He smiled as he dropped into a chair facing her, a chrome-and-glass cocktail table between them. “What must I have known, Erika?”
“Why I asked you here, of course.” The nervousness was still evident, but there was vulnerability as well, nervousness become anxiety. He found it astonishing in so flawlessly perfect a creature that she could feel vulnerable, unsure of herself. “How long has it been, Paul?”
“How long?”
“Since you first knew you wanted me.”
He stared at her, startled but at the same time oddly relieved that they would not have to play any complicated games. And he didn’t have to worry tonight about the Brea file.
“If the truth be known,” he murmured.
“Yes, the truth,” she said brightly. “By all means, the truth.”
“It must be the same for every man you meet,” he said.
“I’m not asking every man. I’m asking you.”
“You’re a very desirable woman, Erika, and I’m not made of stone. But…” He glanced away from her, taking a deep breath, letting the new tension which had replaced his own earlier nervousness have its way. Then he thought with sudden force of Jan.
He scooped his drink from the table in front of him and took a deep swallow, ice clicking against his teeth.
“What’s wrong?”
“The usual.” His smile was rueful, almost apologetic. “We both have… other obligations.”
“Oh, Paul. Dear, dear Paul.” She placed her glass on the table and stood very carefully, as if she weren’t quite certain how steady she was. Then she walked slowly over to him. “No one believes in that one man-one woman thing anymore. Surely you don’t think Jan does!”
“If she doesn’t, she puts on a good act.” Macimer smiled. “I suppose it sounds as if we came here from another planet.”
“I think it’s kind of nice… but not very practical. I mean… nothing lasts. Not like that.” Her fingers toyed with the deep scoop of her neckline, drawing his gaze. The silken fabric defined the precise shape of her nipples. “Do you wonder why the lady keeps herself slightly sozzled with dependable old Beefeater’s?”
“Last time we met, I got the idea that Russ leaves you alone too much.”
“He leaves me alone even when he’s with me. I’m not important enough for him even to find out who I am or what I think. I’m not an empty-headed porcelain doll, Paul, something you put on a shelf and dust off when company’s coming. And I’m not proper old Elaine, either, the charming hostess who always said the proper thing and evidently never sweated.” Erika’s hip was pressing against Macimer’s shoulder. Her hand came to rest lightly at the base of his neck. “You’re sweating, Paul. I like that.”
Staring up at her, feeling the heavy beat of his pulse, the small burning spot where her hip leaned against him, the feathery tips of her fingers teasing the back of his neck, he thought how lame and even ridiculous his protest about marital obligations had sounded. What Erika said was true. Fidelity was now a subject of humor, seriously discussed by a public television panel as a naïve twentieth-century American invention, like the motorcar.
“You’re here, Paul—and I’m here. Jan isn’t. This has nothing to do with her. She’ll never even know.”
“I will.” He wondered how she knew that Jan was away. Russ Halbig did. Agents had been following him wherever he went.
“Is that so terrible?” Erika laughed, and he heard again the nervousness beneath the throaty promise of her laugh. “This could be a night to remember.”
“Erika, that’s a line from a bad play.”
Suddenly she sank to her knees before him. “Paul, look at me! Am I so easy to reject? Forget about Jan, forget about Russ! Forget about being that damned gentlemanly, soft-spoken, shoes-shined FBI man for once.” She reached behind her back and did something to the chemise. It slipped from her shoulders and drifted downward slowly, as if reluctant to release the flawless breasts. When it was around her waist Erika lifted her face toward his. He was startled to see tears in her eyes. “What do I have to do, Paul? Beg? I will, you know, if that’s what you want.”
The impulse came from a tangle of desire and embarrassment and the need to comfort her, to reassure her that she was indeed beautiful and important. He reached for her as he stumbled awkwardly to his feet, pulling her up with him. Her dress collapsed around her feet. He was not surprised to find that she wore nothing else. As his arms embraced her she pressed feverishly against him, warm delicious curves and parted lips and sleek skin of youth, as eager as a girl in an adolescent’s fantasy, breathlessly murmuring in his ear, “Say it, Paul! You want me, too. I know you do. I’ve always known.”
Too eager, he thought. Too sudden. Too timely.
He pushed her away in a spasm of self-disgust. How predictable he had been! How eager to come running when Erika beckoned!
His words were harsh. For a moment he had wanted to strike her. “Did Russ put you up to this? Was I supposed to talk to you afterward or what? How much did he tell you about the file?”
He saw the answer in the leap of fear in her eyes. Panic had no reason to be there unless his guess was accurate. “What… what are you talking about, Paul?” she faltered. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”
“I think that’s obvious.” He reached down for the dress on the floor. It weighed about as much as a sigh. “Here, it’s cold in this place. You’d better put this back on. Tell him you did your best.”
At the door, feeling like a man who has just reached the far side of a minefield, he said, “You don’t have to tell him this, but your best is damned good. You didn’t make it easy for me either.” He smiled grimly. “There’ll be times when I’ll probably kick myself, but I’ll survive. I guess we both will.”
Her stricken, naked image pursued him along the silent corridor.
24
Linda was released from the hospital at eleven o’clock Friday morning, less than two hours before the scheduled departure of United flight 27 for Phoenix by way of Dallas. Macimer drove directly from the hospital to Dulles International. “I’ve packed everything on your list,” he told his daughter on the way. “And anything else I could think of that you might need.”
She nodded indifferently.
“If I’ve forgotten anything, you’ll just have to go shopping in Phoenix,” he said lightly.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Instead of responding she gazed out the car window. He was disturbed by the lack of response, the dull eyes, the absence of normal excitement over a cross-country flight.
In spite of its size the Dulles terminal was crowded and noisy. When they got through the baggage check and reached the waiting area, they were a half hour early. Macimer sat with his daughter and tried to talk to her. Her responses continued to be limited to monosyllables and shrugs.
In desperation Macimer said, “I know it makes everything seem senseless, what happened to Carole. I don’t think there’s anything that’s harder to accept than the idea that none of us really counts for anything, you or Carole or anyone else. So there are a couple things I want you to think about. Maybe they won’t help, but think about them. One is that you do matter—to me, to your mother, to Kevin and Chip, to your friends, your grandparents, a great many other people. Especially to us, your own family. The other thing is that what happened with that truck wasn’t a senseless, meaningless accident. The driver of that truck deliberately forced you off the road.”
“I know!” Linda whispered fiercely. To his relief the veil fell away from her eyes. Her face was angry, but alive. Stay angry, he thought. “Why did he do it? That’s what I don’t understand!”
“I think I know,” Macimer said quietly. “I can’t go into details, but it’s very probable that the driver of that truck was someone involved in an FBI investigation—someone Carole had seen.”
Linda’s eyes grew round. “That’s weird!” She took a moment to digest this revelation before asking, “What’s it all
about? Is he some kind of terrorist the FBI is after?”
“Yes.” It was a good word for Brea, Macimer thought. “I wish I could tell you more, Linda. I can’t, not right now. But what I want you to try to understand is that what happened wasn’t blind chance.”
“Carole is still dead.” The girl winced at the word. “Nothing changes that.”
“No… nothing changes that.”
Before any more could be said an announcement over the public address system caught their attention. “United flight 27, for Dallas and Phoenix, now boarding at Gate 3. Please have your boarding passes ready.”
The shuttle vehicle that ferried passengers from the terminal to the waiting 727 aircraft was standing by. There was the usual flurry of activity at the departure gate, the usual crowding, the usual hasty goodbyes. “Have your mother call me as soon as you arrive,” Macimer said.
“Hey, I’ll get there. You’re not trying to make me afraid of flying, are you?”
Macimer smiled. At least he had succeeded in breaking her silence. “I just want to talk to her. She was asleep when I called last night to say when you were coming. I only talked to your grandmother.”
The line was thinning out at the gate as the bulk of the passengers found seats on the shuttle bus. Macimer was telling Linda again to let him know if there was anything else she might need in Arizona when she interrupted him. “Daddy, that’s you they’re calling!”
“What?”
“On the loudspeaker. Listen!”
When the announcement was repeated Macimer heard it clearly. “Telephone for Mr. Paul Macimer. Please report to the information desk on the lower level.”
Macimer frowned. The WFO knew where he was. Had something come up? An emergency that couldn’t wait?
“Go ahead, Daddy, I’m okay. Maybe it’s important.”
“Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re aboard.”
“Hey, I’m getting on in a minute. Maybe it’s Mom. Isn’t she the only one who knows this is where to find you right this minute?”
Macimer grinned affectionately. “You should be the detective. Okay, wait as long as you can before you get on the shuttle. I’ll try to get back before you leave.”
“It’s all right, it really is.”
He kissed her quickly, before she had a chance to turn away, catching her by surprise. “Okay. Take care, punkin.”
“I will if you promise not to call me that.” For the first time that morning she was smiling.
She was going to be all right, he told himself.
Macimer hurried across the wide floor of the terminal, dodging a spill of passengers arriving through another gate. Before stepping onto the escalator that led to the lower level he glanced back. Linda was at the tag end of a dwindling line before her departure gate.
He ran down the moving steps. At the information desk he identified himself and was directed toward a nearby telephone booth. He snatched up the instrument. “This is Macimer.”
“Paul Macimer?” The man’s voice was muffled, vaguely familiar.
“That’s right. Who is this?”
“There’s something for you at the Hertz counter.”
“What? What’s this all about?”
The line went dead.
Macimer felt a puzzled apprehension. He knew when he had last heard that voice.
The auto rental counters were bunched to one side of the escalators. They were brightly lit and sleekly plastic, with girls to match behind the counters. There were two pretty young women behind the Hertz counter. One was a blonde, a slightly plumper version of Erika Halbig.
“Yes, sir, may I help you?” Her teeth were so white and even they looked like caps.
“There’s supposed to be a message or something for me. Macimer. Paul Macimer.”
The girl’s mouth formed a small, soundless O. She peered under the counter, her smooth forehead wrinkling in a frown of concentration. The wrinkles smoothed out abruptly. “Here we are, Mr. Macimer!”
It was a gray envelope, about six by nine inches in size. His name had been printed on the front with a felt-tip marker in large, bold letters. Macimer thanked the Hertz girl and left the counter. He paused in a quiet corner to one side of the escalators. As he felt the thickness of the envelope, an instinctive caution prompted him to probe gently with his fingertips, searching for any unnatural bulges or the presence of wires. There were none. A letter bomb delivered in such a fashion seemed wildly improbable, but no more melodramatic than Timothy Callahan’s death.
Inside the envelope were a half-dozen glossy photographs. The focus had not been perfect and the images were grainy, but they were clear enough for their purpose.
More than clear enough, Macimer thought with chagrin. From the top photo Erika Halbig stared at him. The expression on her face was eager.
This picture had been taken from an angle looking over Macimer’s shoulder, revealing his back and Erika’s head and shoulders. She appeared to be looking directly into the camera’s lens. Two other photographs had been taken from the same camera position. In one of them Macimer had turned slightly toward the side. Erika’s arms were reaching around his neck, and her nude figure was plainly visible, pressing against him.
The remaining three pictures had been shot by another camera, apparently positioned high on the wall behind the white sofa in the Pook’s Hill apartment. In each of these there was a full view of the naked woman in the arms of the fully clothed man.
No problem identifying either of the principals, Macimer thought. And he certainly didn’t appear to be fighting her off, even if he did still have his clothes on.
He slid the photographs back into the gray envelope, feeling the heat in his face. Anger was rising, dominating the confused tumult of guilt and disgust and dismay.
He had been set up for blackmail by one of the oldest ruses of all, modern only in the sophisticated deployment of at least two sequence cameras—there were time lapses of an undetermined number of seconds between pictures—in the living room of the borrowed apartment. Other cameras, no doubt, had been positioned in the bedroom, carefully focused on the bed.
Macimer shook himself. The shock of the photographs had momentarily blotted out everything else. Even Linda.
He ran up the steps, bypassing the crowded escalator, taking the steps two and three at a time. Hurrying across the main level of the terminal, he saw that the crowd in the United waiting area for the Dallas-Phoenix flight had dispersed completely. The area was empty except for a single male flight attendant at the reception desk.
Macimer sought him out. He was young and handsome, his sculptured features those of a male model in a men’s fashion advertisement. “My daughter was boarding your flight 27 for Phoenix.”
“Yes, sir, those passengers are boarding the plane now.”
From the nearby expanse of windows Macimer stared across the hot tarmac. The last of the passengers from the shuttle bus were disappearing into the plane. He squinted against the glare. A slim young woman stepped from the bus into the plane. Not Linda. Macimer himself had picked out the gray slacks Linda was wearing. The woman he saw wore a skirt.
He went back to the counter in the waiting area. This time the attendant was less patient. He had folded up his clipboard and closed down the station. Macimer reached into his right-hand coat pocket with his left hand and produced the wallet containing his FBI badge and credentials. “I want to make sure my daughter is on that plane,” he said firmly. “Her name is Linda Macimer.”
“Yes, sir.” Flustered, the young man checked the flight sheet. “She checked in.”
“Are all the passengers aboard?”
“There’s only one missing, a Mr. Samuelson for Dallas. All the others are accounted for.”
Satisfied, Macimer thanked him and went back to the windows facing the runways. He waited until the plane eventually taxied slowly toward its assigned ramp. Five minutes later, as United flight 27 climbed steeply and began to bank in a wide turn toward the southwes
t, Macimer headed for his car in the parking lot. It was brutally hot inside the car and he thought of the men who had him under surveillance, wondering if they had waited in the hot sun as they had the day before, not risking a quick departure on his part that would leave them stranded.
Driving back toward Washington, he watched the road behind him. The divided highway was almost completely flat for long stretches. Traffic was heavier than on Friday, and he was unable to spot a tail.
* * * *
At the Washington Field Office, Macimer once again reviewed the plans for that night’s surveillance of the suspect Molter, glanced at the summary reports Jerry Russell had prepared for him on the general case load and went over the Brea case reports with Harrison Stearns. Nothing from Headquarters, he noted. No new directives, no summons to appear, not even a query about developments from the Director.
As soon as possible Macimer isolated himself in his office, told Willa Cunningham to hold any but the most urgent calls, and slowly read the summary report he had asked Agent Stearns to compile covering all known developments in the Brea affair. There was nothing in the review to surprise him; he had not expected any fresh revelations. What he was looking for was an overall perspective on the case, the appearance of a pattern, a way to reconcile elements that refused to go together. There was madness in Brea’s actions. How could that madness be part of the cool calculations of a widespread conspiracy of silence and suppression of evidence?
Macimer had never believed in the national post-Watergate paranoia about the government and everyone in it, a galloping cynicism that judged all politicians as venal or incompetent, and viewed agencies such as the CIA and the FBI as monster legions. What disturbed him more than anything else about the Brea file was that it reinforced all that distrust. No matter that the case was an aberration. There were over eight thousand FBI agents, men and women, and Macimer knew you would have a hard time finding even a handful among them who thought their FBI shields gave them a license to trample over the rights and lives of ordinary citizens. And Macimer had been stunned to discover there was even one who would commit murder to cover up his own betrayal of trust. Excesses of zeal there had been, disastrous errors of judgment for which the Bureau had justifiably taken its lumps, even the dirty tricks of COINTELPRO-but all of it together didn’t add up to a single murder, much less Brea’s record of carnage and betrayal.
The Brea File Page 28