Ride a Pale Horse

by Helen Macinnes

  “See you.” Bristow walked on. Their departure had been abrupt; his fault, he blamed himself. Too edgy, too quick to question small reactions that were as innocent as they always had been. If he had dinner with anyone tonight, he would have opted for Karen Cornell. She would be the right companion for the end of this day.

  8

  Ten o’clock on Monday morning, and Karen Cornell was waiting at her desk in the Spectator’s staff room, ready for her command appearance in Schleeman’s office. He was there but on the telephone. A call from Italy, his secretary told Karen; please wait. Twenty minutes later, he had another call. And another. This time she was given the message: Mr. Schleeman has several scheduled appointments, and he is running late; he would like to see you at five o’clock. “Of course,” Karen had said to his white-haired secretary, overweight by fifty pounds and permanently bent from the shoulders by too much sitting over her desk. The humpbacked whale, the younger staff members called her, but only when she was well out of earshot. Her hearing and eyesight, like her work, were exceptionally keen.

  The Austrian interview with a possible chancellor had been written yesterday, so Karen’s morning was spent on working over her notes on Czechoslovakia with occasional breaks—everyone had questions about Prague, which she fended off without rousing extra curiosity. Lunch was a sandwich with Jim Black. He also had questions about her trip, but she could give him the Austrian interview to edit and that diverted talk about the Czechs she had met.

  As five o’clock approached and the staff room gradually emptied, she began to worry over quite another set of questions that faced her. Vienna, she kept thinking, how do I deal with Vienna? Hubert Schleeman was a bulldog once he bit into a subject. Vasek’s name must not be mentioned. Nor the letters. Oh, Peter Bristow, why aren’t you here to help me out? And what are you doing at this moment? Persuading the high brass that I’m really quite a credible witness even if I am a writer, and one of the Fourth Estate at that? They probably think we all belong to the second-oldest profession, if not kissing cousins to the first.

  The humpbacked whale, poor old dear—did she never exercise beyond walking to the bathroom?—announced in her frostiest manner, “Mr. Schleeman is available now, Ms. Cornell.” She even opened Schleeman’s door with a flourish. (God, how can he stand her? But the answer to that was efficiency: the woman had never misfiled one letter or forgotten an instruction.)

  Karen entered.

  “Sorry for this delay,” Schleeman said, and pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

  Karen took heart. He was in excellent humour, or else there would have been no hint of apology. She waited for Vienna to raise its head. Instead, Schleeman began talking about quite another subject.

  “I had a ’phone call from Rome this morning. You’ve met Aliotto, haven’t you?”

  “Aliotto? Oh, yes—Luigi Aliotto.” He had been one of the Western group of journalists in Prague. “I met him once or twice. Briefly.”

  “What d’you think of him?”

  “A good reporter, I heard. He’s attractive, lots of charm. Even the tight-faced females from the Eastern bloc succumbed to it.”

  “I’ve been checking up on him today. He is a freelance reporter who is published in several reputable papers. He’s good, as you said. How would you like a week in Rome?”

  She stared at him, blue eyes incredulous.

  “Yes, Rome. It would be your first trip there and worthwhile, I think.”

  Not her first visit. After their honeymoon in Venice, Alan and she had travelled back to New York by way of Rome. She sat very still, realising that this was the first time she had thought of Alan in days, feeling a stab of wonder along with that small shock. She recovered and paid attention to Schleeman’s rapid words explaining Aliotto’s morning telephone call to the Washington Spectator.

  Aliotto had been offered the opportunity, along with three other Italian journalists, to attend a private session with two terrorists of the Red Brigade. There had been a lengthy trial, and now—after two years in jail—they were sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Suddenly, they had decided to talk. Aliotto had the idea of inviting an American to be present when the talking began. The prisoners had no objection, possibly wanted their views to be known to a wide public; the authorities had no objections, either—the more that was known about the history (and mentality) of two young terrorists who had been connected with murder and arson the stronger the general support for the government’s firm action would be. Aliotto had suggested that Schleeman send one of his reporters and thought Karen Cornell, whom he had met, might be a suitable choice.

  “An interview?” Karen sounded doubtful.

  “Not exactly. There will be questions and answers, of course. Aliotto’s idea is that it would be interesting for you and him to write your separate accounts of the talk session. Yours would be as a foreigner sees it; his would be as a journalist closely involved with the terrorist scene in Italy. Both your columns would be published side by side in Domani, a magazine he writes for, and in the Spectator. Appropriately translated, of course.” Schleeman laughed. “I think he wants to outdo the three other journalists: his idea of two reports—one from the American point of view, one from an Italian who has had to live with constant terrorism—is original enough to make their newspaper columns seem run-of-the-mill. But whatever lies behind his proposal, it’s still a first-rate idea.” Schleeman studied her expression. It was indecisive, slightly doubtful, even troubled. “Well?” he asked sharply to force a reply.

  “There are just so many things happening at the moment—” she began, thinking of Bristow and the cassettes, and what would their result be? And had Vasek been accepted as a defector? So many things she wanted to hear as soon as Peter Bristow could tell her. His ’phone call could come next week; or would it be two weeks, three? “When would I have to go to Rome?”

  “Why not on Wednesday? The session with the terrorists—a young man and his girl, by the way—is scheduled for next Monday. But a few days earlier are always useful. It lets you have a chance to soak up some background.” She always liked to do that before approaching any strange assignment.

  “This Wednesday?” She was aghast.

  “Now what have you got to do here that can’t be done by Wednesday?” he demanded. Schleeman was definitely in favour of Aliotto’s idea. It was too good to let slip to some other magazine or a daily paper. “Jim will have both your pieces by tomorrow, won’t he?”

  She nodded. Jim Black already had one of them, and Schleeman knew that.

  “What’s so important to keep you in Washington?”

  The whip was cracking: she could hear it sing around the room. “Not Washington, New York. I haven’t been there for two weeks, and there’s war between one of the tenants and Max. He’s the caretaker, handyman, general factotum. I’d never run the place without him. I had him on the ’phone yesterday, threatening to quit. I told him I’d be at the house on Wednesday if he’d just be patient.” And remember his ground-floor apartment with the yard behind it as his own private garden. Karen sighed. “I’ll straighten out the quarrel. Oh, Lord, why don’t I sell that house anyway?”

  The whip had stopped cracking. Schleeman was looking at her with a touch of amusement. “Why don’t you? Get rid of it. Settle in Washington in a place of your own. Easier for everyone.”

  “I don’t know why.” She met his eyes. “Yes, I do. That house holds a lot of memories.” Good memories that had kept her going when she was engulfed by loneliness. In spite of work, of travel, of a hundred acquaintances and a dozen friends, there was always that swamp of loneliness ever pulling her into its depths. Not even four affairs along the way gave any escape. She had broken them off after a week or two of high hopes that ended in disappointment and anguish. No one she had met in these last years seemed able to replace the happiness she once had known.

  “Memories,” Schleeman said quietly, “can make you a prisoner, Karen. Don’t let them tie you down.” He and
Jim Black had talked about that: her five years of marriage to Alan Fern shouldn’t close out the rest of her life. Her work hadn’t suffered, in fact it had improved, but a young woman with Karen’s astonishing good looks who suddenly cut off promising affairs with marriage proposed—it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. Indeed, it was a complete waste. “Well,” Schleeman added, suddenly brusque, “when do you leave for Rome?”

  “Friday?”

  “Thursday evening it would have to be: night flights only. You’ll be there Friday morning. Good. I’ll alert Aliotto, and he can book a room for you at the Imperial. Might as well be comfortable. That will give you three days to get the background from him. Enough?” Three days would be sufficient. She was a quick study.

  “Possibly.”

  “Of course, I could send someone else from the Spectator, but Aliotto seemed intent on you. Perhaps a woman would be best—might help put the girl more at ease, loosen her tongue. Seemingly, it’s the young man who has been doing most of the talking so far. She just follows along.”

  “As she did when she killed with a machine pistol? Or was it a grenade?”

  That’s better, that’s much better, thought Schleeman, watching Karen’s eyes. “You’ll do a good job. By the way—how’s your interest in disinformation coming along? Did Pete Bristow give you any leads?”

  “I don’t think he can. No more than has been already published.”

  “I expected that, but you can give it another try when you come back from Rome. What was his reaction about the defector? Interested or indifferent?”

  “Interested.”

  “That all?”

  “Well, we talked about several things.”

  “Prague, of course. Vienna, too?”

  So I’m not escaping so easily, Karen thought. “Vienna, too.”

  “You said last Friday night that you were followed. Were you being serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Perhaps anyone who was seen in contact with that defector was put under surveillance. But it has stopped now—I haven’t noticed any quiet little man following me around. So I’m in the clear. Don’t you think?” she added nervously.

  “First, tell me about the surveillance. I’d be a better judge then.”

  So she told him about the middle-aged man in a brown suit who had followed her into a café on Kärntnerstrasse.

  “He left after he telephoned?”

  “And saw I was settled at a table, meeting no one. Not then, certainly. Later, Sam Waterman and two friends—a man and a girl—drifted in.” She had kept her voice light, so as not to worry him, which in turn would have stirred up more of her own anxieties. She paused. He kept silent. “Now it’s your turn, Hubert. You made me a promise.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” He wasn’t eager to keep it. “I really would like to know why you promoted me instead of Waterman. He holds it against me, you know.”

  “Did he show it when he joined you in the cafe?”

  “There were several poisoned darts flicked in my direction.”

  “Brush them off, Karen. He’s the one to be blamed if he didn’t get the job you have now. This is between us, you understand. I don’t add to his troubles.”

  She nodded. What troubles? Waterman had seemed carefree. If he could travel abroad, he certainly had enough cash flow.

  “Sam Waterman used his own name to write for us. Then I discovered he wrote as Steven Winter for the People’s Incentive, a Marxist weekly spawned in northern California. It’s virulent, full of polemics, and far to the outer left.”

  “Steven Winter?” She was astounded. “I never knew!” “No one was supposed to know. A well-hidden secret. That’s why he never got the job he was aiming at. Of course, I don’t think he expected me to accept his resignation—he made an effort to apologise two days later—but he saved me the task of telling him he wasn’t wanted around here. That could have been a problem. I couldn’t fire him without disclosing what I knew. Couldn’t give away my source of information, could I?” There was a brief smile. (Menlo, for once, had been in total agreement with that. He had his own source to protect: an FBI agent had infiltrated the People’s Incentive, and his safety would be at stake. Menlo had been alerted because Winter’s articles were a constant pipeline for disinformation.) “There was no choice: I had to get rid of him. I trust no man who hides his politics so carefully when he has the power to influence minds.”

  “How on earth did you find out?” she asked in wonder.

  “Pure luck—a luncheon conversation about disinformation, actually, with an old friend.” Schleeman shook his head over that memory. There he had sat, stating firmly that any publisher or editor with his wits about him would know if any of his reporters were outlets or conveyor belts for twisted information, only to be asked, “What do you think Sam Waterman is doing when he’s writing as Steven Winter?”

  Karen’s eyes were speculating. “Was it—”

  Schleeman looked at her. “No, it wasn’t Peter Bristow who dropped that bombshell, although he must have heard about Waterman. It was an old OSS friend, now a senior officer with the CIA, and one of the sharpest and most intelligent men I’ve met. He knows what he’s talking about.” Menlo certainly did: he had been eating, breathing, sleeping for the last thirty years with the problems of national security.

  “Has Waterman discovered that you know what he really is?”

  “Were there any of his poisoned darts sent in my direction?”

  “No. He was concentrating on my life-style and working methods.” He really threw me off balance, too. She sighed.

  “I’m sorry about that, Karen.” And he meant it.

  “Well”—she smiled—“we have to protect your sources, haven’t we? And as long as I know the reason why he didn’t get this job, I don’t feel I’m responsible. So all’s well that ends—” But it hasn’t yet ended, she told herself. “That encounter in the café was no accident, was it?” Peter Bristow hadn’t thought so. She remembered the sudden turn of his head as she named Waterman and the reporter called Andreas Kellner, the alert look in his eyes as he asked for every detail—even about a girl named Rita who spoke almost-true American. As for Kellner’s use of the word “farrago”—that had created a brief moment of complete astonishment. Bristow’s lips had tightened. He made no other comment.

  “Not an accident, I think. It’s an old pattern. We used it back in 1942. Some things don’t change.” But Schleeman was puzzled. Waterman, if he hadn’t graduated into actual espionage, was being used by forces he wouldn’t even believe existed. “What did they want from you?” What could they have wanted might be the right question, but he refrained from pressing it.

  “The girl—I heard only her first name, Rita—kept gushing about how she’d love to be a correspondent who travelled abroad, I must have talked with so many interesting people in Prague, didn’t I meet any Czechs and get to know them?”

  “You were supposed to be flattered.” It always was a good method to draw out a confidence and learn of some unusual incident. “But I gather you didn’t mention the defector. And what did Bristow have to say?”

  “The same as you,” she said carefully.

  “More or less.” More or less. “Are you holding out on me, Karen?”

  She flushed. “I don’t know everything myself. I’m sure Peter Bristow will tell you—and me, too—whatever can be told. He owes us that, doesn’t he?”

  “He takes you seriously?”

  “I believe he does.”

  “And he’s taking action?”

  “He is. I hope.”

  “I’ll have to be satisfied with that, I suppose.”

  There was a small silence.

  Yes, decided Schleeman, she could tell more, but someone or something has locked her tongue. This story may be bigger than I even guessed. “What did you think of Bristow?”

  “He was easier to be with than I had imagined.”

  Schleeman was amused. He had
known Peter Bristow ever since he went to Harvard with his son—they had roomed together at Eliot House. Both had served, after graduating, in Vietnam. There, Bristow had been tapped by Military Intelligence to join a unit dissecting enemy propaganda, and that had led as a natural step into a CIA section that countered disinformation. “Never found him unapproachable. He was a history major, you know. Contemporary history. Almost became a college teacher after the war. But, as he told me, instead of lecturing on current events, he now deals with them in a more practical way.” Schleeman noticed Karen’s interest. “Too bad you can’t do an interview on him. He’d make good copy.”

  “That’s the last thing he’d want. Remember your party for the Brazilian ambassador?”

  Schleeman reflected. “Oh, yes—about two years ago. What of it?”

  “I met Peter Bristow there. Very briefly. The moment he learned who I was, he made an excuse and left. You saw it, didn’t you? You were standing behind him.”

  Sharp memory she had: it always surprised Schleeman. “He left not because you were a reporter who’d note everything he’d say. He had just seen his ex-wife enter the room with a Colombian millionaire. A damned gate-crasher, too, and her current lover. The divorce wasn’t even two months old. I’d say that wasn’t the happiest time in Bristow’s life.” Not all memories of past marriages were good ones, Karen. Some were downright bitter—like his own when he recalled his first wife, which he did as rarely as possible.

  “Why was there a divorce?” The question, involuntary, had escaped.

  “He didn’t make enough money or have enough spare time for all the things she wanted. A beautiful woman—outwardly, that is.”

  “But surely she knew the money he made or the time he had for a social life before she married him.”

  “Washington and its parties can go to some women’s heads,” he reminded Karen. “So now she’s got her rich Colombian and all the emeralds that came with him.” Schleeman pushed a manuscript into the desk drawer and rose. “She was a damn fool, if you ask me. Now, what about an early dinner tonight? I’ll give you some background on Rome. I lived there for a couple of years. Or are you too exhausted again?”