“You have a patient there, Robert Highnote. May I speak with im?”
“One moment, please,” the woman said.
Stephanie would be out of her mind with worry by now, he thought as he waited for the connection to be made. All these years her father had been using their close relationship to gather information from her about CIA operations… specifically about who was being considered for employment by the Agency. It had been a sideline for him, however. His major role in the Harman-Borodin connection would have been that of a communications link.
She talked to him. Told him things. It made McAllister sick to think that she’d told her father everything they’d discussed. The man would have relayed the information to Harman who in turn sent his people out with orders to eliminate the threat. Everytime he’d moved, someone was right there behind him.
How was he going to tell her that her father had worked for the Russians? Christ, there was no way he could face her with news like that.
Highnote answered, his voice sounding a little weak. “Hello.”
“Are you alone?” McAllister asked. “Good Lord Almighty… yes, for the moment.”
“Is this line clean?”
“I think so. Where are you, what’s happened?”
“Are you all right, Bob?”
“Reasonably. Now what’s happened?”
“You can’t imagine how much, but now I’m going to need your help.”
“I don’t know what I can do from here. I’m not due to be released for another couple of days.”
“Donald Harman and Kathleen O’Haire are dead.”
“I heard…
“Gennadi Potemkin killed them.”
“How do you know that?” Highnote demanded. “I was there. I saw it.”
“Potemkin… head of KGB operations out of their embassy?”
“That’s right. He’s dead too. I killed him about an hour ago out at Janos Sikorski’s place, along with four of his people. Mafia.”
“My God,” Highnote said softly. “What is going on, Mac, what have you done?”
“It wasn’t me and Stephanie at College Park.”
“I know that!”
“Then why are the authorities still blaming us?”
“Because they won’t believe me. I didn’t see who they were. Alvan was just leaving when he was shot down in the corridor. I ran out the back door and almost made it across the yard when… I don’tremember much after that, except that I knew I’d been hit. Whoever it was took your car from your place.”
“Donald Harman arranged the killings, according to Potemkin.”
“You spoke with him? Potemkin actually talked to you?”
“He told me that Donald Harman has been working with a KGB general in Moscow by the name of Borodin.”
“Aleksandr Ilyich Borodin,” Highnote said in wonder. “He’s a big man in the Soviet hierarchy, but absolutely off his rocker. Half the Kremlin is afraid of him, and the other half would like to see him dead. But he’s got too much power. Potemkin told you that?”
“Just before he died.”
“What else?”
“He admitted that he worked with someone here in the States, too.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“No. But he said something very odd, something I don’t understand. e said everyone wanted me dead now, and he said that I was the most dangerous man alive.”
There was a silence on the line for a long time. McAllister could almost hear his old friend thinking, his thoughts racing to a dozen different connections, a hundred different possibilities. “You are dangerous to them,” Highnote said finally. “There have been two networks working here all along. Harman in the White ouse, and presumably someone in the Agency. In a matter of weeks, days actually, you’ve somehow managed to bring both of them down.”
“But there’s more,” McAllister said. “Of course. The penetration agent is still in place.”
“And General”
“He’s out of reach.”
“I’m going after him,” McAllister said, astonished with himself then as the words came out of his mouth.
“Are you crazy?” Highnote exploded. “We’re talking about the Soviet Union now. Moscow. Even if you could get into the country, what could you do against a man like that? You wouldn’t even get close. And why go after him in the first place? Harman is dead, his organization is smashed.”
McAllister’s head was spinning. “I don’t know why,” he said. Exactly. But if Borodin was able to get to a man like Harman, turnhim and use him, what else is he capable of accomplishing? How much else has he already done? Are you so sure that Harman was his only contact?”
“But this is insanity.”
“Listen to me,” McAllister said. “Potemkin ran his penetration agent from his embassy. They must have had contact on a regular basis. As soon as possible I want you to get back out to Langley and run it down. There’ll be something in the files connecting Potemkin with someone at the Agency. Something.”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. But whoever Potemkin’s agent was, he’ll be highly placed. Head of Clandestine Services, the deputy director of intelligence… and up from there.”
“We’ll run him down together,” Highnote argued. “I’m going after Borodin. There’s something else happening here, Bob. Something… I don’t know what. But if anyone will have the answers, Borodin will. In Moscow.”
“I’ll repeat, you won’t even be able to get into the country let alone get to him.”
“I think I will,” McAllister said. “But I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Diplomatic passports.”
Highnote’s breath caught in his throat. “Plural?”
“I’ll take Stephanie as far as Helsinki. If something goes wrong she can start making noises to insure I won’t simply disappear into some Gulag somewhere.”
Again McAllister could almost hear his friend’s mind working, considering possibilities, playing the scenarios out for himself as they both did in the old days together.
“How will you get out of the States?”
“Have our real passports been flagged?”
“No,” Highnote said. “At least to the best of my knowledge they haven’t been. No one expects you to try to leave the country.”
“We’ll fly to Montreal in the morning and from there to Europe. How about diplomatic passports?”
“Where are you calling from?”
“A phone booth in Arlington, not far from your house.”
“I have a couple of blanks in the wall safe in my study. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
Highnote gave him the combination. “There’s some cash in there too, but you won’t be able to take a gun through customs. Especially not into the Soviet Union.”
“I know,” McAllister said.
“The passports are blank, what about an artist?”
“Munich.”
“And then what, Mac? Say you do get to Borodin by some miracle, do you think he’ll talk to you?”