Six Days of the Condor

Chapter 4

“I don’t believe you.” The girl sat on the couch, her eyes glued to Malcolm. She was not as frightened as she had been, but her heart felt as if it was breaking ribs.

Malcolm sighed. He had been sitting across from the girl for an hour. From what he found in her purse, he knew she was Wendy Ross, twenty-seven years old, had lived and driven in Carbondale, Illinois, distributed 135 pounds on her five-foot-ten frame (he was sure that was an overestimated lie), regularly gave Type O Positive blood to the Red Cross, was a card-carrying user of the Alexandria Public Library and a member of the University of Southern Illinois Alumni Association, and was certified to receive and deliver summonses for her employers, Bechtel, Barber, Sievers, Holloron, and Muckleston. From what he read on her face, he knew she was frightened and telling the truth when she said she didn’t believe him. Malcolm didn’t blame her, as he really didn’t believe his story either, and he knew it was true.

“Look,” he said, “if what I said wasn’t true, why would I try to convince you it was?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Malcolm paced the room. He could tie her up and still use her place, but that was risky. Besides, she could be invaluable. He had an inspiration in the middle of a sneeze.

“Look,” he said, wiping his upper lip, “suppose I could at least prove to you I was with the CIA. Then would you believe me?”

“I might.” A new look crossed the girl’s face.

“OK, look at this.” Malcolm sat down beside her. He felt her body tense, but she took the mutilated piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“It’s my CIA identification card. See, that’s me with long hair.”

Her voice was cold. “It says Tentrex Industries, not CIA. I can read, you know.” He could see she regretted her inflection after she said it, but she didn’t apologize.

“I know what it says!” Malcolm grew more impatient and nervous. His plan might not work. “Do you have a D.C. phone book?”

The girl nodded toward an end table. Malcolm crossed the room, picked up the huge book, and flung it at the girl. Her reactions were so keyed she caught it without any trouble. Malcolm shouted at her, “Look in there for Tentrex Industries. Anywhere! White pages, yellow pages, anywhere. The card gives a phone number and an address on Wisconsin Avenue, so it should be in the book. Look!”

The girl looked, then she looked again. She closed the book and stared at Malcolm. “So you’ve got an ID card for a place that doesn’t exist. What does that prove?

“Right!” Malcolm crossed the room excitedly, bringing the phone with him. The cord barely reached. “Now,” he said, very secretively, “look up the Washington number for the Central Intelligence Agency. The numbers are the same.”

The girl opened the book again and turned the pages. For a long time she sat puzzled, then with a new look and a questioning voice she said, “Maybe you checked this out before you made the card, just for times like this.”

Shit, thought Malcolm. He let all the air out of his lungs, took a deep breath, and started again. “OK, maybe I did, but there’s one way to find out. Call that number.”

“It’s after five,” said the girl. “If no one answers am I supposed to believe you until morning?”

Patiently, calmly, Malcolm explained to her. “You’re right. If Tentrex is a real company, it’s closed for the day. But CIA doesn’t close. Call that number and ask for Tentrex.” He handed her the phone. “One thing. I’ll be listening, so don’t do anything wrong. Hang up when I tell you.”

The girl nodded and made the call. Three rings.

“WE4–3926.”

“May I have Tentrex Industries, please?” The girl’s voice was very dry.

“I’m sorry,” said a soft voice. A faint click came over the line. “Everyone at Tentrex has gone for the day. They’ll be back in the morning. May I ask who is calling and what the nature of your business…”

Malcolm broke the connection before the trace had a chance to even get a general fix. The girl slowly replaced the receiver. For the first time she looked directly at Malcolm. “I don’t know if I believe everything you say,” she said, “but I think I believe some of it.”

“One final piece of proof.” Malcolm took the gun out of his pants and laid it carefully in her lap. He walked across the room and sat in the beanbag chair. His palms were damp, but it was better to take the risk now than later. “You’ve got the gun. You could shoot me at least once before I got to you. There’s the phone. I believe in you enough to think you believe me. Call anybody you want. Police, CIA, FBI, I don’t care. Tell them you’ve got me. But I want you to know what might happen if you do. The wrong people might get the call. They might get here first. If they do, we’re both dead.”

For a long time the girl sat still, looking at the heavy gun in her lap. Then, in a soft voice Malcolm had to strain to hear, she said, “I believe you.”

She suddenly burst into activity. She stood up, laid the gun on the table and paced the room. “I… I don’t know what I can do to help you, but I’ll try. You can stay here in the extra bedroom. Umm.” She looked toward the small kitchen and meekly said, “I could make something to eat.”

Malcolm grinned, a genuine smile he thought he had lost. “That would be wonderful. Could you do one thing for me?”

“Anything, anything, I’ll do anything.” Wendy’s nerves unwound as she realized she might live.

“Could I use your shower? The hair down my back is killing me.”

She grinned at him and they both laughed. She showed him the bathroom upstairs and provided him with soap, shampoo, and towels. She didn’t say a word when he took the gun with him. As soon as she left him he tiptoed to the top of the stairs. No sound of a door opening, no telephone dialing. When he heard drawers opening and closing, silverware rattling, he went back to the bathroom, undressed, and climbed into the shower.

Malcolm stayed in the shower for thirty minutes, letting the soft pellets of water drive freshness through his body. The steam cleared his sinuses, and by the time he shut off the water he felt almost human. He changed into his new pullover and fresh underwear. He automatically looked in the mirror to straighten his hair. It was so short he did it with two strokes of his hand.

The stereo was playing as he came down the stairs. He recognized the album as Vince Guaraldi’s score for Black Orpheus. The song was “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” He had the album too, and told her so as they sat down to eat.

During green salad she told Malcolm about small-town life in Illinois. Between bites of frozen German beans he heard about life at Southern Illinois University. Mashed potatoes were mixed with a story concerning an almost fiancé. Between chunks of the jiffy-cooked Swiss steak he learned how drab it is to be a legal secretary for a stodgy corporate law firm in Washington. There was a lull for Sara Lee cherry covered cheesecake. As she poured coffee she summed it all up with, “It’s really been pretty dull. Up till now, of course.”

During dishes he told her why he hated his first name. She promised never to use it. She threw a handful of suds at him, but quickly wiped them off.

After dishes he said good night and trudged up the stairs to the bathroom. He put his contact lenses in his portable carrying case (what I wouldn’t give for my glasses and soaking case, he thought). He brushed his teeth, crossed the hall to a freshly made bed, stuck a precautionary handkerchief under his pillow, laid the gun on the night stand, and went to sleep.

She came to him shortly after midnight. At first he thought he was dreaming, but her heavy breathing and the heat from her body were too real. His first fully awake thought noted that she had just showered. He could faintly smell bath powder mingling with the sweet odor of sex. He rolled on his side, pulling her eager body against him. They found each other’s mouth. Her tongue pushed through his lips, searching. She was tremendously excited. He had a hard time untangling himself from her arms so he could strip off his underwear. By now their faces were wet from each other. Naked at last, he rolled her over on her back, pulling his hand slowly up the inside of her thigh, delicately trailing his fingers across rhythmically flowing hips, up across her flat, heaving stomach to her large, erect nipples. His fingers closed on one small breast, easily gathering the mound of flesh into his hand. From out of nowhere he thought of the girl who walked past the Society’s building: she had such fine, large breasts. He softly squeezed his hand. Wendy groaned loudly and pulled his head to her chest, his lips to her straining nipples. As his mouth slowly caressed her breasts, he ran his hand down, down to the wet fire between her legs. When he touched her she sucked in air, softly but firmly arching her back. She found him, and a second later softly moaned, “Now, please now!” He mounted her, clumsily as first-time lovers do. They pressed together. She tried to cover every inch of her body with him. His hard thrusts spread fire through her body. She ran her hands down his back, and just before they exploded he felt her fingernails digging into his buttocks, pulling him ever deeper.

They lay quietly together for half an hour, then they began again, slowly and more carefully, but with a greater intensity. Afterwards, as she lay cradled on his chest, she spoke. “You don’t have to love me. I don’t love you, I don’t think so anyway. But I want you, and I need you.”

Malcolm said nothing, but he drew her closer. They slept.

Other people didn’t get to bed that night. When Langley heard the reports of the Weatherby shooting, already frazzled nerves frazzled more. Crash cars full of very determined men beat the ambulance to the alley. Washington police complained to their superiors about “unidentified men claiming to be federal officers” questioning witnesses. A clash between two branches of government was averted by the entrance of a third. Three more official-looking cars pulled into the neighborhood. Two very serious men in pressed white shirts and dark suits pushed their way through the milling crowd to inform commanders of the other departments that the FBI was now officially in charge. The “unidentified federal officers” and the Washington police checked with their headquarters and both were told not to push the issue.

The FBI entered the case when the powers-that-were adopted a working assumption of espionage. The National Security Act of 1947 states, “The agency [CIA] shall have no police, subpoena, law-enforcement powers, or internal security functions.” The events of the day most definitely fell under the heading of internal subversive activities, activities that are the domain of the FBI. Mitchell held off informing the sister agency of details for as long as he dared, but eventually a deputy director yielded to pressure.

But the CIA would not be denied the right to investigate assaults on its agents, no matter where the assaults occurred. The Agency has a loophole through which many questionable activities funnel. The loophole, Section 5 of the Act, allows the Agency to perform “such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.” The Act also grants the Agency the power to question people inside the country. The directors of the Agency concluded that the extreme nature of the situation warranted direct action by the Agency. This action could and would continue until halted by a direct order from the National Security Council. In a very polite but pointed note they so informed the FBI, thanking them, of course, for their cooperation and expressing gratitude for any future help.

The Washington police were left with one corpse and a gunshot victim who had disappeared to an undisclosed hospital in Virginia, condition serious, prognosis uncertain. They were not pleased or placated by assurances from various federal officers, but they were unable to pursue “their” case.

The jurisdictional mishmash tended to work itself out in the field, where departmental rivalry meant very little compared to dead men. The agents in charge of operations for each department agreed to coordinate their efforts. By evening one of the most extensive man hunts in Washington’s history began to unfold, with Malcolm as the object of activity. By morning the hunters had turned up a good deal, but they had no clues to Malcolm’s whereabouts.

This did little to brighten a bleak morning after for the men who sat around a table in a central Washington office. Most of them had been up until very late the night before, and most of them were far from happy. The liaison group included all of the CIA deputy directors and representatives from every intelligence group in the country. The man at the head of the table was the deputy director in charge of Intelligence Division. Since the crisis occurred in his division, he had been placed in charge of the investigation. He summed up the facts for the grim men he faced.

“Eight Agency people dead, one wounded, and one, a probable double, missing. Again, we have only a tentative — and I must say doubtful — explanation of why.”

“What makes you think the note the killers left is a fake?” The man who spoke wore the uniform of the United States Navy.

The Deputy Director sighed. The Captain always had to have things repeated. “We’re not saying it’s a fake, we only think so. We think it’s a ruse, an attempt to blame the Czechs for the killings. Sure, we hit one of their bases in Prague, but for tangible, valuable intelligence. We only killed one man. Now, they go in for many things, but melodramatic revenge isn’t one of them. Nor is leaving notes on the scene neatly explaining everything. Especially when it gains them nothing. Nothing.”

“Ah, may I ask a question or two, Deputy?”

The Deputy leaned forward, immediately intent. “Of course, sir.”

“Thank you.” The man who spoke was small and delicately old. To strangers he inevitably appeared to be a kindly old uncle with a twinkle in his eye. “Just to refresh my memory — stop me if I’m wrong — the one in the apartment, Heidegger, had sodium pentothal in his blood?”

“That’s correct, sir.” The Deputy strained, trying to remember if he had forgotten any detail in the briefing.

“Yet none of the others were ‘questioned,’ as far as we can tell. Very strange. They came for him in the night, before the others. Killed shortly before dawn. Yet your investigation puts our boy Malcolm at his apartment that afternoon after Weatherby was shot. You say there is nothing to indicate Heidegger was a double agent? No expenditures beyond his income, no signs of outside wealth, no reported tainted contacts, no blackmail vulnerability?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Any signs of mental instability?” CIA personnel are among the highest groups in the nation for incidence of mental illness.

“None, sir. Excepting his former alcoholism, he appeared to be normal, though somewhat reclusive.”

“Yes, so I read. Investigation of the others reveal anything out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Would you do me a favor and read what Weatherby said to the doctors? By the way, how is he?”

“He’s doing better, sir. The doctors say he’ll live, but they are taking his leg off this morning.” The Deputy shuffled papers until he found the one he sought. “Here it is. Now, you must remember he has been unconscious most of the time, but once he woke up, looked at the doctors, and said, ‘Malcolm shot me. He shot both of us. Get him, hit him.’”

There was a stir at the end of the table and the Navy captain leaned forward in his chair. In his heavy, slurred voice he said, “I say we find that son of a bitch and blast him out of whatever rat hole he ran into!”

The old man chuckled. “Yes. Well, I quite agree we must find our wayward Condor. But I do think it would be a pity if we ‘blasted’ him before he told us why he shot poor Weatherby. Indeed, why anybody was shot. Do you have anything else for us, Deputy?”

“No, sir,” said the Deputy, stuffing papers into his briefcase. “I think we’ve covered everything. You have all the information we do. Thank you all for coming.”

As the men stood to leave, the old man turned to a colleague and said quietly, “I wonder why.” Then with a smile and a shake of his head he left the room.

Malcolm woke up only when Wendy’s caresses became impossible for even a sick man to ignore. Her hands and mouth moved all over his body, and almost before he knew what was happening she mounted him and again he felt her fluttering warmth turn to fire. Afterwards, she looked at him for a long time, lightly touching his body as if exploring an unseen land. She touched his forehead and frowned.

“Malcolm, do you feel OK?”

Malcolm had no intention of being brave. He shook his head and forced a raspy “No” from his throat. The one word seemed to fuel the hot vise closing around his throat. Talking was out for the day.

“You’re sick!” Wendy grabbed his lower jaw. “Let me see!” she ordered, and forced his mouth open. “My God, it’s red down there!” She let go of Malcolm and started to climb out of bed. “I’m going to call a doctor.”

Malcolm caught her arm. She turned to him with a fearful look, then smiled. “It’s OK. I have a friend whose husband is a doctor. He drives by here every day on his way to a clinic in D.C. I don’t think he’s left yet. If he hasn’t, I’ll ask him to stop by to see my sick friend.” She giggled. “You don’t have to worry. He won’t tell a soul because he’ll think he’s keeping another kind of secret. OK?”

Malcolm looked at her for a second, then let go of her arm and nodded. He didn’t care if the doctor brought Sparrow IV’s friend with him. All he wanted was relief.

The doctor turned out to be a paunchy middle-aged man who spoke little. He poked and prodded Malcolm, took his temperature, and looked down his throat so long Malcolm thought he would throw up. The doctor finally looked up and said, “You’ve got a mild case of strep throat, my boy.” He looked at an anxious Wendy hovering nearby. “Nothing to worry about, really. We’ll fix him up.” Malcolm watched the doctor fiddle with something in his bag. When he turned toward Malcolm there was a hypodermic needle in his hand. “Roll over and pull your shorts down.”

A picture of a limp, cold arm with a tiny puncture flashed through Malcolm’s mind. He froze.

“For Christ’s sake, it won’t hurt that much. It’s only penicillin.”

After giving Malcolm his shot, the doctor turned to Wendy. “Here,” he said, handing her a slip of paper. “Get this filled and see that he takes them. He’ll need at least a day’s rest.” The doctor smiled as he leaned close to Wendy. He whispered, “And Wendy, I do mean total rest.” He laughed all the way to the door. On the porch, he turned to her and slyly said, “Whom do I bill?”

Wendy smiled shyly and handed him twenty dollars. The doctor started to speak, but Wendy cut his protest short. “He can afford it. He — we — really appreciate you coming over.”

“Hmph,” snorted the doctor sarcastically, “he should. I’m late for my coffee break.” He paused to look at her. “You know, he’s the kind of prescription I’ve thought you needed for a long time.” With a wave of his hand he was gone.

By the time Wendy got upstairs, Malcolm was asleep. She quietly left the apartment. She spent the morning shopping with the list Malcolm and she had composed while waiting for the doctor. Besides filling the prescription, she bought Malcolm several pairs of underwear, socks, some shirts and pants, a jacket, and four different paperbacks, since she didn’t know what he liked to read. She carted her bundles home in time to make lunch. She spent a quiet afternoon and evening, occasionally checking on her charge. She smiled all day long.

Supervision of America’s large and sometimes cumbersome intelligence community has classically posed the problem of sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes: who guards the guardians? In addition to the internal checks existing independently in each agency, the National Security Act of 1947 created the National Security Council, a group whose composition varies with each change of presidential administration. The Council always includes the President and Vice-President and usually includes major cabinet members. The Council’s basic duty is to oversee the activities of the intelligence agencies and to make policy decisions guiding those activities.

But the members of the National Security Council are very busy men with demanding duties besides overseeing a huge intelligence network. Council members by and large do not have the time to devote to intelligence matters, so most decisions about the intelligence community are made by a smaller Council “subcommittee” known as the Special Group. Insiders often refer to the Special Group as the “54/12 Group,” so called because it was created by Secret Order 54/12 early in the Eisenhower years. The 54/12 Group is virtually unknown outside the intelligence community, and even there only a handful of men are aware of its existence.

Composition of the 54/12 Group also varies with each administration. Its membership generally includes the director of the CIA, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs or his deputy, and the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense. In the Kennedy and early Johnson administrations the presidential representative and key man on the 54/12 Group was McGeorge Bundy. The other members were McCone, McNamara, Roswell Gilpatric (Deputy Secretary of Defense), and U. Alexis Johnson (Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs).

Overseeing the American intelligence community poses problems for even a small, full-time group of professionals. One is that the overseers must depend on those they oversee for much of the information necessary for regulation. Such a situation is naturally a delicate perplexity.

There is also the problem of fragmented authority. For example, if an American scientist spies on the country while employed by NASA, then defects to Russia and continues his spying but does it from France, which American agency is responsible for his neutralization? The FBI, since he began his activities under their jurisdiction, or the CIA, since he shifted to activities under their purview? With the possibility of bureaucratic jealousies escalating into open rivalry, such questions take on major import.

Shortly after it was formed, the 54/12 Group tried to solve the problems of internal information and fragmented authority. The 54/12 Group established a small special security section, a section with no identity save that of staff for the 54/12 Group. The special section’s duties included liaison work. The head of the special section serves on a board composed of leading staff members from all intelligence agencies. He has the power to arbitrate jurisdictional disputes. The special section also has the responsibility of independently evaluating all the information given to the 54/12 Group by the intelligence community. But most important, the special section is given the power to perform “such necessary security functions as extraordinary circumstances might dictate, subject to Group [the 54/12 Group] regulation.”

To help the special section perform its duties, the 54/12 Group assigned a small staff to the section chief and allowed him to draw on other major security and intelligence groups for needed staff and authority.

The 54/12 Group knows it has created a potential problem. The special section could follow the natural tendency of most government organizations and grow in size and awkwardness, thereby becoming a part of the problem it was created to solve. The special section, small though it is, has tremendous power as well as tremendous potential. A small mistake by the section could be a lever of great magnitude. The 54/12 Group supervises its creation cautiously. They keep a firm check on any bureaucratic growth potentials in the section, they carefully review its activities, keeping the operational work of the section at a bare minimum, and they place only extraordinary men in charge of the section.

While Malcolm and Wendy waited for the doctor, a large, competent-looking man sat in an outer office on Pennsylvania Avenue, waiting to answer a very special summons. His name was Kevin Powell. He waited patiently but eagerly: he did not receive such a summons every day. Finally a secretary beckoned, and he entered the inner office of a man who looked like a kindly, delicate old uncle. The old man motioned Powell to a chair.

“Ah, Kevin, how wonderful to see you.”

“Good to see you, sir. You’re looking fit.”

“As do you, my boy, as do you. Here.” The old man tossed Powell a file folder. “Read this.” As Powell read, the old man examined him closely. The plastic surgeons had done a marvelous job on his ear, and it took an experienced eye to detect the slight bulge close to his left armpit. When Powell raised his eyes, the old man said, “What do you think, my boy?”

Powell chose his words carefully. “Very strange, sir. I’m not sure what it means, though it must mean a great deal.”

“Exactly my thoughts, my boy, exactly mine. Both the Agency and the Bureau [FBI] have squads of men scouring the city, watching the airports, buses, trains, the usual routine, only expanded to quite a staggering level. As you know, it’s these routine operations that make or break most endeavors, and I must say they are doing fairly well. Or they were up until now.”

He paused for breath and an encouraging look of interest from Powell. “They’ve found a barber who remembers giving our boy a haircut — rather predictable yet commendable action on his part — sometime after Weatherby was shot. By the way, he is coming along splendidly. They hope to question him late this evening. Where was I… Oh, yes. They canvassed the area and found where he bought some clothes, but then they lost him. They have no idea where to look next. I have one or two ideas about that myself, but I’ll save them for later. There are some points I want you to check me on. See if you can answer them for me, or maybe find some questions I can’t find.

“Why? Why the whole thing? If it was Czechoslovakia, why that particular branch, a do-nothing bunch of analysts? If it wasn’t, we’re back to our original question.

“Look at the method. Why so blatant? Why was the man Heidegger hit the night before? What did he know that the others didn’t? If he was special, why kill the others too? If Malcolm works for them, they didn’t need to question Heidegger about much. Malcolm could have told them.

“Then we have our boy Malcolm, Malcolm with the many ‘why’s. If he is a double, why did he use the Panic procedure? If he is a double, why did he set up a meeting — to kill Sparrow IV, whom he could have picked off at his leisure had he worked at establishing the poor fellow’s identity? If he isn’t a double, why did he shoot the two men he called to take him to safety? Why did he go to Heidegger’s apartment after the shooting? And, of course, where, why, and how is he now?

“There are a lot of other questions that grow from these, but I think these are the main ones. Do you agree?”

Powell nodded and said, “I do. Where do I fit in?”

The old man smiled. “You, my dear boy, have the good fortune to be on loan to my section. As you know, we were created to sort out the mishmashes of bureaucracy. I imagine some of those paper pushers who shuffled my poor old soul here assumed I would be stuck processing paper until I died or retired. Neither of those alternatives appeal to me, so I have redefined liaison work to mean a minimum of paper and a maximum of action, pirated a very good set of operatives, and set up my own little shop, just like in the old days. With the official maze of the intelligence community, I have a good deal of confusion to play with. A dramatist I once knew said the best way to create chaos is to flood the scene with actors. I’ve managed to capitalize on the chaos of others.

“I think some of my efforts,” he added in a modest tone, “small though they may be, have been of some value to the country.

“Now we come to this little affair. It isn’t really much of my business, but the damn thing intrigues me. Besides, I think there is something wrong with the way the Agency and the Bureau are handling the whole thing. First of all, this is a very extraordinary situation, and they are using fairly ordinary means. Second, they’re tripping over each other, both hot to make the pinch, as they say. Then there’s the one thing I can’t really express. Something about this whole affair bothers me. It should never have happened. Both the idea behind the event and the way in which the event manifested itself are so… wrong, so out of place. I think it’s beyond the parameters of the Agency. Not that they’re incompetent — though I think they have missed one or two small points — but they’re just not viewing it from the right place. Do you understand, my boy?”

Powell nodded. “And you are in the right place, right?”

The old man smiled. “Well, let’s just say one foot is in the door. Now here’s what I want you to do. Did you notice our boy’s medical record? Don’t bother looking, I’ll tell you. He has many times the number of colds and respiratory problems he should. He often needs medical attention. Now, if you remember the transcript of the second panic call, he sneezed and said he had a cold. I’m playing a long shot that his cold is much worse, and that wherever he is, he’ll come out to get help. What do you think?”

Powell shrugged. “Might be worth a try.”

The old man was gleeful. “I think so, too. Neither the Agency nor the Bureau has tumbled to this yet, so we have a clear field. Now, I’ve arranged for you to head a special team of D.C. detectives — never mind how I managed it, I did. Start with the general practitioners in the metropolitan area. Find out if any of them have treated anyone like our boy — use his new description.If they haven’t, tell them to report to us if they do. Make up some plausible story so they’ll open up to you. One other thing. Don’t let the others find out we’re looking too. The last time they had a chance, two men got shot.”

Powell stood to go. “I’ll do what I can, sir.”

“Fine, fine, my boy. I knew I could count on you. I’m still thinking on this. If I come up with anything else, I’ll let you know. Good luck.”

Powell left the room. When the door was shut, the old man smiled.

While Kevin Powell began his painstakingly dull check of the Washington medical community, a very striking man with strange eyes climbed out of a taxi in front of Sunny’s Surplus. The man had spent the morning reading a Xeroxed file identical with the one Powell had just examined. He had received the file from a very distinguished-looking gentleman. The man with the strange eyes had a plan for finding Malcolm. He spent an hour driving around the neighborhood, and now he began to walk it. At bars, newspaper stands, public offices, private buildings, anywhere a man could stop for a few minutes, he would stop and show an artist’s projected sketch of Malcolm with short hair. When people seemed reluctant to talk to him, the man flashed one of five sets of credentials the distinguished man had obtained. By 3:30 that afternoon he was tired, but it didn’t show. He was more resolute than ever. He stopped at a Hot Shoppe for coffee. On the way out he flashed the picture and a badge at the cashier in a by now automatic manner. Almost anyone else would have registered the shock he felt when the clerk said she recognized the man.

“Yeah, I saw the son of a bitch. He threw his money at me he was in such a hurry to leave. Ripped a nylon crawling after a rolling nickel.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yeah, who would want to be with a creep like that?”

“Did you see which way he went?”

“Sure I saw. If I’d have had a gun I’d have shot him. He went that way.”

The man carefully paid his bill, leaving a dollar tip for the cashier. He walked in the direction she had pointed. Nothing, no reason to make a man looking for safety hurry that particular way. Then again… He turned into the parking lot and became a D.C. detective for the fat man in the felt hat.

“Sure, I seen him. He got into the car with the chick.”

The striking man’s eyes narrowed. “What chick?”

“The one that works for them lawyers. The firm rents space for all the people that work there. She ain’t so great to look at, but she’s got class, if you know what I mean.”

“I think so,” said the fake detective, “I think so. Who is she?”

“Just a minute.” The man in the hat waddled into a small shack. He returned carrying a ledger. “Let’s see, lot 63… lot 63. Yeah, here it is. Ross, Wendy Ross. This here is her Alexandria address.”

The narrow eyes glanced briefly at the offered book and recorded what they saw. They turned back to the man in the felt hat. “Thanks.” The striking man began to walk away.

“Don’t mention it. Say, what’s this guy done?”

The man stopped and turned back. “Nothing, really. We’re just looking for him. He… he’s been exposed to something — it couldn’t hurt you — and we just want to make sure he’s all right.”

Ten minutes later the striking man was in a phone booth. Across the city a distinguished-looking gentleman picked up a private phone that seldom rang. “Yes,” he said, then recognized the voice.

“I have a firm lead.”

“I knew you would. Have someone check it out, but don’t let him act on it unless absolutely unavoidable circumstances arise. I want you to handle it personally so there will be no more mistakes. Right now I have a more pressing matter for your expert attention.

“Our sick mutual friend?”

“Yes. I’m afraid he has to take a turn for the worse. Meet me at place four as soon as you can.” The line went dead.

The man stayed in the phone booth long enough to make another short call. Then he hailed a taxi and rode away into the fading light.

A small car parked across and up the street from Wendy’s apartment just as she brought a tray of stew to Malcolm. The driver could see Wendy’s door very clearly, even though he had to bend his tall, thin body into a very strange position. He watched the apartment, waiting.