The Talbot Odyssey (27 page)

O’Brien put his hand on his survival knife. “What are you doing here?”

“Everybody has a
shtick
—that means panache—mine don’t always go over so well. I thought I’d cultivate yours.” He chuckled softly. “Do you mind?”

“I mind that you didn’t ask.”

“Sorry, Pat.” Thorpe peered out the side window. “Blue moon. Should be full in a few weeks. There’s a shooting star. Make a wish.”

O’Brien glanced at the cabin door a few feet away.

Thorpe turned quickly toward him. “Listen, Pat, this Talbot business has me worried.”

O’Brien didn’t reply, and the drone of the engines outside seemed to fill the cabin. The moon shone through the windows now, and Thorpe’s body cast elongated shadows on the far wall.

Thorpe said, “In fact, Patrick,
you
worry me.”

“You ought to be worried. We’re very close.”

“Are you? I wonder.”

O’Brien spoke in a controlled voice. “What is your motive?”

Thorpe shrugged. “I’m not certain. Not political. I mean, who in their right mind would side with those morons? Really, did you ever meet such a drab, boring bunch of ill-bred clods? I’ve been to Moscow twice. Jesus, what a shithole.”

“Then why?” O’Brien unclipped the strap of his knife sheath.

Thorpe saw the movement in the red light. “Forget it, Pat.”

O’Brien said, “Just tell me
why.
”

Thorpe scratched his head, then said, “Well, it’s very complex. It has to do with danger. . . . Some men jump from airplanes . . . others race cars . . . I commit treason. Every day is an adventure when you commit a capital offense. When you know that each day could be your last. You remember?”

O’Brien said, “You’re sick, Peter.”

“Probably. So what? Insanity, like a drug addiction, has to be fed. The Company provides food, to be sure, a veritable feast for most appetites. But not for mine. I need the ultimate nourishment. I need the blood of an entire nation.”

“Peter . . . listen, if you want to alter history—and I suppose that is your ultimate motive—you can do it by helping us foil their plans. You could become a triple. That would be the crowning act of—”

“Oh, be quiet. You’re too glib. Damned lawyer. Listen, how often do you get the chance to see a nation die? Think of it, Patrick—a highly developed, complex civilization succumbing to its own advanced technology. And I can stand on a hill and watch—watch the end of one human epoch and the beginning of another. How many people throughout the ages have been in so unique a position to
cause
such a sudden and catastrophic shift in the course of this planet’s history?”

O’Brien listened to the droning of the engines, then spoke in a voice that suggested he’d accepted what Thorpe said, but had a last discomforting thought.

“All right, Peter. But what kind of world will it be? Could
you
live in such a world?”

Thorpe waved his hand in a motion of dismissal. “I’m pretty adaptable.” He laughed.

“And what would you do for an encore? There’d be nothing left for you. No one to betray—”

“That’s enough!”

O’Brien wanted to ask how this would all come about, but as a trained intelligence officer who knew he was facing his own death, there was no reason to indulge himself by satisfying his curiosity. He was not going to be able to report or act on the information, and the more he asked Thorpe, the more Thorpe would know how little or how much O’Brien already knew.

Thorpe seemed to read O’Brien’s mind. “How far along are you, Patrick?”

“I told you. Close. You won’t pull it off.”

“Bullshit.” Thorpe rubbed his chin, then said, “Katherine once told me, and I’ve heard elsewhere, that you’re one of the best natural intelligence men on either side. You’re brave, resourceful, cunning, imaginative, and all that. . . . So . . . I know you’re good . . . but how good? I mean, if you suspected me, why didn’t you act before I got to you? I should have been snatched, drugged, tortured, and interrogated at least a year ago. Are you slowing up, old-timer? Did you let Katherine’s feelings for me get in the way? Or perhaps you didn’t suspect me. Yes, that’s it. You really don’t know anything.”

“I’ve been on to you for years, Peter.”

“I don’t believe—”

The Beeehcraft hit a small air pocket and bounced. Thorpe lost his balance and fell to one knee. O’Brien, who had hoped and stalled for that air pocket, immediately lunged toward the door.

Thorpe drew a gun from under his Windbreaker, aimed, and fired. A loud, deafening report filled the cabin.

O’Brien, his hand on the door lever, lurched forward, collided with the door, and careened back, toppling onto the deck. Thorpe aimed and fired again. A short, popping sound echoed in the cabin.

O’Brien lay sprawled on his back at Thorpe’s feet, holding his chest. Thorpe knelt beside him, and shone a flashlight on the chest wound. Thorpe spoke softly, almost comfortingly. “Just relax, Pat. The first one was a rubber stun bullet. Probably cracked a rib. The second was a sodium pentothal capsule.” Thorpe saw where the gelatin capsule had hit the thick nylon harness strap. He ran his hand under O’Brien’s shirt and felt a wetness where the skin had been broken. “I think you got enough of it.”

Thorpe rocked back on his haunches. “We have some talking to do, my friend, and about two hours’ fuel left to do it—and about six more drugs to go through if necessary.”

O’Brien felt the drug taking hold in his brain. He shook his head violently, then grabbed for his knife and brought it out in an uppercut motion, slicing through Thorpe’s left nostril.

Thorpe fell back, his hand to his face, the blood running between his fingers. “Bastard . . . you sneaky . . .”

O’Brien began to rise, then stumbled back. He sat braced against the fuselage, holding his knife to his front.

Thorpe aimed his gun again. “Would you like to find out what the third bullet is? It’s not lead, but you’ll wish it was.”

O’Brien’s arm dropped and his knife rested in his lap.

Thorpe pressed a handkerchief to his nose and waited a full minute, then said, “Feel better, Patrick? Okay, that was my fault for underestimating you. No hard feelings. Let’s begin. What is your name?”

“Patrick O’Brien.”

“What is your occupation?”

“Lawyer.”

“Not quite, but close enough.” Thorpe asked a few more warm-up questions, then said, “Do you know a man named Talbot?”

“Yes.”

“What other name does he go by?”

O’Brien did not speak for some time, then answered, “I don’t know.”

Thorpe made a sound of annoyance, then asked, “Were you on to me?”

“Yes.”

“Were you really?” He thought a moment, then removed a Syrette from his pocket. “I don’t think you got enough sodium pent. Let’s try something different.” He moved cautiously toward O’Brien, reached out with his free hand, and pulled the knife away. With his other hand he pushed the Syrette against O’Brien’s shoulder. The spring-loaded needle pumped five cc’s of Surital into O’Brien’s body.

Thorpe knelt a few feet from O’Brien. “Okay, we’ll give that a minute or so.” Thorpe found his cigarettes and put one in his mouth. The gun still trained on O’Brien, he took his Dunhill lighter and struck a flame.

O’Brien saw Thorpe’s eyes close reflexively and made his move. He half stood, reached out, and pulled the door handle. The handle disengaged and the door began to slide open, letting in a powerful rush of cold air along with the rumbling sound of the two engines.

Thorpe lunged for O’Brien and caught his ankle as O’Brien back-rolled into the opening. Thorpe yanked on the man’s leg, twisting as he did, and began to pull him in.

O’Brien let out a moan of pain but continued to arch back farther, getting his upper torso and arms into the powerful slipstream.

Thorpe braced his legs on either side of the open door and pulled with all his strength, swearing loudly over the din, “You old bastard! You foxy son of a—” Thorpe felt himself losing the battle against the slipstream as more of O’Brien’s body was dragged out into space. O’Brien kicked at him with his free leg.

Finally, Thorpe screamed, “All right, you son of a bitch! Die!” He slid his feet away from the doorframe and felt himself yanked headlong out into the slipstream, still holding O’Brien’s ankle.

Thorpe looked up instinctively and saw the Beechcraft’s navigation lights disappearing into the blue moonlit night.

They both fell, at the terminal velocity of 110 miles an hour, 161 feet per second, at which rate, Thorpe knew, they had less than 80 seconds to pull the rip cords.

Thorpe clutched at O’Brien’s leg and craned his head upward. He saw O’Brien’s right hand going for his rip cord. Thorpe wrapped both arms around O’Brien’s leg and twisted his body in a sharp torquing motion, causing them both to spin.

O’Brien’s arms were outstretched now and he tried to bring them back to his body. Thorpe saw the man’s fingers clawing toward the rip cord on his chest. Thorpe reached up and grabbed the cross harness running across O’Brien’s abdomen and pulled himself up until they were chest-to-chest and face-to-face. Thorpe wrapped his arms around O’Brien’s shoulders and drew him close into a bear hug. Thorpe stared into O’Brien’s face, inches from his own. He shouted, “Do you know who Talbot is?”

O’Brien’s eyes were half shut and his head began to loll sideways. He mumbled something that Thorpe thought sounded like “Yes.”

Thorpe shouted again. “What is Talbot’s name!” Thorpe saw O’Brien’s features contort into a twisted expression of pain and his teeth sink into his lower lip, drawing a stream of blood over his face.
Heart attack.

Thorpe looked down. They had dropped, he estimated, over ten thousand feet. They had a mile or so to go. Thorpe looked back at O’Brien’s chalk-white face and was certain that Patrick O’Brien would never pull his rip cord. Thorpe shouted into O’Brien’s ear. “Geronimo and all that shit! Happy landing!”

He released his grip on O’Brien and they began to drift apart. O’Brien’s unrestrained arms flew up over his head. Thorpe reached out and gave him a vigorous shove, sending him tumbling away.

Thorpe looked at the ground that was coming at him very fast. “Oh, shit!” He yanked on the rip cord and looked up.

In a split second, he thought, depending on how the chute came out and opened, he might be too late. If it didn’t open at all, it was much too late for the emergency chute.

The black nylon chute shot upward nicely, like a plume of smoke, then billowed as the canopy began filling with air. Thorpe forced himself to look down. About three hundred feet. Two seconds to splat. Thorpe felt an upward jerk as he heard the snap of the canopy fully spread out. He looked down to see where O’Brien would fall, but lost sight of him in the dark ground clutter of the forest below. He thought he heard the sound of snapping wood followed by a thud.

Thorpe was fully decelerated now and floated about seventy-five feet from the earth. He spotted a small sandy clearing amid the moonlit scrub pine and tugged hard on his risers, sliding toward the nearby patch of open ground.

Thorpe tucked his legs up, and hit. He shoulder-rolled, then jumped to his feet and pulled the quick-release hook. The chute drifted a few feet off in the gentle breeze. He brushed the sand from his hands and face. “Not bad.” He felt that incredible high that comes after a safe landing. “Damned good.”

As he gathered his parachute, he gave a passing thought to O’Brien. The man was a worthy opponent. He’d expected more trouble from the pilot and less from O’Brien, considering his age. But old foxes were tough foxes. That’s how they got to be old.

He wondered what the authorities would make of an aircraft that crashed in the foothills of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies, without warning, far off-course, and with its passenger a mushy heap in New Jersey. His laughter broke the stillness of the spring night.

Thorpe stuffed his parachute into its pack and extended the aerial of a homing transmitter. He sat on a mound of sand, dabbed at his bloody nose, then broke out a bag of chocolate kisses and waited for the helicopter.

This night had two final victims to claim, and like a slaughterer in an abattoir, he had to work fast before the sheep became panicky and stampeded.

At least,
he thought,
he was helping to eliminate suspects.

The small LOH helicopter carrying Peter Thorpe landed at the West 30th Street Heliport on the Hudson River. Thorpe finished changing into sport jacket, tie, and slacks.

The pilot, under contract to Lotus Air, a CIA proprietary company, knew neither his passenger’s name nor his mission. Neither had he exchanged a single word with him, nor had he even looked at him. If in a week, or a year, the news reported a body found with an unopened parachute in the Jersey Pine Barrens, the pilot would put two and two together and come up with zero.

The LOH swung out over the river and disappeared into the night. Thorpe watched, then took the pack containing his gathered parachute, clothing, and rock weights, and dropped it in the river.

He walked the dark, desolate streets by the riverfront and entered a telephone booth. He dialed the Princeton Club and was connected to West. “Nick, how are you?”

“Fine.”

“Look, what are you doing now?”

“I thought I’d turn in. I have to get an early shuttle to D.C. tomorrow.”

“Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’m really not up for a drink.”

“We’ll make it an early evening. I’m really in the mood for a Negroni, and I hate to drink alone.”

There was a short silence, then West’s voice came back on the line. “All right . . . yes . . . where . . . when?”

“Meet you at my club. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Thorpe hung up.

Peter Thorpe entered the Yale Club and sat on a small sofa beside West, who was staring at a martini on the coffee table. Thorpe ordered a Negroni and gave West a sidelong glance. He said, “I was afraid you wouldn’t remember the code word.”

West looked at Thorpe, and focused on the small butterfly bandage covering his left nostril, but didn’t comment on it.