Deep Cover

“Asleep now?”

“Yes.”

“Then let her sleep,” Spode said.

Forrester was dressing while they talked. “Have you been on the phone?”

“All night. Nobody knows anything. Belsky hasn’t turned up. They found the car he rented on a parking lot. He’ll never come back for it. I don’t know if it fits into this but somebody hijacked a truckload of nerve gas from Fort Huachuca.”

“Nerve gas,” Forrester muttered, buttoning his cuffs. “God.”

“Yeah.” Spode picked up the phone and said, “Room service, please.… Hello, this is three twenty-seven, send up a pot of coffee and two cups and a plate of bacon and eggs, will you? Bacon fried crisp and two eggs over hard.… Yeah, thanks.”

“Don’t you want anything to eat?”

“I had a couple of doughnuts an hour ago where I made a few calls.” Spode got out of the chair and stretched; Forrester heard the ligaments crackle. “I’ve been letting myself be seen around town but nobody’s taken any potshots at me.”

“He may be long gone, Top.”

“Then why did he kill Art Miller? No, I can’t buy it.” Spode scowled outward—the sky was cloudy above the rooftops across the way. “My ex-boss and I kicked around a lot of things on the phone to see if anything rang any bells. The Agency’s been picking up signs of a big Chinese flap along the Russian border—bigger than anything they’ve ever seen. The President’s holding an emergency session of the National Security Council this morning. Since I’m not on the payroll there were certain things I couldn’t be told on the record, but reading between the lines I gathered that one or two friendly KGB types have made overtures to their opposite numbers in the Agency to feel us out about taking sides in the event of an eruption over there.”

“Between China and Russia?”

“Yes. Of course they’ve had these flaps before. Bluff and double-bluff—brinkmanship, Chinese style. They push until they meet too much resistance and then they squat down and wait for things to cool off before they start pushing again. Process of attrition—but the Russians have been getting fed up with it. You would too.”

“But what’s that got to do with Belsky?”

“God knows,” Spode muttered. Knuckles rapped at the door and Forrester grimaced and stepped into the alcove out of sight until he heard Spode tip the waiter and close the door. Spode set the tray on the coffee table.

Forrester took the dome off the plate and sat down to eat. “I’m sick of hide and seek, Top, it’s not my style.”

“I know. But I’d like to find out what’s really going on before we start taking any chances.”

“We’re not going to find out anything sitting here.”

“It’s not your job—you’ve got other fish to fry. Let the professionals handle Belsky.”

“They don’t seem to be getting anywhere, do they.”

“And just how far do you think you could get? What did you have in mind, strapping on a six-shooter and spreading the word around town you’ll be waiting for him on Stone Avenue at high noon?”

“Jaime’s right, you know.” Ro

Forrester stood up with his napkin in his hand. “Feeling any better?”

“I’m fine—I don’t know why I went to pieces. I’m miserable because I kept you up with all that silliness. Forgive me?”

“As long as you’re sure you’re all right.”

“Well, tired and a little jittery—and very ashamed of myself.” Her smile was reticent.

He indicated the plate. “I’ve hardly started. Why don’t you eat this while it’s warm—I’ll have some more sent up.”

“I don’t think I’d better do that yet. Please go ahead and finish.” She waved him to his seat and went back into the bedroom. She left the door open and he saw her sit down at the dressing table to comb her hair. “Jaime, have you talked to Les Suffield?” There was something a bit taut behind the casual question and Forrester watched her with full attention.

“A little while ago,” Spode said. “Why?”

“Oh—nothing.”

But Forrester saw her shoulders stir, almost as if with relief. He pushed the plate away; abruptly he felt no hunger at all.

She had been like that last night too, even while she was alone with him: distant, polite. Like a relative on a visit. She had tried to explain last night: It’s all happened too fast, hasn’t it, Alan? Don’t we need a little more time to get our feelings about each other sorted out? I had my life neatly compartmentalized until just the other day and now overnight everything’s changed—I need a chance to get my breath but I can’t right now. You’ve sprung this horrible Russian murderer business on me and I know it’s unreasonable, I know it’s not your fault, but I just can’t.… She had cried out and shut herself into the bathroom.

She seemed to feel their eyes on her; she said by way of explanation, “I just thought Les might know something that would help.”

She had always tended to lean on Les Suffield. It was Suffield who had first brought her into his organization. Forrester had always found it slightly odd; Ro

He reached for the coffee and squeezed his eyes shut; he was tired, his mind was wandering. Spode had picked up a newspaper and it rustled like submachine-gun fire. Forrester said irritably, “It must be something to do with the missile factories; nothing else seems to explain Belsky’s being here. If only Ross Trumble were alive to explain—”

The edge of the same fast-traveling thought struck them all and Forrester saw Spode sit bolt upright. Ro

Ro

“Then let’s get it,” Forrester said, on his way to the door.

Ro

When he looked back she said quickly, “Suppose he’s waiting for you to show yourself? The Russian.”

“I can’t spend the next week hidden away here—I’d start climbing the walls. And I have to know what’s in that letter.”

“But it’s probably only a copy of the Phaeton specifications—the ones Jaime’s already photographed. You asked him for them and he told you he might send them to you. Isn’t that what you said?”

Spode said, “Whatever’s in that letter it’s not the Phaeton specs. Trumble wrote it out longhand in the hotel lobby. It was a letter—a long one.”

Ro

“I don’t understand you, Ro

“Is it worth exposing yourself just for a letter that probably has nothing in it?”

“Nothing in it? The man wrote it less than twenty-four hours before he died. We’ve got to assume it’s vitally important.”

“But it may not even have arrived yet. It’s only Saturday morning—he didn’t mail it till Thursday afternoon, in Phoenix, and you know how slow rural deliveries are.…”

Spode said, “What time does the mail come in down there?”

“About one in the afternoon,” Forrester answered.

“Then there’s a good chance it’ll show up today.”

Ro