Veil

of my country? Your buddies are the barbarians, Kendry, not us. What you're going through is the kind of shit the KGB puts some of our people through, so we're just returning the favor. It's too bad you probably won't be alive to go back and tell them how much it hurts.'

'Parker, you dumb son of a bitch, listen—'

'You're an idiot, because you think I'm going to eventually back off. You're wrong, buddy. You're going to go right on suffering until you die, or until I get the information I want. I want to know what network you're a part of, the name of your controller, and what specific information you were asked to gather. That's for openers. Later we'll get into more general discussions of KGB operations. You see, Kendry, you really have been wasting my time and your water by trying to bullshit me.'

Veil closed his eyes for a few moments and again tried to focus his thoughts, this time on the question of whom Parker could have talked to. He was afraid he knew the answer; his unknown enemy had found a way to kill him without even coming near the cage or firing a bullet. 'What proof?' he asked quietly.

'Never mind,' Parker answered in a somewhat defensive tone. 'I've got it.'

'Who told you I was KGB?'

'How did you find the tunnel?'

'I just found it. I'd been looking for a way to get in here, and I got lucky.'

'Where have you been hiding since you killed the Mamba?'

'At the hospice.'

'How'd you get up there?'

'Pilgrim arranged it. He wants to know what's going on almost as much as I do.'

'Why didn't he come to me?'

'You'll have to ask him.'

'I'm asking you, jerk.'

'I need water, Parker. I'm losing my voice.'

'No way. You haven't paid for what I gave you before.'

'I don't know why Pilgrim didn't want to talk to you.'

'Take a guess.'

'You know him better than I do, so you must know that he sometimes has funny reasons for doing things. I used to think that I understood his reasons. Now I'm not so sure.'

'Does he know you're over here?'

'He'll probably guess, but I didn't tell him I was going.'

'Why not?'

'I'm not sure I trust him any longer.'

'Why.'

'Personality conflict.'

'Well, he can guess all he wants to,' Parker said in a low, ominous tone. 'By the time I let him in here again, you'll either be dead and buried in the riverbank, or on your way to Washington for some really serious interrogation about your bosses and your network. Your choice.'

'Damn it, Parker, I don't have even one boss, much less a network.' Suddenly Veil found himself laughing—a high-pitched, tortured, hiccupping sound that would have sounded more like laughter if he weren't dying of thirst and exposure. 'You know, man, you're unbelievably dense, and you're really starting to piss me off. Somebody's pulling your pud, and you're determined to kill off the one man who could help you find out who it is.'

'Pilgrim's a fool,' Parker said, more to himself than to Veil. 'He'd give away the whole candy store.'

'You're the one with the sucker in the shop, Colonel—not Pilgrim. Think, for chrissake! Did you send that Mamba after me?'

Parker's silence was eloquent.

'Of course not,' Veil continued. 'Do you know who did?'

Again, Parker's silence was his answer.

'Now we're getting somewhere,' Veil said with a sigh, struggling for breath and against the impulse to gag. Each sound he made now translated itself into pain, but he had to keep talking, had to somehow make Parker listen and understand. 'I'll bet you don't even know how your man got up on that mountain; I certainly don't, and neither does Pilgrim. But you do know that he went there and that he was after me. Why—if not for the reasons I'm giving you? He was a double agent, sent by his controller to kill me because the controller thought I was after him. Whoever fed you that shit about me being KGB could be the man I'm after.'

'It doesn't have to be that way,' Parker said tightly.

'What doesn't have to be what way?'

'Your scenario of what happened.'

'Fine. Tell me what the Mamba was doing on Pilgrim's mountain. Do you think he got lost during a training exercise and stopped by the pool to ask me directions?'

'He was a double agent, all right, but he was your man.'

'My man?' Veil coughed and tasted blood as his lower lip split in two places.

'You were his controller.'

'Come on, Parker. Appearances to the contrary, it can't be that easy to seed an agent into your operation here. Once having done so, why should I kill him?'

'That's one of the things you're going to tell me right now, Kendry. And if you don't, you've had your last drop of water in this lifetime.'

'You're crazy, Parker. How in hell could I be that joker's controller? I've been living in New York for more than fifteen years.'

'Right. The question is what you've been doing in New York.'

'I thought you said you'd checked up on me. I'm a painter; I've been painting, stupid.'

'What else? What did the Russians have you doing in New York? And why should they assign this Mamba to you?'

Veil choked off a curse and shook his head in frustration. Arguing with Parker was futile, and the fever in his mind and body told him that it was long past time for him to roll out the heavy artillery. 'Parker, you fucking idiot, I want you to call a man by the name of Orville Madison. CIA. I don't have the slightest idea where he's posted now, but Langley will have the information. He was my controller. You're DIA, and you should have enough juice to get the Agency to cooperate with you. Madison hates my guts, but I don't think he'll lie to you—assuming he'll talk to you in the first place. Madison will give you the straight story on me, right up to the minute I arrived at the Institute.'

'How would he know?'

'Because he's had me flagged from the day I was thrown out of the Army and the CIA. I have no doubt that he's bugged every place I've lived in and knows the birthmarks of every person I've met with since then. Madison can probably tell you what I had for breakfast some Sunday morning ten years ago. He'll tell you I'm not KGB. The same person who sent the Mamba after me is trying to kill me now in a different way, by framing me and getting you to kill me.'

'Orville Madison, huh?' For the first time, Parker seemed interested in what Veil had to say.

'If you can't get to Madison right away, try getting in touch with a man by the name of Lester Bean. Bean may be easier to trace, if you go right to your boss in the Pentagon. Bean was a colonel, and my CO in Vietnam.'

Veil waited, but there was no immediate response from Parker. 'Orville Madison—CIA,' Veil repeated. 'Lester Bean, at one time an officer in the U.S. Army. Call them, Parker. Learn the truth. And then please bring me some water, because I'm really not feeling too well.'

And then Veil passed out.

Chapter 20

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Veil dreams.