It took him almost a half hour to reach their hotel on foot. He figured she would be back from the Holiday Inn by now. There was almost no traffic, and absolutely no activity around the hotel. He waited in the darkness across the intersection for a full ten minutes to see if anyone showed themselves. If the hotel was staked out, therewould have been a movement; a slowly passing car or van, a head popping up, a cigarette lit, something. But there was nothing.
He crossed the street, entered the hotel, the sleepy clerk glancing away only momentarily from the television show he was watching, and took the elevator to the third floor.
She opened the door for him.
“Oh, God, am I glad to see you,” she cried, falling into his arms once he was inside.
The relief in her eyes, in her voice, and in the way she held him, her entire body trembling, was genuine, pushing back his doubts about her.
“They knew I was coming,” he said. “Impossible.”
“How did you know where to reach me?” Her eyes widened. “What are you saying, Mac?”
“I repeat, how did you know where I would be?”
“You wanted information about the O’Haires. About the Zebra Network. There was only one place where you could possibly get it.”
“What did you tell Kingman?”
“You were standing right behind me when I talked to him,” Stephanie flared.
“I couldn’t hear both sides of the conversation.”
“What are you trying to say?” she snapped. “Spit it out!”
“Someone telephoned them. Told them that I was coming and that I was armed and dangerous.”
“And you think I did it?”
“What did you tell Kingman? What did he ask you?”
“Nothing,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “What did you tell your friend Highnote?”
Zebra One, Zebra Two. Highnote knew nearly everything. “If I wanted you dead I could have left you in the river,” she cried.
“I could have put a bullet in your head at my father’s house, or here at this hotel, or out at Sikorski’s, any of a dozen times and places.”
“Why didn’t you?” McAllister asked miserably, his voice catching in his throat. “I don’t know…” she started to say, and she tried to pull away. He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Why, Stephanie? What are you doing here with me? Why are you risking your life to help me? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Because I love you,” she blurted.
He didn’t know what to say. It was as if the floor had opened up beneath his feet.
“There,” she said pulling away from him. “Are you satisfied, you bastard?”
The TWA flight out of St. louis was already forty-five minutes late, putting them into Washington after eleven-thirty at night. louis Jaffe, assistant general counsel for the CIA, sat back in his first-class seat and closed his eyes for a moment. John Norris, who’d flown out with him for the interview at Marion Federal Penitentiary in Southern Illinois, was sound asleep in the next seat.
Highnote insisted that someone from Operations be included, and in fact it had been Norris who’d asked most of the questions. It was terribly odd, Jaffe thought, this particular piece of information surfacing now. But as Norris had said in his sardonic way, they were looking for a deal… when no deals were possible. “So we send them a life jacket. We don’t have to tell them it’s full of holes.”
Jaffe opened his eyes and switched on his pocket tape recorder, the voices in the earpiece distorted but understandable.
the name McAllister mean to you?” Norris’s voice.
There was a scraping sound and a sudden loud hiss as James O’Haire lit a match and put it to his cigarette. “As in David Stewart?” he asked, his Irish accent pronounced. “You tell me,” Norris said.
“The bastard. He was playing both ends against the middle there at the end. Last I heard he was still playing it close in Moscow. Probably skipped by now, though, if I know my man.”
“David McAllister was part of your network?” Jaffe heard himself ask.
“From the beginning.”
Jaffe ran the tape forward.”… had his network people over there who’d pump him the questions that needed answering. You know, hardware, technical data, that sort of sport.”
“And here in this country, who was your control officer?” Norris asked.
O’Haire laughed, the noise roaring in Jaffe’s ear. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies.”
Jaffe ran the tape forward again. “… telling you all this now because my brother and I want a deal. Not so hard to understand, is it?”
“Do you want to go live with your pals in Moscow?” Norris asked. “Hell no,” O’Haire exploded, laughing again. “We’d be willing to tough it out here, say for a year maybe two. Until the dust settles. Then you could quietly let us out. Might go to Spain, perhaps France. Somewhere in Europe. We’re not greedy.”
“Would you be willing to testify in court about McAllister’s involvement…?” Jaffe had asked, but O’Haire cut him off.
“You play ball with us, Mr. Jaffe, and we’ll play ball with you. I’ll tell you this much, though, watch out for McAllister. He’s one tough sonofabitch. I always admired that one, I did.”
Chapter 14
“They’re lying,” Robert Highnote said, looking across the conference table at the other three men gathered for the early morning meeting at CIA headquarters. “Besides, as I understand the laws of evidentiary procedure, the word of a conspirator would not be valid in a court of law.” Dennis Foster, the agency’s general counsel, nodded. “We’re not talking about a court of law here, Bob. But considering everything that McAllister has allegedly done over the past week or so, it gives one pause, wouldn’t you agree?” He was a slightly built but patricianlooking man with white hair and wire-rimmed glasses that gave his face a pinched expression. His voice was soft, cultured.
“Hell, at the very least the man is a killer,” Dexter Kingman said. He was just the opposite of Foster; raw-boned, large, at times loud. More than one person had underestimated his intelligence, however, because of his outward appearance. Oftentimes to their regret. He was angry just now.
“And he was here last night,” Adam French, the director of the Soviet Russian Division added. “You can’t deny that.”
“No,” Highnote said. “But so far, all the evidence that we’ve gathered has been contradictory. You can’t deny that.”
“The man is trying to save his own ass,” Kingman said. There was a deep scowl on his face. “Now he’s snatched one of my people.” Highnote glanced at the written report in front of him. “From what I’ve read here, she could have been a willing victim.”
“Probably had a gun to her head,” Kingman growled. “She’s still alive. And so are those two guards last night. He could have pulled the trigger. He didn’t.”
“What are you trying to do, defend the bastard?” Kingman said, his voice rising. “You were friends, but let’s not carry this so far we become blinded.”
“What the O’Haires told our people does fit,” Dennis Foster interjected. “If you think about it, it does make some sense.”
“Not from where I sit,” Highnote said heavily. “None of this makes any sense. I saw him, remember? I spoke with him face-to-face the night he came out to my house. He’s confused, he’s running for his life, I’ll grant you that, but we trained him to do that. And he’s doing it well.”
“At the Russians’ behest,” Foster said.
“Is that what you think, Dennis?” Highnote asked seriously. He looked at the others. “Is that the consensus here this morning? Because if it is, I’m telling you that I just can’t go along with you.”
Kingman threw up his hands in frustration. “Then what the hell are we doing here, Bob? What do you want from us? Do we let the bastard go, let him do whatever he wants? Offer him amnesty? Forget everything that’s happened?”