Shadow of the Condor (9 page)

Malcolm grinned back. "Who lives there?"

"Hell, I don't know. Just farmers, I guess."

Malcolm nodded and leaned back, wondering what he would do if the pilot suddenly collapsed.

Malcolm spent that night alone in his quarters, fending off various entertainment offers. The next morning he took the government jeep he had been assigned through the Department of Defense and headed eighty-five miles north to
Shelby
, his base community.

Shelby
is a small town, an accidental outgrowth of railroad, agriculture and early-twentieth-century oil exploration. The fewer-than-5,000 populace derives most of its economic survival from agriculture, and its claim to fame is a now enshrined heavyweight boxing match which almost destroyed the town at the turn of the century. Malcolm spent his first day driving around
Shelby
, trying to learn the area as best he could before checking into a motel. The town looked different from the aerial photographs Carl had shown him, but Malcolm picked out most of the landmarks more easily than he had expected. He ate dinner at a local drive-in, casually watching carloads of bright-eyed, bored teenagers worried about maintaining their composure while they ordered. After his greasy dinner Malcolm drove through the wide, quiet streets slowly, relaxing with the easy evening calm prevailing through the town. He shook his head when he thought of the pictures of Parkins' body.

"Goin' be staying long?" asked the old woman when he checked into the motel in the middle of the town. Malcolm decided the motels scattered along the main roads connecting with the major interstate highways were too isolated, too easily watched. The motel complex he picked was at least in a neighborhood he could approach or leave without being observed from a long distance.

"I'll be here awhile," he replied. "I'm taking a government survey."

"Lots of government people stay here," said his landlady as she led him down the hall. Malcolm's room was in the main building, with ten units on the bottom level, twelve on the top. Malcolm had 16B, a unit - almost in the middle of the upper level. The room resembled other motel rooms with an almost friendly, familiar homelike quality, not spectacular or enjoyable, but predictable. The queen-size bed dominated the main room, its heavy, gaudy red bedspread trailing to the floor on all sides. The bed was only six feet from him as Malcolm stood in the doorway. A shallow walk-in closet took up half the wall to his right. The door to the small bathroom came at midpoint in the same wall. Windows overlooking the street took up the top half of the wall opposite the door. Small tables with built-in lamps flanked the head of the bed on each side. Barely enough room to walk in separated the bed from the bureau against the wall to his left. A small writing desk stood in the left comer at the head of the bed, although Malcolm failed to see how anyone would find room to sit at the desk. A vanity, complete with mirror, and a medium-size color TV set took up most of the wall at the foot of the bed. The walls were all painted a light blue, except for the bathroom, which was dark blue. Bad reproductions of terrible landscapes by unknown artists hung on the left and right walls. Malcolm glanced at the inside of the door. It had a dead bolt and a chain in addition to the door lock. At least that was something.

"This be okay?" asked the woman.

"Lovely," Malcolm replied as he took the key from her, Simply lovely. Should I pay now?"

"Naw, it's late and I want to go to bed. There's pop machines and coffee machines and that stuff just down the hall. You call out direct unless you want long distance, and that goes through the switchboard. Calls come in direct. Please don't call home from your room tonight, ,cause I'm also the switchboard and I want to go to bed. There's a-pay phone down the hall. Night."

"Good night," Malcolm said. He slowly shook his head as he watched the old lady shuffle down the hall.

And now here I am, thought Malcolm, in the field. It took him an hour to unpack and check the room with the special equipment Carl had placed in the briefcase. As expected, Malcolm detected no electronic listening devices. He spent ten minutes trying to think of a clever, accessible hiding place for his gun, but 1'h the end he locked it back in the briefcase. Nobody will come for me tonight, he thought, and if they do, I probably will end up shooting myself.

The color TV set offered Malcolm reruns of all the programs which had mildly -bored him before his own set broke in
Cincinnati
. The commercials were new, in presentation if not content. After thirty minutes of carefully controlled, contrived TV violence, he shut the set off, took off his shirt, shoes and socks and stretched out on the bed to await inspiration or excitement.

Neither came. Computation of his breathing rate lost all appeal for Malcolm after a quarter of an hour. He sighed, largely because he thought it was logical reaction for him to make. He briefly thought of getting the map out of the briefcase, but the briefcase was across the room, tightly locked. It wasn't worth the effort, especially since he already knew what'the map looked like and he had seen the area he would be working in from the air.

He was sure the old man thought the plan improbable even when he was briefing him. The old man's ostensible reasoning was simple: Parkins had been on foot, running away from something or someone. He had been caught and killed. Given the short time between Parkins' death and the arrival of the security teams who canvassed the area before any vehicles would have had time to get far from the missile site, it was lGfical to assume that whoever shot Parkins went to ground very close to the missile site. Since the countryside was open with no trees. Or natural cover, the killer must have gone to ground in one of the nearby farm buildings. Malcolm, using the pretense of a government survey, would canvass the area, looking, prying, trying to find any lead as to where the killer went to ground. And after where, how, who and why.

Malcolm doubted he would even find the where. He thought the old man felt the same and that the old man knew Malcolm's major function was to be visible, to take the heat off other agents. But no one said anything except how important Malcolm's job was. Nary a discouraging word, thought Malcolm.

"Oh, well." He spoke aloud to the empty room. "At least it should be safe." And an easy way to pay them off, his mind said quietly, so quietly Malcolm barely heard.

Malcolm frowned. He needed to check in with
Washington
. The old woman wouldn't be at the switchboard, so he couldn't just pick up the phone from the bedside table to make his call. He had to leave. He sighed again and sat up. No one could care if I'm dressed or not, he thought. He picked up his keys, let himself out of the room and padded down the hall to the pay phone.

The connection rang through quickly. The agent in the house in
Washington
deliberately let the phone ring twice before' answering. After she accepted the collect charges, she said softly, "How are you, dear? Everything okay?"

"Everything's dandy," said Malcolm, hating the coded euphemism. "I'm calling from an open pay phone at the motel. The switchboard is closed. You could call me back. My room phone number is 555-6479 and you can get through without going through the switchboard."

"That's all right, we'll just take it here. Do you have anything you'd like to tell Mom?"

Malcolm thought of several things he would like to say to the old man. "No, just let her know I'll start real work tomorrow."

"I'll do that. She said she has no messages for you. Good-bye, dear."

The agent hung up before Malcolm could reply. She immediately called Carl. In turn, Carl phoned the old man at a small dinner party given by a Congressman. When the old man had properly identified himself, Carl said, "Condor is in the field, sir."

"Fine, my boy," the old man replied, "fine." Then he rejoined his host and continued with his cleverly vulgar anecdote.

Malcolm held the receiver in his hands for several seconds after his contact hung up. Then he smiled sweetly and said, "Well, dear, good-bye to you too."

He didn't sleep well that night.

Carl picked the old man up at the Congressman's dinner party an hour after Malcolm's call. Trailed closely by the security team, Carl drove the old man to the
Washington Circle
headquarters. He briefed his supenor on the latest information, pleased that his assessment matched the old man's. As Carl expected, the pld man insisted on putting a call through to Kevin. Carl had anticipated this and had alerted
London
. He knew they had located Kevin and were standing by for a signal. He radioed the
Washington Circle
headquarters, and by the time they mounted the stairs to the old man's office the transatlantic connection was complete. The old man smiled appreciatively and nodded for Carl to remain in the room. Carl carefully contained his pride: He was in on the big time.

"Kevin, how are you doing?"

"Excellent, sir, in fact, if you hadn't arranged to call me, I would have called you later tonight."

"You have something to report?"

"Yes, sir. Parkins wisely didn't trust the general's operation. He would post his preliminary reports and notes to a fake name in care of
London
general delivery, with a notice to return to the sender if not picked up in thirty days. The sender's address is his CO's flat. I used your Special Branch friend to check for just such a deal. It was the only thing I could make out of his advice about the British government being dependable if you wanted something held."

"My boy, that was excellent, excellent. Have you read his reports?"

"We just broke the code an hour ago. Parkins overheard two* drunks arguing about the Americans' efficiency. The drunker and more belligerent man tried to put his companion down by saying the Soviets were 'right on top of the American missiles.' Parkins got curious and followed the man home. He decided to do a fast, hard push on the man, and it paid off.

"The drunk turned out to be one Mikhail Donovich, a KGB courier, who makes shuttle runs between the
United States
and
Moscow
. He's actually a German agent, but his ultimate responsibility is to the Soviets. I'm sure they work it that way so that if he gets caught, officially he won't be from them.

"It seems Donovich handles only big accounts. We are checking out all the details of his operation that he told Parkins, and I expect a high corroboration rate. I think Donovich was holding back, hoping he'd have something to bargain with so he could come over. He gave Parkins the teaser that a very big, very important agent was coming through
London
to check out stations in the
U.S.
, particularly one important project that American security knows nothing about. He refused to elaborate. The courier claimed he hung around his drop zone once to see whom he was dealing with, which leads me to believe he was planning on crossing over anyway. Parkins said he was holding back on a lot of stuff so we would need him."

"Or he was lying about everything, for one of many, reasons."

"There's that," Kevin reluctantly agreed, "'but Parkins didn't think so. The courier claimed the agent would pick up a load of money from a drop near the airport and would leave
London
for the
U.S.
via
Toronto
the next day.

"I think Parkins didn't trust the general's security. So he decided to play the thing out a little more. According to his last report, postmarked from
London
airport, he picked up the agent at the drop zone, followed him to the airport and booked a seat on the same plane. His last report said he would track him as far as he could. He also said he was worried about losing contact with his people, since the general refused to let them learn any backup system outside of his own department."

"Stupid system. Did Parkins get any more on the agent? Did the courier give him anything else?"

"The courier gave him a name, Krumin. The courier didn't know if that was the agent's code name, his real name or what, just that he was referred to once by the courier's superior as Krumin.

"Parkins told the courier to complete his run. He was scheduled for another one in a week anyway, and by that time Parkins was sure he would have something worked out to deal with the whole thing.

"There are more details, comments, some loose ends we're checking on, but that's the gist of iL What do you think?"

There was a long pause before the old man replied. "It could be true, of course. The letters could be genuine, which we should be able to determine. The courier's story -if he was a courier----r-ould be mostly true. Following the agent would certainly account for Parkins being in the
United States
, although how and why he got to where he was isn't clear. Do you have any more on the courier?"

"Nothing. If he came back, he didn't get in touch with anyone else on our team."

"Hmm. I'm inclined to believe at least part if not most of Parkins' report, not so much because of what you've learned but because of what I've learned."

Kevin's disappointment came across the line. "What do you mean?"

The old man ignored Kevin's feelings. "I called to give you some important news, and instead we end up sharing. We've been monitoring all data since we got into this thing. Something interesting turned up late today. The agency has a double inside the Berlin KGB detachment. He reported that a courier had done just what Parkins report said he had done, gotten drunk and spilled to an American agent. Supposedly the American agent almost aborted a mission, but not quite. The double says the KGB is going to try again, sending another agent through
Berlin
to
London
, then over here."

"That's incredible. How did the KGB know the courier nipped?"