Like he had a lot on his mind.
Like he was worried.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“In the New Haven area, somewhere safe,” Tracie said, hoping against hope he would let the issue drop.
“Tell me where, and I’ll pull some strings,” Andrews said. “You know, keep you safe. You left one hell of a mess up there in Bangor. Every cop along the Eastern Seaboard is looking for the dirtbag that shot one of their brethren point blank in the chest and drove off. They’re out for blood, and it seems they don’t much care whether they shoot one of the Russian guys or you.”
Her heart sank — and not because of the police that could be after them. Her worst fears had just been confirmed. Andrews was involved with the Soviets. She had always wondered about that, had heard whispered rumors over the years. The fact he wanted to know exactly where she was verified her worst fears.
Tracie hesitated, trying to put just the right amount of indecision in her response. “Me revealing my location is against mission protocol, too.”
“I understand that, but I’m trying to keep you alive. I have some connections in the New Haven area. Tell me where you are and I can call in a few favors, divert the attention of the law from your area until you’re safely out of there tomorrow.”
Tracie sighed loudly and gave in. “Okay. We’re holed up in Room Twenty-One at the New Haven Arms, just south of I-95. It’s a cheap little dive, well off the beaten path. There’s no way anyone could track us here. We’ll be fine.”
“I hope so,” Andrews said. “Just the same, I’ll call my people in the area and make sure the authorities stay away from there overnight.”
“Thanks. We should see you by late afternoon tomorrow.”
“Roger that,” Andrews said. “Stay safe.” He broke the connection and Tracie sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the dirty picture window at the dark parking lot. She couldn’t decide whether to be angry or sad. She settled on both.
31
Shane pulled the Granada into the spot it had previously occupied in front of the dummy hotel room, then shut the engine down and trotted across the pavement to Room Twenty. The door swung open and he knew immediately something was wrong. Tracie barely acknowledged him; her face was troubled and she was obviously deep in thought. “What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”
She smiled forlornly. “You mean aside from this whole mess?”
Shane nodded.
“I just got off the phone with my handler, a man named Winston Andrews, an intelligence specialist who’s been the company’s foremost expert on Soviet covert activities since well before I was born.”
He placed the bag onto the ancient dresser next to the bed. “Okay. And?”
“And I’m almost certain he’s involved with the guys who are trying to kill us.”
Shane froze. “Why do you say that?”
“He asked where we were staying, claimed he could use his influence to divert the attention of the police away from this area. They’re looking for us and are pretty pissed off about the dead cop back in Bangor. Anyway, Andrews said he would help keep the police from shooting our asses off.”
“So what’s the problem? I’m pretty fond of my ass and I’d hate to see anything happen to yours. We could certainly use all the help we can get.”
“This is the problem.” Tracie picked the telephone’s black plastic handset off its cradle and brandished it front of him, dropping it back onto the receiver with a thud. “The telephone connection in his home office is secure. It’s a dedicated CIA line, encrypted, almost impossible to hack into. But this—” she pointed again at the offending motel phone— “is anything but secure. Anyone could have been listening in. Andrews violated Rule Number One of covert operations. He should never have asked me to reveal our location on an unsecured connection when there’s a Russian hit team chasing us all over the East Coast.”
“Maybe…” Shane’s voice trailed off as he struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation, knowing he was wasting his time, that Tracie would already have found one if it existed.
“No,” she said grimly, shaking her head. “He’s involved. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Obviously the KGB is up to something big, something potentially game-changing, or else they would never have risked exposing so many of their U.S. people in such a desperate manner for one simple op.”
Her eyebrows knitted together in concentration. “This letter I’m tasked with bringing to Washington — no one besides Gorbachev himself knows what’s in it. I think Gorbie knows the KGB is up to something drastic and he doesn’t like it. I think he’s trying to send a warning directly to the president.”
Shane was skeptical. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds pretty farfetched, like something out of a Hollywood movie. The Manchurian Candidate or something.”
“It sounds farfetched, I’ll give you that, but I can’t imagine what else could have the KGB this spooked.”
“But they’ve only thrown three guys at us. I mean, it’s pretty daunting from our point of view, but what are three guys to the KGB in the grand scheme of things?”
“Three guys is a lot,” Tracie said, her face burning with intensity. Shane was amazed. She barely resembled the All-American-looking girl he had gotten used to riding with.
She paused, thinking something over, and Shane wondered if he had just been dismissed. Then she said, “How much of your American History do you remember from high school?”
“I don’t know, enough, I guess. I mean, it was interesting, so I mostly paid attention.”
“You’ve heard of the McCarthy hearings?”
“Of course. Joe McCarthy was a U.S. Senator back in the 1950s. He started a big Communist scare, claiming the Commies had gained influence in all levels of U.S. society, governmental and otherwise.”
“Exactly,” Tracie said, nodding, still intense. “McCarthy had a lot of people running scared, but eventually it was determined there was no way the Soviets could possibly have infiltrated our government to the extent McCarthy was claiming. He was discredited.” Her laser stare bored in on him as if willing him to understand. He didn’t.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “There weren’t a huge number of Soviet Communists in the United States, at least not such a large number they could do any real damage. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any. The Soviets probably have an agent or two in many of our major cities, enough operatives to pass along whatever intel they can gather, but not the numbers to really accomplish much. Maybe a few dozen people total, similar to the number of assets we have in Russia. The numbers just aren’t that great.
“So when they expose three of those few dozen people in such an obvious way, it’s significant. It means something if you’re paying attention. And like I told you before, attention to detail is what keeps me alive.”
“So what are we going to do?” Shane asked.
“Well, if what I believe is true, we’ve probably got a minimum of, say, two hours before anything happens. The goons chasing us will have expected us to head toward D.C., but they have no way of knowing how far we would have gotten. They’re probably ahead of us because they’ll assume we wouldn’t stop—”
“—which we wouldn’t have,” Shane interrupted, “if you didn’t need to get at your cash.”
“Exactly,” Tracie said. “So they’ll have to double-back once Andrews relays our location to the Russians. That’s why I say we should split the night into two-hour shifts. One of us keeps watch while the other sleeps. If it’s all right with you, you can start with the first watch, since I really don’t think anything will happen for a while.”