The Mercedes turned onto the grounds of Gallaudet College. Trotter followed at a respectful distance. “It’s Powers,” he said unnecessarily.
McGarvey wanted to say that he had known it all along. That he had suspected the director’s complicity from the beginning. But he had not. This now came as a complete surprise. Powers was the very best. The brightest. The most trustworthy. He was the man with the right stuff. Handpicked by the president, with the trust not only of the government and of the general public, but of the case-hardened professionals who worked for him. It was as if the news had suddenly broke that Kennedy himself had been a Russian spy. The realization that Powers was a traitor was no less stunning.
Just for a moment McGarvey wanted to turn around, get his things, and go back to Europe. To the south of France, or Greece or even the Costa del Sol. Anywhere so that he could forget. I shouldn’t have been involved with this in the first place, he thought. He had believed that he was inured to dishonor. Now he understood that he’d never known the first thing about it. Philby had been nothing by comparison.
Powers had betrayed not only his country, he had betrayed the very notion of the loyal American. The last bastion of truth and justice, it seemed, remaining in an age of betrayal. Powers had been, since the early sixties — perhaps even earlier — a traitor. And yet he had done fine things in defense of his country. The Russians had indeed suffered reverses at his hands. All a sham, McGarvey wondered, or had he traded one victory against several larger victories for Baranov? Like Kim Philby, Powers had been raised amongst the elite of his homeland; the finest upbringing, the most prestigious schools, the brightest future. And like Philby, his perfidy had come as the least suspected, most shocking of all surprises.
The college grounds were dark and mysterious at this time of the night; a fine mist lay in the trees and swirled across the road. They said nothing to each other as they followed Yarnell past the school buildings and then up the private road, where they doused their headlights and hung back as the Mercedes stopped at the gate house. The guard came out, said something to Yarnell (whose figure they could clearly see in the lights now), and then the gate opened and the Mercedes disappeared up toward the house, the lights of which were just visible through the trees.
For a long time they sat in their car not knowing what to say or really what to do now that they had come to this point. No way back, McGarvey thought. No way to erase what had gone on before. No way to expunge Yarnell’s sins, or Powers’s sins, or his own, for that matter. He glanced at Trotter.
“You’d better telephone Day,” he said. “Tell him that we’re going to need some help over here.”
“Sure,” Trotter said. “Sure.” But he made no immediate move to reach for the telephone.
Evita Perez lost her virginity to Darby Yarnell when she was barely twenty years old. She lost another sort of virginity when she had been drawn into Baranov’s circle. And once again she had sinned by betraying her past. She didn’t know which had been worse; they had all hurt her deeply. Nor, she decided, had anything she’d done provided her with the satisfaction she’d gone looking for. “Just let go,” Baranov’s words from years earlier came back to her. “I will always be there for you. No matter where. No matter why.”
She sat now staring at the telephone as she had for the past half hour, trying to let go, but knowing that she couldn’t. Trying to believe that Valentin would be there for her, but knowing that, of course, he would not be. He had never been. Trying to force herself into an overt action that she’d known all along was the only path to her survival, yet realizing she hadn’t the strength or resolve for it so she was trying to psychologically pump herself up for at least an attempt.
“Get out,” McGarvey had told her. “Run!” She forced a smile. He didn’t understand. Even now he had no real comprehension of what they were up against. We can’t run, she’d wanted to tell him. None of us are innocents. None of us are free of sin. We’re all of us by a certain age locked into a future whose parameters are fairly sharply defined. Plumbers might climb mountains but they seldom become artists. Artists make lousy accountants. And foolish little girls who sell their souls for imagined royalty end up bitter, indecisive old hags on some trash heap somewhere.
It was just midnight by the time she finally roused herself enough to change her clothes and put on a little makeup. McGarvey had left her his pistol. He’d shown her how to use it, but she still wasn’t quite certain about the safety catch. She took the gun out of the night table drawer and hefted it. The metal was slightly cool, with an oily odor. It felt foreign to her and ridiculously heavy in her hands. Melodramatic. Yet deadly. She raised the gun and sighted along the receiver as he had shown her. “Pull the trigger and keep pulling the trigger,” he said. “If nothing else, the noise will scare him to death.” He’d meant Basulto, of course. She didn’t think Valentin would frighten so easily. With him she would have to fire at point-blank range. To the head. Over and over again.
She lowered the pistol with shaking hands and then stuffed it in her purse. Before she left the room, she looked out the window. There were more demonstrations tonight in the park. She’d have to be careful crossing the city, but then this had been her town, her country once upon a time, and she knew it well. This time, she thought, she wasn’t some naive little kid incapable of caring for herself.
At the door she stopped for a moment and looked back at the few things she was leaving behind. She wanted a drink and she wanted, even more than that, a couple of lines of coke. She knew where to get those things here, but she’d fought the urge. Now her nerves were raw, her mouth was dry, and her stomach was fluttering. An hour ago her heart had begun to palpitate, but she had steeled herself against the outward symptoms. The pleasure principle, it was called. She’d forgo the immediate pleasure of relief for a much greater pleasure later.
She took the elevator down to the second floor and crossed the empty ballroom to the rear stairs. Once in the service corridor on the ground floor, she hurried to the loading docks behind the kitchens and outside into the still, muggy night. The sounds of the demonstration in the park were loud, ominous. Moving fast she walked around to the parking ramp where McGarvey had left the rental Volkswagen. He hadn’t turned in the keys in case she needed a quick way out. She found the car on the second level. Again, as she had in the room, she hesitated. McGarvey had told her to run. Meaning to “run away from trouble, not toward it.” But she was repaying a long-standing debt wasn’t she? It was up to her now to make sure Valentin did not ultimately win. Someone was going to have to stop him, and it wasn’t going to be McGarvey because he simply did not understand what he was up against; what they had all been up against from the beginning.
Traffic was light around Independencia, a block south of the hotel, and along the broad Lázaro Cardenas, but a car was on fire at the Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, so Evita had to make a broad detour east before she could turn south again, picking up San Antonio Abad, the main highway south out of the city. She was able to speed up, a cloud of blue smoke trailing the car, as she rattled into the quiet night. Behind her when she bothered to look into the rearview mirror, she could see Mexico City ablaze with lights and fires and even fireworks rising on long, ragged plumes into the sky. She had to admire, despite herself, Baranov’s handiwork. He had wanted Mexico from the very beginning. It was one of the reasons, she supposed, that he had targeted Darby, who had practically owned Mexico City from day one. And now at long last it seemed as if he was going to get his wish.