Eagles fly, p.17
Eagles Fly, page 17
He closed his eyes for a moment and allowed his mind to drift, not really focusing on any one thought, until suddenly a glimmering of the entire plan, his part in it included, crystallized in his brain. He snapped forward, sweat suddenly popping out on his forehead.
It was sick. Impossible. Monstrous. For several wild seconds he felt like a cornered animal as he tried to reason himself away from the wall he had pushed himself against.
But it fit. Goddammit, it all fit, including the fact that his father’s secretary, Rupert Livermore, knew he was in Washington and would be attending the party.
Engstrom had been the target all along for a number of reasons, among them that he was a fast-rising star on the political scene, and yet he was a loner. No close friends, no brothers or sisters, only a few cousins living, parents both dead. Only a wife to stand in the way. Locke then, had been selected because he was a close physical match to the vice president. He had been trained, which left only his face and fingerprints. The fingerprints were plausibly taken care of in the accident, and Kelsey had given him a new face.
With a sickness building inside of him, Kelsey saw it all. He had been selected as the plastic surgeon to do the work first of all because he was good. And secondly because he could be controlled by his father, who had to be one of the planners.
The problem was to get him to go into clinical work so that the imposter could be sent to him as a matter of routine. But he and Colleen had had plans to go on together in research. Nothing or no one could shake that bond. So Colleen’s death had been ordered and carried out.
Tears came to his eyes, and Marion looked at him, growing alarm in her expression.
“What is it, Richard?”
He could only shake his head.
“For God’s sake, Richard, what’s the matter?”
With Colleen out of the way, it was a fairly easy matter for his father to convince him to operate the clinic in Lake Geneva. Once the place was in operation and well established, his father sent Locke, the engineer who supposedly worked for Farley Chemicals, to him.
That one point had nagged at the back of Kelsey’s mind. His father had told him at the time that Locke worked for an old friend. But when Kelsey had telephoned Farley, the man had not recognized the name.
Stan Lowe was in on it as well. Kelsey was certain of that too because the very day they had driven up to Lake Geneva to pull Locke’s records, Lowe had the jacket removed.
He let his mind go back to Minneapolis and his wife. If he had gone with her that night, nothing would have happened. They would not have killed him because they needed him, and she would still be alive.
But they would have done it another time. They would have waited until she was alone, and they would have done it.
The expression of grief on his father’s face at the cemetery during the funeral came into his mind’s eye. It had been a sham. His supporting words, his tears, it all had been make-believe. But why?
He focused again on Marion, staring wide-eyed and frightened at him. Dear sweet Marion. Would she be next?
“They killed her,” he said, barely able to form the words.
“What?” Marion asked.
“Whoever was responsible for making the switch with Engstrom, killed Colleen.”
Marion’s complexion turned a pasty white. “What are you saying, Richard?”
“They murdered her,” he said, raising his voice. “They needed me in clinical work so that I could fix Locke’s face. But with Colleen alive I would never have taken the clinic. So they killed her.”
“That means your father knew about it all along,” she said, aghast.
Kelsey nodded. “Yes, my father is in on it. As well as Stan Lowe.”
“My poor darling,” Marion said.
His father had always been the Rock of Gibraltar for him, and now he felt terribly alone. Engstrom’s imposter, Stan Lowe, and his own father were in on the fantastic scheme. There were probably others. Many others. Which left him alone as the only one who knew what was really happening.
“Why did they do it?” Marion asked.
“I told you, they needed me in Lake Geneva to work on Locke,” he said, his mind still drifting.
“No, I mean why is Locke impersonating Engstrom?”
Kelsey focused on her.
“Why the vice president?” she asked. “He has no power. Why not impersonate the President?”
“Because Barnes is married and has children—an imposter would never get away with it,” Kelsey started to say, but he stopped in midsentence. Marion was correct. A vice president’s power stemmed only from the fact that he was available should the president die or become incapacitated. He had little or no other power. With Locke firmly established as the vice president, however, Barnes could be assassinated, and control of the most powerful nation in the world, its nuclear arsenal and all, would fall into the hands of a desperate group. Which meant that as of this moment, President Barnes was in mortal danger.
Kelsey sat forward and looked out the window. The Potomac River was to their right, which meant they had not crossed over into Arlington yet, but he did not recognize exactly where they were.
“Driver, I’ve changed my mind, I want to go back downtown.”
“Sir?” the man said over his shoulder.
Kelsey turned in his seat and looked out the rear window. Behind them he could see the Jefferson Memorial beyond the interstate highway bridges.
“You missed the bridge to Arlington,” he said, turning back.
“Sir?” the driver said again.
“What the hell is going on?” Kelsey shouted. The driver braked hard and pulled off to the side of the road.
When the cab stopped, the driver turned around and pointed a large pistol with a silencer screwed on the end of the barrel at them. There was no expression on his face, but he blinked his eyes once and pulled back on the hammer.
Kelsey struck out blindly, knocking the pistol aside as it went off, the shot shattering the window a few inches from Marion’s head.
The driver tried to push Kelsey back with his other hand, but he could not get his body far enough around in the front seat to put any force into the blow.
Kelsey threw his right arm around the man’s neck and jerked backward as hard as he could. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s neck broke.
Kelsey loosened his grip, and the driver’s body slumped to the left, his head bumping against the doorframe at an unnatural angle.
Several cars passed, none of them stopping or even slowing down, and Kelsey turned to his wife, whose eyes were wide.
“You killed him, Richard,” she said. “My God, he’s dead!”
She started to scream, and Kelsey slapped her hard across the face, and she went limp, the tears beginning to flow.
When he was sure she would be all right, he got out of the car and eased open the front door, careful not to let the driver’s body fall out onto the road.
He pushed the inert form to the other side of the seat, got behind the wheel, and pulled away from the side of the road, doing a U-turn and heading back toward the city.
“Where are we going?” Marion asked from the backseat.
“The FBI. Locke’s impersonation of Engstrom is only the first step. President Barnes will be next.”
Marion fell silent, and a moment later the enormity of what he had just done came crashing down on him and he began to shake. He had killed a man. He was a medical doctor, a scientist, a man whose very existence was dedicated to saving lives; but he had killed a man.
He glanced over at the body and shuddered. What in God’s name had he done? What if he was wrong? What if his father had been telling the truth and all of this was just a product of an overworked imagination?
He shook his head. Cab drivers did not go around trying to kill people, nor did they carry guns with silencers.
Locke knew that Kelsey had identified him, so at this moment the organization that had murdered Colleen, had killed Engstrom and had placed Locke in his stead, was now out to kill him and his wife.
He glanced at Marion in the rearview mirror. She sat erect, her hands folded in her lap, staring straight ahead. Her face was still a sickly white, and her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair disheveled.
The problem was, would the FBI believe his story? As a medical doctor, he had a certain credibility as a dispassionate observer. But that was countered by the fact that everyone seemed to be accepting Locke as the real vice president.
They crossed over the Washington Canal on U.S. 1, passed the Capitol Mall, then turned right on Constitution Avenue. It was a few minutes before eleven and traffic was light, but he drove slowly, and very carefully. Before he started answering questions about the cabby’s murder, he wanted to present his story to someone with the authority and ability to do some checking. If he was stopped now by a District police officer and the body was discovered, his story would sound like nothing more than the ravings of a lunatic. It could take days or even weeks to straighten everything out. And by then it might be too late.
The light was green at Ninth Street by the Justice Department, and he turned left. The huge building that housed the Federal Bureau of Investigation was a couple of blocks away across Pennsylvania Avenue on Ninth and E Streets, and he started to shake again.
Was he certain? he asked himself again. Was he absolutely certain that the man they had met this evening was an imposter?
Yes, he told himself firmly. And he could prove it if the vice president would submit to a physical examination.
They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and Kelsey drove slowly past the gigantic FBI building, mostly dark at this hour of the night, then turned left on E Street where one of the entrances was lit up. He parked across the street, shut out the headlights, turned off the engine, and swiveled around to face Marion.
“Do you want to wait here, take a cab back to the motel, or come in with me?” he asked.
It took several moments for what he had said to apparently sink in, but when it did she sprang forward and grabbed his arm. “I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be alone.”
“All right,” Kelsey said.
They headed across the street together to the one entrance with a light over the door.
Just inside, a black janitor was waxing the tiled corridor floor, and he looked up indifferently as Kelsey and Marion came through the entrance.
“You people looking for something?” he asked in a southern drawl. He leaned on his mop handle.
“Is there an agent on duty this time of night?” Kelsey asked, the request sounding foolish and somewhat melodramatic to him.
The janitor smiled and nodded. “Yessir,” he said, nodding over his shoulder. “Down the hall to the right. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” Kelsey said, and he and Marion passed the janitor and hurried down the corridor, their footfalls sounding hollow.
Around the corner, a wide door opened into a large room filled with several dozen desks. It looked like a newsroom of a large city newspaper. Near the rear of the room two men were engaged in conversation, one of them seated behind a desk, the other perched on the edge of the desk. As Kelsey and Marion threaded their way past the rows of desks, both men turned their way.
Kelsey’s heart was pounding, and he could feel Marion shivering as she clung tightly to his arm.
“Can I help you folks with something?” the man seated behind the desk asked. He was young, probably not over thirty, had short hair, was clean-shaven, and wore a dark suit. His tie was loose, and the top button of his shirt was undone. The man seated on the desktop looked and dressed similarly. They could have been brothers.
“I want to report a plot on the President’s life, and three or maybe more murders,” Kelsey said, the words half catching in his throat.
For a long moment both men sat totally immobile, the expressions of idle curiosity frozen on their faces. Kelsey was certain they could hear his heart beating wildly.
Then the man seated on the desk slowly got to his feet and, never taking his eyes off Marion or Kelsey, pulled a couple of chairs around for them to sit down. The other man reflexively straightened his tie and beckoned for them to sit down.
Kelsey was dressed in a tuxedo, and Marion in an obviously expensive cocktail dress. They did not look like wild-eyed radicals, which, Kelsey hoped, would help lend credence to what he was about to tell them. At least it might at first.
“You better start out by telling me who you are,” the man behind the desk said slowly once Kelsey and Marion were seated. The other man stood to one side staring at them.
“I’m Dr. Richard Kelsey, and this is my wife, Marion. We’re from Chicago.”
“You’re a medical doctor?”
“A plastic surgeon,” Kelsey said, and he glanced at the other man, who had picked up a telephone on the next desk over and was talking to someone. Kelsey heard his own name being mentioned.
“Who is going to assassinate President Barnes, and when?” the man behind the desk asked.
“I don’t know who and I don’t know when,” Kelsey said. “But it’s some organization that has already kidnapped or assassinated Vice President Engstrom in Alaska and has replaced him with an imposter. A man whose face I fixed to look like Engstrom’s more than a year ago.”
The man behind the desk whistled and sat back in his chair. He looked over at the other man, who hung up the phone.
“You’ve gained a little weight over the past six months, Dr. Kelsey,” the agent said. He turned to the seated agent and nodded. “This would appear to be Dr. Richard Kelsey. Used to run a clinic in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Now is director of a research institute in Chicago. Kelsey Institute. He’s considered to be one of the top men in his field in this country. They had an up-to-date photo on him downstairs. Descriptions match.”
The agent seated seemed to digest this for a moment. “Better alert Secret Service just in case,” he said. “And have them send Kelsey’s file up here right away.” He turned back to Kelsey. “I’d like to take your fingerprints in a little while to verify you actually are who you say you are.”
Kelsey nodded, and the other agent was back on the phone.
“And now,” the man behind the desk said, pulling a cassette tape recorder from a drawer and setting it up. “I’d like you to tell me everything. From the beginning. Leaving nothing out, and being as specific as you possibly can about dates, times, names, places, and all that.”
Kelsey sat forward. “President Barnes is in danger right this moment, and Engstrom is an imposter.”
“President Barnes is out of the country at the moment, and both he and Vice President Engstrom have Secret Service agents assigned to them. We are alerting those agents at this moment. Right now I need all the information you can give me.”
“Parked across E Street is a cab. The driver is dead in the front seat. He tried to kill us about a half hour ago.”
At this the other agent turned around and looked at Kelsey, and once again the enormity and absolute implausibility of what he was telling them came crashing in on him, leaving him with a feeling of almost total helplessness. He wished his father were there to help straighten this out.
22
There was a one-hour delay in Mexico City before Goldmann’s Pan American 747 flight to Buenos Aires was due for departure, and it came as no surprise to him when his name was paged over the terminal’s public address system to report to the information counter of Pan Am.
Yesodat had sent one of his flunkies to Lod Airport in Tel Aviv to retrieve Goldmann’s diplomatic passport, but he had stalled the young man. By the time the hapless lad had been able to phone Yesodat for further instructions, Goldmann’s flight had already left.
Yesodat had known, or had at least suspected all along, that Goldmann would never give up the fight. Benjamin Karel, Abraham Silverstein, and finally Levi Asheim all had either disappeared or had been murdered in Buenos Aires. The Odessa plot had first been uncovered there. And Kurt Stoeffel, the former SS Oberst and probable present head of the organization, maintained his jungle fortress, Aerie, near there. It was only natural that Yesodat would put two and two together and realize Goldmann would head to Buenos Aires.
“The problem is,” Goldmann could almost hear Yesodat’s carefully prepared explanation, “that as a civilian, you are certainly free to do whatever you want, providing you are willing to accept the consequences. But as a diplomat—as an Israeli officer carrying a diplomatic passport—your actions reflect directly on our government. And our government does not want you mucking around Buenos Aires.”
Goldmann had been a pragmatist all of his life, and although he tended to agree with Yesodat’s concern that officially the Israeli government could not go around killing people, he needed his diplomatic passport until he cleared customs in Buenos Aires.
With a civilian passport his luggage would be searched. But with his diplomatic credentials, that necessity would be waived. For the first time in a long time, he was carrying weapons in his luggage, a fact he did not want the Buenos Aires authorities to discover.
He left the Pan Am departure gate area and unhurriedly strolled down the wide corridor to the main concourse where the various airline ticket and information counters were arranged along the wall opposite the main doors.
An elderly man wearing a black hat stood alone at the Pan Am information counter, and Goldmann had to smile to himself as he approached from across the concourse.
If Yesodat had wanted to make serious trouble for him, he would have sent a couple of operatives from the Mexico City embassy to arrest him at the Pan Am arrival departure gate the moment his plane landed.
He had sent instead an innocuous embassy staffer who would no doubt try to persuade him to turn over his diplomatic passport in exchange for a civilian document.
