The Zebra Network

Chapter 13

Something had gone wrong. Stephanie watched from the seventh-floor room she’d taken in the Georgetown Holiday Inn as two men got out of a car parked on Observatory Place and rushed back into the woods. Moments later they returned in a hurry with two other men, got back into the car and raced out of sight around the main building.

She had checked in here around six o’clock after calling Kingman, who had been deeply upset, and had watched from her darkened room as the first of the surveillance units had begun to show up shortly before seven. It was ten after ten now.

Kingman had given his word that McAllister would not be taken by force. “I’ll talk with him, Stephanie, if that’s what you want,” he’d said coldly. “But I can’t guarantee anything else.”

“That’s all he wants. But if you come in there in force, he won’t show up.

“If I come alone, he’ll shoot me in cold blood just like he’s done the others.”

“The only people he has killed were three Russians outside Mr. Highnote’s house, and then only in self-defense.” She assumed the trouble at Sikorski’s had not yet been discovered.

“I’m not going to argue that point with you. I’ll meet with him, and I promise no force.”

“If it doesn’t work out, you’ll let him turn around and leave?”

“If he’s innocent, as you say he is, he won’t have to leave. We’ll work it out together. But Stephanie..

She’d hung up on him then, and driven directly over to the Holiday Inn, where she’d been waiting and watching ever since. She had counted at least eleven different units in and around the Naval Observatory grounds, and she figured there were twice as many she had been unable to see from her vantage point. A District of Columbia police car, its red lights flashing, raced up from Whitehaven Street, turned at Circle Drive and entered the observatory grounds from the southeast.

They’d all hidden themselves. But now they were out in the open. Stephanie turned away from the window and looked at the telephone on the nightstand between the twin beds. McAllister had not told her where he was going tonight, but she’d known just the same. There was only one place where he could get the information he sought. As crazy as it seemed, she had to admit the logic of what he was trying to do. Zebra One, Zebra Two, his contact in Moscow had told him. And the O’Haire organization had been known as the Zebra Network. If there was a connection between the two-and judging from Sikorski’s reaction that first night she strongly suspected there was-then any further information would be buried in the CIA’s archives. More specifically in the Soviet Russian Division’s computerized records. Fourth floor at headquarters. She knew the territory well because she’d been assigned temporary security duty on more than one occasion-watching suspected Soviet spies operating out of their embassy here in Washington when division chief Adam French didn’t want to involve the FBI.

She tried to envision just how he would have gotten himself into the building and then up to the fourth floor. He would have to find an office with a computer terminal. He would have to know the correct access codes. So much could have gone wrong.

Outside, two more District of Columbia squad cars, their lights flashing, their sirens blaring, emerged from the observatory grounds and raced south on Thirty-fourth Street. Moments later Dexter Kingman’s car came around the corner and sped off into the night.

The meeting had been aborted. But at this point, McAllister was barely ten minutes late. Too soon for Kingman to have shut down the operation. The prize was simply too great for him to have quit this early.

Four other cars and a windowless van came out of the observatory and hurried down Thirty-fourth Street toward the Key Bridge-across which was the parkway, CIA headquarters a scant eight miles to the northwest.***********

McAllister had pocketed the walkie-talkie, relieved both men of their handguns, and watched them as Tom Watson unlocked the bulkhead door into the old building. The corridor was long and broad, only dimly lit, deserted at this hour of a Sunday evening.

“What’s the night guard’s schedule for this floor?” McAllister asked, keeping his voice low.

“I don’t know,” Tom Watson said, and the other guard looked up sharply at him.

“You’ve got to believe me, Tom, when I tell you that I don’t want to hurt anybody. If you know the schedule, it would be best if you told me now. I don’t want a confrontation.”

“On the half hour,” Tom Watson said after a hesitation. McAllister glanced at his watch; it was a few minutes after ten, which gave them twenty minutes at the outside to get in and get out-and only that long if his entry onto the grounds hadn’t already been discovered. “Let’s go,” he said.

“I don’t know what sort of trouble you’re in, sir, but don’t do this. You’ll just be compounding.

“And you don’t want to know,” McAllister said, prodding him in the back with the gun. “Down the hall. Now.”

Adam French’s office was at the end of the corridor, which branched left and right. Since he was head of the Soviet Russian Division, immediate access could be obtained to records through his terminal. That is, McAllister thought, if they hadn’t changed the access code on him over the past three years. A lot of ifs here; too many. He made both guards lie facedown on the corridor floor while he selected a slender, case-hardened steel pin from the tool kit he’d taken out of the Thunderbird’s trunk, and had the door lock picked in under twenty seconds. “Inside,” he told the two men.

They got to their feet, a deep scowl on Watson’s face, a look of terror on the other’s, and they entered the office, where McAllister made them lie face down on the carpeting as he closed and relocked the door. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes,” McAllister said. “If you cause no trouble, I promise you won’t be harmed.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Watson snarled. “You’d better hope I do,” McAllister said, sitting down at French’s desk, and flipping on his computer terminal. The screen came to life, with the single word: READY.

This terminal, like hundreds of others in the building, was connected to the computer’s mainframe in the basement. Records were compartmentalized, access given only on a section-by-section and need-to-know basis. Three years ago the Soviet Russian Division’s access code was SIR DIV METTLESOME. It had been someone’s abstruse comment on our Soviet policy.

He typed in the words, and hit the ENTER key. FILE? the word in amber letters popped up on the screen. McAllister glanced at the guards who hadn’t moved, then turned back to the keyboard and typed the most obvious choice. O’HAIRE NETWORK, then hit the ENTER key again.

He stared at the screen, suddenly conscious of just how little time he had left. He’d been afraid that the file might be restricted, and now it was anyone’s guess what the correct password might be. The major problem was that he only had three chances to get it right. After three incorrect tries an alarm was set off on the mainframe, indicating that someone was attempting to gain access to a restricted file.

Where to begin? He had come this far, he wasn’t going to back out. Not yet.

He typed the first thing that came to mind. ZEBRA, and touched the ENTER key.

It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The O’Haires had operated what was widely considered to be the most damaging spy network against the United States since the Second World War. There was a certain logic to these passwords.

He typed: SPIES, and hesitated a moment before touching the ENTER key.

Again McAllister glanced over at the two guards on the floor. TomWatson had raised his head and was glaring up at him. “You don’t want to see this, Tom. Believe me, it’s for your own good.”

“Give it up, sir.”

“Put your head down.”

Watson complied after a moment, and McAllister turned back to the terminal, another thought striking him. This would be his last chance. He typed: ARBEZ, and hit ENTER.

He stared at the screen for a long moment or two, conscious of his heart hammering in his chest. He had begun to sweat again. The clock was running now. Someone would be coming to see what the trouble was up here. If they had already guessed he was somewhere on the grounds this now would bring them on the run. He had lost. Yet he had come so close. So tantalizingly close. The O’Haire files were somewhere in the computer. One word. One key and he would know..

In desperation he typed the only other thing he could think of. HIGHNOTE, and the ENTER key.

This time the screen was suddenly filled with a long list of file choices, labeled alphabetically under the heading: ZEBRA NETWORK DIRECTORY.

“Bingo,” he murmured, running his finger down the individual file choices, among them: History and Background, Investigating Authorities, Budget Line Summaries, Damage Assessments, Transcripts — Telephone, Transcripts-Nonsubject Interviews, Transcripts-Subject Interviews, and under the label Code M, the file, SUSPECTS.

He typed M and the ENTER key.

Instantly the directory was replaced by a list of four names, a brief bit of information on each, and instructions for bringing up other files that contained more detailed information.

Four names.

Reaching over he turned on the printer and touched the PRINT key; immediately the machine started to whine as the computer spit out a hard copy of what had come up on the screen.

“Gun or no gun, I won’t stand for this,” Tom Watson shouted, jumping up and lunging over the desk. McAllister had barely enough time to rear backward out of Watson’s grasp, and grab for his gun lying on the desk, when the telephone rang. Watson lashed out at him, then reached the telephone and snatched it off its hook.

“It’s McAllister!” Watson cried.

The other guard had jumped up. McAllister had no choice. He smashed the butt of his heavy pistol down onto the base of Watson’s skull, and the man cried out and crashed off the desk to the floor. The second guard reached the door when McAllister aimed the pistol at him. “Stop,” he shouted.

The man, his hands fumbling with the door lock, looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide with fear, and he froze.

The printer stopped and in the sudden silence McAllister could hear a thin, shrill voice calling his name as from a great distance. It took him a moment to realize it was Stephanie on the telephone. He jumped up and came around the desk. Watson, out cold, had dragged the receiver off the desk with him. McAllister picked up the phone.

“It’s me,” he said, keeping his eye on the guard at the door. “Kingman and the others just left in a big hurry,” she shouted in a rush. “When?” McAllister demanded. There was no time to wonder how she had known he was here.

“No more than two minutes ago. Get out of there, Mac.”

“On my way,” McAllister said, and he yanked the telephone cord out of the wall.

He bent down over Watson and felt for a pulse in the man’s neck.

It was strong and regular. The man was out, but not dead, and McAllister gave silent thanks for that much at least.

Back behind the desk, he tore the computer readout from the printer and shut down the terminal.

“All right, Frank, we’re getting out of here now.”

“What about Tom?” the guard asked fearfully. “He’ll be all right, and so will you if you do as I say,” McAllister said. “Where is your pickup truck parked?”

“In the back, by the elevator.”

“Let’s go,” McAllister said. The guard unlocked the door. The corridor was still deserted. No one had come up from the computer mainframe yet to check on the restricted access-code violation, but someone would be showing up at any minute. They hurried down the corridor and back through the bulkhead door into the new building.

McAllister was just relocking the padlock when the walkie-talkie

in his pocket came to life. “Security Four, Control.” The guard stiffened. “Is it you?” McAllister asked. The man hesitated, but then nodded.

McAllister pulled out the walkie-talkie and handed it to him with one hand, while raising his pistol to the man’s head with his other. “Everything is fine here,” he said.

The guard keyed the walkie-talkie. “Security four,” he said. His hands shook.

“What’s your situation up there?”

“Normal,” the guard said.

“Keep on your toes, you might have some trouble coming your way. We’ve got an intruder alert.”

“Ask them who it is and how they knew about it,” McAllister said. The guard keyed the walkie-talkie. “Who is it, Control, and how did we find out?”

“It’s McAllister, somebody apparently phoned it in a couple of minutes ago. He’s armed, so watch yourself.”

McAllister nodded, his gut tight. Who had phoned? How in God’s name had they known?

“Roger,” the guard said, and McAllister grabbed the walkie-talkie from his hand and pocketed it.

“Who else is guarding this building?”

“No one else in this wing except for Tom and me.”

“Earlier I saw a pickup truck outside in the parking lot.”

“Unit five. One of the outside patrols.”

“I hope for your sake that you’re not lying,” McAllister said. “I’m not, sir.”

The elevator was located at the end of the corridor. They took it down to the ground floor where they hurried across the mostly completedentry hall and then outside. It was still snowing. In the distance they heard the sounds of a lot of sirens. McAllister ordered the guard behind the wheel of the light-gray pickup truck, then he got in on the passenger side.

“Drive,” he said. “Where?”

“West.”

“But there’s no exit…

“Do it,” McAllister ordered, and the guard hastily complied, heading across the parking lot toward the back road that McAllister had used.

He had to have time to think. Stephanie was an intelligent woman. She knew what he had gone looking for, and she could have guessed where he would have to go to get the information. It explained her telephone call to Adam French’s office warning him that Kingman and his people had deserted the rendezvous. But she was the only one who knew that he would not be at that meeting. If she had tipped off Kingman, why had she called French’s office? None of it made any sense. It was madness.

Four names he had gotten from the computer. It was the information he had been seeking, if only he could keep alive long enough to find out what they knew.

McAllister cranked down his window. They had left the sirens far behind, back toward the headquarters building. He figured they had come nearly a mile.

“Stop here,” he said to the guard.

“Jesus, Mr. McAllister, I’ll do whatever you want,” the man said in alarm. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just stop here and I’ll let you out. You can walk back.”

The guard wanted to believe him, but it was obvious he thought he was about to be shot to death. He pulled up to a halt. “I’ve got a family…

“Get out of here, and don’t look back,” McAllister said. The guard hesitated a second or two longer, then shoved open the door, jumped out and started running down the snow-covered road, disappearing into the darkness. McAllister slid over behind the wheel, slammed the truck into gear and drove another quarter mile before pulling up, dousing the lights and shutting off the engine.

He jumped out of the truck, stepped off the road, and plunged into the forest, heading in the general direction of the place where he had come through the fence.

Twice he heard sirens in the distance, and somewhere to the north, he thought he could hear a horn honking, but for the most part the woods were silent as before.

He came to the fence five minutes later, and followed it back to the northwest for another hundred yards before he found the hole he had cut. His were the only footprints in the snow, already partially filled in. No one had discovered how he had gained entrance. Once again his luck seemed to be holding.

In another five minutes he had reached the crest of the hill overlooking the street. The Thunderbird was still parked where he had left it, no one around, though once again he could hear sirens in the distance.

He scrambled down the hill, climbed into the car, and drove off.

McAllister parked the car in front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building which houses the FBI’s headquarters on Pennsylvania at Tenth Street, leaving the walkie-talkie and the guards’ weapons under the front seat.

Sow confusion where you can; it will help mask your movements in a difficult situation. The car would create a lot of interest when it was discovered what it contained. But whom to trust?

If Stephanie had been able to guess where he had gone, others could have done the same. It wasn’t much of a hope, but it was something.

It took him almost a half hour to reach their hotel on foot. He figured she would be back from the Holiday Inn by now. There was almost no traffic, and absolutely no activity around the hotel. He waited in the darkness across the intersection for a full ten minutes to see if anyone showed themselves. If the hotel was staked out, therewould have been a movement; a slowly passing car or van, a head popping up, a cigarette lit, something. But there was nothing.

He crossed the street, entered the hotel, the sleepy clerk glancing away only momentarily from the television show he was watching, and took the elevator to the third floor.

She opened the door for him.

“Oh, God, am I glad to see you,” she cried, falling into his arms once he was inside.

The relief in her eyes, in her voice, and in the way she held him, her entire body trembling, was genuine, pushing back his doubts about her.

“They knew I was coming,” he said. “Impossible.”

“How did you know where to reach me?” Her eyes widened. “What are you saying, Mac?”

“I repeat, how did you know where I would be?”

“You wanted information about the O’Haires. About the Zebra Network. There was only one place where you could possibly get it.”

“What did you tell Kingman?”

“You were standing right behind me when I talked to him,” Stephanie flared.

“I couldn’t hear both sides of the conversation.”

“What are you trying to say?” she snapped. “Spit it out!”

“Someone telephoned them. Told them that I was coming and that I was armed and dangerous.”

“And you think I did it?”

“What did you tell Kingman? What did he ask you?”

“Nothing,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “What did you tell your friend Highnote?”

Zebra One, Zebra Two. Highnote knew nearly everything. “If I wanted you dead I could have left you in the river,” she cried.

“I could have put a bullet in your head at my father’s house, or here at this hotel, or out at Sikorski’s, any of a dozen times and places.”

“Why didn’t you?” McAllister asked miserably, his voice catching in his throat. “I don’t know…” she started to say, and she tried to pull away. He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Why, Stephanie? What are you doing here with me? Why are you risking your life to help me? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Because I love you,” she blurted.

He didn’t know what to say. It was as if the floor had opened up beneath his feet.

“There,” she said pulling away from him. “Are you satisfied, you bastard?”

The TWA flight out of St. louis was already forty-five minutes late, putting them into Washington after eleven-thirty at night. louis Jaffe, assistant general counsel for the CIA, sat back in his first-class seat and closed his eyes for a moment. John Norris, who’d flown out with him for the interview at Marion Federal Penitentiary in Southern Illinois, was sound asleep in the next seat.

Highnote insisted that someone from Operations be included, and in fact it had been Norris who’d asked most of the questions. It was terribly odd, Jaffe thought, this particular piece of information surfacing now. But as Norris had said in his sardonic way, they were looking for a deal… when no deals were possible. “So we send them a life jacket. We don’t have to tell them it’s full of holes.”

Jaffe opened his eyes and switched on his pocket tape recorder, the voices in the earpiece distorted but understandable.

the name McAllister mean to you?” Norris’s voice.

There was a scraping sound and a sudden loud hiss as James O’Haire lit a match and put it to his cigarette. “As in David Stewart?” he asked, his Irish accent pronounced. “You tell me,” Norris said.

“The bastard. He was playing both ends against the middle there at the end. Last I heard he was still playing it close in Moscow. Probably skipped by now, though, if I know my man.”

“David McAllister was part of your network?” Jaffe heard himself ask.

“From the beginning.”

Jaffe ran the tape forward.”… had his network people over there who’d pump him the questions that needed answering. You know, hardware, technical data, that sort of sport.”

“And here in this country, who was your control officer?” Norris asked.

O’Haire laughed, the noise roaring in Jaffe’s ear. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies.”

Jaffe ran the tape forward again. “… telling you all this now because my brother and I want a deal. Not so hard to understand, is it?”

“Do you want to go live with your pals in Moscow?” Norris asked. “Hell no,” O’Haire exploded, laughing again. “We’d be willing to tough it out here, say for a year maybe two. Until the dust settles. Then you could quietly let us out. Might go to Spain, perhaps France. Somewhere in Europe. We’re not greedy.”

“Would you be willing to testify in court about McAllister’s involvement…?” Jaffe had asked, but O’Haire cut him off.

“You play ball with us, Mr. Jaffe, and we’ll play ball with you. I’ll tell you this much, though, watch out for McAllister. He’s one tough sonofabitch. I always admired that one, I did.”