by David Wind
“I know,” Steven said as he put his hand on the brass doorknob of the third bedroom. The burning in his stomach grew worse. He ignored it and the sudden dryness in his mouth. If there was anything, it would be in there. He stared at the closed door.
He turned the knob and pushed the door open, knowing that as things stood, it made no difference whether or not he left his fingerprints on the metal. The room was pitch black. He reached in, felt along the wall for the light switch and, when his fingers touched it, turned it on. Carla’s sharply drawn breath echoed loudly in his ears.
Across the room was a vision out of his past. He closed his eyes and clamped his teeth shut. A wave of nausea swept through him. His stomach cramped. Swallowing hard, he opened his eyes again.
Leaning against the far wall was the sight that had haunted him for too many years: Two wooden beams, constructed in the shape of an X. But he was wrong about one thing, it wasn’t out of his past. This present day horror was made of two-by-fours, not bamboo.
He stared at the crossed beams for a second longer before he walked slowly toward it. Memories of the prison camp in Nam danced madly in his head. Pictures of Raden and Cole and Savak tied to the wood, their blood seeping to the ground, rose vividly in his mind’s eye. Then, as he passed a high dresser, he caught the reflection of metal out of the corner of his eye.
Stopping, he stared at the dresser. In the center of the high piece of furniture, resting on the flat glass top was a highly polished pearl handled straight razor. It was open, the blade of the razor extended. Spots of dried blood, like rust, coated the sharp edge of the razor.
He reached for the razor, but stopped himself and continued on to the cross. The nightmare trip through the room seemed to take an eternity before he was finally standing in front of the wooden cross.
He examined the wood carefully, and saw notches cut into it from where they tied Ellie’s wrists. He looked down and saw blotches of dried blood on the floor.
Ellie’s blood. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. This was where they’d kept her for the week. This was where she’d been tortured. This was where they’d tried to open her mind, and steal what was in it.
They had failed, and had run out of time, so they’d decided to kill her. But they failed to do that as well. Because of their need to frame Steven, they had inadvertently done what they’d set out to do in the first place, steal her mind.
He took a deep and rattling breath, and back stepped from the cross. He stopped when he was at the foot of the bed. He looked at the stripped bed, and saw bloodstains in its center. Then he saw something small and gold on the floor near the foot of the bed.
He knelt and looked at Ellie’s small gold stud earring. When he leaned forward to pick it up, he saw a dark shape under the bed.
The sickening sensation of learning the truth worsened when he pulled Ellie’s black shoulder bag from under the bed. He stared at it, his mind darkening.
Inside was Ellie’s wallet, along with a small packet of tissues, her house keys, a compact, and a tube of lipstick.
Feeling eyes on his back, he stood and turned. Carla was standing above him. Her gaze went from the black purse to him. “Ellie’s?”
“Yes,” he said, dropping the purse on the floor. “Let’s go.”
Minutes later, they were in the car and heading out of Pompton Estates. Steven stared straight ahead. His pulse seemed to have stopped. His only emotion was a rage so deep it had replaced every other force in his life. With the overwhelming rage came the clarity of hindsight. He no longer had any doubts as to who the mole was. He knew.
“The bastard had us all fooled,” he whispered, more to himself than to Carla.
“Who, Steven? Who is it?”
“Chuck Latham.”
Carla shook her head. “No, you haven’t thought it through. It doesn’t make any sense. Latham isn’t in Washington, and he’s not on Pritman’s staff.”
Steven braked the car suddenly, and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. He turned to her, his eyes raking her face. “He doesn’t have to be. Chuck is my doctor. He’s Arnie’s as well. We see him all the time. Once a year we spend three days in the hospital for a very special physical he does for us. When we were in Nam, all of us, at one time or another, were in defoliant sprayed areas. It’s become a matter of habit to have carcinoma testing done. Any time during those three days, he could get the information from us by injecting us while we’re sleeping.”
“But you wouldn’t give him that. You don’t crack under drugs.”
“It’s not that simple,” he said. “I don’t talk when I’m aware of my enemy—when I’m being interrogated. Chuck Latham is my friend; I trust him. Under drugs, I’d have no compulsion to hide anything from him. It all makes sense when you put it in the proper perspective.
“You see,” Steven continued, his anger abetting enough to allow him to speak calmly, “Chuck is in Washington at least once a month. He goes to seminars for his specialty. He usually stays either with me, or with Savak, which would give him plenty of opportunities to gain information. Jesus, he spent the night with me last week. He said he came to Washington for one of his seminars.”
Steven shook his head. “I’ll have to call Banacek and find out if he told Latham that I’d asked for the land listings. Maybe that will explain Chuck’s long weekend.”
“If the sheriff did tell him, it would explain how he knew you were here, and why he blew up your house.”
“Exactly,” Steven agreed as he pulled out onto the road again. Then he found the thing he had been looking for, the seemingly pointless little clue to the mole’s identity.
“Where are we going now?” Carla asked.
Steven felt his lips stretching in a death mask of a grin. “To Latham’s house. Damn,” he said, striking the wheel with an open palm. “I was so stupid not to have seen it before.”
“Seen what?”
“The first crack in Latham’s story. The one thing of significance I should have realized from the minute I’d talked to Chuck last Monday morning.”
He paused and stared at the road. “When he called me, to tell me Ellie was in the hospital in Greyton, he said he’d tried to call me in Washington. Why?”
Steven glanced at Carla and saw her shrug. “Because he thought you were there.”
“No. Because he needed to make sure Arnie and Pritman knew something had happened. But if he hadn’t had anything to do with what happened to Ellie, and he had just seen her in the emergency room, as he’d said, why wouldn’t he have called me at the house in Greyton before trying me in Washington? Carla, Ellie would never be in Greyton without me. She’d have no reason, and Chuck knows that.”
“Then how?” she asked.
He paused for a second before the answer came. “He must have called during the week. Then he’d have known I was away, and I’d left instructions to tell anyone calling me, that I was out of town on business. Chuck must have figured it for a lucky break.
“When I got to the hospital that morning, Chuck asked me if Ellie and I had been fighting that night. If he’d really thought so, why did he call me in Washington, and then Arnie? No, the phone call was Chuck’s first mistake. He compounded the error with his questions at the hospital. But I made mistakes too.”
Steven paused for a breath. He exhaled sadly. “When we were in the hospital, he must have realized the mistake. Before I could ask him why he’d called me in Washington, instead of trying me here in Greyton, he’d told me that when he recognized Ellie, he had panicked and called Washington. And I believed him.”
This time Carla had no choice but to agree. “Which is why we couldn’t figure out who the mole was. We were so sure he was in Washington, on someone’s staff.”
“He didn’t have to be. He got all the information he needed without any risk.”
“But why?” Carla asked. “What was he using the information for?”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to find out.” Steven pres
sed down on the accelerator.
<><><>
“They weren’t in the house,” said the voice booming out from the speaker.
Julius Axelrod glanced at Amos Coblehill, “And where are they?”
“We don’t know, sir. I’m with Sheriff Banacek now. The only things he knows are that around 1:30, Morrisy and agent Statler met with the county clerk and picked up a land listing for Lake Pompton Estates; around three p.m., Steven Morrisy’s house exploded. We’re getting a duplicate land listing made up now.”
“Find them,” Axelrod said, his voice low. “We’re running out of time.”
“Yes, sir,” the Secret Service field supervisor said before disconnecting.
“Do you think they will?” Amos Coblehill wondered aloud.
“They’d better, and everyone else involved as well. Between the confiscation of his papers, and his forced and escorted exit from his hotel, Senator Pritman is kicking up quite a fuss. If this doesn’t go down right, the mole will have succeeded in accomplishing at least one of his objectives—toppling of the current administration.”
Amos Coblehill almost smiled, but the situation didn’t warrant even that little amount of humor. “Well, there’s one thing we’ll most certainly gain from this.”
“Oh?” Axelrod asked, his eyebrows rising as he puffed on his meerschaum.
“We’ll definitely learn what kind of a man Pritman is, and how well he can handle crisis situations. A hell of a warm-up test for the Presidency, isn’t it?”
“When he is due to arrive?”
“In the hour,” Coblehill said. “And then we’re scheduled to meet with the President at six.”
“Hopefully, this will be resolved by then.”
“It has to be,” the man in charge of the National Security Agency said.
<><><>
Steven finished his phone call and returned to the car. After sliding behind the steering wheel and driving off, he said, “Latham hasn’t reported in at the hospital, and there’s no answer at his house. We may be too late. He might have gone already.”
“Where?” Carla asked. “If you’re right, and he’s doing this because of a deep rooted psychopathic disturbance, he has no place to run. He can’t go to the Soviets, and he certainly won’t go to the Chinese.”
“There are hundreds of places for him to go,” Steven stated. “Carla, there’s an entire network of vets who will watch out for him, take care of him, and hide him because of who he was in Nam.
“The people in this...underground, I guess you would call it, are the men and the women who still have not been absorbed back into the mainstream of society. They’re the outcasts and the misfits who don’t trust the people they fought for.”
Carla turned from him and looked out the windshield. “It’s been so many years since the end of the war. Dear God, Steven, how can they still feel that way?”
Steven laughed bitterly. “Because our fellow countrymen made them, made us feel that way when we came home, by turning their backs on us.”
“It’s so unfair,” Carla said as she looked at him.
“Tell me about it,” he said before turning onto Chuck Latham’s block. He pulled the car to a stop in front of Latham’s red brick colonial and shut the ignition off. The sun had set. The darkness the a winter night settled firmly over Greyton.
“It looks deserted,” he commented, seeing nothing in the driveway. The house was dark.
They left the car without a word. Steven led the way to the front door, where he drew the forty-five and cocked it. Carla pulled out her Beretta.
Steven tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked. He pushed it gently. It swung free, stopping only when it hit the wall behind it. A spurt of adrenaline kicked into his bloodstream. His senses turned acute. He stepped inside, his pistol at the ready. Carla was behind him. He heard her shallow breathing.
He stood still, extending his senses, listening. There was nothing. The house was quiet, eerily quiet. He sniffed the air. It was stale with a slight off scent of old garbage.
Using what little light came through the windows from the street lamp, they searched the first floor. The entire first level was deserted. Everything was in its proper place. There were no signs of disorder.
When he finished, he leaned close to Carla’s ear and whispered, “Upstairs.”
She nodded and he started up the center staircase. He was conscious of everything: The sound of Carla’s breathing mixing with his own; and the low noise their feet made on the uncarpeted steps.
Steven paused on the upper landing. It was darker in the hallway, but he was still able to differentiate things in the shadows.
He knew the layout of the house intimately. He had been there enough times. The master bedroom suite was to the right and made up of three rooms: The bedroom; a large bathroom; and a sitting room between the other two rooms.
To the left were three more bedrooms. One was Chuck’s home office. A second bedroom was Helene Latham’s sewing room, and the third was a guest bedroom.
When Chuck and Helene had bought the house, it had been with the expectation of having children. But they never did
Steven blinked, set aside his thoughts and moved. He headed toward Chuck’s office. He pushed the door open, turned on the lights, and went inside.
He was too late. The drawers of Latham’s desk were open and empty. A tall file cabinet was empty as well. Steven backed out into the hallway and started toward the master bedroom. He was sure he’d find the same thing as in the office.
Carla followed, close on his heels. He paused at the partially opened door, and then stepped inside. He turned on the lights, and froze.
He heard Carla’s startled gasp. Spinning to her, he clamped his hand over her mouth.
She stared over his shoulder; her eyes were wide. He watched her, waiting for her initial terror to lessen. When her eyes returned to normal, he lowered his hand.
She was swallowing forcefully. Her skin was paper white. She looked as if she were going to be sick.
“Easy,” he whispered.
She swallowed again and shook her head. “What in God’s name is going on?”
Steven turned slowly, prepared by his first quick view, and started toward Helene Latham’s naked body.
She lay in the center of the large brass bed, spread eagled, her wrists and ankles tied to the corners of the curved headboard and footboard. Her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling. Dried blood covered her breasts and abdomen, all the way down to the joining of her torso and thighs.
A hundred different cuts crisscrossed her abdomen and breasts. Her mouth was partially open, as if she died in the middle of a scream.
Steven’s stomach reacted violently. He turned, breaking away from the mutilated form, and took several calming breaths.
“How could he do this,” Steven asked aloud, even as he realized it didn’t matter how Chuck could have killed his wife, only that he had. His friend was much sicker than he had believed. To kill his own wife like this told Steven that Chuck Latham had passed beyond any hope of sanity.
Steven was numb, physically and mentally. His emotions were down to where they could no longer come into play. All that remained was logic, and the coldly analytical hatred his logic brought forth.
He stepped close to Helene’s body and closed her open and pleading eyes. Then he took the comforter from the floor and drew it over her. “No more,” he promised Helene. “No one else will be hurt by him.”
Before covering her face, he bent and kissed Helene’s forehead. “Chuck is sick, but he is still smart,” Steven said, rejoining Carla. “I’ll be blamed for this,” he said, waving his arm toward Helene Latham. “Her abdomen was cut the same as Ellie’s.”
“Steven,” Carla began, but stopped at the sound of car doors closing.
They both spun at the same time and ran to the window. “Oh Jesus, not now,” Steven whispered as Agent Blayne and Special Agent Grodin walked toward the house.
Chapter Thir
ty-one
“How did they find us?” Carla asked, staring with disbelief at the two FBI agents who were heading for the front door.
“The same way Latham found us in Washington, and here. He knows the way I think.”
Carla looked from the oncoming agents to Steven. “If he’s the one who’s been feeding Blayne his information, then—”
Steven cut her off with a sad shake of his head. “Then there’s no way they’ll let me talk myself out of this.” Steven watched the two agents, thinking of the two times they had met before. He had no doubt facing them meant fighting them. But he wouldn’t take the chance of shooting them, yet, he sensed shooting was the only way he would be able to stop them from arresting him.
“We do have a way,” Carla said, withdrawing a thin leather case from her purse. “You forgot this.” She opened the ID case and showed him her Secret Service identification card, complete with photograph. “Put your pistol away.”
Exhaling in relief, Steven put on the safety and slid the weapon into his waistband. He looked over his shoulder, at the covered mound on the bed, and said, “Let’s go.”
Just as they reached the doorway, the sounds of gunshots rang out. Whirling, he raced to the window. He saw Blayne, face down on the lawn. Grodin was next to him, turning and raising his weapon to the second floor. Another shot rang out. Grodin stiffened, and then crumpled backward. Blood spurted from his chest.
“He’s up here!” Carla cried.
Steven pulled the Colt, Carla her nine-millimeter. They went to the hallway, and flattened themselves against opposite walls. Looking ahead, Steven saw two of the three bedroom doors were open. The third, halfway down the wall he was on, was closed.
Holding the forty-five at shoulder level, he signaled Carla toward the door. When they reached the closed door, they pressed themselves against the walls on each side of the doorframe. Then Steven, his breathing coming in short gasps, stepped in front of the door and kicked it open.
Carla went in low, diving head first, her pistol held in front of her. Steven followed, jumping over her and then going to his knees in the center of the room. He spun in a circle, his arms fully extended.
