“Kirk,” he said, opening the door wide and moving back. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here? Has something gone wrong?”
McGarvey stepped inside, and Trotter closed and locked the door.
Trotter was still wearing his tie. He’d exchanged his suit coat for a shawl-collared sweater, however, and his shoes for slippers. He smelled of brandy. From the front of the house music was playing; it sounded like Mahler to McGarvey, who was feeling jumpy. The kitchen was large and very modern. Trotter and his wife had been famous in the Washington area for their dinner parties here in this house. The spotless kitchen somehow seemed like a mausoleum.
“What’s wrong, Kirk?” Trotter asked again. “What are you doing here? Is it still raining out there? You look as if you’ve walked five miles.”
“Are you alone tonight, John?”
Trotter sucked a deep breath all at once as if he’d just had a very sharp pain. He let it out slowly. “I’m alone.”
“There’s been another killing. And you’re next … or me, or Leonard Day. It won’t stop.”
“Goddamn you,” Trotter said softly. His lips were red. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. McGarvey thought the man’s eyes were suddenly larger than normal. It made his old friend seem vulnerable somehow.
McGarvey unbuttoned his sodden overcoat and took it off. He looked for a place to hang it, then laid it on top of one of the tiled counters. Trotter was watching him as if he were from Mars. He didn’t want to become contaminated by some outer-space bug.
“Who was it this time?”
“Darrel Owens.”
“Yarnell’s supervisor from the old days?” Trotter asked. “Retired to upstate New York somewhere. Maybe Long Island. We looked at him, of course. But he was clean as far as we could tell.”
“I went to see him. Asked him about Yarnell. Told him I thought Yarnell had killed Roger Harris and was probably working for the Russians.”
“Bloody hell.”
“He wasn’t shocked. Called Yarnell a prick, in fact. And now he’s dead.”
“Did you see it, Kirk? Were you actually there? Did you see the body?”
“His house burned down.” McGarvey once again saw Owens standing at the door, walking up the beach, stopping and turning back, his eyes wide, his slight frame bent as if against a terrible wind. McGarvey wondered what he himself would look like at seventy, if he lived that long.
“You’re sure he was in the house? You’re absolutely sure he didn’t get out?”
“Yarnell is not working alone here.”
“The arrogant bastard.”
“He has help, John. Here in Washington. He knows too much. He’s too many places all at the same time, without moving from his spot.”
“What are.you saying to me? Just what is it you’re trying to tell me?”
“He knows about me. He knew I’d gone up to see Owens.”
“He has his army here, Kirk, you know that,” Trotter said quietly. “You were warned.”
“I wasn’t followed.”
“Can you be so certain?”
McGarvey nodded.
“How then? Even I didn’t know where you had gone off to. Leonard didn’t either. We’re not following you, Kirk. We’re not watching you. You have my word on it.”
“I know, John. It’s why I came to you like this. But you and Day both know what it is I’m after. Who else knows?”
Trotter drew himself up. “What are you getting at? Exactly, now.”
“Who else is in on this besides you, Day, and whoever you have manning your emergency switchboard?”
“He doesn’t know anything.”
“Who else, then? The bureau’s director? Do you report to him?”
“No one in the bureau.”
“What about Day? Who is he reporting to?”
“I don’t know. But even if he was reporting everything to the attorney general, and I’m not saying he is, Kirk, remember that; but even if he was, no one knew you were going to see Owens. We keep coming back to that.”
“If it had gotten back to the Company, someone there could have put it together.” McGarvey had figured it out on the flight down. “If anyone inside knew that I was going after Yarnell, and had an idea why, they could be second guessing me all the way, keeping an eye on my likely targets. Owens, as Yarnell’s boss from the old days, would have been one of the logical choices.”
Trotter saw it, too. It was written in his eyes. “And Plónski,” he said, as if he were afraid of the name. “Another logical choice.” He turned away. “But that would mean …”
“It means someone is working with Yarnell here in Washington. Someone besides Baranov, his Soviet control officer. Someone active within the CIA.”
“It would have to be someone high up. At least within operations.”
“Someone with an unlimited, unquestioned access to records, as well as operational plans and programs.”
Trotter finally turned back. His eyes were round and moist. He took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. He looked naked. “I’d have no idea who to trust over there, Kirk. Everyone I know, everyone I work with, is at high levels and therefore suspect.” Another thought struck him. “Christ, he might even have the ear of Powers himself.”
“Day is the conduit.”
“He’s not a spy, for God’s sake, Kirk. Not Day.”
“An unwitting source. This whole thing has him scared shitless. It’s only logical he’d be trying to cover his own ass.”
“So what can we do?”
“Lock him out. This is between you and me from this moment on, until I get my operation lined up.”
Trotter put on his glasses and peered myopically at McGarvey. He was shook. “You’re ready to … move?” His reticence just then was boyish.
“Not quite. But listen to me; when it comes, it may not be quite what you thought it would be.”
Trotter nodded his understanding. “You’re going after Yarnell’s source within the CIA as well.”
“That too.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more here, John. Something else is going on, too. I have a feeling that whatever is happening at the moment with Yarnell and his Company source is part of an operation that we’ve either stumbled onto or that was set up just for our benefit.”
“What makes you say that? Christ, Kirk.” This was getting to be too much even for Trotter, but then he’d been thinking about Yarnell’s assassination; McGarvey was thinking about something else.
“Yarnell is still active, you know that.”
“It’s obvious …”
“But he hasn’t come after me. Just Janos, and then Owens. Nor is my ex-wife’s involvement simply happenstance.”
“That’s been going on for more than a year,” Trotter protested.
McGarvey nodded, a sour knot in his stomach. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, just how deeply they planned this thing. Whose idea was it, John, to hire me?”
“Mine.”
“Yours alone? Day had no say in it?”
Trotter was about to reply, but he held himself off. Thinking back to his conversations with Day. He shook his head after a moment. “Leonard suggested an outsider, but someone who knew the business intimately. Someone who wouldn’t be afraid to act. Someone we could trust.”
“So my name came up.”
“I brought it up, Kirk.”
“But Day approved your choice.”
“Yes,” Trotter said glumly. “Wholeheartedly.”
“Keep him insulated, John,” McGarvey said grabbing his coat.
“Where will you be?”
“Around. I’ll let you know when I have everything set up.” At the door McGarvey turned back. “One last thing. Have you any idea where Yarnell’s control officer, Baranov, is keeping himself these days? Moscow, perhaps?”