The Red Horseman

THE RED HORSEMAN

BY: STEPHEN COONTS

Synopsis:

As the infrastructure of the Soviet Union
crumbles before the world’s eyes, twenty-thousand
tactical nuclear weapons, once under the command of the
Soviet military, are up for grabs — and
U.s. Intelligence believes they may soon
appear on the open market. Rear Admiral
Jake Grafton, Deputy Director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, is dispatched
to Moscow. His assignment: ensure that the weapons
are destroyed before they disappear into a middle East
terrorist pipeline. But Grafton discovers that
unidentified American officials want his
mission to fail — and will go to any length to stop
it. Meanwhile, off the coast of the Canary Islands,
the body of British billionaire and media
magnet Nigel Keren has been found floating in
the sea near his yacht. Grafton’s contacts in
Israeli Intelligence have evidence he was the
victim of a hit squad from within the CIA. It’s the
kind of knowledge that could prove fatal, but Grafton can’t
back off: if the freelance operation succeeds,
middle east hostility could explode into an
international conflagration. The only thing Grafton
knows for sure is that he has been targeted for
assassination, and the conspiracy is clearly stamped:
made in America.

DON’T MISS THESE OUTSTANDING NEW
YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS BY STEPHEN
COONTS

INTRUDER

UNDER SIEGE

THE RED HORSEMAN

Flight of the Intruder

Final Flight

The Minotaur

NONFICTION

The Cannibal Queen: A Flight into the
Heart of America*

*Published by POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS New York London
Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

The sale of this book without its cover is
unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a
cover, you should be aware that It was reported to the
publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the
author nor the publisher has received payment for the
sale of this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon and
Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020

Copyright C 1993 by Stephen P. Coonts
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

ISBN: 0-671-74888-2

First Pocket Books paperback printing
June 1994

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

POCKET and colophon are registered
trademarks of Simon and Schuster Inc.

Cover art by Dru Blair

Printed in the U.s.a.

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance
of the following people on various aspects of this novel:
William C. Cohen, Oleg Kalugin, Fred
Kleinberg, and George C. Wilson. A
special tip of the hat goes to Barriaby
Williams, who conceived the idea of personal binary
poisons and graciously allowed the author to twist
it to his own perverted ends.

And there went out another horse that was red: and power
was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the
earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was
given to him a great sword.

Revelation 64

The Cold War is over; the Soviet Union
is no more…. In the past, we dealt with the nuclear
threat from the Soviet Union through a combination of
deterrence and arms control, but the new possessors
of nuclear weapons may not be deferrable.

comLes Aspin, U.s. Secretary of
Defense

THE RED HORSEMAN

TOAD TARKINGTON FIRST NOTICED HER
DURING THE IN-TERMISSION after the first act. His
wife, Rita Moravia, had gone to the ladies”
and he was stretching his legs, casually inspecting the
audience, when he saw her.

Three rows back, four seats in from the other
aisle.

She was seated, talking to her male companion,
gesturing lightly, now listening to what her friend had
to say. Now she glanced at the program, then
raised her gaze and spoke casually.

Toad Tarkington stared. In a few seconds
he caught himself and turned his back.

How long had it been? Four years? No,
five. But it couldn’t be her, not here. Not in
Washington, D.c. Could it?

He half-turned and casually glanced at her
again.

The hairstyle was different, but it’s her. He would
swear to it. Great figure, eyes set wide apart
above prominent cheekbones, with a voice and a touch that
would excite a mummy-no man ever forgets
a woman like that.

He sat and stared at the program in his hand without
an I seeing it. He had last seen her five
years ago, in Tel Aviv.

And now she’s here.

Judith Farrell. No, that was only an
alias. Her real name is Hannah something.
Mermelstein. Hannah Mermelstein.

Here!

Good God!

Suddenly he felt hot. He tugged at the
knot in his tie and unfastened his collar button.

“What’s the matter? Are you catching a cold?”
Rita slipped into her seat and gave him one of those
looks that wives reserve for husbands whose social
skills are showing signs of slackness. Before Toad
could answer the house lights dimmed and the curtain
opened for act two.

He couldn’t help himself. When the spotlight hit
the actors, he looked left, trying to see her in
the dim glow.

Too many people in the way. Hannah Mermelstein,
but he had promised to never tell anyone her real
name. And he hadn’t.

“Is something wrong?” Rita whispered.

“Uh-uh.”

“Then why are you rubbing your leg?”

“Ah, it’s aching a little.”

That leg had two steel pins in it, and just now it
seemed to Toad that he could feel both of them. The
Israeli doctors inserted the pins just a day or
two before he saw Judith/hannah for the last time.
She came to see him in the hospital.

Toad Tarkington didn’t want to remember.
He folded his hands on his lap and tried
to concentrate on the actors on the stage. Yet it
came back as if it had just happened yesterday, raw
and powerful-the night he made love to her, that
Naples hotel lobby as the man with her gunned
down a man in the elevator, the assault on the
United States, the stench of the ship burning in the
darkness … that F-14 flight with Jake
Grafton. He found himself gripping the arms of the
seat as all the emotions came flooding back.

What is she doing here?

Who has she come to kill?

“Come on,” he whispered to Rita. “I want
to go home.”

“Now?” She was incredulous.

“Yes. Now.” He stood.

Rita collected her purse and rose, then
preceded him toward the aisle, muttering excuses as
she clambered past knees and feet. In the aisle
he took her elbow as she walked toward the lobby.
He glanced toward where Judith Farrell was
sitting, but couldn’t spot her.

“Are you feeling okay?” Rita asked.

“I’ll explain later.”

The lobby was empty. He led Rita to the
cloakroom and fished in his shirt pocket for the
claim check. The girl went to fetch the
umbrella.

He extracted two dollars from his wallet and
dropped them into the tip jar, then wiped the perspiration
from his forehead with his hand. The girl returned with the
umbrella and handed it across the Dutch door counter.

“Thanks.”

When he turned, Judith Farrell was standing there
facing him.

“Hello, Robert.”

He tried to think of something to say. She stood
looking at him, her head cocked slightly to one
side. Her male companion was against the far wall,
facing them.

“Rita,” she said, “I’m Elizabeth
Thorn. May I speak to your husband for a few
minutes?”

Rita looked at Toad with her eyebrows up.
So Judith Farrell knew about his wife. It
figured.

“Where?” Toad asked. His voice was hoarse.

“Your car.”

Toad cleared his throat. “I don’t think-was

“Robert, I came tonight to talk to you. I think you
should hear what I have to say.”

“The CIA is open eight to five,” Toad
Tarkington said, “Monday through Friday. They’re in
the phone book.”

“This is important,” Judith Farrell said.

Toad cleared his throat again and considered.
Rita’s face was deadpan.

“Okay.” Toad took his wife’s arm and
turned toward the door. The man against the wall
watched the three of them go and made no move
to follow.

They walked in silence across the parking lot. The
rain had stopped but there were still puddles. Toad
unlocked the car doors and told Farrell, “You
sit up front. Rita, who was in the backseat,
please.” Once in the car he started the
engine and turned on the defroster as the women seated
themselves. Then he reached over and grabbed Judith
Farrell’s purse. Farrell didn’t react, but
Rita started. Still, she remained silent.

No gun in the purse. That was his main concern.
There was a wallet, so he opened it. Maryland
driver’s license for Elizabeth Thorn, born
April 17, 1960. The address was in Silver
Spring. Several credit cards, some cash, and nothing
else. He put the wallet back into the purse and
stirred through the contents. The usual female beauty
paraphernalia, a box of tissues, a tube of
lipstick. He examined the lipstick tube, took
the cap off, ran the colored stick in and out, then
replaced the cap and dropped the tube back into the
purse. He put the purse back on Farrell’s
lap.

“Okay, Miss. Thorn. You have your audience.”

“I want you to give Jake Grafton a
message.”

“Call the Defense Intelligence Agency and
make an appointment.”

“Obviously I don’t want anyone to know that
I talked to him, Robert. So I came to you. I
want you to pass the message along, to him and
no one else.”

Toad Tarkington looked that over and accepted it,
reluctantly. Rear Admiral Grafton was the
deputy director at the DIA and Toad was his
aide. Both facts were widely known, public knowledge.
At the office every call was logged, every visitor
positively identified. Admiral Grafton
lived in general officers’ quarters at the
Washington Navy Yard and was guarded by the federal
protective service.

While it would be easy enough for a professional
to slip through the protective cordon, doing so would
require the admiral either to report the conversation
to his superiors or violate the security
regulations.

Presumably this way it would be up to the admiral
to decide if this conversation had to be reported, a
faint distinction that didn’t seem all that clear
to Toad.

“Rita and I will know.”

“You won’t tell anyone. You’re both naval
officers.”

That was also true. Rita was an instructor at the
navy’s Test Pilot School at NAS
Patuxent River. Both of them held the
rank of lieutenant commander, both had top secret
clearances, both had seen reams of classified
material that they couldn’t even talk about to each other.

Toad turned and looked at Rita, who was staring
at the back of Elizabeth Thorn’s head and
frowning.

Toad Tarkington gazed out the window at the
empty parked cars as he considered it. “Why tonight?
When I’m out with Rita?”

“If I had walked up to you when you were alone, you
would have brushed me off.”

That comment irritated him. “Pretty damn sure
of yourself, aren’t you?”

Farrell didn’t reply.

Toad again glanced over his shoulder at his wife,
who met his eyes. She was going to be full of questions
as soon as they were alone. Now she opened her door
and stepped out of the car. She walked around to the front
of the vehicle where she could watch the other woman’s
face.

“This better be good,” Toad said. “Let’s hear
it.”

It took less than sixty seconds. Toad
made her repeat it and asked several questions,, none of
which Elizabeth Thorn answered. From her
coat pocket she took a plain white unsealed
envelope, which she passed to Toad. He opened it.
It contained a photo and a negative. The photo was
a three-by-five snap of a middle-aged white
man seated at a table, apparently at an outdoor
restaurant, reading. a newspaper. There was a
plate on the table. His face registered just a
trace of a frown.

“Want to tell me who this is?”

“You find out.”

“Any hints?”

“CIA. You’ll talk to Grafton?”

“Maybe, if you’ll help me with the captiom”
He wiggled the photograph.

“Like when and where.”

“Jake Grafton can figure it out. I have a
great deal of faith in him.”

“But not much in me.” Toad sighed. “How about this:
just before he took his first-and last-bite of eggs
Benedict injected full of arsenic trioxide
by beautiful spy Hannah Mermelstein, Special
Agent Sixty-Nine realized that the Sauce
Hollandaise had a pinch too much salt?”

Her face showed no reaction whatever.

Toad Tarkington shrugged. He put the
photo back in the envelope and placed the envelope
in an inside jacket pocket. “So how did you
know Rita and I were coming to this play tonight?”

Judith Farrell opened the car door and stepped
out “Thank you for your time, Robert.” She closed the
door’ and walked away. Toad watched her go as
Rita came around the car and climbed into the front
passenger seat.

“Who is she?”

“Mossad.” The Israeli intelligence
service.

“You were in love with her once, weren’t you?”

Trust a woman to glom onto that angle.
Toad sighed and pulled the transmission lever
into reverse.

When the car was out on the street, Rita asked,
“When did you know her?”

“Five years ago. In the Med. “Her real name
isn’t Elizabeth Thorn, is it?”