Deep Cover

“In other words if you lose this fight the world will end—do you honestly believe that?”

“I believe it’s possible.”

Over coffee Ro

Her smoky voice had become brisk. “Les Suffield called to check in—nothing terribly important, the Secretary of Defense has called a news conference for Friday afternoon and the Secretary of State will be on Meet the Press Sunday, and Les thought you ought to know because undoubtedly they’ll both discuss you. I tried Frank Shattuck again but of course he’s out, to us, and—”

“Top tells me Shattuck’s in cahoots with Webb Brecken-year. You may as well cross him off. No point wasting more time trying to set up appointments that he’ll keep breaking.”

“All right.” She made a note. “Now, about yesterday, I had a rather long talk with one of the perso

Forrester’s eyes were wide. “So much for the specter of wholesale catastrophic unemployment if I kill the Phaeton program.”

“I thought you’d like it. Now let’s see—I briefed you on the conference tomorrow in Scottsdale—Senator Guest, Congressman Trumble, Ramsey Douglass. I’ve never been quite clear on exactly what Douglass does, but Trumble wants him there so I have to assume he’s important enough to be included. He works for Matthewson-Ward but I don’t really understand where he fits in.”

“He’s their SATAF coordinator—Site Aerospace Test Activation Facility. When Matthewson-Ward delivers a missile to the Air Force Douglass has to see that it’s set up properly and tested out before he turns it over to the Government. It’s a job that requires a good deal of political maneuvering—Douglass got it because he’s both a first-class engineer and an active Republican. He moonlighted as Trumble’s chief speech writer in the last campaign and I suppose he’ll do it again this year. He’s worked his way up in the party on the local level and I understand he pretty much tells the County Supervisor what to do. But he stays pretty much behind the scenes because he hasn’t exactly got the kind of personality it takes to get up in front of crowds and charm people.”

“I’ll say. He’s such a bitter little man. I can’t stand him.”

“Nobody can. But he’s got a brain like a scalpel.”

“Let’s talk about someone else.” She reached for her coffee with a theatrical shudder.

“That must have got cold by now.” He turned to signal the waiter.

“Never mind,” she said, “it would only keep me awake. I really shouldn’t drink coffee after five.” When she looked at her watch he followed her glance and found himself attentively studying the fine pale hairs on her slim forearm.

“Almost ten,” she said. “My goodness. I’d better take the body home and put it to bed.”

He parked at the curb outside the palm-fringed apartment court where she lived. It was the third time he’d driven her home but she hadn’t invited him in and he had not pressed her to. Still he felt challenged by her odd admixture of warm personal concern and guarded, almost hostile reserve.

He walked around the car and helped her step out over the high sill of the old Mercedes; he walked her along the flower-bordered walk to the far corner of the court and when she found her key she hesitated and then with an impulsive gesture thrust it toward him.

He unlocked the door and stood back. “Well, then,” he began, with the awkward feeling that neither of them knew how to break off the evening.

She reached inside to switch on a light. “Would you . .. like a nightcap?” Her eyes were very wide.

“Only if—”

“I do. Come in before I change my mind.” A quick smile fled across her face and she went ahead of him with her lovely high-hipped stride; when she turned, waiting for him, her lips parted and she followed him with her eyes when he extracted the key and shut the door and tossed the key on the small telephone table.

The apartment was small and untidy, sparsely furnished and cluttered with easel and paint stand and stacks of stretched canvases. The walls were crowded with oils which he knew immediately to be her own work—bold colorful landscapes, bright with the primary hues of the desert, filled with a fascination for the high craggy tors and multitiered serrates of the rugged uplands. The paintings filled the room with a fury of color.

She was nervous. “You like them, don’t you? I feel ridiculously pleased. Do you know that’s why I was afraid to let you come in? I had to steel myself—I was desperately afraid you’d laugh at them.” She tossed, her head as if released; her hair tumbled loosely over one shoulder.

He turned a slow circle on his heels and then walked around to view them separately. “I love them.”

A cloth concealed the work on the easel and he reached for the corner of it but she spoke instantly: “Don’t. Not yet—please?”

He let it fall back, the painting undisclosed, and turned. She bustled toward the tiny kitchenette. “Sit down anywhere. It’s Chivas Regal with a splash of water, isn’t it?”

There was a silver-framed snapshot on the coffee table and he was studying it when she brought his drink. The man in the picture was young, a Midwestern sort, dark blond hair, neat ears, a rugged blocky sort of face without much nose but a good big jaw. A face full of easygoing ope

“Yes.”

“You’ve never told me about him.”

She was silent long enough for him to think she wasn’t going to answer. She sat opposite him, drawing her legs up under her. Finally she said, “I suppose he wasn’t exceptional. I mean, you wouldn’t have singled him out in a crowd. But we loved each other and when he died …”

When she trailed off he reached for her wrist. “What is it?”

“I really don’t like to talk about it.”

“Maybe it needs talking about.”

“Now you’re trying to get revenge for the way I pi

“Fair enough,” he said. “What was he like?”

She brooded toward the photograph. “He was alive. Vital—enthusiastic. He came from Topeka—his father worked for the railroad. Phil was an engineer and his whole face would light up when he thought about building things. He was really a very straightforward guy—no hidden corners. He was working on his Ph.D. at the university here when he died. I had a secretarial job with a phone-company executive and Phil had a fellowship, and we were living in a horrible little house trailer in one of those miserable camps on Miracle Mile. Sometimes Phil used to go across the street to bowl a few lines on afternoons when he didn’t have classes. One day he didn’t come home and we went to tell him it was di