Deep Cover (35 page)

“I don't see how I can do that. He makes his own decisions—I can't tell him what to do.”

Nicole turned. Her simian face picked up the light from the window and seemed at once bitter and amazed. “Don't be a
fool. Seduce him—drag him away on a white-hot orgy. A woman like you could put everything else out of his mind.”

Color suffused-Ronnie's cheeks. “I'm not the type. I wouldn't know how.”

It elicited Nicole's harsh bark of laughter. “With your looks? Christ if I had your looks I could make the President of the United States forget he ever saw the White House.”

“He knows me too well. I can't just change overnight into a sex maniac. He'd know something was wrong—he's not a fool.”

“Every man's a fool where women are concerned.”

Douglass said, “No, she's right. If you'd air out your mind once in a while you'd see there are problems sex doesn't solve.”

“You ought to know about that,” Nicole snapped.

Douglass disregarded her. “Look, Ronnie, you're his center of communications, you make his appointments and screen his incoming calls and whatnot. You can rearrange his schedule and he'll never be the wiser.”

“How?”

“He's at Davis Monthan this morning with his two hired snoops but it's only a preliminary survey, he's planning to go back four or five times more, isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“We can't have that. When he comes back to the office today I want you to tell him Colonel Sims called and asked if he'd postpone his next visit till Tuesday or Wednesday because the base has been alerted for a no-notice Operational Readiness Inspection and they'll be closing the base until the alert's ended; they'll be too busy to conduct his party around. Got that?”

“Yes, but what if he calls them to confirm it?”

“He won't if you're convincing enough. Now tomorrow you can call Colonel Ryan and tell him the Senator's been called into an emergency conference—something political—and won't be able to resume his inspection tour until Tuesday or Wednesday. And if Tuesday comes and we still need to keep
him out we'll think of some other herring. Now you can take care of that, can't you?”

“I suppose so. But he's a friend of Colonel Ryan's—suppose he happens to call him and finds out I lied?”

“Then you'll just have to bluff your way out of it, won't you?”

Nicole said, “Just bat your eyelashes and wiggle at him.”

Ronnie said uncertainly, “I don't—” But the telephone interrupted her and she picked up. “Senator Forrester's office.”

“Hello, is Mr. Spode there, please?”

“Not at the moment. May I take a message?”

“It's rather urgent that I reach him.” The man's voice was calm, filled with authority; she didn't recognize it.

“Who's calling, please?”

“My name is John Warren Block. It's important that I get in touch with Mr. Spode as quickly as possible. Do you have any idea where I might reach him?” There was enough interference on the line to suggest it was a long-distance call.

She said, “Right now he's out at Davis Monthan Air Force Base with Senator Forrester. You might try there, but I'm not sure they'll be able to find him right away. Would you care to leave your phone number?”

“He knows the number. John Warren Block. Thank you, I'll try the base.”
Click.

Douglass said, “Who was that?”

“Someone trying to reach Jaime Spode.”

“What was his name?”

“John Warren Block.”

“Ever heard of him?”

“No.”

“Well it's probably nothing. But did Spode say anything to you about anything that happened last night?”

“No. I only saw him for a few minutes this morning. He and Alan—Senator Forrester—went out together to collect Professor Moskowitz and drive out to the base.”

Douglass nodded. “All right, when you talk to Forrester
you've got to find out what Spode told him about last night. Particularly about a man he met last night.”

“I don't understand—what am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Find out if Spode recognized the man and whether he notified any officials about him.”

Nicole said, “What's this all about?”

“Our man from Moscow had a run-in with Spode last night. We've got to find out whether Spode carried it any farther. If Dangerfield's under suspicion we've got to know about it.”

The implications ran rapidly through Ronnie's mind and Nicole said to Douglass, “She's very quick—you can see she understands what it could mean.” Nicole came forward to the desk and put her palms flat on its surface, her face close before Ronnie's eyes. “You're right, of course. If Spode saw too much and communicated it to the Senator it may be necessary for us to take steps to make sure the information goes no farther. We can't afford to have the place crawling with FBI. On the other hand we'd be idiots to take any unnecessary action against a United States Senator—think of the furor that would cause. We don't want to touch him if we can help it, but if he knows too much we'll have to do something.”

Douglass said, “He might have to suffer a sudden illness and retire to his ranch for a few days accompanied by a doctor and one or two nurses and of course his confidential secretary. You'd have to go with him and handle the phone calls and inquiries from reporters.”

Ronnie said, “He wouldn't be—”

“Hurt? No. We couldn't afford that, could we? Besides, once we're finished here it won't matter what he tells the authorities. The job will be done and we'll be gone. In the meantime if he doesn't know anything we'll leave him alone. But if he does know something we'll just have to keep him incommunicado—perhaps under sedation—until we're ready to leave.”

“As long as he won't be harmed.”

Nicole said, “We wouldn't touch a hair on his handsome head. On the other hand nobody's going to pay much attention
if a few Russian professors and nurses and ballerinas happen to be arrested and sent to a torture camp.”

The reference was to members of Ronnie's family and she said, “I know—I know.”

“And your beloved brother,” Douglass said, and that took her aback.

She said, “But my brother's right here—you wouldn't harm one of our own group!”

“Under the circumstances we need your services more than his,” Douglass said. “He's expendable. He's got nothing to do with the military base. So you see his life is in your hands.”

“Just in case you think about changing sides,” Nicole drawled.

Ronnie said, “Nobody in this country even knows I'm his sister.”

“You know it and he knows it. That's all that really matters, isn't it?” Douglass turned to go. “You know what you're to do. Come on, Nicole.”

When they were gone she sat with no more expression than a plastic mannequin's but her right hand slowly closed into a small fist and the knuckles turned white.

Chapter Fourteen

Forrester stood with one hand on the iron balustrade looking out across the heaped-up distance toward the approaching airplane. On the tower above him the radar dishes turned steadily, without sound, and out toward the hangars crewmen with big sound suppressors clamped over their ears stood clear of intakes and exhausts while airplane engines, tuning up, sucked the thin dry air by the ton. Wind ruffled Forrester's hair and whipped away whatever Bill Ryan was saying. The others—Spode, Colonel Sims, Professor Moskowitz, Major Pete Chandler—stood in a knot a few feet away, watching the distant F-111 extend its wings and turn final on the range with a tearing sigh of sound.

The plane sank toward the desert and lined itself up on the runway. It grew big as it rocketed forward, sun racing along
its wings in fragmented reflections, and Ryan yelled something about its performance supremacy-while the F-111 hit the pavement a mile away and rumbled forward at high speed past crash crews. When it stopped at the maintenance hangar its crewmen climbed out in their hooded moon suits and the three uniformed men on the platform with Forrester all gave him a gung-ho show of teeth as if they were very proud of the fact that the six-million-dollar airplane had managed to land without breaking up.

An airman came out of the tower onto the concrete apron and saluted and spoke to Colonel Sims. The wing commander nodded and followed the airman inside. Forrester listened to Bill Ryan's idle talk with half his mind and flicked his eyes over the others. Top Spode had something on his mind and that was disturbing because Forrester needed Top alert today. Moskowitz beside him was, dwarfed—neat, gray, small, potbellied; the Professor had been awarded the Medal of Freedom for his work on the Titan missile program but he looked as if he'd be at home in a quarter-half poker game or in a bar with a schooner of draft beer. He had the knobby knuckles of a longshoreman.

Bill Ryan was saying, “You'll have to go the rest of the way without me. I've got to stick around the admin block. This job keeps me strapped to a watch and I get the feeling we're overdue for a surprise alert inspection. They spring them on us all the time to test our reaction time—we don't want to get caught with our planes down, do we?” Ryan smiled without pleasure; he seemed irritable.

Forrester said, “We'll try to keep out of your hair.”

“Sure. Bud Sims will take you around—the birds are really his bailiwick. I'm just the landlord. Major Chandler here has authority to clear you into any area you want to see. Professor, good to meet you.” Ryan shook hands with Moskowitz and Spode, batted Forrester's arm and went inside the tower. Colonel Sims was corning through and held the door for him and they exchanged a few words in the doorway, and when Sims came out onto the apron his face was screwed up into a mild perplexity.

“Gentlemen, I'm very sorry to cop out on you but I've just had a call from a hospital in Yuma—my wife was down there looking over some real estate and she's been taken ill. I'm sure it's nothing serious, but I'm going to fly down there.”

“Of course,” Forrester said. “I'm terribly sorry to hear that—I hope she'll be all right.”

“I'm sure she will. But she'll want me there. My deputy will be taking over my duties until I get back. I'm afraid Colonel Winslow can't run the store and show you folks around at the same time but I've told him to cooperate with you to the best of his ability. Major Chandler here will guide you wherever you want to go. I'm sorry to duck out this way but they're warming up a plane for me down there right now. Gentlemen?”

There was a quick round of handshaking and Sims went, walking fast, a tall man who wore the uniform as if he'd been born to pose for a recruiting poster.

Jaime Spode's outdoor eyes were crinkled into suspicious slits. “They're dropping off like flies. If I didn't know better I'd think we had bad breath.”

Major Chandler uttered an uneasy laugh. “It must look like that. But I'll do my best to fill in for the Colonel.” Chandler's eyes were covered by huge curved mirror-lensed motorcycle sunglasses and he wore gray Air Force coveralls, cut very tight, with a dozen zipper pockets. Forrester thought he must have spit-shined his boots with lighter fluid and a nylon stocking: the toes had a wicked shine and altogether the meaty-shouldered chief of base security gave a sinister impression of latent violence. The polished ones were often the pathologically sadistic ones.

Standing rigidly with his chest out like an aquatic bird's, Chandler said, “At your service, gentlemen. Where to?”

“The launch complex, I think,” Forrester said and Chandler took them downstairs through the admin tower and whistled up a gray USAF Chevrolet, For Official Use Only. Forrester got in back with Moskowitz; Spode slid into the middle of the front seat between the Major and the driver, and
Chandler turned with his left arm over the back of the seat and said, “We'll be bumping into a little more confusion than you'd normally find out there today. We've got a standardization-and-evaluation team down here from Z.I. Command to inspect our combat capability. I'd like to avoid getting underfoot—if they trip over us they'll score points against the base.”

Moskowitz' eyes twinkled and Forrester nodded; Chandler was going by the book but he wasn't going to go out of his way to make things easy.

A B-52 bomber circled high overhead with vapor trails spreading from its eight jets and Major Chandler kept up a running monologue thick with jargon that both explained and obscured the installations they drove past. The road went through a guarded gate in the security fence and across absolutely empty desert—greasewood, cholla, manzanita, ocotillo, paloverde, sand. A narrow side road ran off to the right and Chandler said, “One of our ABM silos, about a mile over there.”

“Sure,” Moskowitz said, “to defend our investment.”