Bernard Whitehurst had called to report that Hill's boss, Nathaniel Highsmith, who would become the new FAR director, was sending the potential troublemaker to Seoul, South Korea in the morning. Stern had obtained Hill's flight and intended to see that he was on the plane out of Dulles.
Then Nikolai Romashchuk had phoned from Little Rock. He had spotted the same blue Ford Taurus on several occasions during the day. There appeared to be two men in the car, but he had been unable to maneuver close enough to get a look at their faces. It could be a simple case of two vehicles playing tag on the interstate, but at this critical point in the operation, nothing could be left to chance. Stern suggested if the car was still around in the morning, Romashchuk should create a circumstance that would permit an identification.
After being momentarily distracted by a Yankee grand slam home run smashed high into the left field stands, Stern returned to his concerns over the day's events. Deciding it was time to make preparations to eliminate the most pressing problem, he dialed his Washington partner in Advanced Security Systems.
Haskell Feldhaus was, strictly speaking, a figment of Stern's imagination. Neither the face he wore nor the name he used was the one he had started out with. As a young Special Forces lieutenant in Vietnam, he was captured and held prisoner, suffering several years of torture and deprivation. Back home in New Mexico, he had problems adjusting and his hero status soon dissipated. He was fired from a succession of jobs, got into trouble and wound up killing a man. He was in prison when Stern heard about him through a friend. By then Stern was working for the Roundtable and saw some interesting possibilities in the case. The convicted murderer had a sharp mind and had improved himself through correspondence study while in prison. Though eager to resume his place in society, he was prepared to make use of all the prison smarts he had learned over the past few years. After paying him a visit, Stern had made arrangements for a prominent attorney with connections in the governor's office to work on getting him paroled.
Adam Stern's next move was to set up his protege's "death" in an accident. He then created the new identity as Haskell Feldhaus, providing all the necessary documentation for his "legend." He arranged for a new face at a highly discreet plastic surgery clinic in Sweden, and set him up in business with Advanced Security Systems, a firm that would hire other misfits, people unafraid of stretching the bounds of the law, people who could be disposed of and would be missed about like a wart that suddenly disappeared from the back of your hand.
Feldhaus had learned to speak Vietnamese while a captive. In the New Mexico prison, he had made the acquaintance of a former South Vietnamese soldier who was a leader in the Asian "mafia" that was beginning to spread its influence across America. The man had given him the identity of a contact he could use if an occasion should arise where he needed help.
When Feldhaus came on the line, Stern asked, "Have you ever exercised your Vietnamese option?"
"I really haven't had occasion to," Feldhaus admitted. "Why?"
"I think it may be about time."
The first day of July dawned late in Washington, the result of a thick tier of clouds that had moved in overnight. Most of the capital's workers were thankful it was Saturday so they could sleep late, but Burke Hill was up before daylight, moving methodically at a stepped-up pace. He wolfed down a bowl of raisin bran mixed with granola, washed down a blueberry muffin with coffee, kissed the twins good-bye, had a few last minute words with Lori, and headed off for Dulles in his small tan Buick.
In another suburb of the capital, Haskell Feldhaus was also getting an early start, telephoning a man in Chicago named Hoa Thi Thach. He identified himself in Thach's native tongue, explained the problem and inquired if a few troops might be available for hire. The Vietnamese said all he needed to know was when and where.
At the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Deputy Assistant Director Jack McNaughton sat at his desk going over documents he would use during testimony before a congressional committee on Monday. It was a matter of considerable importance to the Bureau, otherwise he would not have been in his office on a Saturday morning. McNaughton was an old hand who had worked under every director from Hoover on down. He found Bradford Pickens more in the mold of crusty old Hoover than the ex-judges who had succeeded him. He was aware that Pickens had some powerful cronies whose suggestions for starting, stopping or re-directing investigations were usually followed. McNaughton questioned the propriety of such manipulations, but he was only a year away from retirement and he wasn't about to stir any waves.
Around nine o'clock, a weekend duty officer knocked on the door, walked in and laid a message on McNaughton's desk.
"The Mexican police want our help in finding a couple of fugitives," he said. "I thought you might want to decide how to handle it."
McNaughton nodded. "Thanks. I'll take a look."
As soon as he read the message, he called Director Pickens at his home. "You asked me to keep an eye out for anything on Warren Rodman and Yuri Shumakov," he reminded the Director. "The Mexicans have asked us to help find them. It seems they flew to the U.S. on a private plane early Wednesday."
"Fax it to me," Pickens said. "I'll call you right back."
The Director took the message from his fax machine, read it with considerable interest and immediately called McNaughton. "This Worldwide Communications Consultants. Isn't that Burke Hill's firm?"
"Right." Hill's FBI record had been rehabilitated at direction of the President after the Jabberwock affair. He was well known among the Bureau brass. "How should we handle it?"
"Quietly, for the moment. It has some ramifications I need to look into. It is not to be sent out to the field offices."
"Shall I follow up on it personally?"
"Good idea. Call and see if Hill is in today. If not, get him at home. See what he knows. If they flew here in his company's airplane, he should be able to tell us how they managed it, and what happened to them."
As soon as he got McNaughton off the line, Pickens dialed Adam Stern's private number at the Roundtable.
62
Nikolai Romashchuk and his Shining Path crew left Little Rock at seven a.m. He headed east on I-40, keeping a close watch on the large outside mirror for a blue Ford Taurus. When he failed to spot it after forty-five minutes, he began to relax and turned to chat with Pepe, who sat beside him in the front of the van.
"I was concerned about a blue car I saw yesterday," he told the young Peruvian. "But I haven't seen anything of it today. Hopefully it was a false alarm."
"Did you have a feeling it was someone following us?"
"A feeling? Yes, I suppose you could call it that."
"My instructor in the movement spoke often of feelings. He said 'listen to your inner voice.'"
Romashchuk grinned. "My mentor was hardly that poetic. He told me to pay heed to my instincts."
Pepe nodded. "Instinct or inner voice, it tells me that we must be careful."
"You can count on that, Pepe. But let's hope all that caution turns up a blank."