Six Days of the Condor

Chapter 12

“It was like shooting birds in a cage.” The three men sipped their coffee. Powell looked at the smiling old man and Dr. Lofts. “Maronick didn’t stand a chance.”

The old man looked at the doctor. “Do you have any explanation for Malcolm’s actions?”

The large man considered his answer, then said, “Without having talked to him at great length, no. Given his experiences of the last few days, especially the deaths of his friends and his belief that the girl was dead, his upbringing, training, and the general situation he found himself in, to say nothing of the drug’s possible effect, I think his reaction was logical.”

Powell nodded. He turned to his superior and said, “How’s Atwood?”

“Oh, he will live, for a while at least. I always wondered about his oafishness. He did too well to be the idiot he played. He can be replaced. How are we handling Maronick’s death?”

Powell grinned. “Very carefully. The police don’t like it, but we’ve pressured them into accepting the idea that the Capitol Hill Killer committed suicide in the men’s room of National Airport. Of course, we had to bribe the janitor to forget what he saw. No real problems, however.”

A phone by the old man’s elbow rang. He listened for a few moments, then hung up. He pushed the button next to the phone and the door opened.

Malcolm was coming down from the drug. He had spent three hours bordering on hysteria, and during that time he had talked continually. Powell, Dr. Lofts, and the old man heard six days compressed into three hours. They told him Wendy was alive after he finished, and when they took him to see her he was dazed by exhaustion. He stared at the peacefully sleeping form in the bright, antiseptic room and seemed not to be aware of the nurse standing beside him. “Everything will be fine.” She said it twice but got no reaction. All Malcolm could see of Wendy was a small head swathed in bandages and a sheet-covered form connected by wires and plastic tubing to a complicated machine. “My God,” he whispered with mixed relief and regret, “my God.” They let him stand there in silence for several minutes before they sent him out to be cleaned up. Now he had on clothes from his apartment, but he looked strange even in them.

“Ah, Malcolm, dear boy, sit down. We won’t keep you long.” The old man was at his charming best, but he failed to affect Malcolm.

“Now, we don’t want you to worry about a thing. Everything is taken care of. After you’ve had a nice long rest, we want you to come back and talk to us. You will do that, won’t you, my boy?”

Malcolm slowly looked at the three men. To them his voice seemed very old, very tired. To him it seemed new. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

The old man smiled, patted him on the back, and, mumbling platitudes, led him to the door. When he returned to his seat, Powell looked at him and said, “Well, sir, that’s the end of our Condor.”

The old man’s eyes twinkled. “Don’t be so sure, Kevin, my boy, don’t be so sure.”