“We’re not getting anywhere this way, Kirk,” Trotter said a little more forcefully. “Please. This is counterproductive.”
McGarvey’s eyes had not left Day’s. “Just what is it you want from me, Mr. Day?”
Day slowly stood. He looked across at McGarvey for a long time, then he threw back his drink. Not a sideshow, McGarvey thought, more like a bloody circus or a B movie.
“You are an assassin, Mr. McGarvey. We have hired you to assassinate Darby Yarnell.”
McGarvey grinned and sat back with his drink. He hadn’t thought Day would actually commit himself like that. “You don’t want an investigation, then?”
Trotter jumped up too. “Good God, what are you trying to imply, Kirk? What do you take us for?”
“You’ve already asked that question once, John. But Mr. Day hasn’t answered mine.”
Day stared through hooded eyes. He must have to jog at least five miles a day to look so fit at his age. Probably around the lake every morning before a breakfast of whole-wheat toast, guava juice, and wheat germ on everything.
“Yes, an investigation, but not at the expense of innocent people.” Day could have been lecturing. “It is the innocent who must be protected. That’s why we are in business. Too often the little man gets in the way and instead of our kind making the proper considerations, he gets steamrollered.”
From his chair Trotter voiced his agreement. “Poor Janos Plónski, case in point.”
“Then you are convinced he is guilty. No trial. The man is a spy. I’m simply to walk up to him some dark evening and put a bullet into his brain. That it?”
“Don’t be tiresome, McGarvey. I don’t care about the details. It must be done. He’s murdered one of your own, by your own account. What more do you want?”
“The truth.”
“What do you mean by that?” Day asked indignantly. He played the role well. “Exactly.”
“Who else is Yarnell working with, besides the Russians? You?”
A dangerous silence came over the study. Even Trotter was moved to keep his peace, apparently because of the monstrousness of the question. Chile had taught McGarvey a painful lesson: Nothing is ever the way it seems, especially not in this business. Connections within connections, plots within plots, there never were any simple or rational answers. Janos’s world as a field man had been relatively simple by comparison. Kill or be killed. The real perfidy was at the upper echelons of the business. That treachery had gotten Janos killed in the end; McGarvey’s sloppiness after five years of inactivity was a contributing factor. Knowing this didn’t make him feel particularly secure.
“Perhaps you don’t fully appreciate the measure of Darby Yarnell,” Day said at last. He was wounded. He was letting them all know now that he was too big a man to let such a snipe stop him cold, but that he was sensitive enough to be hurt. He went back to the buffet, where he poured himself a second drink. “Besides friends,” he said over his shoulder, “he has quite an extensive organization of his own.”
“His firm?”
“More than that. You’ve seen his house; it’s Fortress Yarnell. He has similar bastions elsewhere: Paris, Monaco, Austria, I’m told, though I don’t actually know for a fact about that last. He has cooks and house staff at each place, of course. He has his drivers, his bodyguards. He has his secretaries, even a Learjet for God’s sake, complete with a full-time crew, though I’m told he’s a pretty fair pilot in his own right.”
“An accomplished man.”
Day turned back, his right eyebrow arching. “Indeed.” He came back with his drink. “He does have his friends, as you say, within the bureau, certainly within the Company, Powers included, and no doubt he has his crowd even within my bailiwick. Unwitting helpers, I’d say. Pass the innocent bit of information back and forth. Good heavens, the man is a friend of the president himself. Doesn’t make him an accomplice, now does it?”
Day looked to Trotter for confirmation. “Of course not.”
“Enough friends for him to know by now that I am here?” McGarvey asked softly. “Why I am here?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Day replied. “If it wasn’t the Polacks who did in your friend, and it was Darby Yarnell’s gang, the implications are somewhat sticky.”
“If Darby Yarnell were to meet with an accident, what would become of his organization?” McGarvey said, trying a new tack.
“I don’t catch your drift,” Day said. His expressions were sophomoric.
“Pearson and Darien, his partners in the firm. Mightn’t they take over the spy business if their boss departs?”
Day turned again to Trotter. “That’s your turf, John. Anything on them?”
“They’re clean as far as we can tell.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd,” McGarvey said.
Trotter shrugged. “If he has help, they’ll dry up once he’s gone.”
“All on the say-so of a Cuban drug dealer,” McGarvey said, half to himself. “That’s what I meant, you know.”
Day wanted to pace. A muscle twitched beneath his left eye. “We’ve gone over all of that. Don’t be tedious.”
“I haven’t begun to get tedious, believe me. We have a long ways to go.”
“What exactly is it you want?” Day snapped irritably.
“Your signatures on a piece of paper.”
Day laughed out loud. Trotter reared back until he, too, realized it had only been a joke. He didn’t seem amused by it.
“Access to bureau and Justice files,” McGarvey said. “For a start.”
“Only on matters pertaining to this business,” Day said. He glanced at Trotter. “John?” Trotter nodded.
“Now that I no longer have Janos Plónski, I’ll need someone with the Company. Lawrence Danielle, for instance.”
Day laughed again. “I’ll work on it.”
“I don’t want a direct link with him; in fact, it would be better if I dealt exclusively through you.”
“Whatever.” Day shrugged.
“What was he doing here today?”
“I’ve already told you—”
“The truth this time.”
A strand of hair had boyishly fallen down on Day’s forehead. He brushed it aside. “If I were to promise you that Lawrence’s visit here had absolutely nothing to do with why you are here, would that be enough?”
McGarvey was thinking ahead. He nodded and then sat forward. “If at some later date I discover you have lied to me on this point, Mr. Day, held back on me, thus making my position over the coming days more dangerous or difficult, you’ll regret it.”
“I don’t take kindly to threats,” Day said evenly.
“Not a threat. I am merely telling you that if I find I’ve been lied to, all bets are off. I’ll go to the Post as well as the New York Times with the entire story. Names, dates, and exactly what I was hired to do.”
Trotter started to protest, but Day held him off with a gesture. “Fair enough. What else?”
“I’ll need a safe house somewhere in the city. Close to Yarnell without being obvious.”
“I can arrange that,” Trotter volunteered.
“I’ll need four or five of your top legmen assigned to me, John. Someone who knows electronics and will bring along the entire kit. Computers. Cameras. Second-story people. No one squeamish.”
“What are you planning?” Day demanded.
“Getting away with my own skin intact.”
“They cannot be involved in the … actual operation,” Trotter said. “Even so it will be difficult breaking them loose from the bureau. Questions will be asked.”
“Have you someone in mind?”
Trotter nodded.