Zerkel turned left at the corner and at the next intersection stopped for a red light. “Did you see something?”
“No,” Mueller said, watching the rearview mirror. Two cars had turned left off Volta Place behind them. “When the light changes turn right, drive one block, then turn right again.”
“Okay,” Zerkel said, glancing in his mirror.
The blue car continued straight, but the red Mercedes turned with them. A block later, however, when Zerkel made the second right, the Mercedes turned left.
“It's clear,” Mueller said looking up. “We'll park one block away and go in on foot.”
Zerkel nodded, his lip curling in a stupid grin, but the look was deceiving. Within the first six hours of knowing the man, Mueller had realized that the American was brilliant, if not a genius. But he was dedicated to whatever environmental mumbo jumbo he talked about, he was ignorant of what was happening in the world outside the United States, and he was crazy. If his ignorance or insanity became troublesome, Mueller would kill him. For now, however, he seemed to be willing to do as he was told.
They parked on P Street around the corner from Pomander Walk, a block and a half from Tallerico's brownstone, and went back to Volta Place on foot. On the first pass Mueller memorized the look of the street, including the numbers and types of parked vehicles. To his trained eye he could detect no change. Neither the blue car nor the red Mercedes that had followed them for a short distance had been among the parked vehicles, and so far as he could tell there was absolutely nothing wrong here. Yet he had a faint uneasiness in his gut. It was the fact that he was in a foreign country, he told himself.
The
foreign country, the United States, the enemy.
“Looks good,” Zerkel said.
“Very well,” Mueller agreed. The American had remained a fugitive from his justice system for a long time. His instincts were to be considered.
Together they crossed the street to Tallerico's house, passed through a tall iron gate, and rang the bell. From the front, the second-story windows showed light. Tallerico was home and awake.
A man's voice came from a small grille set just beneath the button. “Who is it?”
Mueller leaned forward. “Mr. Tallerico, are you alone this evening? Mr. Reid has sent us with something for you.”
“Who is this?” Tallerico demanded.
“Sir, my name is of no importance. Mr. Reid asked me to speak with you about the Silicon Valley find. Am I speaking now with Mr. Tallerico?”
“I haven't had time to get an answer from my contact. Reid must know that.”
“Yes, sir, he does. He's sent us to make you an offer. A firm offer, Mr. Tallerico.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Zerkel was frustrated, but Mueller held him off. Benjamin Tallerico was a cautious man. But he had to be cautious in his business. Mueller could find no fault with it.
“Very well, Mr. Tallerico, we shan't bother you any further this evening. I'll inform Mr. Reid that you are no longer interested. Sorry to have disturbed you.”
Mueller turned away from the speaker grille and started away from the door.
“Wait,” Tallerico said.
Mueller stopped but did not go back. Zerkel was watching him, the stupid grin on his face again. The man was like a house dog just before its dinnertime.
“Goddammit, just hold on,” Tallerico's voice came from the grille.
The stair hall lights came on a second later, and Benjamin Tallerico, wearing a dark purple dressing gown, his thick dark hair somewhat disheveled, and his eyes a little blurry as if he had been drinking heavily this evening, opened the door and eyed them both.
“Mr. Tallerico?” Mueller asked politely.
“That's right. Come in.” He stepped aside to let them pass, then closed and locked the door and led them down the hall to his study at the back of the house. “Why didn't he call me? I could have told him that I didn't have an answer yet.”
Mueller pulled out the Luger, thumbed the safety
catch off, and as they entered the study and Tallerico turned back to them, he raised the gun and pointed it directly at the man's head.
Tallerico, whose complexion was olive, visibly blanched. “What the fuck is this ⦠?” He stepped back.
“We would like the name and address of your source in California.”
Reid had assured them that Tallerico's house would be free of any listening devices. A man in his position would make sure of it. Still, Mueller was on edge.
“Fuck you,” Tallerico snarled. Reid had warned that he was a former Mafia lieutenant with connections.
Mueller pulled the pistol's toggle back with his left hand and let it snap home, cocking the hammer. He started to pull the trigger.
“Jesus Christ, you stupid fuck, back off! What the fuck do you think this is? You want to know the name of my contact? Fine, I'll tell you. It's not worth my fucking life. It's only money.”
Zerkel closed the study door, and Tallerico watched him, his eyes growing wider.
“I mean it. She's a psychiatrist in San Francisco. Her name is Jeanne Shepard. One of her patients told her about it.”
“What is this patient's name?”
“I don't know. She wouldn't tell me. Not until we had a deal. She's just as careful as I am. And she never makes a mistake. Never.”
“How do we find her?”
“Her office is in San Francisco.”
“Her home,” Mueller said calmly.
“I don't know. I've never been there. I talk to her on the telephone. Sometimes she comes out here, sometimes I go out there, but we always meet on neutral territory.”
Mueller said nothing.
“Fuck. Who do you think you're dealing with here? We have to be careful.”
Still Mueller said nothing.
“Her office is downtown, but even if you go there you won't get anything from her.”
“Where does she live, Mr. Tallerico?”
“Fucking hell! In Sausalito. She's got a goddamned houseboat in the marina. The number's seventeen-E.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mueller said, nodding politely, and he shot the man in the head, driving him backward off his feet, blood splattering over the desk.
“Holy shit,” Zerkel said.
Mueller clicked the safety on the Luger and stuffed it in his belt beneath his coat. “Now we go to Sausalito.”
Â
“Here they come,” FBI Special Agent Albert McLaren said. He watched the front of Tallerico's house through a light-intensifying 35 mm camera that lit the scene with green.
“Anybody we know?” his partner Phillip Joyce asked. They were set up across the street in a GMC conversion van with smoked-glass windows and civilian plates.
“The tall, skinny dude looks vaguely familiar. I don't know about the other one.” McLaren fired off three rapid shots as the two men came through the iron gate and started toward the van. “Take a look,” he said, and he moved away from the camera.
Joyce took his partner's place and snapped a half-dozen shots. “He's in the file, but I don't know about the little guy.”
They passed within five feet of the van, and the shorter one looked directly at Joyce for a second as if he could see through the one-way glass. Joyce had the feeling that he'd seen that face before, although where or in what context he couldn't remember. It was bothersome. He took two more shots.
“All right, I've got them,” McLaren said from the back of the van.
Joyce returned his attention to Tallerico's house. This was only the second day of their surveillance so no true pattern of behavior had been established. The man had
been investigated on a similar charge of industrial espionage five years ago, but after three months of surveillance in which nothing had been found, the case was dropped. He was either innocent, or very good, although John Whitman, the chief investigating officer on the case, was convinced he was guilty of something. “Why else install the sophisticated anti-surveillance equipment he's got over there?”
“They're crossing the street,” McLaren said.
Tallerico was at home. They'd watched him answer the door. He'd been upstairs when the two men arrived. He'd flipped on the front hall light, had come downstairs, and had let them in. He'd not come to the door, however, when they'd come back out.
“Did you see Tallerico when those two left?” he asked McLaren.
“No,” his partner said. “They're definitely heading down Pomander.”
Joyce continued to watch Tallerico's house. The visitors were gone, so why wasn't he turning off the hall light and going back upstairs?
“They're gone,” McLaren said.
“Call it in, Al. I want a runner out here to pick up the film.”
“Did you recognize either of them?”
“Yes and no,” Joyce said. He dialed Tallerico's secured number with one of the cellular units.
“What are you going to say when he answers?”
“I got a wrong number,” Joyce said, but the telephone rang twenty times before he hung up.
“Nothing?”
“Get Whitman. I want to go in.”
Â
The Russians made no special preparations for the arrival of the Guerin flight from Portland, except that upon landing the aircraft was directed away from the civilian international terminal to the VIP apron and debarking area. Visiting foreign dignitaries were met here where a more positive crowd control was possible.
But this morning there was no red carpet, only a half-dozen black limousines for the passengers and two vans for their luggage. Of the Guerin staff the only person other than McGarvey who'd ever been to Russia was Kennedy on a five-day astronaut exchange program at Baikonaur. The others were excited and nervous, except for the dour Soderstrom who had predicted disaster from day one. Vasilanti had insisted the CFO come along to make sure the entire company wasn't handed over to the Russians.
“There'll be no danger of that,” he'd assured the old man.
Glancing over at him now, McGarvey could see that he was tense almost to the breaking point. He would be an ideal candidate for an entrapment scheme. He had an abundance of nervous energy and naivete. His turning would be routine. Kennedy would have to be warned. Actually, all of them would have to be warned to keep on their guard and say nothing about the Japanese threat, especially not the Russians' part in spying on the Japanese for Guerin.
“They're going to want to start the meetings right away this morning,” McGarvey told Kennedy when they came to a complete stop.
Kennedy was reaching for his bag in the overhead. “We need a couple hours, but I don't see any reason not to get started this morning before lunch.”
“No,” McGarvey said, and the tone of his voice caught Kennedy's attention.
“What's the problem?” Kennedy asked, leaning over the aisle seat next to McGarvey. Boarding stairs were being trundled over, and three men got out of the limousines, one of them Yemlin's boss, Colonel Lyalin.
“No one got any sleep last night, which puts us at a disadvantage. Their negotiators will be fresh and very good. They'll know everything there is to know about you, but you'll know next to nothing about them, except that some of them will be professional negotiators and others will be intelligence officers.”
“What do you suggest?”
“No matter what happens, insist on taking today and tonight off. No negotiations until morning. And for every hour after 8:00 P.M. they want to keep you up eating and drinking, insist on postponing the morning meeting for one hour later than 8:00 A.M.”
“We came here to talk about building a wing factory.”
“We came here to ask them to spy for us,” McGarvey said. “Insist on having a full twenty-fours hours of rest including twelve hours of sleep before you start. Trust me on this one, David.”
Kennedy nodded after a slight hesitation.
“You're going to have to trust me on something else as well. No matter what I do or say, no matter how odd or even outrageous it seems to you at the time, I don't want you to react at all. Don't say a word, don't make a move, just act as if whatever is happening is completely normal.”
“I don't understand ⦔
“You don't have to, just go along with me no matter what I do.”
Again Kennedy nodded after a slight hesitation. He pulled back, but McGarvey stopped him.
“I may drop out of sight at some point. If they ask you where I am, stonewall it.”
A look of consternation crossed Kennedy's features. “What the hell are you talking about? For how long? What are we supposed to do when it's time to go and you're nowhere to be found?”