New Jerusalem

by John Meaney

  Don't think about Fern.

  I walked.

  Not Fern. Not Fern.

  Eventually, I flagged down a taxi and went back to the Watergate. The receptionist told me there was a message to ring Pete at the office. That meant Blackstone, and a rendezvous at an Irish bar he'd told me about.

  I had an hour, so I went on foot.

  Finally, I entered the dark interior of Sean's Bar. Blackstone was already seated in a rear booth. Behind the counter, a brawny man was polishing glasses. A radio was tuned to a baseball game. Four old boys, sitting on barstools, leaned on their elbows, listening, sipping at their beer.

  "Alec?" Blackstone called to the barman. "Another Coors for me, please. And one for my friend."

  "Just orange juice," I said.

  One of the old boys flicked a glance in my direction. Then he returned his attention to the radio. The announcer's voice surfed on a background murmur, the sounds of a stadium filled with spectators.

  Another old guy muttered: "Them A's oughter stayed in Kansas."

  Blackstone lowered his voice, murmuring for my ears only.

  "Appleton and Crossman are arriving in two weeks' time, on South African visas. You didn't mention an African connection."

  "I didn't know there was one."

  The barman, Alec, arrived with the drinks. We thanked him.

  "De nada, me boyos." He headed back to the counter.

  "Where are they landing?" I asked.

  "They're flying in to Idlewild together. Crossman's booked a rail ticket to Boston."

  Blackstone's dark gaze was on me, his face a bronze mask. Perhaps he sensed that I was holding back intelligence, but he surely didn't suspect the intent of it, or they'd have had me in interrogation, never mind Crossman. And it wasn't just the president of the United States who was in danger, but this particular president, the one who carried so many hopes on his glamorous shoulders.

  "One hell of a hitter," muttered one of the old boys.

  For a long, surreal moment, I thought he meant Kennedy.

  "Here's the wind-up..." The radio announcer's voice was intense.

  I slid out of the booth. It was time to ring Pinchas. I said goodbye to Blackstone.

  He turned his attention to the radio.

  "Holy Cow, it's outta the stadium."

  The barman, Alec, dropped a glass.

  "Holy cow, what a shot!"

  "Jeez, Scooter," muttered someone.

  "It's outta the stadium."

  None of the old boys glanced in my direction, as I headed for the exit. But I felt Blackstone's regard on the skin of my back, as if crosshairs were centred on me, and a finger curved around a trigger, ready to fire.

  Outside, the sidewalk was brilliant in the sunshine.

  "It's outta the..."

  The door banged shut behind me.

  In Berlin it was night, as the planet rotated eastward into darkness. I used a payphone in an ice-cream parlour to ring the duty officer. Only five minutes later, Pinchas called me back.

  "You've made progress?"

  "Our friends are coming to visit. Albert and Charles" – I meant Appleton and Crossman – "arrive in a fortnight. I don't suppose we've info on the local firm's president?"

  "We might do."

  Pinchas had been trying to install agents in the White House. Or perhaps they'd already been in place. His briefing had been ambiguous on this point.

  "I wonder when he's visiting his mother."

  "In a little over two weeks. We know one of her staff."

  Good. There must be a source in Boston. That helped.

  "We can't let Charles succeed," I said.

  Meaning: we can't let Kennedy die.

  Hisses and crackles passed up and down the line, travelling along the Atlantic seabed. I pictured Pinchas hunched at the other end, working through the options.

  Finally: "OK. But low-key."

  This was the go-ahead.

  "You offered me a resource."

  It took less than a second for Pinchas to reply: "Agreed."

  And the line was dead.

  The next morning, I rang Blackstone at the local field office, and suggested that he keep loose surveillance on Appleton – when the man arrived, in two weeks' time – and back off Crossman completely.

  "He's a professional," I told him.

  "So we could just take him into custody."

  "Or be waiting. We know where he's heading."

  "Only the city. Boston's a big—"

  "I've extra information."

  Silence, then: "Thanks for letting me know."

  "You're welcome." I was ignoring his irony. "Are you much of an outdoorsman?"

  "Is this some kind of English joke?"

  "No, I've a camping trip in mind."

  "A camping trip."

  "In a couple of weeks."

  "Interesting timing."

  "That's right."

  Blackstone's laugh sounded in my ear, then a buzz as he hung up.

  Finally, some action.

  Fifteen days later, we awoke shivering in our sleeping-bags.

  Under the groundsheets, the grass was wet. Stars were still visible, the sky black overhead, morphing to lime-green at the eastern horizon. The pre-dawn air was chilly.

  I crawled out of my sleeping-bag. Blackstone sat up, just breathing.

  Nearby, water rippled: the liquid blackness of the Charles River. We had to be silent, because sound carries, particularly here. It felt like wilderness, this tiny island. But the Charles flows eastwards through the centre of metropolitan Boston and into the sea, and we were in the middle of it. Slowly, the towers-and-bridge outline began to show itself, black against shadow, spanning the river.

  Today was Crossman's day.

  I won't let Kennedy die.

  Nursing a tonic water in the Watergate bar, back in Washington, I'd caught a speech that Kennedy made live on TV. Some of the guys in the bar had looked uncomfortable; a couple of them clapped.

  "Are we to say to the world – and much more importantly, to each other – that this is the land of the free, except for Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens, except for Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettos, no master-race, except with respect to Negroes? The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South..."

  The next morning, I read the same words in a newspaper, while sitting in a diner with Blackstone.

  "He's not afraid to speak out, is he?"

  "Not this one," Blackstone had answered. "Not Kennedy."

  "...Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality."

  Today was our day for acting boldly.

  There.

  The silhouette of the Longfellow Bridge, known locally as the Salt-and-Pepper Bridge, began to harden. Then it lightened as the sun edged upwards. A red-and-white MBTA train rattled along it. With binoculars, I scanned the nipple-shaped top of each tower in turn.

  "Nothing yet," murmured Blackstone, lowering his own field-glasses.

  I'd not told him what was happening. Probably an Anglo would have been unable to hold back from asking, but Blackstone could envelope himself in silence, waiting.

  This better go OK.

  Behind me, the sun peered bright yellow above the world's edge. Then it flared liquid gold across the ocean, sparking highlights from the rosy glowing bridge.

  Soon, before normal traffic could claim the highways, a small line of gleaming black identical limousines approached the bridge from the right. Blackstone sucked in a breath.

  "Yes," I told him. "It's who you think it is."

  The pennants on the limousines told the story, if your eyesight was good enough to make them out. The President of the United States was on his way to visit his mother, Rose Kennedy, in time for breakfast. I hoped he was going to make that appointment.

  God, I'm scared.

  It's harder when you're not the one who's go
ing to—

  A small blob of darkness moved, atop one tower.

  "Crossman," said Blackstone.

  His voice was low and emotionless. But his grip was tight on the field-glasses.

  Oh God. Oh God.

  I remembered the dossier that Ignatieff had given me in Moscow. Crossman's marksmanship score had been outstanding.

  Was this my worst screw-up yet?

  "Come on," I said.

  "What...?"

  There was a glint of light from Crossman's tower.

  "Sniper scope." Blackstone's voice went even deeper. "Aiming at the President's car."

  "Shit. Oh, shit."

  A visionary leader was seconds from death and it was all my—

  No.

  Then came the crack of sound.

  For a moment I expected the Presidential car to swerve and brake. Instead, a dark silhouette slipped out of sight atop the tower, and that was that.

  Done it.

  Earlier, anticipating, I'd envisioned something dramatic: a hand flung up, a cry as Crossman's body spun, then toppled from the tower. He would drop into the river with a silver splash... but in fact, he had just slumped and was gone.

  The presidential cavalcade drove on.

  Ten seconds later, a shadow moved atop a different tower, at the far end of the bridge, on the other side. I smiled.

  "One hell of a shot." Blackstone put down his field-glasses. "That was one hell of a shot."

  "That," I said, "was Moshe Boaz."

  An hour later, Blackstone and I sat down to eat breakfast in a Harvard refectory. Moshe would be along soon. I glanced at the copy of Science I'd bought at a news-stand, then pushed it aside and got to work on my scrambled eggs.

  "You took a chance," murmured Blackstone.

  "With President Kennedy's life," I said. "I apologize for that. But anything less low-key, and Black Path would be even more suspicious that their plans are blown."

  "Haven't you stopped them?" Blackstone sipped coffee. "Is there something more?"

  "Aimed at my people," I said, "there is something more."

  On a nearby table, a group of professors was arguing about a woman, apparently Canadian, who had dared to apply for admittance to the Business School.

  "We've never had a woman before—" one of the academics began.

  "Speak for yourself," said the man beside him.

  When the laughter finished, the first professor muttered: "Look, I'm serious..."

  Then Moshe walked into the room. Blackstone and I stood up, forgetting about the academics.

  "What you did was extremely skilful," Blackstone said. "Thank you, Mr Boaz."

  "My pleasure."

  "And my people dealt with the... tidying up?"

  "Very efficiently."

  "Good."

  I wondered what Blackstone's colleagues in New York were going to do about Appleton. Perhaps we should have snatched him ourselves.

  "Can I get you something to celebrate?"

  "A coffee, Mr Blackstone." Boaz gave a microscopic hint of a smile. "Maybe a doughnut."

  During our sojourn in the SAS, the only weakness we'd found in our instructor, Brummie Greenmore, was his love of sugar-coated doughnuts. With the distances he ran, they were simply fuel.

  "I'll be right back," said Blackstone.

  Moshe and I sat down.

  "Nice job," I said.

  "Does it mean I'm back in?"

  Because of course he'd been on indefinite suspension.

  "Pinchas said it would. If you want to come back."

  "Good."

  "Even though you're a father now?"

  "It's what I'm best at."

  I couldn't argue against that.

  Blackstone, with a tray of coffee and doughnuts in his hands, paused by a table full of physicists, or possibly engineers. The Business School professors had left.

  "Looks like they're planning a long shot," murmured Moshe.

  The physicists were drawing trajectories, and muttering in low tones. None of them noticed the bronze-faced warrior staring down at them.

  "You know," said Blackstone, "that Rizzuto was mistaken. The ball hit the façade, inches from the top. It didn't leave the stadium."

  Every one of the physicists flinched. Then one regained enough composure to reply.

  "On the way up, from all accounts. At a height of 115 feet."

  "Consider the angle of the people who saw it, almost directly beneath the curve. The human eye can't distinguish between ascent or descent."

  "Oh. Right."

  As Blackstone continued to our table, Moshe said: "What was that about?"

  "Religious discussion," I said.

  "Mickey Mantle." Blackstone passed around the coffee and doughnuts. Then he sat down. "You heard it on the radio, right, Wolf?"

  "Um... Sure."

  "Mantle nearly hit the ball out of the stadium."

  "So." Moshe bit into a doughnut. "Is that a clever thing to do?"

  Don't insult another man's religion.

  Except Moshe probably didn't realize the importance of baseball.

  "About as impressive," said Blackstone after a moment, "as blowing away a world-class sniper you can barely see, when the sun's angle is against you."

  "Oh." Moshe looked from him to me. "Not bad, then."

  As we left, we passed the physicists' table. They were arguing about how the far the ball would have gone if there'd been no façade.

  "If the initial angle is pi-on-four, the distance is six hundred and twenty-six."

  "But you're assuming—"

  "Gentlemen," said Blackstone, "someone did whack the ball all the way out of the stadium. It's just you won't find it in the record books..."

  "Excuse me?"

  "... because Joshua Gibson was confined to the Negro Leagues, and for white folk that's never really counted, has it?"

  The physicists stared at Blackstone, saying nothing.

  ("This is the land of the free," Kennedy had declared, "except for Negroes.")

  We walked on.

  I said to Moshe: "You did superlative work today, my friend."

  But Moshe was staring at Blackstone.

  "Yes," he said. "I think perhaps I did."

  THIRTY:

  BERLIN, June 1963

  Two weeks later, thousands of people, myself included, stood at the eastern end of Gideon Rachov in the Tiergarten park, beneath a cloudy summer sky. Our attention was focused on the raised platform, and the man who stood on it, staring beyond us, beyond kir, beyond the Wall, die Mauer.

  He looked at the scraped clay of no-man's-land, then at the ornate magnificence of the Brandenburg Gate, trapped in the east.

  Yesterday, Schröder had told me that our people found Clive Rogers' headless body, in the forest behind the clubhouse where I'd seen the Mensur fights. The decapitation had been a single stroke: a Schläger blade.

  "Two thousand years ago" – Kennedy's words rang out, tinged with humour and the distinctive twang of an educated Massachusetts man – "the proudest boast was: civis Romanus sum. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is Ani Berliner."

  At another microphone, an interpreter echoed Kennedy's speech in Hebrew. There was laughter as well as cheering at the last two words.

  "I appreciate," said Kennedy with spontaneous self-deprecation, "my interpreter translating my Hebrew!"

  Applause rose among the crowd, among all of us. Given the context, few people would have noticed the unintentional second meaning: a Berliner is a kind of doughnut.

  Even though I was riveted by JFK's words, a part of me continued to check the Wall, the treeline, the crowd.

  NJDF snipers were everywhere, keeping watch.

  "So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of New Jerusalem, to the advance of freedom everywhere..."

  This was a city of mixed inheritance, a concept I knew well.
In his concluding words, Kennedy demonstrated an understanding of that fact: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin..."

  Here was a man who deserved to live. I had failed Rogers; but perhaps I had done right by this man, who held out hope for a better world.

  "...and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ani Berliner."

  I swallowed, tears in my eyes despite myself. It wasn't just the promise for a bright new America to set an example for the world – it was the knowledge that Albert Einstein, with perhaps the greatest mind in history, was going to be spending time with this visionary younger man, securing the future of our refuge, here, against enemies arming both to West and East.

  Then I was clapping my hands together over and over, hard enough to hurt, lost in tidal applause sweeping through the moment.

  Part III

  FALL/WINTER

  THIRTY-ONE:

  HAMBURG, October 1963

  Four months later, and the sky was black above slate-grey rain as we drove across slick cobblestones. Zeev was at the wheel. We drove past a familiar nightclub entrance, now in shadows. Winter night was closing in. The clubs were closed because this was the Sabbath.

  "This is where I met Pinchas," I said, "nearly a year ago."

  "It's been a while." Zeev was silent for a moment. "Wait till you see how the boys and girls turned out. The neos."

  "Ready to leave the nest?"

  "You could say that. They still talk about you, Wolf."

  "Glad I made an impression."

  I'd spent approximately fifteen weeks getting nowhere. There'd been time to read Albrecht Reinhard's biographical files. He'd been a promising actor and all-round performer in his student days. Some of his contemporaries were now prominent entertainers. If it hadn't been for Reinhard's political views, the complaints from his fellow students and his expulsion from several productions, he might have been one of the show business élite.

  Somewhere, he was planning something spectacular.

  "Two of the neos quit," said Zeev, taking a left turn, "during Operation Shutdown. Did you know that?"

  Spray hissed on the cobblestones, louder than the engine noise.