“I do. And since two chunks of bait are better than one in a tank of piranhas, I want to talk to Mo Panov.”
“You can’t ask him to be a part of this,” countered Casset. “He’s not one of us, Alex. Why should he?”
“Because he is one of us and I’d better ask him. If I didn’t, he’d give me a flu shot filled with strychnine. You see, he was in Hong Kong, too—for reasons not much different from mine. Years ago I tried to kill my closest friend in Paris because I’d made a terrible mistake believing my friend had turned when the truth was that he had lost his memory. Only days later, Morris Panov, one of the leading psychiatrists in the country, a doctor who can’t stand the chicken-shit psychobabble so popular these days, was presented with a ‘hypothetical’ psychiatric profile that required his immediate reaction. It described a rogue deep-cover agent, a walking time bomb with a thousand secrets in his head, who had gone over the edge.… On the basis of Mo’s on-the-spot evaluation of that hypothetical profile—which he hours later suspected was no more hypothetical than Campbell’s soup—an innocent amnesiac was nearly blown away in a government ambush on New York’s Seventy-first Street. When what was left of that man survived, Panov demanded to be assigned as his only head doctor. He’s never forgiven himself. If any of you were he, what would you do if I didn’t talk to you about what we’re talking about right now?”
“Tell you it’s a flu shot and pump you full of strychnine, old boy,” concluded DeSole, nodding.
“Where is Panov now?” asked Casset.
“At the Brookshire Hotel in Baltimore under the name of Morris, Phillip Morris. He called off his appointments today—he has the flu.”
“Then let’s go to work,” said the DCI, pulling a yellow legal pad in front of him. “Incidentally, Alex, a competent field man doesn’t concern himself with rank and won’t trust a man who can’t convincingly call him by his first name. As you well know, my name is Holland and my first name is Peter. From here on we’re Alex and Peter, got it?”
“I’ve got it—Peter. You must have been one son of a bitch in the SEALs.”
“Insofar as I’m here—geographically, not in this chair—it can be assumed I was competent.”
“A field man,” mumbled Conklin in approval.
“Also, since we’ve dropped the diplomatic drivel expected of someone in this job, you should understand that I was a hard-nosed son of a bitch. I want pro input here, Alex, not emotional output. Is that clear?”
“I don’t operate any other way, Peter. A commitment may be based on emotions and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the execution of a strategy is ice-cold.… I was never in the SEALs, you hard-nosed son of a bitch, but I’m also geographically here, limp and all, and that presumes I’m also competent.”
Holland grinned; it was a smile of youth belied by streaked gray hair, the grin of a professional momentarily freed of executive concerns so as to return to the world he knew best. “We may even get along,” said the DCI. And then, as if to drop the last vestige of his directorial image, he placed his pipe on the table, reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, popped one up to his mouth and snapped his lighter as he began to write on the legal pad. “To hell with the Bureau,” he continued. “We’ll use only our men and we’ll check every one out under a fast microscope.”
Charles Casset, the lean, bright heir apparent of the CIA’s directorship, sat back in his chair and sighed. “Why do I have the idea that I’m going to have to ride herd on both you gentlemen?”
“Because you’re an analyst at heart, Charlie,” answered Holland.
The object of controlled surveillance is to expose those who shadow others so as to establish their identities or take them into custody, whichever suits the strategy. The aim in the present case was to trap the agents of the Jackal who had lured Conklin and Panov to the amusement park in Baltimore. Working through the night and most of the following day, the men of the Central Intelligence Agency formed a detail of eight experienced field personnel, defined and redefined the specific routes that Conklin and Panov were to take both individually and together for the next twenty-four hours—these routes covered by the armed professionals in swift progressive relays—and finally to design an irresistible rendezvous, unique in terms of time and location. The early morning hours at the Smithsonian Institution. It was the Dionaea muscipula, the Venus flytrap.
Conklin stood in the narrow, dimly lit lobby of his apartment house and looked at his watch, squinting to read the dial. It was precisely 2:35 in the morning; he opened the heavy door and limped out into the dark street, which was devoid of any signs of life. According to their plan he turned left, maintaining the pace agreed upon; he was to arrive at the corner as close to 2:38 as possible. Suddenly, he was alarmed; in a shadowed doorway on his right was the figure of a man. Unobtrusively Alex reached under his jacket for his Beretta automatic. There was nothing in the strategy that called for someone to be in a doorway on this section of the street! Then, as suddenly as he had been alarmed, he relaxed, feeling equal parts of guilt and relief at what he understood. The figure in shadows was an indigent, an old man in worn-out clothes, one of the homeless in a land of so much plenty. Alex kept going; he reached the corner and heard the low, single click of two fingers snapped apart. He crossed the avenue and proceeded down the pavement, passing an alleyway. The alleyway. Another figure … another old man in disheveled clothing moving slowly out into the street and then back into the alley. Another derelict protecting his concrete cave. At any other time Conklin might have approached the unfortunate and given him a few dollars, but not now. He had a long way to go and a schedule to keep.
Morris Panov approached the intersection still bothered by the curious telephone conversation he had had ten minutes ago, still trying to recall each segment of the plan he was to follow, afraid to look at his watch to see if he had reached a specific place within a specific time span—he had been told not to look at his watch in the street … and why couldn’t they say “at approximately such and such” rather than the somewhat unnerving term “time span,” as if a military invasion of Washington were imminent. Regardless, he kept walking, crossing the streets he was told to cross, hoping some unseen clock kept him relatively in tune with the goddamned “time spans” that had been determined by his striding back and forth between two pegs on some lawn behind a garden apartment in Vienna, Virginia.… He would do anything for David Webb—good Christ, anything!—but this was insane.… Yet, of course, it wasn’t. They would not ask him to do what he was doing if it were.
What was that? A face in shadows peering at him, just like the other two! This one hunched over on a curb, raising wine-soaked eyes up at him. Old men—weather-beaten, old, old men who could barely move—staring at him! Now he was allowing his imagination to run away with him—the cities were filled with the homeless, with perfectly harmless people whose psychoses or poverty drove them into the streets. As much as he would like to help them, there was nothing he could do but professionally badger an unresponsive Washington.… There was another! In an indented space between two storefronts barricaded by iron gates—he, too, was watching him. Stop it! You’re being irrational.… Or was he? Of course, he was. Go on, keep to the schedule, that’s what you’re supposed to do.… Good God! There’s another. Across the street.… Keep going!
The vast moonlit grounds of the Smithsonian dwarfed the two figures as they converged from intersecting paths, joining each other and proceeding to a bench. Conklin lowered himself with the aid of his cane while Mo Panov looked around nervously, listening, as if he expected the unexpected. It was 3:28 in the predawn morning, the only noises the subdued rattle of crickets and mild summer breezes through the trees. Guardedly Panov sat down.
“Anything happen on the way here?” asked Conklin.
“I’m not sure,” replied the psychiatrist. “I’m as lost as I was in Hong Kong, except that over there we knew where we were going, whom we expected to meet. You people are crazy.”
>
“You’re contradicting yourself, Mo,” said Alex, smiling. “You told me I was cured.”
“Oh, that? That was merely obsessive manic-depression bordering on dementia praecox. This is nuts! It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning. People who aren’t nuts do not play games at four o’clock in the morning.”
Alex watched Panov in the dim wash of a distant Smithsonian floodlight that illuminated the massive stone structure. “You said you weren’t sure. What does that mean?”
“I’m almost embarrassed to say—I’ve told too many patients that they invent uncomfortable images to rationalize their panic, justify their fears.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s a form of transference—”
“Come on, Mo!” interrupted Conklin. “What bothered you? What did you see?”
“Figures … some bent over, walking slowly, awkwardly—not like you, Alex, incapacitated not by injuries but by age. Worn out and old and staying in the darkness of storefronts and side streets. It happened four or five times between my apartment house and here. Twice I almost stopped and called out for one of your men, and then I thought to myself, My God, Doctor, you’re overreacting, mistaking a few pathetic homeless people for what they’re not, seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Right on!” Conklin whispered emphatically. “You saw exactly what was there, Mo. Because I saw the same, the same kind of old people you saw, and they were pathetic, mostly in beat-up clothes and who moved slower than I move.… What does it mean? What do they mean? Who are they?”
Footsteps. Slow, hesitant, and through the shadows of the deserted path walked two short men—old men. At first glance they, indeed, appeared to be part of the swelling army of indigent homeless, yet there was something different about them, a sense of purpose, perhaps. They stopped nearly twenty feet away from the bench, their faces in darkness. The old man on the left spoke, his voice thin, his accent strange. “It is an odd hour and an unusual place for two such well-dressed gentlemen to meet. Is it fair for you to occupy a place of rest that should be for others not so well off as you?”
“There are a number of unoccupied benches,” said Alex pleasantly. “Is this one reserved?”
“There are no reserved seats here,” replied the second old man, his English clear but not native to him. “But why are you here?”
“What’s it to you?” asked Conklin. “This is a private meeting and none of your business.”
“Business at this hour and in this place?” The first aged intruder spoke while looking around.
“I repeat,” repeated Alex. “It’s none of your business and I really think you should leave us alone.”
“Business is business,” intoned the second old man.
“What in God’s name is he talking about?” whispered the bewildered Panov to Conklin.
“Ground zero,” said Alex under his breath. “Be quiet.” The retired field agent turned his head up to the two old men. “Okay, fellas, why don’t you go on your way?”
“Business is business,” again said the second tattered ancient, glancing at his colleague, both their faces still in shadows.
“You don’t have any business with us—”
“You can’t be sure of that,” interrupted the first old man, shaking his head back and forth. “Suppose I were to tell you that we bring you a message from Macao?”
“What?” exclaimed Panov.
“Shut up!” whispered Conklin, addressing the psychiatrist but his eyes on the messenger. “What does Macao mean to us?” he asked flatly.
“A great taipan wishes to meet with you. The greatest taipan in Hong Kong.”
“Why?”
“He will pay you great sums. For your services.”
“I’ll say it again. Why?”
“We are to tell you that a killer has returned. He wants you to find him.”
“I’ve heard that story before; it doesn’t wash. It’s also repetitious.”
“That is between the great taipan and yourselves, sir. Not with us. He is waiting for you.”
“Where is he?”
“At a great hotel, sir.”
“Which one?”
“We are again to tell you that it has a great-sized lobby with always many people, and its name refers to this country’s past.”
“There’s only one like that. The Mayflower.” Conklin directed his words toward his left lapel, into a microphone sewn into the buttonhole.
“As you wish.”
“Under what name is he registered?”
“Registered?”
“Like in reserved benches, only rooms. Who do we ask for?”
“No one, sir. The taipan’s secretary will approach you in the lobby.”
“Did that same secretary approach you also?”
“Sir?”
“Who hired you to follow us?”
“We are not at liberty to discuss such matters and we will not do so.”
“That’s it!” shouted Alexander Conklin, yelling over his shoulder as floodlights suddenly lit up the Smithsonian grounds around the deserted path, revealing the two startled old men to be Orientals. Nine personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency walked rapidly into the glare of light from all directions, their hands under their jackets. Since there was no apparent need for them, their weapons remained hidden.
Suddenly the need was there, but the realization came too late. Two high-powered rifle shots exploded from the outer darkness, the bullets ripping open the throats of the two Oriental messengers. The CIA men lunged to the ground, rolling for cover as Conklin grabbed Panov, pulling him down to the path in front of the bench for protection. The unit from Langley lurched to their feet and, like the combat veterans they were, including the former commando Director Peter Holland, they started scrambling, zigzagging one after another toward the source of the gunfire, weapons extended, shadows sought. In moments, an angry cry split the silence.
“Goddamn it!” shouted Holland, the beam of his flashlight angled down between tree trunks. “They made their break!”
“How can you tell?”
“The grass, son, the heel imprints. Those bastards were overqualified. They dug in for one shot apiece and got out—look at the slip marks on the lawn. Those shoes were running. Forget it! No use now. If they stopped for a second position, they’d blow us into the Smithsonian.”
“A field man,” said Alex, getting up with his cane, the frightened, bewildered Panov beside him. Then the doctor spun around, his eyes wide, rushing toward the two fallen Orientals.
“Oh, my God, they’re dead,” he cried, kneeling beside the corpses, seeing their blown-apart throats. “Jesus, the amusement park! It’s the same!”
“A message,” agreed Conklin, nodding, wincing. “Put rock salt on the trail,” he added enigmatically.
“What do you mean?” asked the psychiatrist, snapping his head around at the former intelligence officer.
“We weren’t careful enough.”
“Alex!” roared the gray-haired Holland, running to the bench. “I heard you, but this neuters the hotel,” he said breathlessly. “You can’t go there now. I won’t let you.”
“It neuters—fucks up—more than the hotel. This isn’t the Jackal! It’s Hong Kong! The externals were right, but my instincts were wrong. Wrong!”
“Which way do you want to go?” asked the director softly.
“I don’t know,” answered Conklin, a plaint in his voice. “I was wrong.… Reach our man, of course, as soon as possible.”
“I spoke to David—I spoke to him about an hour ago,” said Panov, instantly correcting himself.
“You spoke to him?” cried Alex. “It’s late and you were at home. How?”
“You know my answering machine,” said the doctor. “If I picked up every crazy call after midnight, I’d never get to the office in the morning. So I let it ring, and because I was getting ready to go out and meet you, I listened. All he said was ‘Reach me,’ and by
the time I got to the phone, he’d hung up. So I called him back.”
“You called him back? On your phone?”
“Well … yes,” answered Panov hesitantly. “He was very quick, very guarded. He just wanted us to know what was happening, that ‘M’—he called her ‘M’—was leaving with the children first thing in the morning. That was it; he hung up right away.”
“They’ve got your boy’s name and address by now,” said Holland. “Probably the message as well.”
“A location, yes; the message, maybe,” broke in Conklin, speaking quietly, rapidly. “Not an address, not a name.”
“By morning they will have—”
“By morning he’ll be on his way to Tierra del Fuego, if need be.”
“Christ, what have I done?” exclaimed the psychiatrist.
“Nothing anybody else in your place wouldn’t have done,” replied Alex. “You get a message at two o’clock in the morning from someone you care about, someone in trouble, you call back as fast as you can. Now we have to reach him as fast as we can. So it’s not Carlos, but somebody with a lot of firepower is still closing in, making breakthroughs we thought were impossible.”
“Use the phone in my car,” said Holland. “I’ll put it on override. There’ll be no record, no log.”
“Let’s go!” As quickly as possible, Conklin limped across the lawn toward the Agency vehicle.
* * *
“David, it’s Alex.”
“Your timing’s pretty scary, friend, we’re on our way out the door. If Jamie hadn’t had to hit the potty we’d be in the car by now.”
“At this hour?”
“Didn’t Mo tell you? There was no answer at your place, so I called him.”
“Mo’s a little shook up. Tell me yourself. What’s happening?”
“Is this phone secure? I wasn’t sure his was.”
“None more so.”
“I’m packing Marie and the kids off south—way south. She’s screaming like hell, but I chartered a Rockwell jet out of Logan Airport, everything precleared thanks to the arrangements you made four years ago. The computers spun and everyone cooperated. They take off at six o’clock, before it’s light—I want them out.”