“So then the Secret Service called me up, saying Elvis was coming to town and wanted to meet Nixon in person,” a man was saying nearby. Ed turned and saw that the speaker was Egil Krogh, the man from Haldeman’s meeting. Either Krogh hadn’t seen Ed passing by, or didn’t recognize him.
“Meet the President?” said the man he was speaking to. “What for?”
“He wanted a badge.”
“A what?”
“A narcotics officer’s badge. He thought he could be some kind of federal officer, a drug enforcement agent, if Nixon would just give him a badge.”
“What did Nixon do?”
“He gave the man a badge.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did.”
“What does Elvis Presley need with a narcotics badge?”
Krogh shrugged. “He’s the King. The King gets what he wants.”
Ed moved on through the crowd, listening to scraps of conversation as he went. The men spoke of golf scores and Chairman Mao and their latest escapades with their young girlfriends. The wives discussed their husbands and the husbands’ young girlfriends. Ed listened to the people and felt like he was all alone in the world. He wondered what Sarah was doing at that moment.
At the appointed time, he found a spot to leave his wineglass and made his way out the door. A man in a black suit and necktie directed him to the men’s room, down a hallway and around the corner. Ed had once wondered what sort of bathrooms one would find in the White House. He was not disappointed. There was a sort of sitting room inside the door, with a second door that led to the inner sanctum where they kept the toilets. The walls were covered in white wallpaper with tiny red and blue flowers, and the floors were smooth marble. As soon as the door had swung closed behind him, he heard movement in one of the toilet stalls.
“Your shoe’s untied, Bismuth,” he heard Leonard say from the stall.
Ed quickly bent to tie his shoe. Leonard flushed and came out to tuck in his shirt and wash his hands. Ed took a moment to relieve himself.
“You’re four minutes late,” Leonard groused.
“My watch ways you’re early.”
“Should’ve synchronized like I told you to.” Leonard was carrying a brown leather shoulder-bag that Ed presumed had his camera in it, and he had a small two-way radio in his pocket. He took this out and tested it. The other radio was held by Cruller, who was to press the talk button three times if Haig left the party early. “Where are your tools?” he asked Ed.
“You just do your job,” Ed grumbled, “and let me do mine.”
A Secret Service agent stopped them on their way to the West Wing. Leonard and Ed showed their identification cards, which the agent inspected for what seemed like a very long time. Leonard had made Ed practice “looking casual” in the mirror for several hours before the party, which had made Ed more nervous than anything else. Now, with the guard inspecting their credentials, Leonard himself was sweating and twitching like a monkey undergoing electrotherapy.
Then the agent let them through. Henry Kissinger was one of the few presidential advisors outside of the Cabinet to have an office inside the White House itself. Ed and Leonard walked through empty hallways that, during the day, would have been teeming with activity. They went down a set of stairs, turned a corner, and arrived at Kissinger’s office door. Leonard pulled a small brown envelope out of his pocket—the envelope had come from his friend, Edward Watership, although neither man would say how they had obtained it—and shook it over his hand until a key dropped out. He used this to unlock the office door. They entered and shut the door again.
The office had a musty smell that was almost, but not quite, covered up by the odor of air fresheners. It was below ground level, and there appeared to be a significant ground-water problem. It was completely dark inside, so Leonard handed Ed a flashlight and then stood by the doorway so he could peer out through the frosted-glass window.
Ed shone the flashlight around the spacious office until its beam found the safe in the far corner. It was a big box of gray metal, four feet tall. Ed hurried over to it, bumping his leg noisily on the corner of the desk as he made his way across the dark room.
He had twenty-two combinations to try. All were committed to memory, and he had thought about them so much that he had begun to dream about them. He started by spinning the dial to reset it, then had a sudden thought.
“What about gloves? Shouldn’t we be using gloves?”
Still standing by the door, Leonard snorted. The light from the hallway through the office door lit the side of his face in dramatic fashion. “Bismuth, nobody’s gonna be dusting Henry Kissinger’s office for prints.”
Ed sighed, placed the flashlight on a shelf so the light was on the dial, and got to work on the first set of numbers. 44-7-26. He wasn’t sure whether the first turn should be to the right or left, so he tried both. Neither one worked; the handle wouldn’t budge. He immediately started on the next one, a set of four numbers. Leonard took out his walkie-talkie and started playing with it, turning it around and around in his hands until he dropped it on the floor. “Cheap piece of junk,” he muttered as he picked it up. “Hope it’s not broken.”
“Just put it in your pocket,” Ed said without looking up from his work.
Ed became anxious as he tried the tenth set of numbers, and his heart pounded harder as he got to the twentieth set with no success. What would he say to Leonard? He finished dialing in another combination and held his breath as he tried the handle. It was still locked. He had only one more set of numbers to try.
“Lights out,” Leonard hissed.
Ed picked up the flashlight. His fingers were sweaty; the flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled under the desk, still shining its beam across the floor.
“I said lights out! Jesus, where’s the damn flashlight?” Leonard’s whisper was frantic. Ed got down on the floor and felt his way over ancient dust-bunnies until he put his fingers on the handle. He had just switched it off when he saw a silhouette pass the office door. Leonard stood with his back against the wall, breathing heavily and looking like he was in serious danger of wetting himself. They stayed that way for a full minute, long after whoever was in the hallway had left the area.
“Look, Bismuth,” Leonard said in the dark, not quite whispering anymore. “I thought you’d done this kind of thing before. Can’t you just open it?”
Ed grumbled under his breath and switched the flashlight back on. It came on, but it began to flicker. He dialed in the last combination. The light went out when he was on the last number; he shook it until it lit up again.
“Did you break my flashlight?” said Leonard.
Ed ignored him. He held his breath as he yanked on the handle.
It didn’t move.
Ed’s back was sore from hunching over the safe. He sat down on the floor and turned off the light.
“Bismuth, what are you doing?”
“I need a minute.”
“There’s no time for a break, pal.”
Ed turned the light back on and shined it on the safe, at an utter loss for what to try next. It was purely by chance that he noticed a small slip of paper taped to the wall, barely visible behind the corner of the safe. Originally white, it had yellowed with age. He stood up to get a closer look, shining the flickering light to see what was written on it.
The paper looked like a label that had originally been stuck to the safe. “CHANGE COMBINATION BEFORE USING SAFE,” it said. Beneath that were printed four numbers, barely visible in faded ink: 16-8-42-15.
“They wouldn’t leave it on the factory combination, would they?” Ed said to himself.
“What’s that?” said Leonard.
“Nothing.” He spun the dial to the right a couple of times and then tried the four numbers. There was no way it would work—no one would be dumb enough to tape their combination to the wall behind the safe. He was quite astonished when he yanked on the handle and it turned with an audible click. The hea
vy door swung open, revealing three shelves of file folders inside.
“How about that?” he said.
Leonard sprang into motion, banging his own leg on the desk with a loud noise and a muttered curse as he moved across the room. Ed pulled out a folder from the top shelf and examined it under the flickering light, hoping (although he knew it was too much to hope for) that it would have something to do with Novus.
Printed on the front of the brown folder were the words:
CLASSIFIED
TOP SECRET
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: EYES ONLY
He opened the folder and withdrew a thick, bound document. The title was printed at the top of every page:
Duck Hook: Assessment of Strategic and Tactical Options in Indochina
Ed scanned the first few paragraphs. “Strategic and tactical options,” he whispered. “This is a plan for using nukes in Vietnam.” He turned to the second page and saw handwritten comments scrawled in the margins. Must be prepared for any necessity. Action must be brutal to be effective. -HK
Leonard was flipping rapidly through another folder. “We have a mission,” he said. “If it’s not COMINT, we don’t care about it.” In response to Ed’s confused look, he clarified himself. “Communications intelligence. Wiretaps. That’s all we’re here to look for. Stay on mission, Bismuth.” To emphasize his point, he snatched the document from Ed’s hands, slid it back into its folder, and put it back in its place on the shelf in the safe. “Move faster.”
Ed grunted in annoyance and pulled out the next file. This was also marked TOP SECRET. It contained a set of memos, bound together with a huge paper clip, about someone named Ngo Dinh Diem. “POTUS has determined that measures must be taken regarding Diem and Nhu to preserve stability in Viet Nam,” the first memo said. “Pls notify Ambs. Harriman and Lodge to proceed.” Ed looked at the date at the top: October 26, 1963.
“Wow,” said Ed.
“What’s it about?” Leonard asked without looking up from the pages he was reading. “Wiretaps?”
“No, it’s about somebody called Diem.”
“He was the president of South Vietnam,” Leonard said in a know-it-all sort of voice.
“I think this is saying that Kennedy had him assassinated.”
“Of course he did. Everybody knows that. Bismuth, you need to stay on task here.”
“Right,” said Ed. He put the memos back and moved on to the next folder on the shelf. This one also said CLASSIFIED, but the classification was one that Ed had not heard of before: ODESSA.
“What’s ODESSA?” Ed asked.
Leonard’s eyes went wide in alarm. “There’s an ODESSA file in there? How did he get that?”
The flashlight went out. Leonard swore and shook it until it came back on, flickering a little but still serviceable. Ed held the folder up in the beam of light. Leonard stared at cover for a few moments, then took the file out of Ed’s hands and opened it, turning his shoulder so Ed was not able to see the contents. “What’s in it?” Ed asked. “What’s ODESSA?”
Leonard read silently for a few moments; Ed could see his lips moving in the flickering light. Then he put the papers back in the file and returned the file to the shelf. “It’s all right. Nothing big has been compromised. I wonder how he got it, though.”
“Can I look at it?”
“No.”
The next file Ed took out was not labeled at all. Inside was a typed document that appeared to be a transcript of a conversation. He tapped Leonard on the shoulder and said, “Who’s Emanuel Wilson?”
Leonard placed a pile of papers on the floor and leaned in close, so Ed could clearly smell the stench of the black smoke coming out of his head. “That’s what we need,” he said. “Wilson’s the reporter we’re going to—I mean, he’s the one who’s been publishing the Pentagon Papers in the Post. Lousy traitor.” He removed his camera from the leather shoulder bag and placed the document on the floor. He moved the flashlight so its beam illuminated the first page and, bracing the camera on the side of the desk, began to take photographs of each of the pages.
“These go back at least six months,” Leonard said as he worked his way through the stack. “Kissinger’s been interested in him for a while.” He spent the next several minutes taking photographs, skimming the text of the document each time he came to a new page.
As Leonard worked, Ed continued to pull files out of the safe. Most were uninteresting or incomprehensible to him. After a few more minutes of searching, he found another transcript. “Here’s one on Daniel Ellsberg,” he said. That, at least, was a name he knew. Ellsberg was the one who had leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, quickly becoming a declared enemy of the Nixon administration even though the Papers described events and decisions from before Nixon had taken office. Ed still did not quite understand why Nixon felt so threatened by them.
“Put it next to this one. I’ll get to it.” Leonard worked quickly, taking multiple photos of each page and returning documents to Ed to place back in the safe. Ed continued to dig through the dozens of files. Leonard seemed quite happy with what they’d uncovered, although Ed had still not found what he was secretly looking for.
Leonard was almost done photographing the Ellsberg file when Ed reached the far right end of the shelf, where he found one last brown folder with a Top Secret classification.
“Bismuth, start getting packed up,” Leonard said.
Ed grunted and opened the file, holding it close enough to the flashlight beam to be able to see. Inside he found a single memorandum, dated September of 1970, sent from Kissinger to Charles Witherspoon. The subject line of the memo consisted of a single word: NOVUS.
Leonard grabbed Ed’s arm. “Listen,” he whispered.
There were sounds outside in the corridor: footsteps and male voices. Someone was approaching the office.
“Pack it up,” Leonard hissed. “Let’s go!” He grabbed the Novus document out of Ed’s hands and stuffed it back in its folder. For one irrational moment, Ed considered snatching it back and stealing it. Then the opportunity was past. Within twenty seconds, all the files were back in the safe and Leonard had his camera stowed in its bag. Ed swung the heavy door shut, being careful not to slam it. In spite of his caution, the latch closed with an uncomfortably loud clang. Leonard quickly surveyed the office, shielding the flashlight beam with his hand, to see if they had left anything lying around. Then he put a finger up to his lips, switched off the light, and crouched down behind the desk. Ed did the same.
Two men were talking in the hallway, right outside the office. A man’s silhouette blocked the light coming in through the frosted glass. Ed couldn’t make out any words. His heart was racing and the smell of smoke from Leonard’s head made him feel like he needed to cough. It was a struggle to stay silent.
“It’s Al Haig,” Leonard whispered in Ed’s ear. “I know his voice.”
“Why didn’t Cruller warn you?” Ed whispered back.
At that moment, Leonard’s radio made a sound: three clicks. Cruller’s warning—but it had come too late.
The conversation outside the door wound down and finally stopped. The shadow disappeared from the window and footsteps clicked away down the corridor. Ed, realizing that he had stopped breathing some time ago, let out a lungful of air and gasped for more.
They waited another minute, then stood up together. Ed’s legs were stiff from crouching.
“I wonder why Cruller waited to warn us,” Leonard said, not bothering to whisper any longer.
Because Cruller can’t be trusted, Ed thought. But he didn’t say this out loud, because Leonard couldn’t be trusted either. The black smoke of Nosgrove’s infection was all the proof he needed. “He probably had to go to the bathroom,” he said instead.
“Cruller’s useless,” Leonard grumbled. “He’s almost as bad as―”
The office door slammed open and the lights came on. Ed and Leonard froze, squinting in the light. A man in a dark suit was standing in the doo
rway with his hand on the light switch. “What the hell is this, huh?” he demanded. Ed couldn’t see his face, but the voice had a noticeable New York accent.
“Mulberry,” Leonard said, as though facing the Devil incarnate.
“Hello, Leonard,” said Hank Mulberry. “What’s in the bag?”
Ed looked from Mulberry to Leonard and back, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him. Mulberry looked almost exactly like—
“Nothing, Hank.” Leonard clutched the camera bag close to his chest.
“Hand it over, then.”
Leonard hesitated. Mulberry folded his arms across his chest and made the most of his height, which was not exceptional. He was slightly shorter than Ed. But what he lacked in height, he made up for in his ability to project authority.
“Stop smiling, Bismuth,” said Leonard. “This is not funny.”
Mulberry held out a hand for Leonard to pass him the bag. It was at that moment that Leonard gave Ed one final, helpless look and then made a dash for the door. He had to push past Mulberry, who made no move to stop him. Leonard ran off down the hall, his echoing footsteps receding into the distance.
“Bismuth,” Hank Mulberry said at last, turning to Ed. “Is that what he called you?”
“Walter Bismuth,” said Ed.
“That’s the dumbest name I ever heard.”
“Danny,” said Ed, unable to keep himself from smiling. He could feel the adrenaline draining out of him, leaving him weak and shaky. “Man, am I glad to see you.”
“Quiet,” said Danny. His eyes showed no sign that he recognized Ed at all. “The Doctor wants to have a word with you.”
Ed frowned. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Danny didn’t respond. He merely glared at Ed, who withered under that intense gaze and sat down slowly in Kissinger’s deeply cushioned chair.
* * *
The Music of the Machine (The Book of Terwilliger 2) Page 39