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  <<34>>

  The mood was somber but softened by the long gap in time. No more than one hundred people had assembled for the early morning ceremony. In spite of the President's presence, only one network bothered to send a television crew. The small crowd stood quietly in a secluded corner of Rock Creek Park and listened to the conclusion of the President's brief address.

  ". . . and so we have gathered this morning to pay belated tribute to the eight hundred American men who died when their troopship, the Leopoldville, was torpedoed off the port of Cherbourg, France, on Christmas Eve of 1944."

  "Never has such a wartime tragedy been denied the honor it deserved. Never has such a tragedy been so completely ignored."

  He paused and nodded toward a veiled statue. The shroud was pulled away, revealing a solitary figure of a soldier, standing brave with grim determination in the eyes, wearing a GI overcoat and full field gear with an M-1 carbine slung over one shoulder. There was a pained dignity about the life-sized bronze fighting man, heightened by the wave of water that lapped around his ankles.

  After a minute of applause, the President, who had served in Korea as a lieutenant in an artillery company of the Marine Corps, began pumping hands with survivors of the Leopoldville and other veterans of the Panther Division. As he worked his way toward the White House limousine he suddenly stiffened when he shook the hand of the tenth man in line.

  "A moving speech, Mr. President," said a recognizable voice. "May we talk in private?"

  Leonard Hudson's lips were spread in an ironic smile. He bore no resemblance to Reggie Salazar the caddy. His hair was thick and gray and matched a Satan-style beard. He wore a wool turtleneck sweater under a tweed jacket. The flannel slacks were a dark coffee color and the English leather shoes were highly polished. He looked as though he had stepped out of a cognac ad in Town & Country magazine.

  The President turned and spoke to a Secret Service agent who stood less than a foot from his elbow.

  "This man will be accompanying me back to the White House."

  "A great honor, sir," said Hudson.

  The President stared at him for a moment and decided to carry on the charade. His face broke into a friendly grin. "I can't miss an opportunity to swap war stories with an old buddy, can I, Joe?"

  The presidential motorcade turned onto Massachusetts Avenue, red lights flashing, sirens cutting the rush-hour traffic sounds. Neither man spoke for nearly two minutes. At last Hudson made the opening play.

  "Have you recalled where we first knew each other?"

  "No," the President lied. "You don't look the least bit familiar to me."

  "I suppose you meet so many people. . ."

  "Frankly, I've had more important matters on my mind."

  Hudson brushed aside the President's seeming hostility. "Like throwing me in prison?"

  "I thought something more along the lines of a sewer."

  "You're not the spider, Mr. President, and I'm not the fly. It may look like I've walked into a trap, in this case a car surrounded by an army of Secret Service bodyguards, but my peaceful exit is guaranteed."

  "The old phony bomb trick again?"

  "A different twist. A plastic explosive is attached to the bottom of a table in one of the city's four-star restaurants. Precisely eight minutes ago Senator Adrian Gorman and Secretary of State Douglas Oates sat down at that table for a breakfast meeting."

  "You're bluffing."

  "Maybe, but if I'm not, my capture would hardly be worth the carnage inside a crowded restaurant."

  "What do you want this time?"

  "Call off your bloodhound."

  "Make sense, for Christ's sake."

  "Get Ira Hagen off my back while he can still breathe."

  "Who?"

  "Ira Hagen, an old school chum of yours who used to be with the justice Department."

  The President stared unseeing out the window as if recalling. "Seems like a lifetime since I've talked to Ira."

  "No need to lie, Mr. President. You hired him to track down the ìnner core.' "

  "I what?" The President acted genuinely surprised. Then he laughed. "You forget who I am. With one phone call I could have the entire capabilities of the FBI, CIA, and at least five other intelligence services on your ass."

  "Then why haven't you?"

  "Because I've questioned my science advisers and some pretty respected people in our space program. They agreed unanimously. The Jersey Colony is a pipedream. You talk a good scheme, Joe, but you're nothing but a fraud who sells hallucinations."

  Hudson was caught off base. "I swear to God, Jersey Colony is a reality."

  "Yes, it sits midway between Oz and Shangri-la."

  "Believe me, Vince, when our first colonists return from the moon, your announcement will fire the imagination of the world."

  The President ignored the presumptuous use of his first name. "What you'd really like me to announce is a make-believe battle with the Russians over the moon. Just what is your angle? Are you some kind of Hollywood publicity flack who's trying to hype a space movie, or are you an escaped mental patient?"

  Hudson could not suppress a flash of fury. "You idiot!" he snapped. "You can't turn your back on the greatest scientific achievement in history."

  "Watch me." The President picked up the car phone. "Roger, pull up and stop. My guest is getting out."

  On the other side of the glass divider, the Secret Service chauffeur raised one hand from the wheel and nodded in understanding. Then he notified the other vehicles of the President's order. A minute later the motorcade turned onto a quiet residential side street and stopped at the curb.

  The President reached over and opened the door. "The end of the line, Joe. I don't know what your fantasy is with Ira Hagen, but if I hear of his death, I'll be the first to testify at your trial that you threatened his life. That is, of course, if your execution hasn't already been carried out for committing mass murder in a swank restaurant."

  In an angry daze, Hudson slowly climbed from the limousine. He hesitated, bent half in, half out of the car. "You're making a terrible mistake," he said accusingly.

  "It won't be a new experience," the President said, dismissing him.

  The President leaned back in his seat and smiled smugly to himself. A masterful performance, he thought. Hudson was off balance and building barricades on the wrong streets. Moving up the unveiling of the Leopoldville memorial by a week was a shrewd move. An inconvenience to the veterans who attended perhaps, but a boon to an old spook like Hagen.

  Hudson stood on a grassy parkway and watched the motorcade grow smaller before turning on the next cross street, his mind confused and disoriented. "Goddamned mud-brained bureaucrat!" he shouted in frustration.

  A woman walking her dog on the sidewalk gave him a distasteful look indeed.

  An unmarked Ford van eased to a stop, and Hudson climbed inside. The interior was plush with leather captain's chairs spaced around a highly polished redwood table. Two men, impeccably dressed in business suits, looked at him expectantly as he slipped tiredly into a chair.

  "How did it go?" asked one.

  "The dumb bastard threw me out," he said in exasperation. "Claims he hasn't seen Ira Hagen in years and couldn't care less if we killed him and blew up the restaurant."

  "I'm not surprised," said an intense-looking man with a square red face and a condor nose. "The guy is pragmatic as hell."

  Gunnar Eriksen sat with a dead pipe stuck between his lips. "What else?" he asked.

  "Said he believed the Jersey Colony was a hoax."

  "Did he recognize you?"

  "I don't think so. He still called me Joe."

  "Could be an act."

  "He was pretty convincing."

  Eriksen turned to the other man. "How do you read it?"

  "Hagen is a puzzle. I've closely monitored the President and haven't detected any contact between them."

  "You don't think Hagen was brought in by any of the intelligence directors?" aske
d Eriksen.

  "Certainly not through ordinary channels. The only meeting the President has had with any intelligence people was a briefing by Sam Emmett of the FBI. I couldn't get my hands on the report, but it had to do with the three bodies found in LeBaron's blimp. Beyond that, he's done nothing."

  "No, he's most certainly done something." Hudson's voice was quiet but positive. "I fear we've underestimated his shrewdness."

  "In what way?"

  "He knew I would make contact again and warn him to call off Hagen."

  "What brought you to that conclusion?" asked Condor Nose.

  "Hagen," replied Hudson. "No good undercover operative calls attention to himself. And Hagen was one of the best. He had to have a good reason for advertising his presence by that phone call to General Fisher and his little face-to-face chat with Senator Porter."

  "But what was the President's purpose in forcing our hand if he made no demands, no requests?"

  asked Eriksen.

  Hudson shook his head. "That's what scares me, Gunnar. I can't see for the life of me what he had to gain."

  Unnoticed in the downtown traffic, an old dusty camper with Georgia license plates kept a discreet distance behind the van. In the back, Ira Hagen sat at a small dining table with earphones and a microphone clamped to his head and uncorked a bottle of Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon. He let the opened bottle sit while he made an adjustment with the voice-tone knob on a microwave receiving set that was plugged into reel-to-reel tape decks.

  Then he raised his headset to expose one ear. "They're fading. Close up a bit."

  The driver, wearing a fake scraggly beard and an Atlanta Braves baseball cap, replied without looking back. "I had to drop off when a taxi cut in front of me. I'll make up the distance in the next block."

  "Keep them in sight until they park."

  "What's going down, a drug bust?"

  "Nothing that exotic," replied Hagen. "They're suspected of working a traveling poker game."

  "Big deal," grunted the driver without realizing the pun.

  "Gambling is still illegal."

  "So is prostitution and it's a helluva lot more fun."

  "Just keep your eyes glued on the van," Hagen said in an official tone. "And don't let it get more than a block away."

  The radio crackled. "T-bone, this is Porterhouse.'

  "I hear you, Porterhouse."

  "We have Sirloin in visual but would prefer a lower altitude. If he should happen to merge with another similar-colored vehicle under trees or behind a building, we could lose him."

  Hagen turned and stared upward from the camper's rear window at the helicopter above. "What's your height?"

  "The limit for aircraft over this section of the city is thirteen hundred feet. But that's only half the problem. Sirloin is heading for the Capitol mall. We're not allowed to fly over that area."

  "Stand by, Porterhouse. I'll get you an exemption."

  Hagen made a call over a cellular telephone and was back to the helicopter pilot in less than a minute.

  "This is T-bone, Porterhouse. You are cleared for any altitude over the city so long as you do not endanger lives. Do you read?"

  "Man, you must carry some kind of heavy weight."

  "My boss knows all the right people. Don't take your eyes off Sirloin."

  Hagen lifted the lid of an expensive picnic basket from Abercrombie & Fitch and pried open a can of goose liver path. Then he poured the wine and returned to listening in on the conversation ahead.

  There was no doubt that Leonard Hudson was one of the men in the van. And Gunnar Eriksen was mentioned by his first name. But the identity of the third man remained a mystery.

  Hagen was dogged by an unknown. Eight men of the "inner core" were accounted for, but number nine was still lost in the fog. The men in the van were heading. . . where? What kind of facility housed the headquarters for the Jersey Colony project? A dumb name, the Jersey Colony. What was the significance? Some connection with the state of New Jersey? There must be something that could be comprehended, that might explain how none of the information on the establishment of the moon base ever came to the attention of a high government official. Someone with more power than Hudson or Eriksen had to be the key. The last name on the "inner core" list perhaps.

  "This is Porterhouse. Sirloin has turned northeast onto Rhode Island Avenue."

  "I copy," answered Hagen.

  He spread a map of the District of Columbia on the table and unfolded a map of Maryland. He began tracing a line with a red grease pencil, extending it as they crossed from the District into Prince Georges County. Rhode Island Avenue became U.S. Highway 1 and swung north toward Baltimore.

  "Got any idea where they're heading?" asked the driver.

  "Not the slightest," replied Hagen. "Unless. . ." he muttered under his breath. The University of Maryland. Not twelve miles from downtown Washington. Hudson and Eriksen would hang close to an academic institution to take advantage of the research facilities.

  Hagen spoke into the mike. "Porterhouse, keep a sharp eye. Sirloin may be heading for the university."

  "Understood, T-bone."

  Five minutes later the van turned off the highway and passed through the small city of College Park.

  Then after about a mile it pulled into a large shopping center, anchored on both ends by well known department stores. The several acres of parking space were filled with shoppers' cars. All conversation had died inside the van, and Hagen was caught off guard.

  "Damn!" Hagen swore.

  "Porterhouse," came the voice of the helicopter pilot.

  "I read you."

  "Sirloin just pulled under a big projection in front of the main entrance. I have no visual contact."

  "Wait until he appears again," ordered Hagen, "and then stay on his tail." He rose from the table and stepped behind the driver. "Pull up on his ass."

  "I can't. There are at least six cars between him and me."

  "Did anybody get out and enter the stores?"

  "Hard to tell in the crush of people. But it looked like two, maybe three heads ducked out of the van."

  "Did you get a good look at the guy who was picked up in town?" asked Hagen.

  "Gray hair and beard. Thin, about five nine. Turtleneck, tweed coat, brown pants. Yeah, I'd recognize him."

  "Circle the parking lot and watch for him. He and his pals may be switching cars. I'm going inside the shopping mall."

  "Sirloin is moving," announced the helicopter pilot.

  "Stick with him, Porterhouse," said Hagen. "I'm going off the air for a while."

  "I read you."

  Hagen jumped out of the camper and rushed through the crowd of shoppers into the interior mall. It was like looking for three needles hidden inside a straw in a haystack. He knew what Hudson looked like, and he had obtained photographs of Gunnar Eriksen, but either one or both might still be in the van.

  Frantically he rushed from store to store, searching the faces, staring at any male head that showed above the mob of female shoppers. Why did it have to be a weekend, he thought. He could have shot a cannon through the mall at this early hour on a weekday and not hit anybody. After nearly an hour of fruitless searching, he went outside and stopped the camper.

  "Spot them?" he questioned, knowing the answer.

  The driver shook his head. "Takes me almost ten minutes to make a full circuit. The traffic is too thick and most of them drive like zombies when they're looking for a parking space. Your suspects could have easily come out another exit and driven off while I was on the opposite side of the building."

  Hagen pounded his fist against the camper in frustration. He had come so close, so damned close, only to stumble at the finish line.

  <<35>>

  Pitt solved the problem of sleeping without the constant glare from the fluorescent light by simply climbing on top of the wardrobe and disconnecting the tubes. He did not wake up until the guard brought him breakfast. He felt refreshed and dug into the thick
gruel as if it were his favorite dish. The guard seemed upset at finding the light fixture dark, but Pitt simply held up his hands in a helpless gesture of ignorance and finished his gruel.

  Two hours later he was escorted to General Velikov's office. There was the expected interminable wait to crack his emotional barriers. God, but the Russians were transparent. He played along by pacing the floor and acting nervous.

  The next twenty-four hours were, to say the least, critical. He was confident that he could escape the compound again, but he could not predict any new obstacles that might be thrown in his way, or whether he would be capable of physical exertion after another interview with Foss Gly.

  There could be no postponement, no falling back. He had to somehow leave the island tonight.

  Velikov finally entered the room and studied Pitt for several moments before addressing him. There was a noticeable coldness about the general, an unmistakable toughness in his eyes. He nodded for Pitt to sit on a hard chair that hadn't been in the room during the last meeting. When he spoke, his tone was menacing.

  "Will you sign a valid confession to being a spy?"

  "If it will make you happy."

  "It will not pay you to act clever with me, Mr. Pitt."

  Pitt could not contain his anger and it overpowered his common sense. "I do not take kindly to scum who torture women."

  Velikov's eyebrows raised. "Explain."

  Pitt repeated Gunn's and Giordino's words as though they were his. "Sound carries in concrete hallways. I've heard Jessie LeBaron's screams."

  "Have you now?" Velikov brushed at his hair in a practiced gesture. "It seems to me you should see the advantages of cooperating. If you tell me the truth, I might see my way clear to relax the discomfort of your friends."

  "You know the truth. That's why you've reached a dead end. Four people have given you identical stories. Doesn't that seem odd to a professional interrogator like yourself? Four people who have been physically tortured in separate sessions, and yet give the same answers to the same questions. The utter lack of depth in the Russian mentality equals your fossilized infatuation with confessions. If I signed a confession for espionage, you'd demand another for crimes against your precious state, followed up with one for spitting on a public sidewalk. Your tactics are as unsophisticated as your architecture and gourmet recipes. One demand comes on the heels of another. The truth? You wouldn't accept the truth if it rose up out of the ground and bit you in the balls."