The Gamma Option (2 page)

First he removed a small square of putty from his pocket and reached down again with his left hand. The plunger would remain depressed until the door parted from it entirely. The figure started the door slowly inward, easing the putty into place a little at a time until it covered the whole of the plunger, holding it in its slot even without pressure from the door. Then the figure eased the door open the rest of way and slid inside with some of the sea mist trailing behind him.

A key pad before him with bright red light warned of the final security system, which would include a motion detector. The figure had the tools to bypass it, but he reached out first and pressed a sequence of four numbers with his index finger. The red light flashed green, and the figure allowed himself a smile.

Not like McCracken to be so foolish.

The moonlight through drawn glass curtains over a bay window that overlooked the water provided what little light he needed now. The stairs rose just to his right. The matter was finished so far as the figure was concerned, the rest a mere formality. McCracken’s bedroom would face the ocean, and when he reached it all pretense of subtlety would be abandoned.

The figure crept onward, almost to the head of the stairs now, careful with each step, silent as the night that had delivered him here. He had barely reached the top and started to turn when the slightest motion froze him; no, not a motion so much as a shifting in the air, a breeze passing through an open window. The figure had just begun to slide on again when something cold and hard touched the back of his neck. A distinctive
click
sounded as hammer met pin.

“Bang,” said McCracken.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, Henri,” Blaine said when they were back downstairs. “You haven’t lost a step in all these years.”

Dejourner shrugged in the darkness. “Apparently,
mon ami
, I have lost something.”

Blaine preceded him back down the stairs and hit a pair of switches which activated recessed and track lighting throughout the first floor.

“Looks better with the lights on, old friend,” he said and led Dejourner past the galley kitchen into a living area furnished in rich dark leathers. Oriental rugs in many shades lay on the polished hardwood floors. What might have been the dining alcove was dominated by custom-built cherry bookshelves packed with leatherbound books.

“I’ve taken to reading them,” Blaine said, following Henri’s gaping eyes.

“I must say, Blaine, that when my sources placed you in Portland, Maine, I was surprised and worried, but this—”

“Don’t sell the city short. Riverfront redevelopment is a way of life around here. Take a look.”

Another flip of a switch illuminated a deck with a clear view to the sea.

“Got a pair of bedrooms upstairs and a full gym in the basement. You know, I’ve got five apartments scattered around the country, but I seem to have settled here. Maybe it’s because the long winter gives me an excuse to be isolated. Might try Canada next, who knows?”

“Then please excuse me for disturbing you.”

“Solitude is fine, but the winter was long enough.”

Blaine sat down in a leather chair that faced out to the deck. Henri Dejourner settled into the couch adjacent to him against the far wall. A brilliant landscape painting hung above it.

“I gotta tell you, Henri, no man could have negotiated my security systems better. It was a real treat watching you work again. The only one I can’t figure is the alarm code. How’d you guess it?”

“Simple,
mon ami
. I pressed 1-9-5-0, the year of your birth. Since it’s exactly twenty years after my own, it’s easy to remember.”

“Don’t remind me. Turning forty wasn’t exactly the happiest day of my life.”

“And how do you think I felt turning sixty?”

McCracken couldn’t say how Henri felt, but he looked marvelous. His still-full hair was the same shade of gray it had been when they had last met, and his frame, though small, remained lean and taut.

“And in spite of everything,” the Frenchman said, “you were still lying in wait for me the whole time, laughing to yourself no doubt. You’re still a magician,
mon ami
.”

“Johnny Wareagle’s the magician, Henri. I rely on more traditional aids. Like a harbormaster named Abner who saw you make off with the skiff. He gave me a call.”

“Ah, knows what to look for, does he?”

“He certainly does.” After both of them had shared a smile, Blaine added, “You enjoyed yourself tonight, didn’t you?”

Dejourner smiled fondly. “I miss the old days. When was it we met, Vietnam in ’70 or ’71?”

“ ’Seventy on the crisscross. I was on my way in and you were on your way out. And it wasn’t Nam, it was Cambodia.”

“Forgive me.”

“For that, of course. For tonight, I’m not so sure.”

“Blaine?”

“Who were you testing tonight, Henri, you or me?”

“There would be no reason to test you,
mon ami
. I have kept tabs.”

“Then you should have known that the last party that showed up on my doorstep unannounced went swimming.”

“You gave him a life jacket, of course.”

“Sure. I made sure his seatbelt was fastened before I made him drive his car into the bay. About a month ago I think it was. Figured he might be coming back for a second dunking. Abner keeps an eye out for me.”

“You haven’t changed,
mon ami
. That’s good.”

“The fact is I wouldn’t have needed Abner a few years ago or these damn security systems either. I’m slipping. My last few missions haven’t gone too well. I think I came here to hide out for the winter. Now I’ll probably go somewhere else.”

Dejourner waved him off. “You’ve never looked better.”

“But I’m starting to have to work too hard at it. Gotta run faster and faster just to stay in the same place.”

Dejourner was nodding. “As I recall, you spent five miserable years quite literally in the same place.”

“No offense, Henri, but I learned to hate your country during those years.”

“No offense taken.”

“You made that time bearable. I was stuck sorting paperclips, but you saw fit to throw some real work my way. It’s too bad our countries weren’t enemies; we could have exchanged prisoners.”

“With intelligence communities, enemies would be an accurate description. I was able to convince my superiors to let me use you only after persuading them it would make their American counterparts look bad. Such a rat race! You are lucky to be out of it.”

“And you?”

“Still a rat, I’m afraid.” Dejourner shrugged.

“Listen, I meant what I said about what you did for me back then, Henri,” Blaine said. “I owe you. I don’t forget my debts.”

Dejourner grasped his meaning and waved his hands dramatically before him. “
Non, mon ami
. I have not come here to request one of your famous favors.”

“Well, you sure as hell didn’t fly across the ocean to play a game more fit for recruits many years younger than us.”

“Please, Blaine, this is not easy for me. There is something I must tell you and I don’t know how. I spent the flight over rehearsing a dozen speeches. None of them worked.”

“Why don’t you try number thirteen on me now?”

“It’s not that simple. As many times as I rehearsed, I almost decided to just take the next flight home. I’m not sure I have any business being here. I’m not sure I have any business bringing you this news.”

“We’re friends, Henri. Friends always have business doing whatever they want.”

Dejourner grimaced as if the words bottled up inside him were causing genuine pain. “You recall a British woman named Lauren Ericson? You met her—”

“In London thirteen years ago. Let’s see, that would have made me twenty-seven: five years out of Nam and four operating in the same theater as you. Things were less complicated then.”

“The woman, what do you remember of her?”

“A knockout. Thought she was a model at first but she turned out to be a doctor, studying to be an orthopedic surgeon, as I recall. I was working with the British rounding up Al-Fatah operatives. We were on speaking terms then.”

“Pre-McCrackenballs …”

“Yes. Lauren and I were an item for three months or so and then she broke it off. That’s always the way it is for me.”

“Did she tell you why she broke it off?”

“She told me the same thing I’ve heard over and over again: I was a lot more fun to be with before she learned everything about me because she knew everything wasn’t all and she didn’t want to know it all. In a nutshell. My turn now, Henri. Where is this leading?”

“She died two months ago.”

Blaine wanted to feel grief but found it hard to muster any for someone he hadn’t seen in thirteen years.

“You haven’t come here to inform me I was mentioned in her will.”

“In a sense I have,
mon ami
. Lauren Ericson is survived by a son. He’s yours.”

Chapter 2

THE NEWS HIT MCCRACKEN
like a hammer blow, knocking the breath hard out of him.

Dejourner had a memo pad out and was reading from it. “The boy’s name is Matthew. He’s three months past twelve and is enrolled in the third form at the Reading School in Reading, England. He is at present a boarder at the school after having lived the rest of his life in the village of Hambleden twenty-five minutes away.”

“How did Lauren die?”

“Traffic accident.”

“Does the boy …”

“No,
mon ami
. He has no knowledge of you. Lauren told him his father deserted them.”

“Then he does have some knowledge of me.”

The Frenchman eyed him sternly. “Your shoulders are still broad, Blaine, but don’t expect too much of them. She made the choice for reasons you understand as well as I. As near as I can figure, she broke off the relationship when she learned she was pregnant.”

“Because she felt no father was better than—”

“One who could never be happy living a normal life …”

“A sane life, you mean.”

“Call it what you will, but she knew it wasn’t for you. A child was the last thing you needed, and she understood that enough to do what she felt was right.”

“There’s more.”

“There always is. The practical side—and Lauren was a practical woman. If you knew of the boy’s existence, then so might your enemies. Once she elected to have the child, Lauren could not permit that. So the gesture probably was not aimed so much at you, as what you had given her.”

“Given her?” Blaine rose from his chair, strode to the window, and stared out at the nearby waters as he spoke. “We ate lots of dinners, saw lots of shows, and had plenty of fun. I didn’t mean to give her any more than I took.”

“Apparently the child changed things.”

Blaine swung around. “I think she mainly wanted a child, and there I was, ready and willing.” He smiled ruefully at his reflection in the glass, observing the scar which ran through his left eyebrow and his eyes that were blacker than the night. “Hope the kid got her looks anyway.”

“He did.”

“You’ve
seen
him?”

“I … checked up on him at the school, made the proper arrangements for his boarding and the like.”

Blaine closed the gap between them and watched the Frenchman’s eyes waver. “Wait a minute, Henri. Suddenly I’m getting the feeling that your stake in this is deeper than you’d have me think.”

Dejourner sighed deeply. His face looked flushed. “It is why I struggled so long and hard before coming to you, Blaine. Lauren was … my niece.”

“Then you …”

Dejourner rose to face him, having to look up to meet his eyes. “You needed someone. So did she. Yes, I arranged it. And what it did for you at the time proved I was right. You were like a son to me, and I saw what that awful war had done to you. It stole from you your youth and set you on a path that denied honest sharing, compassion, love if you wish. I knew that path because I walked it myself.” The Frenchman’s expression grew somber. “I was almost fifty, single and alone, having known only love for my country, which as you often have told me can be a cold and callous partner. You had to see the other side. I had to show it to you.”

“When did you learn of the child?”

Dejourner looked away. “I didn’t know it was yours.”

“You suspected.”

“But I didn’t know!” Then, more softly, he added, “I supposed I did not want to know. I did not learn the truth until a covenant in her will reached me with the entire story. Lauren had grown up an orphan. She did not want the same for her son.”

“Then she expected me to—”

“She expected you to be true to your own heart. She knew the kind of man you were, that you would do what was right and fair. I’m not sure, no, I
am
sure she had no desire for you to approach the boy. She merely wanted to insure his future would be watched over by someone she trusted.” Henri’s eyes reached out toward him. “You must do what is right and fair for the boy, but you must also do the same for yourself.”

“A rather difficult combination to achieve under the circumstances.”

“Your heart will guide you,
mon ami
.”

“You don’t really expect me to walk into the boy’s life now, do you?”

“I expect you to do what is right. And whatever you choose, it will be right. I have done my part. I have stayed true to my conscience as well as Lauren’s covenant.”

“And by so doing, you may be exposing the boy to the very things she wanted to avoid when she—and you—chose not to tell me he existed.”

Dejourner nodded. “Now you can understand the predicament I have faced these past months. Sleep has not come easy, believe me. I thought of you, I thought of Lauren, but in the end I thought of the child, and that is what swayed me.” The Frenchman reached out and grasped Blaine’s forearm tenderly. “He deserves to know you,
mon ami
, perhaps not as a father but at least as a man.” Dejourner pulled away. “I leave it to you.”

“How old are you, Johnny?” McCracken asked the huge Indian. They sat facing each other in the log cabin Wareagle had built in the woods near Stickney Corner, Maine. The town was three hours from Portland, and Blaine had driven there the minute Dejourner had departed.