Albright did so. “I see.”
“Turn back around. Face me.”
Albright obeyed. He took another sip of beer. “Now what?”
“Now I want that money.”
“How do you propose to get it?”
“You had better think of something I like real fucking quick or you aren’t walking out of here. I’m going to blow your cock off with the first one, then I’m going to put one right in your solar plexus. Who knows, an ambulance could get here so fast you might live. But you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life and you’re going to do ali your peeing sitting down.”
Albright wasn’t fazed. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“You do the suggestions. You have one minute.”
“Hmmm.”
“I got nothing to lose, Albright. I will pull this trigger. Believe it!”
“You’ll be caught.”
“Probably, but they’re going to try me for killing a vice admiral, not for blowing the cock off a commie spy. Who knows, with you on my record, I may get probation. You got forty seconds.”
“Who knows. Indeed, who knows.” Albright considered.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Quiet. I’m thinking.” He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Look to your left. Against the bar. There is a man there wearing a UCLA sweatshirt. Look at his hand.”
Warily, Smoke glanced left, then back at Albright. The man across the booth was watching him with an amused look. Judy looked again. The man at the bar had a pistol, and it was pointed straight at him.
“I didn’t come alone. You pull that trigger and he will kill you before you pull it again.”
In spite of himself, Judy looked again. It sure looked like a real pistol, an automatic, held low, shielded by the body of the man beside him. The gunman was looking straight into his eyes.
“So,” said Harlan Albright “Here is how it will be. You will put your gun back in the gym bag. We will walk out to my car — oh yes, I do have a car. We will put the disk in the laptop and check it. If indeed it contains the Athena file, I will give you the money. If not, we’ll shake hands, and you’ll go your way, I mine.”
“I oughta just shoot you, here and now.”
“As you say, I may live. You most certainly won’t. Your choice.”
“I’m busted. I got nothing. They—” He swallowed hard. Tears were obstructing his vision. “They emptied the file. It was a setup. Nothing there but the title pages of thirty documents, each docu- ment just one page. Honest. I got what you wanted to buy. I’m desperate! I need the money.”
Albright nodded- “I’m sorry.”
“C’mon, mister,” he pleaded. “I’ll do you a deal. The title pages must be worth something. I got fifteen bucks to my name. That’s it! Fifteen lousy bucks.” He was sobbing.
“I think not.” Albright looked around. Spectators were watch- ing Judy. It was past time to go. Albright took out his wallet and tossed all the currency he had on the table. “There’s something over a hundred and forty there. You take it.”
Judy seized the bills. He scooped them up with his left hand, then fumbled below the table with the gun. “I need the gym bag. Here”—he held out the disk- “You take it. I don’t want it.”
“Good luck,” Albright said, and then rose and walked toward the entrance, leaving Judy holding the disk and staring after him. When Albright was through the door, the gunman on Smoke’s left followed him.
Judy lowered his head to the table.
“Mister,” he heard someone saying. “Mister, you’re going to have to leave. Please, mister,” urged the hard, insistent voice, “you can’t stay here.”
28
Senator Duquesne has a copy of your service record.”
“What? How’d he get that?”
Commander Rob Knight shrugged. “God only knows, and he won’t tell. What’s in your service record that would do him any good?”
“I don’t know,” Jake Grafton said.
“He may not use any part of it. Probably won’t. But he told some colleague’s aide, figuring you’d hear about it and get wor- ried.”
“What a guy.”
“This is major-league hardball, Grafton. And he’s got that crackpot Samuel Dodgers scheduled to testify before you get on the stand, after SECDEF and Dunedin finish.”
“He’s playing Russian roulette. Dodgers is a genius with the personality of a warthog.”
“His strategy, apparently, is to get the A-12 defeated. The story I hear from a couple aides is that Athena is such a revolutionary new technology, it needs to be produced and evaluated before the navy buys any stealth airplanes — i.e., neither prototype will be pur- chased. Then Consolidated can participate in another competition for a more conventional design that makes full use of Athena’s capabilities. The argument is that a more conventional airplane that uses Athena exclusively for stealth protection will save the government several billions.”
“Is he going to try this out on Caplinger?”
“Nope. He’s going to let Caplinger and Dunedin testify, then wring the juice out of Dodgers and dump it all in your lap in the hope you’ll blow it.”
“Has he got the votes?”
“Not yet. There are enough fence sitters so that the issue is very much up in the air. We had the A-12 sold to the Senate and the House committees until Athena came along, but with the headlines lately — and the budget deficit — any way they can save money looks better and better.”
Jake knew the headlines Knight was referring to. The Soviets under Mikhail Gorbachev had renounced world domination, and the aftershocks were being felt in capitals around the world. Gorbachev was well on his way to becoming the most popular and overexposed human on the planet, eclipsing rock stars, athletes, and, in some places, even God. The Cold War was over, according to some commentators and politicians with their own agendas. True or not, the perception of great change taking place in the “evil empire” had profound consequences for the foreign and domestic policy of every Western democracy, and none more so than the United States.
The two officers spent the morning going over the cost projec- tions of the A-12, which were based on an optimum purchase schedule. Any proposal that kept the A-6 in service for more years than already planned would also have to include the escalating costs of maintaining and repairing this aging airframe. These costs were also calculated. Finally, any new proposal for another design would incur huge upfront costs, as the A-12 program had, and to kill the A-12 now would mean all the money spent to date would be wasted.
After lunch Knight, an officer from the Office of Legislative Affairs, and Jake’s staff gathered in the conference room and pre- tended to be a congressional panel. They spent the afternoon grill- ing him. By five o’clock he was drained and hoarse.
CaUie was reading Amy a bedtime story when the telephone rang. The giri leaped for the phone, then held it out to Jake. “Captain Grafton.”
“This is Luis Camacho. Do you have a Robert E. Tarkington working for you?”
“What’s he done now?” Tarkington had been on the mock panel this afternoon and had done a terrible job. His heart had obviously not been in it
“Well, he’s not at home, for one thing. His car is sitting outside an apartment building in Momingside and we think he’s in it. It’s the building that Commander Judy lives in. He’s right smack-dab in the middle of our surveillance.”
“So run him off.”
“Well, that might produce sticky complications. I understand he has reason to bear Judy a grudge concerning his wife’s injuries a couple months ago. He might be armed. If so, he might be arrested on a concealed weapons
