Or did it? A thought came upon him.

"Let me ask you something totally unrelated," Thomas said.

"Ask," said Whiteside generously.

"What would you say if I wondered who you really were? What if I questioned whether the real Peter Whiteside were actually dead The man before him smiled.

"I would say," said Whiteside, "that some unknown person has been filling your head with lies. Probably told you some rubbish about a plane crash leaving Caracas."

Thomas felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, a sense of having been made very neatly into an imbecile, though he wasn't at that moment certain by whom.

Whiteside knew he'd hit the mark.

"Yes, of course;' he continued.

"That impostor girl told you that, didn't she?" When Thomas gave no answer, Whiteside knew he was correct. 'I'll explain," he continued.

"George McAdam was a' which means he-" "I know about that part,"

said Thomas.

"I know what he did "All right," said Whiteside, "old George and I were in Caracas on a little expedition. We were scheduled to leave for Miami on an Avianca flight. At the last moment we changed our plans.

Fortuitously for us, don't you think? Well" he smiled, 'there was no reason to disappoint the folks who thought they'd blown us into the next dimension. We simply had the nice people at Avianca, after a little arm-twisting, add our names to the list of pa.s.sengers. Simple, really. George and I were legally dead. Confused the living h.e.l.l out of the KGB people in Venezuela" Whiteside's smile was enormous.

"So if a little bird whispers in your ear that I'm dead," he said in conclusion, 'don't believe her."

Grover interjected.

"That's also why she wouldn't come into my house the other day," he said.

"Afraid I'd call her a liar right there' "Why should I believe that?

Maybe she wasn't in the mood to look at a petty criminal who'd been her father's partner." Thomas furrowed his brow and added anxiously,

"Yes, how about that? When did you stop being De Septio and start being Grover?"

"November 12, 1954," said Grover with a grin.

"After the Sandler stand-in was taken down on Eighty-ninth Street,"

said Whiteside.

"Thanks for reminding us. That's important ' important both now and twenty-two years earlier, Whiteside explained. Sandler's unorthodox actions after the war -fleeing east instead of west, staying east and then slowly coming home-had long baffled his superiors in American intelligence. But gradually the suspicions around the man grew. His revivified fortune after the war and his steady re acc.u.mulation of wealth were every bit as bizarre and perplexing as, say, his sister's doting on dogs named Andy and one-dollar bills.

"Gradually, the conclusion became irrefutable" said Whiteside.

"Somewhere along the line Sandler had been recruited as a Soviet agent.

n.o.body knew when or where or by whom, but the case against him was even stronger than the one against Rudolph Abel."

"So why wasn't he arrested?" asked Thomas.

"Because things aren't that easy. Hard evidence, the sort admissible in an American court, was at a minimum. What we had were the account of agents, men and women whose ident.i.ties could not be compromised in a trial. And," he added boldly, 'we had a perfect set of crosscurrents."

"Crosscurrents?"

"Yes. The British wanted him for his counterfeiting of pounds.

The Americans wanted him for espionage. Both would be a lot happier with him dead than on trial. Add to that the situation of Mr. Grover, here," he said with a nod.

"Grover had been arrested again.

"Your father then began to guide the direction of the case. William Ward Daniels reminded all concerned that Grover had been a trash collector during the war. He'd made three a.s.signed collections, but had never been a.s.signed a fourth. Another deal was proposed.

Sandler would be the fourth, in exchange for a new ident.i.ty and immunity from all charges past and present" "I agreed quite readily,"

said Grover.

"And I told them I'd do it my way, with my own a.s.sistants."

"There were three a.s.sa.s.sins," said Thomas.

"I learned that much myself."

"Well," said Whiteside slowly,

"I gave British approval from London" He paused, then said softly,

"And I partook in it personally. I wanted to see it done."

Thomas stared at Whiteside for several seconds.

"Of course,"

Thomas mumbled.

"You would have."

"And even then " said Whiteside,

"I worked with my current a.s.sociate." He nodded toward Hunter, who smiled broadly through his beard.

"We put more than a dozen bullet holes in him," Hunter grunted softly.

"You killed the wrong man'" said Thomas slowly.

"And whose fault is that.

"Your own."

"Wrong!" interjected Whiteside.

"Whose idea was it originally?