Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 (50 page)

 
          
“Marcia
is her usual charming self, I see,” the man dead- panned, watching the major’s
retreating figure. He was already sweating, and they hadn’t played one point
yet. He turned and checked out Deborah O’Day in the same way he had just
appraised Marcia Preston. “You’re looking pretty foxy yourself, kid.”

 
          
“Cool
it, Marty, let’s play. You warmed up?”

 
          
“For
this ridiculous sport, no,” Marty Donatelli said. “For some information, yes.”

 
          
“We
can chat while we play. At least pretend to be trying,” she said, gently
hitting a ball off the front wall toward Donatelli. “Besides, it’ll do you some
good. You could stand to lose a few inches off that middle.”

 
          
He
took a huge roundhouse swipe at the ball, caroming it off three walls, but he
placed it right back in the center of the court. O’Day chased it down easily
and sent it back right to Donatelli. “The front page goes to bed in two hours,
lover. Can we make this quick?”

 
          
“I
don’t care about the front page, and I’m sure as hell not your lover.” O’Day
hit the ball back perfectly in the left corner; it bounded off the left wall,
the front wall, then promptly hit the floor and died. “Okay. You serve. We’ll
talk.”

 
          
As
Donatelli moved to the center serve line, O’Day began:

 
          
"Wasn’t
it terrible about the B-52 crash in Nevada the other day?”

 
          
Donatelli
bounced the ball experimentally a few times, bounced it once more, then hit it
with all his might against the front wall. She was waiting for it and returned
it up the right alley into the corner. Donatelli did not have time to move from
where he had served the ball. “My serve,” she said, and smiled a pretty smile.

 
          
“Yeah,
I heard of it,” Donatelli said. “So? I don’t do aircraft accidents.”

 
          
“There’s
some scuttlebutt around,” she said, and stepped to the service line, “something
about it not being an accident.” The reporter was getting impatient. “It was
out in the Red Flag range, right? There’s hundreds of planes out there shooting
missiles. The Air Force loses a plane almost every day out there.”

           
O’Day bounced the ball, took one
glance back at Donatelli, then swung the racquet as she said, “If I only had
the time I’d look into that. Some strange stories coming out of southern
Nevada. There was even this weird report about a KGB agent stealing a fighter.”

 
          
The
blue rubber ball rebounded hard off the front wall, came straight back and hit
Donatelli in the right leg. He scarcely noticed it. “Did you say, a Russian KGB
agent?” “That’s just scuttlebutt. One serving zero. Still my serve.”

           
“Hold on. Who says a Russian
agent?”

           
“It’s an unconfirmed rumor,” O’Day
said, getting ready for the serve. “Some stuff about a stolen fighter, some
fighters shot down, about the stolen fighter heading for some pro-Soviet
Central American country.”

 
          
She
served the ball. Donatelli knocked it into a corner. “Two serving . . .”

           
“All this happened yesterday?”

 
          
“Yep.
So they say.”

 
          
“How
can I verify this?”

 
          
O’Day
walked over to pick up the ball. “Hey, I’m not a reporter. You don’t tell me
how to do my job and I don’t tell you how to do yours. But like I said, if I
had the time I’d call, say, a General Elliott through the Nellis AFB operator
—he’s in charge of some of the ranges down there. I might also contact the
Mexican government, especially the Monterrey Air Defense Zone headquarters
about those rumors about unauthorized airspace violations and dogfights over
their—”

 
          
“Jesus
Christ..Donatelli worked to unravel the racquet’s wrist strap that had wound
itself tightly around his right arm. “I’ve got less than two hours to make
these calls . . .
Mexico
— that’ll take forever ...”

 
          
“Remember
the routine, Marty—unnamed government sources, maybe unnamed military sources.
There’s enough of a shake-up over there that a leak is bound to develop.”

 
          
“You
mean someone else might get this story . . .?”

           
“I doubt it, but you never know. I
heard General Elliott got his butt chewed pretty good by the President and the
senior staff today. He might be in a talkative mood.”

 
          
Donatelli
whipped off his eye protectors, reprising what O’Day had just told him.
“Elliott... Nellis ...
Mexico
... what was that . . .?”

 
          
“Just
replay your tape recorder and listen,” Deborah said.

           
“My tape recorder?” Donatelli
looked surprised. “Our deal was no tapes. You think I’d welsh on that deal?”

           
O’Day tossed the blue ball at
Donatelli’s chest. “In a heartbeat, Marty. Just protect your sources like your
life depended on it, and we’ll both be okay.”

 
          
Donatelli
lifted up his sweatshirt to reveal nothing but a very hairy, very sweaty chest.
“I don’t have a recorder. See? I’ve shown you mine—now you show me yours.”

 
          
“Kiss
my ass.”

           
“With pleasure.” They stood looking
at each other.

           
“You’re a fox, no doubt about that.
Ms. National Security Adviser. But tell me—why are you doing this? Were you
authorized by the White House to leak this? If so, why are they doing it?”

 
          
She
began to bat the ball around the court. “I’ve got reasons. That’s enough.”

           
“Care to state them for the record?”

           
“No. This is
off
the record, Donatelli. The President is too busy to concern
himself about this incident. But the time line is very tight. There are people
in the military that believe some immediate action is important.”

 
          
“And
the President disagrees?”

           
“He believes in open negotiations,
compromise.”

           
“So the President isn’t prepared to
respond with military force. I take it there is someone—”

 
          
“This
isn’t a damned interview, Marty. I’ve gone too far with you as it is. I think
you’ve got everything you need.” She chased the ball toward the back wall, then
casually opened the door. Marcia Preston immediately appeared, her racquet in
one hand and her gym bag in the other. She took a towel out of the gym bag,
tossed it to her boss, then went to the Plexiglas-covered lockers in the left
wall of the court, opened one, and stood there watching Donatelli. The threat
of the machine pistol in her bag was beyond Donatelli, but the look on her face
was not.

 
          
“Marcia,
you’re beautiful,” Marty said with a contrived leer. “We have to get together
some time.” Marcia gave him nothing.

 
          
“Better
put your paper to bed, Marty,” O’Day said, holding the door open for him. Donatelli
nodded and moved toward the door. Just before he exited he turned to her: “Any
chance of us putting something else to bed?”

 
          
“I
think we use each other enough as it is, Marty. Good-bye.”

           
“Sounds to me like you may need a
friend in the fourth estate soon, Ms. O’Day,” he said.

           
“Marty, watch your middle and your
blood pressure. ‘Bye.” After he left, she closed the door and began to bat the
ball around again. As she did
Preston
reached into her gym bag and flicked the
OFF
switch on a micro-tape recorder with a high- power directional microphone
installed in the bag.

           
“Did you get everything?” O’Day
asked as she returned a tricky corner bounce.

 
          
“Yes,
but what good is it if anything about this conversation gets out? You lose your
career, it will enhance his.”

 
          
“If
it gets out that Marty Donatelli can’t protect his sources, his sources will
dry up and he knows it. And there goes his Pulitzer Prize career. That tape
proves that I gave him stuff only off the record and not for attribution. If he
violates that, he’s dead in this town.”

 
          
“You’re
still taking some awfully big risks.”

 
          
“I
believe it’s necessary, Marcia. The
Taylor
administration only reacts to situations.
He wants to put his DreamStar incident on the back burner, take the easy way
until it’s too late . . . he and his New York buddies need a push to get them
going. I just hope to hell it’s in time.”

The Kremlin,
Moscow
,
USSR

Friday, 19 June 1996
, 0600 EET (Thursday, 2200 EDT)

 
          
“I
assure you,”
Kalinin
said to the General Secretary, “events occurred so quickly in this
operation that there was no time to inform you.”

 
          
Kalinin
had already spent the better part of an
hour in the General Secretary’s office, telling the weary leader about the
DreamStar operation. Now the General Secretary was clenching and unclenching
his hands, shaking his head as he reviewed what
Kalinin
had told him.

 
          
“There
were only two days between when we learned of the cancellation of the DreamStar
project and when our man took the fighter,”
Kalinin
continued. “It was as much Colonel
Maraklov’s initiative as it was a directive from my office—”

           
“Be silent, Kalinin. Just be
quiet.
I do not want to hear your
excuses for irresponsible behavior. I need to think about how this will be
explained and handled.”

           
“I am, of course, entirely to blame
for these events, sir,”
Kalinin
said—perhaps a complete admission of guilt, he thought, could smooth
things over—“but now that it has been dealt, we should play this hand to its
conclusion. We must see to it that the fighter is brought here as quickly as
possible.” “I see. Have you gone completely crazy? Do you think the
U.S.
will not perhaps object to having the KGB
steal one of their top-secret fighters?”

 
          
“Sir,
I am not thinking of the Americans,”
Kalinin
said. “I am thinking of
Russia
. We had the opportunity to take the
aircraft and we did. Now we must capitalize on our achievement. The technology
we gain will be—”

 
          
“Will
be useless if they attack and kill a hundred of our people and destroy that
base in
Nicaragua
to get their fighter back,” the General
Secretary said. “I will not risk a shooting war with the Americans over one
damn plane!”

 
          
“If
the Americans were going to attack, they would have done so,”
Kalinin
said. “They know where the fighter is—their
radar planes tracked the XF-34 throughout its entire flight. So the point is,
they will not attack. They will not risk war over the fighter—”

 
          
“You
underestimate them,” the General Secretary said. “I do not.”