Overture to Disaster (Post Cold War Political Thriller Trilogy Book 3)

by Chester D. Campbell

  Breathing hard, his hands trembling, Roddy looked into the mirror. There were no headlights visible behind them. Apparently there were no witnesses to what had happened.

  Realizing he was getting soaked by the rain, Roddy closed the window and heard Yuri's voice calling, "Are you all right?"

  "Yeah. Except for my left ear." He reached his hand up to cover it. "You nearly blew out my eardrum."

  "I'm sorry."

  Roddy suddenly burst out with a laugh that shook his shoulders. It was partly a humorous reaction, moreso pure nerves. "Damn, Yuri. Don't apologize. If you hadn't fired that blunderbuss, we'd both be dead. I thought you were crazy when you put it in that bag you checked through to San Antonio. Shows how little I know."

  As he began to settle down, Roddy pressed firmly on the accelerator, pushing the Chevrolet back up to speed. He saw the sky brightening a bit ahead, and the rain began to slacken. Deciding to press his luck a little further, he eased the speedometer on above sixty-five and after several minutes spotted the orange stripe on the rear of the U-Haul.

  It was around six when Burke Hill stepped off the plane at McGhee-Tyson Airport. He had flown non-stop to Nashville, then caught a commuter flight to Knoxville. He stopped at a pay phone and called Lori, reflecting that their next long-distance bill would likely resemble the national debt.

  "Roddy just called," she advised. "They stopped at a motel in Knoxville a short while ago. He said a truck tried to run them off the road in the mountains. He didn't go into detail. Said he would tell you when you got there."

  "I was afraid of something like that. Mr. Stern has obviously been busy. Any other news?"

  "Just that there isn't any news about any hunt for the fugitives. Not on TV. Not in the papers. I told Roddy I suspected the FBI would cool it rather than risk compromising the Major."

  "Not the Bureau, Lori. Some of the FBI brass." The trouble was he didn't know which ones. "Are the kids okay?"

  "They're fine. Chloe and Walt Brackin are coming by tonight. She was disappointed to hear you had been sent to Korea. She was counting on you going to that concert with us on the Fourth. I told her I hoped you would be back by then."

  "Don't count on it. I'll have to stay under cover until this thing plays out."

  "Are you going to warn Jerry Chan not to expect you in Seoul?"

  "Yeah. I'll call him. I hope I can convince him to cover for me a day or so."

  Burke checked the yellow pages for a rental agency with pickup trucks. He finally found one that stayed open late. When he had completed the paper work, he climbed into the black Ford, tossed his bag on the seat and headed for the motel where Roddy and Yuri were holed up.

  He was anxious to hear what had happened. He also needed to brief them on his plan for tomorrow. He would have Roddy take the white Chevrolet out tonight and swap it for a different color. Then in the morning they would run a two-car surveillance operation, using small hand-held radios he had picked up from Worldwide's Technical Services Department.

  He hoped they could make Major Romashchuk think Adam Stern's hit men had done their job. Time would tell.

  He found Roddy in an upbeat mood, quite happy to still be alive after the close call with the large truck. Yuri, though, looked like a man whose prize dog had just been run over. Suspecting the cause, Burke suggested he telephone his wife in Minsk. He knew it would make no difference even if Larisa Shumakov's phone were tapped. The Minsk militia was obviously aware that he was now in the United States.

  Yuri called late that night before going to bed.

  "Are you all right?" Larisa asked. "We were told you didn't pick up the money."

  "I'm fine," he assured her. "I can't explain now, but I had to leave Mexico before I could get to the bank."

  "Have you learned who killed the Trishin boy?"

  "No, but I am hot on the trail of the man who surely can tell me."

  He asked about the boys and was told that Petr and Aleksei were doing well but were terribly worried about their father. As for the city prosecutor's office, Larisa knew only that Sergei Perchik was absolutely infuriated that Yuri continued to remain at large.

  "Fortunately, right now everyone is too wrapped up in this commonwealth summit meeting to worry much about you," she said. "But I did have a visitor inquiring about you recently."

  "Who?"

  "General Borovsky."

  "Really?"

  "He said Perchik had been pestering him about not helping in the effort to find you. He obviously detests the prosecutor."

  "You're right. They dislike and distrust each other. What did he want from you?"

  "He wanted to know what you had told me about the case. Your side of the story, as he put it."

  "Well, I'm glad somebody is interested in my side of it. What did you tell him?"

  "Exactly what you told me. That you thought Vadim Trishin's murder was tied in with the case you were working on for him. That you were convinced someone had set you up. I told the General you had been trying to find him to explain everything that day, but the Brest militiamen got there before you could reach him."

  "How did he react?"

  "He seemed genuinely troubled by it. Said it might tie in with something one of his people had told him, some information the man had gotten for you the day you disappeared. It was about the ship from Gdansk. I was afraid I might have said too much already, so I dropped it there."

  New York City

  64

  A few staff members of the Foreign Affairs Roundtable were in the office on Sunday morning doing last-minute packing. An advance contingent had already flown out to Colorado. The others would leave this afternoon. All except Adam Stern. His project was just shifting into high gear. He met with Laurence Coyne to review the operation before time for Coyne to fly out with Bernard Whitehurst.

  "You're positive everything is under control?" Coyne asked one final time. "There is no chance that whatever happens can be traced back to us?"

  "Everything was bought at discount stores or stolen. Serial numbers have been filed off. The evidence will be destroyed or eliminated, except for enough to identify the Peruvians. Their people will promptly take credit for it."

  Coyne pulled off the gold-rimmed glasses and tapped them against his double chin. "I wish they could have found somebody besides South American guerrillas. Those people are insane. They're capable of anything."

  "They will do exactly as told," said Stern. "Do you want to know what that is?"

  The reply was quick and unequivocal. "No!"

  "Pickens is handling the Mexican request on Rodman and Shumakov. He had to assign a small group to follow up, otherwise he might have encountered some nasty flak. His instructions are to provide only surveillance should they be located."

  "Do you think the Bureau will find them?"

  Stern gave a sadistic grin. "Not a chance. Haskell Feldhaus's new friend has promised to eliminate that possibility."

  "What about Burke Hill?"

  "He caught his flight to Korea. One of Pickens' people talked to him just before he left San Francisco. He used his airline ticket. Evidently he was responsible for Rodman and Shumakov being in San Antonio. I still don't know how he knew where to find Romashchuk. But everything is going fine. Trust me. I'll stay in touch."

  Shortly after he returned to his office, Stern received a call from Major Romashchuk in Roanoke, Virginia.

  "Has your tail been eliminated?" Stern inquired.

  "Apparently so. I haven't seen anything of them this morning. Do you have the equipment I requested?"

  "Everything will be ready this afternoon."

  FBI Agent Billy Verona had three pet peeves. He hated flying, which invariably left him half-nauseated for hours after planting his feet back on terra firma; he despised the military, having been forced to slog through the quagmire called Vietnam as a lowly grunt; and, ever since Vietnam, he could not stand hot, muggy weather. So the order to fly down to the humid Florida Gulf Coast and interview a bunch o
f Air Force officer types did not leave him in the best of moods.

  A husky man in his late forties, Verona felt as though he had showered with his clothes on by late afternoon when he returned to the motel he had chosen as a temporary office. Sunday was not an easy day to track down half a dozen officers from Hurlburt Field who had known Colonel Warren Rodman and his former wife. But he had done it. Besides getting a fairly detailed picture of a talented man destroyed by the system, he heard that Mrs. Rodman was living in Gainesville.

  Verona called the agent in charge of the investigative team, explained what he had unearthed and advised that he was leaving for Gainesville, by car.

  "If you find any indication that Colonel Rodman might be around there, contact me before you do anything," the supervisor said.

  "Happily," said Verona. "But don't expect to hear from me before morning. It's a long, hot drive from here."

  "Maybe you'd better fly."

  "Hell, I'd rather be hot and tired than feel like a pregnant woman with morning sickness."

  Late Sunday afternoon the outskirts of Washington looked just the opposite from the normal scene observed at rush hour on a weekday. The westbound lanes of I-66 were not all that crowded. Eastbound, though, a glut of traffic occurred as swarms of D.C. residents returned from weekend visits to God knows where and suburban dwellers poured into the city for a variety of summertime evening events. In the midst of this mini-rush, Nikolai Romashchuk's gray Chevy van rolled along toward the Potomac with his two pursuers wedged into the pack.

  Communicating via radio, Burke Hill had maintained contact with Rodman and Shumakov as they progressed up I-81 through Virginia, then swung to the east on I-66. The small sets operated off powerful lithium batteries and were effective up to twenty-five miles. The trackers had managed to keep up with the Major without either vehicle remaining in view long enough to stir any suspicions. At least that was their hope. Burke, who drove the pickup, had also checked periodically to determine if anyone, such as the FBI, might be lingering in the wake of the brown Honda that Roddy and Yuri were driving. He found no one.

  With the increased traffic as they approached Washington, Burke took a lane to the left of the van, while Roddy and Yuri remained several cars back in the same lane as Romashchuk. Burke would warn them if he made any change in direction.

  Burke noted the signs signaling the upcoming junction with I-495, the Capital Beltway. As they approached the junction, a speeding, honking car in the outside lane to his left momentarily distracted him. When he looked back toward the van, he realized too late that he was in the wrong lane to exit I-66. Clearly the Major, who they referred to by the code name "Red," was taking the Beltway east. He grabbed his radio.

  "Red is turning onto Four-ninety-five east. I've missed the exit. Stay on his tail and let me know where he goes. I'll take the next exit and try to catch up."

  Somebody with a more powerful transmitter, probably in excess of the legal maximum, came on at the same time, creating a harmonic, a multiple of the basic frequency, that matched Burke's and caused his signal to break up. All Roddy and Yuri heard was, "Red...Four-ninety-five...missed the exit...I'll take...catch up."

  "What did he say?" Yuri asked.

  Roddy, who was driving, saw a small gap in the lane to his left and swerved into it. "Apparently the Major didn't take the Four-ninety-five exit. I guess Burke wants us to catch up." He picked up his radio. "Your transmission was garbled, but we got the message. Red's staying on Sixty-six. We'll catch up with you as quickly as possible."

  Roddy's words came through loud and clear. When he heard them, Burke winced. They had lost Romashchuk, pure and simple. Followed the bastard all the way from San Antonio, no, from Guadalajara, and let him get away at the most crucial juncture. Burke realized that if Romashchuk had wanted to miss the capital, he would have taken the Beltway north and circled around the District. The odds were overwhelming that he was headed for a destination right here in the Washington area. But where it might be, he hadn't the foggiest notion.

  Now that it was out in the open, Burke realized the thought had been lurking in the far recesses of his mind for some time. A renegade KGB major, six deadly Shining Path guerrillas and an arsenal of chemical weapons were now loose in the nation's capital, and there didn't seem to be a damned thing he could do about it. Officially, he was in Seoul. Jerry Chan had reluctantly agreed to vouch for that.

  What in God's name could Nikolai Romashchuk be planning, with the connivance of some of the country's top strategists? Recalling that Nate Highsmith was leaving today for the Foreign Affairs Roundtable meeting in Colorado, he almost choked on the bitter taste it left in his mouth. He doubted it was strictly coincidence that all those sterling patriots were gathered out in the West at a time when something decidedly sinister was in the works here in Washington.

  He got on the radio and gave Rodman and Shumakov the bad news. Since they were coming up on the Falls Church exit, Burke suggested they go to his house and discuss what to do next. He thought it unlikely anyone would be watching the place, considering that everyone thought he was in Seoul.

  As they sat around the table cleaning up the remnants of a large pot of spaghetti and a bowl of thick, red, meaty sauce, Lori Hill offered her apologies. "I'm sorry I didn't have anything to offer you but spaghetti. My trusty husband didn't warn me I was about to have company for dinner."

  "It was delicious," Rodman assured her.

  "It was different," said Shumakov with a grin. Spaghetti was not a staple in Belarus.

  Burke shrugged. "Unfortunately, I didn't know we were going to be here or I'd have warned you."

  The phone rang and Lori looked across at him. "Shall I answer it?"

  "Considering I'm in Korea, you'd better."

  "Okay. Check on the twins." Lori had left them in the play room, a sanitized area with toys and a TV and a gate to keep them corralled. She went into the family room and picked up the phone. "Hello."

  "Lori, this is Brittany Pickerel. I haven't seen you since Jerry Chan's wedding."

  "That's right. Burke told me you were back in Washington. We'll have to get together sometime."

  "I'd enjoy that. The reason I called, I thought Mr. Hill would probably be getting in touch with you from Seoul."

  "Uh, yes. I'm sure I'll hear from him shortly." She grinned. That was no lie.

  "Please give him a message for me. It's something I'm sure he will be interested in."

  "Sure. Be happy to."

  "Tell him I took photos of Adam Stern and Colonel Bolivar to that drug store in Silver Spring. The pharmacist identified Stern as the man who brought in the Dalmane prescription. Also, my computer friend at the Presidential Plaza called. It seems he put a flag in the computer to alert him if Stern returned. Well, tell Mr. Hill he says Stern checked back into the hotel this afternoon. Mr. Hill probably won't care about this, but Stern is in Room 333."

  Lori returned to the dining room to find Burke at a console that provided both video and audio monitoring of the playroom. Mounted on a wheeled cart, it could be plugged into wall outlets in any of several rooms.

  He grinned. "Cam is into the blocks. I think he's building the Tower of Babel."

  "You might want him to build you a fort," Lori said. "Adam Stern is back in town. And it appears there's no doubt that he killed Colonel Bolivar."

  After she had related Brittany's message, Burke nodded. "That confirms my suspicions. I'm sure Romashchuk is in Washington, too. But instead of building a fort, let's take the offensive." He turned to Yuri. "Mr. Investigator, I think it's time we did a little detective work."

  65

  By seven p.m. the sun was dipping low, setting off a sparkling display on the glass front of the Presidential Plaza Hotel. In back, the street was all shadows as the black pickup truck parked near the service entrance. The nearby concrete apron held a collection of huge garbage dumpsters and led to a raised dock for delivery trucks. Although the street was a no-parking zone, Burke hoped the police
would not give him a hard time since it was a Sunday evening. If asked, he would say he was waiting for his wife to get off work at the hotel.

  Burke dialed the hotel number on his cellular phone and asked for Adam Stern. When a male voice answered, he said, "George?"

  "This isn't George," an annoyed voice replied. "You have the wrong room."

  Burke switched off the phone and turned to Yuri Shumakov. "He's there."

  Yuri got out and walked around to the front entrance. He wore an old straw hat of Burke's, with cardboard in the band to make it fit. Lori had worked on his eyes with makeup to give him something of an Oriental look. He had a camera case slung around his neck. He carried a newspaper and a small hand-held radio in a green cloth tote bag from Singapore Airlines, something Lori had picked up at a convention.

  Locating a chair that commanded a full view of the lobby, he sat down and took out his newspaper. There was a clock over the registration desk. He glanced at it occasionally as his eyes casually swept the area. He saw the hands swing to 7:30, then 8:00, then 8:30. He was getting fidgety, crossing and uncrossing his legs. When the clock's hands reached nine, he decided it was time to check in with Burke. He took out the radio, which was pocket size, and stuck the small earpiece in his ear. Then he spotted a man stepping off an elevator who met the description of Adam Stern perfectly, right down to the shadowy hint of a beard. He was dressed casually in a blue knit shirt and black-and-white checked pants. The way he looked, he might have just stepped off a golf course.

  As Stern sauntered toward the entrance, Yuri keyed the mike and held the radio close to his mouth. "He is about to leave."

  "On my way," Burke replied.

  Yuri got up and followed as Stern reached the doorway. A few moments later, he spoke into the radio again. "He is getting into a taxicab."