The luminous dial of his watch read 4:17. Chase squinted at it and lay back on the pillow. He touched his hair, feeling the crisped and blunted ends where he'd leaned too close in turning off the gas nozzle. Bloody stupid thing to have done: He could have been fried alive, like that other poor devil.
He stared up at the shadowed ceiling, knowing that sleep would never come. There was too much on his mind. Cheryl knew he was holding something back--her silence told him that. He had expected the worst but the worst hadn't come, not yet, though the silence was forestalling the inevitable.
Slipping out of bed, taking care not to disturb her, he put on his dressing gown and went into the living room. He didn't switch on the light. The bottles on the cabinet gleamed temptingly, but instead he fumbled his way to an armchair and sat down.
Sooner or later he would have to tell her. The inevitable was near; in fact it was here and now, he realized, when he saw her pale form in the bedroom doorway.
"I couldn't sleep," Chase said unnecessarily. "Sorry if I woke you."
"You didn't." Cheryl came into the room. "Do you want some coffee?"
Chase shook his head before it occurred to him that she wasn't able to see him properly. "No thanks."
He heard a rustle as she settled herself on the arm of the couch and arranged her robe to cover her legs. Neither of them spoke for a minute.
"Why didn't you tell me, Gavin?"
"Tell you?" he said obtusely.
"Yes," Cheryl said deliberately. "Tell me. You. Instead of Nick."
"You asked him?"
"Yes, I asked him. I knew there was something wrong. But I was hoping you'd tell me yourself. You didn't."
"I had to think about it, get it straight in my own mind first."
"Get it straight?" Cheryl said with mock astonishment. "Get what straight? Gelstrom is funding the project. What the fuck was there to get straight."
"It isn't that simple."
"It's very simple," Cheryl contradicted him, folding her arms. It was a sign of battle. "Do I really have to remind you? A man who made a fortune supplying toxic chemicals to the army, who for years was in collusion with the Pentagon hatching a cozy little plan called DEPARTMENT STORE to kill every living thing on this planet, and who now--sweet Jesus, this is poetic justice in spades--who now because he's been stricken with the disease he wanted to inflict on everyone else suddenly has a change of heart, and--surprise, surprise--wants to switch sides, to become the savior of mankind instead of its executioner. Have you got it? Is that straight enough for you?"
"Gelstrom is dying," Chase said quietly. "Nothing can save him and he knows it. He's not doing this for himself."
"Oh, I see!" Cheryl exclaimed with ponderous sarcasm. "This is a-- what do you call it?--a grand final gesture. Oh, well, sure, that changes everything. By all means welcome him back into the fold. Forget the past and let's all be buddy-buddy. Sure, why not? I expect he's really a great guy at heart, fond of his gray-haired old mother, had a difficult upbringing, and so on--"
"Cheryl, will you listen to me? Please? Will you try to understand?"
"In a word, no."
Chase leaned toward her. "Gelstrom isn't behind this project, can't you understand that?" His voice had risen, and he glanced at Dan's door, then went on in a lowered tone. "He's not involved in any way."
"Except for the small matter of a couple of billion dollars."
"Does it matter where the money comes from? Money is money." Chase had said it without knowing if he actually believed it.
For Cheryl, words were hardly adequate to express what she was feeling.
"I didn't understand when you first told me about the project, before I knew that Gelstrom was funding it. But now--"she broke off, fighting down emotion. "How can you, of all people, say that? Knowing
what that man has done? My God, it does matter about the money--it
does!"
She stood up and he heard her rummaging about in the darkened room. A moment later something solid and heavy with sharp corners hit him on the chest and tumbled into his lap.
"Read your own goddamn book!" Cheryl stood next to the couch, breathing hard. "It's all in there. How certain companies made fortunes by raping the world and quietly disposing of anyone who got in their way. How a few scientists tried to warn people what was happening and were persecuted or ended up dead for their trouble. My own father, you might remember. You ought to read it. It might do you good--certainly jog your memory about a few things you've obviously forgotten."
Chase smoothed the rumpled dust jacket and placed the book on the table. There wasn't anything Cheryl could say that he hadn't already thought about and agonized over. He was even prepared to concede that she was right; morally right, that is. But moral Tightness or wrong-ness wasn't the issue. He had to work on the project; it was a gut feeling as strong as any he'd ever felt in his life. Right or wrong didn't stand a chance.
"You've spoken to Nick about it. How does he feel?"
"He thinks you've taken leave of your senses."
"Then he must have changed his mind overnight," Chase said. "I told him about Gelstrom on the way back from Desert Range. His exact words were, 'Money is the means to an end, not an end in itself. If the guy wants to pay for his sins, why try to stop him?' "
"You omitted to tell him that Gelstrom murdered my father."
"The reason I didn't tell him that is because we don't know whether Gelstrom was responsible. We don't know that anyone was. It could have been an accident."
Cheryl laughed, an ugly sound in the dim room. "What the hell is this, Gavin? A meeting of the Joseph Earl Gelstrom Appreciation Society?" He couldn't see her face but he knew its expression. She said with a vehemence he'd never heard before, "At least Nick has principles he believes in--and adheres to."
Well, well, well. It began to look as though a true-confessions therapy session had been going on here while he was running himself ragged at the UN. Little wonder that when he got back to the hotel he'd walked into an atmosphere you could have cut with a blunt shovel.
"Where do we go from here?" "I guess that's up to you."
"I've given them my answer. I'm not going back on it."
"Then I guess you have my answer too."
"I don't want to lose you, Cheryl."
"No?" The word was a bark, short and brutal. "I thought perhaps you were looking forward to working with Ruth Patton."
"Ruth isn't involved in the project." What the hell was this?
"Is she involved with you?"
"What do you mean?"
Cheryl was leaning stiffly against the back of the couch, her face a pale indecipherable blur. "You ought to be more careful, Gavin. Especially in front of your son."
A sickening chill swept through him. He tasted something vile at the back of his throat. He felt as if the solid foundation of his life had given way, as if he had been betrayed: first Nick, and then Cheryl, and now Dan. There were other emotions mixed in with it, sorrow, self-pity, and a thin streak of stubborn, bitter defiance.
He took a breath and said very calmly, "I'm not doing this for Ruth, for Prothero or Van Dorn, for Gelstrom, or for myself. If you can't see why I'm doing it, if you won't try to understand, then you and I have nothing more to say to each other."