Part 84 (1/2)
”My father,” said Thomas coldly Those two words hung in the air for what, to Thomas Daniels, seemed like an eternity. He felt the six other eyes on him, almost Xraying him. And he recognized now their att.i.tude toward him all along. In their own way, they'd been as perplexed with him as he'd been with them. They'd had his father pegged as a spy, of which sort Thomas still didn't know. But what the men in this room had wondered all along-and probably still wondered, Thomas concluded -was how much the spy father had pa.s.sed on to the attorney son.
Whiteside finally chipped the silence.
”What you lack in speed, Mr. Daniels' he said, 'you regain in diligence. Of course, the question we now' must ask is the question.”
”Sorry?”
”We know,” said Whiteside with feline smugness, 'that your father was a spy. A specialist in recruitment, at that. What we must know is, for whom?”
”For whom?” Thomas repeated in perplexed tones. And for whom?”
”Do you speak any Russian, Mr. Daniels?” asked Hunter flatly.
”What?”
”How about the Cyrillic alphabet?” asked Grover.
”Know it?”
”Where would I have learned it?” asked Thomas angrily.
All three men shrugged. Whiteside, his eyes fixed on Daniels, spoke bluntly.
”At your father's knee, perhaps?”
Daniels was shaking his head, failing to comprehend.
”What are you angling at?” he demanded.
”What the h.e.l.l are you people after?”
Whiteside sighed.
”The extent to which we've been compromised he intoned.
”That's what we want to know. That's what you have to tell us.”
”You're not making sense ”Oh, no?” Whiteside shot back, the white eyebrows rising quickly.
”Here, then!”
He explained.
Many of the most enterprising intelligence networks of the Second World War, said Whiteside, had been joint Anglo-American endeavors. That was thirty years past, of course, and such past history would hardly have mattered were it not for one simple fact: ”A proven network is a proven network' Whiteside pontificated, and good, sound alliances aren't tossed away for the fun of it.
They're kept intact. Sometimes for twenty or thirty years. Even longer.”
Thomas listened, uncomfortable under the gaze of Hunter and Grover.
”Do you see the' problem inquired Whiteside.