“Naturally,” Highnote said.
Innes ignored the sarcasm. “The second was the disturbing possibility that not only were the Russians trying to kill him, but that someone had hired the Mafia to stop him as well. In each case it appeared that someone was feeding them inside information about McAllister. The third was the apparent connection between McAllister and the O’Haires. In the first place your own people were told that McAllister had worked with them as their Russian pipeline. And in the second place, NSA intercepted the burst transmission within hours of which the O’Haires were murdered.”
“We can go two ways with this,” Reisberg interjected. “Whoever is trying to silence McAllister set up the O’Haires to implicate him on the hope that we would do their job for them. In other words, if we believed that McAllister had been the O’Haires’ control officer all along, we might not hesitate to shoot to kill when the opportunity arose. The O’Haires, of course, were then silenced so that they would have no chance to recant. Either that, or we can believe that McAllister indeed was their control officer, and still is very much in charge of the network, and had to silence them himself… or at least arrange for them to be killed.”
“Not the act of a desperate, driven man,” Highnote said. Innes shook his head. “Which brings us to Stephanie Albright, who apparently has agreed to help him.”
“I don’t think that has been established with any degree of certainty,” Highnote said.
“Forgive my skepticism,” Reisberg countered, “but I think there can be no question that she is willingly helping him. In fact it would be my guess that it was she who helped him in Dumfries.”
“What?”
“She apparently visited McAllister’s home in Georgetown on the night she managed to escape from him at Sikorski’s. It’s possible that she saw a photograph in the living room which showed McAllister and his wife aboard your sailboat. The Dumfries Yacht Haven sign is clearly visible in the background.”
“That’s quite a leap,” Highnote said. “But assuming that was the case, why would she have done such a thing? I’ve looked at her file. She is totally above suspicion.”
“Yes,” Reisberg said. “My thought exactly. She is a woman totally beyond reproach. We went up to Baltimore to interview her father, who told us that she is a headstrong girl, but that she is an idealist; very much in love with her country, which is why she sought employment with the CIA.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Just that we were doing a routine, prepromotion background check.”
“Had he heard from her?”
“Not for months,” Reisberg said. “But it strikes me as curious that such a patriot as Stephanie Albright should be so actively helping McAllister, that she was willing to lie to her own boss about setting up a meeting between him and McAllister, which of course gave McAllister the opportunity to break into CIA headquarters.”
“What’s your point?”
“Our point, Bob, is that Stephanie Albright wouldn’t be helping McAllister unless she believed in him,” Innes said.
“Come off it…
“In itself, the notion is a weak one. We all agree with you. But taken with everything else… well, it’s given us pause for some serious thought.”
Highnote looked from Innes to Reisberg to Quarmby and back again. “Which brings us to the actual purpose for this meeting.”
“The President is offering McAllister amnesty, and I think it’s up to us in this room to figure out how to get to him as soon as possible with the message, and without any more casualties,” Innes said.
“Because he knows something?” Highnote said. “Because he evidently learned something in Moscow that has the Russians so concerned… and possibily someone else… so concerned thatthey are willing to risk exposure in order to make sure he doesn’t talk?”
“Yes.”
“Which is?”
“We believe that there is more than a fair possibility that a Soviet penetration agent is working within the CIA at fairly high levels. We think that somehow McAllister stumbled onto this information while in the Soviet Union.”
“Good Lord,” Highnote said. “Then why did they release him in the first place?”
“An error, we suspect,” Innes said. “Once it was realized however, they tried to kill him. And they will keep trying. The Russians with their own people, and the mole using Mafia contract killers.”
David McAllister’s white Peugeot 505 sedan got off the Capital Beltway at Baltimore Avenue and proceeded south just within the speed limit. Traffic had been quite heavy from Georgetown, but Royce Todd was an excellent driver, and the directions Donald Harman had provided them were complete.
This was the big score they’d both been waiting for. After this they would be able to retire for at least a few years until the furor died down. Which it would eventually, Harman had assured them. With his help.
“Another half a mile,” Carol Stenhouse said, looking up from the sketched map.
It is essential that you not fail. It is the reason we are offering so much money. I need your assurances.
We’re here. It’s a job and we will do it.
No need for confirmations in this case. I’m sure I’ll be reading about it in the afternoon papers. The whole world would be reading about it, Royce Todd thought. And the beauty of it, is that the police would be searching for the wrong couple, giving them more than sufficient time to get out of the country.
“Are you ready?” he asked, glancing over at Carol. She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Of course,” she said softly, competently.
They turned off the main road and started up the long drivewaythrough the heavily wooded piece of property adjacent to the University of Maryland. It was quiet back here, and dark. Todd could see where other cars had already come this way this morning. He counted at least three sets of tire tracks in the snow.
Carol took out her suppressed.22 magnum automatic, levered a round into the firing chamber and switched off the safety. Todd took his out of his pocket and laid it on the seat beside his right leg.
They’d met five years ago in Honduras, where they had both been doing contract work for the CIA. He had been a graduate of the Delta Force out of Ft. Bragg, and was working with a Nicaraguan contra assassination team, and she, a former United States Army noncombat helicopter pilot, had been running arms across the border.
She had literally saved his life during a night raid in which he had gotten cut off across the border. She had spotted the intense gunfire in the hills a half mile inside Nicaragua, had choppered down to investigate, and when she had spotted him alone, had picked him up and flew him back into Honduras.
They’d gotten out of Central America when the Sandinistas began shooting down contract pilots with regularity, and the CIA, with as monotonous a regularity, began denying their own people.
Carol had changed into a short khaki skirt and blouse before they’d left McAllister’s house. As they came up over a rise that opened the last fifty yards to the large three-story Colonial, she shifted in her seat so that her skirt hiked up, exposing her thighs all the way to her lace panties. She spread her legs, the dark swatch of her pubic hair clearly visible.
The driveway circled around to the right of a big cement goldfish pond and marble fountain. A black Cadillac was parked beneath the overhang in front. As they pulled up beside it, a large man dressed in boots and a white parka came around from the side of the house. A second man appeared right behind him. They separated as they approached.
Carol powered her window down, as Todd opened the door and got out of the car. He held his gun beside his leg so that the two men could not see it. He stood just behind the open car door.
“Good morning,” the guard nearest said pleasantly. The other one angled toward the passenger side of the car.“We’re here to see Mr. Innes,” Todd said. He switched off his weapon’s safety with his thumb.
“Yes, sir,” the guard said. “If you would just step away from your car. Ask the lady to get out as well.”
“My damned seatbelt is stuck,” Carol called out her open window. Todd smiled and looked back in at her. The second guard had reached the passenger side.
“I feel like such a fool,” Carol said.
The guard bent down so that he could see into the car, his eyes automatically going to Carol’s spread legs. “What seems to be the problem?..
She raised her pistol and shot him in the forehead at point-blank range.
