Authors: Thomas Perry
34
Washington—(UPI)—In a press conference at noon today the White House announced the deaths of William Blount, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Deputy Director Arthur Pines, reputed to be Blount’s most trusted assistant. The two officials were victims of an automobile accident which occurred while they were beginning a surprise inspection of several outlying installations in the vicinity of the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, shortly before dawn. Within seconds of the accident an escort vehicle reached the scene and rushed the victims to the nearest medical facility, a CIA emergency station near Langley. Both were declared dead on arrival. Autopsies have been conducted by the agency. As yet there has been no indication of foul play, but a White House spokesman said that the President has ordered the agency to conduct a thorough investigation, saying that in the deaths of two key members of the intelligence community the possibility can never be ruled out.
Chinese Gordon tossed the newspaper on the floor. As Kepler reached for it, the huge dog lunged past him, pushing his arm aside, and scooped up the newspaper in its jaws, then bounded for the open door of the garage.
“What the hell was that?” said Kepler.
Outside they heard Margaret’s voice. “Oh, sweetie, what a wonderful big boy you are. Thank you,” she sang.
“She’s trying to teach him to bring the paper in,” Chinese Gordon muttered. “He doesn’t get the idea yet. He keeps grabbing it and running out the door. That’s the third time today.”
Kepler popped the top of a beer can and stared at Chinese Gordon. “You really ought to break him of that.”
Chinese Gordon’s jaw tightened, the muscles on the side of his face working convulsively. He said quietly, “I’d like to do that. I’d like to. What do you think of the car accident?”
Kepler sipped his beer. “You train the cat too?” Chinese Gordon looked up to see Doctor Henry Metzger walking backward, laboriously dragging a large turkey leg through the kitchen doorway onto the balcony.
“Margaret probably gave him a treat,” he lied. He remembered leaving it out on the counter when he was making room for Kepler’s beer in the refrigerator. “He likes turkey.”
“He must.”
“What about the car accident?”
“It would be hard to know what really happened to them, but I agree with the President. Foul play can never be ruled out—or something like that. That good big sweetie out there nearly tore my arm off fetching the paper out into the alley, so I don’t remember the exact words. I suppose they might have gone along to watch their agents spring the trap on the late lamented Jorge Grijalvas and gotten taken out.”
“Doesn’t sound likely, does it? I mean, those two weren’t career spooks, they were appointed. They were both fatassed businessmen a year ago.”
Margaret walked in the door wearing large saucer-shaped sunglasses and a bathing suit. The dog followed her, with the newspaper still clenched in its jaws, leaping with pleasure and uttering muffled grunts. “Here’s the paper,” she said. The dog rushed up and dropped the newspaper on the floor. It was wet and had been chewed through in the middle.
Kepler looked down at it. “Smart as a whip, and a mouth like velvet. If we could get him to fetch those Donahue papers, our problems would be over.”
Margaret passed on up the stairs. At the top she called, “Chinese, you can’t give Doctor Henry Metzger a whole turkey leg. He’ll choke on the bones.” Then she said more quietly, “Come on, Doctor Henry, let me cut that up for you.”
Kepler sipped his beer and studied Chinese Gordon. “That’s curious,” Kepler said. Then his eyes seemed to brighten. “No, I guess you’re right. Those two were too important and therefore worthless for a night operation in the great outdoors. Let me look at the newschow and see how much of it I can read.” He gingerly peeled off part of the front page and examined the article. After a few moments he said, “In-house doctors, in-house autopsy, only CIA people on the scene. If they weren’t at Jorge’s final fiesta I’d say they were burned by their own band of merry men.”
Chinese Gordon nodded. “Okay, if that’s true, what does it mean?”
“A man whose animals outsmart him should not pretend he’s Socrates. Stop asking me questions you think you know the answers to.”
Margaret leaned over the balcony and said to Chinese Gordon, “Immelmann’s on his way, and I told him to bring a fresh newspaper.”
Kepler said, “Good, you can show him your dog’s reverse fetch.”
Chinese Gordon shrugged. “I don’t know why I waste my time talking to you. Margaret, tell him your theory.”
“What I think is that these two did not die in a car accident. They didn’t die at Palm Springs either. Therefore they were killed. The CIA is hiding the way it really happened, so they must have killed them. It doesn’t matter why they did it, what matters is that there are new people making the decisions now who know that the Director was killed.”
“So?”
“So even if it had nothing to do with the Donahue papers, they’ll be much more interested in keeping them a secret, because they have a whole new reason to worry about setting off an investigation.”
“I suppose so.”
“You suppose so?” said Immelmann from the doorway. The dog rushed to Kepler, snapped up the soggy newspaper again, and ran with it to Immelmann. “No thanks, old fella. I brought my own. Hey, Margaret, you’re doing great with him.”
“Yeah,” said Kepler. “She’s teaching him to take out the garbage.”
Immelmann said, “Well, what did you decide? Are we going to take them up on it?”
“Up on what?” said Chinese Gordon.
“I thought that was why you wanted me to bring my newspaper. Didn’t you read it? They made us another offer.”
Washington—(AP)—Benjamin Porterfield, who recently left the Mr. Food Corporation to become president of the prestigious Washington-based Seyell Foundation, announced to the Foundation’s trustees today the results of the independent audit he ordered upon assuming the post. The audit, conducted by the Maryland firm of Crabtree and Bacon, revealed that the Seyell Foundation has approximately five million dollars less than had been reported in last year’s audit. Mr. David Welby of Crabtree and Bacon said that it is customary for audits to be conducted whenever there is a change of power in a foundation of this kind, and that there is no implication of dishonesty on the part of previous officers of the trust.
“Actually,” said Welby, “it’s a series of bookkeeping errors made ten to twenty years ago and perpetuated. Tax-exempt organizations are regularly audited, but mainly to see whether someone is doing something he shouldn’t. Nobody, including the government, is interested when a foundation reports its assets too high.” When asked for examples, he mentioned that there was an entry in the list of assets of $619,352 for a house owned by Theophilus Seyell. Welby became curious because the location of the house in New York would indicate a higher value, and later learned that the house had been given to the city in 1954, and the cash value included in the foundation’s report as a cash asset. “It’s sort of pitiful,” said Welby. “The money was counted twice but never existed.”
P
ORTERFIELD SAT BEHIND THE GIGANTIC DESK
in the Seyell Foundation office and stared across the room at the wall where the portrait of Theophilus “Just Plain Ted” Seyell hung above the door. He had already decided it had to go. In the days when Just Plain Ted had occupied this office, before it had been dismantled and transported to Washington, that space had been taken up for thirty years by a portrait of Seyell’s father, painted from Seyell’s description by a young artist of limited talent. Seyell’s father had been long dead by the time Just Plain Ted had become rich enough to require an ancestor. He’d reacted to the need with his usual common sense by hiring the artist who would work cheapest, a man who made his living dashing off caricatures at Coney Island for a quarter each on Sunday afternoons. It was the first time the man had been able to afford to work with oils on canvas, and the result was something like a police reconstruction of an old man wanted for long-forgotten crimes involving piracy on the high seas and the deflowering of virgins. When Just Plain Ted had seen it, the story went, he’d pronounced it satisfactory and paid the artist the thirteen dollars he’d agreed to. Then he’d said to one of his vice-presidents, “Hang the old son of a bitch up there where I can gloat at him now and then.”
During the inventory of the Foundation’s records the old painting had been found behind a filing cabinet in the basement, and Porterfield had decided that the time had come to hang it again.
Kearns walked into the room and sat down in the armchair in front of the desk.
Porterfield raised his hand. “Thanks for coming. And tell Goldschmidt I saw the articles in the paper. They should be fine.”
Kearns nodded. “The transfers are going pretty well. If we can assume that the people who dropped out of sight have the sense to take care of themselves until this thing is cleared up, we’ll be able to protect just about everybody.”
“I don’t suppose anything turned up since I talked to you?”
Kearns started at the pattern on the carpet. “You knew it wouldn’t. These people all worked for Jorge Grijalvas. Nothing about him seems to have any political implications. He was just an old-time gangster. He did pretty well in the Los Angeles drug trade and had a lot of very nasty people on his payroll, but there’s no way we can hunt down all of his connections. Every piece of paper he and his friends owned has been examined, and none of it is worth anything. We did get a hell of a haul in weapons and cash, and quite an assortment of drugs, of course.”
“Just what we need.”
“There’s no sign of the papers, no sign that he ever had a van rigged with a twenty-millimeter automatic cannon. We thought that somewhere he might have some ammunition for it, a few spare parts, something.”
Porterfield sighed. “I keep wondering about all this. Grijalvas doesn’t fit.”
“Maybe someone he met in the drug trade, somebody big enough to think there was a point to this, just hired him to handle the dirty part of it. He must have had some pretty serious international transactions.”
“All along they wanted money instead of political concessions but were willing to let a man like that get his hands on the cash.”
“If they were big enough to hire him, they’d be big enough to make sure he didn’t rob them. They’re capable of shutting down the city of Los Angeles when they feel like making a point.”
“And yet they needed to send him to Palm Springs, and without the papers to trade, not so much as a photocopy. If they had any notion there was a possibility we’d pay off, wouldn’t they have given him that much? It might have helped him and would actually strengthen their bargaining position.”
“With us, not with him.”
“Exactly.”
“He was just a sucker?”
Porterfield leaned back in Theophilus Seyell’s chair and gazed at the vaulted ceiling. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
The telephone on the desk buzzed and Porterfield leaned forward to pick up the receiver. “Yes?”
Mrs. Goode’s voice said, “I think it’s the call you were waiting for. When I asked who it was, he said, ‘Captain Greed. Put Porterfield on.’”
“Thanks, I’ll take it.” Porterfield pushed the button on his telephone and said, “Hello, Captain. This is Ben Porterfield.”
The voice sounded young, the accent flat, maybe Californian and maybe Midwestern but definitely American. “No time for amenities. Do you really have five million dollars in cash?”
“Yes.”
“Bring it with you to Washington National. I’ll expect you within a half hour, alone.”
“See you then,” said Porterfield, and hung up the telephone.
“Who was that?” said Kearns.
“Nothing very important, I suppose, but I’ve got to keep seeing these damned professors or people are going to wonder if the Seyell Foundation is what it appears to be. I’ve got to meet one of them at the airport in a half hour.”
“He calls himself Captain?” said Kearns as he stood up.
Porterfield chuckled. “If that were the worst thing about him he’d be practically normal. I’ll talk to you in a day or two.”
As soon as Kearns disappeared, Porterfield buzzed Mrs. Goode. “Please get me a taxi. And don’t tell anyone about that telephone call for twenty-four hours. If I haven’t gotten in touch by then, tell Goldschmidt. Meanwhile, tell Alice I had to go to London and I’ll call her.” He put on his suitcoat and straightened his tie, then went to Theophilus Seyell’s closet and pulled out the two large suitcases. They were heavy, but with the small casters on the bottoms he could wheel them most of the way, he thought. It would have been easier if he could have afforded some help, but he’d have to manage. He couldn’t take the chance that someone in the Company would change his mind without warning and see a chance for another trap. This time it had to be ended. Goldschmidt and Kearns, at least, were old guard. He’d sometimes trusted his life to their decisions. But they’d both been in Langley too long. There was no way to tell how they would react when it actually came down to experiencing the feeling of losing.
35
Porterfield stood aside and let the cabdriver haul the heavy suitcases out of the trunk but waved the waiting Skycap away from them. He wheeled the two suitcases along the walk, bending slightly at the knees to reach the handles while the porter leaned on his two-wheel dolly, shaking his head in disdain.
The pneumatic doors hissed and admitted Porterfield to the lobby. He made his way to a row of plastic seats along the window and sat down, his knees pressed against the two suitcases. He was sweating from the exertion, and his wristwatch had worked its way around to the inside of his wrist. As he adjusted the watch he confirmed that time was still with him. He had two minutes to spare, enough time to reach a telephone and call Langley. Porterfield let the thought exist for a moment, then dismissed it. Nothing had changed except that his fifty-nine-year-old body was preparing to remind him that it wasn’t in its prime. The quick reactions, the flexibility and force were gone, and now the way to stay alive was to think farther ahead.
The air was filled with the constant murmur of voices and the hum of conveyor belts and the rumble of baggage carts, but when the public-address system was activated there was an immediate change, a low hiss that seemed to muffle the random sounds and swallow them up. “Mr. Porterfield,” said the calm, unchanging female voice, “please pick up a white courtesy phone. Mr. Porterfield, please pick up a white courtesy phone.”
He stood up and looked around him. There was a white telephone a few yards away on a counter that jutted from the wall. He considered pushing the suitcases over to it but decided not to. They were so big that he’d attract attention pushing them around the lobby, and if they announced his name enough times someone who knew him might hear it. He rushed to the telephone and turned to face his suitcases as he said, “This is Mr. Porterfield.”
The telephone sounded dead. A second later there was a ringing. He waited, and it rang three times before there was a click. There was faint music and a recorded male voice said, “Please stand by.”
Porterfield watched as a young blond woman and three small children walked up and sat down behind the suitcases. He found himself humming along with the recorded music. The male voice came on again. “Please stand by.”
The middle child, a fat little boy wearing a T-shirt that said “Redskins,” straddled one of Porterfield’s suitcases as though he were riding a horse, jumping up and down and slapping the side with his hand. Porterfield winced. “Please stand by.” The mother looked on with bovine serenity as the little boy discovered that the suitcase had wheels under it. He leaned forward like a jockey and pushed off the floor with his feet, coasting a yard into the middle of a passing family of Japanese tourists, who eyed him with benevolent amusement. The smallest child, a little girl in a bright red dress that had a bow in the back, tried to climb onto the second suitcase.
“Please stand by.” Porterfield’s jaw tightened. The little girl’s legs weren’t long enough to mount the suitcase. She struggled to get on, beginning to whine. The oldest child, a boy about ten who had reached the age where his body was thinner and longer than his little brother’s, lifted his little sister and set her on the suitcase, then began to push the suitcase along the row of seats, barely missing the feet of an elderly man who was studying his ticket with a fretful look on his face.
“Please stand—” There was another click, and the female voice said, “May I help you?”
“I’m Mr. Porterfield.”
“Please hold on.” The three children were now riding the suitcases back and forth over the floor, their mother laughing and clapping her hands. Porterfield felt his collar beginning to tighten. The telephone clicked again. “Mr. Porterfield?”
He tried to sound calm. “Yes?”
“Your ticket is waiting for you at the American Airlines counter. Please don’t wait in line, go directly to the check-in area. You only have a few minutes.”
He hung up the phone and walked toward his suitcases. As he approached the nearest one, the oldest boy pushed the suitcase too hard. His little sister glided along for a few feet, then the case turned abruptly and toppled over. The little girl’s eyes widened as she fell off, and Porterfield saw her knee hit the floor. She lay there for a count of five as she gathered her breath for the scream.
Porterfield arrived in time to bend over her and say, “You’re okay, honey. Let’s get you up.” He lifted her to her feet, and she stared at him with a look of indecision.
The mother made her way slowly to the little girl, saying, “See? See what happens?”
Porterfield righted his suitcase and stepped toward the other as the little boy scooted away from him. Porterfield said, “Sorry, partner. Got to catch a plane.”
The little boy shouted, “No! I’m not through.”
Porterfield turned to the mother for help, but she had picked up the little girl and was glowering at Porterfield with some irrational sense of injury. “Come on, now. I’m in a hurry,” he said and lifted the little boy to the floor. The little boy struggled and let out a yell of frustration, then ran to his mother.
Porterfield sighed and wheeled the suitcase beside the other one, then pushed the two toward the American Airlines counter. Behind him he could hear that the two younger children had agreed on a decision and were now screaming in concert, competing for their mother’s attention.
Suddenly Porterfield heard footsteps behind him, then something jabbed his shoulder. He turned to see a man in his thirties, tall and thin, with his hair in a windblown fluffy halo around his head, and wearing tinted glasses.
“What did you do to my kids?”
“Not a thing. They were playing and one of them fell.” Porterfield turned and started to push his suitcases forward.
The man grabbed his arm. “Oh no you don’t.”
Porterfield stood straight, then slowly turned to face the man. The man looked surprised when he saw Porterfield turn, as though he had somehow misjudged and was beginning to sense his mistake. Porterfield’s eyes narrowed and his mouth assumed a look that could have been a smile. He said quietly, “I am about to miss a flight, and it’s very important that I make it. Ask your wife what happened.”
The man hesitated, then raised his voice. “You can’t treat my kids that way.”
Porterfield’s hand moved so quickly that only the most curious observer could have noticed. It was at his side, and then it was on the man’s shoulder. It appeared to be a friendly gesture, the collar of the man’s shirt hiding the fact that Porterfield’s right thumb was slowly crushing the man’s trachea. Porterfield’s smile broadened and he leaned close to him, whispering conspiratorially, “I’m really in a hurry and I don’t want to be bothered. Go back to your cow of a wife and the three little pigs and tell them you scared the hell out of me.” Porterfield let up on his grip, and the man’s mouth hung open. He gasped for air, his hands going to his neck.
Porterfield gave him a final pat on the shoulder and whispered, “Go on.” The man staggered back a step, then seemed to regain his composure. By the time he reached his disgruntled family his weak-kneed walk had acquired what could have been a swagger.
At the desk Porterfield said, “You have a ticket in the name Porterfield?”
“Yes, sir,” said a young man in a blue blazer and handed him an envelope.
Porterfield glanced inside. San Diego via Los Angeles. It was going to be a long night, he thought.
“Check your bags, sir.” It wasn’t a question.
“Fine,” said Porterfield, and accepted the two baggage stubs.
“Gate 78,” said the man. “You’d better hurry.”
Porterfield walked quickly across the lobby toward the bank of escalators that led to the metal-detectors and then beyond to the airplanes, not looking back.
P
ORTERFIELD SPENT THE TIME
on the airplane reading magazines. There seemed to be nothing on this flight except the journals for money fanciers—magazines that contained excruciatingly detailed accounts of the economic exploits of men who were photographed with their coats off but their shirts unwrinkled and their ties clasped beneath stiff, immaculate collars. These men were all referred to as “CEOs” who had moved from one company to another because of their love of a challenge. There were other magazines that seemed to be all advertisements for objects that cost thousands of dollars and were handmade by European craftsmen. They were all special, some in limited edition, some numbered and signed, some just called rare. There were also beautiful advertisements for hotels in cities where he’d spent time—most of them tropical cities on the ocean, where large, futuristic buildings along the beach were crowded from behind by filthy shacks made of sheet metal and discarded plywood anchored in the rainsoaked mud. He slept for the last hour of the flight and awoke feeling calm and rested. As the airplane descended, he gazed out the window at the array of lights in the Los Angeles basin, fluttering and blinking in the distance. He reached into his pocket and glanced at his ticket again. He’d have only a few minutes to catch the airplane to San Diego. He would have liked to telephone Alice, but this was their home ground and they’d be watching him for that. Besides, Mrs. Goode would have reached Alice hours ago.
The crowd of people leaned and wobbled and bumped each other as they made their way down the aisle toward the door. Porterfield waited for an opening and joined them. He knew Los Angeles International Airport, and his baggage was checked through to San Diego, so he felt calm and resigned. The flight to San Diego was only forty-five minutes, and then this would be over. They’d have some way of throwing off any trap he might have set for them, but the exact nature of it didn’t pique his curiosity. He only hoped it didn’t demand that they kill him.
He yawned as he stepped across the threshold into the carpeted corridor and walked toward the terminal. He walked to the television screen mounted on the pillar in the center of the room and looked for his flight, then went to Gate 19, picked a bench away from the crowds, and sat down. It would only be a few minutes.
He heard the voice on the public-address system, and it sounded exactly like the one he’d heard in Washington. “Mr. Porterfield, please pick up a white courtesy phone. Mr. Porterfield.”
Porterfield walked down the hall and picked up the telephone. To his surprise, there was a voice on the other end. “Mr. Porterfield?”
“Yes.”
“Please come to the American Airlines desk at Gate 72.”
Porterfield said, “I’ll be right there.” He smiled. It was simple enough. There would be another ticket waiting for him, and another flight to another city. It was the trick, the way they’d planned to break up the trap. It wasn’t bad. They’d have redirected his baggage with the change in reservations. They were watching him now, he was sure. There was no way he could let anyone know where he was going.
At the end of the corridor he entered another large waiting area, the mirror image of the one he’d passed through moments ago. As he made his way toward the desk at Gate 72 something seemed to be wrong. There was no young man in a blue blazer to meet him, only another passenger waiting there. He noticed that the passenger was a girl with long brown hair and a rather good figure, then she turned toward him and he noticed that she had large, clear green eyes. He moved up beside her to wait for the attendant to return.
Suddenly the girl turned and threw her arms around him, smiling. “Daddy!”
P
ORTERFIELD STOOD STILL
while the young woman embraced him hard, her hands moving to his back. He said, “You don’t really have to frisk me. You saw me get off an airplane.”
“That’s true, but you probably have a little card on you that says you can even shoot people on airplanes when you’re in the mood, and electronic underpants that jam the metal detectors.”
“Interesting idea,” he said, returning the woman’s embrace so she could finish her search.
She reached into his breast pocket and extracted the envelope with his ticket in it, then appeared to study it. “Okay, time to move on.” She walked across the lobby and Porterfield followed. They walked to the line of people waiting to board the flight to San Diego.
As they waited in the line, Porterfield said, “We seem to have made the flight. Are you going with me?”
She stared at him. “I’ll be with you. Other people too.”
As they neared the portal at the narrow corridor leading to the airplane, people huddled closer, and Porterfield felt himself bumped twice. He decided not to speak. She didn’t seem to care if he asked questions, but in the press of the crowd he knew she wouldn’t answer. As they reached the doorway she grasped Porterfield’s hand and pulled him to the side.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No problem. Come on.” Then he noticed that she no longer held his ticket. She must have handed it off to someone in the crowd, he thought, but he resisted the temptation to look down the corridor to see which one it might be. He followed her across the lobby again, and they sat down together.
She lit a cigarette and said, “I noticed you’re not wearing a bulletproof vest.”
“Should I be?” He smiled. His sportcoat had panels of Dupont Kevlar sewn into it, so it would stop any bullet smaller than a .45 caliber.
The young woman shrugged. ‘It’s your wardrobe, but I would have thought something like that would be required if you want to dress for success in your line of work.”
“Or yours.”
“I’m flat enough as it is. But the point is this. You’re not some kind of kamikaze, are you? Eager to die for the cause?”
“I’d prefer not to. What’s the cause?”
“We thought you might be a little cranky about what’s happened.”
“If the money is all you want, I don’t think we have much to worry about. I didn’t set any traps. I didn’t know I was going on a flight. If I had, I wouldn’t have known where. Most people would have assumed it would be any place but Los Angeles.”
The young woman looked away from him through the large plate-glass windows. The airplane was slowly moving toward the runway. She blew smoke in the air, then pushed her cigarette into the ashtray. “I hope you’re telling the truth, but we’ll know in a minute when we try to get out of here.”