High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Will do,” Edwards said. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  McGarvey showed up at Kennedy’s tomb in Arlington National Cemetery at 8:00 sharp. Phil Carrara, wearing a light gray jacket and dark flannel trousers, was waiting for him, head bowed as if he were praying. The morning was gray, and damp, the wind off the Potomac raw. Very few visitors were in the cemetery at this hour.

  “Working spooks are supposed to be dressed in suits and ties on weekdays,” McGarvey said, coming up to him. “How’s your field work?”

  “I’m clean, if that’s what you mean.” Carrara looked up. “But I’m no longer an employed spook. I’ve been placed on administrative leave.”

  “Internal Affairs?”

  “They’re not that far yet. It was Ryan. He convinced the General that I no longer have the spirit of my position firmly in mind.”

  “You have questionable friends.”

  “That too,” Carrara answered, staring at the flame.

  “How long have you known about my parents?”

  “Couple of days. I went digging and came up with a few things.”

  “They were murdered.”

  “No proof of that, compar.”

  McGarvey faced his friend. “They spied for the Russians. What made you dig that far back, Phil? Those were OSS days. Ancient history. Was it a case of nerves?”

  “I had to be sure about you. There are a lot of accusations flying around. Lots of coincidences, dead bodies here in Washington, out on the West Coast, and in Japan. All the time you were in and out, talking with your Russian … friend.”

  “Control officer.”

  “That’s right. But you came up clean.”

  “You so sure the son hasn’t followed in the father’s footsteps?”

  “You came up clean.”

  “Are you sure enough about that to risk your career?”

  Carrara’s face fell a little. “I already have, compar. I’m here.”

  “Ah, shit.” McGarvey looked away for a moment. He felt like hell. “You didn’t deserve that. Sorry.”

  “You don’t deserve the treatment you’re getting either. But Ryan is right about one thing: you are a dinosaur. Things aren’t done your way these days. Maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad, I don’t know. What I do know is that no matter what happens this time, when the dust finally settles you’ll be cut completely adrift from the Company. No more assignments, no more favors, no bending the rules.”

  “Are you telling me to retire?”

  “Compar, I’m calling in all my markers, and I’m going to get some of my old friends to do the same. All out this time, but it’ll be the last time. Comprendes?”

  “Let’s go for a walk,” McGarvey said. They headed away from Kennedy’s grave as McGarvey lit a cigarette, the smoke whipped away by the wind. The trees were bare, and there was still snow on the ground. The place seemed desolate.

  “I explained the situation to David Kennedy, and I think he understands,” Carrara said.

  “Is he here in Washington?”

  “He’s going to ask the Bureau for help this morning. I don’t think he’s going to get very far, but he’ll try. Business as usual. In the meantime he’ll do whatever you want, short of grounding the fleet or canceling Sunday’s flight.”

  “Then that’s the timetable,” McGarvey said. He didn’t like it, but only a major disaster would stop Guerin now, which was exactly what it was heading for. “You’re going to have to help me get Dominique out of the firing line.”

  “Already done. I took her to one of our safe houses in Falls Church last night.”

  “She’s agreed to keep her head down?”

  “Until Sunday night. I talked to her and Kennedy at the same time. She understands the situation just as well, if not better, than he does.” Carrara managed a slight grin. “She’s something else.”

  “She’s that, all right,” McGarvey agreed. “Anybody watching her?”

  “The manpower would be missed. But the place is secure. No leaks from our end. As long as she doesn’t do something foolish, she’ll be okay. It’s only a few days.” Carrara gave him the location.

  “No chance you were followed?”

  “Even Ryan wouldn’t dare. She’s safe for the moment. The ball’s in our court now. You said you had a couple of leads in Portland.”

  “Arimoto Yamagata. He works for Mintori’s Sokichi Kamiya, the man I was maneuvered into meeting with outside Tokyo.”

  “What’d he say to you?”

  “Not much that made a lot of sense. But he said that destroying Guerin was only part of some grand plan.”

  “Is the government involved?”

  “He said it wasn’t, and at this point there’s no reason to disbelieve him.”

  “Except that the submarine that sank the Russian destroyer in the Tatar Strait is on the loose in the East China Sea. Apparently with the same skipper and crew.”

  “Where are they headed?”

  “Okinawa.”

  “Any connection between Kamiya and the navy?”

  “None that I could pin down. But, Mac, he’s in tight with practically everyone in their government. Hell, half of them owe him big favors. He’s got the power base to do whatever he wants.”

  “If he were to be taken out it might slow them down,” McGarvey speculated.

  “What about Abunai? Do you trust Yemlin?”

  McGarvey was startled. “Did someone get to Viktor’s blind number?”

  “Ryan’s got the transcript, but everybody upstairs is discounting the Russians. But if Abunai is right, then we’ve got another problem on our hands. Who brought down the plane at Dulles and why? The Russians?”

  “They’d be shooting themselves in the foot. Without Guerin they’d lose a billion-dollar assembly plant.”

  “How about a separate Japanese group—assuming that Mintori was responsible for the crash in ’90?”

  “Kamiya is too powerful for that to happen. He’d know about it. But it’s one of the things I’m going to ask Yamagata.”

  “Why did you wait?”

  McGarvey looked at his old friend and smiled wryly. “Still a few doubts?”

  Carrara held his silence.

  “Yamagata is having an affair with David Kennedy’s wife.”

  “Christ,” Carrara said. “Does he know about it?”

  McGarvey nodded. “I wanted to give him a shot at getting her out of there. Could get ugly.”

  “Still leaves Dulles. Whoever engineered it wants Guerin to take the fall.”

  “Either that or blame the Japanese for it,” McGarvey said. “If it was a second group that caused the Dulles crash why did they go through the trouble of making it happen exactly the same as the American Airlines crash?”

  “I don’t know, but if the two groups never worked together it could mean that more than one Guerin airplane was fixed at some point for the engine to fail. Maybe all of them.”

  “If that’s the case they’re smarter than all of Guerin’s and Rolls-Royce’s engineers put together. Those planes have been pulled apart piece by piece, and no one has come up with a thing.”

  “Hide the thimble,” Carrara muttered.

  McGarvey looked at him.

  “It’s a game we played when we were kids. You take an ordinary object, like a sewing thimble, and while everyone is out of the room you hide it. The trick is to put the thimble out in the open, someplace so obvious that everyone who searches for it will see it but won’t see it. Or won’t recognize it. Might fool the best of them.”

  “Did you tell that to Kennedy?”

  “No, it just occurred to me. Maybe Guerin’s engineers are looking in the right places, they’re just looking too hard.”

  “Knowing something’s there in the open and finding it are two different things,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime what else do you have for me?”

  “A long shot, but maybe it’s worth something. Do you rem
ember the Action Service query we got on Bruno Mueller?”

  “The Stasi hit man.”

  “There might be a connection between him and Edward Reid. It’s thin, like I say. But Mueller was pals with a former West German intelligence officer by the name of Karl Schey. Schey and Mueller are both missing, but before the Bureau backed away from investigating Reid they found out he had some connection with Schey.”

  “Why’d they back off?”

  “State told them to, and the White House agreed,” Carrara said. “But the interesting thing is that Reid is rabidly anti-Japanese. Thinks that we’re going to be at war with them any day now.”

  “Would he have the connections to hear about Mintori Assurance?”

  “Possibly.”

  “If he somehow found out how Mintori brought down the American Airlines flight in ’90, he might be planning on bringing down a bunch more and blaming them. It’d be a long time before Japan recovered.”

  “Not only that, compar. Reid is very rich. Maybe he wants more. If Guerin planes go down, so does its stock. But if the Japanese take the blame, Guerin will recover. Someone who knew what was going on could make a bundle.”

  “And come out the hero,” McGarvey said. “You’re right. It’s a long shot, but anything’s possible. Can you get the FBI file on him?”

  “I can try. In the meantime, where are you staying?”

  “The Watergate. I lifted a spare key from Dominique’s purse.”

  Carrara managed a thin smile. “Sure is interesting back in the field.”

  “That it is,” McGarvey agreed.

  “The timetable has been set, but for the moment there is no need for you to know the exact day and hour,” Russian Defense Minister Vyacheslav Solovyev said.

  “Shall I be told the target?” SUR Director Karyagin had been summoned to the Defense Ministry in the evening. It was one of the stunts the military liked to pull on civilians.

  “The Air Self Defense Force radar installation at Wakkanai.”

  “I am not familiar with this place.”

  Minister Solovyev handed him a sketch map of the Japanese north island of Hokkaido. Wakkanai was a small town on the island’s extreme north end, at Cape Soya.

  “That base is responsible for monitoring all traffic into the strait, a capability that we will deny them.”

  Karyagin looked up. Solovyev was one of the new breed who’d been too young for the Great Patriotic War but who had proved himself as a tactical commander in Afghanistan. He had a firm grasp of Russia’s military strengths and weaknesses, but in Karyagin’s estimation he was naive about almost everything else.

  “Have you read my reports on Japan’s military readiness?”

  “It’s why I called you here, Aleksandr Semenovich. I need an update, and I want your current assessment of the situation.”

  “I’m not a military man.” Karyagin shrugged to mask his excitement. The Defense Minister’s request was nothing short of extraordinary. It meant the military was sticking its neck out and wanted civilian endorsement.

  “I mean the political situation.”

  “Between us and Japan?”

  “Yes,” Solovyev said. “And between us and the United States. What reaction will Washington have beside bluster?”

  “That is very difficult to predict, Minister Solovyev. Nevertheless, I think that if we put our heads together we will come up with something. But first I will need more information. We cannot work blind.”

  Carrara had lunch with the new acting Deputy Director of Operations, Dick Adkins, at a Denny’s restaurant in Bethesda. Dick was a short, husky man with pale skin and wavy hair. He’d always looked up to Carrara. Now he was nervous. Ryan had him on a short leash, so he had to be very careful.

  “You’re my only shot at staying on top of this,” Carrara said. It wasn’t quite true, but he wanted to keep the need-to-know list small and compartmentalized. “Ryan is wrong and unless I can work independently he’s going to maneuver us into making a colossal mistake.”

  “He’s got a one-track mind when it comes to McGarvey, all right. And you’re on his short list too. He wants you out. Permanently.”

  “I know. In the meantime I need your help. Arimoto Yamagata, Sokichi Kamiya, and Edward R. Reid. I want all three of their files. You’ll have to talk to someone over at the Bureau—anyone but John Whitman.”

  “I can tell you right now that Reid’s file is totally off limits.”

  “Why?” Carrara asked.

  “It came after you left. Reid’s on the President’s Tokyo Summit team. He’ll be on Air Force One on Sunday. Makes him an untouchable unless the Attorney General gives her nod, which I’m told she won’t.”

  David was in Washington again, probably with that bitch Dominique, so Chance had not bothered to go home. After their long talk last night Arimoto had not wanted her to stay. She’d seen it in his eyes. But he’d finally given in, and they’d made love several more times, her way, with some old Kenny G on the disc player.

  She’d slept late, and waking with the sun streaming through the penthouse bedroom windows she had a few moments of luxury before the terrible guilt returned. The fact is she was a failure as a spy. When she was with Arimoto, when they were talking and making love, she had no control. Even last night, when she’d taken charge, her focus had remained on the sex, not on what she’d set out to do.

  Lying in bed, her mind racing, she knew that McGarvey was right to warn her about Arimoto. At some point last night, despite her self-indulgence, it came to her that Arimoto was no businessman. He was not here to negotiate a deal with Guerin. In fact he was here to spy on the company and do whatever it took to bring it down.

  She turned those thoughts over. So what? When Guerin fell, David would be free. One airplane company more or less would not have that much of an effect on the international balance of trade. Portland would be devastated, but as a whole the country would be just fine. After all, the Japanese already owned most of Hawaii, half of California, and a bunch of buildings in Manhattan.

  Chance got out of bed and used the bathroom. Putting on a white silk kimono, she went into the living room just as Yamagata was seeing a man to the door. They stopped and exchanged bows, Yamagata’s back to her. But his guest spotted her and said something.

  Yamagata turned and smiled. “I hope we did not disturb you.”

  “Not at all,” Chance said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Run the bath, and I’ll order us breakfast.”

  “Okay,” Chance said. She went back into the bedroom and closed the door, her heart beginning to race. The man was Japanese, and Arimoto’s bow had been slightly deeper than his. Etiquette was very important, he’d taught her. It marked the difference between civilization and chaos. Respect for one’s superiors was at the very top of the list. His bow had been deeper.

  What the hell had she gotten herself into here?

  The FF Cook and FF Barbey pulled out of Yokosuka at 3:00 A.M. with no fanfare. They headed down Tokyo Bay past the rest of Seventh Fleet in port, pouring on speed as soon as possible. Even before they passed the sea buoy and turned to the southwest, both Knox-class antisubmarine warfare frigates were making in excess of thirty knots. The wind and seas continued to rise and it promised to be a rough eighteen hours until they rendezvoused with the DD Thorn, which was still well north of Takara Jima Island.

  The Cook’s skipper called the Barbey’s skipper on the encrypted radiotelephone. “How’s it going back there, Jim?” The night was black.

  “Tough to keep coffee in a cup, but we’re right on your tail,” Lieutenant Commander James Otter replied.

  “We’re painting two supertankers southbound eighty miles out.”

  “Got ’em. Did you catch the illumination on the way out?”

  Lieutenant Commander Adam Zimmerman glanced at his XO and grinned. “Sure did. No guesswork where we’re headed, so keep a sharp watch. Chrysanthemum may not be their only asset out here.”

 
; “Won’t happen until after the strait.”

  “You’re probably right. But we’ll keep on top of this one.”

  “Tanegashima,” Otter warned.

  “They’re not going to put anything into the air in this weather.”

  “They’ll be telling us something if they do.”

  “That’s for sure,” Zimmerman said. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Japanese Self Defense Force destroyer DD118 Murakumo was on full alert at her Yokosuka berth. The entire fleet was being held at the state of readiness because of the deteriorating situation with the Russians. Even in port, however, the Escort Fleet Headquarters flagship maintained an around-the-clock vigilance. Pearl Harbor had taught them that lesson in reverse. No place was truly safe, not even home port. When the two American frigates were finally out of radar range, the Murakumo’s skipper, Commander Noburo Shirokita, and his XO, Lieutenant Commander Yashusi Morita, left the bridge for the skipper’s battle cabin. This was how wars began, one confusing situation developing into another, like cherry blossoms suddenly popping out after a sharp change in the weather. Only long afterward, when the survivors picked through the rubble, could any sense be made of the situation, especially the first days. But what was happening now seemed especially senseless to Shirokita, whose father had survived the war as a young lieutenant and helped reestablish the navy under pressure from the Americans to do so in the fifties and sixties. They were supposed to be the first line of defense against a Soviet breakout into the Pacific. Just like West Germany had been the first line of defense against Soviet land forces moving in from the east. But those threats no longer existed.

  “Unless we receive orders to follow them, there is little else we can do this morning, Kan-cho.” Morita poured their tea.

  “I’m told the air force will handle it from Tanegashima. We have no business running after them.”

  “Pardon me, sir, but they know that we are on alert, and they know that we are monitoring their progress and their transmissions. Won’t an Air Force fly-over be perceived as a threat?”