Atropos

by William L. DeAndrea

  Well, the candidate thought, this is what I’ve been promised all along. A greased chute straight to the White House. And when I get there, oh, my friends, history is going to be made. Not the kind of history anybody knows about while it’s happening, of course. But future generations, the children of one just and happy socialist world, would know him as the man who devoted his life in secret labor to conquer the People’s greatest enemy—and that he did it without war.

  Tonight was the major step. Tonight, Henry Van Horn’s destiny redeemed his crimes. You might say that poor Josephine Girolamo had died in fire so the man in this hotel room, in a city in the middle of a wheat field, could neutralize the only real obstacle to the glowing future he saw for the world. The candidate decided that one day, if it proved to be safe, he would cause some important building to be named after the girl as a memorial. There were already too many things named after the Van Horns.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?” the candidate said.

  “Phone call for you, Congressman. It’s Governor Babington.”

  The candidate grinned. He wanted to laugh out loud.

  “Congressman Abweg?” the aide asked.

  “Yes, Gary,” Congressman Stephen Abweg said. “I’m here. I’ll take the call out there.”

  Abweg shrugged into his jacket, straightened his shoulders, and left the room.

  “I suspect it’s about Senator Van Horn’s speech tonight, Congressman,” Gary said.

  “Undoubtedly,” Abweg told him.

  Congressman Abweg was very conscious of his posture and the look on his face as he walked to the phone. The press would be all over his staff once the story broke for sure; for all he knew, some of these people had already been talking. The Congressman had to make sure the reporters heard he took it all with confidence and dignity. That was important.

  He picked up the phone and talked to Babington. The Governor hinted at a Vice-Presidential slot for Abweg if he withdrew from the race after tonight’s endorsement. Not in so many words, of course, and couched in terms of the “good of the Party.”

  Abweg declined confidently, and with dignity. He said he would carry on with his campaign until the convention, and let the assembled multitude decide. He would have had to say that in any case, of course, and Babington must have known it.

  Abweg decided that Babington had called merely to gloat.

  Abweg walked back to his room with more confident dignity. He was thinking let the poor bastard enjoy it. It’s only going to last a day or so before it all comes crashing down on him.

  Chapter Nine

  IF MURPHY EVER WANTED concrete proof that I’m not a real journalist, Trotter thought, all he’d have to do is look at me now. Trotter smiled. All around him people were talking loud into telephones, or staring into orange-on-black computer terminals, taking in information and feeding it back to Kirkester.

  “Yeah, of course it’s going to be lit for photos. Damn TV is going to be there, right?”

  “No, this has been one of the best-kept secrets in the history of politics. It’s like Van Horn himself didn’t know who he was going to endorse ...”

  “Something special?” This was Sean Murphy talking, yelling into the phone as everyone else seemed to be doing. He listened for a few seconds, using the pause to stick a cigarette in his mouth and light it with the beat-up old Zippo. He got one puff in before he was yelling into the phone again. “Yeah. Special. I’ve got something in the works. Your boss talking with the Senator and his son. At least the son. Maybe a tick-tock on how the decision to endorse went. What? Oh, don’t worry about the Babington people—they’ve practically crawled into our pants, they’re so eager to give interviews. Yeah, we’re trying to put reporters in limos, but most everybody is staying at the same hotel. So ...”

  And so on.

  All this is going on, Trotter thought, and I’m sitting here in front of an old black dial phone that whoever remodeled this unused room in the Capitol Sentinel had probably left here out of nostalgia, doodling with a pencil on a stack of letterhead so old the address on it doesn’t have a zip code.

  The last thing he had written was “CHAFF.” It was a sound effect, surrounded by a cloud of smoke streaming from the smokestack of an old-fashioned locomotive.

  But it was wheat chaff he was thinking of. Murphy had told him and Bash about his service-elevator encounter with the Van Horns when they’d arrived here about an hour ago. He told Regina to try to work that into any conversation she might have with the Van Horns later. He and Regina went to work trying to set up the interview, and doing the thousands of other things that needed to be done when a possible cover story was about to break.

  Meanwhile, Trotter sat in the corner doodling. Thinking. He thought of two patrician easterners like the Van Horns pitching in on the farm, and it didn’t wash. Besides, most of the farming done out here was by big, successful agribusiness food-growing factories. No political capital in that. If the Van Horns were going to go rural on anybody, they’d help a small farmer who was about to be foreclosed on. And they damn sure wouldn’t do it in secret. Anyway, the whole thing smelled wrong.

  The phone worked—Trotter had been checking with Rines every once in a while to see if there’d been any sign of Joe Albright. Nothing.

  Trotter stared at the phone.

  Since his childhood Trotter had been trained to make connections. Put things together. What did he have here? A missing agent. The Van Horns. Gus Pickett. The two men most likely to be the next President. Wheat.

  He wrote the words down on the paper and started drawing lines between them. After about three minutes, he threw down his paper in disgust. It wasn’t that the procedure hadn’t been any help—it had been too much help. There were dozens of possible connections, all of them equally likely. Or unlikely.

  Another thing lifelong training had done for Trotter was to make him impossible to sneak up on, but it made Regina nervous when he called her name without looking at her, so he usually let her walk up to him and touch him. Besides, he liked it when she touched him.

  Her fingers brushed his shoulder. He looked up and said, “Hello, darlin’.”

  “Darlin’?”

  “Trying to blend in with the locals. How’s it going?”

  “Okay, I guess. I can’t get the Senator tonight, but I can get Mark.”

  “I thought you didn’t want him.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Okay, just kidding. Will Mark do? For Worldwatch’s purpose, I mean?”

  “I guess so. Anyway, Sean and I are heading over to the Ambassador now; the rental company finally delivered our car. They say there’s been an unexpected demand.”

  Right, Trotter thought, and one abandoned on the road. He shook off the thought. “Going over already? What time is it?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  Trotter blew, puffing out his lips. “I have been out of it. Listen, is Murphy going with you to see Mark Van Horn?”

  “He hadn’t planned on it. I’m supposed to meet Mark in the lobby of the Trent right after the speech. I’ll watch it on TV in the lobby. Mark said he was going to skip the reception after. We’ll go get something to eat, and talk.”

  “Okay, do me a favor. Will Murphy come with you if you ask him?”

  “He probably would, but why should I? You don’t have to be afraid of Mark.”

  “I’m not afraid of Mark, okay? I just want you to be with as many people as possible.” He lowered his voice. “There’s still no sign of Joe Albright.”

  Regina said, “Oh. I’m sorry, Allan.”

  “It’s all right. Listen, if not Murphy, then somebody. Even two somebodies if you can arrange it. Okay?”

  “Okay. I promise.”

  “Good. Babington—and Abweg, too, for that matter—have the Secret Service looking out for them. I have to do the worrying for us.”

  “Are you going to be okay?” Regina asked him. He loved the concern in her voice.

  �
�I’m a big boy, Bash.”

  “I mean, when I’m done, should I meet you here, or back at the hotel, or somewhere else, or what? Are you going to have anything to eat?”

  “Call here, then try the hotel. And yes, I will get something to eat. Great steaks in these parts, and a steak house every two hundred feet along the sidewalk. I’ll probably stagger into one of those.”

  “Do you have money?” Before he could answer, she said, “Listen to me, ‘do you have money.’ I probably sound like your mother.”

  Trotter, who had never known his mother, said only, “I’ve got money, Bash.”

  Murphy’s voice came from across the room. “Reg—Ms. Hudson, we should go now.” Keeping up appearances in front of the help. What he’d probably started to say was, “Regina, let’s shake it!”

  In any case, shake it she did. She bent, kissed Trotter quickly on the lips, said “Bye,” and was gone.

  Trotter went back to staring at the phone. Do I have any money, he thought, and grinned.

  Then the grin melted into something shapeless, like a candle left too long in the sun. After a few seconds, his face reset in a frown.

  There was a word missing from his list. Money. Spies were just like everybody else who worked for the government in at least one respect—they had a tendency to forget that all their glorious plans would take money. The Agency had probably spent a fortune on this business, just since Borzov hit these shores. The Russians must have spent even more. But in this case, they had an advantage over most agents operating on foreign soil. They had a local source of money. They had, unless the Congressman and Rines were extremely mistaken, an eccentric billionaire for the quick assist.

  Trotter picked up the phone and called Rines.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  Rines was getting irritable. “Your father and I are getting sick of you. Every time the phone rings, we think it’s Albright.”

  “That answers my first question.”

  “Right, still no word.”

  Then the Congressman’s voice came. Trotter wondered how long he’d been there. “You got another question for a change, boy?”

  “Yeah. What the hell was the excuse for Gus Pickett to come out here in the first place? There hasn’t been a word about him since the last we heard from Joe.”

  “Ask one of your reporter friends,” Rines said. “He’s rumored to be going to Babington’s reception after the speech.”

  “Your little private dicks have been very efficient. Where is he now?”

  “Sitting in his hotel room, peaceful as a lamb.”

  “Uh-huh. So did anyone ever catch up with his excuse for sneaking out here?”

  “Somebody turned up the cover story ... here it is. He owns a bunch of grain elevators—you know, he wholesales wheat. He’s been holding a huge load of it, waiting for approval for it to be sent to Russia, and today’s the day they move it out.”

  “When did the approval come through?”

  “What do you think I’ve got in this system, God? How do I know?”

  “I’ll bet it didn’t come through yesterday,” Trotter said. “I’ll bet it didn’t come in the middle of the night, to send him scampering out of Virginia like somebody beating a hotel bill. I’ll bet the shipment was an excuse arranged in advance to cover a trip out here, if Pickett had to make one.”

  “What’s your point, son?” the Congressman asked.

  “I’m going to call you back in a little while. Try to find out about approval for that grain shipment, and find out how you get to Pickett’s grain-elevator thing—”

  “Skygrain, Inc.”

  “Right. I think that’s where Joe Albright might be.”

  “I’ll arrange backup,” Rines said.

  “Don’t arrange anything, yet.” It sounded as if Rines had growled, but that might just have been noise on the line. “I’ve got some thinking to do. There are ramifications here.”

  “There’s an agent out there who needs us.”

  Trotter heard the Congressman’s lazy drawl. “He needs us to do what’s gonna work, Rines. He don’t need people runnin’ in and gettin’ killed. Son?”

  “Yes, Congressman.”

  “I’m gonna get the computer people around here asking some questions about the Senator’s boy.”

  “Like where he was when all those audio men were being killed?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  “I was just about to ask you to. I’m proud of you, Congressman.”

  “Where the hell do you get off being proud of me for being smart? Listen here, boy—”

  “I’ll call you back soon. Happy hunting.”

  Trotter was smiling as he hung up the phone. The Congressman was still the best, and had proved it. He wondered how long ago the old man had figured out Borzov’s game. Trotter had just seen it a few hours ago. It was worthy of Borzov; almost inevitable once it occurred to you.

  But it was time to take a new look at Mark Van Horn, too. Whatever was going on, Mark was in on it, now. Perhaps he’d been in on it all along. If that turned out to be the case, the clean bill of health the Agency’s investigation had given Mark’s father in the deaths of the surveillance men didn’t amount to much.

  It answered a lot of questions. The Agency had known the Russians wouldn’t have been killing these guys to cover up the taping of Hank Van Horn’s touching farewell to little Pina all those years ago. They would only have had to kill one man. And even at that, whoever it was had lived long enough to do plenty of damage to the Russians if he was ever going to.

  But the Van Horns. The Van Horns. That family had certainly engaged in enough dirty work over the years to have compiled an exhaustive list of bugging experts. Hell, one might even have been compiled years ago in an attempt to figure out who had helped the Russians get the hammer on the Senator. (The fact that the Russians did have the hammer on the Senator now seemed confirmed beyond all doubt.) In any case, a Van Horn would have no trouble finding these guys if he wanted to.

  And the Van Horns wouldn’t know who the right one was. They couldn’t even know for sure which of them had ever worked for the Russians. If they wanted to deprive Borzov of a witness to confirm that the tape was genuine, they’d have to kill them all.

  And because ever since the fateful fire the Senator had had to keep his nose very carefully wiped (the voters of Van Horn’s home state were extraordinarily forgiving, but that’s the sort of privilege one shouldn’t abuse), who better to carry out the wastings than his beloved son. In whom he was, no doubt, well pleased.

  It was probably the start of some half-assed plan to get out from under Borzov. Borzov could not have been happy. No wonder Borzov had thought that the bomb Trotter had made Bulanin send had come from the Senator. It must have been the last straw.

  So Mark Van Horn was kidnapped. Just to sort of underline the message. “No more fucking around, okay?” And Helen Fraser had been killed.

  Because of your bright idea, Trotter. Your little chess move. It worked fine—in a way, it led to the break in the logjam. Was the girl’s life worth it? Would Bash’s life be worth it?

  “Shut up,” he told himself. Reporters looked around at him. Trotter grinned sheepishly and told them he was sorry.

  There were no answers. He knew two things—Helen Fraser would visit him in the dark and trouble his sleep for the rest of his life; and Bash would keep no appointments with Mark Van Horn, tonight or any other night. He’d have to head her off at the pass.

  In any case, the kidnapping had undoubtedly brought the Senator back to heel; Jake Feder and the other eleven had died for nothing. Given the usual quality of his thinking (and one had to assume that the shrewd Ainley Masters had been left out of this), this stupid plan seemed typical of what the Senator would consider a bright idea.

  But not Mark. Mark was smart. Mark, if Trotter was any judge, was as smart as any Van Horn had ever been, and that was saying something. He’d have seen how useless it would be. Wouldn’t he?
<
br />   Trotter picked up the phone. When Rines answered, he simply said, “Anything?”

  “Everything,” Rines said. “He was in New York, Phoenix and L.A. under his own name when the murders took place there. Five other places, we’ve got an airline booking for someone fitting Mark’s description traveling as Michael Vincent, all in the right cities at the right times. Including Minneapolis. Do you want to quibble about the other four?”

  “I’ve never been much of a quibbler.”

  “Listen, son, I’ve been thinking ...”

  “Me, too,” Trotter said. “Mark’s no fool. He’d know he could kill everybody who ever owned a concealable microphone, and it wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference as long as the Russians had that tape.”

  “Unless he could give them a good reason not to play it,” the old man said. “I can only think of one, how about you?”

  “Just one. Probably tonight. Maximum publicity. My only question is, before or after the endorsement?”

  “Ask him when you find him. In the meantime you realize, there’s no way we can get you any help in time.”

  “I know.”

  “If we try to bring in any official police or the Bureau, they’d lock us up. We’ve got enough indications for us, but not enough for a local cop to collar one of the holy Van Horns.”

  “I know that, too. Don’t worry. This isn’t that big a city.”

  “Better get moving. It’s getting late.”

  Trotter looked at his watch. Eight-oh-five. The speech was set for nine.

  “What are you going to do?” Rines asked.

  “I’m going to get right over to the hotel and start looking.”

  “We’ll have people out there by morning,” Rines said. “To help you mop up, if nothing else.”

  “Yeah. Or to mop me up. I’ll check in later.”

  Trotter hung up the phone, yelled across the room to the skeleton crew of journalists that he was leaving (keep up the cover at all costs) and walked out into the deep twilight of the June night.

  Chapter Ten