“It’ll be in our faces coming back,” Albright said, but he went along.
It wasn’t a bad walk, as far as walking went. The dryness of the air the last few days had gotten rid of the snow without putting the town through slush and mud. The sky was bright blue, and the wind sent dry leaves all around them, scratching secrets on the pavement as they walked.
They walked a block and a half in silence. Finally, Joe Albright said, “You want to talk, or is this just a sight-seeing trip?”
Trotter kept walking with his head down, watching leaves. “In my whole life,” he said, “there is only one person I’ve ever asked the permission of to do anything, and you are not him.”
“No,” Joe said. “I suppose this Congressman you and Rines can’t keep yourselves from talking about is him. God knows you don’t care what Rines says. What about it?”
“I’m asking you. Now.”
“What is this, a test? You should have sprung your goddam tests before you let me know all this secret bullshit.”
“I’ve got to talk to Tina Bloyd about her baby’s death.”
Joe stopped in his tracks. “And you’re asking my permission?”
“I guess I am.”
“Then, no way.”
“Joe—”
“You giving orders now? I’m not saying I’ll follow them if you give them, but if it’s on a permission basis, then no. That woman got through a tough day, but she fell apart at the party, just went to pieces. I’d just come downstairs from getting her to lie down. Doctor who delivered the Piluski kid was there, fortunately. He got his bag from his car and gave her a tranquilizer. I’m not going to go getting her all upset again.”
“One question. All I need is the answer to one question.”
“You go to hell, Trotter. I’ve seen you Agency people in operation, now, so don’t try to jive me with this ‘permission’ crap. If you want to ask her a question—under drugs or torture, even—you’ll do it. But you will never, never, you motherfucker, get me to say it’s okay. If that’s the test, I flunk. Have me shot.”
“Then you ask her.”
“Are you crazy? This is a woman trying to stay sane, and I happen to be in love with her.”
“Other people’s kids died, too. With more still on the menu, maybe. Can’t you just ask her one thing.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Ask her if the kid’s hair was wet.”
Albright started to laugh. He laughed aloud. Cars passing by in the street slowed down to try to see what the big black guy was laughing at.
“Hey,” Trotter said. “I may not be proud of it, but I don’t think it’s funny.”
“You will in a second,” Albright promised. With an effort, he stopped laughing and caught his breath.
“Trotter,” he said, “you have to be the smartest son of a bitch alive. Or the luckiest.”
“I don’t feel like either at the moment.”
“You won’t have to ask your question.”
“You know the answer?”
“I do. And I’m probably the only one who does. They got back to the house after the christening, and the baby was asleep. They put her in the crib, but when the guests started showing up, of course they all had to see how cute she was, so they trooped through there in shifts. It got to the point where there were so many, Tina was taking them through as well as Sharon. One time, she came out shaking like a dog shitting peach pits. I asked her what the matter was, and she said the baby was going to die. She was really upset about it. I kept her from making a scene, got her into the John with the doctor—it was the only place we could have a little privacy. He said she was just overexcited, gave her the shot, and told me to put her to bed.
“The shot took awhile to work, so I waited with her upstairs. I got tired of telling her the doctor said the kid was just fine, so finally I asked her why she thought the baby was in danger. Guess what she told me?”
“I’m not in this for the fucking suspense, Joe. What?”
“Because little Elizabeth had drooled, the way babies do, and there was a big wet spot near her mouth. I told her all babies drool, but she wouldn’t hear it. She said babies must drool in their sleep before they die, because when she found her Clara, there was a big wet spot on the sheet all around her head. It had almost dried, but it was still there.”
“That’s it, then,” Trotter said. “Where’s a phone?”
“Back at the party, I guess. I don’t remember passing any en route.”
“Then maybe a store or—wait a minute. You said the doctor who delivered the Piluski kid was there.”
“Yeah. Do you think I’m making it up? He gave Tina a shot, remember? I thought this drooling business was part of a pipe dream. Apparently you don’t.”
“No,” Trotter said. “I don’t. So the doctor was there. What about the minister who performed the baptism?”
“He was there, at least for a while. I didn’t see him after Tina got upset, but I was in the can and then upstairs.”
“Then let’s just see if he’s still there before we use the phone. I’ve heard an awful lot about the Reverend Mr. Nelson, and I think the time has come for me to meet him face-to-face.”
Chapter Four
THE PILUSKI HOME WAS filled with smoke and loud voices by the time they got back, to say nothing of body heat and liquor fumes. Joe Albright couldn’t see how these people could care much about the baby they were supposedly celebrating when they made the kid’s environment so rotten. There was so much shouting and loud laughter, Joe was amazed that Elizabeth’s mother was able to hear the baby cry—it had to be more ESP than actual hearing.
They didn’t find Mr. Nelson at the party. The consensus seemed to be that he’d gotten a phone call (though hearing the phone would be an accomplishment all its own) and rushed out somewhere. Trotter kept asking people where, nearly shouting himself hoarse to do it.
Joe knew that there was probably some complicated national-security reason Trotter was not taking a step that seemed perfectly obvious to him. At the risk of making a fool of himself, he decided to risk suggesting it. He leaned close to the Agency man and said, “Why don’t you call the church?”
“What?”
“Call the Northside Church. That’s where he probably went, and if he didn’t, he probably told his wife where he was going.”
Trotter nodded solemnly. “And you wanted to know why I didn’t call.”
“Gotta learn sometime.”
“Okay. I didn’t call the church because I’m an asshole. Great idea. Now where’s a phone?”
That led to another series of questions shouted at random partyers. It turned out there were three phones—one in the living room, one in the kitchen, and one in the main bedroom upstairs, the one Joe had put Tina to sleep in.
The party had, as this kind of party often did, spilled out into the kitchen. Joe was ready to forget the phone there and lead Trotter upstairs. Instead Trotter picked up the phone and handed it to Joe to dial. Joe decided to feel flattered—he had been spending time at the church, so Trotter assumed he’d memorized the telephone number. Joe was very happy that he had. He finished pushing buttons, said, “It’s ringing,” and handed Trotter the receiver.
There were still a lot of people around. They were paying attention to a woman in a low-cut dress who was using the process of getting ice cubes from a tray as an excuse to put on a show. That was a pretty good attention-getter, but they could still hear things. Trotter apparently didn’t care.
Wrong again. Trotter took the receiver and walked its extra-long cord right out the back door, closing it behind him. Nobody even noticed.
Trotter came back a few seconds later looking sick. “His wife says he’s gone to hold Jimmy Hudson’s hand.”
“So? He’ll do the kid good. He did wonders for Tina, helped her deal with the loss of her baby.”
“It was the least he could do. It was his job.”
“So it was his job. He did it very well, tu
rned her around when she touched bottom.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean it was his job. He killed Tina’s baby, he killed all of them, and I’ve got to warn Rines before he kills Jimmy Hudson and ruins everything.”
“But I know him, Trotter. He’s absolutely sincere. He’s a good man.”
“That’s the worst kind. Go see how Tina’s doing.”
Joe’s mouth went dry. “You don’t think—”
“No, I don’t. No leverage to be gained in hurting her now. Just go up there, see to her, and get on the phone. Hurry up.”
Joe went. He pushed people aside and sprinted, like a man desperate for the bathroom.
As he climbed the stairs Joe was thinking, this is going to kill her. She had forgiven herself for her baby’s death because Will Nelson had shown her why she should and made her believe it. If she found out he was a spy and a murderer, that he had in fact caused the death he had helped her get over, it would all collapse—faith, hope, confidence, everything. Nothing would be left but bitterness, and Joe couldn’t blame her. He felt pretty bitter about it, himself.
Tina was still sleeping soundly. She seemed more peaceful now than when he’d left her. She looked very innocent and pretty, like a woman redeemed. No, like a woman who’d never needed to be redeemed. How much of that was him, he wondered, and how much of it was Mr. Nelson?
He stood looking at her for a few seconds, aching for her so much that he almost forgot to pick up the phone. She moaned softly as the receiver left the hook but didn’t awaken. Joe smiled.
The smile deepened when he heard Rines’s voice over the phone saying, “Oh, he’s been and gone already.”
Trotter’s silence was eloquent with surprise. “And everybody’s okay?” he said at last.
“All Hudsons present and accounted for. He showed up at the gate, said Jimmy had asked for him. They checked with me, and I told them to send him up. He saw Jimmy in company of one of my men—”
“Thank God for that,” Trotter said. “By the way, Albright’s joined us.”
“Hello,” Joe said quietly. “I don’t want to wake her up.”
“Wake who up?” Rines demanded.
“Don’t be a goddam prude,” Trotter told him. “Go on. He saw Jimmy Hudson ...”
“Jimmy asked him for reassurance in a general way, nothing specific, or I wouldn’t have let Nelson go, got it, and left.”
“Are you sure?”
“I sent Swinton to see him off.”
“Check,” Trotter told him. “Ask Swinton exactly what he said and did.”
Rines sounded resigned. “Right away,” he said, and put Trotter and Joe on hold.
“This stinks, Joe,” Trotter said over syrupy music.
Albright wanted to ask him if it had ever occurred to him he might be wrong, but that might wake Tina. He grunted noncommittally.
“If I’d been less timid about my conclusions, we could have nailed him on the scene. And I should have thought of him long ago. He got here just about the time the murders started. He’s close to the Hudsons; he got close to the others after the deaths. He’s the one who’d think of baptism. Why else do you wet somebody’s head? What a mind; what a sick, brilliant mind. I should have been on to him days ago—should have seen it would take a friend of the family to lure the Stein girl off the grounds. The Congressman would have my balls for hemming and hawing like—”
The music cut off. “I can’t find Swinton,” Rines said. “He didn’t come back.”
Trotter cursed; Rines said it went double for him. Albright thought, the man is scary, but whatever this business takes, he’s got it. It was a very low-percentage operation to laugh at one of Trotter’s conclusions.
“What do we do now?” Joe said, forgetting about Tina for a second.
“Joe?” she said sleepily. She lifted her head, looked around for him, smiled when she saw him. She reached out for his hand. He let her have it. She lay back down, still smiling.
Trotter said, “Yeah, what do we do now? Joe, you get down to the church. Don’t go in. Just try to spot if he’s there, and tail him if he comes out. If he doesn’t come out, wait for one of Rines’s men. Rines, have you got a tame Federal judge around here?”
“Friendly, at least.”
“Friendly enough to give you a search warrant for a church on not much?”
“And the warrant says what?”
“Who cares? This is never going to be a court case. The idea is to get in the door, and defuse the local cops if Mrs. Nelson is there and wants to call them.”
“She could be, um, persuaded not to call.” Joe could hardly believe his own voice. Was he really volunteering to go into a woman’s house and beat her into submission? Or was he just playing devil’s advocate? He wanted to believe the second, but he was honest enough with himself to know he wasn’t sure. This spy business was insidious. From things Rines and Trotter had let slip, Joe gathered Trotter had been doing this kind of work all his life. Joe was beginning to understand how he got so weird.
“Goddammit, Joe!” There was real anger in Trotter’s voice. “You said you had to learn sometime, so learn this now: We don’t hurt people for practice. Got that? We’re fighting swine, and we’re covered with plenty of our own pig shit, but we are American enough not to have sunk that low. Yet. Okay?”
“It’s better than okay. Lets me off the hook.”
“It won’t always. Get moving.”
“I’m sending two men,” Rines put in. “Maybe three. I want to make sure they get there.”
“You’re sure Swinton is dead?”
“Dead or crippled. He wasn’t a plant.”
“You never know,” Trotter said. “I’ll be out there right away.”
Rines grunted and hung up. As Joe replaced the receiver, he thought of the background checks Rines had run on prominent local citizens. The one on Nelson had come out absolutely clean. No, he thought, you never did know.
“Tina, are you all right?”
“I’m fine now. I’m sorry about blowing up that way.”
“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” He said it as if he meant it. He had no problem sounding as if he meant what he said next. “I love you, Tina.”
“I love you, too, Joe.”
“I’ve got to go do some work.” And may you never find out what it is, he thought. “I’ll call you later.” He kissed her and left, to go hunt the Reverend Mr. Will Nelson.
PART EIGHT
Chapter One
ROGER SAT IN THE office of Mel Famey, Senior Editor of Worldwatch magazine and KGB agent, looking down at Mr. Famey’s corpse, telling himself the truth. Telling himself many Truths.
Faith. Faith was the important thing. To a man of Faith, anything was possible. God did not try us beyond our strength. It raineth even on the just as on the unjust—it had to, otherwise the unjust would have an excuse. But Roger knew that the trials God sent did not depend on your righteousness. No one was more righteous than Job, but Job suffered more than anyone.
Everything that happened was God’s will; it was all a part of the working out of the Plan. God could have lifted His Hand and brought the Plan to fruition instantly, but it was reflection of the love He felt for Man that He chose to work His will through men.
Roger bowed his head and prayed for Faith to accept the Will of the Lord, and to know what to do.
Because God had a new task for him. That had been made obvious by the events of the past few hours. Or perhaps it was just a new phase of the old plan. Whatever it was, it would require changes in the life he had made. It would mean giving up Donna. It would mean he could no longer be Will Nelson. So be it. Not my will be done, he thought, but Thine. The Lord was demanding no easy sacrifices, but Roger could draw one consolation. The Lord must now feel that Will’s memory had been sufficiently honored by Roger’s dual ministry. He was cheered by the belief that he had brought the name of his only friend to the Lord’s attention, and that Will rested happy in the bosom of the
Father.
As for Donna, he would miss her terribly. But she was a good woman, a pearl beyond price. She would find a place; she would continue to serve the Lord.
As would he. Roger’s ministry was not over, just the phase of it that had seen him using the Russians to his ends.
They had turned on him. They were so blind to the workings of the Lord that they had thought they could kill him.
Worse than that, they’d tried to use a confused, innocent soul like Jimmy Hudson to get to him. Apparently, some information Control would find very embarrassing was about to be released by Jimmy’s mother. Of course, Roger had known she must have something to do with Moscow, or they wouldn’t have devoted so much attention to her, but Borzov (during another panic-stricken radio message early this morning, before the christening) had gone into excruciating detail about it.
Roger hadn’t listened. He had no interest in their evil purposes, he just wanted to know the next soul Azrael was to bring to judgment. He said as much.
Borzov had turned cold and terse. “You will receive instructions.”
As he had, instructions relayed unknowingly by Jimmy Hudson during a plea to his pastor for help. “Could you please come out here? I—I’d really appreciate it.”
“Of course I’ll come,” Roger—still Will Nelson, then—had said, but the boy was talking again before he’d had a chance to hear the words.
“Not just for me, either,” Jimmy had gone on. “Mel Famey is working on a story about my mother—he’d like to talk with you, too. To get your viewpoint. He told me to say you might serve as a control on the sensationalism—you could help tone it down.”
And that was it, the words control and tone in the same sentence. Roger had known there was a Russian agent inside at the Hudson Group. Now he knew he was this Mel Famey, and that Borzov required a face-to-face meeting. Famey, Roger had to admit, had been quite resourceful, taking advantage of the opportunity to avoid making personal contact through an obviously monitored switchboard.
Tone also meant it was to be a secret meeting, but from the security he had been subject to when he spoke to Jimmy, that was not going to be possible if he simply honored Mr. Famey’s request for an interview. He had no intention of speaking about the soul of a member of his Congregation for public consumption, which was all he’d have been able to do with an FBI man present.
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