“I can’t agree, and neither does the President,” Innes said. “The President wants to offer McAllister amnesty if he will come in and tell us what happened to him in Moscow, and what has been happening to him since his return.” Highnote was stunned. He sank back in his chair and looked dumbfounded across the table at the Justice Department prosecutor.
“It’s going to be up to us this morning to figure out exactly how to accomplish that.”
“He doesn’t know anything,” Highnote said. “His time at Lubyanka is blank in his memory. He told me that.”
“He knows something,” Innes said. “There are enough inconsistencies here for us to at least consider the possibility. Too many people have already lost their lives-we want to stop it.”
“You’re talking about a trap here,” Highnote said.“No.”
“Yes, he’d be shot to death coming in.”
“You have my word that wouldn’t happen.”
“You’d be out there in the field? You’d lead him in by the hand, is that what you’re telling me?” Highnote looked to the others for support. None was forthcoming. “I’ve spoken with him. I’ve seen him twice. You can’t imagine how desperate he is, how driven. At the least sign of trouble he’ll run and when he does someone is bound to get hurt.”
“We want to avoid that at all costs, Bob. Believe me when I tell you that we want nothing more than to sit down and talk to him.”
“He won’t trust you.”
Innes leaned forward earnestly. “That’s why you’re here. You’re his friend. He trusts you. He’s come to you before, and he’ll come to you again. But we need your cooperation.”
“He knows that I called Security last night. I doubt if he’ll trust me again.”
“He could have shot you, but he didn’t,” Alvan Reisberg said softly. “Another inconsistency.”
Highnote focused on the FBI cop. “What are you talking about?”
“McAllister is, as you say, a driven man,” Innes broke in. “But who is driving him? And why?”
“We know that someone is trying to kill him,” Reisberg said. “How do you know that?” Highnote asked apprehensively. “Because he told us.”
The dark-blue Jeep Wagoneer pulled up and parked at the corner of 31st Street and Avon Lane in Georgetown. A lone, well-dressed, goodlooking man sat behind the wheel, his heart pounding. No time. There was no time left and yet it was up to him to put this ultimate insanity into motion. God in heaven, how could anyone be expected to do such a thing?
Once in you will be along for the duration, he’d been told. Some of it will not be pretty and certainly not pleasant. But all of it will be teriibly necessary. Expediency is the watchword. His orders had been crystal clear. The source, unimpeachable. But Jesus Christ, if something wentwrong; anything, even the slightest hitch, everything would blow up in their faces. He thought about Dallas and Los Angeles and Beirut and a dozen other places around the globe over the past twenty-five years or so. Such a terrible waste. Such risks. Was it worth it? Had it been worth the price paid?
Considering the consequences, he thought, his eye on the brownstone house halfway down the narrow side street, there were no other alternatives. He’d known that too, when he’d signed on.
He reached inside his coat pocket, feeling for his gun, then shut off the car’s ignition and got out as a bus rumbled by. He went around the corner and hurried down the street, crossing to the other side in midblock. There was very little traffic about, for which he was grateful God only knew what explanation he could give for being here like this, if someone recognized him) and what passed paid him absolutely no attention as he mounted the steps to McAllister’s house and unlocked the door.
He was just another man coming home. He looked as if he belonged in the neighborhood. No eyebrows would be raised. No one would question him, unless he was recognized.
Just inside the stairhall he closed and relocked the door then stood and listened, conscious of his heart hammering in his chest. Time. There was precious little of it. And even now they might already be too late.
The house was silent. He looked toward the head of the stairs. They were here. He knew that for a fact. This was the last place anyone would think to check. McAllister wasn’t coming back, and his wife was safely ensconced at Robert Highnote’s home in Arlington Heights. Nothing could possibly go wrong at this end, and yet everything could go wrong.
“It’s me,” he called out, starting up the stairs, his right hand trailing on the banister. Halfway up he stopped again to listen. A car horn tooted outside, but the house remained absolutely still. The hall smelled faintly musty, unused, as if the house had been closed up, unlived in for a long time. Which in fact it had. The McAllisters had been in Moscow for nearly three years. They would never be returning here. At the top he turned right and went into the living room. A thin, attractive woman stood to one side of the window, a faint smile on her lips, as if she had just heard an amusing, slightly off-color story.
“Hello, Don,” she said.
He pulled up short, startled that she knew his real name. “Where’s Royce?” he started to ask, when he detected a movement out of the side of his eye, just to his left and behind him. He started to turn when the barrel of a silenced pistol was pressed against his temple. His insides immediately tightened.
“Did you come alone?” the man whispered harshly. “Yes.”
“You were not followed?”
“No.”
The woman turned to the window and barely parted the drapes enough so that she could see down into the street. “Where’d you park your car?” she asked.
“Around the block, on Thirty-first.”
“The blue Jeep?” she asked. “Yes.”
“How does it look?” the man with the gun asked, his voice soft, his accent flat, perhaps midwestern.
The woman turned away from the window, letting the curtain ease back into place. She wore a dark-gray sweater and blue jeans. “It’s clean.”
“Very well,” the man behind Donald Harman said, withdrawing his gun and stepping aside. “We’re here. What have you got for us this time?”
Harman turned and looked at the man. It was the first time he had ever seen Royce Todd’s face. Very few people had, and lived to describe it. Harman was struck by his eyes. They were empty. There was no bottom to them, and he shivered. Todd and the woman, whom he knew as Carol Stenhouse, had come highly recommended. They were simply the best in the business, professional in every sense of the word.
“We have a very large job for you,” Harman said finding his voice. “But it must be done immediately, this morning. In fact within the next hour.“Royce glanced at the woman. She nodded slightly, her lips still parted in a half smile.
“There won’t be time for the usual confirmation from Geneva that our funds are in place,” Todd said.
“You’ll have to trust us on this one. It’s the reason I came in person.” Harman glanced at the woman. He thought she looked like a wild, nocturnal animal. Someone you would never willingly turn your back on. “We’re paying five hundred thousand. Each.”
The woman’s left eyebrow rose slightly. It was the only reaction either of them displayed at the mention of a fee that was five times more than they’d received for Sikorski.
“You have our undivided attention.” Todd said. “And since time is apparently of the essence, I suggest you get on with it. Whom do you want us to kill, how do you want it done, and what provision have you made for our escape afterward?”
“I have it all here,” Harman said pulling a thick envelope from his pocket.
Chapter 19
For the first time since they’d gotten word that McAllister had been arrested in Moscow, Robert Highnote was at a loss for understanding. He’d always prided himself on his ability to see the big picture; to keep track of all the variables in any situation. Real life was fluid. There were no blacks and whites, only delicate shades of gray.
