«What did you say …?»
«You see, my acidity—the gas—was brought on by my not being able to raise the unit in Boston, so I went undercover to find them.»
«Undercover where?»
«Boston, of course. I hitched a ride on an air force reconn out of Macon and got there around three o’clock this afternoon—actually yesterday afternoon. Naturally, I went immediately to the hotel—it’s a very nice hotel—»
«I’m so happy to hear that. What then?»
«Well, I had to be very careful, of course, because we wouldn’t want any official linkage, I think you’ll agree.»
«With every destroyed nerve in my body!» roared the Secretary of State. «For God’s sake, you didn’t wear your uniform?»
«Please, Mr. Secretary, I went undercover. I wore a civilian suit, and just in case I ran into any of our retired Pentagon procurement personnel working in the area, I had a splendid idea. I went through my unit’s paraphernalia and found a wig that fit nicely. A touch too red for my taste, but with gray streaks—»
«All right, all right!» broke in Pease. «What did you find?»
«A strange little man in one of the suites—I knew the room numbers, naturally. I recognized his voice immediately, as I’d talked with him a number of times from Benning. He’s a harmless old fellow the boys hired to take messages, which was very smart of them. He hasn’t got much upstairs and that’s a plus; he merely takes messages.»
«What did he say, for heaven’s sake?»
«He repeated what he said to me over the phone from my office more times than I can count. His temporary employers had been called away on business; he didn’t know any more than that.»
«That’s it? They’ve simply vanished?»
«I have to assume they’re zeroing in on the target, Mr. Secretary. As I explained, they have broad parameters where the missions are concerned, because so much depends on instantaneous reactions, which they’re trained to invent.»
«Spook babble!» yelled Pease.
«No, sir, it’s called improvisation—‘improv,’ for short.»
«You’re telling me you don’t know what the hell is going on. There’s no communication, for Christ’s sake!»
«There are frequent occasions when the telephone equipment cannot be trusted, both civilian- and government-oriented.»
«Who made that up, the Pink Panther? Why didn’t you return my calls?»
«On the air force reconn which I took to Boston, Mr. Secretary? You want the airbornes to have your relay number in their computers?»
«Hell, no!»
«And when I reached Boston I had no way of knowing you’d called—»
«Didn’t you check your office to see if that out-of-sight unit of yours had called you?»
«We operate in black-drape deep cover. They have only two numbers: one to a line in my Benning office, which is in my bathroom but activates a light under my desk; and the other at my apartment, which is in my clothes closet and starts a tape of ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’ Naturally, I have a remote for both answering machines, and there was nothing on either.»
«I may just slit my wrists. All this high-tech crap means is that nobody can talk to anybody who’s got a pulse.»
«Once removed, sir, is twice removed from exposure… That’s a line from the movie Thirty-two Rue Madeleine. Did you ever see it? Cagney and Abel, simply terrific.»
«I don’t want to hear about any goddamned movies, soldier. I want to hear that your bunch of gorillas have captured Hawkins and taken him to the SAC base in Westover! That’s all I want to hear, because if I don’t hear that pretty goddamned soon, it could be the end for all of us! All it would take is two of those squirrelly justices on the Court sticking with those predictable left-wing radicals who won’t die!»
«All of us, Mr. Secretary, or just a few of us? Like a once-demoted general of the army and a very successful unit he created?»
«What?… You don’t carry your brass to play games with me, soldier!»
«Well, Mr. Secretary, if I may ask you, from a military point of view, why are you so concerned with Mac Hawkins’s activities, whatever they are? The world’s changing, becoming less hostile among the great powers, and as for the lesser ones we can get together and blow them out of ground, like we did with Iraq. Everywhere, on both sides, we’re cutting back, our personnel and equipment reduced every day… Why, even yesterday morning a famous journalist flew down to interview me in Benning; he’s doing an article on the army’s reaction to the economies imposed on the military in the post-Soviet era, the end of the cold war.»
«P … p … post-cold war?» stuttered the Secretary of State, lurching forward over the desk, his perspiration now further aggravating his pivoting left eye. «Get with it, soldier! What about a far more dangerous threat, the greatest threat we can imagine?»
«China, Libya, Israel?»
«No, you idiot! The weird people—who knows how far they’ll go?»
«The what?»
«The … the … UFOs!»
25
Jennifer Redwing rushed out of the morning surf at the beach house in Swampscott. She tugged at the straps of her bathing suit, one of many found in the guest cabanas, and dashed across the sand to the terrace steps, where she had draped a towel over the railing. Vigorously, she dried her legs and arms, threw back her hair and massaged her scalp, only to open her eyes and find Sam Devereaux smiling down at her from a chair on the sun deck.
«You’re a hell of a swimmer,» he said.
«We learned it luring settlers into the rapids and watching them drown as we swam across,» replied Jenny, laughing.
«You know, I can believe that.»
«You know, it’s probably true.» Redwing climbed the steps and walked out on the deck, wrapping the towel around her. «How nice,» she added, looking at the round table of frosted Plexiglas. «A pot of coffee and three cups.»
«Mugs, actually. I can’t drink coffee from cups.»
«That’s funny, neither can I,» said Jenny, sitting down. «I guess that’s why I call them cups; it’s interchangeable. I must have a dozen in my apartment, very few the same.»
«I must have two dozen, and only four are the same. Naturally, those are from Mother, and they’re in some kind of green-colored crystal, and I never use them.»
«It’s called Irish Glass, and it’s terribly expensive and I’ve got two, and I never use them either.»
They both laughed and their eyes locked; it was a brief moment, yet not to be dismissed. «Good Lord,» said Sam, «we’ve talked for almost a minute and neither of us has thrown a verbal blade. That calls for me to pour you a cup—a mug—of coffee.»
«Thanks. Just black, please.»
«That’s helpful. I forgot the cream or milk or that white powder I avoid because it looks like you could end up in jail for possessing it.»
«Who’s the third cup—mug—for?» asked the Indian Aphrodite, accepting the coffee.
«Aaron. My mother’s upstairs; she’s fallen in love with Roman Z, who said he’d make her a Gypsy breakfast and bring it to her, and Cyrus won’t admit it, but he’s nursing a hangover in the kitchen.»
«Don’t you think he should keep his eye on Roman?»
«You don’t know Mother.»
«I may know her better than you, that’s why I asked.»