“Put him through,” Thornhill said.
“Arnold?”
“It’s bad, Jackie boy. Very bad. You’ve lit a fire under the ass of the establishment and you’re the most unpopular guy in town.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“You won’t be when you hear what I’ve got to tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not on Ma Bell’s line. I know where you’re hiding out. I’m coming over right now and I’m bringing someone with me.”
Morgenstern was never one to be inhibited by the lack of an invitation and fifteen minutes later, the Duty Officer was announcing his arrival. As the conference room door opened, Thornhill was astonished to see the tall figure of Henry Petersen follow Morgenstern into the room. Thornhill motioned them to the easy chairs around the art deco fireplace. Nobody spoke until the door was closed.
“You’ve already met,” Morgenstern said, making a gesture that embraced both Petersen and Thornhill.
It was not in Thornhill’s nature to reply to a statement of the obvious. “You have something to tell me, Arnold?”
“The word I hear is that they only need to keep the cork in the bottle for a few days, then it won’t matter. So they’ll do anything to prevent disruption to whatever it is they have in mind. If it’s as important as you say it is, they’ll discredit any opposition and they’ll silence any voice that they don’t want Joe six-pack to hear. That’s unless what you were saying this morning is no more than a fart in a thunderstorm. What’s the reality, Jackie, fart or fact?”
Thornhill was appalled that Morgenstern should know what had taken place at a supposedly secret meeting just a few hours before. He stared hard at Petersen.
“Whose word, Arnold? You said ‘the word is’; a telling phrase. Whose word are you passing on?”
“That’s the final frontier, Jackie. You know I can’t tell you that.”
Petersen spoke. “That’s why I’m here. Given time, the White House could deal with this through the usual channels but I’ve become convinced we don’t have time.”
“I fear you may be right,” Thornhill said.
Petersen continued. “I began to get bad vibes on a number of people a few weeks ago. I started to turn stones over. I got a couple of PhD interns to check things like official travel patterns. There was a lot that didn’t make sense and I began to ask questions. Then I got a visit from one of the elder statesman. Alternative futures were set out for me. Money, tenure at an Ivy League college, the possibility of a world affairs TV show. All I had to do was stop.”
“And the alternative?” Thornhill asked.
“Destruction of my career and credibility. Exile to obscurity in the Madlands of conspiracy theorists.”
“What did you do?” Thornhill asked.
Petersen’s composure began to crack. “You have to understand why I did what I did… There were once things I believed in.” He turned away, took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “I remember looking out of my office window and seeing the flag. I remember it was hanging limply for lack of breeze.” Petersen’s voice faltered. “I threw them out, Sir Jack; it was one of the few wholly decent things I’ve done in a long career of political compromise.”
“What happened?”
“You can see Act One on CNN right now or in the post in the morning. I don’t intend to resign, but my expectation is that I will be suspended from White House duties by the end of the week. They can’t make any of it stick because it’s all crap. But that’s not the point. It’s silence they wanted and silence they’ve got.”
“Why have you come to me with this? You must know that I can’t offer you any kind of political help,” Thornhill said quietly.
“I’m going to fight back, but this thing is like an incubating plague. It’s impossible to tell who is infected and there is no time to find out. You are the only person I know to be free of contamination. If things go wrong, I want there to be someone on the outside who knows me for who I am.”
Thornhill thought for a moment before replying. “How can you be so sure of me?”
“This morning told me what I needed to know, that’s why I was there. You had nothing to gain and everything to lose,” Petersen said.
“What do you propose?” Thornhill asked.
“A secure channel of communication,” Petersen replied.
“That can be arranged. How will we contact you?” Thornhill asked.
“You don’t,” Petersen replied. “That’s too risky.”
“I regret I cannot argue with you on that account,” Thornhill said as he lifted the phone and spoke to the Communications Officer. “Mr Petersen is leaving shortly. He’s to be given access to Channel Zulu. Prepare the paperwork; I’ll sign the authority at the end of our meeting. What do you intend to do, Mr Petersen?”
“I’ll contact you as soon as I make a move,” Petersen said.
Thornhill realised that he wasn’t going to get anything more and changed tack.
“And Arnold? How can you be sure of Arnold?” Thornhill said, turning to Morgenstern.
“Much the same; nothing to gain and a lot to lose. Besides, he’s too much his own man to be anybody else’s.”
Morgenstern cut the description short. “Enough already. So I’m an authentic American hero, that we’re agreed on. I told you not to come to Washington. That was good advice. Now I’m telling you to go back to London.”
“Not yet,” Thornhill said.
“You know what Machiavelli said?” Morgenstern asked. “‘Against a great evil, a small protest does not have a small effect. It has no effect whatever.’ You’re wasting your time here.”
“Not yet, Arnold, I’m not ready to leave yet.”
“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you. These are bad guys. They mostly use three tools: manipulation, money or murder; they’re not particular which. They can’t use the first two, like they tried to do with Petersen. So what option does that leave? Do the math. In the normal way of things they wouldn’t dare do it with someone like you, but all they’ve got to do is hold the line for just a short while longer and then the questions won’t matter any more because there’ll be nobody left to ask them. Clear and present danger, Jackie. Get your ass back to London, right now.”
The door opened and the Communications Officer entered.
“I said after the meeting,” Thornhill snapped, before he saw that the man was not carrying forms for signature but a single slip of yellow paper. It read: Line 7 Murphy Code Bravo NYC. He slid it into his pocket. “Please take Mr Petersen next door and brief him on Channel Zulu.” He turned to Morgenstern. “Arnold, please wait here. There’s a good single malt in the cabinet by the bookcase.”
He moved quickly to the Communications Office and was patched into Line 7.
“Thornhill.”
“It’s Morag,” the voice said. “There’s a signal from Mantoni in New York. Murphy has been found in an alley in Tribeca. He’s in a terrible state, ranting about dragons, Buddy Holly and the Hindenburg airship disaster. Mantoni got a call from an old buddy in the police precinct; they managed to get a phone number out of him. They think he’s had a complete mental breakdown and were arranging to transfer him to Bellevue, but Mantoni got them to put that on hold. He’s on his way there to take Murphy to the Hawkstone Clinic out at Westchester. He knows people there. It sounds bad, it’s just not like Murphy.”
“You’re right, it’s not. We’re being sent a message.”
“A message from–”
Thornhill cut her off in mid-sentence. “I’ll call Mantoni. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll contact you from New York.”
Ten minutes later he was back in the conference room. Morgenstern and Petersen had a large glass of Scotch apiece.
“I’ve signed the communications protocol. And now, gentlemen, I’m taking your advice and I’m leaving. Please finish your whisky before you go.”
Petersen and Morgenstern went to the window and saw Thornhill hail a cab.
It took off at speed, heading down the deserted avenue in the direction of Dulles International.
“Even the mighty are capable of being terrified,” Petersen said.
“I’m disappointed,” Morgenstern said. “I thought it would be much more difficult than that.”
*
Thornhill waited until the cab had crossed the Mall. At Independence Avenue he spoke through the small grid in the Perspex barrier between passenger and driver.
“A change of plan – Union Station.”
The driver mumbled an obscenity at the loss of the thirty-mile fare to Dulles.
Less than ten minutes later, Thornhill was using cash to buy a ticket to Penn Station in New York. Travelling by rail was more anonymous than a transit through two airports. With the new fast trains, the travel time was almost identical to the shuttle, plus the journey out to Ronald Reagan Airport and the ride into Manhattan from La Guardia.
He settled into a corner seat and closed his eyes.
Chapter 24 - The Refuge
Petersen heard the choir two blocks away, faintly at first, then the magnetic rhythm of Gospel music and clapping hands drew him across the street. He recognised the tall white spire of the church and knew he was in the right place. Opening the door, he slipped quietly inside and sat at the back. The congregation was small enough for an extra member to be noticed and he was immediately conscious of being an ethnic minority of one.
“Welcome, brother,” the blue-robed speaker called. Petersen realised that the preacher remembered him. “Welcome to our little light in this city of sin.”
Petersen nodded in embarrassed acknowledgement. They had met a year previously when members of a Presidential Inquiry, which Petersen was chairing, visited inner city communities with severe problems. Among the angry, the greedy and the whimsically idealistic, Petersen remembered the Rev Jeremiah Newton as a man who stood out as comprehending both principle and practicality.
The sermon began. “We live in a city of grimness and grace. We look to our majestic white buildings and what do we find? ‘Whited sepulchres’, such as our Lord cried out against, ‘full of corruption on the inside’.”
Petersen knew his life was in serious danger and he found strength in the preacher’s clarity of vision. He had understood the possibility as soon as he began to investigate Celastacom and he knew it for certain less than an hour before entering the church. It had been a near miss.
Returning to his office for an all-night session to collate his final evidence, he had stopped to collect coffee from the café in the bookstore across the street. When he saw a light come on in his room, he left the coffee unpaid for on the counter and sprinted up the stairs to the top level of the store. From there he could look down into his office. Two figures in cleaners’ coveralls were going through his desk while another was working on his computer. The bank safe deposit where he had cached copies of his computer hard disc would not open until the morning. He urgently needed a refuge, a place to work and a clean line into the Net. In those desperate few minutes, Jeremiah Newton was the only person he could think of.
“And where do we see God’s grace? Not in the halls of government nor in the temples of high finance but in you, His people,” the preacher proclaimed.
Petersen had lost track of how long the sermon had been going on; he was repeatedly checking over the precautions he had taken. He’d changed cabs three times and walked the last half-mile. Was it enough? Only by the most disciplined effort did he keep from turning to look at the door.
“On the outside you may be ugly, you may be broke, you may feel helpless, but by God’s grace, on the inside you are handsome, wealthy and strong.”
There was an explosion of colliding ‘Amens’ and ‘Hallelujahs’ from the congregation and suddenly, everyone was singing. Petersen sat with his head in his hands, trying to manage his fear. He looked up to see the church emptying and Jeremiah Newton standing over him.
“Being of the Baptist persuasion we have no confessional, but if you’d care to come into the vestry I’d be glad to listen.”
“I may not have very long,” Petersen said.
“That is true for all of us.”
In the tiny vestry crammed with books and musical instruments, Petersen sobbed out the whole story.
“You must know that we get a lot of crazy people in here. What I have to decide is whether you’re one of them,” Newton said.
“I know,” Petersen said quietly.
“What are you asking for?”
“A place to work for a few hours, somebody to collect computer discs from a safe deposit. Nobody knows about it, so it should be safe. Then I need to put the information in order. I need to use the Net and a phone, and I’d be grateful for some place to sleep after it’s all over,” Petersen said.
Newton stared at him for a long time before he spoke.
“What you’re asking me to participate in may be indiscriminate foolishness which could destroy my work here. There are many people who would like to see that; more of them than you might think are in the established church. On the other hand, if what you tell me is true, what terrors might you bring upon my people? Why should I take such risks?”
“What you were preaching about out there. Does it apply in here?” Petersen asked.
Chapter 25 - Tribeca, New York
Mantoni was waiting as the train drew into Penn Station in Manhattan. He held two paper cups of espresso and handed one to Thornhill.
“He’s skipped.”
“How?!” Thornhill spluttered as he swallowed the strong, tepid coffee.
“They were holding him at the precinct in Tribeca. There’s no special security for the people they send to Bellevue. There’s no crime been committed and most are glad to go; clean sheets and a hot meal. It took me ten minutes to call London and then another twenty to get to the precinct. By that time he’d gone. There were no charges to hold him on.”
It was raining and they passed the cab ride in silence. The empty, dimly lit streets matched Thornhill’s black mood. He had no plans, and no coherent idea of what to do next. When they got to the precinct, he was relieved when Mantoni took the lead.
“Leave the introductions to me.”
Thornhill nodded and stayed a pace behind Mantoni. The sign at the desk said Sergeant K. C. O’Reilly. Behind it stood a large, affable man with thinning red hair and a broad smile.
Mantoni spoke rapidly. “Hi, Kelly, this is Dr Blackthorn. The fugitive is his sister’s brother-in-law and he’s a psychologist. He’d like to ask some questions.”
“Okay,” the Sergeant said cheerfully.
“This is how it is,” Mantoni continued. “The family have been worried about him for a while. Then they heard he was acting strange, the doc’s sister was worried; that’s why he flew in from Dublin yesterday.”
O’Reilly’s smile faded as he wrote in the desk log. There was a slight shake of the head. He clearly didn’t believe a word of Mantoni’s clumsy cover story. But Thornhill realised that the account of events was not intended to be believed, but was for the record. The underlying reality of the situation resided somewhere in the impenetrable world of New York traded favours.
The sergeant spoke directly to Thornhill with more than a hint of sarcasm. “So how are things in the auld country?”
“Is there somewhere we could talk?” Thornhill said.
The three of them went into an interview room furnished with graffiti and out-of-shape metal furniture.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” Thornhill said in something between an assertion and a question as he took a small notebook from an inside pocket.
“He’s not a fugitive. We’re not out there looking for him,” O’Reilly said defensively.
“I appreciate that, but can you tell me how he came to be here?”
O’Reilly consulted the desk log. “We had a call, anonymous, a disturbance in an alleyway. Happens a lot; people call it in but they don’t want to get involved.”
> “What did he say when you brought him in?”
“It was a quiet patch and he seemed different from the usual drunks, druggies and crazies. So I talked with him for a while.”
Thornhill sensed an opportunity. “You said he was different, how different?”
“He was raving, saying the strangest things: ‘St George and dragons’, then things about Rock and Roll, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elijah and Lakehurst… That’s over in New Jersey,” O’Reilly added. “Then it was ‘the wilderness’ and ‘James Baldwin’. We get a lot of this kind of thing. But this was different because, I don’t know how to put this…” He paused and thought hard. “It was like he was struggling, not just raving. He was trying to put these crazy thoughts in some kind of order. Then he began to give me the numbers.”
“Numbers?”
“Yeah, lots of them; they seemed random at first. Then he grabbed my arm; he had a hell’uva grip. It was like I was his mind and he was trying to hold on.”
“The numbers?”
“Yes, it took a while for me to figure out. I took down the sequences he most often repeated and read them back to him. It was like some crazy conversation. But in time we seemed to come to some kind of agreement. Then I recognised an area code. I read the other numbers back to him until I got it right. It was a Manhattan phone number. The effort seemed too much for him and he passed out. I called the number and Mantoni answered.”
*
“Two Early Bird Specials,” the waitress announced as the heavily overloaded plates clattered onto the table of the deli, which was crowded with breakfasting office workers.
Thornhill was suddenly aware that he had not eaten for twenty-four hours. He consumed the eggs, bacon and waffles in mechanical silence. His mind was not engaged with eating, but with anger and inadequacy.
Mantoni knew better than to make small talk. But it was not in his nature to keep quiet.
“What was all that stuff, those crazy-man things he was saying?”
Thornhill wiped clean a place on the crowded table and opened his notebook.
The Night Watch Page 24