The Zebra Network

Chapter 16

It was only a few minutes after six, yet it was already dark. Traffic on Langley’s Washington Parkway was heavy. The day shift at CIA headquarters had just let out. McAllister watched from where he was parked at the side of the highway three-quarters of a mile south of the Agency.

He was taking an enormous risk by being here like this. Stephanie had wanted to help, but in the end he convinced her that it would be much safer if he approached Highnote on his own. If anything went wrong, she would still be free. She could get to Dexter Kingman with the entire story. It was something at least.

Earlier when he had walked over to the parking ramp where they’d left the Chevrolet Celebrity they’d rented at Dulles in the name of Treffano Miglione, it had struck him that the city was decorated. Colored lights were strung across the streets, noel candles and brightly lit wreaths were hung on lightposts, and many of the store windows held elaborate displays. It was less than two weeks before Christmas. He’d forgotten completely about it, and with the realization came a sudden ache for something he’d never really had as an adult: a family, someone for whom Christmas would mean something.

At first he’d thought about telephoning Highnote, setting up another meeting like the one they’d had at the rest stop off the Interstate north of the city, but he suspected there would be monitors on all incoming calls now. Nor would it be safe to approach his old friend at home again. There was sure to be a surveillance team on duty out there.

Do the unexpected. His investigation had taken on a life of its own, sweeping him and Stephanie along, at times in an uncontrollable headlong rush; as if they were trapped in a small boat racing downstream toward a deadly waterfall.

He’d been watching in the rearview mirror as traffic from the northpassed beneath a tall sodium-vapor light a hundred yards back. A black Cadillac approached. McAllister looked up as it passed, recognizing Robert Highnote behind the wheel. He flipped on his headlights and pulled out into traffic, speeding up to get directly behind the Cadillac.

Highnote was alone. McAllister had counted on that, as he had counted on the fact that his old friend was a creature of habit who almost always took off work at six sharp and drove directly home. Despite the pressure the man had to be under because of recent events, he apparently was maintaining his schedule.

A couple of miles south, Highnote got off the Parkway at Arlingwood. McAllister held his position behind him for a half a mile until there was a break in traffic, then pulled out to pass.

As McAllister got alongside, he matched speed, glancing from the oncoming traffic over to Highnote, who after a moment, realizing that something was happening, looked over. His reaction, when it finally came, was one of incredulity.

McAllister smiled wanly, motioned for Highnote to follow him, then sped up, pulling in front of the Cadillac. His old friend had two choices now. He could either follow, or he could pull off at the nearest telephone and sound the alert. He knew the car now, and the license number.

The road split a mile later; south toward Arlington Heights, and east toward Falls Church. McAllister hung far enough back so that there was not enough gap between his and Highnote’s car for someone to pull between them. He turned east, Highnote remaining directly behind him, and he breathed his first sigh of relief. For now, at least, there was going to be no trouble. Highnote was apparently at least willing to listen.

The countryside here was hilly and very dark. Twenty minutes later it had begun to snow lightly as McAllister pulled into the parking lot of a small but elegant dinner club a couple of miles beyond Falls Church. The parking lot was half filled at this hour. It was just the sort of place he had been looking for, and had expected to find here. He parked in the back and got out of his car as Highnote pulled up and parked beside him.“I got your message,” McAllister said, as Highnote climbed out of his car. They stood facing each other.

“Where is Stephanie Albright?”

“Safe.”

“Then she is working with you?”

“You wanted to talk to me,” McAllister said. “I’m here. let’s go inside.”

“Send her back. It’s not her fight.”

“Nor was it mine, Bob. At least it wasn’t until people started shooting at me. A lot of them, Russians and Americans. I think it’s time that we talk about the Zebra Network.”

“Then you did break the access code,” Highnote said, his complexion suddenly pale in the outside lights.

“An inspired guess,” McAllister said. “Let’s go inside.” The supper club had once been a large house. To the right of the entry hall were the separate dining rooms, large windows looking down into a steep valley garden. To the left was the barroom. They took a leather booth at the back. Forties music was playing from the jukebox.

After the waiter brought them drinks, McAllister sat back with a cigarette and looked across at his old friend. Whom to trust. Always, always it came down to that in the end. The older he got the harder that question became to answer.

“How’s Gloria?” McAllister asked. “Confused,” Highnote said, sipping his martini. “We don’t have much time here tonight, I suspect, so let’s not bullshit each other. How is Gloria holding up?”

“She’s written you off,” Highnote said coldly. “If that’s what you really wanted to hear.”

Something clutched at McAllister’s heart, though the response had not come as a total surprise. Their marriage had been over years ago, he supposed. This now was merely a last excuse. Yet it hurt. “And you? Have you written me off as well?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Highnote said. “I must say that you’ve done a lot better than I thought you would.”

“What’s going on?“ Highnote’s right eyebrow rose. “Exactly the question I want to put to you. We found poor Janos. Was that necessary?”

“I didn’t kill him,” McAllister said. “That should have been obvious. If you want an ID on those two bodies, I can give it to you.”

“What two bodies?” Highnote asked with a straight face. “One in the driveway, the other back up in the woods, about a hundred yards off the road.”

Highnote shook his head. “There was some blood beside the driveway; O-Positive, your blood type I believe, and some tire marks. No bodies other than Janos’s.”

McAllister closed his eyes. The Mafia had sent two hired guns out to question Sikorski. When they didn’t return someone else would have gone out to check on them. That was logical. But it still didn’t answer the question of who had tortured Sikorski if they hadn’t.

“Someone has set me up for the kill,” he said, opening his eyes. “The Russians.”

“Why?”

“Our best guess is that you are a project gone bad for them.”

“You know damned well that I did not work for the O’Haires,” McAllister said.

“They named you.”

“Then somebody got to them!”

“The whole world is wrong and you’re right, is that it?” Highnote asked, leaning forward. “I don’t know what happened to you in the Lubyanka, and I don’t think you do either, but I believe that you were set up-brainwashed, if you will-to come back here and wreak havoc.”

“Then why are the Russians trying to kill me?”

“Because I think they lost control of you. And if you were brought in, and the secrets that are locked inside your brain were released, you would prove to be a very large embarrassment.”

“Then I’m an innocent victim…?”

“No,” Highnote snapped. “I think you worked with the O’Haires all along, and when the network fell the Russians arrested you, hoping to throw off any suspicions about you. While they had you, they decided to play their little game. Nice friends.”

“You believe that, Bob?” McAllister asked. “I don’t know what else to believe.”

“Why? Where are my motives?”

Highnote lowered his eyes and shook his head. “That’s the damndest part of it all, Mac. I just don’t know.” He looked up. “Burn-out? Gloria told us that you’d been acting strangely ever since you’d been assigned to Moscow. Maybe you saw what you took to be the futility of the business. Maybe you thought your father had wasted his life. He did kill himself, after all. I don’t know, but it happens sometimes to the best of them.”

McAllister fought back the one memory of his father that he had never allowed into his consciousness. Shame? Fear? Whatever, he had avoided thinking about it for a very long time.

“Why was the message sent to me? That’s what the business with my name and false description was all about, wasn’t it?”

“It was Dexter Kingman’s idea. He thought it might flush you out. And it did.”

“Yes,” McAllister said. “It did. So here we are, talk to me.”

“Do you want it straight?” McAllister nodded.

“let Stephanie Albright come in. Nothing will happen to her, I promise you.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

“There is nothing I can do for you, Mac,” Highnote said, his voice low. “Put a bullet in your head. End it now. It would be for the best.”

McAllister shivered. “Is that your advice?”

“James O’Haire was Zebra One here in Washington, and you were Zebra Two in Moscow. It’s my guess Voronin was warning you that your identity had been discovered. I looked up his track. He had been in a position to know such things.”

“That’s how you see it?”

“Yes,” Highnote said. “You got into the computer to find out if we suspected you. Well, you know by now that we did not, although sooner or later we would have caught on to you.”

McAllister’s head was spinning. Nothing made any sense. Nothing was real. Yet there was an internal logic to what Highnote was telling him. Except that the Russians had arrested him and then inexplicablyreleased him after the trial to make the CIA believe that he indeed was the O’Haires’ control officer in an effort to protect the identity of the real man or men. Still there was one man in Moscow and one here in the United States.

“The last time we talked I asked you to consider the possibility that I was telling the truth, and that I had been set up.”

“I considered it, Mac, believe me. And I came to the conclusion that you are telling the truth so far as you know it. But can you tell me exactly what happened to you every moment you were being held in the Lubyanka?” Miroshnikov’s face swam into view. The barroom suddenly seemed very warm and close.

“I can see that you cannot. They are sophisticated, Mac. You know the drill. They had you for more than a month. They could have done anything to you. Anything at all. Turn you into anything they wanted. Turn you into their creature, even.”

“But what if that’s not the case?” McAllister insisted. “Give me that much at least. Give me that consideration, just for the sake of argument.

“Go on,” Highnote said after a moment.

McAllister ran a hand across his eyes. “I was a thorn in their side in Moscow so they arrested me and subjected me to a month of interrogation. And believe me, Bob, it is an experience that you would never forget.”

“Why were you released?”

“I think there are two possibilities. The first is that they had made their point. They’d caught an American spy, they’d tried him and found him guilty, and at that point he was of no further real value to them, so they simply released him.”

“They had your confession,” Highnote said. “You named all of your old network people. Times, places, operations. Everything.”

“The second is that it was a mistake. Whoever was in charge of my case hadn’t been given all the facts. Zebra One and Two meant nothing to my interrogator. But someone else could have listened to the tapes, read the manuscripts. Perhaps too late they realized that I was being released.”

“So, thinking that you knew more than you really did, this unknownRussian ordered your assassination in New York before you could cause any damage. Is that what you’re saying to me?”

“Either that or he told his American counterpart about me, and my assassination was ordered locally. And it didn’t stop there. They were Russians waiting for me outside your house, but they were Americans at your sailboat and there were two men out at Sikorski’s. Possibly Mafia.”

“We found no bodies.”

“Someone came out and cleaned up the mess before you got there.”

“Zebra One and Two are still in place, if I’m to believe you. One man here in Washington and one man in Moscow. Probably someone within the Agency. Someone we both know, and trust.”

“That’s right,” McAllister said. “But there’s even more to it than that.”

Highnote’s eyebrows knitted. “I’m still listening, Mac.”

“I didn’t kill Janos, but neither did the two I had the shootout with.”

“Who then?”

“I don’t know. Janos had been dead for at least a day and a half. Before the snowfall. There were no tire marks in or out of his place.”

This news more than anything else seemed to affect Highnote the most. He sat back in the booth a deep, pensive look on his face. “If I believe you, Mac, and I’m not saying I do, it would mean that there is a third party at work here. Someone not connected with your penetration agent.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I mean, can you explain the logic to me?”

“No,” McAllister said heavily. “But if I’m not telling the truth, for whatever reason, then my lies are very elaborate. Too elaborate. And for what reason?” We have made great progress together, you and I. I am so very proud of you, Mac, so very pleased.

Can you tell me exactly what happened to you every moment you were being held in the Lubyanka?

Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. “I don’t know if there is anything I can do for you, or should. Too much has happened. If you had turned yourself in at the beginning it might have been different. But now, I just don’t know.”

“I would have been dead by now.”

Highnote shook his head sadly, and he glanced toward the door. McAllister followed his gaze.

“Is someone coming?” he asked. Highnote looked away guiltily.

“You said Dexter Kingman had the idea to flush me out. Are his people on the way out here now? Did you call them from your car?”

“Something is going on, Mac. I don’t know what it is… “You did call someone,” McAllister said, and he got up abruptly. Highnote’s eyes were round. “Run,” he whispered. “I’ll do what I can for you.”

McAllister reached into his coat pocket for his gun as he went to the entry hall. In the short space of time he and Highnote had been here the place had filled up considerably. A number of people were waiting to be seated. He came around the corner at the same moment the front door opened and two men walked in. One of them was Dexter Kingman.

“McAllister,” Kingman shouted.

McAllister pulled out his gun and fired a shot over everyone’s head, the bullet smacking into the wall above the door. Kingman and the other man fell back out the door. A woman screamed as McAllister turned on his heel and raced into the dining room, threading his way through the tables, pandemonium spreading in his wake.

A waitress, balancing a large tray of food in her right hand, was just coming through the swinging doors from the kitchen. McAllister slammed into her, sending her flying, plates crashing everywhere.

“Some maniac is out there with a gun,” he shouted, racing through the kitchen, concealing his own weapon.

“What’s going on?” one of the chefs screamed. Someone was shouting into a telephone.

McAllister reached the rear door and outside, leaped down off the delivery platform, as a panel van was pulling up. He yanked open the passenger door and jumped in even before the van had come to a complete halt. He pointed the gun at the young man’s head. “Drive away from here! Now!”

“Is this a stickup?” the frightened kid stammered. “Get us out of here, goddamnit! Move it!“ The driver slammed the van into reverse, pulled away from the loading dock, then spun around in the slippery driveway and headed out to the highway.

McAllister cranked down the window and turned the big wing mirror so that he could see the rear door of the restaurant. No one had appeared by the time they turned the corner and reached the highway, accelerating back toward Washington, sirens finally sounding in the distance.

James Franklin O’Haire had not slept well from the moment he and his brother Liam had been transferred to the federal penitentiary at Marion, Illinois. The judge, out of some perverse sense of patriotism, had specified the generalpopulation prison, knowing that the O’Haires would not be well received by their fellow prisoners. “No country club incarceration for these two,” he’d said at the sentencing. Rape, murder, and bank robbery were acceptable crimes, not spying. Even criminals should feel a sense of national loyalty.

Jim O’Haire raised his left arm and looked at his watch. It was a few minutes before midnight. Something had awakened him; a noise, a metallic click. He didn’t know what it was. He sat up in his cot, shoved the covers back and swinging his legs over the edge. He was a husky man with graying hair and violently blue eyes. His roommate was sound asleep in the upper bunk. The lights from the main tier hall cast shadows in the narrow cell. From somewhere he could hear music. He ‘figured one of the guards was listening to a radio.

A large black figure, dressed in prison dungarees, appeared at the cell door. “O’Haire,” the man called softly.

Jim O’Haire recognized him as George Hanks, one of the trustees from downstairs. He got up, but remained uncertainly by his bunk. Something was wrong here, drastically wrong. All the inmates were supposed to be locked down at this hour.

“let’s go,” Hanks said. He glanced over his shoulder, then eased the cell door open, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

“What is it?” O’Haire asked. “What do you want?”

“You’re getting’ out of here, that’s what it is,” Hanks said. “Now move your honky ass and fix up your bunk, we’re runnin’ out of time.“The sound he had heard was the electronic door lock. Somehow Hanks had gotten to the control board, or one of the guards was in on this. O’Haire didn’t want to get his hopes up, not this soon after talking with the two Agency pricks who had come out here the other day. Besides, this simply didn’t feel right to him. Hanks and the other prisoners had given him a lot of shit over the past week.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Shit, I’m not going to stand here all fuckin’ night waitin’ on you. We got word from the man that you’re getting’ out of here. Tonight.”

Christ, was it possible? “What about my brother?”

“He’s on his way. Now move your ass!” Hanks whispered urgently. O’Haire hesitated only a moment longer before he turned and stuffed his pillow beneath his blanket so that from the cell door a passing guard might be fooled at first glance into believing that someone was in the bunk. There was no way he was going to sit rotting in this place when there was a chance of immediate escape. No way in hell.

At the barred door, O’Haire slipped out onto the walkway three tiers up from the main floor. Hanks, his powerful muscles rippling beneath his thin prison shirt, eased the door shut, the lock snapping home, then turned and nodded silently for O’Haire to follow him.

At the end of the walkway they took the stairs down to the main floor where Hanks produced a key and opened the steel door, admitting them to a holding vestibule. On the far side was another steel door, a small square window at eye level. Hanks unlocked this door, and O’Haire followed him out into the access corridor which ran the length of the main building. A guard should have been stationed here, but his desk was empty, the corridor completely deserted. Hanks had a plan, and the organization and contacts to carry it out. They were attributes that O’Haire admired, and he allowed a faint smile as he followed the big man down the corridor and outside into the bitter-cold night.

They held up in the shadows as a light-gray station wagon crossed the prison yard from the laundry plant.

“What’s the plan?” O’Haire whispered.

Hanks looked back at him, the expression on his face unreadable. “You and your brother are getting out in the morning garbage run.”

“What about outside?”

“Somebody will be waitin’ on you. It’s all set up.”

“How about clothes?”

“Man, quit raggin’ my ass. You’ll be taken care of.”

“I want to know,” O’Haire demanded, grabbing the man’s arm and pulling him around.

Hanks shoved him up against the brick wall, his eyes suddenly wild, his muscles bunched up. “Don’t mess with me, motherfucker! I said you were going to be taken care of, and I meant it!” O’Haire spread his hands. “Sorry. My ass is hanging out here.”

“Yeah, so is mine,” Hanks said, backing off. The car was gone, and they hurried to the far end of the building, passed through a tunnel, crossed a broad courtyard and driveway, then entered the garbage-collection facility through a side door, the sudden odor of rotting food and an open grease trap assailing their nostrils.

The prison garbage was separated here into recyclable items such as cans and glass bottles which were crushed and shipped out, and paper and plastic products that were dried, shredded, and sent over to the electrical generating plant for burning. Everything else was loaded aboard trucks each morning and taken out to the country dump off prison grounds. Four big garbage trucks were parked in the main garage. Hanks led the way behind the trucks and through another steel door into the big separation room adjacent to the prison kitchen.

Jim O’Haire’s younger brother, Liam, stood leaning up against a table, his arms folded over his chest. He straightened up when he spotted his brother.

“We’re getting out of here,” he said.

“Right…” Jim O’Haire started to reply when Hanks suddenly swiveled on him, grabbed a handful of his shirt and bodily threw him up against the table. “Motherfucker,” Hanks swore.

“What the hell,” Jim O’Haire shouted, regaining his balance and spinning around.

Six black men had appeared out of the shadows, each of them armed with a knife. Hanks pulled out a switchblade and thumbed it open with a soft click.“Mother of God, what’s going on here?” Jim O’Haire shouted. “Go ahead and scream, boy, nobody’s going to hear you,” Hanks said, he and the others advancing.

“We did our part,” Jim O’Haire shouted. “Goddamnit, we did as we were told.”