of dark circles under deep-set eyes that made you think he was sleepy. But Gerry Hart was a tough kid who didn’t smoke and didn’t drink, and if he was sleepy it was only because he stayed up late at night rewriting the inaugural address he’d deliver to Congress on the day he became President.
Hart sipped a little of his tomato juice, and wiped his mouth carefully before speaking. ‘I handle more top-secret material now than I did when I was working for the company – would you believe that?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Gerry Hart liked to refer to the CIA as ‘the company’ to emphasize that he had been on the inside. His file didn’t mention service in the CIA but that didn’t mean a thing.
‘Did you ever hear of the 1924 Society?’ he asked me.
‘I’d rather hear about it from you,’ I said.
‘Right,’ said Hart.
The waitress came to the table with the menus. ‘Don’t go away,’ he told her. He ran his eye quickly down the list. ‘Club sandwich, mixed salad with French dressing, regular coffee, and I’ll take the check. OK?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the waitress.
‘The same,’ I said. That made Gerry Hart feel very secure, and I wanted him to feel very secure.
The waitress closed her pad and took the menus from us. She came back with our order almost immediately. Hart smiled at her.
‘We have penetrated the 1924 Society. That’s why we can do it,’ Gerry Hart explained when she had gone.
‘What’s inside a club sandwich?’ I said. ‘Do what?’
‘Bring Mrs Bekuv here.’
‘Is it like a triple-deck sandwich?’
‘Bring Mrs Bekuv out of the USSR, officially or unofficially.’
‘How?’
‘What do you care how?’
I took the top off my sandwich and examined the filling. ‘We don’t have club sandwiches in England,’ I explained.
‘Even Greenwood hasn’t been told that this is a CIA operation,’ Hart said. ‘Sure, we’ll try to get Bekuv’s wife by asking the Russians through the Senate Scientific Development sub-committee but if they won’t play, we’ll make it work some other way.’
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