Recoil. Part 27

In the next forty minutes people emerged from the building in knots and they scanned faces carefully. Mathieson checked off the receptionist and, at two minutes past five, the two secretaries. At 5:10 Homer stiffened. "There he is."

Mathieson watched C. K. Gillespie walk away toward the parking garage at the end of the block. The heels of Gillespie's polished Italian shoes threw back brisk hard echoes. Mathieson studied him keenly: You could tell a great deal about a man by his walk. Gillespie strutted: a tense man, alert, arrogant.

Mathieson said, "It's suite seven-one-six."

"What kind of locks?"

"Just one, the original equipment. Eaton Yale and Towne. Standard unit. He wouldn't keep anything incriminating in the office. But there could be a burglar alarm."

"According to our preliminary work-up there's only one alarm circuit in the building-jewelry outfit on the third floor." Homer checked his notes. "Twenty-four-hour doorman service. After six you have to sign in when you enter the building. That's why we've got to go in sometime in the next half hour."

"I'd feel more comfortable after dark."

"That's just instinct. Actually we're less conspicuous now, while there are still a lot of people in the building."

A red Thunderbird with Gillespie at the wheel rolled out of the parking garage and Mathieson watched it dwindle into the Connecticut Avenue traffic.

"That leaves one unaccounted for," Mathieson said.

They waited until 5:40. He was restless. "Where's the junior partner?"

"Maybe he's working late. Maybe he wasn't in the office today at all."

"If he's working late we've had it."

"Then we come back tomorrow afternoon, that's all." Homer looked at his watch. "We'd better go in."

"I'm not crazy about it."

"The office door has a frosted gla.s.s pane. If there's a light on inside we'll back off and try again tomorrow."

Mathieson lifted the attache case from the back seat. They walked into the lobby, two gray-suited businessmen arriving for an after-hours appointment. The doorman was engulfed in the stream of people pouring from the elevators and flooding across to the doors; he hardly glanced at the two arrivals. When one elevator emptied itself Mathieson and Homer stepped in.

They had the cage to themselves on the way to the seventh floor. Mathieson opened the case and pawed through the half-dozen rings of keys. "Yale, but which one?"

"Probably that one." Homer singled out a master key.

Mathieson took it off the ring and put the rest of the Yale ring in his pocket. A single key was less conspicuous than a bulky ring of them. If the first key didn't work he'd have to bring out the ring.

Gillespie's door was the last on the left at the end of a forty-foot corridor. They pa.s.sed two secretaries and an executive going home for the night; the executive nodded politely as they pa.s.sed him.

Homer slowed the pace. Mathieson glanced over his shoulder. The secretaries and the executive were waiting for the elevator.

Sotto voce Mathieson said, "We can't just stand here."

There was no light behind the frosted gla.s.s. Mathieson tried the k.n.o.b; it was locked. His palm slipped on the bra.s.s-he wiped the sweat off against the front of his suit jacket and jabbed the key into the lock.

Homer laughed loudly. "You should've seen old Charlie's face when the decision came down."

The key wouldn't turn.

Behind them the elevator doors opened. The three people disappeared into the cage.

He twisted the key but it wouldn't turn. He stepped back and reached into his pocket.

"Wait a minute," Homer said. "Let me have a try." He jiggled the master key and after a moment Mathieson heard the tumblers click. He made a face and looked over his shoulder. The corridor was empty.

They slipped inside. Homer pushed the door shut behind him. From this point forward they would not talk: The microphones were alive.

Homer moved swiftly across the reception foyer. Mathieson glanced at the switchboard to see if any lines were lighted. There was no sign of life in the place but in his mind he rehea.r.s.ed a nervous explanation designed to bluff an exit if anyone appeared.

Homer was halfway down the length of the part.i.tioned hall by the time Mathieson followed him through. Quickly they checked out the four rooms. Two side offices, a law library and filing room combined, and the big corner office-Gillespie's lair. There was no one.

The safe was in the law library; that was where he caught up with Homer. It was a floor model, a Mosler, probably three-quarters of a ton in weight-it stood four feet high; there were two combination dials. Homer glanced at the safe, then at Mathieson and shook his head. n.o.body but a top professional box man could hope to get into it without using a torch-and that would undoubtedly destroy the contents.

With gloves on their fingers they went quickly through the file drawers-looking mainly for files on Pastor, Martin, and the various names Mathieson had used. The only result was a thin folder on Ezio Martin; it contained nothing useful-a handful of Xeroxes of bills, receipts and canceled checks and copies of two real estate contracts.

He hadn't expected anything but it might have turned up a tidbit; he wasn't disappointed by the failure. They went into the corner office and Mathieson crossed toward the windows to draw the blinds but Homer shook his head violently at him and Mathieson, belatedly comprehending, withdrew without touching the cords. The drawing of blinds could be noticed from outside the building: It would have been a blunder. I'm still a novice. The realization alarmed him.

They took screwdrivers from the attache case and began to prowl in search of microphones.

He was still sweating: forehead, palms, crotch. The plan had seemed simple when he'd formulated it but he was seeing holes in it now-all the things that might go wrong. Suppose Gillespie forgot something and returned to the office to get it? The search was taking far too long ...

The wireless bug was easy; it was in the handset of one of the two phones on the desk. That was Ezio Martin's mike and after he had pointed it out to Homer he put the phone back together with the bug intact; he'd need to have that one function properly.

Homer found Bradleigh's mike when he began uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the faceplates of the electric wall plug receptacles. The wires disappeared back into the baseboard, going through holes that had already been cut for the building's electric power lines. There was enough slack. Homer drew a short loop of wire out of the receptacle and went to work with the wire cutters and splicing materials from the attache case.

Mathieson watched him. Homer's fingers were deft inside the thin cloth gloves. He spliced the new wire onto the cut ends of the microphone wiring; he ran it down out of sight behind the metal baseboard heat shield and threaded it around the room in that fashion to the molding by the office door. He mounted the miniature toggle at the edge of the baseboard just inside the door. You wouldn't notice it unless you knew what to look for; it was a thin plastic contact switch and blended neatly with the baseboard and might have been an insignificant piece of the heating apparatus. He made sure it was in the "On" position and screwed it down firmly. Then he stuffed the original wiring back into the base receptacle and screwed the faceplate into place. The bug was now functioning as it had functioned before; but a nudge of a man's heel against the newly installed switch by the door would disconnect it and another nudge would switch it on again.

They resumed the search. There was another wireless bug in the junior partner's office and a second wired mike in the receptionist's foyer; they left these intact. At 7:10 they began to go through Gillespie's desk drawers and at 7:30 they gave it up and left the office. Homer locked the door and they put the Yale keys back in the attache case and walked toward the elevator. "We'll have to sign out, of course. Dream up a plausible name. We were visiting the Johnson Greeting Card Company."

They waited for the elevator to come. Mathieson said, "Thanks. That was a beautiful job."

"You going to tell me how it's supposed to work?"

"Afterward."

"Why not now?"

Mathieson said, "Maybe I'm just paranoid. A secret's only a secret as long as one person knows it. But you can see how it's going to work-you wired it yourself."

"All I can see is, you expect something to be said in that office, and you want it heard by Ezio Martin but not by federal agents. I don't get much out of that."

"Are you sure? Think about it."

They went down and signed out; they walked to the car and got in. Homer put the key in the ignition but didn't turn it; he was scowling. Finally he shook his head. "No. I don't get to first base."

"Good. If you can't figure it out then Bradleigh won't figure it out either. He'll know his bug's been tampered with, but he won't know why."

"Sometimes you're a pain in the a.s.s, you know that?"

"I hope I am," Mathieson said.

2.

He made the phone call at 10:30 in the morning from a pay phone in the lobby of the Hay Adams. "Is Mr. Gillespie in?"

"Who's calling please?"

"This is Walter Benson. From Oklahoma."

"I'll see if he's in ..."

He waited, nervously impatient. He'd rehea.r.s.ed it endlessly.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Mr. Gillespie?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"I gave your secretary the name Walter Benson."

"I know you did. Who are you?"

"Actually my name is Robert Zeck but it won't mean anything to you-I'm sure you haven't heard of me." He made his voice a fruity tenor, lilting and supercilious. "I happen to have come across some items I believe would interest you."

"Yes?"

"Let me mention three names to you. Edward Merle. John Fusco. Philip Draper."

"Never heard of them. What's this all-"

"Naturally you haven't heard of them. I really rather dislike telephones, I'm sure you understand-perhaps I could drop by your office for a little chat?"

"Where are you?"

"Not far from your office. I can be there in half an hour."

"I'll be here."

He went into the coffee shop and dawdled over a cup of tea and a newspaper: partly to calm his nerves and partly because it wouldn't hurt Gillespie to stew a while. Then he went into the men's room and inspected his disguise in the mirror. It was nothing radical. The padding under his newly bought suit added the appearance of twenty pounds to his weight. The cotton wads between upper gums and cheeks broadened his face. The bleach-a rinse that could be washed out immediately-made his hair and moustache a dirty tawny blond. The gla.s.ses with black plastic frames lent pedantic seriousness and further obscured the rectangular structure of his face. Finally there were the rings-six gaudy big rings on the fingers of both hands. The sort of thing that would be remembered at the expense of other detail. The suit was an ill-cut gray pinstripe, the tie was something with dreary red-and-black diagonal stripes. The overall appearance was that of a weary civil servant.

At five minutes to eleven he left the hotel and walked to the taxi rank.

3.

When he left the elevator on the seventh floor he pressed his elbow in against the hard weight of the .38 under his jacket. If the scheme worked he wouldn't need it, but Gillespie was unpredictable and it might take a show of arms.

The receptionist took him back through the part.i.tion and he trailed along as though he hadn't seen the place before. She showed him into the corner office and disengaged herself while Gillespie rose to his feet.

Gillespie was taller than he'd thought.

"Mr. Zeck." The voice and eyes were guarded.

An attack of nerves stopped him just inside the door. He cleared his throat and pushed his voice into the higher register. "Nice office. Very nice, yes." He bobbed his eyes around the room, feigned a minor loss of equilibrium and pressed the side of his shoe firmly against the switch that disconnected Bradleigh's microphone.

He pushed the door shut and stepped forward, contriving a nervous smile.

"What's this all about?"

"Let's be circ.u.mspect." He stared whimsically through his gla.s.ses at a point a yard above Gillespie's head. "You're really quite well fixed here, aren't you."

Gillespie sidestepped to sit down and the movement brought his feet in view under the desk: He was wearing platform shoes. That explained it. Yesterday on the street Mathieson had seen him only at a distance. A short man who wanted to be tall.

Mathieson flashed a courteous unconvincing smile. He felt no pity at all: He'd thought he might but Gillespie's sharp arrogant face made such an emotion impossible. He felt a sort of pleasure. "Robert Zeck is not my name, of course."

"I'm busy, Mr. Zeck."

"I won't take long. May I sit down?"

Gillespie jerked his head toward a chair. Mathieson lowered himself and crossed his legs and flashed an unconvincing smile. "As you know, the bureaucracy works in mysterious ways its blunders to perform. Somehow even the most secret of secrets has a way of being filed away in quintuplicate. I came across your name recently on a printout from a government computer."

"My name?"

"In connection with certain reports turned in by the Witness Security Program office."

If Gillespie was surprised he didn't show it. "Do you work for the government?"

"It doesn't matter who I work for. At the moment I'm working for myself-that's all you need to know. I may be working for you, for that matter."

"For me?"

"I'm doing you a service, Mr. Gillespie. The printout had to do with confidential informants-CIs as we call them."

"I don't see what that's got to do with me."