Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  “I grant you that, Lanny. But what can he do now?”

  “He had quite an extraordinary contact in Germany, apparently someone in Göring’s own headquarters. He was able to give me the date of the invasion of Holland and Belgium, and later that of Norway, and I sent this information to the President. The last time I saw this man, about a year ago, he told me he had lost that contact but hoped to get another. He might have it now.”

  “That is just where the trouble comes in, Lanny. He may have a new contact that he trusts, and it may turn out to be a Gestapo agent playing with him. We simply cannot take such chances with the atomic bomb.”

  “I grant you that, Professor. But let us consider whether there might not be some information my man could get without having to know what it is for.”

  “That would be difficult, for the reason that the information is so highly technical that any scientist would know at once what the man was after and could infer what stage we had reached in our research.”

  “Let me make a suggestion or two. If we could find out whether the Germans have increased their production of graphite, wouldn’t that tell us something?”

  “In the first place, the fact that we are using graphite to moderate the speed of neutrons is one of the most priceless of our secrets; and second, German production wouldn’t tell us much, because graphite is used for many war purposes and comparatively little of it is needed as a moderator.”

  “Well, then, how about heavy water? That, as I understand it, is difficult to produce and not much of it exists.”

  “That is true. If your man could find out if and where the Germans are making heavy water in large quantities, we should have a number-one bombing target.”

  “And how about Professor Schilling? Can his name be mentioned?”

  “I fear we have to say no to that. Schilling is a nuclear physicist and nothing else, and we know that the Nazis have him at that job. We cannot risk having anybody know that he is on our side.”

  “If I could find out where a number of such physicists are employed, wouldn’t that be important?”

  “We already have that information, I believe; but I do not know what use is being made of it. I am only admitted to the fringes of these ultra-secret matters.”

  “This is true, is it not, that the quantity production of fissionable material would require a large plant; and if my man could find out where such a plant is located, wouldn’t that be worth while?”

  “I have to admit that that would be a major achievement.”

  “This is the way it appears to me: the Germans must know that we know the possibility of atom splitting, and they would certainly expect us to try to find out about what they are doing. I don’t have to give my man any hint that we are working on the project. Can’t I just tell him what has been in the scientific journals prior to the war, and ask if he can find out any more on this subject?”

  “I should say there would be no harm in that; but it would be an exceedingly dangerous matter for your man and for his contacts.”

  “That is up to him. I will tell him the facts, as I have always done, and leave it to him to use his judgment. I suppose the same thing goes for jet propulsion, which Robbie tells me he is working on very secretly; and for rocket projectiles, and so on. The Germans are known to be working on these, and it surely wouldn’t be any news, to them that we are trying to catch up.”

  “If your man were able to get us real news about these matters, we’d award him a D.S.M. when the war is over.”

  “To award him American citizenship might be more to the point,” opined Lanny. “We shall see.”

  IX

  They talked about the presidential agent’s own job, what information he might get in Vichy territory, and what use was likely to be made of it. Alston said that he agreed with the Chief in thinking that they ought to open a second front across the Channel in the summer of 1942, if only for the sake of its effect upon the Russians. “Even if we could do no more than establish a bridgehead, it would pay us in the long run, however costly. But between you and me, Lanny, I don’t think we are going to be able to budge Churchill on this issue. I appreciate him as a propagandist, but he fancies himself also as a military strategist, and I fear he is somewhat vain on the subject. Certainly I have found him hard to argue with; he does all the talking.”

  “I can imagine it,” responded Lanny with a grin. “He was so glad to get his troops off that shore, no doubt the idea of sending them back again gives him nightmares.”

  “He argues that our American troops are utterly untested, and who can be sure they would stand the punishment they would get from the Panzers and from the overhead strafing?”

  “To say nothing of the subs on the way across, Professor. You can be sure that Hitler would throw in everything he has to make good the promises he has fed to his own people. It would be a life and death matter for him.”

  “I have listened to the arguments of the military men on both sides; there is very little agreement among them. We shift in our discussions from Cherbourg to Dakar, to Casablanca, Algiers, and Tunis. Then Churchill takes us to Salonika and the Vardar valley, and even to his old stamping ground of Gallipoli. Then we come back to Cherbourg. But this much I can tell you quite surely: no information that you bring us and no contacts that you make in Unoccupied France and in North Africa will be wasted. We shall surely be landing there before this war is over, and meantime we have to defend ourselves there, to the extent of keeping Laval out of power and Franco properly worried.”

  “The Governor seemed to think there was no longer any danger of a German attack upon Gibraltar.”

  “It would appear that the time for that has passed. Franco’s demands were more than Hitler was willing to meet; and now, I think, Franco has been brought to realize that we mean business, and he will continue to hold his precarious seat upon the fence.”

  “F.D.R. didn’t seem very clear in his mind whether I am to be an American patriot or a sympathizer with Fascism in my secret heart. It will hardly be possible to play both roles, at least not for long.”

  “Nobody can tell you about that, Lanny. You will have to go and find out what changes a year has made, and what your probable sources of information are, and then make your own decision as to which side of the fence to be on. A lot of Frenchmen will be doing the same, I fancy.”

  “No doubt about that!” agreed the P.A. with a touch of bitterness.

  X

  Parting time was at hand. On Lanny’s last day at home Agnes went off to her work, and thoughtfully arranged to dine with a friend and go to a movie so that Laurel might be alone with her husband. But when they were alone they found that they didn’t have much to talk about. Lanny couldn’t talk about his work, and neither of them wanted to say how unhappy he or she was. Romeo had told them that “parting is such sweet sorrow,” but neither found it true. Their hearts ached, and there was nothing sweet about it.

  Lanny felt free to say that he was going to Vichy France, to see what the Pétainists were doing and planning. There was no danger about it—that tottering regime was doing its best to remain friends with America, and besides, they all thought that Lanny was one of them. So there was nothing for a wife to worry about; she would do her work, and Mother Nature would do Mother Nature’s work, and by midsummer at the latest Lanny would return and perhaps be able to stay and see her through her confinement. Meantime they mustn’t make things hard for each other. Laurel agreed, and when tears stole into her eyes she turned her head away and found an excuse to slip out of the room.

  She had used the few days to make a rough draft of an article about what she had seen in “Red China.” Lanny read this, and they had a subject to occupy their minds. For the past year or two few Americans had been able to get past the blockade which the Central Government maintained against their Yenan rival, and so this article would be something of a scoop; but its political point of view would work against it, because Laurel had been fascinated by the new life s
he had seen in that half-barren mountainous land, and editors of big-circulation magazines didn’t fancy telling their readers that the outcome of this war might be a socialized world. Nor was it in accord with Allied propaganda to suggest that supplies being flown to Chungking at heavy cost were not being used against the Japs but were being saved for use in a future civil war. Laurel said: “I won’t doctor the article. If the big-circulation editors don’t want it, I’ll give it to one of the small-circulation editors.” Not so good for the future of a budding novelist!

  As soon as Lanny left she was going to Baltimore to visit her aunt, Millicent Holdenhurst, and tell the story of the Oriole so far as she knew it. That would be a sad duty, and they talked about what she would say. Once more they discussed the possibility that the passengers and crew of that yacht might have got off in small boats and be stranded on some one of the thousands of islands large and small which pepper the map of that part of the world. It had happened to many people, and every now and then you read in the papers about some castaway who had found his way back to civilization. The natives took care of them and did not eat them—or, at any rate, those who were eaten did not get reported.

  Inevitably that led to the strange experience which had befallen the newly married couple, flying from Yenan to Ulan-Bator over the great Gobi Desert. Laurel had fallen into a spontaneous trance, the only time that had ever happened to her. Or perhaps she had just been talking in her sleep, who could say? Anyhow, Lanny had heard what purported to be the voice of Lizbeth Holdenhurst, saying that the yacht had gone down with all on board. Could you believe that? Certainly you had to think about it, after so many strange psychic experiences had come to you.

  XI

  Lanny had a desire to try a séance with his wife but had refrained from suggesting it. She had had a warning of danger in advance of his last flight overseas, and he was afraid that might happen again and leave her possessed with fear. Now, on this last evening, she told him that her curiosity was greater than her fear, and she wanted to try one more trance. There was nothing he could say to that; if he were to invent some pretext for objecting, she would know that his fear was greater than his curiosity.

  They shut off the telephone and plugged the doorbell, and Laurel stretched herself out on the couch and closed her eyes. Lanny sat by with notebook on his knee and pencil poised in proper psychical-research fashion. Laurel moaned and sighed several times and then lay still; and presently there came stealing into the room, from eternity, or God only could say where, a voice—what the researchers have labeled a “control.” The most urbane and agreeable of controls imaginable was the lately deceased Otto Hermann Kahn, former senior partner of the international banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company. Why he had picked Laurel Creston for his manifestations he did not say, and probably did not know; he professed to be skeptical about the whole affair. A weird joke upon himself as well as upon them!

  “Well, well, here we are again!” chuckled the voice. “The last time was Hengyang, if I remember correctly. How people do get about nowadays! It is all I can do to keep up with you.”

  “Tell us how you do it,” countered Lanny, for when you are dealing with the “spirits” you have to enter into the spirit of their occasion.

  “I would tell you if I could,” was the reply. “But I am as much at a loss as yourself. Will you pardon me if I refuse to believe any of this?”

  “Of course. I don’t believe it either. But here we are, Mr. Kahn.”

  “Do call me Otto,” suggested the voice. “Surely we do not have to stand on formalities at this late date.”

  “With pleasure, Otto. But you will understand that I think of you as being older than myself.”

  “You will catch up in due course, and you will discover that you are neither so wise nor so important as you appear to your fellow men.”

  So they bantered, as they would have done if they had met in the drawing-room of that opera diva who had been Otto’s dear friend in the happy days when it had been the custom for international bankers to take the good the gods provided them. Lanny listened with one half his mind, while with the other half he thought: Could this really be Otto Kahn, or was it just the subconscious mind of Laurel Creston at play, or possibly a mingling of Laurel’s with Lanny’s and perhaps others? Laurel was a novelist, and her mind was perfectly capable of making up light drawing-room conversation; if you dived into her subconscious mind, her memory mind, her racial mind, who could guess what masses of material might be hidden there, and what connections it might have with other mindstuff, either living or supposed to have “passed on”?

  Presently the voice remarked: “There is an old man here whom I used to know well and who says he used to know you. Do you remember Zaharoff?”

  “Oh, very well indeed. How are you, Sir Basil? My very best wishes!”

  “He says he cannot summon the energy to speak to you directly. He is worried about his money; he always thought too much of it and didn’t get any fun out of it, as I learned to do. He breaks in to say it is somebody else’s money, and he wants it paid.”

  “Yes, I know all about it, Otto. You will have to explain to him that the international banking system has not yet been extended to the spirit world. Perhaps you and he can work up something of the sort. Let me suggest another partner, a friend who has just come into your world, an active capitalist with whom you used to do business. That is Reverdy Johnson Holdenhurst. Have you seen anything of him?”

  “I haven’t, but I remember him well and will inquire for him. However, I am not interested in money any more. I have musical and artistic friends who have come over, and they are much better company, now that they are not always looking for subsidies or financial aid from me. You know how it was. I used to be an ‘angel.’ And now I am a ghost! How odd!”

  “Tell me about yourself, Otto. You will understand, I am sure, how curious we are about the future world, and how hard we find it to understand.”

  “What you will find hardest to understand is that I don’t understand it either. One moment—here is an old lady who asks to give you a message. Her name is Marjorie.”

  “Oh, yes. She was my wife’s grandmother.”

  “She still is, she wishes to inform you. She wants you to know that she is better pleased with your conduct of late. It is nice indeed that one gets along with one’s grandmother-in-law. I congratulate you.”

  “I have no fewer than eight grandmothers in the spirit world. You see, I have been married three times. Oddly enough, I never met a single one of those ladies and cannot even recall their names. If you meet any of them, give them my regards and tell them that I am a tireless experimenter with psychic matters and should be happy if they would present themselves and give me an opportunity to exchange information.”

  This was in the modern drawing-room line of conversation, as anyone should perceive; but apparently it gave offense, for Lanny suddenly heard a severe old lady’s voice: “Young man, you are being flippant!” and then silence. Lanny sat wondering: Was that Marjorie’s voice, or was it by chance that of Robbie’s mother, or Beauty’s mother, or one of the grandmothers of Irma, or of Trudi in Germany? As the silence continued, he wondered what had become of Otto Kahn; had Marjorie by chance hit him over the head with a lump of ectoplasm? Not a sound, until Laurel began to moan and sigh, and presently she came out of her trance and opened her eyes and inquired: “Well, what happened?”

  Lanny read her his notes and they had some good laughs; they could both take comfort because there had been no prophecies of doom or destruction. So it would be just an ordinary plane trip, and a visit to Lanny’s mother on the Riviera, and some chats with French politicians, generals, capitalists, and other “V.I.P.’s”—very important persons, as the Army was calling them. Then Lanny would fly back again, not precisely with the wings of a dove, but he would come to his beloved and be at rest. So he told himself, and her.

  In the morning came a girl from Robbie’s office who would ride in the rumble
seat of the car while Lanny drove with his wife to the airport. She would drive Laurel back to the apartment and then take the car to Newcastle. Laurel exchanged a last embrace with her husband, and stood on the pier at the great airport and watched the gray-painted plane glide out into the Sound and lift itself into the air. She told herself that everything was all right, it was one more trip, like thousands and tens of thousands of others. She held back her tears and conversed politely with the girl. But when she got back to the apartment and was alone, she wept copiously into the pillow which bore the impress of Lanny’s head.

  BOOK TWO

  Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent

  3

  And Only Man Is Vile

  I

  P.A. 103 had been placed in the care of “Pan-Am,” with his expenses mysteriously paid. He was not being routed by way of Bermuda because he was in the black books of the British government, which had become suspicious of his intimacy with Rudolf Hess and other leading Nazis. Lanny’s route was via San Juan in Puerto Rico, and thence to the port of Belém in Brazil; he would cross the ocean to a place called Bolamo in Portuguese West Africa, and from there go on to Lisbon. It wasn’t as roundabout as it looked on the maps, and anyhow, distances aren’t so important when you rise eight thousand feet into the air and there are no enemy planes to bother you.

  He was traveling in a million-dollar contrivance, one of mankind’s most surprising achievements. He was one of thirty-three passengers who were provided with every comfort and were looked after by nine young men and one young woman, all carefully trained and clad in natty blue uniforms. Each passenger had an upholstered seat, which at night was made into a bed. There was a buffet where you might help yourself to a variety of tasty foods; there were magazines to read, and a push button which would bring you the services of the good-looking young stewardess. The cabin was soundproof, so you might chat with your fellow passengers, or play cards, checkers, or dominoes. If you were restless you might stroll in the long corridor, and sometimes members of the crew would come down into the cabin and let you ask them foolish questions.