She’d hung up on him then, and driven directly over to the Holiday Inn, where she’d been waiting and watching ever since. She had counted at least eleven different units in and around the Naval Observatory grounds, and she figured there were twice as many she had been unable to see from her vantage point. A District of Columbia police car, its red lights flashing, raced up from Whitehaven Street, turned at Circle Drive and entered the observatory grounds from the southeast.
They’d all hidden themselves. But now they were out in the open. Stephanie turned away from the window and looked at the telephone on the nightstand between the twin beds. McAllister had not told her where he was going tonight, but she’d known just the same. There was only one place where he could get the information he sought. As crazy as it seemed, she had to admit the logic of what he was trying to do. Zebra One, Zebra Two, his contact in Moscow had told him. And the O’Haire organization had been known as the Zebra Network. If there was a connection between the two-and judging from Sikorski’s reaction that first night she strongly suspected there was-then any further information would be buried in the CIA’s archives. More specifically in the Soviet Russian Division’s computerized records. Fourth floor at headquarters. She knew the territory well because she’d been assigned temporary security duty on more than one occasion-watching suspected Soviet spies operating out of their embassy here in Washington when division chief Adam French didn’t want to involve the FBI.
She tried to envision just how he would have gotten himself into the building and then up to the fourth floor. He would have to find an office with a computer terminal. He would have to know the correct access codes. So much could have gone wrong.
Outside, two more District of Columbia squad cars, their lights flashing, their sirens blaring, emerged from the observatory grounds and raced south on Thirty-fourth Street. Moments later Dexter Kingman’s car came around the corner and sped off into the night.
The meeting had been aborted. But at this point, McAllister was barely ten minutes late. Too soon for Kingman to have shut down the operation. The prize was simply too great for him to have quit this early.
Four other cars and a windowless van came out of the observatory and hurried down Thirty-fourth Street toward the Key Bridge-across which was the parkway, CIA headquarters a scant eight miles to the northwest.***********
McAllister had pocketed the walkie-talkie, relieved both men of their handguns, and watched them as Tom Watson unlocked the bulkhead door into the old building. The corridor was long and broad, only dimly lit, deserted at this hour of a Sunday evening.
“What’s the night guard’s schedule for this floor?” McAllister asked, keeping his voice low.
“I don’t know,” Tom Watson said, and the other guard looked up sharply at him.
“You’ve got to believe me, Tom, when I tell you that I don’t want to hurt anybody. If you know the schedule, it would be best if you told me now. I don’t want a confrontation.”
“On the half hour,” Tom Watson said after a hesitation. McAllister glanced at his watch; it was a few minutes after ten, which gave them twenty minutes at the outside to get in and get out-and only that long if his entry onto the grounds hadn’t already been discovered. “Let’s go,” he said.
“I don’t know what sort of trouble you’re in, sir, but don’t do this. You’ll just be compounding.
“And you don’t want to know,” McAllister said, prodding him in the back with the gun. “Down the hall. Now.”
Adam French’s office was at the end of the corridor, which branched left and right. Since he was head of the Soviet Russian Division, immediate access could be obtained to records through his terminal. That is, McAllister thought, if they hadn’t changed the access code on him over the past three years. A lot of ifs here; too many. He made both guards lie facedown on the corridor floor while he selected a slender, case-hardened steel pin from the tool kit he’d taken out of the Thunderbird’s trunk, and had the door lock picked in under twenty seconds. “Inside,” he told the two men.
They got to their feet, a deep scowl on Watson’s face, a look of terror on the other’s, and they entered the office, where McAllister made them lie face down on the carpeting as he closed and relocked the door. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes,” McAllister said. “If you cause no trouble, I promise you won’t be harmed.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Watson snarled. “You’d better hope I do,” McAllister said, sitting down at French’s desk, and flipping on his computer terminal. The screen came to life, with the single word: READY.
This terminal, like hundreds of others in the building, was connected to the computer’s mainframe in the basement. Records were compartmentalized, access given only on a section-by-section and need-to-know basis. Three years ago the Soviet Russian Division’s access code was SIR DIV METTLESOME. It had been someone’s abstruse comment on our Soviet policy.
He typed in the words, and hit the ENTER key. FILE? the word in amber letters popped up on the screen. McAllister glanced at the guards who hadn’t moved, then turned back to the keyboard and typed the most obvious choice. O’HAIRE NETWORK, then hit the ENTER key again.
ACCESS RESTRICTED-PASSWORD?
He stared at the screen, suddenly conscious of just how little time he had left. He’d been afraid that the file might be restricted, and now it was anyone’s guess what the correct password might be. The major problem was that he only had three chances to get it right. After three incorrect tries an alarm was set off on the mainframe, indicating that someone was attempting to gain access to a restricted file.
Where to begin? He had come this far, he wasn’t going to back out. Not yet.
He typed the first thing that came to mind. ZEBRA, and touched the ENTER key.
INCORRECT PASSWORD.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The O’Haires had operated what was widely considered to be the most damaging spy network against the United States since the Second World War. There was a certain logic to these passwords.
He typed: SPIES, and hesitated a moment before touching the ENTER key.
INCORRECT PASSWORD.
Again McAllister glanced over at the two guards on the floor. TomWatson had raised his head and was glaring up at him. “You don’t want to see this, Tom. Believe me, it’s for your own good.”
“Give it up, sir.”
“Put your head down.”
Watson complied after a moment, and McAllister turned back to the terminal, another thought striking him. This would be his last chance. He typed: ARBEZ, and hit ENTER.
INCORRECT PASSWORD.
He stared at the screen for a long moment or two, conscious of his heart hammering in his chest. He had begun to sweat again. The clock was running now. Someone would be coming to see what the trouble was up here. If they had already guessed he was somewhere on the grounds this now would bring them on the run. He had lost. Yet he had come so close. So tantalizingly close. The O’Haire files were somewhere in the computer. One word. One key and he would know..
In desperation he typed the only other thing he could think of. HIGHNOTE, and the ENTER key.
This time the screen was suddenly filled with a long list of file choices, labeled alphabetically under the heading: ZEBRA NETWORK DIRECTORY.
“Bingo,” he murmured, running his finger down the individual file choices, among them: History and Background, Investigating Authorities, Budget Line Summaries, Damage Assessments, Transcripts — Telephone, Transcripts-Nonsubject Interviews, Transcripts-Subject Interviews, and under the label Code M, the file, SUSPECTS.