“Sure, but local authorities at these attack sites are not going to welcome a one-man detective agency nosing around.”
“You’ll win them over.”
Paul heard a knock at the door.
“Room service! May I come in?”
“Yeah!”
The door opened, and as his tray was pushed in Paul was about to turn away to continue his conversation when he recognized the deliveryman as his curly-haired driver from the airport Friday. Unless this was his twin, Paul could be in mortal danger.
“Jae,” he said calmly, only half turning from the man to keep him in his peripheral vision, “let me call you back.”
“Everything okay, Paul?”
Paul rang off. As he turned toward the rolling cart, he planted his foot and lunged toward it, grabbing his end with both hands and propelling it into the thighs of the man. It drove him back into the door, spilling food all over him. Paul leaped over the cart and atop the man, pinning him to the floor. “You armed?”
“No!” the man spat. “I just wanted to talk to you! I wanted to thank you for getting me fired.”
“You went to all this trouble for that? I doubt it.” Paul searched him and found a fifty-caliber handgun. He raised it as if to strike the man in the head.
The man flinched, pulling away. “Think for a minute, man. Before you call anybody, hear me out.”
Paul held the weapon on him. “You got yourself fired, friend. Don’t put that on me. Do you know the penalty for assault on an International Government agent?”
“I didn’t assault you, sir. You assaulted me.”
“What, you moonlight here in room service and just happen to carry a gun?”
“For a smart guy, you’re pretty dense.” His head was against the door, constricting his voice. “Can I at least sit up?” Paul backed off and let him rearrange himself. “Thanks. Didn’t you think I was being too obvious when I drove you to headquarters?”
“Too obvious?”
“Mistreating an honored guest?”
“Frankly I figured you were an idiot and didn’t give it much thought.”
“It didn’t surprise me when I got fired. Shouldn’t have surprised you.”
“What are you getting at? I could put a bullet through your head and not a question would be asked. Dengler himself knows you had a motive to come after me.”
“If I wanted to kill you, I’d have come in shooting, wouldn’t I?”
Paul froze. That was true.
“I wasn’t even drawing down on you when you attacked, Doctor. What do you make of that?”
Paul sat on the bed, the man’s gun still at the ready. “Keep talking.”
“He is risen.”
Paul blinked slowly. “What?”
“You heard me. If you can’t respond to that, you might as well shoot me and tell the story any way you want.”
Paul’s mind raced. He could barely take in the possibilities. Could the entire scenario have been planned by International, based on suspicions in America? Could they get him to commit, do him in, and tell his wife he mysteriously disappeared? The only proper answer to the man was “He is risen indeed,” but Curly had been right: Paul had blundered at least twice already. As a surly driver, the man had been a bit much. And the bumbling approach with his weapon tucked away should have told Paul there was more here than met the eye.
“So you’re part of the Swiss underground?” Paul tried.
“I know you were told there wasn’t one. That’s because your guy was told the same by the people who told me you were coming. He is risen.”
Paul set his jaw. He could respond, test the waters. If he was wrong he’d know soon enough and could still kill the man. “He is risen indeed.”
“Call me Gregor,” the man said, moving to rise.
“Just stay right there for now, Gregor,” Paul said. “I’m still processing this.”
“You can trust me,” Gregor said. “We are brothers.”
“Yeah, well, that may be. But I won’t trust you just because you say so.”
“It doesn’t make sense to you that your contact isn’t aware of the Bern underground?”
“For starters, yes.”
“My contact is Abraham from the Detroit underground. Your man, Straight, is on a need-to-know basis about us. By the time you next talk to him, he will have been informed.”
Or arrested.
“May I stand?” Gregor said.
Paul nodded. “I’ll be hanging on to the fifty-caliber.”
“Suit yourself, but it should feel a little light.”
Paul popped the clip and found it empty. No shell in the chamber either. He sighed and shook his head and tossed it to Gregor.
“You’re going to be looking for Enzo in Rome and Chapp in Paris. Now, how would I know that if I weren’t on your side? If I were working for Dengler and we knew that much, the European resistance would be through, wouldn’t it?”
For the first time, Paul relaxed. But he couldn’t force a smile, couldn’t match Gregor’s enthusiasm. The adrenaline rush from a death threat always left him nearly incapacitated.
“I’m here to encourage and help you,” Gregor said. “Sorry if I alarmed you.”
“Well, there’s the understatement of the century. What now?”
“You go to Rome tomorrow as planned. I’ll see you there. I can save you a lot of time.”
Paul helped clean up the mess and sent Gregor out with the rolling table so as not to create any more attention from room service. Finally Paul called Jae back and apologized. “They screwed up my order” was all he dared tell her.
Paul’s dreams were filled with underground meetings gone awry, room-service waiters with high-powered weapons meeting him at every turn. There had been times when he was younger when he worried that such dreams revealed his true cowardice. Yet he had always functioned at the peak of his abilities. Maybe his weakness when unconscious made him concentrate more when he was awake. A man could hope.
6
JAE FOUND A BANQUET of frozen fish in the bottom of her freezer—everything from scallops and shrimp to lobster and mahimahi. This she thawed, stir-fried in garlic sauce, folded with generous amounts of three different cheeses, and baked as a casserole. The kids loved it, she supposed because it was close enough to macaroni and cheese. Straight had two large helpings and was effusive in his praise.
Problem was, the fish was old. Had Jae sampled it during the stir-fry stage she might have noticed the rubbery quality of especially the scallops and shrimp. But good cheese, not overcooked, apparently overcame the texture malfunction, and unless Straight was a better actor than Jae knew, she had scored.
The kids ate half their desserts and toyed with the rest, so Jae was inclined to let them go when they singsonged, “May I be excused?”
“You may,” she said. “Mr. Straight and I would like to talk, and then he can come play with you.”
“Whoa,” Straight said, smiling. “Now just a minute here. You two are going nowhere!”
“What?” the kids squealed, Brie appearing to sense some sort of a tease and Connor looking to her for a clue.
“What kind of guest would I be if I let you kids get away without helpin’ your mama? You—” he said, pointing at Connor—“carefully take your dish to the sink and scrape off the extra food into the garbage. And you—” pointing at Brie now—“do the same and start the hot water running. Get me some soap in there. We’ll all clear our own places; then I’ll wash and Mama will dry. Fair enough?”
Connor looked unsure until Brie cheered. Then he was in.
“Thank you, Straight,” Jae said. “I could have handled it all after you’d gone.”
“No need for that,” he said. “Maybe they’ll get the idea to help you all the time.”
“I should be so lucky.”
Later, after Straight roughhoused with the kids and helped Jae get them ready for bed, she insisted he wait downstairs while she tucked them in.
“As you wish,”
he said. “I’d better get going soon anyway.”
“Read the paper or watch TV,” she said. “I’d just like a little time with you.”
Jae was preoccupied as she put the kids down. She didn’t dare mention Paul’s dad’s letter. She couldn’t imagine Paul ever having mentioned that, even to his best friend. She wanted insight on Paul, though, and she couldn’t think of anyone better to get it from.
When finally she sat across from Straight in the living room and he put the paper down, she realized he was nervous again. What was it? Her? He didn’t seem to want to maintain eye contact. Maybe it was something about being alone with a woman. But he was nearly thirty years her senior.
“Straight,” she said, “first I just want to thank you for everything. For coming tonight. For putting up with the kids.”
“I love those kids.”
“I know you do.”
“For not mentioning my rubbery fish.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s the way I like it. I wondered how you knew!”
“But mostly I want to thank you for what you’ve done for Paul.”
“Oh, no—I . . .”
“You came into his life when he needed someone the most. You went way past your role as a hospital volunteer, and you became his friend.”
“I’d like to think we’re friends, yes.”
“Well, I should say you are, and I know you don’t have the time to get involved in the lives of all the patients you must see every day.”
“No, that’s true. Fact is, I don’t believe I have a relationship with anyone else outside the hospital. A few kids I keep up with with birthday cards and pictures, you know. But Paul captured me. He’s a very special person. ’Course, you know that better than I.”
Jae leaned forward, elbows on her knees, peering at this magnificent man. Still, she could not get him to look at her for longer than a second. It was charming, really, his shyness. “That’s just it,” she said. “I think I’ve learned from you to view Paul in a new way. And somehow that makes him seem like a different man.”
“He is a different man,” Straight said. “I mean . . . ah . . . that he, uh, is sure a different person than when he came home from the hospital.”
“Straight, he’s a different person than he ever used to be. He’s a better man than the one I fell in love with years ago. Do you know we’ll celebrate twelve years of marriage this summer?”
“I do know that,” Straight said. “Paul talks about it.”
“He does?”
Straight smiled and looked away. “I shouldn’t be tellin’ tales out of school.”
“What?”
“Well, he admits that not all twelve years are worth celebrating, especially for you.”
“He said that?”
“I didn’t make it up. Doesn’t it sound like him?”
“No. It sounds like me. He’s right, of course, and has himself to blame. I’m not saying I’ve been perfect in all this, but I was always faithful to him.”
Jae realized she had just told Straight, if not in so many words, of Paul’s affair and assorted flings. “I’ve said too much.”
“Not at all,” Straight said. “Paul and I talk about these things.”
“You do? He does?”
Straight nodded. “If it makes you feel any better, he takes all the blame. Says you never gave him cause. Oh, you could be a tough one when you caught him, and sometimes he used that to fuel his own rationalizations, but even then he knew he was wrong. He really loves you, ma’am.”
“Six months ago I’d have laughed at that,” she said.
“I might have too. You remember he didn’t treat me all that kindly at first.”
“He wasn’t treating anyone nice at first. I wouldn’t have predicted you two would have become friends.”
“Me either,” Straight said. “And now I can’t imagine otherwise.”
Jae sighed. Straight was stirring as if ready to go. She didn’t want to keep him past his comfort point, but she sensed she hadn’t really gotten anywhere yet. “Straight, what do you make of Paul? What’s happened to him?”
“Ma’am?”
“All this we’ve been talking about. It’s as if I’m married to a different person all of a sudden.”
“I don’t hear you complaining.”
She laughed. “Of course not. I just want to understand it. If I did or said or acted any differently and that brought it about, I want to keep doing it.”
Straight pursed his lips and stared at the ceiling. “Frankly I believe this was an inner change, ma’am. More his doing than yours. Oh, your response triggers more of the same. Anybody responds to positive feedback.”
Jae rested her chin in her palm. “You don’t suppose he’s covering, do you?”
“Ma’am?”
“Feeling guilt over something?”
Straight hesitated. “Such as?”
“Another involvement. I don’t guess it would be fair to ask you to tell me if you knew anything like that.”
“I don’t mind saying, ma’am, that if I suspected that, while I might not tell you, I would no longer be his friend.”
Jae flinched. “Seriously?”
“I don’t go in for that. I was not a good citizen when my wife was alive, but I never cheated on her once—no, ma’am, not ever. I have no respect for people who do that to one another, husband or wife. I never let Paul get away with even coming to the edge of justifying what he used to do.”
“I know you counsel him on how to treat me, Straight, and I appreciate that more than you know and more than I can say.”
“Just common sense,” Straight said.
“Well, it may make sense, but it’s not common enough. Listen, I know you want to get going, but can I ask one more thing?”
“Of course.”
She told him of her father’s idea and the enthusiasm for it that was shared by her mother, her brother, and her brother’s wife. “I have a lot of reasons not to do this,” she said. “The kids mainly. But I have to confess it intrigues me. The days get lonely. I get squirrelly.”
Straight had a strange look. She didn’t know what to make of it. “Well,” he said, “I’d miss the kids.”
“It wouldn’t be for long. Only until Paul returns. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. You want an honest answer, I just can’t say. At first blush, I’m not sure it’s wise. Can’t tell you why. Just makes me uneasy. But let me think on it. I shouldn’t be the one to help you decide anyway. Paul should. But you asked.”
Jae sat in her dark living room for more than an hour after Straight left. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening with him, until the end. That she couldn’t make compute. She had even enjoyed getting a little private insight into Paul, and her mind was put at ease, at least for now, about his roving eye. Who knew how long that would last when he was this far away for who knew how long?
But Jae had fully expected Straight’s support for her temporary move to Washington. When she posed the question she thought she was genuinely looking for input, but when he was—there was no other way to say it—essentially cold to the idea, it stunned her. She realized immediately that she had really wanted and fully expected his approval. He had asked for time to think about it, but that was just his way of avoiding rudeness; she was sure of it. He didn’t like the idea, didn’t know why, or wouldn’t say. And that was that.
Worse, Jae knew now that she would disappoint Straight if and when she went to Washington. And she was pretty sure she would be going. As she sat there she was distracted by the fact that more cars seemed to pass the house at that hour than she was used to. Or was it the same car?
Jae stood by the window in the darkness, waiting. She was about to go up to bed when a car pulled slowly past. She tried to study it, to get a bead on the make, but she could not. When it did not return she went upstairs, changed, and slid into bed, missing Paul more than ever. So before she let her mind disengage, she went to the
closet to find his robe. As she pulled it off the hook she caught sight of the cache of discs of the New Testament Paul had used to familiarize himself with his target. He had taken a few with him, but several were left.
Might listening to these give her some insight into him or at least something they could discuss? She pulled down a handful she could listen to in the house or in the car after dropping the kids off at school. They would be archaic, she knew, and full of legends and fairy tales and, what else, poetry? But perhaps they would make her feel less alone, more involved in what Paul was doing.
Paul was up at five-thirty Tuesday morning and already regretting it. He had arranged an early commercial flight to Rome, not really expecting to have been up so late the night before. The meeting with NPO International the day before had been largely perfunctory and nearly interminable.
And while he finally persuaded himself he had actually met a brother in Gregor later, the man’s tactics and approach were so disconcerting that Paul was still reeling from the encounter. He wasn’t entirely sure the advantage of Gregor’s saving him time connecting with the underground in Rome would be worth the risk of his bumbling. When he considered the numerous ways he could have been exposed by the fiasco last night, Paul could only shake his head.
He had showered, shaved, and was wolfing a light breakfast from room service when a call came from Baldwin Dengler’s office. It was his executive assistant.
“You’re in early, ma’am.”
“Every day,” she said without humor, though he had found her most pleasant in person. “I just wanted to tell you of a slight change of plans.”
“I’m on my way out the door. Flight to Rome at seven, you know.”
“Your driver is aware of the change, Dr. Stepola. He will bring you here for a brief private meeting with the chancellor.”
“Well, all right, but I’ll have to change my flight. I—”
“I have already taken the liberty of doing that, sir. You will be transported to Rome privately via government charter.”
“Oh, well, then. Very good. What time would that be?”
“Well, Doctor, they won’t leave without you. That’s the beauty of a charter. Your driver should be there now. Are you available for the meeting with the chancellor?”
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