“Harder than at Yalta and Potsdam?” Black interrupted.
Rufus let it pass. “Yes, harder than at Yalta and Potsdam. At every level. And finally, even on a little point, a point that was trivial to Stalin, but important to us: the matter of who should pull the lever. Here was the high point of Stalin’s sadism, and the low point in our humiliation. It doesn’t matter to him. It does matter to us. The best we got was the concession we played out in Switzerland; and you, and the United States, lost.
“So I put it this way, Blackford. You are the front-line agent of the commander-in-chief. You have been involved in the evolution of the plan. And it was you who drew the card. In doing so—never mind your reservations, which I admit you registered—you made, your protestations notwithstanding, a contract. If you decide now to refuse, we will have to try to maneuver without you. But if we should fail, you may be directly responsible for suffering on a terrible scale. Certainly you will be responsible—I speak now of what has happened, not of what will, or might, happen—for murder. For the murder of Jürgen Wagner. Because if the plan for tomorrow does not go forward, then what you did to Wagner was impermissible. If you follow through tomorrow, then last night you acted as a soldier. If tomorrow you refuse to consummate the plan, then last night you murdered.”
Blackford recoiled at the word. He paused a long time, and refilled his sherry glass. The room was silent. Then he said,
“Let’s get on with the details.”
CHAPTER 21
He called Erika from Bonn and asked if she would have a late drink with him. Yes, she said, but she too would be working late. It occurred to Blackford that that was fine. “I’ve got to go to the chapel for a minute, so I’ll pick you up at your office. How’s that? About ten?”
As he drove he forced away the main theme, concentrating on the notation. He would much prefer going over Wagner’s desk himself, without asking Erika to do so and giving her, unnecessarily, the story on Wagner. (Why should she—they—have and enjoy that extra mug shot of criminal America?) He pondered how he might physically manage it, and turned on the radio. The lead bulletin was of a joint declaration between the lame-duck President of the United States and his successor, declaring that any military aggression by the Soviet Union against West Germany would be met with the full force of NATO’s troops. “Neither the President nor the President-elect mentioned any possible use of atomic defenses,” the commentator said, “and there was no immediate reaction in Moscow, where a general mobilization was ordered a week ago.” The commentator went on to review the day’s profuse endorsements by labor union leaders and newspapers of the candidacy of Axel Wintergrin. Blackford snapped off the radio.
At dinner with Singer Callaway in Rufus’s apartment he had thought back on their dinner together the preceding January, when neither spoke of the next day’s enterprise. Tonight they did. Resisting moral speculation, they talked only about the plan, so thoroughly rehearsed now since the idea of how to kill Axel Wintergrin came to Hallam Spring. At a long meeting with Rufus, Callaway, and Blackford in Bonn, ten days earlier, Spring and Pulling had read from their portfolio of choices.
Spring provided the narrative, Pulling, the technical interpolations, leafing through his copious notebooks for details. The requirement—that it should be accepted as an accidental death—clearly contracted the possibilities, and palpably depressed Bruce Pulling with his affinity for explosives, which are uneasily assigned to detonate accidentally. Pulling argued the plausibility of an avalanche destroying Wintergrin’s caravan descending from the courtyard, and he was industrious enough to document a natural phenomenon of similar nature in 1755—“perhaps related to the earthquake in Lisbon,” he suggested, hopefully. Blackford asked whether it was a concomitant part of the plan that a diversionary earthquake in Lisbon should be engineered on November 12, and Pulling, returning to the notes, said, No, he didn’t think that necessary. There was a Poison Plan (mother’s mushrooms), a Carbon Monoxide Plan (old exhaust pipes in the hermetically enclosed Daimler), an Incendiary Plan (he would perish in his bedroom from the smoke before the flames consumed the castle). The mode decided on, and checked out as agreed with Bolgin in Switzerland, was what they came to call the Scope Plan.
The division of responsibility was straightforward. Blackford must contrive to deliver Axel Wintergrin to the chromoscope. As always, Wintergrin would sit down, bend over until his forehead touched the face plate, and stand by to adjust the waist-level levers rooted on opposite sides of the chromoscope. Blackford would then turn on the current at the switchboard. A few seconds would go by while the count fiddled with the adjustments. “Then you gotta do your part,” Spring said to Blackford.
Blackford’s “part” would sit in the pocket of his jacket. A cigarette-package-sized transmitter. On depressing the switch a module tucked into the chromoscope would be activated.
“The way I worked it out,” Hallam Spring had explained at the midnight session to Rufus, Singer Callaway, and Blackford, Pulling at his side doodling on a notepad, “is this. We’re better off electrocuting the subject sometime after the power is turned on. Otherwise it has the feeling of an … execution. I could fix up the module with a computer circuit to go off when the subject moves the light lever on the right of the box the nth time, say the fifth—or the fiftieth, for that matter. But that would require monitoring the use of the chromoscope before the subject used it and counting exactly how many times it’s used before the subject comes in, and I figure that’s no good. The alternative is to detonate by a portable transmitter. It’s a solid-state-receiver module, works like one of those garage-door deals, door goes up when you push the little transmitter button in your car.
“The chromoscope is wooden, so it’s easy to insulate. I’ll substitute a plastic linkage for the light lever, instead of the metal linkage inside the casing now, and lead a wire right to the metal handle. Another wire will lead up to the metal face port. I’d suggest Blackford wait maybe five, six seconds, to augment the impression that something went screwy inside the box, rather than have the one-to-one electrical effect of a guy turning a switch, then POW!
“Now when the house current, two hundred and twenty volts, is released, the subject’s right hand will clamp onto the lever with the grip of a pit bull (reflex action), and contortion will force the head harder onto the face plate as the two hundred and twenty volts flow from the hand up the arm through the heart into the head and face. This will stop the heart. No ands, ifs or buts.
“The second function of the internal module is the incendiary one. It will go off at the same moment the electricity is sent to the right-hand lever and the face plate. The same current source will go into an igniter core, a block of magnesium (or chemical mixture—I’ll decide between the two), either one capable of intense heat for enough time so that the fire will spread through the box and destroy the module and the insides of the machine. I can even rig it so the heat/fire source could spatter pieces around to accelerate the fire within the box.
“Here’s something else I’ll do. Wrap with rubber tape the heat/fire source, and that will produce plenty of ‘burning wire’ smell. Nothing to it. Window dressing. But people expect electrical fires to smell like something burning.”
And he finished with easygoing pride. “You like?”
Blackford asked Singer Callaway how Spring and Pulling would stand up under questioning.
“They’re trained agents. They won’t budge. As for the plan, we ran it through the lab in Maryland. It checks out. There shouldn’t be any problem. They can peer into the bowels of the scope all they want to. They won’t find anything. A crazy accident.”
“After I fry him, am I supposed to register the conventional emotions? Or do you have a special emotion reserved for me?”
“Cut it, Blacky, nobody likes this business. You’re to be both dismayed and unbelieving. Electricity isn’t your specialty, but you have never been given any reason to believe the scope was dangerous. You might yell a littl
e at Conditti—his dad invented the thing. An accident is an accident.”
Singer then rehearsed Blackford in emergency instructions to be followed in the hideous event of a snafu. Blackford knew Rufus well enough to wonder whether Blackford’s own elimination might be an integral part of the deal, and he voiced the suspicion.
“I give you my word it isn’t.”
“I believe you, Singer, but I wouldn’t have much trouble dismantling that assurance if I were Rufus. You could be under instructions to give me your word.”
“Well, Black, if you believe that, then you shouldn’t ask me in the first place, because ex hypothesi I can’t satisfy you.”
“Maybe I ought to tell you that a letter is waiting someplace to be sent to my lawyer if I’m not around to stop it? Shall I tell you that, Singer?”
“Are you telling me that?”
“No. I’m just wondering whether I should say that, even if I hadn’t actually taken the precaution.”
“This is getting a little complicated, Black.”
“Yeah, let’s drop it.” And, a moment later, “I’d better get moving. I’ve got to check with Erika later on tonight.”
“There’s one thing more, Blacky.” Singer walked over to his briefcase, twiddled the combination lock, and drew out a pouchful of pipe tobacco. He reached inside and pulled out a metal-gray case. “The transmitter. Two switches: ‘Battery On,’ and ‘Depress.’ It’s been tested.” He reinserted it into the pouch, and handed it to Blackford.
“Will I see you again, Singer?”
“I don’t know, Blacky. If all goes well, they may pull me out right away. You have to stick around.”
“If I’m alive, Singer. And if I’m alive—”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to stay here until the chapel is finished. Put in that word for me. Okay?”
“The chapel will take another year, maybe.”
“In that case I’ll stay here another year.”
“I understand.” He rose, reached for Blackford’s coat, helped him on with it, and led him to the door, where he shook his hand warmly.
Blackford pulled into the courtyard, parked, and told the sentry at the palace he was expected by Erika Chadinoff. In the old dining hall he saw Erika at work with her Polish assistant on a manuscript. He went by her, waved silently so as not to interrupt her while giving instructions, sat down at Jürgen Wagner’s desk and reached for the phone.
Erika had paused, so he sang out to her: “Got to put in a call—I forgot my mother’s birthday. Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead. I can quit anytime, but there’s always work to do.”
In the swivel chair he pivoted his back to Erika, dialed the long-distance operator, and gave his mother’s number in London, inverting the last two digits. “Make that a collect call from Blackford Oakes. O-a-k-e-s. O for Otto, A for Adalbert, K for Kaiser, E for Emil, S for Sophie.”
His eyes combed the desk furiously. Unfamiliar with it, he did not know whether the neatness suggested it had already been inspected, or whether great neatness was the way of Jürgen Wagner. As if looking for a piece of paper, he opened the right-hand drawer and fussed with its contents. Here were two slender notebooks. The contents of the desk had presumably not been sequestered. The receiver still in his hand, even though the operator had said she would call back, he maneuvered to open the first notebook. He saw names and disbursements. The second listed contacts in different cities. As if failing to find what he was looking for, he opened the drawer on the left side. It was the stationery drawer. He thought it wise to scoop up a sheet of paper to scribble on. He felt a bulge under the pile of paper, probed it, and came up with a trim leather diary, small enough to fit in the pocket of his suit. He would read it that night.
“She’s not in? All right, operator, cancel the call. I’ll ring in the morning. Thank you.” He made a notation on the paper and stuffed it in his pocket.
He pivoted the chair back to face Erika. “All set?”
“All set.”
They drove in their own cars to the inn. It occurred to Blackford that, diary safely in hand, he had no official business left to discuss with Erika. So—they might just as well have a drink, he thought.
But seated in the saloon she began: “Did you know Jürgen Wagner was missing?”
“Yes. Kurt told me this morning. Do you have any reason to suspect he has a line on you? Or me?”
“No. But I know he didn’t like you, and a few days ago he suggested to Wintergrin that he suspend all activity in the chapel until after the election. Roland told me—Axel told him, and said he had vetoed Wagner’s suggestion.”
“Well,” said Blackford, “maybe he’s defected!”
She did not want to play. “I sent in a report on his disappearance.”
Blackford nodded. “Maybe I’ll do the same thing.”
She looked at him under the light. He was dressed in a blue blazer, gray flannel pants, and a narrow regimental tie. Probably what he wore as a sophomore at Yale, she thought correctly. The fingers of his right hand were fiddling with his wine glass. His head was slightly bent, the light above his head drew out the blond in his hair, and she sensed the distraction in his pale, slender, almost childlike features. He was perhaps projecting the role his fingers would play tomorrow? Might as well wade into it.
“Bolgin raised a point. If Axel’s feet are off the floor when he sits down on the stool, there wouldn’t be a ground.”
“Crap.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it?”
“It means it’s unlikely Bolgin has thought about anything more comprehensively than we have, especially anything that elementary. The scope itself provides the ground. He could be tap dancing on it and still he’d be a goner. Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re doing the only thing, Black”—she reached out her hand. “I know your feelings about him and his movement. I understand your feelings about him personally. But he is an anachronism. I mean, look at that place. Count Axel von Euchen Wintergrin indeed! Private castle. Private chapel. Lord of the manor stuff. This isn’t Graustark.”
“Better Graustark than your little Siberian resorts.”
“Let’s not get into that again. The point is he projected himself as the leader of an insurrectionary movement that’s moved us toward a great war, and everyone who matters has agreed he’s got to go, it’s that simple.”
He looked up at her. What could have made her, at twenty-three, so talented, and so … dumb.
“For the record, Erika, everybody who matters didn’t agree he’s got to go. Our people agreed to the elimination”—here he was, himself using that word!—“because you gave us no alternative. That’s the official view of it. God knows it isn’t my view of it. I’d, have told Gromyko to go straight to hell, which is where he’s going in due course anyway.”
“I’m glad you’re not President of the United States.”
“And I wish you were Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. I’d like to hear you issue orders to kill someone in cold blood. You’re taking refuge in the concept of Higher Authority—”
She interrupted him. “Aren’t you?”
He breathed deeply. “Erika,” he said patiently, “I didn’t mean to be provocative. But your organizational discipline is for the purpose of imposing the will of one man the will of one ideology, if you insist—or others. Our organization is defensive in nature. Its aim is to defeat your aggressive intentions. The acceptance of discipline in the one enterprise isn’t the equivalent of the acceptance of discipline in the other enterprise. I accept the need for discipline. I am troubled only by my human revulsion at the discrete enterprise we’re engaged in, and by an awful feeling that the West is aborting a great historical opportunity. But please, don’t say that Goering following Hitler’s orders is the equivalent of Montgomery following Churchill’s orders. You begin by the dissimilarities between Churchill and Hitler. That factor wrecks all derivative
analogies.”
“Stalin has his weaknesses, but he also has his great strengths.” Erika thought it imprudent to continue the argument.
“Yeah, he eats people. But it’s very good for the blood. And the muscle tissue. And the complexion.”
“Come on, Blackford.”
But he had risen, leaving money for the drinks.
“Sorry, Erika. I’m bad company tonight.”
She got up. “Never mind. I understand. And”—she tapped him lightly on the hand; if she had said to him “good luck,” he thought, he might just hit her—“remember, perhaps not next week or next year even, but one day you’ll see that cooperation between our two movements is the right thing.”
He said nothing, but leaned over, in the European manner, and brushed his lips on her right hand, rubbing her determined fingers thoughtfully.
CHAPTER 22
On Friday, November 12, the temperature was muggy-cool, morning light gray, the southerly wind bringing in the depressing, unseasonal föhn that sleazes over Europe with dumpy barometric pressures that enervate and depress (in Munich the doctors decline nonemergency surgery during a föhn). Blackford, at twenty-six, was immune to vicissitudes in the weather. He enjoyed the sun, but more often than not, if otherwise absorbed, didn’t really notice whether it was shining. Today he was unaware of the weather, having taken no notice of it since waking at the summons from his alarm after a hectic sleep; though at last, his mind was made up.
He dressed carefully. The costume was the same, the light-brown corduroy pants, the light-blue shirt and beige sweater, but his motions were more deliberate than usual, and as he shaved he looked at his reflected face for the first time he could remember other than to satisfy himself that he had successfully shaved. He noticed that his cheeks were obtrusively pale, his’ hair lifeless, his lips dry. So he slapped his face to see if the color would return, and thought suddenly of Lady Macbeth, and wondered wildly whether he would be pale forever. He gave up his self-inspection after a few seconds, reaching no conclusion about his face other than that it interested him not at all.
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