Truman's Spy: A Cold War Spy Thriller by Noel Hynd

Author:Noel Hynd [Hynd, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Cat Tales Publishing, Los Angeles
Published: 2014-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 39

It was ten-thirty PM Pacific Time when they emerged from the hospital; one-thirty in the morning back in Washington. Snow had fallen during the evening and the roads were slick. There was a motel down the block from the military base where the hospital was located.

“It’s too late to drive tonight,” Helen said. “We’ll need to take rooms.”

They registered separately, though the night clerk gave them a suspicious look. Then they repaired to the diner attached to the motel for a late meal. Half an hour later, his eyes red and heavy with fatigue, Thomas Buchanan sat across a wooden table from Helen, finishing a cup of bad coffee.

In Thomas's eyes, Helen looked tired in the harsh overhead light. Her face was lined. There were more gray streaks in her hair than he remembered. He looked out a window and stared across a parking lot. There were three cars and a pair of trucks sitting idly, their lights off.

“Have you decided where you’re going yet?” Helen asked. “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

“I talked to Washington earlier today,” Buchanan said. “I’m going to San Francisco. That’s if the snow lets up.”

“San Francisco? What for?" She set down her cup.

“I'm retracing Mark's steps," he said. “I want to see everything with my own eyes. There’s no substitute for what you see or feel firsthand.”

"Mark used to say that too," she said. "It's amazing. The two of you. Sometimes you think like brothers."

Buchanan smiled. And that's what Mark was thinking too: travel the same road, come to the same end, he concluded. That's why he warned me. Doesn't want me to get shot the same way he did.

"I always liked Mark," Buchanan said, not really addressing the point. "You know that? We hit it off real well together during the war. Instant buddies in Rome. We had the same style. Same thing in Chicago with the FBI. The same approach to a case."

His gaze shifted from the parking lot and settled into her eyes. Why, he wondered, was she looking at him this way? Helen had once been very pretty, but she had suffered too much along with her husband. Now her hazel eyes were drawn and sad. Her mouth was tinged with anxiety.

"Know something, Tom?" she asked. "It doesn't pay to be an FBI wife. You devote yourself to a good man, then Hoover's people run him out of the Bureau. Just when you think you're ready to enjoy a few of the pleasures in life, someone guns him down. If you're lucky enough not to be a widow, your life revolves around hospital wards."

Buchanan wanted to cheer her up. But because of the hour, because of his fatigue, he couldn't. Or maybe there wasn't anything to say. Maybe he shared the same skepticism but didn’t want to admit it.

"Why do you think he won't walk?" she asked.

"'Won't'?" he asked. "Or can't?"

"Won't," she said again. "I know that man pretty well. Something's in his head.”

"Like what?" Buchanan asked.

"For once, I couldn't even guess," Helen answered.

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