by James Grady
“I will see to it.”
“Of course.”
“You realize that there may be other complications besides this,” the second man said as he gestured with Heidegger’s memo, “which may have to be taken care of.”
“Yes. Well, that is regrettable, but unavoidable.” The second man nodded and waited for the first man to continue. “We must be very sure, completely sure about those complications.” Again the second man nodded, waiting. “And there is one other element. Speed. Time is of the absolute essence. Do what you must to follow that assumption.”
The second man thought for a moment and then said, “Maximum speed may necessitate … cumbersome and sloppy activity.”
The first man handed him a portfolio containing all the “disappeared” files and said, “Do what you must.”
The two men parted after a brief nod of farewell. The first man walked four blocks and turned the corner before he caught a taxi. He was glad the meeting was over. The second man watched him go, waited a few minutes scanning the passing crowds, then headed for a bar and a telephone.
That morning at 3:15 Heidegger unlocked his door to the knock of police officers. When he opened the door he found two men in ordinary clothes smiling at him. One was very tall and painfully thin. The other was quite distinguished, but if you looked in his eyes you could tell he wasn’t a banker.
The two men shut the door behind them.
“These activities have their own rules and methods of concealment which seek to mislead and obscure.”
—President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960
RAIN came back Thursday. Malcolm woke with the start of a cold—congested, tender throat and a slightly woozy feeling. In addition to waking up sick, he woke up late. He thought for several minutes before deciding to go to work. Why waste sick time on a cold? He cut himself shaving, couldn’t make the hair over his ears stay down, had trouble putting in his right contact lens, and found that his raincoat had disappeared. As he ran the eight blocks to work it dawned on him that he might be too late to see The Girl. When he hit Southeast A, he looked up the block just in time to see her disappear into the Library of Congress. He watched her so intently he didn’t look where he was going and he stepped in a deep puddle. He was more embarrassed than angry, but the man he saw in the blue sedan parked just up from the Society didn’t seem to notice the blunder. Mrs. Russell greeted Malcolm with a curt “’Bout time.” On the way to his room, he spilled his coffee and burned his hand. Some days you just can’t win.
Shortly after ten there was a soft knock on his door, and Tamatha entered his room. She stared at him for a few seconds through her thick glasses, a timid smile on her lips. Her hair was so thin Malcolm thought he could see each individual strand.
“Ron,” she whispered, “do you know if Rich is sick?”
“No!” Malcolm yelled, and then loudly blew his nose.
“Well, you don’t need to bellow! I’m worried about him. He’s not here and he hasn’t called in.”
“That’s too fuckin’ bad.” Malcolm drew the words out, knowing that swearing made Tamatha nervous.
“What’s eating you, for heaven’s sake?” she said.
“I’ve got a cold.”
“I’ll get you an aspirin.”
“Don’t bother,” he said ungraciously. “It wouldn’t help.”
“Oh, you’re impossible! Goodbye!” She left, closing the door smartly behind her.
Sweet Jesus, Malcolm thought, then went back to Agatha Christie.
At 11:15 the phone rang. Malcolm picked it up and heard the cool voice of Dr. Lappe.
“Malcolm, I have an errand for you, and it’s your turn to go for lunch. I assume everyone will wish to stay in the building.” Malcolm looked out the window at the pouring rain and came to the same conclusion. Dr. Lappe continued. “Consequently, you might as well kill two birds with one stone and pick up lunch on the way back from the errand. Walter is already taking food orders. Since you have to drop a package at the Old Senate Office Building, I suggest you pick up the food at Jimmy’s. You may leave now.”
Five minutes later a sneezing Malcolm trudged through the basement to the coalbin exit at the rear of the building. No one had known the coalbin exit existed, as it hadn’t been shown on the original building plans. It stayed hidden until Walter moved a chest of drawers while chasing a rat and found the small, dusty door that opened behind the lilac bushes. The door can’t be seen from the outside, but there is enough room to squeeze between the bushes and the wall. The door only opens from the inside.
Malcolm muttered to himself all the way to the Old Senate Office Building. He sniffled between mutters. The rain continued. By the time he reached the building, the rain had changed his suède jacket from a light tan to a black brown. The blond receptionist in the Senator’s office took pity on him and gave him a cup of coffee while he dried out. She said he was “officially” waiting for the Senator to confirm delivery of the package. She coincidentally finished counting the books just as Malcolm finished his coffee. The girl smiled nicely, and Malcolm decided delivering murder mysteries to a senator might not be a complete waste.
Normally, it’s a five-minute walk from the Old Senate Office Building to Jimmy’s on Pennsylvania Avenue, but the rain had become a torrent, so Malcolm made the trip in three minutes. Jimmy’s is a favorite of Capitol Hill employees because it’s quick, tasty, and has its own brand of class. The restaurant is run by ex-convicts. It is a cross between a small Jewish delicatessen and a Montana bar. Malcolm gave his carry-out list to a waitress, ordered a meatball sandwich and milk for himself, and engaged in his usual Jimmy’s pursuit of matching crimes with restaurant employees.
While Malcolm had been sipping coffee in the Senator’s office, a gentleman in a raincoat with his hat hiding much of his face turned the corner from First Street and walked up Southeast A to the blue sedan. The custom-cut raincoat matched the man’s striking appearance, but there was no one on the street to notice. He casually but completely scanned the street and buildings, then gracefully climbed in the front seat of the sedan. As he firmly shut the door, he looked at the driver and said, “Well?”
Without taking his eyes off the building, the driver wheezed, “All present or accounted for, sir.”
“Excellent. I watch while you phone. Tell them to wait ten minutes, then hit it.”
“Yes, sir.” The driver began to climb out of the car, but a sharp voice stopped him.
“Weatherby,” the man said, pausing for effect, “there will be no mistakes.”
Weatherby swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
Weatherby walked to the open phone next to the grocery store on the corner of Southeast A and Sixth. In Mr. Henry’s, a bar five blocks away on Pennsylvania Avenue, a tall, frightfully thin man answered the bartender’s page for “Mr. Wazburn.” The man called Wazburn listened to the curt instructions, nodding his assent into the phone. He hung up and returned to his table, where two friends waited. They paid the bill (three brandy coffees), and walked up First Street to an alley just behind Southeast A. At the street light they passed a young, long-haired man in a rain-soaked suède jacket hurrying in the opposite direction. An empty yellow van stood between the two buildings on the edge of the alley. The men climbed in the back and prepared for their morning’s work.
Malcolm had just ordered his meatball sandwich when a mailman with his pouch slung in front of him turned the corner at First Street to walk down Southeast A. A stocky man in a bulging raincoat walked stiffly a few paces behind the mailman. Five blocks farther up the street a tall, thin man walked toward the other two. He also wore a bulging raincoat, though on him the coat only reached his knees.
As soon as Weatherby saw the mailman turn on to Southeast A, he pulled out of his parking place and drove away. Neither the men in the car nor the men on the street acknowledged the others’ presence. Weatherby sighed relief in between wheezes. He was overjoyed to be through with his part of the assignment. Tough as he was, w
hen he looked at the silent man next to him he was thankful he had made no mistakes.
But Weatherby was wrong. He had made one small, commonplace mistake, a mistake he could have easily avoided. A mistake he should have avoided.
If anyone had been watching, he would have seen three men, two businessmen and a mailman, coincidentally arrive at the Society’s gate at the same time. The two businessmen politely let the mailman lead the way to the door and push the button. As usual, Walter was away from his desk (though it probably wouldn’t have made any difference if he had been there). Just as Malcolm finished his sandwich at Jimmy’s, Mrs. Russell heard the buzzer and rasped, “Come in.”
And with the mailman leading the way, they did.
Malcolm dawdled over his lunch, polishing off his meatball sandwich with the specialty of the house, chocolate rum cake. After his second cup of coffee, his conscience forced him back into the rain. The torrent had subsided into a drizzle. Lunch had improved Malcolm’s spirits and his health. He took his time, both because he enjoyed the walk and because he didn’t want to drop the three bags of sandwiches. In order to break the routine, he walked down Southeast A on the side opposite the Society. His decision gave him a better view of the building as he approached, and consequently he knew something was wrong much earlier than he normally would have.
It was a little thing that made Malcolm wonder. A small detail quite out of place yet so insignificant it appeared meaningless. But Malcolm noticed little things, like the open window on the third floor. The Society’s windows are rolled out rather than pushed up, so the open window jutted out from the building. When Malcolm first saw the window the significance didn’t register, but when he was a block and a half away it struck him and he stopped.
It is not unusual for windows in the capital to be open, even on a rainy day. Washington is usually warm, even during spring rains. But since the Society building is air-conditioned, the only reason to open a window is for fresh air. Malcolm knew the fresh-air explanation was absurd—absurd because of the particular window that stood open. Tamatha’s window.
Tamatha—as everyone in the section knew—lived in terror of open windows. When she was nine, her two teen-age brothers had fought over a picture the three of them had found while exploring the attic. The older brother had slipped on a rug and had plunged out the attic window to the street below, breaking his neck and becoming paralyzed for life. Tamatha had once confided in Malcolm that only a fire, rape, or murder would make her go near any open window. Yet her office window stood wide open.
Malcolm tried to quell his uneasiness. Your damn overactive imagination, he thought. It’s probably open for a perfectly good reason. Maybe somebody is playing a joke on her. But no staff member played practical jokes, and he knew no one would tease Tamatha in that manner. He walked slowly down the street, past the building, and to the corner. Everything else seemed in order. He heard no noise in the building, but then they were all probably reading.
This is silly, he thought. He crossed the street and quickly walked to the gate, up the steps, and, after a moment’s hesitation, rang the bell. Nothing. He heard the bell ring inside the building, but Mrs. Russell didn’t answer. He rang again. Still nothing. Malcolm’s spine began to tingle and his neck felt cold.
Walter is shifting books, he thought, and Perfume Polly is taking a shit. They must be. Slowly he reached in his pocket for the key. When anything is inserted in the keyhole during the day, buzzers ring and lights flash all over the building. At night they also ring in Washington police headquarters, the Langley complex, and a special security house in downtown Washington. Malcolm heard the soft buzz of the bells as he turned the lock. He swung the door open and quickly stepped inside.
From the bottom of the stairwell Malcolm could only see that the room appeared to be empty. Mrs. Russell wasn’t at her desk. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Dr. Lappe’s door was partially open. There was a peculiar odor in the room. Malcolm tossed the sandwich bags on top of Walter’s desk and slowly mounted the stairs.
He found the sources of the odor. As usual, Mrs. Russell had been standing behind her desk when they entered. The blast from the machine gun in the mailman’s pouch had knocked her almost as far back as the coffeepot. Her cigarette had dropped on her neck, singeing her flesh until the last millimeter of tobacco and paper had oxidized. A strange dullness came over Malcolm as he stared at the huddled flesh in the pool of blood. An automaton, he slowly turned and walked into Dr. Lappe’s office.
Walter and Dr. Lappe had been going over invoices when they heard strange coughing noises and the thump of Mrs. Russell’s body hitting the floor. Walter opened the door to help her pick up the dropped delivery (he heard the buzzer and Mrs. Russell say, “What have you got for us today?”). The last thing he saw was a tall, thin man holding an L-shaped device. The postmortem revealed that Walter took a short burst, five rounds in the stomach. Dr. Lappe saw the whole thing, but there was nowhere to run. His body slumped against the far wall beneath a row of bloody diagonal holes.
Two of the men moved quietly upstairs, leaving the mailman to guard the door. None of the other staff had heard a thing. Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s chief commando, once demonstrated the effectiveness of a silenced British sten gun by firing a clip behind a batch of touring generals. The German officers never heard a thing, but they refused to copy the British weapon, as the Third Reich naturally made better devices. These men were satisfied with the sten. The tall man flung open Malcolm’s door and found an empty office. Ray Thomas was behind his desk on his knees picking up a dropped pencil when the stocky man found him. Ray had time to scream, “Oh, my God, no …” before his brain exploded.
Tamatha and Harold Martin heard Ray scream, but they had no idea why. Almost simultaneously they opened their doors and ran to the head of the stairs. All was quiet for a moment; then they heard the soft shuffle of feet slowly climbing the stairs. The steps stopped, then a very faint metallic click, snap, twang jarred them from their lethargy. They couldn’t have known the exact source of the sound (a new ammunition clip being inserted and the weapon being armed), but they instinctively knew what it meant. They both ran into their rooms, slamming the doors behind them.
Harold showed the most presence of mind. He locked his door and dialed three digits before the stocky man kicked the door open and cut him down.
Tamatha reacted on a different instinct. For years she thought only a major emergency could get her to open a window. Now she knew such an emergency was on her. She frantically rolled the window open, looking for escape, looking for help, looking for anything. Dizzied by the height, she took her glasses off and laid them on her desk. She heard Harold’s door splinter, a rattling cough, the thump, and fled again to the window. Her door slowly opened.
For a long time nothing happened, then slowly Tamatha turned to face the thin man. He hadn’t fired for fear a slug would fly out the window, hit something, and draw attention to the building. He would risk that only if she screamed. She didn’t. She saw only a blur, but she knew the blur was motioning her away from the window. She moved slowly toward her desk. If I’m going to die, she thought, I want to see. Her hand reached out for her glasses, and she raised them to her eyes. The tall man waited until they were in place and comprehension registered on her face. Then he squeezed the trigger, holding it tight until the last shell from the full clip exploded, ejecting the spent casing out of the side of the gun. The bullets kept Tamatha dancing, bouncing between the wall and the filing cabinet, knocking her glasses off, disheveling her hair. The thin man watched her riddled body slowly slide to the floor, then he turned to join his stocky companion, who had just finished checking the rest of the floor. They took their time going downstairs.
While the mailman maintained his vigil on the door, the stocky man searched the basement. He found the coalbin door but thought nothing of it. He should have, but then his error was partially due to Weatherby’s mistake. The stocky man did find and destroy the teleph
one switchbox. An inoperative phone causes less alarm than a phone unanswered. The tall man searched Heidegger’s desk. The material he sought should have been in the third drawer, left-hand side, and it was. He also took a manila envelope. He dumped a handful of shell casings in the envelope with a small piece of paper he took from his jacket pocket. He sealed the envelope and wrote on the outside. His gloves made writing difficult, but he wanted to disguise his handwriting anyway. The scrawl designated the envelope as a personal package for “Lockenvar, Langley headquarters.” The stocky man opened the camera and exposed the film. The tall man contemptuously tossed the envelope on Mrs. Russell’s desk. He and his companions hung their guns from the straps inside their coats, opened the door, and left as inconspicuously as they had come, just as Malcolm finished his piece of cake.
Malcolm moved slowly from office to office, floor to floor. Although his eyes saw, his mind didn’t register. When he found the mangled body that had once been Tamatha, the knowledge hit him. He stared for minutes, trembling. Fear grabbed him, and he thought, I’ve got to get out of here. He started running. He went all the way to the first floor before his mind took over and brought him to a halt.
Obviously they’ve gone, he thought, or I’d be dead now. Who “they” were never entered his mind. He suddenly realized his vulnerability. My God, he thought, I have no gun, I couldn’t even fight them if they came back. Malcolm looked at Walter’s body and the heavy automatic strapped to the dead man’s belt. Blood covered the gun. Malcolm couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He ran to Walter’s desk. Walter kept a very special weapon clipped in the leg space of his desk, a sawed-off 20-gauge shotgun. The weapon held only one shell, but Walter often bragged how it saved his life at Chosen Reservoir. Malcolm grabbed it by its pistol-like butt. He kept it pointed at the closed door as he slowly sidestepped toward Mrs. Russell’s desk. Walter kept a revolver in her drawer, “just in case.” Mrs. Russell, a widow, had called it her “rape gun.” “Not to fight them off,” she would say, “but to encourage them.” Malcolm stuck the gun in his belt, then picked up the phone.