by Trevor Hoyle
A chime rang out and heads turned dutifully as a female voice rhymed off a list of times and destinations.
He thought with pleasure that soon he’d be home with Dan. Back to the ritual of bathtime frolics and bedtime stories. He wondered if Dan had mounted the postcards he’d sent—one from each place he’d been to—in the scrapbook Chase had bought for him. Then there was the large map of the United States on which Dan said he was going to draw lines connecting all the different places with colored crayons. It felt wonderful to have the kid to go back to; alone he was rootless, but together he and Dan made a family. A home.
He tried to picture Cheryl as part of it, making up the triangle. It was still difficult to transpose her mentally from friend to lover, and to imagine a more permanent relationship was at the moment beyond him. Nothing had been decided, nothing had been settled, no promises given or sought... perhaps, as he suspected, she needed time, like him, to find out what absence did to the heart. Had it just been a casual affair, their few days together, fondly remembered because it was so short? Or was there a future for the three of them? In all honesty he had to admit that he didn’t know.
Thinking about her brought back the night before. They had made love as eagerly and as tenderly as the first time. The memory assailed him, so strong that he could smell her perfume, and even before the thought had properly resolved itself he was turning away from the newsstand, wanting to talk to her, and in his unseeing haste almost collided with someone standing close behind. Apologizing without sparing the man a backward glance, he made for the row of pay phones in their colored plastic bubbles.
Due to the time difference it was late afternoon in California and Cheryl was where he expected her to be, at Scripps.
From the tone of her voice he could tell she was both surprised and pleased to hear from him. “Well, I thought I’d milk my credit card for all it’s worth seeing as someone else is footing the bill,” Chase said, in some perverse way feeling he had to underplay the situation. Why this was necessary he didn’t know, unless it was a self-defense mechanism operating on autopilot. He asked her when she was going to visit him in England.
“Would you like me to come?”
“Yes. I’d like you to meet Dan.”
“That sexually precocious son of yours.”
“All six-year-olds are sexually precocious,” Chase said, settling himself more comfortably inside the plastic bubble. Across the lounge a large curved TV screen was showing the evening newscast.
“Maybe next year,” Cheryl said. “But no promises.”
“I’m not holding you to any.” Their words were coded messages. With some women, he thought, you could talk all night and fail to communicate, while with others a world of meaning could be compressed into a sentence. There and then he realized that he was going to miss her. It came as something of a revelation, for he hadn’t felt anything like it in years. “We can’t let it finish.”
“No,” Cheryl said after a pause. The three thousand miles of telephone cable crackled and hummed in his ear.
He said, “I’m going to miss you, Cheryl.”
“I think I feel the same.”
“Only think?”
“I’m an old-fashioned girl; it takes time.”
“I’d have said you were just the opposite,” Chase said lightly, watching without hardly seeing a procession of ramshackle cars and buses on the big screen. Young people with shaven heads and black robes. Sun beating down from a pure blue sky. It might have been a scene from the Far East except for the westernized features and the shepherding highway patrol car. Some religious festival?
“Something odd happened today.”
“What was that?”
“A package arrived in the mail, a few minutes after you left. I haven’t had time to look at it properly, but it’s some kind of government report. There was nothing with it, no letter or anything. But it’s plastered with classified and restricted circulation notices.”
“A report about what?”
“Something called ‘Department Store.’ It looks genuine. I’ll write and tell you more when I’ve read it.”
She broke off and Chase caught a muttered conversation, and then Cheryl came back. “Gavin, I have to go, I’m sorry. One of my experiments is boiling over. Please take care. I mean that. And I am going to miss you, honestly.”
Now that it was time to go Chase found he wanted to say more, but it was too late. Joy and sorrow mingled inside him. He said his good-byes and in the middle of them Cheryl said, “Did he contact you, the guy from the American Press Association? I almost forgot.”
“No, who was it?”
“Pat Bryant of the APA.” Cheryl told him about the call and said, “I think he was going to try to contact you there, at JFK. But he hasn’t?”
“Not so far.” It didn’t strike him as odd until he had hung up and emerged from the plastic bubble into the noisy throng once more. How did the APA know where to find him? No one knew of his movements from day to day, not even John Ware. He debated whether to call the APA to find out what was up and decided against it. Departure time was only an hour away. If the BBC wanted to talk to him they’d have to do it in London. He’d no intention of missing his flight, not for the director general himself.
The briefcase weighed heavily and after dodging and darting he just beat a man in a gray suit and Homburg to a vacant seat. He sank down with relief and five minutes later had drifted into a shallow, uneasy doze. It was like sleeping on the edge of a precipice, the constant threat of falling keeping mind and body in a state of tension. There was continual noise and movement all around, people getting up, sitting down, shuffling past. Dimly he was aware that the person on his left had departed, to be replaced almost in the same instant by someone whose shoulder was edging him nearer and nearer to the frightful drop. He resisted the pressure, knowing another six inches and he’d be gone. In his semidreaming state he was being pushed by a man with a shaven head wearing a Homburg hat and black robe. He was right on the edge now, on the very edge, about to fall over, and Christ, he was over, awful space and emptiness beneath him, falling, falling, falling ...
Chase tightened and jerked upright, eyes blinking wide, finding himself next to a large, fat woman who overflowed her space and was encroaching on his.
“Trying to get forty winks, huh?” she nodded companionably, her mouth a red-lipped wound supported by several chins.
“Trying and failing.” Chase covered a yawn and arched back, hoping to ease the tension in his spine. Opposite him, six feet away, a man wearing a shiny black hat was hunched over, fiddling with a camera in his lap, or rather a camera case.
Chase watched because he had nothing better to do, noticing the heavy gold jewelry on the man’s thick fingers and hairy wrists. Rings, watch, bracelet. His gaze drifted to the rolling tide of faces in the aisle and he sat up straight, not noticing the man opposite making a final adjustment to his camera.
“Good God, I don’t believe it.”
“Beg pardon?” said the fat woman, craning her chins toward him.
Chase grabbed his briefcase and stepped over legs, eyes fixed on the unmistakable apparition of Boris Stanovnik.
His chosen method had been primed and fitted inside the black leather glove when he saw his man move to the newsstand. There Chase lingered, giving Sturges time to make his approach circuitously, unseen. No need to hurry. It was against his instinct anyway. Proceed slowly and calmly and methodically, working out each step in advance.
The black glove hung innocently at his side, the fingers pointing downward. Inside, his finger was curled around the semicircular metal ring, his thumb touching the plunger. The syringe contained systolic fluid. One swift jab and it would infiltrate the arterial system, speeding up the rhythm of the heart until it overloaded and the victim underwent cardiac arrest. The outward signs and the internal symptoms were consistent with a massive coronary.
He engineered his position while browsing through the magazines; s
lightly behind his man, out of his eyesight, feeling good, unemotional, breathing easy, doing his job.
Two paces away, his hand tensing on the syringe, thumb taut, and Chase turned and almost blundered into him. Taken by surprise, he didn’t have time to react. Then Chase was gone, not even looking at him, muttering an apology.
There was nothing to do but wait. Chase talked on the phone, safe inside the plastic bubble, impossible to get near. So wait.
When Chase had finished on the phone Sturges was still at the newsstand, head bowed as though reading titles, eyes peering from under the brim of his soft black hat. The eyes followed Chase and saw him take a seat. It was the only one vacant; he was surrounded on all sides, so off came the glove and the hypodermic and into the pouch inside the attaché case.
If not close, then at a distance. The camera.
More waiting and watching while Sturges readied himself to claim the first empty seat in a suitable position. When it came he strode across and boldly sat down, directly facing his man. Six, seven feet away. And Chase with his eyes closed, dozing. Perfect.
Sturges unfastened the strap and swung open the front section of the case to reveal a quite ordinary camera. The recessed hole where the lens should have been made a snug silo for the gas-powered dart 2.3 centimeters in length. Cradling the camera in his lap, Sturges bent over it and lined up the crosshairs through the vertical viewfinder, aiming for the dead center of the body area, above the stomach and below the ribcage. The tipped dart would penetrate shirt and skin leaving a minuscule bloodless puncture, the toxin spreading through the arterial network—in two minutes, death.
Holding the camera steady with both hands he sighted and pressed the release button with his thumb. There was a faint phut from the compressed gas capsule. Through the viewfinder Sturges found himself looking not at a white shirt but at a scuffed and scarred brown briefcase, and from beneath the hat brim saw the briefcase swing past, embedded in it the tiny metallic end of the dart.
Across from him a fat lady complained to anyone willing to listen: “That’s what you get these days—you know?—for trying to act polite.” She blew out a stomach-shaking sigh of disgust. “I outta save my breath.”
“So you see, we had no choice. We had to leave.” Boris reached across the table for his wife’s hand. “It’s, I am convinced, for the best.” Nina smiled hesitantly at Chase. Her English was poor and she had understood little of the conversation. She was delighted that Boris had so quickly encountered a friendly face, almost at the moment of arrival in America. The last forty-eight hours had been bewildering.
“Have you a place to go to?” Chase asked.
“Yes, I have friends at the Scripps Institution—but of course you know one of them—Theo’s daughter. I tried to tell her in a letter, but I had to be careful. Still the authorities were suspicious. If we hadn’t left when we did I think something would have happened. I knew too much about Project Arrow.” Even though he spoke softly, his words lost in the buzz of voices in the bar, Boris couldn’t help glancing nervously around. “Someone must be informed and I hope Cheryl can advise me. They must be told now, before it’s too late.”
“Is it going to happen soon?”
“A year, perhaps two. It cannot be far off.”
Chase felt a flutter of excitement. Was this the nugget he’d been seeking? But how would Boris feel about him publishing it? He said, “I still don’t see the logic in implementing the project before they have to. Isn’t the point of it to have it there, ready, as a deterrent against the United States? Surely if they go ahead it invalidates the reason for having it in the first place?”
“Who knows how they think?” Boris said gravely. “Can you—can any sane person understand how such minds function? Risking a global calamity in order to keep the balance of power—it’s futile to expect logic. At my age I thought I’d seen every kind of wickedness and stupidity, that nothing could shock me ever again, but this ...” He shook his head wearily. “It’s beyond reason, beyond humanity, beyond anything.”
Chase sipped his beer and said with a wry smile, “I wish you luck, Boris, but don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms. Cheryl has been fighting the same battle ever since Theo died.”
“I know that his warning went unheeded,” Boris said. “But they will have to listen to me. They must.”
There was nothing to be lost and a great deal to be gained. As Chase told him about his assignment and how he would like to use the information about Project Arrow in his series of articles, the Russian’s eyes took on a new light. But yes, yes, of course he was agreeable! For obvious reasons he had committed nothing to paper, but as soon as he was settled here he would set down everything he knew and send it to Chase in London. The more people who knew about it, the better.
Chase tore a page from his notebook and wrote down his address.
“Send it to me here. Naturally I won’t reveal the source, not even to my editor.”
“Thank you,” Boris said, pumping his hand warmly.
“It’s me who should thank you, Boris. You’re doing me the favor.” Chase looked at the time and said, “I have to go; my flight leaves shortly.” He turned and smiled at Nina. “Please tell your wife that I hope she is happy in her new life. You too, of course, Boris.” He held out his hand to her, but she didn’t take it. Her eyes had a glazed expression, fixed unblinkingly on the door to the transit lounge.
Boris asked her a question to which she replied in a rushed, barely audible voice, making him spin around in his chair. He turned back and grasped her by the wrist, his tone urgent, almost harsh. Nina nodded without taking her eyes off the entrance.
“What is it?”
Boris was crouched forward, his forearms flat on the table as if trying to make himself invisible. “We are being watched. A man has been observing us for the past few minutes. Nina is afraid he is KGB or someone from the Russian embassy.”
“Is she positive?”
“She thinks he has been taking pictures. He has a camera.”
When Chase looked toward the entrance he saw no one lurking there. He glanced quickly from husband to wife and back again. “Could they have found out you’re here? What about the people who helped you get away?”
“No, no,” Boris said. “From Copenhagen we flew to London. We told no one we were coming to America. If someone talked the KGB would have been waiting in London.”
“Perhaps they were. They could have seen you take the flight to New York and alerted their people here.”
Boris reached for a red TWA shoulder bag. “We’re booked on a flight to Los Angeles, leaving in two hours. We must get on it without being observed.”
“They can easily check the passenger lists of all outgoing flights,” Chase said, playing devil’s advocate.
“We have false papers.”
“If they traced you from London they’ll already know the name you’re traveling under.”
Boris slumped in his chair, clutching the red shoulder bag. He said something in Russian under his breath, which could have been an oath or an expression of defeat. On Nina’s face, a haunted look of despair. She was beginning to believe they were safe, free at last from prying eyes, starting life anew. Yet here they were, still dodging shadows. Nothing had changed.
Was there really a man watching them, Chase wondered, or had Nina been mistaken? Understandably she was on edge. It was conceivable that her mind was playing tricks, though her fear was real enough. He tried desperately to think of something. His own flight left in fifteen minutes and he had yet to pass through Customs and Passport Control. “Is your flight nonstop to Los Angeles?”
“Nonstop?” Boris frowned.
“Is it direct to Los Angeles or does it put down somewhere en route?” Boris took the tickets from his wallet. “We land at Chicago for thirty-five minutes,” he said, still mystified.
“All right. Now listen. Take the flight as if you didn’t suspect anything and leave the aircraft in Chicago. From there you
can hire a car or take the train to Los Angeles. You have some money?”
“Yes, enough. Gavin, I don’t understand—what good will it do to leave the flight in Chicago?”
“There’s a chance it’ll throw them off your track.” A slender chance, Chase thought, but he couldn’t think of anything else. “When you don’t get off the plane at Los Angeles they might be fooled into believing you were heading for Chicago all along, and that you booked tickets to Los Angeles in order to confuse them. It could work, Boris. In any case it’s the only thing you can do.”
The Russian nodded slowly, considering. “The only thing ... yes, I think you are right.”
Chase stood up, briefcase in hand. More than anything he wanted to help, but what more could he do? Missing his own flight would accomplish nothing. He’d never known what it was to be harried and spied upon, to have somebody watching your every move. Thank God for that.
At the entrance to the bar he turned and gave a final wave. They looked utterly despondent. Boris was hugging the red shoulder bag as a frightened person holds on to a familiar object for comfort and protection. Beside him, Nina seemed small and sad and lost.
Chase hurried on, dodging through the idling crowd on his way to the escalator. From the illuminated display he saw that Flight D-049 was now boarding at gate 14. He had yet to pass through into the international departures lounge, though the formalities shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.
On the upward escalator he was suddenly conscious of the people close to him. What would a KGB agent look like? Obviously not the popular conception, if he was any good. More like an ordinary businessman, perhaps, or a tourist. He also became aware of men with cameras slung around their neck, and there were quite a few. See how easy it was to become paranoid?