Triple Trap
Page 33
A mile from Mobius Laboratories he stopped his car. He told himself he had to do it. Now. He would not get another opportunity like this. If he ran off and left Cassandra, everyone in Moscow—that cursed committee—would rejoice. His legendary reputation will be tarnished.
“See?” they would say. “Just like his father. A flash, for a moment a diamond, then nothing but glass.” His enemies would be quick to crow. He told himself that for once he had to risk it. Had to take a chance. Had to pitch the ball. Gogol turned his car around.
He drove back down the service road and parked. With binoculars he searched all along the perimeter of the site, examining every likely place to hide a surveillance team, to conceal a car or a truck that might be waiting to pounce on him. Then he checked again. He watched one of the security guards making his hourly rounds through the offices. He could find no one lurking anywhere. He sat, unable to leave, unable to go to the trash bin. Then he turned on his engine again.
He drove down the service road and into the rear parking area. With his headlights out he drove diagonally across the area to the trash bin. He got out of the car, and, trying to avoid any sound, opened a top panel and reached into the mounds of shredded paper. He didn’t feel the carton. He climbed up on the ramp and groped the full length of his arm. He still found nothing. He stepped into the trash bin and was hip deep in paper and coffee cartons. He tramped up and down trying to feel the carton with his foot.
Then he found it. He crouched and with two hands lifted it, along with great mounds of shredded paper and trash.
Gogol clambered out of the trash bin, carefully, quietly closed the metal flap, and carried the carton to his car. In spite of the biting cold, he was soaked with perspiration.
He drove off in a wide circle around the laboratory buildings and slipped and slid up the access ramp to the main highway. He drove toward Dulles Airport.
Ahead were several snowplows, hulking yellow dump trucks with flashing yellow lights, skiving the snow to one side in great waves. There were few cars on the road, and none following him. He glanced at the carton on the seat next to him. The word TRASH was block printed on it in several places in Sauer’s handwriting. He reached out and touched the carton. One of the great intelligence coups of all times was inside there. Was he going to get away with this? Could it all end up being this easy? When he was airborne on the Aeroflot jet, he would believe it.
He felt the snow fighting his tires as he drove. Now he was only a few miles from Dulles. Were the runways still open? He peered through the beating windshield wipers as though trying to see all the way to the airport.
Soon the lights of the Dulles terminal building loomed up as bright smudges in the driving snow. Something had to go wrong. What was waiting for him at the terminal?
He promised himself that if he succeeded in getting Cassandra to Moscow, he would retire.
When he got to the airport parking lot, he drove up and down the aisles looking for the embassy limousine. All the vehicles were covered with snow. Then off in the corner he saw it. His embassy contact got out and signaled him.
“Here,” he said to Gogol. “Everything is ready.”
Gogol passed the carton to him in the limousine. The contact and another man quickly wrapped the carton and placed the seals and stamps on it. “It’s done,” the contact said. “This is legally part of the diplomatic pouch. See you on the plane.” He handed Gogol an envelope containing his passport and other documents. “This will get you through passport control. Hurry. They’ll close the runways any minute. Go.”
Gogol parked the car and sat for a moment. It was over. Cassandra was beyond reach of U.S. authorities now. He was beyond arrest. In minutes he would be airborne. He hurried into the terminal.
A short time later the Aeroflot flight left in great haste, the last plane to take off before the control tower shut down the airport due to the heavy snowfall.
Gogol waited until the jet completed its climb and leveled off on its flight to Russia. At last he could relax. With Cassandra in his lap and the nose of the jet aimed at Moscow, he hugged himself with joy. He’d done it. He’d pulled off the intelligence coup of the century. Slowly, mouthing each name with gusto, counting each on his fingers, he began to call the roll of the heads he would demand.
Limoges was the first to arrive at Dulles. “Are you sure?” he demanded, shaking with rage. “It got off the ground?”
“Gone,” the man from State said. “It was the last plane to take off before they closed the flight lines.”
Limoges turned to the military attaché. “Can we shoot it down?”
“That would be an act of war.”
“How about forcing it to land?”
“You’re going to have to go to the highest authority for a move like that.”
“Well, look who’s here,” Limoges said.
Brewer came through the entry doors and stepped on the escalator.
“He’s gone, Brewer!” Limoges said in a low voice. “He beat you! And we’ve lost Cassandra!”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re too late. The Aeroflot flight took off with Cassandra on board.”
“Did it?” Brewer asked.
“What do you mean—did it?” Limoges demanded. “Didn’t I just tell you that it did? Sauer put the real one in the trash bin. And Gogol picked it up, and he’s flying to Russia with it right now.”
“Gogol was conned by his own Viennese shell game,” Brewer said. He nodded at Limoges’s disbelieving face. “We switched cartons in the trash bin.”
Out on the flight line Sauer stood in the blinding snow. He took a dollar bill from his pocket and held it up fluttering in the breeze.
“Cpaceeba, you Russian son of a bitch’s bastard,” he said. “Cpaceeba.”
Then he let the dollar bill go. Carried by the wind, it blew eastward toward Russia and quickly disappeared in the darkness.
About the Author
William H. Hallahan (1925–2018) was an American novelist of popular literature. He worked as a journalist before embarking on writing in 1970, covering a variety of popular genres: detective fiction, fantasy, thrillers, and spy novels. His 1977 spy novel, Catch Me: Kill Me, won the Edgar Award. Hallahan also published essays on the US military and history.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by the Estate of William H. Hallahan
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5906-0
This edition published in 2019 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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WILLIAM H. HALLAHAN
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