“Not Highnote,” McAllister said with finality, though he had begun to harbor the same thought at the back of his mind. Impossible, wasn’t it, to know someone for so long and yet not really know them? Kim Philby had been everyone’s best friend for years, the perfect spy, and yet in the end he’d turned out to be a Russian agent.
“I think you’re going to need some help, Mac,” Stephanie said. “Someone on the inside. A sympathetic ear.”
“You?”
She inclined her head. “For a start.”
“The answers are at Langley,” he said.
“Yes. We just have to keep you alive long enough to find them.”
One of the answers came that night a few minutes after eleven. McAllister was alone in his own room, trying to sleep, but his mind was seething. Over the years Highnote had been more than a friend; he had been a mentor, a confidant, a never-ending source of information and support. To believe that he was a traitor was impossible.
In the morning he would take the car that Stephanie had promised to get for him down to Washington where he would set up in a small, out-of-the-way hotel. From there he would again approach his oldfriend and lay everything out for him. If Highnote was a mole, it would show up in his eyes.
Zebra One, Zebra Two. Was it possible that Highnote was Zebra One? All these years?
The bedroom door crashed open, and in the light spilling in from the hallway Stephanie’s figure was outlined through the thin nightgown she wore. Her face was animated.
“It’s happening now. On the news,” she said excitedly. McAllister sat up. “What?”
“Hurry, or you’ll miss it…
He got out of bed and hurried after her to her room at the end of the corridor. She stood in front of the television set, a stern-faced newscaster reading a story.
“What is it?” McAllister asked.
“Listen,” Stephanie shot back, motioning for him to keep silent.
…sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Washington to life imprisonment,” the newsman was saying.
A photograph of a husky man with graying dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard appeared on the screen.
“O’Haire, along with his younger brother, U.S. Air Force Captain Liam O’Haire, and seven others pled guilty last month to charges that they operated a spy ring for the Soviet government. Calling themselves the Zebra Network, the O’Haires stole Star Wars data which they passed over to an as-yet-unnamed Soviet contact in Washington..
“There,” Stephanie said softly.
McAllister was staring at the television set, the newscaster’s words flowing around him. Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. Was this what Voronin had meant to tell him? The Zebra Network passing its secrets to a contact here in Washington who in turn was pumping it to Moscow?
But the network had been smashed. It was over. Or, was it?
“I should have known,” Stephanie was saying. “When I heard the words, there was something at the back of my head. It was as if I had a memory that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Until just now.”
“The answers are still in Washington,” McAllister said.“You bet. Their ‘as-yet-unnamed Soviet contact,’ and I’ll bet anything that it’s Robert Highnote, our deputy director of operations.”
“No,” McAllister said. “That I can’t believe. Not yet.” Stephanie turned down the television sound and looked at him. “I’m telling you that you’d better go easy with him until you know for sure. Whoever is Zebra One-whether or not it’s Highnote-is going to do everything in his power to protect himself. Friend or not, if it is him he won’t hesitate a second to kill you.” McAllister’s thoughts were ranging far ahead. “IfI surface, whoever he is, he’ll have to come after me.”
“That’s right,” Stephanie agreed, her eyes narrowing. “For the moment everyone thinks I’m dead.” She nodded.
“It’s time then, to show them otherwise.”
“Don’t be stupid…
“When I surface, all hell is going to break loose. And while that’s going on, I’ll be getting the information we need to expose him. Whoever he is.”
“Robert Highnote or not?”
“Right,” McAllister said.
Stephanie had stepped a little closer, and McAllister suddenly became aware of the fact that they were alone together in her bedroom, and that she was dressed in nothing more than a thin, almost translucent nightgown and he in a pair of her father’s pajama bottoms. She reached out for him, but he stepped back.
“No,” he said softly.
She started to protest, but then backed down, letting her hand fall to her side. “I understand,” she said. “I do.”
It was morning and the snow that had begun in the night was still falling, lightly blanketing the city of Washington. The husky man in the charcoal-gray overcoat and dove-gray fedora, stood just within the main hall of the Lincoln Memorial, his hands folded behind him, staring up at the inscription on the wall behind the statue.
In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory ofAbraham Lincoln is enshrined forever. This was his favorite place in all of the city. It reminded him, in many respects, of Lenin’s Tomb in Moscow’s Red Square. Both men had been revolutionaries, in a manner of speaking. Each had saved his nation, and was rightly venerated now.
“It’s pleasant here in the summer,” someone said behind him. The man didn’t turn, he didn’t have to because he recognized the voice from years of association. “Not so bad now,” he said, his English very good with hardly a trace of accent.
“McAllister is still alive.”
“You have heard something?” the man said, his heart quickening. “His body hasn’t been found, and he’s a very resourceful man. Until we can be absolutely certain, we must go on the assumption that he survived, somehow.”
“Is he God then, this one?”
“No,” the voice behind him said. “Just very good, very dedicated. We must be sure.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We must go back over his track, beginning in Moscow. No stone must be left unturned. No possibility must be ignored, no matter how fanciful. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” the Russian said. “And here in Washington?”
“His wife is being questioned and so is Sikorski.”
“What about the girl?”
“Albright?”
“Yes, her.”
“Her too. No stone will be unturned, as I was saying. The instant he is spotted he must be killed. There can be no question of it this time. None whatsoever.”
“I agree,” the Russian said, his eyes lingering on the words above Lincoln’s statue. “There is simply too much at stake here. Far too much.”
Chapter 10
Washington was a weekday city. Saturday traffic was light on Interstate 95 as McAllister drove the thirty-seven miles down from Baltimore in the Buick Regal Stephanie had rented for him. He’d wanted to keep her at arm’s length so far as that was possible, but, as she had explained to him last night, she was already involved and nothing he could do or say would change that fact. It was a risk, she said, that she and her father had been willing to take from the moment she’d brought his wounded, bleeding body home.
She’d driven back to her apartment in Alexandria earlier this morning so that if the Agency did try to contact her there, she would be home to take the call. Short of that her roommate would be able to say with honesty that Stephanie was here in the city.
He was going to get a room at the Best Western Center City, a few blocks up from the White House. She was going to come over at noon to meet him there. If something came up, their fallback would be the bar at the Marriott Twin Bridges Hotel, across the river.
It was nearly eleven by the time he entered the city and headed over to Georgetown. He had not been honest with her this morning. Nor, he realized, could he ever be completely honest with anyone until this insanity was resolved.