Arthur Hailey - Evening News

Carlos, who had entered the United States two months earlier using a forged passport, had been involved in this stealthy surveillance for almost four weeks, along with six others from Colombia—five men and a woman. Like Carlos, the others were identified only by fictitious first names, which in most cases covered criminal records. Until their present task began, the members of the group were unknown to one another. Even now, only Miguel, the leader, who tonight was several miles away, was aware of real identities.

The Ford Tempo had been repainted twice during the short period of its use. Also, it was just one of several vehicles available, the objective being not to create a detectable pattern.

What had accumulated from the surveillance was a precise and detailed study of Crawford Sloane's movements and those of his family.

In the fast-moving expressway traffic, Carlos allowed three other cars to move up between himself and Sloane, though keeping the tailed Buick still in sight. Beside Carlos, another man noted the time and made an entry in a log. This was Julio —swarthy, argumentative and bad-tempered, with an ugly scar from a knifing down the left side of his face. He was the group's communications specialist. Behind them, in the back seat, was a mobile cellular phone, one of six that linked vehicles and a hidden temporary headquarters.

Both Carlos and Julio were ruthless, trained marksmen and were armed.

* * *

After slowing down and negotiating a traffic diversion caused by a multiple rear-end collision in the Thruway's left lane, Sloane resumed his speed and also his thoughts about Vietnam, Jessica, Partridge and himself.

Despite his own great success in Vietnam and since, Crawford Sloane had continued to worry about Partridge, just a little. It was why he was slightly uncomfortable in Partridge's company. And on a personal level he occasionally wondered did Jessica ever think about Harry, remembering the privileged, private moments there must have been between them?

Sloane had never asked his wife any truly intimate questions about her long-ago relationship with Harry. He could have done so many times, including at the beginning of their marriage, and Jessica, being Jessica, would probably have answered frankly. But posing that kind of question was simply not Sloane's style. Nor, he supposed, did he really want to know the answers. Yet, paradoxically, after all these years those old thoughts came back to him at times with newer questions: Did Jessica still care about Harry? Did the two of them ever communicate? Did Jessica, even now, have residual regrets?

And professionally . . . Guilt was not a word that preoccupied Sloane in relation to himself, but down in some private corner of his soul he knew that Partridge had been the better journalist in Vietnam, though he himself gained more acclaim and on top of that married Partridge's girl . . . All of it illogical, he knew, an insecurity that need not be . . . but the visceral unease persisted.

The Ford Tempo had now switched places and was several vehicles ahead of Sloane. The Larchmont exit from the Thruway was only a few miles farther on and Carlos and Julio, by this time knowing Sloane's habits, were aware that he would exit there. Getting ahead of a quarry on occasion was an old trick of tailing. Now the Ford would take the Larchmont exit first, be waiting for Sloane when he turned off, then would fall in behind him once more.

Some ten minutes later, as the CBA anchorman entered the streets of Larchmont, the Ford Tempo followed discreetly at a distance, stopping well short of the Sloane house which was located on Park Avenue, facing Long Island Sound.

The house, befitting someone with Sloane's substantial income, was large and imposing. Painted white under a gray slate roof, it was set in a sculptured garden with a circular driveway. Twin pine trees marked the entrance. A wrought-iron lantern hung over double front doors.

Sloane used a remote control in the car to open the door of a three-car garage, then drove in, the door closing behind him.

The Ford moved forward and, from a discreet distance, the surveillance continued.

Sloane could hear voices and laughter as he walked through a short, closed corridor between the garage and the house. They stopped as he opened a door and entered the carpeted hallway onto which most of the downstairs rooms opened. He heard Jessica call out from the living room, "Is that you, Crawf?”

He made a standard response.”If it isn't, you're in trouble.”

Her melodious laugh came back, "Welcome, whoever you are! Be with you in a minute.”

He heard a clink of glasses, the sound of ice being shaken, and knew that Jessica was mixing martinis, her nightly homecoming ritual to help him unwind from whatever the day had brought.

”Hi, Dad!” the Sloanes' eleven-year-old son, Nicholas, shouted from the stairway. He was tall for his age and slimly built. His intelligent eyes lit up as he ran to hug his father.

Sloane returned the embrace, then ran his fingers through the boy's curly brown hair. It was the kind of greeting he appreciated, and he had Jessica to thank for that. Almost from the time Nicky was born, she had conveyed to him her belief that feelings about loving should be expressed in tactile ways.

At the beginning of their marriage, being demonstrative did not come easily to Sloane. He held back in matters of emotion, left certain things unsaid, to be assumed by the other party. It was part of his built-in reserve, but Jessica would have none of it, had worked hard at smashing the reserve and, for herself, then Nicky, had succeeded.

Sloane recalled her telling him early on, "When you're married, darling, barriers come down. It's why we were 'joined together'—remember those words? So for the rest of our lives, you and I are going to say to each other exactly what we feeland sometimes show it too.”

That final phrase had been about sex, which for a long time after their marriage held surprises and adventure for Sloane. Jessica had acquired several of the explicit, illustrated sex books which were plentiful in the East and loved to experiment, trying new positions. After being slightly shocked and diffident at first, Sloane came around to enjoying it too, though it was always Jessica who took the lead.

(There were times when he couldn't help wondering: Had she owned those sex books when she and Partridge were going together? Had they made use of what was in them? But Sloane had never summoned the nerve to ask, perhaps because he feared both answers might be yes.)

With other people his reserve lived on. Sloane couldn't remember when he had last hugged his own father, though a few times recently he had considered doing so but held back, uncertain how old Angus—stiff, even rigid in his personal behaviour might react.

”Hello, darling!” Jessica appeared wearing a soft green dress, a color he always liked. They embraced warmly, then went into the living room. Nicky came in for a while, as he usually did; he had eaten dinner earlier and would go to bed soon.

Sloane asked his son, "How's everything in the music world?”

"Great, Dad. I'm practicing Gershwin's Prelude Number Two.”

His father said, "I remember that. Didn't Gershwin write it when he was young?”

"Yes, twenty-eight.”

"Near the beginning, I think, it goes dum-de-dah-dum- DEE-da-da-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum.” As he attempted to sing, Nicky and Jessica laughed.

”I know the part you mean, Dad, and maybe why you remember it.” Nicky crossed to a grand piano in the room, then sang in a clear young tenor, accompanying himself.

"In the sky the bright stars glittered

On the bank thepale moon shone

And from Aunt Dinah's quilting party