Beware the Jabberwock (Post Cold War Thrillers)

by Chester D. Campbell

  He ate at the restaurant downstairs, then returned to the room and dialed the number for Freddie Young. Still no answer. Wide awake, his senses honed to a fine edge now, Burke came to a sudden decision. He would hit the road.

  He had no idea as to exactly where he was going. He only knew that he couldn't sit around all night and worry about Lori and do nothing. When he started out, he turned the old Buick northeast and soon found himself on Interstate 59 headed for Meridian, Mississippi.

  He still was not able to accept the reality to which all of the small signs kept pointing. During his years with the Bureau, he had seen firsthand how Hoover and similar men in lofty places would resort to extraordinary means to maintain their grip on power. But he had spent the past several years doing penance for his own role in those abuses. As a result, he had worked to mellow his view of the world, seeking to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, crediting them with decent motives until they proved otherwise. He saw it as the straightforward sort of approach that his mother would have taken. But his mother had never even dreamed of the sort of things he had encountered during the past few weeks.

  Burke had reawakened to the conniving nature that too many men of authority seemed to possess. It was like Cam Quinn had said; he'd been hidden away in the Smokies far too long. But he had quickly developed a new prudence in his approach to every new turn of the road. He was learning again to distinguish between illusion and the real thing. Yet there were still some possibilities that lay outside the realm of his belief.

  Even so, something in his subconscious seemed to be drawing him toward the northeast, where he would inevitably face a showdown between his hopes and the truth he would prefer to deny.

  By two a.m., he raced through a sleeping Birmingham. The troopers were mostly holed up in truckstops at this hour, enjoying their coffee and camaraderie with truckers and waitresses. Eighteen-wheelers ruled the road. He had no problems except when he would get caught behind a heavy-hauler trying to pass another on a hill. What his car lacked in looks, it made up in performance. Most of the time he had the cruise control set around eighty.

  By the time he reached Chattanooga, his destination had become clear. Home lay no more than a couple of hours up the freeway and off through the hills. Since he had made no effort to go anywhere near the Smokies for more than two weeks, he doubted that anyone would be keeping a close watch on the place. More likely they would have a static listening post, with someone coming around on schedule to change the tapes.

  The sun had just begun to peep over the crest of the mountains, a large red ball that cast long morning shadows across the wooded slopes, when Burke turned into the gravel road leading back to the Oakes house. He pulled up next to the weathered gray barn as he saw Ben walking back toward the house.

  The tall, lanky mountaineer stopped and stared at him as he stepped out of the car. "What the hell happened to your face, Burke?" His eyebrows arched like question marks.

  "I shaved off the beard. Didn't know whether you'd recognize me or not."

  "You sure look like a city dude now." The snicker might have been from a kid who had uttered a dirty word. "Where you been so long? I thought you'd a been back two weeks ago."

  "I'll tell you all about it one of these days," Burke said.

  "Granny's fixing breakfast. Why don't you come on in? I know you ain't got nothing to eat at your place."

  Burke knew he was hooked. You didn't turn down that kind of invitation from a neighbor. Anyway, he was hungry enough to put away more than his share of Granny Oakes' scrambled eggs, sausage, grits, huge biscuits and gravy. There would also be cantaloupe and sliced tomatoes just off the vine.

  A white-haired wisp of a woman with gnarled hands and a checkered, leathery face, Granny never sat down, of course. She busied herself cooking and bringing in hot coffee and hot biscuits and whatever else Burke, the two Oakes "boys," as they were called, Ben's three kids and his wife, Emma, might need. Emma tried to help as usual, and got only nasty looks for her efforts. Granny didn't hanker to have anybody else messing around in her kitchen when she was cooking. Emma, a stout, jolly woman with a strange, high-pitched voice, could do the dishes all she wanted.

  They didn't pry into Burke's business. It had taken the better part of the first year for these clannish mountain people to warm up to a strange new neighbor who came and went at all hours, sometimes spending days alone on the mountain trails. But after that first spring, when he had pitched in without reservation to help keep a flash flood from decimating their small cattle herd, they had accepted Burke as one of their own. They marveled at his collection of photographs and paid no attention when his camera froze them on paper as they went about their daily chores. But they couldn't hide their concern over the strange goings-on around his house since he had left on an "out-of-state assignment" several weeks ago.

  During breakfast, he told them a little about some of the exotic places he had been. The youngsters stared with eyes as big as a barn owl's as he described the sights of Israel and Hong Kong. Afterward, Ben and Hargis walked outside with him. When they saw his head shifting about with a searching gaze, Hargis inquired, "What you looking for?"

  "Where's Drum?" Burke asked. It wasn't normal to walk around the Oakes place without encountering the cold nose and wagging brown tail of the old blue tick hound. If you were a stranger, he would bark himself hoarse until one of the family silenced him.

  The faces of both men dropped and they half-bowed their heads.

  "Dead," said Ben in a mournful voice.

  "Dead? I didn't know he'd been sick. What happened?"

  "Hadn't been. Happened right after you called, week or ten days ago. He was sprightly as ever one night. Next morning he's stone cold dead. Had a little spot of blood on his neck. That's all. Not tore up like he'd been in a fight with some critter."

  "Sorry to hear that," Burke said. Not just because the hound was dead, but because of how he had died. That spot of blood meant a dart gun. And it meant someone had made a surreptitious invasion of the Oakes house to bug it. No doubt the pickup point was the same one that taped any sounds occurring at his house. "When's the last time you saw somebody around my place?" he asked.

  Hargis said, "Feller comes every other night, about sundown. We seen him look around the house, then go into the woods a minute and come back out. He don't go inside the house."

  "Will he be back tonight?"

  "Let's see...yep. He was here Monday."

  "Okay, guys. Thanks for the breakfast and for looking after things. I'm going over to get some clean clothes and my Jeep. Then I'll have to head out again. Not sure where I'll be going, but you'll hear from me sooner than two weeks this time. I promise."

  Ben looked over at the old Buick. "Want us to tow that wreck back in the holler where we junked our old truck?"

  Burke laughed. "No thanks. I think I'll keep it awhile yet."

  The house showed no sign of having been disturbed. He didn't bother looking for the transmitters. Let them listen to the crickets and the frogs and whatever else generated enough sound to actuate their tape machine. After he had packed what he needed into the Jeep, he locked up the house and drove into Gatlinburg.

  The small mountain resort town resembled a Bavarian village in many ways. Flowers abounded along the streets and in window boxes. Many of the buildings had a European flavor, and off the main street, the mountainsides were dotted with A-frames and rustic wooden homes. What differed from a mountain town in Germany was the spate of gaudy junk shops and attractions, and the choking summer traffic that crept slowly along the Parkway.

  Burke avoided most of the traffic by turning down River Road, where he parked at a motel whose manager was a friend. Then he walked up the hill to the bank. He saw Lars Olaffson, the manager, standing by a counter as he walked in. Lars looked at him, then did a double take.

  "Is it really Burke Hill?" he said, squinting through his thick glasses.

  "In the flesh," Burke said, "as opposed to behind the
fuzz."

  Lars, like a sizeable portion of Gatlinburg's relatively small cadre of permanent residents, was a fugitive from the snow belt. He had come down from Wisconsin for a visit one summer, fell in love with a local girl, and never went back. That the girl happened to be from one of the city's handful of founding families helped get him into the bank and into his present position. He was a lean, slightly hunched man who seemed to be as at home on skis or ice skates as in the expensive black Ralph Lauren shoes he wore.

  "Haven't seen you lately," said Lars. "Been on vacation?"

  "Out of town assignment," Burke said. "Just came back to pick up clean clothes and long green. I need to draw a few thousand out of savings."

  Lars pulled a form from a slot under the glass-topped counter. "Fill this out and we'll take care of it for you."

  As he wrote on the form, Burke asked, "Can I use your office to make a couple of long distance calls? On my credit card, of course."

  Lars grinned. "It had better be. The Feds've got us under a microscope these days. Got to account for every penny. Go on in whenever you like."

  Burke didn’t feel it necessary to add the card would be in the name of Clipper Travel. He closed the door to the office and sat behind the stylish Danish modern desk. He took out his appointments book and looked up Freddie Young's number.

  This time he got an answer.

  "This is Burke, Freddie. I called several times yesterday afternoon and last night, but nobody was home."

  "Sorry about that. I had an emergency. Took my wife to the hospital right after lunch. She was having stomach pains. They admitted her, said it was her gall bladder. They'll probably have to do surgery."

  "That's too bad," Burke said. "I hope she does all right. I imagine you were at the hospital late."

  "Yes, I stayed with her as long as I could. You're wanting to know about that Virginia number, aren't you? I heard from my friend up there this morning. Afraid I can't help you much. It was unlisted, all right, but he couldn't get any details. Said it was in a small area served by an independent company. The people are real close-mouthed and wouldn't give out anything. He said it wasn't generally known, but the company is owned by three top wheels in Pan West Industries, the big defense conglomerate."

  That got Burke's attention. "Did he mention the names of any of the phone company owners?"

  "Yes, he did, but I'm not sure I can remember them. Oh, one was the chairman of Pan West, fellow named Newman...Douglas...Donald, or something like that. The other two, I just don't remember." He chuckled. "They say memory's the first thing to go."

  So Blythe Ingram's boss was one of the owners of the little telephone company, Burke thought. A company that protected the sanctity of an anonymous number that automatically transferred calls God knows where. He recalled the large "N" that appeared on the tail of the jet that flew him to Nashville. "N" for Newman?

  He dialed Walt Brackin's office in Fairfax.

  "I wondered if something else had happened to you," Brackin said.

  "No, except that I've been on the road quite a bit. I've been trying to track down a few facts that might steer us in the right direction."

  "Well, I've learned a couple of unpleasant facts. Lori's assistant received a call from Mr. Elliott at Langley. He said not to worry, she was helping them out with a project that would require her to be out of touch for a few days. Then I've gotten a couple of more calls from the people who say they're holding her. I don't think they believed that I hadn't heard from you. The last time they threatened something bad would happen to Lori if you didn't contact them by the end of the day."

  Burke rubbed his forehead, washed by a new wave of concern. Was his certainty that she faced no harm really warranted? "Don't worry," he said. "I'll give them a call. Hold on a second and let me check something."

  Walt's mention of Mr. Elliott tripped a switch in his brain that had been on the verge of closing for some time. It concerned that phone number he had found on Oyster Island. He flipped through his book for Hawk Elliott's private line.

  "Just placed another piece of the puzzle," Burke said. "Remember the phone number I found on the pad in the office at Oyster Island? It's Hawk Elliott's private line. You can add him for certain to the list of bad guys. Did you say anything to Lori's assistant about any of this?"

  "No. I was afraid she might contact the police or FBI, and that would jeopardize Lori."

  “Good. I’d suggest you and your wife find a nice out-of-the-way motel and hole up until we can get this situation straightened out. You could be next on their list.”

  Burke ended the call and turned to the number for "Ben E. Factor." He studied it a moment, then dialed. A gruff, rasping male voice answered.

  "This is Burke Hill," he said. If there was to be any negotiating, he would at least attempt to achieve the upper hand. "I believe you have some information for me."

  "Yes, Mr. Hill, you've been keeping us waiting." The man sounded decidedly unhappy about it. "We have your friend, Lorelei Quinn. If you'd like her back alive, there are a few conditions attached. Number one, you must not mention Jabberwock, or anything you may have learned about it, to anyone for any reason. We have ways of knowing if you do. Second, you must submit to questioning by our people. We'll arrange a time and place."

  "Okay," Burke said, determined not to make it easy for them, "I have a few conditions of my own. I want to know definitely that you have Lori Quinn, and I want to know that she's unharmed. In other words, I want you to put her on the line and let me hear her tell me that she's all right."

  "Hold on a moment," the man said. There were sounds of voices in the background, unintelligible, and finally the man returned. "Here's Miss Quinn. She'll tell you that we haven't harmed her."

  "Burke?" Lori said. Her voice was clearly strained.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "Days are okay," she said. "The nights again are a problem."

  As he heard a voice in the background growl "Enough talk," Burke realized she was using the code they had discussed in Hong Kong. Otherwise her comment made little sense. She spoke the words in a conversational tone so that anyone listening, although they might think it a bit odd, would not guess it had an alternate meaning. He grabbed a pencil off Lars' desk and scribbled on the top sheet of a scratch pad—The nights again are a problem.

  The man was back on the line. "As you heard, she is being well taken care of. Now, tell me where you are and we'll set up a meeting."

  "Try again, friend. If I told you where I was, I'd be lying. Just like you'd be lying if you told me where you were holding Lori. Here's what we'll do. I'll be waiting in the main American Airlines gate concourse at Washington National Airport tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. Bring Lori with you so I can see her before we talk."

  "Don't be ridiculous," the man said in disgust. "We'll dictate the terms. We have Lori Quinn."

  "Yeah, and you want Burke Hill. You want to know what I know and who I've talked to. Okay, I'm willing to tell you, but this way I'll know your folks aren't coming armed."

  "Let me remind you, Hill, if you want Lori Quinn back alive, you'll do as we instruct."

  Burke ignored him, acting as though he hadn't spoken. "Think over my offer. I'll call you back."

  He hung up the phone. He fervently hoped he was not jeopardizing Lori. But he felt reasonably confident they wouldn't harm her as long as there appeared to be a chance of capturing him.

  He looked down at the sheet from the scratch pad. He recalled the rules for the code: starts after "the" and ends with a single "a"; use the first two letters of each word in the coded sequence; if the word following the "a" starts with a vowel, disregard the "a"; if it starts with a vowel and has only one syllable, use only the first letter of the last coded word. He underlined the designated letters on the sheet:

  “The nights again are a problem.”

  Niagara...the only Niagara he knew of was Niagara Falls, New York. She had to be telling him where they held her!

&n
bsp; As he hurried out the office door, Lars met him with a fat envelope. "Better be careful carrying this much cash around, Burke."

  "You can count on it, Lars. Thanks for use of the phone."

  An hour later he entered the Knoxville Public Library, located the reference collection and picked out a volume of biographies of prominent American businessmen. He thumbed through the "N" section until he found Donald W. Newman, chairman and CEO, Pan West Industries, Inc. The long article detailed the background to Newman's wealth, his takeover of the defense contractor and how he had built it into PWI, one of the nation's premier conglomerates. Like Wizcom's Franklin Wizner, he served on many Washington insider committees, institutes and boards, particularly in the fields of foreign relations and intelligence. The closing paragraphs of the article provided the details that mattered. Newman and his wife, the former Mary Evelyn Keynes, resided in a Southampton, Long Island mansion but spent much of their time at homes in Key Biscayne, Florida and Niagara Falls, New York.

  CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA

  Chapter 45

  The voice on the phone had the same harsh tone as the one he had heard that morning, like the man's vocal chords were made of coarse sandpaper. He hadn't thought about it earlier, but now he was almost certain. It was one of the voices he had heard at the house outside Nashville. The man in charge, the one called Richard.

  "This is Burke Hill," he said. "Have you decided to accept my offer?"

  From the sound of it, the man was barely managing to control his rage. The decibel level went up several notches. "This is your last damn chance, Hill. Unless you want Lorelei Quinn in a pine box, be in Washington, D.C. at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, in front of a row house on Twenty-Second Street."

  When he gave the number, Burke thought he recognized it as being in the George Washington University area, his old stomping grounds as a student in the fifties.