The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 40

Part V

Chapter 40

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After Callahan returned to work, Didi Goodman settled into a new, though somewhat less exciting routine. She continued to look after Callahan's accounts and to take care of the house in Davos, just as she had for well over a year now, but she also continued working for her father. In effect, then, she was still working for the Mossad - with all the danger that life entailed. Her first real assignment had been tracking down the communications nexus operated by the Cartel, the one that had resulted in the calamitous explosion across the valley, but as she had, in effect, proven herself with this operation more assignments were sure to follow.

And they had.

Didi Goodman had always done well in school, and only poor vision had kept her out of the Israeli Air Force. She excelled at math and physics and could have easily taken the path most with her skillset chose to follow, but a life in university culture had never really appealed to her. Talking to her father about where she might best find a higher level of excitement than teaching remedial algebra to bored undergrads, he suggested she put her talents to use working for the intelligence services. Communications and Analysis, he advised, would keep her in the thick of things.

Of course, Colonel Goodman quite naturally wanted to keep his daughter out of field operations - and all the inherent risks that went along with working deep undercover assignments in often hostile environments. Avi Rosenthal had been instrumental in recruiting her, and to positioning her in Davos. Avi's choice had been deliberate, and carefully considered.

Already a feature of economic life, the Davos Conferences had taken on a more prominent role in the formulation of the West's economic strategy for confronting the Soviet Union and, as a result, semi-official consular offices began to spring up all over the valley. This was in an era long before cellular data transmission, and though encrypted UHF burst-packet technology was already in use, such advanced technology was usually limited to military communications. As a result, VHF radio communications, what some people might remember as Ham radio, was still very much in use; most of the bigger consular operations in and around Davos relied on this type of radio communication to relay sensitive information to their parent countries.

Didi Goodman built her first Ham radio before she was in her teens and her interest never waned. Before it was commonplace, she bounced microwave and UHF radio signals off the moon, trying to get faster, more useful data transmission rates out of increasingly obsolete technology, so moving her to Davos made sense. Israel needed a clear picture of American and Western European economic policy thinking before they became public policy, if only to survive in the bi-polar world of the Cold War. And when Davos became a center for such thinking, Avi Rosenthal made sure he got Israel in the game.

But the world was changing. It was becoming apparent that the Soviet Union was crumbling under the weight of so many structural incongruities, yet China was ascendant. The various kingdoms around the Persian Gulf were problematic, too. And as a result Davos was becoming a focal point of economic policy making for countries all around the globe. Keeping Israel informed in this evolving arena was crucial, so placing Didi Goodman at the center of operations reflected the tremendous confidence both Avi and the Colonel had in her abilities.

Still, Avi's unexpected death had thrown a wrench into the Colonel's plans. Israel wasn't particularly interested in a bunch of cops going rogue in California, but by the mid-1980s Israel wasn't in a position to buy property in the Davos area without arousing a lot of suspicion. Avi's decision to buy a house in Davos back in the 60s had been scoffed at, but now it was considered prescient; more importantly, keeping the house in Israeli hands was now deemed a matter of national security.

And Harry Callahan presented an almost 'too good to be true' opportunity; Israel could, in effect, keep all its operational capability intact, yet any inquiries made about the property would reveal that it was owned by a Californian, and a gentile at that. Letting Didi take over Callahan's financial affairs tied the Mossad directly to Harry Callahan, so keeping Callahan safe became an operational consideration of the Mossad.

Even with an ex-KGB agent on staff, Pablo Escobar was an impulsive man who simply could not maintain operational discipline up and down his supply chain. Various subgroups within the Cartel were easily penetrated - as Callahan had done in Oakland - and Goodman's teams kept a constant watch on the Cartel's moves and counter-moves after it became apparent the Cartel was bankrolling subversive activities in the United States. More recently, after the Air Force One 'near miss' the FBI and CIA were all over Escobar and the Cartel, but the net result was to drive their activities deeper underground. Harder to detect now, everyone was dumping more and more assets onto the case, and unfortunately for Escobar, Didi Goodman was one of those.

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Didi Goodman took Sara Callahan's murder personally.

In a very real sense, she considered herself Harry Callahan's fiduciary protector, and she took that role seriously. After Sara's murder this changed. She began to follow his activities in increasing detail, deciding to move more assets to the Bay Area to keep a closer eye on him. When one of her communications experts discovered that members of the Harry's team were being surveilled, their houses bugged and their cars followed again, she alerted the Colonel, who then shifted even more assets to San Francisco. One of them was his daughter.

She was installed in a small apartment the Colonel maintained above the Rosenthal Music Company, and she began coordinating the movements of two dozen agents around San Francisco and Oakland. She had informed Frank Bullitt that their homes had been bugged, but she had asked that he not tell Callahan she was in the City. She listened when, not an hour later, Bullitt told Callahan about his diagnosis, about the procedure he would undergo the next morning. She took notes, understood immediately that the Colonel would have to be informed, but then she had listened in horror as Bullitt asked Harry to set up a weekend party at Sam Bennett's house.

Why, she wondered, had Frank just told the opposition the entire team would be gathering next weekend? And even where they'd gather...? Perhaps it was because of the things weighing on his mind now, but Bullitt had just thrown the most basic fieldcraft out the window. When she talked to her father about it, he seemed surprised yet almost unconcerned. Of course he knew the whole picture while she only knew one little piece of the puzzle, but she had expected him to be at least a little perturbed.

By the time Callahan left for the airport to pick up Evelyn, Didi Goodman had a dozen agents working the Santa Cruz area; when the red sedan Stacy Bennett had rented in Oakland arrived and parked down by the beach, everything was over but the actual deed.

Until they discovered Stacy Bennett wasn't behind the wheel of the red sedan. Then the operational tempo became a little more frantic, a little less rehearsed. They couldn't go from car to car, house to house, or even tree to tree without tipping their hand, letting Stacy know she was blown and giving her an opportunity to escape once again.

When Callahan and his friends moved down to the beach, Didi understood why the red sedan had parked there. It was a signal. As soon as it moved that would let the shooter know it was time to get into position. Didi knew this because the move was basic KGB fieldcraft...

'KGB...?' she thought, now alarmed. Were they involved too, or had Escobar managed to snag a few recruits?

Dropping a false flag like this was pure KGB, pure Grassy Knoll stuff. Plant a shitty sniper in the Book Depository while the real shooters worked the hedges on top of the grassy knoll, out of sight and out of mind. Now, with the sun setting she scanned the cars parked down by the beach...

Every car she saw was empty except for two surfer vans; both were topped with rooftop racks packed with surfboards. The yellow one had windows, the black one didn't...

The sun slipped below the horizon, fire pits up and down the beach began blazing and then a man walked up to the red sedan and got behind the wheel. He held a walkie-talkie to his face then drove off; now clearly concerned, Didi got out of her car and decided to check out the two vans.

As she got close to the yellow van a gaggle of kids, sloshed on Pagan Pink Ripple and two still toying with doobies walked up to the yellow van and got in. The black one was a hundred yards away, and she'd just started jogging in that direction when one of the back doors opened just a few inches...

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Evelyn sat beside Callahan, clearly ill-at-ease with how the evening had gone so far. She had tried to talk to him in the car on the ride in from the airport but he had seemed uncomfortable and she didn't push him. Same thing at dinner. She tried to make small talk with him and he turned away, talked to Sam or Delgetti, and after a while she had turned to Elaine.

'So, this is it,' she thought as they'd walked down to the beach. 'Either he's done with me or he's just not ready to go there.'

Callahan was carrying, of course. So was Bullitt. Delgetti and Stanton, too, but in the end it didn't matter. They were clueless, all of them.

Yet Frank Bullitt was a predator, and he still had peregrine those eyes...always had, but this is a matter of record.

Like any falcon, his eyes were attracted to movement, and even in the near absolute darkness on this beach, his night vision spoiled by firelight, he saw something. Movement...over there...

His eyes searched, his mind analyzed what his eyes saw, his hand went to his shoulder holster and the 45 ACP was just clearing the leather when his mind recognized Didi Goodman...

Callahan's eyes went to Frank, followed his hand, watching the old Colt break free as his own hand reached for his 44, then he began to stand; losing his footing once on the sand he began to fall. The first bullet - meant for Callahan - wizzed by harmlessly and disappeared into the night...

Didi Goodman flung the van's door open as a second shot burped from the silenced rifle; she fired three times, killing Stacy Bennett outright and seriously wounding a blond-headed fellow who seemed to speak only Russian. She got on her radio and called-in members of her team, worked to secure the scene until backup arrived.

Frank Bullitt leaned over Cathy, telling her everything would be alright - but the gaping wound on her right shoulder looked dangerously malignant. Paramedics were summoned, sirens blared in the night, and Sam Bennett walked over to the black van and looked at his sister's body, now quite still in the firelight. He stood there for the longest time lost in wonder, not yet knowing what had gone wrong with her but suddenly very curious.

"Was someone hit?" Didi asked the old captain.

Who nodded slowly. "Cathy."

"Is she alright?"

"I don't think so."

"Oh, no..."

The Russian disappeared in the night, apparently carried onto a private jet waiting at SFO, an old Lockheed Jetstar bound for points unknown - Switzerland was listed on the flight plan. Some reported seeing a man muscled onboard, his head covered by a black hood, but as usual these things were denied and the story faded into obscurity.

The Russian arrived at an air base near Tel Aviv the next evening, and despite formidable resistance, in the end he proved quite talkative.

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Sam Bennett seemed a total wreck. First his son, now his sister - even if she had been subverted. He sat on a sofa in the waiting room cradling his wife's head on his chest.

Delgetti and Stanton had reverted to form; after years of watching Bullitt's 'six' they now stood on either side of his chair, for all intents and purposes looking like a couple of Doberman's.

Frank Bullitt was sitting still, his form inert, his eyes dangerous - but ten minutes ago he had been pacing the floor in manic despair, bouncing off the walls like he was trapped inside a deranged pinball machine. There had been no news for over an hour.

Then Evelyn pulled Callahan from the group, wanting now more than ever to talk to Harry, to grab hold and never let go of him again.

"Somehow I thought this place would be fancier," she said.

"What?"

"Well, it's Stanford, for God's sake."

Callahan shrugged. "It's just another hospital."

"No, Harry, it isn't. This is one of the best in the world, if not the best. Did the paramedics decide to bring her here?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Harry? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Cathy's pregnant."

"Oh-dear-God," she whispered. She began crying.

"I couldn't do it again," Callahan continued. "I couldn't 'sight' her. I wanted to, but I just couldn't."

"Harry, you can't do that ever again. Frank told me the last time it almost killed you."

"I could've stopped this."

She paused for a moment, considering how to say what she needed to say. "Harry? Maybe things happen for a reason. Maybe this was supposed to happen, you know?"

He look at her, shook his head. "And if I had prevented all this, couldn't you just as easily say that's what was meant to happen? No...don't lay that religious crap on me. We make our own destiny, and with every choice we make."

"It must feel good to be so certain of everything, to really know how the world works," she said as she walked back down the hall to the surgery waiting room.

Miffed, Callahan turned and walked outside.

There was a light fog drifting between trees but when he looked up he saw a few stars right overhead, and he found himself wondering...

'Do we really? Really make our destiny? Or is everything simply an accident of time and place? And there are no coincidences?'

"Your mother struggled with these things too," the Old Man in the Cape said, and Callahan wasn't in the least bit surprised to see him standing out there by his side. "She couldn't, or so she told me once, understand why God would let her get pregnant inside a concentration camp."

"She...what?" Callahan cried.

"When she and Saul fled the Russian advance in 1945, they made their way to Hamburg and then back to Copenhagen. She lost that child in the forests southwest of Berlin."

Callahan felt light-headed, like the world was closing in on him. "Who...was the father?"

"You mean she didn't tell you?"

"No, she never talked about her experiences during those years."

"Imagine that. Saul Rosenthal was the father, Harry. He was the father of all her children."

An iron grip took hold of his thoughts, his chest felt heavy, almost molten. "What-did-you-say?"

"Do you mean to say you thought Lloyd Callahan was your father? For all these years?"

"He is my father, and you know it."

"He raised you, certainly. But Harry, you must ask him sometime about his injury."

"What injury?"

The old man turned towards the hospital and seemed intent on listening for a moment. "You can relax now, Harry. Your friend will indeed be a father, though he is very ill. But though some things are still very hard to perceive, your friend will live to see his daughter's seventh birthday."

"What? Are you sure?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How could you possibly know that?"

The Old Man rolled his eyes and laughed, then slammed his cane down once and disappeared. Thunder rolled along the foothills, lightning danced beyond the coastal foothills above Palo Alto.

Callahan turned and ran inside, his mind on fire.

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"Dad? Were you injured during the war?"

Lloyd turned to Harry, an odd expression in his eyes and on his face, then he nodded. "Who told you? Avi, or Saul?"

"It doesn't matter."

"No, I suppose it doesn't."

Harry suddenly felt like this wasn't the time to talk about these matters, not least of all because of the pain in his father's eyes. "Dad, it's okay if you don't want to talk about it. There's something else I wanted to ask you."

"Oh?"

"Frank's sick, Dad. I mean, really sick."

"Oh, no. What's happened, son?"

"Cancer. Pancreatic cancer."

"Dear God. How long have they given him?"

"Not long, but that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Okay, fire away?"

"He wants to go to Japan, on a cruise. I'm not sure about the reasons why, but I think it may have to do with Buddhism, maybe seeing the shrines over there."

"Oh? Have you talked with him about it?"

"Yes, a little. He wants to know if a bunch of us could go together, like as a group, and when you're the captain."

"Shouldn't be too big a deal. What can I do to help?"

"I just need to know what trips you've been assigned to, and who to contact for booking rooms."

"I'm going to make one more round trip, Harry, then I'm turning in my papers."

"Yeah? Frank and I turned our papers in last week, right after Cathy left the hospital."

"No kidding? Why?"

"It's complicated, Dad. Things are changing a little too fast right now, and not in a good way. What made you decide?"

"Well, Harry, you may not have noticed but I'm getting rather old. It hurts to walk, some days it hurts just to get out of bed, and all things considered that's a lousy state of affairs for someone at sea. Especially the captain of a ship. Besides, I should have retired two years ago, but we just don't have replacements now for the most experienced positions. The Merchant Marine is dying, son, and U.S. lines are dying right along with it. Big changes, everywhere..."

"Why did you decide to go to sea, Dad?"

"Funny thing, that," Lloyd said, slipping unconsciously into the Scottish brogue of his youth. "It was because of Titanic. Was for a lot of us in my class. You take air travel for granted these days, but the world was linked together by steamships in my day. When Titanic went down it was like a repudiation of all the progress we'd made in the Kingdom, of all the things we'd built, not to mention the Empire. I wasn't around when that happened, of course, but the tragedy shaped the outlooks of almost all my teachers." He looked down at his hands, shook his head. "They call these things 'age spots,' if you can believe such a thing. Age spots, for crying out loud."

"What about your teachers?"

"Hmm? Oh. Well, all the naysayers went about shouting 'See, we told you so! It was Hubris that sank your Titanic! Hubris! Can you imagine that, Harald? To build something so complex, so magnificent, and all in the name of bringing the world together, of finding common ground through manufacturing and trade. Hubris, indeed!"

"So, those teachers inspired you?"

"Yeah, a lot of my mates, too. Some went into ship building or engineering, others like me decided to go to sea. I had just finished my post-graduate training on convoy operations and was headed to my first assignment when the Hood and Bismarck got into it, and that was my first experience with that feeling..."

"What feeling, Dad?"

"When the Hood...well, you know the story, don't you?"

"I don't think so..."

"Well, the HMS Hood was the pride of the British Navy, a huge, glorious battleship. Said she was unbeatable, practically unsinkable, so of course we believed all that. The war was just a year on, the Battle of Britain still a few months away, but already the only thing keeping the country afloat was a tenuous lifeline to the States. Convoys. Convoys kept us going. Fuel, food, aircraft parts, you name it, we carried it. Anyway, the Germans sent two of their best ships to go after our convoys, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. The Admiralty sent the Hood and as many escorts as could be mustered, sent them to the Denmark Straits to intercept Bismarck. Well, they found each other, all right..."