Never Look Back

by Ridley Pearson

Nearly ten minutes later, two officials waited as Borikowski rolled down his window. He supplied them with the documents, making no attempt at idle conversation. He handed over a key and waited for the trunk to be searched, as his eyes kept careful watch between two police cars that were parked on the United States side, and his rearview mirror, which showed only the open trunk. The spare key was in the palm of his hand.

  He was unsure what he might do if there were additional problems, but Lydia’s revolver was taped to the seat beneath him, and between it and the key in hand, he felt well prepared.

  As it turned out, moments later, he and Lydia were waved through with a polite smile from a gaunt, uniformed man.

  When they were well away from the checkpoint, Borikowski turned to Lydia and said, “We have a couple of hours to kill. Where would you like to eat?”

  “Someplace Italian. I love Italian food.”

  7:05 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  The office smelled like coffee. Stone looked across the cup’s rim at Parker Lyell’s red hair, which nearly matched the color of the leather chair. Lyell’s hands were folded across the notebook on his lap; his watch crystal caught the overhead ceiling light, glinting. Stone said, “She won’t help us?”

  “No, sir. I would recommend we don’t approach her that way. She’s convinced she’s on a hot story. If we try and woo her over, she’ll laugh in our faces and probably tell her audience what we’re up to, and that would tip our hand.”

  “Have you thought about using the White House press secretary’s office?” Stone asked.

  “Yes, but as you pointed out, it won’t do us any good if only one or two newspapers go with the story. We have to have them all. And Kwang is the front runner on this. She’s the main source. It could backfire on us….”

  “We’re in a bit of a pickle, eh?”

  Lyell shook his head. Although the top sheet had been removed from his notepad, there still remained the impression left by the words, “No Way.” He said, off the top of his head, “If you want a lady like Karen Kwang, you’re going to have to trick her.”

  Stone looked up. “Yes. Trick her, eh?”

  Lyell sat forward in his chair and looked intently at Stone. “We could try. She might fall for it. Of course she’ll need two sources. We couldn’t be certain who she’d turn to for the second source…. We would need someone to confirm.”

  Stone pulled a piece of paper from a tidy stack. He put on reading glasses and said, “There’s this Robert Goglan. She had breakfast with him this morning in Montreal. He’s with the Security Service.”

  “You’re having her followed?” Lyell gasped.

  “Pardon my bluntness, but what I do and don’t do is my business. Mine alone.”

  Lyell sat up straight. “My apologies, sir.”

  Stone continued. “When anyone is suddenly privy to classified information, it’s my responsibility to—”

  “I understand completely.”

  Stone removed the glasses. “As I was saying, this Goglan is someone she might turn to for confirmation. He’s Molière’s vice-deputy in the Security Service.”

  “What if her first source were to indicate that only one or two American Intelligence officers knew about this, but in the Security Service—”

  “It was common knowledge.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yes. I like that. Then we could lean her toward Goglan. Besides, that’s close to the truth. There would be very few who could verify this for her. Most would say they know nothing; because they don’t.”

  “But will Goglan go along?”

  Stone toyed with the stem of his glasses. “What the hell would you do, if your job was on the line?”

  7:12 P.M.

  Minutes later, Lyell was gone and Daniels sat in his place. The chair was still warm, and that seemed to make Chris Daniels nervous.

  “I’ve chosen you to do a very important job for me.”

  Daniels blinked once and pushed his glasses up his nose.

  Stone continued. “As an operative.”

  “An operative!?”

  “Yes.”

  “But do you think I’m—”

  “Yes. I do. I want the person to be nervous and frightened, and I think you will be. Anyone else would be acting. Besides, there’s no one else I trust to do the job just exactly as I want it done.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “It’s not dangerous.”

  Daniels exhaled and some color returned to his face, and Stone knew he had said the right words.

  “It’s tricky, Chris. It has to be done just right.”

  “I understand. May I inquire as to the nature of this ‘job’?”

  8:20 P.M.

  Memphis, Tennessee

  She was dragging a razor carefully down her tawny legs, her Asian eyes in full concentration. She completed a stroke and peered through the bath water at her thigh, then at her unnaturally thick wedge of pubic hair, which she considered a sign of sexual prowess. She kicked her leg in the water to clean it, soaped up a spot on her thigh, and worked delicately with the razor again, afraid of nicking herself. She forgot about her new story for the first time in days and thought only of the invitation she had received to a nine-thirty dinner this evening with Stony Bergstrom, owner of a competing network, aware of his reputation as a ladies’ man and wondering if he would dare make a pass—and finally, how she should react. Secretly, inside, she hoped he would.

  It’s all falling neatly into place for me, she thought. The awards, the hot news, the luck, even the rag newspapers with all their salacious innuendoes about my promiscuity. Now this story, pieces fitting nicely, no denials, large shares—and even an invitation to dine with Stony Bergstrom! Here I am shaving my legs in what is essentially fifty gallons of jasmine tea with floating rose petals, and thinking about how one seduces a man twice one’s age. Oh how I’d like a major network anchor job, another three hundred grand a year, and six weeks’ vacation.

  She soaped up the other leg and began shaving, wishing she hadn’t left the rum and orange juice by the sink and therefore out of reach. She knew how rum sweetened her breath and made her kisses divine. She had been told a hundred times.

  That’s when the phone rang.

  She stood up, her breasts, stomach, and legs pink from the heat of the water, and scurried across the dark blue bathroom tile, watching her small “boobs”—as she called them—in the full-length mirror as they bounced slightly with her steps. She scooped the drink off the counter, and dripped her way into her bedroom, a large open space with a thin mattress on the floor and a mirror on both the far wall and the ceiling. A low lamp sat alongside the futon, and next to it several books and a princess phone. On the far wall, next to the mirror, hung a lovely Japanese scroll that depicted, in multicolored stitching, a waterfall and a single woman sitting on a rock, holding a parasol.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was unusually high for a male—a young man. And it seemed almost as if an electronic device of some sort was being used to make it so.

  In fact, a device was being used. But it only added some fuzz. It had nothing to do with the falsetto quality.

  “Ms. Kwang?”

  “Speaking.” She looked across to the mirror, lifted her legs straight out in front of her, and, holding them off the ground, patted her tight stomach with her right hand. Water dripped off her heel. She pulled a pillow under her bottom to catch all the wet in an effort to keep the futon dry.

  “I have something for you, Ms. Kwang. It concerns your most recent ‘Hot Spot.’ I love you, Ms. Kwang. I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” Daniels turned red on the other end, but he was reading the words that Terry Stone had written down and he was doing a fine job of it. “This is what you’ve been looking for.”

  “Who is this?”

  “You can’t be serious. I work in a division of the American Intelligence community. That is all you need to know. This is reliable information, as I’
m certain you will see when you receive it.”

  “Listen, buddy. Who the hell gave you this number? Is this some sort of joke?”

  “You arrived home this evening at 6:29 after purchasing bath soap at a drug store three blocks from where you live.”

  Karen Kwang couldn’t get any words out. She was horrified. That was exactly right.

  The voice said, “You still think this is a joke?”

  “I’m being followed?”

  “I would be extremely careful if I were you, Ms. Kwang. We tried to warn you. You are playing in the major leagues. Not like that women’s softball team you play on.”

  “Oh my God! Who is this? What the fuck’s going on here?”

  “I have sent you a package. In this package is a claim ticket to the Longworth Hotel’s coat room. Go to the hotel, Ms. Kwang. There is a silk jacket there for you. You like silk, don’t you, Ms. Kwang? Sewn into the coat is the information you are looking for.”

  Karen saw herself in the mirror. She was tucked into a ball, one arm grasping her knees against her chest, and all across her skin were goosebumps. She was terrified.

  Stone, listening in on an extension, nodded for Daniels to continue.

  “Very few Americans can confirm this information, Ms. Kwang. You are welcome to try whomever you like. The Security Service is another story. I gleaned this information from them. Do you understand?”

  “W—w—what?” She wasn’t seeing clearly now. She took hold of the drink and chugged the remainder and then took three deeps breaths. “What are you saying?”

  “I love you, Ms. Kwang. If you like this, I can do it again sometime.”

  Chris Daniels hung up.

  Terry Stone smiled.

  Karen Kwang had gulped her drink too quickly. She felt sick. Then the buzzer rang, and the apartment house’s doorman told her a package had arrived.

  She mixed herself another drink. Stiff. She drank it even more quickly.

  ***

  “You really think that’ll work?”

  “You were brilliant.”

  Daniels blushed.

  “Any woman who looks as nice as she does will allow her own vanity to be reason enough for anything. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  “And you’re sure it’s all set?”

  “Yes. I received confirmation ten minutes ago. They sent the photos and the information electronically, and they’re all in place. Don’t worry, Chris. We fooled her. She’ll take it hook, line, and sinker.”

  “I’m not so sure I was convincing.”

  “Oh, yes. You were convincing. I’d bet she’s already on her way.”

  And she was.

  8:44 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  Chris Daniels had left to send someone else out for chicken-in-a-bucket. Both he and Stone were famished.

  The intercom’s pink light flashed at Stone, indicating another call. He punched a finger-worn button, wishing his anonymous offices were more modern.

  Janie’s voice sounded so pleasant that Stone never even suspected he had kept her from a dinner date. “Dr. Bonner, line four.”

  Stone punched line four, remembering to hold the receiver an inch from his ear. Clyde Bonner had a habit of yelling into phones.

  “Hello, Clyde,” he said in a somber tone. “I certainly hope you’re not pestering me about the budget, already. I appreciate your breaking the Executive Code; but you know my hands are tied on this one. We won’t know about the budget for another week or so.”

  “I know that, Terry. Not really. Though the reason I’m calling may give you some more ammo to help us win said same.”

  “Go on.”

  “I have a de-coded intercept. Message reads: ‘RELAY—TARGET CONFIRMED, unquote. Thought you should know about th—”

  “Origin?”

  “Amtrak station, downtown Boston.”

  “Destination?”

  “CROWS NEST.”

  Stone unlocked his bottom desk drawer with two keys and slid it open, thumbing through the file headings and selecting one. He kicked the drawer shut with shiny, though well worn, shoes and locked it. He read from the file, pivoted in his large chair, phone wire following, and typed an alpha-numeric code into his terminal keyboard.

  He began to read. “You said relay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothing yet?”

  “No. When they relay it, I’ll let you know.”

  “Boston?” Stone asked.

  “How about that?”

  “I was hoping for something from Detroit.”

  “Nothing yet—to or from—that I’ve seen.”

  “I want to know where that message is relayed to, Clyde.”

  “Not to fret, Terry.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Thank you, Clyde.”

  8:51 P.M.

  Detroit, Michigan

  At ten of nine a phone company van pulled to a stop in back of the Detroit Sheraton. The driver, a round-faced man in his thirties, got out, walked around to the side door, and slid it open. The leather tool belt lay in a coiled heap on the floor beneath a series of bolted steel shelves and adjacent to the slowly heaving chest of the man who was actually on Michigan Bell’s payroll. This round-faced man was not. He, however, controlled the situation now: he had the leather belt; he had the cap on his head with the stenciled logo across its front; he had the tool chest. Complaints about the hotel’s phone system had been carefully seeded to assure a repairman would be called in—the rest was up to this man. He pushed the button outside the service entrance and was admitted without question, ushered to a service elevator, and directed to the door of the room marked DO NOT ENTER, an area that housed communications and support equipment for the four-hundred-plus rooms and suites.

  It was too easy, far too easy.

  The impostor silently nodded his thanks and entered the spacious area, quickly descending stairs that led to the communications subfloor. He passed racks of sophisticated electronics. The last few rows contained the phone pairs for each room. There seemed to be thousands of them.

  The man expertly switched the incoming pairs of room 314 with those of room 414, glanced at his watch, and sat down onto the cold floor, fingers nervously tapping on his knee. His full attention was riveted to the Motorola pager clipped to his breast pocket. His job half over, he waited for the pager to signal him. The minutes suddenly felt like hours.

  9:01 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  The brass captain’s clock ticked insistently, impervious to Terry Stone’s impatience. “I want every detail of every VIP itinerary you can lay your hands on. No! Of course I know the Pope is heading to Boston, but I’m talking about the others—the ones we aren’t thinking about! Check the Pentagon, the State Department. We’re overlooking someone, and I want to know who,” he barked. He stared at the two other receivers lying on top of his green blotter, forgetting which belonged to whom—disgusted with old age. The buzzer and light on his intercom went on and off sporadically. He tripped the button.

  Janie’s thinned voice announced, “Baker2, line three, scrambled.”

  Stone hung up the two receivers, believing this the more important. “Scrambled.”

  “Here.” Andy stood in a side hallway at one of many pay phones that lined the walls.

  “Detroit?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have you booked on a commercial flight for Boston at twenty-three hundred tonight. I think his target is in Boston. Repeat, Boston. Confirmation in a few more minutes. We’ll place I-force on alert. I’ll contact you as soon as I’ve heard.”

  “Room six-twenty-one.”

  “I’ll give you to Janie. She’ll take the details,” Stone said, punching a button and leaving instructions with his secretary.

  He leaned back in the black, overstuffed chair and closed his tired eyes, wondering if, in fact, Clyde Bonner and the NSA’s computers would be able to locate the destination of a phone call that was to be made at exactly 9:05 P.M. EST.
r />   He assumed Leonid Borikowski would be on the other end of that call.

  And at the moment, Leonid Borikowski was all that mattered.

  9:03 P.M.

  Detroit, Michigan

  The clerk behind the registration desk spoke politely to the man paying in cash. He handed Borikowski the key to 414 and motioned for a bellman. Borikowski declined assistance. “It’s only the one bag. I’m fine. Could you please check to see if any mail was forwarded for me?”

  There was a thick envelope addressed to Mr. Peter Trover. The clerk handed it to Borikowski, who thanked the man and then entered an empty elevator. Inside the envelope were several folded pages of single-spaced typing. Taped inside of this was a copy of a key to room 313. There was no message in the letter; it rambled on about a sales problem at Westinghouse.

  The elevator stopped at the third floor.

  Less than a minute later, Borikowski swung open the door to 314, entered, and closed it behind himself, simultaneously checking his watch.

  In one minute and seven seconds, he hoped to hear Rhinestone’s confirmation.

  9:05 P.M.

  Washington, D.C.

  Janie’s voice, heard over Terry Stone’s intercom, had only begun the name, “Clyd—” when he switched her off and grabbed for the receiver to his private NSA hot-line. “Go!”

  Clyde Bonner spat out his words professionally fast. “A triple relay: first to Del Ray Beach, Florida; second from Florida to Flint, Michigan; last was from Flint, Michigan to Detroit, Michigan. Final destination: the Detroit Sheraton. The caller asked for room four-fourteen—repeat, four-one-four. Connection was secured and transmission took place. Same message, ‘TARGET CONFIRMED.’”

  Stone said, “Got it!” and hung up. He hit a button, a light flashed, and he pushed another button on top of a speaker phone in the middle of his desk. “Janie, it’s Detroit. Notify Parker Lyell immediately. I want him in Detroit.”

  “Affirmative,” she replied.

  He hoisted a receiver to his ear. “Go.”

  “Here,” Andy responded.

  “Room four-fourteen, Detroit Sheraton. Repeat, four-one-four.”

  Silence.

  Andy Clayton had already hung up.

  9:06 P.M.