XXIV
General Ramsey arrived within the hour. Waiting for him, Clara had been so nervous that she had paced the room, alternating between staring down at Jack and peeping out the window. When she had placed the call to Camp Lejeune, Ramsey’s secretary had answered the phone. Clara had almost hung up, but instead she had nervously given her name. The secretary had seemed to have no idea who she was. Clara had begun to doubt that the general would even speak to her. But in seconds he had been on the line.
“Where the hell are you?” he had barked.
Far from being taken aback at such a greeting, Clara had felt relieved. He sounded almost as if he were scolding an errant soldier, not as if he were talking to one of a pair of wanted criminals.
“At a truck stop in Swansboro. I—I think it’s called the Stop and Eat. At least that’s what the sign says.”
“Good God!”
Not sure whether this bellicose interjection had to do with
the place they were staying or with some other matter, Clara had gone on.
“General, Jack told me to call you. He’s quite badly hurt.”
“What happened?” Then he had snorted. “Never mind. Save it. I’ll be with you in an hour.” He had paused. “Miss Winston, don’t open the door to anyone else,”
“No, I won’t,” Clara had agreed with fervor. And she had kept the pistol close at hand as she waited for General Ramsey to arrive. But she had spent the entire hour praying she wouldn’t have to use it. She’d shot it once, in extreme terror, but she couldn’t remember quite how she’d done it. And she wasn’t sure if she could count on renewed terror to remind her.
When the two nondescript station wagons pulled up out front, Clara felt her heart pound so wildly that it was all she could hear. But her fear was assuaged in an instant. There was no mistaking General Ramsey. Uniform and all, he was the epitome of a high ranking marine officer. He exited from the passenger door of the first station wagon while a balding, fortyish officer who was obviously his subordinate exited from the driver’s side, and another, younger officer stepped out of the rear. As the senior officer moved around the car, Clara recognized more than his uniform and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d only had a brief glimpse of “Wild Bill” Ramsey, but there was no mistaking that leathery face or grizzled crew cut.
While General Ramsey and the other officers strode toward her, four other marines, ordinary grunts as Jack would doubtless call them, got out of the other car and closed ranks behind the general. It looked like the general had brought his own private army. Thank God! Clara moved quickly to pull the chair from beneath the doorknob.
She had it open before General Ramsey and his men reached it.
“Miss Winston.” He nodded his head. “Where’s … Ah.”
This last came as she stood back to let him enter and he saw Jack huddled beneath his pile of covers on the floor.
“What happened?’ he asked grimly, surveying Jack and then the bloodstained towels and pieces of sheet and clothing littering the room. As Clara told him, jerkily, the second officer entered to be introduced as Captain Spencer. He was followed by the third officer, who was introduced as Captain Kryzanski, physician. Clara was so glad to see a real live doctor that she could have hugged him. General Ramsey called her sternly back to account as the ordinary grunts deployed themselves outside the door, which he then shut and locked. Feeling almost dizzy with relief at such reinforcements, Clara told him all that had occurred from the time they left Camp Lejeune.
“Jack’s told the truth about everything, General, I swear it. The
KGB
is really after him, and there is a mole and microfilm and—” Her desperate attempt to convince General Ramsey of Jack’s innocence before Jack could be carted off to some kind of prison was cut short with a brusque wave of his hand.
“I know that,” he said curtly. Then, “McClain and I reached an understanding while he was at Camp Lejeune. No one was to know. But I think you’re in it as much as anyone now. You may as well know what the hell’s going on.”
“Why, thank you, General,” Clara said, taken aback. Jack hadn’t told her about any accord with the general. She cast a dark look down at him. He hadn’t told her about the
microfilm either, until he’d had to. She wondered what else he was keeping from her.
“Somebody did a good job of patching him up.” The doctor straightened from where he knelt over Jack. “The bullet’s out, and as far as I can tell it hit a dead spot. No vital organs. Missed the heart, lungs, liver, the works. He’s a lucky SOB. Oh, sorry. He’s a lucky guy.”
“That’s all right, doctor.”
“You get the bullet out?” General Ramsey was regarding her with keen eyes. Clara nodded. “Well, he said you were a damn fine woman.”
Her eyes widened at that. But before she could reply Jack stirred, calling her name.
“I’m here, Jack,” she said, moving toward him just as his eyes opened. They touched on her face briefly, then widened as they took in the doctor and Captain Spencer. She saw his muscles tense. Then General Ramsey moved forward. Jack saw him and seemed to relax.
“Good to see you, General.” He frowned, concentrating. “The hit’s going to take place on Seabrook Island itself. First day of the summit, just as the eagle lands. The hit man’s a sleeper in a position of trust.”
The colonel was visibly excited. “How the hell did you find that out?”
Jack tried another of those weak smiles. “I had a little conversation with Rostov. Ask Clara. She’ll tell you all about it.”
General Ramsey nodded, then jerked his head in the doctor’s direction. Captain Spencer led the protesting man out of earshot. General Ramsey bent over Jack and spoke in a low tone: “I personally spoke to the president yesterday to brief him on what was going on. On my say-so he took it seriously. He’s passed the word on only to his most trusted
aides. No one else knows. The security for all the, president’s senior advisors has been tightened so as not to let on that we’re expecting something to happen to the secretary of state in particular. Now that we know precisely where the hit will be, and when, we’ll take care of it. Security on that damned island will be tighter than a matador’s pants. And we’ll see that you’re taken to a hospital, and later get your name cleared. Don’t worry about a thing. Your part’s done for now. And a damn good job.”
Jack shook his head. “You’re not counting me out because of a little hole in my side.” Concentrating for the length of his conversation with Ramsey had clearly taken a toll on him. His words were slurring. But he made an obvious effort. “You need me. The agency’s no help while Bigfoot is on the loose. Even the secretary of state’s own secret service guard is suspect. Everybody is suspect; the sleeper could be anywhere. I want to be there. At the hit. On the Island. It’s my baby, General.”
General Ramsey frowned. “There’s no need. You’re not up to it. And what about Miss Winston?”
“I go with Jack,” Clara interjected. Jack looked up at her for a moment, hugging herself as she stood near his head, then his eyes shifted back to General Ramsey and he nodded.
“You heard the lady. She stays with me.”
“It’s damn foolishness. You’re wounded, you need to be in a hospital.”
Jack shook his head. “I won’t be safe in a hospital. Not at Lejeune, not anywhere. Not until Bigfoot’s uncovered. And you know it, General. Besides, I have some more information for you. Might be vital. I’ll give it to you when you get me to Seabrook Island.”
General Ramsey looked angry. “That’s blackmail!”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. His shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug. “Whatever works.”
General Ramsey stared down at him for a moment, his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows working furiously. Clara held her breath. …
“You’ve got balls, McClain, I’ll give you that. You always did.” He shook his head and suddenly grinned. “All right, boy, you’ve got it. We’re going to Seabrook Island.”
XXV
Seabrook Island was gorgeous. It was a twenty-two-hundred acre private resort of lush flowers, moss draped trees and rain forest vegetation located off the South Carolina coast twenty-three miles from Charleston. Breakers crashed against the resort’s white sand beaches. Three-story balconied villas of silvered timbers faced the ocean on one side and a central, porticoed lodge on the other. Other, groups of villas were situated on the edge of the golf course fairway and in the maritime forest. Small inland waterways rife with birds and wildlife meandered across the island to spill into the sea. Manmade lakes glittered in the verdant setting like sapphires. A great salt marsh of tall rushes growing thickly on acres of mud and water separated the island from the mainland. The island paradise was the perfect spot for a dream vacation—or a very hush-hush summit meeting.
Three days after they had arrived with General Ramsey in rented cars (the military variety having been deemed too conspicuous). Jack was already sitting up in bed in the three-bedroom villa that had been provided for the two of
them. He was an aggravating patient, but Clara was so relieved that he really wasn’t going to die that she didn’t mind. She fetched and carried for him uncomplainingly, feeding him his meals when he was too weak to eat himself, giving him sponge baths in bed when he very loudly preferred her ministrations to those of the doctor. When General Ramsey appeared for his twice daily huddle with Jack, she either sat in on the meetings or vanished for a walk along the beach, according to the gentlemen’s preference. She could always tell by General Ramsey’s eyebrows if he wanted to be private with Jack, and she had no objection to leaving the two of them alone. She loved walking along the lonely stretches of seawashed white sand, which were almost deserted now during the resort’s offseason. She didn’t like to leave Jack alone, and he didn’t like being left to Captain Kryzanski’s tender mercies, so the general’s confidential visits were about the only free time she had. If Clara asked, she was sure that Jack would tell her what went on during those meetings, but Clara didn’t ask. She didn’t particularly want to know all the details of the plots the two of them were hatching. She had an uneasy feeling that whatever it was they were getting so excited about would end up involving a lot of bloodshed. Jack seemed to thrive on violence, and Wild Bill Ramsey wasn’t much better. But Clara had had her belly full of death and guns and bloodshed. She just wanted Jack and herself safe and together, far away from the whole mess.
The notion that she might be falling in love with him unsettled her. He was too much of a loner, an outcast from all she’d been raised to hold dear. She wanted a nice, ordinary man with a nice, ordinary job so she could have a
nice, ordinary life with nice, ordinary children. All of which seemed impossible with her crazy spy.
When they had first arrived on the island, they had no sooner gotten settled into the villa than General Ramsey came across the ten feet or so of scrub grass and sand that separated their villa from his, which was next door. Clara quite liked General Ramsey, helped no doubt by his pronouncement that Puff, who was staying with his wife at Camp Lejeune until Clara could reclaim him, was a cat with
personality.
Jack had told her that General Ramsey was a cat lover, and described how Puff had reacted to him. In Clara’s opinion, anyone whom Puff liked couldn’t be all bad. So when he banged on their front door, Clara let him in with a smile. But the general obviously had something on his mind. With scarcely more than a grunt he took himself up to the bedroom where Jack was being examined by Captain Kryzanski, who along with Captain Spencer and a small platoon of marines had accompanied them.
“These kids I can trust,” General Ramsey said when Clara had questioned their presence. And she could see the sense of that. In civilian clothes, as were the general and the other officers, the grunts were deployed around the villas to keep supposedly inconspicuous guard. Clara didn’t think they were very inconspicuous, but then she knew they were there. She supposed if one didn’t, they might pass for gardeners, or sunbathers, or whatever. As protection against Rostov and his men, if they should by some horrible mischance discover their prey’s hiding place, Clara feared that the grunts would be outclassed. But Jack did not seem particularly concerned. He had laughed when he saw General Ramsey’s own private security detail, and said old Wild Bill was a careful man.
“So where’s the information you promised me?” General Ramsey bellowed as soon as Captain Kryzanski, in response to a scowl, had left the room. Clara had remained behind that first day, and stood, arms crossed over her chest, at the foot of the luxuriously appointed king-sized bed in the villa’s master suite. She thought that Jack, who could not even sit up at that point, might need her. And so she stayed despite Ramsey’s beetle-browed look.
That meeting took place less than thirty-six hours after General Ramsey had spirited them from the motel. It was Friday the ninth of October. The planned assassination of the secretary of state was exactly one week away. Jack was still very weak, but as General Ramsey gruffly told Clara there was no time to let him recover in peace. Matters were getting urgent. Time was growing short.
He was lying propped up on pillows, his aggressive chin clean-shaven and his hair neat. He was bare from the waist up, a professionally applied white bandage around his chest. His right arm was in a sling. His skin beneath its surface tan was nearly as white as the bed linen. But his eyes were bright, that familiar emerald green, and he even managed a weak grin.
“Good morning, General.”
“Don’t bother me with that malarkey. You promised me information. What is it?”
By way of a reply, Jack manipulated his tongue inside his mouth. He raised his hand to his lips, and seemed to spit something into his hand. While Clara watched wide-eyed, he held up a tooth with an air of triumph.
“What the hell is that?” General Ramsey spoke for them both. Looking from Jack to the tooth in his hand, Clara saw a definite gap in his pearly smile where his right cuspid had been. Jack had a false tooth!
“You didn’t think the furball was the only trick I had up my sleeve, did you, General?” Jack’s eyes twinkled at Ramsey as he unscrewed the root from the crown section of the tooth. Nestled inside, a perfect fit, was a red and yellow capsule.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned!” The general sounded both amazed and affronted. Jack twisted the capsule to reveal a tiny microfilm, which he shook out into the palm of his hand. “Another microfilm? You’ve been holding out on me, McClain!”
“Sorry, sir, but I didn’t know at that point if I could trust you or not. I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket. I’ve lived as long as I have because I’m a cautious man.”
“Humph!” The general said, and took the microfilm from Jack’s palm. “Where’d you get this one?”
Jack screwed the root back on his tooth and popped it into his mouth like a man taking a pill. He wiggled his tongue, and Clara was amazed to see the cuspid fit right into the dental arch as if it was as natural as the ones on either side of it. And maybe, she thought, frowning at Jack suspiciously, maybe it was. Her spy was chock full of surprises!
“It’s half of the original microfilm Yuropov had. He cut it in two in case one half should be discovered, and I thought he had the right idea. No one was looking for
two
microfilms.”
“By damn!” Ramsey sounded excited, staring down at the tiny piece of brown film as if it were a holy relic. “I’ll get Davey on this right away!”
“I’d like to get a look at it, too, sir.”
Ramsey looked at him. “You don’t have any more surprises, do you?’
McClain grinned. Clara could see that, as weak as he
was, it cost him an effort. General Ramsey was tiring him. She frowned.
“That was my last one.”
“It better be! Hold out on me, will you?” Ramsey was grumbling as he turned to look at Clara, “Miss Winston, you take care of this two-timer, hear? If you need anything, you send one of my boys for it. No need for you to go running errands yourself.”
“Thank you, General.”
General Ramsey stomped toward the door. “As soon as we get one of those microscope things you look at these with over here I’ll let you know what’s on it. Take care of yourself, McClain.”
When he was gone, Clara walked over and stood frowning down at Jack. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
“I don’t think I’ve told you how lovely you look today,” he answered with a seraphic smile, reaching for her hand. Clara allowed him to take it and press it to his lips, but her frown increased in seventy.
“You never told me about the microfilm at all, not one word from the beginning. You let me think you were saving Puff’s life for altruistic reasons when all the time you were really saving your damn microfilm! You never told me that General Ramsey was on our side after Camp Lejeune; I nearly died of nervousness trying to make up my mind whether or not to call him. I couldn’t decide if you’d been out of your head or not! And now this! More microfilm hidden in a false tooth! Next you’ll tell me that your name isn’t really Jack McClain!”
“Well, to tell the truth …” Jack said with a roguish grin.
“Arrgh!” Clara jerked her hand away from him and turned on her heel, inarching from the room.
“I was just teasing!” he called after her hastily, “Of course my name’s Jack McClain! Clara, baby, come back. Please!” And he went into a splendid fit of coughing. Clara weakened, turning back at the head of the stairs. Then he spoiled it by calling after her, “Don’t you trust me?”
He was laughing, but she wasn’t. The truth was, she didn’t trust him. Not one inch.