Beware the Jabberwock (Post Cold War Thrillers)

by Chester D. Campbell

  "He knows his business," Lori said. "But I think he goes around half the time with blinders on."

  The phone suddenly jangled on the bedside table.

  Lori picked up the phone and heard her godfather’s voice.

  "Lori, this is Sydney. I have just gone over the police report and spoken with the investigating officer."

  "What did you find, Uncle Sydney?"

  "Nothing helpful. The report states rather flatly that the cause of the accident was driving under the influence of alcohol. The car reeked with the odor. Of course, that of itself is hardly conclusive. An open, nearly empty bottle was found on the floor. The officer said it was dark and rainy, on a hill. There were no witnesses."

  "I still can't, won't believe he was drunk," she said sadly.

  "I know. I can't blame you. But it appears there isn't much chance of proving otherwise. The young lab chap was bothersome. Terribly nervous. But he had lost face. For a Chinese, that's disastrous."

  "The question is, was it his second blunder?" she said.

  "Yes. I know what you mean. If I turn up anything else, I'll get back to you."

  "Thanks, Uncle Sydney. You're a dear. Let's keep in touch."

  "By all means."

  Burke looked across as she hung up the phone. "No luck?"

  "No luck." She repeated what Pinkleton had told her. "What do you think really happened, Burke?"

  "I don't know. It might help if that damned Sam Allen was concerned enough to do a little follow-up checking."

  She made a sudden decision. "I'm going to call him."

  A few minutes later, she had Allen on the phone. "Were you aware that my father was being followed in Hong Kong by two Bulgarians?"

  "Negative," said Allen. "Who told you that, Burke Hill?"

  "No, Sydney Pinkleton, an old and valued friend of my father and I."

  "Don't get carried away with what the Brits tell you, Miss Quinn. From what I know of the case your father was involved in, there would be no reason whatever for any old East Bloc types to be interested in him. The SIS would like us to help them keep tabs on every petty little network they turn up around here. We've got more important things to do."

  "I should think you would want to do some follow-up to make certain there was no foul play involved in Dad's death. We asked for a re-check of the blood-alcohol test and found that the lab technician at the hospital had lost the rest of the blood sample."

  "He did, eh? I'm not surprised. There's a lot of incompetence around here. Look, Miss Quinn, I know it pains you to think about it, but Cameron Quinn was a hard-driving, hard-drinking case officer. A brilliant intelligence mind, to be sure. But he shouldn't have been running around the island at night, driving on treacherous, unfamiliar roads. He could have had a driver if it was official business. He pushed his luck one time too many. It happens to most of us sooner or later."

  Lori slammed down the phone, steaming. "I might as well have been talking to that door over there."

  Burke put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a reassuring hug. "It hasn't been a very good day all the way around, Lori. Let's go find some dinner and then try to get a good night's sleep. You have a lot of arrangements to make in the morning, and I've got a little business to attend to."

  Wherever it might lead, he had an obligation to Cam to go by the East Asia Bank on Queen's Road Central and see what Mr. Luk had for him.

  OYSTER ISLAND

  Chapter 24

  A summer storm had swept out of Mexico early on Monday morning, swiftly crossed the Gulf and lashed the coast east of New Orleans. Normally it would have pushed on up the Atlantic Seaboard and out into the ocean, but this one encountered a stubborn high pressure cell in the southern part of Alabama and Georgia and stalled out. It had steadily battered the Florida panhandle with wind and rain before beginning to subside around noon on Wednesday. The Jabberwock team had been confined to their quarters as the trees on Oyster island swayed perilously and an anxious Robert Jeffries checked periodically to make sure his Cherokee Lance was still securely anchored. Except for that, the storm did not overly concern him, as it gave him an opportunity to get most of the mountings completed for the truck's electronics. But Ted and Goldman fretted constantly over the delay in setting up the test firing.

  Blythe Ingram coolly observed the interplay between the group's personalities as the tedious hours stretched on. He equated it with an elastic band constantly strained toward the breaking point, liable to lash back at any moment. The team, he noted, was not really a team at all, despite the planners' hopes. It was three discrete individuals linked in a common enterprise. They appeared to work together adequately, but with no sense of camaraderie. He felt quite sure that under certain circumstances, they would be quite capable of turning on each other with the dispassion of a black widow spider devouring her mate. He wondered what went through their minds when they contemplated the destruction they planned. Then he had a sudden thought. Could it be much different than that faced by the launch crew in a Minuteman missile silo? They trained constantly to unleash a weapon that could incinerate thousands of people whose only crime was to have been born on the wrong side of the ideological tracks. If nothing else, this was certainly a unique experiment in group dynamics.

  To while away the hours there were playing cards available, a few board games, and a collection of old magazines. Some of the group played poker until they got tired of Sarge Morris winning. Overmyer's hair-trigger temper had exploded a few times, once when Sarge's shaky right hand accidentally turned over his ace in the hole. Only Naji Abdalla seemed unaffected by the enforced idleness. For Palestinians, it seemed, life had always been a waiting game.

  Abdalla was born on the West Bank of the Jordan, but his parents had fled during the Six-Day War in 1967. He had spent his formative years in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon, waiting patiently for the day when he would be old enough to carry a rifle and join a liberation band. "Freedom for our homeland" was the constant cry. Inshallah, it is the will of God. But it didn't take long for reality to set in. God had not endowed the leaders with great wisdom. Many were woefully incompetent. They wasted most of their energy and assets fighting among themselves. He shifted his loyalties from one group to another, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from the best. One wizened militant had made him an expert with a rifle, another with the 9mm Walther pistol. A Russian advisor showed him the intricacies of the AK-47, while a crafty old Arab taught him to become a lethal extension of the curved Bedouin knife and other weapons of close combat. Finally, he had broken with the organized bands and established himself as a one-man guerrilla force, available to the highest bidder. The KGB had found his talents particularly helpful.

  Abdalla no longer felt any burning desire to return to the West Bank. His parents had died; other relatives were scattered. He had lost faith in the PLO and its warring factions. He had also discovered a few previously unknown facts about his heritage. Now he moved at his own pace and took life as it came. A man of many faces, he doubted the current one was on file with any agency of the U. S. Government or its allies.

  The storm let up enough by Wednesday afternoon for Jeffries to crank up the Cherokee and fly to Panama City to pick up a few supplies and the mail. The Lone Star Network address in Dallas was actually a secretarial service that provided a mail drop. Its meager contents were periodically bundled into a larger envelope and forwarded to a pickup point in Panama City.

  When Ted opened the envelope that afternoon, he found what he had been waiting for. It was a letter from The Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. The Lone Star Network request to provide live television coverage of the American-Russian visit had been approved. Lone Star's request—drafted by Ted with assistance from Jeffries and typed on expensive, embossed letterhead—had pointed out that the President was a Texan, and that it supplied live feeds for independent stations across the state that lacked major network affiliation. The coverage would be provided by satellite transmission,
the uplink generated from a transmitter truck that would be parked a few blocks from the Toronto City Hall. The request for press credentials for three staffers was also approved. They were to pick up their badges at press headquarters in the Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street. Included was clearance from the Department of Communications to operate the truck in Canada.

  The letter of request had contained bogus identities for the team members, identities that would produce no questions in a standard national agency check in Washington. They would assume their new personas on leaving Oyster Island. Ted, who was a master of disguise, had been working with Overmyer and Richter to create new images that would ring no bells with security personnel. He went beyond facial changes, though, concentrating on modifications in stance and altering the overall silhouette.

  After Ted had finished reading the letter to the group, Jeffries glanced up at the clearing sky. "The forecast calls for this front to move out tonight," he said. "The truck is about ready. Can we get the firing set up for Friday morning?"

  Ingram nodded. "If we get sunshine tomorrow, it should dry things out."

  "Excellent," said Goldman. "That will give us a final week to polish up our procedures, run a practice firing or two and get things closed down here."

  HONG KONG

  Chapter 25

  "Where is it you have to go?" Lori asked as they dodged their way through the crowded hotel lobby the next morning. It was jammed with noisy American tourists sporting colorful plastic badges provided by a tour operator. A harried Oriental guide was doing his best to explain to a small breakaway group why they couldn't visit mainland China today.

  "I need to do a little banking," Burke said.

  "Do you need money? I can let you have some."

  "That's okay. Hang onto yours. We might need it later."

  The doorman started to motion for a taxi, but Lori dismissed him with a shake of her head. "Let's take the Star Ferry. It's just a couple of blocks from here. If you've never been on it, it's a real experience. You didn’t have a chance to see Hong Kong island last night. The ferry gives you the best view for a first time visit."

  They dropped their fares in the turnstile and walked up the ramp to where a green-and-white ferry boat was about ready to board. With one running every few minutes, there was never much of a wait. They found seats on a bench near the front and watched the spectacular skyline approach slowly across the harbor, a panoramic expanse of gleaming high rise office buildings and apartments stacked stair-step up the side of Victoria Peak.

  Viewing this gaudy display of the trappings of wealth left Burke pondering the widely-held belief that money could buy anything. Or, more properly, everybody and everything had its price. Last night, Lori had asked if it were possible that the Bulgarians had some connection with the accident that killed Cam Quinn. He recalled having a similar thought when he had first heard the news in Tel Aviv, but that was before the drunk driving angle had come up. Still, could it be that someone might have been hired to engineer an accident for Cam? It was a distressing thought, but not a problem to which he was a stranger. At the time he had gone undercover for the FBI, he completely cut himself off from his ex-wife and son, knowing if the Mafia ever penetrated his cover, they could be expected to send a hit man after his family. The price would be immaterial.

  Large clusters of cumulus hung over the bustling harbor like massive piles of shaving cream sprayed out by some waggish Oriental deity, temporarily masking the sun. And though the day was sure to be another scorcher, a cool sea breeze picked at Lori's long hair. In a short eight minutes they were thumping against the pier. The gates swung open, and they found themselves swept along as the scurrying passengers trooped ashore in the shadow of the giant Connaught Centre, where nearly two thousand round windows gave it the look of a tapestry of ship's portholes. Burke hailed a taxi in front of the terminal and directed the driver to the U. S. Consulate General on Garden Road. He dropped Lori there, then continued on to Queen's Road Central and the East Asia Bank.

  At the Trustee Department, he asked for Mr. Luk and was promptly ushered into a small conference room. It was furnished with an oval-shaped teak table surrounded by plushly upholstered chairs. Moments later, a smiling, soft-spoken Chinese entered and gave a slight bow.

  "Mr. Hill," he said, "how can I be of service?"

  Burke wanted to be sure he was dealing with the right man. "You're Mr. Luk?"

  "Yes. Were you referred by someone?"

  "I was told to give you this," Burke said, handing over the torn piece of currency.

  Mr. Luk glanced at the bill, then looked gravely back at Burke. "What I have for you is in a safe. Please wait here and I shall return shortly."

  He hurried out the door, leaving Burke to face a rather barren room and ponder what Cam Quinn had bequeathed him. Obviously it concerned Jabberwock, and he had been told in no uncertain terms to forget that mysterious business. But he had begun to harbor some serious misgivings about Cam's death, whether it might indeed have a connection to Jabberwock.

  Mr. Luk returned a few minutes later with a large sealed envelope. Written across the front in Cameron Quinn's distinctive scrawl was the instruction: "Open and read immediately."

  "My office is next door," said Mr. Luk. "I will be there if you need me."

  With that, he left the room and closed the door. Burke tore open the envelope and removed the lengthy letter, which covered several sheets of the Pearl Hotel's pale blue stationery. It was dated "Monday morning." He began to read:

  Burke:

  If you get this, it will mean, of course, that something has happened to me. After my experience with the Bulgarians yesterday, that is a distinct possibility. I hope to elude them when I leave here today, but the fact remains that they obviously know why I am here. They know that I called on Miss Amy Lee at the Causeway Bay Business Centre. I was not able to spend as much time with her as I had hoped, since she had previous commitments. But I plan to talk with her again this afternoon. I warned her not to mention what we talked about, in case anyone asked.

  She told me the man who placed the call to Berlin identified himself as Emerson Dinwiddie, a sales representative with Abercrombie & Cox in London. The firm and address were fictitious. She described him as tall, with dark hair, well dressed, spoke with a cultured English accent. He appeared to be thirty-five to forty years old, athletic. Her words were, "He looked like a boxer, light on his feet."

  As I told you on the phone, he mentioned coming here from Singapore, and he said he needed to call a man in Lahaina, though he didn't place the call from the Centre. I tried getting in touch with Toby Callahan in Kansas City, but he had the day off. You should call him and find out if our friend, Robert Jeffries, was in Lahaina on May tenth. That would pretty well tie them together, regardless of what happened to the call from Singapore to Kansas City.

  Burke stopped reading as Quinn's words triggered a sudden thought. Call forwarding. Couldn't Jeffries have set his phone in Kansas City to automatically forward calls to his hotel in Hawaii? Since NSA was intercepting the signal from Singapore, they probably would not have known the call did not stop in Kansas City as expected. If only he knew someone at NSA, he could check it out. But the more he thought about it, the more certain be became. That would also account for the caller from Singapore saying "I told you I would call in the morning." Although it was after noon in Kansas City, it was still morning in Hawaii. He read on:

  I'd almost be willing to stake my life on Shallit's reply to you today. No Jabberwock in the Mossad's files. This does not have the ring of an Israeli operation. Actually, it smells of the KGB, but I can't reconcile that with Robert Jeffries. The man in Berlin spoke like an American, too. Jeffries has to be the key.

  If I'm out of the way, Hawk Elliott will probably tell you to go fly a kite. You can try to convince him that you're making headway on the case and should be allowed to continue. It will likely be a losing battle. But please don't drop it! This thing scare
s the hell out of me, and Hawk is too involved with the Toronto-Washington summit to get overly concerned about it. The fact that it was my case could also cloud his judgment.

  I don't expect you to sacrifice everything for this investigation, Burke. There isn't much time anyway. Calculating from those intercepts, it sounds like their "D-Day" would be toward the end of the second week in June. There's a lot to be done and you'll need resources to do it. That's one reason I instructed you to read this letter now.

  A few years ago, when the Agency was at one of its low points in the wake of Watergate and the debacle in Iran, I was involved in a particularly sensitive operation with real promise of compromising a major KGB effort. The White House was reluctant to approve the necessary covert activities, and the DCI at the time didn't want to authorize spending the necessary funds to get the job done another way without some ironclad guarantees of success. We couldn't give that, of course. As we thrashed about trying to resolve the dilemma, I was contacted by a wealthy gentleman with a surprising knowledge of what was going on. He offered to put up the money. In short, we went ahead with the operation and it was a rousing success.

  We have remained in contact over the years, and he has made available a sizeable bank account to finance my activities when there's been a problem with Agency funds. He has also provided other assistance on occasion. I have scrupulously used the money only for Agency business. I did not want to be personally beholden to him, although he has never sought to take any personal advantage of our relationship.

  Last week, $100,000 was transferred to a special account at this bank. I talked with him just before I left and explained your role in this investigation. He agreed that you should have access to the account. Also, when you need his help, you can contact him at the phone number I have written at the bottom of this letter. I can't give you his name, but he will know you. I can tell you that the phone number is unlisted, a blind number from which your call will be transferred.