develop a clearer idea of the options we have available. I’ve invited a few specialists to come and give us the benefit of their expertise.”
Goldschmidt whispered to Porterfield, “Molnar.”
“I heard that,” the Director said, “as I suppose I was meant to. The first of these people is Mr. Bob.”
“Mr. Bob?”
“Bob is his last name, and he’s probably heard whatever you’re thinking of saying, so forget it. He’s been in on a number of ransom situations, and he’s going to—”
“Does he know what’s going on?”
“He’s here to brief us, not the reverse.”
There was a knock, and a bald man in a blue pinstripe suit entered. “Hello,” the man called as he walked to the table. “My name is Mr. Bob. Are you ready for me?”
“Yes, I believe we are, Mr. Bob.” The Director pronounced the name with exaggerated ease, then his brow furrowed slightly, as though he were afraid he’d said it wrong. “I’m afraid we’re badly behind schedule, so I’ll have to ask you to give us the basics in a few minutes.”
“I can do that.” He sat down beside the Director and addressed the others. “I’m here to talk money. If I go too fast, stop me. If you hear something you want more of, ask. If you want me back, call 9559. Basically, in ransom situations your best bet is the money. They won’t refuse it, they won’t lose it, they won’t go too far from it. Always use Mr. Bob’s law: ‘If they’ve got it, you’ve got them.’ Money talks, but only if you pay off with talking money.”
Porterfield said, “What’s available these days?”
“There still are only three kinds, really. There’s counterfeit, marked, and treated.”
“Treated?” Kearns seemed to wake up.
“Chemically treated. You can break that down in three ways, actually—there’s poison, there’s a biological- warfare agent, and there’s a self-destruct chemical.”
“You mean the money disappears?”
“Sure. It’s only paper and ink. You can make it fade with a bleach, make it go all gooey and wet with a little solvent, make it burn with a corrosive. The timing on these things is a little tricky, so you have to be careful about it, of course.”
“What do you recommend for a large transfer of funds, Mr. Bob?” The Director hesitated. “A payoff in the neighborhood of ten million dollars? Counterfeit?”
“Well, maybe,” said Mr. Bob. “We’ve got a problem with the counterfeit, though. We’ve got only two kinds, and what we need is three. We’ve got only great and awful. The awful stuff you can use only with people who haven’t seen much American money. You couldn’t pass it off as a supermarket coupon. The great stuff is an even bigger mistake. It’s so good it takes special equipment to figure out what’s wrong with it, which isn’t much. No, treated money is probably the answer. We’ll supply the chemicals if you’ll supply the money. Chemicals are cheap.”
“You’re wasting Mr. Bob’s time,” said Porterfield. “Time is money. The situation is that the money will be paid to people who are in this country and might very well take it to a bank or spend it here. They may also retain some part of what we want to ransom.”
Mr. Bob stared at the ceiling. “Let’s see. No biological stuff—can’t have an epidemic at home, and if it isn’t a really virulent strain it doesn’t always work. No poison, because you can’t be sure they’d all touch it. And you say they’ll keep part of the prize to protect themselves?”
“That’s likely,” said the Director.
“Then I’d say your only hope is to pay them off in one-dollar bills. It’s pretty easy to spot somebody driving off in a caravan of trucks. I guess I’m not going to be of much use here.” He stood up.
“No, wait.” The Director held up his hand. “What about the packaging? Can we do something with that? How about a homing signal or a radio or something?”
“Sorry,” said Mr. Bob. “No extortionist in the history of the world has ever left his payoff in the container you gave him. If they’ve already asked for the money, they already know where they’re putting it when they have it. No, this time it sounds as though the money isn’t the solution to your problem.” Mr. Bob nodded to them and walked out the door.
“Who’s next?” said Goldschmidt to the Director. “Sharpshooters or electronic surveillance or a team of specially trained midget commandos who will be dressed as fire hydrants?”
The Director’s jaw tightened and he sat quietly, as though in deep thought.
Kepler pointed to the broad white banner strung between the two trees that flanked the pasture road. “I hate that. ‘Foreign Car Rallye.’ You can’t even say it, and if you could, you’d sound stupid. So every time you say what you can say, which is ‘rally,’ you feel tense about it.”
“Not so loud. What do you think? Is everybody ready?”
“Sure. The bags are ready, Immelmann and Margaret are ready. And you. You know what you look like? A motorist. That coat makes you look like the kind of person who would wear that hat.”
“Fine. Just be sure everybody here gets the standard issue.” He moved off a few feet and turned to Kepler. “It’s a pleasure to meet another motoring enthusiast such as yourself,” he said, and disappeared into the crowd.
On the other side of the broad green field Immelmann carefully wiped the thin film of dust off the hubcaps of Margaret’s Volkswagen. “There. It’s never looked so good.”
“It’s a little intimidated by the Porsches and Jaguars and BMW’s, I think,” Margaret said.
“There are at least a hundred Volkswagens here today. Don’t worry. It’s not a race, it’s more like a picnic. These people don’t notice your ride. They just want you to notice what their ride is and be impressed. They let anything in because it keeps the crowd young.”
“I suppose. I just wish it were over. This wig feels like it’s squeezing my brain.”
Immelmann glanced at his watch. “Soon.” He unlatched the trunk and stared at the horizon, his eyes invisible behind his sunglasses. “If I can do it, I’m going to live like this.”
“You’re going to live in a state park?”
“This was Will Rogers’s ranch. That was his house up there on the rise. He used to pasture his horses down here. You have to imagine it with all these morons and their little cars gone, and maybe a dozen horses grazing here, nothing making any noise but the birds in that grove of eucalyptus along the road.”
“We’ll come and see you sometimes.”
“I hope you do. But you and Chinese are so much smarter than anybody else, I hope just winning this one quietly will be enough for you. I used to wonder about Chinese Gordon. Now I wonder about both of you.”
“You think we’re going to get caught, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “We’ll all know soon enough.” He shielded his eyes and stared up at the sky, then turned his head slightly to listen.
IN THE CABIN OF THE PIPER sat the young man who had stood guard at the door of the conference room in Langley. He wore a blue nylon jacket and baseball cap like the pilot’s, but his jacket was heavy with the radio receiver that fit better into his specially cut suits. The hat was new and too small for him, so he looked like a foreigner who had never worn one before. For the first time in twenty minutes he spoke. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“What doesn’t?” The pilot looked over at him, but he had the radio out again and he was pressing buttons on it and wincing at something coming through the earplug.
The young man bent over, peered at the map in his lap, and said, “It appears to be Will Rogers State Park. It’s full of people, cars.” He looked out the window at the scene far below. “There are lots of cars. Maybe a
