Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 5 - Red Horseman

by Red Horseman (lit)

  Rheinhart was the smaller of the two, a man whom the American embassy said had a doctorate in physics from the University of Heidelberg.

  " 'Herr Colonel, or should I address you as Herr Doctor?" The German laughed easily. One got the impression that Rheinhart would be a valuable officer in anyone's army.

  Galvano was not as easy to read, perhaps because Jake had difficulty understanding his English. Still, he looked fit and highly intelligent, as all four of the colonels did. Their nations had sent the best they had, Jake concluded, and that best was very good indeed.

  As he surveyed these officers at dinner he had wondered about his own selection. He was certainly not a weapons expert or diplomat. Could he get the job done? Looking at the foreign officers, he had his doubts.

  Then his eyes came to rest on Herb Tenney and the doubts evaporated. He had met a few slick bastards in his career and he thought he knew how to handle them, or at least get them sidetracked where they wouldn't do anyone any harm. He reached for his glass and had it almost to his lips when he remembered General Albert Sidney Brown. His hand shook slightly. He lowered the glass to the table without spilling any of the liquid.

  Two hours after dinner General Yakolev still seemed fairly sober considering how much he had had to drinkat least two for every one of Jake's. He was sweating and having some trouble forming his English words, yet he looked pretty steady nonetheless.

  A miracle.

  Right now Jake Grafton felt like he was going to be sick.

  He excused himself and made for the rest room, where he found Toad Tarkington.

  What in hell do they put in that Russian moonshine anyway?" Toad demanded. "It tastes like Tabasco sauce." Jake upchucked into a commode, then used his handkerchief to swab his face with cold water. His hands were shaking. Fear or vodka?

  con'allyou okay?" he asked Toad.

  "About three sheets to the wind, CAG. I'm ready to blow this pop stand anytime you say." con'A red hot night in Po City, huh?" "I'm ready to go back-ship." "Give me another fifteen minutes or so. In the meantime get out there and mix and mingle." Jake led General Yakolev over to a corner where they wouldn't be so easily overheard. "General, you impress me as a professional soldier." Yakolev didn't reply to that. His smile seemed frozen.

  God, his eyes seemed completely hidden behind those brows!

  con'I think you have brains and balls," Jake added.

  "The balls yes, but the brains? I have doubts.

  Others have doubts also." was I have a little problem that I need some help with, Jake said as he fought the feeling that he wasn't handling this right. Why had he drunk those last two shots of vodka?

  This just wasn't going to work! He turned away with a sense of defeat, then turned back. What the hey, give it a shot. "I'd like to ask a favor." Yakolev made a gesture that might have meant anything.

  I've had too much of your vodka. I'm having a little trouble saying this right. But I honestly need a favor." The general looked as foreign as an Iranian ayatollah.

  Jake pushed out the words. "I want you to have a man arrested tomorrow." Now he could see Yakolev's eyes. They were locked on his own. "Let's go into my office," the Russian said. "It's quiet there." The following day was overcast and gloomy when the contingent of foreign military observers gathered in the large room adjacent to General Yakolev's office where they amid had dined the night before. None of them looked the worse for wear, Jake thought as he surveyed them through eyes that felt like dirty marbles.

  He tried to slow the rate of blinking and swallowing, but he couldn't seem to affect it much.

  The six aspirin had helped. At least he felt human again.

  Last night around midnight he had cursed himself for being a damn fool.

  After he and Yakolev had closeted themselves in the general's office, the old Russian had produced another vodka bottle from his desk drawer.

  The last thing Jake remembered was a promise from the general that he would talk to the Foreign Intelligence Service, a name that gave the general a good laugh. Jake had laughed like hell too because he was drunk.

  Stinking drunk. God, how long had it been since he got so stinking, puking, deathly drunk?

  Fifteen... no, almost seventeen years. Make that eighteen.

  Toad had driven him back to the embassy. He had passed out by then. He woke up in the bathroom hanging over the commode.

  This morning he tried to pay attention as the Russian Army briefing officers used maps and charts to explain how the tactical warheads were being shipped to the disassembly site at an army base on the eastern side of the Volga river.

  Herb Tenney was supposed to be here, but he wasn't.

  Jake and Toad had skipped breakfast and driven to the Kremlin in their own car, one of the black Fords the embassy used. Toad said Herb was coming on his own.

  The briefing was an hour old when a soldier slipped into the room and handed General Yakolev a note. He read it, then interrupted the briefers and suggested a pause. He motioned to Jake.

  "As you requested, your friend has been arrested." "Where is he?" comKGB Headquarters. The soldier waiting outside will drive you there." KGB Headquarters on Dzerzhinsky Square was an imposing yellow building-the Russians seemed fond of yellow on public buildings.

  No doubt it made a nice contrast with the red flags that had hung everywhere in the not too distant past. Still, even with the cheerful yellow facade the building seemed to dominate the naked pedestal and traffic in the square below.

  The driver steered the car to an entrance in the back and showed a document to the uniformed gate guard.

  Parked in the semidarkness under the building under the scrutiny of several armed soldiers, the driver remained behind the wheel of the car.

  Jake and Toad were escorted through endless dark corridors by a slovenly man in an ill-fitting blue suit. The corridors had a smell, a light, foul odor. Jake was trying to place it when they went around a corner and there they were-the cells.

  They were small, dark. Some of them contained men. At least they looked like men, shadowy figures in the back of the cells who turned their backs on the visitors.

  Terror. He had smelled terror, some evil mixture of sweat, stale urine, feces, vomit and fear. Looking at the forms of the men behind the bars and trying to see their faces, Jake Grafton felt his stomach turn.

  He was perspiring when the guard opened a door at the end of the corridor, and unexpectedly they were in an office. There was a man in uniform behind the desk, the green uniform of the Soviet army, only this one wasn't in the army. He was a KGB general. He didn't rise from behind his desk, although he did look up. The escort left the room and closed the door behind him.

  con'Admiral Grafton." "Yes." "I am General Shmarov. Jake Grafton just nodded and looked slowly around the room. A large framed print of Lenin on the wall, which had once been green and was now merely earth-tone dirty.

  There was a window behind the general and it was even dirtier than the walls. Three padded chairs in poor condition. The desk. A telephone.

  And the KGB general.

  Shmarov's bald head gleamed. Even with his mouth shut you could see that his teeth were crooked. Now he spoke again and Jake caught the gleam of gold.

  "General Yakolev asked for a favor, so I was glad to help." Grafton couldn't think of a thing to say.

  "Nicolai Alexandrovich is a friend.

  "Thanks," Jake managed.

  "Here is the passport." The Russian held it out and Jake took it. It was a U.s.

  diplomatic passport. He flipped it open.

  Herbert Peter Tenney. Jake thumbed the pages, which were festooned with entry and exit stamps.

  Tenney certainly got around. He passed it back to the general.

  "Now if you'll just check it to see if it's genuine." "But of course." A flash of gold.

  The door opened and the escort in the blue suit was there waiting.

  Shmarov nodded his head. Grafton returned the nod and wheeled to follow the escort.
Toad trailed along behind.

  The room where the two Americans ended up contained only a table and a few chairs. On the table were clothes and shoes, a coat, a briefcase.

  "His things," Blue Suit said, and gestured.

  "Everything?" Toad asked.

  "Everything. He is being X-rayed.

  To see that nothing inside, then back to cell." "Thank you." Blue Suit gestured to the table, then pulled up a chair and sat down to watch. He took out a cigarette and [it it.

  Jake took the briefcase while Toad started on the shoes.

  The briefcase was plastic, with a plastic handle.

  It was unlocked, so he opened it and removed the contents, a legal pad, paper and pencils.

  Nothing else was inside. He examined the pens, cheap ballpoints, then disassembled them.

  The padded handle of the briefcase showed wear but seemed innocuous.

  Jake used his penknife to cut it open.

  Nothing. Then he used the knife to slice out the padding that coated the interior of the case.

  Their escort left the room for a moment, then returned with pliers, a screwdriver and a magnifying glass. Jake used the screwdriver to take off the tiny metal feet of the case.

  Finally he turned his attention to the shoes. The laces, the heels, everything was examined closely and minutely with the magnifying glass.

  When Toad began looking at the case, Jake turned his attention to the clothes-trousers, shirt, underwear, socks, tie, jacket and coat.

  He felt every seam and probed every questionable thickness with his pocketknife.

  The suit wore a label from Woodward and Lothrop, a well known department store in the Washington, D.c., area.

  Jake shopped there himself on occasion. The belt was cut from a single piece of cowhide and had a hand-tooled hunting scene on it. The buckle was a simple metal one. A Christmas or birthday present, probably.

  After scrutinizing every inch of it as carefully as he could with the glass, he began leafing through the contents of the prisoner's pockets, which were contained in a cardboard box. A couple of keys, a wallet, a handful of loose ruble notes and American dollar bills, a fingernail clipper, a piece of broken shoelace, an odd white button that looked as if it was off a dress shirt, a key very similar to the one in Jake's pocket that probably opened Herb Tenney's room at Fort Apache-that was the crop.

  Toad watched him examine everything under the magnifying glass, then helped him spread the contents of the wallet on one end of the table.

  Driver's license, credit cards, a library card, a folded Far Side cartoon torn from a newspaper, several hundred American dollars in currency, a receipt from a laundry in Virginia.

  Toad perched on the edge of the table. "Agent 007 always had a pocketful of goodies. I'm disappointed in our boy." "What should be here and isn't?" Toad glanced at the Russian. "What do you mean?" "Is there anything you would expect to find him carrying around that isn't here?" Toad surveyed the little pile, then shook his head. "I can't think of anything. Except maybe an appointment or memo book with some phone numbers. A bottle of invisible ink, a suicide pill, I don't know." "All his phone numbers are in his head." Jake picked up the keys, held them where the Russian could see them, then stuck them in his pocket.

  "Let's go do the car," he told Blue Suit as he handed back the magnifying glass and hand tools. "We'll keep the keys and bring them back in a few hours." The man nodded and pulled the door open.

  Back at Fort Apache one of the keys opened the door to room 402. The room number was right on the key. Jake Grafton turned on the lights.

  "Go find Spiro Dalworth. I want screwdrivers, pliers, a magnifying glass, a big sharp knife from the kitchen. My pocketknife is too small." comallyes, sir." Toad left.

  Jake went into the bathroom and picked up all the toilet articles. He spread them out on a table and examined each of them.

  The problem was that he didn't know what form the binary poison would be in, if it were here at all.

  A liquid would be the easiest to administer but the hardest to transport. Pills or powder would be easier to carry and almost as efficient. But any water-soluble solid would do, he thought, so even an object like a button or a pencil eraser might be the object he sought.

  Now he sat looking at some tablets. A small plastic aspirin bottle with a child-proof lid contained the usual small white pills. He counted them.

  All of them had the word aspirin impressed into the surface. On one side. No, wait a minute. Some had the word on both sides. Huh!

  He separated the pills into two piles. Eight one-side-only and six both-sides, fourteen tablets total.

  He put them back into the bottle and slipped the bottle into his pocket.

  When Toad and Lieutenant Dalworth arrived, he put them to searching. "I want to see any pills or powder or liquid you can find. Anything that might form a hidden container. Look carefully." Dalworth looked puzzled, but he asked no questions.

  An hour later they decided that everything had been examined by all three of them.

  "Mr. Dalworth, thank you for your help.

  We'll sort of straighten everything out and lock the door when we leave.

  Of course, I'll appreciate it if you would keep this little adventure to yourself." Dalworth's eyes went to Tbad, then back to Jake. "I don't suppose this would be a good place to ask questions." You're very perceptive, Spiro," Toad said.

  When the door closed behind him and Toad had checked to make sure that Mr. Dalworth didn't have his ear against it, Jake removed the aspirin bottle from his pocket and spread out the tablets on the desk. "Take a look at these, Toad." Tarkington used the magnifying glass. "Well, they look like aspirin, but I dunno." "I have some aspirin on the bathroom sink in my room.

  Will you get them, please." They filled a tumbler with water and dropped one of Jake's aspirin in it. In twenty seconds the tablet had dissolved to a mound of white powder. After thirty seconds had passed they swirled it and the powder covered the bottom of the glass. After a minute it was still there.

  Now Jake took one of the tablets with the double-sided label and dropped it into a fresh glass of water.

  It too dissolved rapidly, but without leaving the powder residue. The entire tablet went into solution.

  "Thank God for the scientific method," Toad muttered.

  "When I was a kid I got a microscope one year for Christmas." Jake saved six tablets from his bottle and dumped the rest down the toilet. Those six he put in Herb Tenney's bottle. Herb's five remaining pills went into Jake's bottle.

  As they folded clothes and replaced them in the suitcase and dresser, Toad said, "He's going to know someone was in here." , I suspect so." "Dalworth may blab." "He might." "You 11 sure you got this figured out, CAG"..."...ATIONO.

  Toad touched Jake's arm. "You're betting both our lives, you know." Jake just looked at him. "I'm aware of that," he said finally. "If you have any ideas I'm always open to suggestions." Toad went back to straightening the closet. After a moment he said, "I suggest we shoot friend Tenney and find a hole to stuff him and his aspirin bottle into." When Jake didn't respond, Toad added in a tight little voice, "Of course you have carefully calculated all the possible reasons why there were two less of those pills marked on both sides than there were of the other kind." His voice was sarcastic. "No doubt you've weighed it, pondered on it, considered every possible aspect and come to some intricate, subtle conclusion that a mere junior officer mortal like me couldn't possibly appreciate." "What do you want me to say?" Jake replied patiently.

  "That Herb probably took two for a toothache?

  We both know he probably fed them to us. Us and half the people in this embassy." "We really oughta take this guy out into the forest and make him dig his own hole. I kid you not." comKGB Headquarters must have really gotten to you." "Yes, sir. It sure as hell did. I admit it. I about vomited all over that fucking general's desk." "Hurry up. Let's get this done. We have to get back for the afternoon briefing." "How do you know," Toad asked,
"that those are all the binary pills Herb has access to?" "I don't." "He could have some in'his desk in the CIA office, he could have some stashed in any hidey-hole he thought handy. He can just ask Langley for more." "What a deep thinker you are! Let's hope he doesn't find out we took a few." "What if he runs short? What if he's embarked on a major urban renewal project?" "You ask too many questions." "You and I are going to end up dead," Toad said sourly.

  "Sooner or later," Grafton replied.

  What was there to say? Herb and his colleagues must have killed General Brown so that he wouldn't make waves. The job was only half done as long as Jake and Toad were wandering around upright.