A Saturday in August is a terrible time to be in Washington. The heat and humidity make any trip outdoors an endurance trek. The summer haze diffuses the sunlight, but doesn’t soften it. Perspiration oozes from every square inch of hide and clothes become sodden rags.
By eleven o’clock Saturday morning, Smoke Judy felt as if he had lived on the street for six months. He had managed only two hours’ sleep the night before, most of it in fifteen-minute spurts. The alley he now called home housed three other derelicts, all of whom were comatose drunk by 9 P.M. They had no trouble at all sleeping.
At 7 A.M., or thereabouts—Judy had stowed his watch in his gym bag—his companions stirred themselves and collected their traps. He followed them as they staggered the five blocks to a mission. Two of them vomited along the way. The little neon sign over the door proclaimed: “Jesus Saves.”
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast and black coffee. Judy carefully observed the men and four women, maybe five—he wasn’t sure about one—who ate listlessly or not at all. The alcoholics in the final stages of their disease drank coffee but didn’t touch the food. Almost everyone smoked cigarettes. A man across from him offered him an unfiltered Pall Mall, which Smoke Judy accepted. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette since he was twenty-four, but when in Rome…
“I see you been to the barber college,” his benefactor said as he blew out his match.
“Yeah.”
“Go there myself from time to time.”
Judy concentrated on smoking the cigarette until the man beside him lost interest in conversation. Behind the screen of rising smoke he studied the people around him. He was apparently the only one who showed any interest in his companions. Most of them sat with vacant eyes, or stared at their plates, or the wall, or the smoke rising from their cigarettes.
By eight o’clock he was back on the street. The humidity was bad and the heat was building. Already the concrete sidewalks had become griddles. His companions wandered off in twos and threes, looking for shady spots to snooze, spots near areas of heavy pedestrian traffic that later in the day could be mined by panhandling for enough money to purchase the daily bottle.
Deciding the street was too dangerous for a man with only a day’s growth of beard, Judy ambled back toward the alley where he had spent the night. He concentrated on the derelict’s shuffle, the head-down, stoop-shouldered, eyes-averted gait that characterized so many of the defeated wanderers.
His eye caught a headline in a newspaper rack. The photo—that was him! He walked along, wondering. Up ahead was a trash bin with a paper sticking out. He snagged it and took it back to the alley
Drugs. Cocaine trafficking. The photo of him in uniform was that service-record shot he had submitted last year. The picture of Harlan Albright was a candid street shot, almost as if he had been unaware of the camera. Still, it was a good likeness. With his back to the Dumpster, sitting on the asphalt, Smoke Judy read the stories carefully. Vice Admiral Henry was dead, according to the Post, killed by a drug dealer resisting arrest. Well, was the Post ever wrong?
When he finished the story he threw the paper in the Dumpster.
Now he lay in the heat, his head on his blanket roll, watching an old dog search for edible garbage. A slight breeze wafted down the alley, but it wasn’t much. The place was a sauna. After the dog left, the only creatures vigorously stirring were the flies.
Jesus, who would have believed things could go so wrong so fast? The feds must have been monitoring access to that file, and the instant he opened it, jumped in the car to drive over and arrest him. From commander in the U.S. Navy to hunted fugitive killer all in one fifteen-minute period—that had to be a new record for the fastest fall in the history of the navy.
As he thought about it, Smoke Judy did not agonize over the split-second decisions he had made or torture himself with what-ifs. He had spent his adult life in a discipline composed of split-second decisions, and he had long ago learned to live with them. You made the best choice you could on the information you had and never wasted time later regretting the choice. He didn’t now.
Still, as he looked back, he couldn’t really pinpoint any specific decision that he could say had been the perfect choice to make when he made it. So here he was, lying in an alley ten blocks northeast of the White House. Hell must be like this, dirty and hot, all the sinners baking slowly, desperate for a beer. God, a cold beer would taste so good!
The money. After that phone call from Homer T. Wiggins, he had felt it unsafe to leave the money in his apartment when he wasn’t there, so he had put it in a duffel bag in the trunk of his car. His passport was in the bag too. The car was undoubtedly in the police impound lot by this time and the money and passport were in the evidence safe. He had been tempted yesterday to try to get it, but that temptation he had easily resisted. Smoke Judy, fighter pilot, knew all about what happened to guys who went back to a heavily defended target for one more run.
Man, the bumper sticker is right—shit happens. And it happens fast. The real crazy thing is it all happened to him. The great sewer in the sky dumped it all on him. Fuck! He said it aloud: “Fuck.”
“Fuck!” He shouted it, liking the sound of his voice booming the obscenity at the alley walls. The word seemed to gain weight and substance as it echoed toward the street. He filled his lungs with air and roared, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”
“Hey, you down there.” He looked up. Some guy was leaning out a window. “You stop that damn shouting or I’ll call a cop to run you out of there. You hear?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Goddamn fucking drunk psychos,” the man said as he closed the window, probably to keep in the cool, conditioned air.
Okay, Judy told himself, going through the whole thing one more time. He was in the smelly stuff to his eyes. Okay. How was he going to get the hell out of this mess?
Well, this alley was as good a place as any to spend the weekend.
If he tried to check into a motel or hotel, or tried to buy clothes or steal a car, he might be recognized. The cops wouldn’t be looking for him in an alley, at least not for a few days. No doubt they were watching the airports, train station and bus depot. And looking for that car he drove away from Crystal City.
So sitting here in this shithole for a few days looked like a pretty good idea. Of course, selling the E-PROM data to Homer T. Wiggins had looked good too, as did killing Harold Strong, copying the Athena file…
Ah me.
Well, he still had a card. One chance. $150,000. Boy, did he ever need that money now. Monday evening, Harlan Albright, that meat market in Georgetown. One way or the other, Albright was parting with the cash, he told himself grimly. There were still five live cartridges left in the pistol.
Jake Grafton sent his family to the beach Friday evening. Saturday he was back at the office finishing his report on the testing of the prototypes. He had already circulated a draft to his superiors and now he was incorporating their comments.
The senior secretary had volunteered to work on Saturday, and she was making the changes on the computer when the telephone rang. “Jake, this is Admiral Dunedin. I have a couple FBI agents here with me. Could you come up to my office?”
“Yessir. Be right there.”
The agents turned out to be Camacho and Dreyfus. They shook his hand politely. Jake sat in a chair against the wall, facing the side of the admiral’s desk.
“Captain,” the admiral said to get the ball rolling, “these gentlemen said you had some concerns that you wished to discuss.”
Jake snorted and rearranged his fanny on the chair. “I suspect my concerns are minor and worlds away from the FBI’s, but they’re real enough. I’ve read the morning papers. Apparently the ATA program is some kind of cover for drug dealers who are supplying all the addicts in the Pentagon, and one of them went bug-fuck crazy yesterday and beat an admiral to death.”
“Now, Captain—” Camacho began.
“Let me finish. Presumably this boondoggle operation is run by some airhead who is unable to recognize the nefarious character of his subordinates, who have been engaged in subverting the national defense establishment from within. Moral rot and all that. And who is the airhead who commands this collection of criminals in uniform? Why, it’s the navy’s very own Jake Grafton, who next week is going to be testifying before various committees of Congress about the necessity to fund a new all-weather, carrier-based, stealth attack plane. No doubt this Captain Bligh will be questioned closely by concerned congressmen about his inability to see beyond the end of his nose. So my question is this—just what the hell do you gentlemen suggest I tell the congressmen?”
The agents looked at each other, then the admiral.
“We need this airplane,” said the admiral. “Any suggestions?”
“This would be a great place for the truth,” Jake observed.
It was Camacho who spoke. “The truth is this is a national security matter. Any additional comment will jeopardize an ongoing investigation.”
“You expect me to go over to the Hill and say that?” Jake asked incredulously. “See this uniform? I’m a naval officer, not a spook. How about the directors of the FBI and CIA go over there and make a little statement behind closed doors, ahead of time?”
Camacho considered it.
“They can swear on Bibles or cross their hearts, or whatever it is you spooks do on those rare occasions when you’re really going to come clean.”
“I suppose we could ask the Director,” Camacho said with a glance at Dreyfus.
“While you’re mulling that, how about explaining to me and the admiral just what is going on? I’d like to know enough to avoid stepping on my crank, and I don’t think that’s asking too much.”
“This matter should be resolved in the next few weeks,” Camacho murmured.
Grafton just stared. The admiral looked equally frosty.
“Judy was selling information to defense contractors. He—”
“We know that,” the admiral said testily. “Tell us something we don’t know.”
“He was recruited by a Soviet agent to copy the Athena file. Apparently he agreed to do so. He attempted it Friday afternoon, NSA called us and Henry, Henry beat us here.” He shrugged.
“How did Admiral Henry learn that there might be an attempt to copy the Athena file?” Dunedin wanted to know.
“I told him,” Camacho said.
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t go into that. Obviously, I had authority to tell him.”
“Did Henry know that?”
“Know what?”
“Know that you had authority to tell him.”
“I don’t know what he knew. Or thought or suspected. Perhaps.”
Dunedin’s eyebrow was up. He looked skeptical.
“What do you want to hear, Admiral? That Henry thought he was getting unauthorized information from a confidential source? Okay, that’s what he thought. Henry was Mr. Naval Aviation. Honest, loyal, brilliant, he had an immense ego. Perhaps that’s why he was Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air. He had the habit of sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong, of wanting to know more than the law allowed. For example, we found this notebook in his desk drawer yesterday afternoon.” Camacho took a small spiral notebook from an inside coat pocket and tossed it on the desk.
Dunedin examined it for a moment, turning the pages slowly. He glanced up at Camacho several times, but each time his eyes quickly returned to the pages before him. Without comment, he slowly closed the book and passed it across the table to Captain Grafton.
“A, B, C…who are these people?”
“The letters stand for people that Henry wanted information about. Some of the information was supplied by psychotherapists, some by police agencies, some by people in government in sensitive positions who talked out of school. One of those letters apparently stands for Callie Grafton. I believe she was seeing a psychologist, wasn’t she, Captain?”
Jake Grafton began ripping pages from the notebook. A handful at a time, he deposited them in the classified burn bag by Dunedin’s desk.
As he watched, Camacho continued. “Henry was very worried about the Minotaur. He feared the unknown. So he did what he could to protect his trust. It’s hard to condemn him.”
“These little pieces of the cloth that you let us see, they’re tantalizing.” The admiral leaned back in his chair and made a tent of his fingers.
That comment drew no response from the agents. Dreyfus examined his fingernails as Camacho watched Grafton complete his job of destruction.
“Why did this Soviet agent approach Judy?” the admiral asked. “Why did he single him out?”
“I told him about the commander’s troubles,” Camacho replied.
“You told him?” The admiral’s eyes widened. “Good God! Who are you working for, anyway?”
“I’m on your side, Admiral.”
“Hallelujah! I hate to think of the mess we’d be in if you weren’t.”
“Why my wife?” Jake asked.
“You’d been given guardianship of the holy grail, Athena. You, a captain. Smoke Judy worked for you. Admiral Henry knew Judy was a bad apple, and he knew I knew.”
“It’s a wonder he slept nights,” Dunedin muttered.
“Are you saying he didn’t trust me?” Jake said doggedly.
“Tyler Henry didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t just cut the cards; he insisted on shuffling every time. But I don’t think it was you he was really worried about. It was me. He didn’t want you corrupted by me.”
“Say again?”
“He thought I might recruit you, so he was looking for clues in the only place he could.” Camacho stood. Dreyfus got to his feet a second later. “Gentlemen, that’s the crop. That’s all you get”
“Not so fast, Camacho,” the admiral said, pointing toward the chairs. “You can hike when I finish this interview. I have a few more questions to ask, and so you sit right there and I’ll do the asking.”
Camacho obeyed. Dreyfus remained erect. “You can wait outside,” the admiral said.
“He can stay,” Camacho said. Dreyfus sat.
“Who approved this operation?”
“My superiors.”
“Who are?”
“The Assistant Director and the Director. And the committee.”
“What I want to know is this: who gave you the green light to screw around with the U.S. Navy? As if we didn’t have enough troubles.”
“My superiors.”
“I want names, mister! I want to know the names of the idiots who authorized a covert operation that resulted in the death of a vice admiral and jeopardized congressional approval of the A-12. I want some ass! The CNO is going to want blood. George Ludlow, Royce Caplinger, if they don’t know about this—”
“Ask them. Any more questions?”
“Ludlow? Caplinger? They knew?”
“The people who have to know, know. You said those names; I didn’t. Now if you will excuse me, I’ve said all I can say and I have work to do.” Dreyfus reached the door before Camacho got completely out of his chair.
“The FBI Director better be there pouring oil on the water when I get to those hearings, Camacho,” Jake said.
“And if he isn’t?” Dreyfus asked with exaggerated politeness.
“Then you’d better be there with a warrant if you want me to keep quiet. I have this nasty little habit of answering questions by telling the truth.”
Camacho just nodded and strolled for the door, which Dreyfus opened and held. “Thank you both,” he told the naval officers, then stepped through.
When the door was shut behind them, Dunedin said, “Too bad we don’t know any truth to answer questions with.”
“We know a little.”
“You’ve still got a lot to learn, Jake. Truth isn’t something you can extrapolate from a tiny piece. And believe me, those two have given us the tiniest piece they could. If it was a piece of the truth at all, which is debatable.”
On Monday morning Jake signed his report, which recommended the TRX prototype as the plane the navy should buy, and hand-carried it to Admiral Dunedin’s office. The admiral flipped through it to see that the changes he wanted were made, then he signed the prepared endorsement. From there Jake carried it over to the program coordinator’s office. Commander Rob Knight was tapping a letter on his word processor when Jake came in.
“This is it, huh?”
“Yep.” Jake pulled up a chair. Knight reviewed the changes, then signed the routing slip. “Congratulations. Another milestone passed.”
“Think we’ll get this plane?”
“Looks good. Looks good.” Knight grinned. He spent a large portion of his time talking to congressional staffers on behalf of the CNO’s office. “They know we need it. They know it’s a good buy.The only really iffy thing is the choice of prototypes. Duquesne knows this is coming and he’s loading his guns.”
“What’s he going to come at me with?”
“I’ll know more by tomorrow. I’ll be over at nine with a guy from the Office of Legislative Affairs to brief you on expected questions, suggested answers, how to keep your cool—all the good stuff. You’ll be testifying with Admiral Dunedin and he’ll go first But you’re the guy they’ll try to rip. You originated the recommendation. If they can get you to admit you’re an incompetent, lying idiot, then Dunedin, CNO, SECNAV, SECDEF, they all have to reconsider. So wear your steel underwear.”
Jake’s next stop was CNO’s office. He had to talk to the executive assistant—the EA—and wait an hour, but with the CNO’s blessing on his document, he walked it down to the Secretary of the Navy’s office. After the obligatory half hour wait while the EA reviewed the document, Ludlow invited him in.
“How close is this to the draft I saw?”
“Pretty close, sir. Vice Admiral Dunedin and CNO wanted some changes, and they’re incorporated.”
“Are you prepared to defend this report on the Hill?”
“Yessir.”
Ludlow quizzed him for an hour on the technical aspects of the report. Apparently satisfied, he accompanied Jake to the door. “Just don’t get cute with the elected ones. Be open, aboveboard, a good little sailor.”
Smoke Judy changed into his running clothes and stowed his rags behind a Dumpster in a Georgetown alley. God, he smelled ripe. But what the hell—they sold this stink in a bottle now, didn’t they? He would probably have women crawling all over him. Everyone would think he just ran five miles and dropped by for a tall, cool Perrier. Just as trendy as a pair of Gucci shoes.
He walked the four blocks to the bar carrying the gym bag in his right hand. The place was packed, just like last week. If anyone noticed his aroma, they didn’t show it.
He made his way through the crowd and into the men’s room, where he washed his face and neck and arms as thoroughly as possible. He even used a paper towel on his armpits without taking his shirt off.
Whew! He felt better.
He stepped out of the men’s room and stood looking. A twoperson booth opened up at the back of the room, so he immediately slipped into it. Holding the gym bag under the table, he extracted the pistol from the bag and laid it on his lap.
The waitress didn’t give his four-day beard a second glance. “Gimme a Bud.”
He drank the first one quickly, then nursed the second. Twenty minutes passed, then thirty.
What if Albright doesn’t show?
Judy got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The beer felt like it was going to come up. He stared at the door, scrutinizing every face.
When Albright came in, Judy almost shouted.
He walked the length of the room and slid into the booth. Only then did Judy realize his hands were empty.
“Jesus,” Albright said. “You look bad.”
“Had a little trouble.”
“I guess you did. I read about it. Dealing, are you?”
“A crock.”
“Yeah.” Albright ordered a Corona. He sat looking around.
“Where’d you spend the weekend?”
“In an alley.”
“Smart.”
“They haven’t caught me yet.”
“You wired?”
“What?”
“Are you wearing a wire?”
“Hell no. Where’s the fucking money?”
“You got it?”
“Yeah, right here. You wanta see it?”
“Okay. Show me.”
Judy passed him the gym bag. “The side pocket. Look but don’t take it out.” Albright did as requested.
“So, you got it?”
“What’s it look like?”
“What it looks like, my friend, is a five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy disk, which could have anything under the sun on it. It could even be empty. You didn’t think I was just going to take it on faith that you’re an honorable gentleman and hand you all that lettuce, did you?”
“Something like that.”
The Corona came. Albright took his time squeezing the lime slice and dropping it down the neck of the bottle. “Your good health,” he said, and took a sip.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The bread, asshole.”
“Out in my car.”
“You want the disk, you go get it.”
“I need to see what’s on the disk first. What say we both go out there and I’ll check the disk on my laptop. I brought it along, just in case.”
“Uh-uh. No money, no disk.”
“You make me very suspicious, my friend. Your refusal to come outside indicates there is a very good possibility you are wearing a wire. The possibility is even higher that the file I want is not on this disk.” Albright grinned. “You see how it is.”
“What I see is this: I’ve got it and you aren’t leaving here with it until I see the money.”
“When did you copy this disk?”
“Friday afternoon.”
“When did the admiral come by?”
“About ten minutes later.”
Albright looked at the faces around him, then turned back to Judy. “Even if you think you have the file—I will grant you your good faith—I doubt seriously if it is the information I want. Not on Friday afternoon, with NIS and the FBI just ten minutes away. They were waiting for you. It was a trap.”
“I got the file,” Judy insisted.
“No. I think not.” Albright started to slide out of the booth. Something hard hit his leg, and he stopped.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“I don’t know what you think. Use your hand, gently, and feel.”
Albright did so. “I see.”
“Turn back around. Face me.”
Albright obeyed. He took another sip of beer. “Now what?”
“Now I want that money.”
“How do you propose to get it?”
“You had better think of something I like real fucking quick or you aren’t walking out of here. I’m going to blow your cock off with the first one, then I’m going to put one right in your solar plexus. Who knows, an ambulance could get here so fast you might live. But you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life and you’re going to do all your peeing sitting down.”
Albright wasn’t fazed. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“You do the suggestions. You have one minute.”
“Hmmm.”
“I got nothing to lose, Albright. I will pull this trigger. Believe it!”
“You’ll be caught.”
“Probably, but they’re going to try me for killing a vice admiral, not for blowing the cock off a commie spy. Who knows, with you on my record, I may get probation. You got forty seconds.”
“Who knows. Indeed, who knows.” Albright considered.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Quiet. I’m thinking.” He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Look to your left. Against the bar. There is a man there wearing a UCLA sweatshirt. Look at his hand.”
Warily, Smoke glanced left, then back at Albright. The man across the booth was watching him with an amused look. Judy looked again. The man at the bar had a pistol, and it was pointed straight at him.
“I didn’t come alone. You pull that trigger and he will kill you before you pull it again.”
In spite of himself, Judy looked again. It sure looked like a real pistol, an automatic, held low, shielded by the body of the man beside him. The gunman was looking straight into his eyes.
“So,” said Harlan Albright. “Here is how it will be. You will put your gun back in the gym bag. We will walk out to my car—oh yes, I do have a car. We will put the disk in the laptop and check it. If indeed it contains the Athena file, I will give you the money. If not, we’ll shake hands, and you’ll go your way, I mine.”
“I oughta just shoot you, here and now.”
“As you say, I may live. You most certainly won’t. Your choice.”
“I’m busted. I got nothing. They—” He swallowed hard. Tears were obstructing his vision. “They emptied the file. It was a setup. Nothing there but the title pages of thirty documents, each document just one page. Honest. I got what you wanted to buy. I’m desperate! I need the money.”
Albright nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“C’mon, mister,” he pleaded. “I’ll do you a deal. The title pages must be worth something. I got fifteen bucks to my name. That’s it! Fifteen lousy bucks.” He was sobbing.
“I think not.” Albright looked around. Spectators were watching Judy. It was past time to go. Albright took out his wallet and tossed all the currency he had on the table. “There’s something over a hundred and forty there. You take it.”
Judy seized the bills. He scooped them up with his left hand, then fumbled below the table with the gun. “I need the gym bag. Here”—he held out the disk. “You take it. I don’t want it.”
“Good luck,” Albright said, and then rose and walked toward the entrance, leaving Judy holding the disk and staring after him. When Albright was through the door, the gunman on Smoke’s left followed him.
Judy lowered his head to the table.
“Mister,” he heard someone saying. “Mister, you’re going to have to leave. Please, mister,” urged the hard, insistent voice, “you can’t stay here.”