The Red Horseman (36 page)

“In the bedroom with Rita.”

“Ask them to come out here, will you please?” Jake
pulled a chair around to face Tenney, who was still on
the couch.

While the reporter knocked on the bedroom
door, Jake ripped the tape from Herb’s mouth,
wadded the strip up and tossed it toward a wastepaper
basket. He missed. Rita and Toad came out
of the bedroom holding hands.

“I want to go to the bathroom,” Herb said
belligerently.

Jake weighed it for two seconds, then nodded.
Toad and Jack hoisted him to his feet and carried
him. When they got their guest settled on the throne
with his pants down, Toad came out and shut the
door.

“It went okay today. He hasn’t said a word,
we haven’t questioned him.

He’s eaten a little and had a couple naps.

Maybe I misread him, but I thought he looked
slightly stunned when the gate guard called and said
you and Rita were back. I told Yocke,
and Herb had trouble controlling his face. I thought.”

“No questions today even when you had the tape off”

“No, sir. The man knows how to keep his mouth
shut.”

“A truly rare talent in this day and age. Find
anything in his room?”

Toad took the pill bottle from his shirt
pocket and handed it to Jake.

“There’s four of each left in the bottle-eight
pills.”

“Get my pill bottle from my bag.”

Rita asked, “Admiral, do you want me
here?”

“Yep. You and Toad and Jack and Spiro
Dalworth. But everyone keeps their mouth shut, no
matter what. Toad, take Jack into the bedroom
and tell him if he says one word, he’ll be
ejected. Then rig up Jack’s cassette tape
recorder just out of sight under the couch.” Toad went
and Jake turned to Rita. “Call Captain
Collins and ask him to send Dalworth up.

“Aye aye, sir.”

In the bedroom Toad delivered the message
to Yocke, who merely nodded.

Toad popped the magazine from the
Browning and removed a handful of cartridges from his
pocket. He pushed the shells into the clip one
by one.

“Why didn’t you have your pistol loaded today?”
Yocke asked.

Toad was tired, emotionally drained. His mind
wasn’t working fast enough to come up with a quip, so for
once he told Jack Yocke the unvarnished
truth. “Jake Grafton wanted him alive.
Sitting there looking at him with a loaded gun,
waiting … I don’t know if I could have resisted
the temptation to kill him.”

Yocke watched as Toad finished loading the
magazine and snapped it into the handle of the pistol.
He worked the slide, thumbed the safety
into position. Then he slid the pistol into the small
of his back.

“Why are you loading it now?”

“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

In the bathroom Jake filled a dirty glass
with water and examined the white tablets from Herb’s
bottle. He selected one marked Aspirin on
both sides and dropped it into the water.

It all came down to this. If Herb knew
Jake had substituted aspirin for half
the binary cocktail, he was too many steps ahead for
Jake to catch him now.

He held the glass up to the light and swirled the
water as the tablet slowly disintegrated. Into a pile
of white powder.

Aspirin.

Thank God!

Out in the living room Herb Tenney was back on
the couch. Jake Grafton emptied the pill
bottle onto the table.

He picked up each tablet and examined the
markings.

When he was finished he had two small piles of
tablets.

“General Shmarov died last night,” he
remarked conversationally. “Tell us about that.”

Herb had watched Jake examine the white
tablets. Now he looked at the faces of the other people
in the room, then back at Jake. “I don’t have
anything to say.”

“Tenney, I don’t think you understand how tight the
crack is that you’re in. You are going to talk or
we’re going to force these pills down your throat.
All of them.”

“Now you listen, Admiral. I don’t
know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but I know my
rights. I have the right to an attorney and I have the right
to remain silent.

You’re an agent of the government.”

“You think there’s going to be a trial? You’re
joking, list?”

Jake Grafton hitched his chair closer
to Tenney and leaned forward so his face was only a
foot or so from Herb’s. “Let me say it again–
either you answer my questions with God’s truth or I’m
going to stuff these pills into your mouth and tape it
shut. The pills will dissolve in your mouth even if you
don’t swallow.”

Herb Tenney looked at the tablets and he
looked at Jake Grafton. He was perspiring.
Everyone was looking at him except Jack
Yocke, who was staring at the tablets on the table.

Herb cleared his throat. “Get these other people out of
here.”

“They stay.

“All this is classified.”

“Yeah, and if you tell me your pals will have
to kill me.

I’ve heard that crap before.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Who made the decision to kill Nigel Keren?”

Herb Tenney licked his lips. Sweat formed a
little rivulet down his cheek and a drop coalesced
on his chin. Then it fell away.

“Who?” Jake repeated. He picked up a
tablet and examined it. Finally he placed it back
on the table and stood up.

“Toad, Spiro, hold him down. Rita,
get the tape and tear off a strip.”

Toad came flying across the room like a
linebacker. He slammed into Tenney and knocked
him flat on the couch, then sat on his chest.

Dalworth was just a step behind. Rita charged for the
bathroom to get the tape roll.

Herb tried to scream. He couldn’t get air with
Toad sitting on his chest. Then Jake held his
nose until his mouth popped open. Herb’s skin was
slippery with sweat and he was still trying to scream.
Jake stuffed the tablets in as Herb bucked and
writhed, even with Toad on his chest and Dalworth
on his legs. Jake used both hands to hold his jaw
shut.

“Where’s the damn tape?”

“Jesus H. Christ, Grafton!” Yocke’s
voice, from somewhere behind.

“Let me in there,” Rita said, elbowing her way
into the pile. She slapped a strip of tape over
Tenney’s mouth. Then they released him.

The naval officers stood back, breathing hard.
Herb was snorting through his nose, his eyes wild.

“Can you feel them dissolving, Herb?” Jake
leaned over until his eyes were only a few inches
from those the CIA agent’s. “The poison will be
absorbed through the sides of your mouth into your
bloodstream. You know more about the effect than I do.
How long will it take?

How long before your heart stops? An hour?
Five hours?

Twelve? Maybe you have a whole day. I hate
to see you die like this, Herb, but it was your choice.”

Tenney was moaning in his throat.

Jake let him moan. Now Herb managed
to get into a comsitting position. He was bobbing his
head.

“You want to talk now?”

Tenney’s head bobbed vigorously.

Jake reached over and ripped the tape away from
Herb’s mouth.

Herb spat the pills onto the floor. He
sobbed convulsively. Then he vomited.

“Who?”

“Let me wash my mouth out.”

was Who? was Grafton roared savagely.

con’Schenler.”

“Harvey Schenler? Deputy director of the
CIAT” Herb Tenney nodded.

“Answer me, goddamnit!”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

con”I don’t think-was ‘I don’t give a
fuck what you think! Why?”

“Keren was giving the Israelis money to get
Soviet Jews to Israel. The Arabs don’t
want them there. We’re trying to stabilize the
Mideast.”

“So you poisoned Nigel Keren. How’d you do
it?”

Tenney rubbed his mouth, then bent at the waist and
wiped his tongue on his trousers. When he
straightened he looked from face to face. “It was in
his aspirin bottle,” he said finally.

“You murdered a man and stabilized the Mideast.
Eve thing’s okay down at the corner gas station.
Congratulations.”

“Now look here, Admiral,” Tenney
said heatedly. “The world is a cesspool and you know
it. We need oil. The Arabs have it. We have enough
troubles with the ragheads without idiots like Nigel
Keren using their fat wallets to cause more. The
situation is volatile.”

“Albert Sidney Brown? Did he stick his
fat wallet somewhere it didn’t belong?”

“I don’t know anything about General
Bro-“Don’t lie to me!” Jake thundered. He
could really roar when he wanted to; this time he
rattled the windows. “You are one answer away from the
grave. I’ve killed four men today, maybe
five, and believe me, I won’t lose any
sleep if I have to kill you.” Jake Grafton
paused, then shook his head with annoyance.

“In his aspirin bottle! Well?” he
demanded.

“Brown was about to cause serious problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

He sent a written report of the bugs
to Schenler. Demanded an investigation. There was no
other way to cork him.”

Jake changed direction. “General
Shmarov-why’d you kill him?”

1.1 am not-was

“Sit on him, Toad.”

Tarkington stiff-armed Tenney on the shoulder and
he toppled. “No,” he sobbed. “For Christ’s
sake, no!”

“Answer the question.”

“Shmarov set up the weapons sale to Iraq.
He arranged everything, the transfer of the money, the
reactor explosion-everything. He was in the junta but
he was hedging his bets, showing the American delegation
KGB files, files that they shouldn’t see, just in
case Yeltsin came out on top after all.”

ift, “Didn’t he bribe the deputies?”

AV, “Yeah, but you know how it is. Those kind of
swine won’t stay bought.”

“What kind of files?”

“You’re so fucking smart, you tell me.”

Jake opened his mouth to say Toad’s name, but he
refrained. Another episode with the pills and
Tenney might indeed die, even if one-half the
binary cocktail were aspirin.

Perhaps he already had the missing chemical in his
system.

“Okay,” Jake said slowly. “The CIA and the
KGB have cooperated on numerous matters in the
past. Those were the files Shmarov was going
to hand to the senator and the people with him. Those files would
inevitably lead the Americans to Harvey Schenler
and his cronies, people like you, people who have been running their
own foreign policy within the CIA. So Shmarov had
to die. And all along I thought you were just trying
to poison me. Ha! You were sent here to make sure
Shmarov didn’t spill the beans either. How many people
in Moscow were on your shit list, Tenney?”

“Kiss my-was

con’Richard Harper.

“Who?”

Jake Grafton bent down and began picking up
the tablets from amid the vomit on the floor.
Several of them were soft but intact.

“Don’t fuck with me, Tenney. I’m out of time
and patience.”

“We caught Harper in some of the computer files and
tracked him down,” Herb Tenney said, his voice
rising slightly. “He wasn’t a very good hacker,
nowhere near as good as he thought he was.”

con’He found the money trail, didn’t he?”

“What money trail?”

“The money trail, you simple shit.” Jake
Grafton unzipped a large chest pocket on his
flying suit and extracted an envelope.
He removed the contents. “Here is a letter to me
written by Richard Harper. Look at it. It’s in
Harper’s handwriting. Look at it!”

Tenney looked.

“Harper sent it to my wife,” Jake continued, his
voice like broken glass. “She took it to Hayden
Land and he sent it here by diplomatic pouch. You
got to Richard Harper too late!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about Saddam Hussein’s three
billion dollars. I’m talking about the Mideast
Palm Oil Import Corporation, a CIA
front. I’m talking about J. W. Wise
Organic Commodities, Inc., another CIA
front. I’m talking about seven more corporations
controlled by the CIA that shuffled Saddam
Hussein’s money back and forth all over the world
until it ended up in Moscow-in the hands of
General Shmarov and his allies in the military and in
the legislature.

Money for nuclear weapons. Money to buy friends.
Money to overthrow Yeltsin. Blood money!
Tell me about that money!”

“I don’t-was

“If you tell me you don’t knowjust one
more time we’re 1.

gonna do the pills. This time the tape stays
on.”

Tenney shook his head and sweat flew. “I
didn’t know he wrote a letter.”

“I guess not. If you had, my wife would be
dead now, huh?” comListen, Admiral. We-

“So now Saddam Hussein has nuclear
weapons? Is that right?”

“We helped possible friends in high places in
crucial nations with money! Okay? We’ve done it
before. We’ll do it again. Jesus, where do you think you
are? Oz? Nevernever land? We-

“Answer my question!”

Jake roared. “Saddam Hussein has nuclear
weapons?”

“Israel has them. Russia is in meltdown.
We need a stable government in Russia or the world
is facing a new dark age. Hussein wants to be
a regional power. A couple dozen nuclear
weapons-shit! We have tens of thousands. He knows
that. So he can be a big frog in a little pond and we
can make damn sure he doesn’t get out of
line.”

“You think you can control him? What about the
Gulf War?”

“Let’s call a spade a spade,
Admiral. We can control him or kill him.

America needs a stable government in Russia.
That’s priority number one. With Russia on its
feet and in our corner, the two of us can keep
Saddam on a short leash or knot the noose.”

“So you let Shmarov and Yakolev murder a
half-million Russians. No, let me
rephrase that-you helped them murder a
half-million Russians!”

“We didn’tcom “Harper found that the money went
through CIA dummy corporations, didn’t he?
That’s why you killed him.”