Thanks a lot. Jerry got just enough of where she was coming from to keep from saying it out loud. Fighting at reunions wasn’t in the recipe for happiness, either; he could see that. They weren’t always in perfect rhythm about what went on in the bedroom. He kept hoping more time together would get them better synched.

She asked, “So what did you actually do while you were out in the middle of the Pacific for four years?”

Lying at a loving reunion wasn’t a great plan, either. He knew that. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t believe the truth; she read science fiction and fantasy, too. But telling her the truth would put her in the same kind of danger he’d put himself in when he smuggled those two photos out of the Special Measurements container. He was willing to take his own chances. He didn’t want her to have to.

Then what about Tim? he asked himself. That somehow felt different. The difference between a loved one and a friend? Between a woman and a man? Maybe he just thought Tim was better at taking care of himself.

“Hello?” Anna said. “Did all your brains fall out that time?”

“Felt like it,” Jerry answered with dignity, wishing she were as happily torpid as he was. He went on, “I really didn’t do a whole lot. I was one more research project on a research ship. Engine noise and things kept me from getting the kind of data I wanted. But I sure got the kind of money I wanted.”

“That was good,” she agreed. “Seems almost like they wanted you more for cover than for what you could really do, though.”

No, she didn’t have a college degree. Yes, she was plenty smart anyhow: more than smart enough to see the obvious. “Next time you’re at my place, I’ll show you a manganese nodule,” he said. “I’ve got one in my suitcase, maybe the size of a golf ball. We all do—souvenirs, you know. They came in the sludge along with the bigger ones the mining unit was really after. I don’t know how much money the Hughes people spent on the project and on security, but having me along was chump change to them. Less than chump change.”

As with Tim before, except for tagging Howard Hughes instead of the CIA, he wasn’t even lying. And Hughes made perfect camouflage for the Agency. Anna proved it: “He’s nuttier than a Mission Pak fruitcake. He has been for years. Everybody knows that.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna argue with you, babe. He threw money at me when he didn’t have to. If that doesn’t make him crazy, what would?” Jerry said.

“Good point,” she said, puncturing him and getting the last word at the same time. If only she didn’t sound so much as if she meant it …