Deep Cover

“No, sir. Nice and quiet.”

“I’m going topside for a breath of air. I’ll be in hailing distance of the gate guard if you need me.”

Along the ramp the tu

Chapter Twenty

Lamplight reflected from the night-black windows. A hard spiral of heat twisted Forrester’s abdominal muscles. He glanced up and Spode stared back wordlessly, his face a studied mask. Forrester took Ro

She sat placid and wooden; her voice was flat. “I guess I went away for a little while.”

“It’s all right,” he said in a low voice from which he withheld feeling by an effort of will that made him break out in a fine perspiration.

He had sat with her for hours, speaking softly and trying to reassure her.

When she had first spoken, it had been erratically. She had mumbled about the storm’s end, talked childishly about her paintings.

But now she was coming back. She clung to Forrester fearfully. “Forgive me, Alan.”

“Forgive you?”

“For loving you. For bringing you such unhappiness.”

Her voice was stronger and he sat up. “Ro

“Les was my brother, you know.”

“Yes. Top guessed that.” Still he didn’t prompt her with questions because he had no way of being sure what might send her off. He touched his lips gently to her forehead. She said, “You have such huge hands.”

He managed to smile but her face did not change. “I have nothing more to lose, except you,” she said, “and I’ve lost you already.”

“Nonsense, Ro

“You’re here because you want to know what I know.”

“That doesn’t change the way I feel.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I wish it had. It would be easier if I knew I’d already hurt you as much as I was going to.”

He attempted a smile. What was the answer to that?

“I’m sorry I went to pieces. We didn’t have time for me to do that.”

“Are you all right now?”

She had the strength to make a wry face. “As much as I’m going to be.”

“Just take it easy for a while.” Meaningless homilies. He had never been good at comforting.

She said, “In a way it has to be a relief, doesn’t it—knowing it’s out in the open. It doesn’t matter what they do to me anyway, it can’t be worse than what I’ve lived through. I suppose you must have guessed: they made me watch them beat my husband to death.”

Spode’s “Jesus” exploded across the room and Forrester tried not to show his shock.

Ro

Spode said, “God knows I didn’t want it that way, Ro

She took several deep breaths. Finally she lifted her head.

“I’ll tell you everything I can. I’ve got nothing left to lose—I already said that, didn’t I?”

“You’re alive, Ro

Spode said, “Help us get to this man Belsky in time to stop them from whatever they’re doing.”

She was puzzled. “Belsky? You mean the man from Russia who came to activate us? He’s calling himself Dangerfield. How much do you already know?”

“Mostly guesswork,” Forrester said. “You’d better tell us, if you feel up to it.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for not believing a word of it, Alan. It’s too fantastic for belief, isn’t it?” Her face was wholly without expression. She had talked for half an hour and she lay back, drained.

“I believe it all. I have no reason not to.”

“I used to think sometimes that if I just went into a police station or an FBI office and told them the whole story they’d laugh me right into the nearest insane asylum.”

“Did you often think of doing that?”

“Betraying them? Every day. From the first day I arrived here I wanted to explode the whole thing.”

“Because you didn’t believe in it?”

“I don’t know what I believed in. I’d been conditioned as if I were a laboratory animal—but I didn’t recognize that at first. I’d grown up believing in Communism. Born and raised in the Soviet Union. I thought of myself as a loyal citizen—why shouldn’t I? I let Les talk me into joining them and he convinced me that what we were setting out to do was right and necessary and just. He really believed that—and so did I.”

“But you said you wanted to get out of it from the first day you came here.”

“That wasn’t political conviction, Alan. It was realizing all at once that I just couldn’t live my whole life under that stress, every moment waiting for somebody to discover the truth about me. Afterward I began to open my eyes and see how insane the whole thing was.”

“But you still didn’t try to get out.”

“I asked them to send me back to Russia. They refused, of course—they said they had an investment in me.”

“They?”

“Ramsey Douglass and my brother Les.” Her face was masked by the weight of her hair; her voice was a monotone. “The more Les saw of American politics the more he was convinced it was an evil regime of rich men and thugs exploiting the people. He had a curious way of rationalizing the way he went on practising the kind of chicanery he claimed to loathe so much—his reasons never made sense to me but he said I just didn’t have the right kind of mind to follow it.”

“He was part of it, and Ramsey Douglass, and Ross Trumble, is that right? Why did they all behave like dedicated right-wing reactionaries? Was it intended as camouflage, to throw off suspicion?”

“Partly. We came here with instructions to act ultra-American. But it was more than that. We had to infiltrate the defense establishment and the political power structure, and down here they’re both pretty much in the hands of the conservatives. You’re not a conservative, of course, but the Republican Party has pretty firm control over Arizona’s politics, and you were a Republican, so Les and I attached ourselves to you.” In a lower voice she added, “Like leeches.”

He clasped his hands together and scowled at his knuckles. “They refused to let you go back to Russia but you still didn’t try to break loose from them. Why? Because you were afraid they’d kill you?”

“I think I could have accepted that. No, they never make do with so simple a threat as that. You see, as long as Les was loyal to them I couldn’t do a thing. If I’d stepped out of line they would have killed him the way they killed my husband. They kept reminding me of that—Nicole did. They had Les and they had my family back in Russia. That’s the kind of weapon they’ve used against all of us.”

“What vicious bastards they are.”

“They’re frightened, Alan. Frightened people do desperate things.”

Spode, at the front window, turned his head. “That’s no excuse.”

“I don’t suppose anything excuses us,” she replied. Her eyes were fixed sightlessly on Forrester’s hands. Spode put his back to the window and stared at Ro

Forrester knew that much about Spode; he wished he knew as much about himself. The silence was begi