Deep Lie (16 page)

“Tell you what; it’s sure going to make one hell of a difference in my retirement pay. Bette’s already talking houses in the Bahamas.”

“That’s terrific, Ed,” Rule laughed.

“And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Rawls turned the steaks.

“I was proud of you when I heard you’d got the Soviet Office.”

“I got your note, Ed; thanks.”

“There’s hope for all of us when they start giving the younger officers some real responsibility. You like the job?”

Rule smiled.

“There are moments when I’d like a bit more action, when I wish I’d never left the covert side, but I love it, really.”

Rawls studied the steaks carefully.

“You going to be able to hang onto it?”

Rule sat up straight.

“You heard about this afternoon?”

“Heard about it?” he snorted.

“I was there!”

“In the meeting with Nixon, Simon, and the director?”

He nodded.

“I walked in at the height of the whole thing. I tried to back out, but they waved me on in. I didn’t hear what your report said, but I heard the directors reaction. He was pretty hot.” He forked the steaks onto plates, dished up a salad, and put the food on the table.

“Come and get it.”

Rule dragged up a chair as he poured the wine.

“Alan didn’t give me a blow by blow, but I got the gist of it, I think. They’ve slapped an exclusion order on me for sat shots of Scandinavia—at least I hope that’s the extent of it.”

Rawls nodded. “I was there when the director did that.

Scandinavia is as far as it goes. He wouldn’t hang a general exclusion order on an office head; he’d just dump you someplace cold.”

Rule sipped the wine Rawls poured.

“Yeah, Nixon drew that particular picture for me. He mentioned on-campus recruiting.”

Rawls leaned back and laughed heartily.

“Yeah, that’d be just the sort of thing, wouldn’t it?”

“Ed, is the director as big a jerk as he seems to be?”

“Probably. But directors come and go, and when the president goes, he does, too. He won’t stand a change of administrations, let alone parties. I reckon he’ll be a cross I’ll have to bear for a while, but Simon will do most of the bearing.” Rawls took a deep draft of the wine.

“I think Simon would like that job,” he said, “and if the president’s successor opts for a professional instead of a crony like the present director, I reckon he’d have a shot at it.”

“Oh, yes,” Rule said, “Simon would love that.” She had never really thought that he might get it, until now, and the idea rattled her.

“And you’d get ops, wouldn’t you?”

“Who can say? If Simon likes me as his deputy, then maybe.” Rawls washed down some steak with more wine.

“Question is, what’s going to happen to you, Kate? Are you going to prosper in the Agency with your ex-husband as Director of Central Intelligence?”

Rule shrugged.

“To tell you the truth. Ed, I’m a lot more worried about the next few weeks than the next few years. Something’s going on in Scandinavia, and…”

Rawls stopped her with an upraised hand.

“Hold it right there, Kate. I don’t want to hear a rump view of world events right at the moment. I drew you a picture of where things are going and who’s going to be there. If I hear about this, I want to hear about it through channels.”

Rule blushed.

“You’re right; I didn’t mean to try to make an end run. It’s just that I’m in a lot of trouble right now, and in the dark, and I’ve been denied work time and access to information on something that I’ve got a very strong gut feeling about.”

Rawls nodded.

“I’ve had a few of those in my time.”

“What did you do?”

He laughed.

“I kept at it. Made something of it, sometimes, too. Other times, got my ass in a wringer.”

“That’s about where I am, but I can’t let go of this one.

1 think this is very, very important, Ed.”

“I believe you,” he said.

“I know how bright you are, and although I haven’t seen much of you lately, I’ve heard good things. If I were in the director’s shoes, I’d listen, at the very least.”

“Thanks.” Rule waited until he had poured coffee, then leaned forward.

“Listen, Ed, I understand why you can’t listen to my theory right now, but I could use some advice, and some help, if you’ll give it to me.” She knew he was in her debt, but she didn’t want to be too blatant in reminding him.

“Advice? Sure. Help? That depends on what kind.”

Rule took a deep breath.

“First of all, I need a computer security code for entry to COSMO. As things stand now, if I use my own code and they audit my online time, they’ll know I’m still working on this, and I’ll get shipped.

I need somebody’s unlock from another department entirely, preferably one they won’t audit in the course of things.”

Rawls grinned a small grin. “Okay, don’t write this down, memorize it.” He recited a ten-digit code.

“Got it?”

Rule repeated it to herself.

“Got it. It’s not yours? I don’t want to hang this on you.”

He shook his head.

“It’s Simon’s. Don’t ask me how I got it.”

She laughed.

“You’re pretty sneaky.”

“They trained me to be sneaky. I’m too old to stop now. What else do you need?”

Rule thought about the goon hanging around outside her house.

“I need a good mechanic, somebody versatile.”

Rawls frowned.

“You’re not going to crank up some thing on the domestic side, are you?” The CIA was authorized to conduct operations only abroad. The FBI handled domestic operations, and although the Agency had run illegal projects at home. they had often got their fingers burned.

She shook her head.

“It’s only for defensive purposes, I promise.”

Rawls thought for a moment.

“There’s a guy named Danny Burgis, he was Company a while back. Runs a security service in D.C. alarms, guard dogs, whatever anybody needs. We used to fly light planes together. He’s in the book; use a clean phone. Tell him Biggies sent you.

That’s what he used to call me.”

“One more thing.” she said, and this was the big one.

“There was no mention of Majorov in the Malakhov interrogation digests. Surely the name came up. God. the man was the First Chief Directorate!”

Rawls shook his head.

“If it isn’t in the digests, we didn’t talk about it.”

Rule knew that was not so. It was Ed’s way of saying he couldn’t discuss it, that it was too hot. Ed was going by the book. but she had a feeling he might interpret the rules in her favor, if she could figure out what to ask for.

“Malakhov is wrung dry, is he?” she asked.

“Bled white, believe me.”

“Have you cut him loose yet?” If they had given him a new identity and planted him somewhere, she didn’t have a chance.

“Soon,” Rawls replied.

She knew that Malakhov must have been interrogated somewhere within a reasonable distance of New York, or Rawls wouldn’t have installed his wife there and commuted weekends. If they were about to move him there might be just a chance. She made a stab.

“Ed. I want to talk with Malakhov. Give me an hour with him.” To her surprise. Rawls didn’t bat an eyelash.

“A mile outside Stowe, Vermont, going south on the main highway, there’s a Texaco station. Be there at three o’clock Sunday afternoon, and be sure you haven’t picked up a tail. Pull into the self-service bay and fill your tank.

Pick up on a yellow Jeep Blazer, driver only; follow him away from the station, and not too closely. He’ll take you to a house. You’ll be back at the Texaco station by four.

That’ll give you about forty minutes with him.”

“Thanks. Ed.”

“You’ll be wanting to get home,” he said, rising.

At the front door she stopped.

“Ed.” she said. “what’s Snowflower?”

Rawls paused before he replied.

“I don’t know. Kate.”

Rule hugged him and slipped out the door. She walked quickly back to her neighbor’s house. He looked surprised to see her but let her into his garden. As she let herself in through her back door, she could hear Mozart coming from the living room. Will was dozing with a book in his lap. She woke him gently.

“So how was dinner?” he asked.

“A very decent steak, and a lot of help, thanks,” she replied, kissing him lightly.

“Did you eat anything?”

“A frozen diet pizza. You have about two dozen of them in there.”

“That’s what I eat when I’m not at your house; it’s how I keep my figure. Listen, I’d ask you to stay, but my mind is humming; I’d be very bad company. Do you mind?”

“You’re lucky I’m such an understanding guy,” he said, standing up and stretching.

“Most fellows would take exception to being invited out to dinner at an expensive restaurant, getting into a dinner jacket, and then end up dining alone on diet pizza while you eat steak with somebody else, not to mention being sent home in a sexually unfulfilled condition.”

“I know how lucky I am,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist, “and I can’t even tell you about any of this, at least, not yet. It’s extremely important to me. though, and maybe to a lot of other people, too.” They strolled toward the front door. She stopped.

“Listen, the rest of this week is going to be bad for me, and I’ve got to go out of town on Sunday. Can I call you the first of the week?”

“You’re forgetting, I’m off to Finland on Sunday, by way of Stockholm.”

“Oh, God, of course, and I’m meeting you in Copenhagen.”

“By the way,” he said, reaching into an inside coat pocket and retrieving an airline folder, “here’s your ticket to Copenhagen and a hotel voucher, in case we don’t arrive there absolutely simultaneously.” He frowned.

“You are still planning to come, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. Will. In fact, it might be the best thing for me to get out of the office for a while. You have to understand, though, that with this Majorov thing the way it is, I might have to cancel at the last minute.”

“Well, okay,” he sighed.

“I know you’ll do the best you can.”

“Did you walk here?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I know this seems weird, but I’m going to leave the house first. You wait two minutes, then go, all right?”

“Whatever you say,” he shrugged.

“I’m too sleepy to even wonder about it.” He kissed her.

She switched on the stoop light, let herself out of the house, and walked quickly away, in the opposite direction from Will’s. A couple of minutes later, she found a newsstand, bought a paper, and walked home. She didn’t bother looking for the goon; she knew he’d be there somewhere.

At least, he wouldn’t follow Will home; if he didn’t already know who Will was, he wouldn’t find out tonight.

She didn’t get much sleep that night. Her mind was still racing. HELDER lay on his bed, swathed in a thick & terrycloth robe from Bloomingdale’s, still wet from his shower, and tried to examine his feelings.

What he felt was a mixture of pride, apprehension. excitement, curiosity, and the terrible tingle, from far away, of raw fear. It was oddly familiar.

He tried to match this sensation with earlier times: his first ascent in the escape tank at sub school; his first patrol; his first patrol as captain. It was not quite like any of them. This was not training, not maneuvers; this was military action. Even if no shot was fired, this was combat, Holder’s first.

Now he knew the feeling, from a long way back: his first girl. He had visited an uncle and aunt on their farm south of Tallinn; he had been sixteen, and the girl was his cousin, their daughter, a year older. He had known from the moment they met that she would be his first girl, and for days he anticipated her as she teased and rubbed against him. They had finally had each other in the back of a wagon, on a tarpaulin, and the smell of canvas aroused him to this day. He was aroused, now, by that same odd mixture of feelings, and the memory.

There was the rattle of fingernails on the door; Trina let herself in and closed the door behind her. Then she laughed.

“What are you thinking of?” she laughed, nodding at the bulge under the robe.

“Of you,” he grinned.

“Come here to me.”

She came across the room. shedding clothes along the way. and tugged at the thick robe.

“Off.” she said.

“I want this off.” She threw a leg over him and took him immediately inside her.

“You’re going.” she said.

“You’re going tomorrow.” She moved slowly, rhythmically.