The Red Horseman (26 page)

Jack Yocke was still trying to fit together all the
pieces.

“How well did you know her?” he asked Toad.

Toad didn’t answer immediately. “Pretty
well,” he said finally.

“Shirley Ross, Judith Farrell …
aliases?”

“Yep. And she had others.”

“Do you know her real name?”

“She told it to me once.”

“To die like that . . .”

“In her line of work it was bound to happen sooner
or later.”

As they crossed the Moskva bridge, Jack
Yocke asked, “Do you think her team really killed
Kolokoltsev in Soviet Square?”

Toad said, “You told me that one of the gunmen
held the door to the limo open and one stood there
coot as a cucumber squirting bullets into the people
inside? Well, the shooter for the coup de grace was
undoubtedly Judith Farrell. That was the
payoff-those people were putting their lives on the line
to kill that anti-Jewish hate merchant. You can
bet your last kopek that Judith Farrell was right
there at the trigger to make damn sure there
was no slipup. That was the way she operated.”

Jack Yocke glanced into the backseat, then
looked back at Toad. “She was an assassin?”

“She fought for her people.”

“Well . . .”

“Asshole!” Toad roared. “I killed a
man tonight. I am not in the mood for moralizing from the
editorial page pulpit. This ain’t a cocktail
party in Georgetown! They slaughter people by the
millions on this fucking continent! Mass murder
is the European sport. Got a social
problem, kill another million!”

“Sorry,” Yocke said contritely.

Toad snarled, “They oughta make you the fucking
wine editor at the Post.”

The two men sat in the car looking at the park as
the night faded into a gray dawn. They had nothing
else to say to each other. Each was occupied with his own
thoughts.

If there was anyone watching, Toad didn’t see
them. Finally he opened his door and stepped out.
“Help me with her,” he muttered to the reporter.

They left Judith Farrell under the nearest
tree. Toad tried not to look at her face. As
he straightened up he could see the body
of the man he had shot still lying just as he had fallen.

On the way back to the car Jack Yocke
glanced over his shoulder at the body of the Israeli
agent. Toad Tarkington didn’t.

A Russian army detail was picking up the
bodies around the American embassy compound when
Toad and Jack returned. The soldiers were piling
the corpses in a large truck. They weren’t
carrying weapons.

A marine opened the gate and Toad drove through.
As he got out of the car he saw her walking toward
him. She wore khakis and a leather Right jacket and
her hair was in a bun. When he held out his arms
she broke into a run.

“Rita!”

“Hello, Toad-man.” She gave him a
fierce hug, then stepped back. “I brought you a
present,” she said. She unzipped the jacket and
held it open. “Me!” , Hetook her in his arms.
“When did you get here?” he asked finally.

“An hour ago.”

“Why?”

“Admiral Grafton asked for three pilots.
I volunteered.”

Toad tried to frown. “I told you
never to volunteer.”

“Toad-man, you do it all the time.”

“Yeah. And look at me. God, I’m glad
you’re here.”

The marine recon team commanding officer was Captain
Iron Mike McElroy.

His broad shoulders tapered to a trim waist and a
flat stomach that was probably corrugated like a
washboard under his camo shirt. He saluted
crisply and introduced himself. He and Jake had just
started to get acquainted when Agatha Hempstead
came marching across the sidewalk straight at them.

“Ambassador Lancaster didn’t know or
approve of this decision to bring in a marine recon
team.” She ignored Captain McElroy.

“General Land talked to the president about it,”
Jake Grafton said mildly. “The president
approved it.”

“Owen-Ambassador Lancaster should have been
consulted. This request should have gone through the State
Department. We can’t have the military making foreign
policy “His. Hempstead,” Jake said
firmly, cutting her off. “I apologize
to Ambassador Lancaster. I did not intend
to cut him out of the loop. But time and urgent
operational considerations required that I communicate
directly with General Land in the Pentagon.”

“What considerations? What considerations do you
consider to be nonpolitical? Here in Russia
everything is political! Everything! I don’t think
you understand Ambassador Lancaster’s position!”

Jake cocked his head and eyed His.
Hempstead. “You’re the one who seems to be having
the difficulty understanding who is responsible for what,
ma’am. I suggest we stop this little turf war before it
goes any further and start cooperating.”

“What considerations?”

Jake Grafton was ready to use a dirty word
or two, but he swallowed it and rammed his fists
into his pockets. “The situation here in Russia
is a bit out of control. I’m sure you’ve
noticed.”

“The marine guard is quite capable of defending the
embassy compound from a riot, Admiral.” Jake
had never heard a flag officer’s rank pronounced
quite this way. Antipathy, derision,
disrespect-Goodbody Hempstead got a lot of
mileage out of one little word. “The decision to augment
the marines is for Ambassador Lancaster to make.
A reconnaissance team armed to the teeth
is not going to help matters very much!”

She paused, so Jake said, “The team is not here
to augment the marine guard.”

But she was merely marshaling her arguments, not
entertaining replies.

“I’m sure the Yeltsin government will be making
a diplomatic protest within hours. A recon
team ready for combat strikes me as a very serious
stretch of the military cooperation agreements that we have
been operating under these last few weeks.
Ambassador Lancaster-was

“Maybe I’d just better have a talk with the
ambassador.”

“What are you going to use the team for?”

“I’ll tell it to the ambassador.”

So seven minutes later he was standing in the
ambassador’s office. Boris Yeltsin was on
television addressing the nation. Jake and Hempstead
stood silently while the ambassador listened to a
translator. When the broadcast was over,
Lancaster muttered, “Well, at least he’s not
resigning.”

“These seven people that want to take over, this junta,
any mention of them?” Jake asked as the
translator left the room.

“No. That’s a good sign, I think. But the
situation is very fluid.”

Lancaster sat down behind his desk and turned
to Jake again. He went straight to the point:
“What’s the recon team for?”

“I haven’t decided yet, sir. I thought they
might come in handy.”

“Admiral, I don’t want you or Hayden
Land starting a war. Before any of those gung-ho
special warriors dons his warpaint or steps
outside of this compound, I want a complete
briefing. In writing.”

“Yessir.”

“We’ll put them in the gymnasium. They can
sleep there.

But so help me, Admiral, the secretary of
state is not going to be a happy little camper.
Foreign policy is the prerogative of
civilians under our system of government. It’s a
tried and true system and we’re going to ensure the
United States sticks with it. If Land shoved the
president out onto thin ice the shit is going to hit
the fan.” The cuss word sounded weird coming from the
New England Brahmin.

Jake would have bet money the old man
had never even heard the word.

“Before you even scratch yourself,” the ambassador
continued, “I want a complete briefing.”

“I should have discussed my concerns with you, sir, but the
press of events didn’t seem to allow the time. I
apologize. In a few hours I’m going to steal a
couple helicopters from the Russians and fly down
to Serdobsk for a look. I want to see that power
plant.”

Lancaster sat back in his chair. “They tell
me that site is too hot for humans.”

“The marines brought some antiradiation suits. And
we probably won’t land. But I want to see
what the place looks like and we need to get some
better data on radiation levels.”

Lancaster digested that with a sour look on his
face.

Apparently he came to the conclusion that the less
he knew the better.

“Steal helicopters?” he asked mildly.

“Steal.”

Jake reached across the desk for an envelope,
turned it over and wrote: Today I will steal two
helicopters and fly to Serdobsk.

He signed his name, wrote the date,
then passed the envelope to Lancaster, who looked
at it and sighed. He ran his fingers across his scalp.
“You don’t let much grass grow under your feet, do
you, Admiral?”

“One other thing you should probably be aware of,
sir.

I would suggest you and His. Hempstead keep this
to yourself, not report it to Washington, not discuss it with
anyone else on the embassy staff.”

“The ambassador will make that decision,”
Agatha Hempstead said tartly., Jake
Grafton shrugged. “Last night my aide and I
had a little shooting scrape with a couple armed men near
Gorky Park. They were killed. I think they might
have been CIA, agents.”

“Who were they?” Lancaster asked.

Jake gave him the names.

Owen Lancaster and Agatha Hempstead just looked
at each other, then transferred their stunned gaze
to the admiral.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Jake said and
got to his feet.

“I have to go see about those helicopters.” The
diplomats watched him go without recovering their
voices.

Jack Yocke tapped listlessly on his computer.
He had found that having the keyboard under his fingers was
therapeutic. When his mind was wandering his fingers merely
tapped out disjointed phrases, but when he was thinking
about something specific his fingers strung words together
into sentences as his thoughts rolled along.

The secret is to think in logical, coherent
sentences, which most people don’t do. Yocke did, most
of the time.

As he witnessed an event or thought about a
subject the words scrolled through his mind. If he
had a keyboard under his fingers the words became text.

Now he glanced at the screen. “Nigel Keren”
was written there.

Ah yes. The headline flashed through his mind and the
words appeared on the screen. “British
billionaire Nigel Keren murdered by CIA.”
That headline could get him a story in every newspaper
in the world.

And he couldn’t write the story.

Frustrated, he got up from the computer and went
to the window. He was still in Admiral Grafton’s
apartment in the embassy complex, and unless he was
willing to head straight back to the land of Diet
Coke and hot dogs, he was going to have
to stay here.

A great end to your first foreign correspondent
assignment, Jack! Write one good story that
blames a political murder on the wrong crowd,
the local secret police, who promptly jump
on your case like stink on Limburger.

Maybe he should call his editor. He glanced
at the phone and even took a step in that direction,
then returned to the window.

Yocke knew his editor. Gatler would pretend
to be incredulous, thunderstruck: you’re hiding out and
missing the great stories, the big, stupendous,
attack-on-Pearl Harbor, war-declared
stories-world’s worst nuclear accident kills
zillions, democracy collapses in Russia,
military dictatorship ousts Yeltsin? If you
don’t get a piece of those stories, his editor
would shout, you’ll go back on the cop beat for the rest
of your natural, miserable life.

Jack Yocke had no intention of informing his
editor that he had made a tiny little mistake on the
Soviet Square Massacre story. That the
KGB were innocent lambs, victims of a foul
Israeli plot to besmirch their honor. He
wasn’t going to call that one in, even if
Grafton gave him permission to print the truth, which
he wouldn’t.

I The fact is that he had been set up by someone
who knew just how much truth he could uncover and how
to twist it into the story she wanted told. Now he
knew, and he couldn’t tell. Wouldn’t tell, even
if he could.

But everyone manipulates the press, don’t
they? Politicians and cops, athletes and movie
stars do it all the time.

Moscow seemed quiet out there beyond the brick
wall topped with two strands of barbed wire.
Yocke could see the marine opening the front gate and
letting cars go in and out.

As he watched he saw Toad Tarkington,
Rita Moravia and Spiro Dalworth pile
into a car with a couple of marines armed with M-16’s.
Two more marines and the other two pilots got into a
second car. Away they went, out the gate.

His curiosity piqued, Yocke wondered about their
errand and destination.

When the second car turned the corner and was out of
sight, Yocke turned back to his computer.

No, the story he wasn’t getting was KGB
blows up Serdobsk reactor!

Zillions Die! Now that would be a story that would
make Jack Yocke as famous as Michael
Jackson, a story to launch a hell of a career,
a story to get him his own column, maybe even an
investigative team like Bob Woodward had. And
what did Woodward dig out from under his rock?

Richard Nixon with a coverup dripping from his
fingers-a popcorn fart compared to this little beauty.

But he hadn’t missed it yet. Oh no! Jake
Grafton had it and no other reporter was going
to get a sniff. Sooner or later Jack
Yocke would mine that ore. He could feel it in his
bones.

Zillions die. Not zillions, but maybe
tens of thousands.

The import of those words struck home as Yocke
stared at them on the computer screen. Tens of
thousands, men, women, children-the lame, the halt, the
blind, the virtuous, the guilty, the oh so very human.
All.

Everyone in the fallout zone.