‘When?’
‘Four years ago.’
‘Why?’
‘I think they were called back.’
‘They were naturalized?’
‘Yes. A long time.’
‘Where did your father work?’
‘Burbank.’
‘Lockheed, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you get your job?’
‘Box number ad. For an American secretary who could speak Russian and Chinese.’
‘There wouldn’t be many of those around?’
‘Only me.’
‘Judge LeWinter has private clients, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Including Russian and Chinese?’
‘Yes. Sometimes they need a translator in court.’
‘Does he require any translation done for him out of court?’
She hesitated. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Military stuff. Russian, of course. In code.’
Her voice was low now, barely above a whisper. ‘Yes.’
‘Anything about weather at any time?’
Her eyes were wide. ‘How do you know —’
‘Don’t you know it’s wrong? Don’t you know it’s treason? Don’t you know the penalty for treason?’
She put her forearm on the side of the couch and laid her blonde head on it. She made no reply.
Ryder said: ‘You like LeWinter?’ His voice didn’t seem to register with her as the one she’d heard the previous night.
‘I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!’ The voice was shaking but the vehemence left no room for disbelief.
Ryder stood and jerked his head to the door. Parker said: ‘We’re going to the car to call the station. Back in a minute or two.’ The three men went outside.
Ryder said: ‘She hates LeWinter and I, Dave, hate you.’
‘That makes two of us.’
‘Jeff, go see if the FBI man is intercepting a phone call. I know I’m just wasting your time.’ Jeff left.
‘Poor bloody kid.’ Parker shook his head. ‘Imagine if that were Peggy.’
‘Just what I am meaning. Old man a spy, probably an industrial one. Called back to Russia to report and now being held over her head — along with her mother, probably. Being blackmailed to hell and back. One thing: we can probably tell our super-spies in Geneva what they can do with themselves. She’s intelligent. I’ll bet she has total recall about this Russian weather report or whatever.’
‘Hasn’t she had enough, John? And what will happen to her parents?’
‘Nothing, I should imagine. Not if the report leaks out that she has been arrested or disappeared or held incommunicado. That’s the way they’d act themselves.’
‘Not the way we act in our great American democracy.’
‘They don’t believe in our great American democracy.’
They waited until Jeff returned. He looked at them and shook his head.
‘It figures,’ Ryder said. ‘Our poor little Bettina has no place left to go.’
They went back inside. She was sitting straight again, looking at them without expectation. Her brown eyes were dulled and there were tear stains on her cheeks. The men didn’t bother to sit down. She looked at Ryder.
‘I know who you are.’
‘You have the advantage over me. I’ve never seen you before in my life. We are going to take you into protective custody, that’s all.’
‘I know what that means. Protective custody. Spying, treason, a morals charge. Protective custody.’
Ryder caught her wrist, pulled her to her feet, and held her by the shoulders. ‘You’re in California, not Siberia. Protective custody means that we’re going to take you in and keep you safe and unharmed until this blows over. There will be no charges preferred against you because there are none to prefer. We promise that no harm will come to you, not now, nor later.’ He led her towards the door and opened it. ‘If you want to, you can go. Pack some things, take them to your car and drive off. But it’s cold out there and dark and you’ll be alone. You’re too young to be alone.’
She looked through the doorway, turned back, made a movement of the shoulders that could have been a shrug or a shiver and looked at Ryder uncertainly. He said: ‘We know of a safe place. We’ll send a policewoman with you, not a battle-axe to guard you but a young and pretty girl like yourself to keep you company.’ He nodded to Jeff. ‘I know my son here will take the greatest care, not to say pleasure, in picking out just the girl for you.’ Jeff grinned and it was probably his smile more than anything else that convinced her. ‘You will, of course, have an armed guard outside. Two or three days, no more. Just pack enough for that. Don’t be a dope; we just want to look after you.’
She smiled for the first time, nodded and left the room. Jeff grinned again. ‘I’ve often wondered how you managed to trap Susan, but now I’m beginning to —’
Ryder gave him a cold look. ‘Green’s all through here. Go and explain to him why.’
Jeff left, still smiling.
Healey, Bramwell and Schmidt had foregathered in Burnett’s sitting-room after dinner, excellent as was all the food in the Adlerheim. It had been a sombre meal, as most meals were, and the atmosphere had not been lightened by the absence of Susan who had been eating with her injured daughter. Carlton had not been there either, but this had hardly been remarked upon, because the deputy chief of security had become a highly unsociable creature — gloomy, withdrawn, almost secretive: it was widely assumed that he was brooding over his own defects and failures in the field of security. After a meal eaten quickly and in funereal silence all had left as soon as they decently could. And now Burnett was dispensing his post-prandial hospitality — in this case an excellent Martell — with his customary heavy hand.
‘Woman’s not normal,’ Burnett was speaking and, as usual, he wasn’t saying something, he was announcing it.
Bramwell said cautiously: ‘Which one?’
‘Which woman is?’ Burnett would have gone over big with the women’s lib. ‘But I was referring to Mrs Ryder, of course.’
Healey steepled judicious fingers. ‘Charming, I thought.’
‘Charming? To be sure, to be sure. Charming. Quite beautiful. But deranged.’ He waved a vague arm around. ‘All this, I suppose. Women can’t take it. Went along to see her after dinner, pay respects, commiserate with injured daughter, you know. Damn pretty young girl that. Lying there, all shot up.’ To listen to Burnett, one would have assumed that the patient had been riddled with machine-gun fire. ‘Well, I’m a pretty even-tempered fellow’ — he seemed to be genuinely unaware of his own reputation — ‘but I must say I rather lost my temper. Said that Morro was at worst a cold-blooded monster that should be destroyed, at best a raving lunatic that should be locked up. Would you believe it, she didn’t agree at all.’ He briefly contemplated the enormity of her error in character assessment, then shook his head at its being beyond normal comprehension. ‘Admitted that he should be brought to justice, but said he was kind, considerate and even thoughtful of others at times. An intelligent, I had thought highly intelligent, woman.’ Burnett shook his head again, whether in self-reproach at his own character assessment or because he was sadly figuring out what the rest of womankind might be like it was hard to say. He drank his brandy, clearly not savouring it at all. ‘I ask you, gentlemen. I simply ask you.’
‘He’s a maniac, all right. That I grant you.’ Bramwell was being cautious again. ‘But not amoral as a madman should be. If he really wanted an impressive debut for this atom bomb of his — assuming he has one, and none of us here doubts it — he’d detonate it without warning in the Wilshire Boulevard instead of with warning out in the
