The Zebra Network

by Sean Flannery

“Take it easy, Mrs. O’Haire, everything will be fine. You say you had visitors this afternoon. Who were they?”

  “McAllister and some woman.”

  Harman hesitated for a beat. “I see,” he said. “Where are they now?”

  “Gone.”

  “They didn’t hurt you?”

  “No, but… you and I… we have to meet,” Kathleen O’Haire said, and she paused. McAllister motioned for her to continue. “They know about you… or about someone in the White House,” she said.

  “They know what, Mrs. O’Haire?” Harman asked smoothly. “I don’t know,” she said convincingly. “They asked about Jim, and then your call came..

  “Were they in the house when I telephoned you?” Harman asked. McAllister shook his head.

  “No, but they said they knew about the White House connection.”

  “They don’t know that I telephoned you?”

  Again McAllister shook his head. “No, they were already gone.”

  “Did they say where they were going?”

  “No, but I’m frightened. Jim told me to be… careful.”

  “And he was correct, Mrs. O’Haire. You are in danger now. I want you to stay where you are, I’ll send someone out to pick you up.”

  “No,” Kathleen O’Haire blurted. “I’m coming to Washington.”

  “All right. I’ll arrange a hotel for you. What flight will you be coming in on?”

  McAllister put his hand over the mouthpiece. “You’re flying to New York tonight, and you’ll be taking the train down to Washington in the morning,” he whispered. He took his hand away and she repeated what he’d told her.

  “I can have someone meet you then.”

  “No,” Kathleen O’Haire said. “I’m frightened. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ll meet you at McMillan Park. Do you know where it is?” Harman hesitated for a long second or two. “Are you alone now, Mrs. O’Haire?”

  “Yes,” she said. “At noon tomorrow. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “They said they’ve got proof. I just can’t say any more on this line.”

  “I understand,” Harman said. “Are you certain I can’t send someone out there for you? You would certainly be much safer…

  “No,” Kathleen O’Haire said. “I’ll see you at noon.” McAllister broke the connection, then took the phone from her hand and replaced it on the cradle. He let out a sigh of relief.

  “How’d he sound?” Stephanie asked.

  “Frightened,” McAllister said. He squeezed Kathleen O’Haire’s arm. “You did very well. Now you’d better pack a bag, we’re leaving immediately.”

  “For New York?”

  “Washington direct. They won’t be expecting us so soon.” The neighborhood had quieted down for the evening as two men got out of a gunmetal-gray Cadillac convertible parked in front of Kathleen O’Haire’s house. It was well past ten and they had raced up from Los Angeles as soon as they had gotten word that McAllister and the woman had probably slipped out of Chicago and might be headed thisway. Their instructions were simple: Kill all three of them, then confirm.

  They separated, Nick Balliterri going up to the front door, and Frank Pearce hurrying around to the back. The house was dark, and Balliterri had a feeling that they were on a wild goose chase here. The woman wasn’t home, she had already skipped.

  He waited for a few seconds to give Pearce a chance to get into place, then rang the doorbell. He held his silenced.357 Magnum out of sight at his side.

  From the back he heard the very slight noise of breaking glass, and he rang the doorbell again.

  Sixty seconds later Pearce opened the door for him, and Balliterri stepped inside.

  “Car’s in the garage, but the bedrooms are empty,” Pearce said. “Closets?” Balliterri asked softly.

  “One of them is open in the big bedroom. Looks like maybe some clothes are missing.”

  “She skipped,” Balliterri said, holstering his big gun, his eyes scanning the room. “Search the place.”

  “Right,” Pearce said, holstering his weapon and heading down the corridor to the bedrooms.

  Balliterri crossed the room to the answering machine, rewound the message tape and hit the play button.

  Chapter 28

  Stephanie went to retrieve their baggage while McAllister went with Kathleen O’Haire across to the Dulles Airport Avis counter where she rented a car in her own name. It would be safe enough, he figured, at least for a little while. No one would expect her to be here like this, so openly.

  He hung back as she completed the forms and was given a key. No one was watching her, but the clerk had given her an odd look when she had signed. Had he recognized the name from the newspaper and television stories?

  “They’re bringing the car around front,” she said coming back to McAllister.

  She was tired, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. None of them had gotten any sleep on the overnight flight from Los Angeles, nor had they talked very much. She had sat between Stephanie and McAllister with her eyes closed and her hands clenched in her lap. He’d felt genuinely sorry for her, but there was nothing he could do or say to alleviate her fears.

  It was nearly ten, which left them two hours before her meeting with Harman. The man would be expecting her to show up alone, and no one knew that he and Stephanie had changed their appearances, yet being back in Washington made him extremely wary.

  “I’ll meet Stephanie downstairs at the baggage area,” he said. “As soon as you get the car, drive around to the pickup area.”

  Kathleen O’Haire nodded nervously.

  McAllister stepped a little closer to her. “Don’t leave without us. You wouldn’t last very long alone in this city. Not now. Not with Harman and his people expecting you.”

  Her eyes were wide. She was convinced. She nodded again.“And for God’s sake, try to act normal.”

  She looked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, and she turned on her heel and headed for the doors.

  McAllister watched her leave, then turned and went back down to where Stephanie was just collecting their bags. She looked beyond him for the woman.

  “Where is she?”

  “Bringing the car around,” McAllister said, taking two of the bags. “Do you trust her?”

  “We don’t have much of a choice at this point, do we?” She looked shyly at him. “What’s to prevent her from running?”

  “Nothing,” McAllister said curtly, heading for the doors. “She’d probably be better off if she did.”

  It was fairly warm outside. The storm had finally abated, the roads had been cleared and the temperature had risen so that the snow was melting. The air smelled of exhaust fumes and burnt jet fuel. The flight had been full, and quite a few passengers, bags in hand, were scrambling for the available taxis and shuttle buses.

  McAllister and Stephanie held back out of the traffic pattern as they waited for Kathleen O’Haire to show up.

  Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. If Harman was Zebra One, the Washington man, then who was the Russian? Someone in the KGB or someone high in the Soviet government who had somehow made contact with Harman and had turned him? It made him sick to think what harm the White House man had been able to do in the years he had been so close to the President.

  The O’Haires’ Zebra Network, he suspected, was only the tip of the iceberg. For a man such as Harman, there would have to be other ongoing operations. Possibly he had contacts within the CIA, or perhaps the Pentagon as well. Kim Philby, after all, had very nearly become the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service. How much higher would Harman rise within the government?

  “Here she comes,” Stephanie said softly at his side. He looked up out of his thoughts as Kathleen O’Haire, driving a dark-blue Taurus, pulled up to the curb. They got in; Stephanie in the front seat and McAllister in the back with the bags.“Where do you want me to drive?” the O’Haire woman asked looking at his reflect
ion in the rearview mirror. “Out to the park. Stephanie will direct you.”

  “Do you want me to drive?” Stephanie asked. “I’ll be all right.”

  They pulled away from the curb and headed down the long ramp toward the airport exit. McAllister opened their bags, pulled out the disassembled guns and quickly put them together. When he was finished he handed Stephanie hers.

  She’d been watching him. “Do you think he’ll show up alone?”

  “As long as he thinks she’s alone, he will,” McAllister said. “He’s going to want to talk to her.”

  “What are you saying now?” Kathleen O’Haire asked, alarmed. “What if he sends someone else?”

  “Then you’ll get the hell out of there, and we’ll take care of the situation.”

  “He could be sending someone to kill me.”

  “No,” McAllister said. “If he wants you dead, he’ll do it himself, but after he finds out what you know, and what we supposedly told you.”

  “Oh, damn… oh, damn,” she said, gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. As before, on the airplane, there was nothing he or Stephanie could say or do to make it any easier for her. The die had been cast the moment she’d returned Harman’s call.

  The property around McMillan Reservoir formed a rough triangle; Howard University to the west across Fourth Street; the Washington Hospital Center to the east across Michigan Avenue; and a pretty park along the base leg. The park entrance, off First Street, led to a road that wound around the water’s edge. The trees at this time of the year were bare and it looked as if cross-country skiers had used the rolling parklands over the last few days, leaving behind their narrow tracks crisscrossing the snow-covered expanses.

  They parked the car a half a mile from the entrance after first passing once completely through the park and coming around past the university, along Bryant Street and back up First. The water looked cold and dark-gray beneath the still-overcast sky.

  A few whitecaps were raised by the wind and a piece of newspaper tumbled and slid up the road. Very few people were around.

  It had taken them better than an hour to drive across town from the airport, still they were early. Benches and picnic tables were set here and there along the water, trash barrels chained to the trees. A small cement-block building that housed public restrooms was just ahead of them. It was probably closed at this time of year.

  A car entered the park and passed, McAllister holding his gun at the ready until he could see that they were no threat; they’d probably used the park road as a shortcut over to the university. He relaxed slightly.

  “Stephanie and I are going to get out of the car now,” he told the O’Haire woman.

  She turned in her seat, her face screwed up in a grimace of fear.

  “I don’t want to go through with this,” she said. “It’ll be all right,” Stephanie said. “We’ll be just down the road a little ways. At the first sign of any trouble we’ll come running. He’s not going to try anything out here in the open, not with witnesses.”

  McAllister looked at his watch; it was quarter after eleven. “He’s got another forty-five minutes before he’s due to show up, but I’m betting he’s going to be early. He’ll want to do the same thing we’re doing, look the place over. He’s counting on the likelihood that you’ll be coming alone and won’t know what you’re doing.” Kathleen O’Haire looked down the road as a couple in jogging outfits came around the sweeping curve. “What do I say to him?”

  “let him do most of the talking,” McAllister said. “He’s going to give you assurances that he’s here to help you, but he’s going to want to know what we told you, what proof we supposedly have that someone in the White House is a penetration agent.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Stall him for as long as you can.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to make him mad.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kathleen O’Haire shouted. “He’s meeting me here possibly with the intent to kill me, and you want me to make him mad?”

  “He won’t try anything until he finds out just how much you know.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “He won’t know that,” McAllister said. “We’ll be nearby, and as soon as it becomes obvious that he’s getting agitated, we’ll start toward you.”

  “So what?” Kathleen O’Haire said. “What will that prove? Nothing.”

  “You’ll see us heading toward you. At that moment I want you to say this to him: ‘McAllister knows about Zebra One and Zebra Two here in Washington and in Moscow. He has the proof.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’ll know,” McAllister said. “And if he’s going to try anything, it’ll come right then, but we’ll be right there. He won’t have any choice but to try to fire on us, if he gets that desperate. But I think he’ll run.”

  “No thanks,” Kathleen O’Haire said, shaking her head. “I’m just not going to do this. It’s insanity.”

  “Listen to me, Mrs. O’Haire, Harman can’t afford to let you go. If you’re not here for this meeting today, he’ll send someone after you, and it’s a fair assumption that he won’t bother talking to you in a public place. It’ll be somewhere he’ll have the upper hand, where he’ll be able to say and do whatever he wants.”

  “I’ll run.”

  “Believe me, there’s no place to run from a man in Harman’s position, with his power and connections.”

  She looked from him to Stephanie. “Why did you do this to me?” she wailed. “Now, of all times.”

  “To stop the killing,” McAllister said softly. “As soon as he shows up, I want you to get out of the car and walk over to him.”

  “How will I know who he is?”

  “You won’t have to, he’ll know you,” McAllister said. She turned away. “He killed Jim?”

  “Him or someone like him.”

  It took her a moment, and when she spoke her voice was small. “Zebra One, Zebra Two?”

  “Here in Washington and in Moscow. I have the proof,” McAllister said. “Have you got it?”

  “Yes,” Kathleen O’Haire said distantly.

  McAlIister motioned for Stephanie and they got out of the car. Kathleen O’Haire didn’t look up. The joggers passed them as they headed toward the restroom building. It wasn’t as warm out here as it had been in the city. The wind off the reservoir was sharp. They walked for a little while in silence, McAllister maintaining his limp, Stephanie shuffling like a much older woman.

  “It’s her, isn’t it,” Stephanie finally said. McAllister looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since we got to California and talked to her, you’ve been strange; distant, sharp. At first I thought it was me, because of what happened… on the”

  He stopped. “What happened, had to happen,” he said. “He knew what we looked like, we could not have left him alive.”

  She looked away. “When he said that about Baltimore… being a big job… I couldn’t help myself.” She turned back. “David, I’ve never killed anyone before. I’ve never even shot a gun in anger. It wasn’t..

  “How you thought it would be?” She shook her head. “No.”

  “It never is,” he said gently. “But you’re right, I am worried about her.”

  They glanced back at Kathleen O’Haire sitting behind the wheel. She was staring at them.

  “There is no way of changing this either,” Stephanie said. “No. Harman made the first move. It’s up to us now to see how far he’s willing to carry it.”

  They started walking again.

  “He might be innocent, you know,” Stephanie said. “I thought about it. But the timing of his call is just too coincidental. And he agreed to meet her here, alone.”

  “What then?” Stephanie asked. “I mean what happens if he makes a move and we stop him. Then what do we do?”

  “Ask him some questions. “Which he won’t answer.”
/>   “He will,” McAllister said. “He’ll answer.” He shivered.********

  It is too bad your father isn’t alive now to see this. He was a good man. A brave man. A straightforward man. A soldier. He knew who his enemies were, and he met them head on.

  We’re finally making progress, and Ifeel very good about it. And so should you. They sat on a park bench next to the cement-block building. At ten minutes before twelve, a dark-blue Jeep Wagoneer, one man behind the wheel, entered the park from the east, passed Kathleen O’Haire in the Taurus, and pulled up.

  “It’s him,” Stephanie said urgently. “Donald Harman.” McAllister’s hand went into his coat pocket where he had transferred his gun, his fingers curling around the grip, his thumb on the safety catch.

  Stephanie started to get up, but he held her back. “Not yet,” he said, looking across the park but keeping track of what was happening out of the corner of his eye. “Give them a chance.”

  Harman sat in his car for several minutes, but then the door opened and he got out. He was tall, and even from here McAllister could see that he was well dressed. He wore a dark overcoat, a scarf at his neck, his head bare.

  He stood beside his car for a moment until Kathleen O’Haire got out of the Taurus and they started toward each other.

  “Easy,” McAllister said softly, looking directly at them now that Harman’s back was turned this way.

  They said something to each other and shook hands. Harman gestured back to his car, but the O’Haire woman shook her head and said something else.

  There had been neither the time nor the equipment to provide her with a wire. Under normal circumstances he would have done that. It would be invaluable to know what Harman was saying, exactly how he was reacting to Kathleen O’Haire. She gestured back toward the park entrance, then vaguely in the direction of the city. Harman said something, and he started to turn away, but then stopped dead in his tracks. The woman said something to him, and he turned slowly back to her. It had come already. It was obvious from the way the man was holding himself stiffly erect that he was angry, but he had good control.

  “Now,” McAllister said getting to his feet.