CIA Fall Guy

by Miller, Phyllis Zimbler

  The hot water sloshed the shampoo suds down her body. Okay, who did she know? Or where had she been that was truly remote?

  Yuk, she closed her mouth. Soap had slid down her throat — she'd been pre-occupied with the answer.

  Lance's A-frame in Cape Cod. An overpopulated area and he found the only isolated A-frame in the entire peninsula. She had freaked the time she had stayed with him — total blackness pressing in on the glass windows forming two sides of the structure with the wind and unseen animals howling for good measure. Lance's insistence on reciting ghost stories had only worsened her fear.

  Yet the CIA was nothing to sneer at. Given her choice, she'd take the unseen animals over the visible CIA representatives.

  Poor Lance. He wouldn't appreciate being awoken so early. But she had to get out of here.

  **

  Kathleen lifted her left hand from the steering wheel and rubbed her eyes. It had been a hellish night. She'd been leery of using CIA contacts at first, worried that someone would alert George of what she was doing.

  So for several hours she'd tried using her own resources to access credit card information. No such luck. She had to call the professionals. And, bingo, Beth's card number had surfaced at a motel near the airport.

  And here was the motel itself. A nondescript clump of peeling stucco buildings with cars parked outside some of the rooms.

  The lobby door slammed behind her. The clerk at the desk, a young guy with a ponytail, jerked upright.

  “Hi. I'm Beth Parsons' friend. I was supposed to meet her here. What room is she in?”

  The clerk gave her the once over. No sweat. She looked presentable. And she wasn't carrying, so no revealing waist bulge.

  “Room 6 — around the corner on the first floor. But isn't it early to meet someone?”

  “Not when you have an early flight. Thanks for the help.”

  Kathleen approached room 6. The curtain was closed, same as in the rooms on either side of 6. Should she knock? That would put Beth on guard and who knew what she might do then. Besides, she was probably still sleeping. Why rudely awake her?

  Kathleen unzipped an inner pocket in her purse and lifted out two delicate instruments, the main tools for lock picking. Hold one to spring the lock while fiddling with the other. She began the negotiations.

  Damn! The pick slipped. She gripped it as tightly as her sweaty palms would allow. Sure, she had practiced this before, but she'd never done it for real.

  She pried again for an opening — and the lock clicked open. She'd done it!

  She slid the door open a crack. Her luck held — no giveaway creak. In the dark she could just make out a lumpy form on the bed.

  She pushed the door wider and slipped through, tiptoeing to the bed.

  “Beth,” she said. “Beth, time to wake up.”

  She reached for Beth's shoulder, but the bedspread came away in Kathleen's hand, flopping onto her feet. Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Kathleen spun back to the door, fumbling for the light switch.

  The ceiling fixture revealed — no Beth in the bed!

  A quick check of the bathroom revealed no Beth there either.

  Kathleen sank onto the bed. She felt nauseous, the same as when she suffered her annual winter bout of the flu, complete with a pounding head.

  It was so early in the morning. How could Beth be gone?

  Kathleen grabbed the phone, calling a number that was answered on the first ring.

  “Doug, it's Kathleen. I need a favor. Can you tell me if any calls were made from this number I'm on within the last few hours? I'll hold.”

  Kathleen yanked open the drawer in the nightstand table. Nada. Not even a Gideon Bible. She stood up, cradled the phone against her shoulder, and felt under the bedframe. Her right hand came up with a condom in a foil package.

  Shit again!

  Doug was talking. “Repeat it once more.” Kathleen was good at remembering numbers; if she heard a phone number once or twice, it was usually hers for life.

  “Registered to a Lance Edwards? Thanks. I owe you.”

  She dialed again, first the calling card number, then the number Doug had given her.

  It was now 6 a.m. on the East Coast. People should still be safely home in bed. Come on, come on, answer the phone.

  On the third ring a male voice, befuddled with sleep, mumbled hello.

  **

  George ran his fingers over the edge of his desk. Solid. He liked solid things. Gave him a good feeling, a foundation on which to depend.

  This current situation, with everything going to hell in a handbasket, was not solid. It was slippery, as slippery as any situation he'd worked on over his long career. In fact, in some ways this was slippery. They were on U.S. soil, an area where the CIA was legally not supposed to run operations. CIA was to leave U.S. operations to the FBI boys. But this was not something he could trust to the FBI. They were too narrow-minded, too sure of themselves. He needed creative thinking here — plus a little help from others.

  Mark had reported that Beth was traveling north; she'd left her motel before six this morning. He'd stay with her, see what was going on.

  Maybe Kathleen would report in later. George had been notified that she'd used the agency's resources to locate Beth, but Mark had seen no sign of Kathleen. Presumably she'd gotten to the motel too late.

  George opened a desk drawer and removed his bottle of Maalox chewable tablets. He liked the lemon ones — the cherry ones were chalky. He took four, the maximum suggested dosage. It was going to be that kind of a day.

  A knock on his office door. Charles, summoned for a planning meeting.

  “Enter.”

  Charles took his usual chair, swinging his right leg across his left knee. George had secretly practiced the maneuver at home, but he couldn't achieve the same fluid movement Charles did. Maybe George was too old to learn new tricks. Or maybe you had to be born to that graciousness.

  “What do you hear?” Charles said.

  “No more than what I told you before. But while we wait to see where Beth's going and what Kathleen's doing, we need to concentrate on finding Hans Wermer.”

  Charles smiled. “He's the needle in the haystack.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Charles coughed, his hand covering his mouth. “George?”

  “Yes?”

  “You did say that Mark Haskell was keeping an eye on Beth, didn't you?”

  George nodded. What was Charles getting at?

  “He would be prepared to protect her if ... the elements that took out Ralph try to take her out?”

  “Of course,” George said. “But do you seriously think she's in any danger?”

  Charles gave an elegant shrug of his shoulders. How did he do that?

  “We have no idea what's going on here,” Charles said. “Just wanted to make sure we're prepared for any contingency.”

  “That's what the CIA is for, to protect American interests.” George glanced at his flag.

  Then he stared across his desk at Charles. Perhaps ol' Charles seemed a little unruffled? Not his usual unflappable self?

  George rubbed his brow. Maybe he was seeing bogeymen. He hadn't had much sleep last night. Sleep deprivation could do funny things to one's mind.

  He smiled at Charles. Best to change the subject. “Did I ever tell you the time, I think it was '54 in Taiwan, when the army decided civilian employees should have uniforms and asked us what we thought?”

  **

  Charles drove the back way, staying off the main roads. He had told the secretary he had a meeting at the Pentagon, would be back before lunch. He did have a meeting, agreed upon in the early hours at the trucker's roadside stop, but not at the Pentagon.

  George had seemed a bit off this morning. Of course, Beth Parsons was missing, Hans Wermer was missing, and Kathleen was pretending she was in operations, not to mention Ralph had been killed. Still, their business was the unexpected. George shouldn't be riled by this.

/>   Charles checked the rearview mirror. No one was following. Good, because he was in a tricky spot, yes indeed. He had to think carefully before committing to any action.

  Yet this meeting now couldn't be avoided. Matthew expected him. And expected the information he could provide — where Beth Parsons was at this exact moment.

  **

  An hour north of New York City David considered his options. He needed gas. If he did, didn't the woman? And a bathroom pit stop would be welcome. Could he risk pulling off now and catching up with her in 10 minutes?

  The sensation in his groin decided him. He exited the highway, filled the car and emptied himself.

  When he got back on, he calculated how long at a slightly increased speed he would need to go to catch up with Beth and her tail. He couldn't increase his speed too much or risk drawing the attention of the highway patrol.

  The radio sputtered, the signal weaving in and out. He flipped to a new channel. It was a mistake. He flipped it off, but not before hearing a few bars of the oldie but goodie song “Soldier Boy.”

  Jenny was driving her '63 Corvair up Highway 1. They were only a few miles south of San Francisco. “I can't talk about it anymore,” she'd said, then turned the radio on for distraction. “Soldier Boy” filled the car while Jenny said, her eyes on the road ahead, “I won't marry you now, but I promise” — and she sang along with the song — “I'll be true to you.”

  Promises are made to be broken, isn't that what his mother had always warned him?

  Jenny hadn't even waited until his R and R in Hawaii. Just written him a Dear John letter after he'd been in-country only four months that she'd met someone new. Hoped he was keeping his head down in Saigon.

  His first reaction had been to volunteer for an assignment smack dab in the action, some small firebase upriver. His superior officer had convinced him to continue with his current assignment. The work in the Phoenix program was too important to hand off to someone else.

  The Phoenix program. Assassination of targeted Vietcong officials.

  But it had brought him to the attention of the CIA boys. And when his two years of ROTC active duty commitment were ending, they had approached him, convinced him to sign on for life. He had nothing to go home for.

  But Jenny, oh Jenny. With her long brown hair and love beads. How he had loved her. And how, after her betrayal, he had never trusted another woman.

  Of course, that didn't mean he'd been celibate. Far from it. But a CIA field operative moved around a lot, had a lot of masters to answer to, could not be expected to forge a long-term relationship.

  David checked the speedometer. Only 10 miles over the speed limit. Not too bad. But where was that woman? He should have seen her by now.

  Above him a helicopter buzzed the road, swooping so low that David could make out three people — a pilot and two passengers — wearing dark baseball caps. Was the pilot showing off his skill or were they looking for someone?

  David increased his speed another five miles. He had to do something to find that woman.

  There! Up ahead was the tail. She couldn't be far ahead.

  David just hoped the tail hadn't pulled off the road too, then also lost Beth. David's palms itched, a sure indication he was nervous.

  Not to worry. He'd find his target. He always did.

  **

  Beth pulled off the road. She needed gas and a restroom stop. And a late breakfast would be great. The gas station attendant recommended a restaurant a mile down the road — “best pancakes in five counties.” Beth doubted he knew that for a fact, but she was hungry enough to eat any pancakes.

  She drove out of the station. The April showers had brought May flowers, and Beth wished she wasn't such an urban dweller that she didn't even know the names of the color-spangled blooms bordering the road.

  Up ahead she could see the restaurant, the only building on this stretch of country road.

  The whirring of the helicopter's blades slammed against her ears. What the hell?

  She peered upwards through the windshield. She could see nothing. Yet the noise screamed directly above her.

  She twisted her head an inch or two out the side window. It was above her — a little off to the right — and coming towards her!

  Without conscious thought, reacting with her body the way she'd been taught in karate, she yanked the wheel towards the right, meeting the attack and sliding under the helicopter's skids off into the trees edging the road. Thank heavens she'd rented a Jeep. She switched to four-wheel drive and kept going.

  Branches slapped against the car, the vehicle went up and down over debris. The tree trunks were far enough apart for her car to pass through yet the foliage was dense enough to from a canopy above her.

  When she could no longer hear the whir of the blades she stopped the car.

  Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! Had the CIA found her? Were they only trying to get her to stop, or were they trying to rub her out too? What the hell was going on?

  She stumbled from the car, pulling her backpack with her. She crouched on the ground, pawing through the backpack, then extracted a silver-plated hand mirror. It had been a gift from Stephen. She kept it as polished as the day he had given it to her, saying “So you can see the face I love so much.” Now the mirror showed her sweat on her forehead and fear in her eyes.

  Twigs crackled behind her. A spurt of adrenalin leaped inside her. The mirror fell from her hands as she jumped up and twirled towards the sounds.

  A man strode towards her. She pushed her breath down into her diaphragm, thinking of direction, thinking of her focus. He was a foot away, the perfect distance. She swiveled her body to her right, stretched her left leg to his left leg and snapped at his ankle, breaking his balance and toppling him to the ground. She squatted next to him and jabbed her elbow in his back, the vulnerable part where his spleen was. “Yes!”

  In the next instant she was yanked forward and rolled backward onto the ground, then pinned under the man's body. She struggled to get away, trying to remember self-defense moves she'd learned, but all she could think of was how heavy he was pressed against her chest.

  “Give up?” the man said. “I'll let you up if you promise not to attack me again.”

  “Who are you?” she said, her words muffled in his chest.

  He rolled off her, but kept her pinned down. “Promise? And don't cross your fingers.”

  “I promise,” she said. He rolled off her.

  Instantly she was on her feet, swinging her leg up to smash his knee.

  He caught her leg midair and yanked her towards him, breaking her fall by bearhugging her.

  “You promised!”

  “I lied. Besides, promises are made to be broken.”

  He yanked her arm behind her. “Now stop it. I'm a friend.”

  “Some friend.”

  “If I let go this time, will you not attack?”

  She nodded and the man released her arm. She stood inches from him; his body heat fanning towards her.

  She stuck her tongue out. “I didn't say ‘cross my heart and hope to die.’”

  “You may get that wish if you don't stop attacking me.”

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “I'm with the Company.”

  “The what?”

  “Company. The CIA.”

  Oh, right. “That's what they all say.”

  “Would you like to see my ID?”

  Beth nodded, then read the ID card he held out. “IDs can be faked. What do you want? And where's the helicopter you tried to kill me with?”

  He picked up her backpack from the ground and thrust it at her hand. “We have to get out of here and you have to trust me.”

  She stared at him. “Not bloody likely.”

  “Shut up and listen. We'll take the Jeep over land, avoiding the highways. I've got a plane waiting.”

  “A plane?”

  "It's faster than a helicopter."

  When she didn't move towards the Je
ep he pulled at her arm, propelling her forward.

  She tried to grab hold of a tree branch. “I have to get something I dropped.”

  He didn't let go of her arm, so she pulled against him, dragging him with her to the spot where she'd let go of Stephen's mirror. She swooped up the mirror with the hand whose arm he held.

  The man yanked her back towards the car, holding her far enough away from him that she couldn't try any grip-loosening karate moves.

  “Hey, where's your car?” she said.

  “It's hidden in the woods. Someone will retrieve it.” He shoved her into the Jeep's passenger side and slammed the passenger door shut.

  Beth pushed open her door — he was so quick he was in the driver's seat and reaching over her to re-slam the door before she could get out.

  "Buckle your safety belt," he said.

  She glared at him. “Nothing better happen to this car — it's charged to my credit card.”

  “That was your first mistake.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  **

  David turned the car into a cart track overhung with oak trees. They were only a couple of miles from the plane.

  He glanced over at the woman slumped against the passenger window, asleep or pretending to be.

  It had been a lucky hunch when, looking for her car, he had turned off at the faded road exit sign announcing “last gas for 30 miles.” He knew her tank had to be low; he suspected that warning would have rattled her. The tail had sailed right by the exit.

  He'd chatted up the gas station attendant. David had asked if he had just missed his wife, who was driving their other car to their new home on Cape Cod. “Yeah,” the guy had said, “but I think she went down the road to get a bite to eat.”

  David had followed the man's outstretched arm.

  Ahead down the road he could see no Jeep in front of the restaurant. What there had been were swerving tire tracks a half block before the restaurant, tracks that led right off the road and didn't reappear.

  He'd followed in his rental car, which didn't take kindly to the terrain, but the Company would pay the damage charges.

  After a short distance the car refused to budge another inch. He'd abandoned it and walked along the Jeep's trail. Luckily she hadn't driven much further before stopping.