“The admiral had nothing to do with my decision, sir,” Robert said.
“I understand that, Commander, but will the President understand that?”
The honeymoon will have to be postponed, Robert thought.
When Robert broke the news to Susan, he said gently, “This is my last overseas assignment. After this I’ll be home so much you’ll get sick of me.”
She smiled up at him. “There isn’t that much time in the world. We’re going to be together forever.”
The chase after the Fox was the most frustrating thing Robert had ever experienced. He picked up his trail in Argentina but missed his quarry by one day. The trail led to Tokyo and China and then Malaysia. Whoever the Fox was, he left just enough of a trail to lead to where he had been but never to where he was.
The days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, and always Robert was just behind the Fox. He called Susan almost every day. In the beginning, it was “I’ll be home in a few days, darling.” And then, “I might be home next week.” And then, finally, “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” In the end, Robert had to give up. He had been on the Fox’s trail for two and a half months with no success.
When he returned to Susan, she seemed changed. A little cooler.
“I’m sorry, darling,” Robert apologized. “I had no idea it would take so long. It was just—”
“They’ll never let you go, will they, Robert?”
“What? Of course they will.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve taken a job at Washington Memorial Hospital.”
He was taken aback. “You’ve what?”
“I’m going to be a nurse again. I can’t sit around waiting for you to come home to me, wondering where you are and what you’re doing, wondering whether you’re dead or alive.”
“Susan, I—”
“It’s all right, my sweetheart. At least I’ll be doing something useful while you’re gone. It will make the waiting easier.”
And Robert had no answer to that.
He reported his failure to Admiral Whittaker. The admiral was sympathetic.
“It’s my fault for agreeing to let you do it. From now on, we’ll let the CIA handle their own damned problems. I’m sorry, Robert.”
Robert told him about Susan taking a job as a nurse.
“That’s probably a good idea,” the Admiral said thoughtfully. “It will take the pressure off your marriage. If you took on some overseas caseloads now and then, I’m sure it won’t matter as much.”
Now and then turned out to be almost constantly. That was when the marriage really began to disintegrate.
Susan worked at Washington Memorial Hospital as an operating room nurse, and whenever Robert was home, she tried to take time off to be with him, but she was caught up more and more in her work.
“I’m really enjoying it, darling. I feel I’m doing something useful.”
She would talk to Robert about her patients, and he remembered how caring she had been with him, how she had nurtured him back to health, back to life. He was pleased that she was doing important work that she loved, but the fact was, they were seeing less and less of each other. The emotional distance between them was widening. There was an awkwardness now that had not existed before. They were like two strangers trying desperately hard to make conversation.
When Robert returned to Washington from a six-week assignment in Turkey, he took Susan out to dinner at Sans Souci.
Susan said, “We have a new patient at the hospital. He was in a bad plane crash, and the doctors didn’t think he was going to live, but I’m going to see to it that he does.” Her eyes were glowing.
She was like that with me, Robert thought. And he wondered if she had leaned over the new patient and said, “Get well. I’m waiting for you.” He rejected the thought.
“He’s so nice, Robert. All the nurses are crazy about him.”
All the nurses? he wondered.
There was a small, nagging doubt at the back of his mind, but he managed to get rid of it.