Part 10 (1/2)

Rucker had to resist the urge to pull out a cigar to chew on. It would stand out here-creature comforts weren't the norm in this extended depression. Discussing her always brought on the urge. Chewing a Cuban was the bad habit so many aviators picked up. Since a pilot couldn't smoke a cigar in an open c.o.c.kpit plane, they learned to chew them.

”It was five years after the war. Before I went into business with Chuy. April 1923. I was flying a charter route between Greece and Cairo. She was my charter-said she was an Egyptology student out of Virginia, trying to hook up with some Spanish expedition. Her one-day charter turned into four weeks traveling along the North African coast together. We fell in all h.e.l.l's kind of love.”

Deitel thought he knew the rest.

”And she wanted you to marry her. To give up your life as the winged soldier of fortune trekking around the world, so you could raise sheep, cotton, and fat children in Virginia. Ja?”

Rucker spat.

”Close enough. Except it was me who wanted her to give up trekking around the world and settle down on a little ranch down near Cabo. Me giving tinseltown tourists flybys of the movie star homes in the Cabo Madera Hills.”

”And?”

”She said yes. So we were engaged for a whole, glorious week. We barely left our hotel room in Casablanca.”

”And then? The suspense has me on the pins and on the needles.”

”She stole my plane and flew to Tangiers. Left a goodbye note. 'Dear Fox, so long and thanks for all the hummus and romance. You're a sweet boy but I'm not that kind of girl.' ”

Deitel didn't say anything.

”Found later she was working for the CSA's foreign service. Just using me as cover for her mission,” Rucker said.

Deitel kept looking straight ahead. Finally the corner of his mouth twittered. And that was all it took to unleash his laugh. He nearly fell over.

”I am so shooting you as soon as we get out of here,” Rucker said.

”Oh. I'm sorry,” Deitel said, wiping a tear from his eye. ”That is terrible, but, what is the English?”

”Creepifying? Horrificsome?”

”Is that English?” Deitel asked. ”I think I mean ironic. Anyway, it's just it was exactly what I didn't expect to hear. How is it that she is in Texas now?”

”The CSA ain't got the same problems the Union States do, but they got their problems all the same,” he said. ”Especially for a woman who isn't content with just running a household or teaching Sunday school, I reckon.”

Rucker patted all his pockets looking for the cigar he knew he didn't have.

Deitel just grinned.

”You know, only the Germans would have a word for taking pleasure in the misery of other folks,” Rucker said. ”Anyway, something happened, so she told the CSA to go to h.e.l.l because she was going to Texas. That's all I know.”

”You have since spoken?”

Rucker growled again.

”I told you I'd tell you about how she's my ex. Now you have to shut the h.e.l.l up.”

They pa.s.sed a nicer section of brownstones at 72nd and Madison. Deitel noticed the marked improvement in the architecture this side of Park Avenue.

And despite his initial take on the Big Apple, he could sense there was a vibrancy to this city straining beneath the surface.

In better times-perhaps a better reality-he could envision this place with electricity in the air.

”Okay, Doc,” Rucker said. ”We're coming up on Fifth Avenue. Time to put your war paint on.”

”It was never explained why it was so crucial we meet your ex-fiancee this morning, rather than tonight or even tomorrow. Or why she couldn't have just come to us,” Deitel said.

”Yeah, see, here's the thing about that. Her a.s.signment was to the Morgan Museum of Natural History in New York City. It's one of her actual specialties, but it just so happens the Morgan Museum is located right next to National Security Service headquarters. The museum shares s.p.a.ce with the NSS decryption and a.n.a.lysis branch,” Rucker said. ”So all it would take is a little stealth and a little more leg thrown to the right clerk, and she'd know what the NSS knew before they knew it.”

Deitel was a little scandalized. And a little impressed.

”But apparently she's off the reservation and on the warpath,” Rucker said.

He explained to the doctor how just six months before, the a.s.sistant Union States amba.s.sador to Austin had been caught having inappropriate relations with a grammar school girl. As if there was some sort of appropriate relations.h.i.+p for an eight-year-old girl and a fifty-three-year-old man. The outrage had been reported widely in the Freehold's newspapers.

Of course, diplomatic immunity meant the man couldn't be touched, but he was immediately s.h.i.+pped home, where, Union diplomats promised, he would be properly prosecuted.

”And yet today,” Rucker said, ”in what's sure to be a well-attended brunch ceremony on account of the concurrent display of national treasures from Hawaii on loan to the Morgan Museum, that very same a.s.sistant amba.s.sador is being named full amba.s.sador to the Kingdom of Hawaii.”

Deitel's nonresponse told Rucker he didn't see the connection. They were well into Central Park now.

”She's going to blow her cover and kill the miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Rucker said. ”It's a family matter.”

”Oh good. For a minute there I was worried this was going to become normal,” Deitel said. ”And we are to . . . what exactly?”

”Get into the ceremony. Protect her cover. Get her out. Escape from New York.” Rucker ticked them off on four fingers.

Then he pointed to the great opening of the trail ahead, just beyond several hundred yards of manicured lawn cut right into the heart of the park. There it was. Nestled in front of Turtle Pond. A stunning work of neocla.s.sical and early Georgian design. A knockoff, sure, but a good one, right down to the columns on the front and the expansive West Wing.

”Oh, and the ceremony is being held at Hamilton House. Where President Kennedy lives. In about-hmm, thirty minutes. Did I forget to mention that?” Rucker asked.

Deitel stopped in his tracks. His head shook slightly.

”Herr Rucker, what are you going to do?”

Rucker grabbed Deitel's sleeve and tugged him along.

”I don't know. Let's find out.”

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Hamilton House New York City Union States of America The party on the lawn of the Hamilton House was no more than a minor state fete to mark the opening of diplomatic ties between the Union States of America and the Kingdom of Hawaii, but President Joseph Kennedy never let the opportunity for a formal affair go asking. It was important for the president of the original-the true-American nation to maintain the nation's imposing, lavish image on the world stage. And the American workers, President Kennedy a.s.sured his worried chief of staff, wanted to see their leader in a prosperous light in the newspapers and newsreels, if only to give them a brief respite from their simple, workaday existence.

The chief of staff's interjection regarding the irony of mentioning the ”working man” when the unemployment rate was pus.h.i.+ng towards the twenty-five percent mark was sounded in vain. Kennedy knew he had the support of the simple man on the street who took pride in his Real American heritage and saw Kennedy as the embodiment of the once-and future-American manifest destiny and preeminence. Kennedy could connect with the workers-truly empathize with them-in a way that most of the tone-deaf congressmen and political bureau chiefs could only watch with envy.

Besides, Kennedy reminded his chief of staff, the vice president was working right now with Congress and the political bureau to establish a whole panoply of new work programs to stimulate restoration and recovery-the National Recovery Act, the Workers Progress Administration, and so on.