“… and so do all the other arms suppliers, against becoming involved again.”
“… all the angles covered …”
“… all the holes blocked …”
“… discreet …”
“… effective …”
Petty smiled, the star of the show, confident of another consummate display. “How we always like to be,” he said in conclusion. “Discreetly effective.”
It
“Peripheral people … shippers, stuff like that,” said Erickson. “They’ll get the same private message.”
“England is pretty efficiently policed,” O’Farrell pointed out. More than any other country in which he had so far operated, he acknowledged to himself for the first time.
“We accept that,” Petty said, rising up on the verbal seesaw again.
“Usual understanding,” Erickson descended.
“… Yours is always the right …”
“… to refuse …”
Now! thought O’Farrell. Now was the moment, the agreed-upon, accepted moment, when he was allowed to decline. Before he became irrevocably committed by that one further step, going forward to access the topmost classified files, after which there was no retreat, no escape. Easily done, supposedly. No requirement for an explanation or reason. He’d immediately come under suspicious scrutiny, he guessed; practically tantamount to resigning. Wasn’t that precisely what he wanted, to resign! Just continue with a recognized official job? The halt came with the continuing thought: a recognized official job with a recognized official salary, to which his pension would be linked. Couldn’t afford that now, not while he was helping Ellen and John. Blood money, he thought; bounty hunter. He said, “I’d like to interview the pilot first.”
The men on either side smiled, and Petty nodded at the acceptance. The section chief said, “It’s a very necessary operation.”
They wouldn’t be sitting here in the blinding sunlight if it hadn’t already been judged that, O’Farrell thought, irritably; so why the apparent justification? “Where is all the documentation?”
“At the Lafayette office,” said Erickson.
“I’ll look that over afterward.”
“The pilot is being held in Tallahassee; name’s Rodgers, Paul Rodgers.”
“Be careful,” Erickson said.
O’Farrell turned to look directly at the man, genuinely astonished.
Erickson appeared embarrassed, too. He lifted and dropped his hands in a meaningless gesture and said, “It’s never easy,” which was neither an apology nor an improvement.
“Is there anything else?” O’Farrell asked curtly.
“In London … anywhere else you have to go … you’ll keep in touch through the embassy’s CIA channels,” Petty said.
Why did they keep on saying things that were routine! Careful, O’Farrell thought; it would be wrong to overreact and read into remarks significance that was not there. Routine or not, they had to be said. There could be no misunderstanding or mistake. “Of course,” he said.
“And we’ll pouch anything technical you need in the diplomatic bag,” Erickson said.
Just like Cuba pouched its cocaine, thought O’Farrell; things to kill with, one way or the other. He stood, looking down at the two seated men. “I wonder if it really will be taken as a warning?”
“That’s the message,” Petty said. “It’ll be heard, believe me.”
The two remained on the bench, watching O’Farrell walk back toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Well?” Petty asked.
Erickson made an uncertain rocking motion with his hand. “Okay, I think.”
“Symmons isn’t often wrong.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“There can’t ever be a first time.”
“Sorry,” Erickson apologized. “Figure of speech. Sorry about telling him to be careful, too. That was stupid of me.”
“Yes,” Petty said, unforgiving. “It was. Very stupid. Did you smell booze on his breath?”
“Before noon! You’ve got to be kidding!”
“That’s why I put the pipe out, to be sure.”
“Were you?”
“Pretty sure.”
“I didn’t get it myself; I would have expected to.”
“Yes,” Petty agreed. “Perhaps I was mistaken.”
“That final remark was interesting,” the deputy suggested.
“About being taken as a warning?”
Erickson nodded. “You think that indicated any doubt, about the validity of what he does?”
“It sometimes happens. I would have thought he was pretty straight about the morality, though.”
“There was a sharp reaction when he heard drugs were involved,” Erickson said. “His kids ever get mixed up with any shit?”
Unknown to O’Farrell—although suspected by him because it was obvious—everything in his background and family had been examined by the Agency. Petty shook his head. “Squeaky clean, both of them.”
“Maybe just a natural response to narcotics.”
“I think we should take precautions.” Petty decided.
“More than usual?” There was always surveillance.
Petty nodded. “Just to cover ourselves.”
“Probably wise,” Erickson concurred.
“You were right,” Petty announced.
“Right?”
“It’s a great day to sit in the sun.”
That night O’Farrell deliberately made three full martinis, which he drank unseen in the den, and he insisted upon opening the Napa Valley wine to drink with the steaks. Jill only had one glass and O’Farrell limited himself to two, wanting to prove to her—and to himself—that he could leave some in the bottle for another occasion.
He took her abruptly in bed, without any foreplay, and she was obviously startled and then responded, and it was good for both of them.
Afterward she said, “That was practically rape!”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t say I minded.”
“I might have to go away for a while.”
“Where?”
“Something to check out down south first. Then Europe, possibly.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.” As quickly as possible, he thought. Get it over with.
“I’ve got some time coming,” said Jill. “I might go up to Chicago.”
“Why don’t you do that?”
“I’m glad that thing with drugs at Billy’s school was a false alarm.”
“So am I, if it really were a false alarm.”
“You want to know something?”
“What?”
“I’m so very happy and content. You happy?”
“Of course,” O’Farrell said. Dear God, how he wished that were true.
