Parallax View by Allan Leverone Read Free Book Online

Period.”
    I already told
you, it’s impossible. It can’t be done!”
    “You will find a
way, Major.”
    “You’re a fucking
crackpot. Forget it. I’m out. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”
    “Major, you will
never guess the report I received today.”
    “Report? What are
you talking about?”
    “One of our
operatives followed Roberta as she drove little Sarah to dance class this
afternoon. He tells me, Major, that your young daughter is getting quite
beautiful. Growing like a weed, as you Americans like to say.”
    “He what? Roberta
and Sarah? Listen here, you psychotic bastard, you leave my family out of this,
do you understand?”
    “The roads, Major,
they are so dangerous in your country. Automobile accidents are a daily occurrence,
often fiery crashes where the victims, sometimes mothers with their young
children in the back seat, they crash their cars and burn to death in the fiery
aftermath. They may survive the initial accident but then literally cook to
death inside the burning vehicle. So sad, Major. So painful for the victims. So
avoidable.”
    Silence.
    “Are you still
with me, Major? Are you paying attention?”
    “I’m here, you
sick son of a bitch.”
    “Good. You will
ensure the airplane carrying the item of which we spoke never reaches your
country. If you do not accomplish this assignment, well, let us just say I hope
you have many photographs of your beautiful little family to keep their memory
alive. Do not think about alerting the authorities, either. We will get
to your wife and child if you do. Please believe that. Do you believe that,
Major?”
    Silence.
    “Do you believe
that, Major?”
    “Yes. I believe
that.”
    “Then get going.
You have a lot of work to do and very little time. The item is either already
on the base or will be soon. It won’t be long before the plane carrying it will
be lifting off, likely with the CIA operative as the sole passenger.”
    “God damn you.”
    “Oh, and Major?
One more thing.”
    “What?”
    “Good luck. And
goodbye.”
     
     
    10
    May 30, 1987
    2:35 p.m.
    Ramstein Air Base, West Germany
    The back of the envelope was
sweat-stained to a murky off-brown from being plastered to Tracie’s skin in the
stifling heat of the East German dance club. The front, where was scrawled,
“President Ronald Reagan,” by Mikhail Gorbachev, if her handler was to be
believed—and Tracie believed him—remained undisturbed. 
    After fighting her
way out of the dance club, Tracie had snuck out of East Berlin uneventfully—it
was never a problem if you had the right contacts—and driven as fast as she
dared back to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany in a waiting CIA-supplied
automobile. By the time she arrived at Ramstein it was approaching six a.m.,
and she crashed, exhausted, in an empty apartment maintained just off the base
by the CIA. After just a few short hours of sleep, she was awakened by
telephone and advised her flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland would be
departing at eleven p.m.
    Tracie showered
and dressed, reveling in the luxury of a little time to herself and the added
bonus of an unlimited hot water supply. In many of the locations she had worked
as a CIA field operative there had been no water at all, much less hot water.
    During her shower,
Tracie placed Gorbachev’s envelope atop the ceramic toilet tank, less than four
feet from where she stood soaping and rinsing. Her assignment had been to
retrieve the letter, spirit it out of East Germany, and then accompany it to
Washington, never allowing it out of her sight until its delivery to the
President, and that was what she intended to do.
    She had slept with
the letter hugged to her chest, cradling it like a tiny baby. She slept
fitfully, but then she always slept fitfully, awakened by the slightest hint of
a sound, a disruption in the room’s air currents, a barely perceptible noise
outside her window. Her supersensitive perception, even while asleep, had kept
her alive