she was genuinely concerned for my health. Of course if you read between the lines, it sounded more like, I'm having you followed and you somehow slipped away, so please fall for my act and tell me where the hell you are.
I said, "In thirty minutes I want you and Harold Johnson to be huddled in his office. I have a tape you both need to listen to, and if you're not there in thirty minutes, you'll read the contents of that tape on the front page of theNew York Times . It won't be a good day for you, Mary. Thirty minutes."
Then I hung up. There's nothing like bossing around the deputy director for intelligence of the whole CIA. It's a good feeling knowing you've got a tape recording in your pocket that will blow the sides off his building. Thirty minutes later, I went down to the lobby and spied around till I saw a tired-looking businessman with a cell phone hooked to his belt.
I approached him with that overused spiel: "Have I got a deal for you."
He gave me a wary, distrustful expression.
I pulled the wad of money out of my pocket. "Here's the way this works," I said, peeling off bills. "You get five hundred dollars to let me make one call on your cell phone. It's local. It won't cost much. I'll be right across the lobby, so you can keep your eyes on me."
I can be mighty generous with the money somebody was paid to murder me. He stared at the wad in my hand. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. I'm in a very generous mood. I learned I just won the lottery and I need to call my broker to tell him to take a big breath and get ready for a windfall."
Which, as metaphors go, was actually pretty good. He looked at me like he couldn't believe it. "You're bullshittin' me, right?"
I waved the five hundred dollars. "Two more seconds and I move on to the next lucky guy."
Before you could say "take it," I had his cell phone and he had my money. I wandered over to the corner of the lobby. I went through this little charade because I figured the CIA had some sort of tracing service and I couldn't afford to let Johnson and Mary know where I was. I didn't want some goon squad showing up and spoiling my day.
I dialed the number for the CIA and told the switchboard lady to put me through to Harold Johnson's office.
"Hello, Major, Mary's here. What's this about?" he asked, his tone sounding edgy, like he just knew this wasn't going to be a happy moment, because he'd already had one sour experience with me and the bad taste lingered. As I mentioned before, it's always nice to know you're remembered.
"Put me on the speakerphone. You both need to hear this."
As soon as he assured me I was on, I played the whole tape. You could hear the occasional slaps and howls, but the voices came through very clearly.
Johnson's voice sounded alarmed and disapproving at the same time. "Whose voice was that?" he barked.
"Milton Martin's," I replied, then said nothing, knowing both their faces were going pale with anguish.
Johnson put me on hold so I couldn't hear their conversation. I didn't need to. I knew damn well what he and Mary were jabbering about, and while I would've enjoyed overhearing the panic attack that I'd just paid five hundred dollars for the listening rights to, I patiently waited for two minutes while they tried to figure out how to handle me and an audiotape that would shoot to the top of the charts on anybody's list.
The speakerphone finally came back on. Johnson said, "Drummond, that confession sounded coerced."
"Well, Mr. Johnson, it was coerced. So what? I did your dirty work for you; I found the mole you couldn't find."
"Where's Martin? Did you kill him?"
"No. I left him in the woods across the river from West Point. I thought you'd appreciate the irony, West Point being the fort Benedict Arnold tried to betray. He was a little distraught and wasn't very good company anymore."
Mary said, "Oh my God, you didn't."
"Oh my God, I did," I said. "And one way or another, it's your fault."
"How do you get that?" Johnson asked.
"Because you people set me up."
"We weren't setting you up," Johnson insisted.
"Bullshit. You were following and watching me. When somebody tried to murder me and my co-counsel yesterday, your people came along and