Beware the Jabberwock (Post Cold War Thrillers)

by Chester D. Campbell

  Once in his room, he placed a call to the Acapulco Princess Hotel. It was obvious from the intercepted telephone conversation that Jeffries was involved in the Jabberwock training. The vacation in Acapulco could be a ruse. His family might be in Acapulco, but Burke did not expect to find Jeffries there. When the Princess operator answered, he asked for Jeffries' room. He wasn't sure what he would say if he got Jeffries on the line, but a boy answered.

  "Could I speak with Robert Jeffries?" Burke asked.

  "He isn't here," the boy said.

  "Is he somewhere I could reach him now?"

  "No, sir. He won't be here until late this afternoon."

  That didn't really tell him anything. Jeffries could be out fishing, playing golf, seeing the sights, and not get in until late afternoon. If he was not in Acapulco, the boy had probably been told not to reveal the fact. What would he do if he got a question he didn't expect? Burke decided to give it a try.

  "Is he flying in from New Orleans?"

  "Uh...uh...no!" the boy said a little too vehemently. "You'd better talk to my mother."

  "That's okay, son," Burke said. "I'll catch him later."

  It was enough to justify a trip to New Orleans in search of a blue Piper Cherokee Lance from Kansas City.

  He pulled the bulky yellow pages book out of the bedside table and looked up security consultants and equipment. Finding an advertisement for one that appeared to have what he wanted, he drove into Baltimore, searching out a business called Hi-Tek Security. He bought two devices, one to ferret out hidden transmitters or "bugs," the other to flood any microphones present with distorted sound, without affecting normal conversation nearby. Now he was ready to call on Lori Quinn. But the gadgets, though small, were costly, using up the rest of his cash.

  Locating a bank nearby, he presented one of his cashier's checks to a teller. "Can you cash this for me, please? It's on a Hong Kong bank."

  The lady scrutinized the check, then looked back at Burke. "Do you have some identification?"

  He wished he had thought to have the checks made out to Douglas Bell. He realized he’d been out of the business too long. He had to start thinking like an agent again if he was going to survive. He fished out his regular driver's license, which showed him with a full beard, and handed it to the teller, along with a letter Mr. Luk had provided on East Asia Bank stationery. The letter invited any banker to telephone him regarding the check, either at the bank or at home after banking hours.

  "I'll have to check this out with a bank officer," she said. "I'll be right back." She took the check and documents and walked over to a cubbyhole at one side of the lobby.

  A few moments later, an attractive woman in a stylish beige suit, looking every inch the consummate lady banker, came out and approached Burke.

  "I see you're from Tennessee, Mr. Hill," she said, smiling. "What are you doing in Baltimore?"

  "I'm a photographer. I'm on an assignment up here. I did a job for the bank in Hong Kong but haven't been back long enough to cash the check."

  She glanced down at the driver's license and then back at Burke.

  "I guess you noticed I've shaved off the beard," he said with a smile. "I have an artist friend who says every artist and photographer has to try a beard sometime. I think I had mine long enough."

  She smiled back. "I believe I prefer you without the beard, Mr. Hill. Where are you staying in Baltimore?"

  Now he wished he had registered in his correct name. If she were to call the motel, she would find no Burke Hill among the guests. "I just got here," he said. "I could use a recommendation."

  She nodded and gave him the name of a nearby motel.

  "Thanks. Incidentally, if you have any problem about the check, Mr. Luk said please call him. I'll be happy to pay the phone charges."

  The bank officer glanced at her watch. "Do you know what time it would be over there?"

  "I believe there's a twelve-hour time difference." His smile suddenly faded. "Oh, oh. That would make it a little after three in the morning. But I'll swear he said call him any time, day or night."

  She shook her head. "I wouldn't do that to him. Let me check my directory and see which bank would have a relationship with them. I'm sure it's all right, but with the Fed looking over our shoulder these days, we can't be too careful." She started toward her desk. "Come on over and have a seat. It won't take long."

  Fifteen minutes later, he walked out with the five thousand in cash. He wasn't too happy with all the attention he had attracted. Not that there was much likelihood of anyone coming to look for him at a bank in Baltimore. But this woman would undoubtedly tell her friends about the unusual request she had taken care of today. The more people talked, the more chance of someone with the right knowledge picking up a few details that fit in with something else. That was the classic way cases wound up getting solved.

  But right now he was too worn out to worry any longer. It seemed that he had been traveling forever.

  ATLANTA

  Chapter 27

  Jeffries' Cherokee Lance departed Oyster Island early on Friday afternoon and made a brief stop at Tallahassee to drop off Golanov. The Russian promptly boarded a flight for Atlanta, arriving at Hartsfield International Airport within the hour. Strolling out from the gate area, he found himself immersed in a steadily flowing tide of humanity as the end of the work week brought businessmen and women thronging toward flights back to their home bases. He hadn't been through Atlanta in years and had forgotten how crowded it could be. Walking along the main concourse, he followed the signs that directed passengers toward the escalator leading down to the subway linking the various terminals.

  Everyone was in a rush, thought Golanov, their faces mostly masks of indifference. But he cast a wary eye over them all, alert for any sign of interest in himself. A stocky black man with a thin mustache, dressed in a dark blue business suit and carrying an attaché case, failed to attract his attention, however, but for a very good reason. The man had already walked past him in the opposite direction before doing a double take.

  Terry Packer, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office, realized the face he had just seen was ringing a small warning bell in his memory bank. He needed only an instant to put a name to it: Andrei Golanov. He remembered Golanov from his assignment in New York a few years before, when his responsibility had involved keeping tabs on KGB men in the Soviet UN delegation. Packer quickly glanced about to see if he could spot any agents tailing the Russian. He saw none.

  He hurried after the retreating figure, now approaching the escalator. Damn! He was nearly late for a flight to Washington, where he was expected for a meeting in the Director's office an hour after landing at National Airport. Could Golanov be here legitimately? With this glasnost business, you were never sure anymore. He knew the KGB had sent people over here for meetings with their American counterparts on terrorism, and God knows what else. They were sure to have a team coming in advance of the summit. But he had no idea what Golanov's current assignment might be.

  He didn't want to approach too closely. He was fairly positive the Russian had paid no attention to him when they passed, but a second look now would be a certain danger signal. He moved to the side, out of the stream of passengers, and reached into his attaché case for a small hand-held radio.

  "This is Packer," he said quickly into the radio. "Do we have anyone here at Hartsfield?"

  "Alvarez here, Terry," came the reply. "I'm in B Terminal."

  Alvarez was a Cuban from Miami. One of the Atlanta office's better agents. "You on a surveillance, Alvarez," he asked, "or can you take an assignment?"

  "I can handle it. What you got?"

  "Get down to the subway and watch for a white male, six-one, a hundred-eighty pounds, dark hair, green shirt, green-checked leisure slacks. He's a Soviet agent. He'll be coming your way from C Terminal. Keep him in view while I call and see if he's hot."

  "Roger, on my way," Alvarez said.

  Pack
er swung his head back and forth like a panning TV camera, searching for a telephone. His frown deepened as his field of view momentarily locked onto a digital clock display. If he was late getting to Washington, the Director would just have to understand. He wasn't about to let some hotshot KGB spy wander through his territory without a challenge. He didn't buy all that bullshit about the end of the Soviet threat. The Komitet was, if anything, even busier now than before.

  Golanov ran to board the train just before the doors slammed shut. The brightly colored seats caught his attention immediately. He wondered if it were a deliberate attempt to deflect people's consciousness from the frenetic rat-race of an existence they had to suffer through in this so-called land of milk and honey. And the capitalists used to accuse us of mind control, he recalled with a touch of irony.

  The car was full of travel-weary passengers who had found just enough energy for a horse race toward the available seats. Golanov remained aloof from the jaded herd, standing calmly near the rear door. The subway quickly glided along the rails to the accompaniment of a lifeless digital voice warning about doors closing and calling out the next stop.

  The car paused briefly beneath B Terminal, letting off a few passengers and gathering in another flock. Then the doors slid shut and it picked up speed heading for the final stop at A Terminal.

  Alvarez rushed out onto the platform just in time to see the tail end of a car headed for the last terminal. He had been some distance from the escalator when Terry Packer called, requiring a sprint through the terminal reminiscent of a scene from an old TV commercial. And though he had early on learned to run fast enough to stay out of trouble in a Miami barrio, he wondered if it had been fast enough this time. It left him with nothing but questions. Had that car been the one with the Russian? Should he take the walkway that paralleled the tracks? What if the KGB agent were on the next train and got off at B Terminal? He decided his best bet would be to board the train now headed this way. If the man dressed in green were not on it, he would make a quick search of the A Terminal area.

  Golanov stepped off the subway and took the escalator up. He had intended to stop at the car rental counters and arrange for a small, inconspicuous Japanese import, but with a sudden burst of caution, he walked straight out to the taxi stand and hopped into the first available car. He asked the driver if he knew of a car rental agency outside the airport.

  "Sure. There's one at a hotel not far from here, just beyond the airport boundary."

  "Good. Let's go there," Golanov said.

  At the hotel, he signed up at the rental desk, took the keys and strolled out to the parking area to find the Toyota Corolla he had been assigned. He noticed the fresh, new car smell, but wasn't familiar with what it meant. Inside the car, he checked his map and found the motel Captain Makarenko had specified. It was a few miles away off the I-285 By-Pass.

  Carefully observing the posted speed limit, he watched the cars whizz past as he drove toward the designated exit. Americans and Germans, he mused, drove like their highways were race tracks. When he arrived at the motel, he asked the desk clerk if there were any messages for Andrew Goldman.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Goldman. Your wife has already registered. She left this." He handed over an envelope.

  Golanov walked away from the desk, frowning as he tore open the envelope. He looked inside and found a key to room 307, along with a note that said, "Come on up. Margo."

  He questioned her having registered them as man and wife, but it wouldn't be his first operation where such a partnership had been used. He took the elevator to the third floor, then walked cautiously down the empty corridor to 307. He stopped, wondering for a moment if he should knock, then inserted the key and opened the door. The room was in semi-darkness, with only a halo from around the drapes providing any illumination. His body tensed, his senses suddenly at maximum alert.

  "Don't just stand there, Mr. Goldman, come on in," said Katya Makarenko's sexy voice.

  He closed the door and walked in, his eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the low light. As he moved closer, he caught the scent of her perfume, a delicate aroma he hadn't experienced before. Then he stopped, frozen still by what he saw. It was the outline of a figure beneath the bedcovers, a pair of bare arms on top and a blonde head lying on a pillow.

  Golanov frowned. "What the hell—?"

  "There's plenty of room here, Andrei love," she cut him off, pushing the cover down to reveal two full white breasts with erect pink nipples. "You're wasting precious time."

  Golanov moved to the side of the bed and stared at the fullness of her body, naked from the waist up, then at the attractive, smiling face.

  "This is most unprofessional, Captain Makarenko," he began, attempting to sound harsh, though not succeeding at all well.

  "Oh, loosen up, Andrei. We can be professional later. We're thousands of miles from Moscow. In enemy territory, you might say. Play like a good soldier the night before heading for the front. Obey your impulses."

  Golanov hesitated, but he made the mistake of sitting on the side of the bed. Katya grabbed one of his arms and pulled him toward her parted lips. She was well aware that with his superior strength, he could easily pull away. But she also knew it was too late for him to make a rational consideration of his options.

  It didn't take Agent Alvarez long to realize that he had missed his man. Finding no one fitting the Russian's description near the A Terminal subway platform, he raced up the escalator and quickly swept the area with a searching gaze. Nothing. He collared every airport employee he could find and asked if they had seen the man in green. Finally, a maintenance worker said he thought he remembered someone like that going out toward the taxi stand.

  He suddenly realized that Terry Packer was frantically calling him on the radio.

  "This is Alvarez," he said, nearly out of breath.

  "Do you still have him in sight? I just got word nobody officially knows he's in the country."

  "Sorry, Terry," Alvarez said. "I missed him. He must have been on the train that had just left when I got down there. I've located an employee who thinks he saw him heading for the taxi stand."

  "Damn, damn." Packer muttered the obscenity, then realized it was hardly proper procedure on the radio. "I'm supposed to be on a plane to Washington. I'm having a photo faxed to the office. Get some more men out here with pictures and hit every cab driver in the area. This is your case, Alvarez. Don't blow it. I'll be in touch as soon as I get to Headquarters."

  Andrei Golanov lay on his back, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  "You are a witch, Katya," he said, turning toward her, the look of surrender on his placid face.

  She buried an elbow in the pillow and propped her head up on her other hand, her attractive face wreathed with a smile of success. It was Andrei she had wanted all along. She had only gone to bed with his boss in Moscow in an attempt to coax some positive reaction out of Andrei. Reveling in the moment, she spoke softly. "Aha, I've got you under my spell."

  He exhaled an audible sigh. "You'll get no argument from me on that." He reached over to gently draw a ring around a soft nipple. It went suddenly taut.

  She moaned delightedly. "You were as fabulous as I knew you would be, Colonel Golanov."

  He suddenly tensed. Instantly, she knew she had blundered, said the wrong thing.

  Andrei Golanov's priorities were firmly fixed. In one swift, effortless move, he sprang up in the bed, almost like a soldier at attention, a stern look on his face.

  "Thank you, Captain Makarenko, for reminding me that we have a duty to perform." His voice was cool and businesslike. He swung his legs over the side. "Go get your shower, comrade. When we're ready, we'll find a suitable restaurant, have dinner, and I'll brief you fully on the week's activites."

  Duty be damned! His dedication could be maddening. She sat up and looked across longingly at the trim, muscular body. "Will you come back and spend the night with me, Andrei?" There was a plaintive quality to her voice.

 
He turned and smiled. "As the capitalists say, business before pleasure."

  He made a lucky choice of restaurants, a rustic barn of a place that made up in food quality what it lacked in the fancy trappings of its more upscale competitors. Its chief feature was a mammoth open charcoal grill located between the dining area and the kitchen. As with most any eating place on a Friday night, it was crowded. The lights were so dim it seemed almost a gimmick to save on the power bill. They had difficulty reading the menu, but took this was as a plus, along with the fact that the tables were not jammed closely together. Theirs sat in a corner of the room, eliminating the possibility of anyone being seated to either side, or behind them. All in all, Golanov was rather pleased.

  He needed only a cursory glance at the menu. He was ravenously hungry. The smoky aroma wafting across from the open grill heightened his appetite for food the way Katya's body had stimulated his appetite for sex. Add to that another week of Sarge Morris's army-style cooking, and he found himself in the mood for a thick prime rib floating in its juice, something he had cultivated a taste for during his previous years in the West.

  Watching Katya as she studied the menu, he knew he could no longer deny the irresistible force that seemed to pull them together like a magnet. He was attracted by women with backbone. He liked the firm set of her jaw, the determination in her eyes. There was a sense of inner strength about her that contrasted sharply with the softness of her physical beauty.

  She looked up and smiled. "I'll try the stuffed flounder," she said. "With white wine."

  He could have predicted as much. Katerina Georgevna Makarenko was a native of Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea just north of Poland. She had been raised on seafood. But despite its Baltic roots, her home was not a part of the rebellious republics. Kaliningrad was the old East Prussian city of Konigsberg. It lay south of Lithuania in a small detached enclave of the former Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Her father was a plant manager sent from Moscow, and she had been nurtured in an abiding love for a benevolent Mother Russia. The fact that she had been chosen to take part in Jabberwock attested to her commitment to a strong KGB and a traditionally communist Soviet state.