Connolly heard her get up. Flustered, he turned and looked up to see her standing there, her padded shoulders pulled back, rigid with anger. He wanted to signal her, but her eyes were fixed on Matthew, oblivious to the room around them.
“I don’t mean ours,” Lawson was saying. “We were just kids. The others-they had a list, the whole network. I had to disappear. I couldn’t tell anybody. They ordered me not to, do you understand? It was important. There were people involved. It wasn’t my decision.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No. Do you think I’d run away? Just like that? They had something for me to do. I couldn’t say no. It’s the discipline-every link. I had to do what they told me. Then, after—”
“Why are you telling me this?” she said, her voice cold. Connolly had dropped the wire and was staring at her.
“I don’t want you to think-I couldn’t help it, do you see?”
“Do you want me to forgive you? What a bastard you are.”
“I just wanted you to know what happened,” he said, hesitant now under her glare.
“That’s not all that happened in Berlin, Matthew,” she said, her voice so low and intense that the noise of the room seemed to step away from it, afraid. “You left a child. I cut it out.”
Connolly stared, helpless, as her eyes filled with tears.
She leaned in. “I saw it in a pan. Like a blood clot. But they cut out all my children. Didn’t mean to, but they did. You think I’m hard? I’m barren, Matthew. That’s what happened in Berlin. Here,” she said, picking up the envelope and throwing it at his chest. “Go save the world. Save it for your children.”
For a minute, no one moved. Then Emma picked up her bag and walked quickly out of the restaurant, her shoes clacking hard on the wood floor. Connolly watched her go, expecting Lawson to follow her, but there wasn’t a sound in the booth. He waited another minute, catching his own breath, then got up to go.
When he looked over the partition, he saw Lawson sitting, his face as red as if it had been slapped, staring at the brown envelope. Then suddenly he got up, bumping into Connolly.
For a split second Connolly met his eyes, wide and frantic. “Sorry,” he said automatically, but Lawson was already running out of the room.
Connolly followed through the noisy bar and pushed the door out into the hot air. Lawson was halfway down the block, walking quickly. He stopped and shouted something-her name? — but it was lost in the roar of the overhead train. At the corner, he had to stop for a light, and Connolly could see Emma across Third, already far along the side street, her white dress darting in and out of the crowd. They crossed together, Connolly hanging back a little, waiting for him to sprint, but there were too many people now and he couldn’t break through. Instead he sidestepped them, jumping into the street, then back again, trying to keep her in sight. When she turned right on Lexington, he quickened his pace, pushing against the crowd.
Emma hadn’t noticed any of it. When she reached the hotel she went straight in, not looking around. Lawson followed her to the door, dodging a car against the light, and then, finally there, stopped unexpectedly. Connolly turned at the window of a deli, watching to his left. Lawson stood for a second, rooted in indecision, then took a step toward the entrance and stopped again. A soldier and a girl came out of the hotel, carrying suitcases. Lawson took a handkerchief to wipe his face, then, his whole body slumping in some final resignation, turned and started walking slowly away. When he passed Connolly in the deli window he was looking at the sidewalk, glum and confused, as if he had just missed a train. Then Connolly lost him in the crowd.
Emma was sitting on the bed, breathing deliberately to calm herself. She glanced up when he came in, then looked away again, obviously not wanting to talk. He touched her shoulder, then went into the bathroom and started putting things in his Dopp Kit.
“Did you hear?” she said finally from the bedroom. “I’m afraid I muffed it.”
“No,” he said, coming out, “it was fine. Perfect.” His voice went low. “Emma, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No, you didn’t.” She shrugged, shaking the hair off her neck. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
“Like a message in a bottle.” She stood up and went over to the window. “Anyway, it’s done now. Good luck to him.”
“You all right?”
She nodded. “Funny how voices don’t change. Everything else, but not voices. It gave me quite a turn at first. ‘We respect that.’ My God.” She lit a cigarette, still looking out the window. “Promise me something, will you? When this is over, all this Karl business, no more, all right? You see what it’s done to him. Always some war to fight, whether there is one or not. He’s stuck in the trenches for good now.”
“It’s a promise. You can count on this one.”
She turned, smiling a little. “He couldn’t help himself, could he? What are you doing?” she said, noticing the Dopp Kit. “Going somewhere?”
“I thought we might change hotels. Our last night. Change of scene.”
She smiled. “You don’t have to do that. I’m all right, really.”
“Actually, I think we’d better,” he said. “He followed you.”
“Followed me?”
“Not like that. I think he probably wanted to make up.”
“But he didn’t come in,” she said quietly.
“No,” he said, closing the kit. “But he knows you’re here. Which means they’ll know I’m here too, if anyone’s interested. And they might be, once they get a look at his mail. We can’t afford to take that chance.”
She folded her arms, holding herself. “You think he’d have us watched?”
“It wouldn’t be up to him.”
She took that in. “I thought this was over.”
“Almost. It’s just a precaution.”
“Still on the job,” she said, putting out her cigarette. “Right. And here I thought you were being romantic.”
“I can still be that.”
“Where now?” she said brightly. “Do you think you could manage something a bit grander? The Waldorf?”
He grinned. “No. I was thinking of the Pennsylvania. It’s the one place we’re sure to be alone.”
“Unless that man’s still there.”
“He won’t be. Anywhere but there.”
He was there, however. After dinner, a little tight, they went to the Cafe Rouge to hear the music, and it was Emma who spotted him, sitting not far from the band.
“It’s him,” she said. “He must be off duty-he’s checked his hat.”
“And picked up a girl,” Connolly said. “What do you know.”
“I don’t think he’s seen us.”
“Come on, let’s dance.”
Emma giggled as Connolly maneuvered her toward the other table. “You’re torturing him,” she said, watching the man pretend not to recognize them. The girl, all bright lipstick, was drinking a highball.
“Just a little.”
“He’ll be furious.”
“Because we ruined his little night on the town? I doubt he’ll want to go into that. Looks bad on the report.”
She giggled again. “But what will he think?”
“That we’ve been here all along and he should have kept his mouth shut. Now he’s going to have to explain it.”
“Who do you think she is?”
He grinned. “There’s a question.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Now he’ll be on the train.”
“Paying very close attention this time. Just think of him as your personal bodyguard. Look, he’s getting up to dance. I didn’t think there was anybody in G-2 who could do that.”
“Stop. He’ll see you laughing. We shouldn’t be doing this, you know. It’s not supposed to be funny. Why is
