“A dupe, yes,” Smythe added. “An originator, no.”
“Then we’re agreed on that,” Crescatt said. “The Vice-President of the United States has unanimously been declared an idiot.”
“Don’t be bitter, Daddy,” Elizabeth said. “We’ll find an answer somehow.”
“Bitter!” Crescatt laughed. “I hold the most important position in the world. I am the Commander-in-Chief of over two million armed men. I am the commandant of the most sophisticated intelligence and law-enforcement bureaus in the world. At this moment I effectively command one hundred eighty-six high-school dropouts that are running around this building stopping every five minutes to spit-shine their jump boots, one ex-army officer wanted by the police, and a Secret Service that has one known reliable agent.” Crescatt laughed again. “You know, it’s almost as funny as when Dick Nixon went into the recording business.”
“And about as much danger to the Republic,” Smythe said, which effectively cut off the laughter.
“All right,” Crescatt continued. “We’re going to do our damnedest. We are agreed that somewhere there is a list of all members of the Committee.”
“There has to be.”
“And that list has to rest with the individual we will call ‘Control,’ whoever he or she is. The task is therefore broken into two parts: identification and isolation. Sawyer, you must have friends in the other intelligence agencies.”
“A few, sir.”
“Someone, sometime, developed intelligence-agency information about the Committee. It existed at one time. Now it probably was destroyed at someone’s command, but there will still be traces or memories of it somewhere. You’ve got to find out. You’ve got to give us something to go on.”
“And me, sir?” Cory asked.
Crescatt looked pensive. “When he finds out what we need to know, it will be up to you to isolate Control and obtain the list. Once we have a list of the Committee, we can effectively isolate them. We will have won. Without the list, we’re going to lose. Do you all understand that?”
They nodded.
It didn’t occur to Cory until later that he hadn’t been given the option of refusal.
CHAPTER 23
The man in Toledo let the phone ring. He did not want to answer it and yet knew he must. He knew the caller would not get discouraged. He would continue calling until acknowledged.
He was tired, but he had been tired before. It was the ability to call up hidden emotional and physical reserves that attested to true leadership.
He gingerly picked up the phone as if it were burning with some inner heat. “Rook here.”
He listened and shook his head. “There’s no excuse for the debacle in Boston. I take full responsibility.”
He continued listening, and for the first time in years his palms were clammy. “If Toledo is indefensible, I shall leave before the hour is out … That is correct … All precautions. Rook will be protected.”
He hung up and leaned back in the desk chair. He knew from past experience that the final battle was engaged. It would soon be over—one way or the other.
It had been a long time since he had made love, and if the circumstances had been different, Ron Sawyer would have enjoyed it more. The woman next to him in the large double bed lit two cigarettes and handed him one. He hadn’t smoked in years, but under the circumstances it seemed almost de rigueur to accept the offer. He inhaled and coughed.
“It’s been a while, Ron.”
“I’ve been out of town a lot with the President.”
“Longer than that.”
He turned and kissed her neck. “Not so long until next time.”
She nuzzled against him. “Hope not.”
He knew he was her fifth lover since she had come to Washington five years ago from Buffalo, New York. She was a chief verifier for the FBI’s computer input department, making $18,500 a year. He wished he didn’t always consider all those details. Her name was Betty Wolfe. She was attractive, unattached, thirty-two, and would marry him if he asked.
He was tempted to ask, and closed his eyes for a moment and contemplated a more reasonable existence. He knew he could be transferred from presidential security to one of the Service’s field offices merely on request. It was tempting.
The cigarette was still in his hand, and he snapped his eyes open. It was slightly more than chance that he knew her. The Service was all too aware of the internecine battles between the various intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. The present Chief of Service had suggested in a strong manner that senior members of the Service based in Washington cultivate contacts in rival agencies. He was certain that the director’s edict hadn’t included cultivation to the point of sexual intimacy, but that was how it worked out in his case.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she said.
“Oh, nothing important,” he replied as casually as he could. “I have a problem at work and couldn’t help but think a little shop. Sorry.”
“S’OK. What sort of problem?”
“Oh, you know how we keep dossiers on all possible threats to the President’s life. Well, I’ve come across one that I’m supposed to follow up, but it’s a dead end.”
“Anything I might know something about?”
“You see all the Bureau’s directives, don’t you?”
“The important ones. As senior verifier, I check all the big stuff that goes in the computer.”
“Ever hear about something called the Committee?”
“Committee?”
“Something called the Committee of One Thousand.”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Probably a nothing,” he managed to mumble in complete disappointment.
She was silent for a minute before stubbing out her cigarette and turning toward him. She ran her hands across his chest. “We had something a little like that a few months ago. It came out of the Toledo office. The Chief SA there was covering a guy called Rainman. Some retired general that was really right-wing. You know how it is now? We have to cover both sides. Anyway, he wrote a memo for R and D.”
“R and D? What’s that?”
“A memo for record and dissemination. You know, raw intelligence data that we send out to every field office. Anyway, the SA thought this guy was up to something. It was all sort of vague, but we fed it through-channels anyway.”
Cory’s story clicked past Ron’s mind. It was as if he were watching the computer flow of data across a console. Toledo passed by. The man in Toledo. Someone had told that to Cory. “You did say the Toledo office?” he asked as calmly as he could manage.
“Yeah, but you know, there was something strange about that memo. We had it duped and sent out by usual courier to every branch. The next morning we got word to shred every copy. They sent in a senior programmer to erase it from the computer.”
“Probably erroneous data.”
She laughed. “Hell, they leave that stuff in there anyway. This was odd; never had them do it before.”
“Who ordered it?”
“Who knows … but it had to be someone pretty damn high up.” Her fingers were active across his body. “Ron,” she whispered.
“Uh huh?”
“Guess what?”
“I know.” He took her in his arms.
He knew they were professionals the instant the latch splintered and the door clattered back against the wall. Betty had locked it, not out of security, but for privacy from her roommate, who shared the small two-bedroom apartment. The men had silently gained entrance into the outer apartment and were now in the bedroom.
They divided as they rushed through the open door. One went to the right, the other to the left. They both crouched in a shooting position with arms extended and guns braced. They fired simultaneously.
Ron rolled over the side of the bed. His hand brushed the lit bed-lamp to the floor, and the bulb shattered.
He felt the first shot tear through his right shoulder. The impact made his body quiver. He ro
lled over and fumbled at the pile of clothes on a nearby chair.
He had, out of some sense of decorum, hidden the shoulder holster and weapon from Betty’s sight when they undressed. His weapon was at the bottom of the hastily removed attire. He found it as the second shot entered his body above the right kidney and exited through his abdomen. The force of the impact threw him across the chair, which tilted backward and crashed against the wall.
He had the gun. He flipped off the safety and turned. The light from the living room cast a beam across the room and bracketed the intruders. He had a quick glimpse of Betty. She had pulled the sheet up over her torso as if it were a protective shield. The man on the left shot directly into her forehead.
Ron fired again and again, until the hammer fell on empty chambers.
His first shot missed. The second doubled up one assailant and knocked him backward into the living room. It must have been the third and fourth which caught the second man and threw him against the dresser.
His hand began to tremble, and he let the heavy pistol clatter to the floor.
He felt tired. Very tired. He wanted to close his eyes and stay in this crumpled heap in the corner of the room. A dark warmth spread through him, and his eyes closed.
A lone thought incongruously flickered. He had once read an essay by a medical doctor which stated that the man had never seen anyone die in great anguish and pain. It seemed as if the body provided protective mechanisms and nerve inhibitors for the last hours or minutes. Death arrived peacefully.
Ron knew he was going to die. The massive wound to his abdomen, if it already hadn’t severed a critical artery, would shortly put him into deep shock, with death following through internal hemorrhaging.
He had to reach Cory Williams with what he knew.
Standing was the most difficult physical accomplishment he had ever achieved. He braced his left hand against the wall. There were only minutes to leave the apartment. The discharges from three weapons would have alerted a dozen neighbors. The police would be on their way.
Dressing seemed an impossibility. He held his trousers with his uninjured hand and carefully placed one foot in, and then the other. He managed to clasp the fly closed, but the belt eluded him. He stuffed his feet into shoes but was unable to tie them. The shirt was next. He slipped his arms in the sleeves and pulled it over his shoulders as far as he could.
Needles of pain shot through him. He gasped at their impact. The shirt was on. He buttoned one button and began to shuffle into the living room.
Betty’s roommate lay sprawled near the apartment door. They had used a knife.
Ron left the apartment without bothering to close the door and staggered down the hallway to the elevator. Luckily his car was parked in the rear, not far from the service entrance.
He stood in the small self-service elevator and watched with detachment the blood speckling the floor as it dribbled down his arm, off his fingertips.
A siren wailed in the distance as he stumbled from the elevator to his car.
They sat at the end of the short rickety pier and let their bare feet dangle in the water.
“I feel like we should be doing something,” Ginny said.
“I think we will be when we hear from Sawyer.”
“I’d feel better if he had a telephone out here.”
“He’ll contact us as soon as he finds out anything.”
The dying sun splotched red across the quiet waters of Chesapeake Bay. They sat quietly, shoulders touching, as if soaking energy from the tranquil surroundings. Behind them a fishing shack squatted on a small knoll that rose a few feet above the surrounding marsh. It was an isolated cabin on a minute plot of dry land that Ron Sawyer had purchased several years before as a weekend retreat. It was located far from surrounding neighbors, and reached by walking a long stretch of raised planking over brackish swamp water. Sawyer had told them that the isolation would make this a “safe” house for them. Few of his friends had visited, and he had assured them of their being out of danger.
The sound of a car horn carried across the marsh. It blew again and again.
Cory tensed. He turned to look past the shack, along the empty walkway stretching to the dirt road that provided access to the area.
The car horn again. It blared three quick blasts and then merged into one continuous sound.
Cory scrambled to his feet. “What is it?” Ginny asked in alarm.
“I had better see. Can you cover me?”
“I think so.”
They hurried off the small pier, onto the porch of the shack, where two shotguns rested against the plank wall. Cory snatched the nearest weapon and ran down the planking. Ginny grabbed the second gun, broke it open to check the load as Cory had instructed; and snapped it shut. She lay down on the flooring of the porch and peered around the corner of the shack. She aimed the shotgun along the plank walkway.
The car horn grew louder as Cory reached the end of the walk and neared the dirt road. He saw Sawyer’s Plymouth ahead.
The agent was bent over in the driver’s seat with his forehead resting against the horn ring.
Cory ripped the car door open and pushed Sawyer back against the seat cushions. The horn immediately stopped. There was a pool of blood in the agent’s lap, and one arm was encrusted with the sticky substance.
Ron slowly turned toward Cory. His eyes fought for focus. “Williams?” It was barely a whisper.
“What happened?” Cory nearly stepped back in revulsion as he viewed the gaping exit wound in the man’s stomach. “My God!”
“Listen.…” The voice was fading. “The man in Toledo … A general … Rainman … Committee … ask Crescatt.” The voice faded.
Cory stood stock-still over the dying man. There was a deep exhalation of breath and then a series of sharp intakes. Cory knew that the Cheyne-Stokes breathing was a sign of imminent death.
The agent seemed to gather a final burst of strength. “Lucky they didn’t have automatic weapons, or I’d really be in trouble.”
The breathing ceased entirely, and the agent was dead.
They dragged Sawyer’s body along the planking to the water. Cory weighted it down with a large rock, and they shoved it off the end of the pier. They stood silently watching the water ripples move in concentric circles until the surface was placid again. They turned away and walked back to the Plymouth.
The driver’s seat was sticky with dried blood. Ginny went back to the cabin and returned with a blanket, which she threw over the seat. They drove ten miles to a small village, where an outdoor phone booth stood illuminated in front of a closed drugstore.
The number Crescatt had given Cory was a direct line to the President. They hoped it was secure and untapped.
It was answered on the second ring. “Crescatt.”
“Sawyer is dead.”
There was an audible intake of breath on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry.”
“He was able to say a few words. He said I should call you.”
“What did he say?”
“The man in Toledo is General Rainman.”
“Rainman?”
“Do you know him?”
There was a pause, but when the President spoke, his voice was filled with assurance. “Yes, I know the man. Lieutenant General Lucius Rainman was commander of all our European forces until I fired him.”
Cory now remembered. Last year the President’s removal of General Rainman had received front-page coverage. Rainman, in his overzealousness to educate the troops, had required forced dissemination of extreme right-wing literature. His statements to the press were in marked disagreement with the President’s policy of détente and ratification of SALT III. He had been recalled to Washington on two occasions and reprimanded by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. On his final return to Europe, he had given what had become known as the “Paris News Conference,” during which he had accused Crescatt of being a traitor. The remark had been too much for the Commander-in-Chief, and Rainm
an had been placed on the retired list of general officers. He had returned to his family home in Toledo.
“It makes a great deal of sense that Rainman is involved with the Committee,” Cory said.
“It certainly does.” The note of command was obvious in the President’s voice. “You must get the list of Committee members from the general somehow, Cory. If we have that list, we can isolate and dismantle their apparatus. It has to be done.”
“I know, sir.”
“Do you have enough money?”
“Sawyer took care of that for us.”
“What else will you need?”
“I don’t know at this time.”
“You must realize the importance of your mission.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Whatever you require, phone me on this line. You will do it, Cory.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes, I will.”
Cory slowly hung up. Odd that Rainman was called Rook—the Rook was not the most important chess piece. He walked back to the car, where Ginny waited.
They stopped once on their trip to Toledo, Ohio, to eat. At a nearby hardware store, Cory purchased a hacksaw. He spent part of the evening in their motel room, cutting off the barrel on one of Ron Sawyer’s twelve-gauge shotguns. Ginny sewed a long pouch into the interior lining of a hastily purchased trench coat. It was makeshift at best, but the only available weapon at hand.
Finding the Rainman house was not difficult. It was listed in the phone directory, while a city directory listed the address as occupied by Lt. General Lucius Rainman, USA, Ret.
The Rainman home was set back from the curb, on a pleasant tree-lined street in a comfortable old neighborhood of large homes. It was a Victorian three-story dwelling with a long front porch complete with veranda swing and wicker furniture. Cory moved warily up the walk. In the trench coat, with its heavily laden inner pocket, he felt incongruously dressed for the warm afternoon. He reached through the coat pocket and firmly held the pistol grip of the short weapon. If necessary, he would only have to raise the shotgun a few inches and fire through the coat. It would be an extremely lethal weapon at close range.
Game Bet Page 23
