J anet had forgotten the Mediterranean heat of the near Middle East, just as, she was soon to realize, she had forgotten much else about an area in which she was supposed to be an expert. The heat engulfed her like oven breath as soon as she disembarked at Larnaca, dry and quite unlike the damp mugginess of summer Washington: by the time she reclaimed her luggage she was sweatingly wet. There was no air conditioning in the Mercedes taxi, so she traveled with the rear window fully down, for whatever breeze she could get. Against the dashboard the driver had a picture of a man in an elaborate frame made even more ornate by a bouquet of dyed straws and dried flowers in a small vase, making it into some sort of shrine, and Janet realized she had not carried a photograph of John with her. She wasn’t sorry. She didn’t need a reminder. Or a shrine: definitely not a shrine. The route inland from the airport, into Nicosia, took her near Larnaca marina and the harbor beyond and there were signs, faded and unrepaired, advertising ferries to Beirut. She strained to see the direction they indicated but the ochre and white buildings were jammed too close together, blocking her view.
The boundary of the town was quite abrupt, huddled-together houses giving way to rolling, dun-colored scrubland. They began passing mules and donkeys almost completely obscured by their loads, cloth-wrapped bundles on legs, and the roadside was dotted with stick-framed lean-to shelters against the sun from which tiny children yelled and waved for them to stop to buy oranges or lemons or melons or carved souvenirs. Orienting herself, Janet looked south. The Troodos Mountains were too far away from her to make out but she imagined a rise in the scrubland, where it climbed towards them. The British had made their listening facilities on the island available in the hope of hearing some telephone or radio communication about John, she remembered from conversation with Willsher. Troodos was the highest point of the island and she supposed that was where the technology would be sited. Would anything have been heard? She doubted the CIA man would have told her, if it had.
The pale blue berets of the United Nations peacekeeping force were Janet’s first physical reminder of the haphazard partition of the island after the Turkish invasion of 1974, and as they entered Nicosia she passed another indication, the Turkish-held enclave wired off and controlled by guard posts.
“Gangsters,” said the driver, as they skirted the Turkish pocket.
Janet did not reply; she had gangsters of her own to worry about. She chose the Churchill Hotel, on Achaeans Street, not for its four-star luxury but because it was a place where telephones would be guaranteed to work. They did. She was connected without any delay to her father in England, to give him her address and room number and to assure him she was all right. He asked if she had contacted the British embassy yet and Janet said he’d been her first call, because that was the promise she’d made. He told her to be careful, which Janet expected, and she assured him she would be.
William Partington had served under her father in the same position as the unhelpful McDermott, although in Amman, not Cairo. He was not available when Janet called but a secretary promised he would be returning after lunch. Janet used the time to deposit her father’s bank draft for?30,000 at a branch of Barclays International within walking distance of the hotel, although by the time she reached the bank she was bathed in perspiration again. The size of the transfer intimidated the counter clerk, who insisted upon her being greeted by an assistant manager. Janet patiently endured the ritual, arranging for the money to be held on deposit and maintained in a sterling account. The man presented her with a business card and asked that she deal personally with him and Janet agreed that she would.
She reached Partington on the second call. The attache remembered her father at once and said he was delighted to hear from her, and why didn’t she come for supper with him and his wife the following evening? Janet said she wanted a more formal meeting, although dinner would be fine later. There was a pause from the other end of the line and Partington said he was not particularly busy and would she like to come to the embassy that afternoon. Janet said she would, very much.
Janet showered and changed and managed to get an air-conditioned taxi to Alexander Pallis Street. She identified herself to the reception clerk, and at once Partington hurried from the rear of the building.
Partington was a contrast to her father’s acquaintance McDermott, just as tall but a bluff, bulging man, face reddened beneath the tan by the blood pressure of good living, a crumpled lightweight suit strained by the effort of containing him all. He shook her hand and said welcome and, still holding it, led her into the back of the building where at once, gratefully, Janet felt the chill of better air conditioning than in the outer vestibule.
“You in a spot of bother?” demanded the man.
“Something like that,” agreed Janet, offering the man the letter of introduction from her father.
Partington read the letter carefully, tapping a fingernail against his teeth as he did so: from the movement of his head, Janet realized the man was going through it twice.
At last Partington looked up, subdued now, and said: “I see.”
“Please!” said Janet at once. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Everyone does.”
“Then I won’t.” He gestured to the paper he had placed before him on the desk. “Your father asks me to help, in any way I can. Which of course I would if I could. But I don’t see how. We’re no way involved. We can’t be.”
Remembering her reflection about the Troodos Mountains on her way into Nicosia that morning Janet said: “I know that you’re making British listening facilities here available to the CIA.”
Partington sucked in his breath, shaking his head as he did so. “Not my province, Mrs. Stone. That’s an intelligence matter, quite separate. I wouldn’t know anything about that: wouldn’t want to know.”
Janet felt the familiar rise of exasperation and tried to curb it. She said: “This close to the Lebanon there must be links, between the British presence there and you, here?”
“Some,” Partington agreed, doubtfully.
“Before I left London I went to Lambeth Palace,” Janet said. She hesitated, deciding upon an exaggeration, and went on: “I talked there with a member of the Archbishop’s staff, about negotiations to free the Britons being held. Your people in Beirut must know of them, hear things about other hostages.”
Partington moved his head again. “Something else about which I have no knowledge: you must believe me, Mrs. Stone. If there are any contacts, any negotiations, they’d be restricted to the smallest group of people. They’d have to be, wouldn’t they?”
Janet sighed, wishing she could confront the logic. She said: “What about here, in Cyprus?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“There’s been a mass exodus from Beirut to this island,” said Janet. “There must be a lot of information, passing back and forth. People I could talk to.”
Partington leaned forward across the desk, his face serious. “There has been a mass exodus,” he agreed. “I’ve heard areas of Nicosia and Larnaca likened to Berlin, in 1945, and it’s a pretty good description. I mean there are people here in Cyprus doing what people always do, in a war situation. Profiting by it. We don’t get involved and neither should you. It’s crooked and it’s dangerous and it won’t do anything to help your fiance.”
“What areas?” demanded Janet. “What people?”
“Your father was a senior diplomatic officer to me in Jordan: someone I like and whom I consider a friend,” said Partington. “I would be abusing that friendship by getting you involved with such people, such places.”
“My father has asked you to help!” said Janet, jabbing her finger at the letter between them.
“That wouldn’t be helping,” Partington said. “It would be doing the reverse, exposing you to pointless danger. That I won’t do.”
Despite her efforts at control, Janet could not prevent the heat of frustration burning through her. This man was her only contact, her only hope, she realized, desperately. “There must be something!” she pleaded. Then, hurriedly, she added: “And don’t advise me to leave it to people who know what they’re doing: everyone tells me to do that, too.”
“Mrs. Stone,” said Partington, in a tone reminiscent of that frustrating lunch at Lockett’s. “I know it’s difficult: I can understand, I’d like to think, something of what you are going through. But what other advice can there be? Look at the situation objectively. What-possibly, sensibly-can you do? You’re quite alone. You haven’t any resources. You’ve no official backing…”
“… and I’m a woman,” cut off Janet.
Partington hesitated and then said: “And yes, you’re a woman. There’s no point or purpose in our getting into a sexist or women’s liberation discussion about it, but the simple fact is that in this situation and in this area of the world, as a woman you’re at a disadvantage…” He paused again but continued: “If it’s any satisfaction-and I can’t imagine that it will be-a man by himself, without any resources and with no official backing, would hardly be in an improved position anyway.”
“Helpless, you mean!”
Partington considered the question. “Yes, I suppose that’s exactly what I mean. Helpless.”
Which was precisely how she felt, Janet realized, angry at herself because she thought of it as giving way. It had been another round about ride, backwards and forwards in the same circle, apparently moving but getting nowhere. Partington, as unresponsive as he was, remained her only contact, she thought again. She said: “It was kind of you, seeing me as you have.”
“I wish, I really do wish, that there had been something more positive I could have done,” said Partington. “I know you asked me not to say it, but I’m very sorry for what’s happened.”
“I’d like to accept your invitation,” said Janet.
Partington’s face creased in confusion, and then he remembered and said: “Oh yes.”
“Is tomorrow night still convenient, or would you like to call, to confirm?”
“Maybe I should call, to confirm,” the man said.
“I’m at the Churchill,” Janet said. “And my father particularly asked me officially to register here, at the embassy.”
“You intend staying, then?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” the diplomat asked, just as direct.
“I’m near to where John is,” ad-libbed Janet. Impulsively she added: “And I have been getting some help and guidance from the Americans. They’ve an embassy here, haven’t they?”
Partington sat regarding her steadily for several moments before he said: “I’ll see to it that you are officially registered. Will the Churchill be your permanent address here?”
“I think so.”
“For how long?”
“I’m not sure,” Janet said, matching his stare.
“Please don’t do anything foolish, Mrs. Stone.”
“I won’t”
“This isn’t fiction, you know? Not something in a novel you read by the pool or see in a cinema. This is reality.”
Now it was Janet who came forward, to stress her seriousness. “Now you must believe me, Mr. Partington. I don’t need reminding just how real it is having someone I love and hope to marry chained up as a hostage, like some animal.”
Again, for several moments, there was a silence between them. Then Partington said: “I’ll call, about tomorrow.”
“You’re very kind,” said Janet, grateful at least that she had the tenuous link into the embassy although she was unsure after this encounter how much practical advantage it would give.
Partington accompanied her back to the entrance and waited with her until the summoned taxi-air-conditioned again-arrived to take her back to Achaeans Street. Janet slumped dejected in the back of the vehicle, going over in her mind the circular conversation she’d had with the man. Increasingly one word echoed in her mind, like another word that reverberated in her mind that night she’d met John for the first time, at Harriet’s Georgetown party. Helpless. It came like a drumbeat, helpless, helpless, helpless, and then a second word intruded, making the connection. Helpless-woman, helpless-woman. Janet screwed her hands tight, into a fist, in renewed frustration. Suddenly, like an additional taunt, came the first snatch of a menstrual cramp and she felt even more frustrated.
She smiled her thanks to the clerk at the Churchill who handed her the room key and went automatically to the elevator, oblivious to her surroundings, punching her floor number automatically. She was helpless, Janet accepted. It was pointless-absurd-to try to think otherwise. Partington had been right, accusing her of romanticism. The whole episode was some personal fantasy, Superwoman against the Kidnappers, based on nothing more than the flimsy hope, God how flimsy, that she might have got some assistance from her father’s former colleagues. But she hadn’t, Janet recognized, forcing the objectivity. And now she didn’t know-didn’t have a clue-what to do next. There was a fresh wash of dejection and another menstrual taunt.
In her room Janet discarded the key on the bed and slumped into the only easy chair, gazing sightlessly at the slatted windows. Could she ask her father to intervene? Persuade him to call Partington from England to try to pressure the man into offering more? More of what? Where was the logic in imagining Partington had any more to offer anyway? Partington was a bona fide First Secretary, head of Chancery, not an embassy-concealed intelligence officer. Janet accepted that, as such, Partington would be shielded from contact with the legation’s intelligence emplacement, a barrier against possible diplomatic embarrassment if any covert activity in a host country became public knowledge. What about the Lebanese enclaves the man had acknowledged to exist on the island? There was little pressure she could expect her father to bring in having them identified, Janet realized, in further defeat. Her father would side with Partington upon the possible dangers rather than trying to help her learn where such places were.
So unexpected was it that Janet jumped at the knock at her door, remaining still for several seconds so that the summons came again, louder the second time.
Her surprise increased at the sight of two policemen, their uniform English-style: she did not know how to designate rank but from the epaulet markings one appeared to be of high rank.
“Mrs. Stone?” enquired the senior officer.
“Yes,” she said.
“Mrs. Janet Stone?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Chief Inspector Zarpas,” the man said.
Very high rank, thought Janet, through her bewilderment at their presence.
Zarpas nodded sideways. “Sergeant Kashianis.”
“What do you want?” Janet asked.
“To talk,” Zarpas said. “We’d like to come in.”
Janet hesitated, confused and unsure. “What for?” she said.
“To talk,” Zarpas repeated.
“What about?” Janet was refusing to move back from the door.
“Have you something to hide, Mrs. Stone?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ll explain, if you let us in.”
Careful, she remembered; her father had warned her to be careful. She said: “What proof of identity do you have?”
Zarpas, a sallow-skinned man whose wilting moustache made his long face appear even more mournful, looked down at his uniform and then, sighing, extracted a warrant card from the left-hand breast pocket of his tunic and offered it to her. Janet stared uncomprehendingly at the Greek, but then saw that beneath his photograph the man was identified in English, by rank.
Still unsure, Janet stepped back, opening the door further. Inside the room both men remained standing. Janet regained the easy chair, hoping it put her in the most commanding position in the room, although not knowing why she needed it. Zarpas perched on the dressing table stool. The sergeant looked at the bed and apparently decided against it, remaining upright. He took a small pad from one pocket and a pen from another. He examined the tip intently, as if it were something he had not seen before.
“Why are you here on the island, Mrs. Stone?” demanded Zarpas, at once.
“What right have you to come to my room and ask me questions?” Janet said.
“The right of Cyprus law,” Zarpas said easily. “So why are you here, on the island?”
Janet did not immediately reply, wanting the right answer. “Business,” she replied, at last.
“Ah!” Zarpas exclaimed, as if the reply were important. He looked sideways at the sergeant. Kashianis was writing very quickly. Zarpas said: “What sort of business?”
“A friend of mine is missing in the Lebanon.”
Again Zarpas looked at the sergeant, appearing to think the reply important, and said: “What is the name of this friend?”
There was no reason why she should not give it, she decided. “John Sheridan.”
“Missing in the Bekaa, perhaps?”
“The what!” said Janet. What the hell was this stupidity all about!
“That’s where the hashish comes from,” Zarpas said. “But then you’d know that, wouldn’t you?”
Janet shook her head, holding her hands briefly out towards the two men. “I haven’t got the remotest idea what you’re talking about. Why you’re here. This conversation is completely unintelligible to me.”
“Is it, Mrs. Stone?” Zarpas’s disbelief was obvious. “Isn’t the ?30,000 with which you earlier today opened a deposit account for the purpose of buying drugs?”
“How…!” Janet began indignantly, but then laughed. “So that’s what this is all about!” she said, relieved at last.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Still smiling and shaking her head again, Janet said: “No, it is not to buy drugs!”
“What then?”
“Doesn’t the name John Sheridan mean anything to you?”
For the first time Zarpas faltered. “No,” he said.
“Think!” said Janet. “John Sheridan. An American.”
The look to the sergeant this time was for assistance. Kashianis kept his head down over his notebook. “No,” Zarpas had to concede again.
With forced patience Janet said: “He is the most recent American to be kidnapped in Beirut. Check with the U.S. embassy here in Beirut if you like.”
“This still does not explain the?30,000. Or your presence here,” refused Zarpas, stubbornly.
“I am John Sheridan’s fiancee,” said Janet. “I have come here to find out what’s being done to get him out.”
“With?30,000!”
“There may be expenses,” said Janet. She realized, discomfited, that the explanation sounded unconvincing.
“John Sheridan is an American national?”
“Yes.”
“His job?” Zarpas had recovered supremacy now.
“The embassy,” said Janet, awkwardly. “He worked at the American embassy in Beirut.”
“Wouldn’t the responsibility… and any expense involved… in freeing this man if indeed he is held hostage by one of the religious groups… be that of the American government?” said Zarpas.
“Yes,” Janet said. The awkwardness worsened.
“So why have you arrived in Cyprus with?30,000?”
To give herself time to think, Janet said: “How did you learn about the deposit?”
“It is a requirement, by law, that all large deposits are automatically reported to the authorities,” said Zarpas, officiously. “Cyprus does not intend to become a financial center for drug trafficking. Or a conduit, either.”
“I’m not trafficking in drugs!” erupted Janet. “I’ve answered every question honestly!”
“Can I tell you something, Mrs. Stone?”
“What?”
“Every criminal I have ever known has sometime or other told me he is being completely honest.”
The “he” isolated Janet. Why did everything have to be divided, superior male, inferior female? What could a prick do that a cunt couldn’t? They had to fit together to make something complete! At once she became irritated at herself. Male to female, female to male. What the fuck-wrong word-did it matter! She sighed-and wished she hadn’t-and said: “I am drug trafficker. I am a…” She stopped short of saying “woman.” Janet picked up: “… a person trying to find out about another person whom she loves!” not a
This time the sergeant looked up, to meet his superior’s gaze. Zarpas responded but came immediately back to Janet. “So you’ve come to Cyprus with what you believe to be sufficient money to buy information of which no one else is aware?”
“Yes!” Janet shouted in fresh indignation. “Where’s the illegality in that?”
Abruptly-and disconcertingly because the sad face was not made for such an expression-Zarpas smiled. “Poor lady!” he said.
Sex again, Janet thought immediately. “Where’s the illegality in that!” she repeated.
Zarpas leaned back against the dressing table and said: “On your part, none.”
“What then?”
“Don’t you have people-friends or family-telling you that what you’re trying to do is stupid?”
“Too many!” shot back Janet.
“Then you’re doubly stupid, not to listen.”
“It’s my money!”
“It’s your life,” shouted back Zarpas.
“My choice,” responded Janet, just as loud.
“Very good,” the policeman said, abruptly soft-voiced. “You really are very good.”
“Does that mean you don’t believe me?”
“It means I’m making no decision.” He paused and added heavily: “Not yet.”
“That sounds like a warning.”
“Take it to sound how you like.”
“Can you help me?” Janet demanded suddenly.
“Help you?”
“Cyprus is crowded with Lebanese since the civil war,” said Janet, eagerly. “You must have sources.”
Zarpas made a sad gesture with his head, not immediately replying. “Yours is a marked account, Mrs. Stone.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I’ll know, if there’s any abrupt withdrawals. Or deposits.”
“I asked you for help.”
“How about advice?”
“We’ve already talked about that.”
“Go home, Mrs. Stone. Go to wherever home is before you get hurt
…” The policeman hesitated. “Hurt by whoever, whatever.”
“If that’s meant to scare me, it doesn’t!” Janet said with a defiance she secretly did not feel.
“It should do, Mrs. Stone. It’s meant to scare you a lot.”
“What about helping me!”
“Get out of Cyprus. We don’t want you here. For whatever reason you are here.”
Janet was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling she could not immediately identify. It was an impression of sagging fatigue, but it had a form, as if she were in an enclosed room from which she was trying to escape by beating against walls which would not yield but were instead closing inexorably in upon her, ever tightening. She actually straightened in her chair, physically trying to slough off the attitude. She said: “All I want is someone to help.”
“Go home,” the policeman repeated, stone-faced.
“If I don’t!”
“This isn’t a bargaining situation.”
“You can’t just expel me, without reasonable grounds!”
“An unexplained deposit of?30,000 in a Cyprus bank account is sufficient reason.”
“I have explained it!”
“Not to my satisfaction.”
“No,” Janet said, slowly. “Not by yourself: you can’t make that decision by yourself.”
Again, this time just momentarily, Zarpas faltered. Recovering, he said: “Do you imagine my recommendation would not be accepted?”
“I shall appeal to my embassy,” Janet said. She added: “I’m already registered there: they know I’m here.”
Zarpas rose, to look down upon her. He said: “You are a very stupid woman.”
Janet looked up in reply, feeling oddly superior despite their positions, but said nothing.
For several moments Zarpas waited, expectantly, but she did not speak. “I-my government-will not have you cause any embarrassment to this island.”
“I do not intend causing any embarrassment to anyone,” Janet said.
“Don’t!” Zarpas insisted, making the warning positive. “The slightest embarrassment would be the reason to expel you, wouldn’t it?”
Janet intentionally did not stand to show them from the room and was distressed as soon as they closed the door behind themselves to find that she was physically shaking, from the stress of the encounter. There was no reason, she told herself: no reason at all. She’d fought back, as strongly as the policeman had attacked: won, to a degree. Definitely no reason, then, to react like this, like a… She stopped short of the word, refusing to acknowledge it even in her thoughts. Sexist bastard: they were all sexist bastards… As positively as she had stopped one slide of thought Janet halted another, because it had no purpose, no point. What, actually, had emerged from the meeting? It all revolved around the money: the policeman’s absurd suspicion that she was somehow involved in drug trafficking. Yours is a marked account, she remembered. She should have carried it from England in cash and put it in the hotel’s safe deposit the moment she arrived: wise after the event, Janet told herself. What about drawing it out and doing that anyway? Too late. If Zarpas were monitoring the money the worse thing imaginable would be to close it with a cash withdrawal. Trapped, she accepted: she had no alternative but to leave it where it was, until she needed it for the real purpose for which she had brought it. If she needed it, Janet thought, in balancing, difficult realism.
The sound at the door did not startle her this time as much as the first because she imagined it to be Zarpas, returning for some reason. The surprise came when she opened the door. It was not the policeman but a slightly built, compact man with an out-of-date crew cut, rimless glasses, a multicolored check shirt, needle cords, and brown Topsider loafers.
“Well lookee here!” the man declared. The accent, as well as the expression, was clearly American.
Janet positioned her foot as firmly behind the door as she could, wishing the room were fitted with a safety chain. “What do you want?”
“A little talk, Ms. Stone.”
“It’s been a busy afternoon for little talks,” said Janet, with genuine weariness.
“And you’ve been a busy girl. Langley is real worried.”
A Southerner and proud of it, guessed Janet: the sort who sang rebel songs at parties and had a special recipe for mint juleps. With sudden hopefulness, irritated at herself, Janet said: “Have you heard something?”
“Heard a lot of things, Ms. Stone. A lot of things.”
Careless of any identification this time, Janet opened the door wider, smiling in anticipation, and said: “Come in! Please come in!”
The American did so as if he had the right, almost strolling. He swiveled on his heel, examining the room, and said: “Pretty, real pretty.”
Passingly Janet thought the man’s affectation to repeat everything was irritating. She said: “What! What is it?”
“What’s what, Ms. Stone?”
“The news, about John?”
The man reached the easy chair and sat, heavily. “That’s the problem,” he said. “There isn’t any.”
A rash of dizziness made Janet reach out to the dressing table for support. Momentarily she closed her eyes against the whirl. “Please!” she said. “Please don’t play word games!”
“Don’t intend to, ma’am. Don’t intend to.”
Ma’am. And Ms., earlier. She said: “Who are you?”
“Who do you think I am?”
“I think you’re someone from the American embassy here in Nicosia attached to the CIA,” Janet said, recovering. “I also think you’re someone who watches too much American television. Miami Vice a favorite of yours?”
The man’s face tightened and Janet knew she’d scored and was glad. She didn’t feel dizzy any more. It was anger now. Again.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded.
“You didn’t tell me your name.”
“With the sort of shit you can stir, lady! You must be joking!”
Lady, to go with ma’am and Ms. She said: “Is that what you’re frightened of? The shit I can stir?”
“We’re frightened for John, Ms. Stone. We’re frightened that you’re going to do some dumbassed thing and get him killed. Aren’t you frightened of that?”
Janet swallowed. She said: “I’m frightened of his being killed, certainly. Like I’m frightened that you’re doing fuck-all to stop it happening.”
“You got a lot of help and guidance in Washington,” said the man. “You got told things you really shouldn’t have been told. So you know that isn’t true.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” fought back Janet, glad now he was lower than her because she enjoyed being above him: enjoyed, too, letting her anger out because it needed to go. “I got assurances and I got platitudes and it’s been over a month since he got snatched, so where is he? If the CIA is all-so-fucking powerful, why hasn’t John Sheridan been found and got out of Beirut?”
The American blinked under the assault, clearly off balance. “You’ve got to understand…” he started, but Janet, furious now, interrupted.
“Cut it!” she said. “Cut the crap about the difficulties and the intricacies and how it should all be left to the experts. I’ve heard it: I’ve heard it until it’s running out of my ears.” Repetition seemed to be contagious, she thought.
“What do you think you can achieve by coming here?” demanded the man, trying to escape sideways from the attack.
“I don’t know,” answered Janet honestly. “I haven’t been here a day yet.”
“It’s John’s life you’re playing with.”
“It’s John’s life you’re playing with,” Janet said. “Tell me… convince me by telling me of something positive you’ve done to get him out… that you’ve made the right contacts and that there’s a chance of his being released… that you know where he is!”
“Lady, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“That’s exactly what I am, “agreed Janet. “And I’m going to remain a pain in your ass and everyone else’s ass until I get some fucking action!”
“Am I supposed to be impressed because you know bad words?”
The offended Southerner, Janet thought. Furiously she said: “I don’t give a fuck whether you’re offended or not! There’s only one person I want to impress. His name’s John Sheridan.”
The man brought his hands lightly together, in mocking applause. “So you’re going to poke around Larnaca marina and the dives of Zenon Square and Kitieus Street and find out something we don’t know and show us all how to do it!”
“I’m going to do whatever it takes, however it takes to get him back,” said Janet.
“In a body bag.”
Janet swallowed against the threat. Hopefully she said: “What’s the point in our fighting? It’s not going to achieve anything.”
“Nor is your being here, getting in the way.”
“Help me!” said Janet, hopeful still.
The American shook his head. He said: “Langley guessed you’d do something like this, when you suddenly left Washington: that’s why we set up the arrival check, here at the airport. There was just one simple message, if you did come: for me to tell you to get out and stay out. Which I’ve done. Regard that as help: it’s all you’re going to get.”
Janet straightened, irritated at herself now for pleading. “So you get out!” she said. “You’ve delivered your message.”
The man was slow in standing, not wanting the departure to appear to be on her terms. “Remember what I’ve said, lady: remember what I’ve said.”
“Get out, messenger boy!”
He left the room as slowly as he’d stood, but with his face burning. Janet almost slammed the door behind him, but instead she closed it as quietly as possible. She remained with her back pressed against it, staring into the room. She was shaking again, worse than she had after the encounter with the policeman. She hadn’t known what to expect but certainly she hadn’t considered this, a procession of men with a procession of threats. Why not? she demanded of herself. Wasn’t that how Willsher had behaved in Washington and McDermott in London and Partington, earlier that day? Not so openly or so brutally, perhaps, but there wasn’t any real difference. Damn them, she thought: damn them all.
She stared at the telephone when it rang, not at first moving to answer it. When she did, she instantly recognized Partington’s voice.
“I’m most awfully sorry,” the diplomat said. “Tomorrow isn’t as convenient as I thought it might be. Could we leave it that I’ll call you again?”
“Of course,” Janet agreed, actually relieved. She had Larnaca marina to visit. And the dives of Zenon Square and Kitieus Street, as well. The repetitious American hadn’t been as smart as he obviously thought he was.
As she replaced the receiver Janet realized, unhappily, that her period had started. A woman, she thought, bitterly.