"What subject?" Latham walked to the desk and the telephone.
"I want to fry a doctor who'd rather prolong the life of a slug than prevent the killing of decent people on our side."
Which could be you, Drew."
"I suppose so." Latham picked up the phone.
"Stop it and listen to me!" cried De Vries.
"Hang up and listen."
"Okay, okay." Drew replaced the phone and slowly turned, facing her.
"What is It?"
"I'm going to be brutally honest with you, my darling -because you're a man I love."
"For the moment? Or can I count on a month or two?"
"That's not only gratuitously unfair, it's also demeaning. 5 @
"I apologize. Only I'd rather hear the man, not a man."
"And I loved another, no matter how misguided I was, and I will not apologize for that."
"Two points for the lady. Go on, be brutally honest."
"You're a bright, even brilliant man in your own way. I've seen that, watched you, applauded your ability to make quick decisions, as well as your physical prowess which certainly outstripped my husband's and Harry's. But you are not Freddie and you are not Harry, both of whom lived with the specter of death every morning they woke up and every night when they prowled the streets for black rendezvous. It's a world you don't know, Drew, a horrid, convoluted world you've never been steeped in exposed to, yes, but you are not a veteran of its nightmares."
"Get to the point, I want to make a phone call."
"Please, I beg you, give all the information you have, all the conclusions your imagination has produced, to those who have been in that world.. .. Moreau, Witkowski, your superior, Sorenson.
They will avenge your brother's death; they're equipped to do it."
"And I'm not?"
"My God, there's a band of killers coming after you! People with resources and contacts we know nothing about. They'll be programmed with names, with unlimited funds to corrupt those names, and all-it takes is one to betray you. That's why the Antinayous called me. Frankly, they think your situation is hopeless unless you disappear."
"Then we're back to our original question, aren't we? Why all this firepower against Harry Latham? Why?"
"Let others find out, my darling. Let's you and I take ourselves out of this horrible game."
"You and I .. . ?"
"Does that answer your earlier question?"
"It's so tempting, I could cry like a baby, but it can't work, Karin.
I may not have the experience of the others, but I have something they don't have. It's called rage, and along with whatever minor talents I do possess, it makes me the leader of the pack. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, but that's the way it has to be."
"I'm appealing to your sense of survival-our survival -not your courage, which needs no further proof."
"Courage hasn't a damn thing to do with it! I never pretended to be brave, I don't like bravery, it gets idiots killed. I'm talking about a man who happened to be my brother, a man without whom I would have been a high school or a college dropout, by this time a hockey bum with a swollen face, broken legs, and not a dollar to my name. Jean-Pierre Villier told me he owed as much or more than I did to a father he never knew. I disagree. I owe more to Harry because I did know him."
"I see." Karin was silent as their eyes met, each leveled at the other's.
"Then we'll see it through h together." 9
"Hell, I'm not asking you to do that!"
"I wouldn't have it any other way. I ask only one thing, Drew.
Don't let your rage kill you. I don't think I could stand losing the only other man I ever loved the same way I lost the first."
"You can take it to the bank. I have too much to live for.. ..
Now, may I make that phone call? It's shortly past noon in Washington and I'd like to catch Sorenson before he goes to lunch."
"You may spoil it for him."
"I'm sure I will. He doesn't approve of what I'm doing, but he hasn't blown the whistle on me for a damn good reason."
"What's that?"
"He'd do the same thing himself."
In Washington, Wesley Sorenson was both annoyed and frustrated.
Vice President Howard Keller'had faxed him a background list of a hundred eleven senators and congressmen of both parties who would react in outrage over their former colleague's inclusion as a Nazi, and were perfectly willing to testify. Added to these was another