Borodin.”
“Aleksandr Ilyich Borodin,” Highnote said in wonder. “He’s a big man in the Soviet hierarchy, but absolutely off his rocker. Half the Kremlin is afraid of him, and the other half would like to see him dead. But he’s got too much power. Potemkin told you that?”
“Just before he died.”
“What else?”
“He admitted that he worked with someone here in the States, too.”
“Did he give you a name?”
“No. But he said something very odd, something I don’t understand. e said everyone wanted me dead now, and he said that I was the most dangerous man alive.”
There was a silence on the line for a long time. McAllister could almost hear his old friend thinking, his thoughts racing to a dozen different connections, a hundred different possibilities. “You are dangerous to them,” Highnote said finally. “There have been two networks working here all along. Harman in the White ouse, and presumably someone in the Agency. In a matter of weeks, days actually, you’ve somehow managed to bring both of them down.”
“But there’s more,” McAllister said. “Of course. The penetration agent is still in place.”
“And General”
“He’s out of reach.”
“I’m going after him,” McAllister said, astonished with himself then as the words came out of his mouth.
“Are you crazy?” Highnote exploded. “We’re talking about the Soviet Union now. Moscow. Even if you could get into the country, what could you do against a man like that? You wouldn’t even get close. And why go after him in the first place? Harman is dead, his organization is smashed.”
McAllister’s head was spinning. “I don’t know why,” he said. Exactly. But if Borodin was able to get to a man like Harman, turnhim and use him, what else is he capable of accomplishing? How much else has he already done? Are you so sure that Harman was his only contact?”
“But this is insanity.”
“Listen to me,” McAllister said. “Potemkin ran his penetration agent from his embassy. They must have had contact on a regular basis. As soon as possible I want you to get back out to Langley and run it down. There’ll be something in the files connecting Potemkin with someone at the Agency. Something.”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. But whoever Potemkin’s agent was, he’ll be highly placed. Head of Clandestine Services, the deputy director of intelligence… and up from there.”
“We’ll run him down together,” Highnote argued. “I’m going after Borodin. There’s something else happening here, Bob. Something… I don’t know what. But if anyone will have the answers, Borodin will. In Moscow.”
“I’ll repeat, you won’t even be able to get into the country let alone get to him.”
“I think I will,” McAllister said. “But I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Diplomatic passports.”
Highnote’s breath caught in his throat. “Plural?”
“I’ll take Stephanie as far as Helsinki. If something goes wrong she can start making noises to insure I won’t simply disappear into some Gulag somewhere.”
Again McAllister could almost hear his friend’s mind working, considering possibilities, playing the scenarios out for himself as they both did in the old days together.
“How will you get out of the States?”
“Have our real passports been flagged?”
“No,” Highnote said. “At least to the best of my knowledge they haven’t been. No one expects you to try to leave the country.”
“We’ll fly to Montreal in the morning and from there to Europe. How about diplomatic passports?”
“Where are you calling from?”
“A phone booth in Arlington, not far from your house.”
“I have a couple of blanks in the wall safe in my study. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
Highnote gave him the combination. “There’s some cash in there too, but you won’t be able to take a gun through customs. Especially not into the Soviet Union.”
“I know,” McAllister said.
“The passports are blank, what about an artist?”
“Munich.”
“And then what, Mac? Say you do get to Borodin by some miracle, do you think he’ll talk to you?”
“I won’t know that until I try.”
“Don’t do it,” Highnote said earnestly. “Please, think it over.”
“I have,” McAllister said. “Is your house being watched?”
“No.”
“How about Merrilee and… Gloria?”
“After the shooting they were taken down to one of our safe houses in Falls Church. I don’t think you should go there.”
“No,” McAllister said, and he was surprised that there wasn’t as much pain thinking about his wife as he thought there should be. “But take care of yourself, Bob. Potemkin’s penetration agent will have to know that we’re on to him once he finds out his control officer is dead.”
“Don’t do this,” Highnote tried one last time. “No choice. I don’t think I ever had a choice,” McAllister said, and he hung up.
Stephanie opened the door for him, and the instant their eyes met he knew that he had come to some decision that would change everything. But she was also relieved that he had come back in one piece.
“Did he show up alone?” she asked when he was inside and the door was closed and locked.
“No,” McAllister said facing her. “He brought four others with him.
She was holding herself very still. “What happened?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Including Potemkin?” McAllister nodded. “Are you… all right?”
“No,” he said sighing deeply to relieve the immense pressure in his chest and his gut. “But I’m not hurt.”
“Oh, David,” she said and she went into his arms. He held her close while he stroked her hair, drinking in her smell, her feel. “I killed them and it was so easy. Easier than you can imagine.”
She said nothing.
After a moment he began telling her what had happened from the time he spotted the Mercedes coming from the embassy on Sixteenth Street until he’d driven back to Arlington. He left out nothing, except for the role her father had evidently played, and he did not gloss over any of the details. He felt that in some small measure she needed to hear it all from him because of what had been done to her father. Revenge, perhaps a catharsis; he thought she needed to believe that they were striking back. That they weren’t simply sitting still for the terrible events of the past days.
“Was it bad?” she asked when he was finished. “Yes.”
She was searching his face for a sign that it was over now, that they had won. But she wasn’t finding it.
“What did you do with the Mercedes?”
“I parked it in a garage downtown and took a cab back here. It’ll take them a while to find it. With any luck not until tomorrow or the next day.”
Again she looked closely at him. “There’s more.” She said it as a statement not a question.
He nodded. “I telephoned Bob Highnote at the hospital.”
“Is he all right?”
“They’ll be releasing him in a day or two. I had to warn him that when Potemkin’s body is found the penetration agent will know that we’re close.”
“He’ll run.”
“Maybe not. It depends upon how much he’s got left to protect here. Perhaps the O’Haires were just the tip
