“I’ve spent my life working for the Company. I can’t give it up now.”
“What has it gotten you?” she cried. “I won’t turn my back on it, Stephanie.”
“Then they’ll kill you,” she said. “You’ll make a mistake. You’ll be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’ll trust someone you shouldn’t. They won’t keep missing. Sooner or later they will succeed.”
“Then you go,” he said gently. What did he feel toward her? His sense of responsibility and obligation clouded his inner thoughts.
“I’m not leaving, David,” she said, using his given name for the first time. “I meant what I said last night. I love you. I won’t abandon you. Let’s get out of here. Far away. Now. Together. Please!”
“I… I can’t,” McAllister said, the words choking in his throat, a heavy feeling in his chest. “I can’t just leave it.”
“You must! You can’t win, not against all of them!”
“I have to try.”
“Why?” she shrieked. “What are you trying to prove?”
“Someone set me up, someone is trying to kill me.” He was seeing Miroshnikov’s face swimming in a mist in front of his eyes. The Russian interrogator was smiling.
We have made great progress together, you and I. I am so very proud of you, Mac, so very pleased.
How could he ever forget the pain and the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of the Russians? Of one Russian in particular.
“They’ll keep trying, don’t you see that?” Stephanie cried. “It means I’m on the right track,” he said. Sweat popped out on his forehead.
Stephanie came across the room to him and hesitantly reached up and touched his face, his cheeks, his lips as if she were a blind person trying to learn what he looked like. “I had to try,” she said softly. “For you. For us. But I think I finally understand why you can’t turn your back on everything and run away. I could do it, but not you. It’s the Company. Your father. Your friends. Your obligations.. your wife.” McAllister closed his eyes. He could see Gloria’s face now, contorted into a mask of fury and hate, the gun in her hand. Traitor, she had screamed at him, and she had sincerely meant to kill him. The pain was almost beyond endurance. He had to know why. At least that much.
“I understand, darling, believe me I do,” Stephanie was saying. McAllister opened his eyes and reached for her, drawing her close. “Do you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, her heart beating against his chest. “Whatever you do I’ll stay with you. I won’t desert you, I promise.”
“And afterward?” he asked. “If there is an afterward?” She looked up at him. “That will be up to you,” she said. “But for now we have four names to follow up, four leads from the computer. It’s something.”
“Five,” McAllister said.
A look of confusion crossed her features. She glanced over at the computer printout on the table. “Four…,’ she started.
“There was something I didn’t tell you about last night,” McAllister said.
She looked up into his eyes, waiting for him to continue. She was shivering.
“The O’Haire file was restricted. Entry required a password. I tried zebra, spelled forward and backward, and I tried the word spies. Nothing worked. Finally, in desperation I used the only other word I could think of: Highnote.”
“That was the correct password?” McAllister nodded. “Oh, God.”
“Before I go after the other four, I’ve got to see him again.”
“No, David, I won’t allow that. Anything but that.”
“I must.”
“I can’t stand by and watch you commit suicide,” she said, pulling away. “Don’t you see that? It’s been Highnote all along. It has to be!”
“Then I’ll find that out.”
“No,” she cried.
“Yes. It’s the only way. Everything else would be meaningless. I must know.
Chapter 16
It was only a few minutes after six, yet it was already dark. Traffic on Langley’s Washington Parkway was heavy. The day shift at CIA headquarters had just let out. McAllister watched from where he was parked at the side of the highway three-quarters of a mile south of the Agency.
He was taking an enormous risk by being here like this. Stephanie had wanted to help, but in the end he convinced her that it would be much safer if he approached Highnote on his own. If anything went wrong, she would still be free. She could get to Dexter Kingman with the entire story. It was something at least.
Earlier when he had walked over to the parking ramp where they’d left the Chevrolet Celebrity they’d rented at Dulles in the name of Treffano Miglione, it had struck him that the city was decorated. Colored lights were strung across the streets, noel candles and brightly lit wreaths were hung on lightposts, and many of the store windows held elaborate displays. It was less than two weeks before Christmas. He’d forgotten completely about it, and with the realization came a sudden ache for something he’d never really had as an adult: a family, someone for whom Christmas would mean something.
At first he’d thought about telephoning Highnote, setting up another meeting like the one they’d had at the rest stop off the Interstate north of the city, but he suspected there would be monitors on all incoming calls now. Nor would it be safe to approach his old friend at home again. There was sure to be a surveillance team on duty out there.
Do the unexpected. His investigation had taken on a life of its own, sweeping him and Stephanie along, at times in an uncontrollable headlong rush; as if they were trapped in a small boat racing downstream toward a deadly waterfall.
He’d been watching in the rearview mirror as traffic from the northpassed beneath a tall sodium-vapor light a hundred yards back. A black Cadillac approached. McAllister looked up as it passed, recognizing Robert Highnote behind the wheel. He flipped on his headlights and pulled out into traffic, speeding up to get directly behind the Cadillac.
Highnote was alone. McAllister had counted on that, as he had counted on the fact that his old friend was a creature of habit who almost always took off work at six sharp and drove directly home. Despite the pressure the man had to be under because of recent events, he apparently was maintaining his schedule.
A couple of miles south, Highnote got off the Parkway at Arlingwood. McAllister held his position behind him for a half a mile until there was a break in traffic, then pulled out to pass.
As McAllister got alongside, he matched speed, glancing from the oncoming traffic over to Highnote, who after a moment, realizing that something was happening, looked over. His reaction, when it finally came, was one of incredulity.
McAllister smiled wanly, motioned for Highnote to follow him, then sped up, pulling in front of the Cadillac. His old friend had two choices now. He could either follow, or he could pull off at the nearest telephone and sound the alert. He knew the car now, and the license number.
The road split a mile later; south toward Arlington Heights, and east toward Falls Church. McAllister hung far enough back so that there was not enough gap between his and Highnote’s car for someone to pull between them. He turned east, Highnote remaining directly behind him, and he breathed his first sigh of relief. For now, at least, there was going to be no trouble. Highnote was apparently at least willing to listen.
The countryside here was hilly and very dark. Twenty minutes later it had begun to snow lightly as McAllister pulled into the parking lot of a small but elegant dinner club a couple of miles beyond Falls Church. The parking lot was half filled at this hour. It was just the sort of place he had been looking for, and had expected to find here. He parked in the back and got out of his car as Highnote pulled up and parked beside him.“I got your message,” McAllister said, as Highnote climbed out of his car. They stood facing each other.
“Where is Stephanie Albright?”
“Safe.”
“Then she is working with you?”
“You wanted to talk to me,” McAllister said. “I’m h
ere. let’s go inside.”
“Send her back. It’s not her fight.”
“Nor was it mine, Bob. At least it wasn’t until people started shooting at me. A lot of them, Russians and Americans. I think it’s time that we talk about the Zebra Network.”
“Then you did break the access code,” Highnote said, his complexion suddenly pale in the outside lights.
“An inspired guess,” McAllister said. “Let’s go inside.” The supper club had once been a large house. To the right of the entry hall were the separate dining rooms, large windows looking down into a steep valley garden. To the left was the barroom. They took a leather booth at the back. Forties music was playing from the jukebox.
After the waiter brought them drinks, McAllister sat back with a cigarette and looked across at his old friend. Whom to trust. Always, always it came down to that in the end. The older he got the harder that question became to answer.
“How’s Gloria?” McAllister asked. “Confused,” Highnote said, sipping his martini. “We don’t have much time here tonight, I suspect, so let’s not bullshit each other. How is Gloria holding up?”
“She’s written you off,” Highnote said coldly. “If that’s what you really wanted to hear.”
Something clutched at McAllister’s heart, though the response had not come as a total surprise. Their marriage had been over years ago, he supposed. This now was merely a last excuse. Yet it hurt. “And you? Have you written me off as well?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Highnote said. “I must say that you’ve done a lot better than I thought you would.”
“What’s going on?“ Highnote’s right eyebrow rose. “Exactly the question I want to put to you. We found poor Janos. Was that necessary?”
“I didn’t kill him,” McAllister said. “That should have been obvious. If you want an ID on those two bodies, I can give it to you.”
“What two bodies?” Highnote asked with a straight face. “One in the driveway, the other back up in the woods, about a hundred yards off the road.”
Highnote shook his head. “There was some blood beside the driveway; O-Positive, your blood type I believe, and some tire marks. No bodies other than Janos’s.”
McAllister closed his eyes. The Mafia had sent two hired guns out to question Sikorski. When they didn’t return someone else would have gone out to check on them. That was logical. But it still didn’t answer the question of who had tortured Sikorski if they hadn’t.
“Someone has set me up for the kill,” he said, opening his eyes. “The Russians.”
“Why?”
“Our best guess is that you are a project gone bad for them.”
“You know damned well that I did not work for the O’Haires,” McAllister said.
“They named you.”
“Then somebody got to them!”
“The whole world is wrong and you’re right, is that it?” Highnote asked, leaning forward. “I don’t know what happened to you in the Lubyanka, and I don’t think you do either, but I believe that you were set up-brainwashed, if you will-to come back here and wreak havoc.”
“Then why are the Russians trying to kill me?”
“Because I think they lost control of you. And if you were brought in, and the secrets that are locked inside your brain were released, you would prove to be a very large embarrassment.”
“Then I’m an innocent victim…?”
“No,” Highnote snapped. “I think you worked with the O’Haires all along, and when the network fell the Russians arrested you, hoping to throw off any suspicions about you. While they had you, they decided to play their little game. Nice friends.”
“You believe that, Bob?” McAllister asked. “I don’t know what else to believe.”
“Why? Where are my motives?”
Highnote lowered his eyes and shook his head. “That’s the damndest part of it all, Mac. I just don’t know.” He looked up. “Burn-out? Gloria told us that you’d been acting strangely ever since you’d been assigned to Moscow. Maybe you saw what you took to be the futility of the business. Maybe you thought your father had wasted his life. He did kill himself, after all. I don’t know, but it happens sometimes to the best of them.”
McAllister fought back the one memory of his father that he had never allowed into his consciousness. Shame? Fear? Whatever, he had avoided thinking about it for a very long time.
“Why was the message sent to me? That’s what the business with my name and false description was all about, wasn’t it?”
“It was Dexter Kingman’s idea. He thought it might flush you out. And it did.”
“Yes,” McAllister said. “It did. So here we are, talk to me.”
“Do you want it straight?” McAllister nodded.
“let Stephanie Albright come in. Nothing will happen to her, I promise you.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
“There is nothing I can do for you, Mac,” Highnote said, his voice low. “Put a bullet in your head. End it now. It would be for the best.”
McAllister shivered. “Is that your advice?”
“James O’Haire was Zebra One here in Washington, and you were Zebra Two in Moscow. It’s my guess Voronin was warning you that your identity had been discovered. I looked up his track. He had been in a position to know such things.”
“That’s how you see it?”
“Yes,” Highnote said. “You got into the computer to find out if we suspected you. Well, you know by now that we did not, although sooner or later we would have caught on to you.”
McAllister’s head was spinning. Nothing made any sense. Nothing was real. Yet there was an internal logic to what Highnote was telling him. Except that the Russians had arrested him and then inexplicablyreleased him after the trial to make the CIA believe that he indeed was the O’Haires’ control officer in an effort to protect the identity of the real man or men. Still there was one man in Moscow and one here in the United States.
“The last time we talked I asked you to consider the possibility that I was telling the truth, and that I had been set up.”
“I considered it, Mac, believe me. And I came to the conclusion that you are telling the truth so far as you know it. But can you tell me exactly what happened to you every moment you were being held in the Lubyanka?” Miroshnikov’s face swam into view. The barroom suddenly seemed very warm and close.
“I can see that you cannot. They are sophisticated, Mac. You know the drill. They had you for more than a month. They could have done anything to you. Anything at all. Turn you into anything they wanted. Turn you into their creature, even.”
“But what if that’s not the case?” McAllister insisted. “Give me that much at least. Give me that consideration, just for the sake of argument.
“Go on,” Highnote said after a moment.
McAllister ran a hand across his eyes. “I was a thorn in their side in Moscow so they arrested me and subjected me to a month of interrogation. And believe me, Bob, it is an experience that you would never forget.”
“Why were you released?”
“I think there are two possibilities. The first is that they had made their point. They’d caught an American spy, they’d tried him and found him guilty, and at that point he was of no further real value to them, so they simply released him.”
“They had your confession,” Highnote said. “You named all of your old network people. Times, places, operations. Everything.”
“The second is that it was a mistake. Whoever was in charge of my case hadn’t been given all the facts. Zebra One and Two meant nothing to my interrogator. But someone else could have listened to the tapes, read the manuscripts. Perhaps too late they realized that I was being released.”
“So, thinking that you knew more than you really did, this unknownRussian ordered your assassination in New York before you could cause any damage. Is that what you’re saying to me?”
“Either that or he told his American counterpart about me, and my assassination
was ordered locally. And it didn’t stop there. They were Russians waiting for me outside your house, but they were Americans at your sailboat and there were two men out at Sikorski’s. Possibly Mafia.”
“We found no bodies.”
“Someone came out and cleaned up the mess before you got there.”
“Zebra One and Two are still in place, if I’m to believe you. One man here in Washington and one man in Moscow. Probably someone within the Agency. Someone we both know, and trust.”
“That’s right,” McAllister said. “But there’s even more to it than that.”
Highnote’s eyebrows knitted. “I’m still listening, Mac.”
“I didn’t kill Janos, but neither did the two I had the shootout with.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know. Janos had been dead for at least a day and a half. Before the snowfall. There were no tire marks in or out of his place.”
This news more than anything else seemed to affect Highnote the most. He sat back in the booth a deep, pensive look on his face. “If I believe you, Mac, and I’m not saying I do, it would mean that there is a third party at work here. Someone not connected with your penetration agent.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I mean, can you explain the logic to me?”
“No,” McAllister said heavily. “But if I’m not telling the truth, for whatever reason, then my lies are very elaborate. Too elaborate. And for what reason?” We have made great progress together, you and I. I am so very proud of you, Mac, so very pleased.
Can you tell me exactly what happened to you every moment you were being held in the Lubyanka?
Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. “I don’t know if there is anything I can do for you, or should. Too much has happened. If you had turned yourself in at the beginning it might have been different. But now, I just don’t know.”
The Zebra Network Page 20