Checkpoint Charlie

I did and he was right. Baffled, I flipped it open. Yaskov, M. Inside were all the reports I’d filed, as well as data from a hundred other sources.

And mixed right in with it was the evidence that could put me in prison for forty years — or more likely in the crematorium.

*   *   *

JOE WAS glum. “Istanbul — tenth October. You were there, right?”

“Yes. Myerson sent me on a wild goose chase.”

“Vie

“Yes. Interpol conference.”

“Helsinki, fourth June — same again?”

“That was a legit job but it didn’t pan out.”

“Apparently Yaskov was in the same towns on the same dates. According to this, you met Yaskov secretly and didn’t report any of the meetings to Myerson.”

“I didn’t have any meetings with Yaskov, Joe.” I flipped a page in the file. “Source — M.S. Source — M.S. The same notation on every one. Who’s this mysterious ‘M.S.’ who’s been following me around?”

“Or following Yaskov around. That’s more likely, isn’t it.”

“Joe, I know every executive in this section and none of them have the initials M.S. on their real names or their code names or any other names.”

“Could be another section. Hell, it could be NSA or military intelligence or any one of half a dozen branches.” He studied me with ca

“Come on, Joe. Come on. Why on earth would Myerson order me to draw a revolver from the armory if he thought I was a traitor?”

“We only have your word for it that Myerson asked you to requisition the piece. It wasn’t Myerson who signed it out. It was you.”

And that was, indeed, the weapon that had killed him. The I.S. people had confirmed that twelve hours ago. The inquiry was to continue today and Grebe had left me to understand that if I didn’t come up with satisfactory answers I was in for a grueling grilling.

I walked to the L-M drawer and pulled Myerson’s own travel-voucher file; I went through it quickly, having a look at hotel and airline receipts. The shape of this thing was emerging from a mist in my tired mind and when I looked up at Joe I think I managed a grin. “I think I know who killed Myerson. I need a few more facts but at least I’ve got an idea where to look.”

“Take it easy before you jump to confusions, Charlie. You’re ru

“That kind of pressure — that’s when I’m at my best. You ought to know that, Joe.” I gave him my beaming smile. “It stirs up the adrenalin.”

“Have you seen any evidence that I haven’t seen?”

“Maybe just these.” I showed him two vouchers from Myerson’s travel records.

Joe looked at them but he didn’t seem impressed. “That’s clutching at straws, Charlie. I say again, take it easy.”

“Easy? It’s my neck they’re measuring for a garotte.”

He took the vouchers out of my hand and put them back into the file. “I don’t see anything in those to prove anything against anybody.”

“That’s because you’re still just a shade slower that I am. No offense, Joe. Maybe it’s just that you didn’t know Myerson quite as well as I did. Come on, we’ve just got time for breakfast before they start up the hearing again.”

*   *   *

I WAS glad to have Joe’s company at the I.S. conference table that morning and glad Grebe allowed him to sit in: that was a sign of the respect in which Joe Cutter was held throughout the Company.

Joe hadn’t said anything soppy but he was there at my side and that was sufficient measure of his faith in me and in my i

I said, “I hope I can clear this thing up before we waste any more time on false trails but I need to ask a few questions. May I?”

Grebe glanced at Joe Cutter and then said, “No blank checks, Charlie, but go ahead and we’ll see.”

“Myerson was wearing a shooting glove. Were there powder stains on it?”

“Yes.”

“Recent?”

“Yes. But that’s been explained. He’d been at his rod-and-gun club earlier the same day, sighting in a new deer rifle. His wife told us that. We examined the rifle. And the rod-and-gun people confirmed it. It’s all true.”

“I don’t doubt it. All right. Any luck tracking down that freight train?”

“It’s in Augusta. The FBI’s searching it now.”

“A hundred to one,” I said, “but they may find that thirty-eight revolver in a hopper car with my fingerprints on it. I assume you’ve got the results of the paraffin test I took yesterday at the armory?”

“Yes. Negative. But you could have been the one wearing the shooter’s glove at the time of the shooting.”

“It wouldn’t fit my hand, you know. But that’s minor.” I glanced at Joe. His eyelids looked heavy. Joe needs his eight hours; he burns up energy fast — it’s one of the disadvantages of being lean. I went on: “An I.S. team started tossing Myerson’s office the morning before the day he died. Is that right?”

“Possibly.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Sorry, Charlie.”

“It’s need-to-know, isn’t it? I need to know it. It’s my life on the line.”

“No.”

I said, “Then I’ll have a guess, and you can correct me if I’m wrong. You had a tip, didn’t you. Probably from a minor type in the Russian Embassy.”

“I can give you this much,” Grebe replied. “It was a telephone tip — anonymous.”

“Telling you if you combed Myerson’s records you’d find there was a traitor in his section.” I smiled. “The tip came from Mikhail Yaskov. I don’t mean it was necessarily Yaskov’s voice on the phone, but it originated with him.”

“What gives you that idea?”

I slipped the Yaskov file and Myerson’s travel records out of the briefcase and Grebe sat bolt upright when he saw the name tag on the Yaskov file. “Who authorized you to —”

“I’m acting section chief,” Joe murmured. “They’re my files now, Phil. I authorized it.”

I pushed the papers across the table and while Grebe examined them I said, “Myerson moved the Yaskov file to the Inactive cabinet. That’s why your people would’ve needed another day or two to find it. But he meant to draw your attention to it by moving it. I’m sure he moved it there after he learned your people were on their way to shake down his office. As soon as he heard about the pending I.S. toss he knew he was in trouble. So he scribbled a few phony reports from a nonexistent agent named ‘M.S.’— probably ‘myself’. The handwriting looks crabbed, as if maybe he scribbled it with his left hand, but I suspect it’s Myerson’s. The phony reports try to show that I had a series of secret meetings with Yaskov in Istanbul and Vie

Grebe lifted his eyes from the papers. He didn’t speak at all. He only watched me, reserving judgment.

I said, “When the I.S. investigation came down, Myerson was in a trap and there wasn’t any way out of it. He couldn’t bluff it out because obviously Yaskov double-crossed him by tipping you. Yaskov always wanted to get Myerson and me out of the way — he’s spent half his life tripping over us and we’ve bested him too often to suit him. When I bluffed him out of Finland a year or two ago it must have been the last straw. First he dug up something on Myerson. He blackmailed Myerson into compromising himself. Then he betrayed Myerson’s treachery to you. Yaskov knew that would get Myerson out of his way — which also gets me out of the way, since without Myerson the Agency won’t keep me on.”