Warren Murphy: Last Call

"Didn't you try to stop them?"

"I tried to," Norton said. "I called the legal department but they said we'd need a court order to stop them."

"Why didn't you get it?"

"I asked the lawyers to. They drew straws to see who would go to court."

"Why?" Stantington asked.

"Because they said whoever handled the case would probably have his balls cut off. By you. Probably be indicted."

"AH right, all right. So who lost?" Stantington asked.

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"Nobody," Norton said. "They all used the same size straws."

"What are you going to do?" asked Stantington. "How long have you been here anyway?"

"Since the CIA started right after World War II," Norton said. "And what I'm going to do is wait till garbage day and then throw all this out in Hefty bags. And then I'm going to sweep the floor one last time and then I'm .going to take my retirement and then, hopefully, I'm going to have the nerve to tell you to shove the CIA, your open door policy^ and the freedom of information law up your ass. Will that be all ?"

"Not quite. I'm looking for a specific file," said Stantington.

"Tell me what it is and I'll have the garbage men keep an eye out for it."

Norton was moaning as he walked back to his desk.

"Freedom of Information," Karbenko said softly. "I can't believe you did this. Do you know how we handle our secret information in Russia?"

"I can guess."

"I doubt if you can even guess," the Russian spy said. "We keep it all in one building. It is surrounded by a high, thick stone wall. The stone wall is surrounded itself by a high electrified fence. If, somehow, you get to the fence and touch it without being electrocuted, you get shot. If you get over the fence, vicious dogs will tear you apart, if you don't get shot. You get shot if you touch the wall. You get shot if you climb the wall. You get shot if you come near the building. If you

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get inside the building, you get tortured and shot. We shoot the members of your family for good measure. Also any friends we can think of. And here . . . you hold open house." He whistled his amazement. "Tell me, Admiral, are you really running the CIA or is this the "Gong Show'?"

"I truly appreciate you telling me how to do my job ..." Stantington said.

"Somebody better," Karbenko interrupted. "You keep firing agents and weakening this agency and before you know it, somebody in the world is going to get adventuresome because they'll think the United States is a toothless tiger."

"Somebody like Russia?"

"Perhaps," said Karbenko. "And that would be a tragedy for all of us," he said thoughtfully.

"Come on," said Stantington, leading Karbenko out. On his way, he growled at Norton, "Don't you touch a piece of paper inside there. I'm sending some men down here to work on something."

Back upstairs, Stantington told his chief of operations to get everybody in the building down to the record room to find anything they could about Project Omega.

"Only those people with top secret security clearances, you mean?" the operations chief said.

Stantington shook his head. "I said everybody and I meant everybody. Just because some poor employee of ours isn't cleared for top secret, why should he be the only one in the country who doesn't know what's in our secret files ? Hurry it up. We'll be waiting."

Stantington and Karbenko sat silently in the

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admiral's office for thirty minutes. There was a knock on the door and Stantington buzzed in the chief of operations. The man's eyebrows raised when he saw Vassily Karbenko sitting across from the director's desk.

"I can come back," he said.

"Don't worry about it," Stantington said. "Vassily knows all our secrets. What'd you find out about Project Omega?"

"In that whole room, there's only one piece of paper that mentions any Project Omega. It's a personnel file."

"And what does it say?"

"All it says is that Project Omega was an action plan, designed for use in the event America lost an atomic war. That's all it is.

"Whose personnel file is it in?" the admiral asked.

The chief of operations looked at Stantington and rolled his eyes toward Karbenko. "Should I say that, sir?"

"Go ahead," Stantington said.

"It was a former employee who's retired now. He apparently had something to do with the plan."

"And who is this former employee?"

"His name was Smith. Dr. Harold W. Smith. He lives now in Rye, New York, and runs a mental health sanitarium named Folcroft."

"Thank you," said Stantington. When the chief had left the room, the admiral looked at Karbenko and held his hands open in front of him.

"Vassily, see? We don't know any more about it than you do."

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"But Project Omega killed our ambassador nevertheless," Karbenko said. "That could be considered an act of war. You are, or course, going to contact that Doctor Smith?"

"Of course."

The telephone buzzed on Stantington's desk. He picked it up, then handed it to the Russian.

"For you."

"Karbenko here." The Russian listened and Stantington saw his ruddy tan complexion seem to pale. "I see. Thank you."

He handed the telephone back to the CIA director.

"That was my office," he said quietly. "Our ambassador in Paris was just stabbed to death. By a baker. He is one of yours. Project Omega again."

Stantington dropped the telephone onto the floor.

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CHAPTER FIVE

After Vassily Karbenko left his office, Admiral Stantington had his secretary track down the telephone number of Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye, New York. She buzzed him on the intercom to tell him she had gotten through to Doctor Smith's office.

Stantington picked up the telephone.

"Hello," he said.

A woman's voice answered "Hello."

"Is Doctor Smith there?"

"Not to just anybody what calls," the woman said. "Who is this?"

"My name is Admiral Wingate Stantington. I am the ..."

"What do you want?"

"What I don't want is to waste time talking to a secretary. Please put Doctor Smith on the line."

"He's not here."

"Where is he?" Stantington asked. "This is important."

"I made him go out and play golf. That's important, too."

"Hardly," said Stantington. "I want him to re-

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turn my call immediately and then come to see me," the CIA director said.

"He gonna be busy. You come and see him," Ruby said.

"Really. Miss, I am the director of the Central Intelligence Agency."

"That's all right. He'll see you anyway. That's figuring you can get here without getting lost. When I was with the CIA, I didn't notice anybody who could get anywheres without getting lost."

"You? Worked for the CIA?"

"Yes," said Ruby Gonzalez. "And I was the best you had. When should I tell the doctor that you be coming?"

"I'm not coming. He's coming here."

"You're coming," said Ruby as she hung up. She waited for a moment, then picked up the telephone and dialed Westport, Connecticut, whistling softly under her breath.

It would be a simple matter, Stantington knew. He could just send a few agents over to Folcroft or to the golf course or wherever this Doctor Smith was hanging out and pick him up and bring him to Washington. And if he didn't want to come willingly, well, that could be arranged too.

Except...

Except that it was extra-legal, outside the law, and not quite in keeping with the new CIA that Stantington was dedicated to creating.

He decided that he needed guidance on the subject and it had better come directly from the top.

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If he was going to be breaking any laws, the orders to do it should come from the President. Stantington was new to Washington, but he had spent a lifetime in the Navy and had learned all the secrets of grabbing glory, when glory was being distributed, and making sure someone else's ass was in the sling when it was ass-in-the-sling time. Now some deep-remembered instinct was telling him that the one way to make sure the President didn't saw off a limb with you on it was to make sure that the President was out on the same limb. Even if he had been your old school chum and your old service buddy.