The Zebra Network

Chapter 11

McAllister reached the wooded median strip separating the northbound and southbound lanes of the interstate, and held up. From where he stood in the darkness, the snow falling all around him, he could just see the southbound rest area facility on a low rise, though it was set back in and among a stand of tall pine trees.

Highnote’s familiar figure was outlined in the lights on the building as he paced back and forth. Though he couldn’t see it, McAllister figured his old friend’s car had to be parked somewhere in front.

No sirens, no helicopters, no chase cars, no backups so far as he was able to tell. Highnote had come alone as he had promised he would. And now he was waiting for McAllister to show up.

A man came out of the restroom, passed Highnote without looking at him, and crossed the parking area to one of the big semis. He hauled himself up into the cab, and a minute later the truck’s engine roared and the behemoth started left toward the exit ramp, moving slowly. The instant the truck passed in front of the facility building, McAllister hurried out of the woods, scrambled across the depression beside the pavement, and raced across the dark highway, reaching the safety of the trees on the other side as the truck accelerated down the exit ramp.

Highnote had disappeared! From where he stood now McAllister could see the Cadillac parked just in front of the building. The car was empty. Highnote must have gone into the men’s room.

McAllister raced up from the woods, crossed the parking area, and climbed into Highnote’s car on the passenger side just as the DDO emerged from the men’s room. He pulled out the gun Stephanie had supplied him, and sat well back, away from the light spilling from the stanchions. Highnote looked at his watch, then turned and went to the telephone where he hesitated for a half minute before turning around. Shaking his head he walked down the sidewalk to his car. When he was ten feet away he spotted McAllister and stopped in his tracks for just a moment, before continuing.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Highnote said getting in behind the wheel. He glanced at the gun in McAllister’s lap.

“Are you armed?” McAllister asked. “No.”

“I’ll accept that for the moment because I’m going to have to trust you completely. Do you understand?” McAllister had watched the DDO’s eyes. They were clear and steady.

“If you’re asking for my help, I’ll do everything I can for you, Mac, starting with a piece of advice: Come with me right now. I’ll take you back to headquarters and we can start to get this all straightened out. I’ll guarantee your safety and a fair hearing.”

“That’s not within your power, Bob.”

“What are you talking about?” Highnote said, his eyes narrowing. “I’m going way out on a limb being here like this.”

“So am I,” McAllister said. “I asked you to check on ballistics for me.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

“We found the weapon that was used to kill Carrick and Maas in a trashbin at LaGuardia. It was Carrick’s weapon, and it had your fingerprints all over it.”

“That’s impossible.”

“There were no bloody coveralls anywhere in the entire airport, though we did find one set in another trash bin, this one in the men’s room near Piedmont Airline’s boarding gates.”

Given the organisation and the manpower, practically anything could be accomplished. Any set of facts could be altered to support any line of logic. It was in the book.

“As I said before, Mac, you are not responsible for your actions.

At least you weren’t that morning when you stepped off the plane. You’d been pumped so full of drugs you couldn’t have known whatwas happening. You got spooked, somehow got Carrick’s gun away from him and shot him and Maas dead. From that point on you were working on instinct alone. You ran. And you’ve been doing a damned good job of it ever since. Where’d you find the doctor?”

“If I insisted on my original story, what would that tell you?” Highnote looked at him for a long time. “That you were lying.”

“No reason for it at this moment. I’m a fugitive and here and now I have the upper hand. Are there any other possibilities?”

“That you were so heavily drugged you couldn’t separate reality from some dreadful fantasy.”

“By your own admission I did a pretty good job of getting out of there. Not bad for someone so drugged out of his skull that he didn’t know if he killed someone or not.”

“Which brings us back to the lie. “Goddamnit, Bob, what about a third possibility?” Highnote’s nostrils flared. “That you’re telling the truth?” McAllister nodded. “Try it.”

“It would admit that you had been set up for some reason by a fairly sophisticated organization. By someone with a lot of connections.”

“Exactly.”

“Why?”

“We’ll come to that in a minute. Somebody opens fire on me in New York, and when I get to Washington my wife calls me a traitor and tries to kill me.”

“That was my doing,” Highnote said heavily. “As soon as you skipped we figured you might head home. Gloria was to be your bait. We had to tell her everything. But I swear to you I had no idea that she would react the way she did.”

“Outside your house I was set upon by three Russians. I killed them.”

Highnote nodded.

“Sikorski was next. He called me a traitor and tried to kill me. It was open season.”

“We thought you’d be heading out there sooner or later. He was told the same thing Gloria was told.”

“So I ran to your boat.”

“We didn’t think about that one.”

“Someone did. And they weren’t Russians. They were Americans. They shot me and left me for dead.”

“What happened down there?”

“You tell me, Bob,” McAIlister said softly. His grip tightened on the gun.

This time Highnote’s eyes opened wide in genuine shock and anger. “Is that why you called me up here, to find out the extent of the Agency’s evidence against you?”

“How did you know about Dumfries?”

“The dockmaster found the blood all over the bow of my boat and the cockpit of another. I was called as an owner, and put two and two together. It was your blood type.”

“Was it an Agency operation?”

“We don’t operate that way and you know it,” Highnote exploded. “Come on, think about it!”

“The Bureau?”

“They would have had half their Washington staff down there. You know that too.”

“Then who were they?”

“I can’t answer that, because I simply don’t know. But I suspect you do. And I suspect you’re going to tell me what you think is going on.”

Don’t ask a question unless you already know its answer. The cardinal rule of all interrogation. But he had no answers. He barely had the questions.

“Does the name Viktor Voronin mean anything to you?” Highnote shook his head. “Should it?”

“He was a former KGB officer. I was working him in Moscow and the product was pretty good for a while. The night I was arrested I was coming from his apartment.”

“Were you questioned about him, about the operation?”

“No, which I found odd. But even odder was the last thing Voronin said to me that night. He’d been rambling on and on about nuclear war, and peace and he said he had a warning for me.”

“Which was?”

“His words exactly…” McAllister hesitated a moment. He sat forward a little so that he could better see Highnote’s face. “look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.”

Highnote had no reaction, absolutely none, except for a mild impatience when McAllister did not continue. “Is that it?”

McAllister nodded. “Does it mean anything to you?” He couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or glad.

“Not a thing. Does it to you?”

“It didn’t at first.”

“But it does now?”

“Zebra One is an Agency officer, and Zebra Two is KGB. Or at least I think so. One in Washington, one in Moscow. I think they’re working together.”

“Good God Almighty,” Highnote breathed. “You think there is a penetration agent within the Agency.”

McAllister nodded.

“And you think it’s… me?”

“Is it, Bob? Is it you?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Highnote said offhandedly. “How many years have you known me?” Highnote was looking away, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, his head shaking. “It explains so much. So much.. “Talk to me,” McAllister said. Whatever reaction he had expected it wasn’t this. “There have been too many coincidences surrounding you. The Russians outside your house. The hit men showing up at your boat. You and Gloria… this morning.”

Highnote turned to him, his eyes wide. “You were there?”

“I saw the two of you coming out of the house.”

“I took her to my place. She wanted to be with Merrilee. She didn’t want to stay in Georgetown any longer. Do you think that she and I…?”

“You said that it explains so much. What did you mean?” The atmosphere in the car suddenly seemed very close.

“More than you can possibly imagine, Mac,” Highnote said with some excitement in his voice. “But you’re right about one thing, you can’t turn yourself in now. If there is a penetration agent working within the Agency, it would be almost impossible for me to guaranteeyour safety. I mean, who could we trust? You’re going to have to keep on the run until I can find out who it is. Good lord.. “In the meantime the Agency and the Bureau are hunting for me,” McAllister said.

“Nothing I can do about that without blowing the whistle.”

“Tell Gloria at least.”

Highnote started to say something, but then cut himself off. He looked at McAllister with a new shrewdness in his eyes. “If you’re telling me the truth.”

“If not it would be a pretty elaborate lie, Bob. And for what reason?”

“You say you were never asked about this during your interrogation?”

“No.”

“But you were drugged. You could have mentioned it without knowing that you’d said anything.”

“It’s possible,” McAllister said. He could see Miroshnikov’s face swimming overhead.

“Have you mentioned these words to anyone else? Here or there?” McAllister started to tell him about Sikorski, but something made him hold back. “No,” he said.

“Don’t,” Highnote replied. “But they know of course. They’d have to. It explains why you were released the way you were, and why they tried to kill you in New York and again outside my house and on my boat. Russians in at least one instance and Americans in another.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Don’t you see, Mac, it’s a faction fight. Someone within the KGB wants to expose the connection.”

“Why?”

“Power politics? Who knows? But as soon as you were released the word went out: You had to be killed before you could talk.” Highnote was thinking hard, his mind racing. McAllister knew his old friend well enough to read that much from his face. “It might not be someone within the Agency. It could be anyone you know. The Pentagon, National Security Agency… anyone.”

“Will you help me?”

“Yes,” Highnote said, looking at him again. “But you’re going tohave to keep yourself hidden… even from me. Keep your ass down, Mac, because the bullets are going to start flying, I think.”

“You can’t possibly trust him,” Stephanie said. It was nearly midnight. They were back in their hotel room downtown. She sat on the edge of the bed while McAllister paced back and forth. “He was convincing. And he did come alone.”

“Don’t you see that he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by complying with your wishes? You’re old friends. He knew that you wouldn’t shoot him in cold blood, whatever he thinks about you. But he had to know what you were doing, what information you had.”

“If he is the penetration agent he wouldn’t have been so sure of that. He would have been taking a very large risk by meeting with me.”

“You still don’t see. You simply are not that type of person.”

“The Russians had me for more than a month under drugs. Supposedly I killed Carrick and Maas in New York. And there’s no denying I killed the three Russians in Arlington Heights.”

“One is an assumption, the other you’ve freely admitted. But when you had the chance-in fact the need, to protect your own safety, you did not kill me, nor did you kill Sikorski. Your true colors were showing.”

“He was still taking a big chance.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him about Sikorski’s reaction to the words?”

“I don’t know,” McAllister said.

“I do. You were simply protecting yourself again. Something at the back of your head, some instinct, told you to hold back. And from where I’m sitting, I think your instincts are about the only thing that have saved your life so far. Trust them.”

The fact was, McAllister thought, he no longer could. His life had truly ended a month and a half ago in Moscow, and he felt at times as if he were struggling now to get out of the womb, to be reborn; only he had no idea who he would become. The thought was frightening. “I didn’t tell him about the possible connection between Voronin’s warning and the O’Haire network either.”

“No matter what he is, he’s certainly not a stupid man,” Stephanie said. “We have to assume that he’s at least considered the possibility that you’ve made the connection.”

“If there is one.”

“The O’Haires’ control officer has never been named.”

“Highnote?”

“Possibly.”

“If that’s the case, he’ll be pulling out all the stops to find me now,” McAllister said, pausing by the window. “We’re going to need more information about the Zebra Network. Somewhere there has to be a track backward.”

“The library has all the back issues of The New York Times and Washington Post, there might be something…

“No, I meant details that haven’t been published. Something in the Agency’s files. Perhaps in the FBI’s records.”

“I can telephone Doug, ask him to make a few discreet checks for me.”

“The one who gave you the gun?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “He knows a lot of people. And he’s good.”

“No questions asked?”

Stephanie smiled sadly. “He’s still in love with me. He’ll do it.’ McAllister turned back and looked at her. “Why are you doing this?”

“We’ve already gone through that, Mac,” she said getting up and going around the bed to the telephone.

“But you never gave me a proper answer.”

She shook her head. “Nor do I think I can. At least not at this moment. Give it a little time, I’ll come up with something for you.” She picked up the phone, got an outside line and dialed Doug Ballinger’s home number. He’d just come in and he sounded tired.

“Sorry to bother you, Douglas,” Stephanie said. “But I need your help again.”

“Come on over, darling, we’ll talk about it.”

“I can’t tonight. But I need you to make some quiet inquiries for me. I need some information, and fast. Like yesterday.”

Ballinger’s voice cleared. “Are you in some sort of trouble, Steph?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Well, first you borrow my gun, and then you call me in the middle of the night asking for information. What’s up?” Stephanie sighed. “I could be in some trouble, Douglas, so I’m counting on you to keep it cool.”

“What do you need?”

“Are you familiar with the O’Haire case?”

“Everybody is,” Ballinger said cautiously. “They were sentenced the other day. What’s your connection?”

“Their Soviet control officer has never been named. Any ideas on that score?”

The line was quiet for a long time. “What have you got yourself involved with, Stephanie? This is big business.”

“I know. I just need that information, Douglas. Quietly.”

“I don’t know if I can do that for you-or should. At least not until you tell me why. My ass could be hanging out on a very thin limb.”

“I can’t. You’re just going to have to trust me. Can you help?”

“Goddamnit, Stephanie, talk to me! I’m not kidding now! Those people were big-time traitors. They sold us down the river. Now you’re asking me about their control officer? What the hell is going on?”

“I’m not involved with them, Douglas, I swear it to you. I just need the information.”

“Then go to your office and punch it up on the computer. You’ve got the clearance.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“look, you either trust me or you don’t!” Stephanie snapped. “If you do, all I can promise is that you’ll get an explanation sooner or later, and then you’ll see why I had to do it this way.”

Again there was a longish silence on the line. When Ballinger came back on he sounded cold. “Call me here in the morning. About ten.”

“Thanks, Douglas,” Stephanie said, but the line was dead. Ballinger had hung up on her. She slowly put down the telephone.

“He wasn’t very happy with you,” McAllister said. “No,” she said. “But he’ll do it. I’m supposed to call him back at ten.“Will he tell someone about this?”

“I don’t think so. Like I said, he’s in love with me.”

“Are you in love with him?”

She shook her head. “I was, a long time ago, but not now. We were friends.”

McAllister caught her use of the past tense. “I’m sorry, Stephanie.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It was very late. Without turning his head to look at the clock, McAllister figured it had to be at least four in the morning. He stared at the window, the curtains partially drawn, waiting for the dawn to come. Stephanie was on the other bed.

Their next moves depended in a very large measure on what Ballinger would come up with, because at this point he might be their only viable hope for any sort of a lead. If there was a connection between Voronin’s cryptic warning and the O’Haire spy network, and if Ballinger could provide them with a clue as to their control officer, they might be able to act.

The answers are in Washington.

What if Zebra One turned out to be Highnote? What if he had been the O’Haires’ control officer? How long had it been going on?

Can you ever know anyone, really know them? In this business you can trust no one, boyo.

The words should have been chiseled in granite on some monument somewhere, dedicated to man’s inhumanity to man; dedicated to his perfidy. MICE was an old CIA acronym for why men became traitors: Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego. Which one? Where in God’s name was it leading, and did he want to know?

“You asked why I’m helping you,” Stephanie said in the darkness. He turned to look at her. She was staring up at the ceiling. “You should get some sleep.”

“I think you were set up.”

“By Highnote?”

“Him or someone else. It doesn’t matter. Someone powerful. Someone who wanted to protect himself.”

“But the O’Haire network has been smashed. It’s over.”

“If that’s all there was to it,” she said. She turned and looked at him, her eyes wide and bright. “They might have been nothing more than the tip of the iceberg. There could be more, a lot more.”

“Then we’ll find it out,” McAllister said. “In the meantime go to sleep.”

“I’m frightened,” Stephanie said. She pushed back her covers and got out of bed, her movements soft and liquid. She was nude. In the dim light coming from outside he could see her small breasts, narrow hips, and swatch of dark pubic hair. She’d recently been in the sun, or under a tanning lamp, because he could clearly see her bikini line of white flesh against the darker tan. He didn’t know what to say.

“Hold me,” she said, coming to his bed. “Please?” He held the covers open for her, and she slipped in beside him, her body pressed against his as he took her into his arms. He felt terribly guilty, as if he were the betrayer, the great destroyer, and yet for the moment at least, this felt somehow right.

In the morning they both carefully avoided talking about what had happened. Around eight-thirty they went downstairs to the hotel’s coffee shop and had breakfast while they looked through the Washington and New York Sunday newspapers. Still there was nothing about the search for his body, or about the investigations into the shooting deaths of two Agency officers in New York, or the three Russians in a car in Arlington Heights.

They were back in their room just at ten, and Stephanie dialed Ballinger’s home. His phone was answered on the first ring by Dexter Kingman.

“This is the Ballinger residence. Who’s calling?” He sounded harried. Stephanie could hear that there were other people there. A lot of them. “Dexter? This is Stephanie. Is Doug there? Can I speak to him?”

“I was just about to telephone you. Are you at home?”

“No, I spent the night with a friend. What’s the matter?”

“Ballinger is dead.”

“Oh, my God..“He was shot to death sometime last night, or early this morning. The FBI is looking for you right now.”

“What’s going on… why are they looking for me?”

“Your name was written on a pad of paper beside his telephone, along with the notation ten A.M Were you supposed to meet him or something this morning?”

“We were going to spend the day together,” Stephanie said, trying to control her voice. “Get yourself back to my office. I’ll set up your interview there.”

“Dexter… who killed him, do you know? Have you any idea yet?”

“It looks as if the Russians did it,” Kingman said heavily. “Russians?”

“It’s not very pretty, Stephanie.”

“Tell me,” she said, steeling herself.

“It looked like a standard Center assassination. A mokrie dela. He was shot three times in the face at very close range.”

“They killed him,” Stephanie said hanging up the phone. “My God, they killed him…