McAllister moved cautiously down the hill behind the hole of a much larger tree where he again held up, searching the dark woods behind him.
There were two of them; Potemkin in the driveway and the one who had come up into the woods. This one would have followed McAllister’s footprints in the snow. Moving slowly just as McAllister had, from tree to tree. Testing each step, scanning the darkness ahead of him.
McAllister remained absolutely still.
“McAllister,” Potemkin shouted again. “I’ve come here to talk. I’ll send my people away. It’ll be just you and me.” There was the flash of movement to the left, about fifteen feet away, and then it was gone.
McAllister, his cheek against the rough bark of the tree, didn’t move a muscle.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Potemkin called. “You don’t know all the facts. I can help you. As strange as that seems, it’s the truth. Just talk. No more killing.”
A big man stepped out from behind a tree and started to move across a narrow open space when McAllister extended the silenced automatic, steadying his aim with his arm propped against the tree trunk.
“Stop and throw your gun down,” McAllister ordered. The man snapped off a single shot and dove for the protection of the trees. McAllister fired two shots in quick succession, the first striking the man in the left leg, and the second in his left side. He tumbled in the snow, thrashed around for a second or two, and then lay still.
McAllister watched him for a full minute before he stepped away m the tree and approached slowly. He was dead, his eyes open, big patch of blood staining the snow. There was something aboutthe man, perhaps his face, or the cut of his clothes, that was oddly familiar to McAllister, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Turning, he raced back up through the woods parallel to the driveway, making little or no noise as he ran, finally emerging from the woods at the parked cars, and just ducking out of sight behind the Mercedes as Potemkin, huffing and puffing, came into view, a big pistol in his right hand.
The KGB chief of station was obviously highly agitated. What had promised to be a relatively easy job of eliminating McAllister-the odds had been five to one-had somehow gone terribly wrong, and now he was running for his own life, looking over his shoulder every few yards.
McAllister watched him approach, passing the Taurus and then pulling up short when he saw the man lying trussed up in front of the Mercedes. He looked toward the woods on both sides of the driveway, and then did, to McAllister’s way of thinking, the most extraordinary thing possible. He raised his pistol and shot his own man in the head.
McAllister ducked back behind the car, his heart hammering, hardly able to believe what he had just witnessed with his own eyes. Why? It made no sense. Why would he kill his own man?
Potemkin came around to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel of the Mercedes. He turned the ignition and the car’s engine turned over, but it wouldn’t start.
He tried again as McAllister crept around to the side of the car and rose up all of a sudden, yanking the door open and jamming the pistol into Potemkin’s temple.
The Russian nearly jumped out of his skin. He started to reach for his own gun which he had lain beside him on the seat.
“I’ll blow your head off, comrade,” McAllister spat. Potemkin froze, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “Zebra One was Donald Harman. You had him killed this morning. Who is Zebra Two?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Potemkin stammered. McAllisterjammed the silencer tube of the automatic harder against the man’s temple. “I don’t have the time to fuck with you. Zebra Two, who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
McAllister cocked the pistol, the noise very loud. “A name, comrade, and you may live.”
“I swear to you, I don’t know.”
“Why did you have Harman killed?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You are either extremely brave or you are incredibly stupid. Why did you have Harman killed?”
“Because he was going crazy. He was out of control.”
“Out of whose control, yours?”
“He didn’t work for me.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know,” Potemkin shouted. “I swear to you, I don’t know. But he did work with Albright, I do know that.”
“What?” McAllister said, a hot jab of fear stitching across his chest.
“Nicholas Albright was one of Harman’s pipelines to the CIA.” McAllister’s head was spinning. “A man such as Harman wouldn’t need him. Not for that.”
“Albright was also his communications link with Moscow,” Potemkin said. “But that’s something I didn’t find out until a few days ago.”
“When you had Albright murdered?” McAllister was thinking about the cabinet in Albright’s surgery, the wires leading from the wall. He’d been right about the transmitter.
“Yes,” Potemkin said.
“Who did Albright take his orders from in Moscow? Who was his communications link?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“A name, comrade. A name!”
“It’s probably Borodin. General Aleksandr Borodin.”
“Is he KGB?”
“Yes, of course. He is director of the First Chief Directorate’s Special Counterintelligence Service II. He is a crazy man. This is not beyond him.”
Zebra One was for Donald Harman, in Washington. Zebra Two was for General Aleksandr Borodin in Moscow. But there was more.“What did you mean when you said Harman had gotten out of control?”
“It was he who arranged the killings in College Park.”
“Why?”
“To stop you. He wanted to totally discredit you, make everyone believe for certain that you had gone crazy.”
“How did you know he would be meeting with the O’Haire woman this morning?”
“I sent someone to her house. They listened to a tape-recorded message on her answering machine. She was already gone, so I figured they’d be meeting somewhere, and I followed him.”
Harman and Borodin worked together, Stephanie’s father their link. What else?
“Did the O’Haires work for Harman?”
“No,” Potemkin said. “They were my network.” The further he went into this nightmare the less sense it made. “Why did you just shoot your own man?”
“He’s not mine,” Potemkin said disdainfully. “He… and the others… all of them were Mafia. I hired them. They’ll do anything for money. Anything.” Again something tickled insistently at the back of McAllister’s head, but he couldn’t put a name to it.
“Borodin and Harman worked together. Who is your contact here
in the States?” Potemkin didn’t answer.
“It was a faction fight all this time,” McAllister said. “Harman wanted me dead, but so did you. Why?”
Potemkin turned his head slowly so that he was able to look up out of the corner of his eyes at McAllister. “Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“Who do you work with?” McAllister shouted. “You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead.”
“Who?” McAllister shouted again.
“Fuck your mother,” Potemkin swore and he lunged against McAllister trying to shove him off balance, when the gun went off destroying the side of his head.
Chapter 30
It was beginning to snow again in earnest as McAllister entered the suburb of Arlington a few minutes after eight. He’d fixed the Mercedes and taken it. The diplomatic plates would be less dangerous for at least the next ew hours, he figured, than the Taurus, which could have been conected with the McMillan Park shooting by now. He was tired and sore and wet from crawling around in the snow, and his mind was as badly battered as his body. The spying had gone bad on two levels; from the White House through Harman and from the CIA through the penetration agent Potemkin had controlled. Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead. But why? Potemkin had been willing to risk his life rather than answer that question. Harman was dead, so his operation was finished. And Potemkin was dead, thus ending the second network. What else was there? What was he missing? What was driving him? He found a telephone booth in front of a convenience store on Arlington Boulevard and pulled in, parking as far away from the lights as possible and walking back. He had to ask information for the number and when he dialed it the phone was answered on the second ring. “National Medical Center.”