WHAT WAS GOING ON UP there was an argument.
No, Felicity thought, not an argument. It takes two to argue. What we have here is me making a fool of myself in the presence of a man. Something, she reminded herself, she had made a solemn vow never to do.
Something she couldn’t stop doing, either.
“Can’t you see how dangerous this is?” she demanded.
“It’s dangerous,” Jeffrey conceded.
“You can’t take all this on yourself,” she insisted. “You need support. You need backup. Tell Mr. Tipton.”
“I intend to. As soon as everything is set.”
“But you’ve already told Bulanin!”
“Not me personally. I sent him the message through a double agent he trusts. He’ll check it out—and he’ll learn the time and place of the meet, of course, if he isn’t in on it in the first place—and he’ll find out the information is accurate.”
He came over and sat next to her on the sofa. “Look, Felicity, I’ll go through it all again. Either Bulanin is in on this little ploy of Calvin’s or he isn’t. If he is, we let him think none of us suspects him. If he isn’t, we get him involved, get him thinking what we might do, what Calvin might do. What kind of publicity might come out of this.”
Felicity put her hand to the side of her head. Under the bandage, the empty eye socket itched as though it would drive her mad. “Do you understand all this yourself?” she asked wearily.
“I’d better. I’m not having much luck making you understand it.” He smiled briefly. “I’ll quote the Congressman. ‘Best thing to do with a potential arsonist is set fire to him.’”
“Fight fire with fire,” Felicity said. “I’ve heard it.”
“That’s it. From Bulanin’s point of view the worst thing that could happen would be for Leo Calvin to start telling us everything he knows. It could destroy him, and all his work. Bulanin is the type to care a lot about his work. He’ll take steps to protect it. We watch what he does, and we learn something. The worst that could happen is that our double agent gets his reputation enhanced. When are you going to be able to make love again?”
Felicity closed her eye and shook her head. It had been a wretched day, big things and little things. Jeffrey had been gone, of course, off to France to do the marketing and whatever other mission he’d set for himself. He had moved in with her, but that didn’t mean he would tell her any more than he wanted to.
Despite that, it had been unsettling not to have him around. He was very solicitous, and he had a way of talking that kept her mind off the obscene hole that had once provided her with half her information about the world. She shuddered and felt ill every time she thought of it, every time she pictured herself with the biro sticking out of her eye.
But it was fitting, in a way, too. Since Derek had died, Felicity had felt diminished, incomplete. She felt about two ounces less than a whole woman. The lost eyeball was a perfect physical representation of that fact.
And leaving everything emotional aside, it was just a bloody nuisance. She had no depth perception—the world was as flat as a cinema screen. The doctors had warned her to expect it, told her that in time her brain would adjust and she’d hardly remember the difference, but that was no help when she’d pour tea all over the table. It was heaven to be allowed (with proper precautions) to wash her hair at last but she seemed to knock over the shampoo in the bath every time she reached for it.
And of course, the world of objects had chosen this time to revolt. The drain in the tub had backed up. She hadn’t trusted herself to use lye to fix it—probably would have spilled it all over her wet skin and burned herself horribly! Jeffrey had taken care of it when he returned. He cleaned the whole place while he was at it, scrubbing, mopping, using traditional British thick bleach to clean the WC. He laughed at Felicity’s injunction to him not to mix them. He told her he’d studied basic chemistry a long time ago.
One thing he couldn’t fix was the telly, which had also decided to go haywire. The picture was washed out in a blaze of brightness. That, Jeffrey couldn’t fix, though he did diagnose the problem as a burnt-out resistor. To her surprise, he suggested she forgot having the regular man round, and rang Dave Hamilton instead.
Ordinarily, Felicity would have let it go for days or even weeks—she didn’t share the national preoccupation with the box (only the Americans watched more), but since the incident in Brighton she had been obsessed with seeing things. Motion. Color. Form.
Then the special light had flashed on the telephone. Jeffrey had installed it to signal when one of his informant’s calls was being forwarded from the number he had given them to ring to this one. Jeffrey had picked up the phone, listened for a few seconds, said good, and then rung off.
Felicity, without really thinking, had asked him what it was all about.
And he told her. He was making sure the Russians knew exactly what he was planning. That news had outraged all her professional instincts, and had started the nonargument, during which Jeffrey agreed with all her objections, but changed his mind not a bit.
And finally, this. He wanted, he said, to make love to her. Was it pity? Or was he one of those sick bastards who enjoyed doing it with mutilated women? No, she told herself, he was a good commander, concerned about her morale. The way, for example, Sir Lewis Alfot had always been.
“It will be some time,” she said, “before I’m ready even to think about sex again.”
“Anytime you’re ready,” Bellman said. “I’ll be available.” He spoke softly, but Felicity heard him. She went off to the bedroom while Jeffrey took a shakedown on the couch.
She thought about him for a long time before she went to sleep.