The Casanova Embrace (23 page)

"I must have slept for hours," she said.

"Quite a long time."

"I was exhausted." He was alert, but not to her,
she realized.

"What is it?"

He put a finger on his lips, emphasizing his concentration.
Then a commercial came on and he relaxed for a moment.

"What is it?" she repeated.

"It is done," he sighed, swallowing hard. His
eyes had misted and there was a strange sadness in him.

"What?"

"We have eliminated Benotti." He paused.
"Raoul," he whispered, turning toward her, hugging her.

"It had to be done," he said.

"I don't understand."

The man's voice on the radio began again. She felt his body
tense.

"Listen."

"Still no further information on that crash of a DC-9
in Venezuela. Sixteen Americans were on board. More than one hundred people are
said to have perished. Initial reports indicate that there were no survivors...."

He sat up quickly.

"It was the only way." He tapped his finger on
the edge of the night table. "We are fighting back now. It was the only
way we could get him."

"Who?"

"Benotti. Raoul Benotti. He was the head of
DINA." He cleared his throat. "He had become something other than
what he once was."

"Did you know him?"

He looked at her strangely.

"Yes."

She sensed that he wanted to say more. He must have checked
himself. Instead, there was a long silence.

"He was on that plane."

He turned to her and nestled her head in the crook of his
arm. After a long pause, in which he seemed to have gathered strength, he said,
"You are a genuine heroine. An authentic Chilean heroine. He was the worst
of the lot, the most bloodthirsty. Don't think there won't be reprisals. We
welcome that. The real war has begun again." He kissed her hair. But
something had begun to intrude. What had she done? The monotonous radio voice
blared on, and again she could feel his concentration drift toward the voice.
When there was no repetition of the story, he switched off the radio and
continued to stroke her hair.

"They thought we were scattered and defeated," he
said, his inflection revealing the hard edge of stubbornness and determination.
"This is the opening shot of our return. We will show them our courage,
our resourcefulness. We can play their game."

She remembered the voices she had once heard in the hills
around San Luis Obispo before she had thrown the bomb into the bank's window.
In that act, she could detect the same singularity, the hard-as-flint tenacity,
the reaffirmation of courage. She could have walked through a hailstorm of
bullets. Throwing the firebomb seemed simple, hardly dangerous. But something
nagged at her, spoiling the moment. She knew it was there, but it would not
rise to the surface of her consciousness.

"I can see them meeting now at the palace, worried
about their own skins," he was saying. "They will shake the trees to
dislodge what they think is the rotten fruit. They will think that their own
people are disloyal. That is always their first consideration. There will be
shakeups, chaos, revenge. It will get all mixed up." Then he turned toward
her.

"And, yes, some of our people will die. Maybe me.
Maybe now, you."

She could find no fear in herself. Only the sharing of it
with him mattered, she told herself.

"I told you, Eddie, I'm not afraid."

He was silent, gathering his own thoughts, and once again
she felt a tugging of some errant disturbance, faint, like the tracks of a tiny
bird.

"What I did.... "she began. Perhaps she was
seeking more tribute for herself, more reaffirmation to make her participation
of some special importance. "Did it matter?"

"Matter?"

She knew he could see her clearly in the dark and he looked
at her for a long time. She watched him. The lines of his face were softer in
the darkness and he looked younger, more mysterious, strong, powerful.

"You provided the proof, the absolute validation of
the essential information. What plane? What time? The route of the journey. He
was traveling under a pseudonym and was using three different airlines. He was
to meet with the American CIA people on the coast of Louisiana."

"You knew all that?"

"It was on the tapes."

"Tapes?"

"That's what was in the brief case."

"I see." Her role was considerably expanded, even
in her own mind.

"In this kind of work, the proof, the validation, is
essential. And the delivery of the information must be carefully planned. One
cannot trust the airwaves, the mails, the telephones. Information is
transmitted hand to hand. A chain. You were an important link in a chain."

"You are mine," she whispered, her teeth poised
like the jaws of a shark around the flesh of his earlobe. She bit hard, with
just enough reserve not to break the skin. And then she joined him on the
summit of pleasure.

He left sometime before the sun came up. He had given her
another flat box, which, she knew now, contained additional tapes. Tomorrow
afternoon she would go to the Miami airport again and repeat the action of the
previous time.

"Exactly the same."

"Exactly."

She thought of the wig and the jumpsuit in her closet and
wondered if she would experience the same exhilaration now that she knew the
specifics of her role. It seemed so simple, so unheroic and pedestrian,
although she enjoyed the idea of stepping outside of herself, living a role.
After he had gone, it occurred to her that she had not asked him where he could
be reached. How could she possibly endure an ordeal similar to what she had
gone through in the last few days? Suppose he was killed, or kidnapped, or
simply had to go underground. She vowed to confront him with these things. It
was too painful not to know more.

The second trip to Miami was even less eventful than the
first. The plane was half empty and no one sat beside her. Again, she affected
a southern accent in reply to the stewardess' question about having a cocktail.

"Ah don't reckon ah would lak one now," she said,
and the stewardess passed on.

The Miami airport was routinely familiar now and she
immediately walked to the Pan American area, bought a copy of Vogue, and sat
down in the waiting room. Even the Vogue pictures were familiar. It was the
same issue. The pages blurred and she lifted her head to watch the people
passing through the waiting room. A plane had just arrived and she could see
the anxious faces of the people searching the crowd of arrivals as they came
through the security area. A young mother held her baby. An old man, bent and
gnarled, watched myopically through thick lenses. A tanned couple in bright
costumes stood on tiptoes for a better view of the oncoming crowd. An aged
woman embraced a young man as he eagerly passed through the gate.

She shivered now, feeling for the first time the enormity
of her act. The tug expanded now and the guilt emerged from under its
protective layers. And, although she recognized it and felt the pain of it, she
found the acceptance of it in herself galling. Like a suicidal urge, its power
gripped her and she knew it was wrong, evil, to be doing this thing. Yet, she
pressed relentlessly on. For Eddie, she told herself, her nerve ends alert now
to the emergence of a dark-haired woman with heavy makeup, studiously well
dressed and carrying a Louis Vuitton brief case. She did not look directly at
the woman but could see her clearly through the dark glasses which masked her
eyes' sideward glance. The woman moved with a purposeful stride, heading toward
where Frederika was sitting. Behind her, near the entrance, two men watched
with transparent indifference. Then, for the first time, Frederika felt a sense
of personal danger. It washed over her, accelerating her heartbeat. Her fingers
shook and she felt a lightheadedness. Actually, she knew, she was exhilarated
and the danger gave her courage which had waned in the face of the onrush of guilt.

The woman sat down beside her, crossed her legs, began to
light a cigarette, then punched it out in the ash tray at her elbow. She sprang
up as if she had forgotten something, and in that split second made the brief
case switch. Frederika closed her eyes, waiting for the two men to descend on
her. I understand, Eddie, she screamed inside herself, absorbing the fugitive
feeling of alienation and fear, savoring it, welcoming it, because it was
bringing her closer to the core of her man.

But when she opened her eyes, the men had disappeared and
she was sitting alone on the row of seats. She must have sat, there blankly for
longer than she imagined; for when she recovered her sense of time, her plane's
departure was imminent and she had to run down the long corridor to catch it.
Only when she had already boarded, did she remember that she had not changed
her disguise and the stewardess was the same one she'd seen on the plane that
brought her to Miami less than an hour ago.

"I'll bet you enjoyed your Florida stay," the
stewardess said, smiling mechanically.

"I don't understand.... "Frederika mumbled,
turning her head away with obvious annoyance. The stewardess moved away with
practiced delicacy. I've trapped myself, Frederika thought, by my own silly
weakness. Turning, she looked about the cabin, which was crowded now, wondering
which of the men or women might be working for the enemy.

During the entire trip, which was uncomfortable and bumpy,
she remained in a state of nervous tension, and when finally the plane landed
at National Airport and taxied to the gate, she could barely find the strength
to stand. Had she betrayed him by her stupidity, she wondered, deliberately
waiting while the other passengers filed out of the plane.

"Sorry," the stewardess said, coming toward her,
still smiling, "we don't go back until tomorrow." Frederika ignored
the reference as if she hadn't heard and moved out of the plane. By the time
she reached the street outside, she had convinced herself that she was, indeed,
being followed. Yet she could not bring herself to test the suspicion. Her fear
was not for herself, she protested, but for Eddie. Dashing toward the outer
circle of the stream of cars, she put herself in the path of an empty taxi and
let herself in the door when the cab had stopped.

"You can get killed like that, lady," the driver
said.

"Statler-Hilton." The idea had come to her from a
road sign as she looked through the back window, wondering which of the
following cars contained the enemy. Before the taxi pulled up to the hotel
entrance, she had paid the driver and opened the door.

"What's the rush, lady?"

Ignoring him, she ran into the lobby, then up the stairs to
the mezzanine, which contained the public rooms and the women's lavatory. In a
toilet stall, she quickly changed her clothes. Then, when the room had emptied,
she rummaged in the waste bin for something to cover the brief case. She found
a newspaper, inserted the brief case between the pages, and sure of its
concealment, strolled casually into the corridor, then down the back stairs to
the street, where she hailed another taxi and gave the driver her own address.
It was paranoia, she knew, but if her stupidity betrayed him ... She could not
bring herself to complete the thought.

Once she was in her own apartment, she was certain the
insecurity would dissipate. It is an anxiety fit, she observed about herself.
There had been other occasions in her life when something like this had
occurred and she had searched for some reason for its happening. Now, she stood
in the quickening darkness of her apartment, her hearing alert, her heart
pumping, unable to assuage her fears. After a while, she found the courage to
move to the window. The blinds had been drawn and she picked up a single slat
and looked downward into the street. Traffic moved thickly, south and north on
Wisconsin Avenue.

She was looking for something, she knew. A stationary
figure, relentlessly patient, like an unused chess piece in a swift game. A
number of people on the street below seemed to fit that category. A man, brief
case in hand, slumped against a hydrant. There was another figure, a woman--it
was the way she held herself, stiff, straight, with an air of determination,
her eyes fastened on the front of the building, that prompted Frederika's suspicion.
Perhaps that woman was watching her at this moment, although only a tiny
portion of Frederika's eye was exposed through the thin opening in the blinds.
If she was being followed, if there was someone out there waiting, it would
have to be that woman, she decided. Then she admonished herself for such lack
of control, glad that her rationality was taking over again, her anxieties
dissipating. Looking around her apartment, she discovered that nothing had
changed. She flipped on the lights and started to change her clothes, preparing
to leave for work.

But something prompted her to periodically peek through the
blinds. The woman was still there, tenacious in her stiffness, a sentinel. She
is waiting for someone, Frederika decided, preparing to leave the apartment. We
shall see, she told herself, as she went down the elevator. Her courage was
returning now.

She deliberately crossed the street at the corner so as to
get a close view of the woman, Tall, middle-aged, with straight features in a
bony face, she wore a cloth coat over gray slacks, and her concentration on the
facade of the apartment building was so intense that her eyes did not seem to
flicker as Frederika passed. Relieved, she hurried on to work, searching the
faces in the crowd, as she always did, looking for Eddie.

Having lived through the ordeal in the aftermath of her
last mission, she knew what to expect, although this knowledge was not enough
to give her tranquility. She had, she suspected, bungled the assignment and
endangered Eddie, as well as the others involved with him. If any harm came to
him or the others, she would never forgive herself. Forgive? Could the
relatives and friends who died in the plane crash ever forgive her? She
shivered, stepped up her pace as if greater speed would put distance between
herself and her guilt.