“You asked why I’m helping you,” Stephanie said in the darkness. He turned to look at her. She was staring up at the ceiling. “You should get some sleep.”
“I think you were set up.”
“By Highnote?”
“Him or someone else. It doesn’t matter. Someone powerful. Someone who wanted to protect himself.”
“But the O’Haire network has been smashed. It’s over.”
“If that’s all there was to it,” she said. She turned and looked at him, her eyes wide and bright. “They might have been nothing more than the tip of the iceberg. There could be more, a lot more.”
“Then we’ll find it out,” McAllister said. “In the meantime go to sleep.”
“I’m frightened,” Stephanie said. She pushed back her covers and got out of bed, her movements soft and liquid. She was nude. In the dim light coming from outside he could see her small breasts, narrow hips, and swatch of dark pubic hair. She’d recently been in the sun, or under a tanning lamp, because he could clearly see her bikini line of white flesh against the darker tan. He didn’t know what to say.
“Hold me,” she said, coming to his bed. “Please?” He held the covers open for her, and she slipped in beside him, her body pressed against his as he took her into his arms. He felt terribly guilty, as if he were the betrayer, the great destroyer, and yet for the moment at least, this felt somehow right.
In the morning they both carefully avoided talking about what had happened. Around eight-thirty they went downstairs to the hotel’s coffee shop and had breakfast while they looked through the Washington and New York Sunday newspapers. Still there was nothing about the search for his body, or about the investigations into the shooting deaths of two Agency officers in New York, or the three Russians in a car in Arlington Heights.
They were back in their room just at ten, and Stephanie dialed Ballinger’s home. His phone was answered on the first ring by Dexter Kingman.
“This is the Ballinger residence. Who’s calling?” He sounded harried. Stephanie could hear that there were other people there. A lot of them. “Dexter? This is Stephanie. Is Doug there? Can I speak to him?”
“I was just about to telephone you. Are you at home?”
“No, I spent the night with a friend. What’s the matter?”
“Ballinger is dead.”
“Oh, my God..“He was shot to death sometime last night, or early this morning. The FBI is looking for you right now.”
“What’s going on… why are they looking for me?”
“Your name was written on a pad of paper beside his telephone, along with the notation ten A.M Were you supposed to meet him or something this morning?”
“We were going to spend the day together,” Stephanie said, trying to control her voice. “Get yourself back to my office. I’ll set up your interview there.”
“Dexter… who killed him, do you know? Have you any idea yet?”
“It looks as if the Russians did it,” Kingman said heavily. “Russians?”
“It’s not very pretty, Stephanie.”
“Tell me,” she said, steeling herself.
“It looked like a standard Center assassination. A mokrie dela. He was shot three times in the face at very close range.”
“They killed him,” Stephanie said hanging up the phone. “My God, they killed him…
Chapter 12
“I’m sorry, Stephanie,” McAllister said. “You can’t know how sorry I am, but this has got to end right now.”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking up at him, her eyes filling, her face pale and drawn. “He asked somebody the wrong questions and they killed him for it. My God, it doesn’t seem possible.”
“How did Kingman know it was done by the Russians? Were there witnesses?”
“He called it a standard Center assassination.. “A mokroe deloe?”
She nodded. “Yes, those are the words he used. What does it mean?”
“Literally it means ‘wet affairs,’ the spilling of blood. Was he shot in the face?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “And now the FBI wants to talk to me. Doug wrote my name on a pad of paper by the telephone.”
“You’re going to that meeting,” McAllister said. “And you’re going to tell them that you don’t know a thing. You and Ballinger were supposed to make a day of it, just like you told Kingman.”
“I can’t.”
“You must,” McAllister insisted. “If you don’t show up, they’ll come looking for you. And when they discover that you’re with me, you’ll be a marked woman.”
“Don’t you see, Mac, I already am a marked woman. My name was lying in plain sight beside Doug’s telephone. Whoever killed him had to have seen it. If I show up for that interview they’ll kill me.”
“One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other,” McAllister said. “Unless you don’t show up for the”
“No,” she said firmly. “Whatever happens, I’m with you until this thing is settled. One way or the other.”
“Why? Can you tell me that now?”
Her lips compressed. “Because I don’t like being pushed around.”
“It’s just starting.”
“Let’s finish it!”
They used the rental car that Stephanie had picked up in Baltimore. McAllister figured this would be the last time it would be safe to use the Buick, however, because when she failed to show up at Langley they would come looking for her and it wouldn’t take long before they found out about this car.
Outside the city they stopped so that she could telephone her father and warn him that someone would probably be by to ask him some questions about her.
“What they’ll tell you won’t be true, Father,” she said. “Are you in any danger?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Take care of yourself, I’ll be all right.”
“I know you will, Father,” she said.
The day was cold and overcast. There was very little traffic on the highways so they were able to make good time along the Capital Beltway. They turned west on the Dulles Airport Access Road.
“There’d be no reason for them to go after your father,” McAllister said. Stephanie’s mood had deepened since she’d spoken with him, and McAllister was worried about her.
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” she said. “There’s still time to back out.”
She looked at him. “Don’t say that again, Mac. It doesn’t make this any easier for me. I’m along for the ride. Let’s just hurry.”
Since this morning a plan had begun to formulate in McAllister’s mind. It was obvious that Voronin’s warning did have a concrete meaning, and that somehow it was tied to the O’Haire spy network, or more specifically to the network’s control officer. But it was justas obvious that without more information there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. It came down to the old question: Whom do you trust when it’s impossible to separate the liars from the innocents?
He slowed down as they approached the Reston turnoff. What little traffic they’d passed was heading to the airport. He’d not seen a police car or an identifiable Agency or Bureau unit since they’d left the hotel. Of course no one would be expecting him to return to Sikorski. Not after what had happened out there that night. He glanced in his rearview mirror just before he hit the ramp in time to see a chocolatebrown Ford Thunderbird coming up behind him at a high rate of speed. He veered a little to the right to get out of its way, and the car passed them, the driver and lone passenger both intentlooking men.
“It’s them!” Stephanie cried, sitting forward. “Who? What are you talking about?”
“That car! The brown Thunderbird! It’s the same one from Dumfries!”