by David Wind
Mathews smiled suddenly, the tension leaving his face. “Actually, I don’t think I ever had a chance of doing anything else.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Not as a general rule. But there have been times...”
“Then, you’re telling me that Walter Hirshorne did not suggest to you that you run for vice president?”
Mathews laughed good-naturedly. “No, in fact, Uncle Walter tried to talk me out of it. He is a political realist. Given the present administration’s decent popularity, he didn’t think Etheridge and I would be able to gain enough momentum to overpower them. Besides, he had always wanted me to go into the State Department, where I would not be at the whim or the mercy of the public. I guess he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”
Blair had not expected this answer. “Does that mean he’s not lending you his full support?”
“He is my family. Of course he supports me. He advises me, privately, and he helps me every chance he gets. And no, Mr. Blair, my decision to run did not interfere with our relationship.”
With Mathews’ last word, Blair heard the tape recorder click off. His allotted time had passed.
Mathews, glancing at the recorder, stood. Blair followed suit, picking up the recorder and putting it into his jacket pocket.
“Thank you for your time, and for your frankness,” he said, offering his hand.
Mathews grasped it firmly.
“Believe it or not, I think I enjoyed it. Tell me,” he added, releasing Blair’s hand. “How do I stack up in your eyes...now?”
Blair held Mathews’ searching stare for several prolonged seconds while he tried to frame the words in the right way. “Congressman, I’ve been following you carefully for two months. And for the past six weeks I’ve been everywhere in this country with you. I’ve formed my opinion of you—it would be impossible not to. I think you would make a hell of a vice president, for starters, if everything I’ve learned about you is accurate.”
“And if it isn’t?”
Blair blinked, once. “If it isn’t and I’m wrong about you, I’ll do whatever is necessary to make sure the public learns about it. I’ll use my every faculty to make sure you do not win the election. And I’ll do it by writing only the truth.”
“I haven’t hidden anything from you or anyone else, Mr. Blair. You’ll find that out,” Mathews said calmly.
“I sincerely hope so, Congressman. Because it’s been too long since this country has had an idealist who they can trust.”
“Don’t hold me up as a white knight, Mr. Blair. I’m just a person who wants to do some constructive work with his life.”
“Which is the way you’re being presented to the world.”
“You’re wrong,” Mathews said, his green eyes deepening with emotion. “It’s the way you people, the press, are presenting me. Mr. Blair, I have no earth-shaking skeletons in my closet, and my life has been pretty average in most areas. I wouldn’t call myself a perfect person, but neither have I done something terrible enough to hide. On the whole, I’m no different than anyone else.” When Mathews stopped speaking, he looked around the room and then walked quickly over to the far wall. The wall held a single painting on it. A landscape of the Grand Teton Mountains. Beneath the painting was a chess set resting upon a small table. Two chairs faced each other across the board.
Mathews went to the table and picked up a chess piece. He came back to Blair, saying, “Do you play chess?”
“Not since college,” Blair admitted, looking at the silver queen Mathews held between thumb and forefinger. The figure was exquisite, with an intricacy of detail Blair had rarely seen on a chess piece.
“I enjoy the game tremendously. Uncle Walter taught me to play when I was seven. This set,” he added, motioning to the chessboard and pieces, “was a gift from him on my fourteenth birthday. All the pieces were hand cast. It’s a one of a kind set, irreplaceable. It is very important to me. Take this,” he said, thrusting the piece at Blair.
“Hold onto it until after the election. If you find out anything contrary to what I’ve always declared I believe in, then you print it, and keep the piece as a trophy. Put it on your mantel the way a hunter hangs the points of a prize stag. And you are a hunter, Mr. Blair.”
Blair waved the offered piece away. “I can’t take—”
“Yes, you can,” Mathews stated. “I have no fear of losing it.”
Blair looked from the man’s eyes to the gleaming silver queen. Slowly, he took it from Mathews and put it in his pocket, next to the recorder. “After the elections, then.”
“Yes, I’ll call you,” Mathews replied with an easy smile. “After the elections.”
Turning, Blair left the room. He felt Mathews’ eyes on his back, but sensed no animosity, no malice. Even so, when he stepped outside and into the cool late-morning air, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He wasn’t sure of exactly what he’d learned, other than the fact that Mathews was a passionate believer in himself; and, that if Mathews was half the man he seemed, the country would be gaining a hell of a booster.
Strangely, Blair wanted to find out if Mathews was as good as he said he was, and that in sixteen days, he would be able to return the silver chess piece to the man.
Once inside his rental car, he took out the tape of the interview, put a in fresh tape, and started the car. As he drove from the ranch, he placed the recorder on the dashboard with the record button pressed in. He began to talk, as was his habit, and give his first impressions of the interview.
Ten minutes after leaving Mathews’ ranch, Blair was in the low valley between the first and the second mountain peaks on the road to Lander.
He shut off the recorder for a moment as he worked to gather his thoughts. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw a dark pickup truck come barreling out of a side road.
Dust spewed from its rear tires, forming a low umber and yellow cloud behind it. Tensely, Blair watched the truck gain on him. His first thought was that the truck was the same one he thought had been following him yesterday.
The thoughts of paranoia returned. Relax, he told himself as the hood of the truck grew in his rearview. The windshield was tinted, but he could see a shape behind the steering wheel.
Blair pressed the gas as his car began the climb up the mountain slope. Halfway to the top, the pickup blew its horn and began to pass.
Blair’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as he tried to tell himself that the driver was just some idiot in a hurry. He took his foot off the gas as the pickup came parallel to his car.
Through the tinted glass of the passenger window, Blair saw the driver’s head turn and knew the man was looking at him. Then the truck shot on ahead toward the top of the mountain.
He realized his paranoia was starting to get out of hand. He took several deep breaths and pressed down on the accelerator.
Shaking his head, he exhaled the sour taste of fear. He was beginning to think that it was just in his own head.
He glanced at the speedometer and saw he was doing sixty. He crested the mountaintop, and started down. The view of the multicolored rock mountains was breathtaking. He could see for miles, and the harsh beauty of the Wyoming vista was magnificent.
It was—Blair cut off his wandering thoughts suddenly as the pickup truck that had passed him pulled out from the side of the road and headed straight toward him.
The driver was on the wrong side—his side. The truck was no more than a hundred yards ahead.
“Oh, Jesus,” Blair muttered, his hands again tightening on the steering wheel. He lifted his foot off the accelerator and began to tap on the brakes.
The distance closed. The hood of the pickup loomed larger ahead of him. He saw the driver clearly; the man’s eyes were covered with dark sunglasses.
“Move over! God damn you, move it over!” he shouted as the bitter, coppery acid taste of bile flooded his mouth.
When the pickup was twenty feet away, Blair reacted without th
inking. He hit the gas and cut the wheel to the left. He swerved again, fighting the fishtailing of his car. He had almost regained control when the pickup hit his rear fender.
The wheel ripped violently from his hand. The screech of twisting metal filled his ears as the rear quarter panel was torn away. The car spun halfway around and then straightened again. Then, as Blair caught the wheel and turned away from the side of the mountain, the front tire hit the guardrail and blew out.
The car lurched sideways and lifted onto two wheels. Blair screamed as the car flipped sideways, slamming his head into the window.
<><><>
On the top floor of an office building, the sun filtered in a wide window through its partially open vertical blinds. Patterns of light, slanted shafts from the blinds scattered across a large mahogany desk, accenting a closed kidskin appointment book.
On the desk, in the shadows missed by the morning sunlight, was a speakerphone. Twin LEDs glowed, signifying that the built-in scrambling device was functioning properly and the line was unmonitored.
The man sitting rigidly behind the desk, stared at the speakerphone. He listened intently to the coarsely accented English coming from the black plastic.
When the speaker fell silent, the man exhaled his displeasure in a noisy grunt before saying, “I want to know everything about the incident. I want to know who the man was, how he got in, and how much he learned. I want a full report, and I want it in twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, we have already begun to investigate. But it is General Varisnov’s and my consensus the man did not have enough time to learn anything before Colonel Davidov was killed. They were together for perhaps three or four minutes only.”
“I don’t care what you or General Varisnov think. I want a full-scale investigation carried out, and I want reports immediately. I must know if the man learned anything that may endanger my operation.”
“Yes, sir, I—”
Leaning forward, the man slammed his hand on the cut-off button of the phone. Then he stood and walked to the window. He looked out at the skyline of Washington D. C. and calmed himself by staring at the Capitol Building.
For over forty years, he had been working toward a single purpose. Now that the culmination of his plan was almost upon him, an unforeseen danger had arisen. He had as little doubt that he would eliminate the danger as he had about his ability to fulfill the dream born over a half century before.
His only thoughts centered on what the American spy had learned in Russia. But he would have his reports soon, and he would know.
Whoever the agent was, he would find out. Then, through his various channels, he would learn if the agent had been successful in getting information from the traitorous KGB colonel.
If the agent had learned anything about Sokova, anything at all, the man’s life would be terminated.
But Sokova also knew he could not have the agent sanctioned until he was absolutely certain the agent had gained information. Wet work—killing—no matter how perfectly executed, always caused complications. Murder, when unnecessary, was too great a risk to chance now. No, he would have to be positive the agent learned something valuable from the dead double agent.
If the man had indeed learned about Sokova, then elimination was necessary. Nothing else would suffice. Nothing!
Chapter Four
Monday
Blair opened his eyes. The world tipped and spun. Grabbing the side of the bed, Blair sat up. Bile filled his mouth. He raced to the bathroom, just making it to the porcelain altar before giving up the fluids roiling in his stomach.
When the nausea passed, Blair went to the sink and cleaned himself up. Tasting mint toothpaste, he left the bathroom, giving thanks to whatever powers had kept him alive. The car had flipped partially over after he’d lost consciousness; the guardrail had stopped it from going over the side of the mountain.
Luckily for him, a sheriff’s patrol car had come on the scene within seconds of the accident. The deputy had dragged the unconscious Blair out of the car and, after radioing in and being informed that there were no ambulances available, had driven him to the hospital.
Blair had come to just before they’d reached the hospital. He’d tried to tell the deputy what had happened, but disoriented, he couldn’t turn his thoughts into words before the emergency room team took him into the hospital.
During his stay in the emergency room, he’d had the time to think about the accident and its possible consequences. He’d couldn’t tell the deputy that someone had tried to kill him. He had no proof.
What could he say? Hey, Deputy, someone I don’t know tried to kill me because I’m trying to find out the dirt about your hometown congressman who may be the next vice president.... Right, Blair thought, and the deputy would probably finish off the job the guy in the pickup started.
No, he had decided, when it came time to make the report, he would just say he’d tried to avoid another vehicle, probably driven by a drunk.
Two hours after the deputy had brought him to the hospital, Blair left with the knowledge that he’d suffered a concussion and was expected in the sheriff’s office the next morning to fill out a formal report.
After Blair agreed to do as the deputy asked, the deputy had driven him to the motel, where he’d gone inside and passed out.
Blair shook his head and regretted the action immediately. He looked around, his disorientation still strong. He decided on a shower before going to the sheriff’s office.
He started back to the bathroom, but made only three steps when the phone rang.
Picking it up, he said, “Blair,”
“Mr. Blair…Robert Mathews.”
Blair glanced at the mirror over the dresser. There was a long and already purplish welt a half inch below his hairline, centered above his right eye. “Yes, sir?”
“How are you? I called the hospital last night, just before I left for New York. They said you’d been released.”
“Yes. I... I’m fine.”
“From what the sheriff tells me, you had a very close call. What happened?”
Blair’s sense of distrust reared. “Someone cut me off.”
“Well, thank God you’re alive. I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
“You can count on it. Congressman?” he asked after a hesitant pause. “May I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead,” Mathews said.
“Yesterday, you said you had me checked out. How far did you go? Have you been having me followed as well?” There was silence for a moment.
When Mathews finally spoke again, his voice was tight. “That was beneath you.”
“I apologize if I’ve offended you, Congressman, but...”
“If it eases your mind, no, Mr. Blair, I did not have you followed. I don’t operate that way.”
The underlying desire to believe Robert Mathews hit Blair. He knew he had no real basis for it, yet he could not deny it. “Again, I apologize.”
“Accepted. And please do me a favor, until I get my queen back, drive a little more carefully.”
Blair tore his eyes from the face in the mirror. “I’ll do my best.”
He held the phone for several seconds after hearing the click on the other end. He thought of the pickup truck that had tried to run him off the mountain. If not Mathews, then who?
Knowing only time would give him the answer, Blair took his shower, being careful not to make any sudden moves. He dressed and went down to the lobby of the Holiday Inn, where the desk clerk informed him that his new rental car was ready.
Outside, breathing deeply of the cool air, Blair spotted the duplicate of his last car.
On the drive to the sheriff’s office, Blair rehearsed his story while keeping an eye on the rearview mirror.
Seven minutes later, he entered the sheriff’s office and walked up to the deputy sitting behind the first desk. He was a thin man, about twenty-eight with short-trimmed red hair. His nametag read O’Donnell.
“My name is
Joel Blair, I—”
“You’re the reporter who almost kilt himself yesterday,” the deputy said with a nod.
“Word gets around fast, doesn’t it.”
“Sure does. Ain’t too many people ‘round here who don’t know everything that happens in this town. What can I do for ya?”
“The deputy who helped me out yesterday told me to come in and fill out a report today.”
“That was Jimmy Lukas,” O’Donnell said. “Give me a minute.”
O’Donnell stood, went to a desk near the back of the office, and returned in less than the minute he’d asked for. He sat back down, and put a half-filled out sheet of paper on the desk. “According to Jimmy, you said that when you crested the top of the mountain, there was a pickup truck headed toward you, in your lane. You swerved to miss him, and your car went out of control. That about it?”
Blair’s mouth went dry. He stared past Deputy O’Donnell, to a faded black-and-white picture of JFK on the far wall. The printing beneath the famous face said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
“Yes, that’s about it.”
“I’ll need your license and some other I.D., if you’ve got it.”
Extricating his driver’s license and press card from his wallet, he handed them to the deputy. While the man wrote down the numbers, Blair looked around the office, which seemed to be modeled after Andy Griffith’s Mayberry office.
“Here ya go,” O’Donnell said, returning his papers. “You were real lucky, ya know. Jimmy said if your car had gone a half foot farther toward the rail, they’d be shippin’ your body home in a box.”
“Real lucky,” Blair agreed dryly. Then, as he caught a glimpse of a Mathews/Etheridge election poster on the back wall, he said, “Were you a deputy when Congressman Mathews’ wife and son were killed?”
The deputy’s eyes narrowed briefly and went distant. “Yeah.”
Blair recognized the protective gesture and kept his own face unreadable. “Hey, I understand. But it’s my job, you know. I’m a reporter, and when I get the chance, I try to find out firsthand what really happened rather than to read someone else’s interpretation. I read some of the details in my research, but I never got down to the nitty gritty.”