The Eyes of Darkness

Yet numerous members of the family had secretly rendered service—some of it dirty—to the FBI, the CIA, and various other intelligence and police agencies, often the very same organizations that they publicly criticized and reviled. Now George Alexander was the Nevada bureau chief of the nation's first truly secret police force—a fact that apparently did not weigh heavily on his liberal conscience.
    Kennebeck's politics were of the extreme right-wing variety. He was an unreconstructed fascist and not the least bit ashamed of it. When, as a young man, he had first embarked upon a career in the intelligence services, Harry had been surprised to discover that not all of the people in the espionage business shared his ultraconservative political views. He had expected his co-workers to be super-patriotic right-wingers. But all the snoop shops were staffed with leftists too. Eventually Harry realized that the extreme left and the extreme right shared the same two basic goals: They wanted to make society more orderly than it naturally was, and they wanted to centralize control of the population in a strong government. Left-wingers and right-wingers differed about certain details, of course, but their only major point of contention centered on the identity of those who would be permitted to be a part of the privileged ruling class, once the power had been sufficiently centralized.
    At least I'm honest about my motives, Kennebeck thought as he watched Alexander cross the study. My public opinions are the same as those 1 express privately, and that's a virtue he doesn't possess. I'm not a hypocrite. I'm not at all like Alexander. Jesus, he's such a smug, Janus-faced bastard!
    "I just spoke with the men who're watching Stryker's house," Alexander said. "He hasn't shown up yet."
    "I told you he wouldn't go back there."
    "Sooner or later he will."
    "No. Not until he's absolutely certain the heat is off. Until then he'll hide out."
    "He's bound to go to the police at some point, and then we'll have him."
    "If he thought he could get any help from the cops, he'd have been there already," Kennebeck said. "But he hasn't shown up. And he won't."
    Alexander glanced at his watch. "Well, he still might pop up here. I'm sure he wants to ask you a lot of questions."
    "Oh, I'm damn sure he does. He wants my hide," Kennebeck said. "But he won't come. Not tonight. Eventually, yes, but not for a long time. He knows we're waiting for him. He knows how the game is played. Don't forget he used to play it himself."
    "That was a long time ago," Alexander said impatiently. "He's been a civilian for fifteen years. He's out of practice. Even if he was a natural then, there's no way he could still be as sharp as he once was."
    "But that's what I've been trying to tell you," Kennebeck said, pushing a lock of snow-white hair back from his forehead. "Elliot isn't stupid. He was the best and brightest young officer who ever served under me. He was a natural. And that was when he was young and relatively inexperienced. If he's aged as well as he seems to have done, then he might even be sharper these days."
    Alexander didn't want to hear it. Although two of the hits he had ordered had gone totally awry, Alexander remained self-assured; he was convinced that he would eventually triumph.
    He's always so damned self-confident, Harry Kennebeck thought. And usually there's no good reason why he should be. If he was aware of his own shortcomings, the son of a bitch would be crushed to death under his collapsing ego.
    Alexander went to the huge maple desk and sat behind it, in Kennebeck's wing chair.
    The judge glared at him.
    Alexander pretended not to notice Kennebeck's displeasure. "We'll find Stryker and the woman before morning. I've no doubt about that. We're covering all the bases. We've got men checking every hotel and motel—"
    "That's a waste of time," Kennebeck said. "Elliot is too smart to waltz into a hotel and leave his name on the register. Besides, there are more hotels and motels in Vegas than in any other city in the world."
    "I'm fully aware of the complexity of the task," Alexander said. "But we might get lucky. Meanwhile, we're checking out Stryker's associates in his law firm, his friends, the woman's friends,, anyone with whom they might have taken refuge."
    "You don't have enough manpower to follow up all those possibilities," the judge said. "Can't you see that? You should use your people more judiciously. You're spreading yourself