Murder in the CIA

by Margaret Truman

  “I already have,” she said, pulling her hand away.

  “Look, Collette, I’m sorry if I shot off my mouth. I didn’t mean to, but sometimes I do that. The nature of the beast, I guess. If spies are out in the cold, journalists need friends, too.” He laughed. “I figure I have one friend in this world. You.”

  She slumped back in her chair, stared at the envelope, and suffered the same sensation she’d been feeling so often lately, that she had become increasingly dishonest. She was perfectly capable of taking a stand at the table, yet, more than anything, she wanted that envelope and its contents. She was desperate to read it. Maybe it contained factual answers to events that had shrouded her in confusion.

  She deliberately softened as she said, “Vern, maybe you’re right. I’m sorry, too. I just … I don’t want, alone, the responsibility for that envelope.”

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll share the responsibility. Stay with me tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ve taken a room in a small hotel over in Foggy Bottom, around the corner from Watergate. The Allen Lee. Know it?”

  “Yes, friends who used to visit me at college stayed there.”

  “I figured it was low class enough that they wouldn’t look for me there, although that’s probably naive. I used a phony name when I checked in. Joe Black. How’s that for a pseudonym?”

  “Not very original,” she said, realizing that she shouldn’t have checked into the Watergate under her own name. Too late to worry about that now. “Vern, I think it’s better if I left now and we both did some thinking on our own.” He started to protest but she grabbed his hand and said earnestly, “Please. I need time alone to digest what you’ve said. I can use it to read your article and book. Okay? We’ll catch up tomorrow. I promise.”

  Dejection was written all over his face but he didn’t argue.

  He slid the envelope back toward her. She looked at it, picked it up, and cradled it in her arms. “I’ll call you at the Allen Lee, say around four tomorrow afternoon?”

  “I guess that’s the way it will be. I can’t call you. I don’t know where you’re staying.”

  “And that’s the way it will have to be until tomorrow.”

  He forced himself to lighten up, saying pleasantly, “Sure you don’t want some food? It’s good.”

  “So my cab driver said. He told me this was ‘goud Grick.’ ” She smiled. “I’m not a fan of Greek food, but thanks anyway.” When his expression sagged again, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, said into his ear, “Please, Vern. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do and I’ll do it best alone.” She straightened up, knew there was nothing more to say, and quickly left the restaurant.

  A taxi was dropping off a couple. Cahill got in.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to go to …” She’d almost told him to take her to Dr. Jason Tolker’s office in Foggy Bottom.

  How silly. Like giving the name of an obscure restaurant and expecting the driver to know it.

  She spelled out Tolker’s address.

  30

  Lights were on in Tolker’s building. Good, she thought, as she paid the driver. She hadn’t wanted to call ahead. If he weren’t there, she’d go to his house. She’d find him someplace.

  She rang the bell. His voice came through the intercom. “Who is it?”

  “Collette. Collette Cahill.”

  “Oh. Yes. I’m tied up right now. Can you come back?” She didn’t answer. “Is it an emergency?” She smiled, knew he was asking it for the benefit of whoever was with him. She pressed the “Talk” button: “Yes, it is an emergency, Doctor.”

  “I see. Well, please come in and wait in my reception area, Miss Cahill. It will be a few minutes before I can see you.”

  “That will be fine, Doctor. Thank you.”

  The buzzer sounded. She turned the knob and pushed the door partially open. Before entering, she patted her raincoat pocket. The now familiar shape of the small revolver resisted her fingers’ pressure. A deep breath pumped any lost resolve back into her.

  She stepped into the reception area and looked around. Two table lamps provided minimal, soft lighting. A light under his office door, and muffled voices, indicated at least two people in there. She stepped close and listened. She heard his voice, and then a woman. Their words were only occasionally audible: “… Can’t help that … Hate you … Calm down or …”

  Collette chose a chair that allowed her to face the office door. She’d started to pull the revolver from her raincoat pocket when the office door suddenly opened. She released the weapon and it slid back to its resting place. A beautiful and surprisingly tall young Oriental girl, dressed in tight jeans, heels, and wearing a mink jacket, came into the reception area, followed by Tolker. The woman strained to see Collette’s face in the room’s dimness. “Good night,” Tolker said. The girl looked at him; there was hatred on her face. She crossed the room, cast a final, disapproving look at Collette, and left. Moments later the front door closed heavily.

  “Hello,” Tolker said to Collette.

  “Hello. A patient?”

  “Yes. You thought otherwise?”

  “I thought nothing. It’s nice of you to see me on such short notice.”

  “I try to accommodate. What’s the emergency?”

  “Severe panic attack, free-floating anxiety, paranoia, an obsessive-compulsive need for answers.”

  “Answers to what?”

  “Oh, to … to why a friend of mine is dead.”

  “I can’t help you with that.”

  “I disagree.”

  He conspicuously looked at his watch.

  “This won’t take long.”

  “I can assure you of that. Ask your questions.”

  “Let’s go inside.”

  “This is …” He stopped when he saw her hand come out of her raincoat holding the revolver. “What’s that for?”

  “A persuasive tool. I have a feeling you might need persuasion.”

  “Put it away, Collette. James Bond never impressed me.”

  “I think I can … impress you.”

  He blew through his lips and sighed resignedly. “All right, come in, without the gun.”

  She followed him into his office, the revolver still in her hand. When he turned and saw it, he said sharply, “Put the goddamn thing away.”

  “Sit down, Dr. Tolker.”

  He made a move toward her. She raised the weapon and pointed it at his chest. “I said sit down.”

  “You’ve gone off the deep end, haven’t you? You’re crazy.”

  “That’s professional.”

  “Look, I …” She nodded toward his leather chair. He sat on it. She took the matching chair, crossed her legs, and observed him. He certainly hadn’t overreacted, but she could discern discomfort, which pleased her.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out. Tell me all about Barrie, about how she came to you as a patient, how you hypnotized her, controlled her, got her involved in the CIA and then … I’ll say it … and then killed her.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “There’s that professional diagnosis again. Start!” She raised the revolver for emphasis.

  “You know everything, because I told you everything. Barrie was a patient. I treated her. We had an affair. I suggested she do some courier work for the CIA. She gladly and, I might add, enthusiastically agreed. She carried materials to Budapest, things she got from me, things I didn’t know. I mean, I would hand her a briefcase, a locked briefcase, and off she’d go. Someone killed her. I don’t know who. It wasn’t me. Believe that.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because …”

  “When Barrie made her last trip to Hungary, whatever it was she carried wasn’t in a briefcase. It was in her mind, because you implanted it there.”

  “Wait a minute, that’s …”

  “That’s the truth, Dr. Tolker. I’m not the only one who
knows it. It’s common knowledge. At least it is now.”

  “What of it? The program calls for it.”

  “What was the message?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “I think you’d better.”

  He stood. “And I think you’d better get out of here.”

  Collette held up the envelope she’d been given by Vern. “Know what’s in this?”

  He tried for levity. “Your memoirs of a clandestine life.”

  She didn’t respond in kind. “A friend of mine has been researching the projects you’re involved with. He’s done quite a job. Want an example?”

  “You’re talking about Vern Wheatley?”

  “Right.”

  “He’s in deep water.”

  “He’s a strong swimmer.”

  “Not with these tides. Go ahead. I know all about him, and about you. Bad form, Collette, for an intelligence agent to sleep with a writer.”

  “I’ll let that pass. Vern knows, and so do I, that you programmed Barrie to claim that Eric Edwards, from the BVI, was a double agent. Correct?”

  To her surprise, he didn’t deny it. Instead, he said, “That happens to be the truth.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re the double agent, Doctor.”

  The accusation, and the weight of the envelope despite neither of them knowing what was in it, stopped the conversation. Tolker broke the silence by asking pleasantly, “Drink, Collette?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “No.”

  “Coke? The white kind?”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Just trying to be sociable. Barrie always enjoyed my sociability.”

  “Spare me that again.”

  “Like to spend some intimate moments with our deceased friend?”

  “What?”

  “I have her on tape. I’m reluctant to expose myself to you because, naturally, I’m on the tape, too. But I will.”

  “No thanks.” Collette didn’t mean it. Her voice betrayed her true feelings.

  He did exactly the right thing. He said nothing, simply sat back down, crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and smirked.

  “What kind of tape? While she was hypnotized?”

  “No, nothing concerning therapy. That would be highly unprofessional of me. The tape I’m talking about is more personal.”

  “When she was … with you?”

  “When she was very much with me, right here in this office, after hours.”

  “You recorded it?”

  “Yes. I’m recording us, too.”

  Cahill’s head snapped left and right as she took in the room in search of a camera.

  “Up there,” Tolker said casually, pointing to a painting at the far end of the room.

  “Did Barrie know?”

  “Shall we see it?”

  “No, I …”

  He went to bookshelves where hundreds of videotapes were neatly lined up and labeled. He pulled one from the collection, knelt before a VCR hooked up to a 30-inch NEC monitor, inserted the tape, pushed buttons, and the screen came alive.

  Collette turned her head and watched the screen from an angle, like a child wanting to avoid a gruesome scene in a horror movie, yet afraid to miss it. Tolker resumed his seat and said smugly, “You came here demanding answers. Watch closely, Collette. There’s lots of answers on the screen.”

  Cahill looked away, her eyes going to where Tolker indicated there was a camera recording them. Out of the corner of her eye, a naked form appeared on the TV monitor. She focused on the screen. It was Barrie, walking around Tolker’s office, a glass in her hand. She went to where he sat fully dressed in his chair. “Come on, I’m ready.” Her words were slurred; her laugh was that of a drunken woman. When he didn’t respond, she sat on his lap and kissed him. His hands ran over her body.…

  “You slime,” Collette said.

  “Don’t judge me,” Tolker said. “She’s there, too. Keep watching. There’s more.”

  A new scene appeared on the screen. Barrie was seated cross-legged on the carpet, still nude. A man’s naked form—presumably Tolker—was in shadows. He obviously knew where to position himself so that he was out of the camera’s direct focus, and out of the lighting.

  Barrie held a clear plate on which cocaine was heaped. She put a straw to her nose, leaned forward, placed the other end in the powder, and inhaled.

  Cahill stood. “Turn that damn thing off,” she said.

  “It’s not over. It gets even better.”

  She went to the VCR and pushed the “Stop” button. The screen went blank. She was aware that he’d come up behind her. She quickly fell to her knees, spun around, and pointed the revolver up at his face.

  “Easy, easy,” he said. “I’m not out to hurt you.”

  “Get away. Back up.”

  He did as she requested. She stood, was without words.

  “See?” he said. “Your friend was not the saint you thought she was.”

  “I never considered her a saint,” Collette said. “Besides, this has nothing to do with how she died.”

  “Oh, yes, it does,” Tolker said. He sat in his chair and tasted his drink. “You’re right, Collette, this is kid’s stuff. Ready for the adult version?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Barrie was a traitor. She sold out to Eric Edwards, and to the Soviets.” He sighed and drank. “Oh, God, she was so innocent in that situation. She didn’t know a Soviet from a Buddhist monk. A great literary agent, a lousy intelligence agent. I should have known better than to get her involved. But that’s water over the dam.”

  “She wasn’t a traitor,” Collette said, again without conviction. The truth was that she knew little about her close friend. The video she’d seen—so unlike the image she had of Barrie—caused anger to swell in her. “How dare you record someone in their …”

  Tolker laughed. “In their what, most intimate moments? Forget the tape, think about what I just told you. She was going to turn Edwards in, and that’s what got her killed. I tried to stop her but …”

  “No you didn’t. You were the one who poisoned her against Eric.”

  “Wrong. You’re wrong a lot, Collette. Sure, she told me that Edwards was working both sides of the street, and I encouraged her to blow the whistle on him. Want to know why?” Cahill didn’t answer. “Because it was the only way she had a chance to get herself off the hook. They knew about her.”

  “Who?”

  “The British. Why do you think that buffoon, Hotchkiss, came into the picture?”

  Cahill was surprised. “What do you know about him? Why …?”

  “You came here for answers,” Tolker said, standing. “I’ll give them to you, if you give me the gun, sit down, and shut up!” He extended his hand; his expression said he’d lost patience.

  For a moment, Collette considered handing the revolver to him. She started to, but when he went to grab it from her hand, she yanked it away. Now his expression indicated he’d progressed beyond impatience. He was angry. He would do whatever he had to do. He would hurt her.

  Collette glared at him; there was an overwhelming desire to use the small plastic revolver—to kill him. It had nothing to do with having determined his responsibility for Barrie’s death, nor was it bound up in some rational thought process involving her job or mission. Rather, it represented what had become an obsession to take action, to push a button, place a phone call, pull a trigger to put an end to the turmoil in her life.

  Then again, it occurred to her, there was a certain order to what was being played out, a Ramistic logic that said, “Enjoy the pragmatic role you’re in, Collette. You’re a CIA agent. You have the authority to kill, to right wrongs. Nothing will happen to you. You’re expected to act with authority because it is your country that is at stake. You’re a member of law enforcement. The gun has been given to you to use, to enforce a political philosophy of freedom and opportunity in order to keep evil forces from destroying a precio
us way of life.”

  The thoughts cleared her mind and calmed her down. “You underestimate me,” she said.

  “Get out.”

  “When I’m ready. Hotchkiss. What role did he play?”

  “He …”

  “Why are you knowledgeable about him?”

  “I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “You said the British knew about Barrie being a … traitor. That’s why Hotchkiss is here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You convinced Barrie to become his partner?”

  “It was best for her. It was the understanding.”

  “Understanding?”

  “The deal. It saved her. Our people agreed with it.”

  “Because they believed you, that she and Eric Edwards were traitors.”

  “No, Collette, because they knew they were. They gave Barrie’s mother money not to pursue any interest in the agency. Barrie’s will left operating control to Hubler, but her mother was to receive Barrie’s share of profits. The old bitch was happy for cash.”

  “How much?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Any amount was too much. She created the person Barrie became, a muddled, psychotic, pathetic human being who spent her adult life hiding from reality. It’s not unusual. People with Barrie’s high capacity for hypnotic trance usually come out of abused childhoods.”

  A smirk crossed Collette’s face. “Do you know what I want to do, Dr. Tolker?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I either want to spit on you, or kill you.”

  “Why?”

  “You never tried to help Barrie get over her abused childhood, did you? All you were interested in was exploiting it, and her. You’re despicable.”

  “You’re irrational. Maybe it’s a female thing. The agency ought to reconsider hiring women. You make a good case against the policy.”

  Collette didn’t respond. She wanted to lash out. At the same time, she couldn’t mount an argument against what he’d said. Somehow, defending equality between the sexes didn’t seem important.

  His voice and face had been cold and matter-of-fact up until now. He softened, smiled. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s start over, right now, this night. No silly guns, no nasty remarks. Let’s have a drink, dinner. Good wine and soothing music will take care of all our differences. We are on the same side, you know. I believe in you and what you stand for. I like you, Collette. You’re a beautiful, bright, talented, and decent woman. Please, forget why you came in here tonight. I’m sure you have other questions that I can answer, but not in this atmosphere of rancor and distrust. Let’s be friends and discuss these matters as friends, the way you used to discuss things with Barrie.” His smile broadened. “You are incredibly beautiful, especially when that anger forces its way to the surface and gives your face a …”