Night Magic Part 22

The men shook their heads.

"Then let's do it," he said, and pushed back his chair.

x.x.xII.

Sat.u.r.day, October 17, 12:01 A.M.

The group in the situation room had reconvened. In addition to the original members, four new faces had been added: Oliver Simonis, deputy director of the CIA; Michael Ball, recently retired director of the CIA; Senator Adam Chandler, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Clara, who had been drafted by General Ramsey to take notes. Her shorthand was not the best, but she used it sometimes in her work and it was serviceable. General Ramsey said that would be fine; they didn't want to bring anyone else into this who was not already directly involved. The consequences of a leak would be severe.

"Gentlemen, please bear with me on this. Two of you are about to be gravely insulted. I apologize for that in advance. But the situation we face requires grave measures and quick action if we are to salvage anything from the debacle." Franklin Conran quickly described the a.s.sa.s.sination of Premier Deng. Simonis, Ball, and Chandler all looked suitably horrified.

Conran continued. "But the reason that the president asked you to come here is this: we believe that the a.s.sa.s.sination was carried out with the aid of a high-level mole in the intelligence network. Our suspects have been narrowed down to three: Mr. Simonis, Mr. Ball, and Senator Chandler."

"This has got to be some kind of a joke!" Oliver Simonis protested furiously, rising from his chair.

The other two remained seated, but looked like they agreed with Simonis. Clara looked first at Jack and General Ramsey and then at the flushed or set faces of the suspects in astonished disbelief. She had not realized that the purpose of the meeting was to identify Bigfoot. It was impossible to believe that one of these distinguished public servants had been betraying his country for years. Why, she even knew Senator Chandler! He had been a friend of her mother's for years. When he had entered the small, brightly lit room and greeted her with the same surprise she had felt at seeing him, she had had no idea that this was the purpose for which he was present.

"Unfortunately, it is not, Mr. Simonis. Please sit down."

Oliver Simonis' face purpled, but with a furious look at the serious faces around the table he sat down. Like the rest of them he could not fail to be aware of the contingent of marines standing guard outside in the hall. No one would leave the room without General Ramsey's clearance.

"It's a d.a.m.ned insult," Simonis muttered. Clara watched him, wondering if he was protesting too much. Was that the sign of a guilty man? Oliver Simonis was a tall, thin man with a tanned, lined face, a hawklike nose and a slightly receding chin. He was in his mid-sixties, as were the other suspects. His once dark hair had turned iron gray. Clara stared at him, wondering if this was the man that Nikolai Bukovsky had matured into. He bore little resemblance to the photo Clara had seen, but then of course he wouldn't. Jack had mentioned plastic surgery. But surely there should be some resemblance to the man Bukovsky had been? Clara looked suddenly at Simonis' eyes. They were hazel. Of course, it was hard to tell in a grainy, blurry Xerox of a black-and-white photo, but she had the impression that Bukovsky's eyes had been lighter than that. If nothing else, surely the eyes would be the same.

"Secretary Conran already apologized for the insult, which I'm sure he recognizes is extreme," Adam Chandler said to the fuming Simonis. Although Senator Chandler didn't look any too pleased himself, he conducted himself with restraint. His drawling voice had only a slight edge to it. Like herself, Adam Chandler was from an old Virginia family. He looked every inch the aristocrat: not overly tall- Clara guessed he wasn't much more than an inch or two above her own five-feet-five inches- but well-muscled and solid, his thinning gray hair impeccably groomed, his dark blue suit clearly from an expensive tailor. He could not be Bigfoot, she found herself thinking as she took in his highly polished cordovan wingtips. Why, her grandmother had been acquainted with his parents! All three were long dead, but her mother knew the genealogy of everyone who had ever been born into a prominent family. There was no way Nikolai Bukovsky had forged a background like that! But he must be under suspicion for some reason. Clara looked at his eyes. They were a deep, piercing blue. Like Simonis', the eyes were not right.

"Let's get on with it, shall we?" Admiral Segram was brusque. Franklin Conran nodded.

"What exactly is it that you want us to do, Frank?" Michael Ball, a round little man with a balding head fringed by graying black hair, clearly knew the secretary of state well. If they were friends, or even longstanding a.s.sociates, Franklin Conran was in an awkward position. But no hint of it showed on the secretary of state's jowly face. Looking carefully, Clara decided that Michael Ball's gray eyes weren't the right color, either. Although they were closer than the other two.

"Probably take a lie detector test." Simonis' face was red with indignation.

"No," Franklin Conran shook his head. "I want each of you to repeat this sentence, please: Comrade, the hors.e.m.e.n are mounted."

"What kind of d.a.m.ned nonsense is that?" Simonis looked like he was on the verge of a stroke.

"It is the code which was used to activate the a.s.sa.s.sin's murder. Do you refuse to say it?"

"d.a.m.n right I-" Simonis looked at the hardening of the faces around the table. "All right, I'll say it. But you better be prepared to make a h.e.l.l of an apology when this is over, Conran."

"What about you, Mr. Ball?"

"I'll say whatever it takes to get this settled."

Franklin Conran looked at Adam Chandler, who nodded brusquely.

"Very well. Mr. Simonis, if you would go first, please."

"I feel like a horse's a.s.s," Simonis snorted, but he repeated the phrase.

"Mr. Ball."

Michael Ball repeated the phrase.

"Senator Chandler."

Adam Chandler repeated the phrase.

The telephone by Franklin Conran's elbow rang. He picked it up, listened a moment, then nodded to General Ramsey. General Ramsey stood up at once, crossed to the door, opened it and beckoned to the armed guard outside. Six uniformed marines entered and stood at attention in a line barring access to the hall.

"Our man has made a positive identification. Michael Ball, you are under arrest for treason."

"The h.e.l.l I am!" Michael Ball jumped to his feet, eyes wild, fists clenched. Adam Chandler, who was seated beside him, jumped up too and placed a restraining hand on his arm. The contingent of marines rushed forward. Everyone at the table leaped up as the marines surrounded the struggling, cursing suspect. Ball got off one roundhouse punch, which caught Senator Chandler on the temple. The senator staggered back, hand to his head. The marines forced Ball down on the floor, cuffed his hands behind his back, and it was over. Bigfoot was caught at last.

x.x.xIII.

The room was emptying. Clara stood up, feeling numb. She had given the notes she had made to Franklin Conran, who would have them typed up Monday in his office after the news of the a.s.sa.s.sination was made public. With the arrest of Michael Ball the nightmare she had been trapped in had finally ended. It was over.

"Clara Winston? That is you, isn't it? What on earth are you doing here?" Senator Chandler walked around the table toward her, frowning and blinking as though he had something in his eye. A reddened circle on his left temple marked the spot where Michael Ball had struck him. Perhaps the blow was causing his eyes to water. "I thought I recognized you as soon as you sat down, but I wasn't sure."

"It's a long story, Senator," she answered with a sigh, shaking his proffered hand. He blinked again, rubbed his left eye, then looked alarmed.

"Is something the matter, Senator?"

"I- I seem to have lost my contact lens. I..." He was peering at her through one eye, presumably the one with the lens still in it, and looking slightly panicked.

"Oh, dear," she said, looking down. Lena wore contacts, and Clara knew from experience what an annoyance it was when one got loose. A glint on the linoleum floor caught her eye. She knelt. Sure enough it was the contact. With a careful finger she picked up the tiny hard circle of plastic, straightened, and held it out to the Senator.

"Thank you," he said, taking it from her and turning slightly aside as he popped it back in. Lena had always cleaned hers first...

Over the Senator's shoulder, Clara saw Jack head out the door with Davey Spencer.

"Excuse me, Senator, I have to talk to somebody," she said quickly, almost running as she went after Jack. She was afraid, now that everything was over, he might vanish into the night like a ghost.

"Jack, wait!" Her heels clicked on the linoleum as she hurried after him. Dressed in the white-flowered yellow halter dress and heeled leather sandals she had charged at the Columbella, she knew she looked good. And she desperately wanted to look good for what she had to say to Jack. "Jack!"

"What is it?" He turned, his face stiff as she caught up to him, tugging on his sleeve so that he had to give her his attention. His green eyes were twin shards of ice. Clara hesitated, acutely conscious of the listening ears of Davey Spencer, who had stopped with Jack, and Senator Chandler, who had come out of the situation room and was walking toward them.

"I need to talk to you," she said urgently.

"I don't believe we have anything to say." He started to pull away. She clung to the sleeve of his tweed sportscoat, her eyes pleading.

"Won't you at least give me a chance to explain? I- I didn't mean what you thought."

"It doesn't matter what you meant. The offer is withdrawn." He let out an impatient hiss. When he spoke again his voice was low and rough. "Look, Clara, don't you know enough to know when it's over? It was good, baby, as long as we had the excitement of the chase to fuel it. But the chase is over, and we have to go back to real life. We're not right for each other. Be proud that you had the good sense to recognize it first."

"McClain!" General Ramsey's voice called him from down the hall. "We've got something interesting coming from the wire. Come take a look at it."

"Excuse me," Jack said formally. Freeing himself from her grip on his sleeve, he turned on his heel and walked off. Clara, looking helplessly after him, felt her cheeks start to burn with angry embarra.s.sment as Davey Spencer gave her a pitying look before hurrying after Jack.

"I'm sorry, my dear," Senator Chandler said quietly, coming up behind her. "I couldn't help but overhear."

Clara shook her head. Tears were burning in her throat, but she would be drawn and quartered before she would make an even worse fool of herself by crying. If Jack didn't want her... The thought made her eyes blur with tears despite her best efforts.

"Isn't that the man who's been in all the newspapers? The one they said was responsible for that hospital ma.s.sacre? How did you ever get involved with him?" Clara had the impression that Senator Chandler was just talking to cover up the fact that she couldn't. She sniffed and swallowed, and with a valiant effort managed to find her voice.

"It's another long story, Senator."

"I see." He hesitated a moment, then said, "I have to be back in Washington tomorrow in time for a luncheon in my honor. I'll be leaving right away. You're welcome to a lift home, if you like."

Home. The word conjured up a picture of Jollymead, of her mother who would be returning from her cruise and her ma.n.u.script which was unmailed and Iris and Amy and Puff, whom she would have to ask the general to send to her... Suddenly she longed to be at home more than anything in the world. It was, she acknowledged with a sad sniff, the place she always ran to when she had wounds that needed licking.

"Thank you very much, Senator, that's very kind of you. I would like a lift," she said. With a fatherly pat, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and they started down the hallway.

x.x.xIV.

Sat.u.r.day, September 17, 2:15 A.M.

Clara sat in the back of the limousine beside the senator trying not to think of Jack. She had blown it all around. If she had it to do over again she would have snapped up his offer of marriage so fast that he would have felt like a fly with a turtle after him. But she didn't have it to do over again. Like the rest of the whole fantastic adventure her romance with Jack was over. They weren't right for each other he had said. And she knew he was right. But oh, how wonderful being wrong for each other could be!

"There's a chartered jet waiting for us at the Charleston airport. Once we get on it you can sleep. You look worn out." Senator Chandler's voice roused her from her thoughts. She smiled at him, though the smile took an effort. The inside of the limousine was dark. They were still on the island, heading for the bridge over the swamp that connected it to the mainland. Outside lighting was limited to right around the resort area.

"It's very kind of you to offer me a lift, Senator," Clara said again. "I really wanted to get home."

"I guessed as much." Senator Chandler leaned forward to pick up the receiver from the telephone built into the door as he spoke. Besides the telephone, the limousine was equipped with every conceivable luxury from a fully stocked bar to a TV. "But please don't thank me. I'm glad of the company."

Clara smiled at him. He smiled back. "I hope you'll forgive me," he said, holding up the receiver, "but I want to tell my housekeeper I'm on my way home."

"Please go ahead," Clara murmured, her eyes shifting to the darkness outside the window, an instinctive courtesy to afford him as much privacy as she could while he made his call. The phone made little beeping noises as the senator punched in a number. Without the distraction of conversation, her thoughts drifted back to Jack.

"d.a.m.n, I guess I'm getting old. Or maybe it's my contacts that are getting old. I'd like to think so, anyway. I can't make out the numbers on this thing." Senator Chandler grimaced ruefully as he squinted at the receiver he held in his hand. "Would you be so kind, my dear?" He held the receiver out to her.

Recalled from her unhappy thoughts, Clara smiled at him. "I'd be glad to."

With an answering smile he pa.s.sed the receiver to her. "Thank you. Good eyesight is one of the first of the many advantages of youth to go."

"What is the number?"

"Area code 301-244-3668."

It was hard to see the numbers in the darkness. The tiny b.u.t.tons were lighted, but Clara still had to hold the phone close to her face and squint as she punched in the number. There was a busy signal. She told the senator so.

He frowned. "Try again, please. That's the line to my private retreat, and it shouldn't be busy, certainly not at this time in the morning."

"Perhaps I got a wrong number."

"Yes, that's possible. 301-244-3668."

Clara tried again, holding the phone close as she squinted at it. Above the little b.u.t.tons the letters corresponding to the numbers danced, actually more visible than the numbers themselves because of the intensity of the light in the darkness of the limousine's interior. She'd always played a little game with herself when she'd dialed a phone, checking to see if the letters corresponding to the number spelled anything in particular. Businesses especially seemed fond of numbers that spelled out a word. For example, the last four digits of a weight loss center she'd gone to once spelled out diet.

"2-4-4-3-6-6-8," Clara muttered to herself, punching the numbers in with painstaking care. Suddenly her eyes widened with horror, and ran back over the sequence twice. There was no mistake. The letters that corresponded with Senator Chandler's personal phone number spelled out Bigfoot. For a crazy moment she thought it might be a coincidence. But the hope died as she lifted her eyes to see the look on Adam Chandler's face. As Jack had once said, in this business there was no such thing as coincidence.

"So you picked up on my little conceit. I always thought you were an exceptionally intelligent young lady. I'm pleased to have my opinion validated," he said conversationally, taking the receiver from her limp hand and replacing it on its rest.

"But- they arrested Michael Ball," she protested stupidly, staring at him with dawning horror.

He smiled. "They did, didn't they? I've always been a lucky soul. My luck continues to hold."

"Your eyes are too dark." She was whispering.

"My, my, you have been thorough, haven't you?" he asked with a sneer. Lifting his hand, he cupped it under first one eye and then the other as he blinked. When he looked up at her again, she sucked in her breath. His bright blue eyes were blue no longer; they were an unusual light hazel, almost yellow.

"The contacts! They're tinted green!" She had noticed that tinge of color when she had handed the tiny object back to him, she realized. It just hadn't registered on her consciousness until now. At the time she had thought that the terrifying game was over. And she'd been thinking of Jack...

"Pity I had to lose one back there, and you had to pick it up. That was unlucky. For you."

The black hawk with the yellow eyes. That was how Rostov had described him. Clara stared at him with the fascination a rabbit must feel for a cobra.

"You're Nikolai Bukovsky," she breathed. "But how can you be? My mother knows your family. Adam Chandler isn't an alias. He's real."

"He was real," the senator corrected. "He's been dead these forty-two years, G.o.d rest his soul. He died in a Russian field hospital in 1944. He was on a secret mission behind enemy lines when he was captured and tried to escape. He was badly wounded in the attempt. But I, who escaped with him, was not, and I carried him on my back to the Russian front. We were your allies at the time, you know. The officer in charge of the field unit was veteran KGB. As I recovered from my wounds and Chandler expired of his, he took note of the similarities in our height, build, and coloring, and our friendship, which meant that I knew a great deal of Chandler's life before he went off to war. Our features were different, as was the color of our eyes, his being dark blue and mine, as you see, being hazel, but the basic similarities were there. This officer had tremendous foresight: he guessed that the friendship between the United States and Russia would not long survive the war. He checked into Chandler's background, found that he was indeed as wealthy and well connected as he had boasted to me, and decided that it might be useful to have such an operative in the United States when our relationship should once again grow distant. He put the proposal to me, I consented, and underwent the plastic surgery and training necessary to become Adam Howard Chandler IV. There was nothing they could do to change my eye color without damaging my eyes, however, and that I would not consent to. So I have been wearing colored contact lenses since 1944. They were made by Soviet scientists just for me, and have been replaced regularly over the years. Now, of course, colored contact lenses are available in every corner store. I've been quite a trendsetter." This was accompanied by a small chuckle.

"Oh my G.o.d!" Clara breathed. The extreme danger she was in had just started to occur to her. This was Bigfoot. She knew it and he knew she knew it. He could not let her live.

"That I should be elected to the senate was a dividend not expected by my superiors. The chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee was the icing on the cake. But as Adam Chandler, wealthy war hero, every door was open to me. I have been invaluable to my country; I will continue to be so now that the search for Bigfoot has been successfully concluded." He chuckled again. "To think I seriously considered fleeing the country when I received the president's summons. I almost went back to Russia. One day I will. When I do, I will be greeted as one of the greatest heroes our country has ever known."

He took a deep breath and released it with a sigh. His yellow eyes blinked regretfully at Clara.

"I'm very sorry that you got involved in this, my dear. I still don't understand quite how it came about. I had hoped to be able to spare you. Indeed, if you hadn't seen the contact... Ah, well."

"What are you going to do?" Her lungs felt stifled, as though someone were pressing a pillow down on her face.

"Why, have you killed, of course. Don't worry, I'll give them instructions to make it painless."

"I told General Ramsey I was leaving with you. I had to give him instructions about where to send my cat. They'll know you did it." She was clutching desperately at straws, instinctively shrinking into the corner of the luxurious leather seat as her body tried to put as much distance between the two of them as she could.

"Did you?" He frowned, sounding annoyed. "Well, no matter. I will of course see that you get home safely despite your despondency over the defection of your lover. Once there, I cannot be blamed if you take your life in an act of despair."

Clara stared at him with horror while he appeared to work out the details of her demise. Her own brain revived from its state of frozen terror to work with lightning speed. The driver. Could he be involved in this, too? It was likely, or the senator- Bukovsky, she still had trouble equating the two in her mind- would not speak so freely. She could not count on him to help her. It was a better than even chance that Bukovsky was not armed. He would have been searched before being admitted to the secretary of state's little conference, and he'd had no reason to arm himself afterwards. Of course, he might have a gun in the limousine.

Bukovsky reached down to retrieve his briefcase from the seat beside him.

"It's extremely fortunate that I am an insomniac, though I never thought so before now," he remarked, extracting a pill bottle from the briefcase and closing it again. He removed a gla.s.s from the rack beside him, opened the refrigerator, and extracted a bottle of vodka, which he proceeded to open and pour into the gla.s.s. When the gla.s.s was full he recapped the bottle and put it back in the refrigerator.

"You don't take Seconal, do you, my dear?"

Clara shook her head, her eyes on the two red capsules he extracted from the pill bottle.

"Excellent. Two of these and a shot of vodka and you'll sleep like a baby. Such deep sleep that you must be carried onto the plane will be taken as another mark of depression. And it's to your advantage, too, my dear. When the time comes for you to hang yourself, you won't feel a thing."