Trumble grunted now and then with effort: fear could have that effect on the bowels, as he’d said.
Hathaway returned with the drug in a glass and set it on the bedside table and joined Belsky by the door. “He’s stalling.”
“Of course. But the longer he evades it the more time the fear has to work on him.”
The knees sagged outward like the splayed legs of a seated drunk. Hathaway made a face. “Hurry it up.”
“I’m coming.” Trumble’s voice was high-pitched, tremulous.
Torrio came into the bedroom by the outside door. “Douglass.”
Hathaway’s face snapped from Torrio to Belsky. “Want me to keep him out?”
“No, I’ve got to talk to him. Let him in.”
“I guess,” Torrio said. “It’s his house.”
Hathaway said, “Get back on guard.”
“Take it easy, Sarge, Corrigan’s out there.” Torrio backed out and shut the door.
Belsky heard Trumble grunt in the lavatory. The front door sounded and footsteps came through the house—Ramsey Douglass in a sweat-damp shirt. “What’s all this?”
“Never mind,” Belsky said. “I’ve got a chore for you.”
“Christ, I was about to turn on the air-conditioner and have a cold drink.”
“Some other time. There’s an Indian named Spode who works for Senator Forrester. Do you know him?”
“I know who he is. He’s expected at the base this morning with the Senator’s inspection party.”
“I had an encounter with Spode last night. It’s imperative that we find out whether he identified me.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Another thing. Our job will be hard enough without having to deal with meddling outsiders on the Air Force Base. See if you can find a way to discourage the Senator from hanging around the place.”
“What do you suggest I do, take a potshot at him?”
“Your sarcasm can be annoying, Comrade. You’ll think of something, I’m sure. We don’t want him in our hair.”
“Anything else?” That too was sarcastic. “You realize I’m only Matthewson-Ward’s SATAF man, I’m not a Government employee. I haven’t got the run of Davis Monthan.”
“Your people have. Do I have to tell you how to delegate authority? Do you want a blueprint?”
“Now who’s sarcastic?”
In the bathroom one of Trumble’s feet stirred and just then the radio in the bedroom made a noise. Belsky wheeled to the writing desk and switched on the recorder, pressed the record button and started the high-speed tape. The incoming message was pitched above audible range but after the tape ran out in forty seconds he rewound it and set the playback speed at 1
Douglass said, “I wasn’t sure you were through with me.”
“You’ve got things to do. Do them.”
“Isn’t there a chance the Federal types will pick up that signal? It’s on the normal radio frequencies.”
“It’s gibberish to them and besides they don’t know who’s receiving it. Stop asking questions—go.”
Douglass gave his uneven smile and went. Belsky heard the front door slam and Hathaway swung to yell into the bathroom. “Time’s up. For Christ’s sake you’ve had time to lay a ton of bricks.”
Trumble’s knees didn’t stir. Hathaway stiffened … and Belsky went past him into the bathroom and found Trumble slumped back against the toilet tank with both arms down in the bowl between his legs. The bowl was crimson with blood.
Hathaway said over his shoulder, “The bastard chewed through the arteries in both his wrists. He’s bled himself to death.”
“You and Torrio get rid of him. Spread some blood on the broken glass in the shower stall in Trumble’s house. Leave the body there—make it look like suicide.”
“Which it was.”
“Suicide because he didn’t want to talk. He knew something that we don’t know.”
Hathaway’s scowl lifted. “Maybe he’s already blown the whistle on us. You think you better shift your base of operations again? I know a place.”
“All right. As soon as you’ve finished with this. Now move.”
When Hathaway went outside to get the others Belsky went back into the bathroom and stood above the bloated corpse and tried to think it out. But Trumble kept getting in the way of his thinking. It had been a long time since anyone had got the better of him. His strength had always been his attention to detail, his resourcefulness in covering all possibilities. Trumble had upset everything. A gutsy son of a bitch: yes. He’d had to bite great chunks out of his own wrists to make the blood pour out fast. But he’d died knowing something, hiding something, and Belsky had to know what it was.
In the absence of certainty he had to assume Trumble had made preparations to expose the Amergrad network—in the event of his death or disappearance. All he had to do was to call a contact daily with the understanding that if he ever didn’t call, the contact should deliver information into certain hands. That would explain why there hadn’t been any sign up to now that the network’s cover had been broken. If vibrations had already reached Washington Belsky would have been informed: Rykov had ample sources in Washington. So the cover was still intact, as of this moment, but if Belsky’s reasoning was correct it was only a matter of hours, or at most a few days if Trumble’s system had depended on postal delivery of information.
Under scopolamine Trumble might have disclosed his arrangements and Belsky might have reached the contact before the contact had time to release the information. So knowing he was to die anyway, Trumble had killed himself to safeguard the information.
It might not be the truth but the probability was good. On the other hand it might be a massive and ultimate bluff—just a desperate attempt to persuade Belsky the network’s cover was about to be blown, so that Belsky would abort and withdraw.
Belsky left the bathroom and sat down on the bed to decode the signal from Moscow. While he was working he heard Torrio and Corrigan grunting with the effort of removing the fat corpse from the bathroom. Hathaway waited in respectful silence with his big shoulders filling the bedroom doorway, keeping his distance while Belsky worked his ciphers. The message took shape and Belsky’s face contracted.
PRIORITY UTMOST
DANGERFIELD TUC
VIA NUCSUB 4
KGB 1
CIPHER 1541 SG
SENT 1308 GMT D ACKNOWLEDGE
MESSAGE BEGINS X EXECUTE PLAN B3 DATE 7 APR IGNITION
TIME 1830 X REPEAT X EXECUTE PLAN B3 DATE 7 APR IGNITION TIME 1830 X VR X MESSAGE ENDS 17652 42 5474
About fifty-five hours from now, Sunday at 6:30 P.M., Belsky had to fire the missiles.
By the time Belsky taped a quick acknowledgment and broadcast it, Hathaway’s men had driven their car around into the alley behind the house and wrapped the corpse in a plastic cover and stowed it in the trunk compartment of the car. Belsky stood in the back door of the house and said, “Do it fast and get back here.”
“Something up?”
“Everything’s up. Where’s the nearest public phone?”
“Booth by that gas station on Elm just the other side of North Park. Three, four blocks.” Hathaway pointed west-southwest.
In the bedroom Belsky tested the radio batteries and packed the apparatus into its compact case. Folded up and closed, it looked like a large but ordinary portable transistor radio. Essentially that was what it was, with the addition of the miniature recorder and the shortwave transmitter. At one corner of the case was the socket which enclosed the telescoping aerial and at the other corner was a small red globe which would wink with a bright rapid flash when an incoming signal activated the receiver to self-start automatically and record the signal on high-speed tape. The Japanese toy’s low output signals had to be relayed and amplified by intermediate stations but nevertheless it took hardly twenty minutes for a message to travel the distance between Belsky and Rykov.