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"Hagen is a puzzle. I've closely monitored the President and haven't detected any contact between them."
"You don't think Hagen was brought in by any of the intelligence directors?" aske
d Eriksen.
"Certainly not through ordinary channels. The only meeting the President has had with any intelligence people was a briefing by Sam Emmett of the FBI. I couldn't get my hands on the report, but it had to do with the three bodies found in LeBaron's blimp. Beyond that, he's done nothing."
"No, he's most certainly done something." Hudson's voice was quiet but positive. "I fear we've underestimated his shrewdness."
"In what way?"
"He knew I would make contact again and warn him to call off Hagen."
"What brought you to that conclusion?" asked Condor Nose.
"Hagen," replied Hudson. "No good undercover operative calls attention to himself. And Hagen was one of the best. He had to have a good reason for advertising his presence by that phone call to General Fisher and his little face-to-face chat with Senator Porter."
"But what was the President's purpose in forcing our hand if he made no demands, no requests?"
asked Eriksen.
Hudson shook his head. "That's what scares me, Gunnar. I can't see for the life of me what he had to gain."
Unnoticed in the downtown traffic, an old dusty camper with Georgia license plates kept a discreet distance behind the van. In the back, Ira Hagen sat at a small dining table with earphones and a microphone clamped to his head and uncorked a bottle of Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon. He let the opened bottle sit while he made an adjustment with the voice-tone knob on a microwave receiving set that was plugged into reel-to-reel tape decks.
Then he raised his headset to expose one ear. "They're fading. Close up a bit."
The driver, wearing a fake scraggly beard and an Atlanta Braves baseball cap, replied without looking back. "I had to drop off when a taxi cut in front of me. I'll make up the distance in the next block."
"Keep them in sight until they park."
"What's going down, a drug bust?"
"Nothing that exotic," replied Hagen. "They're suspected of working a traveling poker game."
"Big deal," grunted the driver without realizing the pun.
"Gambling is still illegal."
"So is prostitution and it's a helluva lot more fun."
"Just keep your eyes glued on the van," Hagen said in an official tone. "And don't let it get more than a block away."
The radio crackled. "T-bone, this is Porterhouse.'
"I hear you, Porterhouse."
"We have Sirloin in visual but would prefer a lower altitude. If he should happen to merge with another similar-colored vehicle under trees or behind a building, we could lose him."
Hagen turned and stared upward from the camper's rear window at the helicopter above. "What's your height?"
"The limit for aircraft over this section of the city is thirteen hundred feet. But that's only half the problem. Sirloin is heading for the Capitol mall. We're not allowed to fly over that area."
"Stand by, Porterhouse. I'll get you an exemption."
Hagen made a call over a cellular telephone and was back to the helicopter pilot in less than a minute.
"This is T-bone, Porterhouse. You are cleared for any altitude over the city so long as you do not endanger lives. Do you read?"
