of the iceberg. Perhaps someone will take Potemkin’s place.”
“And what did he say?” Stephanie asked, and McAllister turned away, but she pulled him back. “What else, David?”
There was so much he wanted to tell her, and yet he simply could not. So much she deserved to know, and yet he didn’t think she could stand it.
“I’m going after General”
“In Moscow,” she said calmly. “Yes.”
“When? How?”
“Montreal in the morning where we’ll change our appearances back to match our real passports. From there to Frankfurt, then by car to Munich where I will get us new passports.” He pulled out the diplomatic blanks he’d taken from Highnote’s wall safe. “We’ll use these.”
“After Munich, what?” she asked, barely glancing at the passports. McAllister thought she was on the verge of exploding. “Helsinki,” he said. “Then Moscow?”
“You’re staying in Helsinki.”
“To do what?”
“If I’m not out in forty-eight hours, you’re going to call Highnote, and if need be our embassy, the Finnish authorities, and even the Associated Press. You’re going to put up a very big stink.” She smiled, but it was extremely fragile. “All of this while you’re somewhere inside the Soviet Union. A convicted American spy whom everyone wants dead. With no weapon, up against one of the most powerful generals in the country.” She laughed, her eyes suddenly glistening. “David, that is outside the realm of reality. For once I have to agree with Highnote, it’s insanity.”
McAllister turned away again, this time she didn’t stop him. He went across the room and stood by the window. There are demons in my head, and I cannot control them. There are forces driving me that I cannot understand. He wished that his father were here with him now; he hadn’t wished for anything so wrongly in his entire life. I’m frightened and I don’t know of what. “Stop it, my darling,” Stephanie said coming up behind him. He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. Howard Van Skike, director of central intelligence, entered the President’s study. A lot of worried people were huddled around the desk, talking with the President. One of his advisers was talking urgently on the telephone, and others had gathered in a tight knot across the room, and were deep in conversation. John Sanderson, the director of the FBI, broke away from the group at the desk and came over. “He’s got a news conference scheduled for noon.” He looked at his watch. “Gives us a bit more than three hours to come up with something for him.”
“What’s going on?” Van Skike asked, his gut aching. It was a flare up of his ulcer. He’d been taking Maalox by the bottleful for the past three days.
“We may have been wrong about McAllister,” Sanderson said. “Dead wrong. There are some questions that don’t seem to have any logical answers.”
“Does this have to do with Don Harman?”
“In a big way, Van. As it looks now, Don was meeting the O’Haire woman with the intent to kill her when they were both gunned down.”
“What?” Van Skike breathed, barely able to believe what Sanderson was saying.
“Harman may have been the penetration agent we’ve been looking for. Or at least one of them. We’re not sure, of course, but a lot of the signs are pointing his way. Remember, we had witnesses placing a tall, well- dressed man at McAllister’s house the morning of the College Park shooting?”
Van Skike nodded. The President had looked up. “Hold on for a couple of minutes, would you, Van?” he said.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“It’s looking more and more possible now that the man they saw was Don Harman.”
“Working with McAllister and the Albright woman?”
“No,” Sanderson said. “Innes had taped the proceedings, something McAllister might have guessed, but that the killers missed. One of them said two words: ‘Get him.” A man’s voice. Our lab people came up with a tape of McAllister’s voice from your Technical Services Division. Something recent, from what I understand. They ran it through their voice-spectrum analyzer. Looks like the man who spoke on the tape and McAllister are not one and the same.” Van Skike started to object, but Sanderson held him off. “It’s shaky at best, I know. Impossible to be one hundred percent accurate with two words. But it’s an indication.”
“Which still leaves us with the question of who was working with Harman, and exactly what McAllister has been doing these past weeks.”
“He was fighting back,” Sanderson said. “He evidently learned something in Moscow that pointed toward Harman… we’re just guessing now, of course. When the Russians released him Harman ad him set up for the kill. He’s been trying to protect himself ever since.”
“And doing a damned fine job of it.”
Sanderson nodded. “He’s the best, there’s no doubt of it.”
“What now?”
“I’ll let the President tell you,” Sanderson said, glancing across the room. Oh, by the way,” he added, turning back. “Did you hear at Mel Quarmby died last night?”
“No,” Van Skike said. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good man.”
“How about Bob?”
“He checked himself out of the hospital last night. He feels he has a personal stake in this business. He and McAllister have been friends for a lot of years.”
Sanderson gave him an odd look which Van Skike found strangely disturbing at that moment. It was as if the FBI director knew something he wasn’t telling.“Gentlemen, I want you to clear out of here now. Give us a few minutes,” the President said. He motioned for Van Skike and Sanderson to remain behind.
The others filed out of the room, the last one to go closing the door softly.
“The shit is about to hit the fan,” the President said, coming around from behind his desk when they were alone. “Has John filled you in with the latest developments?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Van Skike replied. “But I’m finding it hard to believe that Don Harman was working with the Russians.” The President smiled wryly. “You’re telling me,” he said. “In the meantime I’ve got the media swarming all over the place screaming bloody murder. They want answers, and I can’t blame them.” He shook his head. “Trouble is, I don’t know what I can tell them.”
“The truth,” Van Skike said. “Or at least a part of it for now.” Again the President smiled. “Which truth, Van? Without McAllister we’ve got nothing. On top of it all, John thinks Harman might not have been working alone. There might be someone working out of your pasture across the river. Nice thought, isn’t it?” Van Skike shot Sanderson a look, but the FBI director ignored it. “McAllister may be the only man who has the answers we need. I want him brought in, no screwing around this time. I’m personally guaranteeing his safety. I’ll give him a presidential pardon, whatever it takes to convince him that I mean business.”
“If you can get a message to him somehow, tell him to call the President,” Sanderson put in.
“I’ll speak to him,” the President said. “Just get to him.”
“That may not be so easy,” Van Skike said half to himself. He looked up out of his thoughts. “Bob Highnote knows him better than any man alive. I’ll put him on it. If anyone can find McAllister it will be him.”
John Sanderson met George Mueller, chief of the FBI’s CounterIntelligence Division, at the west exit. Together they went outside and got into Sanderson’s car.
“What do you think?” Mueller asked. He was a short, stockilybuilt man with thick dark hair and an intense air about him. He’d been a close personal friend of Alvan Reisberg.
“He’ll hand it over to Highnote,” Sanderson said. Their driver pulled away from the portico, and started down the long driveway.
“Did he take the bait?” Mueller asked.
Sanderson looked at him. “I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“In the meantime almost anything can happen….” Mueller growled. “Easy,” Sanderson warned.
Van Skike thought that Bob Highnote looked on the verge of collapse. The man held himself stiffly erect in the chair, and a light sheen of sweat had popped out on his bald head.
“Mac is supposed to be carrying around all the answers in his head, is that it?” Highnote said. “Sanderson
