The Zebra Network

Chapter 6

McAllister kept thinking about Highnote’s gun in his pocket, but he couldn’t seem to get his arms or legs to work. He felt like a big dishrag, limp, without any strength. But he could see and hear and feel.

The car had pulled up in front of him. The car door opened and the driver jumped out and hurried around. Strong hands pulled McAllister around, then lifted his body up, shoving him through the open door into the back seat, the smell of leather instantly surrounding him.

There were three of them. Two had been hiding in the bushes waiting for him to come from around back, and the third waiting in the big Mercedes at the end of the block. It meant that despite his earlier precautions they had managed to follow him here. Had his tradecraft been that sloppy?

“Hurry,” one of them said. In Russian. That fact finally began to penetrate McAllister’s brain. They were Russians. He’d been recaptured by the KGB, but it was ludicrous; such things did not happen in Washington, D.C., not in front of the house of the deputy director of operations for the CIA. The driver and one of the others got in the front seat together, and the third Russian piled in the back with McAllister. “There’s blood all over the place back here, fuck your mother.”

“Is he dead?” one in the front asked.

McAllister was crumpled in a heap, half on the seat, half on the floor. The car had made a U-turn in the street and was speeding back toward Washington Boulevard. His head was splitting and his stomach turned over each time the car swayed, but his strength was coming back. He’d been dazed by the blow, but not knocked unconscious. The Russian’s hands were on his body, pulling him up onto the seat. He willed himself to go completely limp, his mouth slack, his eyes open and unmoving.

“I don’t know,” the Russian said above him. “Is he breathing, you fool?”

McAllister’s left arm was jammed awkwardly beneath him, but his right hand had fallen naturally over his jacket pocket. The car swung around a corner, causing the Russian in the back seat with him to lurch. It was all the opening McAllister needed.

He screamed, rolling with the motion of the car, getting his left arm free at the same time he reached in his right pocket, his fingers curling around the Walther’s grip, and he pulled the gun out of his pocket.

“Watch out,” the one in the front seat bellowed, clawing inside his coat for his own gun.

McAllister thumbed the Walther’s safety off at the same moment the Russian in the back seat regained his balanced and kicked out. He fell back, firing at point-blank range, the bullet catching the Russian high in the chest, the noise deafening in the close confines of the automobile. He switched aim, firing a second time and then a third through the back of the front seat, shoving the second Russian forward into the dash panel, his head crashing into the windshield.

The driver slammed on the brakes sending McAllister tumbling off the seat, losing his grip on the gun. Split seconds later he managed to shove himself upright in time to see a big, silenced Makarov automatic in the driver’s left hand coming over the top of the seat, the man’s face split in a grimace of fear and grim determination. One moment the American was possibly dead, certainly unconscious, and in the next moment he had killed two men. There was no time to find the Walther. McAllister lunged left as the Russian fired, the shot creasing the side of his neck with an incredibly hot stitch. He grabbed the man’s gun arm and yanked it sharply downward over the back of the seat, the bones breaking with an audible pop as the big car jumped up over the curb and came to a stop. The Russian screamed in pain, dropping the gun. But he was a professional and very well trained. His right hand was suddenly in McAllister’s face, his blunt fingers gouging at Mac’s eyes in a last desperate attempt to save his own life.

McAllister shrugged out of the man’s reach, then grabbed him by the back of his skull and his face, and twisted his head as far to the left and backward as it would go, and then jerked it sharply beyond the breaking point. The big Russian reared up, trying to lever his body over the seat in the same direction McAllister was twisting, but the angle was all wrong for him. He gave one final massive heave when his neck broke, and his body shuddered once, and then went limp, blood pouring out of his mouth where he had bitten through his tongue.

They were in a quiet neighborhood, still in Arlington Heights a couple of blocks away from Highnote’s house, and less than a quarter of a mile from the western entrance to Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A car came slowly past, a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. They looked over, their eyes wide as they passed, and then the car speeded up, turning the corner at the far end of the block.

They’d seen that something was obviously wrong. The car was up on the curb, two men were slumped over in the front seat, and one man with blood all over his face and neck was sitting up in the back. They would call the police as soon as they could find a telephone. He was going to have to get out of here, and now. Immediately.

It took him nearly a full minute to pull the driver’s body from behind the wheel and manhandle it into the back seat. He was weak, and his head was pounding. At times he was seeing double. He supposed he had received a slight concussion from the blow to the back of his head.

Climbing behind the wheel, he slammed the car into reverse, backed down off the curb, and then, dropping it into drive, raced to the corner and turned left. The next few minutes were going to be crucial.

Highnote would have called someone by now; possibly the police or the FBI, or possibly someone from the Agency. They’d be on their way by now. But to drive around Washington in a car filled with dead bodies and a lot of blood would be to invite certain arrest. Someone would be sure to spot him. Chances. His life had always been filled with risk. He was going to have to take a very large risk now, because he still needed answers.

Highnote’s street was still dark as McAllister pulled up and parked the Mercedes behind his rented Ford Taurus. It had been minutes since he had left his friend’s house, but he had expected at least to hear the sounds of sirens converging here by now. But no one had come. Yet.

Jumping out of the car he yanked open the rear door, retrieved the Walther, and quickly searched the three bodies, coming up with their Soviet Embassy diplomatic credentials and nearly a thousand dollars in cash. Hurrying back to the Ford he got in behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled away.

Answers. He needed more answers.

This time he took the more direct route back into town, past Fort Meyer, up through Colonial Village, then Rosslyn and finally the Key Bridge into Georgetown, the city glittering with lights and traffic. As he drove he had used his handkerchief to clean off some of the blood from his forehead and from the gash in his neck. Neither wound was serious, his luck had held, but his head was on fire, he was sick at his stomach and his vision kept coming in and out of double. They’d been sent to the airport in New York to kill him, and again to Washington. But how had they known his whereabouts? He was certain that he hadn’t been tailed. It would have taken a team of at least four vehicles to pull it off. He’d been part of the drill for too long, and too often to be taken in by a single car behind him.

His presence in New York could have been supplied by air traffic control at Moscow and in Paris. But here in Washington? Would they have figured that he would run first to his old friend and mentor Bob Highnote? It was logical. The question was, how many other people were looking for him at this moment? And what other places would they be watching?

Still, he told himself, he was going to have to take this risk now, no matter what the odds. He was going to have to see his wife; tell her his side of the story. She would understand and believe him. She, of any person on this earth, would have to believe in him. I’m on your side, Mac. So is Gloria. I talked to her again this morning. She told me that no matter what happens, no matter how it turns out, she’ll stick with you, if you’ll just turn yourself in.

Instead of turning up 31st Street, McAllister drove another block, turning left on 30th, and a half a block later left again on Cambridge Place which was a narrow lane that led back over to Avon. It was the back way to his house. There was no traffic here at this hour, though there were a lot of cars parked on the upper side of the street. He stopped, backed into a driveway and then pulled out again, parking twenty yards down the lane, the car now facing back out toward 30th.

He checked the Walther’s clip. There were five bullets left, including the one in the breach. Too late he realized that he should have taken one of the Russians’ weapons; the Makarov was a much heavier weapon, with far more stopping power than the lightweight Walther. The Russians’ weapons had also been silenced.

Mistakes. He was making too many of them. One piled on top of the other. Sooner or later they would cost him his life.

Getting out of the car, he pocketed the gun, crossed the street and keeping to the shadows as much as possible, hurried up to Avon Place. This was an area of smart brownstone homes, some of which had window boxes on the second story windows that in summer were alive with flowers, but were now barren. A chill, damp wind was blowing up from the Potomac with odors of river mud, diesel fumes and city. Familiar smells. Home smells. But very strange now for him, coming here like this.

The cab and the Mercedes that had been here earlier were gone now, but the Toyota van with reflective film over its windows was still parked just down the street. A dim light shone from the second floor living room windows of his house. As he hung back by the corner, he thought he saw a shadow moving up there, but then it was gone. Would they expect him to come here like this now? Had they pulled away everyone except the Toyota van in an attempt to lure him in? It’s safe now. We’ve pulled our people out. But who was upstairs in his house? Gloria, or someone else? Someone with the orders from Moscow: A maniac is on the loose, kill him on sight. Hunching up his coat collar McAllister walked silently on the balls of his feet toward the van, never taking his eyes off the windscreen. The interior of the vehicle was in darkness, but as he got closer he could see that no one was sitting in the front. If anyone was inside, they were in the back, in the darkness.

He stopped twenty feet away and glanced up toward the living room windows of his house. Nothing had changed, the light still illuminated the curtains, but there was no movement.

Taking out the gun, he held it in his right hand, out of sight at his side, and cautiously approached the van. A half a block away traffic passed normally along 31st Street. But here nothing moved. It was one of the reasons they had bought this place. The neighborhood was quiet and safe.

This close he could see all the way inside the van, over the backs of the front seats. No one was inside. The van was empty. Nor did it seem now like the vehicle was used for surveillance. He could see no communications radio. Unless they used walkie-talkies they’d be out of touch here.

He tried the passenger door. It was locked. Even if it was a surveillance van, they’d never leave it locked like that. Seconds spent fumbling with keys, unlocking doors could be crucial seconds wasted in a developing situation. A message may have gone out from Highnote. McAllister is here in Arlington Heights. The search would have been shifted to the other side of the river. Plausible? Or was he chasing again after will-o’the-wisps?

Stepping around behind the van, he hesitated a moment longer, then walked across the street, mounting the steps to his front door. He listened at the frosted-glass pane, but could hear nothing inside. He tried the doorknob and it gave easily in his hand, the door opening a crack. Whoever was upstairs had not locked up. He and Gloria used to have bitter arguments about it. She always forgot to lock the door at night, and he would get angry with her over it.

This now was another of her lapses, or was it a trap? His internal warning system was in high gear. This was all wrong. Everything was wrong. No outward signs of a surveillance team. The Toyota van as what? A dummy, a decoy? The light in the upstairs window inviting him: everything is all right here, Mac. No trouble here. Only your good and patient wife waiting for you; your good and patient and forgetful wife waiting for you with the front door unlocked.

Standing there at the partially opened door he thumbed the Walther’s safety off, and then back on. Had he come to the point that he would fire on an Agency security officer, or a Bureau agent? Christ, had he been reduced to that?

He pushed the door the rest of the way open with his right foot, waited a moment longer, and then stepped into the dark stairhall.

He could hear music playing upstairs, softly. It sounded classical. Gloria had hated Moscow, but she’d always loved Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev. She was upstairs waiting for him? Or was the message too clear?

The house was typical of most in the area; three stories, long and narrow. On the ground floor were storage rooms, a nursery for the child they’d never had, and a servants’ apartment for the servants they’d never hired. The second floor contained the living room, dining room, kitchen, and a bathroom. And the top floor contained two bedrooms and another bathroom. In back was a courtyard garden area and a garage in which his Peugeot was parked.

McAllister closed the door and moved silently to the foot of the stairs. The upper stairhall was in darkness, but now he could more clearly hear the music coming from above. It was definitely Tchaikovsky; the violin concerto, Gloria’s favorite.

He started up, his right foot on the first tread when a woman’s voice came to him from the darkness to his right. In the storeroom.

“Please stop right there, Mr. McAllister. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

McAllister froze where he was. She sounded young and frightened. Frightened people made mistakes. But was she alone? “Who are you?”

“Albright. Office of Security. We’ve been waiting for you.” He carefully turned his head left and looked toward the sound of her voice. She had to be just within the storeroom which was in pitch blackness. He couldn’t see her. “The others must be in Arlington Heights.”

“We just got the word,” she said. “But no one thought you’d be coming back here.“McAllister stepped back and turned toward her. He didn’t think she’d seen the gun at his side. A lot of what had been happening suddenly became clear to him because of her presence here. The Company’s Office of Security usually handled background checks on prospective employees. Only rarely was it called in on this kind of a surveillance operation. They wanted to keep this contained. The FBI was most likely involved too, but it would not have been told the entire story. Agency security officers rarely carried weapons. They didn’t have the training for it.

“Raise your hands please,” the woman said. “look, before this gets out of control, why don’t you call Bob Highnote. He’ll explain everything to you.”

“Put your hands up…

“No,” McAllister said, keeping his tone reasonable. “I think you’d better call someone, or shoot me, but don’t let’s just stand here.” She was an amateur. He was waiting for the mistake.

She stepped out of the storeroom into the dim light filtering through the frosted-glass window in the front door. She was young, perhaps thirty, about five-feet-six, very slightly built, with a thin face, a round but slightly crooked nose, and medium-length brown hair. She held a small.32 automatic in her right hand and a walkie-talkie in her left. She seemed extremely nervous.

“I came here to talk to my wife,” McAllister said. “Have your people get in touch with Highnote. Tell him that I’m here and won’t give anybody any trouble. Can you do that much for me?”

The young woman glanced up the stairs. “My wife is up there, isn’t she? Waiting for me?”

“Yes,” the young woman said.

“Good,” McAllister replied. “Call your team leader. I’ll just go upstairs now.” He turned again and made as if he were going to start up the stairs. “Wait,” she said, moving toward him. It was the mistake he’d been waiting for.

McAllister started to raise his hands, the sudden motion confusing her, then he stepped directly into her, swiveling on his left foot so that his body was inside her extended gun hand. She tried to step back, to get away from him, but it was too late. He grabbed her gunhand with his left, twisted it sharply outward, and he had the little automatic.

She let out a cry and started to bring the walkie-talkie to her lips. McAllister raised his pistol so that the barrel was inches from her face.

“Key that thing and I’ll kill you.” He spoke softly, but with urgency. “My God…”

“I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t if you do exactly as I say. I have to talk to my wife, and then I’ll be getting out of here. Once I’m clear I’ll release you. But for the moment you’re going to have to stay with me.”

“Don’t do this…

“I won’t hurt you, I promise,” McAllister said. He pocketed her gun, then took the walkie-talkie from her and stepped back away from the stairs. He motioned for her to go up first.

She was terrified, but she did as she was told, stepping past him and starting up the stairs. He quickly unscrewed the walkie-talkie’s antenna, pocketed it, and then laid the unit on the hall table. Above, the music got louder. The woman stopped. The upper landing was suddenly bathed in light.

McAllister was just below the woman when his wife appeared at the head of the stairs. She was dressed in slacks and a light sweater. Her feet were bare.

“Who is that?” she called down. “Stephanie?” Her voice was husky.

It sounded as if she’d been crying. McAllister moved aside so that he was in the light spilling down from above. “It’s me,” he said.

Gloria’s reaction was sudden and startling. She stepped back a pace as if she had just received a stunning blow, her face screwed up in a grimace, her teeth bared. “You,” she hissed. “Gloria…?” he said, confused. This wasn’t making any sense. “You bastard! Why did you come here?” his wife shrieked. Her words were like battering rams, the blows physical. “You’re a traitor! Murderer! What do you want? There’s nothing here for you!”

“Listen to me..”

“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out… traitor! Go back to your Russian friends! Get out before I kill you myself!”

This was impossible. It could not be happening. Not like this. His vision was blurred again, and the pain in his head caused him to reel backward, almost losing his balance on the stairs.

“I’ll kill you myself…” Gloria was screeching. She’d turned away and was fumbling at the small table on the landing.

Stephanie Albright had stepped back a pace too. “Mrs. McAllister…?”

It was the gun. They’d kept a .38 revolver in the table drawer. She was actually going to try to kill him. He simply could not believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. His entire world had suddenly been turned upside down.

Gloria’s body filled the landing, the pistol held in both outstretched hands, and she fired, the shot going wide and high, shattering the mirror on the wall halfway up the stairs.

Stephanie Albright was scrambling back down the stairs, trying to get out of the line of fire. On instinct alone, McAllister stepped to the side and backward, trying to place himself in the shadows, twisting his body sideways so that he would present less of a target.

Gloria fired a second time, and a third, this shot catching McAllister high on his left side, just beneath his armpit, the pain exploding in his chest.

He lurched away from the stairs as Stephanie reached the front door, tore it open with a crash and disappeared into the night. Gloria fired two more shots, one of them shattering the frosted-glass pane in the door and ricocheting off the pavement outside with a high-pitched whine. McAllister stood in the darkness holding his left arm tightly against his side to staunch the flow of blood. He could see his wife’s legs halfway up the stairs. She’d stopped. He stepped out of the shadows.

“Gloria?” he said.

Her eyes widened at the sight of him. She raised the pistol so that it was pointing directly at his face and without hesitation pulled the trigger. The hammer fell on an empty cylinder. For safety he’d never loaded more than five bullets into the gun. She’d forgotten or had miscounted. Either way it was of no matter; she definitely wanted him dead.

“Why?” he asked softly. His heart was pounding. “Bastard!” she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. She spun around and raced back up the stairs. For a second he thought about going after her. But everything was changed now. The skids had been knocked out from under him. He was no longer sure of anything, including himself.

He stepped back, turned and looked outside. Stephanie Albright was clawing open the Toyota’s door. It had been a mistake on her part, locking the van. The thought registered automatically in McAllister’s brain. But it seemed impossible that he could or even should do anything other than wait right here to be taken. She would get help. They would come for him, and it would be over. He wouldn’t have to fight any longer. He was confused and hurt; it was even worse now than it had been at the Lubyanka when he’d lain, strapped to the steel table in the torture chamber, listening to his heart stopping.

The vision of Miroshnikov standing over him, smiling, telling him that they had come so far together, that he was so proud of their work came to him and he shuddered. If he gave up now they would have won… whoever they were, and whatever they wanted. He wasn’t built that way. He’d never been that way, not from the beginning.

Stephanie Albright was just climbing behind the wheel of the Toyota van when McAllister finally roused himself out of his daze, spun on his heel and without a backward glance raced out the door, down the stairs and across the street.

The van’s engine came to life. He jammed his gun against the window, aiming directly at her head.

She looked up, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift lever.

“I need your help,” he shouted.

She was shaking. Her mouth was opening and closing but no sounds were coming out. Traffic was passing normally on 31st Street. It was unreal.

“Just a little longer. Then I’ll let you go, I promise.”

“No,” she moaned.

McAllister yanked the door open. “I won’t hurt you, I swear to God I won’t.”

“What do you want?”

“Just get me out of here, that’s all I ask.”

McAllister sat directly behind Stephanie Albright as she drove. They’d crossed the Key Bridge on his instructions and headed northwest up the Washington Parkway that paralleled the river.

Once they were away from the bright city lights, he laid the gun on the seat beside him, undid his shirt and probed the wound with the fingers of his right hand. The .38-caliber bullet had entered his chest at an oblique angle a couple of inches to the left of his left breast, nicking a rib, and emerging below his shoulder blade. It hadn’t done a lot of damage, and already the bleeding had slowed to an ooze, but his entire left side was numb from his shoulder all the way down to his hip, and he felt light-headed not only from his latest wound, but from the severe blow to the back of his skull. He stuffed his handkerchief under his shirt.

He needed medical help, he needed sleep and food, but more than that he desperately needed answers.“We can’t drive around all night,” Stephanie Albright said. “They’ve got to be searching for me and this van already.”

“Just hope they don’t find us too soon,” McAllister said. “Too soon for what?” she asked, looking in the rearview mirror at him. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Not if you do exactly as I tell you.”

“Then tell me something,” she said, her voice raising. “Keep driving,” he said tiredly. He picked up the gun, and holding it on his lap laid his head back on the seat. Robert Highnote and Gloria. The two people he most trusted in the world had turned against him. They had called him a traitor, a murderer. He couldn’t get the image of Gloria’s face twisted into a grimace of hate and revulsion from his mind. It hurt him more than his wounds. You can’t trust anybody in this business, boyo. The words came back to him again. He had never understood their real significance until this moment. Despite his dangerous occupation he had led a relatively safe life. There was always Gloria, and always Langley for him to turn to for help, for comfort, for understanding, and backing. Now the very people who had loved and trusted him, meant to hunt him down and kill him.

He could run, of course. He was an expert at hiding out. Somewhere in Europe, on a Greek island in the middle of nowhere, perhaps in the Caribbean. But how long could he stay hidden? Sooner or later they would catch up with him. If the Agency or the KGB wanted it badly enough they would find you. Too many people knew his habits, knew more importantly his failings. The old sage of the Company, Wallace Mahoney, had once lectured at the Farm that”.. by your tradecraft shall you be known.” Like so much in the Agency, the litany once learned dominated your life.

In Washington were the answers. But to whom could he turn now? In this business you can’t trust anybody… unless it’s someone without an axe to grind.

But he needed answers, which meant he needed someone who knew what?

He was drifting. His brain making associations, rejecting connections. Passing over names and places and dates.

Janos Sikorski. He was the man with the answers. He sat forward. “We’re going to Reston.” She looked at him again in the rearview mirror. “Reston?”

“It’s on the way to Dulles.”

“I know where it is,” she said. “Why Reston? What’s there?”

“Answers,” he said. “I hope.”

“You’re crazy,” she snapped. Her fear was being replaced by anger. “Why don’t you let me take you to Langley?”

“Because someone is trying to kill me.”

“Your wife included.”

“Yes,” McAllister said softly, the pain intensifying. “Just drive me to Reston.”

“Then will you let me go?”

“We’ll see.”

Sikorski’s house was actually a large cabin at the end of a long dirt road outside of Sunset Hills southeast of the town of Reston. It took them nearly an hour in the darkness to find the place. McAllister had only been here twice before. Once with his father about fifteen years ago, and a second time six years ago when Sikorski had retired from the Agency and he’d had the crowd up for what he called a “go to hell” party.

He’d come out of Poland in the summer of 1939, a couple of weeks before the Nazi invasion, where he’d set up shop with some of the other emigres who were working with the British SIS. After the war he’d gone into semi-retirement-he’d had enough guns and fighting and killing to last ten lifetimes. But he’d been recruited in the late forties into the fledgling CIA by McAllister’s father. For twenty-five years he had run the Agency’s Records Section with an iron hand and a razor-sharp mind. It was said that whatever Sikorski didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. McAllister hoped it was true.

“What is this place?” Stephanie Albright asked nervously as they bumped slowly down the very dark, very narrow lane. The trees grew very close on both sides of the road here, forming a canopy overhead.

“Turn off your headlights,” McAllister ordered. He’d seen a flash of light at the end of the road. “What?”

“Goddamnit, turn off your headlights. Now!“ She did as she was told, the road disappearing in front of them. She stabbed the brakes hard, bringing them to a sudden halt. “I can’t see anything.”

McAllister could. About fifty yards farther down the road he could just make out the dim lights from the cabin. This was close enough. There was no telling who could be waiting for him.

“Shut off the engine.”

“What?” she cried, suddenly alarmed. Her face was twisted into a mask of fear. McAllister brought the Walther over the back of the seat, pressing the barrel against her cheek. “I’m tired of arguing with you. Shut off the engine!”

“I don’t want to die here like this,” she moaned. “Nor will you if you do as I say,” McAllister said. “There’s a cabin at the end of this road. Someone is there who I have to talk to. We’re going to get out and walk down to it. Together. Now shut off the engine and give me the keys, and I promise I won’t hurt you.”

“Oh, God… oh, God…” she sobbed, but she did as he told her.

McAllister pocketed the keys, opened the side door and got out.

At first he nearly collapsed, and he had to lean against the side of the van for support until he got his balance. Stephanie Albright was staring at him through the window.

He opened the door for her, and when she got out she stumbled against him, until he took her arm and together they started down the dirt road.

Sikorski’s cabin was located in a narrow clearing at the edge of a steep wooded hill. In the distance to the north they could see the lights of the town of Reston. It was a scenic spot. An old Chevrolet pickup truck was parked at the side of the house beneath a carport. A light was on in the kitchen, the rest of the place was in darkness. McAllister angled across the driveway to the opposite side of the cabin where he’d spotted the telephone line coming in. Reaching it, he yanked the wires out of the small junction box. Whatever happened next, help could not be so easily summoned.

Around front McAllister knocked on the door and then stepped aside, shoving Stephanie Albright forward. “If he asks, tell him that you’ve come from the Agency. There are some questions.”

Moments later the front light came on. The door opened and Janos Sikorski was standing there. He was an old man, at least in his early seventies, with long, startlingly white hair, slack blue-gray skin that hung like a hound dog’s pelt around his neck and jowls, and broad, coal-black eyes. He was dressed in an open-collar white shirt and iron-gray workman’s trousers, slippers on his feet. “Hi-ho, my luck has just taken a bloody big turn for the better,” he hooted, his accent, even after all these years, Polish, but his expressions British.

“Hello, Janos,” McAllister said, stepping into the light before Stephanie Albright could speak.

The breath went out of the old man, and he staggered backward, grabbing the edge of the door so he wouldn’t fall. His complexion had turned white. “You’re a surprise, kid.”

“I need some help,” McAllister said.

“I’d guess you do,” Sikorski replied. He shook his head wryly. “I’ll take it back, the bit about my luck.” His eyes strayed to the gun in McAllister’s hand, and the blood over his neck and at his side. “You’d better come in, then, before you fall down.”

The cabin was furnished pleasantly if rustically. There were a lot of books everywhere; on shelves, on the fireplace mantel, stacked in piles here and there, on chairs, on tables, on the floor in the corners.

“I’ve already taken care of the telephone line,” McAllister said. “Naturally,” the old man replied. He eyed the woman. “What’s with her?”

“He’s kidnapped me,” she said woodenly.

Sikorski shrugged, turning his attention back to McAllister. “So, kid, what brings you out here? You do remember that I’m retired. Six years now.”

“I need some answers, Janos,” McAllister said. He stood with his back to the door. The old man had moved across the room to stand in front of the fireplace. Stephanie stood to the right, near the entry to the kitchen. She looked like a frightened doe, ready to bolt at any moment.

“I don’t know if I can help you. Have you talked to Highnote?”

“He thinks I’m a traitor.”

Again Sikorski shrugged. “I’ve heard something about it. The Russkies gave you a pretty rough bash-up, in the Lubyanka. lots of good people have fallen by the wayside.”

“Drugs,” McAllister said.

“I also heard that you wasted a couple of our boys up in New York this morning.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Have you talked to Gloria yet?” McAllister nodded.

The old man’s thick eyebrows rose. “I see,” he said. “So what in bloody hell are you doing out here like this? I’m no doctor, though from what I can see you sure as hell are in need of one, nor is this the bloody monastery-no refuge from the Philistines here.”

“Someone wants me dead, Janos, and I don’t understand why. It’s the Russians. I killed three of them in Arlington Heights a couple of hours ago. They’d been waiting for me to show up at Bob’s.”

“Pardon me, kid, if I seem a bit skeptical, but from what I understand the Russians are your pals. Too bad, ‘cause your old dad was first rate, and I always thought you were too.”

“Then why did I come out here?” McAllister snapped. He trusted Sikorski as his father had, from the very beginning. Totally unaffected by the partisan politics of the Hill, Sikorski was the Rock of Gibraltar at Langley. Always had been. A man of rare judgment, insight, and honesty, was how he’d been described.

“You tell me,” the old man said harshly.

McAllister slowly lowered his gun and slumped back against the door. He was exhausted, and he was seeing double again. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to keep his thoughts in any semblance of order. He’d been operating on adrenaline for so long that he had very little strength left. He raised his head and looked at Sikorski. He was being given his hearing. It’s all he had wanted from the start; simply to be listened to. If anyone could or would understand, it would be this one.

“I was arrested by the KGB in Moscow on October twenty-eighth,” McAllister began, and in the retelling he was acutely aware of how little he could actually recall of his interrogation. Bits and pieces of his treatment, snatches of his conversations with Miroshnikov came back to him through his drug-hazed memories. But it wasn’t enough. He could see in Sikorski’s eyes that the old man was not believing him.

We’re making progress and I feel very good about it, Miroshnikov said. And so should you. We have finally broken down the first barrier really quite excellent.

How much had he told them? Perhaps Highnote had been correct after all, perhaps the Russians had sent him back to work as a double agent. But why then had they tried to kill him?

Sikorski was talking, but McAllister was finding it difficult to concentrate.

“Again, kid, why did you come here?” the old man asked, his voice rising.

Stephanie Albright had turned her head and was looking at something in the kitchen. She was shivering.

McAllister pushed himself away from the door, and stood there wavering on his feet, the gun held limply at his side. His body seemed remote. looking at Sikorski across the room it was hard to focus.

“Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.” They were Voronin’s words. What did they mean?

Sikorski stepped forward, his entire manner changed, his face contorted into a mask of hate and fury. “What did you say?” he growled.

McAllister’s stomach was turning over. “I heard it in Moscow. One of my madmen… I was working him “Who else have you spoken these words to?” Sikorski demanded, barely in control of his rage.

“Nobody…” McAllister started to say when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned. Stephanie Albright had disappeared into the kitchen. “Wait,” he shouted, when the kitchen lights went out, the only illumination now in the cabin from the flickering embers in the fireplace. Sikorski had stepped over to a cabinet, yanked open a drawer, and he was turning around, a big automatic in his hand. McAllister dove to the left, below the level of the couch between them, as the old man fired, the shot smacking into the thick wood of the door.“Traitor!” Sikorski screamed in animal fury. “They’ll give me a medal for your body!”

Stephanie Albright was outside, racing away from the kitchen door when she heard the shot, and moments later Sikorski’s ragged cries. She wanted to stop, but she was professional enough to understand that unarmed there wasn’t a thing she could do for the old man. McAllister had to be stopped before he killed even more people.

As she ran full tilt back up the dirt road she fumbled in her pocket for the van’s keys that she had lifted from McAllister when she’d stumbled against him. At that instant she had known that she had been closer to death than she’d ever been in her life. He hadn’t felt a thing, but all the way up to the cabin, and inside as he was telling his insane lies, her heart had been in her throat.

Reaching the Toyota, she tore open the door, got in behind the wheel and started the engine. She had listened for more gunshots, but the cabin had been silent. Ominously silent. She imagined McAllister racing up the dark road behind her, crazy with rage.

It took her precious seconds in the darkness to get the van turned around on the narrow dirt track, and when she did she flipped on the headlights and floored the accelerator, dirt and gravel spitting out from behind the rear tires, as she careened toward the main road.

Her mind was racing to a dozen different possibilities. There wasn’t enough time for her to drive all the way back into Washington. She needed to find a telephone. Immediately, before the monster got loose again. She fixed her thoughts on Reston. It was a town of about forty thousand. There would be a service station on the highway. A telephone. Help.

She found what she was looking for less than ten minutes later on the outskirts of town. Pulling off the highway she screeched to a halt in front of the pumps, shoved open the door and leaped out. A young man in dark-blue coveralls came running out of one of the service bays, wiping his hands on a rag.

“This is an emergency!” Stephanie screamed, racing past him toward the office. “I need a telephone!”

The attendant came after her. “You need the cops?” he shouted. She rushed behind the counter and picked up the telephone on the desk.

“Hey, you can’t go back there..” the young man was saying, but Stephanie waved him off.

She dialed a Langley number which was answered on the first ring. “This is Albright,” she said, forcing herself to calm down. “McAllister is on the loose. Outside of Reston.”

“Stand by,” the Security Section OD said with maddening calmness.

The attendant was staring at her, open-mouthed. “Stephanie, is that you?” Dexter Kingman, director of security, said.

“Yes,” she cried in relief. “I’m at a Texaco station just outside of Reston. McAllister brought me out to a cabin nearby. He spoke with an old man. Janos… something.”

“Sikorski,” Kingman said. “Where is he now?”

“When I left he was still with the old man. There was a gun shot.” Kingman said something away from the telephone. When he came back he seemed out of breath. “Are you all right, Stephanie?”

“I’m fine.”

“Stay where you are, were on our way.