Warren Murphy - Last Call

The cellar of Igor Gruboff's home had been turned into a recreation room by putting ugly knotty pine panels over ugly cinderblock walls.

Harold Smith was directed to a chair by Vassily Karbenko, who dropped his large Stetson on a table, then stood looking at Smith.

Igor Gruboff stood by the steps leading to the kitchen, his hand inside his jacket pocket, holding a revolver. Smith noticed that like almost all foreigners his trousers were too short.

"Might I ask who you are?" Smith said.

"You don't know?" Karbenko said. He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and leaned back against the table.

"No, I don't," Smith lied. "I don't go to cowboy movies."

Karbenko smiled. "Good," he said. "Very good.

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But suppose we just leave it at that. That you don't know who I am. What is important is that I know who you are, or, more accurately, who you used to be."

Smith nodded.

"I want to know about Project Omega," Karbenko said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Doctor Smith, let us clear the air," Karbenko said. "Your name is Harold W. Smith. You run Folcroft Sanitarium. Twenty years ago, while working for the Central Intelligence Agency, you devised a program called Project Omega. It was designed to bring about the assassination of certain Russian officials if the United States should lose a nuclear war. Its alleged purpose was to prevent such a war. It succeeded. Then you retired from the service. Through no fault of yours, Project Omega has been triggered. Three Russian ambassadors have been killed. The Russian premier is on the list for extinction. No one knows how to call off Project Omega. Yet, if it is not stopped before the Russian premier is killed, it might well be the first explosion in World War III. I have no reason to believe that you are not a dedicated American patriot who does not want his country, and the world, ravaged by nuclear war. While I represent the other side, my goal is identical to yours. I find it necessary that we talk now to try to determine if there is any way to head off Omega before its damage becomes irrevocable. That is why I am here."

"I told everything I know to officials of my gov-

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ernment," Smith said. He folded his arms across his chest.

"So I was told. However, Doctor, I do not believe that the current officials of your government and its CIA could find their feet in their shoes. My government is becoming very nervous. Anything is possible now and I need to know everything."

Smith was silent.

"So let us get right to it, shall we? I have been told by Admiral Stantington that there were four targets for CIA assassins under Project Omega. The ambassadors to Rome, Paris, and London, all of whom are dead now, and the Russian premier. Who picked the targets ?"

"I did," Smith said.

"How, twenty years ago, could you pick today's ambassador and premier? I do not understand or believe this," Karbenko said.

"Two of the targets were geographic picks," Smith said. "That is, the envoys to Paris and Rome were to be marked for extinction. The assassins would have operated against whoever turned out to be the ambassadors to those countries."

"I see," said Karbenko. "And the other two? The English ambassador and the premier?"

"I drew up a list of ten young diplomats. I was sure the ambassador to England would be on that list."

"You gay you drew up a list of ten diplomats, Do you mean there are nine more diplomats in Russia with assassins trailing them around ?"

"That would be correct," Smith said, "except

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that they are dormant. They are not in a position to attack because their instructions were to ... er, dispose of their man only if he was the ambassador to England."

"And the premier? How did you know who would be the premier, here and now, twenty years later?"

"I did not. I selected six candidates," Smith said.

"I find that hard to believe. Twenty years ago, you could have polled the Politburo and their consensus would not have placed our current premier in the six most likely candidates. How did you succeed?"

"I used different standards, perhaps, from those of the Politburo," Smith said.

"And what were those standards?"

"I selected the three most vicious and the three dumbest," Smith said.

Gruboff growled near the staircase but Karbenko laughed.

"Under the age-old theory that either the most brutal or the dumbest will prevail?" Karbenko asked.

"Correct," said Smith. "Never the normal. The brutal or the stupid."

"I will not ask you into which category our current premier falls," said Karbenko.

"I wish you wouldn't," Smith said.

"Who selected the assassins ?" asked Karbenko.

"Another CIA man," Smith answered. "Conrad MacCleary. He is dead now."

"And you expect me to believe that you did not know whom he selected ?"

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"That's right," Smith said. "I didn't approve of MacCleary. I don't think I would want to know who he selected. Or how."

"How? How might he select somebody?"

"In MacCleary's case," Smith said, "one could never tell. It might be somebody he hustled at a card game. Or some drinking buddy. Or some woman he made fall in love with him. Somebody with relatives in the United States that he threatened. Or just somebody he bribed."

"How could this MacCleary have done this without leaving a record for anyone in the CIA ?"

"Because those were his instructions," Smith said. "From President Eisenhower, through me. Of course, no one knew that the project would someday be triggered."

Karbenko nodded, and then carefully and slowly brought Smith back over the same ground.

He was not interested in what this Doctor Smith thought he knew or didn't know. He wanted to find out what Smith actually knew and sometimes the two things were different. Perhaps MacCleary had dropped a name one night, mentioned some incident, let fall a hint. Careful interrogation took time and Colonel Vassily Karbenko was ready to use as much time as was necessary.

He reflected grimly that he had nothing else on his schedule.

Except perhaps World War III.

Ruby Jackson Gonzalez parked her white Lincoln Continental half a block down Benjamin Place from Igor Gruboff's house.

She rooted around in the trunk for a moment

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and found a Gideon Bible wedged in behind the spare tire. The Bible was her mother's. When Ruby used to take her for Sunday drives, the old lady would read the Bible and lecture Ruby on driving too fast.

She had finally stopped when Ruby installed a giant CB radio for her mother to play with on those Sunday drives. She no longer cared how fast Ruby drove.

Ruby's CB handle was "Down Home." Her mother, who wore her hair inside a bandana, smoked a corncob pipe and never had anything on her feet but bedroom slippers, called herself "Midnight Lace."

Ruby rang the doorbell of the Gruboff house. There was no answer. She rang the bell again, four times, staccato. When there was still no answer, she leaned on the bell steadily.

In the basement where the doorbell rang, Karbenko stared angrily at it, then ordered Gruboff, "Go answer that. Wait. Leave me your gun."

The burly Russian gave Karbenko his pistol. Karbenko placed it on the table behind him, with a glance at Smith that was shared commiseration, the acknowledgment by one professional to another that sometimes one had to do tasteless things in their business.

Gruboff plodded up the steps. The doorbell kept ringing. He pulled the door open and saw a young black woman standing there.

She raised her right index finger in the air like an eighteenth-century orator making a point. She waved the Gideon Bible in her left hand.

" 'By this, all will know that you are among my

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disciples if you have love among yourselves,' " she said.