He dragged the body of Moss back from the wilderness and laid him alongside McCrea in the unheated lean-to where the firewood was stored, where both bodies quickly became as rigid as the cords of pine among which they lay. He rifled the pockets of both men and surveyed the haul. Nothing was of value to him, save possibly the private phone book that came from Moss’s inside breast pocket.
Moss had been a secretive man, created by years of training and of surviving on the run. The small book contained more than 120 telephone numbers, but each was referred to only by initials or a single first name.
On the third morning Sam came out of the bedroom after ten hours of unbroken sleep and no nightmares.
She curled up on his lap and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“How you feeling?” he asked her.
“I’m fine now. Quinn, it’s okay. I’m all right. Where do we go now?”
“We have to go back to Washington,” he said. “The last chapter will be written there. I need your help.”
“Whatever,” she said.
That afternoon he let the fire go out in the stove, shut everything down, cleaned and locked the cabin. He left Moss’s rifle and the Colt .45 that McCrea had brandished. But he took the notebook.
On the way down the mountain he hitched the abandoned Dodge Ram behind the Jeep Renegade and towed it into St. Johnsbury. Here the local garage was happy to get it started again and he left them the Jeep with its Canadian plates to sell as best they could.
They drove the Ram to Montpelier airport, turned it in, and flew to Boston and then to Washington National. Sam had her own car parked there.
“I can’t stay with you,” he told her. “Your place is still tapped.”
They found a modest rooming house a mile from her apartment in Alexandria where the landlady was glad to rent her upper front room to the tourist from Canada. Late that night Sam took Moss’s phone book with her, let herself back into her own place and, for the benefit of the phone tap, called the Bureau to say she would be at her desk in the morning.
They met again at a diner on the second evening. Sam had brought along the phone book and began to go through it with him. She had highlighted the numbers in fluorescent pen, colored according to the country, state, or city of the phone numbers listed in it.
“This guy really got around,” she said. “The numbers highlighted in yellow are foreign.”
“Forget them,” said Quinn. “The man I want lives right here, or close. District of Columbia, Virginia, or Maryland. He has to be close to Washington itself.”
“Right. The red highlights mean territorial United States, but outside this area. In the District and the two states there are forty-one numbers. I checked them all. By the ink analysis, most go back years, probably to when he was with the Company. They include banks, lobbyists, several CIA staffers at their private homes, a brokerage firm. I had to call in a big favor with a guy I know in the lab to get this stuff.”
“What did your technician say about the dates of the entries?”
“All over seven years old.”
“Before Moss was busted. No, this has to be a more recent entry.”
“I said ‘most,’ ” she reminded him. “There are four that were written in the past twelve months. A travel agency, two airline ticket offices, and a cab-call number.”
“Damn.”
“There’s one other number, entered about three to six months ago. Problem is, it doesn’t exist.”
“Disconnected? Out of service?”
“No, I mean it never did exist. The area code is two-oh-two for Washington, but the remaining seven figures don’t form a telephone number and never did.”
Quinn took the number home with him and worked on it for two days and nights. If it was coded, there could be enough variations to give a computer headaches, let alone the human brain. It would depend how secretive Moss had wanted to be, how safe he thought his contacts book would stay. He began to run through the easier codes, writing the new numbers yielded by the process in a column for Sam to check out later.
He started with the obvious, the children’s code; just reversing the order of the numbers from front to back. Then he transposed the first and last figures, the second-first and second-last, and third-from-first and third-from-last, leaving the middle number of the seven in place. He ran through ten variations of transposition. Then he moved into additions and subtractions.
He deducted one from every figure, then two, and so forth. Then one from the first figure, two from the second, three from the third, down the line to the seventh. Then repeated the process by adding numbers. After the first night he sat back and looked at his columns. Moss, he realized, could have added or subtracted his own birth date, or even his mother’s birth date, his car registration number or his inseam measurement. When he had a list of 107 of the most obvious possibilities, he gave his list to Sam. She called him back in the late afternoon of the next day, sounding tired. The Bureau’s phone bill must have gone up a smidgen.
“Okay, forty-one of the numbers still don’t exist. The remaining sixty-six include laundromats, a senior citizens’ center, a massage parlor, four restaurants, a hamburger joint, two hookers, and a military air base. Add to that fifty private citizens who seem to have nothing to do with anything. But there is one that might be paydirt. Number forty-four on your list.”
He glanced at his own copy. Forty-four. He had reached it by reversing the order of the phone number, then subtracting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, in that order.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a private unlisted number carrying a classified tag,” she said. “I had to call in a few favors to get it identified. It belongs to a large town house in Georgetown. Guess who it belongs to?”
She told him. Quinn let out a deep breath. It could be a coincidence. Play around with a seven-figure number long enough and it is possible to come up with the private number of a very important person just by fluke.
“Thanks, Sam. It’s all I have. I’ll try it—let you know.”
At half past eight that evening Senator Bennett Hapgood sat in the makeup room of a major television station in New York as a pretty girl dabbed a bit more ocher makeup onto his face. He lifted his chin to draw in a mite more of the sag beneath the jawbone.
“Just a little more hair spray here, honey,” he told her, pointing out a strand of the blow-dried white locks that hung boyishly over one side of his forehead, but which might slip out of place if not attended to.
She had done a good job. The fine tracery of veins around the nose had vanished; the blue eyes glittered from the drops that had been applied; the cattleman’s suntan, acquired in long hours toiling under a sunlamp, glowed with rugged health. An assistant stage manager popped her head around the door, clipboard like an insignia.
“We’re ready for you, Senator,” she said.
Bennett Hapgood rose, stood while the makeup girl removed the bib and dusted any last specks of powder off the pearl-gray suit, and followed the stage manager down the corridor to the studio. He was seated to the left of the host of the show, and a soundman expertly clipped a button-sized microphone to his lapel. The host, anchoring one of the country’s most important prime-time current affairs programs, was busy going down his running order; the monitor showed a dog-food commercial. He looked up and flashed a pearly grin at Hapgood.
“Good to see you, Senator.”
Hapgood responded with the obligatory yard-wide smile.
“Good to be here, Tom.”
“We have just two more messages after this. Then we’re on.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll just follow your lead.”
Will you, hell, thought the anchorman, who came from the East Coast liberal tradition of journalism and thought the Oklahoma senator a menace to society. The dog food was replaced by a pickup truck and then a breakfast cereal. As the last image faded of a deliriously happy family tucking into a product that looked and tasted like straw, the stage manager point
ed a finger directly at Tom. The red light above camera one lit up and the host gazed into the lens, his face etched with public concern.
“Despite repeated denials from White House Press Secretary Craig Lipton, reports continue to reach this program that the health of President Cormack still gives rise to deep concern. And this just two weeks before the project most closely identified with his name and his incumbency, the Nantucket Treaty, is due to go before the Senate for ratification.
“One of those who has most consistently opposed the treaty is the chairman of the Citizens for a Strong America movement, Senator Bennett Hapgood.”
On the word Senator, the light of camera two went on, sending the image of the seated senator into 30 million homes. Camera three gave viewers a two-shot of both men as the host swung toward Hapgood.
“Senator, how do you rate the chances of ratification in January?”
“What can I say, Tom? They can’t be good. Not after what has happened these past few weeks. But even those events apart, the treaty should not pass. Like millions of my fellow Americans, I can see no justification at this point in time for trusting the Russians—and that’s what it comes down to.”
“But surely, Senator, the issue of trust does not arise. There are verification procedures built into that treaty which give our military specialists unprecedented access to the Soviet weapons-destruction program. ...”
“Maybe so, Tom, maybe so. Fact is, Russia is a huge place. We have to trust them not to build other, newer weapons deep in the interior. For me, it’s simple: I want to see America strong, and that means keeping every piece of hardware we have—”
“And deploying more, Senator?”
“If we have to, if we have to.”
“But these defense budgets are starting to cripple our economy. The deficits are becoming unmanageable.”
“You say so, Tom. There are others who think the damage to our economy is caused by too many welfare checks, too many foreign imports, too many federal foreign aid programs. We seem to spend more looking after foreign critics than our military. Believe me, Tom, it’s not a question of money for the defense industries, not at all.”
Tom Granger switched topics.
“Senator, apart from opposing U.S. help to the hungry of the Third World and backing protectionist trade tariffs, you have also called for the resignation of John Cormack. Can you justify that?”
Hapgood could cheerfully have strangled the newsman. Granger’s use of the words hungry and protectionist indicated where he stood on these issues. Instead, Hapgood kept his concerned expression in place and nodded soberly but regretfully.
“Tom, I just want to say this: I have opposed several issues espoused by President Cormack. That is my right in this free country. But ...”
He turned away from the host, found the camera he wanted with its on-light dark, and stared at it for the half-second it took the director in the control booth to switch cameras and give him a personal close-up shot.
“... I yield to no man in my respect for the integrity and courage in adversity of John Cormack. And it is precisely because of this that I say ...”
His bronzed face would have oozed sincerity from every pore had they not been clogged with pancake makeup.
“ ‘... John, you have taken more than any man should have to take. For the sake of the nation, but above all for the sake of yourself and Myra, lay down this intolerable burden of office, I beg you.’ ”
In his private study in the White House, President Cormack depressed a button on his remote control and switched off the TV screen across the room. He knew and disliked Hapgood, even though they were members of the same party; knew the man would never have dared call him “John” to his face.
And yet ... He knew the man was right. He knew he could not go on much longer, was no longer capable of leadership. His misery was so great he had no further lust for the job he did, no further lust for life itself.
Though he did not know it, Dr. Armitage had noticed symptoms these past two weeks that had caused him profound concern. Once the psychiatrist, probably looking for what he found, had caught the President in the underground garage, descending from his car after one of his rare forays outside the White House grounds. He intercepted the Chief Executive staring at the exhaust pipe of the limousine, as if at an old friend to whom he might now turn to dull his pain.
John Cormack turned to the book he had been reading before the TV show. It was a book of poetry, something he had once taught his students at Yale. There was a verse he recalled. Something John Keats had written. The little English poet, dead at twenty-six, had known melancholy as few others had, and expressed it like no one else. He found the passage he sought: “Ode to a Nightingale.”
... and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain ...
He left the book open and leaned back, stared at the rich scrollwork around the cornices of the private study of the most powerful man in the world. To cease upon the midnight with no pain. How tempting, he thought. How very tempting ...
* * *
Quinn chose half past ten that evening, an hour when most people were back home but not yet in bed asleep for the night. He was in a phone booth in a good hotel, the sort of place where the booths still have doors to give the caller privacy. He heard the number ring three times; then the phone was lifted.
“Yes?”
He had heard the man speak before, but that one word was not enough to identify the voice.
Quinn spoke in the quiet, almost whispering voice of Moss, the words punctuated by the occasional whistle of breath through the damaged nose.
“It’s Moss,” he said.
There was a pause.
“You should never call me here, except in an emergency. I told you that.”
Pay dirt. Quinn let out a deep sigh.
“It is,” he said softly. “Quinn has been taken care of. The girl too. And McCrea, he’s been ... terminated.”
“I don’t think I want to know these things,” said the voice.
“You should,” said Quinn before the man could cut the connection. “He left a manuscript behind. Quinn. I have it now, right here.”
“Manuscript?”
“That’s right. I don’t know where he got the details, how he worked them out, but it’s all here. The five names—you know, the men in back. Me, McCrea, Orsini, Zack, Marchais, Pretorius. Everything. Names, dates, places, times. What happened and why ... and who.”
There was a long pause.
“That include me?” asked the voice.
“I said, everything.”
Quinn could hear the breathing.
“How many copies?”
“Just the one. He was in a cabin up in northern Vermont. No Xerox machines up there. I have the only copy right here.”
“I see. Where are you?”
“In Washington.”
“I think you had better hand it over to me.”
“Sure,” said Quinn. “No problem. It names me too. I’d destroy it myself, except ...”
“Except what, Mr. Moss?”
“Except they still owe me.”
There was another long pause. The man at the other end of the line was swallowing saliva, several times.
“I understand you have been handsomely rewarded,” he said. “If there is more due you, it will be provided.”
“No good,” said Quinn. “There was a whole mess of things I had to clear up that were not foreseen. Those three guys in Europe, Quinn, the girl ... All that caused a deal of extra ... work.”
“What do you want, Mr. Moss?”
“I figure I ought to get what was offered to me originally, all over again. And doubled.”
Quinn could hear the intake of breath. Doubtless t
he man was learning the hard way that if you mess with killers, you may end up being blackmailed.
“I will have to consult on this,” said the man in Georgetown. “If ... er ... paperwork has to be prepared, it will take time. Don’t do anything rash. I’m sure things can be worked out.”
“Twenty-four hours,” said Quinn. “I call you back this time tomorrow. Tell those five down there you had better be ready. I get my fee—you get the manuscript. Then I’ll be gone, and you’ll all be safe ... forever.”
He hung up the phone, leaving the other man to calculate the choice of paying up or facing ruin.
For transportation Quinn rented a motorcycle, and bought himself a chunky sheepskin bomber jacket to keep out the cold.
His call the next evening was picked up at the first ring.
“Well?” Quinn snuffled.
“Your ... terms, excessive though they are, have been accepted,” said the owner of the Georgetown house.
“You have the paperwork?” asked Quinn.
“I do. In my hand. You have the manuscript?”
“In mine. Let’s swap and get it over with.”
“I agree. Not here. The usual place, two in the morning.”
“Alone. Unarmed. You get some hired muscle to try and jump me, you end up in a box.”
“No tricks—you have my word on it. Since we are prepared to pay, there’s no need. And none from your side either. A straight commercial deal, please.”
“Suits me. I just want the money,” said Quinn.
The other man cut off the call.
At five minutes to eleven John Cormack sat at his desk and surveyed the handwritten letter to the American people. It was gracious and regretful. Others would have to read it aloud, reproduce it in their newspapers and magazines, on their radio programs and TV shows. After he was gone. It was eight days to Christmas. But this year another man would celebrate the festive season in the Mansion. A good man, a man he trusted. Michael Odell, forty-first President of the United States. The phone rang. He glanced at it with some irritation. It was his personal and private number, the one he gave only to close and trusted friends who might call him without introduction at any hour.