The Red Horseman (6 page)

She rattled the knob. The men had locked it.
“What’s going on in there, Jake?”

“What matter?” Jake asked.

“The same thing that happened to Nigel Keren could
happen to you. It could happen to your wife. It could
happen to your daughter.”

Outside the door Callie’s voice was up an
octave. “Jake, are you all right? Jake, speak
to me!”

“Be a hell of a shame,” Blondie said, “if
your fifteenyear-old daughter died of heart
failure, wouldn’t it? A hell of a shame. And
you’d have only yourself to blame.”

“Jake!”

“Think about it,” the first man said, then stood up.
He unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“Excuse us, please,” he said to Callie and
walked by her for the stairs, the blond man at his
heels.

Stunned, Callie stared after them, then rushed
to Jake, who was getting up.

He was still dizzy. He leaned on the bookcase.
“Make sure they leave,” he told his wife and
pushed her gently toward the door.

He sagged down onto the couch and lowered his head
onto the arm. His jaw ached badly. He felt his
teeth. One seemed loose.

When Callie came back he was sitting at his
desk. “Jake, who were those men?”

“I dunno.

She started to speak and he held up his hand. She
cocked her head quizzically. He held a finger
to his lips. Then he reached for paper and wrote:

The place may be bugged. I’ll search it
later. Please go downstairs and throw away all the
food in the house. Everything except the stuff in
sealed cans. All

milk, soda Pop, beer, frozen food,
coffee, everything.

She read it and looked Puzzled.

“I’ll explain later,” he said.
“Please, go do it. She went.

Jake Grafton sat looking out his window for about
fifteen seconds, then he knelt by the safe and
opened it. His gun was still there, an old Smith and
Wesson .357 Magnum that he had carried when
he flew in Vietnam.

All the classified documents seemed to be as
he had left them. After he closed and locked the
safe, he rooted through his bottom desk drawer for the
box of shells. He loaded the Pistol and stuck it
in the small of his back, under the belt.

Downstairs in the kitchen he kissed his wife.

“the car keys?” Where are”

“in MY Purse.

Jake helped himself, then snagged his coat from the
hall rack. “I’ll be back in a little while,”
he said.

“Where are you going?

“Tarkington’s. There’s a chance those guys stopped
here first. They’re delivering messages tonight. “Why
don’t you call Toad?”

“I want to see these guys again.”

“Jake, be careful.”

“‘allyou know me, Callie. I’m always careful.-
He kissed her again and let her close the
door behind him.

The uniformed guard was walking the beat On the
sidewalk. Jake stopped beside him and rolled down
his window.

“Did YOU see two men come Out of my house?”

“Yessir. They got into a car parked across the
street.”

“What kind of car? “I don’t know, sir. It
was a sedan with government plates. Is there a
Problem, Admiral?”

“No. No problem. They forgot something, that’s
all.

Thanks.” He took his foot off the brake and
got the car in motion before the man could ask any more
questions.

The pistol was a hard lump where his back pressed
against the seat.

A white Ford sedan with government plates sat
in Tarkington’s driveway behind Rita’s car, which was
in the carport. Toad’s Honda Accord was parked
at the curb. A light in the living room window
made the drapes glow. Jake drove past and
parked on the next block.

As he walked back he kept looking in parked
cars. He saw no one.

These guys were sloppy. No lookouts, no
driver waiting behind the wheel. a government sedan, for
Christ’s sake!

They were just out putting the fear of God in a few people
tonight and not bothering to do it right.

Jake tried the door of the sedan. It was
unlocked. He popped the hood latch and eased the
door shut. Feeling in the darkness he jerked the
leads off the spark plugs, then let the hood down
gently. Then he got behind the front of Rita’s
car, got the pistol out, and waited.

Jake was under no illusions. This was going to be
dicey.

He was going to have to get control of this situation
quickly before these two clowns had a chance to think about it.
If he pulled the trigger the cops would be here in
short order, someone was going to be arrested, and someone
was going to have a lot of explaining to do. And
someone-Jake suspected that he might wind up as this
someone-would probably find himself in more trouble than he
could get himself out of.

He had waited no more than three minutes when
he heard the Tarkingtons” front door open.

He got down on his hands and knees in front of
Rita’s car and looked under it, He saw
their feet. They got into the sedan. A muttered
oath.

The passenger door opened and a set of feet
came around to the front of the car. Grafton
straightened and peered through the window of Rita’s car.

The sedan’s hood was up. The blond man was
looking into the engine compartment.

Jake went to his left, around Rita’s
Mazda. The hood obscured the driver’s view
and the blond had his back to Jake. He heard
Jake coming at the last instant and started to turn just as
the Pistol butt thunked into his head. He went
down like a sack of potatoes.

Jake grasped the butt of the revolver with his right
hand and stepped around to the driver’s door. He jerked
it open.

“Get out. The dark-haired man looked
slightly stunned, Jake reached with his left hand and
got a handful of shirt and tie. He jerked hard,
The man half fell out of the seat.

Jake jabbed the gun barrel into his ear and kept
putting.

con”Jesus, you can’t ‘Get up and walk or
I’ll blow your brains out.” He jabbed savagely
with the gun barrel.

The man came along.

“Tarkington,” Jake called. “Get out here.”

The door opened and the stoop light came on.

“Toad, turn off that light and get out here.”

Tarkington came out. He was in his pajamas and
they were torn half off his chest. “That one on the
ground, was Jake said, nodding. “Clean out his
pockets. Everything.

Put him into the sedan and bring all the stuff
inside.”

Rita held the door.

In the living room Jake hooked the dark-haired
man’s leg and sent him sprawling.

“Search him, Rita, and tell me what
happened.”

Rita Moravia was wearing a robe over a
nightie. Her hair was down. She began Pulling
things from the man’s pockets as she talked. “They
rang the doorbell and told Toad they were from the
DIA and you sent them over here. He let them in.
I heard a scuffle out here in the living room and
came out and they had knocked him down. they made some
threats.”

“HOW long were they here?”

“Seven Or eight minutes, No more.”
Rita had finished with the man’s rear trouser
pockets and side coat pockets.

She rolled him over without ceremony and emptied
his inside jacket pockets. She turned his
front trouser pockets inside out.

“Feel him all over for weapons.”

Rita did so. “Nope. Just the one wallet, and
this.” She held up a card encased in plastic
attached to a chain. Jake had seen ones like this before.
It was a pass to the CIA’S Langley facility.

Jake picked up the wallet and examined it.
He extracted the driver’s license and held it out
so he could read it.

“Okay, Paul Tanana of 2134 North
Wood Duck Drive, Burke, Virginia.
Want to tell us who sent you on this little errand?”

Rita was finished. She gathered the CIA pass
and the change, keys and pens and placed them on a
coffee table.

“I asked you a question,” Jake said.

Tanana glowered. “You’ll be sorry for this.”

“I’m sorry I ever laid eyes on you. Who
sent you?”

Silence.

“Rita, check on Toad.”

The gun felt heavy in Jake’s hand. He
kept it pointed at Tanana, who was rubbing his ear.
Jake rubbed his fingers back and forth across the stiff
plastic of the driver’s license.

In a moment Rita and Toad came in. “Guy
didn’t have a gun,” Toad said.

“Just a wallet and a CIA pass and a little pack
of lock picks.”

“Who sent you to see me tonight?” Jake asked
Tanana.

The man snorted. “You ain’t gonna shoot
me.”

What’s wrong here?

Jake looked again at the driver’s license, at
the clear plastic, the perfect edges.

He put the license into his pocket and drew
back the hammer of the revolver. He approached
Tanana. He bent down and placed the barrel of the
weapon against the man’s temple.

“You’re right. I’m not going to shoot you tonight. But
if anything ever happens to my wife or kid-if you
ever get within a mile of my wife or kid-if I
ever see you within a mile of my house-I’ll blow
your fucking brains out and I’ll take a great deal
of pleasure in doing it, Paul-baby. Are
you getting the message?”

“I got it.

Jake rose and backed off. “I jerked the
wires off the spark plugs on your car. Put them
back on and get the hell out of here.”

Tanana got slowly to his feet.

“What about our stuff Out Wallets?”

“We’ll keep them. Maybe I’ll frame the
CIA passes and display them over at the DIA.
They’ll be wonderful souvenirs. Now get out.
Tanana went.

Jake Watched from the doorway as Tanana worked
on the car. It took a couple minutes. “Rita,
get a pencil and write this down. U-S.
government plate, XRC’-FIVE-FOUR five.

He Was wondering if he’d hit the blond man
too hard when Tanana slammed the hood down.
He got behind the wheel, started the engine and backed
Out onto the street, “I think YOU cracked the
other guy’s skull,” Toad said as the sedan
drove slowly away.

Typical Tarkington, Jake almost read his

boss’s mind.

Jake closed the door and locked it.

CUP Of coffee.”

“I could sure use a Callie was sitting on the
stairs waiting for him when he came through the front
door, After he ensured the door was locked behind him,
he hung up his coat and took a seat on the step
beside her.

“Who were they?”

Jake Passed her the Wallets. She opened
them and looked at the licenses, credit cards, and
other items. When she had finished he handed her the
CIA passes.

“CIA,” she whispered.

Jake extracted his own wallet from his right hip
pocket and took out his driver’s license, He
held it out so he could see it. “I got this about a
year and a half ago. Look how it’s curved from being
in the wallet and how the edges have frayed. Now look
at those other licenses.”

Callie did so. “They’re like Dew,” she said.

“They shouldn’t be. They were issued a couple
years ago. And the credit cards. Notice how the
black ink on the raised numbers has yet to rub
off. I don’t think they’ve ever been used.”

“so?”

“These two clowns were over at Tarkington’s when
I got there. I slugged one and we searched
the other.”

“They let you do this?”

“That’s an interesting question.” Jake pulled the
pistol out and showed it to Callie. “You wave a gun
around and everyone does what you tell them, just like in the
movies.”

And he had had the opportunity to surprise them.
A couple of klutzs, or were they?

“What if they had had guns?”

“Then I’d have cheerfully shot the bastards and
called the cops.” He stood. “So they didn’t have
guns. They were betting I wouldn’t panic.”

The more he thought about it, the more sure he was that the
whole scene was just an act. But why?

“Let’s go to bed.”

He helped her to her feet.

“I still don’t understand,” she said. “Were they
CIA or not?”

I don’t know,” Jake said slowly. “Through the
years several people have accused the CIA of using agents
to deliver warnings-of intimidation attempts. Yet
in every case where the accusation was made public, it
turned out that the CIA had no agents like the people
supposedly involved. Now you tell me-were those
two guys CIA agents carrying their own
ID, CIA agents carrying false ID, or
someone else’s hired help using false CIA
IDT” “But the message is clear. Lay off.”

“Precisely. It’s from someone very powerful, someone
who cannot be reached. And that is part of the message.”

He had the toothpaste on his brush and the brush in
his mouth when it hit him.

He took the brush out of his mouth and stared at it.
Then he examined the toothpaste tube. Nothing could
be easier than poisoning a tube of toothpaste.
Merely unscrew the cap and stick a syringe in,
then screw the cap back on.

But they had had no syringe on them. At
Tarkington’s house, anyway. For all he knew
they could have thrown it in the gutter or put it in the
garbage pail out behind the Graftons’ house where it
would be hauled away on Tuesday.

A knot developed in his stomach.

He started to put the toothbrush back into his
mouth, but he couldn’t.

Damn!

He rinsed out his mouth, then threw the toothbrush
and the toothpaste into the wastebasket under the sink.

When he and Callie were in bed with the lights out, she
asked, “How do you get yourself into these
messes, anyway?”

“You make it sound like I’m a juvenile
delinquent.”

“I’m scared.”

“That’s what they intended.”

“They succeeded. I’m frightened.”

“Me too,” he told her.

ON MONDA-YOU MORNING AT
SEVEN-THIRT-YOU TOAD TAR-KINGTON opened the
door to the DIA computer facility and signed the
log. “Richard Harper, please,” he said to the
receptionist when she came over to examine his pass.
She had a cup of coffee in her hand and was polishing
off the last of a doughnut.