There were still large areas of his memory that were gray, incomplete, as if he had lived most of his weeks in captivity in a surrealistic dream. It was frightening.
“The longer you are out and around the more likely it will be that someone will spot you,” she’d said.
“They think I’m dead, remember?”
“You have friends, acquaintances, people who would recognize you. Are you so sure you won’t bump into one of them?”
Over the past days Stephanie had bought him some clothes, atoiletries kit and a nylon overnight bag, shopping at different stores in Baltimore and in the suburbs so as not to attract attention. She’d also trimmed his hair and picked up a pair of clear-lensed glasses. His appearance was altered only slightly, but enough they’d both hoped to throw off at least a casual observer. The changes would not fool anyone who knew him well, but the cop on the beat who might have his photograph wouldn’t look twice.
There were acceptable risks and unacceptable risks. What separates the two is the desired goal. The more important the object, the larger the acceptable risk.
“The answers are in Washington,” he’d told her. “I can’t avoid that fact. Nor am I going to run away.”
“I didn’t expect you would.”
“We’ll meet at the hotel at noon.”
She’d looked at him, wanting to say more, but she finally nodded, grim-lipped, and left.
He parked the car on Q and 30th streets and walked back the long block, turning right on 31st toward Tudor Place around the corner from his house. It was odd being back like this in his old neighborhood, made doubly odd by an almost detached feeling that had gradually settled on him over the past days.
Walking along the nearly deserted streets, snow still lightly falling, he was reminded of a similar weekend years ago when he and Gloria were trying to decide if they wanted to buy in this area. It had been early winter like now, and they had taken a walk around the neighborhood to get a feel for the place. They’d liked what they’d seen, and on Monday had signed the papers.
They’d not been back here together for more than a few months at a time since then… between foreign postings… so that this place had not really become home for him. He’d always looked upon the house as a vacation spot-or, rather the place they would come to when he finally got out of the business; something Gloria had been pressing him about for the past four or five years.
She, on the other hand, loved this place, and despite their frequent long-term absences had made it into a home. Whenever they were back she would hold cocktail parties or dinners for people they knew from the Agency. She was a good hostess, and he looked back on those times with warm thoughts.
But now he was returning a fugitive, and he had no real idea why he was taking this risk, except for the notion at the back of his head that the surveillance team would have been pulled away, and that Gloria would be home and that he could see her, find out what she had been told, convince her that she was wrong, that he hadn’t become a traitor. His father had fallen in love with Gloria. “Now there’s a decent woman for you, boyo,” he’d said when McAllister had told him they were engaged. “A man in this business needs his Rock of Gibraltar to keep the home fires burning and the cannons loaded.” Someone to give you a reason to come back. Someone to tend your wounds, soothe your hurts.
His mother had died when he was very young, and his father had never remarried. “No one to replace her,” the old man had said. “And I’m too busy now to go looking for another one.”
He reached Avon Place and started around the corner, but pulled up short and stepped back. A black Cadillac was parked in front of his house, its engine running, the exhaust swirling white in the cold wind.
From where he stood, McAllister had only to lean forward slightly and he could see around the edge of the brownstone on the corner. He closed his eyes for a moment, the pain rising up through his body. He knew who would be coming out of the house. He knew whose car it was. But he didn’t want to think why. Too many things that Stephanie had told him seemed to fall into place now, and he knew that this was the very reason he had come here.
The front door of his house opened. Gloria emerged on Robert Highnote’s arm. At the foot of the stairs they stopped a moment and said something to each other, Gloria looking up into his face. Highnote was carrying one of her suitcases.
They crossed the sidewalk and Gloria got in on the passenger side. She was to be used as bait. They knew you would be coming home. She was your refuge. She and Robert Highnote.
So far as anybody knows you’re dead. They’re looking for your body, expecting it to turn up sooner or later. Your body, not you. But Gloria was not grieving. He had been near enough to see that she had been smiling up at Highnote. No black veil over her face, no body slouched over in the pain of loss. Only a man and a woman together. Going where… to do what… to speak what words together?
Highnote walked around to the driver’s side of the Cadillac and got in behind the wheel. Suddenly McAllister realized that within seconds they would be driving past him. His slight disguise might fool a stranger, but it would not fool his wife and best friend.
He turned and hurried down the street, ducking through an iron gate that led down to a basement entrance to one of the brownstone houses just as Highnote’s car came around the corner and sped past.
When they were gone, McAllister came back up to the street level, hesitated a moment and then trudged back to where he had parked his car. He had the distinct feeling now that he was a man who had just witnessed his own funeral. The problem was, no one had been grieving.
They almost missed each other. Stephanie had been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes, and thinking that something had gone wrong, was about ready to drive over to their fallback when he showed up.
The relief on her face when she spotted him was clear, but then her expression darkened when she understood that something had happened to him.
She got out of the van when he pulled up and hurried over to him. “I’ve been going out of my mind. I thought they’d grabbed you. Is everything all right?”
“No,” McAllister said climbing out of the car. “What happened?”
He looked into her eyes. “I didn’t want to do this, Stephanie, but I’m afraid I’m going to need your help.”
“You have it, I told you that before. Now, what happened to you this morning?”
“I saw something that I didn’t want to see. Something I never thought I’d see.”
Sudden understanding dawned on her face. “You’ve been to Georgetown,” she said softly. “To your wife.”
“She and Bob Highnote were there at the house. Together.”
“They didn’t see you, did they?” McAllister shook his head. “Are they still there?”
“They left.”
Stephanie thought about it a moment. “Doesn’t prove anything. You said you’ve been friends for years.”
“Merrilee wasn’t with them. She should have been the one to be there.”
“Have they got a thing for each other, is that what you’re suggesting?”
“No,” McAllister blurted, surprised with the intensity of his denial. “Your best friend and your wife both think that you’re a traitor. There isn’t much left for you, is there?”
“Christ… I don’t know any longer.”
“But you’re innocent. You’re not a traitor.”
“Maybe I am… maybe
Stephanie reached out and touched his face. “I can understand why the Russians came after you the way they did. And I can understand why you defended yourself. But… and listen to me very carefully… no matter what the FBI or the Agency thinks about you, we simply don’t do things like that in this country. Those were two Americans who came after you on Highnote’s sailboat. They flushed you out of hiding and shod you. No arrest, no trial, nothing. They simply shot you and left you for dead. If that had been an Agency operation the entire town would have been crawling with security officers. You would have been given a chance to give yourself up and stand trial. But if there had been a shooting, there would have been three dozen guns opening fire, not two.”