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Authors: David Hagberg

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MacAndrew looked up, then continued. “This morning at 9:00 Russian Ambassador Yanis Zagorsky met here in Washington with the President to discuss the issue. One hour ago, the Russian government issued the
following statement: ‘The government of Russia deeply regrets the recent Tatar Strait incident involving units of the Russian and Japanese navies. During the period of our investigation all Russian military units will be unilaterally withdrawn from the strait to positions north of the fiftieth parallel. Every effort will be made to quickly and fully determine culpability.'”
Again MacAndrew looked up. “Questions?”
Everybody raised their hands, and the clamor began.
 
The meeting took place in Vasilanti's office, and from the moment he walked into the room, McGarvey felt as if he'd stepped into the middle of a life-or-death council of war. No one was smiling. But, as Kennedy had explained it to him on the way up, Guerin Airplane Company had never been in such a sporty position. It was literally betting the farm on the outcome of the P/C2622. The situation had become so critical that the old man had even relented on his entrenched stand that except for engines Guerin airplanes were to be entirely American designed and manufactured.
“These are extraordinary times and they call for extraordinary measures,” Kennedy told the board this morning. “Pitting an enemy of seventy years against a friend of fifty may be one of them.”
In the end the board had gone along with them, as Vasilanti had predicted it would. But being given such a free rein made no one very happy. This meeting now, which included Vasilanti, Kennedy, and McGarvey, plus Kilbourne, Socrates, Topper, and Soderstrom, was to be their final strategy session. Up to this moment they could have backed away from the Russian deal. But after today that would no longer be possible, and they all knew it.
“Do we go, or don't we go?” Vasilanti put it bluntly on the table after McGarvey was introduced.
Carrara had confirmed by phone this morning that the Russians were backing off from the trouble spot in the strait, and that the White House would offer no roadblocks in granting the necessary export license.
“Make it
clear that
a
permanent solution in the strait has to be found, and soon,”
his old friend warned. Unsaid, but implied, was the warning that the licenses could be rescinded at any moment, no matter what it might do to the company. A national debt totalling in the trillions of dollars was of much greater import than Guerin's current difficulty.
“I don't see that we have much choice in the matter,” Kennedy said from the sideboard where he poured a cup of coffee. “Even if Mr. McGarvey is dead wrong about the Japanese, we stand to save a considerable sum of money in tax credits.”
“Congress handed us a plum with that one,” Soderstrom, the chief financial officer, agreed. The U.S. aid package to Russia included a generous tax credit for companies setting up shop there. “But we're still faced with the risk of a general collapse of government which could wipe us out.”
“If the 2622 fails, for whatever reason, we're dead,” Topper said. “I hate to be the one to keep bringing this up, but we are in the business of manufacturing airplanes and selling them for a profit. Unit costs on the wing panels out of a Moscow facility versus our Wichita plant are one-third less. And that includes transportation. The Russians wrote the book on titanium. Makes sense to me, especially if they agree to help us with the Japanese problem, because even if there is no problem with the Japanese, we still come out ahead.”
“We risk losing it all,” Soderstrom responded.
Topper shrugged. “This is a risky business. And the board went along with it, didn't they, Jeff?”
“They agreed to let us shoot ourselves in the head if we want to. But they didn't recommend that we do so,” Soderstrom argued.
“What about Japan?” Vasilanti asked, directing his question to McGarvey, who'd poured a brandy and stood near the window.
“They're after you, there's no question about that,” McGarvey said. He glanced over at Kennedy. Apparently the old man hadn't been told about the break-in at
Dominique's apartment, and if it was brought up now, her brother Newton would probably overreact and do something stupid, causing them further problems. “They've bugged some of our telephones, which means they probably know something about our deal with Russia.”
“Shit,” Topper said.
“They'll make a move soon. Going public with the prototype didn't help.”
“Does the CIA know this?”
“Yes.”
Vasilanti looked at the others. “We have no other choice now but to get the Russians to help us while we put the prototype in the air as soon as humanly possible.”
“You get her flying and I'll generate some money for this company,” Topper said with enthusiasm.
“If we last that long,” Soderstrom mumbled.
 
Edward R. Reid was drunk. But like many long-term heavy drinkers Benjamin Tallerico had known, Reid was still lucid and still very much in control of himself. At any given moment half of official Washington was in its cups, but whatever Reid's problem was it had not affected his power. When the man spoke people listened. Just now Washington was divided into two camps, and not necessarily down party lines. On one side were the White House supporters—those who agreed with the President that an appeasement with Japan was not only desirable but necessary. On the other were those who believed that a conflict between Japan and the United States was coming. It was a measure of Reid's power just how large that second faction was. What was not so widely known, however, was Reid's apparent growing fanaticism on the subject. After Jeanne Shepard's telephone call, Tallerico had dug up everything he could find on the former State Department undersecretary and had reread all the recent issues of the
Lamplighter
. He had come to the conclusion that the man was unbalanced. Nothing he'd seen or heard this evening had altered that
opinion. He reached across the table and poured Reid another glass of wine. They were having dinner at the Rive Gauche, Reid's favorite restaurant.
“I'm a long-term admirer of yours, Mr. Reid. I just wanted to tell you that, before I say that I think you've never been closer to the mark than you are now.”
“It's nice to hear,” Reid said, eyeing the younger man over the rim of his glass. “You have some long-standing business relationships in the Far East, from what I understand. Isn't that correct?”
“Taiwan, Bangkok, Malay, but not Japan. You might say I'm in direct competition with the bastards.”
“Have you had problems with them?”
“Not yet,” Tallerico said. “But the time is coming. I think that's plain to see.”
Reid shrugged. “You didn't invite me to dinner to tell me that you believe in what I'm writing.”
“No. And you didn't accept the invitation to listen to that. What I have for you is a proposition.”
“Go on.”
“It has to do with Guerin Airplane Company. A Japanese group apparently wants to buy it out.”
“Yes, I've heard about it. But the company is strong. I don't think there's any real danger from the Japanese.”
“If the company remains strong. But if its stock were to plunge it might be a different story.”
“It might.”
“Let's say that Guerin airplanes started falling out of the sky for no apparent reason other than poor design, faulty workmanship. The company would head into bankruptcy.”
“Won't happen. Next to Boeing it builds the best airplanes in the world.”
“Unless its airplanes were sabotaged in such a way that no one would ever know about it.”
Reid thought it out and came to a conclusion in under a second. Tallerico read that much from the man's eyes until a veil dropped over them.
“What is your source?”
Tallerico smiled. “My source is concerned about safety. In this day and age safety is expensive. One million dollars.”
“No,” Reid said without blinking.
Tallerico was not surprised by Reid's rejection of the first offer, but he was surprised by the man's abruptness. “You're not interested?”
“Not at that figure,” the older man said tiredly. “Maybe not at any figure without more information up front.” He sat forward. “I publish a newsletter, and you cannot believe the nut cases who write to me with offers like yours.”
“This comes from California … Silicon Valley. A Guerin subcontractor. What we're talking about is an electronic device that can bring down airplanes.” Tallerico was guessing most of that, but considering Jeanne Shepard's usual sources he didn't think he was too far off the mark.
Reid nodded. “If I could have the device, or at least the plans for it, and clear evidence linking its design back to Japan, I might pay something.”
“How much?”
“I don't know yet. First find out from your source if you can meet my requirements, and then we'll discuss money.”
“Fair enough,” Tallerico said after a beat. The old bastard might be a drunk, but he was sharp.
“
F
ive minutes, Mr. McGarvey,” one of the Guerin flight attendants said, passing him in the departure lounge and going outside to the P522 waiting on the company ramp.
It was after 6:00 P.M. as he waited for his call to Washington to go through. The others were already on board for the flight to Moscow's Sheremeteyvo Airport, but he'd been delayed trying to get through to Dominique. Her office said she'd been gone since this morning and they didn't know where she was. Her home phone didn't answer, and McGarvey was worried. It wasn't like her, Kennedy told him, to drop out like that.
JoAnn Carrara answered on the second ring, and she called her husband to the phone.
“Dominique is missing. No answer at home and no word from her office.”
“Where are you?”
“Portland. I'm getting set to board a Guerin jet for Moscow.”
“Anything from Yemlin and friends?”
“Not yet, Phil. But I want you to find Dominique for me. Get the Bureau to help out if need be. If she won't cooperate take her into protective custody.”
“I don't know if I can do that,” Carrara replied, his voice guarded. “Word from the seventh floor is that you're to be warned about the delicateness of the situation between us and Japan, but beyond that you're to be given all the rope you need.”
“Enough to hang myself.”
“But no aiding or abetting the enemy on our part. Me and you, pal.”
“The bugs in Dominique's apartment were definitely of Japanese manufacture?”
“State of the art.”
Kennedy came to the door and gestured for McGarvey, who waved him back.
“I need your help on this one, Phil. Find her for me, make sure she's all right. Will you do it?”
Carrara hesitated for several long seconds. “You bastard. All right. Don't take any wooden roubles over there.”
 
Edward R. Reid had barely been able to contain his excitement after meeting with Tallerico. If what the man
had told him had any basis in truth, it was the answer to his prayers.
In the beginning he'd had the idea of using Bruno Mueller and Glen Zerkel to disrupt Guerin Airplane Company by sabotaging its manufacturing and research facilities, assassinating Vasilanti and that hotshot ex-astronaut Kennedy, and blaming it on the Japanese. But now a more elegant solution was at hand if Tallerico were telling the truth and if he could be convinced to cooperate with them. From what Reid knew of the man and his business, in what amounted to international confidence games, Tallerico could very well have come up with something. And as far as gaining his cooperation was concerned … well, Reid didn't think there would be much trouble on that score.
The Sterling, Virginia, farmhouse was dark when he drove up and parked in front. He'd picked this place for a number of reasons, among them its isolation. There were no nearby neighbors, the house was screened from the nearest road by one thousand yards of dense woods, and yet from the back of the house there was a clear view of the main runways at Dulles Airport five miles away.
To see and not be seen. It appealed to his sensibilities. The farm had become a haven. But in the three days since Mueller and Zerkel had been here that had changed. Being near them was like being in a cage with a pair of man-eating tigers. More than once he'd had second thoughts about hiring them. Yet each time he wavered he immediately came back to his original concern about the way things were turning out for America. He wanted to go down in history as the “great pacifier.” A man like Armand Hammer who'd done so much to stabilize the world during the horrible Cold War with the Soviet Union. Reid wanted to leave his mark. The world was entirely different from Hammer's time, which meant different, more drastic measures had to be taken to ensure peace. Japan had to be put in its place. There would never be another day like December 7, 1941, if he could help it.
He let himself into the dark stair hall. No fire burned on the grate in the living room, and the temperature in the house was cool. Outside under an overcast sky the night was dark, so the house was almost pitch black.
He found the hall light switch and flipped it on, but nothing happened. The feeling that he was a hunted animal suddenly rose up in his breast, and he turned. “Gentlemen … ?”
“Here,” Mueller said softly from somewhere in the darkness.
Reid couldn't see a thing, but he was suddenly sober and clearheaded. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”
“We're getting nervous,” Mueller answered.
“Alles in Ordnung,
” he called. A moment later the lights came on.
The East German stood beside the stairs, one of Reid's 7.65 mm Luger Parabellums in his hand. The gun, along with several other weapons, had been hidden in a concealed floor safe in the basement. The caged animals had gone exploring.
Glen Zerkel appeared at the basement door, a .380 Beretta automatic stuck in his belt. He was grinning. He looked like a wild man. Once again Reid wondered who was actually in control of the situation.
“We didn't know who was coming, so we hit the power at the breaker box downstairs,” Zerkel said.
“It would be better if you telephoned before you came here from now on,” Mueller added.
Reid realized that there had been no turning back for him from the day a few years ago when he'd written his first piece about the coming struggle between Japan and the United States. His wife had asked him if he was becoming his own creation. That was during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, when even some of Reid's colleagues thought he was getting too strident. He'd answered his wife and his co-workers with some offhanded comment about it being a war, but at the odd time afterward he would stop and ask himself the same question. Like now. Except now he was an old man and
running out of time, so he could not afford to fight with gloves on.
“It's a sensible precaution, providing the telephone line out here isn't tapped,” Reid said, gratified by the instant look of concern on Zerkel's face. He went into the living room where he poured an Irish whiskey. The other two followed him in.
“Do you suspect your telephone is tapped?” Mueller asked calmly. He wasn't buying into it.
Reid shrugged. “You can never tell. It would be best if you kept on your toes.”
Mueller studied him. “You have work for us to do?”
“Yes, tonight. The man's name is Benjamin Tallerico. He has some information that we need.”
“What kind of information?”
When he told them he wanted to bring Guerin Airplane Company down and blame it on the Japanese, they were more interested in the mechanical details of the operation than the philosophy of it. Zerkel had wanted to strike directly at the company's Portland-area facilities, while Mueller wanted to know exactly how the blame would be placed on the Japanese, who in his words were a “very shrewd people.”
“About the Japanese,” Reid said. “It seems as if I was right on the mark. Looks like they're actually working on a plan to bring Guerin down. They weren't rumors after all.”
“Tallerico has information about this plan?”
“A subcontractor in California is supposedly building a device that can bring airplanes down. He wouldn't be more specific than that, except that he wanted one million dollars for it.”
Zerkel was excited, but Mueller remained deadly calm as he watched Reid drink the whiskey. “Why not let the Japanese do this themselves? It will accomplish what you want, will it not?”
Reid shook his head. “I have no way of knowing their time table. We'll help them along.”
“You don't intend paying the one million, do you?”
Zerkel asked. The man was practically slavering at the bit.
“No need for it,” Mueller replied, without taking his eyes from Reid. “How far do you wish for us to go?”
“I want the information. Beyond that it would not be beneficial if Mr. Tallerico were to warn his California contact, or if afterward he were to figure out who you worked for.”
Mueller nodded.
“There's a Chevy Caprice in the garage, registered to Michael Larsen in Arlington …”
“We know,” Mueller said. “Are these weapons registered to you?”
“No.”
“The serial numbers?”
“Untraceable.”
“Very well,” Mueller said softly. For the first time he smiled.
Reid turned away, suddenly sick to his stomach.
 
“The next major markets will be the Far East and South America. I don't think there's any doubt about that,” Kennedy said. “Both regions are developing and both have immense potential for industrial growth and consumerism. No doubt about it. Problem is both regions are halfway around the world. Big distances.”
“Which means more business for the airlines, who'll in turn demand Mach-five or better airplanes,” Topper added.
McGarvey sat on the opposite side of the jetliner from the others, nursing a drink and looking out the window at faint lights of some small city thirty-five thousand feet below them in the night. They were an hour out of Montreal where they would refuel for the hop across the Atlantic, and everybody was too keyed up to get any sleep. Tomorrow morning in Moscow they'd all be dead tired, but for now they were talking about the future of the industry.
He let their conversations ebb and flow around him, sometimes listening to what they were saying, sometimes
drifting off into his own thoughts. There was a very big difference between the men and women he used to work with in the intelligence service and these people in the aircraft industry. Spies tended to be pessimists, while airplane people tended to be optimists. No other industry had ever progressed so far in such an incredibly short time. In 1903 the Wright brothers made the first flight of a powered airplane at Kitty Hawk—the total distance of that flight was less than the wing span of the P522—and only sixty-six years later, two Americans walked on the surface of the moon. When the P/C2622 went into regular service it would fly anyone who put up the price of a coach-class fare to the edge of space. Socrates talked about cruising altitudes at hypersonic speeds above 200,000 feet. “There the sky will be dark. The passengers will see the stars even in daylight. And they'll see the curvature of the earth.”
Glancing at the men, not one of them over sixty, McGarvey couldn't help continuing the comparison between them and men such as Carrara and Danielle. Airplane people were engineers, futurists, science-fiction buffs. Technology could solve just about any problem. What we didn't know today, we'd figure out tomorrow, or the next day. An aircraft man's idea of religion was “pushing the envelope,” an industry term for an expansion of knowledge usually at great financial, and even physical, risk. A lot of men and women had given their lives for the sake of flight.
Spies, on the other hand, were often very religious in the traditional sense. Why else would otherwise intelligent men and women place themselves behind enemy lines where they had to lie, cheat, and steal to stay alive, and where success meant that they'd caused someone to betray his or her country? To become a traitor for oftentimes nothing more than some esoteric ideal? Certainly as many spies had given their lives for the cause as had airplane people for theirs. If there were comparisons, he decided, they would have to be opposites, with him now in the middle.
Kennedy looked up, caught his eye, and came over to sit down beside him. “Good thoughts or bad?”
“I was just wondering what would happen if the Russians can't help us after all, and the Japanese did buy us out?”
Kennedy smiled wanly. “Guerin's demise wouldn't have any real effect on world peace or stability. At least I don't think it would.”
“What about our position at the Tokyo summit?”
“The Japanese are already laughing at us, Mac. They'd just laugh a little harder, that's all.”
 
Georgetown had an Old World charm reminiscent of Europe, but Mueller was not lulled into complacency because of the apparent similarities. On the contrary, he was even more cautious, more watchful because this was his last chance in the West.
Tallerico's house was a four-story brownstone that faced a narrow side street off Volta Place behind the Georgetown University campus.
“Here it is.” Zerkel was driving. He started to pull over, but Mueller warned him off.
“Continue to the corner and then turn left.”
“What's wrong?” Zerkel asked, but he did as he was told.
“I don't know,” Mueller replied. He adjusted the Chevrolet's passenger-side door mirror so that he could see behind them. It was after ten and traffic was moderate. There were a few pedestrians on the sidewalks, and the upper side of the street was bumper to bumper with parked cars and vans. There was nothing out of the ordinary here, yet Mueller felt uneasy.

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