Arthur Hailey - Overload

Of course, Yvette thought, it would be easy to blame those earlier years for what had happened to her since, but it would be neither true nor fair. After coming west, and despite her legal minimum of schooling, she had gotten a job as a department store salesclerk-in the infants' wear department, which she liked. She enjoyed helping choose clothes for little kids and, about that time, had the feeling she would like to have children herself someday, though she would not treat them the way she had been treated at home.

The thing that happened, which put her on the road she finally walked with Georgos, was being taken, by another girl Yvette worked with, to some left-wing political meetings. One thing led to another, later she met Georgos and . . . Oh God, what was the use of going over it all again!

Yvette was well aware that in some ways she was not bright. She always had difficulty in figuring things out and, at the small country school she attended until age sixteen, her teachers let her know she was a dunderhead. Which was probably why, when Georgos persuaded her to give up her job and go underground with him to form Friends of Freedom, Yvette hadn't any real idea of what she was getting into. At the time it sounded like fun and adyenture, not-as it turned out to be -the worst mistake of her life.

The realization that she-like Georgos, Wayde, Ute and Felix-bad become a hunted criminal came to Yvette gradually. When it was implanted fully, she was terrified. What would they do to her if she was caught? Yvette thought of Patty Hearst, and what Hearst had been made to suffer, and she was a victim for Chrissakes. How much worse would it be for Yvette, who was not?

(Yvette remembered how Georgos and the other three revolutionaries had laughed and laughed over the Patty Hearst trial, laughed about the way the establishment was falling over itself in a self-righteous effort to crucify one of its own, just to prove it could. Of course, as Georgos said afterward, if Hearst-in that particular case-had been poor, or black like Angela Davis, she would have gotten sympathy and a fairer shake. It was Hearst's misfortune that her old man had money.

Hilarious, though! Yvette could still see their small group watching TV and breaking up each time the trial reports came on.) But now, the fear from having committed crimes herself hovered over Yvette, a fear which expanded like cancer until, in the end, it filled her every waking hour.

More recently, she realized that Georgos no longer trusted her.

She caught him looking at her in strange ways. He didn't talk as much as before. He became secretive about the new work he was doing. Yvette sensed that, whatever else happened, her days as Georgos' woman were almost over.

It was then, without really knowing why, Yvette started to eavesdrop by making tape recordings. It was not difficult. here was equipment available and Georgos had shown her how to use it. Using a concealed mike, and operating the recorder in another room, she taped conversations between Georgos and Birdsong. That was how, playing the tape back later, she learned about those fire extinguisher bombs at the Christopher Columbus Hotel. The Georgos-Birdsong conversations were on the cassettes she had given the black woman. So was a long, rambling account of it all, from the beginning, by Yvette herself.

Why had she done it?

Even now she was unsure. It wasn't conscience; no point in kidding herself about that. Nor was it because of any of those people at the hotel; Yvette was too far removed, too far gone, to care. Perhaps it was to save Georgos, to save his soul (if he had one; if any of them did) from the terrible thing be intended to do.

Yvette's mind was getting tired. It always did when she thought too much.

She still didn't want to die!

But she knew she had to.

Yvette looked about her. She had kept on walking, not noticing where she was, and now realized she had come faster and further than she thought.

Her destination, which she could already see, was only a short distance ahead.

It was a small, grassy knoll, high above the city, and preserved as a public space. The unofficial name was Lonely Hill, which was appropriate since few people went there, a reason Yvette had chosen it. The final two hundred yards, beyond the last streets and houses, was up a step, narrow path and she took it slowly. The top, which she dreaded reaching, came all too soon.

Earlier, the day had been bright; now it was overcast with a strong, cool wind knifing across the exposed small peak. Yvette shivered. In the distance, beyond the city, she could see the ocean, gray and bleak.

Yvette sat down on the grass and opened her purse for the second 3time. The first time had been when she produced the tape cassettes in the bar.

From the purse, where it had weighed heavily, she lifted out a device she had removed several days ago from Georgos' workshop and had hidden until this morning. It was a bangalore torpedo-simple but deadly, a stick of dynamite inside a section of pipe. The pipe was sealed at both ends, but at one end a small hole had been left to allow for entry of a blasting cap. Yvette had inserted the cap carefully herself-something else Georgos taught her-baving attached to the cap a short fuse, which now protruded through the end of the pipe. It was a five-second fuse. Long enough.

Reaching into the purse again, Yvette found a small cigarette lighter. As she fumbled with it, her hands were trembling.

The lighter was hard to get going in the wind. She put the pipe bomb down and cupped the lighter with her hand. It sputtered, then flamed.

Now she picked up the pipe bomb again, having difficulty because she was trembling even more, but managed to bring the end of the fuse to the lighter. The fuse ignited at once. In a single, swift movement Yvette dropped the lighter and held the bomb against her chest. Closing her eyes, she hoped it would not be .

The second day of the National Electric Institute convention was winding down.

All of the day's official business was concluded. The Christopher Columbus Hotel meeting balls were deserted. A majority of delegates and wives, a few with families, were in their rooms and suites. among them, some hardy spirits were still partying. Many others were already asleep.

Some of the younger delegates and a handful of older roisterers remained spread around the city-in bars, restaurants, discotheques, strip joints. But even they were beginning to drift back to the Christopher Columbus and, when late-night places closed at 2 am, the remainder would join them.

* * *

"Good night you characters." Nim kissed Leah and Benjy, then turned out the lights in the hotel suite's second bedroom, which the children were sharing.

Leah, almost asleep, murmured something inaudible. Benjy, who was more chirpy, even though it was well past midnight said, "Dad, living in a hotel is real neat."

"Gets kind of expensive after a while," Nim said. "Especially when someone called Benjamin Goldman keeps signing room service checks."

Benjy giggled. "I like doing that."

Nim had let Benjy sign the breakfast bill this morning, and the same thing happened tonight when Benjy and Leah had steak dinners in the suite while Nim and Ruth attended an NEI reception and buffet. Later, the whole family left the hotel to take in a movie, from which they had just returned.

"Go to sleep now," Nim said, "or your signing arm won't be any good tomorrow."

In the living room, Ruth, who had heard the conversation through the open bedroom door, smiled as Nim returned.

"I may have mentioned it before," she said, "but I suppose you know your children adore you?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"Well . . ." Ruth considered. "Since you mention it, there could be one or two exceptions. Like Ray Paulsen."