As Donatelli moved to the center serve line, O’Day began: “Wasn’t it terrible about the B-52 crash in Nevada the other day?”
Donatelli bounced the ball experimentally a few times, bounced it once more, then hit it with all his might against the front wall. She was waiting for it and returned it up the right alley into the corner. Donatelli did not have time to move from where he had served the ball. “My serve,” she said, and smiled a pretty smile.
“Yeah, I heard of it,” Donatelli said. “So? I don’t do aircraft accidents.”
“There’s some scuttlebutt around,” she said, and stepped to the service line, “something about it not being an accident.”
The reporter was getting impatient. “It was out in the Red Flag range, right? There’s hundreds of planes out there shooting missiles. The Air Force loses a plane almost every day out there.”
O’Day bounced the ball, took one glance back at Donatelli, then swung the racquet as she said, “If I only had the time, I’d look into that. Some strange stories coming out of southern Nevada. There was even this weird report about a KGB agent stealing a fighter.”
The blue rubber ball rebounded hard off the front wall, came straight back and hit Donatelli in the right leg. He scarcely noticed it. “Did you say, a Russian KGB agent?”
“That’s just scuttlebutt. One serving zero. Still my serve.”
“Hold on. Who says a Russian agent?”
“It’s an unconfirmed rumor,” O’Day said, getting ready for the serve. “Some stuff about a stolen fighter, some fighters shot down, about the stolen fighter heading for some pro-Soviet Central American country.”
She served the ball. Donatelli knocked it into a corner.
“Two serving …”
“All this happened yesterday?”
“Yep. So they say.”
“How can I verify this?”
O’Day walked over to pick up the ball. “Hey, I’m not a reporter. You don’t tell me how to do my job and I don’t tell you how to do yours. But like I said, if I had the time I’d call, say, a General Elliott through the Nellis AFB operator — he’s in charge of some of the ranges down there. I might also contact the Mexican government, especially the Monterrey Air Defense Zone headquarters about those rumors about unauthorized airspace violations and dogfights over their—”
“Jesus Christ …” Donatelli worked to unravel the racquet’s wrist strap that had wound itself tightly around his right arm. “I’ve got less than two hours to make these calls … Mexico — that’ll take forever …”
“Remember the routine, Marty — unnamed government sources, maybe unnamed military sources. There’s enough of a shake-up over there that a leak is bound to develop.”
“You mean someone else might get this story …?”
“I doubt it, but you never know. I heard General Elliott got his butt chewed pretty good by the President and the senior staff today. He might be in a talkative mood.”
Donatelli whipped off his eye protectors, reprising what O’Day had just told him. “Elliott … Nellis … Mexico … what was that …?”
“Just replay your tape recorder and listen,” Deborah said. “My tape recorder?” Donatelli looked surprised. “Our deal was no tapes. You think I’d welsh on that deal?”
O’Day tossed the blue ball at Donatelli’s chest. “In a heartbeat, Marty. Just protect your sources like your life depended on it, and we’ll both be okay.”
Donatelli lifted up his sweatshirt to reveal nothing but a very hairy, very sweaty chest. “I don’t have a recorder. See? I’ve shown you mine — now you show me yours.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“With pleasure.” They stood looking at each other.
“You’re a fox, no doubt about that. Ms. National Security Adviser. But tell me — why are you doing this? Were you authorized by the White House to leak this? If so, why are they doing it?”
She began to bat the ball around the court. “I’ve got reasons. That’s enough.”
“Care to state them for the record?”
“No. This is off the record, Donatelli. The President is too busy to concern himself about this incident. But the time line is very tight. There are people in the military that believe some immediate action is important.”
“And the President disagrees?”
“He believes in open negotiations, compromise.”
“So the President isn’t prepared to respond with military force. I take it there is someone—”
“This isn’t a damned interview, Marty. I’ve gone too far with you as it is. I think you’ve got everything you need.” She chased the ball toward the back wall, then casually opened the door. Marcia Preston immediately appeared, her racquet in one hand and her gym bag in the other. She took a towel out of the gym bag, tossed it to her boss, then went to the Plexiglas-covered lockers in the left wall of the court, opened one, and stood there watching Donatelli. The threat of the machine pistol in her bag was beyond Donatelli, but the look on her face was not.
“Marcia, you’re beautiful,” Marty said with a contrived leer. “We have to get together some time.” Marcia gave him nothing.
“Better put your paper to bed, Marty,” O’Day said, holding the door open for him. Donatelli nodded and moved toward the door. Just before he exited he turned to her: “Any chance of us putting something else to bed?”
“I think we use each other enough as it is, Marty. Goodbye.”
“Sounds to me like you may need a friend in the fourth estate soon, Ms. O’Day,” he said.
“Marty, watch your middle and your blood pressure. ‘Bye.”
After he left, she closed the door and began to bat the ball around again. As she did, Preston reached into her gym bag and flicked the OFF switch on a micro-tape recorder with a high-power directional microphone installed in the bag.
“Did you get everything?” O’Day asked as she returned a tricky corner bounce.
“Yes, but what good is it if anything about this conversation gets out? You lose your career, it will enhance his.”
“If it gets out that Marty Donatelli can’t protect his sources, his sources will dry up, and he knows it. And there goes his Pulitzer Prize career. That tape proves that I gave him stuff only off the record and not for attribution. If he violates that, he’s dead in this town.”
“You’re still taking some awfully big risks.”
“I believe it’s necessary, Marcia. The Taylor administration only reacts to situations. He wants to put his DreamStar incident on the back burner, take the easy way until it’s too late … he and his New York buddies need a push to get them going. I just hope to hell it’s in time.”
The Kremlin, Moscow, USSR
“I assure you,” Kalinin said to the General Secretary, “events occurred so quickly in this operation that there was no time to inform you.”
Kalinin had already spent the better part of an hour in the General Secretary’s office, telling the weary leader about the DreamStar operation. Now the General Secretary was clenching and unclenching his hands, shaking his head as he reviewed what Kalinin had told him.
“There were only two days between when we learned of the cancellation of the DreamStar project and when our man took the fighter,” Kalinin continued. “It was as much Colonel Maraklov’s initiative as it was a directive from my office—”
“Be silent, Kalinin. Just be quiet. I do not want to hear your excuses for irresponsible behavior. I need to think about how this will be explained and handled.”