Desperate Measures (40 page)

“In Boston, we said certain things to each other. I love you.” Pittman felt as if he was being choked. “I don’t say that easily.
I treat those words very seriously. To me, they’re a commitment.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Then you regret making the commitment, is that it?” Pittman asked. “It was a mistake? You confused depending on each other
under stress with being in love? You want to correct the misunderstanding? You want to set the record straight?”

“No, not at all.”

“Then I really don’t…”

“I don’t want to take anything back. I love you,” Jill said. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he managed to ask. When he touched her shoulder, he felt her sinews harden.

“This room. This bed.” Her voice dropped. “I told you I don’t want to be a tease.”

“Ah. I think I’m beginning to understand. This is about whether or not to have sex.”

With disturbing intensity, Jill focused her eyes upon him.

“You’re tired,” Pittman said. “I understand.”

Pittman had never been looked at so directly.

“Everything’s been happening too fast,” Jill said.

“It’s okay. Really,” Pittman said. “No pressure. I figured things would happen when they were supposed to.”

“You mean that?”

When Pittman nodded, Jill visibly relaxed.

“Making love shouldn’t be an obligation,” Pittman said. “It shouldn’t be something you feel you have to do because the circumstances
put pressure on you. We’ll wait. When we’re both relaxed, when the time feels right…”

“You want to know how confused I am?”

Pittman didn’t understand.

She took his hand, and immediately he did understand. He leaned toward her as she raised herself up toward him. His blanket
fell at the same time the sheets that covered her slipped away. Their lips touched. Their bodies pressed against one another.
Feeling her smooth breasts against his skin, Pittman thought that his heart had never pounded so hard and fast. At once he
didn’t think about anything except how much he loved her.

Much later, when time began again, Pittman became conscious that he lay beside her, that his arms were around her and hers
around him, that his love gave him a reason to live.

His buoyant mood was canceled as a man’s voice made him frown. “The television.”

“Yes,” Jill murmured. “We forgot to turn it off.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Pittman sat up abruptly. “Listen. It’s about Victor Standish.” His heart pounded fast again but
this time making him nauseous with shock, as he stared toward the chaotic scene of an ambulance and police cars in front of
a mansion, emergency lights flashing while policemen made way for attendants bringing out a body bag on a gurney.

A somber announcer was saying, “… verified that the distinguished diplomat Victor Standish died from a self-inflicted gunshot
wound.”

No matter how desperately Pittman wanted to, he couldn’t sleep. The shock of learning about Standish’s suicide kept him and
Jill awake, watching CNN for further details until after 2:00
A.M.
A summary of Standish’s long, distinguished career was punctuated by photographs of him and the other grand counselors, first
as robust, steely-eyed, ambitious-looking young men, later as elderly icons of diplomacy standing with bolt-straight dignity
despite their frail bodies, some of them bald, others with wispy white hair, their faces wrinkled, skin drooping from their
necks, but their eyes communicating as much ambition as ever.

When it became clear that the report wouldn’t be updated until the morning, Pittman reluctantly turned off the television.
In the darkness of the hotel room, he lay tensely in bed, his eyes open, directed toward the murky ceiling. Beside him, Jill’s
eventual slow, shallow breathing made him think that at least she had finally managed to shut off her mind and get some rest.
But Pittman couldn’t stop the announcer’s words from echoing through his frantic memory: “…
died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound
.”

The suicide was totally alien to Pittman’s expectation. He strained to analyze the implications. The grand counselors had
killed one of their own, Jonathan Millgate, in an effort to keep him from revealing information about them. The cover-up,
which had involved using Pittman as a scapegoat, had gotten so out of hand that another grand counselor, Anthony Lloyd, had
died from a stroke. Now a third grand counselor, Victor Standish, had shot himself, presumably because of fear. Earlier, Denning
had said gleefully, “Three dead. Two to go.” But Pittman didn’t share Denning’s manic enthusiasm. True, Pittman was encouraged
that a fissure of weakness had developed in what he had assumed was an armorlike resolution among the grand counselors. But
if the tension was affecting them so extremely, there was every danger that the remaining two grand counselors, Eustace Gable
and Winston Sloane, would succumb to age and desperation.

Damn it, Pittman thought, I have to do something. Soon.

When he and Jill had arrived in Washington that evening, one of his primary emotions had been rage, the urge to get even with
the grand counselors for what they had done to him. But his encounter with Bradford Denning had made him realize the consequences
of rage. The emotion had so distorted Denning’s approach to life that he had
wasted
his life. Indeed, tonight he had worked himself into such a frenzy that his rage had nearly killed him.

As Pittman continued to lie wearily, rigidly on the bed in the dark hotel room, it occurred to him that Denning’s rage and
the grand counselors’ fear were mirror images, that Denning and the grand counselors were unwittingly destroying themselves
because of their obsession with the past.

But not me, Pittman thought. What I’m doing isn’t a disguised version of a death wish. It isn’t a version of the suicide I
attempted a week ago. Indeed he was struck by the irony that suicide, which had seemed reasonable and inevitable to him, now
was shocking when someone else committed it. I want to live. Oh God, how I want to live. I never believed I’d feel that way
again.

Pittman’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted as he felt Jill move beside him. Surprising him, she sat up. He was able to see
her shadowy silhouette in the darkness.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Sure you did. You were mumbling.”

“Mumbling?… I thought you were asleep.”

“I thought
you
were asleep.”

“Can’t.”

“Me, either. What were you mumbling? Something about you want to live.”

“I must have been thinking out loud.”

“Well, I applaud your motive. In a week, you’ve certainly come a long way from putting a pistol into your mouth to wanting
to live.”

“I was thinking about Denning.”

“Yes. We ought to phone the hospital and find out how he is.”

“I was thinking how thrilled he was to know that three of the grand counselors were dead.”

“That’s what put him in the hospital.”

“Exactly. And there’s no guarantee that the two remaining grand counselors won’t wind up in the hospital or worse because
of this also. I was thinking that
I
might as well be dead if Eustace Gable and Winston Sloane don’t survive. Because, in that case, I won’t have any way to prove
that I’m innocent. Everything’s happening so fast. I don’t know if I’ve got enough time. I have to…”

“What?”

“I used to be a reporter. It’s what I do best—interviewing people. I think it’s the only way to save us.”

Shortly after dawn, feeling a chill in the air, seeing vapor come out of his mouth, Pittman parked next to a pay phone outside a coffee shop. Sparse traffic sounded eerie as he got out of the car, Jill following, and stepped into the booth. After studying the list of telephone numbers that he had used last night, he put coins in the box and pressed numbers.

A male voice, with the haughty obsequiousness of a servant to the powerful and rich, answered after two rings. “Mr. Gable’s residence.”

“Put him on.”

“Who may I say is calling, sir?”

“You’re supposed to say it’s too early to disturb him.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“It’s barely six in the morning, but you didn’t take long to answer the phone. It’s like you’ve been on duty for quite a while. Are things a little frantic over there?”

“I really don’t know what you’re implying, sir. If you wish to speak with Mr. Gable, you’re going to have to tell me who you are.”

“The man he’s been trying to have killed.”

The line became silent.

“Go ahead,” Pittman said. “Let him know.”

“As you wish, sir.”

Pittman waited, looking at Jill, whose lovely face normally glowed with health but now was wan from stress and fatigue.

Thirty seconds later, a man’s voice, aged and frail, like wind through dead leaves, came on the line. “Eustace Gable here.”

“Matthew Pittman.”

Again the line became silent.

“Yes?” Gable sounded as if he was having trouble breathing. “I’ve been reading about you in the newspapers.”

“You don’t seem surprised that I’m calling.”

“At my age, I’m not surprised by anything,” Gable said. “However, I don’t understand the way you identified yourself to my assistant.”

“I can see where it might be confusing, depending on how many other people you’re trying to have killed.”

Gable stifled a cough. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Not over the phone at least. I can understand that. It’s what I’d expect from a diplomat famous for conducting secret meetings. All the same, I do think we ought to talk, don’t you?”

“Perhaps. But how, if not on the phone?”

“In person.”

“Oh? Given that you murdered my friend and colleague, I’m not certain that I’d feel safe in your presence.”

“The feeling’s mutual. But as you know, I didn’t murder him. You did.”

“Honestly, Mr. Pittman. First you fantasize that I’m trying to have
you
killed. Now you’re fantasizing that I killed my friend.”

“No one else is on this line, so you can save the disinformation.”

“I
always
assume that someone else is on the line.”

“Does that prevent you from negotiating?”

Gable stifled another cough. “I’m proud to say that in my entire career, I have never turned down a request to negotiate.”

“Then listen. Obviously things have gotten way out of hand. You never expected me to stay alive this long. You never expected so many other people to become involved.”

The only sound was Gable’s labored breathing.

“You’ve destroyed my life,” Pittman said. “But I know enough to be able to destroy yours. Let’s call it a stalemate. I think it’s in our mutual best interests if I disappear. With a retirement fund. A million dollars and a passport that gives me a safe name.”

“That’s a substantial retirement fund.”

“But that’s my price. Also a safe passport for Jill Warren.”

“Passports are difficult.”

“Not with your contacts in the State Department. Think about it. I disappear. Your cover-up works. No more problems for you.”

“If I agree to the meeting you propose, I want it completely understood that I don’t admit any involvement in your false accusations about cover-ups and murders. We’re discussing hypothetical matters.”

“Whatever makes you feel good, Mr. Gable.”

“I’ll need time to consider the implications.”

“And I’ve been on this line too long. I’ll call back at ten
A.M.
”

Mrs. Page opened the door the moment Pittman knocked on it. Her designer dress was wrinkled and looked out of place in a motel
early in the morning. Otherwise, she appeared alert and determined, her skin-tucked face severe with intensity. “Did you watch
the morning news?”

“About Standish’s suicide?” Pittman nodded.

“He was always the weakest of the five. My father was the strongest. We have to keep putting pressure on him.”

“This morning, I started again.”

“How?” Mrs. Page asked quickly.

Pittman explained.

“Be careful. My father is a master of manipulation.”

“And arrogant about it. I’m counting on that,” Pittman said. “I’m hoping that it’s inconceivable to him that someone could
outmanipulate him.”

“But
can
you? You’re taking a tremendous risk.”

“If I could think of another way, I’d do it. We can’t just hide. We have to keep pushing them. We have to go back to Washington.
I’ve got several stops to make. In particular, I need to see two other people I once interviewed.”

“Who?”

“A security expert and a weapons specialist. I’ll explain as we drive.”

“But what if they remember you?” Mrs. Page asked. “If they connect you with the newspaper stories and television reports…”

“I interviewed them at least five years ago. I was heavier. I had a mustache. There’s a good chance they won’t recognize me.
But even if the risk was greater, I’d still have to take it. I can’t make this plan work without their help.”

As they spoke, Pittman walked to the next door and knocked on it. When George came out, they went down concrete steps to where
Jill was waiting at the car.

“Give me your room keys. I’ll leave them at the desk and check everybody out,” George said.

“Fine. We’ll meet you at the restaurant down the street,” Jill said.

“Restaurant?” Mrs. Page looked horrified. “That’s not a restaurant.”

“Okay, it’s a Roy Rogers. Think of it as a broadening experience. We’re so pressed for time, we’ll have to eat takeout as
we drive.”

“Time. Yes. We have to make time for something else,” Mrs. Page insisted. “We have to see about Bradford. We have to go to
the hospital.”

Amid the drone of fluorescent lights and the pungent odor of antiseptics, Pittman frowned in response to Jill’s frown as she
came back from speaking to a nurse at the counter outside the cardiac-care unit.

“What’s the matter?” Pittman’s hands suddenly felt cold. “Don’t tell me he died.”