Then, halfway to France, the weather began to change. Most of Europe had had sunshine for weeks and though the forecasters had warned of approaching rain, they had as usual underestimated the speed of the moving front; before we had crossed the French coast, our tiny four-seater was being buffeted by squalls so heavy that they bordered on sleet. We landed safely at the tiny Vaudur airstrip where we were going to wait for her, but Nancy was only just due to leave Ashford and we learned from the tower that small planes on the British coast were turning back or delaying takeoff to await the passing of freak winds.
It was already half-past three. Since Nancy made the crossing almost every day, it was conceivable that she would simply cancel, if the delay took her landing into the evening. I sat with Ryder in a small outbuilding watching the rain blow across the meadows, almost obscuring the little grass strip. Two other CIA men kept in touch with Chantelux where Nancy was due to land; the diversion there was ready but there was no news from Ashford of her departure.
‘Damn the blasted weather,’ I said. ‘We have to get this settled tonight.’
I still wanted desperately to believe it was another hoax but Ryder had run a wide-ranging check on Claire Dahran and both MI6 and the West Germans had her on their suspect lists.
‘She’ll come,’ Ryder said. ‘If she loves flying as much as everyone says, she won’t be put off by a few squalls.’
Eventually, the news came. The weather had eased on the British side of the Channel and even though the rain was still sweeping across Vaudur, the reports began coming in that the skies were also brightening nearer the French coast.
Then things started to move swiftly. First there was confirmation that Nancy had left Ashford, then an hour later, word was flashed urgently from Chantelux. Nancy had been diverted to Vaudur but there had almost been a tragedy. The driver of the fire truck that was supposed to overturn and block the runway had misunderstood his instructions and Nancy had had to perform a dangerous last-minute maneuver to avoid hitting it.
Twenty minutes passed, and finally Nancy’s little Piper came into view on the gray, rain-swept horizon. It seemed odd watching her land; a reminder that I was dealing with a woman I no longer knew very well—or indeed might never have known at all.
Her approach was neat and she skimmed down onto the sodden grass with only the slightest wing waver when she hit the crosswind from the mouth of the tiny valley. As she stepped out of the plane she looked ever more remote, dressed in a light one-piece cotton overall similar to the one I had seen on the magazine cover in St. Tropez. But Ryder didn’t give me time to think about it.
‘Get her before she gets to a phone. We don’t want her calling to get picked up.’
The rush made it easier. I sprinted out onto the field and as I reached her I said, ‘Nancy, I need to talk to you. I’ll explain later. Come on.’
But she didn’t move. Her surprise registered briefly, then she said angrily, ‘John, did you arrange that shambles at Chantelux? You almost made me wreck my bloody plane.
‘I had no choice. I had to see you without Paul knowing.’
‘You could have tried a phone call.’
‘I had to be certain. It’s important.’
I decided to try to soften her anger. ‘After the other day at Samman’s, I thought you might not mind too much.’
She looked at me curiously and I noticed her glancing around the airfield, and I smiled.
‘I’ve arranged rooms at the Auberge de la Vallée,’ I said.
‘Oh.’
‘For you to change. I thought we could have dinner and talk.’ She hesitated and I saw she was glancing around the field again. There was nothing to see—Ryder’s men were well out of sight and I knew that the bugging equipment they were planning to use was ultrasensitive at very long ranges—but she was a very quick, intuitive woman and, I thought bitterly, possibly well trained also.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘But if you’d wrecked the Piper, it would have taken more than dinner to put it right.’
Vaudur was famous for its Auberge de la Vallée, a seventeenth-century stone hospice at the head of a long wooded rift on the Solan escarpment. The hotel was only a short ride from the airport and Nancy said very little on the journey, and I could feel her distrust. In the lobby, she handled the staff with the kind of elegant arrogance that the French instantly respect, but she left me to deal with the formalities at the desk and she chatted with the manager coldly when he insisted on showing us upstairs personally.
I had booked a suite consisting of two bedrooms, with a common lounge between them. When the manager had gone, leaving behind a bottle of champagne with the compliments of the Auberge, Nancy said casually, ‘Why don’t you pour us a drink while I get ready?’
As she changed, she treated me like a Victorian maid, a person without sex or eyes who made drinks, helped unpack, and handed her garments as she showered and put on a pale pink summer dress. She was neither discreet nor flaunting. Once I glimpsed her naked except for a pair of rainbow-colored Gucci briefs, but she gave no sign of even noticing that the bathroom door was ajar.
Finally, she came out of the bathroom and sat down on the broad, oak-backed settle. ‘So it is official,’ she said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘John. Give me credit for knowing a little bit about you after all the years we were married. If you were following up on what happened at Samman’s you’d have made a move by now.’
‘Nan, I did like what happened at Samman’s,’ I said, ‘but there’s something we have to clear away first.’ I hesitated. I’d already considered several ways of trying to bring up the material in the Dahran file obliquely, but there wasn’t an easy one.
‘I want to talk to you about a trip to Copenhagen. Five years ago.’
She gave me an odd look. ‘That would have been a very fair question if you’d asked it two years ago,’ she said. ‘Now, you have no right to ask it.’
For a second, I was caught off balance by the ease with which she brushed the question aside.
‘Nan, I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important,’ I said. ‘Just tell me about it, please.’
‘No. Not until I know exactly what this is about.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘John, World News is a powerful organization, but it doesn’t have the authority to overturn fire trucks on Chantelux airport. This has to do with your problems. Now why do you want to know about Copenhagen?’
‘You don’t deny going.’
‘I’m not saying anything until you explain.’
I knew the look. Nothing would budge her until I answered.
‘Nan, since this business began, there have been security checks done into everyone who’s ever been near me. Colleagues at World News, friends… and, of course, you. The CIA and Military Intelligence have dug up suspicious-looking material on several people. Most of it turns out to be rubbish. But it has to be checked. They’re bothered by the Copenhagen conference. It was a left-wing, a Communist meeting. It wasn’t the kind of place anyone would expect you to go. It came as a shock to me that you went. I couldn’t explain it. Now that Jennifer’s been cleared, everyone’s pretty anxious to find a new suspect.’
‘And I’ve been elected?’
‘No, of course not. But I didn’t want the Copenhagen business to become an embarrassment. I said I’d ask you, so you wouldn’t have to be asked formally.’
‘Good God,’ she said quietly. ‘How much you must have thought I hated you.’
‘Nan, I…’
‘John, I’m not a fool. I know this isn’t a casual security check. This is the big time. Diversions in foreign airfields. Special confrontations in remote hotels. I knew we weren’t alone at Vaudur, I could feel it. How many agents are around us now, John? Are we on candid camera? Or is it just microphones?’
‘Nan. Just tell me about Copenhagen.’
‘You really thought that I’d been betraying you to the Russians all these year
s?’
‘I’m trying not to think,’ I said, ‘until I hear your explanation.’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘But I have to have it.’
‘Yes, I suppose you do. Do you remember who covered the Congress for World News?’
‘No.’
‘Think,’ she said. ‘It couldn’t be a very big list. Grade C assignment, or B possibly if done solo.’
‘I can’t remember,’ I said. ‘Somerville? Stevens?’
‘Would it help if I told you it was a man with a staircase?’
I stood quite still. ‘Graham Loftus?’
‘Yes.’
Loftus was an amiable, easygoing rogue who had the reputation of being what the American side of the agency called the champion pussy hound of World News. In his flat in London, the bedroom was a converted attic with access up a steep wooden ladder. He had kept many a World News dinner party in stitches with accounts of how the ladder was a recurring obstacle to his seduction routines.
‘Always have to get them up the steps before I’m too drunk. Trouble is, I soften them up, then have a few too many glasses myself. So I have a trick. I stare up their skirts while they’re climbing; focuses the mind marvelously. Stopped me slithering down base over apex many a time.’
‘You know the ladder,’ I said throatily.
‘Yes, damn you. I know the ladder. I climbed it one night when I was so goddamn fed up with you and your obsession with World News,’ she burst out. ‘You don’t remember the time of the Congress, do you?’
‘I was in Madrid.’
‘No. Before that. You were in Monaco, and so was I, except that I might as well have been in Timbuktu.’
The memory came back instantly. I had been sent to cover the Grand Prix, and to apologize for too many weeks of neglect I had taken Nancy with me. Two Formula One drivers had been killed on the first night and the routine coverage had turned into a week of round-the-clock reporting.
‘Yes, I can see you remember it,’ she said bitterly. ‘The first time we spoke, practically, was the fight on the plane back. Then do you remember the Saturday? The cocktail party for the head of the Economic Services which we were going to call in at for ten minutes on the way to a nice intimate dinner at La Terrazza—until you were called away to interview the Soviet President at Heathrow? I spent two bloody hours listening to Econ small talk, until finally Graham took pity on me and filled me full of white wine and pizza. I climbed that ladder gratefully, John Railton, and I was glad he looked up my skirt because at least somebody thought it was worth looking up. And I was so goddamn mad at you, I went to Copenhagen instead of going home for a cutesy week with Mommy.’
‘You had observer credentials,’ I said feebly.
‘They’d cordoned off the Congress Palace. I had to have them. But even then, I slunk around in a stupid granny dress and kept away from the press box so as not to embarrass you.’
‘Did you enjoy it at least?’
‘If you mean is he good in bed, the answer’s yes. If you want a technical appraisal, he’s excellent but he’s too lazy and he drinks too much to be outstanding. Next question?’
I decided to try for a shock reaction.
‘The next question is about Morocco,’ I said. ‘Your Moroccan lover. How did he die?’
Nancy looked at me in amazement. ‘Sidi? He drowned on Casablanca beach. But what in God’s name has that got to do with anything?’
I didn’t know what the Voice Stress Analysis machines had registered, but I knew I believed the surprise was genuine.
‘He drowned?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long after he was arrested?’
‘Sidi was never arrested.’
‘Detained then. For left-wing activities.’
Nancy laughed. ‘John, you really are coming out of your tree, my love. Sidi’s only ambition, apart from laying every foreign woman who set foot on the beach, was to become a banker like his father.’
‘Nan, can you prove that?’ I said urgently.
‘No, of course I can’t,’ she said. ‘It was almost twenty years ago. I was on holiday and I had a fling with a Moroccan kid who drowned in a swimming accident. I’ve no idea where his family are, or even if there’s anyone left. John, you’ve got to explain this. It’s getting too crazy.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘The truth is that they’re investigating Claire Dahran. There’s reason to believe she was a Soviet agent. And that’s not craziness. The suspicions about you have come out through her.’
‘John, that’s totally ridiculous. I have no special connection with Claire. I knew her in Aix. We kept in touch. She came to a few parties. You must remember her.’
Nancy smiled. ‘She did try to seduce me once. After the divorce. She must have thought I was on an anti-men kick. It happened at the Kingsmills. After a swimming party she got too close in the showers. There was a bit of a fuss when I showed her I wasn’t interested. After that she more or less dropped away.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘did Paul know about Claire?’
‘Yes. He was with me at the Kingsmills’.’
‘And Sidi?’
‘Yes. I’ve mentioned him, I guess. But anyway, I’m pretty sure he had me investigated before the marriage.’ Nancy smiled ruefully. ‘I think it’s an old Sellinger family custom.’
I hesitated. I wanted to say so much more, but I knew I had to have clearance from Ryder.
‘Nan, I have to leave you. I’m expecting someone downstairs.’
‘You mean you have to see how the security boys think I’m doing.’
‘You always were too goddam sharp,’ I said.
‘Perhaps. But I understand. Go ahead. I won’t try to go anywhere.’
I ran down the great circular stone staircase and spotted Ryder as soon as I reached the lobby.
He was smiling and before I could say anything he pulled me into a small side room.
‘Well,’ I said urgently, ‘did you get all that?’
‘Sure did.’
‘And?’
Ryder grinned. ‘We’ve been had for suckers. The VSA analyst says he has no doubts at all. None. She isn’t lying.’
‘And she’s not hiding anything either? She couldn’t have had the affair with Loftus to give her a genuine excuse to make the trip?’
‘Nope. I brought the best expert the Company has. He’s given her a clean bill.’
‘Can I talk to her freely?’
Ryder shrugged. ‘You sure as hell may as well. Or we could be playing ring-around-the-rosy forever.’
‘No, not forever,’ I said. ‘It has to be Sellinger, doesn’t it? It just has to be. No one else could put this whole thing together. Seagull. Nancy. All the stuff from my files. It just has to be.’
‘Yes,’ Ryder said, ‘I guess it does. But we have to prove it. Go and see if your good lady can help us.’
19
‘Brother against brother?’ Nancy said. ‘Yes. It’s possible. The rift in the Family is deep enough.’
She stirred in my arms and pulled a corner of the sheet from under my stomach so that nothing interfered with the contact between our bodies.
Two hours had passed since I’d talked to Ryder. The first had been spent hesitantly, trying to heal the breach of suspicion between us as I told her everything about the contents of the Dahran file. The second had been spent making love, with a beauty and frenzy we hadn’t shared since the early days of our marriage.
Now, finally, we felt close enough to talk about Paul without constraint, but we were getting nowhere.
Once she had heard the whole story, she too believed it had to be Sellinger.
‘He’s the only one who could have designed that file so perfectly. And using the ID people to leak it is just his style. And yes, he would destroy Starburst. For revenge. Or for profit. But not for ideology. If he’s working with the Russians, it’s for his own purposes, not theirs.’
She confirmed that the tension between Paul
and the rest of the Family seemed to be growing.
‘There have been terrible fights over who will run the Sellinger Corporation if Robert goes into politics,’ Nancy said. ‘You know he’s being touted for Secretary of Defense. Paul wants the presidency of the corporation but Jacob’s blocking it. Says he wants to keep Paul free as the family troubleshooter and there’s talk of putting in a nonfamily chief operating officer. The truth is that Jacob’s afraid of Paul. He recognizes another predator like himself. He knows he wouldn’t be able to run the corporation through Paul the way he has through Robert.
‘The family’s been getting Paul pretty angry lately,’ she went on.
‘Real anger, or the rough-tough angry performances he gives at the office?’ I asked.
Nancy smiled. ‘I’d forgotten. You don’t know the private Paul Sellinger, do you. It’s very different. You’d be surprised.’
As she talked about Paul, I realized that I had never really glimpsed behind the public mask. In his business dealings his lapses in control were rare and momentary, but not, apparently, in private. In public, he accepted the Sellinger mystique which required a perfect and disciplined performance for every appearance, but he apparently found it much more of a strain than I had realized. In private, Nancy said, his idea of luxury was to be moody and he was given to alternating bouts of manic activity and black depression. In recent weeks the moods had grown worse, and he had been particularly bad since the announcement of the Starburst tests in Europe. But it was all circumstantial and not even particularly damning: she knew nothing of his travels or his business contacts. It was maddening to be so certain and yet have so little to go on.
Nancy stroked my hair and let her breasts slide playfully across my chest.
‘Nan, I’m sorry I suspected you,’ I said, ‘even if only with part of my head.’
Nancy grinned. ‘You never did understand women very well, did you. Paul—if it is Paul—has really had you harassing your females, hasn’t he? First your Seagull. Now me.’
Shadowplay Page 21
