“I heard the words,” Janet said. “Logging something is just recording the fact. I’m waiting to speak to someone… hopefully meet with someone.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve told you, ma’am.”
Stop calling me ma’am! Janet almost screamed. She said: “You haven’t told me anything yet. Can I speak to whoever it was I had the conversation with this morning?”
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible, ma’am.”
“Why not?”
There was a pause, as if the person at the other end were undecided whether he was risking an unauthorized disclosure. Then he said: “That person is no longer on duty today.”
“So when can I expect to hear from whoever is going to talk to me!”
“I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that, ma’am.”
For several moments Janet had to clamp her mouth shut against a yell of frustration. Tightly she said: “Can you find out for me? Find out and call me back? I’ve been sitting by this telephone all day expecting some contact from you.”
“I’m afraid that would not be proper, Ms. Stone,” said the man, at least varying his politeness.
“Why the hell wouldn’t it be proper!” demanded Janet.
“I’ve no way of knowing what my colleague might have already done,” said the man. “Wires could get crossed.”
Janet pressed her knuckles against her mouth, creating a physical barrier. “How long?” she said, her words distorted.
“I’m sorry?” prompted the man.
Janet took her hand from her mouth and said, slowly and distinctly: “How long is it going to be before I hear from someone at the Central Intelligence Agency about what’s happening here and what’s happening in Beirut after the kidnap yesterday of John Sheridan!”
There was a hesitation. Then the man said: “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, ma’am.”
“Is this the way dependents of CIA officers are normally treated?” said Janet, regretting the anger as she spoke.
“Ma’am,” said the spokesman. “I’ve told you your earlier call has been logged and that a colleague is working on it. But from what you’ve explained to me, it would seem that you are not legally a dependent.”
The words had a chilling effect, cooling Janet’s anger as if icy water had been thrown in her face. “You’re telling me that I haven’t the right to know!”
“I don’t wish to get into a dispute with you over this,” said the spokesman. “I was just expressing a personal point of view.”
She was being blocked out, Janet decided. As she’d been blocked out when she called the supposed State Department number and when she made that first approach to Langley. She said: “No one is going to try to help me, are they?”
“Ma’am, I’ve already tried to make it clear how little I can assist you.”
“Poor bugger,” said Janet.
“Ma’am?”
“I was feeling sorry for John Sheridan, for ever getting involved,” she said, quietly now.
“I really don’t think there is anything further I can help you with,” said the man.
“Don’t forget to log the call, will you?” urged Janet, slamming down the telephone.
The gesture didn’t help and she sat there, the renewed frustration trembling through her. Gradually she focused on the spread-apart Washington Post. During that morning’s conversations, she’d said she didn’t want to cause difficulties. It wasn’t she who had imposed those difficulties, Janet decided: they had.
She picked up the telephone again. She explained yet again, to the Washington Post operator, and was connected at once to a voice that said, simply: “City.”
“My name is Janet Stone,” she said. “I am engaged to be married to John Sheridan.”
“Would you talk to us about that, Ms. Stone?” asked the man, at once.
“I want to, very much,” said Janet. “I’m being shoved aside by the Agency.”
“Where are you?”
When Janet gave her address, the deskman said: “We can have a writer and photographer there in forty-five minutes.”
They arrived in thirty. The writer was a thin, bony woman with prematurely gray-streaked hair, and the male photographer wore jeans and a T-shirt and round, metal-framed granny glasses.
“What can you tell us about John Sheridan and yourself?” asked the woman, as soon as she was inside the apartment.
“Everything,” promised Janet.
9
J anet had little experience of newspapers or the other media, and the reaction to her interview with the Washington Post overwhelmed her. It was only eleven o’clock that night, and Harriet was still with her, when the telephone first rang. It was the staff correspondent for the BBC who had read the piece in the first edition of the following morning’s paper and wanted an interview at their Washington studio, to be transmitted by a satellite link-up with London for their breakfast program. Knowing there would be no contact from the CIA that late at night, she agreed. Hairnet offered to remain in the apartment just in case, and it was Harriet who relayed to her at the studio the calls from American bureaus of five London newspapers, CBS, NBC, and ABC, the New York Times, Newsday, Newsweek, and Reuters news agency. She agreed to the American television interviews and spoke to the London Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail but then, exhausted, asked the others to wait until the following morning. It was three-thirty before she got to bed. The Reuters reporter and photographer called from the downstairs lobby at seven.
Their interview and picture session was just finishing when the delayed contact of the previous night started to be made, not by telephone now but by journalists coming personally to Rosslyn. Janet posed and talked to them all and agreed to fresh interviews for different programs with the three main American television networks, with ITN in London, and with CNN.
It was late afternoon before she was able properly to read the Washington Post interview which had started it all. Although there was a story datelined from Beirut, it was immediately obvious that there had been no developments in Beirut, and her story was given the emphasis. The Post had divided it into two parts. That on the front page, turning later on to page nine, focused upon her anger at the lack of help from the CIA, and Janet was glad-it was to force some response from the Agency that she had approached the newspaper in the first place and then agreed to the media onslaught that followed. There were photographs of the legal documents she had made available to them, proving that she was Sheridan’s fiancee, including the document from the U.S. embassy in Beirut giving her control of his bank account, which was reproduced in full. The second, inside-page story was a personality profile and Janet was surprised at its depth. There was reference to her diplomat father and a quote from her department head at Georgetown University describing her as a brilliant academic and there were lengthy quotes from the letters that had passed between her and Sheridan, always concerning some remark about their impending wedding. There were three photographs of herself and Janet was disappointed. She thought they made her look fuller-faced than she really was, and in each she appeared strained, which she supposed she was, and she was obviously not made up, which had been her fault, not that of the photographer. It had been a mistake, too, not to change from the jeans and shirt she had been wearing when they arrived. She was reading with the television tuned to the continuous CNN news program, as she had the previous day, and was much happier with her appearance there. It had been right to wear her hair pulled back from her face and the formal business suit. She thought she looked concerned but not haggard. When she had responded to a question about their engagement the camera closed in upon her ring. She had been worriedly intertwining and then releasing her fingers, which she couldn’t remember having done.
The next telephone call was from her mother. She said she had been out specially to buy all the English newspapers and there were stories and photographs in every one. They had not expected her to appear on BBC television that morning and would have liked to have been told; as it was they had only caught it by accident.