She looked up at Quidley. For the first time she realized his power. This gray-clad man, so careful with his trousers — he had the power to release her Johnny.
Or to kill him.
"He hasn't told you anything?"
"He's said nothing under interrogation but his name. We're using a new technique, but so far—"
"No. He wouldn't ever tell."
"Tell what?" Quidley leaned forward, pale eyes fixed on her face. "What was he doing?"
"He was stealing food."
"Food!"
"That's right, Major."
"But why…?" He spread his hands helplessly. "Why shouldn't he confess that?"
"Major — do you know what happens to CEs they catch stealing?"
"Vaguely. Jail?"
"Not for Johnny. You see, he kill a man once. Beat him to death with his hands. That's why he's a longshoreman now. Transferred and reassigned — like me, Major, just like me. But if he ever gets caught again for a crime…."
He nodded. "Reconditioning," he said. "But what he's getting now is as bad."
"Except that I'm left out of it." She nodded, eyes locked with his. "They'd take me too. For knowing about it and not reporting him. This way it's only him.
"That's why he'll never talk to you, Major."
"My God." He stripped off his gloves and slapped them nervously against his palm. "But look — he was hurt, his leg was torn up when he was brought in. How did that happen?"
"Who bring him in, Major?"
"Citizens' Patrol."
"That's how. You seen them po' buckra back there. Them trash shot him, or cut him — then told him if he talks, they'll come back and kill him. They would, too."
Quidley sat looking out the window. It was a duel, she thought, watching him as he struggled to make up his mind. A game — and Johnnny's life was the prize.
"And if he'd had any food, anything valuable on him when they caught him—"
"They'd have taken it."
He sighed. "What a world we live in."
She snuggled up to him. "Major Cavalier — I'm sure glad you happened by."
"This man. Just what is he to you? Your lover?"
"Well — he was."
"Was?"
"Till you come along." It started as a lie; but even as she said it she was not sure how much of it might even be the truth. "I owe you a lot, Major. I know I do. Helping me, helping Johnny—"
"How have I helped him?"
"You'll let him go. Won't you? Now that you know?"
He sighed again, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose I will. For another person I might not. But your story rings true. I know you well enough to trust you." He smiled. "I think I'm giving in to you… but somehow it doesn't matter. And Turner obviously is not dangerous."
"Sir, we here," Roberts said.
"Park in back of port control."
"Yes, sir."
The Bentley turned, slowed, rolled to a stop. A moment later Roberts opened the door. "Come up with us, Sergeant," Quidley said. "Walk with her. Behind me."
"Yes, sir."
"Where's your damned cap, man?"
"Sorry, sir. Right here, sir."
"Come on." He strode into the rear entrance. Mercifully, there was no one he knew in the lobby. They said nothing in the elevator as it dropped downward.
"Stay here," said Quidley. Vyry, standing in the antiseptic-smelling corridor, began to tremble. From the rooms beyond she heard, "Sanchez! Where the devil — " and then a low murmur.
He came back out, face set. "He's not in very good shape."
"I'll take care of him."
"I hope so. That new treatment — when we turned it off, the result wasn't quite what we expected."
She pressed her hands to her mouth. A white-sheeted figure was being rolled into the corridor on a table. It looked odd, as if something lumpy and deformed lay beneath it. But then she saw that it was him, lying on his side, knees drawn up, arms crossed.
She bit her fists to keep from screaming. His eyes were open under the shaven skull, but they were empty. Empty and unfocused as a newborn child's, as the eyes of an imbecile, of a dead animal.
"Catatonia," said a small, swarthy man, steering the trolley to a halt. "I'm sorry, Major. When the pleasure stopped I gave him the choice: talk, or have it shut off for good.
"He did neither. Instead, he just… withdrew. He's completely and unreachably insane."
TEN
When the jitney he'd called had come and Vyry was gone and the thing that had been Turner gone with her, he dismissed Sanchez and Roberts and walked slowly up four flights of stairs to the ground floor. Now he stared at himself in the mirror of the officers' rest room and tried to keep from throwing up again. He was telling himself it had been an accident but his stomach didn't believe him. It knew he'd done it, he'd destroyed Turner. And maybe, now, Vyry too.
When his mouth filled with saliva again he bent to the basin. As he ran the water he heard the voices of men arriving outside in the lobby and he looked at his watch. He was already late. Norris would have him on the carpet again, overlooking the fact he'd been working all weekend long. Well, damn him, he'd take his time.
"General Norris has been looking for you," said Jeannie as soon as he came through the door.
"He wants to see me now?"
"No. Half an hour ago. Better go right down. There's something on the front of your uniform there."
"Never mind," he said, heading for the door.
"Major Quidley. You wanted to see me, sir."
"Where the hell have you been, Quidley?" He opened his mouth to explain, but Norris cut him off. "You got that change out to the op order yet?"
"Sir, our plan was disapproved."
"What! By whom?"
"Sir Leigh, General."
Norris closed his mouth and sat down as he explained. When he came to Sir Leigh's comments about Norris he felt particular pleasure in repeating them word for word. "… he must be insane, he said, sir."
"What! No, don't repeat it. Damn it, Quidley, this was your idea."
"Yes, sir. But you approved it."
"I did no such thing."
"You signed it, sir."
Norris went from red to purple and he decided to back off. After all, the man (though below him socially) was his comrnanding offlcer. "But there's no harm done, sir. He tore the message up before my eyes."
"He did, eh?" Norris suddenly pulled out a drawer; Quidley almost reached for his sidearm. The silver-haired little general tossed another gray-and-black CBI folder on the desk. "Read that, Major. Then tell me there's no harm done."
He did, and swallowed. According to the CBI, the complete text of the moving-east message had been passed upward within the convoluted network of the Underground Railroad.
"Major Quidley," said Norris, with great dignity, "I shall now ask you to explain why you should not be interrogated. Only you, I, and Admiral Sir Vickery have ever seen that bogus message of yours. By God, we are narrowing that leak down, aren't we! That's the best idea I've had in weeks."
"I didn't pass it on," he said.
"And I didn't!" screamed Norris, slamming his desk. "It's you, me, or Vickery! And don't try to tell me it's me!"
"Yes, sir. I won't."
"Who have you told about this message, Quidley? Who did you tell about Shiloh?"
"No one, sir."
"No one at all? No one that you thought was above suspicion? Do you talk in your sleep, did your mother overhear you? Think, man!"
"I didn't tell anyone about the message, sir."
Norris stared at him, then looked back at the report. "Major," he said at last, softly, "there's just one thing stopping me from court-martialing you now. Today. No, two. One, whatever your faults, you're of an old Confederate family, and I'll give you this — you're a loyal and honest Southerner. Two — you're just not smart enough to be a foreign agent."