Free Deep Cover by Brian Garfield

of the terminal and from his window Forrester could see the reporters waiting just inside the glass doors of the building. The jet engines unwound and passengers crowded into the aisles but Forrester kept his seat. He watched them go down the portable stair and cross the sun-blasted concrete to the door. The cluster of reporters broke in half like the Red Sea to let the passengers by, and Forrester’s attention focused on a tall long-haired woman fighting her way against the tide with frequent distracted smiles of apology as she squeezed through the door and came outside. It was Ronnie—Veronica Tebbel.
    She had high strong bones and large eyes and she moved with graceful economy. The dark hair fell loose to her shoulders and she stopped to comb it back from her eyes with her fingers while she looked for him in the windows. He moved his hand back and forth against the plexiglass until she smiled and nodded and came along to the foot of the boarding stairs to wait for the crowd to thin out. Then she came up the stairs, long-legged and slender and full of vibrant energies. She had to be thirty-six or more but in the sunlight she moved like a twenty-year-old.
    Forrester stood up in the aisle and lifted his briefcase onto the seat—that ancient expandable briefcase, its leather tough and creased with age lines, which his father had carried to the United States Senate before him.
    The stew let Ronnie come aboard and Forrester saw her squint against the gloom inside the fuselage. She came to him with a smile and an outstretched hand. Forrester stared at her until she blushed and he said quickly, “I’d forgotten how lovely you are.”
    She smiled, but it was incomplete. Something had come up behind her eyes. She withdrew her fingers and spoke in a soft low contralto. “I thought I’d better come on board and warn you.”
    â€œThe reporters? I saw them.”
    â€œThey’re waiting for you like the Mexicans outside the Alamo.”
    â€œI’ve been besieged before. What kind of mood are they in?”
    â€œEdgy—your plane’s two hours late. But some of them smiled at me.”
    â€œAnybody’d smile at you, Ronnie. That’s the cross you bear.”
    â€œWhen a cougar bares his fangs it doesn’t pay to assume he’s giving you a friendly smile. They only wanted to pump me. You’d better fix your tie, they’ve got TV cameras—here, let me do it.”
    Her touch at his throat was light and cool and her face hovered before him. “There,” she said, and smiled. Forrester felt defensive. He reached across the seat for his briefcase and glanced out through the window. The strong warm sun slanted down, the tarmac had emptied of passengers; and he could see the reporters stirring impatiently. A tiny woman in a trim grey suit, with wire-grey hair and a simian face, had come outside and stood pointing toward the door of the plane, and a camera crew beside her circled forward to focus their portable television apparatus on the top of the boarding stairs. The woman was Nicole Lawrence, KARZ-TV’s political reporter and professional gadfly; she had traveled with himon the campaign and he knew her tart caustic tongue. “I see they’ve sent out the big guns.”
    â€œWhat did you expect? You uncovered your own artillery last night,” Ronnie said.
    â€œYou don’t approve, do you?”
    Her smile was evanescent and nervous. “I only work here.”
    â€œThat’s what Top Spode said. I didn’t let him off the hook and I won’t let you off either.”
    â€œI hate to admit this,” she said, “but anything you do is all right with me.” She seemed to have surprised herself because she added with an impatient toss of her head, “Senator, I don’t—”
    â€œAlan.”
    It had been a silly thing to say; this wasn’t the time for it. It only made her withdraw. “Maybe,” she