'Thanks, Herb.'
'Thanks for the “Herb”. Is there anything I can do?'
Evan stared at the casement window, then at the floodlit grounds and the marine guard outside and everything the scene represented. 'I'm going to do you a favour and say no,' he said softly. 'At least for now. But you can clarify something for me. This phone has a tap on it, doesn't it?'
'Not the usual variety. There's a little black box like those on aircraft. It has to be removed by authorized personnel and the tapes processed under the strictest security measures.'
'Can you stop the operation for, say, thirty minutes or so, until I contact someone? You'd want it that way, believe me.'
‘I’ll accept that… Sure, there's an override on the line; our people use it a lot when they're in those houses. Give me five minutes and call Moscow, if you like.'
'Five minutes.'
'May I go back to my shower now?'
'Try bleach this time.' Kendrick replaced the phone and took out his wallet, slipping his index finger under the flap behind his Colorado driver's licence. He removed the scrap of paper with Frank Swann's two private telephone numbers written on it and again looked at his watch. He would wait ten minutes and hope that the deputy director of Consular Operations was at one place or the other. He was. At his apartment, of course. After curt greetings, Evan explained where he was—where he thought he was.
'How's “protective seclusion”?' asked Swann, sounding weary. 'I've been to several of those places when we've interrogated defectors. I hope you've got one with stables or at least two pools, one inside, naturally. They're all alike; I think the government buys them as political payoffs for the rich who get tired of their big houses and want to buy new ones gratis. I hope somebody's listening. I don't have a pool any more.'
'There's a croquet lawn, I've seen that.'
'Small time. What have you got to tell me? Am I any closer to getting off the hook?'
'Maybe. At least I've tried to take some heat off you… Frank, I've got to ask you a question and we can both say anything we like, use any names we like. There's no tap on the phone here now.'
'Who told you that?'
'Dennison.'
'And you believed him? Incidentally, I couldn't care less if this transcript's given to him.'
'I believe him because he has a clue as to what I'm going to say and wants to put a couple of thousand miles between the administration and what we're going to talk about. He said we're on an “override”.'
'He's right. He's afraid of some loose cannon hearing your words. What is it?'
'Manny Weingrass, and through him linkage to the Mossad—’
'I told you, that's a no-no,' broke in the deputy director. 'Okay, we're really on override. Go ahead.'
'Dennison told me that the Oman file lists the cargo on the plane from Bahrain to Andrews Air Force Base on that last morning as consisting of me and an old Arab in Western clothing who was a subagent for Consular Operations—’
'And who was being brought over here for medical treatment,' interrupted Swann. 'After years of invaluable cooperation our clandestine services owed Ali Saada and his family that much.'
'You're sure that was the wording?'
'Who would know it better? I wrote it.'
'You? Then you knew it was Weingrass?'
'It wasn't difficult. Your instructions relayed by Grayson were pretty damned clear. You demanded—demanded, mind you—that an unnamed person accompany you on that plane back to the States—’
'I was covering for the Mossad.'
'Obviously, and so was I. You see, bringing someone in like that is against the rules—forget the law—unless he's on our books. So I put him on the books as someone else.'
