High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Enough to hang myself.”

  “But no aiding or abetting the enemy on our part. Me and you, pal.”

  “The bugs in Dominique’s apartment were definitely of Japanese manufacture?”

  “State of the art.”

  Kennedy came to the door and gestured for McGarvey, who waved him back.

  “I need your help on this one, Phil. Find her for me, make sure she’s all right. Will you do it?”

  Carrara hesitated for several long seconds. “You bastard. All right. Don’t take any wooden roubles over there.”

  Edward R. Reid had barely been able to contain his excitement after meeting with Tallerico. If what the man had told him had any basis in truth, it was the answer to his prayers.

  In the beginning he’d had the idea of using Bruno Mueller and Glen Zerkel to disrupt Guerin Airplane Company by sabotaging its manufacturing and research facilities, assassinating Vasilanti and that hotshot ex-astronaut Kennedy, and blaming it on the Japanese. But now a more elegant solution was at hand if Tallerico were telling the truth and if he could be convinced to cooperate with them. From what Reid knew of the man and his business, in what amounted to international confidence games, Tallerico could very well have come up with something. And as far as gaining his cooperation was concerned … well, Reid didn’t think there would be much trouble on that score.

  The Sterling, Virginia, farmhouse was dark when he drove up and parked in front. He’d picked this place for a number of reasons, among them its isolation. There were no nearby neighbors, the house was screened from the nearest road by one thousand yards of dense woods, and yet from the back of the house there was a clear view of the main runways at Dulles Airport five miles away.

  To see and not be seen. It appealed to his sensibilities. The farm had become a haven. But in the three days since Mueller and Zerkel had been here that had changed. Being near them was like being in a cage with a pair of man-eating tigers. More than once he’d had second thoughts about hiring them. Yet each time he wavered he immediately came back to his original concern about the way things were turning out for America. He wanted to go down in history as the “great pacifier.” A man like Armand Hammer who’d done so much to stabilize the world during the horrible Cold War with the Soviet Union. Reid wanted to leave his mark. The world was entirely different from Hammer’s time, which meant different, more drastic measures had to be taken to ensure peace. Japan had to be put in its place. There would never be another day like December 7, 1941, if he could help it.

  He let himself into the dark stair hall. No fire burned on the grate in the living room, and the temperature in the house was cool. Outside under an overcast sky the night was dark, so the house was almost pitch black.

  He found the hall light switch and flipped it on, but nothing happened. The feeling that he was a hunted animal suddenly rose up in his breast, and he turned. “Gentlemen … ?”

  “Here,” Mueller said softly from somewhere in the darkness.

  Reid couldn’t see a thing, but he was suddenly sober and clearheaded. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “We’re getting nervous,” Mueller answered. “Alles in Ordnung,” he called. A moment later the lights came on.

  The East German stood beside the stairs, one of Reid’s 7.65 mm Luger Parabellums in his hand. The gun, along with several other weapons, had been hidden in a concealed floor safe in the basement. The caged animals had gone exploring.

  Glen Zerkel appeared at the basement door, a .380 Beretta automatic stuck in his belt. He was grinning. He looked like a wild man. Once again Reid wondered who was actually in control of the situation.

  “We didn’t know who was coming, so we hit the power at the breaker box downstairs,” Zerkel said.

  “It would be better if you telephoned before you came here from now on,” Mueller added.

  Reid realized that there had been no turning back for him from the day a few years ago when he’d written his first piece about the coming struggle between Japan and the United States. His wife had asked him if he was becoming his own creation. That was during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, when even some of Reid’s colleagues thought he was getting too strident. He’d answered his wife and his co-workers with some offhanded comment about it being a war, but at the odd time afterward he would stop and ask himself the same question. Like now. Except now he was an old man and running out of time, so he could not afford to fight with gloves on.

  “It’s a sensible precaution, providing the telephone line out here isn’t tapped,” Reid said, gratified by the instant look of concern on Zerkel’s face. He went into the living room where he poured an Irish whiskey. The other two followed him in.

  “Do you suspect your telephone is tapped?” Mueller asked calmly. He wasn’t buying into it.

  Reid shrugged. “You can never tell. It would be best if you kept on your toes.”

  Mueller studied him. “You have work for us to do?”

  “Yes, tonight. The man’s name is Benjamin Tallerico. He has some information that we need.”

  “What kind of information?”

  When he told them he wanted to bring Guerin Airplane Company down and blame it on the Japanese, they were more interested in the mechanical details of the operation than the philosophy of it. Zerkel had wanted to strike directly at the company’s Portland-area facilities, while Mueller wanted to know exactly how the blame would be placed on the Japanese, who in his words were a “very shrewd people.”

  “About the Japanese,” Reid said. “It seems as if I was right on the mark. Looks like they’re actually working on a plan to bring Guerin down. They weren’t rumors after all.”

  “Tallerico has information about this plan?”

  “A subcontractor in California is supposedly building a device that can bring airplanes down. He wouldn’t be more specific than that, except that he wanted one million dollars for it.”

  Zerkel was excited, but Mueller remained deadly calm as he watched Reid drink the whiskey. “Why not let the Japanese do this themselves? It will accomplish what you want, will it not?”

  Reid shook his head. “I have no way of knowing their time table. We’ll help them along.”

  “You don’t intend paying the one million, do you?” Zerkel asked. The man was practically slavering at the bit.

  “No need for it,” Mueller replied, without taking his eyes from Reid. “How far do you wish for us to go?”

  “I want the information. Beyond that it would not be beneficial if Mr. Tallerico were to warn his California contact, or if afterward he were to figure out who you worked for.”

  Mueller nodded.

  “There’s a Chevy Caprice in the garage, registered to Michael Larsen in Arlington …”

  “We know,” Mueller said. “Are these weapons registered to you?”

  “No.”

  “The serial numbers?”

  “Untraceable.”

  “Very well,” Mueller said softly. For the first time he smiled.

  Reid turned away, suddenly sick to his stomach.

  “The next major markets will be the Far East and South America. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Kennedy said. “Both regions are developing and both have immense potential for industrial growth and consumerism. No doubt about it. Problem is both regions are halfway around the world. Big distances.”

  “Which means more business for the airlines, who’ll in turn demand Mach-five or better airplanes,” Topper added.

  McGarvey sat on the opposite side of the jetliner from the others, nursing a drink and looking out the window at faint lights of some small city thirty-five thousand feet below them in the night. They were an hour out of Montreal where they would refuel for the hop across the Atlantic, and everybody was too keyed up to get any sleep. Tomorrow morning in Moscow they’d all be dead tired, but for now they were talking about the future of the industry.

  He let their conversations ebb and flow around hi
m, sometimes listening to what they were saying, sometimes drifting off into his own thoughts. There was a very big difference between the men and women he used to work with in the intelligence service and these people in the aircraft industry. Spies tended to be pessimists, while airplane people tended to be optimists. No other industry had ever progressed so far in such an incredibly short time. In 1903 the Wright brothers made the first flight of a powered airplane at Kitty Hawk—the total distance of that flight was less than the wing span of the P522—and only sixty-six years later, two Americans walked on the surface of the moon. When the P/C2622 went into regular service it would fly anyone who put up the price of a coach-class fare to the edge of space. Socrates talked about cruising altitudes at hypersonic speeds above 200,000 feet. “There the sky will be dark. The passengers will see the stars even in daylight. And they’ll see the curvature of the earth.”

  Glancing at the men, not one of them over sixty, McGarvey couldn’t help continuing the comparison between them and men such as Carrara and Danielle. Airplane people were engineers, futurists, science-fiction buffs. Technology could solve just about any problem. What we didn’t know today, we’d figure out tomorrow, or the next day. An aircraft man’s idea of religion was “pushing the envelope,” an industry term for an expansion of knowledge usually at great financial, and even physical, risk. A lot of men and women had given their lives for the sake of flight.

  Spies, on the other hand, were often very religious in the traditional sense. Why else would otherwise intelligent men and women place themselves behind enemy lines where they had to lie, cheat, and steal to stay alive, and where success meant that they’d caused someone to betray his or her country? To become a traitor for oftentimes nothing more than some esoteric ideal? Certainly as many spies had given their lives for the cause as had airplane people for theirs. If there were comparisons, he decided, they would have to be opposites, with him now in the middle.

  Kennedy looked up, caught his eye, and came over to sit down beside him. “Good thoughts or bad?”

  “I was just wondering what would happen if the Russians can’t help us after all, and the Japanese did buy us out?”

  Kennedy smiled wanly. “Guerin’s demise wouldn’t have any real effect on world peace or stability. At least I don’t think it would.”

  “What about our position at the Tokyo summit?”

  “The Japanese are already laughing at us, Mac. They’d just laugh a little harder, that’s all.”

  Georgetown had an Old World charm reminiscent of Europe, but Mueller was not lulled into complacency because of the apparent similarities. On the contrary, he was even more cautious, more watchful because this was his last chance in the West.

  Tallerico’s house was a four-story brownstone that faced a narrow side street off Volta Place behind the Georgetown University campus.

  “Here it is.” Zerkel was driving. He started to pull over, but Mueller warned him off.

  “Continue to the corner and then turn left.”

  “What’s wrong?” Zerkel asked, but he did as he was told.

  “I don’t know,” Mueller replied. He adjusted the Chevrolet’s passenger-side door mirror so that he could see behind them. It was after ten and traffic was moderate. There were a few pedestrians on the sidewalks, and the upper side of the street was bumper to bumper with parked cars and vans. There was nothing out of the ordinary here, yet Mueller felt uneasy.

  Zerkel turned left at the corner and at the next intersection stopped for a red light. “Did you see something?”

  “No,” Mueller said, watching the rearview mirror. Two cars had turned left off Volta Place behind them. “When the light changes turn right, drive one block, then turn right again.”

  “Okay,” Zerkel said, glancing in his mirror.

  The blue car continued straight, but the red Mercedes turned with them. A block later, however, when Zerkel made the second right, the Mercedes turned left.

  “It’s clear,” Mueller said looking up. “We’ll park one block away and go in on foot.”

  Zerkel nodded, his lip curling in a stupid grin, but the look was deceiving. Within the first six hours of knowing the man, Mueller had realized that the American was brilliant, if not a genius. But he was dedicated to whatever environmental mumbo jumbo he talked about, he was ignorant of what was happening in the world outside the United States, and he was crazy. If his ignorance or insanity became troublesome, Mueller would kill him. For now, however, he seemed to be willing to do as he was told.

  They parked on P Street around the corner from Pomander Walk, a block and a half from Tallerico’s brownstone, and went back to Volta Place on foot. On the first pass Mueller memorized the look of the street, including the numbers and types of parked vehicles. To his trained eye he could detect no change. Neither the blue car nor the red Mercedes that had followed them for a short distance had been among the parked vehicles, and so far as he could tell there was absolutely nothing wrong here. Yet he had a faint uneasiness in his gut. It was the fact that he was in a foreign country, he told himself. The foreign country, the United States, the enemy.

  “Looks good,” Zerkel said.

  “Very well,” Mueller agreed. The American had remained a fugitive from his justice system for a long time. His instincts were to be considered.

  Together they crossed the street to Tallerico’s house, passed through a tall iron gate, and rang the bell. From the front, the second-story windows showed light. Tallerico was home and awake.

  A man’s voice came from a small grille set just beneath the button. “Who is it?”

  Mueller leaned forward. “Mr. Tallerico, are you alone this evening? Mr. Reid has sent us with something for you.”

  “Who is this?” Tallerico demanded.

  “Sir, my name is of no importance. Mr. Reid asked me to speak with you about the Silicon Valley find. Am I speaking now with Mr. Tallerico?”

  “I haven’t had time to get an answer from my contact. Reid must know that.”

  “Yes, sir, he does. He’s sent us to make you an offer. A firm offer, Mr. Tallerico.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Zerkel was frustrated, but Mueller held him off. Benjamin Tallerico was a cautious man. But he had to be cautious in his business. Mueller could find no fault with it.

  “Very well, Mr. Tallerico, we shan’t bother you any further this evening. I’ll inform Mr. Reid that you are no longer interested. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  Mueller turned away from the speaker grille and started away from the door.

  “Wait,” Tallerico said.

  Mueller stopped but did not go back. Zerkel was watching him, the stupid grin on his face again. The man was like a house dog just before its dinnertime.

  “Goddammit, just hold on,” Tallerico’s voice came from the grille.

  The stair hall lights came on a second later, and Benjamin Tallerico, wearing a dark purple dressing gown, his thick dark hair somewhat disheveled, and his eyes a little blurry as if he had been drinking heavily this evening, opened the door and eyed them both.

  “Mr. Tallerico?” Mueller asked politely.

  “That’s right. Come in.” He stepped aside to let them pass, then closed and locked the door and led them down the hall to his study at the back of the house. “Why didn’t he call me? I could have told him that I didn’t have an answer yet.”

  Mueller pulled out the Luger, thumbed the safety catch off, and as they entered the study and Tallerico turned back to them, he raised the gun and pointed it directly at the man’s head.

  Tallerico, whose complexion was olive, visibly blanched. “What the fuck is this … ?” He stepped back.

  “We would like the name and address of your source in California.”

  Reid had assured them that Tallerico’s house would be free of any listening devices. A man in his position would make sure of it. Still, Mueller was on edge.

  “Fuck you,” Tallerico snarled. Reid had warned th
at he was a former Mafia lieutenant with connections.

  Mueller pulled the pistol’s toggle back with his left hand and let it snap home, cocking the hammer. He started to pull the trigger.

  “Jesus Christ, you stupid fuck, back off! What the fuck do you think this is? You want to know the name of my contact? Fine, I’ll tell you. It’s not worth my fucking life. It’s only money.”

  Zerkel closed the study door, and Tallerico watched him, his eyes growing wider.

  “I mean it. She’s a psychiatrist in San Francisco. Her name is Jeanne Shepard. One of her patients told her about it.”

  “What is this patient’s name?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Not until we had a deal. She’s just as careful as I am. And she never makes a mistake. Never.”

  “How do we find her?”

  “Her office is in San Francisco.”

  “Her home,” Mueller said calmly.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been there. I talk to her on the telephone. Sometimes she comes out here, sometimes I go out there, but we always meet on neutral territory.”

  Mueller said nothing.

  “Fuck. Who do you think you’re dealing with here? We have to be careful.”

  Still Mueller said nothing.

  “Her office is downtown, but even if you go there you won’t get anything from her.”

  “Where does she live, Mr. Tallerico?”

  “Fucking hell! In Sausalito. She’s got a goddamned houseboat in the marina. The number’s seventeen-E.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Mueller said, nodding politely, and he shot the man in the head, driving him backward off his feet, blood splattering over the desk.

  “Holy shit,” Zerkel said.

  Mueller clicked the safety on the Luger and stuffed it in his belt beneath his coat. “Now we go to Sausalito.”

  “Here they come,” FBI Special Agent Albert McLaren said. He watched the front of Tallerico’s house through a light-intensifying 35 mm camera that lit the scene with green.