“Not making any move to go through the gate,” added Quinn. “He knows they’re tripped. And he wants us to know he knows it.”
“Look,” whispered Alison. “He’s moving now!”
The figure took a step forward and raised his right arm. As though it were a ritualistic gesture, he brought it slowly down in front of him, cutting the air. Instantly there was a hum from the panel. A white disk turned bright red.
The man moved to his left and disappeared into the darkness.
“What was that all about?” O’Brien asked, more of himself than of the others.
“You just said it,” answered Chancellor. “He wants us to know he knows the posts are wired.”
“That’s not so impressive. Most of these houses have alarm systems.”
A second hum abruptly shot out of the panel; another white disk turned red.
Then in rapid succession hum followed hum, red light followed red light. The cacophony was all-encompassing, the alarms actually painful to the ears. Within thirty seconds every disk was bright red, every hum activated. The room was washed in magenta.
O’Brien stared at the panel. “They know each vector point! Every damned one!” He ran across the room to a cabinet in the wall. It contained a radio set. O’Brien pressed a button and spoke; there was no mistaking his urgency. “This is Saint Michael’s One, come in, please! Repeat, Saint Michael’s One, emergency!”
The only response was continuous static.
“Come in, please! This is Saint Michael’s One. Emergency!”
Nothing. Only the static, which seemed to grow louder. Peter glanced about the room, adjusting his eyes to the red spill and the shadows. “The phone!” he said.
“Don’t bother.” O’Brien stepped back from the radio. “They wouldn’t leave it; they’d cut the wires. It’s dead.”
It was.
“What about the radio?” asked Alison, trying to speak calmly. “Why can’t you get through?”
Quinn looked at them. “They’ve jammed the frequency, which means they had to know which one it was. It’s changed daily.”
“Then, try another frequency!” said Chancellor.
“It’s no use. Somewhere outside, within fifty to a hundred yards, there’s a computerized scanner. By the time I raised anybody, before I could get our message across, they’d jam that, too.”
“Goddamn you, try!”
“No,” replied O’Brien, looking back up at the panel. “That’s exactly what they want us to do. They want us to panic; they’re counting on it.”
“Why shouldn’t we panic? What difference does it make? You said nobody could trace us here. Well, someone did trace us, and the radio’s useless! I’m not about to trust your steel constructions and your two-inch glass! They’re no match for a couple of blow-torches and a sledgehammer! For Christ’s sake, do something!”
“I’m doing nothing, which is what they don’t expect. In two or three minutes I’m going back on that frequency and deliver a second message.” Quinn looked over at Alison. “Go upstairs and check the windows front and rear. Call down if you see anything. Chancellor, get back in the dining room. Do the same.”
Peter held his place. “What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t got time to explain.” He walked to the front window and peered out Peter joined him. Between the gateposts, once more silhouetted against the night sky, stood the figure. He stood motionless for ten or fifteen seconds, and then he seemed to raise both his hands in front of him.
And now a searchlight of several thousand candle-power shot out, slicing through the darkness.
“In the front!” Alison yelled from upstairs. “There’s a—”
“We see it!” roared O’Brien. He turned to Chancellor. “Check the rear of the house!”
Peter ran across the room toward the small archway that led to the dining room. A second blinding beam of light hit the much smaller network of windows in the dining room’s rear wall. He looked away, closing his eyes; the light made his forehead ache. “There’s another back here!” he yelled.
“And on this side!” shouted O’Brien, his voice coming from an alcove at the far end of the living room. “Check the kitchen! On the north side!”
Peter raced into the kitchen. As Quinn had anticipated, there was a fourth beam shooting through the grilled windows at the north end of the house. Peter shielded his eyes again. It was a nightmare! Wherever they looked outside, they were blinded by the hot white light. They were being attacked by blinding white light!
“Chancellor!” screamed O’Brien from somewhere outside the kitchen. “Go upstairs! Get Alison and stay away from the windows! Get in the center of the house. Move!”
Peter could not think, he could only obey. He reached the staircase, grabbed the railing, and swung himself around. As he started up the steps, he heard O’Brien’s voice. In spite of the madness it was controlled, precise. He was back at the radio.
“If I’m getting through, emergency is canceled. Saint Michael’s One, repeat. Emergency is canceled. We’ve raised Chesapeake on the alternate equipment. They’re on their way. They’ll be here in three or four minutes. Repeat. Stay out of the area. Emergency canceled.”
“What are you doing?” Chancellor screamed.
“Goddamn it, get upstairs! Get the girl and stay in the center of the house!”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Those ghouls are trying to trick us! They’re drawing us to the windows, then blinding us!”
“What are you saying?…”
“It’s our only hope!” roared the agent “Now get to Alison and do as I tell you!” He turned back to the radio and again depressed the microphone button.
Peter did not wait to hear O’Brien’s words; he saw only that the agent had crouched below the cabinet, behind a chair, as near to the floor as possible, his hand extended up to the radio. Chancellor raced up the steps. “Alison!”
“In here! In the front room.”
Peter dashed through the upper hall into the bedroom. Alison was at the window, hypnotized by the sight below. “Someone’s running!”
“Get away from there!” He pulled her out of the room and into the hall.
The first thing he heard was a metallic sound—an object striking the glass, or the grillwork of the bedroom window. And then it happened.
The explosion was thunderous, the force of the vibrations hurling them to the floor. The thick glass of the bedroom window blew out in all directions, fragments imbedded themselves in the walls and the floor; pieces of grillwork rang as they struck solid objects.
The entire house shook; plaster cracked as beams were twisted. And Peter realized, as he held Alison in his arms, that there must have been two or three explosions, so closely timed as to be indistinguishable.
No. There had been four explosions, one at each side of the house, from each source of blinding light. O’Brien had been right. The strategy had been based on luring them to the windows and then throwing explosives. If they were in front of the windows, the sharp fragments of glass would be imbedded all over their bodies. Veins and arteries would be severed, heads sliced as his had been sliced so many months ago on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The similarities were too painful. Even the plaster dust brought back images of the dirt and mud inside the reeling automobile; the woman in his arms another woman.
“Chancellor! Are you all right? Answer me!”
It was Quinn, his voice strident, in pain, from somewhere downstairs. Peter could hear automobiles racing away in the distance.
“Yes.”
“They’re gone.” O’Brien’s voice was weaker now. “We’ve got to get out of here! Now!”
Peter crawled to the edge of the staircase and reached for the hallway light switch. He snapped it on. O’Brien was bent over the bottom step, his hand gripped on the railing. He looked up at Chancellor.
His face was covered with blood.
Chancellor drove; Alison cradled O’Brien in her arms i
n the back seat of the unmarked car. The FBI man had fragments of glass embedded in his right arm and shoulder and numerous lacerations about his face and neck, but the wounds were not severe, merely painful.
“I think we should take you home,” said Peter, his breath still coming rapidly, accelerated by fear, “to your wife and your own doctor.”
“Do as I tell you,” replied Quinn, suppressing the effects of his pain. “My wife thinks I’m in Philadelphia; my doctor would ask questions. There’s another man we use.”
“I think questions are in order right now!”
“No one would listen to the answers.”
“You can’t do this,” said Alison, wiping O’Brien’s face with a handkerchief. “Peter’s right.”
“No, he’s not,” O’Brien winced. “We’re closer to those files than we’ve ever been. We have to find them. Take them. It’s the only answer. For us.”
“Why?” asked Peter.
“The Saint Michael’s house is restricted territory. A four-million-dollar piece of real estate that’s out of reach.”
“You reached it,” interrupted Chancellor.
“Strangely enough, I didn’t.” Quinn inhaled audibly. The pain passed, and he continued. “If the State Department or the bureau ever found out how I lied or what I divulged, I’d spend twenty years in a federal prison. I’ve violated every oath I took.”
Peter felt a rush of affection for him. “What happened?” he asked.
“I used Varak’s name with the State Department. He was a defector specialist, and I knew the clearance procedures to obtain the use of a sterile house. The bureau’s been involved with defectors before. I said it was a joint operation between my office and NSC. Varak’s name insured acceptance. My office could be questioned. Not Varak.”
Chancellor swung the car around a long curve to the right. Even in death Varak was part of everything. “Wasn’t it dangerous using Varak? He was dead. His body had to be found.”
“But his prints were burned off years ago. I’d guess that even his dental work was done under an assumed name. With the number of homicides in this city and the procedures the police have to follow, it could be a week before his identity is known.”
“What’s your point? You used Varak’s name to gain access to the Saint Michael’s house. So what? Why are we closer to the files?”
“You’d never make a lawyer. Whoever attacked us tonight had to know two specific things. One: the clearing process at State that made the house available. And two: that Varak was dead. Those four men you’re going to see. Banner, Paris, Venice, or Christopher. One of them knew both.”
Peter gripped the wheel. He remembered the words he had heard only hours ago.
I am listed in the State Department logs as being in conference at this moment …
Munro St. Claire, ambassador-extraordinary with access to the secrets of the nation, knew Varak was dead.
“Or Bravo,” said Chancellor angrily. “The fifth man.”
34
There were no further sterile locations available to O’Brien. His resources had come to an end. Even the most sympathetic of his associates would not help him. Saint Michael’s One had been destroyed; a four-million-dollar piece of government property had been blown up.
There might have been explanations for that disaster, explanations that could have conceivably been in O’Brien’s favor. But there was no explanation in the intelligence community that covered the shocking revelation of a certain killing.
Varak’s corpse had been found on the scene, his body riddled with bullets. Outside the sterile house. Treason had to be considered.
Peter understood, but his understanding was of no consequence. Varak’s body had been found by the men following him, chasing him over the lawns of the Smithsonian, and it had been brought to Saint Michael’s to add an insidious complication.
No consequence. Who would listen?
The word was out A senior agent, Carroll Quinlan O’Brien, had disappeared. The urgent request for Saint Michael’s One had been relayed to the State Department from O’Brien’s office at the bureau. The clearance procedures included Varak’s name and the statement that the request was a joint operation between the FBI and NSC. The statement was false, and O’Brien was nowhere to be found.
And a secret debriefing center had been destroyed.
Phone calls made by O’Brien from booths along the highways and the back roads revealed a government net closing in with alarming swiftness. Quinn’s wife was frantic. Men had come to see her, saying terrible things—men who only days ago had been their friends. O’Brien could only try to reassure her. Quickly. He could say nothing of substance. Undoubtedly their telephone was tapped. Besides, he and Peter and Alison had to get out of each area where a call was placed. Phone booths could be traced.
Chancellor called Tony Morgan in New York. The editor was frightened: Government people had been in touch with him. And with Joshua Harris. They had made startling accusations. Peter had given false statements to a night-duty officer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation that had resulted in the deaths of Justice Department personnel. Further, he had assaulted an FBI agent in the Corcoran Gallery. The man was in critical condition; if he died, the charge would be murder. Beyond these charges there was evidence linking him to the destruction of highly classified government property, the value of which was four million dollars.
“Lies!” Peter cried. “The man I assaulted tried to kill me! He was a maniac; he was forced to resign. Did they tell you that?”
“No. Who told you? An agent named O’Brien?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t believe him. O’Brien’s an embittered career man, an incompetent. The government people made that clear. He was being eased out when you came along.”
“He saved my life!”
“Maybe he just wanted you to think so. Come back, Peter. We’ll get you the best lawyers. There are legitimate explanations, the government people realize that. My God, you’ve been under a terrible strain; last year you were barely alive. Your head was sliced half off; no one knows the extent of the damage.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!”
“I don’t know it. I’m trying to find reasons.” Morgan’s voice cracked. He cared.
“Tony, listen to me. I haven’t much time. Don’t you see what they’re doing? They can’t admit the truth. They’ll try to correct the situation, but they can’t admit that the situation exists! Hoover’s files are missing!”
“Get away from the campfire! You’re killing yourself!” Morgan’s explosion came from deep within him.
Chancellor understood. Now Tony was being used, manipulated, too. “Did you mention the files?”
“Yes.…” Morgan could barely speak.
“Did they deny that the files were missing?”
“Of course. They were never missing because they were destroyed. Hoover himself gave the instructions.”
The lying was total. Phyllis Maxwell’s words came back to Peter. They fear infected bloodlines. Were they Phyllis’s? Or had he invented them? He was not sure any longer. Fact and fantasy had converged and they were one. The only certainty was Quinn O’Brien’s judgment:
The files had to be found and produced. There was no other way. Until then, the three of them were fugitives.
“You’ve been lied to, Tony. I wish to God it weren’t so, but it is.” He replaced the phone and ran from the booth to the car.
They found an almost deserted motel on the beach at Ocean City. Winter, two days before Christmas; there was a dearth of reservations. A doctor ministered to Quinn, taking the money but no other interest. A transient had fallen through a glass door. It was explanation enough.
On Christmas Eve the rogue agent came close to breaking. Quinn’s wife and children were less than two hours away, but they might as well have been on the other side of the world behind fences of barbed wire, crisscrossed by searchlights. He could give them no words of comfort, not even wor
ds of hope. There was only the separation and the knowledge of the pain it was causing. Peter watched as O’Brien struggled with his fear and his guilt and his loneliness, knowing that one day his words and his emotions would be put in the mind of another. On paper. Peter was watching a man of reluctant courage whose panic was consuming him and whose heart was breaking, and it both touched and outraged him.
One professional. Two amateurs. Three fugitives. It was up to them now. There wasn’t anyone else. Alison could no longer be excluded; she was needed. Together they had to solve the riddle, or the destruction would continue. They would be destroyed themselves in the process. The unfairness of it all was appalling.
It was a painful Christmas. The three of them shared what the motel manager called his Upper South Suite. It was a second-floor complex with windows facing the side of the building as well as the beach. The entrance was below them in plain sight. There was a bedroom and a sitting room with a sofa bed, along with a small kitchenette. The decor was Middle Plastic.
They waited, knowing the wait was necessary. The radio and the television set were kept on to pick up any sudden breaks in the news, any hints that one hundred miles away in Washington someone had decided to acknowledge their disappearance. They bought newspapers from the metal machine in the lobby and read thoroughly. One article caught their attention.
Saint Michael’s, Md.—An explosion caused by a malfunctioning gas furnace wrought considerable damage to a suburban home in this exclusive section of the Chesapeake. Fortunately there was no one in residence at the time. The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Chancellor O’Brien, are abroad. They are being contacted.…
“What does it mean?” asked Peter. “They want us to know they have proof we were there,” replied Quinn. “Subtle, aren’t they?”
“How could they know?”
“Easy. Fingerprints. You were in the service; mine are in any number of records.”
“But they don’t know about Alison.” Chancellor felt a surge of relief. It was quickly blunted.