“He didn’t work for me.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know,” Potemkin shouted. “I swear to you, I don’t know. But he did work with Albright, I do know that.”
“What?” McAllister said, a hot jab of fear stitching across his chest.
“Nicholas Albright was one of Harman’s pipelines to the CIA.” McAllister’s head was spinning. “A man such as Harman wouldn’t need him. Not for that.”
“Albright was also his communications link with Moscow,” Potemkin said. “But that’s something I didn’t find out until a few days ago.”
“When you had Albright murdered?” McAllister was thinking about the cabinet in Albright’s surgery, the wires leading from the wall. He’d been right about the transmitter.
“Yes,” Potemkin said.
“Who did Albright take his orders from in Moscow? Who was his communications link?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“A name, comrade. A name!”
“It’s probably Borodin. General Aleksandr Borodin.”
“Is he KGB?”
“Yes, of course. He is director of the First Chief Directorate’s Special Counterintelligence Service II. He is a crazy man. This is not beyond him.”
Zebra One was for Donald Harman, in Washington. Zebra Two was for General Aleksandr Borodin in Moscow. But there was more.“What did you mean when you said Harman had gotten out of control?”
“It was he who arranged the killings in College Park.”
“Why?”
“To stop you. He wanted to totally discredit you, make everyone believe for certain that you had gone crazy.”
“How did you know he would be meeting with the O’Haire woman this morning?”
“I sent someone to her house. They listened to a tape-recorded message on her answering machine. She was already gone, so I figured they’d be meeting somewhere, and I followed him.”
Harman and Borodin worked together, Stephanie’s father their link. What else?
“Did the O’Haires work for Harman?”
“No,” Potemkin said. “They were my network.” The further he went into this nightmare the less sense it made. “Why did you just shoot your own man?”
“He’s not mine,” Potemkin said disdainfully. “He… and the others… all of them were Mafia. I hired them. They’ll do anything for money. Anything.” Again something tickled insistently at the back of McAllister’s head, but he couldn’t put a name to it.
“Borodin and Harman worked together. Who is your contact here
in the States?” Potemkin didn’t answer.
“It was a faction fight all this time,” McAllister said. “Harman wanted me dead, but so did you. Why?”
Potemkin turned his head slowly so that he was able to look up out of the corner of his eyes at McAllister. “Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“Who do you work with?” McAllister shouted. “You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead.”
“Who?” McAllister shouted again.
“Fuck your mother,” Potemkin swore and he lunged against McAllister trying to shove him off balance, when the gun went off destroying the side of his head.
Chapter 30
It was beginning to snow again in earnest as McAllister entered the suburb of Arlington a few minutes after eight. He’d fixed the Mercedes and taken it. The diplomatic plates would be less dangerous for at least the next ew hours, he figured, than the Taurus, which could have been conected with the McMillan Park shooting by now. He was tired and sore and wet from crawling around in the snow, and his mind was as badly battered as his body. The spying had gone bad on two levels; from the White House through Harman and from the CIA through the penetration agent Potemkin had controlled. Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead. But why? Potemkin had been willing to risk his life rather than answer that question. Harman was dead, so his operation was finished. And Potemkin was dead, thus ending the second network. What else was there? What was he missing? What was driving him? He found a telephone booth in front of a convenience store on Arlington Boulevard and pulled in, parking as far away from the lights as possible and walking back. He had to ask information for the number and when he dialed it the phone was answered on the second ring. “National Medical Center.”
“You have a patient there, Robert Highnote. May I speak with im?”
“One moment, please,” the woman said.
Stephanie would be out of her mind with worry by now, he thought as he waited for the connection to be made. All these years her father had been using their close relationship to gather information from her about CIA operations… specifically about who was being considered for employment by the Agency. It had been a sideline for him, however. His major role in the Harman-Borodin connection would have been that of a communications link.
She talked to him. Told him things. It made McAllister sick to think that she’d told her father everything they’d discussed. The man would have relayed the information to Harman who in turn sent his people out with orders to eliminate the threat. Everytime he’d moved, someone was right there behind him.
How was he going to tell her that her father had worked for the Russians? Christ, there was no way he could face her with news like that.
Highnote answered, his voice sounding a little weak. “Hello.”
“Are you alone?” McAllister asked. “Good Lord Almighty… yes, for the moment.”
“Is this line clean?”
“I think so. Where are you, what’s happened?”
“Are you all right, Bob?”
“Reasonably. Now what’s happened?”
“You can’t imagine how much, but now I’m going to need your help.”
“I don’t know what I can do from here. I’m not due to be released for another couple of days.”
“Donald Harman and Kathleen O’Haire are dead.”
“I heard…
“Gennadi Potemkin killed them.”
“How do you know that?” Highnote demanded. “I was there. I saw it.”
“Potemkin… head of KGB operations out of their embassy?”
“That’s right. He’s dead too. I killed him about an hour ago out at Janos Sikorski’s place, along with four of his people. Mafia.”
“My God,” Highnote said softly. “What is going on, Mac, what have you done?”
“It wasn’t me and Stephanie at College Park.”
“I know that!”
“Then why are the authorities still blaming us?”
“Because they won’t believe me. I didn’t see who they were. Alvan was just leaving when he was shot down in the corridor. I ran out the back door and almost made it across the yard when… I don’tremember much after that, except that I knew I’d been hit. Whoever it was took your car from your place.”
“Donald Harman arranged the killings, according to Potemkin.”
“You spoke with him? Potemkin actually talked to you?”
“He told me that Donald Harman has been working with a KGB general in Moscow by the name of
