Metzger's Dog (21 page)

Grijalvas could see the place where the car was parked. He could recognize it because there was a dessert shop called Mamie’s across the street that was always full and always seemed to have a line of people waiting outside the door. He could see the queue stretching down the steps and nearly to the door of the jewelry store in the other half of the building. There must have been ten people waiting to get in. There was very little to do in Palm Springs at night, he thought.

As they approached the restaurant, Joachim saw the car first. He quickened the pace, but Grijalvas didn’t stop him. It was late and they’d walked a long distance and with all the people waiting to eat pies and cakes at Mamie’s they wouldn’t attract attention.

When Grijalvas reached the car Joachim had the doors open and was starting the engine. As Grijalvas slipped into the back seat he glanced across the street again at Mamie’s. At that moment the man at the head of the line stepped aside to speak to another man, and Grijalvas saw the sign in the window: “Closed.”

“Get going fast,” he shouted.

Joachim pulled the car away from the curb just as a bullet punched through the rear window and whined out the open side window behind Grijalvas’s head. There were more shots, but Grijalvas was lying on the back seat as Joachim accelerated down the empty city street. Grijalvas lifted his head cautiously to peer through the spidery cracks in the rear window, and he could see a line of six or seven men strung out across the street, firing at the speeding car. Twice he heard bullets thump into the trunk, but the car squealed along a curve in the road and then he couldn’t see the men.

He said, “As fast as you can, Joachim. They don’t seem to want to give up.” He watched the speedometer over Joachim’s shoulder as the needle reached the one-hundred mark, then devoted his attention to checking the load of the Ingraham he held on his lap. Out the rear window there was only darkness now. The car seemed to sway with each touch on the steering wheel and to swoop down the gentle inclines. The broken white lines on the road had merged into a single smear.

Minutes passed, and still there was no sign of another set of headlights. They had moved into the desert now, and when they roared onto Route 10, Joachim swung into the westbound lane without slowing. When they shot past the sign for Banning, Grijalvas could hardly read it. He said, “Slow down now. There might be police from here on.”

After they’d passed Banning, Grijalvas began to feel more comfortable. It wouldn’t be long before they came to Redlands, where he knew a man who could hide the car and give him another. From there East Los Angeles was only about an hour away.

All three noticed the lights at once. There was a red and yellow flashing, and rose-colored flares were burning on the road. As they drew near they could see that the lights were at the entrance to the Dinosaur Memorial. The burning flares lit the gigantic scaly torso of the life-sized tyrannosaur and made his glass eyes glitter with red. There were two white tow trucks, one parked beside the belly of the brontosaur, and the other blocking the right lane of the road. The flashing lights made the cluster of dinosaur effigies look as though they were moving.

Jesus said, “It looks weird. Way out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Joachim said, “The only thing that’s weird is you. It’s for kids. There must be an accident.”

As they watched, the second tow truck pulled out and blocked the left lane, and a man with a flashlight ran in front of them and started waving it.

Grijalvas said, “Can you get around them?”

“No. There’s a steep drop off the shoulder on both sides. The tow trucks are probably here to pull somebody else out.”

The man with the flashlight waved them into the entrance of the Dinosaur Memorial. They drove into the parking lot and saw that there were two other cars ahead of them, moving slowly toward the exit that led back to the highway. “Just a little detour,” said Joachim.

When the first car reached the exit gate it stopped. The second car pulled up behind Joachim and stopped. Joachim honked his horn. The first car’s lights went out. He leaned on the horn. Suddenly the doors of the front car opened and men started to jump out of it. Joachim saw the first one out kneel and level a pistol in his direction. The car behind Joachim moved up and pushed Joachim’s into the car ahead and held it there, its motor whining and the tires spinning.

Grijalvas reacted instantly. He swung the Ingraham to the rear window and fired it, blowing out the remaining glass and demolishing the windshield of the car behind. He could see the two men in the car; their bodies were covered with blood and tiny nuggets of shattered glass. He yelled, “Put it in reverse,” but he turned to see that Joachim had opened his door and was struggling to get out of the car. Joachim sprang out away from the car and took two steps, firing a burst toward the front car. Grijalvas saw the kneeling man kicked backward, and Joachim pivoted to return. He dived toward the open door, but a bullet seemed to turn his head in the air, and his body crashed against the side of the car, making it rock. Jesus fired wildly from the window at the car in front.

“Take the wheel,” Grijalvas shouted, but Jesus seemed not to hear. Grijalvas climbed through the gaping space where the rear window had been and rolled off the trunk to the ground. He looked around him and could see the two pickup trucks blocking the road behind, and the car blocking the exit. Above loomed the bulbous bellies of the gigantic dinosaur statues.

As he looked, a burst of fire caught Jesus from somewhere on the other side of the car. His dead hand hung out the window above Grijalvas’s head.

Grijalvas took a deep breath, then blew it out of his lungs. He crawled quickly toward the front car. When he reached the trunk of the car he stood up and fired a burst into the interior. Suddenly he realized there was no one inside. He opened the door and climbed in, sliding toward the driver’s seat. He had his hand on the key when the man crouching in front of the car stood up. For an instant Grijalvas thought he might somehow be able to start the car and run over the man in time, but the man was already taking aim while he was thinking, and then he knew it was too late. He started to raise his hands, but the gun flashed. He carried with him into the darkness the sight of the man, and far over his head, the long neck of the brontosaur moving outward into the clear sky, and the tiny head with its little mouth gaping in surprise.

32
                  
It was three-thirty on Monday morning when Porterfield first noticed the car. He heard the idling engine at the end of the street as he was sitting alone in the darkened living room. He pushed the curtain aside and looked out to see the car move down the street as slowly as a man’s walk and then stop, its headlights out. After a few seconds a man emerged wearing a dark sweat shirt and a knitted watch cap that was pulled down to his eyebrows. After he was out he bent over and picked up something from the back seat, then walked up the sidewalk with it. As he passed under the streetlamp, Porterfield released the curtain and made his way to the bedroom. The man had been carrying a thick stack of newspapers.

On Tuesday afternoon Porterfield left the Seyell Foundation office an hour early. That was the second time he noticed the car. When he turned the corner onto the street, the car was stopped in the same place. As he approached, the driver started the dusty brown Ford Galaxie and moved slowly down to the next corner and turned out of sight. There was no question in his mind that it was the same car. The ticking sound of the unbalanced fan when the engine idled was the sound he’d heard the night before.

Porterfield said to Alice, “Do you know if our paperboy—I guess I should say paperman—lives around here?”

“I see him quite often, but I’ve never spoken to him,” said Alice. “Isn’t that terrible? He’s such a sweet-looking little boy, but there’s something about seeing someone at five o’clock every morning in your bathrobe. The only way you can tolerate it is to avoid conversation.”

Porterfield nodded. He was thinking about hunting turkeys. An old farmer had once told him the way he hunted wild turkeys was to take a walk in early summer to a clearing in the forest carrying a broom handle painted dark gray. He’d prop the broom handle on a fallen log or in the low branches of a bush and leave it there. The turkeys would get used to seeing it so that soon they’d strut within a few yards of it. By fall it would be so familiar to them that they didn’t seem to see it anymore. On the first day of the turkey season the farmer would sit in the clearing. He swore the turkeys never noticed that the broom handle had been replaced by the barrel of a shotgun.

On Wednesday at three-thirty in the morning Porterfield heard the car’s ticking fan as it turned the corner onto the street. It was easier to hear on Wednesday because Porterfield was sitting in the lawn chair on his neighbor’s patio, and the redwood fence did nothing to muffle the sound in the still night air.

Porterfield stood up and looked between two boards of the fence. As usual, the man got out of his car and then reached back in for his stack of newspapers. This time when the man passed under the streetlamp Porterfield squinted to see his face. The watch cap was pulled down low over his brows, but Porterfield could see the small, dark eyes and the wide mouth under the bristling blond moustache.

The man walked up the sidewalk of Porterfield’s house, then walked around to the window beside the driveway. Next he moved across the front lawn to a clump of bushes at the corner of the neighboring house. Porterfield watched him walk from house to house, examining shrubbery, standing under windows, and sighting angles and distances.

When the man turned and walked up the driveway toward Porterfield’s garage, Porterfield slipped through the gate of the redwood fence and along his neighbor’s hedge to the street.

It was nearly ten minutes before the man returned to his car. He opened the door and placed his stack of newspapers on the front seat, then slid into the seat beside them. He started the car and let it drift quietly down the street to the corner before he turned on his headlights.

Porterfield said, “Make much extra money peddling papers, Lester?”

The man jerked in his seat and half turned to gape over his shoulder. “Porterfield.” After a second he seemed to collect himself. He steered around the corner and accelerated. “Not much money in papers these days, Ben.”

“You’re supposed to be in Guatemala, Viglione.”

Viglione turned his head to the side and said, “No, you’re wrong. Special assignment, temporary duty.”

Porterfield chuckled. “Lester, when I heard we might be having this kind of trouble, I thought about who might show up, but I didn’t think it would be you. I guess I should have. It’s your specialty. But I didn’t think anybody would take the chance of letting you in on it. You came to see me. Is someone at the Director’s house?”

“What are you talking about? I’m just here for a conversation.”

Porterfield sighed. “Lester, what is all this stuff back here?” Porterfield picked up a short, heavy hardwood stick connected by a few links of chain to a second stick. “
Nunchaku
.” He opened a paper sack and poured several star-shaped plates of steel onto the back seat, so Viglione could hear the clinking. “
Shuriken
. What else? Piano wire, push knives. What is it with you, Lester? Don’t they sell nine-millimeter ammo anymore, or are you just getting overconfident?”

“I’m not here for that.”

“If it had been anything else they’d never have picked you.”

“We worked together in the old days.”

“I guess I remember you better than you remember me. Pull over up ahead and let me off, or I’ll be half the night getting home to bed.”

Viglione slowed the car and coasted to the curb. Porterfield swung his legs out on the left side and said, “I found the picture.”

Viglione’s right hand moved toward the pile of newspapers. Porterfield could see the gleam of the black metal finish of the pistol as the fingers fumbled for the handle, but Porterfield’s right arm was already in motion. The
nunchaku
hissed in the air and the chain swung the club into the back of Viglione’s head, making a hollow thud. Viglione’s head kicked forward, but his hand came up with the pistol in it. Porterfield crooked his arm around Viglione’s neck and pushed off on the door frame with both feet, twisting his body at the same time. Viglione’s neck snapped with a sickening crack, and Porterfield released his hold. He knew Viglione was already dead.

Porterfield muttered to himself, “You’d have a hard time killing an old lady with those things.” Then he spent a few moments wiping the handles of the
nunchaku
and collecting the papers from the back seat: the notations Viglione had made of the times Porterfield left home in the morning and returned at night, the crudely sketched map of the house and grounds, and the photograph of Alice.

33
                  
Porterfield walked down the empty hallway, past closed doors with numbers above them but no signs. At five-thirty in the morning there were few people in this wing. Porterfield had made too many of these early morning trips to Langley in the past two weeks. The president of the Seyell Foundation had no business in the complex at Langley, and each time the car came for him Porterfield knew there was a chance he’d be spotted. Half the governments of the world might have people watching the roads in this area to see who came and went.

“Porterfield.” The voice was quiet and familiar. He turned and waited while the tall black man came abreast of him, and they walked on together.

“You keep turning up pretty far from Miami, J.K.”

“It’s hot there right now.”

“It’s always hot there.”

“So I always get out when I can. I have to go back tonight, but I wanted to see you first. I’ve got something to show you.”

Porterfield stopped. “You wanted me?”

J.K. nodded. “This is probably the safest place.” He opened the thick file folder he was carrying and pulled out two eight-by-ten-inch black-and-white photographs.

Porterfield studied the pictures. They were both photographs of crowds of people in airline terminals. In the first one a group of passengers was moving along a corridor toward the camera, carrying small bags and briefcases. In the foreground was a middle-aged man with a high forehead and broad cheekbones and wearing a dark suit. “Who’s this?”

“He works at the Czechoslovakian embassy in Bogotá. He’s here legally and everything, but we’ve been taking lots of pictures of those flights lately. In the other picture the mark is the stewardess. She seems to be a courier for somebody, but at the moment we’re just watching. Forget those two. Take a close look at the other people, the ones in the background.”

Porterfield held the photographs at arm’s length and lifted them close to the light in the ceiling. “Damned eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be.” He squinted at the faces. “Okay, I see him. It’s Albert what’s-his-name.”

“Cotton. The flight list says he’s somebody else, but they seem to have made a mistake.”

“Did he follow this guy from Panama City?”

“That’s the mistake. According to the Latin America desk, Cotton is still in Panama City. This was a flight from Toronto.”

Porterfield studied the second photograph. “I’m getting good at this, now that I know the game. How many monkeys do you see in this picture? Oh, yes. There he is. The one with the moustache is Lester Viglione. I worked with him once, years ago.”

“He’s on a Special Ops detail attached to the Guatemala secret police, the ones that were supposedly disbanded. Now they only work nights.”

Porterfield shrugged. “It leaves him the daytime for travel.”

“He hasn’t been in this country for over ten years.”

“Who told you all that?”

“I have lots of friends, because I do lots of favors.” He put the photographs back in the folder and said, “Both of those were people who got wind of your little problem, asked permission to come home, and were refused.”

Porterfield said, “Thanks, J.K. I’ll take care of it. Keep it to yourself.”

“Take care of it? You know what I think they’re doing? I think they’re coming to see the Director. And if I just happened to notice these two in a couple of pictures, how many others are there? They’ll have to stand in line to get a shot at him.”

“Thanks, J.K. I’ll take care of it. I owe you another favor.” Porterfield turned the corner and left J.K. standing alone in the empty corridor. Porterfield made another turn and stopped at a plain door marked only with the number 412, and knocked.

Goldschmidt’s voice shouted, “Come in,” and Porterfield opened the door. “Hello, Ben. Did you come all the way out here again for this fiasco voluntarily, or did that fool order you to come?”

“The Director wanted us all there.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve got a couple of minutes. You can make a call for me.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Arrange to have some medical people standing by for an in-house autopsy, probably within twenty-four hours. The papers can say suicide or something.”

“But they only do that when an agent is killed.”

“I know. Better make sure there’s room for two.”

W
HEN
P
ORTERFIELD REACHED THE CONFERENCE ROOM
, Kearns was sitting alone, staring at an oversized brown square on the table.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a menu. Under it there’s an order sheet that says ‘Director’s Breakfast.’ Apparently we are here for the Director’s breakfast. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”

Goldschmidt entered and nodded at Porterfield, then said to Kearns, “Bad. It means we’ll be here for four or five hours.”

“But did the Palm Springs thing work?”

Porterfield shrugged. “Order champagne and see if anybody crosses it out.”

The door swung open and Pines held it while the Director passed him, not slowing his quick, jerky strides until he reached the head of the table. He sat down and Pines handed him a file folder, which he flipped open and studied in silence.

The others waited. Pines walked around the table and picked up the menu and handed it to Porterfield. “Just write in your orders and they’ll be here to pick it up in a minute.”

“I’d like to know whether I’m going to feel like eating,” said Goldschmidt.

Porterfield handed the menu back to Pines. “Just coffee for me. I should be back in Washington before there are too many people on the street.”

The Director looked up from his file and began talking as though he’d heard nothing. “It’s now two-thirty in the morning in California.” He paused. “The first phase of this ended about a half hour ago.” He held his arms out and grasped the round, imaginary object between his hands, then stared through it at the opposite wall of the room. “The initial reports give us some cause for hopefulness and some cause for—for disappointment.”

“Who got killed?” asked Goldschmidt.

The Director seemed to lift his invisible globe out of the way as he stared down at the file again. “We seem to have lost four men. John Knox Morrison and Kevin Morton were shot down in some kind of chalet at the top of a mountain near Palm Springs. The other two seem to have been hit within the last hour at…it says here ‘the Dinosaur Memorial.’ Is that possible?”

Pines said, “Yes, sir. It’s a tourist attraction on the main highway between Palm Springs and Los Angeles. Big statues of dinosaurs in the desert.”

The Director looked at him. “How odd. At any rate, we don’t have their names yet. They were apparently part of the team that was supposed to block the escape of the terrorists. I haven’t been informed yet about the details.”

Goldschmidt said, “A dinosaur stampede?”

Porterfield leaned forward. “You said something about hope. You mean the papers have actually been recovered?”

“Not yet, but the report we received indicates that there were seven terrorists involved, and the operational group allowed none to escape. At this moment our people will be using every means to discover their identities. Raids will be conducted before morning.”

Goldschmidt shook his head. “Eleven people killed in public places—four of ours, seven of theirs, and nothing to show for it. And these raids you’re talking about, no doubt the people left to guard the papers will throw down their arms and come quietly.”

“This is the easy part,” Pines said. “We’re certain that this is a small, tightly knit terrorist cadre from somewhere in Latin America. They may not come quietly, but believe me, they’ll come. We have nearly two hundred operational men out there already, and there will be more before the first raid.”

Porterfield glanced at Kearns, who was staring absently at the menu, his mouth hanging open. “And how many people involved in the support and communication?”

Pines said proudly, “Over a thousand. As the Director told you two days ago, this time we took the threat seriously.”

Kearns winced. “But that means over twelve hundred people know what’s happened?”

“What do you mean?” asked the Director. “Of course these are handpicked people.”

“There is no such thing as twelve hundred handpicked people,” Kearns said. “You don’t even know the names of all the ones killed. That means the people with them didn’t know their real names either.”

“If there’s someone you’re worried about—”

“You!” said Kearns. “Before this happened there were people whose lives were in jeopardy all over Latin America, and who knew it, and knew you were doing nothing to protect them. Now you’ve got twelve hundred—”

Pines interrupted. “If you’re going to bring all that up again, we might as well just give up.”

Porterfield said quietly, “You could do what we’ve been asking you to all along, pull the people home who have a reason to be afraid. It may be too late to negotiate with the ones who have the papers, since you’ve betrayed them twice.”

The Director smiled. “But we’ve got them, blasted them off the face of the earth. We’re going to go through with the mopping up.”

Porterfield’s eyes suddenly seemed to lose their luster. The lids half-covered them, and he stared at the Director with a look that might have been boredom. He seemed to be old and tired. “Is that your final word?”

“Of course.”

Goldschmidt slowly stood up, pressing his palms against the table to support himself. His face was pale and he was sweating. “Excuse me, please. I just remembered I got a number wrong on an important telephone call I made a few minutes ago.” He walked to the door and stopped. “For the record, I’d like to say I agree with Ben.” He opened the door, then said, “But I forget—that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? There is no record.” He left, closing the door behind him.

Pines said to the Director, “I wonder if we shouldn’t all take Mr. Goldschmidt’s lead. Mr. Porterfield and Mr. Kearns have given their opinions. They didn’t wait for the reports from California, but I don’t think that would change anything. Would it, Mr. Kearns?”

Kearns shook his head and stood up. “I don’t think so.” His voice changed, and he seemed to be pleading. “Don’t you see? We don’t have to worry about one little gang of terrorists. We’ve got the makings of a revolt inside the Company. Seventy-eight people so far, and any one of them knows more than Donahue did. Any one of them can do more than these terrorists have done. Any one of them—”

“Thank you,” said the Director and stood up. Kearns took one long look at Porterfield, then turned and walked out of the room.

Pines walked to the Director’s seat and picked up the file from the table. Porterfield remained seated, leaning down to lift his briefcase slowly to his lap. His face had not changed. He looked at the two through half-lidded eyes.

The Director smiled compassionately at Porterfield. “Ben, I admire your guts. I always have. You’re an old pro who’s spent a lot of time in the field and is used to doing things on your own and relying on your own wits to stay alive. But I can’t have you doing this to me. You see what the problem is?”

Porterfield was silent for a moment. The hand in his briefcase stopped moving. “Yes. I do.” The Director and Pines looked at each other. Porterfield said, “You are both people who aren’t up to what you’re doing.”

The Director flipped his hand at Pines, urging him to leave. Pines turned on his heel and took a step, but there was a sharp, spitting sound and his head jerked and he walked into the wall. He took another step and collapsed. The Director looked down at Pines. The side of his head was already oozing blood. It ran down his temple to his neck and then to the floor to form a pool that grew as he watched.

The Director froze, as though he couldn’t step across the body. Then he bent over and looked at it closely. He pointed at the floor. “I suppose that mess is his brain. I see the bullet hole, and that’s what came with it, isn’t it?” He turned to face Porterfield, standing straight. “You’ve done it now. I’m sure you know. There are people waiting for us outside the door.”

Porterfield stood up. “Yes.” He aimed carefully with both hands, and the gun spat again. The Director’s head slammed against the wall, and his body fell forward to the floor.

Goldschmidt opened the door and slipped into the room. “The meeting’s over?”

Porterfield walked to the Director’s body and nudged it with his toe. “Did you take care of the arrangements?”

Goldschmidt shook his head. “I didn’t have to. Yesterday afternoon Pines ordered the autopsy team to report this morning.” Goldschmidt stopped and studied Porterfield. “They were expecting to lose agents on this.”

Porterfield picked up his briefcase and moved toward the door. “Can you take care of the cleanup?”

Goldschmidt sat on the table and stared down at the bodies on the floor. “I’ve already talked to the people at the gate. You didn’t come here this morning.”

“What about Kearns?”

“He was the one who told the Director’s bodyguards to take a break.”