She paused and eased herself up onto her arms.
‘Tell me. Am I a match for your Seagull?’
‘Oh Nan, what a question. You can’t possibly compare women.’
Nancy laughed. ‘John Railton, you are a slithery, hypocritical diplomat. You know damned well you compare women. Everyone does. But I forgive you. I know I can compete now. Wives are right to fear mistresses. A mistress can focus on sex so much better, excluding all the day-to-day worries that get in the way. But I’m not a wife anymore and I can focus on it too:’
She smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation—and it probably is— Paul is an absolute disaster in bed. He’s the original two-minute wonder. And before you start fishing, yes, I did miss your loving, you old stud. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.’
‘Nan, why did you marry him?’ I said. ‘I swore I’d never ask, but I’d like to know.’
‘You mean what’s a tough, independent lady like me doing hanging around a shit like Paul? Well the truth is, I wasn’t the tough lady then. I’ve been through the fire in the past year; the clay’s hardened a bit. When you were away so much, I felt neglected. Unfulfilled. I had no career and no kids. I didn’t really blame you, I just fell out of love with myself. Paul flattered me. He offered me a role: a Sellinger lady. It wasn’t a career, but it seemed so much bigger than being a neglected World News wife. The big stage; independence, some power.
‘All an illusion, of course. I was leaving him anyway, before this. But I was doing it my own way. I’m using his money quite ruthlessly, I’m afraid. I’ve fallen in love with flying and I’m spending more on logging hours than is decent. I was going to get him to give me the plane…’
‘Nan,’ I interrupted gently. ‘I’m sorry I neglected you. I should have given you a life in World News.’
She looked at me curiously.
‘As what—a good World News wife? Eventually to become the president’s lady and hostess-in-chief?’
Taking me completely by surprise, she reached down and seized my shoulders, shaking them angrily.
‘You stupid, stupid man, John Railton. You really believe that’s what it was about, don’t you? That if you’d let me give a few more dinner parties and you’d come home a bit more often, everything would have been okay. Dammit, don’t you understand I wanted to be a correspondent? I could have been a fine one, as good as you. And as good an executive. You really don’t see, do you, that in a differently ordered world, I might have been chief executive of World News. It never crossed your mind, did it? I can think as well as you, perceive as well as you. With training, I could write as well as you. Don’t you see, we’re interchangeable, you and I.’
Suddenly, I felt her hands relax and I saw she was beginning to laugh. I knew the switch so well. Her sense of humor had always been one of her finest graces; she despised people who took themselves too seriously, and rarely did herself for long.
‘Jesus,’ she said, ‘this is a funny way to run a reconciliation.’
I smiled. ‘Maybe. But it’s true—-I never did think of you that way. And I’m ashamed.’
‘Well, don’t be,’ she said. ‘At least not now. I shouldn’t have started ranting. Let’s see if you’re still ticklish instead.’
She made a grab for my midriff. I yelped, knowing how quickly she could plunge her fingers in, and seized her in a playful bear hug. I didn’t apply much pressure; it was a hold I’d put her in a hundred times when we used to wrestle around in bed, but she winced and I saw her face constrict with pain.
‘Nan, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt…’
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t you. My back’s a bit sore, that’s all.’
‘Here, turn over. Let me have a look.’ Reluctantly, she turned on her stomach and I gently examined her back. Just over the kidney, I saw some pale subcutaneous bruises.
I stopped smiling. ‘Was this Paul?’
‘It’s nothing…’
‘Nan,’ I said, ‘I didn’t spend two years in the military police without knowing about hitting people without leaving marks,’ I said. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘You mean after I came to Samman’s?’
‘Yes. He pretends it’s a love spank, then he says he’s sorry afterwards.’
‘Nan, you don’t play-spank someone on the kidneys. Does he do it often?’
‘No, only when he’s very angry. That business with Sally Menzies really got under his skin.’
‘Nan, it can’t have been that. Sally can’t have been that important to him. It must have been because of me.’
‘Perhaps. But it was Sally he was ranting about when he slammed me in the back.’
‘It doesn’t make much sense,’ I said. ‘Have you any idea what it was about?’
‘Not really. I think it had something to do with Chad.’
I grinned. ‘Nan, you must have gotten that wrong,’ I said. ‘Paul would never go to Chad. He’s as likely to make a trip to the Falkland Islands.’
‘Maybe.’ Nancy paused. ‘John Railton, I’m going to end this conversation right now. I did not agree to climb back into your arms in order to discuss my husband’s trips. Now you’re not a two-minute wonder and I intend to make the most of that. So lie back while I do some revival work and after that…’
She eased herself down the bed and settled herself comfortably, with her head nestled against my thigh. I lay back savoring the delicate movements of her tongue. I knew the route the exploration would take. It had been a long time, but I could remember every exquisite stage.
Then I heard the scraping sound outside the bedroom door. Another moment and I certainly wouldn’t have noticed it, but in that first moment of luxurious pleasure, I was sensitive to every sound in the silent room.
What flashed through my mind was pure instinct. The thoughts came so fast that it was like one single idea: The only sensible course for Sellinger now is to kill us both. He tried with Seagull. He must try with Nancy. If she were dead, the Dahran file would still be damning. If they were going to attack, it should logically be from the garden. The windows were open. A grenade tossed in would be the simplest way. No, that wasn’t right. Ryder and his men were in the garden with the bugging equipment. The best way was from the landing.
The whole sequence of thought seemed to last only a split second. I grabbed Nancy’s head between my hands and held it still, pushing her away from me.
She thought I was teasing, and tried to force herself back down on me, but I pushed harder and held her still in an iron grip.
The rustling sound was a little louder. What would they be doing? The doors in the hospice were of massive oak with big locks and this one was bolted from the inside. They couldn’t force them open to lob a grenade. They would use plastic on the lock to blow it open, then a grenade. Two moves and it would all be over.
There was no time for countermoves. I hurled myself upright, forcing Nancy violently backward. She let out a yell and I grabbed her and shouted, ‘Come on, quick. The window.’
I ran across the room dragging Nancy behind me, onto the balcony. ‘Jump,’ I shouted, ‘jump!’
She hesitated, not understanding, poised naked on the edge of the balustrade. If I was right, there was no time to argue. I scooped her up in my arms, aimed her as well as I could, and virtually threw her down into the garden one floor below. In a second I was after her and I landed sprawling beside her in the flower beds in front of the hotel.
I pulled myself up to a kneeling position, feeling my legs sinking into the soft flower bed. I looked across at Nancy. She didn’t seem to be badly hurt, but she was bleeding from a big scratch on her hip where she had scraped against a large thistly plant. Already, people were beginning to run out of the hotel entrance. I looked up and saw that the bedroom was completely quiet and peaceful.
I stayed very still, feeling totally and abjectly stupid. There was nothing I could say, but Nancy managed to grin and said quiet
ly, ‘John, if you didn’t like the sex, you only had to say. You didn’t have to throw me out of the fucking window.’ She leaned forward and touched my arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I know you’re jumpy. Let’s get some clothes on before the management starts selling tickets.’
I was just about to make a joke about the leap looking terrific on a report to the World News board when the explosion rocked the front of the hotel. The noise was deafening and the bedroom we had jumped from vanished in a red flash and a swirl of smoke and flying debris. I threw myself on top of Nancy and tried to spread my body as far as I could over hers. As the hail of masonry and broken glass cascaded down, I could feel the sharp fragments biting into my back.
All around, there were screams and shouting and when I looked up, I saw that half the wall of the hotel had collapsed and crumbled completely away.
Then I heard Ryder’s voice, ‘John. Quick. The car on the driveway,’ and I pulled Nancy upright and started to run.
20
When I got back to the World News building in London, I announced that before anything else was done, I wanted a detailed inquiry into the firing of Sally Menzies.
No one questioned the decision openly. When I saw that even Cox was trying to humor me, I decided that it was time to announce some other decisions I’d taken on the flight back from France.
I waited until Ryder was back from installing Nancy in a CIA safe house outside London, then I called Cox, Jopling, and Pike into my office and asked them all, slightly formally, to sit around the conference table.
‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I don’t want this little speech to sound ungrateful. But it has to be made. Since this Starburst thing began, every one of you has helped me in ways which can’t be repaid adequately with thanks.’ I turned to Ryder. ‘Bob, you saved my neck in the first place. Without you, I’d have been arrested and the game would have been over before it began. And I haven’t forgotten that, but I’ve decided that as of this moment, I’m taking sole charge of my side of the Starburst affair.
‘In the past few days, I’ve yo-yoed around the world responding to pressures and theories from the intelligence community. I’ve almost been killed twice, and I’ve been led into believing that two women I love had both betrayed me. I’ve been threatened with exposure as a drug addict and a lecher and portrayed to my own board as a violent and unstable idiot who isn’t fit to manage a hamburger stand.
‘I’m completely and totally satisfied in my own mind that Paul Sellinger is responsible for all this, and as of this moment I’m going to proceed as I think best to prove it and to find out how and why. Bob, whatever the intelligence community feels it must do, it must do. But it can do it without me. I’m taking charge of my own campaign. The shadowplay is over; it’s time to bring things out into the open.’
I turned back to the rest of the group.
‘Now, the first thing I want done is to find out why Sally Menzies was fired. I’m following a hunch. The same kind of hunch that kept me alive in the Auberge de la Vallée. I decided on the flight back that I haven’t been following my hunches nearly enough of late.
‘We’ll set up our base here. Nick has been briefed fully and he’s on the team from now on. My information is that Sellinger is at Samman’s Farm and he’s canceled his appointments for the day. I want instructions given to all my personal staff that no one is to communicate with him. I want him kept guessing about what happened in France. Total blackout. Not even to say who is in my office. Understood?
‘Now the cover for all this is simple. If anyone queries anything I ask any of you to do, you simply let it be known that I’ve declared war finally and definitively on Paul Sellinger. My back’s against the wall. He’s asked the board for my resignation. I’m fighting back. Doing anything I can to get the dirt on him.’
I tapped a sheet of memos and printouts from the E Net that were lying on my desk.
‘Now I’m aware that there are pressing matters needing my attention. Geoffrey Haycroft has managed to get the unions back to work provisionally, but he wants to consult me on several points in the negotiations. Nick has been in touch with seven board members and some are wavering. They’ll be calling, wanting meetings. There are twenty other matters that have been neglected while I’ve been chasing around Europe. For the moment, I do not care. I want to know about Sally Menzies. I want to know why Paul Sellinger got so worked up about her firing and what the hell Chad has to do with it. It may have nothing to do with the Starburst business. That’s my responsibility. Now, are there any questions?’
Ryder eased himself out of his chair.
‘Nope. No questions,’ he said. ‘I know you in this mood. All I can say is, God help Paul Sellinger. I’ll be at the Embassy. We’ve had a first report on the attack in France. No arrests and no clues. It’s being treated as a terrorist attack against the hotel. I’ll stay in touch.’
When he had gone, Pike said, ‘You know, if I were you, I’d bring your Seagull in on this. She’s a very bright lass and she’s getting damned bored at the flat.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Fetch her personally, would you, Jim, and brief her on the way.’
When Seagull arrived, she looked as cheerful as if she’d just been let out of prison. When I introduced her to Jopling, I couldn’t resist a little tease. ‘Jennifer,’ I said, ‘this is Nick Jopling. Nick, I believe you know Jennifer from her photograph.’ Nick blushed and Seagull grinned and said, ‘I know it wasn’t very good. I always did look better in profile.’
When Nick had moved away, Seagull took me aside.
‘I gather your sex life got a little hectic in France. That’ll teach you never to go back to old wives.’ I was trying to think of something to say when she grinned and said. ‘It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re all right.’
When everyone was assembled, I set up the operations center in the annex that I used as an extension of my office for bigger conference meetings. Cox arranged a VDU and a bank of telephones, and before we began, I added one last detail which I knew could well be the most important.
I called the World News butler and asked him to select a dozen of the company’s choicest wines and prepare them as a gift case. When they arrived, I told Cox to take them down to Marge. ‘Tell her we’re choosing sides for a war and the wine is better on our team,’ I said.
Marge was the supervisor of the World News telephone exchange, which was known throughout the media as the magic switchboard. Marge’s personal nickname was the Eye of God, because, it was said, she always knew where everyone was at any moment and she could find you whether you were in the wrong bed or the wrong country. Her passion was wine and I told Cox simply to give her the case and say it was my personal wish that Paul shouldn’t find out what was going on.
Nick Jopling, who always loved a chance to play journalist, took over the VDU and got on line to the World News reference library to call up all the information we had on Chad.
Cox brought Sally Menzies’ personal file from Personnel and immediately we hit our first snag. Officially she hadn’t been fired, but she’d obviously left in anger and she had asked for no reference and left no forwarding or contact address.
But the file did show a mother in Scotland.
‘Wouldn’t you know it’d be in the Outer Hebrides,’ Seagull said. But Cox grinned. ‘It’s a helluva lot better than Glasgow,’ he said. ‘Marge won’t even take off her warm-up suit for that one.’
The mother wasn’t at home, but Marge found her in three calls and put me through to her on the village store telephone in Stornoway against the background of a howling wind. She didn’t know where Sally was exactly. She was hitchhiking but she wasn’t moving all the time, and she was picking up mail in Basel but not for another week. When I asked her about boyfriends or companions for the trip, she got a bit huffy but eventually she agreed that there might be a boy with her and she gave us an address in Grimsby.
Cox called the home but the boy was there; he’d broken up with Sally and didn�
��t sound very happy about it. Seagull came on the line and coaxed the boy into telling us a bit more. There’d been a fight. Yes, there was another boy. Someone in London—and we had another name. We found the boy’s address and his father gave us the employer; the boy was on holiday, but his workmates said he hadn’t gone anywhere. Seagull again got the next link—a pub where he might be drinking. Two calls and we had the boy and he gave us our first breakthrough. He had meant to go with Sally but hadn’t had the money. She’d said, ‘If you get any later, meet me in Strasbourg’—and the rendezvous day was tomorrow.
That narrowed it down, but not far enough. She could be already in Strasbourg or a day away. We tried Strasbourg first and finally had some luck. Cox got a guidebook from the WN library and we called every hotel we thought she might be able to afford. It wasn’t done slowly and painstakingly, it was done quickly and painstakingly: thirty calls on six lines in twenty minutes, made by two French-speaking correspondents rounded up from the newsroom day shift, from among those I could trust.
We found the hotel, but not her. She had gone out to lunch, they thought. The guidebook again. Twenty restaurants and we found her in the eleventh. I talked to her personally and we put the call on tape and on the speaker phone. As I listened, I felt the familiar shiver. We had our break and, finally, somewhere to start.
She had been fired because she had failed to destroy some documents and she was furious because she still didn’t know why it was important. She said there was a standing instruction among Sellinger’s personal staff that no travel voucher or credit-card slip should ever be kept in the files; he hated anyone having any record of his movements, and if any came in, they were handed to him personally. There had been a letter, from a bank in Ndjamena, saying that there had been a mistake in an over-the-counter transaction exchanging dollars for CFA francs. The bank owed Mr. Sellinger fourteen dollars. Where should they remit? Sally had ignored the letter, leaving it at the bottom of a non-urgent in-tray. Sellinger had found it and forced her to quit in a fit of fury.
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