by David Wind
It was a wild hunch, almost too wild. But Chapin couldn’t dismiss it.
Chapin grunted. His theory was as viable as any other. But until he read Mathews’ file, all he had was speculation.
Chapin yawned and stretched. He felt a light pinch near his shoulder where Abby had inadvertently scratched him with her ring during their lovemaking.
He smiled at the memory. But the smile faded when he realized he had avoided doing the one thing he’d been programmed to do. Check on anyone who came suddenly into an agent’s life.
He tried to tell himself that this was his home and there was no reason to check, but things didn’t work that way. And, he hadn’t met her in a public place, where happenstance determined the meeting; it had been coincidence that determined their meeting. And violence. When the two combined, doubt was always a factor, especially since he did not believe in coincidence.
He picked up the phone, dialed Ann Tanaka, and asked for favor number three. A quick profile check on one Abby Sloan, a State Department employee.
The specialist didn’t comment, other than to say she would bring it together with the ‘other’ report.
When he hung up, he looked at the calendar. There was a little more than a week left until the general election.
Chapin felt the tension build within him. If Davidov was right, life as Americans knew it was about to be changed.
But how would they do it?
<><><>
The gray November clouds broke at noon, and the sun cleansed the ground. The funeral procession pulled into the cemetery, and drove to the grave site.
Amidst the cars carrying the mourners for Joel Blair was a black Lincoln Town Car with congressional plates. Robert Mathews sat stiffly in the back seat. Flanking him were two Secret Service men. The driver and the front seat passenger were also Secret Service.
The man in the front seat spoke into the small headset he wore. “Roger, seven, we are exiting the vehicle now.”
He turned to Mathews and nodded. “No problems.”
Mathews’ smile notified the agent that he really didn’t care if there were any problems. “I’ll go alone.”
The four agents didn’t argue with him; they were used to those instructions, and equally used to ignoring them by trailing close enough to protect him, if necessary.
When Mathews got out of the car, he walked steadily toward the crowd. When he was in among them, he inched close to the grave.
The coffin had been lowered into the opening. The priest stood at its head, a Bible open in his hands. He looked at the people and closed the Bible.
“I have known Joel Blair all my life, and all of his. I never expected to be standing here, talking about him and about the vagaries of life.”
The priest paused to clear his throat and his voice. He looked again at the people, especially Blair’s parents.
“Joel was the type of man to whom I always point when I tell my Sunday school children about the joys of growing up, and about the ability one has to choose his or her path in life.
“The world has lost more than just another reporter. It has lost a man who cared deeply about everyone and everything that touched his life. He was a man of outstanding principles. He believed, with all his heart, in this country and the people living in it. He believed so much, that he had set himself to the task of protector… a watchdog for his fellow people. He cared so deeply for his fellow man that he dedicated his life to the people with whom he shared the world. To have such a man taken from us is to have a part of us taken as well.”
The priest paused, opened his Bible, and began to read the Twenty-third Psalm.
Mathews glanced about, taking in the people who were here to pay their last respects to Blair. His parents were pale and tired; his sister, Mathews saw, clung to her father. Mathews recognized Edward Kline, the editor of the Washington Courier standing next to Blair’s mother.
Then, as Mathews stared down at the coffin holding Joel Blair’s body, he slipped into the past, and to the funeral of his family. He swallowed hard, doing his best to force back the anguish the memory brought forth.
A moment later, the man on his left move away and realized the service was over He tore his gaze from the finality of the coffin and walked toward Blair’s family.
When he reached the reporter’s parents, he extended his hand. “Mr. Blair, Mrs. Blair, I am truly sorry about Joel. He was a good reporter and a good man. We will all miss him.” Lawrence Blair took Mathews’ hand and, holding the congressman’s gaze, said, “Thank you.”
Margaret Blair said nothing; she simply stared past Mathews to her son’s grave.
“If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to call on me.”
Margaret Blair met his eyes. “Can you bring him back to life?”
Mathews shook his head.
“Then, there isn’t anything you can do.”
“Marge, please,” said Blair’s father.
“No,” Mathews cut in, keeping his gaze firmly on Margaret. “Your wife is right. However, I did not make the offer hollowly. If there is anything I can do for you, ever, all you have to do is call my office.”
“We appreciate that,” Lawrence Blair said.
Mathews turned away. As he neared the limousine, someone come up to him.
“Mr. Mathews.”
Mathews stopped and turned to Ed Kline. “Yes?” he said, making a small keep-away motion to the Secret Service men. “My name is Edward Kline, I—”
“I know who you are, Mr. Kline.”
“Why did you come here today? There are no cameras here, no reporters who are covering you.”
“This isn’t a campaign stop, Mr. Kline. I came to pay my respects to a man whom I knew. Is that against the rules for a candidate?”
Kline shook his head. “I’m sorry, I phrased the question wrong. I don’t understand why you came at all.”
“The last time I saw Joel Blair was in my home. I spoke with him once again, after his accident. I joked with him and told him to drive with a little more care. I... I don’t know,” Mathews said, shrugging, “I feel badly about what happened. I guess I was looking forward to our next meeting, and winning a bet we had made.”
“Do you think you would have?” Kline asked.
Mathews met Kline’s open stare. “Without doubt.”
“We’ll see,” Kline said and walked away.
Chapter Eleven
Friday
Ann Tanaka had not completed the reports on time, and instead of reading them at night, Chapin had to wait for morning.
He’d spent the night alone; Abby had attended another State Department affair, this time to work as a translator. Chapin, relieved because things seemed to be going so fast, had missed her.
He awakened by six and was in Langley by seven.
When he’d entered his office, he realized that Ann Tanaka had stayed late to finish the reports, both of which were on his desk.
Chapin gazed at the envelopes, his palms turning moist as he picked up Abby Sloan’s CIA bio. The report was only three pages, and made Chapin feel both reassured and dirty at the same time. Abby Sloan’s life was exactly what she said.
There was even a letter of commendation from the ambassador to France for Abby’s work during a particularly dicey French/Soviet/American showdown.
More than shame or relief was, a warmth in knowing she was what and who she said she was. He shredded the report and once the machine transformed it into skinny paper worms, he started on Mathews’ thick bio.
This thick report was a concise breakdown of Robert Mathews’ life. It matched Joel Blair’s background notes, which Chapin had gotten from Kline, but the report went into depths Blair’s notes never could have.
Mathews’ life was amazing, and filled with things that Chapin knew had been instrumental in shaping the man’s future. The kidnapping at birth was a horror story unto itself. When he’d read the name of the kidnapper, a chill ran along his spine. He’d heard many a stor
y of the man who had headed SMERSH’S European terrorist operations after World War II.
Walter Hirshorne had pulled off a miracle in rescuing the infant. Perhaps it was why Hirshorne had been among the men chosen to form the CIA.
When he finished the report, he understood why Robert Mathews was where he was today, doing what he was doing. With Walter Hirshorne as his adoptive father, Mathews could not have had any other choice.
Like the Kennedy boys, Robert Mathews’ early life was shaped by a political power few people could comprehend, much less live under.
Chapin finished the report and sealed it in its envelope. He understood Mathews a little better, and visualized why the Soviets most likely viewed him as a threat, should he win the election. If the Sokova plan needed someone sympathetic to the Soviets, it would not be Mathews. If those behind Sokova had forecasted Mathews to become president, then it made perfect sense for Grubov to try to assassinate Mathews four years before he became a candidate.
If—
Before he could carry his thoughts farther, there was a knock on the door.
True to his word, Sol Kornberg entered Chapin’s office and handed Chapin the repaired and enhanced tape.
When Kornberg left, Chapin stared at the tape, wondering if there would be anything on it of significance. He hesitantly set it into the player on his desk.
He listened to every word, and then he replayed it, twice. When he finished, he picked up the phone and dialed Ann Tanaka. He asked her to get a full accident report from Tennessee, and an autopsy report if there was one. Then he called the DD.
Ten minutes later, he was in the general’s office.
“What exactly do you think you’ve come up with?” the deputy director asked as he turned back from the window.
Chapin took in the tired lines on the DD‘s face. The general was nearing sixty, and had lately started looking his age.
“A connection. I have records showing the man who drove the truck that killed Robert Mathews’ wife and son is a KGB operative. It was an assassination attempt that went sour because Mathews had a last minute change of plans.”
The DD went to his chair, placed his hands on the back of it, and leaned forward. “You have absolute confirmation on this?”
“Fingerprint match.”
The DD wiped a hand across his face. He moistened his lips. “Go on.”
“This Sokova plan, going by what Davidov told me, is a long-term operation—in all probability the longest covert operation the Soviets have ever fielded.”
“If.”
“Yes, if,” Chapin said. “And if it is true, then political maneuvering of every kind would be used, assassination included. If the plotted course of a presidential possibility would hurt the Sokova plan, then that person would be eliminated so that the plan could go on.”
“Kevin, listen to yourself.”
“No, you listen,” Chapin snapped. “Because if you don’t, then I’m dead. You’re all I have!”
The DD started to speak, but held back. “Go ahead.”
“I may sound like a burned-out lunatic, but what I’ve found is frightening enough to do just that. General, a newspaper reporter who was investigating the truck driver who killed the Mathews family died in a traffic accident. It was the second accident the man had in three days. His first accident was in Wyoming, ten minutes after interviewing Robert Mathews.
“A pickup truck tried to push him off the side of a mountain. His second accident was in the hometown of record of the truck driver. He was in a rented car. Two of the car’s tires had blown out—the car had less than a thousand miles on it.
“The reporter was wearing a seat belt, but his neck was broken. We have an installation in the Soviet Union, dating back to the fifties, that is so secret that we haven’t had one hint as to its purpose.”
Chapin paused to take a breath. “And you’ve got some unusual pressure coming down on you because of me. Doesn’t this all add up to something?”
“If you look at it in a certain light,” the DD said. “But each of the items can be viewed differently.”
“Can they?” Chapin asked as he took out a small tape player. “Then, listen to this.”
He set the machine on the DD’s desk and pressed the play button. The tape began, and Joel Blair’s voice came out.
“I know I’ve found the lead I’ve been looking for. The follow-up on the Mathews family accident is a dead end, because there are no players left, or so it is meant to seem....
The tape went on for several more minutes. When it reached the point that Chapin was waiting for, he stopped it.
“Blair gave us the name of John Rasmussen, the man who set up the trucking company front. I’m going to have Ann Tanaka check him out. But what comes next is important. And, General, this tape was made on Tuesday past, minutes before Blair was killed.”
Chapin pressed the play button, and Blair’s voice returned.
“Another thing. The town clerk never met Smirley. Smirley died out of town, and all the clerk had was the autopsy report. And, to top it off, there are no school records for Smirley. None! The manager of the warehouse, who says he knows all the local drivers, never heard of Smirley. Why not? Who the hell was James Smirley?
“Was the death of Mathews’ wife and son something that had been planned out? If so, by whom? Jesus, if that’s the case, then there’s something terribly wrong with the campaign. And Mathews? He wouldn’t be a part of it, would he?”
Chapin shut the recorder off. “Interesting question, isn’t it?”
The DD nodded. “How did you get that tape?”
“A friend” was all Chapin would say.
“All right, Kevin. Go ahead with it; I’ll back you. But we’re on thin ice here, a fact of which you must be cognizant, as well.”
Chapin was already more than aware of his situation. “I’ll need Tanaka’s and Mitchell’s help.”
The DD nodded in agreement. “I’ll instruct them, but they’ll have to work blind. If this Sokova has ears in our house, he could find out.”
“All right,” Chapin agreed.
“And I’ll speak with the director about this.”
“Thank you, General.”
The DD favored Chapin with one of his rare smiles. “I pray to God you’re wrong and everything you’re doing is a fool’s errand.”
Chapin held the DD’s thoughtful stare. “I wish I could do the same.”
<><><>
“I don’t like this, Kevin, even with the general’s okay; you’re asking for a lot,” Jason Mitchell said.
He’d known his friend would be resistant to risking any of Ruby One’s Soviet deep cover agents. “I don’t have any choice. I need your help on this, Jason. It’s important. And it is important to Ruby One as well.”
“I don’t like exposing them. It could mean their lives.”
“I understand, Jason. But we have to know what that installation is being used for.”
“We?” Mitchell asked. “Or you? Kevin, don’t you see what’s happening? You’re fighting now. You’re in a position where you have to prove that what you did—going into Russia—was justified. And, Kevin, the man upstairs is letting you pick the length of your rope,”
“Is that what you really think?”
Mitchell shrugged. “What difference does it make what I think. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I don’t want to see you dig your ass in so deep you can’t get it out again.”
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
Mitchell stared at Chapin for several long seconds before slowly nodding. “If that’s what you want...but, Kevin, if anything happens to those people, it’s on your shoulders.”
“It already is,” Chapin said.
After Mitchell left, he called Ann Tanaka into his office. When she arrived, it was with yet another report.
She handed him the file folder, and then sat across from him. Opening it, he read the report. “Strange coincidence, two new tires blew out
and on opposite sides of the car.”
“I think that if you were to examine those tires,” Tanaka said with a nod, “you would find small bits of the C-4 used to control the direction of the accident. The left front tire blew first. When the car swerved sideways, the right rear blew. The combination flipped the car.”
Chapin put the report down. “No autopsy report?”
“Not filed as of yet. I’ll get it when it’s filed, unless you want to send someone there with credentials?”
“No,” Chapin said thoughtfully. “It won’t show up in the autopsy, but I know he was murdered.”
“What now?”
“You spoke with the general?”
“I listened, he spoke.”
“I want the full files on Walter Hirshorne, Daniel Etheridge, and everyone involved in the Etheridge/Mathews campaign.”
“Everyone?”
“The players, not the hangers-on.”
“Are you ever going to tell me?”
“At the proper time.”
“All right, Kevin, I’ll let you know when I have everything.” When Ann Tanaka was gone, Kevin dialed Ed Kline. “I want to see where Blair lived.”
“A half an hour,” Kline said after giving Chapin the address.
Before he left, he called Abby Sloan and set up a dinner date.
The basement of the partially renovated Georgetown house Blair had purchased two years earlier had a musty odor. Years ago, the town house was converted into a three-apartment dwelling, and all the incoming electrical, gas, and telephone wiring were set up inside, at ground level. There were metal interior shutters on all basement windows for security.
Opening the door to the utility box, Chapin brushed cobwebs away. After wiping his hands on his pants, he opened the telephone box panel, and stared at it.
“Well?” asked Ed Kline.
Chapin silently studied the wiring. Most was disconnected. A few seconds later, he found what he was looking for. The tap was simple and expertly done. He followed what appeared to be old wiring, until he found the small transmitter tap attached with double-face tape to the top back of the box.
