by J. B. Hadley
After this conversation the others stayed away from him. They stopped notifying him of their meetings—he suspected they no longer had any. No one phoned. No money was sent. No new information. Harvey Waller was left with only his diminishing resources—a small amount of cash and a few targets.
Aware that the group had used a weekly Trenton paper to run encoded messages as ads in the help wanted section, he bought every issue of the paper and searched for something. Week after week, there was nothing. He was beginning to believe that the group might have become inactive after all, like scared rabbits seeking refuge in burrows. However, there was an ad in this week’s paper that promised big money for combat-hardened veterans. He might be able to use something like that if his connections with the group were now broken for good.
He didn’t know where to find the other members of the group. He knew them only by their first names. This dawned on him for the first time. They had used him like a servant. They called him, not he them. No doubt they even regarded his financial support as wages, which they now need no longer pay since they had no further need of his services.
Waller strove to put such personal feelings out of his mind in order to concentrate on higher things, such as his patriotic duty.
Ivan’s car pulled into the huge parking lot of the shopping mall near Edison, New Jersey. Harvey Waller followed him. This was the third time he had tailed him, and he knew his routine here. Harvey knew the man’s real name was Yevgeny Illiyich Konstantinov and that he was a second secretary at the Soviet Mission to the United Nations in Manhattan, but to Harvey all Russians were Ivan. Ivan Ivanovitch. Harvey felt cold fury as he watched the Russian park. Ivan would now get out of the car and walk toward the distant stores, a K Mart, an A&P supermarket and some others. He would thread his way through the parked cars, in no hurry and casually keeping an eye out around him. His contact would be parked somewhere between him and the stores, also keeping watch and invisible in his driver’s seat among the hundreds of other parked cars. No doubt he was watching Harvey’s car right now since it had followed Ivan’s into the parking lot. Harvey kept going, without a glance at the Russian as his car door opened.
He drove toward the stores and then swung about the far edge of the lot so that he was now behind the Russian’s contact. He pulled into an empty space but had to leave the car in order to see the Russian walking across the lot quite a distance away.
Ivan was a big man in a heavy coat and old-fashioned hat. His movements were ponderous. Harvey was heavily built, also, but light on his feet. He hunched down behind a Ford LTD and watched over the roofs of the parked cars. The Russian lumbered on toward the stores.
Waller heard a car door open only two rows in front of him, a little to the right. He crowded down further. A man got out and stood for a moment. Then he got back in the dark blue Honda and slammed the door after him.
The Russian had changed direction and was now cutting across the rows of cars toward the Honda, though still moving unhurriedly. He had eleven or twelve rows of cars to traverse. Only a single row separated Harvey from the man who had given the signal. He ran, stooped, till he was directly behind the blue car. Then he crept forward.
The man was not sitting behind the steering wheel but in the seat next to it, taking papers from the glove compartment. The car radio was playing pop rock not very loud, the side window was rolled down all the way and billows of cigarette smoke rose skyward from it.
Waller crept alongside and raised his head to the level of the roof. The Russian was still too far away to be seen because of the other parked cars. Nor could he see Waller. The man in the car sensed or heard someone next to the car and glanced around sharply. Waller slapped his left palm over the man’s mouth and pushed his head back against the seat’s headrest.
The man’s eyes widened in fear, but he still clutched the papers in his lap rather than release them to defend himself.
Harvey rasped in his ear, “Wimp! Traitor! Commie! Shit-head!”
Waller’s right hand came through the car window, clenching an ice pick with the thumb steadied against the upraised steel needle. He held it before the frantic man’s eyes as he pressed his hand harder against the man’s mouth and his head harder against the seat headrest. Then he began to lower the ice pick slowly, and the trapped victim’s eyes followed the glistening point downward.
The man loosed his precious papers and desperately grasped the wrist and arm of the hand that held the ice pick. The nervous fingers hopelessly plucked at the muscular limb that held the weapon. Waller allowed his prey a variation of arm-wrestling, slowly bearing down with one hand against the two that resisted him.
His victim panicked. He put one hand over his chest to protect it from the ice pick now pointing directly at him, and he used the other to try to wrench Waller’s hand from his mouth, where its grip held his head clamped against the seat. These struggles were even more futile than those before.
Waller moved the ice pick forward, paused a moment to let it prick the skin on the man’s chest, then steadily drove it through.
The man tried to push it away, but already the shaft of the ice pick had penetrated just beneath the curve of the rib cage. Waller pressed in hard all the way and twisted the needle about inside to rupture the vital organs.
The man threshed violently, twisted his head and kicked against the side wall of the car. His teeth chomped down and nearly caught Waller’s left hand between them. In spite of the wounded man’s struggles, Waller kept the ice pick in place, twisting it about inside the chest cavity.
“Dopey bastard!” he ground out. “You should have fought like that before you bought it. It’s too late now.”
At last the internal hemorrhaging took effect and the struggles ceased. Waller withdrew the ice pick, looked up to see if the Russian was in sight yet—and when he wasn’t, reached in to gather up the papers scattered on the man’s lap. There wasn’t much blood.
He stuffed the papers in his inside pocket—he’d mail them to the FBI—wiped the ice pick on the man’s sleeve, and ran stooped over behind the row of parked cars to the rear of the blue Honda.
A woman was loading groceries from a cart into the rear of a station wagon not too far away. She had three small children and was more concerned with their antics than with Waller. An elderly couple were making for another car, each pushing a loaded cart. No one else was around. Waller eased his head higher. The Russian was almost there! The bulky man in his heavy gray coat and gray hat passed between two cars, crossed the space to the next row, passed through, and looked with a puzzled expression at the blue Honda. Perhaps he was waiting for an all-clear signal …
The Russian’s right hand dived into his overcoat pocket; he looked about him carefully and walked briskly toward the Honda. He looked inside only a moment, then looked about in a full circle with an expressionless face. He turned about and walked rapidly back the way he had come.
“Ivan is a cool one,” Waller muttered, and took a tiny Colt .22 automatic from his pocket. He released the catch and slid a bullet from the ten-round magazine into the firing chamber. Then he went after the Russian.
“Ivan!” he called after him.
He needn’t have shouted, for as soon as the Russian heard footsteps behind him he had already begun to turn about. His right hand was still in his coat pocket.
Waller was giving him a sporting chance. The American traitor had deserved to die the way he had. Waller despised him more than he did the Russian. The Russian was simply doing for his country what Waller was willing to do for America. Fight for her tooth and nail … The Russian had a more than even chance. Waller’s little automatic was deadly at close range, but only a few yards and the Russian’s heavy coat would make a lot of difference—especially if, as Waller expected, that right hand emerged from the overcoat pocket holding a 9-mm Makarov automatic, which despite its heavier caliber had two shots less than his own gun. Or these agents sometimes carried the 9-mm Stechkin, which could be switched on f
ull automatic. His own Colt and a Makarov, in spite of being called automatic, were only semiautomatic, meaning the trigger had to be pulled separately for each shot, no matter how rapid the rate of fire. The Stechkin on full automatic could blow out all twenty of its 9-mm projectiles in one steady stream with a single press of the trigger. The Russian pulled his right hand from his overcoat pocket.
It was not holding a gun. The thick fingers were clutching a short, thick cardboard tube, only a few inches long, with metal ends and a key ring near the top. The Russian pulled the key ring loose, lifted a metal lever, and threw the tube at Waller.
Harvey had no time to shoot. When he saw the lever lifted, he knew he had about four and a half seconds. Since the mini-grenade was an offensive grenade, it had the shock-killing and stunning effects without the lethal metal fragments, and so the thrower did not have to take cover. The blast of TNT flakes did all the work. Harvey threw himself on the asphalt and rolled under the nearest car.
The projectile exploded just before it hit the ground, causing the cars on each side of it to buck and rear like frightened horses. The blast shattered windshields and car windows all about and caused people all over the parking lot to look in amazement in that direction. There was no smoke. No fire. They went back to their immediate concerns.
Harvey Waller’s head lay in a pool of blood beneath the oil-caked transmission of a car. He moved slowly—first his arms, then his legs, his neck, then his back. He looked at the pool of blood on the ground next to him and rolled from beneath the car. He reached for a door handle and pulled himself upright. No one coming. Good. He looked in a sideview mirror. Only a bloody nose. He grinned and wiped it. But he had no idea how long he had been unconscious. Minutes? An hour? He remembered everything.
Steadying himself against the side of the car, avoiding the tiny shards of the broken safety glass of the side windows, he craned his neck over the roofs of the parked cars. He had been out for only less than a minute! The Russian was still making his way across the huge parking lot toward his car.
Waller checked to make sure the papers were still in his inside pocket and searched for moments before he found the little Colt next to a burst tire. Keeping down so he wouldn’t be seen, he ran back toward his own car.
He had a fit of dizziness just before he reached it and sank to his knees. Then, just as suddenly, his head cleared and he got to his feet again. He made it to the car, got in and started the engine. His vision was a little strange, and he figured he was suffering from a mild concussion. The bad nosebleed had probably made him a little light-headed. But now he had to think.
The Russian would probably head back for Manhattan and the safety of his consulate. But Ivan would be edgy, watching for tails and for more attacks. And Ivan was a professional, Harvey granted him that. Couldn’t deny it, since Ivan had beaten him to the draw. Ivan’s only mistake was he hadn’t waited to finish him off.
Harvey Waller made for the nearest exit and pushed out into the traffic. His driving was a little erratic at first, almost as if his car had very loose steering. He headed for the turnpike and kept his speed down. Already a few miles north on the turnpike, traveling in the slow lane and beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake, Harvey spotted the Russian in the center lane. He picked up speed a little and let the Russian pass him after a while—and was glad he did so, because Ivan headed for the Holland Tunnel exit rather than staying on for the Lincoln Tunnel to bring him to downtown Manhattan and closer to his consulate. The Holland Tunnel would bring him into downtown Manhattan, not far from the financial district. Harvey wondered for a while who he might be going to see there and whether it was worth following him, but then decided that Ivan was simply changing his usual route after his strike-out in the Jersey parking lot.
The turnpike spur to the Holland Tunnel rose on giant concrete stilts for a couple of miles over the brown salt-marsh grass and beat-up factories of the Jersey Meadowlands. The Pulaski Skyway. Polish name. Harvey had always classified Poles in the same bag as Russians until recently. Now that he knew they hated the Reds too, Harvey was a friend to every Polack in town, he said. Be fitting, he thought, to take care of the Russki right here on the Pulaski Skyway. One for Solidarity. Whoever the hell Pulaski was. Probably a crooked Democrat pol who made a million in kickbacks off this fucking swamp gangplank as well as having it named after him.
Harvey’s vision started to pitch and waver again. His car almost struck the retaining wall of the raised roadway. He shook his head violently and took a deep breath and steered into the center lane, away from the wall. Another of these dizzy attacks and he could hit someone. He had to get off the road, out from behind the steering wheel.
The Russian’s car was directly in front of him, a green, late-model Dodge Dart. Harvey drove up behind him, close, so there was not more than six feet between the cars. Traffic was light, and he could have passed on either side. The Russian pulled into the slow lane. Harvey dropped back a little. Soon the Russian came up behind a slower-traveling car in the slow lane and braked behind it, since Harvey’s Buick was too close behind him in the center lane for him to pull out.
Harvey saw the Russian scrutinizing him over his shoulder. He accelerated and swung to the right so that his right front bumper caught the left rear bumper of the Dodge. Harvey put his foot on the gas and banged into him hard. The Dodge’s front end jerked toward the retaining wall of the Skyway, but Ivan swung hard to the left on the steering wheel and managed to avoid contact and stay in his lane with some fishtailing.
It took Waller almost as long to get his car back under control. The Russian’s Dodge was now almost on top of the slow car in front of it. Harvey goosed his engine again, this time all the way, and hit the Dodge a fender-crushing blow in the left rear. He followed through on the punch, the Buick’s engine power surging and pushing the Dart into the car in front and toward the wall at the same time. The Russian hit both and, with one final push from Harvey, the Dodge flipped, stood on its right front wheel for a moment like a ballet dancer, and was gone over the wall.
The slow car in front veered out into the center lane, and Harvey couldn’t avoid sideswiping it. As he passed and fought with his steering wheel to steady the Buick, he saw the car bounce off the retaining wall and do a complete 360-degree spin before coming to a stop in the middle of the roadway. Sure stopped anyone from getting his plate numbers.
Harvey took the next exit off, stopped at a traffic light, and glanced at the newspaper on the seat beside him. He had used up every lead he had gained from the group—killed every fucking traitor and spy he had come across. More even than the group knew about. He really hoped now that the FBI caught up with those cowardly assholes and they had to answer for his deeds. Meanwhile, he might check out that ad in the paper for combat-hardened veterans.
Harvey carefully signaled his turn and drove courteously.
Chapter 8
KATIE Nelson was flirting with the vice-president in charge of the newscast division of the network. She knew he had the hots for her, but had heard he was very cozily married and had never been known to step outside of the bonds of wedlock. Katie enjoyed the feeling that she might be putting some thoughts like this into his head. She didn’t care if nothing came of it—he wasn’t her type really, but she sure as hell enjoyed seeing him twist and turn in his indecision. And she did everything she could—as long as it required no special effort—to keep the flames high under him, with a glimpse of thigh or breast, a touch of her fingertips, a hug and a little-girl snuggle which made him sit down because of his hard-on.
However, today the VP did not have his usual calf eyes for her—in fact, there was a gleam of amusement in them.
“We finally got back that video camera and sound equipment you lost in Vietnam,” he said. “Came back to us via Switzerland.”
“How about the tapes?” she asked, not too hopefully.
“Not one, and the camera is empty.”
“I thought so.”
“
I hear you may be taking the equipment on a trip there again,” he said. “Maybe we should have asked them to hold it for you.”
Katie’s producer came by at that moment, and the VP said to him, “I hear you’re sending Katie off to Vietnam again.”
The producer said, “Hah! Me sending her? She’s going whether I want her to or not! Right, Katie?”
Katie shrugged. “When I suggested a return visit, the Vietnamese okayed it. So did you two.”
The producer picked up a photo torn from The New York Times that lay on Katie’s desk. He read the caption and commented, “Seventy-nine kids of mixed Vietnamese-American parentage and sixty-seven of their relatives allowed to leave Vietnam. Says here it’s the largest group ever allowed to leave. You going back to find that kid of yours, Katie?”
Again Katie noticed the amused look come into the once-adoring eyes of the VP.
“I can’t think of a better news story,” she snapped, “unless Eric were a Rockefeller or a DuPont instead of a Vanderhoven.”
The producer backed off. “I agree. I agree. Listen, this is a big story. We don’t want to breathe a word about it outside this room, or we’ll be beaten to it by someone else. No one’s knocking that story. It’s just that it’s become … well, kind of an obsession with you.”
“In what way?” Katie’s voice was ice cold.
At this point the VP jumped in. “Well, Katie, you’re pretty, and I’m sure you lead a very full romantic life and all, but you’re also single, and I suppose you have strong maternal instincts that have been repressed and now this kid, Eric Vanderhoven, needs you, so …”
Katie smiled at him so sweetly that he stopped. She said, “I think I have two nasty little boys here pulling my hair. Remember how you did that when you were little? And look at you now, you’re still at it. Grow up, please.” She saw by the expression on their faces they were sufficiently chastised. Now she set about building up their egos again. “But if I do return to Vietnam, it’ll only be because you two want me to—feel I’m the one who can get the job done. I’ll need your help and support, both of you, like I had before. I couldn’t manage without that.”