Back Channel: A novel

by Stephen L Carter

  On her second pass, she studied the van again, how empty and silent it sat. When she drew abreast of the blue car, she noticed that the driver hadn’t stirred.

  The wind freshened and a tree groaned loudly, and still he made no move. Margo shivered, but not from the cold.

  Caution aside.

  She leaned close to the blue car, peered inside, saw the impossible angle of his neck, and had to fight not to throw up.

  A second later, no longer caring if anyone saw her, she was pelting across the street, pounding on the door—

  And finding it ajar.

  Inside were signs of the struggle. Broken glass. A vase that must have been thrown. Blood in the foyer and in the living room.

  And Harrington in the kitchen.

  Hands bound.

  Beside her, a small sharp knife with a wooden handle. There was a lot of blood.

  This time, Margo did throw up, loud and hard, not quite making it to the sink.

  When, after an eternity, she managed to straighten up, she cried out. She was not alone in the kitchen. Through her tears, she caught the unbothered stare of Agatha Milner, her minder from Bulgaria, the girl who had intimidated all the boys at training camp and scared to death all the operatives they met in Europe.

  “I knew you’d come,” said Agatha. She still wore the schoolmarmish bun, but without the thick glasses. She was dressed in jeans and a dark sweater and tennis shoes. Despite the cast on her right wrist, she looked every inch exactly what Jerry Ainsley had said she was.

  She kills with her bare hands, Margo. She’s very good at it.

  Just now, thinking of the men outside and trying not to look down at the body of Doris Harrington, Margo harbored no doubts at all.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Negotiations

  I

  They were face-to-face again at last. Margo had been begging for information about Agatha’s fate since the night they were separated in Varna. Now they stood on opposite sides of the butcher-block counter, circling like wary pugilists, although Margo knew perfectly well that Agatha could kill her in half a second. That’s why, even as they backed and shuffled, the counter always between them, a part of her concentration was on the gun in her purse, and the rest was on knives, frying pans, anything that could be wielded or thrown.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Agatha. “I’m here to bring you in.”

  But Margo said nothing. She was staring, fascinated, at Agatha’s strong hands, the way she held those fingers half curled. She forced herself not to stare at what lay on the floor.

  “This wasn’t me,” the older woman continued. “I got here a few minutes before you did. I found her like this.” A stifled sound. Her face was very red. “I loved her more than you did, Margo.”

  Still Margo stayed silent. There was the door to the foyer, and there was the door to the yard, and she wondered whether she would have time to make either.

  “I’m sure Jerry Ainsley told you lots of things about me,” Agatha said. “And maybe some of them are even true. But believe this, Margo. I’m not your enemy. They sent me to look for you. They figured I’d know your habits best.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I staked out a couple of places you were likely go to. This was one of them. A lot of it was luck, Margo.”

  “Bring me in where?”

  “My orders are to deliver you to a townhouse on East Capitol Street. I’m told you know where it is.”

  Margo had chosen where to make her stand. She slowed to a halt. Behind her was the arch leading to the foyer. She could make a break, pulling the Beretta on the way, and run through the front door, which was conveniently open. The cast would surely slow Agatha down.

  “Suppose I don’t believe you.”

  “I bring you in anyway.” Agatha’s eyes flicked to the purse, then back to Margo, as if to say she knew the plan. Agatha herself was displaying no weapon of any kind, but that meant nothing. “We don’t have a lot of time. They’ll be here soon.”

  “Who will?”

  “A lot of people. The dead man in the blue car and the dead men in the back of the van played for different teams. Both teams will send people to find out why their watchers aren’t reporting in.”

  “How do you know they’re not together?”

  “Because,” Agatha began—

  And Margo was gone, flying down the hall, gun in hand, heading for the foyer and the relative safety of the foggy street beyond.

  But only in her mind.

  Because no sooner did she start her turn than Agatha somehow was around the counter and sitting atop her, holding both her wrists easily with her one good hand. The gun had disappeared.

  “Will you please just listen now? I said I’m here to help you, and I am.” She leaned close. “Whatever you might believe about me, you know I’d never hurt Dr. Harrington.”

  “You would if you were ordered to!”

  “Possibly. I don’t know. But not like that. Not like what they did to her.”

  “Does it matter what I say?” Margo gasped, because the pressure of the smaller woman’s knees was getting to be a problem.

  “Not really. You’re coming with me, one way or the other. Conscious is easier, but we can do it the hard way if you insist.”

  In the car, Margo had a question. “Would you really have knocked me unconscious?”

  Agatha took her time answering. “Understand something. This isn’t about you. And it isn’t about the missiles. Not for me.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  The onetime minder said nothing. She continued to steer smoothly along dark, empty avenues with her good hand. But Margo saw the pain in the bland schoolmarm face, and knew.

  II

  Jericho Ainsley was crouching in the shadows on the second-floor fire escape of a flophouse on V Street not far from Florida Avenue. The city had worse neighborhoods, but this wasn’t one of the better ones. And, unlike many of the whiter parts of town, this one seemed not to have received the crisis memo, for although it was almost midnight, there was a considerable boister on the sidewalks below.

  But Ainsley’s focus was on the decrepit brownstone across the way.

  After Margo’s disappearance, he had followed the man in the gold-rimmed glasses, who had spoken to another man, who had led him here. Jerry didn’t know all the players in the game, but he did know that whoever was represented by the man who’d tried to get Margo into the taxi was very well organized indeed. Though he had been at the brownstone only a few minutes, he had already counted three different men and one woman departing in two separate cars, presumably to monitor sites where GREENHILL might show up.

  There couldn’t be many left in the house: possibly just two or three. In any event, he needed a closer reconnaissance.

  Ainsley wasn’t in the hard end of the business. He’d had the courses in hand-to-hand combat and small arms, of course, but his scores had been only adequate. Still, although he might not be an Agatha Milner or a Jack Ziegler, he knew how to take care of himself.

  He began the climb down.

  III

  Bundy stood with the attorney general on the portico outside the Oval Office. The Rose Garden greenery was dewy in the night mist.

  “Nothing,” Bobby said, arms folded as he stifled his anger. “We even brought in Hoover, and he’s got nothing for us. No idea.”

  “She’ll surface,” said Bundy. He stifled a yawn. The President was taking a much-needed catnap, but Bundy had no time for rest. “She’ll make contact.”

  “We don’t even know if she’s alive.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic.”

  “I’m serious, Mac. Whoever is out there trying to stop her, they’re some very serious people. Are they out of their minds?”

  Bundy hid a frown. Emotion was not conducive to rational thinking. Besides, if either one of them was to be upset, it should be Bundy himself, for it was he who had persuaded the head of the presidential detail to send GREENHILL’s embarras
sed driver to report whether she had successfully made the rendezvous with Fomin. The idea was simply to observe; nobody had imagined that the man might be walking into a trap. But Bundy managed to put that guilt aside; now he needed Bobby Kennedy to put his own fury aside.

  “Presumably, they’re the same people who waylaid her last night,” said Bundy. “They failed to do whatever they were trying to get her to do—to persuade her to stop, one imagines—and so they’re trying again. The violence this time is a mark of their desperation. It teaches us that they think they’re losing.”

  The attorney general was unimpressed. “That’s awfully clinical of you, Mac.”

  “Is it? Perhaps. What I’m trying to say is, they’re desperate. Desperate men make mistakes. With Hoover in the hunt now, they’ll be more desperate. They’re on the run, Bobby. Don’t worry. Whoever they are, they’re done.”

  “And GREENHILL?”

  “She’s resourceful,” said Bundy. “She’ll get us Fomin’s message.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  An aide came along the walkway and whispered to the attorney general. When Bobby turned around, his chalky expression made Bundy’s blood run cold.

  “Is it GREENHILL?”

  “It’s Dr. Harrington. She’s dead, Mac. So is the aide you sent to bring her to the White House. Now do you see what I mean?”

  IV

  The brownstone abutted another building on one side. On the other was an alley, and it was the alley Jerry Ainsley selected. He stumbled noisily, walking slowly and circuitously, wanting to be taken for drunk. But nobody seemed to be on guard duty.

  From the alley he had his choice of three basement windows and four on the main floor. The basement was dark. The main-floor windows were curtained, but along the edges were cracks of light.

  Caution to the winds.

  He got up on his toes and peered through the first window. Two men were smoking and drinking and playing cards. A shotgun leaned against the wall. The next window gave on a small room with maps on the walls. A man sat wearing earphones, tuning a wireless. Last of all was the empty kitchen—

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  He swung around. A heavy-fisted man was rushing toward him. Ainsley saw at once that he could never best him in a fair fight. So he allowed himself to fall to his knees, muttering nonsense syllables, and when the guard grabbed his collar to yank him to his feet, Ainsley hit him hard in the groin and, as he doubled over, harder in the chin.

  The guard folded up, but his twitching fingers tried to get to his gun. Ainsley stamped hard on his hand. He grabbed the gun, then slid the guard’s wallet from his pocket and raced away, leaving him for his friends to find. Let them guess whether he’d tangled with a fellow professional or just been mugged and robbed.

  Several blocks away, he stopped and opened the wallet. The man was a State Department diplomatic security officer, but somehow Ainsley suspected that he wasn’t guarding a consulate.

  Jerry threw the gun down a sewer but kept the wallet. He was searching for a phone booth. As he had told Margo, he believed in making friends everywhere. It was time to call one in particular.

  V

  “Tell me what happened,” said Margo. They were passing the White House, and she wondered what would happen if she hopped out and went to the front gate and asked to see the President.

  “Does that mean you’ve decided to believe me?”

  “I guess so. But I believed Jerry Ainsley, too, and he tried to kill me. What’s so funny?”

  “The idea that Jerry Ainsley would try to kill you.”

  “Why? Because he’s such a nice guy?”

  “Because he knows as much about killing as I know about differential calculus. Nobody who wanted you dead would go to a guy like him. He’s more a thinker than a doer. That’s not a bad thing,” she added hastily. “It’s just that he doesn’t have the right set of skills.”

  Margo looked at her. “And you do? Is that why they sent you after me?”

  “I was told that it’s because I spent all that time with you. I’d know your habits, guess where you’d show up.”

  “Told by whom?”

  “Chain of command.”

  That seemed wrong. Bundy had said the operation was limited to a handful of people. The chain of command sounded dangerously official.

  “Who exactly—”

  But Agatha was on to the next topic. “Did you see the knife?”

  “I—yes.” Shudder.

  “It’s an unusual knife. It’s Finnish. Known as a puukko. It’s the basic model for the fancier Soviet combat knife, the NR-40. You don’t see many puukkos these days, especially not on this side of the ocean.” A hard swallow. “That knife is the trademark of a Soviet assassin who uses the cover name Viktor Vaganian. We don’t know his real name. The point is, nobody else in the trade uses a puukko. The Soviets killed Dr. Harrington.”

  Margo remembered Fomin’s warning about the war party on his side. But, even granting their existence …

  “Why?” she asked. “What would they want with Dr. Harrington?”

  “I’m not sure. Bulgaria was her operation. Maybe they wanted to know who else was in on it.” She made a hard turn, rocking Margo against the door. “Maybe they thought she knew who was working with Smyslov. She didn’t, but that wouldn’t stop them asking. And asking.”

  A thick unhealthy silence fell in the car.

  “Dr. Harrington knew the risks of the business,” Agatha finally said, but it wasn’t clear which of them she was trying to persuade.

  Margo’s analytical half was troubled. “Does this sort of thing happen often? Soviet agents killing our people right here at home?”

  “Not often.” Agatha’s forehead creased in thought, and for just an instant she was the librarian again. “Not ever, that I can remember, as a matter of fact. They must be desperate.”

  “Or you’re wrong.”

  “I know a puukko when I see one,” said the minder, her voice warm with warning.

  But Margo wasn’t ready to give up. “It still doesn’t make any sense. If Dr. Harrington was in it from the start, then why would she—”

  “Get down,” said Agatha, casually, and turned the wheel sharply to the right. The car skidded, the rear end flailing wildly, and then they were headed in the other direction, the onetime minder driving hard.

  “What—”

  “I said stay down!”

  But Margo put her head up all the same. The car jolted to a stop. She looked around. They were on the Mall, near the red towers of the Arts and Industries Building. There was a car ahead of them and another behind. Escape was blocked. Men were fanning out from the vehicles, guns trained.

  “What is it?” asked Margo. “What is this?”

  “I don’t know,” Agatha admitted. “But I think we should get out.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  More Negotiations

  I

  Margo stood beside the car, still wearing the gown beneath her coat. Agatha was a few feet in front, as if she meant to place her body between her charge and the danger. There were three men, and they stood well clear of each other, so as to leave clear lines of fire. Two of the newcomers were inching forward. A tall blond man with a crooked nose seemed to be in charge.

  “Stop, please,” he said. His voice was a low-pitched whisper.

  “We’re not moving,” said Agatha.

  “I wasn’t talking to you.” To the others: “I said stop. Be careful.”

  One of the men had a thick black beard. “It’s just a couple of girls, Kevin.”

  The blond man’s voice was soft. “Maybe so, but one of them is Agatha Milner.”

  The other two men turned toward her in astonishment, and the one who was closer took a hasty step back.

  “The Agatha Milner?” said the bearded man. “Seriously?”

  “I thought she’d be taller,” said his companion.

  “Seriously,” said the man called Kevin. “And I beli
eve that, even with that arm, she could take both of you in about ten seconds. Keep the gun on her, but don’t go near her.”

  “What exactly is this?” said Agatha.

  Kevin had a cruel smile. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “I remember you.”

  “Then you remember you’re the reason I was kicked out of the Agency.”

  “You were never in the Agency, Kevin. I’m the reason you were kicked out of training camp.”

  One of the other men snickered. Kevin’s hand twitched, but his smile never faltered. “Well, that’s water under the bridge. My understanding is that we’re on the same team now.” He nodded toward Margo. “We’re taking GREENHILL off your hands. She’s not your problem any more.”

  “My instructions are to deliver her—”

  “To the townhouse. We know. New orders. We’ll take care of all that.”

  “Why the change?”

  “Maybe you haven’t kept up with the news, Agatha. All of a sudden there are a lot of dead bodies lying around.”

  Margo sensed the tension but didn’t understand it. She saw Kevin’s companions exchange an uneasy glance.

  “Would you mind taking your hand out of your pocket?” said Agatha.

  “Of course.” He turned up his palm to show that the hand was empty, but she plainly had noticed something she didn’t like.

  The minder flexed her fingers. “I’ll take her to the rendezvous. You can follow us in your car.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” The guns were gripped firmly now, one trained on Agatha, the other on Margo. The pretense was over. “She isn’t your responsibility any more.”

  The minder, her gaze riveted on the man with the broken nose, moved closer to her charge.

  “Go ahead, Agatha. Try. My orders are to leave you alone as long as you cooperate, but I wouldn’t particularly mind having another go-round.”

  Margo felt Agatha’s bad hand on her shoulder. The fingers tapped gently. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but it had to mean something.