The Evening News (8 page)

Partridge moderated his tone to match hers
.”
Statistics mostly. I know
someone has them, that records have been kept, surveys taken
.”
She tossed back her brown hair in a gesture he would later become used
to and love
.”
Do you know Rex Talbot
?
”

"Yes
.”
Talbot was a young American vice-consul at the Embassy on Thong
Nhut Street, a few blocks away
.”
I suggest you ask him to tell you about the MACV Project Nostradamus
report
.”
Despite the seriousness, Partridge smiled, wondering what kind of mind
dreamed up that title
.
Jessica continued, "There's no need to have Rex know I sent you. You
could let him think you know . .
.”
He finished the sentence
.”
. . . a little more than I really do. It's an
o1djournalist's trick
“
"The kind of trick you just used on me
.”
Sort of,
“
he acknowledged with a smile.

"I knew it all the time,
“
Jessica said
.”
I
just let you get away with it
.”

“
You're not as soulless as I thought,
“
he told her
.”
How about exploring
that subject some more over dinner tonight
?
”

To her own surprise, Jessica accepted
.
Later, they discovered how much they enjoyed each other's company and it
turned out to be the
first of many such meetings. For a surprisingly long
time, though, their meetings remained no more than that, which was
something Jessica, with her blunt, plain speaking, made clear at the
beginning
.”
I'd like you to understand that whatever else goes on around here, I am
no pushover. If I go to bed with someone it has to mean something special
and important to me, and also to the other person, so don't say you weren't
warned
.”
Their relationship also endured long separations, due to
Partridge's travels to other parts of Vietnam
.
But inevitably a moment came when desire overwhelmed them both
.
They had dined together at the Caravelle, where Partridge was staying
.
Afterward, in the hotel garden, an oasis of quiet amid the discord of
Saigon, he had reached for Jessica and she came to him eagerly. As they
kissed, she clung tightly, urgently, and through her thin dress he sensed
her physical excitement. Years later, Partridge would remember that time
as one of those rare and magic moments when all
problems and concerns-Viet-
nam, the war's ugliness, future uncertainties-seemed
far away, so all that
mattered was the present and themselves. He asked her softly, "Shall we go to my room
?
”

Without speaking, Jessica nodded her consent
.
Upstairs in the room, with the only lighting
from outside and while they
continued to hold each other, he undressed her and she helped him where his
6nds proved awkward. As he entered her, she told him, "Oh, I love you sol
”
Long after, he could never remember if he told her that he truly loved her
too, but knew he had and always would
.
Partridge was also deeply moved by the discovery that Jessica had been a
virgin. Then, as time went by and their lovemaking
continued, they found the same delight in each other physically that they had in other ways
.
In any other time and place they might have married quickly. Jessica wanted
to be married; she also wanted children. But Partridge, for reasons he
afterward regretted, held back In Canada he had had one failed marriage and
knew that marriages of TV newsmen so often
were disastrous. TV news corre
spondents led peripatetic lives, could be away from home two hundred days
a year or more, were unused tofamily responsibilities and encountered
sexual temptations on the road which few could permanently resist. As a
result, spouses often grew away from each other-intellectually as well as
sexually. When reunited after long absences, they met as strangers
.
Combined with all that was Vietnam. Partridge knew his life was at risk
each time he left Saigon and, though luck had been with him so far, the
odds were against that luck enduring.

So it wasn't fair, he reasoned, to
burden someone else-in this case Jessica-with persistent worry, and the
likelihood of heartbreak later on
.
He confided some of this to Jessica early one morning after they had spent
the night together, and he could not have picked a worse occasion. Jessica
was shocked and jolted by what she perceived as a puerile cop-out by a man
to whom she had already given her heart and body. She told Partridge coldly
that their relationship was at an end
Only much later did Jessica realize she had misread what, in reality, was
kindness and deep caring. Partridge left Saigon a few hours afterward, and
that was the time he went into Cambodia and was away a month
.
Crawford Sloane had met Jessica several times while she was in Harry
Partridge's company, and saw her occasionally in the USIS offices when he
had queries that took him there. On all occasions Sloane was strongly
attracted to Jessica and longed to know her better. But recognizing she was
Partridge's girl, and being punctilious in such matters, he had never asked
her for a date, as others often did
.
But when Sloane learned, from Jessica herself that she and Partridge had
"split up,
“
he promptly asked Jessica to dine with
him. She agreed to, and they went on seeing each other. Two weeks later, confiding that he had loved herfor a long timefrom a distance and now with closer knowledge adored her, Sloane proposed marriage
.
Jessica, taken by surprise, asked for time to think
Her mind was a tumult of emotions. Jessica's love for Harry had been
passionate and all-consuming. No man had ever swept her away as he had
done; she doubted if anyone ever would again. Instinct told her that what
she and Harry had shared was a once-in-a-lifelime experience. And she
still loved him, she was sure of that.

Even now Jessica missed him
desperately; if he came back and asked her to marry him she would
probably say yes. But, clearly, Harry wasn't going to ask He had rejected
her and Jessica's bitterness and anger lingered A part of her wanted to
. . . just show him! So there!
On the other hand, there was Crawf Jessica liked Crawford Sloane . .
.
No-more than that! . . . She felt a strong affectionfor him. He was kind
andgentle, loving, intelligent, interesting to be with. And Crawf was
solid. He possessed-Jessica had to admit--a stability that Harry, while
an excitingperson, sometimes lacked Butfor a lifetime, which was how
Jessica saw marriage, which of the two loves on different levels---one
with excitement, the other with stability-was more important? She wished
she could be positive about the answer
.
Jessica might also have asked herself the question, but did not: Why make
a decision at all? Why not wait? She was still young . .
.

Unacknowledged, but implicit in her thinking, was the presence of all of
them in Vietnam. The fervor of war surrounded them; it was all-pervading
like the air they breathed There was a sense of time being compressed and
accelerated, as if clocks and calendars were running at extra speed Each
day of life seemed to spill in a precipitous torrent through the open
floodgates of a dam. Who among them knew how many days remained? Which
of them would ever resume a normal pace of living?
In every war, throughout all human experience, it had been ever thus.
After weighing everything as best she could, the next day Jessica
accepted Crawford Sloane's proposal
.
They were married at once, in the U.S. Embassy by an army chaplain. The
ambassador attended the ceremony and afterward gave a reception in his
private suite
.
Sloane was ecstatically happy. Jessica assured herse
lf
that she was too;
determinedly she matched Crawf's mood
.
Partridge did not learn of the marriage until his return to Saigon and
only then did it dawn on him, with overpowering sadness, how much he had
lost When he met Jessica and Sloane to congratulate them, he tried to
conceal his emotions. With Jessica, who knew him so well, he did not
wholly succeed
.
But if Jessica shared some of Partridge's feelings, she kept them to
herself and also put them behind her. She reasoned that she had made her
choice and was determined to be a good wife to Sloane which, across the
years, she was. As in any normal marriage there were some midway
conflicts and disruptions, but they healed Now-incredibly, it seemed to
all concerned-J
essica and Crawford's silver wedding anniversary was less
than five years distant.

At the wheel of the Buick Somerset, Crawford Sloane was midpoint in his journey home. The Triboro Bridge behind him, he was on the Bruckner Expressway and would shortly join Interstate 95, the New England Thruway, exiting at Larchmont
.
The same Ford Tempo that had followed him from CBA News headquarters was
still behind
.
It was not surprising that Sloane had failed to notice the other car
,
either tonight or on other occasions during the past several weeks when
it had followed him. One reason was that the driver-a young, thin-lipped
,
cold-eyed Colombian cur
rently using the code name Carlos-was expert at stalking any quarry
.
Carlos, who had entered the United States two months earlier using a forged
passport, had been involved in this stealthy surveillance for almost four
weeks, along with six others from Colombia-five men and a woman. Like
Carlos, the others were identified only by fictitious first names, which
in most cases covered criminal records. Until their present task began, the
members of the group were unknown to one another. Even now, only Miguel
,
the leader, who tonight was several miles away, was aware of real
identities
.
The Ford Tempo had been repainted twice during the short period of its use
.
Also, it was just one of several vehicles available, the objective being
not to create a detectable pattern
.
What had accumulated from the surveillance was a precise and detailed study
of Crawford Sloane's movements and those of his family
.
In the fast-moving expressway traffic, Carlos allowed three other cars to
move up between himself and Sloane, though keeping the tailed Buick still
in sight. Beside Carlos, another man noted the time and made an entry in
a log. This was Julio -swarthy, argumentative and bad-tempered, with an
ugly scar from a knifing down the left side of his face. He was the group's
communications specialist. Behind them, in the back seat, was a mobile
cellular phone, one of six that linked vehicles and a hidden temporary
headquarters
.
Both Carlos and Julio were ruthless, trained marksmen and were armed.

After slowing down and negotiating a traffic diversion caused by a multiple
rear-end collision in the Thruway's left lane, Sloane resumed his speed and
also his thoughts about Vietnam, Jessica, Partridge and himself
.
Despite his own great success in Vietnam and since, Crawford Sloane had
continued to worry about Partridge, just a little. It was why he was
slightly uncomfortable in Partridge's company. And on a personal level he
occasionally wondered
d
id Jessica ever think about Harry, remembering the privileged, private moments there must have been between them?
Sloane had never asked his wife any truly intimate questions about her
long-ago relationship with Harry. He could have done so many times
,
including at the beginning of their marriage, and Jessica, being Jessica
,
would probably have answered frankly. But posing that kind of question was
simply not Sloane's style. Nor, he supposed, did he really want to know the
answers. Yet, paradoxically, after all these years those old thoughts came
back to him at times with newer questions: Did Jessica still care about
Harry? Did the two of them ever communicate? Did Jessica, even now, have
residual regrets?
And professionally . . . Guilt was not a word that preoccupied Sloane in
relation to himself, but down in some private corner of his soul he knew
that Partridge had been the better journalist in Vietnam, though he himself
gained more acclaim and on top of that married Partridge's girl . . . All
of it illogical, he knew, an insecurity that need not be . . . but the vis-
ceral unease persisted
.
The Ford Tempo had now switched places and was several vehicles ahead of
Sloane. The Larchmont exit from the Thruway was only a few miles farther
on and Carlos and Julio, by this time knowing Sloane's habits, were aware
that he would exit there. Getting ahead of a quarry on occasion was an old
trick of tailing. Now the Ford would take the Larchmont exit first, be
waiting for Sloane when he turned off, then would fall in behind him once
more
.
Some ten minutes later, as the CBA anchorman entered the streets of
Larchmont, the Ford Tempo followed discreetly at a distance, stopping well
short of the Sloane house which was located on Park Avenue, facing Long
Island Sound
.
The house, befitting someone with Sloane's substantial income, was large
and imposing. Painted white under a gray slate roof, it was set in a
sculptured garden with a circular driveway. Twin pine trees marked the
entrance. A wrought-iron lantern hung over double front doors.
Sloane used a remote control in the car to open the door of a three-car
garage, then drove in, the door closing behind him
.
The Ford moved forward and, from a discreet distance, the surveillance
continued.