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Authors: David Hagberg

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“Unless he comes up with a last-minute excuse not to go Sunday,” McGarvey said.
“I never thought of that,” Carrara replied after a moment.
“You know Reid's background better than I do. How likely is it that he's had a legitimate change of heart?”
“Not very likely, Mac. He's been too long at it, and too vocal to switch sides overnight. He has a lot of supporters who read his newsletter. But the President evidently bought it.”
“He's worth a quick pass before I go back out to Portland and lean on Yamagata.”
“It'll have to be quick, if you're right about their timetable,” Carrara cautioned. He sounded worried.
“Is there any way of getting through to the President?”
“The General, but he won't listen to either of us.”
“Do you think Ryan might be a part of it?”
“No.”
“Neither do I,” McGarvey said, although it would have given him a certain amount of pleasure to attend the Agency counsel's fall from grace. “Does Reid live here in Washington?”
“Georgetown.” Carrara gave McGarvey the address on R Street. “His newsletter is the
Lamplighter
. Offices in the Grand Hyatt Washington. Do you want me to go with you?”
“Not this time, but I might need some help from Technical Services. You got anyone over there who owes you a favor?”
“A couple of guys.”
“Good. In the meantime, I want you to try to get to Murphy one last time. Set up a meeting for the three of us. Anytime, anyplace, so long as Ryan isn't there.”
“I'll see what I can do. But watch yourself. If Reid is involved, and Mueller or Schey is nearby, they'll be tough. I saw their files.”
“I hope they are,” McGarvey said.
“Watch yourself,” Carrara repeated.
“Will do.”
 
McGarvey found a parking place across the street and down the block from the driveway to Reid's Georgetown place. The house, set back in the trees, was visible from the road. A few windows were lit inside, and the yard
floods were on, indicating that someone was home. But to do a proper job of monitoring the man's movements, Carrara's Technical Services friends would have to be called out.
He had no gut feelings this time, but he was running out of options. Short of returning to Japan and taking Kamiya out, there wasn't much for him to do. One by one his moves were being sidestepped by the Japanese, by Guerin, and by his own government.
If Reid were involved with Schey and Mueller, however, whatever they were up to would be big. The Germans had their backs to the wall. There were very few places left for them to run. But it did not mean that they were involved in the plot to bring Guerin down. There were no solid connections. Everything was different this time. Less precisely defined. The blacks and whites had turned to shades of gray.
Time to get out for good. Time to quit chasing demons that hadn't been catchable in any event. Like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of its nose, he'd made the moves but he'd never really accomplished anything.
Headlights came on at the end of the driveway, and moments later a slate-gray Mercedes sedan emerged, Reid behind the wheel, and headed east on R Street.
McGarvey had to wait for a break in traffic before he could make a U-turn and catch up, but Reid was apparently in no hurry, nor was it likely from the way he was driving that he suspected he was being followed. Either he was a pro, or he had nothing to hide tonight.
The man had good connections in this town. The very best. It was likely that he would hear about any investigation in which he was involved, and either cooperate if he were innocent or take steps to have the Bureau sidelined if he weren't. Such as signing on with the President. It wouldn't stop them for long, but Sunday was only five days away.
Reid turned on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, McGarvey two cars behind him in moderately heavy traffic.
 
 
Up to this point the American had been extremely difficult to follow. His moves, apparently erratic, were those of a highly experienced intelligence officer. Yozo Hamagachi and Toshiki Korekiyo had been allowed to see a portion of McGarvey's file, and they were impressed.
“Be very careful of this man,” Yamagata had warned them. “Under no circumstances must you underestimate him. If you are discovered he will not hesitate to kill you.”
“There are two of us,” Hamagachi had suggested.
“Pardon me, but although your abilities are impressive, McGarvey would nevertheless kill you.”
They had their doubts, but they did as they were told, taking extra care with their tradecraft. McGarvey showing up at Edward Reid's house, however, had been a surprise.
Korekiyo telephoned Yamagata in Portland on the scrambler. “Target Red is following Teardrop.”
“Teardrop,” Yamagata repeated. “Are you certain?”
Korekiyo had brought Reid's file up on his laptop after getting his name from the address listing in the Washington-area reverse telephone directory. He'd been assigned the codename because of his recent anti-Japanese writings.
“Hai.
”
“Follow them to their destination and report to me.”
“They've arrived,” Korekiyo said.
“Where?”
“The Department of State.”
“At this hour?” Yamagata demanded.
“Hai, Yamagata-san.
The building is busy. Many windows show lights.”
“Remain with them.”
“Which one?”
“McGarvey,” Yamagata ordered.
 
Except for the glow from the computer terminals the upstairs rooms were in darkness. Louis Zerkel was chugging white wine from a bottle, his feet up on the desk, watching the streams of data crossing the screens.
He knew that he was slowly sinking toward some point of deep insanity, a place from where he would no longer be able to reason rationally, but he could do nothing to stop the disintegration.
He'd found Reid's extensive wine cellar in the basement, and had picked the dustiest bottles at the top of the racks. This one had a French label with a 1928 date. It gave him heartburn.
Tokyo Bank's anti-theft virus was like a germ that attacked any unauthorized entry into the system. The entry would get sick, and when it returned to its source, the hacker's computer program would catch the disease and die.
It was really quite simple, Zerkel told himself. He took another pull at the bottle. To beat the germ you played doctor and invented a magic bullet, such as penicillin, administering it to yourself first so that your system would become immune. The next part was trickier. Injecting penicillin directly into Tokyo Bank's system, thus killing their anti-theft germ, would almost certainly set off alarm signals. Instead, Louis had designed a penicillin-impregnated sheath, or condom, around his entry signal, so that only the germs that came in direct contact with him would die.
“Like fucking a diseased whore,” he muttered. He had to giggle. He was around the bend, but not stupid. Who'd they think they were screwing with? The stupid bastards hadn't learned a thing from Pearl Harbor. Well, they were going to get another Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He had not found the magic bullet yet, but the same multiplexed program he'd used to defeat the heat-sensor triggering code was working on this problem. It would only be a matter of time before the Japanese system would be breached.
He giggled again.
 
Mueller reached the Twin Cities shortly after 4:30 in the morning. He looked up the Metropolitan Airports Commission address in the telephone book at a roadside phone booth, located it on a map, and got over there a
little after 5:00 A.M. The layout was similar to Oakland and Los Angeles, and by 6:00 he had returned his rental car and was heading back to the Northwest Airlines check-in counter for his early flight to Washington.
C
arrara telephoned Murphy from his car first thing in the morning, and the General reluctantly agreed to see him at home. The guards at the gate leading up to the DCI's house behind Gallaudet College were expecting him. They passed him directly through.
“Good morning, General,” Carrara said at the door. “Thanks for letting me have my say.”
Murphy was a good director, and although he was tough he was usually fair. Over the past couple of years, however, he'd drifted away from his military style of leadership to that of a politician. A lot of Agency officers, Carrara included, did not like the change.
“I'm leaving for my office shortly, so you've only got a few minutes.”
“Fair enough.”
“We'll do this in my study.” The DCI led Carrara back and closed the door. “All right, Phil, I'm listening.”
“General, I think you should talk the President out of leaving for Tokyo on Sunday. Air Force One is a Guerin 522, the same type of airplane that crashed last week at Dulles and in '90 out of O'Hare. The first accident may have been engineered by Mintori Assurance, but the Dulles incident could have been caused by another group. Someone who'd stand to profit if Guerin were to be hurt and it could be blamed on the Japanese. Right now Sunday seems to make a lot of sense on those terms, because Guerin is also flying its new bird out to Honolulu.
If it were to go down, along with the President's plane, Guerin's stock would take a nosedive. And considering the fact that all of Japan's military installations are on alert the situation out there would become explosive. There's a lot of tension between our countries. This could be the incident that sparks a bigger disaster.”
“Are you talking about a shooting war between us and Japan?” Murphy asked. It was clear he wasn't impressed by what he was hearing.
“If the President were to be killed aboard Air Force One, and the Vice President aboard the new Guerin airplane, and if we thought Japan was to blame … yes, sir, I think a shooting war would be possible.”
“How?”
“Blocking Tokyo Bay would be easy enough, which would lock most of the Seventh Fleet in port. And if, let's say, a supertanker were to accidentally explode in the Panama Canal, destroying one of the locks, it would slow sending reinforcements out of the Atlantic. The Japanese would own the western Pacific.”
“You're forgetting the Air Force.”
“Look how long it took us to get enough personnel and equipment over to Saudi Arabia in '91 to go up against Iraq.”
“Okinawa is well equipped,” Murphy pointed out. “And unless the Japanese sank the Seventh Fleet at the dock, there'd be nothing stopping us from heading back up Tokyo Bay right into the city. Have you considered that?”
“No. But I'm sure someone has.”
“The crash in '90 and the one last week involved Guerin 522s, the same type of airplane as Air Force One. Where's the connection between them and their hypersonic plane?”
“I don't know, General.”
“Has the Federal Aviation Administration made any suggestions about grounding Guerin airplanes?”
“No.”
“Has Guerin thought about recalling its own airplanes?”
“I think they've discussed it,” Carrara replied.
“But they're going ahead with Sunday's flight, isn't that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So in effect, what you're saying to me is that you think McGarvey is getting the shaft from us. Which means that you've been in contact with him.”
“That's right, General.”
“Which is why I placed you on administrative leave. Nothing I've heard this morning makes me regret that decision.” Murphy's attitude hardened. “McGarvey's going to take the fall this time. Watch out that you don't go down with him. I'm sure that you've already broken a few laws.”
“You won't speak to the President?”
“No.”
“And you won't let McGarvey come here to explain what he's doing?”
“You're a good man, Phil. Back away from this now, while there's still the chance.”
It was about what Carrara had expected. The Murphy of a few years ago would have listened. “Thanks for your time, General. I think we'll talk again on Monday.”
Murphy's eyes narrowed. “Yes, I believe we will.”
 
Sam Varelis compared the findings from the 1990 American Airlines crash with the Dulles crash last week, for the fourth time in as many days, amazed that he had been so blind. That everyone else on his staff at the NTSB was so blind.
Both crashes were apparently caused by the same set of physical circumstances. In both crashes the same section of the port engines received the same heat damage, causing the same catastrophic failures. Exactly the same. In both crashes. But that was a statistical improbability, if not impossibility.
 
Mueller arrived back at the Sterling farmhouse before noon. All that was left to do was plant the remaining three repeaters at JFK, La Guardia, and Dulles. There
was plenty of time for that. In fact everything was on schedule.
He parked in the garage and went in through the kitchen. The house was quiet. Although someone had done the dishes the place stank of food odors mingled with an electronic smell, the acrid stench from the fire, and something else that smelled like wine. A few more days and he would be away from here.
“Louis?” he called from the stair hall.
“Up here.”
Mueller left his bag downstairs and went up to the front bedroom where Zerkel was stretched out with a pillow on the floor. Several empty wine bottles were lined up in front of the window. “Are you celebrating?”
“Damned straight. The deed is done. What do you think about that?”
“You found a way to get into Tokyo Bank's computer?”
“It was a snap.” Zerkel sat up and got unsteadily to his feet. “Mr. Reid has got a horseshit wine cellar, I'm here to tell you.” He rubbed his temples. “Headache. But I fixed his ass. Now he'll have to start his collection all over. I busted every fucking bottle down there.”
“I'm sure he'll be grateful to you,” Mueller said. “Is he here?”
“I haven't seen him since yesterday,” Zerkel replied. “What about the repeaters?”
“Three to go, which I'll do tomorrow. Are you certain that everything will work?”
“You can do it from a pay phone, man. I'll give you the Tokyo number and access code. Soon as their tone comes on line, whistle and it'll happen.” Zerkel gave a short whistle. “Like that.”
“Brilliant,” Mueller said, and he sincerely meant it. The man was a genius. It was a shame he had to be killed. Mueller could think of any number of uses for him. “Get some rest now. You've earned it.”
“I want out of here.”
Mueller looked mildly at him. “When?”
“I don't care. Just as long as it's before Sunday.”
“Where will you go?”
“Buenos Aires,” Zerkel said firmly. “And I want a million dollars in cash.”
“All right.”
Zerkel was surprised. It showed on his face. “Just like that?”
“You've kept your end of the bargain. I'm sure Reid will keep his. After all, he's going to make a lot of money. A million is very reasonable.”
“Will you talk to him?”
“Soon as I clean up and get something to eat. You might even be able to leave tonight. Or certainly first thing in the morning.”
“Christ.”
Mueller smiled. “What do you think about that?”
 
Carrara parked behind the Georgetown Holiday Inn, locked his car, and walked back to the gray windowless van parked two rows away. He got in the passenger side. Roy Ulland, an operative from the Agency's Technical Services Division, was behind the wheel. He was a slightly built man with fair skin, blond hair, and huge, drooping moustaches. They headed out immediately.
“Hello, boss. You're late.”
“I put JoAnn on a plane for Montpelier, and it was late taking off,” Carrara explained. He was sending his wife to Vermont to be with her sister through the weekend. “Did you run into any trouble?”
“No. He has three incoming lines. One for his fax machine, one that didn't answer this morning, and a third that transfers calls to the
Lamplighter
offices at the Hyatt.”
Carrara studied the younger man. “If this goes bad I won't be able to do much for you. Still time to back off, Roy.”
Ulland grinned. “You've bailed me out before. I figure it's payback time. Besides, this is my job, remember?” He was, in addition to being a good second-story man, a barroom brawler. Carrara had taken a liking to him because of his expertise, his easy manner, and his
loyalty, and had gone to bat for him more than once with the D.C. police and with Personnel.
“Just so you know. Okay?”
“Piece of cake, boss.”
They pulled up on 29th Street around the corner from Reid's house. From where they were parked they could see anyone entering or leaving the driveway. Daylight operations like this made Carrara nervous. But if McGarvey's timetable was correct, they were running out of time, and they would have to take chances.
“How do you want to work this?” Ulland asked.
“Let's establish where he is first. If I can stall him on the phone while he's away from the house, it'll give you a chance to get inside, plant a few bugs, and make a quick pass for anything on Japan, Guerin, or the two Germans.”
“What are you going to say to him?”
“I'll think of something.”
“It'll sure as hell shake him up.”
“That's the idea, Roy,” Carrara agreed. “Let's try his house number first.”
Ulland swiveled his driver's seat aft, handed Carrara a handset, then flipped a switch on a console that brought up a dial tone on a speaker, and entered Reid's number on a keypad. It rang five times. “He's still not home.”
“Try the rollover number. He's probably at his office.”
“Right.” Ulland broke the connection, but before he could enter the second number it rang. “He's got an incoming.”
“Trace it.”
“Just a minute. There's a privacy screen on it,” Ulland said.
The call rolled over on the second ring and was answered on the fourth. “Good afternoon,” a woman said. “Thank you for calling the
Lamplighter.
How may I direct your call?”
“Out of state,” Ulland whispered, as the number came up on a display. “Sterling, Virginia. Just across the river.”
“Let me speak with Mr. Reid,” the caller said.
“Who may I say is calling, sir?”
“Tom Reston.”
“One moment while I connect you.”
“German accent?” Carrara asked.
“Maybe,” Ulland replied. “Okay, it's rural. Billing is to a P.O. box here in Washington. But the line location shows a fire number. I'll bring up a map.”
Reid came on the line. “Are you back?”
“Yes. Our friend is finished. He wants his money and the means to get out.”
Reid was silent for a moment. When he came back his tone was guarded. “Can you … take care of it.”
“You need to talk to him. He still has his safety procedures in place. He'll need to be convinced of your sincerity.”
“I'll come out within the hour.”
“With care,” the caller cautioned, and he hung up.
“Got 'em,” Ulland said. He'd brought up a map on a computer console. It pinpointed the house. “South of Sterling, and east of Highway 28. Just off Highway 7. Looks remote. Maybe a farm.”
Carrara studied the map, a sudden chill playing up his spine. “Less than five miles as the crow flies from Dulles. Line of sight.”
“Maybe we'd better take a look,” Ulland suggested.
“Good idea.”
 
From where McGarvey was seated in the Grand Hyatt's lobby he could watch the elevators. Shortly before one, Reid came down in an obvious hurry. The man had spent much of the evening at the State Department and then had come directly here to his offices. McGarvey had booked a room and kept watch from the stairs on the
Lamplighter's
floor until this morning. He got up and headed across the lobby.

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