Back Channel

by Stephen L Carter

  “I did.”

  “I suppose you pulled a string or two to help GREENHILL’s brother get his job at that private academy in Ohio. Turns out that the headmaster was a colleague of yours in the war.” Harrington waited, but Niemeyer offered no reply. “Then there’s the grandmother,” she continued. “My research suggests she’s been through the money her husband left. She couldn’t possibly have had enough left to maintain that palace of hers. So I suppose you’ve been helping the family financially. At several removes, to be sure. Untraceably.”

  A smile, faint but proud. “Perhaps.”

  “All because of your promise to Donald Jensen.”

  “Precisely.”

  “A conversation that took place when?”

  Niemeyer swirled his brandy. “I don’t think I understand.”

  The telltales: the curled contemptuous lip, the rising disdain in the cultured voice.

  “I’ve been thinking about this, Lore. You told me you promised to look after Donald Jensen’s family. It seems unlikely that you had that conversation with every agent you sent out. Or, if you did, it seems unlikely that you took it this seriously. Between us, we lost dozens of agents.” She put her cup down. “That means Donald Jensen was special. The promise to him was special. Why would that be?”

  “Suppose you tell me.”

  “I don’t need to. It’s obvious. He didn’t blow himself up with a grenade, did he?”

  “Fomin showed GREENHILL the Gestapo photograph. We have a copy. It’s in the files.”

  “I saw it.” Her finger jabbed at him. “The photograph only told us that he was blown to bits. It doesn’t tell us where the grenade came from.”

  “The Gestapo report is very clear.”

  “The Gestapo report is based on an assumption. They surrounded the farmhouse. They heard the explosion. They went in and found the body.”

  “A sequence that seems to fit the narrative.”

  “Of course it fits. Except that the same report said that, after the explosion, at least one other member of the Resistance was seen racing away. A heavyset man, Lore. A man like you.”

  The clever face hardened. “And?”

  “You were there. You threw the grenade.”

  “Not exactly. I’m not a monster, Doris. I was there. I handed him the grenade after pulling the pin. Then I ran out.” His eyes focused on the middle distance. “He’d been wounded. Two in the chest, another that almost took his arm off. He couldn’t escape. He couldn’t blow himself up. He asked me to do it for him. We both knew that if they caught him, even if they patched him up, he had no strength left. Donald was a tough man, but in his condition he couldn’t have resisted torture for five minutes. Probably he’d have been dead in ten. He asked me to take care of his family, and he asked me to pull the pin.”

  “That’s not in the official report.”

  “No.”

  “Why? And why couldn’t you tell Margo?”

  “You mean GREENHILL.” At some point during the conversation, he had moved from the chair. He was beside her on the sofa. “The story was heroic enough as it was, but people don’t understand what it’s like out there. I altered the events a bit, and, in doing so, made him an even greater hero.”

  “And spared yourself some difficult questions.”

  “Oh, I live with the difficult questions, my dear.” He was stroking her hair. She allowed it. “I live with them every day. Every night. They haunt me. All the people I sent to their deaths, but Donald especially. They whisper in my dreams.” He leaned closer. “As they whisper to you.”

  “They do,” she said, tight-lipped, her mind on Carina.

  “Doris.”

  “Stop it, Lore. You don’t want to do this, and neither do I. Can’t you find some willing undergraduate to take care of your needs?”

  “I’m not interested in undergraduates, willing or not.”

  “Well, that’s a change.” She shoved at his hands. “No. Listen to me. We’re going to talk about this. You shouldn’t have involved her. And this isn’t about your promise or what you owe.” Harrington wasn’t sure what she was going to say until the words popped out. “This is about making it right. Your mistake all those years ago. But you can’t, Lore. She’s not her father. He’s dead. You pulled the pin and handed him the grenade. For all I know, you threw it. No. Stop that. You can’t fix the past by tossing his daughter to the wolves and bringing her back. This whole thing was a mistake.”

  “They’re using her, Doris. She’s their back channel. It’s working fine. And her career will be splendid.”

  “You’re using her, too. This is one of your schemes, Lore. I see it in your eyes. She’s playing a part, and you’d let her die if it would further the plan.”

  “GREENHILL understands the risks.”

  “I’m sure you explained them to her.”

  “Indeed I did. And I’ve no doubt that you did, too.”

  She grabbed the burned, misshapen hand. “And what about this, Lore? Have you told her the truth?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your students. The people in Washington. The acolytes who worship you. They all think it was the Gestapo. I thought that, too. Because you never wanted to talk about it.” She kissed the mangled fingers. “But that wasn’t true, was it? You never lied to us. You just let us live with our illusions. Even your wife.” She tugged on the stub of his thumb. “You didn’t get out of the farmhouse in time, did you? After you threw the grenade. This is your own little souvenir of the night you killed Donald Jensen to keep him from being arrested.”

  “You always did have a vivid imagination, Doris.”

  “Tell me where I’m wrong.” He said nothing. She gave him his hand back. “I care about that girl, Lore.”

  “So do I.”

  “No. You care about Lorenz Niemeyer.”

  “What I care about is the success of the operation. I care about getting those missiles out of Cuba without a war. Just now, nothing is more important. I thought you’d feel the same.”

  “What about the people, Lore? The ones we send out to die for the sake of our operations?”

  “I balance their lives against the lives we save.”

  “That’s very cold-blooded.”

  “You’re just the same, Doris. That’s what makes you so good at this work.”

  Harrington stood. “I think you should go, Lore.”

  At the door, he turned to her, kissed her cheek. “GREENHILL will be fine, Doris.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “You’ll have to trust me.”

  “Because that’s worked out so well over the years.”

  Harrington stood at the window, watching him depart: the best man she had ever known, and also the worst. He was as brilliant and funny and charming and handsome as ever. And when there were decisions to make in the interest of the nation’s security, he was a wall of ice, a human computer to whom individuals were factors in an equation. At such moments—tonight was typical—she hated him completely. And if she had known that they would never see each other again, she would have run down the street, taken his pudgy body in her slender arms, and hugged him close for the rest of their mutual lives.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Visitor

  I

  “That’s his answer?” said the President. “If we won’t take the Jupiters out of Turkey and Italy, we have to give up the gravity bomb?”

  “Yes, sir. Fomin said a prototype is being constructed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under the top-secret designation TX-61, and that you would know the details. He said you asked for alternatives to the Jupiters. The gravity bomb is a suggestion. He said you might have other ideas, but you have to give Khrushchev a sign of good faith that he can show his hard-liners.”

  “Or else what?”

  Margo was once more seated primly on the plush sofa. She fidgeted under Kennedy’s scrutiny. “He didn’t say, Mr. President. I got the impression that Khrushchev’s positi
on is precarious.”

  “Precarious.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And he wants a show of our good faith.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Margo again, looking down at her fancy shoes. The clingy blue dress, too, was more alluring than anything that she would have bought for herself; or that Nana would have allowed her to wear. Bundy had presented it to her, along with three others, at their briefing. Margo’s roommates had teased her about making herself pretty for the mystery man they were certain had moved mountains to bring her to Washington. It was no less humiliating for being part of the fiction.

  “Did you happen to remind him that they started this whole thing?” Kennedy’s face was thundery. “Who the hell is Khrushchev to ask us to prove our good faith?”

  Margo swallowed. “Mr. President, my job is just to carry messages.”

  “Right. You have no position. You don’t care who wins.”

  Stung. “Of course I do. Why would you say that?”

  Kennedy had been pacing, but now he paused. “Mmmm. Nice to see there’s a little fire under all that ice.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve been waiting to see who’s really in there, is all.”

  “I—Mr. President—”

  “Have a drink, Miss Jensen. You look like you need one.”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  He went over to the champagne bucket anyway and filled two flutes halfway to the top. He handed her one. “Remember, honey, it’s part of the job. The Secret Service has to smell it on your breath.”

  She took the glass, sipped, made a face, swallowed. Then she sipped some more.

  Kennedy sat beside her. “Feel better?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “Good. I assume you remember the rest.” He laughed at her blankly nervous stare. “My collar, honey. The lipstick.”

  “Mr. President—”

  “Come on. You know the drill.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They completed that ritual, too.

  “Now you just need to muss your hair a little. And your dress.” The crooked smile. “That is, unless you want me to do it.”

  Margo slipped into the adjoining bathroom, shut the door, tried to make herself look a little less presentable. She smeared her lipstick, eased down a shoulder strap, tugged and squeezed the hem to give it a wrinkled look. In the mirror she looked like exactly what her roommates thought she was.

  The President knocked. “Are you okay in there?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be right out.”

  “Good. I have to get back.”

  When she emerged, she saw to her horror that the door to the hallway was open. Kennedy was whispering to a Secret Service agent. The President’s tie was still undone. The bedclothes were half on the floor, the sheets wrinkled and disordered. The agent nodded, glanced at Margo without expression, nodded again, then left, pulling the door shut.

  The President had switched to bourbon. “I was telling him to call my people to say I’m on the way.” He looked her up and down. “Not that I have to go this instant. We should talk a little.”

  Margo swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re only meeting tomorrow if you see Fomin.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “You have to make him understand that his side started this whole thing. They’re not really in a position to make demands. What I want to hear is a concrete offer.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can stop all the ‘Yes, sir, no, sir.’ If we’re going to be spending time together, we have to get used to each other.” Kennedy stepped close. He took her hand in both of his. For a mad moment she thought he was going to kiss her. “Now, listen. You’re worried about screwing up. I understand that, believe me. When I was in the Pacific, that’s exactly what I worried about, every day. But you’re doing just fine, Miss Jensen. Okay?”

  Margo swallowed. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  He released her hand and walked to the window. His fingers massaged his lower back. Pain and exhaustion played across the handsome face.

  “Let me ask you something, Miss Jensen. Do you know what happens in the event of a nuclear attack on Washington?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll tell you. The 2857th Test Squadron helicopters down from Olmstead Air Force Base. If the White House is intact, they load me and my family on board and take off. If the building’s wrecked, we’re supposed to be in the bunker, which might or might not survive the attack. Say it does. We can’t get out, because the building’s collapsed on top of us. Know what the brave men of 2857th do then? They bring in cranes and drills, and break through and pull us out. All this after a nuclear attack. How likely does that sound to you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.”

  “That they’ll stay in the blast zone, getting showered with fallout, on the off chance my family and I are alive?” Kennedy took a long pull of bourbon. “I’d say it’s damned unlikely, Miss Jensen. I think we probably wind up entombed down there. There’s power, water, food, everything. But sooner or later, it runs out. Then we starve to death or die of asphyxiation. How’s that for a bitter ending? No,” he continued, as if she’d been arguing the contrary. “No, I don’t think that’s how I want to go out. So—what do you say you and I solve this thing?”

  “Yes, sir. I agree, sir.”

  He swung around, the moment of weakness gone. His energy was improbable, but admirable. “Tomorrow night, Ambassador Stevenson is addressing the United Nations. We’ve told the world about the missiles, Miss Jensen. Tomorrow Stevenson will show them our evidence.” He was buttoning his collar. “People are scared already. They’re going to be a whole lot scareder.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re at the crisis point, Miss Jensen.” He lifted a hand, thumb and forefinger millimeters apart. “We’re this close to war.”

  She swallowed. “I—yes, sir.”

  He went to the mirror, tied his tie. He slung his jacket over his shoulder, and then, with his hand on the doorknob, turned to glance at her again. But not appraisingly this time. He was the commander in chief again. “Wait at least ten minutes before you leave. Fifteen is better.”

  “I remember, Mr. President.”

  “And, Miss Jensen …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have another drink. You look like you need it.”

  He went out.

  II

  Sitting outside the apartment building in Southwest, Captain Viktor Vaganian pondered what he had learned. So the young woman who was meeting Fomin was also meeting the President. Well, well. Perhaps he had misjudged his colleague. Kennedy was said to be decadent. Suppose matters were as they appeared. This GREENHILL could be the President’s mistress. In that case, she likely was Fomin’s agent, and Viktor dared not endanger a highly sensitive operation by pursuing an investigation that might expose the relationship.

  On the other hand, suppose this was all a clever camouflage, as Jack Ziegler continued to insist. That a back channel existed was not in doubt. The question was whether a man of Fomin’s experience would hand such responsibility to a black girl of nineteen years. It could all be a decoy.

  Vaganian saw only one way to find out. He hurried back to the embassy, where he sent an enciphered message to his superiors—or, as the Comrade General Secretary would presumably call them, his fellow conspirators.

  III

  “He wants us to give him a sign of good faith. Us!” The President was furious—striding, gesticulating. “He’s the one who started this whole thing, and now he thinks it’s up to us to make the first move. It’s blackmail. I won’t do it.”

  They were alone in the Oval Office, reviewing tonight’s meeting with GREENHILL.

  “I’m not so sure, Mr. President,” said Bundy from his familiar place on the sofa. “We might be able to come up with something to give him.”

  “The country will never stand for it.”

  “The
country doesn’t need to know.”

  The President glared, then dropped into his rocker, looking spent and sixty. His hair was a mess. His collar was askew. He hadn’t wiped off GREENHILL’s lipstick. Bundy considered this quite untoward, and wondered whether Kennedy even knew how bad he looked.

  “Tell me,” the President said, and a sharp gesture ordered his national security adviser to make it fast.

  “Sir, Khrushchev is paranoid. In the Soviet leadership, that’s what keeps you alive. We know from Fomin’s conversation with GREENHILL in Ithaca that Khrushchev is under enormous pressure from his hard-liners. He wants to reach an agreement, but he needs to buy off his Boyars, as it were. He also needs to believe that we’re not preparing to launch an attack of our own. Not on Cuba. On Moscow. After seeing our false alarms, he has to be getting jittery. I’m sure his hard-liners are telling him that those were readiness drills.”

  “I’m not going to let him push me around,” said Kennedy, wearily.

  “No, sir. No question of that. Nevertheless, with your permission, I’d like to take at least until tomorrow morning to figure out whether there’s anything we can safely offer without losing face. Maybe something we can give in secret.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He was remembering the curious interview with Niemeyer. “Tomorrow evening, Mr. President, you’ll be seeing GREENHILL only if she sees Fomin. Just in case, let’s try to come up with a message that at least gives Khrushchev some reassurance. She’ll deliver it to Fomin at their next meeting, and then we’ll see.”

  “Fine, fine,” said the President, the dark mood still upon him. The aftereffects, perhaps, of the adrenaline rush of the flight from the White House under fear of nuclear attack. That was Bundy’s first thought. But Kennedy’s next words gave him pause. “What do you think of her? Margo Jensen? Do you really believe we can trust her?”

  “Sir, with respect, inside these walls, we should use her code name.”

  “Fine. GREENHILL, then. Do you really believe we can trust GREENHILL?”

  “Fomin trusts her. He chose her.”

  “That’s not really an answer, Mac.” Kennedy, seated behind the desk, didn’t make eye contact. Bundy was standing alongside. “I don’t know about this girl. She seems kind of nervous to me.” His fingers combed absently through his thick but now unruly hair. “She’s awfully young. And she’s—I don’t know—awkward. Stiff.”