The Chancellor Manuscript (49 page)

“Any ideas?”

“Up until two hours ago, yes. I thought it was Hoover’s second-in-command, Tolson, and the maniacs. But thanks to you, that’s no longer realistic.”

“Thanks to me?”

“Yes. You damned near killed a man at the Corcoran Gallery. He was found in a stairwell—one of the maniacs. He was confronted in the hospital and given a choice: Name the others in a deposition and resign, or face prosecution, loss of pension, and one hell of a long jail sentence. He chose the first, naturally. Two hours ago I got word from one of our people. All the maniacs have resigned. They wouldn’t do that if they had the files.”

Chancellor watched O’Brien closely. “Which leads us back to our four candidates. Banner, Paris, Venice, and Christopher.”

“And Bravo,” added O’Brien. “I want you to use him. Follow your own advice: Make him force the issue. If he’s the man you think he is—or Varak thought he was—he won’t refuse. Go back to him.”

Chancellor shook his head slowly. “You’re missing the point. He’s tired; he can’t do it anymore. Varak knew that. It’s why he came to me. It’s you and me, O’Brien. Don’t look for anyone else.”

“Then, we’ll force the issue! We’ll name them!”

“Why? Whatever we said would be denied. I’d be dismissed as a hack writer promoting a book, and far worse, you have to live with Han Chow.” Peter pushed his drink away. “And it wouldn’t stop there. Bravo was very clear about that. Sooner or later there’d be a couple of accidents. We have to face that. We’re expendable.”

“Goddamn it, they can’t deny the missing files!”

Chancellor watched the angry, frustrated agent. Alex Meredith lived in Quinn O’Brien. Peter decided to tell him.

“I’m afraid they might deny it very successfully. Because only half the files are missing. Letters
M
through Z. The rest were recovered.”

O’Brien was stunned. “Recovered? By whom?”

“Varak didn’t know.”

Quinn crushed out his cigarette. “Or wouldn’t say!”

“Peter! Quinn!”

It was Alison shouting from the living room. O’Brien reached the door first. All was dark. Alison stood by the window, her hand on the drapes.

“What is it?” asked Chancellor, going to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Up the road,” she answered flatly. “The rise between the gates. I saw someone, I know I did. He stood there, just watching the house. Then he moved back.”

Quinn walked rapidly to a panel in the wall partially concealed by the drapes. There were two rows of convex white disks barely distinguishable in the shadows. They looked like two columns of blankly staring eyes. “None of the photoelectric cells was tripped,” he said as if he were discussing a sameness in the weather.

Peter wondered what precisely made a “sterile” house, outside of the radio sets, the heavy glass, and the grillwork everywhere. “Are there electronic beams all around the place? I assume that’s what those lights are.”

“Yes. All around, infrared and crisscrossed. And there are auxiliary generators underground if the electricity goes off; they’re tested every week.”

“This place is like the motel in Quantico, then?”

“Same architect designed it, same construction firm built it. Everything is steel, even the doors.”

“The front door’s wood,” interrupted Chancellor.

“Paneling,” replied Quinn calmly.

“Could it have been a neighbor out for a walk?” asked Alison.

“Possible, but not likely. The houses here are on three-acre lots. The homes on both sides are owned by State personnel, diplomatic level, very high up. They’ve been alerted to stay away.”

“Just like that?”

“It’s nothing unusual. This place is used to house defectors during periods of debriefing.”

“There he is!” Alison held the drape back.

Silhouetted in the distance, between the stone gateposts, was the figure of a man in an overcoat. He was on the rise in the road, outlined against the night sky. “He’s just standing there,” said Peter.

“Not making any move to go through the gate,” added Quinn. “He knows they’re tripped. And he wants us to know he knows it.”

“Look,” whispered Alison. “He’s moving now!”

The figure took a step forward and raised his right arm. As though it were a ritualistic gesture, he brought it slowly down in front of him, cutting the air. Instantly there was a hum from the panel. A white disk turned bright red.

The man moved to his left and disappeared into the darkness.

“What was that all about?” O’Brien asked, more of himself than of the others.

“You just said it,” answered Chancellor. “He wants us to know he knows the posts are wired.”

“That’s not so impressive. Most of these houses have alarm systems.”

A second hum abruptly shot out of the panel; another white disk turned red.

Then in rapid succession hum followed hum, red light followed red light. The cacophony was all-encompassing, the alarms actually painful to the ears. Within thirty seconds
every disk was bright red, every hum activated. The room was washed in magenta.

O’Brien stared at the panel. “They know each vector point! Every damned one!” He ran across the room to a cabinet in the wall. It contained a radio set. O’Brien pressed a button and spoke; there was no mistaking his urgency. “This is Saint Michael’s One, come in, please! Repeat, Saint Michael’s One, emergency!”

The only response was continuous static.

“Come in, please! This is Saint Michael’s One. Emergency!”

Nothing. Only the static, which seemed to grow louder. Peter glanced about the room, adjusting his eyes to the red spill and the shadows. “The phone!” he said.

“Don’t bother.” O’Brien stepped back from the radio. “They wouldn’t leave it; they’d cut the wires. It’s dead.”

It was.

“What about the radio?” asked Alison, trying to speak calmly. “Why can’t you get through?”

Quinn looked at them. “They’ve jammed the frequency, which means they had to know which one it was. It’s changed daily.”

“Then, try another frequency!” said Chancellor.

“It’s no use. Somewhere outside, within fifty to a hundred yards, there’s a computerized scanner. By the time I raised anybody, before I could get our message across, they’d jam that, too.”

“Goddamn you, try!”

“No,” replied O’Brien, looking back up at the panel. “That’s exactly what they want us to do. They want us to panic; they’re counting on it.”

“Why shouldn’t we panic? What difference does it make? You said nobody could trace us here. Well, someone did trace us, and the radio’s useless! I’m not about to trust your steel constructions and your two-inch glass! They’re no match for a couple of blow-torches and a sledgehammer! For Christ’s sake, do something!”

“I’m doing nothing, which is what they don’t expect. In two or three minutes I’m going back on that frequency and deliver a second message.” Quinn looked over at Alison. “Go upstairs and check the windows front and rear. Call down if you see anything. Chancellor, get back in the dining room. Do the same.”

Peter held his place. “What are you going to do?”

“I haven’t got time to explain.” He walked to the front window and peered out Peter joined him. Between the gateposts, once more silhouetted against the night sky, stood the figure. He stood motionless for ten or fifteen seconds, and then he seemed to raise both his hands in front of him.

And now a searchlight of several thousand candle-power shot out, slicing through the darkness.

“In the front!” Alison yelled from upstairs. “There’s a—”

“We see it!” roared O’Brien. He turned to Chancellor. “Check the rear of the house!”

Peter ran across the room toward the small archway that led to the dining room. A second blinding beam of light hit the much smaller network of windows in the dining room’s rear wall. He looked away, closing his eyes; the light made his forehead ache. “There’s another back here!” he yelled.

“And on
this
side!” shouted O’Brien, his voice coming from an alcove at the far end of the living room. “Check the kitchen! On the north side!”

Peter raced into the kitchen. As Quinn had anticipated, there was a fourth beam shooting through the grilled windows at the north end of the house. Peter shielded his eyes again. It was a nightmare! Wherever they looked outside, they were blinded by the hot white light. They were being attacked by blinding white light!

“Chancellor!
” screamed O’Brien from somewhere outside the kitchen. “Go upstairs! Get Alison and stay away from the windows! Get in the center of the house.
Move!”

Peter could not think, he could only obey. He reached the staircase, grabbed the railing, and swung himself around. As he started up the steps, he heard O’Brien’s voice. In spite of the madness it was controlled, precise. He was back at the radio.

“If I’m getting through, emergency is canceled. Saint Michael’s One, repeat. Emergency is canceled. We’ve raised Chesapeake on the alternate equipment. They’re on their way. They’ll be here in three or four minutes. Repeat. Stay out of the area. Emergency canceled.”

“What are you doing?” Chancellor screamed.

“Goddamn it, get upstairs! Get the girl and stay in the center of the house!”

“Whose side are you
on?”

“Those ghouls are trying to trick us! They’re drawing us to the windows, then blinding us!”

“What are you saying?…”

“It’s our only hope!” roared the agent “Now get to Alison and do as I tell you!” He turned back to the radio and again depressed the microphone button.

Peter did not wait to hear O’Brien’s words; he saw only that the agent had crouched below the cabinet, behind a chair, as near to the floor as possible, his hand extended up to the radio. Chancellor raced up the steps. “Alison!”

“In here! In the front room.”

Peter dashed through the upper hall into the bedroom. Alison was at the window, hypnotized by the sight below. “Someone’s running!”

“Get away from there!” He pulled her out of the room and into the hall.

The first thing he heard was a metallic sound—an object striking the glass, or the grillwork of the bedroom window. And then it happened.

The explosion was thunderous, the force of the vibrations hurling them to the floor. The thick glass of the bedroom window blew out in all directions, fragments imbedded themselves in the walls and the floor; pieces of grillwork rang as they struck solid objects.

The entire house shook; plaster cracked as beams were twisted. And Peter realized, as he held Alison in his arms, that there must have been two or three explosions, so closely timed as to be indistinguishable.

No. There had been
four
explosions, one at each side of the house, from each source of blinding light. O’Brien had been right. The strategy had been based on luring them to the windows and then throwing explosives. If they were in front of the windows, the sharp fragments of glass would be imbedded all over their bodies. Veins and arteries would be severed, heads sliced as his had been sliced so many months ago on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The similarities were too painful. Even the plaster dust brought back images of the dirt and mud inside the reeling automobile; the woman in his arms another woman.

“Chancellor! Are you all right? Answer me!”

It was Quinn, his voice strident, in pain, from somewhere downstairs. Peter could hear automobiles racing away in the distance.

“Yes.”

“They’re gone.” O’Brien’s voice was weaker now. “We’ve got to get out of here! Now!”

Peter crawled to the edge of the staircase and reached for the hallway light switch. He snapped it on. O’Brien was bent over the bottom step, his hand gripped on the railing. He looked up at Chancellor.

His face was covered with blood.

Chancellor drove; Alison cradled O’Brien in her arms in the back seat of the unmarked car. The FBI man had fragments of glass embedded in his right arm and shoulder and numerous lacerations about his face and neck, but the wounds were not severe, merely painful.

“I think we should take you home,” said Peter, his breath still coming rapidly, accelerated by fear, “to your wife and your own doctor.”

“Do as I tell you,” replied Quinn, suppressing the effects of his pain. “My wife thinks I’m in Philadelphia; my doctor would ask questions. There’s another man we use.”

“I think questions are in order right now!”

“No one would listen to the answers.”

“You can’t do this,” said Alison, wiping O’Brien’s face with a handkerchief. “Peter’s right.”

“No, he’s not,” O’Brien winced. “We’re closer to those files than we’ve ever been. We have to find them. Take them. It’s the only answer. For us.”

“Why?” asked Peter.

“The Saint Michael’s house is restricted territory. A four-million-dollar piece of real estate that’s out of reach.”

“You reached it,” interrupted Chancellor.

“Strangely enough, I didn’t.” Quinn inhaled audibly. The pain passed, and he continued. “If the State Department or the bureau ever found out how I lied or what I divulged, I’d spend twenty years in a federal prison. I’ve violated every oath I took.”

Peter felt a rush of affection for him. “What happened?” he asked.

“I used Varak’s name with the State Department. He was a defector specialist, and I knew the clearance procedures to obtain the use of a sterile house. The bureau’s been involved with defectors before. I said it was a joint operation between my office and NSC. Varak’s name insured
acceptance. My office could be questioned. Not Varak.”

Chancellor swung the car around a long curve to the right. Even in death Varak was part of everything. “Wasn’t it dangerous using Varak? He was dead. His body had to be found.”

“But his prints were burned off years ago. I’d guess that even his dental work was done under an assumed name. With the number of homicides in this city and the procedures the police have to follow, it could be a week before his identity is known.”

“What’s your point? You used Varak’s name to gain access to the Saint Michael’s house. So what? Why are we closer to the files?”

“You’d never make a lawyer. Whoever attacked us tonight had to know two specific things. One: the clearing process at State that made the house available. And two: that Varak was dead. Those four men you’re going to see. Banner, Paris, Venice, or Christopher. One of them knew both.”