A stirring a few steps away from her attracted her attention. It was where Dan had settled himself to sleep, but he didn't appear to be sleeping. He had taken off his jacket to wrap it over his head-well, that was a sensible enough thing to do, to keep the light out-but she saw that he had one hand up inside the garment, right in front of his face, and the hand was moving as though he were doing something with it inside the jacket.
Pat informed herself that whatever he was doing, it was none of her business. Picking his nose? Something equally distasteful and private? Not to mention that she wasn't really speaking to the man… But it went on for a surprisingly long time, and curiosity overcame her scruples. "Dan?" Softly, so as not to wake the others. "What are you doing?"
The motion stopped. A moment later Dan's head popped out, regarding her. "It's nothing," he said.
"Well, sorry. I just thought-"
But he was shaking his head as though to tell her not to pursue the subject. Baffled, she watched as he wrapped the jacket around his hand and stood up. He looked as though he were pondering something. When she opened her mouth he shook his head at her again, then seemed to come to a decision. He touched the wall with one hand, then raised the other, wrapped in the jacket, to press against it. He held it there for a bit, frowning, then slowly moved it up and down.
He seemed to be expecting something. Whatever it was, it didn't happen. He shrugged and sighed…
And then something did happen. The wall puckered and opened just where his hand was. A moment later a great fist- a Doc fist, taloned and immense-poked through and snatched the garment from his hand. "Shit!" he said, jumping back.
"What-?" Pat began, but almost at once the wall puckered again, the fist reappeared, it dropped the jacket on the floor and was gone again.
Dannerman looked angry. He picked up the jacket and shook it free. "The bastards," he muttered. "I guess they saw what I did after all, and now they've taken it away from me."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pat
Pat didn't think she had screamed when that fist poked through the wall, but she must have-must have made some sort of noise, anyway, enough so that a sleeper or two woke and saw something going on. Then their questions woke the rest. "It was the wristlet, wasn't it?" she demanded. "You took it off Dopey's body!"
He admitted it with a nod. "I had one of those glass buttons, too," he said. "Did you know they glow in the dark? Under my coat I could see it easily; and the bracelet looked like metal, but it was soft. Rubbery. It slipped right off when I pulled at it."
Rosaleen was looking at him curiously. "What did you think you were going to do with them?" She had wakened totally and quickly, as though there were no difference between sleeping and waking for her; Pat wondered if that was what it was like to be old.
Dannerman shrugged. "I didn't know. It occurred to me that maybe they were a sort of key to the wall, so I tried that out-"
"Didn't work, did it?" Jimmy Lin growled. "Now you've got them even madder at us."
That was more than Pat could stand-this from one of the men who had actually killed the first Dopey! But, surprisingly, it was Martin who came to Dannerman's defense.
"You are wrong, Lin," Martin said heavily. "He was quite correct. It is the duty of a prisoner of war to try to escape, by any means possible." He hesitated, then added, "I beg your pardon, Dannerman. You are not as useless as I thought. Now I think I will go back to sleep."
The entertainment was obviously over, so, more slowly, Jimmy and Rosaleen Artzybachova followed his example. Dannerman sat awake, leaning against the wall with his eyes half closed. After an indecisive moment Pat sat down next to him. He raised his head to look at her. "Are we friends again?" he asked hopefully.
Pat considered. "Well," she said, "not active enemies, anyway. Right now I'm a lot madder at Martin than I am at you."
"So is it all right if I say something?" When she nodded he cleared his throat and added, "I want to apologize. I'm sorry about lying to you and all. Will you believe me when 1 say I never wanted to do anything to harm you?"
She thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "We'd have to get into a definition of what 'harm' means, wouldn't we?"
"Well, I mean personal harm. I admit what I was doing might have kept you from making a lot of money, maybe-"
"Damn straight it might. Important money. Money I needed, as a matter of fact; my second divorce came pretty close to cleaning me out." She thought about that might-have-been money, then relented. "Let's let it drop. Tell me, though. How'd you get into the spy business in the first place?"
"You mean, how did a nice guy like me get into a racket like that?" He grinned. "It just happened. I was in protsy in college, I told you that. I didn't think it would last past graduation, but they called me up."
"Into the army?"
"Not the army," he said wearily. "I keep telling you; it was the Police Reserve Officers Training Corps. I guess I was a natural for them, with my background-well, you know how we grew up. Golden kids, private schools, all of Uncle Cubby's rich power-broker friends hanging around when we spent our summers at his place. So I made a lot of contacts, and then when I grew up I had entry into all kinds of places. Sometimes that was pretty useful for the Bureau."
"I suppose," she said thoughtfully. "What the hell were you doing in protsy in the first place?"
"Easy credits… and, well, yes, there was also a girl…"
She laughed out loud. A couple of the sleepers stirred, and she lowered her voice. "That's the story of your life, isn't it? Was she the one you brought to Uncle Cubby's for Christmas just before your father died?"
"No, that was a different one," he admitted. "You had a guy there, too. Was he the one you ran off and married?"
She gave him a sharp look, then smiled. "No. Actually not even close. Well, maybe neither of us is that much different from Jimmy Lin, just a little less outspoken about it." She nestled against him comfortably, then remembered to pull away.
He turned to look into her face. "What's the matter?"
She said uncomfortably, "I don't think I smell very good right now."
"So join the club."
"Damn it, Dan, I don't want to be in that club! I'd give anything for a bath-or at least for a little more water and somebody to chain Jimmy Lin up while I sponged myself off." She paused to smother a yawn. "Hell. Tell me something, Dan. Do you see any way of ever getting out of here?"
He gave her a warning look, but only said, "Did you notice how that thing reached right in to where I was standing to grab the stuff?"
"Meaning they're watching us?" She shuddered involuntarily, looking about. Well, she hadn't really ever doubted that they were being observed, but still-
On the other hand, getting out of this place was definitely the central concern in her mind, and she couldn't let it go. "So the walls have ears. Right. But do you have any ideas?"
He considered the question for a moment, then picked his words with care. "I hope so, Pat. There has to be something."
His tone struck Pat as somber. "But you have thought of what that is?"
"If you mean something that could help us escape," he said, glancing at the ceiling, "no. Not really. What I'm thinking is that there are all these people back home who don't have any idea they've been watched all this time."
There was an expression on his face that Pat couldn't identify-stubbornness, worry, concern? Something of all of them, plus a kind of determination she had never before associated with Cousin Dan-Dan. "I have a duty," he said, and stopped there.
In the silence she leaned back against him, wondering. It had never occurred to her that a cloak-and-dagger spook might be driven by conscience and concern as much as by-well, by whatever misguided adolescent yearning for colorful action might make a person get into that line of work. It was a new feeling for Pat. Not a bad one. It made him a lot easier to be comfortable with…