The Talbot Odyssey

by Nelson DeMille

  “I told you. Close. You won’t pull it off.”

  “Bullshit.” Thorpe rubbed his chin, then said, “Katherine once told me, and I’ve heard elsewhere, that you’re one of the best natural intelligence men on either side. You’re brave, resourceful, cunning, imaginative, and all that. . . . So . . . I know you’re good . . . but how good? I mean, if you suspected me, why didn’t you act before I got to you? I should have been snatched, drugged, tortured, and interrogated at least a year ago. Are you slowing up, old-timer? Did you let Katherine’s feelings for me get in the way? Or perhaps you didn’t suspect me. Yes, that’s it. You really don’t know anything.”

  “I’ve been on to you for years, Peter.”

  “I don’t believe—”

  The Beeehcraft hit a small air pocket and bounced. Thorpe lost his balance and fell to one knee. O’Brien, who had hoped and stalled for that air pocket, immediately lunged toward the door.

  Thorpe drew a gun from under his Windbreaker, aimed, and fired. A loud, deafening report filled the cabin.

  O’Brien, his hand on the door lever, lurched forward, collided with the door, and careened back, toppling onto the deck. Thorpe aimed and fired again. A short, popping sound echoed in the cabin.

  O’Brien lay sprawled on his back at Thorpe’s feet, holding his chest. Thorpe knelt beside him, and shone a flashlight on the chest wound. Thorpe spoke softly, almost comfortingly. “Just relax, Pat. The first one was a rubber stun bullet. Probably cracked a rib. The second was a sodium pentothal capsule.” Thorpe saw where the gelatin capsule had hit the thick nylon harness strap. He ran his hand under O’Brien’s shirt and felt a wetness where the skin had been broken. “I think you got enough of it.”

  Thorpe rocked back on his haunches. “We have some talking to do, my friend, and about two hours’ fuel left to do it—and about six more drugs to go through if necessary.”

  O’Brien felt the drug taking hold in his brain. He shook his head violently, then grabbed for his knife and brought it out in an uppercut motion, slicing through Thorpe’s left nostril.

  Thorpe fell back, his hand to his face, the blood running between his fingers. “Bastard . . . you sneaky . . .”

  O’Brien began to rise, then stumbled back. He sat braced against the fuselage, holding his knife to his front.

  Thorpe aimed his gun again. “Would you like to find out what the third bullet is? It’s not lead, but you’ll wish it was.”

  O’Brien’s arm dropped and his knife rested in his lap.

  Thorpe pressed a handkerchief to his nose and waited a full minute, then said, “Feel better, Patrick? Okay, that was my fault for underestimating you. No hard feelings. Let’s begin. What is your name?”

  “Patrick O’Brien.”

  “What is your occupation?”

  “Lawyer.”

  “Not quite, but close enough.” Thorpe asked a few more warm-up questions, then said, “Do you know a man named Talbot?”

  “Yes.”

  “What other name does he go by?”

  O’Brien did not speak for some time, then answered, “I don’t know.”

  Thorpe made a sound of annoyance, then asked, “Were you on to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you really?” He thought a moment, then removed a Syrette from his pocket. “I don’t think you got enough sodium pent. Let’s try something different.” He moved cautiously toward O’Brien, reached out with his free hand, and pulled the knife away. With his other hand he pushed the Syrette against O’Brien’s shoulder. The spring-loaded needle pumped five cc’s of Surital into O’Brien’s body.

  Thorpe knelt a few feet from O’Brien. “Okay, we’ll give that a minute or so.” Thorpe found his cigarettes and put one in his mouth. The gun still trained on O’Brien, he took his Dunhill lighter and struck a flame.

  O’Brien saw Thorpe’s eyes close reflexively and made his move. He half stood, reached out, and pulled the door handle. The handle disengaged and the door began to slide open, letting in a powerful rush of cold air along with the rumbling sound of the two engines.

  Thorpe lunged for O’Brien and caught his ankle as O’Brien back-rolled into the opening. Thorpe yanked on the man’s leg, twisting as he did, and began to pull him in.

  O’Brien let out a moan of pain but continued to arch back farther, getting his upper torso and arms into the powerful slipstream.

  Thorpe braced his legs on either side of the open door and pulled with all his strength, swearing loudly over the din, “You old bastard! You foxy son of a—” Thorpe felt himself losing the battle against the slipstream as more of O’Brien’s body was dragged out into space. O’Brien kicked at him with his free leg.

  Finally, Thorpe screamed, “All right, you son of a bitch! Die!” He slid his feet away from the doorframe and felt himself yanked headlong out into the slipstream, still holding O’Brien’s ankle.

  Thorpe looked up instinctively and saw the Beechcraft’s navigation lights disappearing into the blue moonlit night.

  They both fell, at the terminal velocity of 110 miles an hour, 161 feet per second, at which rate, Thorpe knew, they had less than 80 seconds to pull the rip cords.

  Thorpe clutched at O’Brien’s leg and craned his head upward. He saw O’Brien’s right hand going for his rip cord. Thorpe wrapped both arms around O’Brien’s leg and twisted his body in a sharp torquing motion, causing them both to spin.

  O’Brien’s arms were outstretched now and he tried to bring them back to his body. Thorpe saw the man’s fingers clawing toward the rip cord on his chest. Thorpe reached up and grabbed the cross harness running across O’Brien’s abdomen and pulled himself up until they were chest-to-chest and face-to-face. Thorpe wrapped his arms around O’Brien’s shoulders and drew him close into a bear hug. Thorpe stared into O’Brien’s face, inches from his own. He shouted, “Do you know who Talbot is?”

  O’Brien’s eyes were half shut and his head began to loll sideways. He mumbled something that Thorpe thought sounded like “Yes.”

  Thorpe shouted again. “What is Talbot’s name!” Thorpe saw O’Brien’s features contort into a twisted expression of pain and his teeth sink into his lower lip, drawing a stream of blood over his face. Heart attack.

  Thorpe looked down. They had dropped, he estimated, over ten thousand feet. They had a mile or so to go. Thorpe looked back at O’Brien’s chalk-white face and was certain that Patrick O’Brien would never pull his rip cord. Thorpe shouted into O’Brien’s ear. “Geronimo and all that shit! Happy landing!”

  He released his grip on O’Brien and they began to drift apart. O’Brien’s unrestrained arms flew up over his head. Thorpe reached out and gave him a vigorous shove, sending him tumbling away.

  Thorpe looked at the ground that was coming at him very fast. “Oh, shit!” He yanked on the rip cord and looked up.

  In a split second, he thought, depending on how the chute came out and opened, he might be too late. If it didn’t open at all, it was much too late for the emergency chute.

  The black nylon chute shot upward nicely, like a plume of smoke, then billowed as the canopy began filling with air. Thorpe forced himself to look down. About three hundred feet. Two seconds to splat. Thorpe felt an upward jerk as he heard the snap of the canopy fully spread out. He looked down to see where O’Brien would fall, but lost sight of him in the dark ground clutter of the forest below. He thought he heard the sound of snapping wood followed by a thud.

  Thorpe was fully decelerated now and floated about seventy-five feet from the earth. He spotted a small sandy clearing amid the moonlit scrub pine and tugged hard on his risers, sliding toward the nearby patch of open ground.

  Thorpe tucked his legs up, and hit. He shoulder-rolled, then jumped to his feet and pulled the quick-release hook. The chute drifted a few feet off in the gentle breeze. He brushed the sand from his hands and face. “Not bad.” He felt that incredible high that comes after a safe landing. “Damned good.”

  As he gathered his para
chute, he gave a passing thought to O’Brien. The man was a worthy opponent. He’d expected more trouble from the pilot and less from O’Brien, considering his age. But old foxes were tough foxes. That’s how they got to be old.

  He wondered what the authorities would make of an aircraft that crashed in the foothills of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies, without warning, far off-course, and with its passenger a mushy heap in New Jersey. His laughter broke the stillness of the spring night.

  Thorpe stuffed his parachute into its pack and extended the aerial of a homing transmitter. He sat on a mound of sand, dabbed at his bloody nose, then broke out a bag of chocolate kisses and waited for the helicopter.

  This night had two final victims to claim, and like a slaughterer in an abattoir, he had to work fast before the sheep became panicky and stampeded.

  At least, he thought, he was helping to eliminate suspects.

  30

  The small LOH helicopter carrying Peter Thorpe landed at the West 30th Street Heliport on the Hudson River. Thorpe finished changing into sport jacket, tie, and slacks.

  The pilot, under contract to Lotus Air, a CIA proprietary company, knew neither his passenger’s name nor his mission. Neither had he exchanged a single word with him, nor had he even looked at him. If in a week, or a year, the news reported a body found with an unopened parachute in the Jersey Pine Barrens, the pilot would put two and two together and come up with zero.

  The LOH swung out over the river and disappeared into the night. Thorpe watched, then took the pack containing his gathered parachute, clothing, and rock weights, and dropped it in the river.

  He walked the dark, desolate streets by the riverfront and entered a telephone booth. He dialed the Princeton Club and was connected to West. “Nick, how are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Look, what are you doing now?”

  “I thought I’d turn in. I have to get an early shuttle to D.C. tomorrow.”

  “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’m really not up for a drink.”

  “We’ll make it an early evening. I’m really in the mood for a Negroni, and I hate to drink alone.”

  There was a short silence, then West’s voice came back on the line. “All right . . . yes . . . where . . . when?”

  “Meet you at my club. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Thorpe hung up.

  * * *

  Peter Thorpe entered the Yale Club and sat on a small sofa beside West, who was staring at a martini on the coffee table. Thorpe ordered a Negroni and gave West a sidelong glance. He said, “I was afraid you wouldn’t remember the code word.”

  West looked at Thorpe, and focused on the small butterfly bandage covering his left nostril, but didn’t comment on it.

  Thorpe spoke softly. “Look, Nick, this Talbot thing has really stirred up a hornet’s nest. You should lay low for a while.”

  West nodded, then found his voice and said, “Who . . . them or us?”

  “Our people. Langley has been on full alert all weekend. You know how it is. They start making decisions right and left, getting themselves all hyper. They made a decision about you.”

  “What . . . ?”

  “Well, they don’t actually plan to eliminate you, but they will put you in the mountains . . . you may be there some time.”

  West’s eyes seemed more alert. “Then maybe I should just report in and—”

  “No. Don’t do that.”

  “But . . . I don’t mind being put on ice.”

  “If you knew what they do to people in the mountains, you might think differently.”

  West stared at Thorpe with a mixture of curiosity and dread. “What . . . ?”

  Thorpe said, “Finish your drink.” The Negroni came and Thorpe tasted it. “Not bad. I’ve never had one. Look, Nick, for the sake of appearances can you try to smile a bit and get some color in your face?”

  West sipped on his martini.

  Thorpe said, “Are you carrying?”

  “No.”

  “Vest?”

  “No . . . I don’t wear that.”

  “How about a signal transmitter?”

  West touched his belt buckle. “Micro-miniature. I can be tracked by air, auto, or ground receiver.”

  “Is it activated now?”

  “No. Why should it be?”

  “How do you activate it?”

  West licked his lips. “You just grip it, top and bottom, and squeeze. It’s got spring bars, like a wristwatch.”

  “Are you wired for sound?”

  “No.”

  Thorpe knew West wasn’t wired, because Thorpe was carrying a bug alert and it hadn’t picked up anything.

  He stared at West for some time, then said, “L-pills?”

  West nodded. “Always.”

  “Where? What form?”

  West hesitated, then tapped his class ring.

  Thorpe glanced at West’s Princeton ring. “Pill compartment?”

  “No . . . the stone . . . cyanide suspended in rock sugar, colored with dye to match onyx. Thin coat of polyurethane to keep it shiny and keep it from melting. . . . You bite it—”

  “And death is, as they say, instantaneous.” Thorpe smiled. “What will those jokers think of next? Is that the only poison?”

  West shook his head. “A conventional capsule. I forgot it. It’s in my room.”

  Thorpe smiled. “You’d forget your ass if it wasn’t nailed on.”

  “Tell me more about the mountains,” West said.

  Thorpe stared straight ahead as he spoke. “You go into the mountains as Nicholas West. You come out somebody else.”

  “That’s the New Identity Program.”

  “Not quite. They go a bit further than plastic surgery and a new driver’s license, my friend. Electric shock treatment, drugs, and hypnosis. By the time they’re through with your brain, you’re neutralized.”

  West stared, wide-eyed.

  Thorpe continued. “This is the new meaning of neutralized. No more wet stuff for our own people if you haven’t committed a crime. Just a little memory alteration so you’re not a walking encyclopedia anymore.”

  West slumped back onto the sofa. “Oh . . . Good Lord . . . they can’t do that.”

  “Right. It’s illegal, and they’d never violate your civil rights. But let’s suppose they would. Then what you have to do is go underwater for a while. Keep your brain out of their hands.”

  West finished his martini. “When . . . when do I have to—”

  “When? Tonight! There is no tomorrow.”

  West said, “My things . . . ?”

  “Things? What things?”

  “You know . . . clothes . . . books . . .”

  Thorpe laughed. “If you let them take you to the mountains, you won’t even remember your name, let alone what you own. Don’t worry about idiot details. On the other hand, you do need some insurance policies for yourself. If you had insurance, tucked away, spring-loaded to be released under certain circumstances, then you could call your own shots.”

  West rubbed his face. “I can’t get any insurance now.”

  Thorpe considered a moment, then said, “Maybe you could get into your office early in the morning, act natural, collect some documents—maybe some computer printouts—then run.”

  West was quiet for a long time, then looked up. “Maybe, if I could access my department’s computer from here . . . from your computer at the Lombardy . . .”

  Thorpe nodded slowly, but said nothing.

  West glanced at him. “I guess that’s the way to do it.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “But . . . how could we . . . I . . . do that? The entry would leave an audit trail, leading right back to you.”

  Thorpe replied, “Would it?”

  “Yes. It’s very secure. It will record your entry, plus the information that was accessed, and identify your computer station. Langley will see it immediately.”

  Thorpe spoke in a casual tone. “Once I’m into you
r computer, I can do whatever the hell I goddamned please. If I can get in, I can erase all evidence of my penetration on my way out.”

  West looked at him for a long time, then said, “The computer won’t allow that. It will tell them—”

  Thorpe smiled. “I make buddies with computers real fast, once I shake hands with them.” He lit a cigarette. “You see, it’s like the difference between rape and seduction. Both involve penetration, but one is violent and clumsy, the other tender. After I fuck your computer, it won’t tell the cops. Okay? Let me worry about my technique.”

  West nodded in acquiescence.

  “Look, Nick, the only real problem we’ve got is if they’ve had the foresight to negate your access code—the modern equivalent of confiscating your key to the executive washroom.”

  West forced a weak smile.

  Thorpe continued, “But if we act soon—tonight—I think we can reasonably assume no one has thought to tell the computer that you are persona non grata. Tomorrow it will be one of the first things they do. Step one in making you an unperson.”

  West nodded and brought his drink to his lips. His hand was shaking. “Just tell me,” he said softly, “why are you taking this risk for me?”

  Thorpe leaned over the coffee table. “I’m not a nice guy, Nick. But some of the people we work for are not nice either.” He let out a deep breath. “If I let them scramble your brains and put you to work washing the windows on the farm, then I couldn’t live with myself . . . I mean, I couldn’t face Katherine, or Ann . . .”

  West’s face dropped at the mention of Ann. He ordered another martini from a passing waiter.

  Thorpe continued, “Also, quite honestly, I want to pick your computer’s brain. As it turns out, my wishes coincide tonight with your needs.”

  “Why do you want to pick my computer’s brains?”

  “As I told you several times, Nick, I need information on the old boys to recruit for my Domestic Contact Service.”

  West nodded. He’d always thought that these computerized dossiers of amateur spies were being unreasonably withheld from Thorpe. West said, “But I would require that I be present when you access the computer.”