The Trojan Sea (33 page)

“How so?” Seagrave asked.

“We’ve reinstituted no-notice Operational Readiness Inspections,” the colonel explained. “I want to throw some real stressors at our fighter wings, and I think you can do that. If nothing more, it will force a return to basics.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?” Shanker asked.

“As you probably know,” the colonel said, “the Air Force has reactivated Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami along with the thirty-first Fighter Wing.”

Shanker said, “The Thirty-first flies F-16s, right?” The colonel nodded in answer. “All things considered,” Shanker muttered, “a good move.”

“This is close-hold information,” the colonel added. “We’re hitting the thirty-first in about six weeks with a no-notice inspection. We want to use you in much the same manner as today.”

“It won’t work if we fly out of the same base,” Seagrave said.

The colonel thought for a moment. “You can launch out of Navy Key West. That’s near the training areas, which will help with your fuel problems.”

“Yeah!” Shanker said. “You can play like you’re a defecting Cuban MiG.”

“Or a hostile one,” the colonel added.

Shanker shook his head and looked at Seagrave, deeply envious. “How’d you get so lucky?”

“I ate my veggies,” Seagrave replied.

Miami

The young FBI special agent pulled up in front of the elegant building late Friday night and checked the address. He was at the right place. The words “money,” “class,” and “Italian Renaissance” flashed in his mind. Another young man came out to park his car. “I’ll only be a few minutes,” the agent said, waving his ID. “Is the night manager in?”

“He came on duty a few minutes ago,” the valet replied.

The agent got out, dog-tired. The agency had been pushing everyone to the limit since the attempted assassination on the president and was demanding results. He had never seen the tree shaken so hard. Even the ACLU was backing away, afraid to get in the way of the steamroller. He made a mental note to phone his pregnant wife in Virginia after this interview and see how she was doing. The night manager came out of his office and buttoned his coat. “May I help you?” he asked.

“Special Agent Mather, FBI.” Again he waved his ID. “I’m following up on your phone call.” He checked his notes. “You called us yesterday morning at seven oh-five
A.M.”

“Yes, that’s correct. I would have called sooner, but I didn’t recognize her at first.”

“The woman, Sophia James.” Agent Mather said.

“Yes, that’s correct. Of course, she was much more glamorous when I saw her.”

“She was staying here?”

“No. She had an appointment with one of our guests.” The manager handed Mather a business card.

Mather read the card. “‘Heather. Specialized Associates.’ What exactly does Specialized Associates do?”

“She was—or is, I believe—what you might refer to as a ‘call girl.’ A very expensive one, I might add. The going price for a girl like her normally starts at twenty-five hundred dollars.”

Adrenaline shot through Mather. If this lead checked out, he might have made a breakthrough. “I’ll need the details,” he said, jotting down notes.

The manager led the way into his office and checked his log. “She arrived at ten twenty-five
P.M.
by taxi—I didn’t get the number—on Tuesday, the fifteenth of October, last year. She left at two-ten in the morning.”

“And her client?”

“A Mr. Lloyd Marsten, representing RayTex Oil out of Dallas, Texas.”

Mather felt the adrenaline crash. Sophia James was just out making a buck, or in this case a lot of bucks. He closed his notebook. “And he wore a big silver belt buckle, no doubt.”

The manager was incensed to think someone like that would stay at his hotel. “As a matter of fact,” he said huffily, “Mr. Marsten is quite the gentleman. English, I believe.”

A warning signal tickled the back of Mather’s mind. If he hadn’t been so tired, it would have been a Klaxon at full alert. “Anything else you can think of?”

“Well, the time she was here, less than four hours, was very unusual. Normally the girls stay the night.” He checked his log. “Also, the phone was in constant use.”

“Phone sex, no doubt.”

“
I
doubt it. I can provide you with a printout of the phone calls, if you wish.”

“I wish. Anything else?”

The manager typed a command into his computer, and the printer whirred. “I also saved the tape from the surveillance monitor.” He pulled a videocassette out of his desk and inserted it in the TV. The image was not the normal one seen on TV of a thug holding up a convenience store late at night but a high-quality color image.

Mather sucked in his breath. “My God!”

“Very beautiful, yes?” The manager handed Mather the tape and the computer printout of Marsten’s phone calls.

The agent scanned the printout. “Over two hours on one call. Any idea who they were calling?”

The night manager drew himself up at the suggestion that he would eavesdrop on a guest. But this was the FBI, and they would soon know. “I believe,” he replied, “that they were creating a Web site called ‘All about you dot com.’”

Mather finally heard the Klaxon. “Thank you very much. We’ll be in contact.” He ran from the hotel and called for his car, his wife totally forgotten.

The Pentagon

Stuart stopped at the security checkpoint on the main concourse and signed in. “I forgot my badge,” he said, showing his ID. The civilian guard shoved a temporary pass at him and went back to reading the Saturday newspaper. Even on a weekend the Pentagon was a busy place, and Stuart joined the line of people filing through the checkpoint. He walked briskly to his old office complex and tried the main door. As expected, it was unlocked.
Sleep safe, America,
he thought. He closed the door and locked it.
No need to take chances
. He turned on the light in his cubicle and sat down at his old desk, still unoccupied. He placed his hands flat on the green blotter and took a deep breath as Samuel B. Broad’s advice kept ringing in his ears: “Follow the money trail.” So far he hadn’t done anything wrong. But that was about to change, since this was the only money trail he could think of. It was time to cross the line.

He tried the top drawer of the file cabinet. Locked. He turned his attention to the four-drawer safe where he had stored all the classified files from the committee working on the Strategic Oil Reserve. If Ramjet or Peggy Redman had moved the files, he might as well go home. He spun his old three-number combination into the lock. Nothing. Peggy had probably changed the combination. He thought for a moment. “Got it,” he mumbled. Like many people who worked around classified material, Peggy gave each safe a name. And that was the clue. So what did she name this one? “Stuart,” he said aloud. He looked at the number pad on the telephone sitting on the desk. The letter
S
in his name equaled the number 7 and
T
equaled 8. He had a first number, 78. He rapidly decoded the
U
and
A
to 82, and the
R
and
T
to 78. He spun the three numbers into the lock and heard a satisfying click. That left the file cabinet.

He walked down to Peggy’s desk and opened the bottom right-hand drawer. At the very back was a plastic cup with odds and ends, including three spare keys. He tried each of the keys in her locked file cabinet. The third key worked. Then he found the key ring he was looking for at the back of the top drawer. He walked quickly back to his cubicle and unlocked the file cabinet. He returned to Peggy’s desk and made sure everything was exactly as he’d found it. He turned on the copying machine to let it warm up.

Back at his desk he took another deep breath and opened the top drawer of the safe. All the files were there, just as he’d left them. Next he went to the file cabinet and quickly opened every drawer. Again everything was there. Now to go to work.

Stuart had always been a conscientious staff officer, working diligently on whatever project he was assigned, and he spent the next three hours going through each file with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anything that could possibly be linked to a money trail. Finally he collapsed back in his chair and rubbed is eyes.
Where is it?
he raged to himself.

Okay, start at the beginning. What’s the first step in making money from oil? Striking oil. Wrong. Exploration
. His eyes snapped wide open. “No way,” he muttered. He heard a faint click and came even more alert. Someone was unlocking the outer door. He turned off his light and tried not to breathe. The door opened, and he heard the click of hard heels on the floor tiles. The overhead lights came on. It had to be Ramjet! He hoped not, but who else wore shoes with such hard heels? He waited, afraid to move.
I left the copying machine on!
Suddenly he felt an overpowering urge to urinate. He crossed his legs, but that didn’t help. The person was walking again. Now he stopped.
Go into your office!
Stuart urged.

Ramjet was moving again, coming down the narrow passageway. Stuart closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to think of a good lie to explain what he was doing.
Be creative,
he told himself.
Tell the truth
. The clicking grew louder, then stopped. He opened his eyes and looked directly into the face of Peggy Redman. His eyes glanced down at her shoes. They were brand-new with narrow high heels, the latest fashion rage. For a moment the two of them stared at each other. Then she turned and, without a word, walked back to her desk. Stuart waited, fully expecting to hear her call for security. He heard a desk drawer open then close. More clicking heels. He was so keyed that he felt the slight change in air pressure when she opened the outer door. He could sense her pause.

“Mike, turn off the Xerox machine when you leave.” The door closed behind her.

Stuart picked up a file and raced down to the copier. His hands flew as he fed the pages into the machine. But it seemed to take forever. Finally he was done. He turned off the machine and hurried back to his office. He made himself slow down as he replaced all the files, making sure everything appeared undisturbed. He wasn’t worried about leaving fingerprints, as he had worked on all the files before Ramjet relieved him of duty. But just to be sure, he wiped down the file cabinet, safe, telephone, and desk with his handkerchief. Satisfied all was in order, he turned off the light and walked out of the office carrying his copy of the file labeled “Steiner” in his briefcase.

Havana

Marsten broke out of the sweating crowd packing into José Martí International Airport and breathed the cool night air in relief. He made his way to the taxi stand and waved down an empty cab. The driver gave him a gesture of dismissal and sped away empty. “Impertinent bugger,” Marsten mumbled. He tried again, with the same results. Taxis were streaming into the airport and depositing tourists anxious to leave the country. But none were waiting for a return fare to the city. That made sense, as aircraft were arriving almost empty. Behind Marsten a loudspeaker blared something about invasion and Yankee imperialism. “Of course,” he said to no one. The real money was at the major resort hotels, where worried tourists would pay exorbitant amounts in hard currency to reach the airport. Fidel Castro’s version of a socialist society was breaking down under stress, and the age-old principles of supply and demand were reasserting themselves with a vengeance.

It was a phenomenon he understood perfectly, and the gold Krugerrands hidden in his belt and shoes had quadrupled in value. When four taxis arrived at once and a group of German tourists piled out, Marsten stepped under a streetlight and held up a hundred-dollar bill. The first taxi slammed to a halt and he got in. “Casa Salandro,” he said. “Near the Hotel Nacional.” It was exactly where the driver wanted to go.

“English?” the driver asked. Marsten confirmed his guess. “This is a bad time to come to Havana,
señor
. The damn Yankees are going to start a war.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Marsten said, deliberately urging him to talk.

“That attempt to kill Turner. All a CIA plot to give the Yankees an excuse to invade. But we will resist and drive them into the sea, just like the Bay of Pigs.” It was exactly what Marsten wanted to hear. The driver ranted and waved his hands as he drove, cursing the United States until he reached the street corner nearest the Salandros’ house. The car jerked to a stop. “Another hundred dollars,
señor.
” Marsten laughed and paid him. The cab roared away, leaving behind a strange silence. Marsten walked down the darkened street until he reached the heavy barred door of Casa Salandro. He pulled on the doorbell and waited. Nothing. He pulled again. Still no response.

“Damn,” he cursed. Then the door cracked, and a shadow materialized on the other side. “I’m Lloyd Marsten. You’re expecting me.” The door slammed shut.
What now?
he wondered. He picked up his bag and hurried for the Nacional, three blocks away. He felt his skin grow prickly as he walked, a sure sign of danger. He turned and looked down the deserted street. Nothing. He kept walking and turned the corner. Ahead of him he could see the luxuriant foliage surrounding the Nacional. Behind the trees the mass of the hotel rose in darkness, all its lights out. He never slowed his pace. Suddenly he heard footsteps. Again he turned and looked. Nothing. He walked faster. A patrol car turned the corner, and its headlights flashed down the street. Marsten breathed a sigh of relief and stepped to the curb to be seen. The car stopped, and two soldiers jumped out, their weapons drawn.

The older was all of eighteen years old and looked like a boy playing at war with a helmet two sizes too large. “Your papers!” he barked in Spanish. It sounded so ridiculous that at any other time or place Marsten would have laughed. But not now. He fumbled for his passport while the boys twitched. He handed it over. The older boy thumbed through it. He spat something in Spanish, much too fast for Marsten to understand.

“CIA!” the younger of the two shouted.

“Don’t be silly,” Marsten replied. “I’m English.” The boy shoved Marsten’s passport into his shirt pocket. “That belongs to me,” Marsten protested. The other boy clubbed him to the ground with his pistol butt. He took a step forward and jammed the muzzle against Marsten’s head.

All at once a burst of submachine gun fire echoed over Marsten, and the boy collapsed, his blood washing Marsten’s face. Another burst of gunfire and the second soldier crumpled to the ground. Marsten was afraid to move and played dead as running footsteps surrounded him. “Are you hurt?” a woman’s voice asked. He looked up into the muzzle of a submachine gun. Was he next? Rosalinda Salandro extended her hand and pulled him to his feet. “You knocked at the wrong door.”

“Lovely,” he muttered, feeling the back of his head.

He flinched when Rosalinda dabbed iodine over the cut on his head. “What did you do with the bodies?”