application taken out of the normal sequence of checks. Have to be most careful; assume hidden microphones everywhere. And cover my tracks when I leave. Jim Norwood? Oh, yeah, he went back to Lincoln a couple of weeks ago. Thought I had his address here somewhere…
I didn’t plan on staying long. Just long enough to find out whether it was they or the KGB who hadkidnapped Valerie, and perhaps find out where she was being held. Then get on my white horse and charge. Or perhaps sneak up and slip knockout gas into the air conditioning. Maybe someone in the CIA could tell me where to get the stuff.
It was after midnight by the time I had everything completely mapped out. Couldn’t sleep. I went down by Seventh Street and watched a mugger in an alley slit his own throat.
Then I could sleep, no dreams.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
VALERIE
They held me for eighty-nine days before anyone said anything to me, though my guards did understand English. The first pair spoke Russian to each other; the second, a man and a woman, never talked at all.
I was moved three times, drugged. The second move took all day, and I vaguely remember having been rolled into an airplane., so now I could be anywhere in the country. I never see a newspaper, of course, and there’s no clue from the food, which either comes out of a can or was excreted through the Golden Arches. (I went on a hunger strike for a couple of days, demanding real food, but they just watched me, setting out a fresh hamburger every few hours.) I had fantasies about bean curd and alfalfa sprouts.
Six weeks in this long, dark room, most of the time handcuffed to a chair. I should have done isometric exercises from the start; now its too late. I couldn’tmake it to the bathroom without an arm to lean on.
One morning, the eighty-ninth, the woman cleaned up the cans from breakfast and left me alone for a minute. That was a curious sensation, being unattended, since I hadn’t even been allowed to bathe without an audience.
It was a strange room, with the proportions of a bowling-alley lane, long and narrow. Black walls with light only at my end, except when the door at the other end was opened and dim light came in from the corridor. That happened, and a new man came in.
He was short and chubby and dressed in a dark, cheap suit that was a size too small. A narrow tie many seasons out of date was cinched up so tight that the fat of his neck rolled over his collar. He looked like a small-town postmaster or some such minor self-important bureaucrat, but he was conspicuously armed, a heavy pistol dragging down his right coat pocket.
There was one other chair at the small dining room table. He moved it three inches, so that it was directly across from me, brushed off the seat with a handkerchief, and carefully sat down. He planted both elbows on the table and folded his hands under his chin. “I want you to answer some questions,” he said with a Boston “awn-seh.” I just looked at him.
“We’re having trouble locating your husband.”
“Is that so?” My voice sounded strange to me.
“He knows what number to call. Two numbers. Presumably he knows that not calling places you in danger.”
That was something I’d had some time to think about. “Maybe not. Maybe he assumes that if he calls, you’ll make some threat concerning me, and he’ll have to—”
“I would be careful with these ‘maybes,’” the mansaid testily, mocking.
“Maybe
he assumes that you’re dead. In which case you are simply a drain on our resources, and a risk.”
“Whose resources?”
“Don’t worry about that yet.”
“I won’t tell you a thing unless I know who I’m talking to.”
He smiled; small, pursed lips. “All right. If I say CIA, will you believe me? Or KGB? Would you like to see my Mafia identification card?”
“Very funny.” I leaned forward. “But yes. My husband said he met a CIA man, who had a State Department ID card. Let’s see yours.”
“Come now. Anyone can
I didn’t plan on staying long. Just long enough to find out whether it was they or the KGB who hadkidnapped Valerie, and perhaps find out where she was being held. Then get on my white horse and charge. Or perhaps sneak up and slip knockout gas into the air conditioning. Maybe someone in the CIA could tell me where to get the stuff.
It was after midnight by the time I had everything completely mapped out. Couldn’t sleep. I went down by Seventh Street and watched a mugger in an alley slit his own throat.
Then I could sleep, no dreams.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
VALERIE
They held me for eighty-nine days before anyone said anything to me, though my guards did understand English. The first pair spoke Russian to each other; the second, a man and a woman, never talked at all.
I was moved three times, drugged. The second move took all day, and I vaguely remember having been rolled into an airplane., so now I could be anywhere in the country. I never see a newspaper, of course, and there’s no clue from the food, which either comes out of a can or was excreted through the Golden Arches. (I went on a hunger strike for a couple of days, demanding real food, but they just watched me, setting out a fresh hamburger every few hours.) I had fantasies about bean curd and alfalfa sprouts.
Six weeks in this long, dark room, most of the time handcuffed to a chair. I should have done isometric exercises from the start; now its too late. I couldn’tmake it to the bathroom without an arm to lean on.
One morning, the eighty-ninth, the woman cleaned up the cans from breakfast and left me alone for a minute. That was a curious sensation, being unattended, since I hadn’t even been allowed to bathe without an audience.
It was a strange room, with the proportions of a bowling-alley lane, long and narrow. Black walls with light only at my end, except when the door at the other end was opened and dim light came in from the corridor. That happened, and a new man came in.
He was short and chubby and dressed in a dark, cheap suit that was a size too small. A narrow tie many seasons out of date was cinched up so tight that the fat of his neck rolled over his collar. He looked like a small-town postmaster or some such minor self-important bureaucrat, but he was conspicuously armed, a heavy pistol dragging down his right coat pocket.
There was one other chair at the small dining room table. He moved it three inches, so that it was directly across from me, brushed off the seat with a handkerchief, and carefully sat down. He planted both elbows on the table and folded his hands under his chin. “I want you to answer some questions,” he said with a Boston “awn-seh.” I just looked at him.
“We’re having trouble locating your husband.”
“Is that so?” My voice sounded strange to me.
“He knows what number to call. Two numbers. Presumably he knows that not calling places you in danger.”
That was something I’d had some time to think about. “Maybe not. Maybe he assumes that if he calls, you’ll make some threat concerning me, and he’ll have to—”
“I would be careful with these ‘maybes,’” the mansaid testily, mocking.
“Maybe
he assumes that you’re dead. In which case you are simply a drain on our resources, and a risk.”
“Whose resources?”
“Don’t worry about that yet.”
“I won’t tell you a thing unless I know who I’m talking to.”
He smiled; small, pursed lips. “All right. If I say CIA, will you believe me? Or KGB? Would you like to see my Mafia identification card?”
“Very funny.” I leaned forward. “But yes. My husband said he met a CIA man, who had a State Department ID card. Let’s see yours.”
“Come now. Anyone can
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