Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

Hake remembered. “I understand and will comply,” he said reluctantly. A moment later the tape sound stopped, and the toilet was only a toilet again.

Thoughtfully, Hake used it for the purpose for whicV it was intended. The team’s communications were astonishingly quick; he was being more closely watched than he had realized. Of course, the blowing up of the car had attracted attention. It was not the sort of thing that would not be noticed. But still—how had they known so fast?

He washed his hands and went back into his bedroom, and Alys Brant said sweetly, “Hello, Horny. I hope you’re glad to see me.”

Hake stopped cold. Alys was propped on his bed, feet demurely tucked under her. She had done something new to her hair, but it had not made her less attractive; the way she looked was sweet and trusting. Nevertheless! “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Please don’t be angry, Horny, dear. I need a place to stay. Just for a night or two, until I can get to my aunt’s place.”

“Alys,” he said, “for Christ’s sake! Don’t you know Ted and Walter already blame me for taking you away from them?”

“Oh, them,” she said. She shrugged and stretched. ‘They’ll get over it. You have nothing to do with it. I made up my mind to leave them long ago. I just need to be free—good heavens, you know all that; you listened to us complain and fuss and go over the same thing over and over again in counseling. So now I’ve moved out. I’ve been staying with—a friend. But that got impossible, too, so I came here. I just don’t have any other place to go, Horny.”

“It’s completely out of the question, Alys!”

She sat up, covering a yawn. “Nobody’s ever going to know. Except Jessie, maybe. But she’s very loyal to you. Horny? Have you got anything to eat? I’ve been walking for hours, and carrying those bags.” She looked toward an overnight case and a plastic shopping bag, neatly tucked by Hake’s dresser. “Not much, are they? But all my worldly goods.”

Angry, Hake walked over to it and threw a sweatshirt over the pile of burglar tools.

“I already saw that stuff,” Alys pointed out. “And I was listening to you in the bathroom while you were getting ready to tinkle. You were talking to somebody. And I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time what you were into with dear old Leota Pauket. It’s some kind of spy thing, isn’t it, Horny? Would you like to tell me all about it while we eat?”

He sat on the edge of his bedside armchair and regarded her. The woman was full of surprises. “How do you know Leota Pauket?”

“Went to school with her. I hadn’t seen her in years— then, last spring, I just bumped into her on the street. Right outside the rectory here, as a matter of fact. We had a few drinks, she wanted to know what was happening in my life. Well, we had just been through one of those long, stupid sessions with you, and I told her all about it, and you seemed to fascinate her. She wanted to know all about you.

Do you remember that really nasty weather we had, just before we went off to Europe with those kids?”

Hake nodded. “When you were here for counseling.” It wasn’t hard to remember; that was the session that had been interrupted by his summons to the Team.

“Well, that was when it was.”

“You didn’t say anything to me.”

“Well, really, Horny! Why should I? I had no idea you knew her—in fact, I guess you didn’t. But then in Munich, she was the one who brought you back to the hotel. She was wearing a wig, but it was Leota, all right. As soon as she saw me getting out of the elevator she ducked out. And then I got a note from her. Real spy stuff: ‘Please don’t mention me, ever. I’ll explain when I see you. It’s important.’ Something like that.”

Horny Hake sat thoughtful for a moment. At least that explained how Leota had turned up on the bus to Washington. She must have known he was being drafted into service as soon as he did.

But it didn’t change the present realities. “Notwithstanding all that, Alys, you’ve got no business here now. What’s going to happen if your husbands find out?”

“We’ll just have to make sure they won’t find out, right, Horny? I mean, it looks like you’re pretty good at keeping secrets. You surprise me, honestly you do.”

He groaned. “Alys, I give you my word, you’re getting into more than you can handle. Is there any possible way I can believe that you’ll forget all this?”

She shook her head. “Huh-uh.”

“This isn’t any game! How do you think I got these lumps? People get killed!”

“It sounds really interesting, Horny.”

“This room could be bugged right now. If Curmudgeon finds out you’re involved I don’t know what he’ll do.”

” ‘Curmudgeon.’ That’s a name I hadn’t heard before.” She stood up. “Let’s go in the kitchen and get some dinner started, and then while we’re eating you can begin at the beginning and tell me all about it. You can take your time. We’ve got all night.”

Hake woke up from a profound and actively dreaming sleep, and did it instantly.

In the split second between the moment he realized he was awake and the moment he opened his eyes, he achieved a synoptic flash of memory. It took in everything. It included finding Alys in his room, talking to her, eating with her and, by what had seemed at the time a logical and inevitable progression, going to bed with her; and he even knew at once what and who had awakened him.

The figure standing beside his bed, tall, skinny and silent, was Jessie Tunman. Her eyes glittered, and she was soundlessly shaking his shoulder. She glanced contemptuously at the nude and sleeping form of Alys Brant, and retreated to the door.

Hake pulled his robe on and followed her. He whispered savagely, “You have no right coming into my room!”

“Her? I don’t care about her.” The glitter in her eyes was triumph. “Orders from Curmudgeon. Get yourself dressed and come out into the office.”

He stopped with the sash of his robe half knotted. “What do you know about Curmudgeon?” he demanded.

“Just do it.” He had never heard that tone from her, a senior-citizen gloat over the smart-assed kid. She did not linger to explain. She turned and marched down the hall, and even the way she walked was smug.

Of course, he thought, Jessie was the one! She had spied him out for recruitment to begin with. Her previous career had been “government employee.” She hadn’t lied on the job application, she had merely failed to say what part of the government she had worked for. And no doubt she had been observing him carefully all the while she typed his sermons and filed his mail, judging from arcane clues (whether he took the liverwurst on rye or the cheese on a toasted roll) what his performance would be in the field. He had had no privacy at all! Jessie checking him out for the Team. Alys reporting to her old school chum, Leota. He might just as well have lived his life in Macy’s window.

The way that Alys lay, curled comfortably in one undemanding corner of his bed, was exactly as she had been when he woke. Her eyes were closed. There was no doubt in Hake’s mind that she was wide awake behind them. Shaved and showered in less than five minutes, he pulled on his clothes without speaking to her. It was convenient for both of them that they should agree to pretend she was still asleep. For her because she did not have to take a part in this scene; for him because he was not sure what he wanted to say to her. Not until he found out what Jessie had to say, at least. Not even then, most likely, though there was no doubt that he would have to say something anyway.

In the office, Jessie had turned on the heater against the morning damp, and swept the collating table clean. She was laying out a kit of tools and gadgets Hake had seen before, but not here: an instant camera, a box of various printed forms, bottles of inks, soft cloth pads. One of the instructors had run through them for the class Under the Wire. It was strange to think of Jessie being there, no doubt many years before him.