"Captain," I said, uncrossing my legs and leaning forward in my chair, "let's cut through this. I was hired by the Senate committee because of my reputation for discretion, but enough is enough. I'm going to give you a telephone number known by perhaps only a dozen people in the world. It's a private, direct line to the office of a man by the name of Lippitt."
"Never heard of him."
"You're not supposed to have heard of him, any more than you were supposed to have heard of Orville Madison before he was nominated as secretary of state. Lippitt is the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he'll tell you that most of what you've read in that report you received is bullshit. You might also mention the trouble we're in, and tell him we'd appreciate a personal visit from him as soon as possible."
"Will this Lippitt tell me where the two of you were for that year?"
"I doubt it strongly."
"But he knows?"
"He'll assure you that we weren't in Russia," I replied, and gave him Lippitt's number. "After you call him, place a call to Senator Kathleen Wyndham. She's-"
"I know who Senator Wyndham is, Frederickson."
"Good. She's the head of the Senate committee investigating the nominees, which makes her my boss. You make sure you talk to her, not anybody else; tell her everything that's happened here."
"You have a number for a direct line to her?" McGarvey sounded impressed.
"I had it, but I lost the slip of paper somewhere up in the mountains. Make sure you tell her that I've been digging very deeply into Orville Madison's background and have found some very disturbing things." I paused, took a deep breath. "Tell her I said there's an Archangel looking over her shoulder."
The trooper frowned. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It's just a code, so that she'll know the message comes from me. Tell the senator that I'd like to see her personally just as soon as possible. Tell her there's a great deal at stake, and that it's a matter of life and death-literally. Would you like me to make the calls myself?"
McGarvey shook his head, as I'd known he would. "Do you really believe that a United States senator is going to drop everything she's doing in order to hop aboard a plane and fly here to see you?"
"If you say everything I've asked you to say, and if you tell her there's an Archangel looking over her shoulder, I certainly hope so."
"Who do you think sent those men after you up in those mountains, Frederickson?"
"Captain, earlier I said that I wanted us to arrive at some unpleasant truths together. We've arrived. After everything I've just told you, you know damn well who tried to kill us up in the mountains; it's the same man who tried to kill me earlier and ended up burning five people to death; it's the same man who blew up an entire family in Seattle simply because they knew the truth about him. It also happens to be the same man who's demanding that you turn Garth and me over to his people, so that they can kill us. We're talking about Orville Madison himself."
"You're full of shit, Frederickson," McGarvey said; but the blood had drained from his face.
"Am I? I'm sorry to put you between a rock and a hard place, Captain, but the decisions you make in the next few hours will determine whether Garth and I live or die. The request to pick us up and turn us over came from the C.I.A., didn't it?"
"Frederickson, I-"
"Don't bother denying it, McGarvey, because I know it's true. Now, it's the F.B.I, that's responsible for counterintelligence, not the C.I.A., and the F.B.I, gets very touchy about incursions into its territory. You know that too. Orville Madison was head of the dirtiest department in the agency, and he'll remain with the C.I.A. pending his confirmation. What he's been doing isn't exactly standard operating procedure, and so he's had to use a string of operatives who are absolutely loyal to him personally. He's running out of those kinds of operatives; if he weren't, he never would have involved the New York State Police. He never counted on you having the guts to hold us and ask a few questions for yourself."
McGarvey, still very pale, was silent for a long time. "Do you realize what you're saying?" he asked at last.
"That President Shannon's nominee for secretary of state is a coldblooded, psychotic killer who'll do anything to cover up certain things in his past? Of course I realize what I'm saying."
"Why didn't you tell me all this at the beginning?"
"Would you have believed me, before I had a chance to point out certain things you could think over?"
"What makes you think I believe you now?"
"Madison is counting on you not believing Garth and me. I'm counting on you continuing to do the right thing; if you do, I think there's a good chance we can nail this guy. Oh, and by the way: it was Madison who had Po killed. For that job, he used a kind of super-assassin he'd hired from outside the C.I.A."
"That's crazy, Frederickson."
"It's the truth."
"What kind of hard evidence do you have to back up any of this?"
"Let's get Mr. Lippitt or Senator Wyndham here. Or you can set up a conference call where we can all talk and listen."
"You're holding something back on me, Frederickson," McGarvey said in a low, slightly menacing voice. "That isn't a very good idea."
"Captain, why don't you go make those calls?"
19
Waiting; trying to remember all the lies I had told so that I could repeat them if I had to, hoping I'd done the right thing in offering up a decidedly bent version of the truth. Garth, whose cell I now shared, wasn't so sure.
"If you were going to talk to him at all, why didn't you just tell him all of it, straight?"
I winced at the loudness of Garth's voice. Putting my finger to my lips, I walked around the cell, checking the walls, ceiling, and under the cots for anything that might be a listening device. I didn't find any-which didn't mean there weren't any there. I motioned him toward the sink, where I turned on the faucet. "Where would you have had me start?" I asked in a low voice. "With a newly elected president coming to town? A bullet hole in a window? A painting and ten thousand dollars in a hidden compartment? How about a white-eyed ninja who seems to be able to appear and disappear at will? Come on. If I'd started trying to explain how and why Veil is the center of gravity in this particular universe, I'd have had to talk about all the killing he's done up to this point, and then get into the whole Archangel business."
Garth shrugged. "So?"
"So the way I handled it seemed like a good idea at the time," I replied, making no effort to hide my irritation and impatience. "My version played a whole hell of a lot better than the truth would have. Besides, Veil's the only ally we have at the moment, and he doesn't need a horde of state troopers and F.B.I, agents looking for him in addition to Henry Kitten and Madison's people. Veil's discredited, remember? Bringing him into it would only have made a bad situation worse."
"Ally? You've always had a weird way of looking at the world. He's responsible for this shit."
"Funny, I thought Orville Madison was responsible."
"Kendry's responsible for you being in the situation you're in."
"What, are you visiting this cell as a tourist?"
"I don't give a shit about myself, and you know it. Besides, I ended up here working in an official capacity."
"We've been through this before, Garth, and there's no sense in playing it all through again. I took his money, didn't I?"
"To put it in the bank for him. He sandbagged you. The trap he set may have been subtle, but it was still a trap."
"Asking a friend for help isn't setting a trap."
"He knew what would happen."
"Drop it, Garth. What's done is done."
"'Dropped' is what we're going to be when Lippitt won't talk to McGarvey, and your Senator Wyndham-if he can even get hold of her-tells him that your story about being hired by her committee is a fairy tale."
"Don't be such a Goddamn pessimist. Besides, what difference would it have made if I had told McGarvey about Veil, Gary Worde, and the
Archangel plan? We'd still have had to run some kind of game on McGarvey if we hoped to get somebody from Washington to bring us in. Lippitt was worth another try, and gambling on Wyndham having some brains and suspicions didn't seem like a bad bet. I couldn't think of anything else."
"You'll never pull this one off, Mongo. I'm not saying you were wrong; I'm just saying it won't work."
It wasn't going to take long to discover whether or not Garth had a gift for prophecy. Approaching footsteps echoed in the corridor. I didn't like their sound, staccato-quick, like drumbeats of anger.
McGarvey's face, when he appeared in front of our cell, was pale with fury. "I gave you the benefit of the doubt, you bastard," he said to me in a trembling voice. He clenched, unclenched his fists. "That's a mistake I'm happy to say I won't ever have the opportunity to make again. What the hell did you think you'd accomplish by shoveling all that bullshit at me? Did you think I was a fool? Didn't you think I'd actually make the calls? Did you think that because of your reputation I'd just open the doors and let you walk out if you pitched me just any old story? I take what you did as a personal insult, Frederickson."
"Captain, I-"
"Shut up! I don't want to hear any more lies! That first number you gave me isn't even working. There is no 'Mr. Lippitt,' is there?"
So Mr. Lippitt was still out to lunch, and apparently intended to stay there until the Archangel matter was resolved, one way or another. The old man who had played such an important part in our lives, the irascible and tenacious fighter whom even Garth had come to consider a friend, had even unplugged his phone. Perhaps, I thought, it was understandable. Lippitt and Madison were, after all, colleagues in the close-knit covert intelligence community, and had been for years. Lippitt had probably known Madison longer than he had known Garth and me, and the two men could well be drinking buddies. Mr. Lippitt just didn't want to get involved.
Strike one.
"Senator Wyndham says you're trying to make a fool out of me," McGarvey continued. "She just laughed when I asked if her committee had hired you to investigate Madison."
"Did you mention the Archangel?"
"She didn't know what I was talking about."
So much for what I'd dared hope might be a thorough Senate investigation.
Strike two.
McGarvey continued, "The fact that Orville Madison was confirmed as secretary of state this morning made it seem even funnier to the senator, Frederickson. She didn't ask how I felt. Now I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place, which is to turn you over to the people who know how to deal with spies."
Orville Madison's men must have been camped out in the parking lot all night, because it wasn't ten minutes after we'd received the bad news from the captain when a trooper came into our cell, cuffed our hands behind our backs, and led us out of the lockup area to the front of the building where four big, unshaven men in business suits were waiting. The exchange was short and simple. Nothing was said. Papers were signed, and Garth and I were led outside to separate cars, both late-model Chevrolets.
Madison's men were apparently not interested in our personal belongings or the contents of our backpacks, for there was no sign of them. There was always the possibility that the packs had already been placed in the trunk of one of the cars, but I doubted it; the men had gotten what they'd come for. Whatever was in the yellow oilskin packet I'd taken off Gary Worde's body, I was glad I hadn't told McGarvey about it. Someday, in some way, the truth about Orville Madison might still come out.
There was also some consolation, if not a great deal, in the knowledge that the men who killed us would almost certainly die themselves, in a most unpleasant fashion. Veil was still free. I suspected that Orville Madison's tenure as secretary of state was going to be a short one, which made me happy. What made me unhappy was the thought that he would almost certainly be honored as a martyr after Veil killed him.
As we approached the cars, I turned to look at Garth, to say goodbye, but I was rudely shoved forward, slammed into the back seat of the first car. One of the two men accompanying me slid onto the seat beside me, while the other got behind the wheel. The driver started up the car, pulled out of the parking lot. I looked back, saw the car with Garth in it following close behind.
"I take it we're finally going to meet Secretary Madison," I said carefully. "I assume he wants to know all we have to tell him about where to find Veil Kendry."
Fat chance. The man beside me, who was red-eyed from lack of sleep and smelled slightly of body odor, just kept staring straight ahead. We pulled onto the southbound lanes of the Thru way and drove along at exactly fifty-five miles per hour, as silent as the funeral cortege we were. Orville Madison would know that we didn't have the slightest idea where Veil was, and so it was only a question of where, and in what manner, they intended to kill us.
As we drove along, I found myself looking out the window at the passing landscape, savoring the sight of trees and grass and sky for what I assumed would be the last time. It was an exceptionally bright day for February, and I was sorry I would not see spring.
It seemed an excellent time for the cavalry to arrive, but there wasn't even a car in sight, much less a horse. There was the sound of sirens far in the distance, behind us, but that didn't seem important; it wouldn't make much sense for the State Police to turn us over to the bad guys only to try and get us back a few minutes later.
But the sirens kept coming closer, and no car that the State Police might be pursuing sped past us. In the rearview mirror, I could see the driver glance up nervously, while the man beside me turned around in his seat and looked back.
"Something's gone wrong," my seat partner said tensely. "They're after us."
"Kill him," the driver said in a flat voice.
"We can't! What excuse can we give?!"
"Not our problem; Madison will get us out, probably on some national security angle. But we have our orders. We don't want bullet holes or blood; use your hands."
He used his hands, leaning over in the seat and wrapping them around my neck. I used my foot, or more precisely the toe of my shoe, kicking up hard into the man's groin. His eyes bulged, his breath exploded from his lungs in a kind of whoop, and his hands came away from my throat and went to his crotch. As he bent forward, his throat was exposed. I lunged forward and sank my teeth into his jugular.
"What the hell-?!"
I heard the driver's startled shout over the strangled cries of the man whose throat I was biting. He clawed at my back and head, but I stayed fastened to his throat and bit down hard. I felt my teeth sink through his flesh, then into the tough walls of the carotid artery. Working my head back and forth like a terrier, I kept gnawing. Then blood spurted, filling my mouth and splashing over my face. I jerked my head back and ducked away just as the driver, struggling to control the speeding car with one hand, reached over the back seat with his gun and fired off a shot. The bullet missed me, hit the shoulder of the man whose life was gushing out through the tear in his throat.
I could hear two distinct sets of sirens now, two trooper cars continuing to gain on us. I had no way of knowing what was going on in the car behind, but I had to assume that those men had made a similar decision, to kill Garth. Considering my brother's size, I didn't think they'd be overly concerned about blood or bullet holes; they'd simply shoot him, if they hadn't already. Sooner or later the driver of the car I was in was going to put a bullet in me, unless I could find a way of putting him out of commission. With my hands cuffed behind my back, I had no choice but to use my whole body as a weapon and shoot for the moon.
I stood up on the back seat, then, as the driver's revolver again swung around in my direction, bounced up and over into the front seat, landing head first in the driver's lap and stripping his hand from the wheel. The car immediately went out of control, into a shrieking power slide. I rolled over into the passenger's seat, slid down onto the base of my spine, and planted both feet on the dashboard just as the car hit the sh
oulder, abruptly stopped skidding, and began to roll. Pushing with all my might against the dashboard, I closed my eyes and held my breath as the car bounced and rolled in a bone-jarring, kaleidoscopic cascade of nauseating motion and a cacophony of shattering glass, snapping plastic, and tearing metal. Through it all, I somehow managed to stay braced in my position.
Finally, what was left of the car came to a rest. Glass tinkled, metal groaned, steam hissed. Slowly, I opened my eyes, saw the reason why my back felt ready to break and the muscles in my legs ready to tear loose from their joints; I was upside down. I couldn't see the man who had been in the back seat with me, but I thought it quite safe to assume he was dead. I also found it immensely satisfying to see that, while the driver's seat belt had kept him securely fastened in his seat, the steering column had collapsed in on him and crushed his chest. Powdered safety glass was everywhere, covering the interior of the car-and me-like sharp, scratchy snow. There was pain in every muscle and bone in my body, but it was welcome pain; it meant my back hadn't been broken. Indeed, I doubted that anything major was broken; if it were, I wouldn't have been able to remain braced. I accepted the pain as a celebration of life.
From somewhere outside my disoriented, upside-down universe, I heard the sound of gunfire and felt sick at the thought that my brother might be dead. At the same time I smelled gasoline, and knew I was likely to be dead very soon myself if I didn't get out of the wreck fast. I relaxed the tension in my legs and dropped the short distance to the inverted roof of the car, landing on my left shoulder and crumpling into a heap.
I'd always had excellent control of my body, and years in the circus combined with the training Veil and other martial artists had given me had allowed me to expand and refine that control to a high degree. I used that control now to arch my back and drop my right shoulder almost to the point of dislocation; that allowed me to draw my cuffed hands under my hips and down the length of my legs, putting them in front of me. I searched through the glass and twisted metal, got lucky and found one of the men's guns. I made a quick, rolling exit out through the gaping hole left by the shattered windshield, got to my feet, and ran as fast as I could away from the car just seconds before it exploded, knocking me to the ground. I rolled over onto my belly, ducked, and hunched my shoulders against the flaming debris and black smoke that rained and swirled around me, pointed the gun in what I hoped was the general direction of the highway.
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