Deep Cover (32 page)

“There are agencies other than the FBI.”

“The FBI's charged with internal security.”

“Was Spode an FBI agent?”

“No. Trumble was.”

“I know that,” Belsky snapped. “At least we've got sources on Senator Forrester's staff. We can find out how much Spode told Forrester and whether or not it went any further than Forrester.”

“Yeah. Maybe we'll have to get both of them, what do you think?”

“I'll let you know.” Belsky went to the window and peered out through the curtain. The sun was less than an hour high and the mesquite in the vacant lot threw a long shadow; a big gray bird was hopping along with a lizard in its beak.

Belsky said, “I take it there was no trouble at Torrio's end.”

“Worked fine. Torrio and Corrigan kept testing the phone until Trumble got home and answered. About forty-five minutes ago. They told him they'd just taken Ramsey Douglass into St. Joseph's with some kind of attack, and Douglass was on the critical list and wanted to see Trumble right away. It ought to have gotten him out of the house like he had a burr up his ass.

“We couldn't just go in after him because for all we know Spode's got people watching the place. But Torrio was going to wait for him to drive by and then tail him to the hospital and collect him at the hospital parking lot. If it all went on schedule they ought to show up here in a few minutes.”

“I'd like to know where he was all night,” Belsky said.

“Ask him, then.” Hathaway opened the side door and tossed the butt of his cigarette out.

Trumble waddled in full of outraged dignity. Torrio entered behind him with the gun, walking in sideways, looking back, and kicked the door shut. Hathaway was on his feet; Belsky stayed seated by the window.

“What the devil is the meaning of this? Do you people have any idea who I am?” Trumble demanded.

Belsky said to Torrio, “How much did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Just got him and brought him.”

Hathaway said, “No trouble?”

“Clockwork. We pulled in right beside him in the hospital lot and showed him the guns and he got in the car.”

“Anybody see you?”

“No. Only guy around was a doctor parking his car a good distance away. He didn't pay us no more attention than he'd pay a no-parking sign.”

“This is absurd,” Trumble said. “Do you people know the penalty for kidnapping?”

“Come off it.” Hathaway gave him a pained look.

“Abducting a United States Representative at gunpoint in broad daylight—you people are in grave trouble.”

“Yeah,” Torrio said, and grinned at him.

Belsky spoke mildly. “Call you Boris Dolinski. Son of Josef Andreivich Dolinski and Natasha Khruscha.”

Trumble's mask of authority sagged; he shifted his stance in confusion. Hathaway made a gesture with his head and eyes and Torrio backed out of the room the way he had entered. Trumble stood splayed with his head swinging like a worn-out boxer having trouble trying to locate his opponent in the ring.

“Sit down, please,” Belsky said. “The bed will do.”

Trumble hesitated. Hathaway made to move forward and Trumble sat down slowly on the edge of the bed.

Belsky said, “You seemed to feel the need to monitor our meetings yesterday. Why?”

“Who gave you that idea?”

“A fellow called Craig if it matters.”

“I never heard of him. He must be lying.”

Hathaway laughed unpleasantly and lit a cigarette. Belsky acted bored. “We don't want to force you to undergo rehabilitation, Comrade.”

“I suppose that's a euphemism for torture?”

“If you like. We don't want to hurt you—it degrades us too.” Belsky reached over and lifted the half-glasses off Trumble's nose, dropped them on the rug and crushed them under his heel until the lenses broke. Belsky had once known a prisoner who had crushed the lenses of his glasses and swallowed them to prevent himself from talking.

Trumble said, “I don't suppose you'll allow me to confront this man Craig and demonstrate that he's lying.”

“I'm afraid that isn't possible. You'll have to refer to Craig in the past tense.”

Trumble laughed—a dry cackle. He sat with his elbows on his knees, face hunched into his hands. Hathaway said, “Look at him. Soft as a number-four pencil. Won't take me no time at all to crack him.”

“Perhaps it won't be necessary.” Belsky touched Trumble's shoulder, “Your courage does you no credit, Comrade. It comes from ignorance.”

Trumble looked straight ahead, not at Belsky.

Hathaway said, “One thing that usually works. You pour boiling water into his ear through a funnel.”

No response.

Belsky said, “You wanted a record of the meeting. Why?”

“I couldn't be here myself. I wanted to know, that's all.”

“You were going to sell the tape or give it away. The only questions are, to whom and why?”

Ashes dripped off Hathaway's cigarette. Belsky turned to him. “Put a dose of scopolamine in a glass of water for him.”

Hathaway nodded and went out the hall door but before it closed Trumble said, “All right—all right.” Hathaway came back inside.

Trumble said, “You had two questions. First, to whom was I going to deliver the tape. It's immaterial—I hadn't made up my mind yet.
Time
Magazine, NBC, the FBI, anybody—what difference does it make? I wanted to expose you. Your second question—why. Because I'm an American now and it's just that simple.” Trumble's thick head lifted and he squinted myopically; he spread his hands. “Just that simple.”

“Of course you realize what you will have brought on your father and your sisters.”

“Three inconsequential people. They mean no more to me than a schoolteacher or a girl friend I might have had twenty-five years ago. Anyhow nothing you can do to my family will undo my betrayal now, will it?”

“It will set an example for others,” Belsky said.

“I understood that. Of course I didn't expect to get caught before I'd finished.”

“Finished exposing us to
Time
Magazine?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you expect me to believe this?”

“Suit yourself. I've told you the truth.”

“It's quite a neat explanation.”

“You just can't comprehend that a man could transfer his loyalty to an adopted country?”

“Oh, I'm sure you've got an honorable cause. They always do.”

“But you still think I'm lying.”

“Yes.”

“That's too bad. I don't know what to tell you.”

Belsky made another signal to Hathaway and Hathaway left the room. Trumble said, “Now you'll administer the scopolamine. It won't do any good, you know. I've told you everything. Perhaps you'll get a few details out of me, but since I didn't get a chance to act they won't make any difference.”

“We'll see.”

“Scopolamine brings on a talking jag, doesn't it?”

“And a bad hangover.”

“Was it you who smashed my shower stall? What the hell were you looking for?”

“You. Where were you?”

“Enjoying myself,” Trumble said, “for the last time in my life.”

A man who knew he was going to be killed regardless of what he said was under no inducement to tell the truth. That was the main reason for Belsky's disbelief—that and the fact that Trumble had trotted out his explanation too readily.

Trumble said, “I've got to go to the bathroom.”

“Later.”

“You know what fear does to a man's stomach. Do you want this room to stink?”

“Take off your belt and leave it on the bed. Let me see what's in your pockets.”

Trumble emptied his pockets onto the bedspread. There was a penknife with which he might have done some damage. Belsky took him across the hall into the bathroom and removed Douglass' safety razor and all the medicines and razorblades from the medicine closet. There were still the tiny glazed window and the bathroom mirror, but he would hear the noise if Trumble tried to smash them.

He left the bathroom door open. Beyond the tub enclosure he could see Trumble's knees and the trousers bunched down around his ankles. He kept an eye on the knees. If Trumble had a cyanide tooth like his own it would be all over, but the possibility was remote; besides, if Trumble had possessed a death pill he could have used it without going to the bathroom.

Trumble grunted now and then with effort: fear could have that effect on the bowels, as he'd said.

Hathaway returned with the drug in a glass and set it on the bedside table and joined Belsky by the door. “He's stalling.”

“Of course. But the longer he evades it the more time the fear has to work on him.”

The knees sagged outward like the splayed legs of a seated drunk. Hathaway made a face. “Hurry it up.”

“I'm coming.” Trumble's voice was high-pitched, tremulous.

Torrio came into the bedroom by the outside door. “Douglass.”

Hathaway's face snapped from Torrio to Belsky. “Want me to keep him out?”

“No, I've got to talk to him. Let him in.”

“I guess,” Torrio said. “It's his house.”

Hathaway said, “Get back on guard.”

“Take it easy, Sarge, Corrigan's out there.” Torrio backed out and shut the door.

Belsky heard Trumble grunt in the lavatory. The front door sounded and footsteps came through the house—Ramsey Douglass in a sweat-damp shirt. “What's all this?”

“Never mind,” Belsky said. “I've got a chore for you.”

“Christ, I was about to turn on the air-conditioner and have a cold drink.”

“Some other time. There's an Indian named Spode who works for Senator Forrester. Do you know him?”

“I know who he is. He's expected at the base this morning with the Senator's inspection party.”

“I had an encounter with Spode last night. It's imperative that we find out whether he identified me.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Another thing. Our job will be hard enough without having to deal with meddling outsiders on the Air Force Base. See if you can find a way to discourage the Senator from hanging around the place.”

“What do you suggest I do, take a potshot at him?”

“Your sarcasm can be annoying, Comrade. You'll think of something, I'm sure. We don't want him in our hair.”

“Anything else?” That too was sarcastic. “You realize I'm only Matthewson-Ward's SATAF man, I'm not a Government employee. I haven't got the run of Davis Monthan.”

“Your people have. Do I have to tell you how to delegate authority? Do you want a blueprint?”

“Now who's sarcastic?”

In the bathroom one of Trumble's feet stirred and just then the radio in the bedroom made a noise. Belsky wheeled to the writing desk and switched on the recorder, pressed the record button and started the high-speed tape. The incoming message was pitched above audible range but after the tape ran out in forty seconds he rewound it and set the playback speed at 1
IPS and hooked the output connectors into the radio's small speaker. He stood over the notebook with a pencil and flicked the fast-forward dial until he reached the point on the tape where the message had been recorded, reversed to the beginning of the signal and wrote down the dots and dashes as they clicked out of the speaker. Then he erased the tape and straightened to face the others. “Are you still here?”

Douglass said, “I wasn't sure you were through with me.”

“You've got things to do. Do them.”

“Isn't there a chance the Federal types will pick up that signal? It's on the normal radio frequencies.”

“It's gibberish to them and besides they don't know who's receiving it. Stop asking questions—go.”

Douglass gave his uneven smile and went. Belsky heard the front door slam and Hathaway swung to yell into the bathroom. “Time's up. For Christ's sake you've had time to lay a ton of bricks.”

Trumble's knees didn't stir. Hathaway stiffened … and Belsky went past him into the bathroom and found Trumble slumped back against the toilet tank with both arms down in the bowl between his legs. The bowl was crimson with blood.

Hathaway said over his shoulder, “The bastard chewed through the arteries in both his wrists. He's bled himself to death.”

“You and Torrio get rid of him. Spread some blood on the broken glass in the shower stall in Trumble's house. Leave the body there—make it look like suicide.”

“Which it was.”

“Suicide because he didn't want to talk. He knew something that we don't know.”

Hathaway's scowl lifted. “Maybe he's already blown the whistle on us. You think you better shift your base of operations again? I know a place.”

“All right. As soon as you've finished with this. Now move.”

When Hathaway went outside to get the others Belsky went back into the bathroom and stood above the bloated corpse and tried to think it out. But Trumble kept getting in the way of his thinking. It had been a long time since anyone had got the better of him. His strength had always been his attention to detail, his resourcefulness in covering all possibilities. Trumble had upset everything.
A gutsy son of a bitch:
yes. He'd had to bite great chunks out of his own wrists to make the blood pour out fast. But he'd died knowing something, hiding something, and Belsky had to know what it was.