“Draft records from before the end of conscription?”
“I’d rather not try springing anything like that loose for you, Senator.”
“No, I suppose not. Unless we can turn up clues that justify it to the proper authorities.”
“Tannahill has never claimed he was ever in the service. We got that much. But a lot of men his age never were, in spite of Korea and Vietnam, for a variety of reasons. He’s given no hints as to why he wasn’t. Uh, it isn’t that he acts evasive or secretive. Associates describe him as a genial sort with a ready fund of jokes and quips; though he does require competence from his employees, and gets it. He simply has a knack for turning conversation away from himself.”
“He would. Go on. Never married, I believe?”
“No. Not homosexual or impotent. There have been a few women over the years whom we’ve identified. Nothing especially serious, and none of them bear him any grudge.”
“Too bad. What kind of trail has he left on the West Coast?”
“Essentially zilch. He first surfaced in New Hampshire, bought his house and grounds, started his magazine, all as a—not exactly an employee of Tomek Enterprises. ‘Associate’ or ‘agent’ might be a better word. At any rate, Tomek finances him, and I’d guess that a tot of his trips are for purposes of reporting back to the old man.”
“Who’s pretty shadowy himself, isn’t he?” Moriarty stroked his chin. It puffed out a bit under his fingers. “I’ve been thinking more and more that that line may well be worth pursuing.”
“Senator, my advice to you is to drop this whole business. It’s expensive as hell, it takes up staff time you badly need in an election year, and I’m ninety-nine percent convinced it could never produce anything politically useful.”
“Do you wink I am only a politician, Hank?”
“I’ve heard you describe your ideals.”
Moriarty reached decision. “You’re right, we can’t go on chasing ghosts. At the same time, I feel it in my bones, something here won’t bear the light of day. Yes, I have personal motivations too. Exposing it would be a coup; and I’m sick of TannahilPs baiting and want to lash back. We’ll have to leave off the effort to get background information, I suppose, but I won’t give up entirely.” He bridged his fingers and peered over them. “Where is he at the moment?”
Stoddard shrugged. “Someplace this side of the moon ... probably.”
Moriarty bit his lip. The Chart Room had been extra vicious about the decline of the American space program. “Well, he’ll have to come back eventually. I want his house and his office under surveillance. When he does show up, I want a twenty-four-hour tail on him. Understand?”
Stoddard began to form an answer, swallowed it, and nodded. “Can do, if you don’t mind paying what it costs.”
“I have money,” Moriarty said. “My own if necessary.”
8
“What is wrong?”
Natalia Thurlow’s question cut—or probed, like a sword early in an engagement. Hanno realized that she would no longer be denied. Nonetheless he stood for a while yet, staring out of Robert Cauldwetl’s living room window. The late summer dark had fallen. Where his body staved off reflections he saw lights in their thousands, down the hill and through the lower city to the peace that lay mightily upon the waters. Thus had Syracuse basked in wealth and happiness, with the greatest mechanicians of the age to perfect her defenses; and meanwhile the austere Romans prepared themselves.
“You came home yesterday like a man in a dream,” Natalia went on at his back. “Then today you left practically at dawn, and haven’t returned till now, still locked up inside yourself.”
“I told you why,” he said. “Business accumulated while I was gone.”
“What do you mean? Except for your interest in the Rufus Lab, what do you do any longer, locally?”
The challenge made him turn around. She stood rigid, fists at her sides. The pain that he saw hurt him too; the rising anger that he heard was a kind of balm.
“You know I have things going elsewhere,” he reminded her. She had seen the modest downtown office he maintained. He had never described just what it was for.
“Indeed. Whenever I tried to call you, your machine answered.”
“I had to get around. What did you want? I phoned the machine here to say you shouldn’t wait dinner for me.”
In point of fact, throughout the day he had mostly been Joe Levine, briefing a couple of other attorney- accountants on Charles Tomek’s tax audit so that they could take over while he was gone for some unpredictable time on some unspecified matter. They already knew the general situation and many details, of course. No single agent could cope with Uncle Sam. (And what did those hordes of paper shufflers produce that was of any value to any living soul?) However, there were certain tricky points they needed to understand.
At that, it could prove costly, leaving them to their own devices. Not that they might reveal illegalities. None existed. Hanno knew better than to allow such a crack in his defenses against the state. But he couldn’t explain to them why Mr. Tomek must not be found on his travels and brought back to help cope.
Ephemera. Expendable. Svoboda would soon arrive, to be the fifth in the fellowship.
And beyond her— Despite himself, his pulse thuttered.
“I thought we could meet for dinner at a restaurant,” Natalia was saying.
“Sorry. That wouldn’t have worked. I grabbed a sandwich.” Untrue. He could not have stayed calm in her company. He wasn’t quite the poker player he had supposed. Maybe Svoboda had thawed something within him, or shaken it till it began to crack.
“You refuse me the reason you were so rushed, don’t you?” Natalia sighed. “You’re a wily one. Only now does it really dawn on me how little you’ve ever let slip about what you do, about anything meaningful that concerns you.”
“Look, let’s not fight,” he urged. “You know I’m, uh, taciturn by nature.”
“No, you’re not. That’s the trouble. You talk and talk, glib, interesting, but aside from those Neanderthal politics of yours, how much do you seriously say?” Before he could reply, she raised a hand to hush him. “In spite of that, I’ve discovered how to read certain clues. Whoever you met in Denmark, it wasnXthe ‘promising subject’ you spoke of so vaguely. And then when we got home from the airport and you looked through the mail, that one letter in it that rocked you back— You couldn’t completely hide your reaction. But I foresaw you wouldn’t show it to me or speak a single word about it.”
Assuredly not, Hanno thought. Especially since Asagao, the naive little sweetheart, had penned it in her awkwardly precise English. “It’s private, confidential.”
“A person in Idaho, as well as Denmark?”
Damn! She’d noticed the return address. He should have cautioned the Asian pair about communicating with him. But they knew his Cauldwell identity from the Rufus connection, and they were timid about the Tomek complex—an unfamiliar kind of thing, where perhaps strangers would intercept messages—and it had never before occurred to him that they, of all people on earth, might bumble onto a fresh scent.
As it was, Natalia had been honorable and not steamed the envelope open. Well, he’d made sure of her character before taking up with her more than casually.
Did he indeed understand her, though? She was a bright and complicated person. That was what had attracted him. She might have had fewer surprises to spring on him if he’d been more forthcoming with her.
Too late now, he thought. The sadness that crossed him was half weariness. Even for a creature of his vitality, this had been an exhausting day.
He roughened his language: “Get off my back, will you? Neither of us owns the other.”
She stiffened further. “No, you haven’t wanted any commitment, have you? What am I to you, besides a sexual convenience?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop this nonsense!” He made a step in her direction. “What we’ve had was, was splendid. Let’s not ruin it.”
