His XO, Rod Paradise, came in and handed him a message flimsy. “This just came in on ELF.”
Harding looked up. The SSIX was a military communications satellite system. “They want us to call home about three hours from now. Have sonar keep a sharp watch. If need be we’ll move south; this is one message we have to get.”
“Good news about Seventh,” Paradise said.
“Is it?” Harding asked. “I wonder.”
NINE
The surveillance position was at the edge of a gravel pit across Highway 193 from the long driveway to the Lee mansion on the Potomac. Parking was fifty feet below, but from the crest of the hill they had an unobstructed view of the expansive house and grounds. Morgan was having a sandwich and a cup of coffee in the van when Kuchvera came running down the path, the powerful binoculars banging against his chest. Morgan pulled off the earphones he was using to monitor the radio link to the four telephone lines into the house.
“His driver just pulled out,” said Kuchvera, out of breath. He tossed the binoculars inside, climbed behind the wheel and started the engine as Morgan slammed the side door and climbed up front.
“Has he got the limo?”
“No, he took the Jeep,” Kuchvera said, heading through the woods to the highway slowly, to give Lee’s chauffeur time to reach the end of the driveway. “He’s on his own this afternoon, so I thought maybe we could have a little chat with him. Just one-on-one.”
Morgan grinned wickedly. They weren’t accomplishing much by merely watching Lee’s staff who knew they were being watched. Rudolph said step it up a notch, which is exactly what they were going to do, starting with Lee’s chauffeur, Arnold Toy, a Taiwanese national working in the U.S. on a green card. Morgan keyed the radio. “PARA/MEDIC driver is on the move. We’re going to tag along.”
The Jeep pulled onto the highway and headed toward Washington.
“Is he alone?”
“Affirmative. He’s in the Jeep, Virginia three-two-baker-one-seven-seven. Southbound on one-nine-three.”
“Roger, one. Do you want backup?”
“Negative,” Morgan said.
Tactical command for the PARA/MEDIC surveillance operation was located downtown, but the watch commander this afternoon had either stepped out or didn’t care that they had left their post. Since Lee was out of the country, the operation was somewhat lax, giving the special agents more freedom to act independently.
Two miles later the highway crossed under Interstate 495, and the Jeep pulled into a Texaco station and parked around the side by a pay phone. Toy, dressed in a pair of slacks and a light short-sleeved shirt, was making a call when Kuchvera pulled in out of sight on the other side of the station, and he and Morgan went in one door and came out the other. When Toy saw them, he hung up and started for his Jeep.
“Mr. Toy, could we have a word with you?” Morgan said, pulling out his ID. “FBI.”
Toy stopped, the expression on his face wary but not concerned. “I have to get back to work.”
“We’ll just take a minute of your time, sir,” Kuchvera said.
“Actually, we need your help,” Morgan said. “We’re trying to find one of your friends. He didn’t show up for an appointment yesterday and we’re a little worried.” Morgan watched him closely.
Toy shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“His name is Akira Nishimura. He said he might have something for us.”
All expression left Toy’s face. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“He mentioned you. Said he’d worked with you a couple of years ago in Hong Kong. Pacific Rim Development Institute.”
Toy forced a laugh. “This is a joke, right? I’ve never been to Hong Kong in my life, and I’ve never heard of this company.”
“It’s an institute, actually, one of Mr. Lee’s operations, according to what Akira was telling us. He was here with a couple of his friends, but like I said they just disappeared.”
“Hey, I’m just a chauffeur, I don’t know anything. You want to talk to somebody, talk to my boss when he gets back.”
“When might that be?” Morgan asked.
Toy shrugged.
Kuchvera glanced at the pay phone. “Having trouble with the phones at the house?”
“That’s right. I was reporting the trouble to the phone company.”
Morgan smiled and nodded. “Hope you get it fixed. I’m sure that Mrs. Lee wouldn’t want to miss a call, especially if it was from her husband.”
Toy looked at them, his gaze unblinking. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“That’s it,” Morgan said. “Appreciate your help. We’ll mention your name in our report.”
When Toy was gone, Kuchvera wrote down the pay phone’s number and back at the van called it in to tactical command. If the call had been long distance it would show up in phone company records. It took less than five minutes to come up with the answer. Toy had called the Japanese embassy in Washington. “The plot thickens.”
“Better tell them to flag it for Mr. Rudolph. He’ll want to know about this,” Morgan said, as they headed back to the gravel pit.
McGarvey and Adkins walked down the hall to the DCI’s office a minute before three. He’d spent the afternoon at his desk wading through the National Intelligence Estimates and Watch Reports, as well as the updated material on Watchful Thunder. Although he was a speed reader, he managed only to skim through the material, which ran to five thousand pages, plus five dozen satellite photographs and infrared images. The CIA’s problem was hardly ever a lack of information. In fact in the past ten years the amount of data coming in had risen at such an exponential rate they were having a hard time collating it into manageable chunks, pieces that were recognizable as meaningful.
“I just got a call from Fred Rudolph’s office,” Adkins said.
“Have you set up the liaison already?” McGarvey asked.
“Yeah, and it’s already starting to pay off. The guys watching Lee’s house up in Great Falls followed his chauffeur to a pay phone. You’ll never guess who he called.”
“Who?”
“The Japanese embassy.”
“How about that,” McGarvey said, not really surprised. “Were they able to listen in?”
“No. But when they asked him who he’d called, he said it was the phone company to report something wrong with the phones at the house.” They stopped at the DCI’s door. “I think I’m starting to dislike coincidences as much as you do.”
“Doesn’t take a lot of practice.”
Carleton Paterson and Lawrence Danielle were with the general in his office, sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows doing little to dispel the gloomy mood.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” McGarvey said.
“Are you settling in?” Murphy asked.
“If you can call it that. I met with my staff, and I’ve gone through the last NIEs, Watch Reports and the updates on Watchful Thunder. It’s mostly a mess, but it looks as if we’re getting some reliable intel. Oh, and I’ve made Dick my chief of staff, so when I’m out of the office his word will carry the same weight as mine.”
“Good idea,” Murphy said. “How is Elizabeth coming along?”
“She’s on the mend.”
“What conclusions have you drawn?” Danielle asked. He looked tired. Word was out that he’d be retiring in a few months. He was one of the only people left in the building who actually remembered the old days before the Langley facility was built, when the CIA’s offices were spread all over Washington. A legacy from the OSS days.