Jericho's Fall, page 5
The old man gazed up at the balustrade. “I suppose he does,” he said, entirely serious. “But I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” And, releasing his arm from her grasp, he headed for the stairs.
(ii)
“I don’t know,” said Pamela. “He’s been acting crazy the last few months. Ever since Dak started coming.”
They were eating an early supper in the kitchen, salad and mountain trout. All three were exhausted. As a blessing, the driveway monitors were silent for once.
“How often has Dak come?” Beck asked. The two men had been closeted together in the master suite for over an hour now. She longed to interrupt, if only to check on Jericho’s safety, but the daughters had seemed unperturbed when she shared their father’s fears.
“Every two or three days,” said Audrey. She ate very fast. She had forced them, unwillingly, to pray before the meal. Now she was energetically dabbing up olive oil with crusty bread, making a marvelous mess. Pamela and Rebecca avoided carbohydrates like the plague, but plump Audrey could hardly live without them. “That’s just in the three weeks I’ve been here. Before that, I don’t know.”
“Crazy how?”
Pamela had recently quit smoking. She had little interest in eating. She chewed furiously on nicotine gum, and, like a B-actress doing hauteur, addressed herself to a point a foot above Beck’s head. “Fixing things that aren’t broken. Changing crap around for no reason. The alarm people were here three times in two weeks, and then he fired them anyway and hired a new contractor to rewire the place. They just finished. He had the roof replaced, right down to the last shingle, even though he just had it done last winter. The driveway. The storm doors. The well-water people were out twice in a week. New softening system. New pump. He switched satellite providers. Junked his old pickup, bought a fresh one right off the showroom floor, no waiting, charged it to his American Express Black Card.”
“He was afraid of bugs,” said Audrey.
“He was always afraid of bugs,” said Beck, dubious. “He never tore up his house before.”
“He was never dying before.”
“And then there was the business of the garage,” said Rebecca. The sisters turned her way. “I saw the padlocks. The fabric over the windows. The cars all parked outside, even in the snow.” They were still waiting for her to finish. “He’s hiding something in there.”
Pamela snorted. “Something that takes up four garage bays? What do you thinks in there, an airplane? Or maybe a crate full of zombies?”
“The locks were already on when I got here,” said Audrey. “But there were these rumors about a delivery. Big wooden crates.” Pamela glared, and her sister dropped her eyes. “I heard them in town.”
“What rumors?” said Beck.
“Nothing,” said the others, simultaneously.
“His mind is going,” said Pamela. “We have to accept that.” She got up from the table. “Nothing he does has to make any sense.”
But after half a day of tending to Jericho’s needs, Beck was already unsatisfied with the tempting simplicity of that answer. Maybe Jericho was mad, maybe he was sane. Either way, he remained the same schemer he had always been, seeing the world as a series of conspiracies, to be defeated by counterconspiracies. Pamela and Audrey might think they knew him, but Beck had known him better. She could tell when he was conspiring, and he was conspiring now. The question that troubled Beck was not precisely what Jericho might be up to: that was a very moot point. No, what she worried about was whether Phil Agadakos was right, that Jericho planned to make her a co-conspirator. And she remembered the tag line of a dreadfully biased but alarmingly penetrating documentary on Jericho’s career produced by a popular leftish filmmaker who had won about twelve awards for it: Whenever Jericho Ainsley had an idea, people died.
“I think we should try to find out,” she said.
“Find out what?” said Audrey.
“What’s in the garage.”
Pamela laughed. “You’re not the mistress of this house any more, Rebecca. You’re leaving on Thursday. We’re here for the long haul. Nobody’s breaking down any doors.”
Beck was about to say something sharp in response when the beep-beep-buzz told them that a car had entered the forecourt.
The screen showed a red Ford Explorer, exactly like the one that had passed her on the road just before the dog was shot.
(iii)
When the doorbell rang, Beck and Pamela were looking at the monitor. They saw a very tall man, skinny, almost scrawny, with a mop of fiery hair and a short beard to match. He was staring directly into the camera, features calm, letting them know that he was aware of their scrutiny. “Come on,” said Pamela. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“How what’s done?” said Beck, hurrying after her.
“How we get rid of these nuisances. Like the couple I Maced today. I’m so sick of these people. Even in Hollywood, people don’t pull this shit.” She hesitated, licked her lips. Audrey was in the kitchen, washing up. “Tell you what, Rebecca. You do this one. Just be mean, and he’ll go away. You remember how to do that, right? Be mean? That’s when you hurt other people for no good reason.”
Before Beck could answer, Pamela had the door open.
“May I help you?” Beck said, once she realized that everybody was waiting for her.
“Rebecca! What a pleasure to see you again. Remember me? Clark. Lewiston Clark.” The redheaded visitor unveiled a brilliant smile, and held out a slender hand for a shake before Beck quite needed it. Then held on. His grasp was confiding, like an invitation to intimacy. She had no memory of ever meeting him before, so she supposed he was the type who greeted everyone that way, just in case. “Don’t worry. I’m not crazy, and I’m not a reporter. Well, I am, but that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to pick up my notes.”
“What notes?” said Beck, having finally wrested her hand free.
Lewiston Clark had a smooth voice, mellifluous, made for television. His sentences were short, to accommodate commercial breaks. “I should apologize. For being away so long. The research took longer than we planned.” He noticed Beck’s confusion. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. We’ve been working together. The Ambassador and I. I assume he’s mentioned me?” Evidently he had not, because Pamela was squaring to start throwing things. “On his biography. That’s what we’re working on. I’m his authorized biographer.” He seemed to be waiting for applause. “I have a contract. I have a letter—”
“I just bet he does,” whispered Pamela, from behind.
“And, anyway, he was going to put together some notes for me. Scribblings, really. On those yellow pads he likes. I just came to pick them up.”
Beck realized that the moment had arrived to do her job. “I’m sorry, Mr. Clark,” she began. “This really isn’t a good time.”
“Of course. Of course. I do understand. But I think he’d be rather upset if you turned me away—”
“I’m afraid we’ll just have to take that chance,” said Pamela, edging Rebecca out of the way. “You’ll have to come back.”
The smile broadened. “Pamela. You’re Pamela.”
“That’s right. And it’s not good to see me again, because I’ve never met you in my life.”
Lewiston Clark toyed with his beard. “He would have left something for me. Notes for the biography. Or he might have written ‘autobiography’ on it, but he means me.”
“Another time, Mr. Clark,” said Pamela, starting to swing the door. “I’ll be sure to tell him you came by.”
“I was his student,” the writer persisted. “This was years ago. I was his student, and then we worked together. I know the Ambassador’s memory is slipping, but I can’t believe he hasn’t told you about me.” Actually Jericho had never been a real ambassador. As Director of Central Intelligence, he had held the rank as a courtesy when traveling abroad, but nobody used the title except for people who wanted to pretend to be in the know. “I should say, by the way, that it’s an honor to work with him, and—”
As Pamela went through her chilly explanations again, the visitor’s eyes lifted, and widened, and Beck turned to see what had caught his attention. Up on the landing, Phil Agadakos had emerged from the sickroom. Jericho used to say that Dak had the best poker face he had ever seen; even so, a shock of recognition passed over his tired features before he suppressed it; and when Rebecca turned back to look at Lewiston Clark, she spotted the smiling wariness with which she herself had learned to soldier through unexpected encounters with creditors, or ex-lovers, or old adversaries.
They knew each other.
CHAPTER 6
The Interrogation
(i)
She left Pamela to deal with the pushy visitor, and crossed the creaky foyer to greet Dak as he descended the stairs. “How’s he doing?” she asked.
Phil Agadakos was not looking at her. He continued to stare at the bearded man being refused entrance by an adamant Pamela.
“Mr. Agadakos?”
“Yes?” Eyes still on the door, now successfully shut.
“Does he want me?”
“Hmmm?”
“What did he say? Is he awake?”
“He’s fine,” the old spy said, and Beck knew he was hardly listening. The blue eyes had lost their grandfatherly quality, regaining a shadow of the chill that she remembered from another age. “Fine,” he said again.
Pamela joined them. She had at last managed to get Lewiston Clark off the doorstep. “Are you staying for dinner, Dak?” she asked sweetly. “We have a freezer full of trout.”
He conjured a small pucker that was almost a smile. “Alas, duty calls.”
“Duty?”
“Work.”
“I thought you were retired,” teased Pamela, who could be warm and welcoming as spring, or chilly and forbidding as mountain snow.
“Retired from a particular job, yes. Retired from my line of work— well, one never really retires, does one?”
Pamela laughed, although nothing seemed funny, and headed off to the kitchen to join Audrey, who, in the continued absence of Jimmy Lobb, had taken on the household chores.
Dak waited until the kitchen door was firmly shut. His smile vanished. He turned back to Beck.
“Who was that man at the door? The redhead?”
“A writer. Clark, Lewiston Clark. He’s working on Jericho’s biography. Used to be his student.”
Mr. Agadakos tugged at his vague clouds of hair. “Are you sure?” he finally said.
“Of what?”
“That he’s who he says he is.”
Beck looked at the closed door. From the kitchen came quarreling voices: the two sisters, not quite getting along. It occurred to her that Audrey had barely said hello to her father’s oldest friend, and had not come out to say goodbye. Maybe nuns, like other people, held grudges. Maybe Dak was the reason for the fight. She wondered what the grudge could be.
“All I know is what he told me,” Beck said. “I didn’t ask him for ID.”
“In the future, maybe you should.” He puffed out a lot of air, then unlimbered himself. He tufted his hair some more, and the deep-blue eyes grew warm again, so suddenly that Rebecca knew it was an act.
“You know him. I saw it in your face.”
“I met him a few years ago. He wanted to interview me for a book on the Agency. I said no. And, so far, no book. He’s nobody, Rebecca. A hack writer. Forget him.”
“He said he’s working with Jericho.”
“Once upon a time, I’d have said that Jericho wouldn’t give the time of day to a twerp like that. Now? Who knows?”
He opened the door. Chilly wind snapped in. She felt his alertness tauten, and stretch outward, farther even than his eyes could see. He was like an animal, scenting the air for predators; or prey. Evidently satisfied, he drew her onto the front step. He was concerned about microphones, she decided. Just like Jericho.
“What’s going on, Dak? Is there something we should know?”
But Phil Agadakos had Jericho’s trick of answering the question he wanted to rather than the one you asked. “Tell you what.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket. “If you’re worried, I’ll have somebody give the state police a call. See if they can’t put a car down at the end of the driveway. How does that—”
He stopped. His head jerked upward. Her gaze followed his. The cold rain had taken a hiatus. In the glowering sky, the helicopter was passing overhead. Dak had heard the engine before she had; and the expression on his tired face was one of such utter contempt that if he’d had a gun, he’d have been trying to shoot it down.
“This is not a good moment,” he said, “to know what Jericho knows.”
(ii)
Very gently, Dak took her hand and led her down the steps, until she was standing beside him. “I need you to do something for me,” he said.
“Something like what?”
“Keep an eye on him.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
He shook his head impatiently. “That’s not what I mean, Rebecca.” He glanced at the house. “Jericho hasn’t been entirely right for a long time. In the head, I mean. He hasn’t been right for a good fifteen years.” He read her dark thoughts on her face. “No, honey, no. It’s not your fault. It’s not. Okay? If anything, what happened with you was a symptom, not a cause. Okay? I’m not saying what he felt for you wasn’t genuine—isn’t still—only that the Jericho I used to know would never have yielded to his passions, no matter how powerful, or pure.”
Beck turned her gaze aside. She said nothing. They were standing beside his car.
“I don’t mean he would never have cheated on Lana. He would. He did. You must know that. Before you, yes, he had his flings. In our business, well, when you have a fling, you report it. There’s even jargon for it. Unveiling, we call it. That’s what you do, you unveil your relationships to a security officer. We say, it’s better to unveil than to be unveiled. And Jericho, well, Jericho did a fair amount of unveiling. But he never left Lana. He never wanted to hurt her or the kids. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“He had his flings, he unveiled them, and life went on. That’s the key. Life went on.”
“I said—okay.”
Maybe it was the rising wind that made Dak’s voice seem harsher. Or maybe, old spy that he was, he had sensed her shrinking, and was in pursuit. “Now, Rebecca, let’s do the hard part. Flash back to fifteen years ago. He left the Agency and went to Princeton because he had to. He was being pushed out. He could call it a sabbatical, but it was intended all along to be permanent. That isn’t in his official bio, and it hasn’t shown up in any of the unofficial ones, either, but it’s a fact. Whatever is wrong in his head was going wrong that last year or eighteen months of his term as Director. Okay? Now. This is what happened. We didn’t tell anybody. How could we? Washington still remembers Angleton.”
Beck, as it happened, did not, but she was not about to break the spell.
“So, we kept it in-house,” Dak continued. “Some people went to see him. Maybe I was one of them. The delegation told him what had to happen. Told him why. Jericho was no fool. He left the Agency. Told the President it was time to give the academy a chance, at least for a while. He went to Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Study. He didn’t take his family with him. He left them down in Virginia. He fell in love with you. He left them, brought you up here. You remember those days.”
“Faintly,” Beck said, wiping her eyes. Still, she remained alert. Dak might be doing the talking, but she was the one under interrogation.
Philip Agadakos was not a man one could tease. At least, he was not a man who teased back. “I remember them, too. But for a different reason. You can’t imagine it, Rebecca. The storm he left behind. The Director of Central Intelligence seems to be losing his bearings. Then he takes up with—I’m sorry—with a sexy teenaged seductress. That’s what we thought. Once I met you, yes, you were very sweet, but, from Langley, it looked like a setup. As if our enemies, say, had wind of Jericho’s mental problems, and had put you in his path. You can imagine the panic. The former DCI, former SecDef, former everything, sleeping with a nineteen-year-old. Not just a fling. Leaving his wife. Buying a house so she could move in with him. What secrets was he whispering to you in bed? What was your motive? Who were you, really? You were under a microscope, Rebecca. Every second of your life was studied. And, I’m sorry to say, when the two of you were together—every time you were together—we were listening in. It wasn’t legal, and it wasn’t the behavior of gentlemen, but we had to know. I’m sorry, Rebecca. You asked.”
She would cry later, she decided. Cry, throw things, slit her wrists, whatever came to mind. Right now, however, at this crucial moment, she would be—well, what Jericho would have been. Rock solid. Even disdainful. She was close. Everything was about to pivot. She could feel it.
“That’s not all,” she said. When Dak waited, she fed him the next piece of the story. “You got down in the gutter, you listened to us in bed for a year and a half. Well, if you were listening, you heard Jericho tell me you were listening. Two, three times a day, he would remind me. First I thought he was playing games, then I decided he was nuts after all. But he wasn’t. You were listening. And if you listened, you know he didn’t betray any secrets. The only thing you heard in bed was Jericho telling me which way he wanted it tonight. So—that isn’t why you’re worried. There’s more.”
“You were always smart.”
“Tell me the rest.”
Again he looked down the road, then off at the woods, cut back the regulation fifty yards on every side. Nothing stirred in the cold mountain afternoon; or nothing to rouse an old spy’s suspicions.
“There isn’t any more,” Agadakos said after a moment. His smile was kind, and a little sad. “He’s an old man, Rebecca. He’s dying. He’s not sure what his life meant, so he wants to make sure his death means something.” He laughed. “And he sure has a lot of people paying attention, doesn’t he?”
Beck refused to be deflected. “But what is it? What does he want his death to mean? He’s plotting something, Dak. Maybe the two of you together. And we”—waving toward the house—“we’re caught in the middle.”
