Fortunately, the physical tasks of driving the car helped to obscure her reaction when she understood the implications of what he’d said. He was not one of Wellington’s men!
She didn’t look at him. She kept facing front, kept driving. The headlights stayed a block back.
The man said, “The people your grandfather has been in contact with for almost three weeks are not from the People’s Republic. Certain members of your family, highly placed in government, have learned of your grandfather’s intention to visit the People’s Republic, and they are determined at all costs to stop him.”
Afraid of the trembling she heard in her voice, Evelyn said, “Are you sure?” She still faced front.
“Our people were murdered,” the man said. “The ones who were in contact with your grandfather. Renegade Vietnamese have taken their place. And now I must tell you something I regret the need to say. The man you are visiting, Robert Pratt, is not true to you. He is actually in the pay of the people who are determined to thwart your grandfather. They have hired him to make love to you and gain your confidence, in order to learn your grandfather’s plans through you.”
Now she did risk a quick glance at him, saw that he was showing the mild concern natural to a man bringing a stranger bad news, and faced front again. They had decided she was the family’s dupe, it hadn’t occurred to them she would be on the family’s side.
But how should she react to this news about Robert? If she were a dupe, wouldn’t she have to deny it? She said, “That isn’t true. Robert and I are in love.”
“It may be,” the man said gently, “that he truly believes he is acting in your best interests. Whatever the case, we have proof he is in league with those who would stop at nothing to keep your grandfather from visiting the People’s Republic. You must believe me, your grandfather’s very life may hang in the balance.”
When she looked at him now, the agitation she showed was genuine. “His life? What do you mean?”
“I mean that the President of the United States has approved the assassination of your grandfather as a last resort, rather than permit him to embarrass your nation by visiting mine.”
“But they wouldn’t—”
“They have. Please communicate this message to your grandfather, and let him decide for himself whether or not to trust it. This plan to travel to Paris is very dangerous. There is strong reason to believe they intend to murder your grandfather in the course of the journey.”
Could that be true? Wellington’s face, closed and inaccessible, appeared before her. She touched the brakes without thinking, and turned a pleading look on the man beside her. “Is that true? Are you just trying to scare us, or is it true?”
“I am sorry to say it is true,” he said. “And now I had best depart from you. If you will stop along the road here—”
She thought for a flickering instant of accelerating, driving him to some police station, or back to Robert, somewhere, and have men force him to tell whether or not it was the truth. But it was impossible — the headlights still swam in the rearview mirror — so she braked to a stop, and the man smilingly wished her good night before stepping out of the car.
v
Sitting in the car, well back in darkness, Evelyn gnawed the knuckle of her left thumb and watched the brightly-lit phone booth in front of the closed gas station across the way. All around her, the town of McConnellsburg, twenty-two miles west of Chambersburg, was dark and silent.
She had continued to drive toward Eustace after the Chinese had gotten out, but when she was sure she wasn’t being followed she’d gone on through Eustace to Metal and had then taken the back roads down to McConnellsburg, where she’d finally found a phone booth. She’d called Robert and told him where she was, and he’d promised to be there in twenty minutes.
It was twenty-five minutes before she saw the headlights coming from the right. She pressed back against the seat, and at the same time reached out her right hand to the ignition key, ready to start the engine and get out of here if anything had gone wrong.
She recognized the Jaguar when it pulled to a stop beside the phone booth, recognized the shape of Robert when he climbed from the car. He was alone, and he didn’t seem to have been followed. Nevertheless, she waited. It no longer seemed possible to trust anyone, and she waited.
Robert walked around the phone booth, looking this way and that, and then just stood there, obviously baffled. Evelyn watched him, no one else appeared, and finally she flicked her headlights on and off, just once. His head turned at the flash of light, and after a second he came across the road toward her, moving cautiously and looking constantly to left and right. So he, too, was mistrustful.
He was almost on top of the car before he recognized her through the windshield, and then he came quickly around and slid into the passenger seat, the interior lights clicking on when he opened the door and then off when he’d shut it again.
In darkness, he said, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
Her voice a monotone, she said, “A Chinese agent got into the car after I left you. While I was stopped at a traffic light. He told me about the Vietnamese taking over from his own people, he told me about the family trying to stop Bradford. He thought I was on Bradford’s side, and he told me you’d been assigned to make love to me just to find out what was going on.”
Robert laughed, and said, “That’s lucky.”
“Yes, it is. He also said the President had authorized Bradford’s murder as a last resort, to keep him from going to China.”
Robert was silent, and then, cautiously, he said, “How could he even know a thing like that? Even if it was true, and I’m sure it isn’t, how could a Chinese agent find out about it? He was just trying to scare you.”
“Why?”
“To keep you in line. I don’t know, to make you think it was more urgent to help Bradford get out of the country.”
“But we are helping him get out of the country.”
“You know what I mean. What’s the matter, Evelyn?”
“He said they’re going to kill him on the trip.”
“Who? Bradford?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But that’s ridiculous!”
“It is not ridiculous. You’ve seen Wellington, you know what he’s like. Can you imagine what his superiors must be like? They would kill him!”
“They couldn’t get away with it,” Robert said. “There’s too many of us involved in this thing, it would have to come out, it would have to be the hugest scandal that ever was.”
“If it looked like an accident? If the plane crashed, or something like that?”
That stopped him for a second, but then he said, “No. It isn’t going to happen. I absolutely promise you, nothing like that is going to happen.”
“How can you promise me? How can you know for sure?”
He said, “Because I’m going to call Wellington. He gave me a number where I can reach him, and I will, and I’ll tell him what happened to you tonight, and I’ll tell him that if any harm comes to you, anything at all, nothing on this earth will save him from me.”
“Robert—”
But his arms had come around her, and he was saying, “Don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you know the difference you’ve made? You’ve brought me back to life! Nothing is going to happen, I swear it!”
She closed her eyes. She believed him.
11
When the small plane actually made the trip from Hagerstown to Washington without incident, Evelyn at last began to relax, and to admit to herself that her belief in Robert last night had been only a tentative sketching-in of trust and confidence. Robert could be honest and passionate, but was the decision his as to whether or not Bradford would live or die?