thing.'
'Rules?' She slipped off her shoes, one at a time, and looked up at him, putting her hands on his chest. 'This is Washington, Agent Littlemore. The rules don't apply here.'
'Maybe not,' he said, removing her hands. 'But I still play by them.'
At five-thirty in the morning, the meeting broke up, and the well- dressed gentlemen took their leave. There was little talk, and much seriousness of expression, as the long dark overcoats made their way out of Senator Fall's apartment.
'I'm too old for this,' said Fall to Littlemore after all had departed, pouring himself another drink and easing himself into a chair. 'The war order will go out tomorrow. It'll take a while to get the troops to the border. I told them we'll need half a million soldiers.'
'A half million?' repeated Littlemore.
'Baker thinks we can do it with a fifth as many, because he's not thinking about what we're going to be doing after we win. We're going to have a country to run, for Christ's sake.' Fall took a drink, grimaced. 'Where's Grace? I need milk. Wilson's people don't want to make it public yet that Mexico bombed Wall Street. That's what I was fighting with them about. They're afraid the people will panic if they realize that the enemy can blow the hell out of our cities. I told them the American people aren't a bunch of sissies. They'll demand war when they find out. Anyway, for now Baker's not going to say anything about the bombing. They're going to play it in the papers as a response to Obregon grabbing our mines.'
'What are they going to do about Mr Houston and the three senators?'
'Nothing yet.'
'I thought they wouldn't. All we've got is an authorization from the Mexicans to transfer funds. It's not proof any money ever changed hands. It's not proof of any crime at all. We need more.'
'You've done your country a great service, son.'
'Thank you, Mr Senator,' said Littlemore.
The sun was rising when Littlemore left. The November air was sharp and clean; the smell of burning leaves was everywhere. Littlemore walked the two miles back to his hotel. When he got there, he showered, trying to figure out how he would behave around Secretary Houston and what he'd need to do at the Treasury. He stayed under the steaming water a long time.
Chapter Eighteen
I think you must like keeping me in the dark,' Colette said to Younger in their lurching airplane, shouting to make herself heard over the propeller's roar.
Younger had refused to give Colette any explanation of his changing their destination from Bremen to Paris except to say that he had questions only Marie Curie might be able to answer. Far below he could see the twisting Danube, whose course the pilot was evidently following. 'Yes, it must be frustrating,' he replied to Colette, 'when you've been such a model of transparency yourself.'
When they finally reached Paris, they passed so close to Mr Eiffel's tower they seemed almost about to graze it. At the airstrip a few other planes warmed themselves in the afternoon sun, haphazardly arranged, and there was even a ticket office, but the entire place was deserted. The pilot, himself a Parisian, eventually gave them a lift to the city center in a ramshackle car.
Colette pointed out favorite sights as they crossed the bridge to the Trocadero and its spectacular crab- shaped Oriental palace, where, around calm reflecting pools, top-hatted men and parasol-carrying women promenaded. She gave the pilot directions to the Radium Institute. 'You must remember,' she said to Younger, 'that Madame is not in the best health anymore, and her sight is failing.' Colette shook her head. 'They almost rumored her to death a few years ago. Now she is the toast of Paris, and they all try to pretend it never happened.'
Viewed from the Rue Pierre Curie, the Radium Institute looked more like a comfortable bourgeois house than a scientific laboratory. 'When I first went through these doors and saw Madame s equipment inside,' said Colette, 'I thought it must be the grandest, finest laboratory in the world. Then I saw your marble halls of science in America. It must seem like nothing to you.'
Inside the equipment was indeed of very high quality: banks of electrometers, gas burners, twisted-necked glass beakers, all sparkling with scrupulously maintained sterility. Colette, after greeting old friends, eventually led Younger to the doorway of a room with a high ceiling, a large window, and a desk rather than a laboratory table. A gray-haired woman stood inside this room, instructing an assistant who was carefully packing equipment into a box.
Colette knocked on the open door and said, 'Madame?'
Marie Curie turned and stared: 'Who is it?'
'It's Colette, Madame,' said Colette.
'My child,' cried Madame Curie, beaming with delight. 'Come here. Come here at once.'
Marie Curie, fifty-two, looked older. Her upper lip was pinched with little vertical lines, her hands were spotted, her fingertips red. She wore her gray hair in a tight bun. A simple black dress covered her entirely, from tight collar to long sleeves to floor-length skirt. Her posture, however, was straight and proud, and she had one of those brows so clear, so fine, that it conveys a serenity beyond the slings and arrows of human misfortune.
'These dreadful cataracts,' Madame Curie went on. 'My surgery is next month. The doctors promise me a complete recovery. Let me look at you close up — why, you're lovelier than ever.'
Colette introduced Younger and explained to Madame Curie that he wished to ask her a few questions, if she could spare the time.
'Dr Stratham Younger,' said Madame Curie, shaking his hand. 'I know that name. Were you one of the soldiers who took training with us last year?'
'No, Madame, but I treated many with your X-ray units in France. America owes you an unrepayable debt.'
'I remember now,' she said. 'You were the one who initiated the entire program. I saw your name in the correspondence. I can't thank you enough. Your army kept us afloat last year when we had no other funding.'
Colette looked at Younger in surprise.
'The benefit was ours,' replied Younger. 'Your mobile radiological apparatus is far superior to anything we have. Which I only knew because Miss Rousseau was kind enough to volunteer her services to our men.'
'You never told me you worked with Americans,' Madame Curie said to Colette. 'We all have our secrets, don't we? Let me make some tea. How do you find America, my child?'
'Anything is possible there,' answered Colette. 'For good or bad — that's how one feels. You should see their radium refinery. Black smoke pours from the chimneys. Trucks roll up one after the other, depositing ore brought by train from mines in Colorado, two thousand miles away. The factory runs day and night — using your isolation process, Madame. They work with an ore called carnotite, not pitchblende. They say there is enough carnotite in America to make nine hundred grams of radium.'
Madame Curie went still for a long moment. 'Nine hundred grams,' she said at last. 'What I might do with ten. Forgive me. I'm not bitter. But you know that Pierre and I could have patented our discoveries long ago, when no one on earth had ever heard of radium or dreamt of radioactivity. Everyone told us to take out patents on our isolation processes, but we refused. That's not what science is for. Radium belongs to all mankind. Still, had we behaved a little more selfishly, I would not be without radium today, and with just a little radium we could do such things — cure so many — save the infant who might have grown up to be the next Newton. I have none left at all now. Only radon vapor. We have so many experiments waiting to be performed. Patients by the dozen whom we turn away.'
No one spoke.
'And how is the irrepressible Mrs Meloney?' Madame Curie asked Colette, resuming her energetic and cheerful tone. 'She is certainly one of your anything-is-possible Americans. Is there any chance she'll raise enough money to buy a gram of radium for us?'
'I'm afraid the fund is still short, Madame,' said Colette sadly. 'Very short.'
'Well, I never believed it would happen,' replied Madame Curie. 'She has a good heart, Mrs Meloney, but she
