you know I’m employed by the CIA. Are you foreign agents attempting
some sort of bizarre blackmail scheme? The problem with that is, you
need to have something to blackmail me with.”
Lee said, “We know enough to bury you.”
“Well, then I suggest you go get your shovel and start digging, Mr.
?”
“Adams, Lee Adams,” Lee said with a fierce scowl.
“Faith is dead, you know, Bob,” Buchanan said. As he said this, Lee
looked down. “She almost made it. Constantinople killed her. He also
killed two of your men. Payback for your killing the FBI agent.”
Thornhill looked suitably bewildered. “Faith? Constantinople? What
the hell are you talking about?” Lee came and stood directly in front
of Thornhill. “You bastard! You kill people like stepping on ants. A
game. That’s all it is to you.”
“Please put the gun away and leave my house. Now!” “Damn you!” Lee
aimed his pistol directly at Thornhill’s head. Buchanan was next to
him in an instant. “Lee, please don’t. That won’t do any good.” “I
would listen to your friend if I were you,” Thornhill said as calmly as
he could. He had had a gun pulled on him once before, when his cover
had been blown in Istanbul many years ago. He had been lucky to get
out alive. He wondered if his luck would hold tonight.
“Why should I listen to anybody?” Lee growled.
“Lee, please,” Buchanan said.
Lee’s finger hovered on the trigger for an instant, his gaze locked
with Thornhill’s. Finally, he lowered the gun, slowly.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to go to the Feds with what we have,” Lee
said.
“I just want you out of my house.”
“And all I want,” Buchanan said, “is your personal assurances that no
one else will be killed. You’ve got what you want. You don’t have to
harm anyone else.”
“Right. Right, whatever you say. I won’t kill anybody else,”
Thornhill said sarcastically. “Now if you’ll please leave my house. I
don’t want to upset my wife. She has no idea she’s married to a mass
murderer.”
“This is no joke,” Buchanan said angrily.
“No, it really isn’t, and I hope you get the help you so obviously
need,” said Thornhill. “And please take care that your gun-toting
friend doesn’t hurt anyone.” That should sound very nice on the tape.
I am actually caring about others.
Buchanan picked up the cassette.
“Not leaving the evidence of my crimes?”
Buchanan swiveled around and eyed him severely. “Under the
circumstances, I don’t think it will be necessary.”
He looks like he wants to kill me, Thornhill thought. Good, very good.
Thornhill watched as the two men hurried down his driveway and
disappeared onto the darkened street. A minute later he heard a car
start up. He raced toward the phone on his desk and then stopped. Was
it tapped? Was this whole thing a charade to trick him into a mistake?
He stared at the window. Yes, they could be out there right now. He
hit a button under his desk. All the drapes in the room descended and
then a small whooshing sound commenced at each of the windows: white
noise. He slid open his drawer and pulled out his secure phone. It
had so many security and scrambling features that not even the NSA
jocks could lift a conversation on it from the air. Similar to the
technology used on military aircraft, the phone threw out electronic
chaff that jammed attempts to intercept its signal. So much for
electronic eavesdropping, you amateurs.
“Buchanan and Lee Adams were in my study,” he said into the phone.
“Yes. In my home, dammit! They just left. I want all the men we can
spare. We’re only minutes from Langley. You should be able to find
them.” He paused to relight his pipe. “They sang some bullshit song
about the cassette tape where I admitted to having the FBI agent
killed. But Buchanan was just bluffing. The tape is gone. I figured
they were wired, and I played dumb with everything. It almost cost me
my life. That idiot Adams was two seconds away from blowing my head
off. Buchanan said Lockhart was dead, which is good for us, if it’s