Zebra network, p.18
Zebra Network, page 18
part #1 of David MacAllister Series
“Then we’ll find it out,” McAllister said. “In the meantime go to sleep.”
“I’m frightened,” Stephanie said. She pushed back her covers and got out of bed,
her movements soft and liquid. She was nude. In the dim light coming from outside he
could see her small breasts, narrow hips, and swatch of dark pubic hair. She’d recently
been in the sun, or under a tanning lamp, because he could clearly see her bikini line of
white flesh against the darker tan. He didn’t know what to say.
“Hold me,” she said, coming to his bed. “Please?” He held the covers open for
her, and she slipped in beside him, her body pressed against his as he took her into his
arms. He felt terribly guilty, as if he were the betrayer, the great destroyer, and yet for
the moment at least, this felt somehow right.
In the morning they both carefully avoided talking about what had happened.
Around eight-thirty they went downstairs to the hotel’s coffee shop and had breakfast
while they looked through the Washington and New York Sunday newspapers. Still
there was nothing about the search for his body, or about the investigations into the
shooting deaths of two Agency officers in New York, or the three Russians in a car in
Arlington Heights.
They were back in their room just at ten, and Stephanie dialed Ballinger’s home.
His phone was answered on the first ring by Dexter Kingman.
“This is the Ballinger residence. Who’s calling?” He sounded harried. Stephanie
could hear that there were other people there. A lot of them. “Dexter? This is
Stephanie. Is Doug there? Can I speak to him?”
“I was just about to telephone you. Are you at home?”
“No, I spent the night with a friend. What’s the matter?”
“Ballinger is dead.”
“Oh, my God..”He was shot to death sometime last night, or early this morning.
The FBI is looking for you right now.”
“What’s going on… why are they looking for me?”
“Your name was written on a pad of paper beside his telephone, along with the
notation ten A.M Were you supposed to meet him or something this morning?”
“We were going to spend the day together,” Stephanie said, trying to control her
voice. “Get yourself back to my office. I’ll set up your interview there.”
“Dexter… who killed him, do you know? Have you any idea yet?”
“It looks as if the Russians did it,” Kingman said heavily. “Russians?”
“It’s not very pretty, Stephanie.”
“Tell me,” she said, steeling herself.
“It looked like a standard Center assassination. A mokrie dela. He was shot three
times in the face at very close range.”
“They killed him,” Stephanie said hanging up the phone. “My God, they killed
him…
Chapter 12
“I’m sorry, Stephanie,” McAllister said. “You can’t know how sorry I am, but this
has got to end right now.”
She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking up at him, her eyes filling, her
face pale and drawn. “He asked somebody the wrong questions and they killed him for
it. My God, it doesn’t seem possible.”
“How did Kingman know it was done by the Russians? Were there witnesses?”
“He called it a standard Center assassination.. “A mokroe deloe?”
She nodded. “Yes, those are the words he used. What does it mean?”
“Literally it means ‘wet affairs,’ the spilling of blood. Was he shot in the face?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “And now the FBI wants to talk to me. Doug wrote my
name on a pad of paper by the telephone.”
“You’re going to that meeting,” McAllister said. “And you’re going to tell them
that you don’t know a thing. You and Ballinger were supposed to make a day of it, just
like you told Kingman.”
“I can’t.”
“You must,” McAllister insisted. “If you don’t show up, they’ll come looking for
you. And when they discover that you’re with me, you’ll be a marked woman.”
“Don’t you see, Mac, I already am a marked woman. My name was lying in plain
sight beside Doug’s telephone. Whoever killed him had to have seen it. If I show up for
that interview they’ll kill me.”
“One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other,” McAllister said. “Unless you don’t
show up for the”
“No,” she said firmly. “Whatever happens, I’m with you until this thing is settled.
One way or the other.”
“Why? Can you tell me that now?”
Her lips compressed. “Because I don’t like being pushed around.”
“It’s just starting.”
“Let’s finish it!”
They used the rental car that Stephanie had picked up in Baltimore. McAllister
figured this would be the last time it would be safe to use the Buick, however, because
when she failed to show up at Langley they would come looking for her and it wouldn’t
take long before they found out about this car.
Outside the city they stopped so that she could telephone her father and warn
him that someone would probably be by to ask him some questions about her.
“What they’ll tell you won’t be true, Father,” she said. “Are you in any danger?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Take care of yourself, I’ll be all right.”
“I know you will, Father,” she said.
The day was cold and overcast. There was very little traffic on the highways so
they were able to make good time along the Capital Beltway. They turned west on the
Dulles Airport Access Road.
“There’d be no reason for them to go after your father,” McAllister said.
Stephanie’s mood had deepened since she’d spoken with him, and McAllister was
worried about her.
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” she said. “There’s still time to back out.”
She looked at him. “Don’t say that again, Mac. It doesn’t make this any easier for
me. I’m along for the ride. Let’s just hurry.”
Since this morning a plan had begun to formulate in McAllister’s mind. It was
obvious that Voronin’s warning did have a concrete meaning, and that somehow it was
tied to the O’Haire spy network, or more specifically to the network’s control officer. But
it was justas obvious that without more information there wasn’t a thing he could do
about it. It came down to the old question: Whom do you trust when it’s impossible to
separate the liars from the innocents?
He slowed down as they approached the Reston turnoff. What little traffic they’d
passed was heading to the airport. He’d not seen a police car or an identifiable Agency
or Bureau unit since they’d left the hotel. Of course no one would be expecting him to
return to Sikorski. Not after what had happened out there that night. He glanced in his
rearview mirror just before he hit the ramp in time to see a chocolatebrown Ford
Thunderbird coming up behind him at a high rate of speed. He veered a little to the
right to get out of its way, and the car passed them, the driver and lone passenger both
intentlooking men.
“It’s them!” Stephanie cried, sitting forward. “Who? What are you talking about?”
“That car! The brown Thunderbird! It’s the same one from Dumfries!”
The car had already passed through the stop sign at the top of the hill and was
racing toward the north, toward Reston, toward Sikorski. McAllister jammed the
accelerator to the floor and they shot up the ramp, fishtailing a little as they hit an icy
spot on the roadway. There was no other traffic so McAllister didn’t even bother slowing
down for the stop sign, swinging wide through the intersection, almost losing the back
end again. He had to force himself to slow down. To go off the road now would
eliminate any possibility of catching up with the two assassins ahead of them.
“Are you certain it’s the same two men?” McAllister asked. The Ford had already
topped the next rise and had disappeared beyond. The side road up to Sikorski’s cabin
was barely a half a mile beyond.
“No, I didn’t get that good a look at them as they passed us. But it’s the same
car. New Jersey license plates.”
He glanced at her. She had taken out a small gun from her purse.
It was another.32 automatic. “They’re on their way to Sikorski’s.”
“To kill him,” Stephanie said. “Just like they killed Doug.”
“These two are Americans. We both heard them that night on the
sailboat.”Stephanie looked at him. “If you wanted to kill someone, and make it appear
as if the Russians had done it, what would you do?” McAllister nodded. “The question
is, where the hell are they getting their information?”
“From inside Langley. From Highnote.”
“We’ll see,” McAllister said grimly. They came over the rise and raced down the
long hill, the town of Reston in the distance. The Thunderbird was nowhere in sight.
The road led straight into the distance. The only place the car could have turned off
that quickly was the road back up through Sunset Hills. What few lingering doubts
McAllister had had, evaporated with the certainty. One by one someone was eliminating
everyone he’d had contact with since his release from the Lubyanka.
Everyone, that is, except for Robert Highnote. They reached the secondary road
and turned off. Sikorski’s driveway was a couple of miles farther into the hills. The snow
that had fallen last night blanketed the trees and brush. The small community of Sunset
Hills was to their right; he turned left and drove another mile, finally slowing and
stopping at the dirt road.
One set of tire tracks led up the road, none came back. No one had been in or
out since the last snowfall. Only the Thunderbird had come this way.
McAllister started up the dirt track, the trees closing in around them. A few
hundred yards up, he stopped again and shut off the engine. The road was very narrow
just here, the embankments on either side very high, impossible to drive up over.
Whatever happened now, the Thunderbird would not be able to get back to the main
road this way.
“Hide yourself in the woods,” McAllister said. “If they come back this way open
fire on them, and then get the hell out.”
“I’m coming with you,” Stephanie said.
“You’ll do as I say, goddamnit,” McAllister snapped. “If something happens to me
I want you to get to Kingman and tell him everything…. I mean everything. At least
you’d have a chance.”
Stephanie’s eyes were wide, but she nodded in agreement. They got out of the
car. For a second she hesitated, but then she climbed up over the dirt embankment
where the road had beencut through the side of the hill, and disappeared into the thick
woods.
McAllister started toward the cabin. The snow was soft and slushy, and within
ten yards his feet were soaked. He took out the P38, switching the safety off.
The Thunderbird was parked just at the edge of the clearing that led down to
the cabin. Crouching low he hurried up behind it, keeping it between himself and the
house. No one was around. The cabin seemed deserted. There were no sounds or
movements.
From where he hid behind the big car he could see two sets of footprints leading
down the clearing where they split up, one set going left, the other right. They’d circled
the cabin, coming up on it from both sides. Sikorski’s pickup truck was back in its
carport, but no tracks other than the footprints led across the clearing. Nothing had
moved in or out since the snow. It was that one fact that was bothersome to McAllister
just now.
He moved around to the driver’s side of the car. The window was open, the keys
dangled from the ignition. He reached inside, took the keys and pocketed them.
Now, he thought grimly, the odds had been evened up somewhat. Whatever
happened, they wouldn’t be getting out of here so easily. They would have to stay and
fight.
A man in a dark bombardier jacket came around from behind the cabin.
McAllister ducked farther back behind the car, certain that he hadn’t been spotted yet.
The man’s attention was toward the cabin itself.
The front door opened and the second man, dressed in a dark overcoat,
unbuttoned, came out. He was stuffing his gun inside his coat. The man in the
bombardier jacket said something to him, and he shook his head. McAllister could hear
the voices, but not the words.
They had expected to find Sikorski at home, but evidently the old man had left
with someone before the snow had finished falling. Now they would be coming back up
to their car.
McAllister eased back behind the Thunderbird and then scrambled up into the
woods, moving from tree to tree until he was well hiddenyet barely fifteen feet from the
car. He could hear the two of them talking now, their voices much closer as they came
up the hill. He still couldn’t quite make out the words, but it sounded like English.
The one in the bombardier jacket came into view first on the driver’s side of the
car. McAllister steadied his pistol with both hands against the hole of the tree, waiting
for the second one to appear.
“Sonofabitch,” bombardier jacket swore, spinning away from the open window,
his hand reaching for his gun. The second man had just come into view on the other
side of the car, he looked up in alarm.
“Somebody’s got the fuckin’ keys,” bombardier jacket swore. “Hold it right
there,” McAllister shouted.
Bombardier jacket had his gun out and was diving to the left. The other man was
dropping down behind the car.
McAllister squeezed off a shot, the gun bucking in his hand, the bullet smacking
into the driver’s side door a half a foot behind the man in the bombardier jacket, who
snapped off a shot as he fell, the bullet hitting the tree inches from McAllister’s face.
McAllister fired again, this time catching the man in the throat, his head snapping
back against the car’s front fender, a horrible gurgling scream coming from him as he
tore at the jagged wound, blood pumping out all over the snow.
These were Americans, not Russians! He had not wanted this! Not this kind of a
confrontation!
It took the man nearly a full minute to die, and then the woods were silent
again, only a very slight breeze rustling the tree branches.
McAllister stood sideways to the tree, his heart hammering, his stomach heaving.
The other man had not moved from behind the big car. For the moment it was an
impasse.
“We didn’t kill him,” the man said, his accent New York or New Jersey. “We
found him that way, I swear to God. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know who
did it….” The words were almost hysterical, but the tone was too measured.
Janos dead? If these two hadn’t killed him, who had? “I gotta have a guarantee.
I’m not going to get myself shot like Nick.” The voice had moved to the rear of the car.
McAllister leaned forward slightly so that he could just see around the tree. The man in
the bombardier jacket lay in the snow in a big puddle of his own blood.
“Throw out your gun, no one will hurt you,” McAllister called. “He’s a mess in
there,” the man said. “In the back.”
“I said throw out your gun.”
The man popped up over the back of the trunk lid and fired twice, both shots
coming within inches of McAllister, who ducked back behind the tree. Whoever they
were, they were both good shots, professionals.
He remained hidden until he heard someone crashing through the trees and
