Deep Cover (42 page)

“We still have a little time.” He looked at his watch. “Thirty-seven hours and forty-five minutes, to be precise.” His mouth twisted.

“Refusing to make a decision—that can be a decision in itself, you know.”

He nodded. “The idea is we're all supposed to leave together when it's done.”

“I know. Nicole talked to me. I'm to be at the airport at five-thirty tomorrow evening. The side gate, where the old entrance used to be.”

“It's an older runway they don't use too much anymore. I
had to get clearance for a so-called training flight to use it tomorrow evening. I gave them some official-sounding gibberish and they yawned their way through it and gave us permission because they don't have much air traffic out there at that time of night anyway. They're flying us to Cuba, you know.”

“Yes, she told me.”

“What's the point of their keeping us alive after we've done the job here, Celia? That's what keeps nudging me to decide to do it. The feeling that no matter what assurances Danger-field gives us it still makes sense for them to kill us all. He killed Bud Sims, you know. We'll all be together in that airplane—it wouldn't be any trouble at all for him.”

“He'd be killing himself too.”

“Maybe he's willing to do that. Maybe he's a good German—obeying all orders without question; maybe he's prepared a parachute for himself. Or maybe at the last minute he'll arrange to be left behind and the plane will blow up after takeoff. I keep thinking how easy it would be for him to do things like that—there are so many ways. As long as any of us remain alive, even in Russia, we're a danger to them. We're no danger dead.”

“I've thought of those things too,” she said, “but I can't put those pictures out of my mind. The ones he showed us—that Mongolian, Manchurian, whatever he is, Tircar. The children tortured and murdered while the parents watched.”

He closed his eyes. That was all he had been able to think of—Alec and Barbara. “That's what Dangerfield wants us to do. Remember those pictures and obey orders.”

“They're offering a trade. They've made a bargain with us. As long as we put ourselves in their hands our children will be left alone.”

“I don't know. I keep thinking there must be a way to do it without condemning Alec.”

“Perhaps there is. But I think we must be prepared to make the decision on the basis that we'd be sacrificing Alec's life if we went against them.”

“I can't do it now,” he said, and was ashamed when his
voice broke. He reached for the door handle. “I've got to think it out more clearly. I'll decide, but I just can't do it now.”

“My poor darling,” she murmured, and he squeezed her hand tight as if to draw a current of strength from her. When he got out of the car she stared at him with eyes that looked like two holes burned in a blanket.

Chapter Eighteen

When Forrester pulled the door softly shut behind him it drew Top Spode's glance; Spode had been sitting by the window staring out, eyes narrowed in a thoughtful squint. “Morning.”

“Haven't you been to bed at all?”

“No. You don't look like you slept much yourself.”

“Not much.” Forrester's dreams had left an aftertaste of fear, though all memory of them had gone.

“She all right?”

“I don't know.” Ronnie had taken it badly; she had been ill half the night. “She won't see a doctor.”

“Asleep now?”

“Yes.”

“Then let her sleep,” Spode said.

Forrester was dressing while they talked. “Have you been on the phone?”

“All night. Nobody knows anything. Belsky hasn't turned up. They found the car he rented on a parking lot. He'll never come back for it. I don't know if it fits into this but somebody hijacked a truckload of nerve gas from Fort Huachuca.”

“Nerve gas,” Forrester muttered, buttoning his cuffs. “God.”

“Yeah.” Spode picked up the phone and said, “Room service, please.… Hello, this is three twenty-seven, send up a pot of coffee and two cups and a plate of bacon and eggs, will you? Bacon fried crisp and two eggs over hard.… Yeah, thanks.”

“Don't you want anything to eat?”

“I had a couple of doughnuts an hour ago where I made a few calls.” Spode got out of the chair and stretched; Forrester heard the ligaments crackle. “I've been letting myself be seen around town but nobody's taken any potshots at me.”

“He may be long gone, Top.”

“Then why did he kill Art Miller? No, I can't buy it.” Spode scowled outward—the sky was cloudy above the rooftops across the way. “My ex-boss and I kicked around a lot of things on the phone to see if anything rang any bells. The Agency's been picking up signs of a big Chinese flap along the Russian border—bigger than anything they've ever seen. The President's holding an emergency session of the National Security Council this morning. Since I'm not on the payroll there were certain things I couldn't be told on the record, but reading between the lines I gathered that one or two friendly KGB types have made overtures to their opposite numbers in the Agency to feel us out about taking sides in the event of an eruption over there.”

“Between China and Russia?”

“Yes. Of course they've had these flaps before. Bluff and double-bluff—brinkmanship, Chinese style. They push until they meet too much resistance and then they squat down and
wait for things to cool off before they start pushing again. Process of attrition—but the Russians have been getting fed up with it. You would too.”

“But what's that got to do with Belsky?”

“God knows,” Spode muttered. Knuckles rapped at the door and Forrester grimaced and stepped into the alcove out of sight until he heard Spode tip the waiter and close the door. Spode set the tray on the coffee table.

Forrester took the dome off the plate and sat down to eat. “I'm sick of hide and seek, Top, it's not my style.”

“I know. But I'd like to find out what's really going on before we start taking any chances.”

“We're not going to find out anything sitting here.”

“It's not your job—you've got other fish to fry. Let the professionals handle Belsky.”

“They don't seem to be getting anywhere, do they.”

“And just how far do you think you could get? What did you have in mind, strapping on a six-shooter and spreading the word around town you'll be waiting for him on Stone Avenue at high noon?”

“Jaime's right, you know.” Ronnie's voice drew Forrester's head around sharply. She stood in the bedroom doorway in last night's skirt and blouse, slightly rumpled; she had washed the sleep off her face but she wore no makeup. She was stunning.

Forrester stood up with his napkin in his hand. “Feeling any better?”

“I'm fine—I don't know why I went to pieces. I'm miserable because I kept you up with all that silliness. Forgive me?”

“As long as you're sure you're all right.”

“Well, tired and a little jittery—and very ashamed of myself.” Her smile was reticent.

He indicated the plate. “I've hardly started. Why don't you eat this while it's warm—I'll have some more sent up.”

“I don't think I'd better do that yet. Please go ahead and finish.” She waved him to his seat and went back into the bedroom. She left the door open and he saw her sit down at the dressing table to comb her hair. “Jaime, have you talked
to Les Suffield?” There was something a bit taut behind the casual question and Forrester watched her with full attention.

“A little while ago,” Spode said. “Why?”

“Oh—nothing.”

But Forrester saw her shoulders stir, almost as if with relief. He pushed the plate away; abruptly he felt no hunger at all.

She had been like that last night too, even while she was alone with him: distant, polite. Like a relative on a visit. She had tried to explain last night:
It's all happened too fast, hasn't it, Alan? Don't we need a little more time to get our feelings about each other sorted out? I had my life neatly compartmentalized until just the other day and now overnight everything's changed—I need a chance to get my breath but I can't right now. You've sprung this horrible Russian murderer business on me and I know it's unreasonable, I know it's not your fault, but I just can't.…
She had cried out and shut herself into the bathroom.

She seemed to feel their eyes on her; she said by way of explanation, “I just thought Les might know something that would help.”

She had always tended to lean on Les Suffield. It was Suffield who had first brought her into his organization. Forrester had always found it slightly odd; Ronnie in her way hated the devious mechanisms of politics and yet she seemed to have extraordinarily high regard for Suffield, who epitomized the back-room philosophy she deplored. It was possible she had had an affair with him but somehow Forrester found it hard to credit, for reasons he couldn't articulate.

He reached for the coffee and squeezed his eyes shut; he was tired, his mind was wandering. Spode had picked up a newspaper and it rustled like submachine-gun fire. Forrester said irritably, “It must be something to do with the missile factories; nothing else seems to explain Belsky's being here. If only Ross Trumble were alive to explain—”

The edge of the same fast-traveling thought struck them all and Forrester saw Spode sit bolt upright. Ronnie came into the sitting room again with her fingers at her throat and
Spode said with vast self-disgust, “Oh Christ. The damned letter.”

Ronnie said something, not a word, and Spode got to his feet so fast his knees knocked the chair back against the radiator. “Orozco's man said it was addressed to you at the ranch.”

“Then let's get it,” Forrester said, on his way to the door.

Ronnie said, “Wait—don't go.”

When he looked back she said quickly, “Suppose he's waiting for you to show yourself? The Russian.”

“I can't spend the next week hidden away here—I'd start climbing the walls. And I have to know what's in that letter.”

“But it's probably only a copy of the Phaeton specifications—the ones Jaime's already photographed. You asked him for them and he told you he might send them to you. Isn't that what you said?”

Spode said, “Whatever's in that letter it's not the Phaeton specs. Trumble wrote it out longhand in the hotel lobby. It was a letter—a long one.”

Ronnie had crossed the space between them; she reached for Forrester's sleeve. “I just don't want you to risk being hurt. Why can't you stay here while Jaime and I drive down and get the letter?” She gave a sudden smile—tremble-lipped, pale.

“I don't understand you, Ronnie.”

“Is it worth exposing yourself just for a letter that probably has nothing in it?”

“Nothing in it? The man wrote it less than twenty-four hours before he died. We've got to assume it's vitally important.”

“But it may not even have arrived yet. It's only Saturday morning—he didn't mail it till Thursday afternoon, in Phoenix, and you know how slow rural deliveries are.…”

Spode said, “What time does the mail come in down there?”

“About one in the afternoon,” Forrester answered.

“Then there's a good chance it'll show up today.”

Ronnie was shaking her head. “I can't explain it, Alan, I just
have a terrible feeling. I'm frightened for you—I keep having visions of that awful man waiting for you with a gun.”

Spode said, “I expect he's got better things to do with his time than hang around out in the boondocks waiting to set up an ambush. We ought to be secure as soon as we get out of town. I can pull my car around back of the hotel in the alley here.”

“But they might recognize your car.” She flicked her eyes back and forth, and Forrester frowned with incomprehension. When she realized it was no good trying to dissuade him she turned to Spode and implored, “At least let's get help. Les Suffield has a pistol. Call him—ask him to come pick us up in his car. They won't be looking for his car. And they wouldn't attack four of us, would they?”

Spode shrugged. But Forrester said, “It might be a good idea, Top. Not necessarily for protection but I think Les ought to be in on this.”

“If you say so. I'll call him.”

The morning sky was misty with the promise of rain; a diaphanous halo surrounded the sun, and heavy clouds were building up over the Tucson Mountains west of town. The air itself seemed to have thickened and been stunned; even though the streets were filled with the usual noises of traffic there was a muted sense of great silence. Now and then in the distance thunder clattered like bowling alley pins.

When they reached the freeway Suffield buzzed up the electric windows and switched on the air-conditioner to diminish the roar of wind and make conversation possible. In the front seat with Suffield, Top Spode did the talking, giving it to Suffield in summary doses.