Back Channel

by Stephen L Carter

  She glanced over.

  A drunk was pacing her, perhaps ten feet to the left, stumbling angrily through the trees. He was heavyset, and although beyond that Margo could see no details in the darkness, she could hear his angry growl.

  When he called to her again, she broke into a near run. The drunk grunted in surprise, then took off after her.

  The night had moved from tragedy to farce. Her arrest, her escape, and now being chased by a drunk. Full of hysterical energy, she found herself laughing. Then she burst from the trees, and was safe at last, finally on the grassland across from the cathedral. Through the misty air, the domes sparkled soft gold. She hurried forward, and the drunk brought her down in a tackle.

  Margo cried out and kicked, then swung a hand as he tried to pin her. Either her aim was lucky or he was too drunk to react, but she made sharp, satisfying contact with his nose and saw blood spurt. She kicked again, struggled to her feet, and turned to run, only to find herself grabbed by one of the police officers she had passed just minutes before.

  He spoke to her sharply, asking a question. His partner had the drunk cuffed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, carefully. “I don’t speak your language.” She stood straighter. “Thank you for helping me.”

  The officer frowned. “Passport,” he said, beckoning with his fingers.

  Margo hesitated. She could hardly tell him that it was in her handbag back at the DS headquarters.

  “I lost it,” she said. “I’m an American. A tourist.”

  The policemen had a quick, sharp conversation. One of them took her arm. “You will come,” he said.

  She shook his hand off. “I lost my passport. I’m going to the consulate to get a new one.” She pointed down the road past the cathedral. She had no idea how much time she had before there was an alarm throughout the city. “Please. It’s just half a mile away.”

  He grabbed her again, more tightly. “You will come,” he repeated, and it was evident that this was the extent of his English.

  Then he let her go and snapped off an awkward salute. She followed his gaze and saw Colonel Fomin striding down the path. The trio held a swift conversation, after which the policemen left with the drunk, and Margo was alone with the Soviet intelligence officer.

  II

  “This was not the safest route,” he said. His hands were in the pockets of his raincoat, and he looked terribly unhappy. “I assumed you would have stayed on the main thoroughfare.”

  She was busily catching her breath. “You were following me the whole time?”

  “No. Your escape plan was clever. Your father would have been proud. That fool of a guard has admitted letting you leave with the other women, and I have no doubt that the Bulgarian savages will be punishing her severely. You have also done us a service. Ignatiev has suspected for some while that some of the senior officers are smuggling women into the building. Until tonight, he had no evidence. Now he does.”

  Margo managed to stand straight. “How did you find me?”

  “The policemen. You will recall that they passed you earlier, on the street. When they returned to their radio car, they heard the bulletin. We figured out where you were heading and asked them to detain you.”

  She felt scratchy, and angry, and ready to sleep for a thousand years.

  “What happens now? Are we going back?”

  “No. I have conferred with my superiors. Their judgment is that you should be released for lack of evidence, in order to avoid a diplomatic incident.” He smiled wanly. “I myself do not concur in this judgment. I still believe that you are a spy, that you want to know about what is going on in Cuba, and that you have been sent here by Niemeyer. Your escape, I believe, is evidence for my view. But it will not sway my superiors. You violated Bulgarian law by leaving custody, and you did damage to public property. I am advised, however, that you will not be charged. There is consequently no reason to take you back into custody.”

  “You mean I’m free to go?”

  “The People’s Republic has revoked your entry visa. You must leave the country within twenty-four hours.”

  The unexpected reprieve left her relieved and heartsick at once; and puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “You should not question your good fortune.” He seemed to expect her to write this down. “You will need this.”

  He handed over her handbag. She checked. The passport was inside.

  “My cash is missing.”

  “Perhaps you would like to remain in the country and file a complaint? No?” He nodded toward the cathedral. “I assume your destination is the consulate. You should ask them to put you on the earliest possible flight. Between now and the time of your departure, I shall endeavor to change the minds of my superiors and have you rearrested.”

  The rain had stopped, but the sky was still cloudy and moonless. Water dripped from leaves. Voices murmured just out of sight; she didn’t know whether they were Fomin’s people or someone else’s.

  “Thank you for … for just now,” she said.

  “Do not thank me too soon, Miss Jensen. The drunk was a hooligan, of the sort more common in the capitalist West than in the socialist countries. He will be treated according to the process of law. You, too, could have been arrested. I almost chose not to intervene. I do not consider spies entitled to the protection of the law. And now I would suggest that you go at once to your consulate, to avoid any further difficulty.” He nodded toward a gap in the hedges. “That way. Don’t worry. You will be perfectly safe, as long as you remain on the path.”

  “But—”

  “Go, Miss Jensen. Now.”

  She went.

  III

  There was hardly any traffic. Half a mile to the consulate. As she crossed the road, she noticed a shiny blue Ford parked in front of the cathedral, the motor idling. A man bounded out, lithe as a dancer despite his broad shoulders, boyish blond hair flopping about. Margo jumped back. She could not be rearrested, not so near her goal.

  The stranger intercepted her, a bright smile on his youthful face. “Oh, wonderful!” he cried, as he might to a long-lost friend. “There you are. So good to see you.” A whisper: “Relax, you’re fine now.” Margo had not realized how hard she was trembling. He had an arm around her, moving her to the passenger side of the Ford. “I’m Ainsley. I’m with the consulate.”

  Despite her flooding relief, she had the presence of mind to push free of him and ask for identification.

  He pulled out his wallet, showed her. “Would you like to ask me who won the World Series?” he asked, teeth gleaming. “It’s not over yet, but the Yankees just won Game Five. Tom Tresh hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning. Okay?” He was leading her to the car. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “They said I have to leave the country,” she mumbled.

  “That’s for later. All taken care of. Eleven a.m. flight to Vienna. Right now I’d guess you need some sleep.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  His smile was as brilliant as a politician’s. “A couple of us have been out looking for you. We heard you’d escaped. That’s rather impressive.”

  “I think they let me go on purpose. It was too easy.”

  “Wanting to avoid a diplomatic incident? You could be right. Fischer is a big deal, and there’s no reason to risk his wrath.”

  “Fomin said—”

  His hand shot out, arresting her words. “Time for that later. You rest.”

  “I need to call my grandmother.” The car moved off. The sad morning sun was a smeary gray, as if dawn had been forbidden. “I need to call Tom.”

  “You can call from the consulate, but remember, it’s the middle of the night back home. We’re seven hours ahead.”

  “I want to go back to the hotel.”

  “Out of the question,” he said with an apologetic smile. His peculiar eyes flashed gold in the morning sun. “We sent someone for your things, but the DS has been through the room, and it was rathe
r a mess.”

  For some reason, this violation seemed worse even than her treatment last night, and for a mad moment she found herself looking around for someone to hit. Ainsley drove smoothly, one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing as he laid out the rules.

  “You can’t talk to anybody about what happened. Not until your debriefing. You won’t get a chance to say goodbye to Fischer or anybody else. They don’t know you were arrested. Nobody knows but us, and we’d like to keep it that way.”

  “I’d prefer it.”

  “That includes your grandmother and your boyfriend.”

  Margo nodded stiffly, having half expected this command. She leaned against the seat and watched the city hurry by: the towers of fourteenth-century palaces mixed with the blocky practicality of socialist architecture. A tram buzzed past. A lone driver struggled over the cobbles, and Margo wondered automatically whose side he was on. She felt as though she had been in Varna a very long time.

  “Where’s Agatha?” she said suddenly.

  “Who?”

  “From the State Department. My”—she almost said “minder,” then remembered about rooms and cars—“roommate. She’s traveling with me.”

  “Oh, right. Right. Miss Milner.” A shrug of the broad shoulders. “I don’t know where she is. My understanding is that she’s already left the country.” A pause, as if he was weighing how much to tell. “I would suspect she’s lying in a hospital somewhere. Germany, most likely.” He didn’t wait for Margo to ask. “She was mugged last night. The police found her unconscious in the street. I’m afraid they beat her up pretty badly.”

  IV

  A few hours later, accompanied by Ainsley, Margo flew to Vienna. Actually, he had barely left her side all morning. His principal goal seemed to be keeping her away from the rest of the diplomatic personnel. Ainsley warned her at the start, via a handwritten note, that conversation inside the building was not secure, and signs on seemingly every wall reminded her again. She had expected a debriefing, or at least a question or two about her experiences in custody, but every time she tried to bring it up, Ainsley changed the subject. In Vienna, he saw her onto the late-afternoon flight to Paris. She sat beside an elegant Frenchman who smoked constantly and invited her to spend the weekend at his château, a man so voluble that she suspected that he, too, was there to keep an eye on her—or, more precisely, an ear. That flight was met by another American functionary, a young woman named Paula, who reminded her in manner but not appearance of the vanished Agatha. Paula kept Margo company in the transit lounge, smoking one cigarette after another while chatting garrulously about the coming referendum on whether the French President should be elected directly by the people rather than in an electoral college, and in this way managed not only to keep Margo from mentioning her experiences in Bulgaria but also to bore potential listeners to tears. Paula got her early to the gate and made sure she boarded the connection to Idlewild Airport in Queens.

  Margo slept the whole way.

  In New York, she stood in the passport line with everybody else until a plainclothes immigration officer flashed a badge and asked her to follow him. Under the curious stares of the crowd, they passed through a door marked NO ACCESS, down a dingy hallway, and into a private office.

  “You did ever so splendidly, dear,” cooed a familiar voice, as Harrington rose from the other side of the desk. “Goodness, but you’ve had a time,” she continued, putting her hands on Margo’s shoulders as if to brush her off. “Let’s have a good look at you, dear, shall we?”

  But Margo was in her arms, as the tears she had held in check for a day and a half finally poured out of her.

  “That’s all right, dear,” Harrington murmured, patting her neck. “Everybody cries the first time.”

  PART II

  Evens and Odds

  October 6, 1962–October 20, 1962

  Ithaca, New York | Washington, D.C.

  FIFTEEN

  The Larger Story

  I

  Margo spent the night with yet another female minder at a high-ceilinged apartment on Central Park West in the Sixties, and in the morning, beneath the gleaming dining-room chandelier, she was debriefed by a pair of hard-faced men she had never met before, neither of whom offered a name. They provided her with two days of newspapers to assure her that the American public knew nothing of her arrest. Reading the headlines, Margo learned that Bobby Fischer had ruined his adjournment analysis, and, from a superior position, allowed Botvinnik to slip away with a draw—a fact that seemed scarcely relevant at the time, but would turn out later to matter a great deal. Then the questions, fast and direct, although they wrote her answers into their notebooks with agonizing slowness while the minder lurked in the shadows like a bad conscience.

  Margo spent a day and a half with them, all her needs provided for, but none of her many questions answered. Such as: Who told Bobby to invite her? Such as: How was Agatha? Where was Agatha? Such as: How did Fomin learn so much about Margo herself so fast? Such as: Didn’t it seem to them that she escaped from the DS a little too easily? Such as: Didn’t Fomin’s questions to her suggest that there really were missiles in Cuba? Such as: Are we going to war? Is everyone going to be blown to bits?

  The official debriefers made note of her questions but explained that they were not authorized to answer, only to ask. As for Harrington, upon arrival on the final morning, she said the same thing, in more flowery language: “It’s not unusual at all, dear, for someone who’s been through what you’ve experienced to think she’s unlocked the secrets of the universe. Best to let it lie. All of this is being handled at higher levels, I assure you. As for you, my dear, it’s time to return to your normal life.”

  Margo asked again about Agatha: “She’s fine, dear, that’s all that I can tell you.” Only when Margo blurted that she might like to be like the minder one day did Harrington turn correcting: “No, dear, you wouldn’t, I can assure you.”

  And then there was the matter of Margo’s father and his fate. Harrington was dubious: “It’s just exactly the sort of thing the Russians would dummy up, dear. To upset you, dear. To get you to love them more than you love us.” But when Margo asked why on earth they would bother when they could have pulled out her fingernails instead, Harrington only shrugged and said there was no predicting the mind of a man like dear Aleks Fomin.

  Until that moment it had not occurred to Margo that Fomin might have a first name, and she asked Harrington to repeat it.

  “A-l-e-k-s-a-n-d-r.”

  After that there was paperwork for Margo to sign, concerning confidentiality (again), as well as her release of the federal government and its agencies and assigns and employees from any and all liability in return for a payment of ten thousand dollars into an account in her name at the Riggs National Bank across the street from the White House, to be turned over upon her attaining the age of twenty-one or receiving her degree, whichever came first, providing she kept the terms of—

  Margo signed, not bothering to read the rest.

  Harrington checked the signatures, filed the papers away, then launched into a lecture about how her part in this drama was officially over, and she should return to her normal life as swiftly as possible. And how she must never, under any circumstances, try to contact any of the people she had met during what Harrington insisted on calling “this little adventure.”

  Then Harrington gave Margo a hug, wished her well, and urged her to do her best to forget everything that had happened in Bulgaria.

  “Suppose I can’t.”

  “You’ll do fine, my dear.”

  A moment later, Harrington was gone, the debriefers with her, and GREENHILL’s minder was leading her down to the street, where a taxi was waiting, the driver paid in advance for the hour-long trip up to the house of Margo’s youth, in the sleepy Hudson River town of Garrison, where Claudia Jensen would be waiting to scold her granddaughter back to health.

  II

  Margo spent the first day sleeping, an
d in the morning, over breakfast, asked her grandmother whether there had ever been a hint of a secret truth behind the official tale of how her father died. Nana was furious. She marched into her study, unlocked the drawer of her enormous claw-footed desk, and pulled out a red satin box Margo had seen a hundred times. Inside, resting on a bed of silk, was the European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal awarded to Donald Jensen, together with two service stars, one for Tunisia, the other for Algeria. Margo stared at the bit of metal and multicolored cloth. As a child, she had been terribly impressed. Only in college had she discovered that the same decoration was awarded to every member of the armed forces who served in the theater.

  “Do you want to take this away from him?” Nana snapped.

  III

  There was, of course, a larger history, of which Margo remained innocent. The simple facts, some even today not declassified, are these: Margo Jensen, American student, was arrested by the Darzhavna Sigurnost late on the night of Thursday, October 4—the day of the Botvinnik-Fischer contest at the Olympiad. Because of the time difference, the news of her arrest arrived in Washington early on the evening of the same day. By coincidence, on that very day the Air Force was in the midst of a determined effort to wrest control of the U-2 surveillance flights from the Central Intelligence Agency. The collapse of SANTA GREEN tipped the balance in the negotiations—the spies, said the airmen, could do nothing right—and a few days later, the President’s national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, finally agreed. He had the President sign an order formally transferring authority to the Strategic Air Command. SAC immediately scheduled an overflight of Cuba for the next day, but it was postponed due to weather.

  GREENHILL by this time had been back in the States nearly a week. She escaped from the DS early on the morning of Friday, October 5, and flew to Vienna with Ainsley later that morning. She went onward to Paris, where she boarded the flight for Idlewild Airport in Queens, arriving on October 6. She was debriefed, and the tapes and transcripts were sent off for analysis.