The Red Horseman (3 page)

“Not force,” Jake Grafton said. “Terror.”

“Terror,” Yocke agreed, comwh the
leadership was no longer in a position to supply.”

“Where did they go wrong?” Callie asked.
“After the collapse of communism and the dissolution of the
Soviet state, everyone was so hopeful. Where did
they go wrong?”

Everyone at the table had an opinion about that, even
Amy. “No one over there likes anyone else,”
she stated.

“All the ethnic groups hate each other. That
isn’t right.

People shouldn’t hate.”

Toad Tarkington winked at her. Amy was growing
up, and he liked her very much. comHow’s the driving
going?” he asked when there was a break in the conversation.

was Great,” Amy said, and grinned. “Except for
Mom, who Sits there gritting her teeth, waiting
for the crash.”

“Now, Amy . . . .” Callie began.

“She knows it’s going to be bad-teeth, hair and
eyeballs all over the dashboard.” Amy sighed
plaintively. “I’ve decided to become a race
car driver. I’m going to start in stock cars. I
figure in a couple of years I’ll be ready for
formula one.”

“Amy Carol,” her mother said with mock
severity.

“You are not-was

“Talent,” Amy told Toad. “Some people have it
and some don’t. You should see my throttle work and the
way I handle the wheel.”

After dinner Jack Yocke asked to speak with the
admiral alone, so Jake took him into the study and
closed the door.

“Looks like you’ve been doing some reading,” the
reporter remarked as both men settled into chairs.

“Ummm.”

“This is my big break,” Yocke said.

“That’s what you said when the Post let you write a
column during the ‘92 presidential primary
campaign.” combledment “Well, that didn’t work out.
And it wasn’t a column was just a signed opinion
article once a week.”

Jake reached for a scrapbook on a bookshelf
and flipped through it.

“Callie saved most of them. I thought some of your
stuff was pretty good.”

Yocke shrugged modestly, a gesture that
Grafton missed, The admiral adjusted his
glasses on his nose and said, “Let’s see-this was
written in January, before the New
Hampshire primary. You said, “Now Bush
admits that he didn’t know the country was in a
recession. He’s the only man in America who
hadn’t heard the news — The man’s a groundhog
who only comes out of his hole every four years
to campaign.”

“Acceptable hyperbole,” Yocke said and
squirmed in his seat. “A columnist is supposed
to be interesting.”

was ‘If George Bush had been president
during World War II, allied troops would have
stopped at the Rhine and the Nazis would still be running
Germany.”

“Well . . .”

Grafton flipped pages. He cleared his
throat. was ‘The American people don’t want
George Bush and Clarence “Coke can” Thomas
deciding whether their daughters can have abortions.”

was Grafton glanced over his glasses at
Yocke. “Coke can?”

“There was a mix-up on that. That comment should not have
gotten into the paper. I wrote that as a joke
to give the editor something to shout at me about and somehow
he missed it. He and I almost got canned.”

Grafton sighed and flipped more pages.
“Ahh, here’s my favorite: ‘Even if
Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton is
absolutely innocent, as he claims, of having
an adulterous affair with bimbo Gennifer
Flowers, that by itself would not disqualify him to be
president. America has had two presidents this
century, perhaps even three, who were faithful to their
wives. A fourth would not rend the social fabric
beyond repair. It’s an indisputable fact that such
dull clods rarely seek public office in our
fair land and almost never achieve it, so if one does
squeak in occasionally, once a generation, how much harm
could he do?”

“A parody of David Broder,” Yocke
muttered with a touch of defiance. “A satire.”

“Everything written in our age is satire,” the
admiral said as he closed the scrapbook and slid
it back into the bookshelf. When he looked at
Yocke he grinned. “You should be writing for Rolling
Stone.”

“The Post pays better,” Jack Yocke said.
“Y’know, I’ve written a lot of stuff through the
years, yet I still have to spell my name for the guy at
the laundry whenever I drop off my shirts. And
he’s seen me twice a week for five
years, speaks English, can even read a little.”

Still wearing a grin, Grafton took off his
glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Your
stuff’s too subtle.

You should try to give it more punch.”

“Words to live by. I’ll remember that
advice. But we have a hot tip that I’m going
to try to chase down when I get to Russia. The
story is that some tactical nukes are on the open
market. For sale to the highest bidder.”

“You don’t say?” Jake Grafton said. He
pushed his eyebrows aloft.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Yocke crossed his legs and settled in. “I
know you won’t confirm or deny anything, and you won’t
breathe a word of classified information, but I thought
I’d run this rumor by you. Just for the heck of it.”

Jake Grafton ran his fingers through his hair,
pinched his nose, and regarded his guest without
enthusiasm. “Thanks.

We’ll look into it. Be a help if we knew
the source of this hot tip, though.”

“I can’t give you that. It’s more of a rumor than
a tip.

Still, if it’s true it’s a hell of a
story.”

“A story to make you famous,” Jake agreed.
“And to think we knew you when. All you have to do is
live long enough to file it.”

“There’s that, of course.”

Jake stood and held out his hand. “If worse
comes to worst, it’s been nice knowing you.”

Jack Yocke looked at the outstretched hand a
moment then shook it. He got out of his chair and
smiled. “One oi your most charming characteristics,
Admiral, is that deep streak of maudlin sentiment
under the professional exterior.

You’re just an old softie.”

“Drop us a postcard from time to time and tell us how
you’re doing.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Jack Yocke opened the door and went out, and
Amy Carol came in. She carefully closed the
door behind her.

“Dad, I have a question.” She dropped into the
chairjust vacated by the reporter.

“Okay.”

“It’s about sex.”

Jake opened his mouth, then closed it again. Amy
was growing Up, no question about that. She had
filled out nicely in all the womanly places and
presumably had consulted with Callie about
plumbing, morals and all that.

Under his scrutiny she squirmed slightly in her
seat.

“Why don’t you ask your mom?”

Amy shot out of the chair and bolted for the door.
On her way down the hall he heard her call,
“Toad, you owe me five bucks. I told you
he’d duck it.”

After Yocke said his good-byes, Jake and Toad
Tarkington took coffee into the study and carefully
closed the door.

“You’re not going to believe this, Admiral, but
last night at the Kennedy Center Judith
Farrell walked up and said hi.”

Jake Grafton took a while to process it.
It had been years since he’d heard that name.
“Judith Farrell, the Mossad agent?”

“That’s right, sir. Judith Farrell. Now she
calls herself Elizabeth Thorn. She had a
Maryland driver’s license.”

“Better tell me about it.”

Toad did so. In due course he got to the
message. “You remember Nigel Keren,
the British billionaire publisher who fell off
his yacht a year or two ago while it was cruising
in the Canaries?”

Jake nodded. “Found floating naked in the
ocean.”

“Stone cold dead. That’s the guy, Nigel
Keren. Then his publishing empire went tits up
amid claims of financial shenanigans. But
nobody could ever figure out how Keren got from his
stateroom aboard the yacht over a chest-high rail
into the water while wearing nothing but his birthday
suit.”

Jake sipped coffee. “He was a Lebanese
Jew, wasn’t he?

Naturalized in Britain?”

“Yessir. Anyway, ol” Judith Farrell
says the CIA killed him.”

“What?”

“That’s the message she wanted you to have,
Admiral.

The CIA killed Nigel Keren. Oh, and this
photo.” Toad took the envelope from his pocket
and passed it to the admiral, who went to his desk and
turned on the desk lamp to examine it.

“I know who this is,” he told Toad.

“Yessir. I recognized him too. Herb
Tenney, the CIA officer who is going to Russia
with us. If we go.”

Jake got a magnifying glass from his desk
drawer and examined the photo carefully as he tried
to recall what he had read of Keren’s death. The
financier had been alone on the yacht with its crew
until he turned up missing one morning. Several
days later his nude body was fished from the ocean.
All twelve crewmen claimed ignorance. The
Spanish pathologist had been unable to establish the
cause of death but ruled out drowning, due to an
absence of water in the lungs. So Keren had been
dead when his body went overboard. How he died was
an unsolved mystery.

Finally Jake laid the glass and the photo on the
desk and regarded it with a frown. “Herb Tenney
reading a newspaper.” He sighed. “Okay,
what’s the rest of the message? ,

“You got it all, Admiral. “Tell
Admiral Grafton that the CIA killed Nigel
Keren and here’s a photo and negative.

‘Bye.” That’s all she said.”

Jake used the magnifying glass to examine the
negative.

It appeared to be the one from which the print was made.

Finally he put both print and negative back
in the envelope and passed the envelope back
to Toad. “Take these to the computer center on
Monday morning and have them examined. I want to know
where and when the photo was taken and I want to know if
the negative has been altered or enhanced by computer
processing.” He doubted if the negative had
been altered, but Farrell had offered it as evidence,
so it wouldn’t hurt to check.

“Yessir. But what if word of this gets back
to Tenney?”

“What if it does? Maybe he can tell us about
the photograph.”

“If the CIA killed Keren and Tenney was in
on it, maybe they won’t want anyone to see this
picture.”

“Toad, you’ve been reading too many spy
stories. We’ll probably have to ask Tenney about
that picture. Farrell knew that. She probably
wants us to question Tenney.”

“Then we shouldn’t,” Toad said. “At least not
until we know what this is all about.”

Jake Grafton snorted. He had been on the
fringes of the intelligence business long enough
to distrust everyone associated with it. The truth, he
believed, wasn’t in them. They didn’t know it.
Worse, they never expected to learn it, nor did
they care. “Take the print and negative to the
computer guys,” he repeated. “Stick a
classification on it. Top secret. That should
keep the technician quiet.”

“What about Farrell?” Toad demanded.

“What about her?”

“We could get her address from the Maryland
department of motor vehicles and try to find her.”

“She was told what to say and she said it. She
doesn’t know anything.”

Toad Tarkington flicked the envelope with his
forefinger, then placed it in an inside pocket. He
drained the last of his coffee. “If you don’t mind
my asking, what did Yocke want?”

“disHe’s heard a rumor that some tactical
nukes are for sale in Russia to the highest
bidder.”

“Shee-it!”

“I know the feeling,” Jake Grafton said.
“The most sensitive, important, dangerous
item on the griddle at the National Security
Council and Jack Yocke picked it up
on the street. Now he’s charging off to scribble himself
famous.

Makes you want to blow lunch.”

RICHARD HARPER WAS A PRIEST OF THE
HIGH-TECH GOD-DESS. He spent his off-hours
reading computer magazines and technical works and
browsing at gadget stores. He thought about computers
most of his waking hours.

There was something spiritual about a computer, he
believed. It Was almost as if it had a soul of its
own, an existence independent of the plastic and wire
and silicon of which it was constructed.

So he habitually talked to his computer as his
fingers danced across the keyboard. His comments were low,
lilting and almost unintelligible, but it was obvious
to Toad Tarkington that Harper was in direct
communication with whoever or whatever it was that made the
machine go.

That didn’t bother Toad-he had spent years
listening to naval aviators whisper to their lusty
jet-fueled mistresses: he didn’t even
classify Richard Harper as more than average
dingy.

Just now he tried to make sense of Harper’s
incantations.

He got a word or two here and there. “dis — .
time for a hundred indecisions, a hundred visions and
revisions….

Do I dare, do I dare?” After a few minutes
he tuned out Harper and scanned the posters,
cartoons, and newspaper articles taped to the
wall.

All over the wall. On every square inch.
Computer stuff. Yeck!

Tarkington regarded computers as just another
too[, more expensive than a screwdriver or
hammer but no more inherently interesting. Of necessity
he periodically applied himself to making one work, and
when required could even give a fairly
comprehensive technical explanation of what went
on down deep inside. But a computer had no
pizzazz, no romance, no appeal to his inner being.
This Monday morning he leaned idly on the counter and
without a twinge of curiosity watched Harper and his
computer do their thing.

But he had a restless mind that had to be mulling
something; once again his thoughts went back to Elizabeth
Thorn, alias Judith Farrell. He had loved
her once. One of the mate’s biological
defects, he decided, was his inability
to stop loving a woman. Oh, you can dump her,
avoid her, hate her, love someone else, but
once love has struck it cannot be completely
eradicated. The wound may scar over nicely,
yet some shards of the arrowhead will remain permanently
embedded to remind you where you were hit. If you are a
man.