Shadow of the Condor (2 page)

The general's destination was a medium-sized red-brick town house just off
Washington Circle
and not far from the
Kennedy
Center
. There were parking places in that block, but the general would not have parked within two blocks of that house for anything but an emergency. He walked past the house without glancing at it, although his eyes surreptitiously recorded every detail they could. He even tried to memorize the smiling elderly woman who almost ran into him during her morning stroll. Neither of them apologized for the near collision. The general entered a tall high-rise apartment building on the comer. He descended one flight of stairs to the basement and knocked on an apartment door. The security team watching him on closed-circuit TV pushed the buzzer, the door opened, and the general entered the third most expensive private tunnel in the city.

The funds used to pay for the tunnel through five buildings were hidden in the 1965 Marine Corps budget. In the days of the massive
Vietnam
buildup such things were easy to hide. The tunnel was a long corridor, a dimly lit concrete hallway with three right angles. It connected the basements of all the town houses on the block. A CIA proprietary company owns all the town houses. The CIA owned company leases the houses to several private rental firms, firms which appear on all official public documents as the house owners. Some of the town houses are not used by the government, but all "legitimate" tenants are carefully screened. Only special federal employees ever use the basement rooms in which the back wall hides the tunnel.

Two minutes after entering the, apartment building the general emerged in the red town house's basement. A smiling security guard greeted him and politely but thoroughly searched his person and his briefcase for weapons. The general surrendered his handgun without a complaint. He had to wait for several minutes in a small, tastefully furnished sitting room "while we confirm your appointment." The general was sure the delay was deliberate, perhaps a reprisal for his tardiness or a measure designed to put him in his place. He hoped such tactics were all that could be found to needle him. He glanced around the room, looking for the microphones he felt sure were there, but he found none. He heard nothing through the soundproof walls. He didn't know it, but there was little to hear. Two typists and an FM radio station playing old rock and roll songs from the fifties and sixties made most of the noise in the house. The walls muffled those sounds.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, sir," a tall, impeccably dressed man said softly. "He's free now. Would you come this way?"

The general followed the trim figure up the stairs to the second floor, barely resisting the strong temptation to smash his escort in the kidneys. They walked down the thick-carpeted ball past a number of shut rooms, stopping before a set of beautifully stained wooden double doors. The tall man knocked softly, then escorted the general inside.

A kindly-looking old man rose from his chair and walked around his massive desk to greet the general. The old man gave the impression of delicate spryness. Strangers who pass him on the street are always reminded of the kindly old uncle whom they never had. The old man7s eyes twinkled as he extended his hand. "Ah, General," he said fondly, "how are you, old friend? You're looking well. Come, let's sit down in the armchairs. My tired old body could use something soft."

The general beamed as he grasped the old man7s hand. He wanted to crush the thin fingers in his own powerful grasp, but he contented himself with a firm squeeze. "Fine, fine, Phillip. You're looking well, too, and about as old as some of the young pups I order around."

"That's most kind of you, General," said the old man, "most kind."

The tall man crossed to a table on the far wall. When he returned, he carried a tray with a cup for each man and a pot of coffee. While the general and the old man sat smiling in silence, the secretary filled each cup. He carefully added a level spoonful of sugar to the old man's portion. After a glance at his superior to see if everything was in order, the tall man left the room, shutting the doors behind him.

"And how is your family?" inquired the old man as he raised his cup to his lips.

The general shrugged and replied, "About the same as always, fine. How is yours?" The general sipped the coffee. The hot liquid burned his lips, but he gave no sign of his discomfort.

"Fine, fine. My wife just got over the flu."

"Really? How awful." The general already knew this from the FBI surveillance reports he had purloined. He didn't know that the old man knew the general was receiving this information.

"Yes," continued the old man, "awful thing, that flu. She went around all day throwing up and making a mess of things."

The old man's crass description startled the general slightly. Such talk was certainly out of character. And had there been an edge to his voice?. "Oh," replied the general, whose carefully -prepared repertoire of appropriate conversational gambits contained no suitable line for this instance.

"Yes, awful. Oh, well, she’s over it now."

"Yes, I suppose she is. Over it, I mean."

They sat in silence for almost three minutes, slowly sipping coffee. Sweat formed on the general's brow from the hot coffee steaming in his face and from his nerves. The general glanced down at his cup. He hadn't meant to finish so soon. The old man still hadn't asked him anything. Very carefully the general raised his eyes, swallowed and meekly said, "I suppose you're wondering why I'm here."

Bad start, thought the general, bad start. But he didn't have time to dwell on his error before the old man replied.

"The question has crossed my mind."

Go, thought the general, do it! "Well, it’s nothing, really. Just a small matter I thought you might be able to help me with. It's nothing I want to bring up formally through the Liaison Board or waste the time of any of the committees with, but it is something that. is rather important in an offbeat kind-of way, so I naturally thought of you, I mean, you are staff director for L Group and all."

The old man nodded slightly while the general regained his breath. Nothing, thought the general, the bastard won't say anything.

"Well," continued the general offhandedly, "I won't bother you with details because if you decide to have a whack at it, you might as well get them from here." The general reached into his briefcase and extracted a thin file folder. Fortunately for them, his men had finished typing the final report less than five minutes before he bad left for his appointment. "Let me just put you in the big picture. As you know, my branch of Air Force Intelligence maintains a low profile. The director sometimes doesn't even bother much with my things; he just leaves them up to me. Within reason, of course.

"About two weeks ago, on the twelfth, to be exact, one of my best men in Europe, a Captain Donald Parkins, sent a message to-his case officer and said he was going to check out a reference to our Minuteman missiles he overheard in a bar. Unfortunately Parkins didn't relay the reference to his CO. He only said it had something to do with the missile sites. Parkins also didn't say exactly where he heard it or from whom. Since he was operating out of
London
at the time, we assume he heard it there or at least in that vicinity.

"On the thirteenth the CO tried to find Parkins. No luck.

The CO assumed Parkins was following up and would be in touch. After three days the CO got excited, posted Parkins missing, checked his apartment and informed us in
Washington
. I was - most upset. We heard nothing more from or of Parkins.

"Then early yesterday morning, or rather, late the night before last, we heard from Parkins again. Before I go on, can I have some more coffee? And could you tell me what you know about our Minuteman missile system?"

The old man graciously nodded toward the coffeepot and replied, "Oh, a fair amount in general, enough specifics to talk about the system intelligently. Why don't you give me the specific pertinent to this thing?"

The general hadn't been prepared to resume the conversation so soon. He almost spilled the coffee as he set the pot down. The son of a bitch. "Well," he said amiably, "basically it works like this: The missiles are mainly scattered through
Montana
, the two
Dakotas
and a few classified areas in underground, unmanned silos. There are also underground launch and control facilities, and each missile group is overseen by a large surface air base. Each missile silo is surrounded by a chain-link, barbed-wire-topped fence. Everything of any importance is underground, sealed behind concrete doors. If the missile is launched, we have to use explosives to open those doors. On the surface there are some ventilator shafts, some closed-circuit TV units, light units, but basically there's not much aboveground inside that fence. At night the whole area is lit with spotlights. The farmers in the area used to complain that it was spooky to drive around their land at night and come upon this brightly lit section.

Security for those birds is tight, and I mean tight. Besides the TV cameras, there are seismograph units spread in the ground so the security crews at the launch centers can tell when anything walks near or inside the fence. We have a bell of a time training the seismograph monitors to tell the difference between a coyote and a man, but ' after awhile they get damn good. Damn good. Each site also gets visited on a non-routine basis by a motor patrol, and there are armed security crews with helicopters and security substations on a twenty-four-hour alert standby basis less than twenty-five minutes from each missile. Besides all that, there are a couple of cute things we can do to keep a saboteur busy while the copters are getting to him. Get the picture?"

"Yes," replied the old man with a slight frown, "although I'm not sure how it all ties in with your missing agent."

The general blushed slightly as he said, "Neither am I, but a little over thirty hours ago he turned up in the middle of a missile site in northern
Montana
. Dead."

The old man raised his eyebrows, but made no comment.

"The first we knew of him was when he hit the fence. That triggered all sorts of alarms at the launch control, and they alerted Malmstrom Air Forte Base in
Great Falls
, the only decent-sized city anywhere near the missile. Malmstrom happened to have a couple of security crews logging night flight patrol time just south of the missile site. The Air Force base itself is almost ninety miles from the site. While the copters were scrambling to the site, the security crews watched our boy on the closed-circuit TV. They figured he was a drunk or a high school kid on a practical joke. He started beating on one of the ventilators, then fell down. The transmission from the site wasn't any too good, so they couldn't see what was wrong. Their cameras don't pan the surroundings either. They watched him lie still until the copters arrived.

"Someone had shot him, twice, probably with a hunting rifle. The copters found no trace of anybody or anything in the area, and they searched a ten-mile radius. Nothing unusual turned up, no farm lights on when they shouldn't have been, no moving vehicles. The team commander searched the body right away, a lucky thing or the local authorities might have been called in.

"Parkins had his passport taped to his thigh, probably to keep it from being found in a cursory search and to keep it close. The squad leader relayed the name it was false, of course-and the passport number back to Malmstrom and the security office there ran a computer check to the Pentagon, State and the FBI. All other passports we issue our men, genuine or not, have a certain code ,number so that when an inquiry is made on that passport, our headquarters is informed without letting the inquirer know. The officer at our alert desk found out who was making the request and why. Then he got through to the Malmstrom security commander and told him to put a lid on it until further notice. I got the call a few minutes later and flew out myself. I had security clean up the missile site before any locals could see it.

"Besides his passport, Parkins wasn't carrying a thing which helps us. Some change-Canadian, English and American-a comb, handkerchief, plus the usual pocket things a man has. He was dressed in casual street wear. From his general condition, all we could deduce was that be had recently exercised quite vigorously, -sweat stains and that kind of thing. From the scratches and abrasions on his body, we deduced that he had been running."

"Did you make any attempt to backtrack him?"

"We made the attempt. All we know is that he bit the fence on the north side. Hell, none of my men are Kit Carson types. And we couldn't make a big deal of the search or the locals would know. That wouldn't do anybody any good."

The old man smiled. "Well, that certainly is interesting. Exactly what is it you want me to do, old friend7"

You son of a bitch, thought the general. You're going to make me ask for it. "Well, as you can see, it's quite a mess. Apart from everything else, one of my men is dead. A goddamn good man too, a hell of a guy. Loved him like my own son. It gravels me to think that the guy who killed him is still out there running around free. But we have to be professional about this.

"The thing is, see, it is kind of out of my jurisdiction. I mean, sure, it was my guy. But he was killed under Air Force Security's shop. They don't want to touch it, and I can't say I blame them because it's not really their thing either. None of us are too keen on running a military operation stateside. The Army is still burning from when they got caught spying stateside on civilians. If we got caught with our pants down, it could be awfully bad PR for the Force. Awfully bad.

"Besides, we don't have the resources. We need help, even though I'm sure the whole thing is really very simple and easy to explain. But the thing cuts across so many jurisdictions. It's a natural for L Group to work on. But I really don't think it's worth taking up at a full meeting of IC or Forty. So I thought if I gave the stuff to you, you and your staff could take it over from us. I mean, you could check it with Forty and then go, with their suggestion. Of course, I’ll give you all the backup I can.