Murder in the CIA

by Margaret Truman

  “The Kennedy Center.”

  “Yeah? Good concert?”

  “Dance recital.”

  “Never could get into dance.”

  “Vern.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s talk.”

  19

  By the time Saturday rolled around and Cahill was settled into a seat on a Pan Am flight to San Juan, she was more than ready to escape Washington, and to spend some time on an island. She had no illusions. Her trip to the BVI was just an extension of everything else she’d been doing since returning from Budapest but, for some reason (probably the concept of hitting your foot with a hammer to make you forget a headache), there was a vacation air to the trip.

  There hadn’t been time to visit her mother before leaving, but she did squeeze in a frantic shopping spree in search of warm-weather clothing. She didn’t buy much; sunny islands didn’t demand it—two bathing suits, one a bikini, the other a tank suit, both in shades of red; a multicolored caftan, white shorts, sandals, a clinging white dress, and her favorite item, a teal blue cotton jumpsuit that fit perfectly, and in which she felt comfortable. She wore it that morning on the plane.

  Once airborne, and breakfast had been served, she removed her shoes, reclined in her seat, and tried to do what she’d promised herself—use the flight to sort things out without interruption, off by herself, some time alone in her own private think tank.

  She’d had one additional contact with Langley before leaving. It was with Hank Fox. During their meeting on the Kennedy Center’s terrace, Breslin had verbally given her a special telephone number to call, and suggested she check in each day, saying to whoever answered, “This is Dr. Jayne’s office calling for Mr. Fox.” She did as instructed and Fox came on the line a moment later. All he said was, “Our friend’s gone back to Budapest. You’re all set to go south?”

  “Yes, Saturday.”

  “Good. In the event you get homesick and want to talk to someone, there’s always a large group of friends at Pusser’s Landing. They congregate in the deck bar and restaurant. Feed the big bird in the cage between noon and three. You’ll have all the conversation you need.”

  She’d been on the receiving end of enough double-talk since joining the CIA to understand. Obviously, they kept a bird in a cage at this place called Pusser’s Landing, and if she fed it at the right time, she’d be approached by someone affiliated with the CIA. It was good to know.

  “Call this number when you get back,” Fox said. “I’ll be here.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  “My best to Dr. Jayne.”

  “What? Oh, yes, of course. He sends his regards, too.”

  Silly games, she used to think, until she was in the field and understood the thinking behind such codes. Need-to-know; unless the person receiving the call was certain to answer, there was no need for whoever else picked up the phone to know who was calling. They carried it to extremes at times, especially those who loved intrigue, but it made sense. You had to adopt that attitude, she’d reasoned during her training, or you’d never take anything seriously, and that could get you in trouble.

  Had Barrie Mayer not taken it seriously enough? Cahill wondered. She had been shockingly cavalier at times, and Cahill had called her on it. Had she joked at the wrong time, when the thing she was carrying was no joke? Had she taken too lightly the need to use a code name, or failed to contact someone through circuitous routes rather than directly?

  The possible link between Mayer’s and Hubler’s deaths remained at the top of her list of thoughts. Dave Hubler had been killed in an alley adjacent to a CIA facility in Rosslyn, the one run by Hank Fox. Supposedly, Hubler had gone there to meet with someone who’d indicated he, or she, was willing to sell inside Company information that could be used in a book. That certainly drew Hubler in enough to validate a possible mutual reason for both murders.

  She tried to stretch her mind to accommodate all the possibilities. She was hindered in this exercise by the most pervasive thought of all, the last thirty-six hours with Vern Wheatley.

  She’d returned from the dance recital and decided to force a conversation. They talked until three o’clock the next morning. It was a frustrating discussion for Cahill. While Wheatley had been open to an extent, it was clear that there was more he was holding back than offering.

  Collette had started the discussion with, “I’d like to know, Vern, exactly what this assignment is you’re on for Esquire.”

  He laughed; Rule Number One, he told her, was never to discuss a story in progress. “You dilute it when you do that,” he said. “You talk it out and the fire’s gone when you sit down to write it.”

  She wanted to say, “Rule Number One for anyone working for the CIA is to stay far away from journalists.” She couldn’t say that, of course. As far as he knew, she’d left Central Intelligence for a mundane job with the United States Embassy in Budapest.

  Or did he believe that? If Hank Fox’s insinuations were correct, Wheatley had made contact with her again not to rekindle their romance, but to get close to a potential inside source to feed the story he was working on about a program that had been dropped long ago.

  There it was again, the dilemma. Who knew what about whom? On top of that, could she believe Hank Fox? Maybe Wheatley wasn’t pursuing a story about the CIA. The agency’s paranoia wasn’t any secret. There were people within it who found conspiracies behind every garage door in Georgetown.

  She realized as she sat with Wheatley that night in his brother’s apartment that she’d have to be more direct if anything near the truth were to be ferreted out. She took the chance and said, “Vern, someone told me today that you weren’t in Washington doing a story on social changes here. This person told me you were digging into a story about the CIA.”

  He laughed and shook his empty beer can. “I think I’ll have another. Can I get you something?”

  “No, I … sure, any Scotch in there?”

  “Probably. My brother has been known to take a drink now and then. Neat?”

  “A little water.”

  She used his absence to go to the bedroom, where she undressed and got into one of his brother’s robes. Three of her could have been enfolded in it. She rolled up the sleeves and returned to the living room where her drink was waiting. Wheatley raised his beer can. “Here’s to the basic, underlying distrust between man and woman.”

  Cahill started to raise her glass in a reflex action. She stopped herself and looked at him quizzically.

  “Great scenario, Collette. Some clown tells you I’m down here doing a story on the CIA. You used to work for the CIA so you figure I showed up at your house to get close to a ‘source.’ That’s my only interest in Collette Cahill, hoping she’ll turn into a Deep Throat—hey, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad—and now she confronts me with the naked facts.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “Your friend is right.”

  Wheatley put his beer can down on a table with considerable force, leaned forward, and said with exaggerated severity, “I’ve come into information through a highly reliable source that the Director of the CIA is not only having a wild affair with a female member of the Supreme Court—naturally, I can’t mention her name—but is, at the same time, engaged in a homosexual liaison with a former astronaut who has been diagnosed at a clinic in Peru as having AIDS.”

  “Vern, I really don’t see …”

  “Hold on,” he said, his hand raised as a stopper. “There’s more. The CIA is plotting the overthrow of Lichtenberg, has permanently wired both of Dolly Parton’s breasts, and is about to assassinate Abe Hirschfeld to get control of every parking lot in New York City in case of a nuclear attack. How’s it play for you?”

  She started to laugh.

  “Hey, Collette, nothing funny here.”

  “Where’s Lichtenberg? You meant Liechtenstein.”

  “I meant Lichtenberg. It’s a crater on the moon. The CIA wouldn’t bother with Liechtenstein. It’s the moon they want.”
/>   “Vern, I’m being serious,” she said.

  “Why? You still work for our nation’s spooks?”

  “No, but … it doesn’t matter.”

  “Who told you I’m working on a CIA story?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Oh, that’s democratic as hell. I’m supposed to bare my soul to you, but the lady ‘can’t say.’ Not what I’d expect from you, Collette. Remember the yearbook line I wrote.”

  “I remember,” she said.

  “Good. Anything new about your friend Hubler?”

  “No.”

  “You talk to that Englishman, Hotchkiss?”

  “Yes, I ran into him at Barrie’s agency. He’s taken over. He owns it.”

  “How come?”

  She explained the partnership agreement and told him of her call to Mayer’s attorney.

  “Doesn’t sound kosher to me.”

  “To me, either, but evidently Barrie saw fit to make such a deal.”

  “She was that impetuous?”

  “Somewhat, but not to that extent.”

  He joined her on the couch and put his arm around her. It felt good, the feel of him, the smell of him. She looked up into his eyes and saw compassion and caring. He lightly brushed her lips with his. She wanted to protest but knew she wouldn’t. It was preordained, this moment, in the cards, an inevitability that she welcomed.…

  They slept late the next morning. She awakened with a start. She looked over at Vern, his face calm and serene in sleep, a peaceful smile on his lips. Are you being legit with me? she questioned silently. All thoughts of their discussion the night before had been wiped away by the wave of passion and pleasure they’d created for themselves in bed. Now sunlight came through the windows. The passion was spent, the reality of beginning another day took center stage. It was depressing; she preferred what she’d felt under the covers where, someone once said, “They can’t hurt you.”

  She got up, crossed the room, and sat in a chair for what seemed to be a very long time. It was only minutes, actually, before he woke up, yawned, stretched, and pushed himself to a sitting position against the headboard. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Late.”

  Another yawn, legs swung over the side of the bed. He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head.

  “Vern.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I loved last night but …”

  He slowly turned his head and screwed up his face. “But what, Collette?”

  She sighed. “Nothing. I guess I just hate having to wake up, that’s all. I’ll be away a few days.”

  “Where you going?”

  “The British Virgin Islands.”

  “How come?”

  “Just to get away. I need it.”

  “Sure, I can understand that, but why that place? You know people there?”

  “One or two.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “Ah … probably on a chartered yacht a friend of mine is arranging.”

  “You have rich friends.” He stood, touched his toes, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Cahill realized she was sitting in the chair naked. She picked up her robe from where she’d tossed it on the floor and started a pot of coffee.

  When he returned, he’d turned cold. He’d showered and dressed. He went through papers in a briefcase and started to leave.

  “Don’t you want coffee?” Cahill asked.

  “No, I have to go. Look, I may not see you before you leave.”

  “Won’t you be back tonight?”

  “Probably, only I may end up going out of town overnight. Anyway, have a nice vacation.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  He was gone.

  He didn’t return that night, and it bothered her. What had she done to turn such a warm, loving night into a frosty morning? Because she was going away? He was jealous, imagining that she’d be sleeping with someone else, an old or current boyfriend in the BVI. She wished she could have confided in him about the nature of her trip, but as that thought caused a jolt of sadness and frustration in her, it was tempered by knowing that he probably wasn’t being open with her, either.

  She got up early Saturday morning and packed. At the last minute she looked for a paperback book to take with her. There were piles of them everywhere. She picked up a half dozen from a nighttable next to the bed and scanned the covers. One immediately caught her eye. Its title was Hypnotism, by someone named G. H. Estabrooks. She put it in a shoulder bag she intended to carry on board, called a local cab company, and was on her way to National Airport.

  After the Pan Am flight attendant had served Collette a cup of coffee, she pulled the book from her bag and opened it to a page on which was a brief biographical sketch of the author. Estabrooks had been a Rhodes Scholar, held a 1926 doctorate in educational psychology from Harvard, and was a professor of psychology, specializing in abnormal and industrial psychology at Colgate University. The book she held was first published in 1943, and had been revised in 1957.

  The first few pages dealt with a murder trial in Denmark in which a man had hypnotized another to commit a murder. The chief state witness, Dr. P. J. Reiter, an authority on hypnotism, stated that any man is capable of any act while hypnotized.

  She continued skimming until reaching page sixteen, where Estabrooks discussed the use of hypnotism in modern warfare. She read his thesis carefully.

  Let us take an illustration from warfare, using a technique which has been called the “hypnotic messenger.” For obvious reasons the problem of transmitting messages in wartime, of communication within an army’s own forces, is a first-class headache to the military. They can use codes, but codes can be lost, stolen or, as we say, broken. They can use the dispatch carrier, but woe betide the messages if the enemy locates the messenger. They can send by word of mouth, but the third degree in any one of its many forms can get that message. War is a grim business and humans are human. So we invent a technique which is practically foolproof. We take a good hypnotic subject in, say, Washington, and in hypnotism we give him the message which we wish transferred. This message can be long and complicated, for his memory is excellent. Let us assume the war is still on and that we transfer him to Tokyo on a regular routine assignment, say, with the Army Service Corps.

  Now note a very curious picture. Awake, he knows just one thing as far as his transfer to Tokyo is concerned; he is going on regular business which has nothing whatever to do with the Intelligence Department. But in his unconscious mind there is locked this very important message. Furthermore, we have arranged that there is only one person in all this world outside ourselves who can hypnotize this man and get this message, a Major McDonald in Tokyo. When he arrives in Tokyo, acting on posthypnotic suggestion, he will look up Major McDonald, who will hypnotize him and recover the message.

  With this technique, there is no danger that the subject in an off-guard moment will let drop a statement to his wife or in public that might arouse suspicions. He is an Army Service Corps man going to Tokyo, that is all. There is no danger of getting himself in hot water when drunk. Should the enemy suspect the real purpose of his visit to Tokyo, they would waste their time with third-degree methods. Consciously, he knows nothing that is of any value to them. The message is locked in the unconscious and no amount of drugs, no attempts at hypnotism, can recover it until he sits before Major McDonald in Tokyo. The uses of hypnotism in warfare are extremely varied. We deal with this subject in a later chapter.

  Collette went to the chapter on using hypnotism in warfare but found little to equal what she’d read on page sixteen. She closed the book, and her eyes, and replayed everything having to do with hypnosis and Barrie Mayer. Their college experience. Mayer had been such a willing and good subject.

  Jason Tolker. He obviously had delved deeply into the subject, and had been Mayer’s contact. Had she been hypnotized in her role as a courier? Why bother? Estabrooks’s theory sounded exactly
that—a theory.

  MK-ULTRA and Project Bluebird—those CIA experimental programs of the sixties and early seventies that resulted in public and congressional outrage. Those projects had been abandoned, according to official proclamations from the agency. Had they? Was Mayer simply another experimental subject who’d gone out of control? Or had Estabrooks’s theories, refined by the CIA, been put to practical use in her case?

  For a moment, she lost concentration and her mind wandered. She’d soon need hypnosis to focus on the subject. Her eyes misted as she thought of Vern Wheatley—and then they opened wide. Why did Vern have Estabrooks’s book at his bedside? Hank Fox had said that Wheatley was digging into the supposedly defunct ULTRA and Bluebird projects. Maybe Fox was right. Maybe Wheatley was using her as a conduit for information.

  “Damn,” she said to the back of the seat in front of her. She took a walk up and down the aisles of the aircraft, looking into the faces of other passengers, women and children, old and young, infants sleeping on mothers’ laps, young lovers wrapped around each other, businessmen toiling over spread sheets and lap-top computers, the whole spectrum of airborne humanity.

  She returned to her seat, loosely buckled her seat belt and, for the first time since she’d joined the CIA, considered resigning. The hell with them and their cops-and-robbers games, hiding behind vague claims that the fate of the free world depended upon their clandestine behavior. Destroy the village to save it, she thought. The Company’s budgets were beyond scrutiny by any other branch of government because it was in “the national interest” to keep them secret. President Truman had been right when he’d eventually railed against the animal he’d created. It was an animal, free of all restraints, roaming loose in the world with men whose pockets were filled with secret money. Buy off someone here, overthrow someone there, turn decent people against their own countries, reduce everything to code words and collars turned up in the night. “Damn,” she repeated. Send her off to dig into the lives of other people while, undoubtedly, people were delving into her life. Trust no one. A Communist threat exists under every pebble on the shore.