Three Days of the Condor (6 page)

Weatherby briefed the drivers of the crash cars as they walked toward the parking lot. He checked the short gun with the sausage-shaped device and nodded his approval to the somber man from Ordnance. Ordinarily Weatherby would have had to sign for the gun, but Mitchell's authority rendered such procedures unnecessary. The Ordnance man helped Weatherby adjust a special shoulder holster, handed him twenty-five extra rounds, and wished him luck. Weatherby grunted as he climbed into his light blue sedan.

The three cars rolled out of Langley in close formation with Weatherby's blue sedan in the middle position. Just as they exited from the Beltway turnpike to enter Washington, the rear car "blew" a tire. The driver "lost control" of his vehicle, and the car ended up across two lanes of traffic. No one was hurt, but the accident blocked traffic for ten minutes. Weatherby closely followed the other crash car as it turned and twisted its way through the maze of Washington traffic. On a quiet residential street in the city's south-west quadrant the crash car made a complete U-turn and started back in the opposite direction. As it passed the blue sedan, the driver flashed Weatherby the OK sign, then sped out of sight. Weatherby headed toward Georgetown, checking for tails all the way.

Weatherby figured out his mistake. When he dispatched the assassination team, he ordered them to kill everyone in the building. He had said everyone, but he hadn't specified how many that was. His men had followed orders, but the orders hadn't been complete enough to let them know one man was missing. Why the man wasn't there Weatherby didn't know and he didn't care. If he had known about the missing man, this Condor, he could have arranged a satisfactory solution. He had made the mistake, so now he had to rectify it.

There was a chance Condor was harmless, that he wouldn't remember his conversation with the Heidegger man, but Weatherby couldn't take that chance. Heidegger questioned all the staff except Dr. Lappe. Those questions could not be allowed to exist. Now one man knew about those questions, so, like the others, that man must die even if he didn't realize what he knew.

Weatherby's plan was simple, but extremely dangerous. As soon as Condor appeared he would shoot him. Self-defense. Weatherby glanced at the trembling Sparrow IV. An unavoidable side product. The big man had no qualms concerning the instructor's pending death. The plan was fraught with risks: Condor might be better with his weapon than anticipated, the scene might be witnessed and later reported, the Agency might not believe his story and use a guaranteed form of interrogation, Condor might turn himself in some other way. A hundred things could go wrong. But no matter how high the risks, Weatherby knew they were not the certainty that faced him should he fail. He might be able to escape the Agency and the rest of the American intelligence network. There are several ways, ways that have been successfully used before. Such things were Weatherby's forte. But he knew he would never escape the striking-looking man with strange eyes. That man never failed when he acted directly. Never. He would act directly against Weatherby the dangerous bungler, Weatherby the threat. This Weatherby knew, and it made him wheeze painfully. It was this knowledge that made any thought of escape or betrayal absurd. Weatherby had to account for his error. Condor had to die.

Weatherby drove through the alley slowly, then turned around and came back, parking the car next to some garbage cans behind the theaters. The alley was empty just as Mitchell said it would be. Weatherby doubted if anyone would enter it while they were there: Washingtonians tend to avoid alleys. He knew Mitchell would arrange for the area to be free of police so that uniforms wouldn't frighten Condor. That was fine with Weatherby. He motioned for Sparrow IV to get out. They leaned against the car, prominent and visibly alone. Then, like any good hunter staging an ambush, Weatherby blanked his mind to let his senses concentrate.

Malcolm saw them standing there before they knew he was in the alley. He watched them very carefully from a distance of about sixty paces. He had a hard time controlling sneezes, but he managed to stay silent. After he was certain they were alone, he stepped from behind the telephone pole and began to walk toward them. His relief built with every step.

Weatherby spotted Malcolm immediately. He stepped away from the car, ready. He wanted to be very, very sure, and sixty paces is only a fair shot for a silenced pistol. He also wanted to be out of Sparrow IV's reach. Take them one at a time, he thought.

Recognition sprang on Malcolm twenty-five paces from the two men, five paces sooner than Weatherby anticipated any action. A picture of a man in a blue sedan parked just up from the Society in the morning rain flashed through Malcolm's mind. The man in that car and one of the men now standing in front of him were the same. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Malcolm stopped, then slowly backed up. Almost unconsciously he tugged at the gun in his belt.

Weatherby knew something was wrong, too. His quarry had quite unexpectedly stopped short of the trap, was now fleeing, and was probably preparing an aggressive defense. Malcolm's unexpected actions forced Weatherby to abandon his original plan and react to a new situation. While he quickly drew his own weapon, Weatherby briefly noted Sparrow IV, frozen with fright and bewilderment. The timid instructor still posed no threat.

Weatherby was a veteran of many situations requiring rapid action. Malcolm's pistol barrel had just cleared his belt when Weatherby fired.

A pistol, while effective, can be a difficult weapon to use under field conditions, even for an experienced veteran. A pistol equipped with a silencer increases this difficulty, for while the silencer allows the handler to operate quietly, it cuts down on his efficiency. The bulk at the end of the barrel is an unaccustomed weight requiring aim compensation by the user. Ballistically, a silencer cuts down on the bullet's velocity. The silencer may affect the bullet's trajectory. A siencer-equipped pistol is cumbersome, difficult to draw and fire quickly.

All these factors worked against Weatherby. Had he not been using a silenced pistol— even though his quarry's retreat forced him to take time to revise his plans— there would have been no contest. As it was, the pistol's bulk slowed his draw. He lost accuracy attempting to regain speed. The veteran killer tried for the difficult but definite head shot, but he overcompensated. Milliseconds after the soft
plop!
, a heavy chunk of lead cut through the hair hanging over Malcolm's left ear and whined off to sink in the Potomac.

Malcolm had only fired one pistol in his life, a friend's .22 target model. All five shots missed the running gopher. He fired Mrs. Russell's gun from the waist, and a deafening roar echoed down the alley before he knew he had pulled the trigger.

When a man is shot with a .357 magnum he doesn't grab a neat little red hole in his body and slide slowly to the ground. He goes down hard. At twenty-five paces the effect is akin to being hit by a truck. Malcolm's bullet smashed through Weatherby's left thigh. The force of the blast splattered a large portion of Weatherby's leg over the alley; it flipped him into the air and slammed him face down in the road.

Sparrow IV looked incredulously at Malcolm. Slowly Malcolm turned toward the little instructor, bringing the gun into line with the man's quivering stomach.

"He was one of them!" Malcolm was panting though he hadn't exerted himself. "He was one of them!" Malcolm slowly backed away from the speechless instructor. When he reached the edge of the alley, Malcolm turned and ran.

Weatherby groaned, fighting off the shock of the wound.

The pain hadn't set in. He was a very tough man, but it took everything he had to raise his arm. He had somehow held on to the gun. Miraculously, his mind stayed clear. Very carefully he aimed and fired. Another
plop!
, and a bullet shattered on the theater wall, but not before it tore through the throat of Sparrow IV, instructor of governmental procedure, husband, father of four. As the body crumpled against the car, Weatherby felt a strange sense of elation. He wasn't dead yet, Condor had vanished again, and there would be no bullets for Ballistics to use in determining who shot whom. There was still hope. He passed out.

A police car found the two men. It took them a long time to respond to the frightened shopkeeper's call, because all the Georgetown units had been sent to check out a sniper report. The report turned out to be from a crank.

* * *

Malcolm ran four blocks before he realized how conspicuous he was. He slowed down, turned several corners, then hailed a passing taxi to downtown Washington.

Sweet Jesus, Malcolm thought, he was one of them. He was one of them. The Agency must not have known. He had to get to a phone. He had to call… Fear set in. Suppose, just suppose the man in the alley wasn't the only double. Suppose he had been sent there by a man who knew what he was. Suppose the man at the other end of the Panic Line was also a double.

Malcolm quit his suppositions to deal with the immediate problem of survival. Until he thought it out he wouldn't dare call in. And they would be looking for him. They would have looked for him even before the shooting, the only survivor of the section, they… But he wasn't! The thought raced through his mind. He wasn't the only survivor of the section. Heidegger! Heidegger was sick, home in bed, sick! Malcolm searched his brain. Address, what did Heidegger say his address was? Malcolm had heard Heidegger tell Dr. Lappe his address was… Mount Royal Arms!

Malcolm explained his problem to the cabby. He was on his way to pick up a blind date, but he had forgotten the address. All he knew was she lived in the Mount Royal Arms. The cabby, always eager to help young love, called his dispatcher, who gave him the address in the northwest quadrant. When the cabby let him out in front of the aging building, Malcolm gave him a dollar tip.

Heidegger's name tape was stuck next to 413. Malcolm buzzed. No return buzz, no query over the call box. While he buzzed again, an uneasy but logical assumption grew in his mind. Finally he pushed three other buzzers. No answer came, so he punched a whole row. When the jammed call box squealed, he yelled, "Special delivery!" The door buzzer rang and he ran inside.

No one answered his knock at Apartment 413, but by then he didn't really expect an answer. He got on his knees and looked at the lock. If he was right, only a simple spring night lock was on. In dozens of books he'd read and in countless movies, the hero uses a small piece of stiff plastic and in a few seconds a locked door springs open. Plastic— where could he find a piece of stiff plastic? After several moments of frantic pocket slapping, he opened his wallet and removed his laminated CIA identification card. The card certified he was an employee of Tentrex Industries, Inc., giving relevant information regarding his appearance and identity. Malcolm had always liked the two photos of himself, one profile, one full face.

For twenty minutes Malcolm sneezed, grunted, pushed, pulled, jiggled, pleaded, threatened, shook, and finally hacked at the lock with his card. The plastic lamination finally split, shooting his ID card through the crack and into the locked room.

Frustration turned to anger. Malcolm relieved his cramped knees by standing. If nobody has bothered me up till now, he thought, a little more noise won't make much difference. Backed with the fury, fear, and frustration of the day, Malcolm smashed his foot against the door. Locks and doors in the Mount Royal Arms are not of the finest quality. The management leans toward cheap rent, and the building construction is similarly inclined. The door of 413 flew inward, bounced off its doorstop, and was caught on the return swing by Malcolm. He shut the door a good deal more quietly than he had opened it. He picked his ID card out of the splinters, then crossed the room to the bed and what lay on it.

Since time forestalled any pretense, they hadn't bothered to be gentle with Heidegger. If Malcolm had lifted the pajama top, he would have seen the mark a low-line punch leaves if the victim's natural tendency to bruise is arrested by death. The corpse's face was blackish blue, a state induced by, among other things, strangulation. The room stank from the corpse's involuntary discharge.

Malcolm looked at the beginning-to-bloat body. He knew very little about organic medicine, but he knew that this state of decomposition is not reached in a couple of hours. Therefore Heidegger had been killed before the others. "They" hadn't come here after they discovered him missing from work but before they hit the building. Malcolm didn't understand.

Heidegger's right pajama sleeve lay on the floor. Malcolm didn't think that type of tear would be made in a fight. He flipped the covers back to look at Heidegger's arm. On the underside of the forearm he found a small bruise, the kind a tiny bug would make. Or, thought Malcolm, remembering his trips to the student health service, a clumsily inserted hypodermic. They shot him full of something, probably to make him talk. About what? Malcolm had no idea. He began to search the room when he remembered about fingerprints. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped everything he remembered touching, including the outside of the door. He found a pair of dusty handball gloves on the cluttered dresser. Too small, but they covered his fingers.

After the bureau drawers he searched the closet. On the top shelf he found an envelope full of money, fifty- and one-hundred-dollar bills. He didn't take the time to count it, but he estimated that there must be at least ten thousand dollars.

He sat on the clothes-covered chair. It didn't make sense. An ex-alcoholic, an accountant who lectured on the merits of mutual funds, a man frightened of muggers, keeping all that cash stashed in his closet. It didn't make sense. He looked at corpse. At any rate, he thought, Heidegger won't need it now. Malcolm put the envelope inside his shorts. After a last quick look around, he cautiously opened the door, walked down the stairs, and caught a downtown bus at the corner.

Malcolm knew his first problem would be evading his pursuers. By now there would be at least two "they"s after him: the Agency and whatever group hit the Society. They all knew what he looked like, so his first move would have to be to change his appearance.