Deep Cover

“You can’t make the rules, can you?” There was something grave in her voice.

They walked up the quiet street without speaking. Occasionally her arm brushed his. She meant nothing overt by it; he was begi

They crossed an intersection under a street light and he stole a direct look at her. He thought of the cliché of the oblivious boss who has never really looked at his adoring and beautiful secretary before. Like all clichés it was worthless because it oversimplified reality. He had never been blind to Ro

He caught Ro

“Here we are.” She handed him the keys. He unlocked the door for her and went around to the driver’s side and slid in under the wheel. “Why a station wagon?”

“I paint,” she said, and it was only after a moment that she seemed to realize it required further explanation. “I’m a Sunday painter. Oils—landscapes, mostly. I like to drive out in the country. I need the space in back for my easel and canvases and paintbox and palette—all the impedimenta of the amateur dauber.”

He drove west toward the freeway, moving against the incoming tide of Saturday-night traffic. “I often wondered what you did with your off time. Not that you seem to have much of it. I’ve caught you in the office on the phone at ungodly hours some nights.”

“You have a bad habit,” she said lightly. “You always forget the difference in time zones between here and Washington.”

It was a casual remark and he almost let it go by but then the significance of it struck him. He shot a glance at her. He couldn’t make out her expression; the light was poor. He said, “Do you mean to tell me you wait around the office every night of the week on the off-chance I might telephone from Washington?”

“Well, it’s not only for that. We’re understaffed; usually it takes me till eight or nine to clear the decks for the next day’s action.”

“Why in hell haven’t you said so? We can hire another secretary.”

“It didn’t seem important,” she said vaguely. “I haven’t had anything better to do, anyway. You can’t paint at night.”

“But what about your social life?”

“I lead a very quiet social life,” she said, and added nothing to it.

He made the turnoff and followed the flyover ramp up onto the freeway. He pushed the accelerator down and moved out into the left lane to pass the slower traffic. The station wagon was a big one, heavy and no better designed than most of its kind: everything rattled slightly, the steering and braking controls were not precise, and at high speed it tended to wag its tail and bounce with a lunging seasick sway. Forrester liked to drive; he had behind him a youth filled with the roar of sports cars, the memory of rallies and gymkhanas.

He said, “Les Suffield asked you if you’d be willing to come to Washington and run my office there. Have you thought about it?”

“I’m still thinking about it. I imagine I’ll do it, at least until November. If you decide to run again and they put you back for another six years, I may decide to come home. I’ve been in Washington before. I don’t like it very much.”

“It’s a one-company town,” he said. “If you don’t like the company it’s not much of a place.”

“That kind of social whirl doesn’t appeal to me, I’m afraid.”

He found the turnoff, corkscrewed down under the highway and drove north toward the base. The white stripe of the road ran as straight as an architect’s line. “You said you lead a quiet life. Forgive me if I’m prying, but is that because you’re a widow?”

“That’s part of it.”

“What’s the rest?”

“It’s hard to put into words.”

“When Angie died I didn’t want to face people either—nothing seemed worth the effort.”

“Because you had no one to share it. I know.” She turned in her seat—she was far over against the door. “I knew what you were going through last year when she died but there wasn’t anything I could say that would have helped. You understand? But it’s been eleven years since my husband died. I’m not still carrying a torch.”

“Then it’s something else.”

“Really, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Another time then.”

She put her feet flat on the floor and looked straight ahead and the next time she spoke it was to say, “We must be almost there.”

The air-base gate was an open entrance—there were AP’s on duty but passage was not restricted and they drove through it slowly. Somewhere ahead was an interior perimeter beyond which unauthorized visitors could not go. Forrester had been here before on various occasions and knew the general area he sought, but he had to stop and ask a woman pushing a stroller where the base commander lived. Most married officers lived off-post in civilian houses but the base commander was on twenty-four-hour call and had to live on the base. The best the Air Force had done by way of privacy was to put his house behind a dusty hillock away from the other buildings. The last piece of road was indifferently paved and the wheels churned up a gritty dust that quickly got into Forrester’s nostrils and teeth but he didn’t mind; he had grown up on the taste of it. Beyond the hill he turned into the graded circular drive.

It was an ultramodern house of glass, open to the space about it, not especially large; one of those Southwestern houses without basement or attic, temporary-looking because it was temporary.

The front door of the house opened, throwing a splash of lamplight across the steps, and Colonel Bill Ryan came out beaming.

Ryan had always been big and now he was a big man with a belly on him. He had thick shoulders and a deep chest; a square head anchored on a wide neck. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt, white tapered slacks, white loafers, no socks. He was crowding fifty but he had the kind of durably boyish face often discovered on mercenary soldiers and airplane pilots. The hair on top, sandy and going thin, was combed carefully over the pink scalp.

“About God damn time you remembered to call on your old friends.” He marched forward to pump Forrester’s hand and clap him violently on the bicep.

Ro