She went into the library, where Adrian was sitting up late with a book. “Adrian,” she said, maintaining a deliberate air of nonchalance. Her stomach was tight, aching, hollow. “Adrian-has Juliana ever come to you about opening a safe-deposit box?”
He looked at her, his handsome face filled with tenderness as he studied her. He had to see how upset she was. But he hadn’t pressed her about the terrible tension that had gripped her since their daughter’s last Lincoln Center performance. It wasn’t that he didn’t care or that he didn’t want to know. Many times in the past he’d told her he wanted to know everything about her-everything she cared to tell him. But he’d also explained that he understood she was an intensely private woman, respected that, and had come to accept that there was a part of her he could never know. He blamed her family, the war. She’d been so young-old enough to remember, young enough not really to understand.
“Is she interested in getting one?” he asked, still watching her.
Catharina lifted her shoulders, her neck muscles crunching with the movement because they were so tense. Her carefree existence had spoiled her. She had her husband, her child, food, shelter, clothing. For so long she’d wanted for nothing.
“She has so many valuables,” she said lamely. “I was just wondering. Perhaps it’s something she should look into.”
Adrian sighed, and she could see the resignation in his eyes: he wasn’t going to get an explanation tonight, either. “I’ll talk to her about it, if you’d like.”
“Please.”
“Are you going to bed?” he asked.
It was another way of asking if she thought she’d sleep tonight; she hadn’t since Rachel’s visit. Adrian had tried to comfort her, but even after they made love she would lie awake, staring at the ceiling.
“In a little while,” she said, hearing the love in her voice, a love that went deeper than words-that could ignore half-truths. But her mind was racing. If Juliana has the Minstrel, what will she do? What will I do?
Yes, Mamma, I know, she thought; I must be strong.
Juliana had been unable to return to her trancelike state after Matthew’s call and had abandoned the piano. She was staring at the magnificent skyline, debating once more whether to tell anyone about the Minstrel’s Rough, when Aunt Willie stormed in, muttering in Dutch.
“Are you all right?” Juliana asked, climbing up from the couch.
“Of course. I was followed, but no matter. Do you have any binoculars?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I usually keep them at my house in Vermont, for bird watching, but I can’t identify many birds, just the usual sparrows and-”
Aunt Willie hissed impatiently. “Will you get them?”
“Why?”
“Achh!”
“All right, all right.”
She dug them out of a drawer in the library and returned to the living room, where Aunt Willie was peering down at Central Park West, her face pressed up against the window. “I know I saw him,” she said.
Juliana handed her the binoculars. “Who?”
“Hendrik de Geer.” Wilhelmina looked through the binoculars only briefly, handing them back in disgust. “As I thought, he’s gone.”
“He was out there? But why-”
“He has his reasons, I’m sure. He always does.”
“Aunt Willie, I’d like to know more about him. He betrayed you and Mother during the war, but how? What exactly did he do? Why’s he here now? Dammit, if he’s hanging around outside my window-”
“I’m tired,” Wilhelmina said, yawning. “I’m going to bed. I suggest you do, too. You’ll want an early start for Washington in the morning.”
Juliana groaned, but she didn’t say a word. Dealing with Matthew Stark couldn’t be any worse than dealing with Wilhelmina Peperkamp.
After Stark’s intrusion, Ryder forced himself to calm down. Sweat matted his shirt to his back and lined his face and armpits. He felt himself shaking as the old indecisiveness returned. My God, does Stark know everything? Ryder’s breathing was rapid and light, but slowly, with practiced self-denial, he pulled himself together and headed upstairs, where he showered off the sweat and the stink of his fear. Stark’s visit, he tried to tell himself, meant nothing.
He felt better when he put on his flannel robe and went down to his study. He got out a bottle of scotch and sat in front of his marble fireplace. Drinking and watching the fire die, his mind drifted back twenty years. Had it been that long? Every moment of that horrible, tragic day seemed so vivid to him, still so very real. When he swallowed, he could taste the same sourness he’d tasted when he’d first realized the Huey he’d permitted to fly into a hot LZ was going down.
He remembered thinking that he didn’t have to worry: Matt Stark was the pilot. Steelman had one month left on his harrowing year-long tour and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The grunts felt secure when he was flying their slick.
This mission should have been easy and safe: the resupply of a platoon-First Lieutenant Samuel Ryder’s platoon-in a cold LZ. What could happen? But the landing zone had turned hot and no one had told Stark until it was too late-and they were shot down.
“No one’s fault,” Ryder mumbled aloud in the silent study. “It was war. Anything could have happened.”
Although he was the officer in charge, Ryder had been too dazed and terrified at first by what was going on to notice even that the Huey was receiving ground fire. The slick went down.
There was nothing even Matthew Stark could do.
Ryder remembered screams-heard them still in his nightmares. Too late, he’d rushed toward the downed slick…and he still could feel the icy grip of Otis Raymond as the door gunner had pushed him aside so a lieutenant wouldn’t get torn to bits by AK-47 bullets.
The survivors were picked up by a search and rescue team and taken back to base camp. As a platoon leader, Ryder had faced the Viet Cong and the NVA, but he’d never been so afraid for his life as at the moment when he’d had to face Matt Stark. But the Steelman, his young, knowing face showing no emotion, had only looked at Ryder with those black eyes and not said a word.
With commanding officers buzzing around him demanding to know what the hell had happened out there, Stark hadn’t made excuses or assigned blame to anyone other than himself. He accepted responsibility for his ship and its passengers. He had been in the pilot’s seat, no one else.
“We got shot at,” he said. “There’s a war going on out there, you know.”
The event, however, had scarred him as much as anyone, and as far as Ryder was concerned, Stark’s actions proved it. He didn’t go home a month later, but extended and got himself transferred-to Cobras for a while and then to a scout helicopter-the Hughes OH-6A Cayuse or Loach. He was assigned to a hunter-killer or “pink” team, with its primitive, effective strategy. The Loach-the hunter-would go in and draw fire to locate the enemy. Then the killer-the new Bell AH-1G Cobra or “snake”-would come in with guns blazing. The work, especially for the hunters, was dangerous; scout losses were huge. But they didn’t carry passengers, and CW-2 Matthew Stark and SP-4 Otis Raymond, who’d stayed with his hero Steelman, had survived.
Sam Ryder, back home in Florida, had hoped they wouldn’t.
Now, pouring himself another glass of Scotch, he put them out of his mind, his ability to repress well developed. He had to forget Steelman and Weasel; he had to make himself unavailable to Phillip Bloch. Regardless of what Matthew knew or didn’t know, he had no proof-nothing he could print. And he’d have to be very, very careful before he printed anything about Sam Ryder; there was history between them. Stark wouldn’t want to be accused of mounting a witch hunt.
Nothing had to happen. All Ryder needed was for Bloch to get hold of the Minstrel’s Rough. Then, at last, he’d be satisfied and get out of Ryder’s life.