money is a maxim in our work. We're tracing it now.'
'Tracing it?'
'It will only be a matter of days. The Swiss banks are cooperative where drugs and terrorism are concerned. And our agents in the Baaka are forwarding descriptions of the teams. We've stopped them before and we'll stop them now. We'll find the San Diego connection. We simply thought you might have some ideas.'
'Ideas?' cried the stunned widow, crushing out the cigarette. 'I can't even think, it's all so incredible! Are you certain that some enormous, extraordinary error hasn't been made?'
'We don't make errors in these matters.'
'Well, I think that's pretty shit-kicking egotistical,' said Ardis, the Pennsylvanian of her youth overriding her carefully cultivated English. 'I mean, Miss Rashad, you're not infallible.'
'In some cases we have to be; we can't afford not to be.'
'Now, that's asinine!… I mean—I mean if there are these hit teams, and if there are communications with Zurich and Beirut from… from the San Diego area, anyone could have sent them, giving any names they wanted to! I mean they could have used my name, for Christ's sake!'
'We'd instantly discount anything like that.' Khalehla answered the unasked what-if question as she closed her notebook and replaced it in her bag. 'It would be a set-up, and far too obvious to be taken seriously.'
'Yes, that's what I mean, a set-up! Someone could be setting up one of Orson's friends, isn't that possible?'
'For the purpose of assassinating the Vice President?'
'Maybe the—what did you call it?—the target is somebody else, isn't that possible?'
'Somebody else?' asked the field agent, nearly wincing as the intense widow grabbed another cigarette.
'Yes. And by sending cablegrams from the San Diego area implicating an innocent Bollinger supporter! That is possible, Miss Rashad.'
'It's very interesting, Mrs. Vanvlanderen. I'll convey your thoughts to my superiors. We'll have to consider the possibility. A double omission with a false insert.'
'What?' The widow's scratching voice came straight from some long gone Pittsburgh saloon.
'Shop talk,' said Khalehla, rising from the chair. 'It simply means disguise the target, omit the source, and provide a false identity.'
'You people talk goddamned funny.'
'It serves a purpose… We'll stay in constant touch with you, and we have the Vice President's schedule. Our own people, all counter-terrorist experts, will quietly supplement Mr. Bollinger's security forces at every location.'
'Yeah—awright.' Mrs. Vanvlanderen, the cigarette in her hand, the handkerchief forgotten on the brocade sofa, escorted Rashad out of the living room and up to the door.
'Oh, about the double omission-insert theory,' said the intelligence officer in the marble foyer. 'It's interesting, and we'll use it to press the Swiss banks for quick action, but I don't think it really holds water.'
'What?'
'All numbered Swiss accounts have sealed—and therefore unscalable—codes leading to points of origin. They are often labyrinthine, but they can be traced. Even the greediest Mafia overlord or Saudi arms merchant knows he's mortal. He's not going to leave millions to the gnomes of Zurich… Good night, and, again, my deepest sympathies.'
Khalehla walked back to the closed door of the Vanvlanderen suite. She could hear a muted scream of panic wrapped in obscenities from within; the sole resident of the made-to-measure apartment was going over the edge. The scenario had worked. MJ was right! The negative circumstances of Andrew Vanvlanderen's death had been reversed. What had been a liability was now an asset. The contributor's widow was breaking.
Milos Varak stood in a dark shopfront thirty yards to the left of the entrance to the Westlake Hotel, ten yards from the corner where the service entrance was located on the intersecting street. It was 7:35 pm, California time; he had outraced every commercial flight across the country from Washington, DC, Maryland and
