by Tom Clancy
“Maybe he’s got American Express. Call and find out,” Werner ordered the junior man.
“Will do,” Washington promised.
“Who do I call on this?” Werner asked.
“Right here, sir.” Washington pointed to the number on the covering sheet.
“Oh, good, I’ve met him. Thanks, Jimmy.” Werner lifted his phone and dialed the international number. “Mr. Tawney, please,” he told the operator. “It’s Gus Werner calling from FBI Headquarters in Washington.”
“Hello, Gus. That was very fast of you,” Tawney said, half in his overcoat and hoping to get home.
“The wonders of the computer age, Bill. I have a possible hit on this Serov guy. He flew from Heathrow to Chicago yesterday. The flight was about three hours after the fracas you had at Hereford. I have a rental car, a hotel bill, and a flight from Chicago to New York City after he got here.”
“Address?”
“We’re not that lucky. Post office box in lower Manhattan,” the Assistant Director told his counterpart. “Bill, how hot is this?”
“Gus, it’s bloody hot. Sean Grady gave us the name, and one of the other prisoners confirmed it. This Serov chap delivered a large sum of money and ten pounds of cocaine shortly before the attack. We’re working with the Swiss to track the money right now. And now it appears that this chap is based in America. Very interesting.”
“No shit. We’re going to have to track this mutt down if we can,” Werner thought aloud. There was ample jurisdiction for the investigation he was about to open. American laws on terrorism reached across the world and had draconian penalties attached to them. And so did drug laws.
“You’ll try?” Tawney asked.
“You bet your ass on that one, Bill,” Werner replied positively. “I’m starting the case file myself. The hunt is on for Mr. Serov.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Gus.”
Werner consulted his computer for a codeword. This case would be important and classified, and the codeword on the file would read . . . no, not that one. He told the machine to pick another. Yes. PREFECT, a word he remembered from his Jesuit high school in St. Louis.
“Mr. Werner?” his secretary called. “Mr. Henriksen on line three.”
“Hey, Bill,” Werner said, picking up the phone.
“Cute little guy, isn’t he?” Chavez asked.
John Conor Chavez was in his plastic crib-tray, sleeping peacefully at the moment. The name card in the slot on the front established his identity, helped somewhat by an armed policeman in the nursery. There would be another on the maternity floor, and an SAS team of three soldiers on the hospital grounds—they were harder to identify, as they didn’t have military haircuts. It was, again, the horse-gone-lock-the-door mentality, but Chavez didn’t mind that people were around to protect his wife and child.
“Most of ’em are,” John Clark agreed, remembering what Patsy and Maggie had been like at that age—only yesterday, it so often seemed. Like most men, John always thought of his children as infants, never able to forget the first time he’d held them in their hospital receiving blankets. And so now, again, he basked in the warm glow, knowing exactly how Ding felt, proud and a little intimidated by the responsibility that attended fatherhood. Well, that was how it was supposed to be. Takes after his mother, John thought next, which meant after his side of the family, which, he thought, was good. But John wondered, with an ironic smile, if the little guy was dreaming in Spanish, and if he learned Spanish growing up, well, what was the harm in being bilingual? Then his beeper went off. John grumbled as he lifted it from his belt. Bill Tawney’s number. He pulled his shoe-phone from his pants pocket and dialed the number. It took five seconds for the encryption systems to synchronize.
“Yeah, Bill?”
“Good news. John, your FBI are tracking down this Serov chap. I spoke with Gus Werner half an hour ago. They’ve established that he took a flight from Heathrow to Chicago yesterday, then on to New York. That’s the address for his credit cards. The FBI are moving very quickly on this one.”
The next step was checking for a driver’s license, and that came up dry, which meant they were also denied a photograph of the subject. The FBI agents checking it out in Albany were disappointed, but not especially surprised. The next step, for the next day, was to interview the postal employees at the station with the P.O. box.
“So, Dmitriy, you got back here in a hurry,” Brightling observed.
“It seemed a good idea,” Popov replied. “The mission was a mistake. The Rainbow soldiers are too good for such an attack on them. Sean’s people did well. Their planning struck me as excellent, but the enemy was far too proficient. The skill of these people is remarkable, as we saw before.”
“Well, the attack must have shaken them up,” his employer observed.
“Perhaps,” Popov allowed. Just then, Henriksen walked in.
“Bad news,” he announced.
“What’s that?”
“Dmitriy, you goofed up some, son.”
“Oh? How did I do that?” the Russian asked, no small amount of irony in his voice.
“Not sure, but they know there was a Russian involved in cueing the attack on Rainbow, and the FBI is working the case now. They may know you’re here.”
“That is not possible,” Popov objected. “Well . . . yes, they have Grady, and perhaps he talked . . . yes, he did know that I flew in from America, or he could have figured that out, and he knows the cover name I used, but that identity is gone—destroyed.”
“Maybe so, but I was just on the phone with Gus Werner. I asked him about the Hereford incident, if there was anything I needed to know. He told me they’ve started a case looking for a Russian name, that they had reason to believe a Russian, possibly based in America, had been in contact with the PIRA. That means they know the name, Dmitriy, and that means they’ll be tracking down names on airline passenger lists. Don’t underestimate the FBI, pal,” Henriksen warned.
“I do not,” Popov replied, now slightly worried, but only slightly. It would not be all that easy to check every transatlantic flight, even in the age of computers. He also decided that his next set of false ID papers would be in the name of Jones, Smith, Brown, or Johnson, not that of a disgraced KGB chairman from the 1950s. The Serov ID name had been a joke on his part. Not a good one, he decided now. Joseph Andrew Brown, that would be the next one, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov thought, sitting there in the top-floor office.
“Is this a danger to us?” Brightling asked.
“If they find our friend here,” Henriksen replied.
Brightling nodded and thought quickly. “Dmitriy, have you ever been to Kansas?”
“Hello, Mr. Maclean,” Tom Sullivan said.
“Oh, hi. Want to talk to me some more?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind,” Frank Chatham told him.
“Okay, come on in,” Maclean said, opening the door all the way, walking back to his living room, and telling himself to be cool. He sat down and muted his TV. “So, what do you want to know?”
“Anyone else you remember who might have been close to Mary Bannister?” The two agents saw Maclean frown, then shake his head.
“Nobody I can put a name on. I mean, you know, it’s a singles bar, and people bump into each other and talk, and make friends and stuff, y’know?” He thought for a second more. “Maybe one guy, but I don’t know his name . . . tall guy, ’bout my age, sandy hair, big guy, like he works out and stuff . . . but I don’t know his name, sorry. Mary danced with him and had drinks with him, I think, but aside from that, hey, it’s too dark and crowded in there.”
“And you walked her home just that one time?”
“ ’Fraid so. We talked and joked some, but we never really hit it off. Just casual. I never, uh, made a move on her, if you know what I mean. Never got that far, like. Yeah, sure, I walked her home, but didn’t even go in the building, didn’t kiss her good night, even, just shook hands.” He saw Chatham taking notes. Was this w
hat he’d told them before? He thought so, but it was hard to remember with two federal cops in his living room. The hell of it was he didn’t remember much about her. He’d selected her, loaded her into the truck, but that was all. He had no idea where she was now, though he imagined she was probably dead. Maclean knew what that part of the project was all about, and that made him a kidnapper and accessory to murder, two things he didn’t exactly plan to give to these two FBI guys. New York had a death penalty statute now, and for all he knew so did the federal government. Unconsciously, he licked his lips and rubbed his hands on his slacks as he leaned back on the couch. Then he stood and faced toward the kitchen. “Can I get you guys anything?”
“No, thanks, but you go right ahead,” Sullivan said. He’d just seen something he hadn’t noticed in their first interview. Tension. Was it the occasional flips people got talking to FBI agents, or was this guy trying to conceal something? They watched Maclean build a drink and come back.
“How would you describe Mary Bannister?” Sullivan asked.
“Pretty, but no knockout. Nice, personable—I mean, pleasant, sense of humor, sense of fun about her. Out-of-town girl in the big city for the first time—I mean, she’s just a girl, y’know?”
“But nobody really close to her, you said?”
“Not that I know of, but I didn’t know her that well. What do other people say?”
“Well, people from the bar said you were pretty friendly with her . . .”
“Maybe, yeah, but not that friendly. I mean, it never went anywhere. I never even kissed her.” He was repeating himself now, as he sipped at his bourbon and water. “Wish I did, but I didn’t,” he added.
“Who at the bar are you close to?” Chatham asked.
“Hey, that’s kinda private, isn’t it?” Kirk objected.
“Well, you know how it goes. We’re trying to get a feel for the place, how it works, that sort of thing.”
“Well, I don’t kiss and tell, okay? Not my thing.”
“I can’t blame you for that,” Sullivan observed with a smile, “but it is kinda unusual for the singles bar crowd.”
“Oh, sure, there’s guys there who put notches on their guns, but that’s not my style.”
“So, Mary Bannister disappeared, and you didn’t notice?”
“Maybe, but I didn’t think much about it. It’s a transient community, y’know? People come in and out, and some you never see again. They just disappear, like.”
“Ever call her?”
Maclean frowned. “No, I don’t remember that she gave me her number. I suppose she was in the book, but, no, I never called her.”
“Just walked her home only that one time?”
“Right, just that one time,” Maclean confirmed, taking another pull on his drink and wishing these two inquisitors out of his home. Did they—could they know something? Why had they come back? Well, there was nothing in his apartment to confirm that he knew any female from the Turtle Inn. Well, just some phone numbers, but not so much as a loose sock from the women he’d occasionally brought here. “I mean, you guys looked around the first time you were here,” Maclean volunteered.
“No big deal. We always ask to do that. It’s just routine,” Sullivan told their suspect. “Well, we have another appointment in a few minutes up the street. Thanks for letting us talk to you. You still have my card?”
“Yeah, in the kitchen, stuck on the refrigerator.”
“Okay. Look, this case is kinda hard for us. Please think it over and if you come up with anything—anything at all, please call me, okay?”
“Sure will.” Maclean stood and walked them to the door, then came back to his drink and took another swallow.
“He’s nervous,” Chatham said, out on the street.
“Sure as hell. We have enough to do a background check on him?”
“No problem,” Chatham replied.
“Tomorrow morning,” the senior agent said.
It was his second trip to Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey, across the river from Manhattan, but this time it was a different aircraft, with HORIZON CORP. painted on the rudder fin. Dmitriy played along, figuring that he could escape from any place in the United States, and knowing that Henriksen would warn Brightling not to try anything drastic. There was an element of anxiety to the trip, but no greater than his curiosity, and so Popov settled into his seat on the left side and waited for the aircraft to start its engines and taxi out. There was even a flight attendant, a pretty one, to give him a shot of Finlandia vodka, which he sipped as the Gulfstream V started rolling. Kansas, he thought, a state of wheat fields and tornadoes, less than three hours away.
“Mr. Henriksen?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Kirk Maclean.”
“Anything wrong?” Henriksen asked, alerted by the tone of his voice.
CHAPTER 31
MOVEMENT
The darkness hid the landscape. Popov stepped off the aircraft, and found a large military-type automobile waiting for him. Then he noticed the lines painted on the pavement and wondered if he’d landed on an airport runway or a country road of some sort. But, no, in the distance was a huge building, partially lit. More curious than ever, Dmitriy got into the vehicle and headed off toward it. His eyes gradually got accustomed to the darkness. The surrounding land seemed very flat, with only gentle rolls visible. Behind him he saw a fuel truck had pulled up to the business jet, perhaps to send it back to New Jersey. Well, they were expensive, and doubtless Brightling and his people wanted it back where he could use it. Popov didn’t know that Horizon Corporation owned many of them; their number just increased by three from the factory outside Savannah, Georgia. He was still jet-lagged, he found on entering the building. A uniformed security guard walked him to the elevator and then to his fourth-floor room, which was not unlike a medium-decent hotel room, complete with cooking facilities and a refrigerator. There was a TV and VCR, and all the tapes in the adjacent storage cupboard were—nature tapes, he saw. Lions, bears, moose, spawning salmon. Not a single feature film. The magazines on the bedside table were similarly nature oriented. How odd. But there was also a complete bar, including Absolut vodka, which was almost as good as the Russian kind he preferred. He poured himself a drink and switched on the TV to CNN.
Henriksen was being overly cautious, Dmitriy thought. What could the FBI possibly have on him? A name? From that they could perhaps develop—what? Credit cards, if they were very lucky, and from that his travel records, but none of them would have evidentiary value in any court of law. No, unless Sean Grady positively identified him as a conduit of information and funds, he was totally safe, and Popov thought he could depend on Grady not to cooperate with the British. He hated them too much to be cooperative. It was just a matter of crawling back into his hole and pulling it in after himself—an Americanism he admired. The money he’d stashed in the secondary Swiss account might be discoverable, but there were ways to handle that—attorneys were so useful as an institution, he’d learned. Working through them was better than all the KGB fieldcraft combined.
No, if there was any danger to him, it was to be found in his employer, who might not know the rules of the game—but even if he didn’t, Henriksen would help, and so Dmitriy relaxed and sipped his drink. He’d explore this place tomorrow, and from the way he was treated, he’d know—
—no, there was an even easier way. He lifted his phone, hit 9 to get an outside line, then dialed his apartment in New York. The call went through. The phone rang four times before his answering machine clicked in. So, he had phone access to the outside. That meant he was safe, but he was no closer to understanding what was going on than he’d been during that first meeting in France, chatting with the American businessman and regaling him with tales of a former KGB field intelligence officer. Now here he was, in Kansas, USA, drinking vodka and watching television, with over six million American dollars in two numbered accounts in Switzerland. He’d reached one goal. Next he had to meet anoth
er. What the hell was this adventure all about? Would he find out here? He hoped so.
The airplanes were crammed with people, all of them inbound to Kingsford Smith International Airport outside Sydney. Many of them landed on the runway, which stuck out like a finger into Botany Bay, so famous as the landing point for criminals and other English rejects sent halfway round the world on wooden sailing ships to start a new country, which, to the disbelief of those who’d dispatched them, they’d done remarkably well. Many of the passengers on the inbound flights were young, fit athletes, the pride and pick of the countries that had sent them dressed in uniform clothing that proclaimed their nations of origin. Most were tourists, people with ticket-and-accommodation packages expensively bought from travel agents or given as gifts from political figures in their home countries. Many carried miniature flags. The few business passengers had listened to all manner of enthusiastic predictions for national glory at the Olympic games, which would start in the next few days.
On arriving, the athletes were treated like visiting royalty and conveyed to buses that would take them up Highway 64 to the city, and thence to the Olympic Village, which had been expensively built by the Australian government to house them. They could see the magnificent stadium nearby, and the athletes looked and wondered if they’d find personal glory there.
“So, Colonel, what do you think?”
“It’s one hell of a stadium, and that’s a fact,” Colonel Wilson Gearing, U.S. Army Chemical Corps, retired, replied. “But it sure gets hot here in the summer, pal.”