The Zebra Network

by Sean Flannery

  “There were arrests?”

  Highnote nodded. “Arrests, trials, and in some cases executions.

  In other instances there were… accidents.” Innes’s eyes narrowed. “Our people were simply assassinated?”

  “Yes,” Highnote said.

  “And what are we doing about this?”

  Highnote sat back in his chair and looked at the others. “There hasn’t been much we could do about it. As I said, by the time we got this information, it was already too late.”

  “But surely once McAllister had been arrested by the KGB, you must have suspected that they would get that information from him. Certainly you are aware of their methods, of that technology. You must have known that McAllister could not have held anything back. Why weren’t your networks rescued, or at the very least warned off”

  Again Highnote hesitated for a moment, his thoughts ranging far afield. “I think we’re getting into an area here that I don’t have the authorization to speak about. There are certain sensitive ongoing projects.”

  “I appreciate that,” Innes said. “But as I’ve told you, I have the President’s complete confidence in this matter. Nothing is to be held back. Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, but some of what you are asking this morning has no bearing on McAllister.”

  “The President is waiting for your call,” Innes said without blinking. “Any of you may speak with him before we proceed.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “I do,” Innes said. “I will not be lied to, nor will I be sidestepped.

  If need be you will be subpoenaed to appear in camera before the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

  “Perhaps that would be for the best,” Highnote said, starting to rise.

  “I think you wouldn’t find it so.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” Highnote asked coldly. “From what I understand, McAllister is your close personal friend. Has been for some years now. I would hate to think that you would seriously consider obstructing justice here.”

  “I won’t stand for this,” Highnote roared. “My service record is there for anyone to see.”

  “Then cooperate with this investigation.”

  “To what end? This continues to be an internal matter.”

  “I can’t agree, and neither does the President,” Innes said. “The President wants to offer McAllister amnesty if he will come in and tell us what happened to him in Moscow, and what has been happening to him since his return.” Highnote was stunned. He sank back in his chair and looked dumbfounded across the table at the Justice Department prosecutor.

  “It’s going to be up to us this morning to figure out exactly how to accomplish that.”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Highnote said. “His time at Lubyanka is blank in his memory. He told me that.”

  “He knows something,” Innes said. “There are enough inconsistencies here for us to at least consider the possibility. Too many people have already lost their lives-we want to stop it.”

  “You’re talking about a trap here,” Highnote said.“No.”

  “Yes, he’d be shot to death coming in.”

  “You have my word that wouldn’t happen.”

  “You’d be out there in the field? You’d lead him in by the hand, is that what you’re telling me?” Highnote looked to the others for support. None was forthcoming. “I’ve spoken with him. I’ve seen him twice. You can’t imagine how desperate he is, how driven. At the least sign of trouble he’ll run and when he does someone is bound to get hurt.”

  “We want to avoid that at all costs, Bob. Believe me when I tell you that we want nothing more than to sit down and talk to him.”

  “He won’t trust you.”

  Innes leaned forward earnestly. “That’s why you’re here. You’re his friend. He trusts you. He’s come to you before, and he’ll come to you again. But we need your cooperation.”

  “He knows that I called Security last night. I doubt if he’ll trust me again.”

  “He could have shot you, but he didn’t,” Alvan Reisberg said softly. “Another inconsistency.”

  Highnote focused on the FBI cop. “What are you talking about?”

  “McAllister is, as you say, a driven man,” Innes broke in. “But who is driving him? And why?”

  “We know that someone is trying to kill him,” Reisberg said. “How do you know that?” Highnote asked apprehensively. “Because he told us.”

  The dark-blue Jeep Wagoneer pulled up and parked at the corner of 31st Street and Avon Lane in Georgetown. A lone, well-dressed, goodlooking man sat behind the wheel, his heart pounding. No time. There was no time left and yet it was up to him to put this ultimate insanity into motion. God in heaven, how could anyone be expected to do such a thing?

  Once in you will be along for the duration, he’d been told. Some of it will not be pretty and certainly not pleasant. But all of it will be teriibly necessary. Expediency is the watchword. His orders had been crystal clear. The source, unimpeachable. But Jesus Christ, if something wentwrong; anything, even the slightest hitch, everything would blow up in their faces. He thought about Dallas and Los Angeles and Beirut and a dozen other places around the globe over the past twenty-five years or so. Such a terrible waste. Such risks. Was it worth it? Had it been worth the price paid?

  Considering the consequences, he thought, his eye on the brownstone house halfway down the narrow side street, there were no other alternatives. He’d known that too, when he’d signed on.

  He reached inside his coat pocket, feeling for his gun, then shut off the car’s ignition and got out as a bus rumbled by. He went around the corner and hurried down the street, crossing to the other side in midblock. There was very little traffic about, for which he was grateful God only knew what explanation he could give for being here like this, if someone recognized him) and what passed paid him absolutely no attention as he mounted the steps to McAllister’s house and unlocked the door.

  He was just another man coming home. He looked as if he belonged in the neighborhood. No eyebrows would be raised. No one would question him, unless he was recognized.

  Just inside the stairhall he closed and relocked the door then stood and listened, conscious of his heart hammering in his chest. Time. There was precious little of it. And even now they might already be too late.

  The house was silent. He looked toward the head of the stairs. They were here. He knew that for a fact. This was the last place anyone would think to check. McAllister wasn’t coming back, and his wife was safely ensconced at Robert Highnote’s home in Arlington Heights. Nothing could possibly go wrong at this end, and yet everything could go wrong.

  “It’s me,” he called out, starting up the stairs, his right hand trailing on the banister. Halfway up he stopped again to listen. A car horn tooted outside, but the house remained absolutely still. The hall smelled faintly musty, unused, as if the house had been closed up, unlived in for a long time. Which in fact it had. The McAllisters had been in Moscow for nearly three years. They would never be returning here. At the top he turned right and went into the living room. A thin, attractive woman stood to one side of the window, a faint smile on her lips, as if she had just heard an amusing, slightly off-color story.

  “Hello, Don,” she said.

  He pulled up short, startled that she knew his real name. “Where’s Royce?” he started to ask, when he detected a movement out of the side of his eye, just to his left and behind him. He started to turn when the barrel of a silenced pistol was pressed against his temple. His insides immediately tightened.

  “Did you come alone?” the man whispered harshly. “Yes.”

  “You were not followed?”

  “No.”

  The woman turned to the window and barely parted the drapes enough so that she could see down into the street. “Where’d you park your car?” she asked.

  “Around the block, on Thirty-first.”

  “The blue Jeep?” she asked
. “Yes.”

  “How does it look?” the man with the gun asked, his voice soft, his accent flat, perhaps midwestern.

  The woman turned away from the window, letting the curtain ease back into place. She wore a dark-gray sweater and blue jeans. “It’s clean.”

  “Very well,” the man behind Donald Harman said, withdrawing his gun and stepping aside. “We’re here. What have you got for us this time?”

  Harman turned and looked at the man. It was the first time he had ever seen Royce Todd’s face. Very few people had, and lived to describe it. Harman was struck by his eyes. They were empty. There was no bottom to them, and he shivered. Todd and the woman, whom he knew as Carol Stenhouse, had come highly recommended. They were simply the best in the business, professional in every sense of the word.

  “We have a very large job for you,” Harman said finding his voice. “But it must be done immediately, this morning. In fact within the next hour.“Royce glanced at the woman. She nodded slightly, her lips still parted in a half smile.

  “There won’t be time for the usual confirmation from Geneva that our funds are in place,” Todd said.

  “You’ll have to trust us on this one. It’s the reason I came in person.” Harman glanced at the woman. He thought she looked like a wild, nocturnal animal. Someone you would never willingly turn your back on. “We’re paying five hundred thousand. Each.”

  The woman’s left eyebrow rose slightly. It was the only reaction either of them displayed at the mention of a fee that was five times more than they’d received for Sikorski.

  “You have our undivided attention.” Todd said. “And since time is apparently of the essence, I suggest you get on with it. Whom do you want us to kill, how do you want it done, and what provision have you made for our escape afterward?”

  “I have it all here,” Harman said pulling a thick envelope from his pocket.

  Chapter 19

  For the first time since they’d gotten word that McAllister had been arrested in Moscow, Robert Highnote was at a loss for understanding. He’d always prided himself on his ability to see the big picture; to keep track of all the variables in any situation. Real life was fluid. There were no blacks and whites, only delicate shades of gray. Misunderstandings, coincidences, changes of plan or heart, made the complex business grist only for the man of intuitive genius. Highnote felt for the very first time in his career, that he might be in over his head.

  He shoved his coffee cup away. “You’ve been in contact with him, then? He’s approached you?”

  “No, nothing so dramatic as all that,” Alvan Reisberg said. He’d taken off his glasses and was polishing the lenses with his handkerchief. His eyes seemed naked.

  “Then what in heaven’s name are you talking about? You say he told you that someone is trying to kill him?”

  “I mean in addition to the three Russians we found in that car near your home.” Reisberg said. “The Mafia is now involved for some reason.”

  “If you’re talking about the incident in New York, ballistics showed us that the murder weapon was Cariick’s own gun. We also have the testimony of the New York City cop. He saw McAllister with Carrick’s gun in his hand.”

  “I’ll grant you that,” Reisberg said, putting his glasses back on. “But as I say, there is a Mafia connection here as well. A Ford Thunderbird was found parked outside our headquarters building two nights ago.”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with anything,” Highnote protested, but Innes held him off.“Let him continue, Bob.”

  Reisberg nodded. “We traced the car to a Jersey City Cosa Nostra family. Very big. One of our informants told us that two family members, contractors, hit men in other words, were missing after coming down to the Washington area on some assignment. He wasn’t very clear on that point. He’s frightened out of his mind that he’ll be discovered and will be murdered. But he was certain that he’d never heard the name McAllister before.”

  “So what’s the point?” Highnote asked.

  “McAllister’s prints were all over the car. He left it there for us to find.”

  “Why?” Highnote asked. “Exactly my question,” Innes said.

  “There is no doubt that he used the car on two separate occasions. We matched the tire prints in Janos Sikorski’s driveway, as well as in Langley Hill just below where he made entry onto CIA grounds.”

  “Maybe he is working with them,” Highnote said. “It would explain how he’s been able to drop out of sight.”

  “There were bullet holes in the side of the car,” Reisberg said. “The calibers match the casings we found on Sikorski’s property. We think McAllister went back out to Sikorski’s to talk to his old friend, and came upon the Mafia already there. Either that or the Mafia followed McAllister to Sikorski’s, though we’re betting on the former because of the arrangement of the tire tracks. The Thunderbird came first, and then another vehicle came after it. The one that was registered in Stephanie Albright’s name.”

  “And you’re saying that there was a shootout there between McAllister and these Mafia people?”

  “We found traces of blood-not all of them McAllister’s type and evidence that someone else had come out to clean up the mess.”

  Highnote once again sat back in his chair. “Why wasn’t I told about this?” he asked. “We agreed to liaise on all aspects of this investigation.”

  “The reports have been sent over to Dexter Kingman in your Office of Security,” Reisberg said. “We’re holding nothing back. His reports come to us as well, including the complete dossier on Ms. Albright.”

  “We appreciate that you and McAllister are friends,” Innes said, his tone conciliatory. “We honestly do. But you must understand, Bob, what we’re dealing with here.”

  “I don’t,” Highnote said angrily. “And I’m still waiting for someone in this room to explain it to me.”

  “How do you see it?” Reisberg asked.

  Highnote turned on him. “McAllister is a good man, one of the best.”

  “I think we all agree with that statement,” the FBI cop said, his voice very soft.

  “I think he was brainwashed in Moscow. I think they altered him and then sent him back here to do as much damage as he possibly could. And he’s done just that. But it’s not his fault, none of it is.”

  “What is your recommendation?”

  “We bring him in, of course, there’s no question of that. We must.”

  “To help him?”

  “Yes.”

  Reisberg glanced at Innes and Quarmby, then spoke. “We’ve come to much the same conclusion, in that he must be brought in and helped, which is why the President has offered him amnesty. But we think the evidence shows something else may be occurring here. Something that has us… disturbed.”

  “Go on,” Highnote said.

  “First let’s go back to the beginning, if we may. To Moscow. What exactly was McAllister working on for you?”

  “There were a number of ongoing projects,” Highnote said. “There always are. McAllister was a network man. His specialty has been setting up lines of stringers from scratch and then working them.”

  “He is a people person,” Reisberg pressed.

  “If you want to call it that, yes. He deals with personalities. With motivations.”

  “What specifically was he doing the night of his arrest? What I mean to ask is, who was he seeing that night?”

  “I don’t know,” Highnote said. “There was nothing on his day sheets, and of course he was never given a chance to tell us afterward.”

  “Anything in his confession to the Russians that would indicate to you whom he had seen that night?”

  “No,” Highnote said.

  “Didn’t it strike you as odd that the Russians made no mention of why he was arrested on that particular night?”

  “Yes, Alvan, it struck me as odd. It struck all of us as odd, but again, as I’ve said, Mac never had the chance afterward to tell us.”

  “I
t never came up in the two conversations you had with him?” Highnote bridled. “I resent the implication. You’ve seen my reports.

  “Nobody is implying anything here, Bob,” Innes broke in gently. “We’re trying to get at the truth, that’s all.”

  “He’s a driven man.”

  “Yes, we all agree with that. But the fact of the matter is, someone is trying to kill him. Not only the Russians, but the Mafia as well. The question is: If the Russians wanted him dead, why did they release him in the first place? And who has hired the Mafia to go after him, and why?”

  “More to the point,” Reisberg interrupted, “what were the Mafia doing at Sikorski’s place… assuming we’re correct in our guess that they got there first?”

  “If they were after McAllister, it would be logical that they would go after his old friends. People they might think he would try to contact.”

  “Exactly,” Reisberg said. “Where are they getting their information?”

  Highnote’s breath caught in his throat. “I see,” he said. “They also made the connection between you and McAllister,” Reisberg continued. “The Russians were at your house, waiting for him. And then when he ran to your boat in Dumfries they went after him there… someone did… and shot him and left him for dead. The blood we found was his type. And there was a lot of it.”

  “You’re saying that whoever is after Mac is getting inside information?”

  “It would appear so,” Reisberg said.

  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves now,” Innes said, filling the sudden silence.

  “Yes?” Highnote said, holding his temper in check.“When we first began to put this together, we came up with four areas of concern.”

  “Who is we?”

  “I approached Paul with this just yesterday,” Alvan Reisberg said. “Because you had questions for which there were no answers?”

  “Yes.”

  “The first, of course, was McAllister’s arrest and subsequent release by the Russians,” Innes said. “Naturally we weren’t involved in that business until the incident in New York.”