Shadow of the Condor (28 page)

"Now fix yourself," he ordered, "not too well, just enough to show you made the attempt." As she complied, he crumpled the front of her blouse, matting it into a mass of wrinkles. He felt her shudder each time he touched her breasts.

The motel manager had seen it all before. The nervous couple, the strained looks, the rumpled clothing, the smell of booze. "Yeah?" he said, as if he didn't know what they wanted.

"We, ah, we'd like a room. Wouldn't we, dear?"

The woman nervously nodded yes and feigned a smile. She kept staring at her escort. Eager, thought the manager.

"For how long?" He hoped in their nervousness he could get a little more than the usual out of them. Business was horrible, simply horrible.

"Oh ... ah" stuttered the man. A real nervous character, thought the clerk. Probably his boss' wife. "We, ah, we're traveling across the state, see. But we got tired. My wife and I. You know. The Mrs. wants to rest a spell. We might stay" the man glanced quickly at his woman, ---- "two days? Maybe three? Okay?"

The clerk closed his eyes slowly, coolly. "Fine. You want one with a kitchen unit?"

"That will be fine, just fine."

"Right," said the clerk. He smiled slightly. Time for a little fun. Nothing serious, just a little clean fun. "You want twin beds or double?"

The man looked at him with surprise. "You mean you mean we have a choice?"

"Sure. Twin or double. Take your pick."

"Oh, ah, well . . . we'll, we'll take the twin beds, of course. I mean, well, we don't have to ... to sleep together, no, we don't have to do that at all, do we, dear?"

The woman nodded eagerly. The clerk rolled his eyes, not caring if they saw. Who did they think he was, trying to fool him with that old separate-beds routine? He let them register: Mr. and Mrs. John Morris, Glendive.
No street
address on the card. What a laugh, he thought as he handed them their key.

"Number nine, on the end."

"Thank you, thank you. Oh, there's one other thing. Do you suppose . . . ? We worry about the car, you know, getting hit by a truck or something, do you ... T'

The clerk didn't wait to hear the rest. He had heard it all before. "You can park behind the unit. Your car will be safe there. Why, you can't even see it from the road."

The man flashed that idiotic grin the clerk had seen before, scooped up the key and led his woman off to bed. The clerk snorted, trying to banish a tiny, tiny seed of envy behind disgust.

Nurich made the woman finish most of the brandy. When she was so drunk she could barely stand, he stripped her completely. The terror fought its way through the haze in her eyes, but she was too drunk to protest. He taped her to the four comers of the bed farther from the door. Her nakedness and that position both reinforced her fears and destroyed her confidence. She passed out before he was finished securing her. He didn't know If it was from the brandy or her terror, and he was so tired he didn't care.

The twin beds had been a stroke of luck. Nurich had understood the sadism in the clerk's joke. A piece of luck, he thought. I have her secure, fairly comfortable so she won't get too desperate and I still have a bed to myself. He wearily undressed, checked the door and went to bed, his gun tied to his wrist with a shoelace.

Tomorrow, he thought as he drifted off, tomorrow.

‘’Of course you agree to have a battle?" Tweedledum said in a calmer tone.

'’I suppose so," the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the umbrella: "only she must help us to dress up, you know."

Kevin arrived in Havre late Thursday night. After only a few hours' sleep he took over supervision from his assistant who had set up their headquarters in a rented office building. The
Montana
highway patrol found Rose's stolen car abandoned in the southeastern comer of the state, but no other trace of Rose had turned up. Dr. Lofts was at the air base, waiting. Condor was at his base, waiting. The old man was in
Washington
, waiting. Waiting for me, thought Kevin. And here I am, in
Havre
,
Montana
, waiting. Waiting for a person whose location I don't know. Kevin grumbled to his assistants, fused with meaningless chores and tried to keep from thinking of bad possibilities.

Unlike Kevin, Nurich slept in Friday morning. He woke with a start at ten. His prisoner was also wide awake, staring at him through bloodshot eyes. He thought her appearance came partly from crying and partly from the brandy's aftereffects. He still saw terror in her eyes. He let her up to go -to the bathroom, deliberately keeping her from dressing. When he secured her to the bed again, he taped her mouth shut and hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door when he left. The manager seemed to understand his "wife" being under the weather and almost lackadaisically accepted Nurich's offer to remake the beds himself.

Kremlin's small grocery store provided Nurich with TV dinners, candy bars, milk, instant coffee and overly ripe fruit, all at outrageous prices. He paid for them with the woman's cash. He also bought the daily papers from
Great Falls
and Havre and three six-packs of beer.

Nurich cooked a large lunch for the two of them when he returned to the motel. He made the woman drink two beers with her meal. He drank only milk. He let her sit in the chair while he read the papers and sipped on a cup of coffee. He found nothing of interest in either paper, including the article in the
Great Falls
Tribune
in which the Army assured area farmers that the maneuvers currently going on in the area would pose no damage to crops.

Nurich spent the day watching television. He made his captive roam the room, forcing her to walk back and forth. He kept her clothes from her. He made her finish one of the six-packs of beer. The alcohol kept her sluggish, but he didn't let her rest. He wanted her exhausted when he left her. He was sure the terror, the liquor, the physical exertion and the mental degradation would accomplish that purpose. The only time he allowed her to "rest was when he checked his equipment. Then he taped her hands behind her, put a pillowcase over her head and made her kneel in the comer. He heard her softly sobbing as he examined his gear.

His
Moscow
superiors had trained him well enough. The small box of glowing lights and dials seemed to function perfectly as far as Nurich could tell. He was glad the mechanism recorded all its important data on a small cartridge tape which he was to bring back with him. That spared him the burden of carting the machine back. He could ditch it in a junkyard after tripping the two-minute delayed self-destruct switch. Bringing back the tape cartridge also meant he didn't have to be a technical genius and interpret what the machine said. He would take the tape to the experts.

Nurich slowly ran his hand over the meters smooth surface. The electrical impulses seemed to transmit excitement to him. His apprehension and misgivings about the worth and method of the mission remained, but he caught the fever, the excitement of the moment. Perhaps Mother Russia would benefit from these foolish efforts after all. And so far he was winning, he was beating the Americans on their own ground. Nurich smiled. Who knew what the mission meant?

The machine's traveling case was built to be used as either a backpack or hand luo, age. The minor alterations necessary to transform it from one to the other took Nurich only a few minutes. He slipped into the straps and lifted the machine onto his back. It weighed almost sixty pounds. The vital parts filled every available space. The technicians had to allow a large weight in comparison to the-relatively small size. Nurich was in excellent shape. He knew he couldn't run far with the machine, but he could maneuver. He checked the clothing, maps, reserve money, false identity papers and his gun carefully. Everything seemed in order. He hid all his equipment under a sheet before he unblindfolded his captive and made her resume her walk to nowhere.

Late in the afternoon Nurich ordered the woman to dress. She wordlessly obeyed his commands. He knew she was grateful for the chance to don protective clothing. When she was ready, he led her outside for an ostentatious, arms-linked stroll around the motel's courtyard. He saw the manager watch them. After Nurich was sure he had made the point that his companion was still safely with him, he led her back to the motel room, back to her destination less, naked journey.

Shortly after sunset Nurich cooked another meal. He ate several candy bars and the most nutritious of the TV dinner. He drank one cup of coffee with his meal, had no milk and kept the coffeepot warm on the stove so he could have another cup just before he left. He let his naked captive eat, then quickly forced her to drink the remaining ten bottles of beer. She barely finished her last three bottles, but each time she faltered or seemed about to pass out, he stood over her and ran his hands over her body. She cried soundlessly as she emptied the containers. Nurich carried her to the bed. He put cotton swabs 'over her eyes, then taped them in place, winding the sticky adhesive around her head in a blindfold. He again taped her spread-eagled to the bed and put a sheet over her. Nurich decided not to gag her. She might choke to death. At any rate, he doubted she would wake much before noon the next day. He also didn't think she would scream for help. Blindfolded, naked and trussed up, she would have no idea where he was. Even when she concluded he had deserted her, her fears and inhibitions would keep her silent. He was sure no one would find her until the manager's curiosity over. came him, and that might take two days. She could survive that. She would tell the police about a madman, not a spy. If the-American knew he was who he was, her story made no difference. If they didn't know, her story wouldn't tell them the truth. He lost no security by letting her live.

Nurich briefly glanced at the maps he had already memorized while he again reviewed his plan with all its possibilities. He glanced at his watch when he was finished. Nine o'clock. He put on, the camouflage clothes, then his normal clothes. The blackening of his face would have to wait until he was close to the mission site. He carefully laid out thd two candy bars he would eat with his final cup of coffee before he left at midnight. Then he lay back on the other bed, set the alarm clock just to be sure, closed his eyes, forced his mind to blank itself of all details and tried to relax.

Chou gave Sheila and Malcolm only five minutes warning that he was coming to their motel room that afternoon. If he noticed any difference in their behavior, he gave no sign. His only expressed concern was that the presence of two Orientals in the small town might cause suspicion. Malcolm tried unobtrusively to reinforce Chou's fear, hoping the man would leave them alone.

The news of Rose's escapades stimulated Chou to the point where he almost glowed. He paced the room, carefully outlining contingency plans. He also seemed fascinated by the Robinson and Kincaid information. Once Malcolm thought that perhaps that information excited him more than the news of Rose. But Chou was too carefully collected for Malcolm to decipher.

Chou left them after two hours. He didn't tell them where he was going, but he let them know he wasn't returning to
Canada
and he wouldn't be far away. He ordered them to call him by radio the moment they heard anything. Anything, he stressed.

'What do we do?" Sheila asked Malcolm after Chou left.

"What can we do?" replied Malcolm. "We sit and wait."

….

Captain Teddy Roe and his men had spent several long twelve-hour shifts waiting. They waited through the cool and warm days, through the wind, through Thursday's rain, and through the long nights. Captain Roe didn't care how long they had to wait. He would follow orders and remain there until the trap sprung or they were called back. He would keep his men alert too, for this mission was very important to him.

Captain Roe spent the first two years of his tour with the 5th Special Forces stationed at
Nha Trang
,
Vietnam
. He had loved that duty. In those days the Special Forces in particular and the Southeast Asian war in general were run by the CIA, or, as Captain Roe and his fellow CIA employees called it, "the Company." Captain Roe loved the freewheeling days under the Company when he had organized native mercenaries, sweeping through villages in active counterterrorist response missions" the euphemism employed at that time to cover raids identical to Vietcong terrorist forays' but with an official purpose directly opposite to the VC efforts. The "ACTR's" (pronounced "actors") served as the precursors for the much more famous and widely run Operation Phoenix programs later directed by the Company.

But the good old days ended for Captain Roe and the Company when President Johnson widened their little operation and landed the Marines in 1965. From then on the Company had to share the game with the other boys at the Pentagon. Although Captain Roe was officially on the five-sided figure's team all the fun went out of the war for him when that conglomerate took over. Captain Roe jumped at the opportunity to stay on "detached" duty with the Company and in all the years since then he had never regretted his choice. Since 1966 the captain had merrily, effectively carried out Company policy all through Latin America, Asia, Africa and even the
Middle East
. Until his last mission.

It had been a relatively routine one. A very low-profile, minuscule Palestinian terrorist group was slowly gaining prominence. In addition to jeopardizing the Israeli-Arabian, truce of the moment, the new Palestinian group threatened to upset the delicately balanced wheelbarrow of a brother Palestinian organization with which the CIA was used to dealing. The old-time Palestinian organizations themselves didn't knowhow to deal with the situation, and the Israelis were in no position to take care of the problem, so it became Company policy.

Roe's mission was simple. The new group revolved around the leader, who controlled only a few dozen armed men, but his influence was rapidly growing in the camps. Roe was to solve the problem by bombing the leader's home and making the explosion seem like, an accident caused by sloppy handling of weapons. That kind of thing happened all the time and would be an easy story to sell.

Roe and a team of demolition experts overran the leader's scantily guarded house one night, set the bombs and -withdrew without any major incident. The explosion went off as planned, but as luck would have it, one of the'leader's bodyguards lingered for four days before he died in a refugee hospital. Fortunately, he never regained consciousness to tell the truth, but for those four days, Roe and his superiors lived in mortal dread that he would.

It has been a close call. This time Roe wanted no mistakes. His squads were all
Vietnam
combat veterans, all .had worked for the Company on similar missions. Roe scattered his twenty-four three-man teams on strategic hillsides so they covered the nineteen missile sites Kevin and the old man considered Rose's probable potential targets. Captain Roe established his command post and kept a backup unit by the missile site where Parkins had died. The moon was waning. His men could barely be seen at six feet in the darkness. They watched silently in their tiger suits and camouflage paint. Each team had one man who monitored special sensory devices strategically placed through the area. Developed for use in the Southeast Asian jungle war, the small machines utilized heat-and sound-detection mechanisms to discover the presence of living animal bodies. Unfortunately, the devices cannot distinguish between animals and people or friends and foe. A number of B52 missions were flown against jungle animals and harmless peasants who registered on the detection devices monitored at distant base camps. The captain had a minimal faith in the machines used by themselves. He found them exceptionally valuable when they were backed up by observation teams.

The captain was glad he was in charge of the less arduous night duty. The commander of the day shifts had to worry about making his highly visible teams look as though they were playing soldiers. Besides, Captain Roe knew any action would probably come at night. His orders read he was to stop a saboteur, and by God, that's what he intended to do. There would be no slipups this time.

All of Captain Roe's men carried the small walkie-talkie radios equipped with earplugs pioneered for Secret Service use. The captain's men needed to stay in radio contact, but they couldn't afford to have a radio message suddenly boom through the still night air and betray their position. The senior team leaders each had a small, plug-in mike.

The call came at 3:00 A.M.

"Fox Four to Fox, Fox Four to Fox." The earphone hummed in the captain's ear. His second lightly touched his shoulder in case the captain hadn't heard. The captain squeezed his assistant's hand in affirmation as he whispered into his mike.

"This is Fox. Transmit."

"We have a reading from south of Prime missile. No visual confirmation yet. Over."

"Understood. Keep me informed. Fox to all units, stand by.

Captain Roe's technician nudged him and whispered, "We're picking it up too, sir. It's over the rise from Fox Four's position, so they can't get a visual."