O'Farrell's Law

TWELVE

MCCARTHY AVIDLY followed the social columns and the Style section of the Washington Post and chose Dominique’s restaurant for the meeting. He arrived early and was already at the ledge away from the tiny bar, the whiskey sour half-finished, when Petty appeared. Petty ordered beer, a Miller Lite, instead of the milk he should have had, hoping his ulcer wouldn’t act up; it had been at least six years since the doctor had allowed him any spirits. Sometimes, like now, he ignored the order.

“You read the writeup about this place last Sunday?” McCarthy asked at once.

“No,” Petty said. He had, but he didn’t want to indulge the other man’s pretensions.

“Got a hell of a recommendation,” McCarthy said. “Know something else about it?”

“What?” Petty asked, knowing he had to.

“Don’t allow pipes at all.” The planning chief grinned. He was a nonsmoker and always tried to avoid any encounter with Petty where the man could light up. McCarthy looked around the bar, which he dominated by his size. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m not sure there is one, not yet,” Petty said. “It could be worrying, though.”

“O’Farrell?”

“Yes,” Petty said shortly. He followed McCarthy’s examination of the wall-to-wall crowd and for the same reason said, “Lot of people here.”

“Been promised a good table inside,” McCarthy assured him. “So why don’t we have another drink first?”

“I’ll stay with this.” There was so far no protest from the ulcer but Petty knew it was too soon to tell.

McCarthy went to the bar and returned with his drink and menus. Petty studied his and said, “You really think it is rattlesnake they serve here?”

“Speciality of the house. What’s Erickson think?”

“Unsure, like me,” Petty said. “I think I’ll take the lamb; can’t risk anything too exotic with my stomach.”

“Lamb’s good, too. Unsure enough to change our minds?”

“That’s why I thought we should meet,” Petty said. “And maybe melon to start.”

“How about some wine?” McCarthy offered.

“Not more than a glass,” said Petty. “You didn’t mind me raising it, did you?”

“Glad you did,” McCarthy said. “I think I’ll take the rattlesnake and then the lamb, like you. They cook it pink. You mind it pink?”

“That’s the way it should be cooked,” Petty said. “I thought it was important we talk it through.”

“Sure.” McCarthy asked, “You like burgundy?”

“Only a glass,” Petty repeated.

McCarthy’s signal got an immediate response, and as he had promised, their table was discreetly in a corner and far enough away from anyone else to avoid any sort of eaves-dropping. McCarthy nodded his approval of the wine and they pulled back for the first course to be served. Once the waiter had left, McCarthy said, “What was his reaction to the Swiss stuff?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all he said?”

“Just that,” the section head confirmed. “So I asked him if there could be any doubt, anymore, and he said no, not anymore. That he was satisfied.”

“When’s he due to go?”

“Monday. He asked for the weekend to pack and I warned him everything had to be coordinated with the move against Belac, that he might have to wait.”

“What’s Symmons say?”

“Nothing definite,” Petty reported. “Just general unhappiness about the last two assessments.”

“This rattlesnake really is quite unusual,” McCarthy said. “You want to try a piece?”

“I’d better not, but thanks.” Petty had drunk less than half the wine, but already he was feeling the vaguest sensation from his stomach; not actual pain but a hint that it might come.

“Why the uncertainty?” McCarthy demanded.

“Symmons’s doubts, initially,” Petty said. “That, coupled with other things. The initial refusal, most of all. Both Erickson and I think that was quite inexplicable. Erickson thinks he was too heavy with the runner, Rodgers, but I don’t go along with that. Seemed fine to me.”

“Nothing else?”

“We’ve run tight surveillance on him. The watchers report he’s been drinking a bit. He’s been buying more gin than usual, to take home. Wine too. By the case.”

“Any sign of it affecting him?”

“None.”

“Perhaps he was giving a party?”

“We checked. He wasn’t,” Petty said.

Both men stopped talking while their lamb was served. McCarthy said, “Doesn’t that look terrific?”

“Terrific,” Petty agreed, declining the waiter’s offer to refill his glass.

“So that’s it?”

“The watchers discovered he’s tracing his ancestry. Found a great-grandfather who was an early lawman, out West.”

“How do they know?”

“He’s having some copying done, preserving some original newspaper clippings. A photograph too.”

“Nothing so unusual in that,” McCarthy said. “Lot of people are interested in their origins.”

“It was the tie-in with the lawman that intrigued me,” Petty said. “That’s the basic psychological justification, that what we do is always valid. That our people are surrogate lawmen.”

“Sure you don’t want any more wine?”

“Perhaps half a glass.” There hadn’t been any further discomfort.

“So it’s a coincidence,” McCarthy said. “How else do you read it?”

“Symmons can answer that better than I can.”

“Except that he can’t be asked the question without being told the reason.”

“I know that.”

“You want something else? Dessert maybe?” McCarthy, the considerate host, asked.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Petty still felt okay but guessed he’d suffer later. He wished—his hands almost itched!—he could light up his pipe. “Coffee would be good.”

“Regular or decaf?”

“Decaf.” Regular coffee would have killed him.

McCarthy summoned the waiter and then, with unexpected insistence, said, “Run something by me again. What was all that business about with his mother and father?”

McCarthy knew as much about it as he did. Petty thought, curious at the demand. Obediently he said, “All pretty straightforward, really. His mother was Latvian; underwent some traumatic experience when she was a kid. Her mother was raped by Russian soldiers, then killed when they’d finished with her. The girl was brought here by her father, who became a drunk. Why not? Seems he thought himself a coward because he’d run away when the soldiers came into their village; hadn’t done anything to protect her. Kid married O’Farrell’s father when she was eighteen—he was a brewery worker in Milwaukee, two or three years older—and got involved in the Latvian protest movement against the Soviet Union, which to be charitable in the extreme isn’t worth a bucket of spit. In psychiatric treatment for depression by the time she was thirty; in and out of institutions, for a while. Declared completely cured by the usual bunch of jerks when she was forty. By then hubby has fought in Korea, got a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, but has difficulty pinning them on because the war cost him his left arm. They scrimp by on his pensions, putting O’Farrell through college. He goes to Vietnam, exemplary conduct, which is how he comes to our notice. Been with us for seven years when one day she picks up this old gun, somehow loads the cartridges, and blows hubby away while he’s dreaming of better things. Then herself. But before she does that, she leaves a note saying it’s because she’s failed to make people realize what it had been like to be overrun by the Soviets.”

McCarthy appeared deep in thought, gazing sightlessly into his wineglass, but not drinking. All around, the aviary of the restaurant chattered and chirped, but the silence between them lasted so long that if Petty had not seen that the other man’s eyes were open—and that he occasionally blinked—he would have imagined McCarthy somehow to have fallen asleep or even into a coma. At last, his voice distant with continued reflection, the director of Plans said, “She was a Russian dissident, then?”

“Hardly,” Petty said, momentarily forgetting McCarthy’s legendary hatred of the Soviets and implacable distrust of the Gorbachev freedoms. “You know what these nationalist groups are like—a small room with a copier, lots of cigarette smoke, all the men with beards and all the women in cardigans talking about how different it would all be if they could get their hands on just one atom bomb. The reality is that they don’t count a bucket—”

“I heard you the first time,” McCarthy interrupted. “And I don’t disregard or sneer at genuine nationalist activity against Moscow.” Still to himself, but insistently, he said, “A dissident.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No,” McCarthy said, without offering to explain further. Sneider would have understood by now; seen the direction, at least. McCarthy doubted, though, that he would talk it through with his immediate deputy; better to keep things compartmentalized. He already knew it was a brilliant idea, if all the strands could be knitted together as they had to be. Makarevich, he remembered: that had been the name. Perhaps he would talk it through with Sneider after all. It was going to be a tricky one; tricky as hell.

The coffee arrived and McCarthy said, “Would you like a liqueur with that? Brandy or something?”

Petty heard a dismissive tone in the other man’s voice and decided he had made a mistake in requesting the meeting. He said, “We don’t seem to have gone any further forward.”

Petty expected some definite response, a decision even, but instead McCarthy turned the remark back. He said, “How much further could we take it at this stage?”

“You think we should proceed?” Petty asked openly, wanting to shift responsibility if anything went wrong.

Again McCarthy turned it back. “What do you think?”

He hadn’t shifted the responsibility at all, Petty saw. But then, how could he? There was no protection—no protection at all—in getting any sort of verbal assurance from this man. Petty said, “I think we should proceed.”

McCarthy grinned, the same sort of triumphant grin he’d shown earlier about pipe smoking. He said, “I’m glad that’s your recommendation.”

“It would be yours?” Petty asked, relieved.

“Unquestionably,” McCarthy said. “Absolutely without question.”

“I’m glad we agree,” Petty said, sincerely.

“But keep those watchers in place,” McCarthy said. “Particularly when the operation starts and he’s abroad.”

“Of course.” Perry’s relief was turning into a feeling of satisfaction.

“How’s Elizabeth and the kids?” McCarthy asked, in another abrupt shift of direction.

“Very well. Ann and your children?”

“Couldn’t be better,” said McCarthy. “Judy’s gotten into Miami University. Gus junior wants UCLA but I don’t know if he’s going to get in. It isn’t easy, I understand.”

“Kids are a worry, aren’t they?” Petty commiserated.

“Always a worry,” McCarthy agreed. “I’ve enjoyed the lunch.”

“Me too,” Petty said, knowing it was not a casual remark.

“We should do it again.”

“I’d like that.”

“Particularly when this gets under way. I want to be kept in close touch, all the time.”

McCarthy had never made such a direct request before. Petty said, “Of course.”

“Regards to Elizabeth,” McCarthy said.

“And mine to Ann.”

O’Farrell knew he should have gone up to Chicago, had known even when he’d made the excuses to Jill and then to Ellen, saying that there were too many things to do, when all it had amounted to was packing a suitcase, the work of an hour at the most. And he’d finished that a long time ago. In under an hour. There were the cars, of course: both his and Jill’s. He hadn’t cleaned them last weekend, either. He really didn’t feel like it. Too late now, anyway. Alexandria was packed with tourists at this time of the day, swarming up and down the streets. He’d leave them. For how long? An unanswerable question. As long as it took in London, however long that was. The file was very detailed. Rivera’s movements and habits charted, all the routine available. Shouldn’t take long. England is pretty efficiently policed. Who’d said that? He had, O’Farrell remembered. That day of the briefing at the Ellipse, with Petty and his stinking pipe and Erickson with his bald head that wasn’t really bald at all. Maybe not so quick then; dangerous to rush it and risk a mistake. He’d take his time, only move when he was absolutely sure. Certainly he had no doubt about Rivera’s guilt, now that the banking records were available. Guilty as judged, beyond any appeal; sentence duly returned to be carried out. For him to carry out. His job.

O’Farrell wished he had something else to do, to think about. He regretted now taking the archive to be copied. Jill could have done it while he was away, and it could have been waiting for him when he got back. Except that he’d wanted to do it himself, to explain how important it was that nothing was damaged. Jill could have done that just as well, of course. But the responsibility would have been hers then if anything had gone wrong. So it wouldn’t have been right, putting the burden on her. He would still have liked it to be here, though. Given him something to do: taken his mind off other things. No, not other things. Just one thing. He’d have to remember to ask Jill to pick the archive and the photograph up for him so it would all be here when he got back.

The martini pitcher was near at hand, still half-full because he’d made a big batch, and he topped up his glass. How was he going to do it? A premature question. Never able to decide until he’d carried out his own reconnaissance, trained better than anyone else to see the possibilities. What was there to think about then? Nothing. Should have gone up to Chicago. Except that he hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t wanted to do anything but sit here in the den, hidden away, safe. But only for another few hours. Had a plane to catch in a few hours; less than a day. From National Airport, too. Not more than thirty minutes up the road. All so easy, so simple. Except … O’Farrell blinked, momentarily confused at the blurring in front of his eyes. And then the confusion became embarrassment and he was glad he was alone, hidden away, because he’d never want anyone to know how he’d broken down.

Lawmen didn’t cry, ever.

THIRTEEN

THE PROBLEM of being alone had always been just that. Being alone. Even when he was at home in Alexandria, apparently leading a normal life with Jill, there was always a feeling of being cut off, part of himself isolated and alone. Because it had to be that way. Always. He had not acknowledged it in the early days; he had certainly never understood how permanent the feeling would become. It was as if, in fact, he were two men. Charles William O’Farrell, faithful, loving husband and caring, loving father. And Charles William O’Farrell, unofficial, unrecognized government executioner. Neither knowing the other; neither, realized O’Farrell, extending the thought, wanting to know the other.

Of course he’d been aware of solitude in those early days, those assignments after Vietnam, after the careful, circuitous CIA suggestion mat he quit the regular army and serve his country another way.

Vienna the first time. January 1974. A bad month, operationally, because of the weather. Thick snow everywhere and the temperature hovering around freezing during the day and well below it after about four P.M., which made the necessary surveillance a problem because no one hung around on street corners or in doorways in conditions like that. His name had been Mohammad Mouhajer, and there had not been any doubt about his guilt, about why the sentence should be carried out, because the man had been paraded as a hero in Tripoli, leader of the PLO extremist group that hijacked a TWA plane and slaughtered ten Americans before blowing the aircraft up in front of selected television cameras. A freedom fighter, he’d been called. At a press conference he’d pledged himself to continue fighting to bring attention to the Palestinian cause. O’Farrell could even recall the translated phrase at that bombastic Libyan media event. It is inevitable that people must die. Inevitable, then, that Mouhajer had to die. His case was classic proof, in fact, of the doctrine preached at those top-secret training sessions at Fort Pearce and Fort Meade. Assassination saves lives. O’Farrell had spent two weeks watching the man’s every move, tracing his every contact. Mouhajer had been boastful, oversure of himself, never taking any precautions. A single shot from the car—a Kalashnikov rifle, a provable Soviet bullet—as the man walked along the Naglergasse near midnight, the weather now a positive advantage because it was five degrees below and no one was on the street.

Alone then, but not a difficulty. Only away three weeks. He’d taken a leather purse back for Jill, a dirndl-dressed doll for Ellen, and a mechanical car for John.

How was Vienna, darling?

Pretty. I’ll have to take you sometime.

I’d like that.

There’d been a connection with Vienna the second time: March 1975. Paris. The name this time had been Leonid Makarevich, although they discovered at least four aliases during the investigation. A KGB major, the guns-and-bombs delivery man for the terrorist groups. A similarity with the current operation, O’Farrell supposed. The proof was that Makarevich had supplied the explosives for the TWA bombing and O’Farrell recognized the Russian immediately from the photographs; he was the man with whom Mouhajer had conducted three meetings in Vienna. Assassination saves lives. True. Always true. He wouldn’t be doing it, if it weren’t true and justified, would he? Ridiculous self-doubt. A more complicated operation evolved when O’Farrell disclosed the Vienna information. More planning was necessary, too, because Makarevich was a professional who took no chances, always trying to clear his trail, aware of everything around him. The rule was that the method should be left to O’Farrell, but now a shooting was ordered, because the death had to tie in with Mouhajer’s. On the street again, as Makarevich left the Hotel Angleterre, the weapon and the bullet as before: it had to appear tit-for-tat. O’Farrell had nothing to do with the anonymous telephone call to the hotel, supposedly from the PLO, talking of revenge. Or the planted stories in the CIA-controlled media—not in America, but in Italy and France itself—which were picked up and reported in the rest of the world’s press, recounting a supposed feud between Moscow and the PLO. In fact, a rift actually did develop, because neither believed the other’s denial of involvement in the two killings.

A Hermes scarf on this occasion for Jill, another nationally dressed doll for Ellen, a penknife for John.

Is Paris prettier than Vienna, darling?

I think so.

I’d like to see that, too.

One day we’ll go.

They never had, though. Would he ever bring her here to London? O’Farrell wondered, as the airport bus left the motorway to become clogged in the morning rush-hour traffic. He doubted it. The decision to avoid all the operational places had been unconscious, until now. He never wanted to return anywhere he’d worked professionally, never wanted to be reminded by a street he’d walked, a building he’d passed, a restaurant where he’d eaten. Alone.

He was alone now. Had to be. The unseen, never-there man. Coming into the city by bus was the necessary initial move, mingling with a crowd and not risking a taxi. From the city terminal, garment bag in hand, he walked three streets before hailing one, changing transport this time because a person boarding a town bus with a suitcase is remembered. He paid the cab off in Courtfield Road and waited until it disappeared into Earls Court before setting out again to lose himself, crossing the Cromwell Road in the direction of Kensington but soon stopping short, locating the ideal guest house just past Cottesmore Gardens. The owner was a thin-faced, weak-eyed man who greeted O’Farrell in shirt sleeves and offered him the choice of a front or back room. O’Farrell chose the back and paid in cash for three nights, saying that he was on an economy vacation and would be going north, to Edinburgh, by the middle of the week. He was asked to enter his own registration, in an exercise-book type ledger. He used the name Bernard Hepplewhite, the First of the four aliases that had been decided upon, and said he would not be needing any food, not even breakfast.

The room was basic but clean and the bed linen fresh, for which he was grateful; it was always necessary to use anonymous places like this, and sometimes they’d been dirty.

It had, of course, been an overnight flight—from New York, not Washington, a further security detour—and O’Farrell had not slept at all. He attempted to now. Tired, overly fatigued people made mistakes he couldn’t make … O’Farrell lay wide-eyed for an hour and then reluctantly took the prescribed pill, which gave him relief for four hours. He awoke just after midday, clog-eyed and dry-mouthed and unrested. Water, that’s all; all he’d take was water. Didn’t need anything else. A lot to do. Not Rivera yet, though. One of those first lessons: Think backward, not forward. Plan escape routes before looking the other way.

He ignored the bars and restaurants and hotels on Kensington High Street and others in Kensington Church Street and Earls Court Road, noting instead the name of a boardinghouse in Holland Street and another in Queen’s Gate Terrace. He found an unvandalized telephone booth back on Kensington High Street from which he called both boardinghouses, setting up consecutive reservations for when he left Courtfield Road. Always move on; never remain long enough to be remembered afterward.

O’Farrell used a map of the London underground to cross the city and locate another boardinghouse in Marylebone—in Crossmore Road—and a fifth, a small commercial hotel, two miles to the west off Warwick Road. It was more difficult this time to find a telephone box that worked but he managed it at last, in Porteus Road, and made three-night reservations to continue from those he’d already secured in Kensington.

By 5:30 he felt exhausted, heavy-eyed and heavy-limbed, aching everywhere. And thirsty; very thirsty. Carefully he chose an unlicensed coffee bar, where the actual coffee was disgusting, and ate chicken coated in a gluti-nously cold sauce and papier-mâché peas.

Completely drained as O’Farrell was, he still had to observe other professional necessities before he went back to Courtfield Road, but it was a halfhearted performance for the watchers he knew would be in place.

He walked to Marble Arch underground station, several times using doorway reflections and crossing streets abruptly to check for pursuit. He passed by one entrance to the subway and turned into Oxford Street before darting sideways to enter the system. O’Farrell remained on the Central line for only two stops, getting off at Oxford Circus to pick up the Victoria line but going north instead of south. Too tired and disinterested to do anything else, he caught a cruising taxi at Euston and rode it all the way to Gloucester Road. So tired was he that he was aware of his feet scuffing, too heavy to lift into a definite step. Didn’t matter how tired he was. Not yet. Not even reconnaissance at this stage. Basic groundwork, that’s all. Which he still had to complete. Plenty of time tomorrow. The day after that, if it were necessary. No hurry, no panic. Always wrong to hurry and panic. Dangerous.

The weak-eyed man was still in his shirt sleeves when O’Farrell pulled himself up the worn steps of the board-inghouse, nodding at him but not smiling.

“Too late for dinner,” he challenged at once.

“I said I didn’t want to eat,” O’Farrell reminded him.

“There’s the bar, though; not really a bar. You tell me what you want, and I get it for you and bring it into the lounge.” He nodded toward a closed door to his right. “It’s very comfortable. There’s television.”

O’Farrell clenched his hands again. “No, thank you,” he said. “Nothing.”

“Seen all you wanted to, the first day?”

“I think so,” O’Farrell said.

“This is a shitty job. You ever think what a shitty job this is?” The driver’s name was Wentworth. He was bulged from junk food and sitting around, the necessities of a watcher’s life.

“All the time,” Connors agreed. The observer was a music enthusiast; the personal stereo and earphones were in his lap now, the Tchaikovsky tape twice exhausted. He disconsolately lifted and then dropped the stereo in his lap and said, “I can’t believe I forgot the other fucking tapes!”

“You think he’s in for the night?”

“How the fuck do I know!” demanded the observer. “It’s only nine.”

“So we gotta wait?”

“ ’Course we gotta wait.”

“What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About how he’s behaved so far, that’s about what!” Wentworth said. “What else do you think I mean, for Christ’s sake!”

Connors considered the question. Then he said, “By the book. Everything he should have done so far.”

“Didn’t lose us on that runaround, did he?” There was a triumphant note in Wentworth’s voice.

“He was only going through the motions,” Connors guessed, groping around and beneath the seat yet again for the mislaid cassette carrier. “I don’t think he was really trying.”

“Would you have admitted it if he had lost us?”

“ ’Course not, asshole!” the observer said.

“We could have been suspended,” the driver said.

Connors stopped searching, grinning sideways. “Almost worth lying over, on a shitty job like this,” he agreed.

FOURTEEN

BARNEY SHEPHERD wore a baseball cap backward, with the rim covering his neck, an apron declaring “Ole King o’ the Coals” over his bermuda shorts and sweatshirt, Docksiders without socks on his large feet, and a grin of complete contentment on his smooth, round face. He stood in the expansive barbecue area to the left of the pool, surrounded by marinated ribs, ground beef patties, and more dissecting tools than an average surgeon in an average operating room, waiting for the cue from the magic man that the act had just ten more minutes to run. That would be the time to start cooking. Janie was in front of the performer, jumping up and down with the demands of a birthday girl, whooping with delight when she got the candy stick for winning whatever the game had been. Shepherd smiled and waved, but she was too absorbed in the party to notice him. Beautiful, he thought; genuinely beautiful. Blond, like Sheree, and blue eyes like her mother’s, too. Beautiful mother, beautiful daughter. He looked beyond the screaming kids, over the landscaped garden and the shrubs and trees to the silver glitter of the Pacific, and then back to encompass the sprawling California ranchhouse that he’d had built to his detailed specifications, including the Jacuzzi and the sauna and the tennis court and the four-car garage. Everything beautiful. Shepherd knew—guessed, at least—that some people thought it ostentatious but he didn’t give a damn. It was a symbol—his symbol—of achievement, and he deserved it. It was good, not having to give a damn, ever again.

The problem was keeping things that way, now mat the slump had hit Silicon Valley. Shepherd’s firm had so far ridden out the recession better than most other hi-tech companies in Santa Clara county. But he’d had to cut some corners and not ask as many questions about some orders as he should have asked. Shepherd wished he could have avoided that, because he didn’t want to risk those all-important Defense Department contracts. The shortcuts were necessary, to maintain cash flow, but it was the long-term defense stuff that mattered for the prestige of the company. And guaranteed the real heavy profits. The sort of profits that enabled him to have a house overlooking Monterey Bay, with a live-in maid and a Rolls as well as a Mercedes in the garage (Sheree had a 928 Porsche and a Golf GTI runaround) and to take time off for the cookout for Janie’s tenth birthday.

Shepherd was still looking expectantly toward the magic man, so he wasn’t immediately aware of Sheree emerging through the patio doors, salad bowl before her. He turned at the movement. So very beautiful. Except for her ass, maybe. Not as tight as it used to be; the definite suggestion of a sag, in fact. He’d have to suggest she get it lifted. Use Dr. Willick again. He’d done her tits and her eyes and her chin and made a good job of all of them.

“Good party, eh?” he said when she reached him.

“I thought I’d leave the Jell-O and the ice cream in the kitchen refrigerator rather than bring it out here yet,” she said, nodding to the cabinet set apart from the barbecue pit. An outside refrigerator had been one of Shepherd’s specifications: it meant the wine was always chilled.

“Good idea.” Definitely a sag; he’d talk to her tonight about getting it fixed.

“There’s some men to see you.”

“What?”

“Two guys.” Sheree jerked her head back toward the house. “From the government.”

“I do business at the office!” Shepherd erupted, annoyed. “Didn’t you tell them that? It’s Janie’s birthday party, for Christ’s sake!”

“I asked them if you expected them … whether they had an appointment … and they said no, but they thought you’d see them—” The woman broke off, looking toward the magician. “You see that! Janie got the dove out of the guy’s hat and it’s sitting on her arm!”

“They say who they were?” Shepherd felt a vague stir of unease.

“Uh-huh. Customs and FBI.”

For a moment Shepherd made no response, his mind refusing to function. He said, “They say what they want?”

“Look at that!” Sheree said, ignoring her husband. “The bird’s actually eating corn out of her hand now! This is going to be Janie’s best party yet!”

Shepherd forced the patience. “Did they say what they wanted?” he repeated.

She turned back to him, smiling, innocent-faced. “Just to see you. They said they didn’t think you’d mind.”

Something that he couldn’t immediately identify registered with Shepherd, and then he remembered the arranged signal in the act to tell him to start the barbecue. “Shit!” he said, “I gotta put the food on.”

“They said it was important.”

Briefly Shepherd looked between the house and the concluding magic show. “You’ll have to take over; hamburgers to the right, ribs to the left. Coals are cooler on the left, for when things cook through. Don’t forget to keep brushing the sauce on.”

He hurried across the expansive patio, threading his way between the umbrellaed furniture. He’d been careful; bloody careful. They couldn’t hang anything on him.

Two men were standing in the panoramic room, the one that extended practically the rear width of the house and looked out over the pool and the ocean beyond. They turned as he entered, one young, full-haired, the other older, balding but trying to disguise it by combing what was left forward. Both wore Californian lightweight suits and ties, and Shepherd looked down at his King Coal apron and felt foolish. Self-consciously he took it off and threw it over the nearest chair and said, “What’s this all about?”

The elder man moved, coming forward and offering his shield. “Hoover,” he said. “U.S. Customs. My colleague here is Morrison, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

The younger man offered his identification and Shepherd glanced briefly at the wallet, not knowing what he was expected to confirm. Mother of Christ! he thought, looking up again.

“We’ve been admiring your house while we waited,” said Morrison. “It’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic.”

Shepherd realized that the younger man had an eye defect, the left one skewed outward. Don’t panic, Shepherd thought; nothing to panic about. Hear them out first. He said. “Thank you. I designed most of it myself.”

“You’re a lucky man,” said the Customs investigator.

“You come here to admire my house?” Shepherd demanded. It was important to strike the balance, stay calm but not take any shit, not yet. He supposed he should suggest they sit, offer them a drink, but he did neither.

“You carry a few government contracts?” Hoover said. “High-security electronic stuff?”

“Yes,” Shepherd said cautiously.

“Your corporation is highly regarded,” Morrison said.

“I like to think so,” Shepherd replied.

“You know the reason for the COCOM regulations, Mr. Shepherd?” asked Hoover.

“To prevent restricted, dual-use hi-tech material and development going to proscribed countries, usually communist,” replied Shepherd. What the fuck was it? He kept a personal handle on orders that might be questionable and was sure there hadn’t been one.

Hoover smiled and nodded, patronizing. “And you observe the Export Controls List?”

“I keep right up to date with it,” Shepherd said.

“You know anyone named Pierre Belac?”

“No, I don’t know anyone named Pierre Belac. Should I?” They were serving shit. Who the fuck was Pierre Belac?

“No, Mr. Shepherd, you definitely shouldn’t know him,” Hoover said.

The floor-to-ceiling windows were double-glazed, so there was no sound, but Shepherd could see the kids clamoring around Sheree for food. She was looking anxiously toward the house, seeking assistance. He yelled out toward the kitchen, “Maria! Go out and help Mrs. Shepherd, will you?”

Morrison smiled in the direction of the patio. “Looks like a great party. My boy was eight, two weeks ago. Took them all to Disneyland.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Shepherd suggested. “You guys like a drink? Anything?”

Speaking for both of them, Morrison said, “Nothing.”

“Couldn’t we be a little more direct about all this?” Shepherd asked. The air-conditioning was on high and he felt cold, dressed as he was.

“Pierre Belac’s an arms dealer operating out of Brussels,” Hoover disclosed. “Very big. Gets things they shouldn’t have for people and countries who shouldn’t have them. Sneaky as hell: false passports, stuff like that. We’ve been trying to pin him for years. Come close but never close enough.”

“What’s this got to do with me?” He was clear, Shepherd thought hopefully. There was nothing in his books or records connected with anyone called Pierre Belac.

“You make the VAX 11/78?” Morrison said. “Your biggest defense contract at the moment, in fact?”

“You know I do.”

“What would you say if I told you that Pierre Belac, a leading illegal arms dealer, was buying a VAX 11/78 from your corporation to supply a communist regime?” Morrison demanded.

Shepherd actually started up from his chair but was scarcely conscious of doing so, eyes bulging with anger. “Bullshit!” he said vehemently. “I keep a handle on everything that goes on in my company—” He broke off, stabbing his own chest with his forefinger. “Me! Personally! And particularly defense contracts. I don’t deal with companies I don’t know, and I don’t deal with mysterious intermediaries. Your contract buyers know that, for Christ’s sake! That’s why I am a government supplier!”

Both men stared, unmoved by the outrage. Hoover said, “You familiar with a Swedish company called Epetric?”

“Yes,” he said. He was dry-throated and the confirmation came out badly, as if he had something to hide. Slowly he sat back in his chair.

Hoover stood up, however, coming over to him with a briefcase Shepherd had not noticed until that moment. From it the Customs investigator took a duplicate order sheet. Shepherd looked, although it was not necessary.

“A confirmed and acknowledged order for a VAX 11/78, from Epetric, Inc. of Stockholm,” Hoover said, even more unnecessarily. “That is your signature, isn’t it, Mr. Shepherd?”

“Epetric is a bona fide company, incorporated in Sweden,” Shepherd said, with pedantic formality. “There is no legal restriction against my doing business with such a company: Sweden, incidentally, is not one of the countries that are signatory to the agreement observed by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. My contract is with Epetric, not with anyone named Pierre Belac.”

A silence developed in the room as chilling as the air-conditioning, and Shepherd wondered if they expected him to say more. He couldn’t, because there was nothing more to say. How deeply had they already investigated him? He’d tried to calculate how many deals he’d taken to the very edge, and perhaps sometimes over it. Enough, he knew. More than enough to be struck off the Pentagon list. But at the moment he was still ahead. Which is where he had to stay.

“We know that Pierre Belac placed that Epetric order through a shell company in Switzerland,” Hoover said.

“Your advantage, not mine,” Shepherd said. “My dealings thus far are absolutely and completely legitimate. This evidence? You could make it available to me?”

“You want proof?”

The resolution would be very simple, Shepherd realized, the relief flooding through him. He said. “My lawyers will, because inevitably there will be a breach-of-contract suit.”

Hoover frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow here.”

Shepherd said, “I don’t really see that we have a problem. No problem at all. The Epetric order is less than a third filled. I’ll throw it back at them tomorrow, and that will be the end of it.”

“The kids are in the pool,” Morrison said. “Is it heated?”

Shepherd glanced through the window, then hack at the Bureau agent, frowning. “Of course it’s heated.”

“Great house,” Morrison said, echoing his initial admiration.

“What the hell’s going on!” Shepherd demanded. Easy! he warned himself. Take it easv!

“We’ve taken legal advice on what we’ve got,” Hoover said. “If we presented the evidence before a grand jury, we’d get an indictment against you and your company for conspiring to evade the requirements of the Export Administration Act, as amended.”

“Wait a minute!” said Shepherd. “Now just wait a goddamned minute! That’s bullshit and you know it. You’d never get a conviction in any court, not in a million years. And I’d fight you every inch of the way.”

“But that’s not how it works, is it, Mr. Shepherd?” said Morrison, with that infuriating mildness. “A grand jury isn’t a court. It’s an examination of evidence to see if there’s a case to answer, leading to an indictment. Which, as I say, our legal people feel confident we’d get. Only then do we actually get to court. Where, probably, you’d be acquitted.”

Shepherd felt numb from trying to comprehend the riddles this bastard was weaving. “I don’t understand,” he confessed desperately.

“You’d have been named in the indictment,” Hoover pointed out. “There’d be a loss of confidence, among suppliers, customers … customers like the Pentagon …” The man smiled invitingly. “Can’t take any chances with our national security, can we?”

“Guilt by association, even if I’m ultimately found innocent of every accusation and charge.” Shepherd grasped the argument at last. A steady guaranteed flow of Pentagon orders bringing in a steady, guaranteed flow of profits, he thought, profits that provided Maria and bought the Rolls and the Mercedes and the Porsche and the pool with its Jacuzzi—the pool in which he could see Janie and the kids playing, right now—and an uninterrupted view of Monterey Bay.

“Ever hear the expression ‘shit sticks,’ Mr. Shepherd?” asked Morrison.

“Yes,” Shepherd said. “I’ve heard it.”

“Fact of life. Unfair fact of life.”

“I think you’d better tell me what you want,” Shepherd said. Were they trying to shake him down? He’d have to be careful. Maybe it was an entrapment. He’d demand time to consider or to raise the money and talk it through with his lawyer. What if it wasn’t an entrapment, just a simple case of bribery? Of course he’d pay. Whatever they wanted would be cheap, to avoid losing everything he had. It was easy to see now why there had been all that crap about the house and the pool. No point in fucking around. He said, “So okay, let’s get down to the bottom line. How—”

“We want Belac,” Morrison said.

Shepherd had just—only just—pulled back from the lip of the precipice, but felt as if he might still be in danger of toppling over. “Want Belac?” he managed, with difficulty.

“Here, in the United States of America,” Hoover said. “Where we can arrest him and arraign him on grand-jury indictments we’ve already got. Belac’s a wanted man.”

Shepherd strove to keep up, seeing the tightrope stretched in front of him. the tightrope he had to balance on, cooperating with these guys but keeping them very firmly away from anything they shouldn’t see. “What do you want me to do?”

The two men exchanged glances. Morrison said, “Bring him to us.”

“How can I possibly do that!”

“Don’t actually refuse to complete the VAX order—although you won’t send anything more, of course,” Morrison said. “Tell Epetric you’re not satisfied with the End-User Certificate or the bills of lading for ultimate destination. Whatever.”

“And they’ll send their own man,” Shepherd argued. “Or deal with it by letter.”

“No, they won’t.” Hoover smiled. “The Swedish authorities have had just the sort of conversation we’re having here with all the directors of Epetric. They’re willing to cooperate, just like you.”

They were assholes, both of them, thought Shepherd. He said, “This man, Belac, he’ll never fall for it.”

“He’s got an important customer to supply; we know it’s a big order,” Morrison said. “We think it’s worth a shot.”

Time for him to bargain. Shepherd decided. “So what if I get him here? What about all that”—he almost said crap but decided against it at the last minute—“talk of a grand jury?” He had to avoid that at any cost.

“We were just setting out all the possibilities,” Morrison said easily. “If we get Belac, then publicly you’ll be the loyal American who did his duty, and everyone will admire you.”

Patronizing bastard, Shepherd thought. He said, “Fuck the public. What about the Defense Department?”

“Customs will make sure the Pentagon knows the contribution you made,” Hoover said.

“So will the Bureau,” Morrison said.

“Not enough,” Shepherd said. This was a two-way deal, despite all the macho talk. “What if Belac doesn’t jump as you expect?”

Hoover shrugged. “So the shot didn’t work.”

“But you can still move against me, to get Belac named on another indictment in his absence,” Shepherd said astutely. “So you’ve still got something and I’ve got nothing.” He thought he caught a nod of apparent admiration from Morrison but wasn’t sure.

“What do you want, Mr. Shepherd?” Morrison asked.

“A legal document dated before my notification to Sweden. deposited with my lawyer, setting out what I am doing.”

“Very cautious.” Hoover smiled.

“Very necessary,” Shepherd said. He accepted a card with a San Francisco address that Morrison offered and put it in the pocket of his shorts. He said, “It wasn’t necessary, you know. All those heavy-duty threats. I’d have cooperated from the beginning if you’d told me then what it was all about.”

“We just wanted to set out the options,” Morrison said. “Be sure ourselves.”

So they did suspect him. Shepherd said, “I’m glad you are now.”

“This time we’re going to get Pierre Belac,” Hoover said, with quiet confidence.

The two men had reached Route 208, on their way back to San Francisco, before Hoover spoke. He said, “What do you think?”

“About Shepherd? He’s dirty,” Morrison said. “Dirty and worried.”

“But about Belac?”

“Maybe not. I think the surprise was genuine there.”

“What do you think we should do?”

The other man was quiet for several moments. Then he said, “Let this run, see how it works out. We can pick up Shepherd anytime. He’s not going anywhere from that awful house.”

O’Farrell used public transport, buses and the underground trains, to crisscross London. He needed small garage businesses with just a few rental cars—and those cars not current models—instead of the big agencies like Hertz or Avis or Budget with access to international computer links that could run checks at the touch of a few terminal keys. Not that the credit cards or driver’s licenses he was using would have thrown up any problems: all the aliases were supported through a carefully established set of addresses in Delaware, that discreet American state most favored by the CIA for its secrecy codes, which practically matched those of any offshore tax haven.

He traveled north from Kennington to Camden and westward from there to Acton only to backtrack eastward to Whitechapel, seeking out the sidestreet hirers. From each he received matching agreements that they’d take the credit-card imprint as a guarantee of the vehicle’s return, but the Final settlement would have to be fully in cash, which meant they had a tax-free, no-record transaction and he could destroy the credit-card slips. Further, habitual protectiveness.

The Kennington car was a three-year-old Vauxhall. O’Farrell guessed the odometer had been wound completely back at least once and possibly twice. It was misfiring on one cylinder, and the unbalanced wheels juddered at anything over forty-five miles an hour. There was rust in the rear fender and the tire treads were only just legally permissible. O’Farrell regarded it as completely anonymous and therefore perfect.

He approached Rivera’s Hampstead home from a mile to the north and drove by without slowing or paying any obvious attention, reserving the more detailed surveillance until later and merely noting as he passed that the house front was near the road, shielded only by a moderately high wall and ornate double gates. He clocked at twenty-five minutes the distance to the High Holborn embassy, but knew there would be differences depending upon times and traffic congestion. He did not pause at High Holborn, either. It took longer, another fifteen minutes, to reach the Pimlico home of the Cuban’s mistress, and again he drove by. But in Chelsea O’Farrell stopped, deciding it was necessary to record the timings. He found a pub on the Embankment, overlooking the Thames, and carried the gin and tonic outside; it was warm and pleasant to sit on the bench, although he could not actually see the water because of the river wall. Both sides of the road were marked with double yellow lines, which meant parking was illegal; a car did stop with one man who remained at the wheel, and O’Farrell watched it without apparently doing so until a girl emerged from a house farther up the road, was enthusiastically kissed, and then driven away in the direction of the city. There were five metered parking bays, all occupied but every vehicle empty. The only other occupant of the river-bordering benches was a tramp absorbed by the unseen contents of a Safeways carrier bag. He was on his own, O’Farrell decided.

He’d seen the double measure put into his glass from the approved jigger used in English pubs, but it seemed weak, and then O’Farrell reflected that they often did these days in American bars, too. The only way to get a decent drink seemed to be to make it himself. Not that he intended taking a bottle to Courtfield Road or any other of the boardinghouses. No booze yesterday, he remembered proudly. He wouldn’t have more than one or two drinks today.

He entered the times into his pocketbook but without any designation of what they represented so they would be meaningless to anyone but himself. He had a second drink—considering and then rejecting the idea of eating—and then a third because it was still comparatively early and it was pleasant, sitting in the sun. So he had a fourth. It was then that he was sure he spotted the watchers monitoring him—two men in a Ford that had gone three times along the same stretch of the Embankment. Fuck them, he thought belligerently.

It took O’Farrell an hour and fifteen minutes to reach the Windsor ground where Rivera customarily played polo, which was out of season just now, and even longer to get back into London, because by then the evening rush hour was at its height. He decided to utilize it, going to the embassy again and then stopwatching himself back up to Hampstead and the ambassador’s residence on Christ-church Hill. The journey took an extra ten minutes.

It was more difficult than the previous night for O’Farrell to find an unlicensed restaurant, but he did, and decided the search had been worthwhile because the food was better. He’d parked the car away from Courtfield Road, of course. He didn’t want the boardinghouse owner, whose shirt that morning had been the same as the previous day, to make any connection between himself and the vehicle. Walking back from the restaurant, O’Farrell passed two hotels and three pubs and studiously ignored every one. Made it, he thought, in his room; knew I could make it.

Connors and Wentworth, who’d drawn the dogwatch again, slumped in their observation car outside. Connors had located his cassette case and was happier than the previous night, the Walkman loose against his head.

“You like Mahler?” he asked the other man.

“Gotta tin ear,” Wentworth said. “What do you think of today?” They’d picked up a full report from the day team.

“Careful guy,” Connors said. “Covering all the angles.”

Two hundred yards away, sleepless in his darkened room, O’Farrell forced himself to confront the awareness he had been avoiding throughout the day. It hadn’t been necessary to cover the routes as thoroughly as he had, filling up the entire day, certainly not to drive all the way out to Windsor and back again.

He was putting it off, O’Farrell knew, putting off what he had to do.