“I don’t operate any other way, Peter. A commitment may be based on emotions and there’s nothing wrong with that, but the execution of a strategy is ice-cold. … I was never in the SEALs, you hard-nosed son of a bitch, but I’m also geographically here, limp and all, and that presumes I’m also competent.”
Holland grinned; it was a smile of youth belied by streaked gray hair, the grin of a professional momentarily freed of executive concerns so as to return to the world he knew best. “We may even get along,” said the DCI. And then, as if to drop the last vestige of his directorial image, he placed his pipe on the table, reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes, popped one up to his mouth and snapped his lighter as he began to write on the legal pad. “To hell with the Bureau,” he continued. “We’ll use only our men and we’ll check every one out under a fast microscope.”
Charles Casset, the lean, bright heir apparent of the CIA’s directorship, sat back in his chair and sighed. “Why do I have the idea that I’m going to have to ride herd on both you gentlemen?”
“Because you’re an analyst at heart, Charlie,” answered Holland.
The object of controlled surveillance is to expose those who shadow others so as to establish their identities or take them into custody, whichever suits the strategy. The aim in the present case was to trap the agents of the Jackal who had lured Conklin and Panov to the amusement park in Baltimore. Working through the night and most of the following day, the men of the Central Intelligence Agency formed a detail of eight experienced field personnel, defined and redefined the specific routes that Conklin and Panov were to take both individually and together for the next twenty-four hours—these routes covered by the armed professionals in swift progressive relays—and finally to design an irresistible rendezvous, unique in terms of time and location. The early morning hours at the Smithsonian Institution. It was the Dionaea muscipula, the Venus flytrap.
Conklin stood in the narrow, dimly lit lobby of his apartment house and looked at his watch, squinting to read the dial. It was precisely 2:35 in the morning; he opened the heavy door and limped out into the dark street, which was devoid of any signs of life. According to their plan he turned left, maintaining the pace agreed upon; he was to arrive at the comer as close to 2:38 as possible. Suddenly, he was alarmed; in a shadowed doorway on his right was the figure of a man. Unobtrusively Alex reached under his jacket for his Beretta automatic. There was nothing in the strategy that called for someone to be in a doorway on this section of the street! Then, as suddenly as he had been alarmed, he relaxed, feeling equal parts of guilt and relief at what he understood. The figure in shadows was an indigent, an old man in worn-out clothes, one of the homeless in a land of so much plenty. Alex kept going; he reached the corner and heard the low, single click of two fingers snapped apart. He crossed the avenue and proceeded down the pavement, passing an alleyway. The alleyway. Another figure … another old man in disheveled clothing moving slowly out into the street and then back into the alley. Another derelict protecting his concrete cave. At any other time Conklin might have approached the unfortunate and given him a few dollars, but not now. He had a long way to go and a schedule to keep.
Morris Panov approached the intersection still bothered by the curious telephone conversation he had had ten minutes ago, still trying to recall each segment of the plan he was to follow, afraid to look at his watch to see if he had reached a specific place within a specific time span—he had been told not to look at his watch in the street … and why couldn’t they say “at approximately such and such” rather than the somewhat unnerving term “time span,” as if a military invasion of Washington were imminent. Regardless, he kept walking, crossing the streets he was told to cross, hoping some unseen clock kept him relatively in tune with the goddamned “time spans” that had been determined by his striding back and forth between two pegs on some lawn behind a garden apartment in Vienna, Virginia. … He would do anything for David Webb—good Christ, anything!—but this was insane. … Yet, of course, it wasn’t. They would not ask him to do what he was doing if it were.
What was that? A face in shadows peering at him, just like the other two! This one hunched over on a curb, raising wine-soaked eyes up at him. Old men—weather-beaten, old, old men who could barely move—staring at him! Now he was allowing his imagination to run away with him-the cities were filled with the homeless, with perfectly harmless people whose psychoses or poverty drove them into the streets. As much as he would like to help them, there was nothing he could do but professionally badger an unresponsive Washington. … There was another! In an indented space between two storefronts barricaded by iron gates-he, too, was watching him. Stop it! You’re being irrational. … Or was he? Of course, he was. Go on, keep to the schedule, that’s what you’re supposed to do. … Good God! There’s another. Across the street. … Keep going!
The vast moonlit grounds of the Smithsonian dwarfed the two figures as they converged from intersecting paths, joining each other and proceeding to a bench. Conklin lowered himself with the aid of his cane while Mo Panov looked around nervously, listening, as if he expected the unexpected. It was 3:28 in the predawn morning, the only noises the subdued rattle of crickets and mild summer breezes through the trees. Guardedly Panov sat down.
“Anything happen on the way here?” asked Conklin.
“I’m not sure,” replied the psychiatrist. “I’m as lost as I was in Hong Kong, except that over there we knew where we were going, whom we expected to meet. You people are crazy.”
“You’re contradicting yourself, Mo,” said Alex, smiling. “You told me I was cured.”
“Oh, that? That was merely obsessive manic-depression bordering on dementia praecox. This is nuts! It’s nearly four o’clock in the morning. People who aren’t nuts do not play games at four o’clock in the morning.”
Alex watched Panov in the dim wash of a distant Smithsonian floodlight that illuminated the massive stone structure. “You said you weren’t sure. What does that mean?”
“I’m almost embarrassed to say—I’ve told too many patients that they invent uncomfortable images to rationalize their panic, justify their fears.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s a form of transference—”
“Come on, Mo!” interrupted Conklin. “What bothered you? What did you see?”
“Figures … some bent over, walking slowly, awkwardly—not like you, Alex, incapacitated not by injuries but by age. Worn out and old and staying in the darkness of storefronts and side streets. It happened four or five times between my apartment house and here. Twice I almost stopped and called out for one of your men, and then I thought to myself, My God, Doctor, you’re overreacting, mistaking a few pathetic homeless people for what they’re not, seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Right on!” Conklin whispered emphatically. “You saw exactly what was there, Mo. Because I saw the same, the same kind of old people you saw, and they were pathetic, mostly in beat up clothes and who moved slower than I move. … What does it mean? What do they mean? Who are they?”
Footsteps. Slow, hesitant, and through the shadows of the deserted path walked two short men—old men. At first glance they, indeed, appeared to be part of the swelling army of indigent homeless, yet there was something different about them, a sense of purpose, perhaps. They stopped nearly twenty feet away from the bench, their faces in darkness. The old man on the left spoke, his voice thin, his accent strange. “It is an odd hour and an unusual place for two such well-dressed gentlemen to meet. Is it fair for you to occupy a place of rest that should be for others not so well off as you?”
“There are a number of unoccupied benches,” said Alex pleasantly. “Is this one reserved?”
“There are no reserved seats here,” replied the second old man, his English clear but not native to him. “But why are you here?”
“What’s it to you?” asked Conklin. “This is a private meeting and none of your business.”
“Business at this hour and in this place?” The first aged intruder spoke while looking around.
“I repeat,” repeated Alex. “It’s none of your business and I really think you should leave us alone.”
“Business is business,” intoned the second old man.
“What in God’s name is he talking about?” whispered the bewildered Panov to Conklin.
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