The Zebra Network

by Sean Flannery

  Stuffing the big Russian gun in his belt, he climbed up the tree to the second set of large branches about fifteen feet off the ground where e had left one of Sikorski’s hunting rifles with a big light-gathering scope.

  From his vantage point he had an open line of fire across the entire clearing.

  He spotted the first man to the west, just emerging from the woods. Swinging the scope quickly across the clearing, he spotted a second man on the east side, working his way slowly toward the house. Potemkin and the other one were probably waiting on the driveway.

  McAllister swung the gun toward the west again, catching then losing then catching the Russian who had stopped and was looking down toward the house.

  Centering the cross hairs on the man’s chest, he hesitated for just a moment. Pulling the trigger would make him an assassin… no less of a killer than the men he was fighting.

  And there it is, boyo, his father had once said. The time will come when you’ll have to make a decision. One of morals. When that happens think out your options, consider the alternatives, work out the consequences not only of your action, but the consequences of your inaction.

  They were killers. He had seen what they’d done to Sikorski, and to Nicholas Albright. He had seen first-hand in Bulgaria and East Germany and a dozen other places what sort of animals they could be. Not all Russians were like that, of course. But the special ones they picked to work the KGB’s Department Viktor, the murder squad, they were the worst. They simply had no regard whatsoever for human life.

  He squeezed off a shot, finished with his little morality lecture to himself, the heavy deer rifle bucking against his shoulder, the tremendous crack echoing off the hills, and the Russian went down as if he had been struck by a Mack truck. Quickly he brought the rifle around as he ejected the spent shell, pumping a live round into the firing chamber. The second Russian was racing back to the protection of the woods. McAllister led him and at the last moment squeezed off a shot, the man flopping down into the snow, his arms and legs splayed out.

  Hooking the rifle’s shoulder strap on a cross branch, he scrambled down out of the tree and headed back the same way he had come, moving from tree to tree, keeping his eye toward the driveway and the spot he had fired from.

  After twenty yards he angled toward the driveway, pulling out the Russian’s gun, making certain by feel that it was ready to fire. There was a noise behind him; cloth brushing against a tree trunk, the crunch of a booted foot in the deep snow, and he stopped.

  “McAllister,” Potemkin shouted, his voice coming from farther right than the noise. It sounded as if he were still at the end of the driveway near the clearing.

  McAllister moved cautiously down the hill behind the hole of a much larger tree where he again held up, searching the dark woods behind him.

  There were two of them; Potemkin in the driveway and the one who had come up into the woods. This one would have followed McAllister’s footprints in the snow. Moving slowly just as McAllister had, from tree to tree. Testing each step, scanning the darkness ahead of him.

  McAllister remained absolutely still.

  “McAllister,” Potemkin shouted again. “I’ve come here to talk. I’ll send my people away. It’ll be just you and me.” There was the flash of movement to the left, about fifteen feet away, and then it was gone.

  McAllister, his cheek against the rough bark of the tree, didn’t move a muscle.

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Potemkin called. “You don’t know all the facts. I can help you. As strange as that seems, it’s the truth. Just talk. No more killing.”

  A big man stepped out from behind a tree and started to move across a narrow open space when McAllister extended the silenced automatic, steadying his aim with his arm propped against the tree trunk.

  “Stop and throw your gun down,” McAllister ordered. The man snapped off a single shot and dove for the protection of the trees. McAllister fired two shots in quick succession, the first striking the man in the left leg, and the second in his left side. He tumbled in the snow, thrashed around for a second or two, and then lay still.

  McAllister watched him for a full minute before he stepped away m the tree and approached slowly. He was dead, his eyes open, big patch of blood staining the snow. There was something aboutthe man, perhaps his face, or the cut of his clothes, that was oddly familiar to McAllister, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Turning, he raced back up through the woods parallel to the driveway, making little or no noise as he ran, finally emerging from the woods at the parked cars, and just ducking out of sight behind the Mercedes as Potemkin, huffing and puffing, came into view, a big pistol in his right hand.

  The KGB chief of station was obviously highly agitated. What had promised to be a relatively easy job of eliminating McAllister-the odds had been five to one-had somehow gone terribly wrong, and now he was running for his own life, looking over his shoulder every few yards.

  McAllister watched him approach, passing the Taurus and then pulling up short when he saw the man lying trussed up in front of the Mercedes. He looked toward the woods on both sides of the driveway, and then did, to McAllister’s way of thinking, the most extraordinary thing possible. He raised his pistol and shot his own man in the head.

  McAllister ducked back behind the car, his heart hammering, hardly able to believe what he had just witnessed with his own eyes. Why? It made no sense. Why would he kill his own man?

  Potemkin came around to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel of the Mercedes. He turned the ignition and the car’s engine turned over, but it wouldn’t start.

  He tried again as McAllister crept around to the side of the car and rose up all of a sudden, yanking the door open and jamming the pistol into Potemkin’s temple.

  The Russian nearly jumped out of his skin. He started to reach for his own gun which he had lain beside him on the seat.

  “I’ll blow your head off, comrade,” McAllister spat. Potemkin froze, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “Zebra One was Donald Harman. You had him killed this morning. Who is Zebra Two?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Potemkin stammered. McAllisterjammed the silencer tube of the automatic harder against the man’s temple. “I don’t have the time to fuck with you. Zebra Two, who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McAllister cocked the pistol, the noise very loud. “A name, comrade, and you may live.”

  “I swear to you, I don’t know.”

  “Why did you have Harman killed?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “You are either extremely brave or you are incredibly stupid. Why did you have Harman killed?”

  “Because he was going crazy. He was out of control.”

  “Out of whose control, yours?”

  “He didn’t work for me.”

  “Who then?”

  “I don’t know,” Potemkin shouted. “I swear to you, I don’t know. But he did work with Albright, I do know that.”

  “What?” McAllister said, a hot jab of fear stitching across his chest.

  “Nicholas Albright was one of Harman’s pipelines to the CIA.” McAllister’s head was spinning. “A man such as Harman wouldn’t need him. Not for that.”

  “Albright was also his communications link with Moscow,” Potemkin said. “But that’s something I didn’t find out until a few days ago.”

  “When you had Albright murdered?” McAllister was thinking about the cabinet in Albright’s surgery, the wires leading from the wall. He’d been right about the transmitter.

  “Yes,” Potemkin said.

  “Who did Albright take his orders from in Moscow? Who was his communications link?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “A name, comrade. A name!”

  “It’s probably Borodin. General Aleksandr Borodin.”

  “Is he KGB?”

  “Yes, of course. He is director of the First Chief Di
rectorate’s Special Counterintelligence Service II. He is a crazy man. This is not beyond him.”

  Zebra One was for Donald Harman, in Washington. Zebra Two was for General Aleksandr Borodin in Moscow. But there was more.“What did you mean when you said Harman had gotten out of control?”

  “It was he who arranged the killings in College Park.”

  “Why?”

  “To stop you. He wanted to totally discredit you, make everyone believe for certain that you had gone crazy.”

  “How did you know he would be meeting with the O’Haire woman this morning?”

  “I sent someone to her house. They listened to a tape-recorded message on her answering machine. She was already gone, so I figured they’d be meeting somewhere, and I followed him.”

  Harman and Borodin worked together, Stephanie’s father their link. What else?

  “Did the O’Haires work for Harman?”

  “No,” Potemkin said. “They were my network.” The further he went into this nightmare the less sense it made. “Why did you just shoot your own man?”

  “He’s not mine,” Potemkin said disdainfully. “He… and the others… all of them were Mafia. I hired them. They’ll do anything for money. Anything.” Again something tickled insistently at the back of McAllister’s head, but he couldn’t put a name to it.

  “Borodin and Harman worked together. Who is your contact here

  in the States?” Potemkin didn’t answer.

  “It was a faction fight all this time,” McAllister said. “Harman wanted me dead, but so did you. Why?”

  Potemkin turned his head slowly so that he was able to look up out of the corner of his eyes at McAllister. “Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  “Who do you work with?” McAllister shouted. “You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead.”

  “Who?” McAllister shouted again.

  “Fuck your mother,” Potemkin swore and he lunged against McAllister trying to shove him off balance, when the gun went off destroying the side of his head.

  Chapter 30

  It was beginning to snow again in earnest as McAllister entered the suburb of Arlington a few minutes after eight. He’d fixed the Mercedes and taken it. The diplomatic plates would be less dangerous for at least the next ew hours, he figured, than the Taurus, which could have been conected with the McMillan Park shooting by now. He was tired and sore and wet from crawling around in the snow, and his mind was as badly battered as his body. The spying had gone bad on two levels; from the White House through Harman and from the CIA through the penetration agent Potemkin had controlled. Don’t you know, haven’t you figured it out yet? You’re the most dangerous man alive at this moment. Everyone wants you dead. But why? Potemkin had been willing to risk his life rather than answer that question. Harman was dead, so his operation was finished. And Potemkin was dead, thus ending the second network. What else was there? What was he missing? What was driving him? He found a telephone booth in front of a convenience store on Arlington Boulevard and pulled in, parking as far away from the lights as possible and walking back. He had to ask information for the number and when he dialed it the phone was answered on the second ring. “National Medical Center.”

  “You have a patient there, Robert Highnote. May I speak with im?”

  “One moment, please,” the woman said.

  Stephanie would be out of her mind with worry by now, he thought as he waited for the connection to be made. All these years her father had been using their close relationship to gather information from her about CIA operations… specifically about who was being considered for employment by the Agency. It had been a sideline for him, however. His major role in the Harman-Borodin connection would have been that of a communications link.

  She talked to him. Told him things. It made McAllister sick to think that she’d told her father everything they’d discussed. The man would have relayed the information to Harman who in turn sent his people out with orders to eliminate the threat. Everytime he’d moved, someone was right there behind him.

  How was he going to tell her that her father had worked for the Russians? Christ, there was no way he could face her with news like that.

  Highnote answered, his voice sounding a little weak. “Hello.”

  “Are you alone?” McAllister asked. “Good Lord Almighty… yes, for the moment.”

  “Is this line clean?”

  “I think so. Where are you, what’s happened?”

  “Are you all right, Bob?”

  “Reasonably. Now what’s happened?”

  “You can’t imagine how much, but now I’m going to need your help.”

  “I don’t know what I can do from here. I’m not due to be released for another couple of days.”

  “Donald Harman and Kathleen O’Haire are dead.”

  “I heard…

  “Gennadi Potemkin killed them.”

  “How do you know that?” Highnote demanded. “I was there. I saw it.”

  “Potemkin… head of KGB operations out of their embassy?”

  “That’s right. He’s dead too. I killed him about an hour ago out at Janos Sikorski’s place, along with four of his people. Mafia.”

  “My God,” Highnote said softly. “What is going on, Mac, what have you done?”

  “It wasn’t me and Stephanie at College Park.”

  “I know that!”

  “Then why are the authorities still blaming us?”

  “Because they won’t believe me. I didn’t see who they were. Alvan was just leaving when he was shot down in the corridor. I ran out the back door and almost made it across the yard when… I don’tremember much after that, except that I knew I’d been hit. Whoever it was took your car from your place.”

  “Donald Harman arranged the killings, according to Potemkin.”

  “You spoke with him? Potemkin actually talked to you?”

  “He told me that Donald Harman has been working with a KGB general in Moscow by the name of Borodin.”

  “Aleksandr Ilyich Borodin,” Highnote said in wonder. “He’s a big man in the Soviet hierarchy, but absolutely off his rocker. Half the Kremlin is afraid of him, and the other half would like to see him dead. But he’s got too much power. Potemkin told you that?”

  “Just before he died.”

  “What else?”

  “He admitted that he worked with someone here in the States, too.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “No. But he said something very odd, something I don’t understand. e said everyone wanted me dead now, and he said that I was the most dangerous man alive.”

  There was a silence on the line for a long time. McAllister could almost hear his old friend thinking, his thoughts racing to a dozen different connections, a hundred different possibilities. “You are dangerous to them,” Highnote said finally. “There have been two networks working here all along. Harman in the White ouse, and presumably someone in the Agency. In a matter of weeks, days actually, you’ve somehow managed to bring both of them down.”

  “But there’s more,” McAllister said. “Of course. The penetration agent is still in place.”

  “And General”

  “He’s out of reach.”

  “I’m going after him,” McAllister said, astonished with himself then as the words came out of his mouth.

  “Are you crazy?” Highnote exploded. “We’re talking about the Soviet Union now. Moscow. Even if you could get into the country, what could you do against a man like that? You wouldn’t even get close. And why go after him in the first place? Harman is dead, his organization is smashed.”

  McAllister’s head was spinning. “I don’t know why,” he said. Exactly. But if Borodin was able to get to a man like Harman, turnhim and use him, what else is he capable of accomplishing? How much else has he already done? Are you so sure that Harman was his only contact?”

  “But this is insanity.”

  “Listen to
me,” McAllister said. “Potemkin ran his penetration agent from his embassy. They must have had contact on a regular basis. As soon as possible I want you to get back out to Langley and run it down. There’ll be something in the files connecting Potemkin with someone at the Agency. Something.”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know. But whoever Potemkin’s agent was, he’ll be highly placed. Head of Clandestine Services, the deputy director of intelligence… and up from there.”

  “We’ll run him down together,” Highnote argued. “I’m going after Borodin. There’s something else happening here, Bob. Something… I don’t know what. But if anyone will have the answers, Borodin will. In Moscow.”

  “I’ll repeat, you won’t even be able to get into the country let alone get to him.”

  “I think I will,” McAllister said. “But I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “Diplomatic passports.”

  Highnote’s breath caught in his throat. “Plural?”

  “I’ll take Stephanie as far as Helsinki. If something goes wrong she can start making noises to insure I won’t simply disappear into some Gulag somewhere.”

  Again McAllister could almost hear his friend’s mind working, considering possibilities, playing the scenarios out for himself as they both did in the old days together.

  “How will you get out of the States?”

  “Have our real passports been flagged?”

  “No,” Highnote said. “At least to the best of my knowledge they haven’t been. No one expects you to try to leave the country.”

  “We’ll fly to Montreal in the morning and from there to Europe. How about diplomatic passports?”