Yes, it was crazy; but, rightly or wrongly, I suppose it was questions like these, which she herself had sowed in my mind, that ultimately decided me to disregard her wishes and go on. But I had other reasons too, and no doubt these showed how much this whole business had become my own. I'd started out as a spectator, become an unwitting catalyst, but now I'd seized the initiative. Because I'd broken into Travin's car, I— alone? — knew about Dimitrov. More: I had a way of tracking back over Travin's footsteps. Where would they lead? Could I live with myself if I refused to find out? And there was one final matter which I could not disregard. I was a target, that was clear, and I had been from the very beginning — that's why they'd taken May's telegram that very first day in Charlottesville. Or was that the real explanation? Might there not be another? Something personal, something you wouldn't want a policeman to hear… Sipping bourbon in the Hay-Adams bar, I began to work out a theory. Brightman had gone to Europe in late 1939 or early 1940, and had probably made his return journey just as Hitler launched his attack in the West. Therefore it was conceivable, even likely, that he'd been in Paris at the time the French had surrendered. A tricky moment. What if something had gone wrong? He was, after all, traveling with false papers. A couple of calls to the Canadian Embassy established that the Canadians had evacuated Paris with the British (and my mother) on the tenth of June 1940, so after that date he couldn't have turned to his own people for help. No. But the U.S. Embassy was carrying on business as usual and my father was working there. Had they met? Had my father rendered Brightman assistance — perhaps in an irregular way? Was I more directly involved — and hence more directly a threat— than I'd ever imagined? Speculation, that's all you could call this. But it did fit some of the facts, and even the possibility that it might be true made it impossible for me to turn back.
So I went on.
But cautiously.
Taking the most roundabout route I could think of, I flew to New York, took the train to Hartford, a bus to Boston, a commuter flight to Portland, and finally — the next morning— I rented an old Ford and headed off" to New Hampshire. That afternoon, as I headed into the White Mountain area west of Berlin, I was reasonably confident I was alone. Even so, I was careful. Berlin's a small town, and there aren't that many motels. Giving them all a miss, I went on to Lancaster, about twenty-five miles to the west. By then, it was early evening, too late to do anything. I took a stroll through the town, bought a Boston Globe, then watched TV and went to bed early.
The next morning, I put my "plan" straight into action. This was simple enough. There was no listing for Travin in the local directories, and the number he'd left with the store didn't answer. But that didn't discourage me. He would have used a different name with the phone company, and you could hardly expect him to answer his phone, given his present condition. I had to hope, however, that the basic information he'd left with the store was genuine. If it was, I should be able to cross-reference the phone number and address and discover where he was living.
When I arrived in Berlin around ten, my first stop was the post office. No one there remembered Travin's name, but a clerk penciled in RFD 2—the rural delivery number he'd left with the store — onto my map. Following these directions, I stuck with the highway for three miles, then turned left onto an unmarked secondary road. Running straight for a time, it eventually began climbing steeply, then twisted its way through a thick stand of spruce.
The first mailbox — the next step in my plan — appeared shortly afterward.
It was a square one, at the end of a short drive leading to an aluminum "universal" home. The letters on the box were black and silver stick-ons, the sort farmers use on their pickups. I slowed to read them, pressing the microphone switch on the cassette recorder I'd picked up in Boston. I knew this couldn't be Travin, but you have to start somewhere — so W. F. Grafton became first on my list. Around the bend, in quick succession, there were three more places, just like his. Then came a gap — a mile of cedar and spruce — and then a large New England-style house, all turrets and porches and dormers. Before each, I slowed slightly and murmured the owner's name into the mike. The miles rolled on. I learned that orange reflective letters are easier to read than black ones, I wondered about the etiquette of rural styles of address — the formality of "H. Edward Wilmott"; the terseness of "Carson's" — and I tried, unsuccessfully, to discern the patterns of land development here: a few suburban bungalows would be pressed tight together at the side of the road, then you'd have two miles of wilderness, a patch of rural slum, a fine old farmhouse overlooking a valley, and then bungalows and TV antennas again. After a time, however, even these signs of relative civilization petered out, and the forest pressed in. Logging roads led into nowhere. A big sign, in the shape of an Indian, pointed down a lane to a kids' camp. Then nothing. More trees. Miles of them. Until, with a hollow rumble, my wheels kicked up the logs on a bridge and I flashed by a hunting camp. Then nothing again… By noon, I'd looped back to the main road, and finding Route 3 again, I turned toward Lancaster.
In my motel room, I ate a Big Mac, then played back my tape, giving myself a list of all the people living on RFD 2.
Now, tediously, I looked up all their names in the phone book — hoping to match the number Travin had left with the photo store. In twenty-five minutes, I had it. Michael Travin had been staying at something called Gerry's White Mountain Camp.
This was the opposite of what I'd been hoping for — hotel, lodge, campground: these were the sorts of places where he might have stayed for a couple of days before moving on. I tried to recall what it looked like, but all I got was an image of bush, so I drove out there. Even knowing where it was, this took almost an hour, for it was at the "wilderness" end of my run: the road cut across a narrow notch in the hills, passed over a stream, then climbed steeply up a higher hill beyond. The mailbox, drooping on its post, was at the bottom of this upgrade, at the junction of a narrow dirt road that ran back into the bush. Drawing up beside it, I got out of the Ford and looked around, but memory had served me regrettably well; there was really nothing to look at but trees — no buildings, the nearest house was five or eight minutes back, and there wasn't much further on till you curled down the far side of the hill toward the highway. I walked up to the gate. It was new and padlocked shut, but it was just a regular metal farm gate. The road to the camp itself, disappearing into the trees behind it, might have run on for miles.
I drove back to Lancaster.
By then, it was after three in the afternoon. I called the camp number a couple of times, but there was no answer, and then, before it got too late, I decided to check a point. Lancaster, though smaller than Berlin, is the seat of Coos County, New Hampshire; as such, it boasts a fine old courthouse — with as much varnished brightwork inside as a millionaire's yacht— which contains the local deed registry. A clerk gave me a hand with the books, and I traced out the history of Gerry's Camp. The original Gerry had been one Gerard Ledoux, who'd put the land together in 1947. In 1962, it had passed by probate to his wife, who'd hung on to it for another three years. Since then, it had changed hands fairly regularly about every two years, the last purchaser, a man named Evans, having bought it ten months previously. I wasn't much disappointed by this; I hadn't really expected to find Travin listed as owner. Going back to the motel, I tried the camp number again — but still got no answer.