no threat; they’d probably used the park road as a shortcut over to the university. He relaxed slightly.
“Stephanie and I are going to get out of the car now,” he told the O’Haire woman.
She turned in her seat, her face screwed up in a grimace of fear.
“I don’t want to go through with this,” she said. “It’ll be all right,” Stephanie said. “We’ll be just down the road a little ways. At the first sign of any trouble we’ll come running. He’s not going to try anything out here in the open, not with witnesses.”
McAllister looked at his watch; it was quarter after eleven. “He’s got another forty-five minutes before he’s due to show up, but I’m betting he’s going to be early. He’ll want to do the same thing we’re doing, look the place over. He’s counting on the likelihood that you’ll be coming alone and won’t know what you’re doing.” Kathleen O’Haire looked down the road as a couple in jogging outfits came around the sweeping curve. “What do I say to him?”
“let him do most of the talking,” McAllister said. “He’s going to give you assurances that he’s here to help you, but he’s going to want to know what we told you, what proof we supposedly have that someone in the White House is a penetration agent.”
“What do I say?”
“Stall him for as long as you can.”
“Why?”
“I want you to make him mad.”
“What are you talking about?” Kathleen O’Haire shouted. “He’s meeting me here possibly with the intent to kill me, and you want me to make him mad?”
“He won’t try anything until he finds out just how much you know.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“He won’t know that,” McAllister said. “We’ll be nearby, and as soon as it becomes obvious that he’s getting agitated, we’ll start toward you.”
“So what?” Kathleen O’Haire said. “What will that prove? Nothing.”
“You’ll see us heading toward you. At that moment I want you to say this to him: ‘McAllister knows about Zebra One and Zebra Two here in Washington and in Moscow. He has the proof.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’ll know,” McAllister said. “And if he’s going to try anything, it’ll come right then, but we’ll be right there. He won’t have any choice but to try to fire on us, if he gets that desperate. But I think he’ll run.”
“No thanks,” Kathleen O’Haire said, shaking her head. “I’m just not going to do this. It’s insanity.”
“Listen to me, Mrs. O’Haire, Harman can’t afford to let you go. If you’re not here for this meeting today, he’ll send someone after you, and it’s a fair assumption that he won’t bother talking to you in a public place. It’ll be somewhere he’ll have the upper hand, where he’ll be able to say and do whatever he wants.”
“I’ll run.”
“Believe me, there’s no place to run from a man in Harman’s position, with his power and connections.”
She looked from him to Stephanie. “Why did you do this to me?” she wailed. “Now, of all times.”
“To stop the killing,” McAllister said softly. “As soon as he shows up, I want you to get out of the car and walk over to him.”
“How will I know who he is?”
“You won’t have to, he’ll know you,” McAllister said. She turned away. “He killed Jim?”
“Him or someone like him.”
It took her a moment, and when she spoke her voice was small. “Zebra One, Zebra Two?”
“Here in Washington and in Moscow. I have the proof,” McAllister said. “Have you got it?”
“Yes,” Kathleen O’Haire said distantly.
McAlIister motioned for Stephanie and they got out of the car. Kathleen O’Haire didn’t look up. The joggers passed them as they headed toward the restroom building. It wasn’t as warm out here as it had been in the city. The wind off the reservoir was sharp. They walked for a little while in silence, McAllister maintaining his limp, Stephanie shuffling like a much older woman.
“It’s her, isn’t it,” Stephanie finally said. McAllister looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Ever since we got to California and talked to her, you’ve been strange; distant, sharp. At first I thought it was me, because of what happened… on the”
He stopped. “What happened, had to happen,” he said. “He knew what we looked like, we could not have left him alive.”
She looked away. “When he said that about Baltimore… being a big job… I couldn’t help myself.” She turned back. “David, I’ve never killed anyone before. I’ve never even shot a gun in anger. It wasn’t..
“How you thought it would be?” She shook her head. “No.”
“It never is,” he said gently. “But you’re right, I am worried about her.”
They glanced back at Kathleen O’Haire sitting behind the wheel. She was staring at them.
“There is no way of changing this either,” Stephanie said. “No. Harman made the first move. It’s up to us now to see how far he’s willing to carry it.”
They started walking again.
“He might be innocent, you know,” Stephanie said. “I thought about it. But the timing of his call is just too coincidental. And he agreed to meet her here, alone.”
“What then?” Stephanie asked. “I mean what happens if he makes a move and we stop him. Then what do we do?”
“Ask him some questions. “Which he won’t answer.”
“He will,” McAllister said. “He’ll answer.” He shivered.********
It is too bad your father isn’t alive now to see this. He was a good man. A brave man. A straightforward man. A soldier. He knew who his enemies were, and he met them head on.
We’re finally making progress, and Ifeel very good about it. And so should you. They sat on a park bench next to the cement-block building. At ten minutes before twelve, a dark-blue Jeep Wagoneer, one man behind the wheel, entered the park from the east, passed Kathleen O’Haire in the Taurus, and pulled up.
“It’s him,” Stephanie said urgently. “Donald Harman.” McAllister’s hand went into his coat pocket where he had transferred his gun, his fingers curling around the grip, his thumb on the safety catch.
Stephanie started to get up, but he held her back. “Not yet,” he said, looking across the park but keeping track of what was happening out of the corner of his eye. “Give them a chance.”
Harman sat in his car for several minutes, but then the door opened and he got out. He was tall, and even from here McAllister could see that he was well dressed. He wore a dark overcoat, a scarf at his neck, his head bare.
He stood beside his car for a moment until Kathleen O’Haire got out of the Taurus and they started toward each other.
“Easy,” McAllister said softly, looking directly at them now that Harman’s back was turned this way.
They said something to each other and shook hands. Harman gestured back to his car, but the O’Haire woman shook her head and said something else.
There had been neither the time nor the equipment to provide her with a wire. Under normal circumstances he would have done that. It would be invaluable to know what Harman was saying, exactly how he was reacting to Kathleen O’Haire. She gestured back toward the park entrance, then vaguely in the direction of the city. Harman said something, and he started to turn away, but then stopped dead in his tracks. The woman said something to him, and he turned slowly back to her. It had come already. It was obvious from the way the man was holding himself stiffly erect that he was angry, but he had good control.
“Now,” McAllister said getting to his feet.
Stephanie jumped up, and together they started down the road, McAllister’s grip tightening on his pistol.
Zebra One, Zebra Two. Kathleen O’Haire would be saying those words now.
A white Mercedes entered the park from the same direction Harman had arrived. One man was driving, another sat in the passenger seat.
The car was moving fast, much too fast for the narrow park road.
Suddenly McAllister understood that the situation was about to explode! But how had they known?
“Down,” he shouted, shoving Stephanie aside. The Mercedes began to accelerate as it reached Harman and
