O'Farrell's Law

no.”

“What did that signify?”

“‘I’m not a quitter,’” Lambert quoted.

“I don’t think it’s sufficient, any of it,” Erickson said. “So far we’ve lost nothing. We’ve been lucky. Let’s cut loose while we’re still ahead.”

“That’s my feeling, too,” Petty said.

McCarthy held out his glass to be replenished, and when Lambert returned with it, the Plans director said to the psychologist, “What decision would you make in our position?”

Lambert stared down at the man for several moments. “It’s possible.” the psychologist said. “Possible but dangerous. On balance, you’re going to need a hell of a lot of luck.”

“It’s always dangerous,” Sneider said.

“I’ve got an idea,” McCarthy said. “A hell of an idea.”

“We cut adrift from O’Farrell?” Sneider anticipated, for once wrongly.

The Plans Director frowned at his deputy. “Christ, no!” he said. “Whatever made you think that?”

TWENTY-FIVE

JILL WASN’T there when he got back to Alexandria. Three or four days earlier, before the sessions with Lambert, it would have thrown him for a loop, because he’d telephoned from Fort Pearce hours ahead, telling her of his supposed return on the afternoon British Airways flight. As it was, he contained the reaction to mild surprise. Jill was conscientious and often worked late at the clinic; hours sometimes, although he didn’t think she would tonight because she knew he was getting back.

He made a drink and wandered about the house, feeling its familiarity wrap comfortingly around him. He felt safe, secure. The impression reminded him of what Lambert had said, at one of their sessions; the first, he thought, although he wasn’t sure. The man had been right. Climbing under the bedcovers was just what he’d wanted to do; hide for a long time in the darkness, where no one could find him. Know he was there, even. He’d needed Lambert, needed the man more than he could calculate at this moment. Not that he could forget what had happened in London. It had been appalling and would always be with him. But Lambert had put it into perspective for him; he didn’t have any problem with the word “accident” anymore. Because that was what it had been: an appalling, ugly accident. But accidents happened. How had Lambert put it? The very fact that this was the first, ever, showed how careful he was, how professional. Something like that.

It had been an incredible relief to be able to talk as he’d talked to Lambert. He knew the feeling was ridiculous, after so short a time, but he found it easy to think of Lambert as a friend, the way the man had asked him to. Think of me as a friend, someone you can call and talk about anything, anytime. O’Farrell wasn’t sure that he would. It was all right this time, because of the circumstances. He’d needed the man. But to want to talk through things again might make Lambert think he was sonic soft of goofball, one of those goofballs who kept regular weekly appointments with a shrink and couldn’t function without them. Then again, he might. It wasn’t something he had to decide right now.

The tour inevitably ended in the den. The copied archive and the fading photograph that Jill had collected for him were still packaged, waiting to be refiled. He’d known the Agency kept tabs on him—it was a logical precaution—but he’d never guessed it was so complete. O’Farrell jerked his head up at a thought, gazing around the bookshelves and the furniture, at everything. Would the house be wired? With Jill out every day, the technical people would have had every opportunity to set a system up. O’Farrell started to move and then stopped, sitting back in his chair. He’d be wasting his time. The micro-technology now was so advanced that even an expert, like he was supposed to be, wouldn’t find anything. It was an eerie thought; unsettling. He didn’t bother with the files. The copied photograph was disappointing; his great-grandfather looked different, oddly, absurdly, more like the gunslingers he’d hunted than the lawman he had been.

O’Farrell checked his watch. He’d been home for over an hour. Where was Jill? An emergency, perhaps? But why hadn’t she called, or had a secretary call?

The clinic receptionist was a bouncy black girl named Annabelle who said hi and how was London and she wanted to go there someday. If there were an electronic monitor, Langley wasn’t going to be pleased, O’Farrell thought. Annabelle, confused, said Jill had left hours ago, around lunchtime, without saying where she was going. O’Farrell’s immediate thought was Chicago, and he was relieved that Ellen was in the apartment. Ellen was as surprised as the receptionist at the clinic; she’d spoken to her mother the previous evening but there’d been no arrangements for her to fly up. O’Farrell said there had to be some misunderstanding at his end and it was unimportant, carrying on the conversation that was necessary. Billy was fine and Patrick had promised to clear up the arrears and maintain both the alimony and child support in the future, so she didn’t think it was necessary to start any legal pressure at the moment. Patrick had gotten a job as a car salesman and the commissions were good and wasn’t that terrific? O’Farrell sadly decided that Jill was right, that their daughter still loved the bastard, and agreed it was terrific if the payments kept coming. They would, said Ellen. This time Patrick had really promised. He was seeing Billy again, too. The previous weekend he’d bought the boy an electrically controlled car.

“So how was your trip?”

O’Farrell waited for the stomach drop, but there was nothing. He said, “Just work,” and his voice stayed perfectly even.

“Nothing exciting at all?”

O’Farrell swallowed. “Nothing,” he said, with more difficulty.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too.”

O’Farrell gratefully replaced the receiver, filling his mind with the immediate problem. So where was Jill? She was a woman of habit, of regularity, someone who didn’t take afternoons off without saying where she would be. He felt the beginnings of concern. And then of helplessness. He could try the police covering the district where the clinic was, to see if there’d been any reports of an accident, but what then? Ask for the car number to be posted and circulated, maybe, but they wouldn’t do that, unless he had cause to think she’d been involved in some crime; there had to be dozens of husbands and wives late home every night. He was right, he told himself; there were dozens of husbands and wives late home every night, for all sorts of perfectly understandable reasons. So why the hell was he panicking! Every night wormed its way into his mind; Annabelle had said Jill left at lunchtime. Maybe Lambert would—O’Farrell started to think and then stopped, closing out the thought.

He went back to the kitchen and mixed another drink. He’d give her a little longer, another hour maybe. Then the police. Call other people at the clinic to see if she’d said anything to them. Who? O’Farrell squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember the names. Jill always seemed to be talking about people she worked with, so much so that he usually switched off, and now he couldn’t remember the names. There was a Mary, he thought. And an Anne. Or was that the same person, Maryanne? And what about surnames, to look them up in the book? They wouldn’t be at the clinic, not this late. The night staff would tell him, once he’d satisfied them who he was. Just another hour. Then he’d start calling around.

O’Farrell carried his drink with him to the front of the house, where he could look out onto the street. It was very quiet, fully dark now, all the parking spaces used up by returning residents without garages. There’d be the cars to clean over the weekend. O’Farrell looked forward to doing it; mundane, certainly, but familiar, secure by its very ordinariness.

Their garage door was electric, operated by an impulse from a control box in either vehicle, and it was the unlocking click and then the operational whir he heard, seconds before he saw Jill’s car. The inner door from the garage led into the kitchen, and O’Farrell was already there when Jill came through. She seemed taken aback to see him and said, “Where the hell have you been!”

“Where the hell have you been?” he said. In his concern he sounded angry, which he wasn’t.

“All the way out to Dulles is where I’ve been,” said Jill. “I decided on a surprise, so I went to meet the plane.