Betrayals

25

J anet became aware that she was upright, naked with her legs splayed for support and sitting directly in front of him: despite their having made love every way that love could be made and the fact that there was no secret about either of their bodies that the other had not explored and discovered (and delighted in exploring and discovering) she snatched-immediately regretting the haste-at the crumpled top sheet to pull it up over herself.

“I thought that was how it might be,” he said and Janet regretted the haste even more.

“He’s alive!” she said. It was not until now, this precise moment, that Janet had opened another locked and sealed compartment, that most secret part of her mind in which she’d believed John to be dead. Now, abruptly, unexpectedly, incredibly, she had proof-that he wasn’t dead! That he definitely hadn’t been dead, as of just one week ago. And Janet knew-just knew-that if he weren’t killed by now, he wouldn’t be. That somehow, somewhere, she would be reunited with him. The awarenesses rushed in upon her, a tidal wave, and Janet was swamped by it, tumbled head-over-heels upon a bruising, scratching mental shore. For a long time she just sat, the creased sheet like a toga held with increasing tightness before her, gazing at the stained bed upon which she had just made passionate and uninhibited love to one man while she thought about another. “Alive!” she said again, empty-voiced.

“There isn’t any doubt,” confirmed Baxeter.

“I want to say… I want to say…” stumbled Janet, looking down at herself and then across at his nakedness. “I want to say thank you but that’s bloody ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Baxeter agreed. “Bloody ridiculous.”

“You know what’s even more ridiculous!” she said. “It makes me love you even more.”

Baxeter shook his head, becoming aware of his own nakedness and pulling part of Janet’s sheet over himself. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“No.” Janet made a sound halfway between a sad choke and an excited laugh. “I don’t either.”

“I’m glad,” said the man. “However it affects you and me, I’m glad

…” There was a gulped pause. “No, I don’t mean that at all. I’m glad he’s alive, certainly. I mind very much how it affects you and me. Very much.”

“I don’t know how it affects you and me,” admitted Janet, with matching honesty.

“I want to tell you something,” said Baxeter. “Even if it resolves the uncertainty about what happens between you and me, I want to tell you something…” There was another hesitation. “… I thought he was dead.”

“I did, too,” said Janet, quietly.

He stared at her, twisted-faced. “But then why!”

“I thought it, but I wouldn’t accept it,” said Janet. “And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“So what’s the answer?” asked Baxeter.

“Answer?”

“About you and me?”

“Darling!” implored Janet. “How can I tell you that? I secretly thought that a man I was engaged to marry was dead. You give me confirmation that he’s not and within minutes want me to make decisions like that!” Would it be an easier decision weeks or months or years from now? she asked herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, at once. “It was something I shouldn’t have asked.”

“How did you get the photograph?” demanded Janet.

“Luck, really,” Baxeter shrugged. “The simplest luck. In Beirut we have a stringer-someone who works for us on a freelance basis-naturally I’ve been plaguing him with demands about hostages ever since the kidnappings began in the Lebanon, years ago. He’s a Shia. When I told him about the piece I had just done here on you, he said he knew where Sheridan was and I challenged him to prove it…” Baxeter jerked his head towards the photograph still clutched in Janet’s hand. “And he did,” the man finished, simply.

“What are you going to do with it?” asked Janet.

“Nothing,” said Baxeter, more simply still. “Not yet, at least. I made you a promise about printing nothing that would endanger John’s life. I meant it.”

Janet swallowed and looked away, hoping he had not seen her reaction. “I think you’re wonderful,” she said. “Absolutely wonderful.”

“No I’m not!” he said, almost too loudly.

“So what are we going to do with it?”

“ You ” Baxeter said. “I brought the proof back for you: you’ve got to decide what to do with it.”

Janet shook her head. “I need you,” she said. “You know I need you: how much I need you. You tell me what to do: I don’t want to try anything else by myself. Do anything else by myself. I’m too tired; too beaten.”

“Tell the Americans,” advised Baxeter, simply again.

Janet blinked at him. “After everything that’s happened, they won’t even let me through the embassy door!”

“They will,” disputed Baxeter. He indicated the photograph. “Look at it!” he instructed. “That’s only a week old: eight days. No one has seen any proof whether or not John Sheridan is alive or dead for months. This is proof. They won’t dismiss you this time: they can’t.”

“I’m not sure,” said Janet, still doubtful.

“It’s got to be the Americans,” argued Baxeter, with irrefutable logic. “John Sheridan is an American citizen: an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. Who else has the resources-the ability-to do anything but the American government?”

Janet gazed at her lover, not speaking for several moments. Then she said: “I want to say something but I don’t want to hurt you, OK?”

“OK,” he agreed.

“The Americans-the CIA-have had this sort of stuff before…” Janet picked up and then dropped the photograph. “He’s still somewhere there, in captivity. I want a guarantee that this time they’ll do something!”

“Blackmail them, then,” said Baxeter.

It seemed to be a day of simplistic answers, thought Janet. She said: “Blackmail them!”

“You’re the media manipulator, right? Tell whoever you see at the embassy here… what’s his name?”

“Hart,” supplied Janet. “Al Hart.”

“Tell Al Hart that unless you’re sure-unless you know -that they’re going to do something you’re going to have copies of this photograph-copies that you’ll make, before you hand this original over-made available to all the press hanging around the hotel. And that you’ll give a press conference complaining that Washington are doing nothing, yet again.”

“All right,” acknowledged Janet, still doubtful. “But what can they do, just from a photograph?” She picked it up. “It doesn’t show where he is: give any sort of clue how he could be got out, does it?”

“It’ll prove you’re someone to be believed: taken proper notice of,” said Baxeter.

“So?”

“So they will have to do something when you provide an actual address.”

“An address!” In her excitement Janet came forward and the sheet fell away but she didn’t bother to pick it up again. “You have an address!”

“No,” Baxeter said. “Just the promise of one. But the promise is from the same source and I think it’s reliable.”

“They’re going to ask me about a source, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” said Baxeter.

“So what do I say?”

“Nothing,” advised the man. “Refuse to say where anything comes from as a further guarantee of their cooperation.”

“Aren’t you taking a risk!” pressed Janet.

“What risk?” Baxeter smiled back. “If I were asked about it I would deny everything.”

“Do you really think your man can find an address?”

“He found the photograph.”

“You really are…” started Janet but Baxeter talked her down.

“No. Don’t say it. There’s no need.”

“This hasn’t made anything easier: more difficult, in fact.”

“I know.”

“I want to stay with you tonight,” said Janet. “But I don’t…”

“… I know that, too,” he stopped her again.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too.”