He reached inside his coat pocket, feeling for his gun, then shut off the car’s ignition and got out as a bus rumbled by. He went around the corner and hurried down the street, crossing to the other side in midblock. There was very little traffic about, for which he was grateful God only knew what explanation he could give for being here like this, if someone recognized him) and what passed paid him absolutely no attention as he mounted the steps to McAllister’s house and unlocked the door.
He was just another man coming home. He looked as if he belonged in the neighborhood. No eyebrows would be raised. No one would question him, unless he was recognized.
Just inside the stairhall he closed and relocked the door then stood and listened, conscious of his heart hammering in his chest. Time. There was precious little of it. And even now they might already be too late.
The house was silent. He looked toward the head of the stairs. They were here. He knew that for a fact. This was the last place anyone would think to check. McAllister wasn’t coming back, and his wife was safely ensconced at Robert Highnote’s home in Arlington Heights. Nothing could possibly go wrong at this end, and yet everything could go wrong.
“It’s me,” he called out, starting up the stairs, his right hand trailing on the banister. Halfway up he stopped again to listen. A car horn tooted outside, but the house remained absolutely still. The hall smelled faintly musty, unused, as if the house had been closed up, unlived in for a long time. Which in fact it had. The McAllisters had been in Moscow for nearly three years. They would never be returning here. At the top he turned right and went into the living room. A thin, attractive woman stood to one side of the window, a faint smile on her lips, as if she had just heard an amusing, slightly off-color story.
“Hello, Don,” she said.
He pulled up short, startled that she knew his real name. “Where’s Royce?” he started to ask, when he detected a movement out of the side of his eye, just to his left and behind him. He started to turn when the barrel of a silenced pistol was pressed against his temple. His insides immediately tightened.
“Did you come alone?” the man whispered harshly. “Yes.”
“You were not followed?”
“No.”
The woman turned to the window and barely parted the drapes enough so that she could see down into the street. “Where’d you park your car?” she asked.
“Around the block, on Thirty-first.”
“The blue Jeep?” she asked. “Yes.”
“How does it look?” the man with the gun asked, his voice soft, his accent flat, perhaps midwestern.
The woman turned away from the window, letting the curtain ease back into place. She wore a dark-gray sweater and blue jeans. “It’s clean.”
“Very well,” the man behind Donald Harman said, withdrawing his gun and stepping aside. “We’re here. What have you got for us this time?”
Harman turned and looked at the man. It was the first time he had ever seen Royce Todd’s face. Very few people had, and lived to describe it. Harman was struck by his eyes. They were empty. There was no bottom to them, and he shivered. Todd and the woman, whom he knew as Carol Stenhouse, had come highly recommended. They were simply the best in the business, professional in every sense of the word.
“We have a very large job for you,” Harman said finding his voice. “But it must be done immediately, this morning. In fact within the next hour.“Royce glanced at the woman. She nodded slightly, her lips still parted in a half smile.
“There won’t be time for the usual confirmation from Geneva that our funds are in place,” Todd said.
“You’ll have to trust us on this one. It’s the reason I came in person.” Harman glanced at the woman. He thought she looked like a wild, nocturnal animal. Someone you would never willingly turn your back on. “We’re paying five hundred thousand. Each.”
The woman’s left eyebrow rose slightly. It was the only reaction either of them displayed at the mention of a fee that was five times more than they’d received for Sikorski.
“You have our undivided attention.” Todd said. “And since time is apparently of the essence, I suggest you get on with it. Whom do you want us to kill, how do you want it done, and what provision have you made for our escape afterward?”
“I have it all here,” Harman said pulling a thick envelope from his pocket.
Chapter 19
For the first time since they’d gotten word that McAllister had been arrested in Moscow, Robert Highnote was at a loss for understanding. He’d always prided himself on his ability to see the big picture; to keep track of all the variables in any situation. Real life was fluid. There were no blacks and whites, only delicate shades of gray. Misunderstandings, coincidences, changes of plan or heart, made the complex business grist only for the man of intuitive genius. Highnote felt for the very first time in his career, that he might be in over his head.
He shoved his coffee cup away. “You’ve been in contact with him, then? He’s approached you?”
“No, nothing so dramatic as all that,” Alvan Reisberg said. He’d taken off his glasses and was polishing the lenses with his handkerchief. His eyes seemed naked.
“Then what in heaven’s name are you talking about? You say he told you that someone is trying to kill him?”
“I mean in addition to the three Russians we found in that car near your home.” Reisberg said. “The Mafia is now involved for some reason.”
“If you’re talking about the incident in New York, ballistics showed us that the murder weapon was Cariick’s own gun. We also have the testimony of the New York City cop. He saw McAllister with Carrick’s gun in his hand.”
“I’ll grant you that,” Reisberg said, putting his glasses back on. “But as I say, there is a Mafia connection here as well. A Ford Thunderbird was found parked outside our headquarters building two nights ago.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with anything,” Highnote protested, but Innes held him off.“Let him continue, Bob.”
Reisberg nodded. “We traced the car to a Jersey City Cosa Nostra family. Very big. One of our informants told us that two family members, contractors, hit men in other words, were missing after coming down to the Washington area on some assignment. He wasn’t very clear on that point. He’s frightened out of his mind that he’ll be discovered and will be murdered. But he was certain that he’d never heard the name McAllister before.”
“So what’s the point?” Highnote asked.
“McAllister’s prints were all over the car. He left it there for us to find.”
“Why?” Highnote asked. “Exactly my question,” Innes said.
“There is no doubt that he used the car on two separate occasions. We matched the tire prints in Janos Sikorski’s driveway, as well as in Langley Hill just below where he made entry onto CIA grounds.”
“Maybe he is working with them,” Highnote said. “It would explain how he’s been able to drop out of sight.”
“There were bullet holes in the side of the car,” Reisberg said. “The calibers match the casings we found on Sikorski’s property. We think McAllister went back out to Sikorski’s to talk to his old friend, and came upon the Mafia already there. Either that or the Mafia followed McAllister to Sikorski’s, though we’re betting on the former because of the arrangement of the tire tracks. The Thunderbird came first, and then another vehicle came after it. The one that was registered in Stephanie Albright’s name.”
“And you’re saying that there was a shootout there between McAllister and these Mafia people?”
“We found traces of blood-not all of them McAllister’s type and evidence that someone else had come out to clean up the mess.”