“Scott knows all that now, and maybe he will shoot himself at that. Don’t blame him too much for using you for a patsy, though. You just came along at the right time. And, he’s not really mad at you. He’s mad as hell at himself for blowing the deal the way he did, and at us for not warning him. I’m the guy who’s going to be shot at sunrise, more than likely. The flit has sure hit the shan around here — er, excuse me, Laura — and anytime they want to ship me back to Iowa, I’m ready.”
Deacon Jones’ information had been comforting, as was the fact that he had sought Rich out privately instead of using the telephone. But, Richardson decided as he reviewed the conversation afterward, Jones had told him nothing that could be of any value in furthering his hopes for “nukedom,” as Deacon had colloquially termed it.
Laura had the same reaction. “He’s a good friend of yours, and he was just blowing off some frustration. He’s not really afraid of Scott holding anything against him, either, and you’ve been hearing about the corn in Iowa ever since you’ve known him. But he did clear up one thing. None of the reasons Brighting gave for turning you down are the real ones. It was entirely Admiral Scott’s call. That triggered something. I think Brighting doesn’t want anyone as good as you, and as senior, around him. Didn’t he say something about you possibly having to retire in a few years?”
Rich admitted that he had.
“How old is Brighting? When do admirals have to retire?”
“When they’re sixty-two, though special ones can be kept on to sixty-four. He’s got three or four more years, I guess,” Rich said.
“Maybe it’s his own approaching retirement that’s bugging him. Is there anybody he might be building up to succeed him that you might be getting in the way of?”
“Nobody,” Richardson said. “There were a few earlier in the program, in fact some friends of mine, but they’ve all left. Some of them weren’t too happy about the deal they had.”
“Well, then, my guess is that your being taken in might set up a new potential successor, and he doesn’t want there to be any successor. He’s already gotten rid of the others. Why set up another one?”
“But that’s crazy, Laura. All military organizations provide for a succession to command. Whether it’s engineering or operations, there’s got to be someone to take over if and when the boss falls out, for whatever reason. It’s a principle, a basic one. He knows that.”
“Of course he knows it, darling. But since when has Admiral Brighting gone by the rules of any system except his own? You’ve had a great record in the Navy. People look up to you. They know you always do a top job on everything, and are fair and considerate besides, which he isn’t. He’s simply afraid that once you’re in his business, you’ll be the heir apparent. He doesn’t want there to be an heir apparent. I think that’s perfectly obvious. He wants to be the one indispensable man. When he finally leaves, he wants people to say there was nobody who could take his place.”
“Nobody could ever be a rival, or a successor, to Brighting. That ought to be obvious to him and everybody else. He’s been in that business for so many years already that nobody will ever fill his shoes. But maybe Scott’s phone call got him to thinking I was part of a Bureau of Personnel plot of some kind.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Taking you off the list was a way of getting back at Scott, showing him up. He thinks you were a full-fledged member of the scheme. That’s one reason he treated you the way he did. Another thing, Brighting must have looked up your record too, and found out you’re not the sort of person he would be able to push around easily.”
“You’re just being a loyal wife now. How can he not be able to push me around if Admiral Scott, who is a much nicer guy, seems to be able to do it so easily? He thinks I’m a patsy for Scott—”
“Don’t be silly. Brighting has been pushing juniors around all his life, and lately seniors as well. That’s something he’s an expert at. Part of his game is to block in advance all those he might have trouble dominating. Another part of it is to hit at one through another.” Laura smiled enigmatically. “But he hasn’t really run into you yet, my darling.”
“There’s not much chance he will, either,” Richardson said morosely.
“If only there were someone on Brighting’s staff who could get the word to him that you hadn’t anything to do with any scheme BuPers — isn’t that what you call Admiral Scott’s office — might have cooked up.”
“Scott is the Chief of Naval Personnel, and BuPers is the shorthand word for his whole bureau of a couple of thousand people…”
Laura knew the superfluous explanation was really her husband’s device to let him think over what she had just said. She ignored it. “You must know someone over there among all those people. You must have been with some of them, men or women, somewhere. A lot of them are submariners. During the war, maybe?” The strange expression was still around Laura’s mouth.
A thought was growing in Richardson’s mind. Joan had been moving in Navy circles ever since the war. It was totally possible, even likely, that Laura and Joan had met somewhere. Although he had never discussed her with Laura, more than once over the years of their marriage he had wondered if Laura knew of his wartime affair with Joan. It was even possible she had heard of Joan’s early relationship with Jim Bledsoe, Laura’s first husband — for so tragically brief a time. Recognizing the possibility made it harden into probability. Laura and Joan might certainly have known of each other, might even have met somewhere. If so, they had doubtlessly been fencing, each uncertain how much the other knew.
Joan had been very much in his life, at a critical time. Laura must know, or have shrewdly guessed, already. But, womanlike, she must have it from him. He had already denied Joan once, would not a second time. He could not, however, tell what he knew, or surmised, about her and Jim. That was not his secret. Nor need he distress Laura with any details of his own relationship (that word, again!) with Joan. Yet he would have to tell her something. That was clear.
“I do know someone over there, though there’s nothing she could do. I ran into her by accident when I was over there. It’s a WAVE lieutenant, Joan Lastrada. I knew her when she was in the intelligence business in Pearl Harbor, during the war.”
Again that unfathomable ghost of a smile. “Good. Now maybe we’re getting somewhere.” (Could that simple statement have had a double meaning?) “How can we get Joan to tell Brighting you had no part in Scott’s scheme?”
“We can’t, Laura. Nobody has any influence over Admiral Brighting. She’s only a lieutenant in his shop. I’m not about to go to her with any such idea!”
“I know you far better than you think, husband mine, and I wouldn’t love you as much if I thought you would. But she might anyway, if she finds out what’s been going on…”
Something was going on in Laura’s mind, all right. “We’re not going to get Joan or anybody else mixed up in this,” he said again, a little too loudly. As he pronounced the authoritative-sounding words, however, he sensed an unusual undercurrent. It was almost something one could touch. There was a fleeting, cryptic look in Laura’s eyes, a general abstractedness, an attitude of listening to another tune entirely. For the moment, he had lost her.
The conversation, and the unusual note on which it ended, a note he could never before remember emanating from his wife, remained uppermost in Richardson’s mind for days. There were the final details of turning over his office to his relief, the modest good-bye luncheon given by his office mates, finally the Friday morning arrival of a moving van at his house. Even the hectic activity of tearing up the home of three years and seeing it packed into the van, a routine gone through so very many times and yet always traumatic, seemed overshadowed by a quietness of waiting. Something was going on somewhere, out of sight and out of hearing. His sixth sense, whatever that might be, was whirling madly. Laura was no help, nor had she been, although on this moving day, when he asked her point-blank, she admitted to the same intuition. Even Jobie felt it. “It doesn’t feel like we’re moving to where we’re supposed to be moving to,” he announced with thirteen-year-old directness.