The Minotaur (23 page)

“Windbreaker paying, just dropped a coin. Kid retrieving it for
him. He’s nervous, looking around . . . Now he’s following sub-
ject . . . They’re gonna share a table. That’s our man. That’s
him!”

He moved for the stairs, climbing slowly, listening to the run-
ning commentary from the observer. Pausing with his eyes just at
the level of the second-story floor, Camacho scanned to his left,
toward the taco stand. The observer said they were near there at a
two-person table. He climbed carefully, watching, peering through
moving legs and around bodies. He glimpsed Judy’s face. Another
step. He was at the top of the stairs. He moved left, keeping a fat
woman between himself and Judy. Against the far wall he saw a
man from the power company up on a step ladder, bending over a
toolbox on the ladder’s little platform. The video camera was in the
toolbox. Judy’s face was panning again, examining the crowd-

Camacho turned his back. A pretzel stand was right in front of
him. He pointed one out to the girl and asked for a soft drink. As
she thumbed the dispenser he checked the mirror on the back wall.
There was Judy again. And there was the man across from him.

Luis Camacho studied the face in the mirror. Fleshy, clean-
shaven, pale.

He paid the girl and turned to his right, back toward the stairs,
as he sipped the drink through a straw. Descending the stairs he
kept his eyes glued on the back of the teenager in front of him in a
conscious effort to avoid any possibility of eye contact with a ner-
vous Smoke Judy. He threw the pretzel and nearly full cup in a
trash hamper by the main door and pushed on through, out into
the rain.

The wind threatened to blow his cap off. He held it with his
hand as the wind whipped his trouser legs.

“So?” said Dreyfus as Camacho wiped the water off his face with
a handkerchief when he had gained the shelter of the van.

Luis Camacho shrugged. “They’ll probably bus their own table.
Put their trash in a receptacle. Have one of the guys take the whole
bag.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Think it’s X?”

“What in hell would X have to say to Smoke Judy?”

“How’re they hanging down in your shop? How’d you like to ski
Moscow? Quit fucking my wife. The possibilities-—” The radio
speaker squawked to life with another report from the food court
and Dreyfus closed his eyes to listen.

Camacho took off the radio he was wearing and handed it to one
of the technicians. “See you tomorrow at the office,” he said to
Dreyfus during a silent moment, then let himself out of the van
and walked through the drizzling rain toward his car.

Harlan Albright came over to Camacho’s house after supper. He
accepted a cup of coffee and the two of them went to the basement.
The boy was there, and he got up with a wounded look on his face
and took the stairs two at a time. His father watched him go, then
settled onto the couch and picked up the television remote control
and began flipping channels.

“I see in the paper that Matilda Jackson is dead.”

Camacho grunted. Two of the channels had those damned game
shows, people answering trivial questions to win flashy, useless
consumer goods.

“Who killed her?”

“Someone who knew exactly what he was about.” Camacho
stared at the sex goddess nipping answer cards on Channel 4.

“Too bad. Had you had a chance to show her Franklin’s pic-
ture?”

“No.”

“Well, she was an old woman, had lived a long life. It would
have come soon anyhow.”

Camacho jabbed the remote savagely. The television settled on
the educational channel. Some Englishman was talking about
cathedrals. “Listen, asshole. I’m not in the mood for that shit to-
night. It’s been a long goddamn weekend.”

“Sorry. I read about that shooting incident in front of Jackson’s
house. That must have been touch and go.”

He examined the Russian’s face. “I know you probably dropped
a dime on her, so don’t waste the hot air on me. You don’t give a
damn about that old woman or anybody else.”

“Sometime—“

“Shut up!”

The Englishman was explaining about flying buttresses. He used
a computer model to graphically depict the forces transferred
through the stone.

Albright stood up. “I’ll drop over some night this week when
you’re in a better mood.”

“Ummm.”

Camacho listened to the footsteps climbing the stairs and the
noises of Sally letting him out the front door. He stared at the
television without seeing it, lost in thought.

When Luis Camacho returned to his office from his usual Monday-
moming conference with his boss, he was in a foul mood. The boss
had made several candid remarks about Camacho’s conduct Friday
night.

“Look at this shit,” he roared, waving a section of the Sunday
Washington Post. “the special agent in charge of counterespionage
standing on a street comer with two punk dopers, in front of a
fucking crack house, for Christ’s sake! What in hell has busting
dopers got to do with catching spies?”

Camacho remarked that he had asked the newspaper photogra-
pher not to take his picture.

“Ha! Apparently you haven’t read the Constitution lately, mis-
ter.”

“That’s what he said.”

“And I’m saying it too. I don’t ever want to see your sweet little
puss in the public press again, mister, or you’re going to wind up in
Pocatello chasing Nazis through cow shit up to your armpits.
Those crackpots are probably the only nut cases around who never
read the goddamned paper!” The boss had been irked for months
by press coverage of the FBI investigation of the Aryan Nations
white supremacy fanatics, and ridiculed it and them every chance
he got. Sometimes he made up chances. “If you wanta be famous,
get a lobotomy and become a rock star.”

After he’d calmed down, he wanted a complete oral report on
Matilda Jackson and Smoke Judy. That had taken an hour. Then
the boss had asked questions for a half hour and discussed tactics
and strategy for another thirty minutes. When he signaled the dis-
cussion was over, Luis Camacho was tired and needed to go to the
rest room,

Now Camacho slumped in his office chair and shuffled through
the paper in his in basket. He was rereading a new administrative
procedure for the third time when Dreyfus tapped on his door,
then stuck his head in. Pipe smoke swirled into the room. “Wanta
watch the tape of Smoke Judy we made yesterday?”

“Sure.”

“Got it on the VCR.”

The two men went to the little conference room next door and
Dreyfus pushed buttons. “The plates and glasses they used are at
the lab. Should have some good prints.”

“Terrific.”

‘The lab wizards synched up the sound from one of the mikes
with the video.” Judy and the beefy man in the windbreaker ap-
peared on the television screen. Dreyfus twiddled the color knob
and adjusted the volume.

“. . . not happy with all the media on procurement problems
down there.” The beefy man had a well-spoken baritone voice, but
Us nervousness was evident.

Judy replied, but his back must have been to the parabolic mike
that picked up this sound track, because his words were indistinct
Dreyfus punched the pause button and said, “We have two other
audio tracks and think we got it all, but it’ll take a few hours to
come up with a complete transcript.”

Camacho nodded and the tape rolled on.

“. . . big risks. Some people will be going to prison,” Judy’s
companion said, “after they’ve been drawn and quartered in a pub-
lic trial that will take six months.”

Judy leaned forward and spoke earnestly. Snatches of his re-
marks came through. “. . . you people … a lifetime building
the company . . . literally millions at stake. You guys really need
this because . . . You’ll make tens of millions in the next twenty
years and I’ll get a little stock and a paycheck and a pension . . .
not much . . .” The rest was too garbled to follow.

‘That’s enough,” Camacho said after another five minutes. “Let
me see the transcript when it’s finished.”

Dreyfus stopped the tape and pushed the rewind button. “I
think that guy’s gonna buy what Judy’s selling.”

“When you get that rewound, come on back to my office.”

In his office Luis Camacho took a sheet of scratch paper and
printed one word: “Fallacy.” He handed it to Dreyfus when he
came in. “See if this is in any of X’s letters.”

Dreyfus dropped into a chair and began to fiddle with his pipe.
He put the paper in his shirt pocket after a glance. “Where’d you
get it?” he asked when he had his pipe going again.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,”

“Vice Admiral Henry, huh?”

“I found it in the John.”

“Why can’t we get a list of all the code words from NSA?”

“We’ve been all through this before.”

“So I’m not too bright. Tell me again.”

“NSA won’t give us the code words without the approval of the
committee. The committee has not approved.” The committee was
slang for the ultrasecret group that formulated intelligence com-
munity policy and coordinated the intelligence activities of all U.S.
agencies. Some of its members included the directors of the FBI
and CIA, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the
National Security Agency chief, and speaking directly for the Pres-
ident, the National Security Adviser.

“So what does that tell you?” Dreyfus asked, his voice sharper
than usual.

Camacho rubbed his eyes, then his face. “You tell me.”

“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and leaves duck shit
all over, it probably is a duck.”

“Umm.”

“I think those assholes already know what was
given away. So they’re in no rush for us to put a list together.”
Dreyfus flicked his lighter and puffed several, times. “Somebody in
Moscow has gotta be telling them.”

“Maybe,” said Luis Caroacho, weighing it “Or maybe they’re
hoping this whole thing will crawl into a corner and die quietly
without becoming a major embarrassment. Budgetary blood feuds
in Congress, some big-ticket military programs on the chopping
block, Gramm-Rudman—hell, they’d be less than human if they
didn’t try to play ostrich for a while.”

“So what are we gonna do about Smoke Judy?”

“What would you suggest?”

“That shithead is shopping secrets to defense contractors. He
wants more than a military pension. What’d the boss say when you
told him this morning?” His voice had a belligerent, bitter edge.

“Hang loose. Keep an eye on him.”

“Fuck us! The same old story. No matter what we turn up, we
get the same answer from ol’ brass ass. Be cool, guys!”

“Calm down, Dreyfus. You’ve been around long enough—“

“How much shit you gonna eat, Luis, before you decide you
don’t like it? Right now X is busy figuring what secrets
to give away next and scribbling another little love letter to the
Russian ambassador. Terry Franklin is still running around loose,
you’re sneaking code words from friends in the Pentagon—we’re
doing some dynamic drifting but our investigation is going no-
where. You know that! And the sickening thing is the committee is
quite comfortable with that state of affairs.” His voice had risen to
almost a shout. “I’ll tell you what I think—I think the guys on that
committee are laughing themselves silly. I think they’re tickled
pink that the fucking Russians are seeing this stuff. That’s what the
hell I think.”

“I think you’re an idiot, Dreyfus, with a big mouth and a piss-
ant’s view of the world- I’ve heard enough. Now get back to
work.”

Dreyfus bounced to his feet and rammed his right hand out in a
Nazi salute. “Ja wohl—“

“You son of a—“

“Don’t bullshit yourself, Luis-I know you’re doing the best you
can. But, goddamn, I’m sick of this fucking around!”
Camacho jerked his head at the door and Dreyfus went.

13

The Naval Weapons Center,
China Lake, lies in the desert of southern California east of the
range of mountains that form the eastern wall of the San Joaquin
Valley. The air at China Lake is clean, hot, and dry. Tuesday after-
noon Jake Grafton dragged in lungfuls of it as he walked across the
baking concrete toward the air terminal with Helmut Fritsche and
Samuel Dodgers. Behind them, still trading quips with the female
crew of the T-39 that had flown them here from Andrews AFB in
Washington, via NAS Moffett Field where they had collected
Dodgers, Toad Tarkington and Rita Moravia supervised the load-
ing of the luggage into a navy station wagon.

An hour later Dr. Dodgers lifted his ball cap and scratched his
head. He was standing with Grafton and Fritsche in a hangar that
was empty except for an A-6E Intruder. Sentries were posted on
the outside of the doors with orders to admit no one.

The men were examining grease-pencil marks placed on the
plane by Fritsche. These were the locations he recommended for
the special antennas of Dodgers’ Athena system. And Sam Dodg-
ers was scratching his head as he surveyed Fritsche’s artwork.
“Well,” he said unenthusiastically, “I guess these spots will work
okay, after we tweak the output of each antenna. But …” His
voice trailed off. Jake glanced at him without curiosity. He had
already discovered that Dodgers’ enthusiasm came in uneven drib-
bles.

“It’s the left side of the airplane only,” Fritsche said firmly.
“Fourteen antennas. Side of the tail, fuselage, left outboard pylon,
under the cockpit rail, forward on the nose . . . and one on the
left wingtip in place of the position light.”

“You really need one in front of the left intake, where that flat
plate is. That plate is probably the biggest single contributor to the
plane’s RCS when viewed from this side—makes up maybe half of
it.”

“Can’t put one there. Might get broken off by the airflow and go
down the intake. It’d destroy the engine.”