At three, the man said, “Jerry Hay Smith.”
“How’d you get this telephone number, Mr. Smith?”
“If you’d been in the newspaper business as long as I have, Admiral, you’d have some sources, too. I called to find out what you know about Alexander Surkov and polonium 210. Not for publication, of course, but because I think I am entitled to know.”
“Buy a newspaper.”
“Admiral, I have read the wire service reports and everything the newspapers have chosen to publish.” Smith was confident, smooth, a man who just knew that everyone on the planet was dying to talk to him. “I’m also calling about another murder that hasn’t yet made the press here in the States, a Frenchman named Jean Petrou. His mother is a personal friend.”
“This is a ridiculous conversation,” Grafton said, tossing off the words. The thought that Jerry Hay Smith was probably recording said conversation crossed his mind. “Why would you think I know anything that isn’t in the press?”
“Because you’re a CIA officer. And because you are.. consulting, shall we say, with Mr. Winchester. Who murdered Jean Petrou?”
“You are misinformed, Mr. Smith. I know nothing about your matter.” Grafton put the telephone back onto its cradle.
Apparently Smith was working on his memoirs or his book. Or a column for tomorrow’s paper.
Grafton made a mental note: Jerry Hay Smith was going to be a problem.
Wolfgang Zetsche was in his late fifties, a brilliant, vigorous athletic man about five and a half feet tall, one with little patience for what he viewed as the lesser lights of the species. He listened to Marisa now with thinly disguised impatience, almost as if he were ready to interrupt to complete her sentences.
The room they were in was huge, a drawing room full of stuffed furniture and exhibits of artifacts and curiosities Zetsche had gathered on his many expeditions to far corners of the globe. He was currently between wives. The future Frau Zetsche number four sat in a chair near Isolde, her eyes fixed on Wolfgang.
Near the group was a television upon which the four of them had been watching the late evening news. Several minutes had been devoted to the murder of Jean Petrou, and several more to recent revelations in the still unsolved murder of Alexander Surkov. Now the audio was muted, although images of talking heads and policemen shimmered across the screen.
“Ha,” Zetsche said when Marisa paused for air, “you think an assassin could reach me here, in my own house?” He strode to a nearby desk and jerked open the right-hand drawer. From it he removed a pistol, a wicked black automatic. He pulled back the slide until he saw brass, then let it go home with a metallic thunk. He held it up where Marisa could clearly see it. “If those Islamic zealots want to come, let them come!”
He jammed the pistol into his pocket, then looked at Isolde, sitting in a nearby chair. “I am sorry for my manner, which is insensitive. I know you have come far in your hour of grief to warn me, but I need no warning. You have met the assistant butler and my personal chauffeur — they are trained bodyguards, expert in armed and unarmed combat. I will speak to them. The four of us are safer in this house with them than we would be alone in a bank vault. Trust me — it is true.”
Marisa glanced at the future frau to see how she was taking all this. Apparently she knew all about her fiance’s involvement in a conspiracy to rid the world of Islamic Nazis. The wonder was that Wolfgang Zetsche hadn’t been interviewed about it for a major newsmagazine.
It took me maybe three minutes to open both of the locks, three minutes listening to the wind in the treetops and water gurgling down an old downspout just a foot away from this entrance.. and glancing around occasionally to ensure I was still alone.
I pulled the door open and had started to step inside when I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I was wearing the night vision goggles set on ambient light, so I turned my head and looked. The ambient light presentation is green, for technical reasons that are a bit beyond me, so I saw green trees and green rocks amid a green world. Nothing was moving now.
A flip of the switch and the goggles reset themselves to display infrared images. Not a single image of a warm-blooded creature did I see.
Well, something had moved and caught my eye.
Or perhaps it was my imagination, the way I was turning my head. The field of view in the goggles is limited, and usually the clarity of the images is some degree of fuzzy, so sometimes an overactive imagination can lead you to think you see things that aren’t really there.
I stepped through the door and closed it behind me. Turned both bolt handles to ensure it was again locked, then adjusted the goggles on my head and took a look around.
I was in a hallway with stone walls, part of the basement, and a wooden ceiling. I looked up … no people visible. I felt something under my feet — a mat. For wiping shoes. I put it to its designed use.
Moving forward, slowly and silently, I searched the basement. It seemed deserted. Quickly found the hot water tanks — there were three— and the hot water pipes leading away to faucets all over the building.
As soon as I was sure I was alone in the basement and had a general idea of where the doors were, I crept up the stairs. At the top of the stairs I had a good view through the walls, which were apparently made of some kind of thin, painted particleboard. I saw dim, ghostly figures moving some distance away, through several interior walls, it seemed. I also found the fire, which was in a room where there appeared to be four people — three sitting, one standing. Two more people were in what I thought might be the kitchen area — I could see a heat source that might be a coffeepot or teakettle — and one or two people were upstairs; no, make that three.
The nearby hallways being empty, I opened the door as quietly as I could and sneaked through. There were lights in the hallway, dim night-lights mounted halfway up the walls. I raised the goggles to my forehead. The ceiling was at least twelve feet above the floor, and dark chandeliers dangled every few yards.
I opened the door to the room adjacent to the room with the fireplace. As I walked in, the light coming through the doorway revealed a giant bear standing on his hind legs, every tooth bared, about to rip my head off with his paws.
I recoiled, then realized the bear was stuffed. A leopard gathered to leap stood on a table in one corner; deer, elk, caribou and antelope heads shared the walls with shelves full of books. There were four stuffed easy chairs, a bar and a table for playing cards. A gun cabinet filled with hunting rifles and shotguns stood between the two exterior windows.
I pulled the door closed and checked in infrared in all directions to ensure no one was marching for this room. Then I hunkered down beside a bookcase and put a stethoscope microphone against the door that separated the two rooms. Fortunately the four people on the other side of the door were making no move to come this way: With only the one wall and some books between us, I could see their figures fairly well.
The earpiece had about ten feet of cord. I unwound it and slipped the earpiece into my right ear. I heard voices from the next room.
“… the person who betrayed us. Obviously someone did. We must find that someone.” A man’s voice speaking accented English, the lingua franca of our age.
“It might have been Surkov,” a woman said tentatively. That accent sounded French. Was that Marisa?
“If he had been the one,” the man said positively, “they wouldn’t have murdered him. Why kill your source of secret information? Oh, no! I think the traitor is one of us. Or perhaps Grafton.”
Grafton?]ake Grafton? I thought that Grafton betraying the group, or any of them, was about as likely as me winning the Irish Sweepstakes, considering the fact that I had never bought a ticket.
I stood there amid the stuffed beasts in the Dead Zoo frozen into immobility, wondering what in the world these people were going to say next.
“This undertaking was always hazardous.” That was an older woman speaking, a French accent. I thought perhaps Isolde Petrou. “There are occasionally moments in history when a handful of determined people can make a difference. I do not know if this is one of those times, but I feel it is our moral duty to fight this great evil that is attacking the people of the earth. If they win, civilization will collapse and we will enter a new dark age. If we win, the adherents of Islam will eventually learn, as have the believers of all other faiths, how to live in a secular world, at peace with those who believe differently. The politicians wish to bury their heads in the sand, as usual. They will do nothing until the entire house is on fire. Huntington Winchester was absolutely right — it is the moral duty of those with the courage and means to grapple with this great evil.”
