And all the while, whenever I looked toward the head of the conference table, Bill Stearns seemed to be looking at me.
Soon the meeting began to take on that accelerated rhythm that always indicates we’ve got less than a half hour left. Richlin and Kinney were locked in some sort of gladiatorial struggle over the course of Kinney’s corporate litigation involving Viacorp, a huge entertainment concern in Boston, and I was still trying to clear my head of all the babble, when I heard Stearns adjourn the meeting, rise quickly from his seat, and stride out of the room.
I ran to catch him, but he continued a brisk pace down the hallway.
“Bill,” I called out.
He turned around to look at me, his eyes steely, and did not break his stride. He deliberately, it seemed, was keeping a good physical distance between us. The jovial Bill Stearns was gone, replaced by a man of severe, frighteningly intent demeanor. Did he, too, know? “I can’t talk to you now, Ben,” he said in a strange, peremptory voice I’d never heard him use before.
* * *
A few minutes after I returned to my office, a call was put through from Alexander Truslow.
“Jesus Christ, Ben, is this something important?” His voice had that odd, flat tone that a scrambler imparts.
“Yes, Alex, it is,” I said. “Is this a sterile line?”
“It is. Glad I thought to bring the device with me.”
“I hope I didn’t call you out of a meeting with the President or something.”
“Actually no. He’s meeting with a couple of his Cabinet members on something to do with the German crisis, so I’m cooling my heels. What’s up?”
I gave him an abbreviated account of what had happened in “Development Research Laboratories,” and, as sparely as I could, I told him about what I was now able to do.
A long, long pause ensued. The silence felt infinite. Would he think I’d lost my mind? Would he hang up?
When he finally spoke, it was almost in a whisper. “The Oracle Project,” he breathed.
“What?”
“My God. I’ve heard tales—but to think—”
“You know about this?”
“God in heaven, Ben. I knew this fellow Rossi was once involved in such an undertaking. I thought … Jesus, I’d heard they’d had some success, that it worked on one person, but the last I heard, Stan Turner had shot the whole project down, quite some time ago. So that’s what he was really up to. I should have known there was something fishy about Rossi’s story.”
“You weren’t informed?”
“Informed? They told me this was a regulation flutter. You see what I meant when I told you that something’s afoot. The Company’s out of control. Dammit all, I don’t know who the hell I can trust anymore—”
“Alex,” I said. “I’m going to have to sever my links with your firm entirely.”
“Are you sure, Ben?” Truslow protested.
“I’m sorry. For my safety, and Molly’s—and yours—I’m going to have to lay low for a while. Stay out of sight. Cut off all contacts with you or anyone else associated with CIA.”
“Ben, listen to me. I feel responsible—I’m the one who got you involved in all this in the first place. Whatever you decide to do, I’ll respect your decision. Part of me wants you to press on, to see what these Agency cowboys want from you. Part of me wants to tell you to just head up to our weekend place and hide out for a while. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I don’t know what the hell has happened to me. I still haven’t fathomed it. I don’t know if I ever will. But—”
“I have no right to tell you what to do. It’s up to you. You may want to talk to Rossi, suss out what he wants from us. Perhaps he’s dangerous. Perhaps he’s merely overzealous. Use your judgment, Ben. That’s all I can tell you.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll think it over.”
“In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do—”
“No, Alex. Nothing. Right now there’s nothing anyone can do.”
As I hung up, another call came in.
“A man named Charles Rossi,” Darlene announced over the intercom.
I picked it up. “Rossi,” I said.
“Mr. Ellison, I’m going to need you to come in as soon as possible and—”
“No,” I said. “I have no arrangement with CIA. My arrangement was with Alexander Truslow. And as of this minute, the arrangement is over.”
“Now, hold on a second—”
But I had hung up.
NINETEEN
John Matera, my Shearson broker, was so excited he could barely get his words out. “Jesus,” he said. “Did you hear?” We were speaking on Shearson’s recorded line, so I said innocently, “Hear what?”
“Beacon—what happened to Beacon—they’re being bought out by Saxon—”
“That’s terrific,” I said, feigning excitement. “What does that mean for the stock?”
“Mean? Mean? It’s already up thirty fucking points, Ben. You’ve—you’ve like tripled your money, and the day’s not even over yet. You’ve already raked in over sixty thousand dollars, which ain’t half bad for a couple hours’ work. Christ, if you could’ve bought call options—”
“Sell it, John.”
“What the fuck—?”
“Just sell, John. Now.”
For some reason I didn’t feel elated. Instead, I felt a dull, acid wave of fear wash over my insides. Everything else I’d been through in the last few hours I could on some level dismiss as my imagination, as some sort of terrible delusion. But I had read a human being’s mind, had thereby learned inside information, and here was the concrete evidence of it.
Not just for me, but for anyone else who might be watching me. I knew there was a serious risk that the SEC would be suspicious of such a quick turnover; but I needed the cash, and I let it get the better of my good sense.
I gave him quick instructions on what to do with the proceeds, which account to place it in, and then I hung up. And called Edmund Moore in Washington.
* * *
The phone rang, and rang, and rang—there was no answering machine; Ed Moore had always considered such contraptions gauche—and when I was about to hang up, it was answered by a male voice.
“Yes?”
The voice of a young man, not Ed’s. The voice of someone in a position of authority.
“Ed Moore, please,” I said.
A pause. “Who’s calling?”
“A friend.”
“Name, please.”
“None of your business. Let me speak to Elena.”
In the background I could hear a woman’s voice, high and keening, her cries rising and falling rhythmically. “Who is it?” the woman’s voice called out.
“She’s unable to come to the phone, sir. I’m sorry.”
In the background the cries became louder, then became words: “Oh, my Lord!” and “My baby. My baby” and a loud, anguished gasping.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.
The man covered the phone, consulted with someone, and then came back on the line. “Mr. Moore has passed away. His wife discovered him just a few minutes ago. It was a suicide. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
* * *
I was stunned, almost speechless.
Ed Moore … a suicide? My dear friend and mentor, that diminutive, feisty, and, above all, enormous-hearted old man. I was too dazed, too shocked, even to shed the tears for him I knew I would.
It couldn’t be.
A suicide? He had talked about vague threats against him; he had feared for his life. Surely it was no suicide. Yet he had seemed so disoriented, even unbalanced, when we spoke.
Edmund Moore was dead.
It was no suicide.
I called Mass. General and had Molly paged. I trusted her good sense, her sound advice, and I needed it now more than ever.
* * *
I was deeply scared. There’s a macho tendency among new clandestine-officer re
cruits to belittle and mock fear, as if it somehow demeans your competence, your virility. But the experienced field men know that fear can be your greatest ally. You must always listen to, and trust, your instincts.
And my instincts now told me that this sudden talent had put both Molly and me in great danger.
After a long wait the page operator got on and said, in a cigarette-husky voice, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no answer. Would you like me to connect you to the neonatal intensive-care unit?”
“Yes, please.”
The woman who answered at the NICU had a slight Hispanic accent. “No, Mr. Ellison, I’m sorry, she’s already left.”
“Left?”
“Gone home. About ten minutes ago.”
“What?”
“She had to leave suddenly. She said it was an emergency, something about you. I assumed you knew.”
I hung up and hurried toward the elevator, my heart racing.
* * *
Rain was coming down in sheets, gusted by winds of almost gale force. The sky was gunmetal gray, streaked with yellow. People walked by in yellow slickers and khaki raincoats, their black umbrellas turned inside out by the howling wind.
By the time I mounted the steps to my town house, drenched during the short walk from the taxi to the front door, it was twilight, and all of the lights in the house seemed to be off. Strange.
I hurried into the outside foyer. Why would she have gone home? She was scheduled to spend the night in the hospital.
The first peculiar thing I noticed was that the alarm was off. Did that mean she was in the house? Molly had left after I did that morning, and she was always scrupulous—even a little obsessive—about turning the alarm on, though there was little if anything for anyone to steal.
When I unlocked the front door, I noticed the second peculiar thing: Molly’s briefcase was there, in the foyer, the briefcase she took with her wherever she went.
She must be home.
I switched on a few lights and quietly climbed the stairs to our bedroom. It was dark, and there was no Molly. I climbed another flight of stairs to the room she uses as her study, though at that point it was in a dismaying state of renovation.
Nothing.
I called out: “Mol?”
No reply.
The adrenaline began to course through my bloodstream, and I made a series of mental calculations.
If she wasn’t here, could she be on the way? And if so, who or what had caused her to come home? And why hadn’t she tried to call me?
“Molly?” I called out a little louder.
Silence.
I descended the staircase rapidly, my heart thudding, switching on lights as I moved.
No. Not in the sitting room. Not in the kitchen.
“Molly?” I said loudly.
Complete, utter silence in the house.
And then I jumped as the telephone rang.
I leapt to pick it up, and said, “Molly.”
It wasn’t Molly. The voice was male, unfamiliar.
“Mr. Ellison?” An accent, but from where?
“Yes?”
“We must talk. It is urgent.”
“What the fuck have you done with her?” I exploded. “What the—”
“Please, Mr. Ellison. Not over the telephone. Not in your house.”
I breathed in slowly, trying to slow my heartbeat. “Who is this?”
“Outside. We must meet right now. It is a matter of safety for both of you. For all of us.”
“Where the hell—” I tried to say.
“Everything will be explained,” came the voice again. “We will talk—”
“No,” I said. “Right now I want to know—”
“Listen,” the accented voice hissed through the receiver. “There is a taxi at the end of your block. Your wife is in it right now, waiting for you. You must go left, down the block—”
But I did not wait for him to finish. Throwing the handset to the floor, I whirled around and ran toward the front door.
TWENTY
The street was dark, quiet, slick with rain. A slight drizzle fell, almost a mist.
There it was, at the end of the block, a yellow cab, a few hundred yards off. Why at the end of the block? Why there? I wondered.
And as I set off, running, accelerating, I could make out, in the taxi’s backseat, the silhouette of a woman’s head, the long tangle of dark hair, unmoving.
Was it in fact Molly?
I couldn’t be sure at this distance, but it might—it had to—be. Why, I thought wildly, my legs pumping, was she there? What had happened?
But something felt wrong. Instinctually, I slowed to a fast walk, my head whipping to either side.
What was it?
Something. One too many strollers on the street at this time of night, in the rain. Walking too casually. People normally stride through rain to get out of it …
But was I being paranoid?
These were normal passersby, certainly.
For just an instant, a split second really, I caught a glimpse of one of the pedestrians. Tall, gaunt, wearing a black or navy blue raincoat, a dark knit watch cap.
He appeared to glance at me. Our eyes locked for a millisecond.
His face was extraordinarily pale, as if it had been bleached entirely of color. His lips were thin and as pale as the rest of his face. Under his eyes were deep yellowish circles that extended to his cheekbones. His hair, or what I could see of it beneath his cap, was a pale strawlike blond, swept back.
And just as quickly, he glanced away, casually.
Almost an albino, Molly had said. The man who had “accosted” her at the hospital, who had wanted to know about any accounts, any money Harrison Sinclair might have bequeathed to her.
The whole thing seemed wrong. The call, Molly sitting in the cab: it smelled wrong, and my years of Agency training had taught me to smell things a certain way, to see patterns, and—
—and something caught my eye, a tiny flash of something, a glint of something—metal?—in the light of the lamp across the narrow street.
I heard it then, a faint shoosh of cloth against cloth, or cloth against leather, a familiar sound distinct against all the ambient street noises, a holster, could it be?
I flung myself to the pavement, just as a deep male voice shouted: “Get down!”
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a frightful cacophony.
The next moment was a terror, a hellish confusion of explosions and screams—the phut-phut of silencer-equipped semiautomatic pistols, the metallic shrieks of bullets creasing the hoods of the cars in front of me. From somewhere came a squeal of brakes, and then an explosion of glass. A window had been blown out somewhere—a stray shot?
I got up into a crouch, trying to determine where the gunfire was coming from. I moved with lightning speed, my brain whizzing through a million calculations.
Where was it coming from?
Couldn’t tell. Across the street? Off to the left? Yes, to the left, from the direction—the direction of the cab!
A dark figure was running toward me, another shout, which I couldn’t understand, and then, as I flung myself to the pavement again, another explosion of gunfire. This time the shots were perilously close. I felt a piece of something sting my cheek, my forehead, felt the pain of the sidewalk scraping against my jaw. Something pricked my thigh. And then the windshield of the car I was crouching behind exploded into a milky webbing.
I was trapped; my unknown assailants had moved in closer, and I was unarmed. Frantically, I dove under the car, and then came another round of silenced shots, an agonized yelp, and the squeal of tires …
and silence.
Absolute silence.
The shooting had momentarily ceased. From under the car’s chassis I could just make out a circle of light directly across the street. In it sprawled a man’s body, dark-clad, his face turned away, the back of his head a horrifying mess of blood and tissue.
Was it the pale
man I had glimpsed a few seconds earlier?
No, I saw at once. The dead man’s build was stockier, shorter.
In the silence my ears still rang from the shots and the explosions. For a moment I lay there, afraid to move, terrified that the slightest motion would indicate my position.
And then I heard my name.
“Ben!” A voice, somehow familiar.
The voice was closer now. It came from the window of an approaching vehicle.
“Ben, are you all right?”
Momentarily I was unable to reply.
“Oh, Christ,” I heard the voice say. “Oh, God, I hope he wasn’t hit.”
“Here,” I managed to say. “I’m right here.”
TWENTY-ONE
A few minutes later I was sitting in the back of a bulletproof white van, dazed.
Seated in the front compartment, behind the uniformed driver and separated from me by a panel of thick glass, was Charles Rossi. The interior of the van was elegantly appointed: a small inset television screen, a coffeemaker, even a fax machine.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” came Rossi’s amplified voice, metallically emanating from a two-way intercom. The glass that divided us appeared to be soundproof. “We need to talk.”
“What the hell was that all about?”
“Mr. Ellison,” he said wearily. “Your life is in danger. This isn’t some sort of game.”
Oddly, I felt no anger. Was I numb from what I’d just gone through? From the shock of Molly’s disappearance? What I felt, instead, was a distant, remote sense of indignation, an awareness that all was not right … Yet, strangely, no anger.
“Where’s Molly?” I said dully.
Over the intercom Rossi sighed. “She’s quite safe. We want you to know that.”
“You have her,” I said.
“Yes,” Rossi replied as if from afar. “We have her.”
“What have you done with her?”
“You’ll see her soon,” Rossi said. “I promise you that. You’ll understand we did what we did for her safety. I promise you.”
His voice was soothing, reasonable, and plausible. “She’s safe,” Rossi continued. “You’ll see her soon enough. We’re protecting her. You’ll be able to speak with her in a few hours, and you’ll see.”
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