She wrapped her hand around the back of the chair and yanked it across the Persian rug with Andrews still sitting in it, bringing it closer to the desk. He nearly tumbled onto the floor but regained his balance and for the first time looked angry. Or maybe what Shane could see on his face was the beginning of real fear. Tracie held his left hand in her right and thumped it down on the surface of the desk, snapping the pliers with her left for emphasis.
“Why don’t you try asking me what you want to know before beginning to pull out my fingernails?” Andrews said.
“I already told you what I want to know, and you insisted on playing games with me,” Tracie answered. “I don’t have time for games. And, by the way, when I’m done with your fingernails I’ll be taking your teeth. I don’t want to hurt you, Winston, but time is running out, and the only thing that matters is stopping this madness. So I’ll do what I have to do, and by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging to tell me everything.” Her face was grim but determined, the sight chilling Shane, who flashed back to the faces of the two Russians after her interrogation twelve hours ago.
“You want to know who else is involved with the Soviets, is that correct?”
“See? I told my new friend,” she nodded at Shane, “that you were relatively sharp for a dinosaur. Start talking and maybe you can save a few of those choppers, so when they serve dinner at Leavenworth while you’re serving your life sentence, you won’t have to eat through a straw.”
“There aren’t many KGB collaborators in positions of power above mine,” Andrews said softly, “but there are a few. Listen to me. No one’s going to believe you when you claim there’s a Russian hit man out to kill President Reagan. A better strategy for you to follow right now would be to prepare for the new reality. Things are going to change in the world, and quickly. Position yourself to benefit from the upcoming war. I can help you with that.”
“You make me sick,” Tracie said, her voice dripping with venom. “Stop dragging your feet and just give me the fucking names. Last chance.”
“Okay, you win,” Andrews said. He bent his head in defeat, running his hand over his face like he was exhausted. Finally he dropped his hand to his lap and he looked up at Tracie, mouth closed. Shane could see the muscles in his jaw tense as he ground his teeth together. He looked almost expectant, like he was waiting for her to answer a question, which didn’t make sense because Tracie was the one who had been asking questions of him.
“Well,” she said, “who are you working with? Goddammit, Winston, I need to know…” Her words began to fade as she realized something was wrong. Andrews’ eyes bulged out and his face had reddened. His body stiffened in the chair and he began to struggle to breathe, almost panting, unable to fill his lungs.
“Winston, no!” Tracie cried as he began convulsing. His body pitched sideways off the chair and he cracked his head on the edge of the heavy wooden desk. He hit the floor and flopped around like a fish out of water. Tracie knelt next to him and Shane stood frozen, helpless, unable to comprehend even what was happening.
A thin line of drool, whitish and foaming, trickled out of the corner of Andrews’s mouth and sprayed into the air as the convulsions caused his head to snap back and forth. “What’s wrong with him?” Shane asked anxiously, his headache momentarily forgotten.
“Cyanide,” Tracie said. “He must have had a capsule in his pocket. He’s poisoned himself.”
Shane recalled him keeping his hand in a fist. He had assumed it was a reaction to the stress of being unmasked as a traitor. Obviously it was something else.
Tracie reached under his head with one hand and supported him at the neck, trying to force his mouth open, presumably to clear his breathing passage, unable to do so. Andrews’ mouth was clamped shut in what must have been a muscular reaction, as he slipped into unconsciousness.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” Tracie said. “I should have seen this coming.” She felt for a pulse in his neck, then shook her head. She rose and turned to Shane. “There’s nothing we can do for him. He’s going to be gone in seconds.”
Shane said nothing, stunned at the ugliness and brutality of the scene, at the speed at which the poison had done its job. Finally he shook his head and asked, “What do we do now?”
Tracie rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes were twin pools of shocked hopelessness. She shrugged. “I have no idea. It was imperative I find out who else is involved in this conspiracy. Without knowing that, I won’t be able to get within fifty feet of the president. I’ll be intercepted, the letter will disappear. Without that proof, my story is nothing more than a wild fiction.”
She stared at Shane. “We’re screwed.”
39
Tracie picked up her intended instruments of torture and tossed them into the backpack. She pulled out a rag and ran it over the surface of the desk, then looked around the room pensively before asking Shane, “Have you touched anything in here?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, trying to comprehend what had just happened. She zipped the backpack closed, still clutching the rag in one hand, and said, “There’s nothing more we can do. Let’s get out of here. I need to get somewhere where I can sit and think.” She peered up at Shane. “And you really look like you need to lie down.”
“I’m fine,” he said automatically, his thoughts still focused on Winston Andrews and the shocking abruptness of his suicide. Tracie trudged out of her CIA handler’s home office and Shane followed her down the stairs. “What are we going to do about him?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’? We’re just going to leave him in his office?”
“Unless you want to invite the police over and answer lots of invasive and time-consuming questions about what you’re doing here, and why the owner of the house is dead on the floor with a lethal poison clogging his system. Maybe you’ll be able to convince them you didn’t kill Andrews, but I guarantee you won’t do it before spending a full day — if not more — in custody. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of time to spare.”
“I suppose, but still…”
“Don’t worry about him; he’s beyond caring about his present situation. If it makes you feel better, I’ll let someone at the agency know about this as soon as I can. But everything comes back to the same logjam: I don’t know who I can trust. If I alert CIA before figuring out what to do about this letter,” she patted her pocket protectively, “and the wrong person takes the call or hears the message, we get eliminated and the president gets killed. I just can’t afford to take that chance.”
“Can’t you at least leave an anonymous call or something?”
Tracie stopped and shook her head in frustration. “Everything we do leaves a trail. An ‘anonymous call’ would add one more unnecessary link to the chain. A determined KGB or CIA entity with the proper tools can track us much more easily than you realize. I can’t make that call, Shane. I just can’t do it yet.”
Shane nodded, forgetting Tracie was in front of him and couldn’t see him. “Besides,” she continued. “When he doesn’t show up for work, they’ll call over here and when Andrews doesn’t answer, they’ll send someone to check on him. He’ll be found, probably by tomorrow, even if we do nothing.”