“There were no bloody coveralls anywhere in the entire airport, though we did find one set in another trash bin, this one in the men’s room near Piedmont Airline’s boarding gates.”
Given the organisation and the manpower, practically anything could be accomplished. Any set of facts could be altered to support any line of logic. It was in the book.
“As I said before, Mac, you are not responsible for your actions.
At least you weren’t that morning when you stepped off the plane. You’d been pumped so full of drugs you couldn’t have known whatwas happening. You got spooked, somehow got Carrick’s gun away from him and shot him and Maas dead. From that point on you were working on instinct alone. You ran. And you’ve been doing a damned good job of it ever since. Where’d you find the doctor?”
“If I insisted on my original story, what would that tell you?” Highnote looked at him for a long time. “That you were lying.”
“No reason for it at this moment. I’m a fugitive and here and now I have the upper hand. Are there any other possibilities?”
“That you were so heavily drugged you couldn’t separate reality from some dreadful fantasy.”
“By your own admission I did a pretty good job of getting out of there. Not bad for someone so drugged out of his skull that he didn’t know if he killed someone or not.”
“Which brings us back to the lie. “Goddamnit, Bob, what about a third possibility?” Highnote’s nostrils flared. “That you’re telling the truth?” McAllister nodded. “Try it.”
“It would admit that you had been set up for some reason by a fairly sophisticated organization. By someone with a lot of connections.”
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
“We’ll come to that in a minute. Somebody opens fire on me in New York, and when I get to Washington my wife calls me a traitor and tries to kill me.”
“That was my doing,” Highnote said heavily. “As soon as you skipped we figured you might head home. Gloria was to be your bait. We had to tell her everything. But I swear to you I had no idea that she would react the way she did.”
“Outside your house I was set upon by three Russians. I killed them.”
Highnote nodded.
“Sikorski was next. He called me a traitor and tried to kill me. It was open season.”
“We thought you’d be heading out there sooner or later. He was told the same thing Gloria was told.”
“So I ran to your boat.”
“We didn’t think about that one.”
“Someone did. And they weren’t Russians. They were Americans. They shot me and left me for dead.”
“What happened down there?”
“You tell me, Bob,” McAIlister said softly. His grip tightened on the gun.
This time Highnote’s eyes opened wide in genuine shock and anger. “Is that why you called me up here, to find out the extent of the Agency’s evidence against you?”
“How did you know about Dumfries?”
“The dockmaster found the blood all over the bow of my boat and the cockpit of another. I was called as an owner, and put two and two together. It was your blood type.”
“Was it an Agency operation?”
“We don’t operate that way and you know it,” Highnote exploded. “Come on, think about it!”
“The Bureau?”
“They would have had half their Washington staff down there. You know that too.”
“Then who were they?”
“I can’t answer that, because I simply don’t know. But I suspect you do. And I suspect you’re going to tell me what you think is going on.”
Don’t ask a question unless you already know its answer. The cardinal rule of all interrogation. But he had no answers. He barely had the questions.
“Does the name Viktor Voronin mean anything to you?” Highnote shook his head. “Should it?”
“He was a former KGB officer. I was working him in Moscow and the product was pretty good for a while. The night I was arrested I was coming from his apartment.”
“Were you questioned about him, about the operation?”
“No, which I found odd. But even odder was the last thing Voronin said to me that night. He’d been rambling on and on about nuclear war, and peace and he said he had a warning for me.”
“Which was?”
“His words exactly…” McAllister hesitated a moment. He sat forward a little so that he could better see Highnote’s face. “look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.”
Highnote had no reaction, absolutely none, except for a mild impatience when McAllister did not continue. “Is that it?”
McAllister nodded. “Does it mean anything to you?” He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or glad.
“Not a thing. Does it to you?”
“It didn’t at first.”
“But it does now?”
“Zebra One is an Agency officer, and Zebra Two is KGB. Or at least I think so. One in Washington, one in Moscow. I think they’re working together.”
“Good God Almighty,” Highnote breathed. “You think there is a penetration agent within the Agency.”
McAllister nodded.
“And you think it’s… me?”
“Is it, Bob? Is it you?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Highnote said offhandedly. “How many years have you known me?” Highnote was looking away, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, his head shaking. “It explains so much. So much.. “Talk to me,” McAllister said. Whatever reaction he had expected it wasn’t this. “There have been too many coincidences surrounding you. The Russians outside your house. The hit men showing up at your boat. You and Gloria… this morning.”
Highnote turned to him, his eyes wide. “You were there?”
“I saw the two of you coming out of the house.”
“I took her to my place. She wanted to be with Merrilee. She didn’t want to stay in Georgetown any longer. Do you think that she and I…?”
“You said that it explains so much. What did you mean?” The atmosphere in the car suddenly seemed very close.
“More than you can possibly imagine, Mac,” Highnote said with some excitement in his voice. “But you’re right about one thing, you can’t turn yourself in now. If there is a penetration agent working within the Agency, it would be almost impossible for me to guaranteeyour safety. I mean, who could we trust? You’re going to have to keep on the run until I can find out who it is. Good lord.. “In the meantime the Agency and the Bureau are hunting for me,” McAllister said.
“Nothing I can do about that without blowing the whistle.”
“Tell Gloria at least.”
Highnote started to say something, but then cut himself off. He looked at McAllister with a new shrewdness in his eyes. “If you’re telling me the truth.”
“If not it would be a pretty elaborate lie, Bob. And for what reason?”
“You say you were never asked about this during your interrogation?”
“No.”
“But you were drugged. You could have mentioned it without knowing that you’d said anything.”
“It’s possible,” McAllister said. He could see Miroshnikov’s face swimming overhead.
“Have you mentioned these words to anyone else? Here or there?” McAllister started to tell him about Sikorski, but something made him hold back. “No,” he said.
“Don’t,” Highnote replied. “But they know of course. They’d have to. It explains why you were released the way you were, and why they tried to kill you in New York and again outside my house and on my boat. Russians in at least one instance and Americans in another.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Don’t you see, Mac, it’s a faction fight. Someone within the KGB wants to expose the connection.”
“Why?”
“Power politics? Who knows? But as soon as you were released the word went out: You had to be killed before you could talk.” Highnote was thinking hard, his mind racing. McAllister knew his old friend well enough to read that much from his face. “It might not be someone within the Agency. It could be anyone you know. The Pentagon, National Security Agency… anyone.”