Powers felt naked. Rather than return her stare, he set the wineglass down and fiddled with the menu. Finally, she turned away. Powers had been on enough surveillances to know that people looking-even staring-at others wasn't all that uncommon, and the feeling that the subject of a surveillance was aware of the surveillant was a common one.
Nevertheless, Powers was concerned. He considered canceling his order and leaving the dining room but figured if she was suspicious of him he would only be drawing attention to himself. Waiting for his meal to be served, he avoided looking directly at her.
A few minutes later, Marilyn's waiter served her meal and, after wiping the mouth of the bottle with a linen towel, carefully filled her wineglass.
She turned in Powers's direction again-just a glance. And it was a glance. Her attention was drawn to him. Then she turned away, ignoring him as she ate.
Powers felt like crawling under the table. Finally, the waiter brought his plate. It was filled with a generous portion of the dark boar meat, which had a pungent, rich taste, and a large helping of spaetzle: strings of dumpling soaked in butter. He ate heartily, promising himself to jog extra miles to make up for the excess calories.
Marilyn, though having finished nearly half the bottle of wine on her table, seemed to be only pushing food about on her plate. Again, she glanced in his direction. Powers prayed she was only looking for her waiter rather than staring at him. She waved to get the waiter's attention and he came to her table. They exchanged a few words and he took a bill from his inside pocket. Setting it on the table in front of her, he handed her a pen. She was going to leave.
Powers breathed a sigh of relief. He decided to wait in the dining room until she'd left the room before trying to follow her.
She signed the check. The waiter picked it up and left the table. Then, in a deliberate fashion, Marilyn took her napkin from her lap and set it on the table next to her plate. She pushed her chair back and got to her feet.
Figuring she was heading for the door, Powers kept his eyes on his plate to avoid eye contact. Then he heard her footsteps on the carpet. Were they coming closer? The footsteps stopped. He looked up and caught his breath.
"May I join you?" Marilyn said. She was standing in front of his table. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, perhaps from the wine she'd been drinking. "Since you're following me, it'll make things easier for you."
****
ELEVEN
Powers felt his stomach muscles tighten. His temples throbbed and his mouth felt dry. As he saw it, he had three choices: he could remain mute, lie and hope she would believe him, or, accepting the fact that he'd blown the surveillance, simply get up and leave the table. But from the look in her eye and the confidence in her voice he could tell it would do no good. The cat was out of the bag. Damn!
He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about." It sounded lame the moment the words came out of his mouth.
"I said, may I join you?"
He found himself standing and pulling a chair back for her.
She sat down. "I first spotted you on Scott Circle near my apartment," she said as Powers returned to his seat. "I could tell you were watching someone who lived in the apartment house. Then I walked out to go shopping and there you were, right behind me."
Powers's face and hands were tingling with chagrin.
Marilyn eyed the wine.
Taking the hint, he slid an empty wineglass in front of her and, hoping she didn't notice the nervous tremor in his hand as he poured, filled it nearly full.
"I want to compliment you on your surveillance abilities. Very professional. "
"Obviously not professional enough."
She picked up the glass. "I ran the license plate of your car and found out it registers to the Library of Congress. A friend in the FBI told me Secret Service uses the library as a cover registration for its vehicles. I was relieved." She sipped the wine.
As the full impact of what was happening hit him, the dining room suddenly seemed bigger and colder. He was sitting across a table from the target of his surveillance. His mission had failed. He was burned, made; the case was over.
"Relieved?"
"I was relieved to learn you weren't a foreign spy or a sex fiend."
She ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass, and it made a squeaking sound. "Someone ordered you to follow me ... to investigate me. Well, what could be better than getting the information direct from the source? Go ahead. Ask me any question you want. I have nothing to hide."
They stared at each other for what must have been half a minute.
"Look, it's inappropriate for me to talk with you," Powers said.
"But it's not inappropriate for you to surveil me twenty-four hours a day?" she said angrily. "To follow me halfway around the world? Look, fella, I have a top-secret clearance just like you." There was a tear welling at the corner of her right eye. She brushed it away with the back of her hand and glared at him. "Don't just sit there and act like you don't know what's going on." Her chin quivered, but she controlled herself quickly. Wiping at another tear, she opened her purse and foraged for a handkerchief. "If you won't admit who you are, I'm going to get up right now and make a telephone call to the Director of the United States Secret Service."
"Okay." Powers reached into his inside jacket pocket for a clean handkerchief. "I'm a Secret Service agent assigned to the White House Detail," he said, feeling off balance. He handed the handkerchief to her.
She hesitated for a moment and then accepted it. "I'm usually not emotional, but I've been under a lot of pressure recently," she said, dabbing at her eyes. "That's why I had to get away from DC." She opened the handkerchief and blew her nose.
"I'm just doing a job."
"I knew working in the White House meant being under a lot of scrutiny, but I didn't think it would go so far as actual surveillance. "
She picked up her wineglass.
"They must have given you some reason for following me. What did they tell you, that I was a potential presidential assassin?"
"No. Actually ... it's just a routine surveillance. Everyone working in the White House is surveilled now and then."
"I've never heard that."
"Even the White House barber is tailed now and then," Powers lied. "But you're the first one to have left the country."
She gazed at him with a puzzled expression. "I guess that would look suspicious."
Powers sipped wine and set the glass down on the table, trying to hide his nervousness. "Why did you fly here?"
"I'm interested in art.... Look. Lately the stress of working in the White House has been getting to me. I began losing sleep ... and weight. "
"I guess that would be a cause for some concern," Powers said, trying to lighten the conversation.
"So I requested two weeks' vacation. It was routinely approved. The first day of my vacation I realized I was under surveillance. Don't blame yourself. You did an excellent job, but I make a habit of looking for it."
"Just some free Secret Service protection."
"What's your name? Forgive me for being inquisitive, but you know my name. I'd like to know yours."
"Jack. Jack Powers."
"Jack. I really did think you were a hostile intelligence agent of some kind-"
"So you decided to save yourself from the hostile intelligence operative following you and fly to Germany," he said.
"I'd always wanted to attend the Documenta-Documenta is the art show you followed me to today. I just went down to a travel agency and purchased a ticket."
"A spur-of-the-moment decision?" he said sarcastically.
"Though it's really none of your business, I'll be happy to explain: Like all us government drones, I don't make a lot of money. I had talked myself out of going to the Documenta three years in a row because of the cost. The spur-of-the-moment decision was to spend the money. I just said the hell with what it cost and put it on my credit card. So here I am."
"Unauthorized fo
reign travel is in violation of the rules of your agency. "
"If I had submitted an amended leave form requesting travel to a foreign country it would have taken two weeks to get the trip approved. By then my annual leave would have expired."
"You could have speeded up the process," Powers said.
"The first rule of the CIA is to avoid drawing attention to oneself. It may be difficult for you glory boys in the Secret Service to understand, but it's a fact of life in the Agency. One doesn't ask for a vacation trip to Germany or any other foreign country without expecting the in-house people to start asking questions."
"Are you saying Agency personnel never travel to foreign countries on vacation?"
"My request to travel to Germany would have been immediately referred to the security section and I would have become the subject of an investigation."
"Do you have something to hide?" Powers said.
"No," she said, glaring at him. "But in-house investigations in the CIA give rise to rumors. And rumors cause people to lose chances for promotions. You know how it is in government: appearance is more important than reality."
Powers wished he hadn't been so assertive. "I understand," he said.
"May I have a little more wine?"
He filled her glass and motioned to the waiter for another bottle.
"You probably think I'm crazy for confronting you like this."
"Not at all," he said. She wasn't the power-seeker type he'd learned to recognize in DC, women who always seemed to show up at every party, every gathering where one could gain exposure to the White House circle: the fast talkers, masters of flirtation and currying favor, cultivators of Boston or Southern accents able to discuss any subject and take any side, to lobby any cause serving their interest, to conquer men of power. Also, she wasn't at all like the depressive Secret Service groupies he'd known. She was different.
He liked her.
The waiter came with the wine. There was an uncomfortable silence at the table as he took his time opening the bottle. Finally, he popped the cork, filled their glasses, and hurried away. They both sipped uncomfortably.
"I'm on vacation, and I'm not going to let the fact that I'm under surveillance bother me one bit. And because I know none of this is your doing, you needn't get in trouble by telling whoever sent you here that I burned you. I don't intend to tell anyone about this. Ever. Thanks for the wine." She got up and headed toward the door. As she passed the maitre d' he made a little bow and gave her an admiring glance. She turned left and headed toward the elevator.
Powers signed his bill quickly and hurried out of the dining room.
Marilyn stepped on the elevator and the doors closed. Powers moved through the lobby and into the garden. He looked up. The light in her room came on.
In his room, Powers dialed the White House operator and asked for Sullivan. Sullivan answered on the first ring.
"That person we're interested in. She went up against me. It's a burn."
"Shit," Sullivan said bitterly.
"There was nothing I could do."
"It's not your fault," Sullivan said after a long silence.
"What should I do now?"
"Stay on her."
"Stay on her even after she faced me off?"
"I'll talk to the powers that be, but we can't walk away. We need to know what she's doing over there," Sullivan said.
"This could get sticky."
"Just do your best to stay on her until I see how the interested party wants to handle it from here. Look, I understand the position you're in and I sympathize."
"That's a Roger."
"And one more thing, Jack. No more phone calls. It's too risky. Good luck."
The phone clicked.
Powers stood there for a moment, then set the receiver down. He turned off the light. In darkness, he moved to the window and tugged the curtain back a few inches. The light in Marilyn's room was still off. To the right was a glass-enclosed second-floor walkway, the only way to reach the lobby or the outside from her room. Even if she was clever enough to slip out of her room without turning on the light, he would see her when she crossed the walkway.
Powers arranged a chair in front of the window and folded the curtain back a few inches. Sitting there, invisible in the darkness and with exhaustion from the long days of surveillance weighting his eyelids, he relived his conversation with her, concentrating on her expressions, her hand movements. What she said made sense, all right, but she was nervous, holding something back. Of course, everyone in the world was holding something back, he told himself, and who wouldn't be nervous under the same circumstances? He alternated between sitting, standing, and pacing at the window for the rest of the hours of darkness.
As the sun came up, he allowed himself a quick shower; then, headachy from lack of sleep, he trudged down to the lobby where he'd be able to follow her if she left the hotel.
Because of the morning rush of guests checking out at the registration desk and bellmen carrying luggage here and there, no one seemed to notice him wandering about the lobby. Shortly after 9 A.M., Marilyn stepped off the elevator dressed in a tank top and fluffy shirt of Madras plaid. Powers stepped behind a pillar to hide from her view.
She crossed the lobby and went out the front door. Powers followed at a discreet distance. She continued across the park and followed a gravel path leading to a small wooden bridge. After crossing the bridge, she entered the cover of some trees at the edge of the grounds of the exhibition hall.
She was out of sight so Powers picked up his pace. Hurrying along the path with the sound of the gravel crunching, he felt the full weight of his fatigue. On the art gallery side of the bridge, the path between the trees leading to the gallery was empty. Powers broke into a jog toward the exhibition hall.
"Obviously you've been told to continue the surveillance," Marilyn said.
Powers stopped and turned.
Marilyn stepped from behind a tree. "Do you like contemporary art?"
"Pardon me?"
"Do you like contemporary art?"
He realized he was slightly out of breath. "Not particularly."
"Well, that's what I'm going to do for the rest of the day: wander around the gallery and the grounds enjoying the show. There's no need for you to be discreet any longer. I know you're following me and I accept it. Now that you know my itinerary, you can go back to the hotel and relax. As a matter of fact, you look like you could use some rest."
"I have to stay with you."
"Get serious. What kind of surveillance is it when the subject knows you're watching?"
"A useless surveillance. But be that as it may, where you go, I have to go."
"It's unnerving."
"Just ignore me. I won't bother you."
"Look, goddammit, I'm not going to have someone creeping around after me for the entire week I'm here."
"Sorry, but I have my instructions."
"The President's man, eh? Following orders whether they make sense or not. How typical of you Secret Service types. Glorified door shakers. A bunch of second-rate presidential bellhop G-men. That's what you are."
"We're not smart enough to get involved in LSD experiments or plan Bay of Pigs invasions like you Agency geeks."
She glared at him. Then, as if coming to a decision, she bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said regretfully. "I didn't mean that. I know you're just doing your job."
"And I apologize for the geek remark.'
"If we're going to be stuck together, let's cut the intrigue. I'm here to see an art show, and I don't want someone shadowing me all day."
"I don't think-"
"It's foolish for you to follow fifty feet behind. If we're stuck together, so be it. Can't we just cut the cat-and-mouse act?" She stood there for a moment staring at him. Finally, she shook her head in frustration, turned, and headed toward the exhibition hall.
Play It by Ear, Powers told himself, was the unofficial motto of the Secret Service. The phrase implied that
no two situations are alike. On any given day, an agent might be required to tackle and handcuff a screeching, biting lunatic on his way over the White House fence ... and an hour later diplomatically escort a drunk United States Senator out of a White House cocktail party. Rather than pass the buck like the law enforcement bureaucrats of the FBI and CIA, who were guided by the dictum Cover Your Ass, the culture of the Secret Service was for operatives to act independently to accomplish the mission. This stemmed from the incontrovertible fact that if the President was assassinated, no plea or explanation in all the world would suffice for the agent who failed in his assigned mission. He or she would enter the enduring annals of American history as the man who allowed the President to get killed.
Playing it by ear, Powers joined Marilyn and they walked the rest of the way to the exhibition hall without saying a word to each other. At the door, they both bought tickets and went in.
Inside the carpeted auditorium, which Powers estimated as the size of two football fields, the crowd was heavy. A maze of room dividers on which paintings of all sizes were displayed covered the entire hall. He realized it would have been nearly impossible to follow her all day in such a crowd.
"Do you know much about contemporary art?" she said.
"Never thought much about it."
"Then you can learn something today."
After moving along a line of canvases bearing only slashes and spots of color, Marilyn stopped for a minute or so in front of a five-foot-square white canvas. There was nothing on it other than a spot of yellow directly in its middle, as if the artist had touched the canvas only once with a loaded brush.
"What do you think?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Seriously, what do you think?"
"Spare. Very spare."
"You think this is nothing, don't you? A sham."
"Now that you mention it, yes. I don't consider a dab of paint on a canvas to be anything but just that. This work might be the result of the artist dropping his brush."
She shook her head. "It all depends on what we see," she said.
"I see a glob of yellow on a blank canvas."
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