"... this woman of yours ... she ain't at home there ... she ain't at ... at home ... anywhere. ... the fat man, the one that kills, he's talking to her but she isn't ... yes she is ... no she isn't—she's answering him, talking about over-the-sea...."
"Lee Falcaro," Charles whispered. "Lee Bennet."
The trance-frozen face didn't change; the eerie whisper went on without interruption: "... Lee Bennet on her lips, Lee Falcaro down deep in her guts ... and the face of Charles Orsino down there too...."
An unexpected pang went through him.
He sorted and classified endlessly what he had learned. He formed and rejected a dozen plans. At last there was one he could not reject.
XV
Commander Grinnel was officer of the day, and sore as a boil about it. O.N.I. wasn't supposed to catch the duty. You risked your life on cloak-and-dagger missions; let the shore-bound fancy dans do the drudgery. But there he was, nevertheless, in the guard house office with a .45 on his hip, the interminable night stretching before him, and the ten-man main guard snoring away outside.
He eased his bad military conscience by reflecting that there wasn't anything to guard, that patrolling the shore establishment was just worn out tradition. The ships and boats had their own watch. At the very furthest stretch of the imagination, a tarzan might sneak into town and try to steal some ammo. Well, if he got caught he got caught. And if he didn't, who'd know the difference with the accounting as sloppy as it was here? They did things differently in Iceland.