Windmills of the Gods (28 page)

Sofia, Bulgaria—Saturday, July 3

In a small, nondescript building on Prezviter Kozma 32, a discrete group of Eastern Committee members was meeting. Seated around the table were powerful representatives from Russia, China, Czechoslovakia, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia.

The chairman was speaking: “We welcome our brothers and sisters on the Eastern Committee who have joined us today. I am happy to tell you that we have excellent news from the Committee. Everything is now in place.

“The final phase of our plan is about to be successfully concluded. It will happen tomorrow night at the American ambassador’s residence in Bucharest. Arrangements have been made for international press and television coverage.”

Code name Kali spoke. “The American ambassador and her two children—?”

“Will be assassinated, along with a hundred or so other Americans. We are all aware of the grave risks and the holocaust that may follow. It is time to put the motion to a
vote.” He started at the far end of the table. “Brahma?”

“Yes.”

“Vishnu?”

“Yes.”

“Ganesha?”

“Yes.”

“Yama?”

“Yes.”

“Indra?”

“Yes.”

“Krishna?”

“Yes.”

“Rama?”

“Yes.”

“Kali?”

“Yes.”

“It is unanimous,” the chairman declared. “We owe a particular vote of thanks to the person who has helped so much to bring this about.” He turned to the American.

“My pleasure,” Mike Slade said.

The decorations for the Fourth of July party were flown into Bucharest on a C-120 Hercules late Saturday afternoon and trucked directly to a United States government warehouse. The cargo consisted of 1,000 red, white, and blue balloons, packed in flat boxes, 3 steel cylinders of helium to blow up the balloons, 250 rolls of confetti, party favors, noise-makers, a dozen banners, and 6 dozen miniature American flags. The cargo was unloaded in the warehouse at eight
P.M.
Two hours later, a jeep arrived with two oxygen cylinders stamped with U.S. Army markings. The driver placed them inside.

At one
A.M.
, when the warehouse was deserted, Angel appeared. The warehouse door had been left unlocked. Angel
walked over to the cylinders, examined them carefully, and went to work. The first task was to empty the three helium tanks until each was only one-third full. After that, the rest was simple.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, the residence was in a state of chaos. Floors were being scrubbed, chandeliers polished, rugs cleaned. Every room contained its own series of distinctive noises. There was hammering as a podium at one end of the ballroom was being built for the band, the whir of vacuum cleaners in the hallways, sounds of cooking from the kitchen.

At four o’clock that afternoon, a U.S. Army truck pulled up to the service entrance of the residence and was stopped. The guard on duty said to the driver, “What have you got in there?”

“Goodies for the party.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The guard inspected the inside of the truck. “What’s in the boxes?”

“Some helium and balloons and flags and stuff.”

“Open them.”

Fifteen minutes later, the truck was passed through. Inside the compound a corporal and two marines began to unload the equipment and carry it into a large storage room off the main ballroom.

As they began to unpack, one of the marines said, “Look at all these balloons! Who the hell is going to blow them up?”

At that moment Eddie Maltz walked in, accompanied by a stranger wearing army fatigues.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie Maltz said. “This is the age of technology.” He nodded toward the stranger. “Here’s the
one that’s in charge of the balloons. Colonel McKinney’s orders.”

One of the marine guards grinned at the stranger. “Better you than me.”

The two marines left.

“You have an hour,” Eddie Maltz told the stranger. “Better get to work. You’ve got a lot of balloons to blow up.”

Maltz nodded to the corporal and walked out.

The corporal walked over to one of the cylinders. “What’s in these babies?”

“Helium,” the stranger said curtly.

As the corporal stood watching, the stranger picked up a balloon, put the tip to the nozzle of a cylinder for an instant, and, as the balloon filled, tied off the tip. The balloon floated to the ceiling. The whole operation took no more than a second.

“Hey, that’s great,” the corporal smiled.

In her office at the embassy, Mary Ashley was finishing up some action cables that had to be sent out immediately. She desperately wished the party could have been called off. There were going to be more than two hundred guests. She hoped Mike Slade was caught before the party began.

Tim and Beth were under constant supervision at the residence.
How could Mike Slade bear to harm them?
Mary remembered how much he had seemed to enjoy playing with them.
He’s not sane.

Mary rose to put some papers in the shredder, and froze. Mike Slade was walking into her office through the connecting door. Mary opened her mouth to scream.

“Don’t!”

She was terrified. There was no one near enough to save her. He could kill her before she could call for help. He could escape the same way he had come in. How had he got past the guards?
I must not show him how frightened I am.

“Colonel McKinney’s men are looking for you. You can kill me,” Mary said defiantly, “but you’ll never escape.”

“You’ve been listening to too many fairy tales. Angel’s the one who’s trying to kill you.”

“You’re a liar. Angel is dead. I saw him shot.”

“Angel is a professional from Argentina. The last thing he would do is walk around with Argentine labels in his clothes and Argentine pesos in his pocket. The slob the police killed was an amateur who was set up.”

Keep him talking.
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying.
You
killed Louis Desforges. You tried to poison me. Do you deny that?”

Mike studied her for a long moment. “No. I don’t deny it but you’d better hear the story from a friend of mine.” He turned toward the door to his office. “Come in, Bill.”

Colonel McKinney walked into the room. “I think it’s time we all had a chat, Madam Ambassador…”

In the residence storage room, the stranger in army fatigues was filling the balloons under the watchful eye of the marine corporal.

Boy, that’s one ugly customer,
the corporal thought to himself.
Whew!

The corporal could not understand why the white balloons were being filled from one cylinder, the red balloons from a second cylinder, and the blue ones from a third.
Why not use each cylinder until it’s empty?
the corporal wondered. He was tempted to ask, but he did not want to start a conversation.
Not with this one.

Through the open door that led to the ballroom, the corporal could see trays of hors d’ouevres being carried out of the kitchen into the ballroom and set on tables along the sides of the room.
It’s going to be a great party,
the corporal thought.

Mary was seated in her office, facing Mike Slade and Colonel McKinney.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Colonel McKinney said. “On Inauguration Day, when the President announced that he wanted to open relations with every iron curtain country, he exploded a bombshell. There’s a faction in our government that’s convinced that if we get involved with Romania, Russia, Bulgaria, Albania, Czechoslovakia, et cetera, that the Communists will destroy us. On the other side of the iron curtain there are Communists who believe that our President’s plan is a trick—a Trojan horse to bring our capitalist spies into their countries. A group of powerful men on both sides had formed a supersecret alliance called Patriots for Freedom. They decided the only way to destroy the President’s plan was to let him start it, and then sabotage it in such a dramatic way that it would never be tried again. That’s where you came into the picture.”

“But—why me? Why was I chosen?”

“Because the packaging was important,” Mike said. “You were perfect. Adorable you, from Middle America, with two adorable kids—all that was missing was an adorable dog and an adorable cat. You were exactly the image they needed—the ambassador with sizzle—Mrs. America with two squeaky-clean kids. They were determined to have you. When your husband got in the way, they murdered him and made it look like an accident so you wouldn’t have any suspicions and refuse the post.”

“Oh, my God!” The horror of what Mike was saying was appalling.

“Their next step was your buildup. Through the old-boy network, they used their press connections around the world and saw to it that you became everyone’s darling. Everybody was rooting for you. You were the beautiful lady who was going to lead the world down the road to peace.”

“And—and now?”

Mike’s voice gentled. “Their plan is to assassinate you and the children as publicly and as shockingly as possible—to sicken the world so much that it would put an end to any further ideas of detente.”

Mary sat there in stunned silence.

“That states it bluntly,” Colonel McKinney said quietly, “but accurately. Mike is with the CIA. After your husband and Marin Groza were murdered, Mike started to get on the trail of the Patriots for Freedom. They thought he was on their side and invited him to join.

“We talked the idea over with President Ellison, and he gave his approval. The President has been kept abreast of every development. His overriding concern has been that you and the children be protected, but he dared not discuss what he knew with you or anyone else because Ned Tillingast, head of the CIA, had warned him that there were high-level leaks.”

Mary’s head was spinning. She said to Mike, “But—you tried to kill me.”

He sighed. “Lady, I’ve been trying to save your life. You haven’t made it easy. I tried every way I knew how to get you to take the kids and go home where you’d be safe.”

“But—you poisoned me.”

“Not fatally. I wanted to get you just sick enough so that you’d have to leave Romania. Our doctors were waiting for you. I couldn’t tell you the truth because it would have blown the whole operation and we would have lost our chance to catch them. Even now, we don’t know who put the organization together. He never attends meetings. He’s known only as the Controller.”

“And Louis?”

“The doctor was one of them. He was Angel’s backup. He was an expert with explosives. They assigned him here so he could stay close to you. A phony kidnapping was set up and you were rescued by Mr. Charm.” He saw the
expression on Mary’s face. “You were lonely and vulnerable, and they worked on that. You weren’t the first one to fall for the good doctor.”

Mary remembered something.
The smiling chauffeur. No Romanian is happy, only foreigners. I would hate to have my wife become a widow.

She said slowly, “Florian was in on it. He used the flat tire as an excuse to get me out of the car.”

“We’ll have him picked up.”

Something was bothering Mary. “Mike—why did you kill Louis?”

“I had no choice. The whole point of their plan was to murder you and the children as spectacularly as possible in full public view. Louis knew I was a member of the Committee. When he figured out that I was the one poisoning you, he became suspicious of me. That wasn’t the way you were supposed to die. I had to kill him before he exposed me.

Mary sat there, listening as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The man she had distrusted had poisoned her to keep her alive, and the man she thought she loved had saved her for a more dramatic death. She and her children had been used.
I was the Judas goat,
Mary thought.
All the warmth that everyone showed me was phony. The only one who was real was Stanton Rogers. Or was he—?

“Stanton—” Mary began, “is he—?”

“He’s been protective of you all the way,” Colonel McKinney assured her. “When he thought Mike was the one trying to kill you, he ordered me to arrest him.”

Mary turned to look at Mike. He had been sent over here to protect her, and all the time she had looked on him as the enemy. Her thoughts were in a turmoil.

“Louis never had a wife or children?”

“No.”

Mary remembered something. “But—I asked Eddie Maltz
to check, and he told me that Louis was married and had two daughters.”

Mike and Colonel McKinney exchanged a look.

“He’ll be taken care of,” McKinney said. “I sent him to Frankfurt. I’ll have him picked up.”

“Who is Angel?” Mary asked.

Mike answered. “He’s an assassin from South America. He’s probably the best in the world. The Committee agreed to pay him five million dollars to kill you.”

Mary listened to the words in disbelief.

Mike went on. “We know he’s in Bucharest. Ordinarily, we’d have everything covered—airports, roads, railway stations—but we don’t have a single description of Angel. He uses a dozen different passports. No one has ever talked directly to him. They deal through his mistress, Neusa Muñez. The different groups in the Committee are so compartmentalized that I haven’t been able to learn who’s been assigned to help him here, or what Angel’s plan is.”

“What’s to stop him from killing me?”

“Us.” It was Colonel McKinney talking. “With the help of the Romanian government, we’ve taken extraordinary precautions for the party tonight. We’ve covered every possible contingency.”

“What happens now?” Mary asked.

Mike said carefully, “That’s up to you. Angel was ordered to carry out the contract at your party tonight. We’re sure we can catch him, but if you and the children aren’t at the party…” His voice trailed off.

“Then he won’t try anything.”

“Not today. Sooner or later, he’ll try again.”

“You’re asking me to set myself up as a target.”

Colonel McKinney said, “You don’t have to agree, Madam Ambassador.”

I could end this now. I could go back to Kansas with the children and leave this nightmare behind. I could pick up my
life again, go back to teaching, live like a normal human being. No one wants to assassinate schoolteachers. Angel would forget about me.