He turned back to the window again, unable to face her. He knewwhat he wanted to say, but he simply could not speak the words. Not now. The insanity was everywhere. With him there was death, away from him there was at least the possibility of life. Something was driving him, something had always driven him for as long as he could remember. But even now he could not give voice to the demons inside of him. “It’s the game that gets to all of us sooner or later,” Wallace Mahoney had said at the Farm. He’d lost his wife and both sons to the business, yet he’d gone on because there were no other possibilities for him.
The only reality is in continuing with your life for better or for worse. The Russians have a proverb: Life is unbearable, but death is not so pleasant either. “You have to believe me,” Stephanie said. “You cannot stay with me.”
“There is only one thing that would make me go,” she said. “Turn around and look at me!”
McAllister turned.
“Tell me that you don’t care for me. Tell me that it doesn’t matter that I love you. Tell me that you will never care for me. Then I’ll leave you.”
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I can’t tell you that, because I do love you. It’s why I wanted to send you away, to keep you in hiding, to keep you safe, to protect you. I don’t care what happens to anyone else, only you. If you want to stay I won’t send you away.” She took off her sweatshirt. Her shoulders were tiny and rounded, the nipples of her small breasts were erect. “I want to stay,” she said. “I’ll never leave.”
McAllister came across the room to her, and took her in his arms, his lips finding hers. She shuddered as she pressed against him, the heat of her body penetrating his shirt. He ran his hands down her back, her flanks, the mounts of her bottom, small and tight in her lue jeans. She shuddered again.
“Please, David,” she said looking into his face. “Make love to e now.“He picked her up and carried her across the room where he laid her on the bed. Undoing the waistband of her jeans, he pulled them down around her boyish hips, and peeled them off her long, straight legs. He kissed her breasts, his tongue lingering at her nipples, and then brushed his lips across her belly, the tops of her legs, her inner thighs as she spread her legs, her pelvis rising to meet his touch.
When he stepped back to get undressed, she watched him, her lips parted, a faint flush coming to her complexion. He laid his gun on the table beside the bed, and let his clothes fall where they would. “Hurry,” she said. “Hurry.”
He came to her on the bed, her legs parting for him, and he entered her without preliminaries. She opened her lips as they kissed, her fingers pulling at his back, her legs wrapped around his body, her hips rising to meet his thrusts.
“I’ll never leave you, David,” she cried softly. “I’ll never leave you.”
Later, lying beside each other, McAllister watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. Her odor was slightly musky and very sensuous.
“I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” he said. “But I’m not going to give it up. I don’t think I have that choice.”
She looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes, a faint smile on her lips. “Do you love me?”
The snow was falling very hard outside now. He touched her lips with his fingertips. “Yes.”
“Say it,” she said. “I love you.”
“Then nothing else matters. We’ll do it together, David.” She smiled. “Now make love to me again. I need you.”
It was very late. McAllister woke with a start, suddenly realizing that he was alone in the big bed. He sat up, shoving the covers back. The television set was still on, but the screen was blank and the sound had been turned down. The only other light came from the partially open bathroom door.
“Stephanie?” he called, getting out of bed. There was no answer. She was not in the bathroom, and her clothes and purse were gone. The clock on the nightstand read a few minutes before five. Where the hell had she gone?
He was pulling on his trousers when a key grated in the door lock. Crossing the room in two strides he snatched up his gun, slipped off the safety and spun around as the door opened.
Stephanie’s figure, backlit by the corridor lights, appeared in the doorway and she slipped inside, stopping in her tracks when she saw that McAllister was out of bed, standing in the middle of the room, the gun in his hand pointed at her.
“Oh,” she said.
McAllister’s heart had jumped into his throat. He lowered the gun with a shaking hand and stepped back. “Christ,” he said. “Where did you go?”
“It’s my father,” she said breathlessly. “I went downstairs to call from the pay phone. But there was no answer.”
“What?”
“David, he should be home. Something has happened to him. Something terrible. I just know it!”
Chapter 18
Robert Highnote was careful with his driving. With all the snow that had fallen in the night the roads at this hour of the morning were extremely slippery. The dawn had brought an uncertain gray light. Traffic was very heavy on the Capital Beltway around the city, and cars still drove with headlights on.
The telephone call he had received a scant hour ago had come as a complete surprise, as had the peremptory tone Paul Innes, the U.S. associate deputy attorney general had used.
“A few of us are getting together for breakfast at my place this morning, Bob. We want to talk to you.”
Highnote hadn’t slept well. He glanced at his bedside clock.
It was barely six. “A hell of a time to be calling. What’s this all about?”
“I won’t discuss this on an open line. But I want you here as soon as possible. We’ve all got extremely tight schedules this morning.”
“I’ll just give Van a quick call…
“Already been done. We’ll be expecting you within the hour.” Van was Howard Van Skike, director of central intelligence. Whatever was going on at Innes’s house this morning had to be very important. “I’ll be there.”
Highnote got off the highway at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Center and took Baltimore Avenue south into College Park adjacent to the University of Maryland. A good deal of Washington’s workaday business was conducted at such breakfast meetings. A lot of interservice liaison was accomplished without the red tape attendant to normal office hours meetings. Innes had been the prosecutor on the O’Haire case, and on reflection Highnote had a feeling what this morning’s meeting would be about. He turned off the main road and headed up a long, sloping driveway through the trees. His only questionwas how much Innes knew and who else would be present this morning.
The snow had eased up, but several inches lay on the ground and as Highnote got out of his car in front of the huge three-story colonial house, he heard the crunch of footsteps behind him. He turned around as a very large man, dressed in boots and a white parka came around from the side of the house.
“Good morning, sir,” the man called out as he approached. Highnote’s heart skipped a beat. He stood beside the car waiting until the man reached him. FBI was written all over his face and bearing.
“Are you armed, Mr. Highnote?”
The question was extraordinary. “No, of course not.”
“Very good, sir,” the man said glancing into Highnote’s car. “Just go right in, they’re expecting you.” There were no other cars here, though there were tire tracks leading around to the back of the house. Crossing the driveway and mounting the stairs to the front door Highnote had the impression that he was being watched. He rang the doorbell. When he turned around, there was no one behind him.
They were waiting for him in the breakfast room at the rear of the house. Large bay windows looked out over what in summer was a lovely rose garden, sprinkled here and there with a collection of ornately carved marble
