"That San Juan-New York flight, remember?" she went on hurriedly. "You said not to take it, remember? Well, I ... I sort of forgot about what you'd said. You know. Anyway, I got a ticket and was ready to go when the flight was suddenly delayed. Routine, they said. Checking the engines. But I'd never heard of any such routine as that. I remembered what you told me, Doc, and I got scared.
"After an hour, they put another plane into service; they were still working on the other one. I was still worried, so I decided to wait till the next day.
He closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "I read."
"Doc, I'd've been on that flight if you hadn't warned me. All the money in the world isn't enough to pay for that." The oddly worried look had come back into her eyes. "Doc, I don't know how you knew that ship was going to go, and I won't ask. I don't want to know. But, ... one thing: Was it _me_ they were after?"
_She thinks someone blew up the ship_, he thought. _She thinks I heard about the plot some way._ For an instant he hesitated, then:
"No, Susan; they weren't after you. No one was trying to kill you. Don't worry about it."
Relief washed over her face. "O.K., Doc; if you say so. Look, I've got to run now, but we've got to sit down and have a few drinks together, now that I'm back. And ... Doc--"
"Anytime you need anything--if I can ever help you--you let me know, huh?"
"Certainly, my dear. And don't you worry about anything. The stars are all on your side right now."
She smiled, patted his hand, and then was gone in a flash of gold and honey. Dr. Joachim looked at the door that had closed behind her, then he looked down at the envelope in his hands. He opened it gently and took out the sheaf of bills. Fifteen hundred dollars!
He smiled and shoved the money into his pocket. After all, he _was_ a professional fortuneteller, even if he didn't like that particular label, and he _had_ saved her life, hadn't he?
He returned to the small back room, sat down again at the typer, and, after a minute, began typing again.
When he was finished, he addressed an envelope and put the letter inside.
It was signed with his legal name: _Peter J. Forsythe_.
It required less than two hours for that letter to end up at its destination in a six-floor brick building, a rather old-fashioned affair that stood among similar structures in a lower-middle-class section of Arlington, Virginia, hardly a hop-skip-and-jump from the Pentagon, and not much farther from the Capitol.