The Viper Squad (7 page)

What was the weirdo doing? Flying from New York City to take a taxi to a McDonald’s in Boston! Maybe he should follow him
in. No, he couldn’t risk that. If he was noticed there, he’d be spotted later when he tried to tail him. The banana had arrived
at the airport with a shabby raincoat that looked as if it had been to a laundromat instead of the dry cleaner’s,
a Wall Street Journal
and
a
perfectly furled black umbrella that would have pleased the British ambassador. And ended up in McDonald’s at nine in the
morning.

Of course, this crazy had already tried to kill one of the TV news investigative reporters last Tuesday. Which was where Chips
came into the story. Poynings had lost a reporter at his Nevada TV station to some hidden interests in a Reno gambling casino.
There had been a phone call from Chicago to explain everything, and they had never found the body. After that, when things
looked dangerous, Poynings’ orders were that the newsroom hire outside help. This was liberally interpreted by some station
news producers as meaning that when the job was tedious, call in Stadnick. Chips didn’t mind. He was paid good bread, and
there were no kickbacks involved.

The news people had been tracking this present weirdo
in Philly, New York and now Boston. They had seen him by chance at Logan airport one Tuesday morning, and he had shown up
the next two Tuesday mornings also. This was his fourth known Tuesday arrival in Boston. He had given them the slip each time.
The news department had definitely tied him to a bunch of mercenaries—some kind of kamikazes that the State Department didn’t
want to hear about but hoped would die quietly in some dismal swamp far away from newsmen and cameras.

But this was only a part-time occupation for this one. The news people claimed he was assassinating communists as another
of his sidelines—and not old folk-singing commies from way-back-when-in-the-dust-bowl, but big-time powerful bolshies that
the FBI could pin nothing on. The guy’s source of information was near the top, so it was said. He had made some mistakes,
wasted innocent people, but his batting average was high for hitting real spies in sensitive places. Come to think of it,
the weirdo had taken out one of the Russkis with a baseball bat.

Harvey Waller chewed his Egg McMuffin and peered out the window at the Dodge Dart that had followed his taxi from the airport.
This was his seventh Tuesday trip to Boston and he intended this to be his last. Jesus, if this went on any longer, the FBI
could pick him up for loitering. Who had they got on him today? Only one? Some hotshot, he supposed. Maybe a dumb guy to distract
him, take up his whole attention so the smart guy could succeed in staying on his tail this time. Harvey had put the fear
of God into the little jerk who had been tailing him last Tuesday, nearly catching him between a wall and his car. He could
have caught him, of course, but that was not what Harvey intended, because he admired FBI agents as good Americans who were
doing their duty. He and they were on the same side! Fighting the Empire of Evil. Pity they couldn’t know it and work
with him. But Harvey had been warned, a hero’s work is lonesome.

He didn’t even want to make these FBI men look foolish or feel bad because they lost him every week. He tried to let them
down lightly. But they weren’t much good as field operatives, so far as he could see. This one seemed a real dodo—like those
TV-series private eyes who are so goddam obvious they even hold their cigarettes in their mouths a certain way. This one chain-smoked.
Nervous. Or stupid. Maybe both. Harvey wouldn’t hurt him.

Chips Stadnick had a list of thirteen known aliases for this guy, so he preferred to think of him by no name rather than a
useless one. The guy came out of McDonald’s and crossed the bridge toward the Tea Party ship.

I can’t believe this shithead, Chips was thinking. Next he’ll be going to the aquarium and then maybe Paul Revere’s house.

The Tea Party ship was tied to a small wharf that was at right angles to the center of the bridge. The guy passed the entrance
to the wharf and continued across the bridge. Stadnick hurriedly’ left the car and followed on foot.

The man walked around the southern end of the Federal Reserve Building, a huge metal box on metal legs that always reminded
Chips of the walking fortresses in the second
Star Wars
film that they tripped with steel cables towed by those little flying saucers. He had taken his son … Enough of that. The
weirdo was walking along Summer Street toward South Station—maybe he was going to take the train back to New York after his
breakfast at McDonald’s! Instead, he ducked into the Red Line subway. Stadnick ran.

He stood on the platform in his rumpled raincoat, reading his
Wall Street Journal,
with his formal umbrella tucked under one arm. When the train came, Stadnick entered the same car as his quarry, at the other
end. Bozo was too deep in his stocks-and-shares news to
notice much. Stadnick was not greatly surprised when he got off the train at Harvard. He followed him as he walked hurriedly
from the subway station to the Harvard Coop. He followed him inside the store. He looked around for him. He wasn’t there.

Once inside the Harvard Coop, Harvey Waller rushed to an alcove display of sweatshirts and T-shirts, pulling off his raincoat
as he went. He dropped the coat, umbrella and newspaper behind a display case and rapidly pulled on a wig of wavy brown hair
and stuck two heavy brown mustaches to his upper lips. He heard a giggle behind him.

A young salesclerk at a cash register had seen everything, and she was very amused. Harvey grabbed a wine-red sweatshirt with
a white Harvard crest on its front and brought it over to her.

“Your right mustache is crooked,” she said.

He looked in the mirror next to her and quickly adjusted his appearance.

“That’s a
little
better,” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Harvey answered.

“It doesn’t look very real. And this sweatshirt has to be at least three sizes too small for you.”

“I’ll take it anyway,” Harvey said. “Can you wrap it in a hurry?”

She did and he paid.

“Do me a favor?” he asked.

She smiled.

“Gift-wrap my umbrella.”

She laughed and wrapped it in store paper when he brought it to her.

“Don’t forget your coat and newspaper,” she called after him.

“I’ll be back for them in five minutes,” he said. “I’ll tell you what this is all about then.”

“Okay.” She guessed it would be some corny joke, and
this guy was old enough to be a professor. But she knew all about
them.

Harvey deliberately strolled right in front of the poor dumb bastard from the FBI, who had lost his cool and was running this
way and that searching for him. But Harvey was now a longish-haired, heavily mustached college type with no coat and two parcels.
He glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes or more to while away.

Walking away from Harvard Square, along John F Kennedy Street toward the bridge over the Charles River, he turned down some
steps into the Boathouse Bar. Crossed oars, racing skulls and insulting remarks about Yale hung about the place. A few solitary
jocks sat along the bar, glowering into their beer. Maybe Harvard was having a bad year.

Harvey at one time would have been intimidated by a university atmosphere, thinking he was too stupid to open his mouth—or
even if he knew what he was talking about, he would be afraid of sounding stupid because he didn’t know the right words to
use. He had no time to waste on such crap now. He went where his work took him. If anyone meddled with him, he stomped all
over them. He even liked Cambridge. People here weren’t goddam over—friendly. They let him alone.

Twenty minutes later he was out on the street, walking toward the river. On the grass edge along the river, occasional people
with notebooks walked briskly. It was too cold not to wear a coat, but he had no choice about that. Harvey strode along like
a health fanatic taking in the river air. He passed one old boy, a dignified professorial type with a stoop, thick-glassed
spectacles and a bulging briefcase. In a couple of minutes, Harvey turned and followed him.

He gauged his walking speed so he caught up to the man at the bridge. He crossed over on the bridge’s side—walk behind him,
the traffic heavy in both directions over the bridge. Harvey tossed his packaged sweatshirt over the
bridge wall into the water. He unwrapped his umbrella and threw the paper over the wall. Then he unscrewed the metal tip
of the furled umbrella and flicked that into the water.

Walking only a few feet now behind the man with the briefcase, Harvey tested the half-inch hypodermic needle at the tip of
the umbrella. He held the needle shaft and pressed it in very slightly so that the hidden rubber bulb exuded liquid at the
needle’s sharp point. Like a snake’s fang. He had taken the umbrella from a Bulgarian in Gaithersburg, Maryland, who would
not be needing it anymore. They were at the center of the bridge. A lot of cars. No other pedestrians on their side.

Harvey walked a few quick steps directly behind his victim and poked him in the right buttock with the tip of the umbrella.

“Yikes!” the old fellow howled and dropped his briefcase. He waved his arms and shouted and cursed in Russian at Harvey.

“I’m very song, mister,” Harvey told him. “I thought you was someone else.”

The Russian switched to excellent English. “Even if I were someone who had the misfortune of your friendship, that umbrella
of yours delivers a painful jab.”

Harvey looked contrite and threw the offending umbrella over the bridge wall into the water. “I’ll never do it again, sir.”

Surprised at Harvey’s gesture, the Russian nodded. Harvey picked up his briefcase and handed it to him. “Thank you,” the man
said.

“Commie motherfucker,” Harvey said pleasantly to him and continued quickly across the bridge.

He looked back from the Harvard Business School side and saw to his satisfaction that the old geezer had started to stagger
a bit, as if he had had one too many.

Dwight Quincy Poynings had no true need for an office except as somewhere to go during the day when he hadn’t
any particular plans. A reception area, a conference room and his private office made up the suite. An executive secretary
answered the phone and typed his occasional letters. Family lawyers and accountants watched over the family businesses. The
enterprises that Dwight had initiated himself—the TV stations and the major-league baseball team—were managed by professionals
who made it clear to him they would resign instantly if he encroached upon their areas of responsibility. This he did now
and then, till he grew bored and had to rehire the people who had walked out—often having to pay them ridiculous in—creases
in the process. If it weren’t for his ocean-racing yacht and his political views, Dwight felt he would be lost. And first
time he won either the Bermuda or the Fastnet, he was going to start building a boat for the America’s Cup.

Two sons at Dartmouth, one daughter married, and then there was Sally. He never could make head or tail of that girl, even
when she was little. Even so, this El Salvador business was a bit much. What could she have in mind?

He was depending on Harrison Sloane Dudley to enlighten him. Dudley and he had been to Dartmouth together in the old days.
Now that Dudley was a leading light at the State Department, Dwight felt he would get reliable inside information. In addition,
Dudley had been terribly embarrassed by the fact that Dwight had heard first from those awful Nicaraguan people about Sally’s
whereabouts. Dwight sat in his office and waited for him, without much to do. The baseball season hadn’t started yet, so there
was nothing but women’s programs on TV.

The two old friends greeted each other heartily.

“Sorry I couldn’t make lunch, Dwight, because I’ve a heck of a schedule here in Boston today. Gave them your office number
here, in case something comes in. I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course. How’re things in Washington?”

“What’s not tying itself into knots is unraveling,”
Harrison Sloane Dudley said without too much concern. “Pity about this wretched thing with Sally. They found her suitcase
with her passport inside. It was left on some hillside, apparently. The Salvadoran army thinks it’s been planted there to
trap them and they refuse to send troops into the area. Which may be a blessing in a way, because they seem to cause as much
harm as good whenever they actually get around to doing something. No note or any—thing like a message in her hotel room.
But unlike Bennett Ward, who seems to have been abducted at gunpoint from the hotel, she left of her own free will. Very confusing.
The Ward boy’s body will arrive here in Boston tomorrow.”

“I’ve spoken to his parents,” Dwight said, “and of course I’ll attend the funeral. It’s decent of them to keep Sally’s name
out of this. I must say I appreciate your efforts also.”

Dudley looked uncomfortable. “You can’t allow your—self to be blackmailed in this matter.”

Dwight looked at him in surprise. “But I’m not. I was the one who told you about that Nicaraguan’s demands.”

“Quite so. However, any softening of your position as evidenced by the content of newscasts from the TV stations you control
could create major tax, licensing and other difficulties for you.”

Dwight’s mouth dropped open in indignation, and a red flush crept over his jowls. “Are you threatening me?”

“Passing along a message and not mincing my words, as promised. Sorry.”

“Now that we know what’s required of me”—Dwight’s voice trembled with anger—”what the hell are you people doing about my daughter’s
plight?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s about as I guessed.”

“I’m being straight with you,” Harrison said. “Next time she shows, we’ll go all out to rescue her. But as you know, we can’t
do much because of possible political repercussions—the U.S. Army is in El Salvador solely in
an advisorial role, and the hands of the CIA are tied. I just hope we don’t have a Patty Hearst-type scenario here, Dwight.”