33

The paminyatchik sat in the underground strategy room of the White House as the President of the United States and two of the nation’s most influential men briefed him. The conference had taken precedence over all of Charles Ber-quist’s prior appointments and obligations. It had so far lasted nearly three hours, the incredulous undersecretary of State for the U.N. delegation rapidly taking brief notes, his intelligent gray eyes conveying a deep awareness of impending catastrophe, yet behind that sense a mind that was obviously in complete control, seeking answers, avoiding panic.

The tension was electric, intermittently broken by expressions of courtesy and respect. Arthur Pierce could not be called a friend of either the President or Addison Brooks, but neither was he a stranger. He was a professional with whom both men had worked, and in whom both had confidence. They remembered with gratitude his penetrating analyses in previous crises. As for General Malcolm Halyard, “Tightrope” had met Major Pierce in Saigon years ago, and was so impressed with his performance there that he had cabled the Pentagon recommending that the War College make a serious appraisal of the major’s potential for permanent, as opposed to reserve, status.

Despite these extremely favorable appraisals, the outstanding citizen-soldier had chosen civilian status, albeit goveminent-oriented. And since, to its dismay, the military establishment was frequently part of the government, the word had gone out: an exceptional man was available and looking for challenging work; someone should come up with something before the corporate headhunters descended on him. Washington needed all the genuine talent it could find.

It had happened so easily, so logically in its arithmetic: one plus one plus one. People became steps and the steps led to a high place. An elderly career officer at State said he just happened to be at a dinner party in Alexandria where his military host mentioned Pierce to him. Naturally, the career officer felt compelled to mention Pierce’s name at a conference attended by Addison Brooks. State was perpetually scouting for that rare man with proven abilities who also had the potential for further intellectual growth. Arthur Pierce was summoned for an interview, which evolved into a lengthy lunch with the aristocratic statesman. This, in turn, led to an offer of employment, an entirely feasible decision in light of the record.

The mole was in place. There had in fact been no dinner party in Alexandria, no host who had discussed in uniquely flattering terms an outstanding soldier from Saigon. It did not matter; others were discussing him; Brooks had verified that. A dozen corporations were about to make offers to the brilliant young man, so Addison Brooks spoke first.

As the years went by, the decision to recruit Arthur Pierce could only be applauded. He was an outstanding talent with an increasingly apparent ability to comprehend and counter Soviet maneuvers, especially in face-to-face confrontations. There were, of course, specialists who studied lzvestia and the various Russian journals and communiqués to interpret often obscure Soviet positions, but where Pierce was most effective was at the conference table, whether in Helsinki, Vienna or Geneva. At times his perceptions were uncanny; he frequently seemed to be ten steps ahead of the spokesmen sent by Moscow, preparing counterproposals before the Soviet position had even been made clear, thus giving the U.S. team the advantage of an immediate response. His presence was increasingly sought by upper-level diplomats until the inevitable took place: he was brought into Matthias’s orbit, and the Secretary of State lost little time making Arthur Pierce an upper-level diplomat himself.

The paminyatchik had arrived. An infant, genetically selected in Moscow and sent covertly into the heartland of America, was in place after a lifetime of preparation, and at this moment he was being addressed by the President of the United States.

“You now have the whole ungodly picture, Mr. Undersecretary.” Berquist stopped as a painful memory flooded his mind. “It’s strange using that title,” he continued softly. “Only days ago another undersecretary sat at this same dais.”

“I hope I can contribute even a fraction of what he did,” said Pierce, studying his notes. “The fact that he was killed is appalling. Emory was a friend of mine … he didn’t have many friends.”

“He said the same thing about himself,” observed Addison Brookcs. “And about you.”

“Me?”

“That you were his friend.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You might not have been at the time,” said General Halyard. “You were one of nineteen people he was looking into.”

“In what way?”

“He was trying to find someone on the fifth floor of State who might have been out of the country, who might have been at the Costa Brava,” explained the President.

“The man who later used the Ambiguity code?” asked Pierce, frowning.

“That’s right.”

“How did my name come up? Emory never told me, never called me.”

“Under the circumstances,” said the ambassador, he couldn’t. Several query responses between you and Washington during that week had been misplaced. I don’t have to tell you what a shock it was to him at first. They were found, of course.”

“Those misfilings are a constant irritant,” said Pierce, going back to his notes, checking off items with his gold-plated ball-point pen. “I don’t even know that there’s a solution. The volume of traffic is simply too great and there are too few people cleared for the material at that level.” The under-secretary circled a note, adding as an afterthought, “On the other hand, I’d rather put up with the irritation than take the chance that some of those confidential memoranda might get out.”

“How much of what you’ve learned here in this room do you think the Soviets know?” Berquist asked, his Nordic face set, his eyes hard and level, the muscles in his jaws pulsating.

“Less than I’ve learned here in this room but probably more than we suspect. The Russians are so damned elliptical. What’s more, they’re working themselves up into a frenzy. I can’t form a judgment until I’ve had a chance to study those—incredible documents.”

“False documents,” said Halyard emphatically. “Agreements between two madmen, that’s what they are.”

“I’m not sure either Moscow or Peking would believe that, General,” said Pierce, shaking his head. “One of those madmen is Anthony Matthias, and the world isn’t ready to accept him as insane.”

“Because it doesn’t want to,” interrupted Brooks. “It’s afraid to.”

“That’s right, sir,” agreed the undersecretary of State. “But apart from Matthias, as the President has described these so-called nuclear aggression pacts, they contain extraordinary and extraordinarily classified information. Locations, megatonnage, detailed delivery capabilities, launching codes—even abort systems. From what I can gather, the gates of the arsenals of the two superpowers and their runner-up in China have been opened; the most secret hardware in each camp is there for anyone to see who reads the agreements.” Pierce turned to the soldier. “What would be the Pentagon’s recommendation if a similar Sino-Soviet pact against us were brought in by clandestine services, General?”

“Launch,” answered Halyard flatly. “There’d be no alternative.”

“Only if you were convinced it was authentic,” interjected Brooks.

“I’d be convinced,” said the general. “So would you be. Who else but men with access to that information could include it? Also, there are the projected dates. I’d be damned convinced.”

“When you say the Soviets are elliptical,” said the statesman, “I concur wholeheartedly, but how do you mean it in the current sense?”

“They threw phrases at me—disjointed non sequiturs—watching me to see if I’d pick up on any. We’ve been confronting each other for a number of years now, whether in Vienna or Bern or New York; you get to spot even concealed reactions.”

“But they first told you they knew Matthias was insane,” said Berquist. “That was their opening, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t think I used the exact words before. I will now. I was in the Soviet ambassador’s office at his request—summons, really—along with his senior aide. Frankly, I thought he’d asked to see me so we might work out a compromise on the Pan-Arab resolution, but instead he greeted me with a statement that could only refer to Matthias: ‘We understand from a most reliable source that a holiday has been extended because the mental condition of the vacationer has deteriorated to a point beyond recovery.’ ”

“What was your reply?” asked Brooks. “The exact words, please.”

“ ‘The Russian compulsion for brooding, self-serving fantasy is no different now from what it was when Dostoyevsky described it.’ Those were my exact words.”

“Provocative yet insouciant,” said the statesman. “Very good.”

“That’s when the fireworks started. ‘He’s mad!’ shouted the ambassador. ‘Matthias is mad! He’s done insane things, undermined what’s left of détente.’ Then his aide joined in, demanding to know where the next meetings were being held, which unstable governments Matthias had been in contact with, and whether they knew he was insane, or was a madman sending out secret communications, concealing his insanity from the people he was reaching? What frightens me, Mr. President, Mr. Ambassador, General Halyard, is that they described what you’ve described to me. If I understood correctly, Matthias has been doing just that for the past six months. Reaching unstable regimes, instant prime ministers, revolutionary juntas we shouldn’t be touching.”

“That’s where the Soviets got their information, of course,” said Berquist. “They think a demented Matthias is implementing a number of his well-known ‘geopolitical realities.’ Moving in on them.”

“They think far more than that, sir,” corrected Pierce. “They believe he may have funneled nuclear materials to extremist regimes and fanatic camps—Islamic, for example, or Afghan, or anti-Soviet Arab factions—we’ve all agreed shouldn’t have them. They’re paranoid about it. We can protect ourselves from each other by the sheer magnitude of our arsenals, but neither of us can protect ourselves from an irrational partisan junta or sect that possesses launch and nuclear capability. Actually, we’re far safer; we’re separated by oceans. Strategic Russia is part of the Euro-Asian land mass; its borders are vulnerable if only by proximity to potential enemies. If I read them correctly, it’s these concerns that are pushing them toward the panic button.”

“But not Parsifal,” said Brooks. “In your judgment, the man we call Parsifal has not made contact with Moscow.”

“I can’t rule anything out,” said Pierce. “There were so many phrases, threats, implications—as I said, elliptical references. For instance, they mentioned ‘next meetings,’ ‘unstable governments,’ ‘nuclear materials,’ All of these—again, if I understood correctly—are actually a part of these agreements. If I could study them I’d be able to spot parallels with the original texts.” The undersecretary paused, then spoke quietly, firmly. “I think it’s possible this Parsifal has made contact, delivering provocative hints, perhaps nothing more. And I think it’s urgent that we know even this.”

“He wants to blow us all up,” said the President “My God, that’s all he wants to do.”

“The sooner I can get to Poole’s Island, Mr.—” Pierce was Interrupted by the humming of the white telephone on the white dais, a red light flashing on its miniaturized console. Berquist picked it up. “Yes?”

The President listened in silence for nearly thirty seconds, then answered, nodding, “I understand. Let me know what happens as soon as it happens.” He replaced the phone and turned to the others. “That was Havelock. He won’t get here this afternoon.”

“What is happening?” asked the general.

“Too many things for him to leave the phone.”

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur Pierce. “I wanted to meet him. I think it’s vital we stay in touch. I can tell him what’s going on with the Soviets and he can keep me up-to-date. I have to know when to press forward, when to back off.”

“You’ll be kept informed; he has bis orders from me.… They lost the pathologist.”

“Damn!” exploded the general.

“He either picked up the surveillance or, knowing things were out of control, decided to disappear.”

“Or was ordered to disappear,” added the statesman.

“That’s what I can’t understand,” said Berquist, turning to the silent undersecretary of State. “The Russians gave you no indication that they were aware of any Soviet involvement in this whole damn thing? They didn’t mention the Costa Brava or Rostov’s cable to us?”

“No, sir. That may be the one advantage we have. We know, but they don’t.”

“Rostov knows,” insisted the President.

“Then he’s too frightened to act,” replied Pierce. “It’s often the case with entrenched KGB personnel; they’re never sure whose toes they may be stepping on. Or if he is searching, he’s not getting anywhere.”

“You’re talking as though we were speaking about two different Moscows,” objected Halyard.

“I agree with Havelock,” said the mole. “We are. And until the Moscow that wants to get its hands on Matthias’s documents succeeds, the one I’m dealing with speaks for the Kremlin. That won’t be the case otherwise. It’s all the more reason why I’ve got to be kept current. If Havelock caught even one man we could trace to that other Moscow, it would be leverage. I could use it.”

“He’s already told us,” interrupted Brooks. “A branch of Soviet intelligence known as the VKR. Rostov as much as admitted it.”

Pierce looked bewildered. “I didn’t hear that mentioned.”

“Perhaps I overlooked it,” said Berquist.

“In any event, it’s too general. The VKR is a consolidation of many units. I’d need specifics. Which unit? Which directors?”

“You may get them.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Pierce’s gold-plated pen was suspended above his notes.

“It’s one of the things that’s keeping Havelock at Sterile Five.”

“Sterile Five …”

“They may have lost this Shippers, but Havelock expects that whoever gave him orders will send men up to Maryland to find out who Matthew Randolph’s been working with. He’s got his own people in place with orders to wound and take. As I told you, the doctor lied about Mackenzie’s death but for the wrong reasons.”

“Yes, I know.” Pierce looked down at his notes as he replaced the pen inside the coat of his dark pinstriped suit. “It helps me to write things out; I didn’t expect to take these with me.”

“I’m glad,” said the President. “I wouldn’t have let you.… You’ve got a lot to think about, Mr. Undersecretary, and not much time. How do you plan to handle the Soviets?”

“Cautiously,” replied the mole. “With your permission, I’d like to substantiate a part of what they told me.”

“You’re out of your mind,” said Halyard.”

“Please, General, only a very minor part. They obviously have a fairly accurate source, so to deny the whole would only make them more suspicious, more hostile. We can’t afford that now. In the President’s words, we have to contain them as much as possible for as long as possible.”

“How do you think you can do it?” asked Berquist, his eyes wary.

“By admitting that Matthias collapsed from exhaustion. Everything else has been exaggerated way out of proportion to the medical diagnosis, which is of minor consequence. He’s been ordered to rest for several weeks; that’s all. The rest is rumor and wild gossip, the sort of thing that goes with a man like Matthias. Don’t forget, they have their memories of Stalin; they can’t dismiss them. By the time Stalin was dead most of Moscow believed he was certifiably insane.”

“Excellent,” interjected Ambassador Brooks.

“They can’t dismiss the other sources,” said Halyard, obviously wanting to agree but the strategist in him prohibiting it. “The leaks from unstable regimes—instant prime ministers, or whatever you called them. Matthias reached them.”

“Then they have to be more specific with me. I think I can handle them case by case. At the least, they’d have to confer with Moscow, double-check the origins. Every case could buy us time.” Pierce stopped, turning to Berquist. “And time, Mr. President, is what’s on my mind now. I think the sooner I get back to New York and ask—no, demand—a meeting with the Soviet ambassador, the better chance I have of pushing their hands away from the buttons. I do believe they’ll listen to me. I can’t guarantee how long, but for a while—a few days, a week—they will.”

“Which prompts the obvious question,” said the statesman, his well-tailored elbows on the table, his slender hands folded beneath his chin. “Why do you think they contacted you and not the more direct, crisis-oriented channels in Washington?”

“I’d like to know that too,” added Berquist “There’s a phone never more than fifty feet away from me for such contingencies.”

Arthur Pierce did not reply at first, his eyes shifting back and forth between the President and the ambassador. “It’s difficult for me to answer that without appearing arrogant or overly ambitious, and I don’t believe I’m either.”

“We’ll accept that,” said Berquist. “Just give us your opinion.”

“With all due respect to our ambassador in New York—and I’m sincere; he has an extremely likable presence, which is terribly important, and he’s had an outstanding career in government—”

“Had,” the President broke in. “He’s a soft bush in a high wind, but the roots are deep. He’s there because of his lovable presence, and the fact that he doesn’t make a goddamn decision. We’ll accept that, too. Go on.”

“The Soviets know you appointed me—at Matthias’s request—to be the State Department’s spokesman. To be your spokesman, sir.”

“And the spokesman for Anthony Matthias,” said Brooks, nodding his head. “Which assumes a close relationship with our Secretary of State.”

“I enjoyed such a relationship until a number of months ago—when, apparently, all relationships were terminated by his illness.”

“But they think you still have it,” observed Halyard. “And why the hell not? You’re the closest thing we could have there except Matthias.”

“Thank you, General. Basically, I think they came to me because they thought I’d know if there was any substance to the Matthias rumors. The madness.”

“And if they thought you knew but were lying, what would be their response?”

“They’d disregard the hot line, Mr, President. They’d put the world on nuclear alert.”

“Get back to New York and do what you can. I’ll make the security arrangements for you to get down to Poole’s Island. Study those agreements until you know them word for word.”

The paminyatchik rose from the dais, leaving his unnecessary notes behind.

The limousine passed through the White House gates as Arthur Pierce shot forward in the seat, his hand gripping the strap, and, in a harsh voice, spoke to the driver assigned to him by the Department of State. “Get me to a phone booth as fast as you can.”

“The mobile phone’s in working order, sir. It’s in the case in the center of the floor.” The driver removed his right hand from the wheel and gestured at the black leather receptacle behind him. “Just pull up on the latch.”

“I don’t care to use this phone! A booth, please.”

“Sorry, sir, just trying to be helpful.”

The undersecretary checked himself. “I apologize. It’s those mobile operators; they can take forever, and I’m in a great hurry.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that complaint before.” The driver accelerated briefly, only to apply the brakes seconds later. “There’s one, sir. On the corner.”

Pierce got out of the car and walked rapidly to the glass booth, coins in his hand. Inside, he pulled the door shut, inserted a quarter and dialed. “Your trip?” he asked curtly.

“Smooth flight. Go ahead.”

“Has the detail left for Maryland?”

“About fifteen minutes ago.”

“Stop them!”

“How?”

The paminyatchik bit his lip. There could be no mobile phones for them, no system where numbers could be recorded. He had only one question left before issuing the order. “Is there any way you can reach them once they’re on the premises? Any way at all?”

The initial silence was his answer. “Not the way it’s orchestrated,” was the quiet reply.

“Send a second detail immediately. Police vehicle, automatic weapons, silencers. Kill them; kill them all. No one must be left alive.”

“You sent them!”

“It’s a trap.”

“Oh, Christ … Are you sure?”

“I’ve just left the White House.”

A low whistle was the astonished response. “It really paid off, didn’t it?”

“They had no choice. As we say over here, I had all the marbles and I was shooting from the top of the circle. I’m inside. There’s also something else.”

“What?”

“Reach Mother. Rostov’s centered in on Victor. Find out how deep; elimination must be considered.”

Loring walked down the steps of the Pentagon thinking about Lieutenant Commander Thomas Decker. He was not sure what Havelock was looking for, but he was fairly certain he did not have it. After having read Decker’s complete service record, including endless evaluation and fitness reports over at the Department of the Navy, Charley had decided to pull in a few debts owed him at the Pentagon. On the pretext that the officer was being considered for a sensitive embassy position that required tact and a fair degree of personality, he called on several friends in Army intelligence and said he needed a few confidential interviews. Could they help and did they remember when he had helped them? They could and they did.

Five people—each held accountable for confidentiality—were brought separately to meet with him for informal, very-off-the-record conversations. There were three fellow naval officers who had served with Decker aboard the submarine Starfire, a secretary who had worked in his office for six months, and a marine who was on his Nuclear Committee team.

Havelock had said Decker was a liar. If he was, Loring had found no evidence to support this characterization. He was, if anything, something of a moralizer, who had run a tight ship on the basis of strict Judeo-Christian principles to the point where he read the Lessons at each weekly interdenominational religious service he insisted be part of the Star-fire’s schedule. His reputation was that of a firm but fair skipper; like Solomon, he weighed all sides of an issue before rendering a decision, which he then proceeded to justify on the basis of what he had heard. As a fellow officer put it, one might disagree with a given course of action on Decker’s part, but one understood how he had arrived at it. His “engineer’s mind,” said another, grasped the “blocks and tackles” of a complicated argument quicker than most, and he was adept at spotting fallacies. Yet he never, according to the third officer, used another man’s honest error to assert his own superiority; he accepted others’ mistakes compassionately, as long as they were the products of best efforts, which he made sure to determine that they had been. This, thought Loring, was not a liar’s approach.

It was the secretary, however, who shed light on another side of Thomas Decker not readily perceived from his service record and the statements of his fellow naval officers. The lieutenant commander apparently went to great lengths to please and support his own superiors.

He was always so tactful, so generous in his appraisals of other people’s work even when you knew he thought it wasn’t very good. There was this admiral … Then the White House put out a directive that choked him, but still he … And he gave his full endorsement to a JCS position which he told me was really counterproductive.… You talk about tact—well, the commander is about the most diplomatic man I’ve ever known.

The last person to talk with Charley Loring was the marine, a major and a member of Decker’s Nuclear Contingency Committee. He put his own assessment of his colleague somewhat more succinctly.

He kisses ass something fierce, but what the hell, he’s damned good. Also, that’s not exactly an unknown exercise around here. Tact? … Christ, yes, he’s got tact, but he’s not going to hang himself over something really important. I mean, he’ll find ways of greasing an issue so the oil’s all over the table.

Translation: Spread the responsibility for disagreement, preferably as high as it will flow, but if this attitude made for a dangerous liar, there were few truthful men at the Pentagon—or anywhere else, for that matter.

Loring reached his car in the side parking area, settled back in the seat, and pulled out the microphone from its cradle beneath the dashboard. He flipped the power switch and pressed the transmission button, making contact with the White House mobile operator.

“Pateh me through to Sterile Five, please,” he instructed. While everything was fresh in his mind he would relay it all to Havelock. For all the good it might do.

The Apache unit roamed the corridors of the Medical Center, one or the other of the two men keeping Dr. Matthew Randolph in sight wherever he went. Neither man approved of the arrangements and let Sterile Five know it; they were inadequate for this particular subject. Randolph was an aging jackrabbit who darted in and out of doors and hallways and outside exits with determined alacrity. Whatever had prompted the doctor to cooperate initially had evaporated as his contrariness reasserted itself. It was as though he were consciously trying to draw attention to himself, to make something happen, to challenge anyone who might be waiting for him in an empty room or darkened corner to show himself. Beyond the intrinsic difficulty of protecting such a person, the two men found it senselessly unsafe to be forced to show themselves. Professionals were, by training and nature, cautious, and Randolph was making them behave otherwise. Neither man relished the thought of being picked off by a sharpshooter a hundred-odd yards away as he followed the cantankerous doctor down a driveway or across a lawn. There was nothing amusing about the situation. Two men were not enough. Even one other man covering the outside would relieve the pressure; more than one, they understood, might defeat the purpose of the strategy by making the whole operation too obvious. One more, however, was mandatory.

Sterile Five accommodated. The emergency call from Apache had interrupted Loring’s report to Havelock concerning Decker. Since Loring was free, he would be flown up by a Pentagon helicopter to within a few miles of the Medical Center, where a car would be waiting for him. He would be there in thirty-five to forty minutes.

“How will we know when he gets here?”

“Check the desk by an intercom phone. He’ll come inside and ask directions to—Easton. Then he’ll drive out and return on foot.”

“Thank you, Sterile Five.”

*   *   *

The sun was at the treetop mark to the western sky, bathing the Virginia countryside in soft bursts of yellow and gold. Havelock wearily got up from the desk, his band still warm from clutching the ever-present telephone.

“The Agency will dig all night, cross-checking with Cons Op and G-Two. They’ve located two photographs; six are still missing.”

“I’d think photographs would be the first consideration in these files,” said Jenna, standing by the silver tray and pouring Michael a drink. “You can’t bring over such people if you don’t know what they look like.”

He watched her as he repeated the words he had heard over the phone. “The men you chose were never considered that important,” Havelock said. “They were marginal, to begin with; their value was limited.”

“They were specialists.”

“Psychiatrists, psychologists, and a couple of professors of philosophy. Old men who were permitted the privilege of expressing their views—some vaguely offensive, none earth-shaking to the Kremlin.”

“But they all questioned theories promoted by Soviet strategists. Their questions were relevant to everything you’ve learned about Anton Matthias.”

“Yes, I know. We’ll keep looking.”

Jenna carried the short glass of straight whiskey to the desk. “Here, you need this.”

“Thanks.” Havelock took the glass and walked slowly toward the window. “I want to pull in Decker,” he said. “I’ve got to bring him down here. He’ll never tell me over the phone. Not everything.”

“You’re convinced he’s your man, then?”

“No question about it. I just had to understand why.”

“Loring told you. He fawns on superiors, says he agrees with them even when he doesn’t. Such a man would do Mat-thias’s bidding.”

“Strangely enough, that’s only part of it,” said Michael, shaking his head, then sipping his drink. “That description fits most ambitious men everywhere; the exceptions are rare. Too rare.”

“Then what?”

Havelock stared out the window. “He makes a point of justifying everything he does,” began Michael slowly. “He reads Lessons at services Instituted at his command; he plays at being Solomon. Underneath that tactful, unctuous exterior there has to be a zealot. And only a zealot in his position would commit a crime for which—as Berquist says—he’d be summarily executed in most countries, and even here he would spend thirty years in prison.… It wouldn’t surprise me if Lieutenant Commander Thomas Decker did it all. If I had my way, he’d be taken out and shot. For all the good it would do.”

The sun had dropped below the trees, mottled orange rays, filtered by branches, spreading across the lawns and bouncing off the white walls of the Randolph Medical Center. Charles Loring crouched by the trunk of a tall oak at the far end of the parking area, the front entrance and rear emergency ramp in clear view, his radio in his hand. An ambulance had just brought in the victim of a traffic accident and his wife from U.S. 50. The injured man was being examined by Dr. Randolph and the Apache unit was in place in the corridor outside the examining room.

The Cons Op agent looked at his watch. He’d been at his post for nearly three-quarters of an hour—after a hastily arranged flight from the Pentagon helicopter pad to a private field on the outskirts of Denton, eight minutes away, where a car was waiting for him. He understood the Apache team’s concerns. The man they were assigned to protect was making things difficult, but Charley would have handled it differently. He would have sat on this Randolph and told the doctor he didn’t give a good goddamn whether he was chopped down or not, that the primary objective of the stakeout was to take even one of those coming after him, that that man’s life was far more important than his. Such an explanation might have made Randolph more cooperative. And Loring might have been having a decent dinner somewhere, instead of waiting for God knew what on a cold, wet lawn in Maryland.

Charley looked up toward the intruding sound. A black-and-white patrol car swerved into the rear parking area, turned abruptly, and came to a sudden stop at the side of the emergency ramp. Two police officers got out quickly and raced up toward the doors; one leaping on the platform, both awkwardly holding their sides. Loring lifted the radio to his lips.

“Apache, this is Outside. A police car just drove up to the emergency dock in a hurry. Two cops are entering.”

“We see them,” came the reply, accompanied by static. “We’ll let you know.”

Charley looked again at the patrol car, and what he saw struck him as odd. Both doors were left open, something the police rarely did unless they intended to stay dose to their vehicles. There was always the possibility that a radio might be tampered with, or a signal book stolen, or even concealed weapons …

The static erupted, words following. “Interesting, but no sweat,” said an Apache as yet unseen by the Cons Op Agent. “Seems the wreck on Highway Fifty was traced to a prominent member of a Baltimore family. Mafia all the way, wanted on a dozen counts. They’ve fust been admitted for identification and any possible last statements.”

“Okay. Out.” Loring lowered the radio and considered a cigarette, deciding against it for fear the light would give him away. His eyes strayed again to the stationary patrol car, his mind wandering. Suddenly, there was something to think about, something immediate.

He had passed a police station on the road to the Medical Center, not five minutes away. He had noticed it at first not from the sign but by the cluster of three or four patrol cars in the side lot—not black-and-whites, but red-and-whites, the kind of bright color scheme often adopted by shore resort areas. And if a sought-after, major-league mafioso had been taken minutes ago to a local hospital after a collision, there certainly would be more than one patrol car covering the action.

Open doors, men racing, arms at their sides—concealed weapons. Oh, my God!

“Apache! Apache, come in!”

“What is it, Outsider?”

“Are those police still in there?”

“They just went in.”

“Go in after them! Now!”

“What?”

“Don’t argue, just do it! With weapons!”

By the time the radio was in his pocket and the .88 in his hand, Charley was halfway across the parking lot, racing as fast as he could toward the emergency dock. He reached the platform and sprang up with one hand on it, legs scrambling, and lunged for the wide metal doors. He crashed them open and dashed past a startled nurse behind a glass-partitioned reception counter, his head turning in all directions, his eyes choosing the corridor straight ahead; it conformed to the Apaches’ position, their immediate sighting of the policemen. He ran down to an intersecting hallway, staring first to his left, then his right. There it was, ten feet away! EXAMINING ROOM. The door was shut; it did not make sense.

Loring approached swiftly, silently, taking long cautious steps, his back pressed against the wall. Suddenly he heard two muted spits and the start of a terrible scream from behind the heavy steel door, and he knew his instincts had been as right as he now wished they had been wrong. He spun around the frame so as to give his left hand free access to the metal handle, then jammed the handle down and threw his shoulder against the panel, sending the door open, then turned back for the protection of the frame.

The shots came, exploding into the wall in front of him; they were high, the spits from deep inside the room, not close by. Charley crouched and dived, rolling as he hit the floor, and fired into a blue uniform. He fired low, bullets ricocheting off obstructing steel. Legs, ankles, feet! Arms, if you have to, but not the chest, not the head! Keep him alive!

The second blue uniform lunged over an examining table—a rushing blur of dark color—and Loring had no choice. He fired directly at the attacking man, who held a pipe-stock repeating weapon in his arms. The killer spun off the padded table, plummeting to the floor, his throat ripped open. Dead.

Keep the other alive, keep the other alive! The order kept screaming in his head as Charley kicked the door shut and lurched, rolling, firing at the ceiling and blowing out the bright overhead fluorescent tubes, leaving only the harsh glow of a small high-intensity lamp on a faraway table.

Three spits erupted from the shadows, the bullets embedding themselves in the plaster and wood above him. He rolled furiously to his left and collided with two lifeless bodies—were they Apaches? He could not tell; he only knew he could not let the man who was alive escape. And there were only two alive in that room-blood, shattered flesh, and corpses everywhere.

It had been a massacre.

A spitting burst of gunfire staccatoed across the floor, and he could feel the searing heat of the bullet that had punctured his stomach. But the pain did an odd thing to him, which he had no time to think about. He could only experience the reaction. His mind exploded in anger, but the anger was controlled, the fury directed. He had lost before. He could not lose again. He simply could not!

He sprang diagonally to his right, crashing into a stretcher table and sending it rolling toward the shadows where the staccato burst had come from; he heard the impact and rose swiftly, held his gun in both hands and aimed at another hand in the shadows. He fired as the screams swelled in the corridors beyond the closed door.

He had one last thing to do. And then he would not have lost.