‘Like I said, come on over and we can talk over lunch.’ The line clicked off.
Excellent.
‘There, that ought to give the fucker something to think about.’ Piaggi poured himself another cup of coffee. The brew was old and thick and rancid now, but it was so heavily laced with caffeine that his hands remained still only with concerted effort. But he was fully awake and alert, Piaggi told himself. He looked at the other two, smiling and nodding confidently.
‘Sad about Cas,’ the Superintendent observed to his friend.
Maxwell nodded. ‘What can I say, Will? He wasn’t exactly a good candidate for retirement, was he? Family gone, here and there both. This was his life, and it was coming to an end one way or another.’ Neither man wanted to discuss what his wife had done. Perhaps after a year or so they might see the poetic symmetry in the loss of two friends, but not now.
‘I hear, you put your papers in, too, Dutch.’ The Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy didn’t quite understand it. Talk was about that Dutch was a sure thing for a fleet command in the spring. The talk had died only days before, and he didn’t know why.
‘That’s right.’ Maxwell couldn’t say why. The orders – couched as a ‘suggestion’ – had come from the White House, through the CNO. ‘Long enough, Will. Time for some new blood. Us World War Two guys… well, time to make room, I guess.’
‘Sonny doing okay?’
‘I’m a grandfather.’
‘Good for them!’ At least there was some good news in the room when Admiral Greer entered it, wearing his uniform for once.
‘James!’
‘Nice principal’s office,’ Greer observed. ‘Hiya, Dutch.’
‘So, to what do I owe all this high-level attention?’
‘Will, we’re going to steal one of your sailboats. You have something nice and comfortable that two admirals can handle?’
‘Wide selection. You want one of the twenty-sixes?’
‘That’s about right.’
‘Well, I’ll call the Seamanship Department and have them chop one loose for you.’ It made sense, the Admiral thought. They’d both been close with Cas, and when you said goodbye to a sailor, you did it at sea. He placed his call, and they took their leave.
‘Run outa ideas?’ Piaggi asked. His voice showed defiant confidence now. The momentum had passed across the street, the man thought. Why not reinforce that?
‘I don’t see that you have any to speak of. You bastards afraid of the sunlight. I’ll give you some!’ Kelly snarled. ‘Watch.’
He set the phone down and lifted the rifle, taking aim at the window.
Pop.
Crash.
‘You dumb fuck!’ Tony said into the phone, even though he knew it to be disconnected. ‘You see? He knows he can’t get us. He knows time’s on our side.’
Two panes were shattered, then the shooting stopped again. The phone rang. Tony let it ring a while before he answered.
‘Missed, you jerk!’
‘I don’t see you going anywhere, asshole!’ The shout was loud enough that Tucker and Charon beard the buzz from ten feet away.
‘I think it’s time for you to start runnin’, Mr Kelly. Who knows, maybe we won’t catch you. Maybe the cops will. They’re after you too, I hear.’
‘You’re still the ones in the trap, remember.’
‘You say so, man.’ Piaggi hung up on him again, showing who had the upper hand.
‘And how are you, Colonel?’ Voloshin asked.
‘It has been an interesting trip.’ Ritter and Grishanov were sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, just two tourists tired after a hot day, joined by a third friend, under the watchful eyes of a security guard ten yards away.
‘And your Vietnamese friend?’
‘What?’ Kolya asked in some surprise. ‘What friend?’
Ritter grinned. ‘That was just a little ploy on my part. We had to identify the leak, you see.’
‘I thought that was your doing,’ the KGB general observed sourly. It was such an obvious trap and he’d fallen right into it. Almost. Fortune had smiled on him, and probably Ritter didn’t know that.
‘The game goes on, Sergey. Will you weep for a traitor?’
‘For a traitor, no. For a believer in the cause of a peaceful world, yes. You are very clever, Bob. You have done well.’ Perhaps not, Voloshin thought, perhaps not as far into the trap as you believe, my young American friend. You moved too fast. You managed to kill this Hicks boy, but not Cassius. Impetuous, my young friend. You miscalculated and you really don’t know it, do you?
Time for business. ‘What about our people?’
‘As agreed, they are with the others. Rokossovskiy confirms. Do you accept my word, Mr Ritter?’
‘Yes, I will. Very well, there’s a PanAm flight from Dulles to Paris tonight at eight-fifteen. I’ll deliver him there if you wish to see him off. You can have him met at Orly.’
‘Agreed.’ Voloshin walked away.
‘Why did he leave me?’ Grishanov asked, more surprised than alarmed.
‘Colonel, that’s because he believes my word, just like I believe his.’ Ritter stood. ‘We have a few hours to kill -‘
‘Kill?’
‘Excuse me, that’s an idiom. We have a few hours of private time. Would you like to walk around Washington? There’s a moon rock in the Smithsonian. People love to touch it for some reason.’
Five-thirty. The sun was in his eyes now. Kelly had to wipe his face more often. Watching the partly broken window, he saw nothing except an occasional shadow. He wondered if they were resting. That wouldn’t do. He lifted the field phone and turned the crank. They made him wait again.
‘Who’s calling?’ Tony asked. He was the formidable one, Kelly thought, almost as formidable as he thought he was. It was a shame, really.
‘Your restaurant do carry-out?’
‘Getting hungry, are we?’ Pause. ‘Maybe you want to make a deal with us.’
‘Come on outside and we can talk about it,’ Kelly replied. The reply was a click.
Just about right, Kelly thought, watching the shadows move across the floor. He drank the last of his water and ate his last candy bar, looking around the area again for any changes. He’d long since decided what to do. In a way, they’d decided that for him. There was again a clock running, ticking down to a zero-time that was flexible but finite. He could walk away from this if he had to, but – no, he really couldn’t. He checked his watch. It was going to be dangerous, and the passage of time would not change it any more than it already had. They’d been awake for twenty-four hours, probably longer. He’d given them fear and let them get comfortable with it. They thought they held a good playing hand now, just as he’d dared to hope they would.
Kelly slid backwards on the cement floor, leaving his gear behind. He’d need it no longer no matter how this turned out. Standing, he brushed off his clothes and checked his Colt automatic. One in the chamber, seven in the magazine. He stretched a little, and then he knew that he could delay no longer. He headed down the stairs, pulling out the keys to the VW. It started despite his sudden fear that it might not. He let the engine warm up while watching traffic on the north-south street in front of him. He darted across, incurring the noisy wrath of a southbound driver, but fitting neatly into the rush-hour traffic.
‘See anything?’
Charon had been the one to suggest that the angles precluded Kelly from seeing all the way into their building. He might try to come across after all, they thought, but two of them could each cover one side of the white building. And they knew he was still there. They were getting to him. He hadn’t thought it all the way through, Tony pronounced. He was pretty smart, but not that smart, and when it was dark, and when there were shadows, they’d make their move. It would work. A dinky little .22 wouldn’t penetrate a car body if they could make it that far, and if they surprised him, they could –
‘Just-traffic on the other side.’
‘Don’t get too close to the window, man.’
‘Fuckin’ A,’ Henry said. ‘What about the delivery?’
‘We got a saying in the family, man, better late than never, y’dig?’
Charon was the most uncomfortable of the three. Perhaps it was just the proximity to the drugs. Evil stuff.
A little late to think about that. Could there be a way out of this?
The money for his delivery was right there, next to the desk. He had a gun.
To die like a criminal? He watched them there, left and right of the window. They were the criminals. He hadn’t done anything to offend this Kelly. Well, nothing that he knew about. It was Henry who’d killed the girl, and Tony who’d set the other two up. Charon was just a crooked cop. This was a personal matter for Kelly. Not a hard thing to understand. Killing Pam that way had been brutal and foolish. He’d told Henry that. He could come out of this a hero, couldn’t he? Got a tip, walked right into it. Crazy shoot-out. He could even help Kelly. And he’d never, ever get mixed up with anything like this again. Bank the money, get the promotion, and take down Henry’s organization from what he knew. They’d never bust him back after that, would they? All he had to do was to get on the phone and reason with the man. Except for one little thing.