Keeping the Ingram securely wrapped in his jacket, Chardy walked for a block or two until he was sure he had lost Leo Bennis. Then, certain, he stepped again into the busy street to snag a cab. He stood in the brown light until one at last halted for him.
He climbed in.
“Where to?”
Chardy had a great advantage over Leo Bennis and the others of the Bureau in the matter of Danzig’s destination. He knew now the secret of it. Since the object of the Russian operation was to protect the identity of a highly placed CIA officer working for them, it followed that the Russians operating in Washington did so with the special benefit of this man’s knowledge. In short, they would be aware of and could take advantage of CIA arrangements.
So Chardy did not have to penetrate the Russian mind, on which he was no expert, but only to consult his own memory. He knew, for example, of five crash safe-houses, in the jargon, where an agent in trouble might head for safety if a D.C.-based operation went badly wrong. He reasoned that if the Russians wanted to lure Danzig into circumstances where the killing could be accomplished with a minimum of interference, a maximum of control, then certainly they would select one of the five.
But which?
Two were houses — old estates out in NW, spots private enough, except that both were heavily wired with recording devices so that nothing could transpire without leaving its traces. Clearly no good here.
Of the remaining three sites, one again was a sure no-go: the basement of a strip bar in the smutty Fourteenth Street area — its purpose was to offer refuge to an agent should some sex-related burn blow up in his face and necessitate a place to hide from the cops fast. But Fourteenth Street would be jammed with Johns and hustlers this time of night.
This left, really, only two choices.
The first was an apartment on Capitol Hill — but chancy, chancy: the Hill always had lots of people roaring around, and this was a Saturday night anyway, party night up there, with horny aides and pretty women and drunken congressmen all over the place.
It was a possibility. The apartment was on an out-of-the-way street and had a separate entrance — but …
“Where to,
The last possibility was the fourth level, the lowest, of the parking lot under Kennedy Center. It was a deserted arena, unwired, with three or four no-visibility approaches, reserved for VIPs so they wouldn’t have to mingle with the common people. He knew that even six years ago when they were building the Metro system there’d been a plan to run a tunnel from the Foggy Bottom Station a half-mile down New Hampshire Avenue through to the fourth level.
Chardy looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. “Kennedy Center,” he said.
“You must be wrong, mister,” said the cabby. “It’s dark by now. The shows are all over. It’s all closed down.”
“I think I’ll go anyway, if you don’t mind,” said Chardy. He could feel the cool grip of the machine pistol under the coat. His show was just about to begin.
It was a short directory. The codes fled by Miles’s eyes in a green blur. Suddenly he hit an end.
He went uneasily up through what he’d already slid down through. It was all nonsense, random letter groupings.
Codes, all codes, letters and numbers, in all maybe fifty of them. He could call each one up and see what it said, but that would take hours.
One of them meant something.
Twice, security monitors had wandered by to peer at him.
Miles stared at the letters. It was gibberish. He was guessing.
He hunted for a
Yet there wasn’t any.
He stared blankly at the letters.
Come on, think, he told himself. Frenchy wants it found, wants Paul to find it. He tried to guess how Frenchy might have gamed it out. Frenchy was off on a job that involved the betrayal of his oldest friend, his brother of a hundred narrow scrapes. Frenchy for some reason felt he
Lanahan saw now how Frenchy had doped it out. It was a way to face the chopper with some measure of peace.
He wants you to find it! He wants you to find it!
His eyes scanned the letters.
Come on, Miles thought, come on! He felt his limbs boil with a tremendous restlessness. He wanted to walk, to run. If only he could get a drink of water.
Shoe? Would Frenchy stick with the shoe gimmick? It had gotten him this far, hadn’t it? Or would Frenchy have switched to something else?
Frenchy wants it found. Frenchy Short, all those years ago, sick with grief at what he’s about to do, probably not understanding it all himself, but imagining reaching out to Chardy with this last gift, this expiation.
Was Frenchy Catholic? He certainly had the Catholic sense of guilt, binding and cruel, and the huge need to confess.
Lanahan was Frenchy’s confessor. He sat in a dark booth and listened to Frenchy through the screen.
Forgive me, Miles, for I have sinned.
Make a contrition, son. Confess your sins.
Yes, Father, I will say a hundred Hail Marys.
No. Tell us your secrets. Your deepest, your darkest secrets.
But Lanahan drew back. He was no priest. He was an ex-computer analyst who’d bluffed his way into the pit and was trying to dig out a traitor.
Maybe I ought to say a hundred Hail Marys, he thought, for he had no other plan.
He looked at the codes.
Frenchy wants Paul to see something. Frenchy has planned it so that Paul will look at this list of letters and see something. Yet what? There are no words, for if there were words,
What is there about Paul that’s unique? What would give Chardy an advantage, looking through this list of codes? What would Chardy see that no other man would?
He felt he was getting close. He sat back, tried to concentrate on Chardy, call up and examine his components. Chardy, hero, special-operations cowboy, toting guns and gear around the dusty corners of the world. Chardy, athlete, banging through jump shots and driving lay-ups. Chardy, fool, cuckolded and used cruelly by a woman. Chardy, suicide, tendencies toward self-destruction. Chardy, Chicago boy, coming off the same streets Miles came off of, attending the same parochial schools, going to the same churches. Chardy, Irishman, moody and
