Betrayals (31 page)

“… An in-depth, long feature,” the man was saying. “I was at the conference downstairs but I want much more. I would appreciate our being able to meet.”

“Not today,” mumbled Janet. “Far too tired. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow will be fine,” said the voice. “I'll call around ten.”

Janet was asleep again and didn't hear the stipulated time.

20

W
hich was why she was bewildered when the call came, awakening her. She was aware of her surroundings but momentarily unsure whether it was the same day that she'd stumbled into bed or the following one. The forgotten man to whom she was talking spoke of yesterday's conversation, which gave Janet a guide. She lied and assured him she remembered but explained that she was running late and he asked how long and she said thirty minutes and he agreed that would be fine. He said he would recognize her when she came into the lobby area.

While she was showering Janet wondered how to get the borrowed clothes back to the journalist in Beirut and decided, pleased with the resolve, to entrust the chore to Al Hart. She wished there were more she could do to disturb the bastard.

As Janet emerged from the elevator, the man approached her. He thanked her for agreeing to the meeting and offered a card identifying himself as David Baxeter. She saw that the publication for which he wrote was based in Vancouver. He was a slight but wiry man with tightly curled hair that topped his head without any obvious attempt at style and the mannerism of gazing directly into her eyes, making her the only focus of his attention. Baxeter wore a gray sports jacket over gray trousers and the striped tie was predominantly gray, too. There was no identifiable accent in his voice at all, certainly not Canadian: he was very soft-spoken.

She welcomed the idea of coffee and they sat indoors but overlooking the pool: as she was seated, Janet supposed that sitting by the pool was the only way she would be able to occupy her time now, until whatever hearing or trial took place. It wasn't giving up or knuckling under to Partington and Hart and Zarpas—or to her father, whose actions she'd think about later—to abandon the idea of doing something personal, entirely by herself. It was, finally, confronting the common sense she had locked away and ignored from the moment the absurd idea first occurred to her in Washington. It had been stupid to imagine that alone she, Janet Stone, could do something—discover something—that the professional agencies couldn't. Maybe she actually deserved the sneers and humiliation that would come with the trial.

After the coffee was served Baxeter produced a small, pocket-sized tape recorder which he placed between them, hurriedly asking if she minded the interview being conducted that way. Janet, only half paying attention, shook her head and said it was fine, wishing it were over before it began. With difficulty Janet concentrated upon the interview: maintaining the publicity was probably the only way for her sensibly to help John, from now on.

Baxeter was a very patient and courteous interviewer. In almost every question he called her Mrs. Stone and more than once apologized in advance if what he asked might distress her and just as frequently said they could stop, to rest, whenever she wanted. And as she had the previous day in Beirut—could it really only be the previous day: it seemed like weeks ago!—Janet thought how unusual it was to be treated with anything approaching sympathy or understanding. It became a very long interview. Baxeter took her back even to before she and Sheridan met, to her time at Oxford and her marriage to Hank, and appeared particularly interested in her position in Middle Eastern studies at Georgetown University: he changed the tape twice before even reaching the time of Sheridan's posting to Beirut. When the third tape was nearly exhausted Baxeter said, solicitous as ever: “I must be tiring you?”

“I've nothing else to do,” Janet said and thought it sounded rude. “I mean, I'm quite happy to go on as long as you want.”

“It's lunchtime,” Baxeter announced. “Why don't we take a meal break?”

She really didn't have anything else to do, Janet thought. “Sure you can spare the time?”

“It's a monthly magazine,” Baxeter said. “I've got a long lead time.”

“Then lunch would be fine.”

It was Baxeter who suggested going away from the hotel, to the Tembelodendron, where he diffidently suggested he order for both of them. Janet agreed, disinterested in food but enjoying being fussed over: he got into a discussion with the waiter about how to cook the lamb and when it was served it was delicious. Baxeter took as much trouble over the Afames wine, and that was just as good. The thought came to her that there were things about the man that reminded her of John: the reflection passed as quickly as it came.

He said he had not been born in British Columbia. He had been in England when the magazine hired him as their Middle East correspondent and chose to live in Cyprus because it seemed the most convenient jumping-off spot, although he had considered moving to Rome. He knew Cairo and Amman better than she did, and Janet had to apologize that it had been years since she'd been to either capital and that when she had she had been a schoolgirl anyway. She guessed both places had changed. Baxeter said Amman maybe but not Cairo.

“The traffic's just as bad and the sewage smell is awful.”

“I remember the smell.” Janet smiled.

“Who could ever forget it?”

“Do you think I've been ridiculous?” Janet blurted abruptly.

“What!” he said, startled.

“Me. Ridiculous. Coming here as I did and doing what I have done. Everyone says I've been stupid, getting in the way.”

Baxeter did not immediately reply. For several moments he gazed not at her but at the wineglass he held before him in both hands and then he said: “I think you've been naive, certainly. And you've been as lucky as hell. But no, not ridiculous. You've definitely made it so that people can't forget the plight of John Sheridan. That, surely, has got to be an achievement.”

“I'd like to think so.”

“It is important to you, what people think?”

Janet shrugged. “I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be self-pitying. I guess a lot of things have gotten on top of me.”

“It's understandable,” Baxeter said. “Quite a lot of things have happened to you, after all.”

“All to too little purpose.”

“That
is
self pity,” he said, gently.

Janet smiled. “I was thinking of John more than myself.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know,” admitted Janet. “Get the court business over, I suppose. Hope something happens while I'm here: that there's some news, I mean.”

“What if there isn't?” pressed the man.

“Go home, I guess: there doesn't seem any point in hanging around.”

“Home where? America or England.”

“America,” said Janet. “I don't think of England as home any more. It's to America that John will come back, isn't it?”

Baxeter was slow responding to the question. “Yes,” he said finally. “He'll come back to America.”

“You don't believe that, do you?” challenged Janet. “You think he's dead! Or that he will be killed!”

The man reached across the table, covering her hand with his. “Stop it!” he said forcefully. “You're giving up. And you
are
letting yourself go into a trough of self-pity.”

He was right, conceded Janet: despite all her attempts to think otherwise, that was exactly what she was doing. “Thanks for the warning,” she said.

Baxeter took his hand away, shrugging. “And to answer you I don't know. The Hezbollah can't be anticipated, second-guessed. You know the Shia tradition of
taqqiyah
.”

“‘Approving of something contradictory to your faith if the need arises,'” Janet translated literally.

Baxeter nodded. “It's the catch-all,” he said. “Provides a religious excuse for anything.”

“So you
do
have an opinion,” Janet said. “OK, so you don't know but you think it could happen? That they'll kill him?”

“I'd like to think more was being done to make contact. To negotiate,” he said, not really answering.

“Exactly! That's what I can't stand … what infuriates me. There's been a demand! Why the hell can't America pressure Kuwait into releasing the people it's holding?”

“Kuwait never has,” Baxeter pointed out.

“So why don't they establish a precedent!” said Janet, irrationally. “America sailed protective convoys around Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran–Iraqui war protecting the Kuwaiti economy. So why can't the State Department tell them that unless they release the prisoners they're holding Washington won't help in future!”

“I would have thought that an option,” agreed Baxeter.

“They tortured the other CIA man to death, you know,” Janet said.

“I know.”

“That's what I think about sometimes,” Janet said. “What's happening to him: the awful things that are happening to him.”

“Welcome back,” Baxeter said.

Janet frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You're fighting again,” Baxeter said. “Not giving up or feeling sorry for yourself.”

Janet smiled, slowly. “You manipulated the conversation very cleverly.”

“I want a story on Janet Stone the fighter, not Janet Stone the quitter,” he said.

“And have you got it?”

“Not yet,” the man said. “I'd like to continue the interview this afternoon.”

They returned to the hotel, but as soon as Janet entered she was paged for messages. She accepted them in the foyer, Baxeter beside her. There had been a telephone call from Partington, who asked her to call back, and another from her father, with the same request. The third note had no name, just a Nicosia telephone number with the suggestion she ring it to learn something to her advantage.

“What could that mean?” she asked Baxeter.

“Any one of a dozen things: it's practically cliché.”

“I'll call it, of course.”

“After what's happened so far don't you think you should be careful?”

“By doing what? You surely don't expect me to ignore it!”

“No,” he agreed. “I don't expect you to ignore it.”

“So?”

“Couldn't you do with some help?”

“I thought we'd already talked about how little of that there was around.”

“Why don't we suspend the interview, until tomorrow? And why don't you let me try to help you?”

Janet stood looking at the man. “For a story?” she asked, suspiciously.

“If it leads to anything worthwhile, then yes: what else?” Baxeter answered honestly. “But I promise that if it does look good I won't publish or do anything that would endanger John, until he's got out.”

Janet felt a sweep of relief at the thought of there being someone at last with whom she could at least discuss things. She said: “You really mean that?”

“My word.”

“I'd appreciate your help very much,” accepted Janet, meekly.

21