Memorial Bridge

by James Carroll

  "Your provost marshal?" If Dillon was cold before, he was ice now. "And did your provost marshal solve the case?"

  "No."

  "And General, now that you need it as corroboration, do you suppose your provost marshal kept a complete record of the theft report, as the OSI surely would have, with a listing of the items inside the purse, including the crucial savings book?"

  "He probably didn't."

  Dillon could only nod mutely in frustration.

  Crocker said, "Do what you can, Sean."

  Nevin added, "Whatever you come up with, there won't be time to prep anyone else. You should come ready to testify."

  "My advice to you, Mr. Nevin, is to assume General Macauley is going to have to explain himself. You'll need affidavits from his wife, both about the source of those four deposits in her account and about the theft."

  "My wife! I won't allow—"

  "General, if you had had the local OSI detachment handle the theft, we would not need the one affidavit, and the other is your only chance to head off a criminal indictment for bribery. You're lucky not to be in a court of law, where your wife's testimony would be inadmissible."

  "My wife is in Omaha," Macauley said miserably.

  "You're the air force, aren't you? You can have a plane out there and back by morning."

  "Sean," Crocker said quietly, "we're all the air force here. The future of the air force is at stake in this."

  "I understand that. But you will forgive me if I tell you that the fate of the air force is of secondary importance to me. My oath, even as a general officer, is to uphold the United States. I don't have a position on the B-36. My position is on how this government conducts itself." He faced Macauley. "And, General, I have no interest in seeing you exonerated if you do not deserve to be. But this"—he held up the page—"is no way for the United States Congress to be making its decisions. If this is bullshit, I'll do my best to expose it as such."

  Dillon sensed how the other men had ceded everything to him. He turned back to the desk and began to collect the other pages. "I'll need these overnight."

  Nevin said, "You can't take the originals. I'll give you the photostats I had made."

  "I need the originals."

  Neither Dillon nor Nevin moved.

  Randall Crocker said, "I think this is where I came in, Sean." He smiled, thinking of the similar standoff that occurred five years before, between Dillon and Crocker's insufferable old friend Cheever. "Drop it, Lloyd," Crocker said simply.

  Dillon then reached farther across Crocker's desk to pick up an odd page of an unrelated report. He held it up to the light, then did the same thing with a page of the accusing document.

  "Congressman Newfield said this came from a private citizen in California?"

  "That's right."

  Dillon lowered the pages. "Then why do you suppose it has a 'GSA–District One' watermark, like every other piece of typing paper in this building?"

  Dillon replaced the odd page on Crocker's desk, nodded at the secretary and crossed to the door. Only there did he stop, turn, draw himself up and salute.

  Fifteen

  "General Dillon's residence, hello?"

  "Cass?"

  "Sean?Is that you?"

  "I'm sorry I haven't gotten to you before this. I know it's late. Did you let Jones go yet?"

  "Of course I did, hours ago. I thought I'd fry you a cube steak or—"

  "That's not what I meant, Cass."

  "What time will you—?"

  "I won't be coming home at all tonight."

  "What?"

  "It's impossible to explain."

  "I wasn't asking you to explain."

  Silence.

  Then, "Cass, I need your help."

  "What do you mean?" "Don't ask me to explain."

  "I won't."

  "I need you to bring the car, our car, the Studebaker, to the Pentagon, to the farthest section of the south lot, the side facing Shirley Highway." "How can I—"

  "First, drive to an all-night taxi stand. There's one at the Willard. Tell a taxi to follow you. Then, when you get to the Pentagon, leave the car there. Leave the keys under the seat, and take the taxi back. Tell the driver your husband works the night shift, a maintenance supervisor. Then take the taxi to the Willard. Wait for it to disappear. Then take another cab back to Boiling. The whole thing won't take forty-five minutes."

  "You mean leave Richard?"

  "He's asleep, isn't he? He never wakes up."

  "I couldn't leave Richard alone. How can you ask me to do that?"

  Silence.

  "What about Sergeant Hewitt, Sean?"

  "I sent Hewitt home. I can't involve my people in what I'm doing, and I need the car."

  "What will you be doing with the car?"

  "I'll be going downtown."

  "To the Bureau?"

  Silence.

  "Why don't you use a Bureau car?"

  "Cass, I called you because there are problems with every other way of doing this."

  Silence.

  "What if I bundle Richard into the backseat. He'll stay asleep, you know him. I could drive you."

  "That's ridiculous, Cass. If I'm not going to involve the orderlies, I'm sure as hell not going to involve our child. Never mind. I'll arrange—"

  "Wait, I can do it, Sean."

  "How?"

  "A woman I know from church. She lives on base. I could ask her to come over."

  "She would? In the middle of the night?"

  "It's only nine o'clock. I'd call her now. She doesn't have children of her own."

  "You'd have to lie to her, say there's an illness or something."

  "Don't worry."

  "But she lives on base? Her husband's air force? I can't allow that. What I'm doing could backfire. The woman's husband—"

  "He won't know anything. No one will. This will be between two women who meet at church."

  "But she'll have to tell her husband something."

  "She helps out at the base infirmary as a volunteer. She can tell him she's going there."

  "Will she lie to—"

  "It's been known to happen, big fellow. Let this end be my problem."

  Silence.

  Then, "All right."

  "But, Sean."

  "What?"

  "I'm not taking a taxi home, not right away. I'm going to drive you."

  "No, Cass."

  "You have to let me."

  Silence, and silence.

  Then, "Wait for me at the far end of the south parking lot, on the edge near the ramp off the highway. No one will notice you. Sit there with your lights out. I'll show up between midnight and one."

  "I'll be there. And Sean?"

  "Yes?"

  "Whatever it is, be careful."

  "Thanks, Cass. I will. Oh, and bring my raincoat. My civilian one."

  Half an hour before midnight Dillon left his office. He was dressed in his blue uniform with the star on each shoulder. He carried a leather satchel. Instead of going to his right to follow E-Ring around to the massive center well of ramps that would take him down to the river entrance, he went left and circled away from the offices of the Air Staff. He greeted cleaners who were just finishing up, as well as the patrolling night guard, who knew him from his coundess late nights. If either noticed that Dillon was going the wrong way, he gave no sign of it.

  A few minutes later he was still in E-Ring, but on the second floor instead of the fourth. Here the walls of the corridor were a pale blue instead of green, and the paintings hung at intervals depicted ships instead of airplanes. No one would know him here, especially now. No longer dressed as an air force general, he was a white-smocked member of the night cleaning crew. Under his smock he wore the matching forest-green pants and shirt that were the maintenance workers' uniform. He was pushing a canvas-sided trash dolly. A broom handle stuck up from the cart, and a pair of washerwoman's rubber gloves was hooked on the side.

  He cruised along the corridor, wh
istling faintly through his teeth, the wheels clacking, until he had located each of the three suites he needed. Then he returned to the first door, the fancy double one over which the gold-leaf sign read, "The Secretary of the Navy."

  Dillon stood very still, listening. Not a sound came from inside, not a sound from either direction in the corridor. He took from his pocket a palm-sized, hinged set of lockpicks. He hadn't used it since the time during the war he'd covered Embassy Row, but he had also never disposed of it. The lockpicks, more than his gun would have been, or even his badge, were a relic of his time in the Bureau, though he had never expected to use them again. Certainly not on E-Ring.

  Stooping, he eyed the door lock, then applied the slimmest of the tiny hooked steel rods. He pushed the pick, pulled it, then removed it altogether and selected another. He tested that one, then began to nudge it past each tumbler in turn until they were aligned. The slightest tug and click! The lock opened. He pocketed the tool, put on the rubber gloves before touching the knob, opened the door and went in. He pulled the trash cart in behind him.

  Once he closed the door, the room was pitch dark. He had to stand frozen for a long moment while his eyes adjusted. He used the time to listen.

  Nothing.

  He reached into the trash cart, pushed aside a layer of rags and crumpled paper to take out a flashlight and a large manila envelope containing sheets of plain, government-issue typing paper. He swept the room with the beam of the light. He saw a spacious reception area, heavy furniture, chairs, couches, four desks separated by low, dark wood railings. At each desk was an adjoining typewriter table, each typewriter with its cover.

  He began with the one immediately to his left. At the typewriter he took the flashlight in his teeth, like a football fan holds a hot dog. It filled his mouth, and the taste of the metal casing revolted him, but he was able to aim the cone of light as he uncovered the typewriter and rolled a piece of fresh paper into it. "Underwood," he read, and so he typed that word onto the blank page. Then he punched out every letter of the alphabet, in both cases, a clumsy procedure because of his gloves. He then identified the page, "SON, Recept, left #1." He whipped the sheet out of the machine and covered the typewriter, to leave it as before.

  Dillon repeated this at the three other machines in that room—Underwoods all—each with its own sheet of paper, each with its own ID. One desk displayed a nameplate, "CPO Allen Dietrich," and he noted that too. Then he moved through the five other rooms of the office suite, using his lockpick twice. He took samples from every typewriter, eleven in all.

  From the secretary's offices he went to the undersecretary's—seven typewriters—and then to the chief of naval operations'—twelve. Only once was he afraid, and his first impulse then was to reach for the gun that he no longer carried on his hip. In the middle of striking the keys of a typing-pool machine, he heard the footsteps of the night security guard. The sound was like the radio as the guard passed in the corridor outside. He did not alter his pace and was gone quickly, but Dillon forced himself to remain absolutely still for the full count of five minutes.

  Otherwise nothing else went near wrong. No one else came even that close to noticing him.

  It was ten before one when he came out of the Pentagon, in uniform again, carrying his leather satchel.

  He stood on the top step of the river entrance, looking across at Washington. The monument was no longer illuminated—the powerful spotlights which had been developed in the war as antiaircraft beams went out at midnight—but under the clear light of a glowing moon he could see the giant obelisk and the low outline of the other buildings. The hum of a car passing drew his eyes down to the shadows of the nearby river boulevard. He heard the car shift gears as it took the low hill of the bridge over the lagoon channel, but he never saw it.

  Sean Dillon wanted that moment to last. He felt no urge to hurry away from the scene of his violation. He was standing at the very heart of what seemed a new nation to him, taking in the silhouette of its capital, but no longer, as he had for years, from outside it. He had come to this city a decade before, when this same nation had seemed bereft. He himself had been full of yearning, but without knowing for what. Now he knew. Yearning for this, a role that mattered, a way to move this world, to affect it, to make it know that he had come here.

  Cass was sitting in the Studebaker on the passenger's side. He opened the driver's door and got in, saying nothing. He put the satchel between them, on top of the tan raincoat she had brought. Dillon started the car, snapped on the lights and put it into gear. He drove out of the lot toward the Shirley Highway access road, but at the point where it forked short of the highway, Dillon surprised himself by turning into the dark, abandoned lot of the Hot Shoppe, the small drive-in restaurant long since closed for the night. It was exactly the turn Dillon had taken once years before at the direction of Walter Dunlop, his FBI boss at the time. They'd been coming from Dillon's first meeting with Crocker, the event from which his entire life since had taken its shape. Dunlop had ordered him to stop there so that he could call and find out if Cass was still alive.

  Sean stopped the car abruptly and pulled on the brake.

  For a moment he stared out through the windshield at the illuminated wedge of blacktop, feeling as if he had just awakened from a dream. He turned toward Cass.

  Her eyes welcomed him.

  Pushing the satchel and raincoat off the seat, he reached across to her. As if she had somehow anticipated his all but unprecedented impulse, as if she knew the moment of his brimming had come at last and he could not stop himself spilling toward her, she went into his arms. They kissed.

  Not even he had known that this was why he'd called her. Not the car, this. They were standing together against Canaryville all over again.

  If they had been different people, or the same people in a different time, if the act were not loaded with a fearful, mortal consequence, they would have come out of their clothes right there in the car, but not even sexual intercourse would have been more an act of love than their prolonged, heated and, to them, already dangerous embrace. When finally they pulled away from each other, there was no question of speaking.

  Dillon's hand shook as he adjusted the gearshift.

  Cass kept her hand from trembling by pressing it on his thigh. She sat close to him, like a high school girl, as they drove into Washington.

  Instead of going up Fourteenth Street, past the hulking Bureau of Engraving, Sean turned off on Maine Avenue.

  "Why are you going this way?"

  "I'm taking you to Boiling."

  "But I was going to—"

  "Darling," he said quietly, "darling." He fell still, then continued, "You were going to help me." He looked at her. "Wasn't that it?"

  She saw in his eyes, in their absolute black center, the first sign that she had ever seen that his desire, his insatiable, mysterious, frightening desire, had been fulfilled.

  "You were going to help me tonight, with this thing I have to do. Wasn't that what we both wanted?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, you have. You already have," he said so simply.

  At 10:07 A.M. on November 17, 1948, in Room 340 of the Old House Office Building, Chairman Carl Vinson banged his gavel. The dust flew off the inclined mahogany surface in front of him, rising in the morning light that streamed through the palatial windows to his left. With that, the executive session of the full House Armed Services Committee came to order.

  The hearing room was a spacious chamber decorated in florid style, with curved plaster molding on the ceiling and pierced shellwork lining the wall behind the dais. The dais itself, from the center of which Vinson presided, was like a mammoth altar, but with a pair of curved wings behind which sat the other committee members. The wings extended toward the rest of the room, as if to engulf it. Above the dais hung a brightly illuminated three-tiered chandelier, and at intervals around the dark paneled walls, matching crystal sconces glowed in the subdued light of the curtains drawn against the
room's four large windows.

  The witness table in front of and below the dais stretched across the room from one side aisle to the other, and seated there now were General Macauley, Lloyd Nevin to his right and a mustachioed, portly air force colonel to his left. Somewhat apart from those three, but still at the long table, another pair of civilians huddled; and at the opposite end, also apart from Macauley, were General Dillon and another civilian. Dillon, like Macauley, was wearing a crisp, fresh uniform with a stiff shirt and a perfectly knotted blue tie. His left breast pocket, compared to Macauley's riot of ribbons, had never seemed more the stretch of blank blue serge. Back of Dillon's chair was an easel holding yard-square display boards.

  Behind the witnesses, because the session was closed, nearly all of the spectators' chairs were vacant. One pair of seats was taken, however, by General Eason and his exec, and another pair, at some distance toward the rear, by Randall Crocker, accompanied by Secretary For restal's deputy. A lone navy captain sat in the last row, a notepad balanced on his knee. Near the firmly closed door sat the sergeant at arms.

  This was an unusual session for any House committee, simply by virtue of every member's being present. Not a chair at the huge dais was vacant. The congressmen leaned forward on their elbows, Vinson of Georgia and Newfield of California, but also Allen of Pennsylvania, Thompson of New York, O'Connor of Massachusetts and a dozen others. Behind them, on the raised platform, were another dozen stenographers and aides, but none was moving. Vinson had had to strike the gavel only that once.

  "General Macauley, you remain sworn. Do you understand, sir?"

  "Yes, Mr. Chairman."

  "Good morning then, sir."

  Macauley nodded. Dillon, glancing sideways, sensed how the bomber general's fingers itched for a cigar.

  "We await your statement, sir."

  Lloyd Nevin leaned to the microphone. "Mr. Chairman, if it so please, before General Macauley responds to the document introduced into the record yesterday by the honorable congressman from California, the general would like once more to hear the honorable congressman's statement as to the document's origin and authorship."