Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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Matson seemed whiter than ever, as if all the blood had fled from his face and hands to feed the hot ball of anger inside him. "I'll take my chances on being condemned," he said. "We are engaged in a struggle for survival--our world against theirs. You have been picked as one of the men to go out in the front line. You should have no doubts."

Jeff had to say it. "But I do have doubts. I'm confused. I feel like I'm wallowing around in a swamp and can't find my way out. I don't know what's right and what's wrong any more. Poor Winant must have felt like this, only worse, because he knew so much more than I know and I find that the more I know the more I'm confused."

He knew he had mentioned Winant because Dannenberg had said he looked something like Winant, and his subconscious had been considering Winant--and Winant's suicide--ever since. He knew now how dismayed he had been when Winant killed himself, and then Jan Masaryk killed himself. Their deaths had made him feel exactly as if he had lost an older friend out of his platoon. He knew neither of them, yet their deaths were personal.