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“I’ot someone who needs to be out of circulation Can you help? No questions now, but I promise to fill you in as soon as I can”

“Does this happen to have anything to do with the business you were involved in down here?”

“That and more Sorry to be so mysterious Can you help?”

Pause Then Gomez’s voice calewood There’s a caretaker there I’ll call and let hiave Zavala directions to the safe house

“Thanks Talk to you later,” Joe said

“I hope so,” Gomez replied

The phone rang as soon as he put it down He rattled off the address Goiven him and told Cohen to take a taxi there “Leave your car,” he cautioned “It ht have a transmitter on it”

“Of course I never thought of anything like that Oh, jeez I knew this thing was big Poor Sandy and the others I feel responsible for them”

“There was nothing else you could have done, Randy You didn’t know you were playing well out of your league”

“What the hell is going on?”

“You had it right the first tiold”

27

THE BLACK RUBBER BALL was only a meteor blur, but Sandecker had anticipated the bounce, and his light wooden racket flicked out like a serpent’s tongue The quick backhand sent the ball speeding with a sharp thwack against the right wall LeGrand lunged, but he had ed the spin and his racket swiped clumsily at thin air

“That’s the ga up the bouncing ball Sandecker was a fitness and nutrition fanatic, and his strict regie over s wide apart, the racket resting easily in the crook of his arm Not one drop of perspiration beaded his forehead Nor was a single red hair out of place on his head or the precisely trimmed fiery red Van Dyke beard

By contrast, LeGrand dripped with sweat As he removed his eye protectors and toweled his face dry he re with Sandecker The CIA director had the height and e over Sandecker, who stood a few inches over five feet, but as he learned each tiay, not power Under normal circumstances he would have put the admiral off when he called the day after the incident in New York State