians in Arlington Heights.”
“And Americans in Dumfries. Perhaps it’s a fight between two factions. And perhaps you do know the questions.
“look to Washington. Look to Moscow,” he repeated the words softly.
“A man in Moscow and one in Washington? An agent and his controller? It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Which would mean that I was released to come back here and dig them out.”
“They’d try to stop you, of course, ‘Zebra One and Two.” They’d have to protect themselves. The Russian controller sent his people after you, and his American agent has done the same thing.”
“Yet whoever signed the order releasing me had to have a certain amount of power himself. A position within the KGB.”
“Maybe the man trying to stop you is even more powerful,” Stephanie said, her eyes alight. “Maybe your release was a mistake on his part. A lapse of concentration. Maybe you just fell through the cracks, and by the time he realized what was happening, he arranged for the two hit men to meet your plane in New York.”
“They would have shot me first.”
“You’re not thinking logically, Mac. You were unarmed. Their firstjob would have been to eliminate the firepower. They hadn’t counted on you reacting so quickly. And when it began to fall apart they got out of there. If they had been captured it would have blown everything.”
“For someone who can’t shoot straight, you have a devious mind.” She shook her head. “Not deviousness, just logic. Which leads us back to Langley, and who is the most likely candidate.”
“Bob Highnote,” McAllister said it before she could. She nodded. “The three Russians were waiting for you outside his house. And the two Americans came to you at Highnote’s boat.”
“It’s too pat.”
“Highnote ordered the surveillance on your house. He must have told your wife something to make her react the way she did.”
“Still too pat. I’ve known Bob for years. He wanted me to come to Langley with him that night. He said that we could have straightened everything out.”
“Do you think you would have made it that far?”