Recoil (25 page)

“I see. And the third set?”

“We think it's Ezio Martin. We think maybe Ezio's getting a little jealous. Maybe he bugged Gillespie to try and get something on him so he can discredit Gillespie with Pastor. Martin would love to drive a wedge between them.”

“That makes sense.”

“Anyway we know the bugs aren't another government agency.”

“Any evidence stronger than guesswork?”

“Yes. Fairly strong evidence. But I'd rather not divulge it.”

“Just out of curiosity, if Gillespie happened across the two sets of microphones in his office—the ones he didn't plant himself—could he tell the difference between yours and Martin's? Would he know one bug was official and one wasn't?”

“He might, if he knew what to look for.”

“Namely?”

“Why are you pumping me about it?”

“If I'm ever bugged,” Mathieson lied, “I'd like to know how to tell whether it's official or private.”

“There's no way to tell for sure. Gillespie's an easy obvious case. The next one might not be.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Hell, it's simple enough. Ezio's equipment is wireless. He's got the best stuff money can buy—voice-activated miniature transmitters. Somewhere in the neighborhood there'll be a small receiving set and a cassette recorder attached to it. The recorder doesn't start running until somebody starts talking. It's not the most reliable system but it's the most practical, especially for an organization that doesn't have unlimited man-hours to spend on monitoring. But we prefer the old-fashioned wire, ourselves. A wire isn't subject to interference by radio-jamming equipment. The reception isn't affected by static in the air or neon lights in the vicinity. Anyhow that's the difference and it's easy enough to spot. The official microphones have wires attached to them. The other stuff—the mikes we think are Ezio Martin's—they don't have any wires on them.”

“What about the bugs you said he planted on himself?”

“They're wired right into his own tape recorders in the desk drawers. They're activated by switches hidden under the desks.”

“What about the phones?”

“We tapped the incoming lines. The other outfit puts bugs in the receivers. As a matter of fact that's where most of Ezio's mikes are—in the phones. It's as good a place to hide them as any.” Bradleigh smiled vaguely. “I wish we'd been able to get wires into Ezio Martin's offices in New York. All we've been able to use has been bugs sewn into the buttons of Gillespie's clothes and they've been wiped out by jammers whenever he goes inside. If we could get wires into Ezio's office we'd probably get enough on them to put them all away for consecutive five-hundred-year prison terms.”

“Tell me what else you've found out.”

“This may come as a shock to you, old buddy, but a lot of things don't have the remotest thing to do with you.”

“Anything that has to do with Frank Pastor has to do with me. The more I know about him, the better I can keep out of his way.”

“You're clutching at straws.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“I'm sorry. It just isn't included in the price of your ticket.”

“My ticket came pretty high, Glenn. For instance when you people put my face and the Paul Baxter name out on a national FBI bulletin. Did you think that wouldn't get back to Pastor?”

“It wasn't my doing. I put a stop to it as fast as I humanly could. Who's been feeding you all this information about Deffeldorf and Tyrone and Ramiro and the FBI bulletin? Did you hire a private security outfit?”

“No,” he lied. He had to put Bradleigh at ease and it had to be plausible. “Pastor found out I was off your hook and he decided I might get in touch with my old friends. He staked some of them out. We made the mistake of phoning one of them. His phone was tapped. Pastor's hoodlums started putting pressure on my friend, so my friend did some inquiring—he wanted to find out who was harassing him. He's a man with contacts in Los Angeles—big executives who have access to police officials. He found out about Deffeldorf and the FBI bulletin and all that. He told me about it—from a pay phone, of course.”

“What friend was this?”

“He's out of it now. They've been leaving him alone. I don't want him interrogated by your people—I don't want him dragged back into it.”

Bradleigh tapped his cigarette on the tabletop and lighted it. “What name are you going under?”

“Try another one.”

Bradleigh smiled, evidently without wanting to. “Anything you need?”

“Information.”

“About what?”

“Anything you've got.”

Bradleigh said, “There's nothing you'd find useful. We're talking about the results of a secret investigation that's still in progress. It's got to stay secret until we blow the whistle.”

“It's been nice talking to you, Glenn. Thanks for coming on such short notice. I'll be in touch.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Washington, D.C.: 2–4 October

1

H
E SPENT TWO HOURS WITH HOMER SITTING IN THE PARKED
Cadillac at a meter opposite the nine-story office building, Homer had the various photographs arranged on the seat between them—Gillespie, his junior partner, the two secretaries, the clerk and the receptionist.

At 4:30 the clerk appeared with a briefcase and walked to the corner to wait for a bus. Homer said, “Probably an errand to do on his way home. At this hour he won't be coming back.”

“Let's hope.”

In the next forty minutes people emerged from the building in knots and they scanned faces carefully. Mathieson checked off the receptionist and, at two minutes past five, the two secretaries. At 5:10 Homer stiffened. “There he is.”

Mathieson watched C. K. Gillespie walk away toward the parking garage at the end of the block. The heels of Gillespie's polished Italian shoes threw back brisk hard echoes. Mathieson studied him keenly: You could tell a great deal about a man by his walk. Gillespie strutted: a tense man, alert, arrogant.

Mathieson said, “It's suite seven-one-six.”

“What kind of locks?”

“Just one, the original equipment. Eaton Yale and Towne. Standard unit. He wouldn't keep anything incriminating in the office. But there could be a burglar alarm.”

“According to our preliminary work-up there's only one alarm circuit in the building—jewelry outfit on the third floor.” Homer checked his notes. “Twenty-four-hour doorman service. After six you have to sign in when you enter the building. That's why we've got to go in sometime in the next half hour.”

“I'd feel more comfortable after dark.”

“That's just instinct. Actually we're less conspicuous now, while there are still a lot of people in the building.”

A red Thunderbird with Gillespie at the wheel rolled out of the parking garage and Mathieson watched it dwindle into the Connecticut Avenue traffic.

“That leaves one unaccounted for,” Mathieson said.

They waited until 5:40. He was restless. “Where's the junior partner?”

“Maybe he's working late. Maybe he wasn't in the office today at all.”

“If he's working late we've had it.”

“Then we come back tomorrow afternoon, that's all.” Homer looked at his watch. “We'd better go in.”

“I'm not crazy about it.”

“The office door has a frosted glass pane. If there's a light on inside we'll back off and try again tomorrow.”

Mathieson lifted the attaché case from the back seat. They walked into the lobby, two gray-suited businessmen arriving for an after-hours appointment. The doorman was engulfed in the stream of people pouring from the elevators and flooding across to the doors; he hardly glanced at the two arrivals. When one elevator emptied itself Mathieson and Homer stepped in.

They had the cage to themselves on the way to the seventh floor. Mathieson opened the case and pawed through the half-dozen rings of keys. “Yale, but which one?”

“Probably that one.” Homer singled out a master key.

Mathieson took it off the ring and put the rest of the Yale ring in his pocket. A single key was less conspicuous than a bulky ring of them. If the first key didn't work he'd have to bring out the ring.

Gillespie's door was the last on the left at the end of a forty-foot corridor. They passed two secretaries and an executive going home for the night; the executive nodded politely as they passed him.

Homer slowed the pace. Mathieson glanced over his shoulder. The secretaries and the executive were waiting for the elevator.

Sotto voce Mathieson said, “We can't just stand here.”

There was no light behind the frosted glass. Mathieson tried the knob; it was locked. His palm slipped on the brass—he wiped the sweat off against the front of his suit jacket and jabbed the key into the lock.

Homer laughed loudly. “You should've seen old Charlie's face when the decision came down.”

The key wouldn't turn.

Behind them the elevator doors opened. The three people disappeared into the cage.

He twisted the key but it wouldn't turn. He stepped back and reached into his pocket.

“Wait a minute,” Homer said. “Let me have a try.” He jiggled the master key and after a moment Mathieson heard the tumblers click. He made a face and looked over his shoulder. The corridor was empty.

They slipped inside. Homer pushed the door shut behind him. From this point forward they would not talk: The microphones were alive.

Homer moved swiftly across the reception foyer. Mathieson glanced at the switchboard to see if any lines were lighted. There was no sign of life in the place but in his mind he rehearsed a nervous explanation designed to bluff an exit if anyone appeared.

Homer was halfway down the length of the partitioned hall by the time Mathieson followed him through. Quickly they checked out the four rooms. Two side offices, a law library and filing room combined, and the big corner office—Gillespie's lair. There was no one.

The safe was in the law library; that was where he caught up with Homer. It was a floor model, a Mosler, probably three-quarters of a ton in weight—it stood four feet high; there were two combination dials. Homer glanced at the safe, then at Mathieson and shook his head. Nobody but a top professional box man could hope to get into it without using a torch—and that would undoubtedly destroy the contents.

With gloves on their fingers they went quickly through the file drawers—looking mainly for files on Pastor, Martin, and the various names Mathieson had used. The only result was a thin folder on Ezio Martin; it contained nothing useful—a handful of Xeroxes of bills, receipts and canceled checks and copies of two real estate contracts.

He hadn't expected anything but it might have turned up a tidbit; he wasn't disappointed by the failure. They went into the corner office and Mathieson crossed toward the windows to draw the blinds but Homer shook his head violently at him and Mathieson, belatedly comprehending, withdrew without touching the cords. The drawing of blinds could be noticed from outside the building: It would have been a blunder.
I'm still a novice
. The realization alarmed him.

They took screwdrivers from the attache case and began to prowl in search of microphones.

He was still sweating: forehead, palms, crotch. The plan had seemed simple when he'd formulated it but he was seeing holes in it now—all the things that might go wrong. Suppose Gillespie forgot something and returned to the office to get it? The search was taking far too long …

The wireless bug was easy; it was in the handset of one of the two phones on the desk. That was Ezio Martin's mike and after he had pointed it out to Homer he put the phone back together with the bug intact; he'd need to have that one function properly.

Homer found Bradleigh's mike when he began unscrewing the faceplates of the electric wall plug receptacles. The wires disappeared back into the baseboard, going through holes that had already been cut for the building's electric power lines. There was enough slack. Homer drew a short loop of wire out of the receptacle and went to work with the wire cutters and splicing materials from the attache case.

Mathieson watched him. Homer's fingers were deft inside the thin cloth gloves. He spliced the new wire onto the cut ends of the microphone wiring; he ran it down out of sight behind the metal baseboard heat shield and threaded it around the room in that fashion to the molding by the office door. He mounted the miniature toggle at the edge of the baseboard just inside the door. You wouldn't notice it unless you knew what to look for; it was a thin plastic contact switch and blended neatly with the baseboard and might have been an insignificant piece of the heating apparatus. He made sure it was in the “On” position and screwed it down firmly. Then he stuffed the original wiring back into the base receptacle and screwed the faceplate into place. The bug was now functioning as it had functioned before; but a nudge of a man's heel against the newly installed switch by the door would disconnect it and another nudge would switch it on again.

They resumed the search. There was another wireless bug in the junior partner's office and a second wired mike in the receptionist's foyer; they left these intact. At 7:10 they began to go through Gillespie's desk drawers and at 7:30 they gave it up and left the office. Homer locked the door and they put the Yale keys back in the attache case and walked toward the elevator. “We'll have to sign out, of course. Dream up a plausible name. We were visiting the Johnson Greeting Card Company.”

They waited for the elevator to come. Mathieson said, “Thanks. That was a beautiful job.”

“You going to tell me how it's supposed to work?”

“Afterward.”

“Why not now?”