Parallax View (18 page)

“That’s a serious
breach of mission protocol.”

“I know that. I’ll
deal with the consequences later.”

Andrews sighed
heavily. Through the phone’s earpiece the sound was like a strong wind. Tracie
had worked with her handler a long time, and she was convinced he had been
drinking.

Like he had a lot
on his mind.

Like he was
worried.

“Where are you?”
he asked.

“In the New Haven
area, somewhere safe,” Tracie said, hoping against hope he would let the issue
drop.

“Tell me where,
and I’ll pull some strings,” Andrews said. “You know, keep you safe. You left
one hell of a mess up there in Bangor. Every cop along the Eastern Seaboard is
looking for the dirtbag that shot one of their brethren point blank in the
chest and drove off. They’re out for blood, and it seems they don’t much care
whether they shoot one of the Russian guys or you.”

Her heart sank—and
not because of the police that could be after them. Her worst fears had just
been confirmed. Andrews was involved with the Soviets. She had always wondered
about that, had heard whispered rumors over the years. The fact he wanted to
know exactly where she was verified her worst fears.

Tracie hesitated,
trying to put just the right amount of indecision in her response. “Me
revealing my location is against mission protocol, too.”

“I understand
that, but I’m trying to keep you alive. I have some connections in the New
Haven area. Tell me where you are and I can call in a few favors, divert the
attention of the law from your area until you’re safely out of there tomorrow.”

Tracie sighed
loudly and gave in. “Okay. We’re holed up in Room Twenty-One at the New Haven
Arms, just south of I-95. It’s a cheap little dive, well off the beaten path.
There’s no way anyone could track us here. We’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,”
Andrews said. “Just the same, I’ll call my people in the area and make sure the
authorities stay away from there overnight.”

“Thanks. We should
see you by late afternoon tomorrow.”

“Roger that,”
Andrews said. “Stay safe.” He broke the connection and Tracie sat on the edge
of the bed, staring out the dirty picture window at the dark parking lot. She
couldn’t decide whether to be angry or sad. She settled on both.

31

May 31, 1987

10:50 p.m.

New Haven, Connecticut

Shane pulled the Granada into the
spot it had previously occupied in front of the dummy hotel room, then shut the
engine down and trotted across the pavement to Room Twenty. The door swung open
and he knew immediately something was wrong. Tracie barely acknowledged him;
her face was troubled and she was obviously deep in thought. “What is it?” he
said. “What’s the matter?”

She smiled
forlornly. “You mean aside from this whole mess?”

Shane nodded.

“I just got off
the phone with my handler, a man named Winston Andrews, an intelligence
specialist who’s been the company’s foremost expert on Soviet covert activities
since well before I was born.”

He placed the bag
onto the ancient dresser next to the bed. “Okay. And?”

“And I’m almost
certain he’s involved with the guys who are trying to kill us.”

Shane froze. “Why
do you say that?”

“He asked where we
were staying, claimed he could use his influence to divert the attention of the
police away from this area. They’re looking for us and are pretty pissed off
about the dead cop back in Bangor. Anyway, Andrews said he would help keep the
police from shooting our asses off.”

“So what’s the
problem? I’m pretty fond of my ass and I’d hate to see anything happen to
yours. We could certainly use all the help we can get.”

“
This
is
the problem.” Tracie picked the telephone’s black plastic handset off its
cradle and brandished it front of him, dropping it back onto the receiver with
a thud. “The telephone connection in his home office is secure. It’s a
dedicated CIA line, encrypted, almost impossible to hack into. But this—” she
pointed again at the offending motel phone— “is anything
but
secure.
Anyone could have been listening in. Andrews violated Rule Number One of covert
operations. He should never have asked me to reveal our location on an
unsecured connection when there’s a Russian hit team chasing us all over the
East Coast.”

“Maybe…” Shane’s
voice trailed off as he struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation,
knowing he was wasting his time, that Tracie would already have found one if it
existed.

“No,” she said
grimly, shaking her head. “He’s involved. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Obviously the KGB is up to something big, something potentially game-changing,
or else they would never have risked exposing so many of their U.S. people in
such a desperate manner for one simple op.”

Her eyebrows
knitted together in concentration. “This letter I’m tasked with bringing to
Washington—no one besides Gorbachev himself knows what’s in it. I think Gorbie
knows the KGB is up to something drastic and he doesn’t like it. I think he’s
trying to send a warning directly to the president.”

Shane was
skeptical. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds pretty farfetched, like
something out of a Hollywood movie.
The Manchurian Candidate
or
something.”

“It sounds
farfetched, I’ll give you that, but I can’t imagine what else could have the
KGB this spooked.”

“But they’ve only
thrown three guys at us. I mean, it’s pretty daunting from our point of view,
but what are three guys to the KGB in the grand scheme of things?”

“Three guys is a
lot,” Tracie said, her face burning with intensity. Shane was amazed. She
barely resembled the All-American-looking girl he had gotten used to riding
with.

She paused,
thinking something over, and Shane wondered if he had just been dismissed. Then
she said, “How much of your American History do you remember from high school?”

“I don’t know, enough,
I guess. I mean, it was interesting, so I mostly paid attention.”

“You’ve heard of
the McCarthy hearings?”

“Of course. Joe
McCarthy was a U.S. Senator back in the 1950s. He started a big Communist
scare, claiming the Commies had gained influence in all levels of U.S. society,
governmental and otherwise.”

“Exactly,” Tracie
said, nodding, still intense. “McCarthy had a lot of people running scared, but
eventually it was determined there was no way the Soviets could possibly have
infiltrated our government to the extent McCarthy was claiming. He was
discredited.” Her laser stare bored in on him as if willing him to understand.
He didn’t.

“Don’t you see?”
she said. “There weren’t a huge number of Soviet Communists in the United
States, at least not such a large number they could do any real damage. But
that doesn’t mean there weren’t
any.
The Soviets probably have an agent
or two in many of our major cities, enough operatives to pass along whatever
intel they can gather, but not the numbers to really accomplish much. Maybe a
few dozen people total, similar to the number of assets we have in Russia. The
numbers just aren’t that great.

“So when they
expose three of those few dozen people in such an obvious way, it’s
significant. It means something if you’re paying attention. And like I told you
before, attention to detail is what keeps me alive.”

“So what are we
going to do?” Shane asked.

“Well, if what I
believe is true, we’ve probably got a minimum of, say, two hours before
anything happens. The goons chasing us will have expected us to head toward D.C.,
but they have no way of knowing how far we would have gotten. They’re probably
ahead of us because they’ll assume we wouldn’t stop—”

“—which we
wouldn’t have,” Shane interrupted, “if you didn’t need to get at your cash.”

“Exactly,” Tracie
said. “So they’ll have to double-back once Andrews relays our location to the
Russians. That’s why I say we should split the night into two-hour shifts. One
of us keeps watch while the other sleeps. If it’s all right with you, you can
start with the first watch, since I really don’t think anything will happen for
a while.”

“Of course I’ll
take the first watch. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. But in the meantime,
there’s something we need to talk about.”

“And that is?”

He cut a look at
Tracie. “You need to open that letter. I mean, like, right now.”

“That letter is
classified.”

“I understand
that.”

“It’s Top Secret.”

“I understand
that.”

“It’s for the
president’s eyes only.”

“I understand
that.”

“I’m expressly
forbidden to open it, Shane.”

“I understand
that, too, and under normal circumstances I would never suggest you disregard
protocol. And I’m well aware that you’ve been doing this black ops stuff—”

“—clandestine
operations,” she interrupted.

“What?”

“I don’t do ‘black
ops,’ I do clandestine operations, missions that by necessity must remain
deniable by those in positions of authority all the way up the political and
military food chains.”

“Whatever,” Shane
said. “And thank you for making my point for me. As I started to say, I
understand you’ve been doing these types of things for years and I’ve only been
exposed to this shit for a day, but it’s pretty obvious to me you’re just
stumbling around in the dark unless you know what you’re up against. If your
fears about your handler are anywhere close to being accurate, reading that
letter might make the difference between living and dying. More to the point,
only
one person in the world
knows what it contains, and it seems to me
becoming the second person to know might be the best way to figure out how to
proceed. Hell, it’s probably the
only
way.”

Shane took a
breath, amazed he had not been interrupted, amazed she had not yet shot him
down. “I know,” she said quietly. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Opening
this little letter”—she patted her pocket lightly—“could get me executed for
treason, but I don’t see any way around it. I’ve been sitting here trying to
work up the courage to do it.”

She took a deep
breath. “I guess now’s the time.” She held up Mikhail Gorbachev’s letter. The
envelope was soiled and wrinkled from its travels but even from across the room
Shane could see it remained sealed. Tracie ran her fingers over the surface as
if trying to divine its contents via osmosis. Finally she tore off one end of
the envelope, careful not to damage the contents, then removed two handwritten
sheets of paper, which she held up for Shane’s inspection.

He took one look
and felt like an idiot. The letter was written in Russian. Of course it was.
Mikhail Gorbachev was General Secretary of the Soviet Union; why would Shane
have assumed the damned thing would be written in English?

He shook his head.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. What do we do now?”

“I can read it,”
Tracie said. “You can’t be in my business and work in and around the Soviet
Union without demonstrating some proficiency with common Russian dialects.”

She pulled the
letter back and squinted down at it, concentrating. “To President Ronald
Reagan,” she began, then continued haltingly. “Dear Mr. President. Please
accept my apologies for this most unusual method of communication. The contents
of this letter are of the utmost importance, critical to the security of both
of our countries and, in fact, the entire world. The information I am about to
impart to you is so explosive, I am afraid I cannot trust the usual diplomatic
channels for delivery. You will soon understand why.”

Tracie lifted her
head and looked at Shane. Her face was troubled, her beautiful eyes haunted.
She looked back down at the letter and continued reading. “As you know, Mr.
President, changes are sweeping the globe. Many inside the Kremlin insist on
resisting these changes and are intent on preserving the Soviet Union in its
current incarnation at all costs.

“I do not agree
with the assessment of these people, but they constitute much of my government,
and their plan for assuring the survival of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics is one that has a direct impact on you personally.

“Mr. President, a
plan to assassinate you has been set in motion by a small but powerful minority
at the highest levels of the KGB. Your travel itinerary for June 2 has been
acquired and your outdoor speech celebrating the District of Columbia urban
renewal has been targeted. An operative placed on the roof of a nearby building
and armed with a high-powered sniper rifle has been assigned to assassinate you
as you deliver your remarks at ten o’clock.

“Please treat this
information with the gravity it deserves, Mr. President. Relations between the
world’s two great superpowers have improved steadily during the term of your
presidency, and I cannot allow the progress we have made to be nullified by the
single-minded fanaticism of those inside my government who refuse to recognize
the future, even as it approaches.

“Understand this
assassination is being undertaken without my approval, but understand also that
my administration does not currently possess the means to put a stop to it. I
hope you see now, Mr. President, why I am being forced to contact you via these
drastic and unusual measures. I am subject to constant surveillance. There is
no other alternative.

“Good luck, Mr.
President. Cancel that appearance and avoid a catastrophe that will launch a
third World War.

“Sincerely,
Mikhail Gorbachev.”

Tracie looked
again at Shane. Her face had gone white. “June Second. That’s the day after
tomorrow,” she said.

***

Shane had to remind himself to
breathe. He gazed at Tracie, still seated on the bed staring at the letter. The
Top Secret document she had risked her career, her freedom, maybe even her life
to open. “You have to alert someone,” he said.