“Just that your French is as bad as mine,” Jordan replied with a smile.
Reynolds shook his head. “Anything else?”
“Not yet,” Jordan said. “Not yet.”
SEVEN
It was dark by the time Captain Reynolds had one of his men give Sandor a ride back to Dan Peters’ house. Jordan figured the young officer knew less of what was going on than he did, so he managed to keep their discussion brief and close to the surface.
Jordan thanked the trooper as he dropped him off, grateful to be done with everyone and everything for now. It had been a long, draining day and, alone in Dan’s small home, he realized how tired he was. He decided to sleep there, then get an early start for home the next morning. He fixed himself a ham and cheese sandwich and, as he was finishing a second bottle of Dan’s Budweiser, he telephoned his best friend, Bill Sternlich, in New York.
Sternlich was an articles editor for the Times. He and Sandor had met over a decade ago, when Bill was on assignment to the Washington bureau, and Jordan was working for the government. Now they were both in New York, their friendship having stood the test of years, not to mention their philosophic differences.
Professional considerations sometimes made it an uneasy alliance. Jordan could never reveal much about his work and what little he shared with Bill could not be printed. That was the first irony of their friendship. The second was the disparity between Sternlich’s liberal beliefs, engendered so relentlessly by the editorial leanings of his newspaper, and Sandor’s own individualistic views, which would better be expressed by Ayn Rand than anything on the Times Op-Ed pages. The final irony was Jordan’s abrupt departure from the Agency and his subsequent decision to enlist in the Fourth Estate, albeit on a freelance basis. Sternlich had given him help, even getting a couple of Sandor’s pieces published in the Times’ Sunday Magazine section.
The main point for Jordan and Bill was that they were friends, which meant something special to each of them.
“You really okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jordan said. “Friend of mine, Dan Peters, took a bullet in the side. The trooper was hit pretty hard too. We were lucky to get out.”
Neither man said anything for a moment.
“I need a favor, Bill.”
“Hey, I’m totally shocked,” Sternlich said with one of his short, asthmatic laughs. Their recent history was a bit lopsided in the area of favors given and received. “For a minute there I was afraid you called to ask me to lunch. Or just to say hello. I wouldn’t want to die from the shock.”
Jordan ignored the sarcasm. “I need some information on a James McHugh. Likely to be classified. You’ll probably need to go through one of your government sources.”
“Will I?”
“You’ll have to move fast, though, before it comes out that the Jimmy Ryan that was murdered up here today was actually one James McHugh.”
“That right?”
“Yes. You’ve got the scoop. Print it right after you get me the dope on this guy.”
“And why, may I be so bold to ask, don’t you just call one of your old cronies in Langley to get this whatever, this deep background information?”
“Even guys I still trust there will balk. I was involved in the shooting.”
“Mind if I ask, then, why I would I want to do this?”
“Who knows? Full-length article?”
“My by-line or yours?”
“I’ll flip you for it.” Sternlich forced a derisive laugh. “Come on Bill, I need your help. I have a feeling there’s something big going on here.”
Sternlich issued a long, theatrical sigh into the phone. “I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll take a run at it.”
“You’re a pal.”
“And what am I supposed to be looking for?”
“I’m not sure. Not exactly. See if you can find out where he’s been the past couple of years. Check out his government service. Get addresses, prior contacts, phone numbers, identification numbers, the usual tap dance.”
“Uh huh.”
Jordan could tell that Sternlich was writing things down, a good sign. “And Bill, see what connection he had to Paris.”
“Paris?”
“I’m coming back tomorrow. Call you in the morning.”
“I may have to trade favors to get this. You understand that?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll owe me for this one.”
“No problem.”
“I mean it, Jordan.”
“I need this Billy. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
Jordan left Woodstock early the next day and drove south, the bright October sun rising to his left as he headed towards New York City. He guided his aging Land Rover along the sweeping curves and extended straightaways.
Jordan’s mind raced as he drove in silence, the radio and his cell phone turned off. He gazed out at the road ahead, realizing that the danger he had faced yesterday would only intensify in the hours and days ahead.
Whatever James McHugh had known, his gruesome death was proof of its importance. His murderers had inflicted a sadistic beating, and when there was nothing left for McHugh to save, strapped in that wooden chair facing certain death, he would have done anything to spare himself those final moments of pain and degradation. He would have revealed anything his murderers wanted to know, including his intention to meet with Sandor and Peters, which left them both as marked men.
He arrived in the city, pulled his car up to the curb in the “No Parking” zone in front of the old brownstone where he lived on West 76th Street, then placed an expired Press Card in the windshield. He ran up the front steps and, unlocking the front door to the building, he entered the vestibule and grabbed his mail. His eyes adjusted to the filtered light as he climbed the stairs to his third floor apartment, rifling through the bills and advertisements as he went.
He got to his apartment, put the key in the door and stepped inside, still concentrating on the mail in his hands. Then he looked up.
The place was in shambles.
Jordan left the door open behind him as he moved farther inside, his nerves on alert as he placed his mail on the foyer table and warily stepped into the living room. It appeared that everything had been turned inside out. His brown tufted leather couch was sliced open, clumps of stuffing scattered all over the room, the brass and glass cocktail table shoved against the wall, two chairs and a mahogany cabinet turned over, even the Oriental rug lifted and yanked to the side. Where looking through a cabinet would have sufficed, the drawer had been pulled out, turned upside down and smashed.
Sandor moved cautiously to the bedroom. If possible, it looked even worse. The mattress was slashed, closet and dresser taken apart, clothing scattered all over the floor. He stepped inside the closet, reached up to a hidden compartment above the top shelf, and pulled away a false panel. He was relieved to find the contents, which consisted of small arsenal, intact. He lifted out his Walther PPK .380 and drew back the slide far enough to see the first round was chambered.
He remained quiet, his movements studied. He could not be certain the intruder had gone. He checked the bathroom and the small kitchen, ready for an assault from anywhere in the apartment. The second bedroom, which he used as his office, was also a disaster. His filing cabinets had been emptied, the leather chair knocked over, his antique roll-top desk searched, papers strewn across the room. The intruders had ripped through and savaged the most intimate details of his private life. His writing, letters, even personal souvenirs had been examined and destroyed.
He walked back into the living room, slowly surveying the damage. It left the apartment with an eerie coldness, as if he himself had been stripped and beaten by faceless strangers then left alone to suffer the violation and indignity.