Call After Midnight

But the only conclusion he’d reached was that he was unhappy.

After eight years with the State Department, Nick O’Hara was fed up with his job. He was headed in circles, a ship without a rudder. His career was at a standstill, but the fault was not entirely his. Bit by bit he’d lost his patience for political games of state—he wasn’t in the mood to play. He’d hung in there, though, because he’d believed in his job, in its intrinsic worth. From peace marches in his youth to peace tables in his prime.

But ideals, he had discovered, got people nowhere. Hell, diplomacy didn’t run on ideals. It ran, like everything else, on protocol and party-line politics. While he’d perfected his protocol, he hadn’t gotten the politics quite right. It wasn’t that he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

In that regard Nick knew he was a lousy diplomat. Unfortunately those in authority apparently agreed with him. So he had been banished to this bottom-of-the-barrel consular post in D.C., calling bad news to new widows. It was a not-so-subtle slap in the face. Sure, he could have refused the assignment. He could’ve gone back to teaching, to his comfortable old niche at American University. He had needed to think about it. Yes, he’d needed those two weeks alone in the Bahamas.

What he didn’t need was to come home to this.

With a sigh, he flipped open the file labeled Fontaine, Geoffrey H. One small item had bothered him all morning. Since 1:00 a.m. he’d been staring at a computer terminal, digging out everything he could get from the vast government files. He’d also spent half an hour on the phone with his buddy Wes Corrigan in the Berlin consulate. In frustration he’d finally turned to a few unusual sources. What had started off as a routine call to the widow to give her his regrets was turning into something a bit more complicated, a puzzle for which Nick didn’t have all the pieces.

In fact, except for the well-established details of Geoffrey Fontaine’s death, there were hardly any pieces at all to play with. Nick didn’t like incomplete puzzles. They drove him crazy. When it came to poking around for more information, more facts, he could be insatiable. But now, as he lifted the thin Fontaine file, he felt as if he were holding a bagful of air: nothing of substance but a name.

And a death.

Nick’s eyes were burning; he leaned back in his chair and yawned. When he was twenty and in college, staying up half the night used to give him a high. Now that he was thirty-eight, it only made him crotchety. And hungry. At 6:00 a.m. he’d wolfed down three doughnuts. The surge of sugar into his system, plus the coffee, had been enough to keep him going. And now he was too curious to stop. Puzzles always did that to him. He wasn’t sure he liked it.

He looked up as the door opened. His pal Tim Greenstein strode in.

“Bingo! I found it!” said Tim. He dropped a file on the desk and gave Nick one of those big, dumb grins he was so famous for. Most of the time, that grin was directed at a computer screen. Tim was a troubleshooter, the man everyone called when the data weren’t where they should be. Heavy glasses distorted his eyes, the consequence of infantile cataracts. A bushy black beard obscured much of the rest of his face, except for a pale forehead and nose.

“Told you I’d get it,” said Tim, plopping into the leather chair across from Nick. “I had my buddy at the FBI do a little fishing. He came up with zilch, so I did a little poking around on my own. Not easy, I’ll tell ya, getting this out of classified. They’ve got some new idiot up there who insists on doing his job.”

Nick frowned. “You had to get this through security?”

“Yep. There’s more, but I couldn’t access it. Found out central intelligence has a file on your man.”

Nick flipped the folder open and stared in amazement. What he saw raised more questions than ever, questions for which there seemed to be no answers. “What the hell does this mean?” he muttered.

“That’s why you couldn’t find anything about Geoffrey H. Fontaine,” said Tim. “Until a year ago, the guy didn’t exist.”

Nick’s jaw snapped up. “Can you get me more?”

“Hey, Nick, I think we’re trespassing on someone else’s turf. Those Company boys might get hot under the collar.”

“So let ’em sue me.” Nick wasn’t in the least intimidated by the CIA. Not after all the incompetent Company men he’d met. “Anyway,” he said with a shrug, “I’m just doing my job. I’ve got a grieving widow, remember?”

“But this Fontaine stuff goes pretty deep.”

“So do you, Tim.”

Tim grinned. “What is it, Nick? Turning detective?”

“No. Just curious.” He scowled at the day’s pile of work on his desk. It was all bureaucratic crap—the bane of his existence—but it had to be done. This Fontaine case was distracting him. He should just give the grieving widow a pat on the shoulder, murmur a kind word and send her out the door. Then he should forget the whole thing. Geoffrey Fontaine, whatever his real name, was dead.

But Tim had set Nick’s curiosity on fire. He glanced at his friend. “Say, how about hunting up a few things about the guy’s wife? Sarah Fontaine. That might get us somewhere.”

“Why don’t you get it yourself?”

“You’re the one with all that hot computer access.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got the woman herself.” Tim nodded toward the door. “I heard the secretary take down her name. Sarah Fontaine’s sitting in your waiting room right now.”

* * *

THE SECRETARY WAS a graying, middle-aged woman with china-blue eyes and a mouth that seemed permanently etched in two straight lines. She glanced up from her typewriter just long enough to take Sarah’s name and direct her toward a nearby couch.

Stacked neatly on a coffee table by the couch were the usual waiting room magazines, as well as a few issues of Foreign Affairs and World Press Review, to which the address labels were still attached: Dr. Nicholas O’Hara.

As the secretary turned back to her typewriter, Sarah sank into the cushions of the couch and stared dully at her hands, which were now folded in her lap. She hadn’t yet shaken the flu, and she was still cold and miserable. But in the past ten hours, a layer of numbness had built up around her, a protective shell that made sights and sounds seem distant. Even physical pain bore a strange dullness. When she’d stubbed her toe in the shower this morning, she’d felt the throb, but somehow she hadn’t cared.

Last night, after the phone call, the pain had overwhelmed her. Now she was only numb. Gazing down, she saw for the first time what a mess she’d made of getting dressed. None of her clothes quite matched. Yet on a subconscious level, she’d chosen to wear things that gave her solace: a favorite gray wool skirt, an old pullover, brown walking shoes. Life had suddenly turned frightening for Sarah; she needed to be comforted by the familiar.

The secretary’s intercom buzzed, and a voice said, “Angie? Can you send Mrs. Fontaine in?”

“Yes, Mr. O’Hara.” Angie nodded at Sarah. “You can go in now,” she said.

Sarah slipped on her glasses, rose to her feet and entered the office marked N. O’Hara. Just inside the door, she paused on the thick carpet and looked calmly at the man on the other side of the desk.

He stood before the window. The sun shone in through pencil-sketch trees, blinding her. At first she saw only the man’s silhouette. He was tall and slender, and his shoulders slouched a little—he looked tired. Moving from the window, he came around the desk to meet her. His blue shirt was wrinkled; a nondescript tie hung loosely around his neck, as if he’d been tugging at it.

“Mrs. Fontaine,” he said, “I’m Nick O’Hara.” Instantly she recognized the voice from the telephone, the same voice that had shattered her world just ten hours earlier.

He held his hand out to her, a gesture that struck Sarah as too automatic, a mere formality that he no doubt extended to all widows. But his grip was firm. As he shifted toward the window, the light fell fully on his face. She saw long, thin features, an angular jaw, a sober mouth. She judged him to be in his late thirties, perhaps older. His dark brown hair was woven with gray at the temples. Beneath the slate-colored eyes were dark circles.

He motioned her to a chair. As she sat down, she noticed for the first time that a third person was in the room, a man with glasses and a bushy black beard who was sitting quietly in a corner chair. She’d seen him when he’d passed through the reception room earlier.

Nick settled on the edge of the desk and looked at her. “I’m very sorry about your husband, Mrs. Fontaine,” he said gently. “It’s a terrible shock, I know. Most people don’t want to believe us when they get that phone call. I felt I had to meet you face-to-face. I have questions. I’m sure you have, too.” He nodded at the man with the beard. “You don’t mind Mr. Greenstein listening in, do you?”

She shrugged, wondering vaguely why Mr. Greenstein was there.

“We’re both with state,” Nick continued. “I’m with consular affairs in the foreign service. Mr. Greenstein’s with our technical support division.”

“I see.” Shivering, she pulled her sweater tighter. The chills were starting again, and her throat was sore. Why were government offices always so cold? she wondered.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Fontaine?” Nick asked.

She looked up miserably at him. “Your office is chilly.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thank you. Please, I just want to know about my husband. I still can’t believe it, Mr. O’Hara. I keep thinking something’s wrong. That there’s been a mistake.”

He nodded sympathetically. “That’s a common reaction, to think it’s all a mistake.”

“Is it?”

“Denial. Everyone goes through it. That’s what you’re feeling now.”