Sarah waited for him to speak.
While waiting, she admired him. He looked definite where Dugan had seemed friendly and blurred. Coppersmith was imperturbable, elegant, deadly — so profoundly self-assured that he had no need for arrogance. For three hundred years the Coppersmiths had run their county along the Hudson; with his family, authority had become a cultural trait. Yet Coppersmith, faced by Atomsk, was powerless to meet the problem himself. He might go in some day with a gun, but he could never go in unnoticed. Sarah found something surprising in the realization that Dugan could do something which Coppersmith, despite all his wealth and power and military authority, could not possibly do for himself.
Dugan had the power to come and go.
Dugan had the capacity to stay alive when other men babbled or shuddered at the wrong time, and died for their first mistakes.
Dugan was his own weapon. She was annoyed at herself for liking him, for being pleased by his showoff trickery, for being piqued by his challenge to her as a person. But she suspected that if Dugan were — no, not the best spy in the world, but merely one of the best hundred spies, her annoyance was known to him just as much as her liking. The thought almost gave her gooseflesh. It was uncomfortable, having somebody around who could see right into your mind.
Coppersmith must have been thinking the same thing. Without looking at her, he asked, "Do you trust him?"
She wanted to say that she couldn't tell, that she didn't know, that she really didn't trust Dugan; but the smiling, kindly, teasing face came to the surface of her mind and she blurted out, "Why — ah — yes, I do."
General Coppersmith sounded disgusted. "I trust him, too," said he. "He's guaranteed enough by other people. But I like to make my own independent judgment on a man — when it comes to a job like this. And I can't. I started to pin him down and he reached out for the one thing that would make me wince."
"You cut me off," said Sarah.
Coppersmith stared at her. This time there was no reproach in his expression, only puzzlement. "Politics. He knew I couldn't talk politics about the Old Man. So he talked it. He got away from me like a figure in a dream." Coppersmith sighed. "If he can treat other people the way he has treated us, he'll do for the job. Tell him to come back. Leave word with Colonel Landsiedel that I want Dugan. And I want Landsiedel himself. Go ahead and brief Dugan on Atomsk."