The Girl With the Jade Green Eyes (14 page)

“Torture?”

“We prefer to call it ‘forcibly elicited information,’ ” Slade said. “One of the reasons I’m here is to see that none of my tricks are used on the visitor.”

“Tell that to Admiral Harper,” Breedlove said.

“Forget him,” Slade snapped. “I got the drift of what you were saying in the ready room, and my only worry about Harper is his vote on the committee. He’s an over-the-hill theoretician.”

Slade was bringing Breedlove’s sense of reality slightly back into focus until, in the parking lot, Turpin blurred it more. “I’ll drive ahead of you, Breedlove, and Slade will drive behind.”

“Why the convoy?”

“If you’re stopped by a traffic cop, we don’t want you spilling any more secrets while he’s writing your ticket.”

When he pulled into the motel parking lot, the acuteness of perception that had let Breedlove spot something amiss in the aspen grove on Jones Meadow told him this scene, too, was slightly askew. Glancing around, he analyzed the flaw. No campers or big cars were parked in the lot. All were sedans, medium-sized, with conservative paint, not a racing stripe or Volkswagen among them.

At the desk he got the keys to both rooms and escorted the two security agents first to Kyra’s room. Inside, her dresses were tossed on the bed and floor,—drawers had been pulled from the dresser and tossed aside. A flung sheet of motel stationer/ hung atop a drapery rod.

“He found nothing,” Turpin said.

“Why did he have to do this?” Breedlove asked.

“It’s his
modus operandi
,” Slade said. “We call him Ajax because he hits the room like a white tornado. Clean it up, Turpin, while Tom and I check his room.”

The offhand order was Breedlove’s first indication that Slade was Turpin’s superior in whatever chain of command the two operated within.

In Breedlove’s room the same tornado had struck, but with a difference. His suitcase had been emptied, the contents dumped on the floor, and the pink sphere was missing. Without it, it would take a four-hundred-pound lead box to get the uranium to Kyra’s ship, and if she did not have a replacement aboard she might be grounded.

“Nothing’s missing,” Slade said.

“Yes. A little pink exercise ball about the size of a grapefruit.”

“Is that it on the bedspread?”

Breedlove looked to where Slade pointed. His frantic gaze had missed the ball, whose color merged with the bedspread’s.

“That’s it,” he said casually, and began to repack his bag.

Slade tossed it in his hand. “There’s no weight.”

“It’s hollow. Fill it with sand and it weighs about ten pounds.”

“Clever gadget,” Slade commented, unscrewing the sphere and looking inside. He screwed the hemispheres together and tossed the ball to Breedlove, who stowed it in his suitcase.

As Breedlove worked, Slade walked to the window and stood looking out on the parking lot. Disgusted with the chaos in the room, Breedlove said, “Mr. Slade, this is unreal.”

“At first it always seems so, but after you’ve been in this trade awhile, it’s reality that becomes unreal. You know, son”—his voice grew gentle and ruminative—“you learn to like being out in the cold. If I had to come in and take a desk job, I’d die.”

Suddenly he slapped a thigh with his hand and said, “By god, I’ll do it. I’ll use the purloined-letter technique with Kyra. They’ll know she was here, so they’ll figure she’s gone. If the technique worked for your pink ball, it should work for her. But these outside rooms are too vulnerable. I’ll move her upstairs into the bridal suite that faces the patio. It has two bedrooms.”

“You think bringing her back here will fool Ajax?”

“Not Ajax. He won’t be around any more.”

“Mr. Slade, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to take a shower.”

Slade glanced at his watch. “Sure, but telephone Kyra first. She’ll be expecting your call. If you’re eating in the motel dining room, rap on 110 as you come by. I’ll join you.”

“You and your people have taken over this motel. Right?”

“Since check-out time, two this afternoon,” Slade admitted. “We’ll all be staying here, and that includes you. You’ll be moving into the bridal suite with Kyra, but you’ll sleep alone.”

“That’s generous of you, Mr. Slade.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank your raising. You’re the last Victorian. We can trust you, and we’ll need an inside bodyguard for Kyra. There’ll be a man coming after her who’ll make Ajax look like an amateur.”

Alone in the room Breedlove felt enheartened by the speed with which the government had moved to protect Kyra. If such dispatch was shown all along the line, there was a chance she would get the uranium in time. Turning to the telephone, he decided not to disturb her with the news about Ajax.

When her number rang, the telephone was answered by a male voice. “Major Laudermilk, here.”

“My name’s Breedlove. I’d like to speak to our visitor.”

“I’m permitted to put your call through, sir, but under the provisions of the Right to Privacy Law I must warn you that this line is being monitored.”

After a second ringing Kyra’s voice came on the line, “Kyra, here.”

Apparently she had learned her telephone etiquette from the mysterious major, he thought, and said, “Breedlove.”

“Breedlove! How nice to hear your voice, and how lovely it’s going to be to talk in basic English again. All day they’ve been grilling me, giving me the third degree. I don’t mind the engineers and mathematicians, but the psychologists are after me all the time about my sex life. Do they think I was running a cathouse in a spaceship?”

She had not learned “cathouse” from him, he observed to himself, and said, “Of course not, Kyra. I talked to some of the experts who interviewed you, and they have a high opinion of your morals and honesty.”

He realized his remark about honesty was a subconscious reproof of Kyra. Anxiety feelings were crystallizing around his knowledge of the implant in her skull. But she rambled breathlessly on: “All I’ve done all day is talk, talk, talk, with only a few minutes off to rest my jaws. You know, I’m surrounded by a palace guard with my lord high chamberlain screening my telephone calls. But I got your name put on the preferred list—Oh, I must tell you, they have this thing called a post exchange, but they wouldn’t let me go there to shop. They brought over a slew of dresses for me to select from, and I can tell you there were no Polinski Creations in the lot. I managed to select some outfits that Gravy thinks are very fetching. You’ll be having dinner with me tomorrow in the queen’s suite—”

“The queen’s suite?”

“That’s Gravy’s new name for the VIP quarters… I’ve got this beautiful little number I’ll wear for you at dinner. My rooms are very nice, but they’re still a brig. Breedlove, when are you going to get me out of this chickenshit outfit?”

“Before you learn to swear like a sailor, I hope… But what’s this about me having dinner with you?”

“Oh, that! I must tell you. You said for me to push while you pulled. Well, I’m pushing. I have this little doohickey behind my ear, and it’s got them all worried. I told Doctor Condon I wouldn’t tell anybody but you what it is, and I wouldn’t tell you except over the dinner table. That shaped them up! I’ve got all kinds of little secrets in reserve, and if I’m not out of here pretty soon I’m going to quit talking at all unless they let you spend the night with me, and that’ll give those nosy psychologists something to talk about. By the way, well, not ‘by the way.’ I don’t want to sound too casual. I’ve written you a little poem in answer to the one you wrote for me. Would you like to hear it, with expression?”

“Hear it! I’d like to write it down. Damn the monitor and full speed ahead.”

In a clear, exquisitely expressive voice, she announced, “The name of my poem is To Breedlove,’ and here it goes:

Breedlove, thy beauty is to me

Like those Kanabian barks of yore,

That gently, o’er the perfumed sea,

The weary, way-worn Kyra bore

From her own native shore.”

“Enough,” he cried. “So you’ve discovered Poe?”

“Is that a famous poem?” Her voice was suspicious.

“It’s Poe’s ‘To Helen.’ ”

“That Gravy! I should have known. He’s such a joker. I told him about my poem from you, and he wrote this one for me to give to you. He said you’d love it.”

“Who is ‘Gravy’?”

“Major Graves Laudermilk, the Army officer in charge of my security detail… Now, what would you like for dinner tomorrow night, a nice, rare, juicy filet mignon?”

Despite his elation over their dinner date, when he hung up, Breedlove was concerned about the Army officer in Kyra’s entourage who read poetry and had recognized the true author of Breedlove’s poem. Apparently Laudermilk was discreet, and for that Breedlove was grateful, but what was an Army major doing at a Navy establishment?

Turpin had joined Slade in room 110, and the three went together to the dining room. The diners in the room were all young men, none wore long hair or beards, and all looked physically fit.

“You ought to have more women and older men in your group,” Breedlove commented to Slade. “Your security slip is showing.”

“You’re learning, boy. Beginning to think like us.”

“I might take that as a compliment if I knew who you were.”

“This is my outfit, the Special Security Squad, here to protect Kyra. All the men you see in here, even the dining-room help, are hand-picked specialists drawn from every branch of the services.”

“Something’s becoming clear. I wondered why an Army officer had the security detail on a Navy base.”

“That’s Laudermilk,” Slade said. “A good man.”

Turpin’s reaction to Slade’s remark was quick and sounded alarmed. “You’ve got the Champ guarding the girl?”

“Yep.”

“Who’s guarding the Champ?”

“By special directive from the Army,” Slade said, “the visitor had been declared ‘off-limits’ to Major Laudermilk.”

“The Army must be very trusting,” Turpin said.

Turpin’s dubiety tantalized Breedlove, but he was afraid to ask for clarification lest the question make his personal concern too obvious. He would bide his time, he decided, before attempting to learn more about Major Laudermilk.

They gave their order to a waitress who came over the moment they were seated at their table. The dining room had never provided such service before. Their drinks were served with a flourish, and, later, their dinner was brought promptly after Slade nodded to the waitress.

Dinner was preceded by an unusual ceremony. Turpin asked their indulgence while he said grace over the meal. For Breedlove, asking the blessing was not an unusual occurrence at home, but this was the first time he had ever done it in a public restaurant. Slade added an “Amen” to Turpin’s short but gracious prayer.

Breedlove was taken by a curiosity so strong it tempted him to risk a personal question of Turpin. “How do you justify your possibly ungentle profession by your certainly gentle religion?”

“It’s a misconception to think of Jesus as a doormat. He was the Christ Militant and leader of the Church Triumphant, bringing to his chosen ones ‘not peace but the sword’.”

Breedlove dropped the subject quickly. Strange lights were beginning to glow in Turpin’s eyes.

Slade lead the table talk thereafter. He was a man with a strange ambition: he wanted the government to establish a paramilitary, informal task force for carrying out undeclared wars, and he wanted to be its leader.

“How would you use it?” Breedlove asked.

“To cut red tape. The nation’s choking on red tape. People are supposed to be disgusted with the government because it’s grown too unwieldy for their needs, but the government is too unwieldy for the government’s needs. If a President wants to declare war he has to get the consent of Congress, and the congressmen have to sound out their constituents, and by the time all that goes down, the tactical strike opportunity is long gone. With my group, if the President doesn’t like an election in, say, Ecuador, he can call me and say, ‘Ben, go take care of it for me.’ In ten years I could have the whole Third World solidly democratic.”

Turpin contributed little to the table talk. Either he had little to contribute or he was cowed by Slade’s rank or reputation in the intelligence community, either of which, Breedlove deduced, was formidable. There were many covert glances thrown at Slade’s table, and the waitresses hovered attentively near. But with all the attention Slade was perceptive of others. Once he remarked, “Something’s bugging you, Breedlove.”

Major Laudermilk was bugging Breedlove, a fact he did not choose to admit, but he had an alternate bug at hand.

“Harper wants me to give him the coordinates of Kyra’s spaceship on a military map, apparently with the intention of zeroing in artillery at some later date. I don’t want to rat on Kyra and her people.”

“No problem. Lie to him. Give him the wrong coordinates. You can’t be prosecuted for not being able to read a military map.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. He was thinking. “Tell Kyra about Harper’s request, at your dinner tomorrow night, and let me know what she says.”

“I don’t want to give her a bad impression of human beings.”

“She’ll find out about us sooner or later. Her hearing before the AEC is coming up next week, and everybody’s cards will be on the table.”

He was surprised that Slade knew of his dinner with Kyra, but he was more pleasantly surprised to learn about the hearings.

“You think it will be that soon?”

“It will be sooner if I can get the ‘aye’ votes lined up faster.”

The finality of Slade’s answer brought a silence to the table. Turpin was reaching for the check when Breedlove asked casually, “Why do they call Major Laudermilk ‘the Champ’?”

“That is some story,” Turpin said. “Tell him about Laudermilk, Ben.”

Turpin sounded like a child asking for his favorite bedtime story, and Slade was accommodating. “Why do they call Major Laudermilk ‘the Champ’?” he repeated slowly.

It was not a real question the way Slade asked it; it was a prologue. He threw his shoulders slightly forward in a pose handed down from the generations when storytellers hunched forward over western campfires, and the simple gesture threw an expectant hush over the table. Despite himself, Breedlove found himself leaning forward to listen.