“Toward the No Government side of center, but well short of the extreme. In other words, a constitutional system with limited powers, those powers being essentially passive and concerned with the defense of the individual’s rights against those who would deny them by force. But you know all that already, of course. I also happen to be informed of your activities on behalf of our party, Mr. Shears.” Mel nodded.
“So how does this connect with my sister’s death, and involve Mel and myself?” Stephanie asked from beside him.
“My point is that whatever label it attaches to itself in the popular mind, our opposition is political extremism,” Newell replied. “And regardless of the cause or slogans that it masquerades behind, the aim of extremism is invariably to deliver to a few the power, one way or another, to loot the pockets of the population at large. It achieves it by controlling society’s economic assets. The Left seizes them outright in the name of the collective good; the Right awards itself monopoly privileges to eliminate competition. Although they may be rivals in squabbling over the spoils, the relationship is like that of parasites competing in the body of the same host. The real enemy of both of them is the same: the free and independent individual, who can’t be compelled to serve anyone.”
“In other words, the Constitutional position is the enemy of both of them,” Mel said.
“Quite. We are a common threat to all such interests. We may have won an election, but we still have enemies that command enormous power, who can be expected to subordinate their superficial differences to the common objective of seeking our destruction by all of the not inconsiderable means at their disposal. There’s an old Arab proverb that says, ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend. ’ ”
Mel frowned as he tried to see where this was leading. “What are you saying?” he asked. “That what the public sees is a façade? Behind it there’s some kind of collusion?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it’s as cut and dried as that,” Newell answered. “But one thing we can be sure of is that the prospect of the legislation we intend carrying through will unleash ferocious passions. There are people who would go to any lengths to stop it. Therefore, you will appreciate that it is vital not only to our interests, but to our very survival, to try to know who these people are, and their plans.”
“You mean that political parties are like military organizations,” Mel said. “They have secrets to protect, and enemies whose capabilities and intentions it would be foolish not to try and find out about.”
“Exactly,” Newell said. “And it should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that we have our own intelligence-gathering machinery as well.” He indicated Landis with a nod. “In fact, Warren runs it.”
“So, do you know who these people are?” Mel asked.
“Some,” Newell said. “But the picture is far from complete. I don’t think it would be appropriate to be too specific at this particular juncture.”
Warren Landis interjected, “We lump them together as the ‘Opposition.’ Just think of all the interests that stand to lose if the twenty-eighth amendment goes through.”
Stephanie was staring at Newell with a strange look of sudden revelation in her eyes. “That’s what Eva was doing, isn’t it?” she said slowly. “She was with your intelligence operation.” Newell nodded affirmatively.
“In fact, she worked for me,” Landis informed them.
“But there was more than just that,” Newell said. “You see, Eva had infiltrated a part of the Opposition—in fact it’s in no small part due to her that we know as much about them as we do.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean by ‘infiltrated,’ ” Stephanie said. “Do you mean she was a kind of a spy?”
“Yes,” Newell said candidly. “Sordid, I know, but a regrettable necessity these days. But what made her so valuable was that they thought it was themselves who had infiltrated us—that Eva had turned, and was working for them, inside the most secure part of our organization.”
“You mean that she was a double agent,” Stephanie said.
“As far as they were concerned,” Newell agreed. “But in reality she was a triple. Can you see what a priceless asset she represented to us?”
“Irreplaceable,” Mel said mechanically.
Stephanie thought for a moment, hesitated, then said, “That possibility must have crossed their minds too.”
“Of course,” Newell agreed. “We expected them to come up with some form of loyalty test for her.” He looked toward Landis to elaborate.
Landis obliged. “In the middle of January, the future vice president, Theo McCormick, will be visiting Egypt and Israel for preliminary talks on envisaged changes in U.S. foreign-aid policy. A man called Josef Kirkelmayer, from our Washington headquarters, was originally scheduled to go with McCormick’s party as the on-the-spot public-relations man.”
“You mean he’s not going now?” Mel said.
“No,” Landis replied. “Eva was given…”
“By the Opposition?”
“Yes… some documents which expose Kirkelmayer as having leaked confidential party information to our opponents before the election. The idea was to make us think that she’d obtained them in the process of working for us. The documents had been faked, of course, but the question was, would we act on them?” Landis shrugged. “Well, it has been announced publicly that Kirkelmayer has been dropped from McCormick’s team, the official reason being ill health. But we also fed it into the grapevine, in a way we knew would get back, that there was a big internal row going on over it, which hadn’t been publicized.”
Mel looked a shade skeptical. “But isn’t that what you’d expect anyone to do if they weren’t taken in but wanted to keep up the deception?”
“True,” Landis conceded. “But it was their game play. They were calling the shots. Anyhow, it gets more interesting. You see, Eva automatically became Kirkelmayer’s replacement.”
“And the Opposition knew that would be the case?” Mel checked.
“Oh yes. They were very anxious to be sure of it before they came up with the scheme to remove Kirkelmayer. In other words, they had some reason for wanting to get Eva sent to the Middle East in his place.” He glanced at Newell to resume from there.
Newell acknowledged with a nod. “All we have won so far is the popular vote, which adds up simply to an indicator of the public mood—no more. As far as anything concrete is concerned, until after the inauguration next January, it changes nothing. The Opposition has no intention of sitting back and accepting the situation as it stands. We have reason to believe that they’re planning something serious—something aimed at damaging or discrediting us, or even toppling us completely, perhaps—before the inauguration takes place. Exactly what, we don’t know. But our indications are that it will happen during McCormick’s Middle East visit, and that Eva was to have played a crucial role in it.”
Mel recalled George’s comment about the purpose of all this being a business proposition. It had to be something that they considered vital if Newell had seen fit to interrupt a demanding schedule in order to be here. He nodded. “Yes, I can see you have a problem.”
Newell placed his hands palms down on the table and stared directly first at Mel, then at Stephanie. “We both have a problem,” he said. “If your suspicions of Soviet espionage and the involvement of people in high positions are correct, then your predicament is an impossible one. I applaud your initiative, but it’s not something you could have handled on your own. I think you already knew that. But now that will become a matter to be taken care of by the appropriate agencies at a national level.” Mel and Stephanie exchanged quick glances that contained their first glimmer of real hope since the whole thing began. Newell lifted a hand from the table in a brief gesture of resignation and went on. “However, that will have to wait until after I take office. And in any case, it won’t bring Eva back.” He paused. “But we also have a problem, a far more pressing one, which cannot wait. And we think you can help us. W
hat I want to propose, therefore, is that we hold off temporarily on Brett Vorland’s activities, Dr. Oberwald, and what happened to Eva, and concentrate for the moment on finding out what the Opposition is planning to do in January. Then, assuming we’re successful, we go all-out to crack this other business.”
Stephanie frowned and looked at a loss. “Yes, I can see what you’re saying, but what do you want us to do?” Newell hesitated for an instant, as if considering how to phrase something delicate.
Landis looked pointedly at Mel. “You said a little while ago, Mr. Shears, that Eva was ‘irreplaceable.’ ” His voice held a curious, pointed quality. He waited, watching Mel’s face. Then Mel’s jaw dropped as he saw at last what the entire conversation had been leading to.
Newell nodded and directed his words to Stephanie. “But then, not quite irreplaceable, maybe. You and your sister have been mistaken for each other twice already.” Stephanie started to say something, but Newell raised a hand. “I know. Make no mistake about what we’re asking. There’s danger involved. But try and think of what it means to us, to the country, and what it meant to Eva. There isn’t time to come up with any alternative approach. As you said yourself a few minutes ago, for the time being, officially you don’t exist. And that could be convenient. You see, what we want you to do is become Eva. We want you to take your sister’s place.”
CHAPTER 23
Mel propped himself on an elbow and ran his other hand through Eva’s hair spread loosely over her back as she lay face down, naked, on the bed. “Mmmm,” she murmured contentedly. He grinned and ran his fingertips lightly along her spine and the crease of her behind, and down the back of a thigh to her knee. She twitched and giggled.
“That tickle?”
“Mmmm… Hey, you stopped.”
“Why are backs of knees sexy?”
“Why is anything sexy? It’s all because of evolution.”
Mel leaned over and touched his tongue along her shoulders. “You smell nice, Know that?”
“Most of sex is smell.” Eva rubbed the side of her face against the pillow, keeping her eyes closed. “I’ve never understood why people turn it into something to feel awkward about and spray stuff on to camouflage it. I mean, it’s nice. We’re programmed that way.”
“I thought we were visual animals,” Mel said. “Isn’t sixty percent of the cortex supposed to be involved with processing visual data?”
“I don’t care. It may be true, but smell goes back further. It’s closer to the emotions. Have you ever noticed that smells trigger memories much better than anything else? Even old nostalgic tunes.”
“Oh, some people get hung up about it, I guess.”
“Some people get hung up being alive at all.” Eva rolled over onto her back, still with her eyes closed. “Smell me all over.”
“You don’t have any inhibitions about anything, do you?” Mel said.
“Life’s too short. People talk about Chinese foot binding. What about Western mind binding?”
Mel kissed down her throat, between her breasts, and around a nipple. “You’ll start me off. Then we’ll have to do it all over again.”
Eva opened one eye impishly. “Want to?”
“You like sex a lot, don’t you?”
“Sure. It’s great. Want to?”
Mel held her one-eyed stare for a second or two, then conceded defeat with a sigh and settled his face against her shoulder. “Hell, there’s a limit. Let’s just cuddle up for a while.”
“I like that a lot, too.” She pulled up the sheet, slipped inside his arm, and snuggled close.
“That’s another thing that I like about you,” Mel said.
“What?”
“That kind of… animal quality. You don’t get shocked by things. It makes most other girls seem kind of antiseptic.”
“Not like you.”
“Well, guys are more, well, ‘earthy,’ I guess…”
“Oh.”
“If you know what I mean.”
“Sure.”
“I’m not being sexist or anything. It’s just—”
“That’s okay. I understand.”
“You see, you’re broad-minded. I feel free and easy talking to you. It’s different. I feel I can talk to you the way I can with other guys.”
“I’m glad.” She stroked his chest with a fingertip. Mel squeezed her body with the arm around her back. “Have you ever heard of a sootikin?” she asked lightly.
“What’s that?”
“I read about them in an English social commentary from centuries ago. It was a mouse-shaped accumulation that formed in the vaginal cleft through not washing for weeks, or even months. They had to sweep them up after church service, because poorer-class women didn’t use underwear, and—”
“Christ, that’s gross!” Mel sat up abruptly. “What are you trying to do, put me off for life?”
Eva laughed. “I thought guys were supposed to be earthy.”
“You made it up.”
“Not at all. But if you’re really not in the mood…” She pulled the sheet aside, swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and sat up.
“Getting up?”
“Time’s getting on… And I need to take a shower.”
“I’ll put some coffee on while you’re in there.”
“That would be nice. Are you going back to your place after?”
“I guess so.”
“If Stephanie’s there, tell her that Sadie will drop off the books she wanted.”
“She probably will be. Brett said something about them going over to Mobile later today.” Mel stretched out an arm and ran a finger down Eva’s back. It was a perfect back, lean and evenly tanned, with the muscles moving hypnotically as she rolled her head and circled her shoulders to loosen up. “Are you sure we can’t get together again later today?” he said. “Maybe have lunch, go out somewhere tonight?”
“I can’t. I’m tied up for today. You’ve got things to do, too.”
Mel sighed. “I know, I know.”
Eva stood up, slipped on a lilac flannelette robe, and disappeared out through the door. Moments later the sound came of the shower being turned on in the bathroom.
Mel lay back and stared contentedly for a while up at the ceiling. Then he let his gaze wander around the room, taking in the shorts and top that Eva had worn the previous evening, draped over the chair by the vanity, and his jeans and T-shirt, piled on top of the laundry basket. There were her clothes in the partly-open closet: dresses, from white with pale blue trim and a simple floral pattern—the kind a girl might wear at a casual Sunday brunch—to richly textured, ankle-length evening gowns; skirts of various colors, straight, pleated, one of denim, one of chequer; slacks, pants, some beach shirts; shoes, from worn canvas sneakers to suede boots and high heels in patent leather. Across the room, her makeup things scattered on top of the vanity: lipstick, tweezers, comb, eyebrow pencil; hair slides, a box of Q-tips. Her things. Personal things that she handled and which were close to her—not like gifts to be hung on the wall at a distance or shoved away in the back of a drawer. Lying here in her bed looking at them gave him a warm, secure feeling of belonging to the world they were part of. Her world. Him a part of it. He liked the feeling.
On the nightstand by the bed, two glasses, one still half-filled with fruit juice, the phone, with a scribbling pad, wind-up clock—Eva said that clocks ought to be clockwork, because that’s what the word means. The shelf below, as with every expanse of horizontal space that she owned, crammed with books and papers. Mel rolled over to the edge of the bed and scanned the titles idly. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies; Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson; Heller, Catch-22… Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde. A postcard, being used as a bookmark, had fallen partly out of a volume that had been pushed in the wrong way round with its open side outward, and was on the point of dropping to the floor. Mel reached out and lifted the card clear to reinsert it properly, holding the place with a fingertip. As he did so, he paused curiously
to look at it. It was from Washington, D.C., and showed the Lincoln Memorial. The message on it, written in firm italic executed with a broad-nibbed pen in black ink read:
Eva,
Arr. 14th as promised, Delta Flt 56, lands Pensacola 5:16 p.m. If you’re not at the gate, see you for dinner, Lenox Inn—say 7:30? Bring toothbrush. Don’t bother with nightie! Interesting news on the slot with the firm that we talked about. Will tell you all about it over wine and candles. I think we’ve an offer you can’t refuse. Looking forward to seeing some sun and surf again, not to mention more of you.
Affectionately, as always,
Dave F.
A numb feeling came over Mel as he stared at it. Today, Saturday, was the fourteenth of the month. The card was postmarked nine days previously. No wonder she was tied up for the rest of the day. A sickening tightness took hold of his throat and stomach. He was only peripherally aware of himself throwing the bedsheet aside, crossing the room to the door, and entering the bathroom.
Too overcome with hurt and bewilderment to speak, he pulled the shower curtain aside and thrust the offending card into Eva’s face. For an instant the sight of her naked body make him want to strike out, but he fought back the impulse. She saw what he was holding and closed her eyes momentarily with a resigned sigh. It wasn’t so much an expression of remorse, but more an acknowledgment that she had made a mistake.
“What the fuck is this?” Mel demanded, finding his voice. “I mean, what is it, huh? What the hell’s going on?…” He stood fuming, as if he were about to explode. Eva turned off the shower, stepped out, and put on her robe. But as he turned to confront her again, she evaded the encounter and walked past him and back through to the bedroom. Mel pursued her furiously, more enraged by her silence than if she had screamed or thrown something at him. He bore into the room and slammed the door shut behind him with a kick. “It’s him, isn’t it? It’s Dave Fenner. You’re seeing him today, right? That’s why you’re tied up.”
“Why don’t you put some clothes on?”
“Isn’t it?” Mel demanded.
The Mirror Maze Page 18
