She looked back at her mother in silence for a moment Then she ran out of the house and jumped into her car.
.
6.30 A. M.
The first stage contains approximate 25,000 kilograms of fuel. This will be used up in two minutes and thirty- five seconds.
Bern's Lincoln Continental was a joy to drive, a sleek, long-legged car that cruised at a hundred, effortlessly flying over the deserted roads of sleeping Virginia. In getting out of Washington, Luke felt he was leaving the nightmare behind, and his early-hours journey had the exhilarating air of an escape.
It was still dark when he arrived at Newport News and pulled into the small parking lot next to the closed airport building. No lights showed except the solitary bulb of a phone booth next to the entrance. He turned off his engine and listened to the silence. The night was clear, and the airfield was starlit The parked planes seemed peculiarly still, like horses asleep on their feet He had been up more than twenty-four hours, and he felt desperately weary, but his mind was racing. He was in love with Billie. Now that he was two hundred miles away from her, he could admit that to himself. But what did it mean? Had he always loved her? Or was it a one-day infatuation, a repeat of the crush he had developed so quickly back in 1941? And what about Elspeth? Why had he married her? He had asked Billie that, and she had refused to answer. 'I'll ask Elspeth,' he had said.
He checked his watch. He had more than an hour until take-off. There was plenty of time. He got out of the car and went to the phone booth.
She picked up fast, as if she was already awake. The hotel operator advised her that the phone charge would be added to her bill, and she said: 'Sure, sure, put him on.'
Suddenly he felt awkward. 'Uh, good morning, Elspeth.'
I'm so glad you called!' she said. I've been out of my mind with worry - what's happening?'
'I don't know where to begin.'
'Are you okay?'
Yes, I'm fine, now. Basically, Anthony caused me to lose my memory, by giving me a combination of electric shock and drugs.'
'Good God. Why would he do a thing like that?'
'He says I'm a Soviet spy.'
'That's absurd.'
'It's what he told Billie.'
'So you've been with Billie?'
Luke heard the note of hostility in Elspeth's yoke. 'She's been kind,' he said defensively. He recalled that he had asked Elspeth to come to Washington and help him, but she had refused.
Elspeth changed the subject. 'Where are you calling from?'
He hesitated. His enemies might easily have tapped Elspeth's phone. 'I don't really want to say, in case someone is listening.'
'All right, I understand. What are you going to do next''
I need to find out what it was that Anthony wanted me to forget'
'How will you do that?'
'I'd rather not say over the phone.'
Her voice betrayed exasperation. 'Well, I'm sorry you can't tell me anything.'
'Matter of feet, I called to ask you some things.'
'Okay, fire away.'
'Why can't we have children?'
'We don't know. Last year, you went to a fertility specialist, but he couldn't find anything wrong. A few' weeks ago, I saw a woman doctor in Atlanta. She ran some tests. We're waiting for the results.'
'Would you tell me how we came to get married?'
'I seduced you.'
'How?'
'I pretended to have soap in my eye, in order to make you kiss me. It's the oldest trick in the book, and I'm embarrassed that you fell for it'
He could not tell whether she was being amusing, or cynical, or both. 'Tell me what the circumstances were, how I proposed.'
'Well, I didn't see you for years, then we met again in 1954, in Washington,' she began. 'I was still with the CIA. You were working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, but you flew in for Peg's wedding. We were seated together at the breakfast' She paused, remembering, and he waited patiently. When she resumed, her voice had softened. 'We talked and talked - it was as if thirteen years had never happened, and we were still a couple of college kids with all of life ahead of us. I had to leave early - I was conductor of the 16th Street Youth Orchestra, and we had a rehearsal. You came with me ...'
.
1954
The children in the orchestra were all poor, and most of them were black. The rehearsal took place at a church hall in a slum neighbourhood. The instruments were begged, borrowed, and bought from pawnshops. They were rehearsing the overture from a Mozart opera, The Marriage of Figaro. Against the odds, they played well.
Elspeth was the reason. She was an exacting teacher, noticing every raise note and rhythmic misstep, but she corrected her pupils with infinite patience. A tall figure in a yellow dress, she conducted the orchestra with enormous verve, her red hair flying, her long, elegant hands drawing the music from them with passionate gestures.
The rehearsal lasted two hours and Luke sat through the whole thing, mesmerized. He could see that all the boys were in love with Elspeth and all the girls wanted to be like her.
'These children have as much music in them as any rich kid with a Steinway in the drawing room,' she said in the car afterwards. 'But I get into lots of trouble.'
'Why, for God's sake?'
I'm called a nigger-lover,' she said. 'And it's pretty much ended my career at the CIA.'
'I don't understand.'
'Anyone who treats Negroes like human beings is suspected of being a communist. So I'll never be more than a secretary. Not that it's a great loss. Women never get higher than case officer anyway.'
She took him to her place, a small, -uncluttered apartment with a few pieces of angular modern furniture. Luke made martinis and Elspeth started to cook spaghetti in the tiny kitchen. Luke told her about his job.
'I'm so happy for you,' she said with generous enthusiasm. You always wanted to explore outer space. Even back at Harvard, when we were dating, you used to talk about it.'
He smiled. 'And in those days, most people thought it was a foolish dream of science-fiction writers,'
'I guess we still can't be sure it will happen.'
'I think we can,' he said seriously. 'The big problems were all solved by German scientists in the war. The Germans built rockets that could be fired in Holland and land on London.'
'I was there, I remember - we called them buzz-bombs.' She shuddered briefly. 'One nearly killed me. I was walking to my office in the middle of an air raid, because I had to brief an agent who was to be dropped into Belgium a few hours later. I heard a bomb go off behind me. It makes a horrible noise like crump, then there's the sound of breaking glass and masonry collapsing, and a kind of wind full of dust and little bits of stone. I knew that if I turned around to look, I'd panic and throw myself to the ground, and just curl up in a ball with my eyes shut So I looked straight ahead and kept walking.'
Luke was moved by the picture of the young Elspeth walking through the dark streets as the bombs fell around her, and he felt grateful that she had survived. 'Brave woman,' he murmured.
She shrugged. 'I didn't feel brave, just scared.'
'What did you think about''
'Can't you guess?'
He recalled that whenever she was idle she thought about math. 'Prime numbers?' he hazarded.
She laughed. 'Fibonacci's numbers.'
