“Will you help me?”
“Yes,” Highnote said, looking at him again. “But you’re going tohave to keep yourself hidden… even from me. Keep your ass down, Mac, because the bullets are going to start flying, I think.”
“You can’t possibly trust him,” Stephanie said. It was nearly midnight. They were back in their hotel room downtown. She sat on the edge of the bed while McAllister paced back and forth. “He was convincing. And he did come alone.”
“Don’t you see that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by complying with your wishes? You’re old friends. He knew that you wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood, whatever he thinks about you. But he had to know what you were doing, what information you had.”
“If he is the penetration agent he wouldn’t have been so sure of that. He would have been taking a very large risk by meeting with me.”
“You still don’t see. You simply are not that type of person.”
“The Russians had me for more than a month under drugs. Supposedly I killed Carrick and Maas in New York. And there’s no denying I killed the three Russians in Arlington Heights.”
“One is an assumption, the other you’ve freely admitted. But when you had the chance-in fact the need, to protect your own safety, you did not kill me, nor did you kill Sikorski. Your true colors were showing.”
“He was still taking a big chance.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him about Sikorski’s reaction to the words?”
“I don’t know,” McAllister said.
“I do. You were simply protecting yourself again. Something at the back of your head, some instinct, told you to hold back. And from where I’m sitting, I think your instincts are about the only thing that have saved your life so far. Trust them.”
The fact was, McAllister thought, he no longer could. His life had truly ended a month and a half ago in Moscow, and he felt at times as if he were struggling now to get out of the womb, to be reborn; only he had no idea who he would become. The thought was frightening. “I didn’t tell him about the possible connection between Voronin’s warning and the O’Haire network either.”
“No matter what he is, he’s certainly not a stupid man,” Stephanie said. “We have to assume that he’s at least considered the possibility that you’ve made the connection.”
“If there is one.”
“The O’Haires’ control officer has never been named.”
“Highnote?”
“Possibly.”
“If that’s the case, he’ll be pulling out all the stops to find me now,” McAllister said, pausing by the window. “We’re going to need more information about the Zebra Network. Somewhere there has to be a track backward.”
“The library has all the back issues of The New York Times and Washington Post, there might be something…
“No, I meant details that haven’t been published. Something in the Agency’s files. Perhaps in the FBI’s records.”
“I can telephone Doug, ask him to make a few discreet checks for me.”
“The one who gave you the gun?”
“Yes,” Stephanie said. “He knows a lot of people. And he’s good.”
“No questions asked?”
Stephanie smiled sadly. “He’s still in love with me. He’ll do it.’ McAllister turned back and looked at her. “Why are you doing this?”
“We’ve already gone through that, Mac,” she said getting up and going around the bed to the telephone.
“But you never gave me a proper answer.”
She shook her head. “Nor do I think I can. At least not at this moment. Give it a little time, I’ll come up with something for you.” She picked up the phone, got an outside line and dialed Doug Ballinger’s home number. He’d just come in and he sounded tired.
“Sorry to bother you, Douglas,” Stephanie said. “But I need your help again.”
“Come on over, darling, we’ll talk about it.”
“I can’t tonight. But I need you to make some quiet inquiries for me. I need some information, and fast. Like yesterday.”
Ballinger’s voice cleared. “Are you in some sort of trouble, Steph?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“Well, first you borrow my gun, and then you call me in the middle of the night asking for information. What’s up?” Stephanie sighed. “I could be in some trouble, Douglas, so I’m counting on you to keep it cool.”
“What do you need?”
“Are you familiar with the O’Haire case?”
“Everybody is,” Ballinger said cautiously. “They were sentenced the other day. What’s your connection?”
“Their Soviet control officer has never been named. Any ideas on that score?”
The line was quiet for a long time. “What have you got yourself involved with, Stephanie? This is big business.”
“I know. I just need that information, Douglas. Quietly.”
“I don’t know if I can do that for you-or should. At least not until you tell me why. My ass could be hanging out on a very thin limb.”
“I can’t. You’re just going to have to trust me. Can you help?”
“Goddamnit, Stephanie, talk to me! I’m not kidding now! Those people were big-time traitors. They sold us down the river. Now you’re asking me about their control officer? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m not involved with them, Douglas, I swear it to you. I just need the information.”
“Then go to your office and punch it up on the computer. You’ve got the clearance.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“look, you either trust me or you don’t!” Stephanie snapped. “If you do, all I can promise is that you’ll get an explanation sooner or later, and then you’ll see why I had to do it this way.”
Again there was a longish silence on the line. When Ballinger came back on he sounded cold. “Call me here in the morning. About ten.”
“Thanks, Douglas,” Stephanie said, but the line was dead. Ballinger had hung up on her. She slowly put down the telephone.
“He wasn’t very happy with you,” McAllister said. “No,” she said. “But he’ll do it. I’m supposed to call him back at ten.“Will he tell someone about this?”
“I don’t think so. Like I said, he’s in love with me.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She shook her head. “I was, a long time ago, but not now. We were friends.”
McAllister caught her use of the past tense. “I’m sorry, Stephanie.”
“Yeah, me too.”
It was very late. Without turning his head to look at the clock, McAllister figured it had to be at least four in the morning. He stared at the window, the curtains partially drawn, waiting for the dawn to come. Stephanie was on the other bed.
Their next moves depended in a very large measure on what Ballinger would come up with, because at this point he might be their only viable hope for any sort of a lead. If there was a connection between Voronin’s cryptic warning and the O’Haire spy network, and if Ballinger could provide them with a clue as to their control officer, they might be able to act.
The answers are in Washington.
What if Zebra One turned out to be Highnote? What if he had been the O’Haires’ control officer? How long had it been going on?
Can you ever know anyone, really know them? In this business you can trust no one, boyo.
The words should have been chiseled in granite on some monument somewhere, dedicated to man’s inhumanity to man; dedicated to his perfidy. MICE was an old CIA acronym for why men became traitors: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. Which one? Where in God’s name was it leading, and did he want to know?