which was a shame— then got into the stored numbers. I wrote them down on a sheet of scratch paper and sat staring at the phones. Technology scares me. If the cops were cooperating with the killers, perhaps the cell phone people and the folks at the National Security Agency were, too. I turned the phones off, took out the batteries, and stored them in my overnight bag. The wizards were going to have to rewrite the laws of physics to find those cell phones without batteries in them.
I sat studying the numbers. Three numbers appeared on both phones. I made a tick beside them.
The contents of the wallets didn’t even cover the kitchen table when I spread them out. One guy had a hundred fifty-three dollars in currency, the other had forty-two. I examined each bill for notes or numbers and put them back in their respective wallets.
Driver’s licenses and credit cards made up the bulk of the remainder. Both guys had credit cards that looked as if they doubled as ATM cards. One of the guys had a bunch of dry-cleaning receipts. One of the guys belonged to AAA; one was a card-carrying member of the Harley Owners Group. In one wallet there were a few scraps of paper with telephone numbers on them — this was the dude who habitually didn’t let his main squeeze know his whereabouts. Women’s telephone numbers, I figured, but maybe I was being uncharitable. I added these numbers to my list.
That was the crop. I made sure I got the proper stuff back into the proper wallet.
The rain started about the time Dorsey O’Shea came downstairs. She looked disdainfully at the doughnuts and rooted through the pantry. She found a box of healthy cereal and ate a couple of dry handfuls between sips of coffee.
“That stuff has a lot of sugar in it,” I said, just to be nasty. She ignored my comment.
Kelly was out on the screened-in porch reading. Dorsey joined me at the kitchen table. “How long is this going to go on?” she asked.
I didn’t like that tone of voice, and we weren’t even living together. “What’s going to go on?”
“Hiding out like criminals?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ve been waiting for Kelley to finish reading the files, hoping something promising would turn up.”
“We must go back to Washington, talk to the authorities.”
“What if they arrest us, accuse us of espionage and murder? Won’t be any bail for that. My main concern is that we’ll be killed before we can tell what we know. The people that tried to murder everyone in a CIA safe house can certainly reach into a city or county lockup.”
She helped herself to another handful of dry cereal, which she ate as she thought about the problem. I could tell from the expression on her face that she was remembering the fear as Johnson Dunlap came at her with a gun in his hand. Memories like that remain with you all your life. She was still scared. Hell, I was still scared. Which in a way was good. If you’re scared enough, maybe you’ll be careful enough to stay alive.
“How do you live like this?” she muttered.
“Well, I only hole up in hideouts a couple times a year, then only for a week or two.”
“Asshole.”
“Hey, kid. I know you’re scared. I am, too. So is Kelly.”
She broke into tears. She pulled away when I reached for her.
“I never had to deal with anything like this,” she sobbed, then headed for the stairs. After a while I heard water gurgling through the drain from the upstairs bathroom.
Outside the rain came down hard and smeared the windows.
When it began blowing across the porch, Kelly brought her papers into the living room and settled on the couch.
The rain set in for the day, a nice steady early summer soaker. I read all of the newspapers I could stand and went from window to window, looking out.
I was fast running out of patience. Knowing they were out there looking for us made the forced inaction very difficult. I turned on the television, flipped through the channels, snapped it off. Ten minutes later I did it again.
At one point I found myself standing at the living room window with the pistol in my hand, out of sight below the sill, watching the occasional passerby. I would hate prison. They would probably carry me out in a straitjacket before the first month was over.
Augh!
I was cleaning the MP-5 on the kitchen table when I thought I heard a female voice upstairs. I glanced at the couch — Kelly Erlanger was asleep with papers heaped in piles on the floor and around her.
I picked up the telephone. Dorsey’s voice. I slammed it down, shot up the stairs two at a time. She was sitting cross-legged on one of the beds, a towel around her head, talking on the telephone. I grabbed it out of her hand and slammed it down.
“Are you crazy?” I snarled.
She was full of righteous indignation, which meant that she knew she had crossed the line. I knew her too well. “That was a friend of mine, I’ll have you know. What gives you the right to be my jailer?”
“Who was it? Gimme a name.”
“Zara Raja.”
“Gimme a break, goddamnit!”
“That isn’t her real name, of course — it’s her professional name. Her real name is Suzy Rollins.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s my spiritual adviser.”
I was shocked. “I didn’t know you were into religion,” I said. Dorsey O’Shea, of all people!
“She’s not a minister, not in the conventional sense — she’s in tune with the universe. Tommy, I need to touch base with someone who really cares.” She clouded up. “I feel so… icky. Helpless, defenseless.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
Now I remembered why Dorsey and I broke up two years ago. Beneath that gorgeous, sophisticated exterior was the soul of a twit.
I gritted my teeth. “Hey, babe, those people found your house. To find you they can check your telephone records on the phone company computer, find out who you call, tap some of the most frequently called numbers, and simply wait. When you call a tapped number they trace it.”
“That’s illegal!” she said indignantly.
I couldn’t believe she was giving me this crap. “So is murder, Dorsey. Get a grip. These people aren’t playing by the rules. Stay off the damn phone.”
She dissolved in tears. I put an arm around her shoulder and tried to calm her down. She got clingy, but I wasn’t in the mood. I finally went downstairs and poured a stiff vodka tonic and made her drink it.
When Basil Jarrett went fishing he took Mikhail Goncharov along. The day was overcast, with low ceilings, not much wind. Goncharov was sitting outside on his chopping block when Jarrett came out of the cabin in his waders carrying two poles and the tackle box. He tugged at Goncharov’s sleeve to get his attention, showed him the rods, then made motions that he was to follow.
They walked to the road, then walked along it parallel to the river for a hundred yards or so until they came to a gravel bar that Jarrett was fond of. He rigged a fly on a line and handed it to the silent man beside him. Then he turned his back and selected a fly for his rod.
When he turned around, Goncharov was standing at the water’s edge whipping the fly into the eddies with an expert flip of his wrist. In and out, in and out, he made the line dance, then stopped and let the fly drift for a moment with the current.
Although Goncharov wasn’t wearing waders, he was soon in to his knees.
Basil Jarrett laid down his rod and stood watching. After a while he found a seat.
The Greenbrier was a fabulous trout stream, flowing swiftly over a wide, shallow bed as it snaked its way through the steep hills covered with forest, which came literally to the water’s edge.
A half hour after he began fishing, Goncharov caught a small trout. He held it up so that Jarrett could see it, then deftly took it off the hook and tossed it back. When Jarrett took the fly box to Goncharov to allow him to make his own selection, the man grinned.
