Stephanie had spent time here when she was in the air force and she knew the city fairly well so was able to direct him.
The Zebra Network had been a fabulously successful operation for a number of years. James O’Haire, who had been a U.S. Army Delta Force graduate, had drifted into the world of the so-called soldier of fortune, fighting for a time in Central America and then Africa where presumably he had made his Soviet contacts in Libya.
How much had his wife known about his activities? Her name had appeared in the Agency file, yet she’d never been arrested. It was possible she knew nothing.
“What if she’s a dead end?” Stephanie asked. They’d reached Sherman Oaks and turned west on the Ventura Freeway. McAllister glanced at her. “Then we’ll try Denby up in San Francisco.”
“And him? What if he’s a dead end too?”
“I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.”
“We’ll just have to see,” she repeated, and then fell silent, looking out the window at the foothills in the hazy distance.
On the way out from the airport she had dug out the parts of their weapons from their luggage and had assembled them; her lightweight.32 automatic with a fair degree of proficiency, and his P38 with a little bit of coaching from him.
“They didn’t teach us that one at school,” she’d explained. It was Doug Ballinger’s gun, and before she handed it to McAllister she turned it over in her hands, shaking her head.
“What is it?” he asked.
She looked up. “I keep thinking that none of this should ever have happened,” she said. “And yet another part of me realizes that it couldn’t have been any other way.”
“If we don’t win, they will.”
“This time,” she said earnestly. “There’ll always be another time, and another. It’ll never end.”
There was no answer, so McAllister had concentrated on his driving, the big car handling smoothly in traffic, and she had turned to stare out the window. The broad, treeless street in Canoga Park was typical of southern California. The houses were all long, low ranch style, with two-car garages, paved driveways, and cars, vans, campers, and bicycles parked everywhere. Some backyards had ahoveground swimming pools, others had redwood patios. The sameness of the houses was faintly depressing. This was the great American threat that the O’Haires and their spy network had tried so hard to bring down.
It was three-thirty in the afternoon when they drove slowly past 1 Kathleen O’Haire’s house, a white Camaro parked in front of the open garage door. So far as McAllister could tell there was no movement from within the house, but it was a safe bet that the woman was at home.
At the corner he drove back a couple of blocks to a 7-Eleven store on Sherman Way, the main highway through the town, where Stephanie called Kathleen O’Haire’s number from a pay phone. It rang only once before a woman with a pleasant southern accent answered. Stephanie immediately hung up.
“She’s home.”
“Then we wait,” McAllister said, pulling out of the parking lot and heading back around the block again.
“For what?”
“For her to leave so that I can get into the house and have a look around.”
“Or until someone shows up looking for us,” Stephanie said. “Or that,” McAllister replied.
They parked at the corner a half a block from Kathleen O’Haire’s house. McAllister left the engine running, his eyes automatically scanning the street, the houses, the parked vehicles. There was nothing out of the ordinary here. No watchers. No one waiting for someone to show up, unless they were in the house with the woman. That was possible, though for some reason he doubted it. If Kathleen O’Haire had been an active part of the network, their control officer would be leaving her alone now. And if she knew nothing, there’d be no reason to go after her, unless someone had figured that he and Stephanie would be showing up.
He lit a cigarette, pulling the smoke deeply into his lungs, hisfingers drumming on the steering wheel. He had never been much good at waiting, though he had done a fair amount of it in his career.
Patience has got to be a part of your tradecraft, boyo, his father had told him in the early days. Good things come to those who wait… and watch.
Stephanie had withdrawn into her own world, her eyes directed down the street to the neighborhood, but he didn’t think she was seeing anything other than blood and death and senseless destruction.
He looked in the same direction she was staring and he wondered if they were seeing the same things. A normal, middle-class neighborhood, nothing more. Relatively quiet on weekdays-meter readers, garbage collectors, repairmen, newspaper delivery boys, mailmen. In the evenings the houses would be lit, kids would be coming home from school. And on weekends lawnmowers would be buzzing, barbecue grills would be smoking, pool parties would be noisily in progress. What had James O’Haire and his brother and the others wanted? What claims did their brand of socialism have over this domestic scene?
Careful the man who becomes maudlin in this business, boyo. There’s no room for that claptrap sentiment. It could cost you your life. No rose-colored glasses here. This is the real world.
At a few minutes before five, Kathleen O’Haire came out of her house. She was a large woman, tall and red- haired. She climbed into her car and backed out of the driveway.
McAllister got out of the car and Stephanie slid over behind the wheel.
“When she starts back, call the house. let it ring twice, then hang up.”
“What makes you think she’s coming right back?”
“She would have closed her garage door,” McAllister said. Stephanie nodded.
“Give us five minutes, then come in,” McAllister said. “But watch yourself. And make damed sure that no one is following her and picks you up as well.”
“Good luck.”
“You too,” McAllister said. There was so much he wanted to sayto her, but now wasn’t the time. He crossed the street as she drove around the corner and accelerated after Kathleen O’Haire’s Camaro.
A young girl, her long hair streaming from beneath a baseball cap, canvas newspaper sacks attached like saddlebags to the back of her bicycle, rode past him, tossing newspapers up on the lawns with practiced ease. Four doors down from the O’Haire house several boys were playing basketball in the driveway. Music came from one of the houses across the street. Normal sounds and sights, he thought.
McAllister picked up Kathleen O’Haire’s newspaper and walked up the driveway. The garage was a mess, junk piled everywhere; a small freezer sat in a corner near the kitchen door, a washer and dryer next to it. But there were no toys. The O’Haires, he’d read, had had no children. For a moment he wondered if they’d missed not having a family as much as he did at times.
The kitchen door was unlocked and McAllister went in. Straight ahead were the sink, stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher, a window overlooking the big aboveground pool in a pleasant backyard. To the left was the dining room, a tall glass-fronted hutch facing an oak table and chairs, a basket of fruit in the middle of the table. He laid the newspaper down.
Standing just within the kitchen he was struck again by the ordinariness of the neighborhood and of this house in particular. From here one of the most successful spy rings ever to be operated in this country was directed. He had to wonder if the conspirators had sat around the dining room table in the evening talking out their strategies, sharing the product, planning goals.
Had Kathleen O’Haire participated? Had she been here making cofiee perhaps, serving sandwiches to her husband and brother-in- law and the others in the ring? Or had they sent her away at such times to visit friends or neighbors while the boys played poker?
An almost overpowering sense of dread came over him as he wondered if he were making a terrible mistake by being here. Kathleen O’Haire could be an innocent victim. By coming here like this he could be putting her into extreme danger.
But her name had been in the Agency’s files. Why, unless there was at least the possibility she knew something of value to the investigation? Straight through the dining room a small alcove led to a bathroom beyond which was a bedroom. To the left, a broad archway opened into a small, but pleasantly furnished living room, shelves along one wall filled with a few books, a stereo system, some knickknacks, and several photographs. A big framed poster over the couch depicted a scene, which might have been in Ireland, of a castle perched on a hill across a lush green valley. A small Christmas tree, its decorations sparkling, was set in front of the window. There
