Back Channel: A novel

by Stephen L Carter

  “Then how—I mean, in Varna—they beat her up.”

  “There were eight or ten of them, according to what I heard. And if I know Agatha, she might have killed one or two before they got her down.” He saw her face. “She’s fine, Margo. You don’t need to send a get-well card. She’s like Ziegler—a traveling salesman. Saleswoman.” She heard the stony disapproval in his voice, and understood that he would rather work for a Central Intelligence Agency that didn’t employ such people. “I’m sure she’s off on some other assignment by now.”

  “Well, I guess now I know,” said Margo, unaware that she had spoken aloud until he answered.

  “Know what?”

  “Why the people we met—people who do what you do—why they all seemed to be afraid of her.”

  “She’s said to have a temper,” he conceded. “At the camp, a couple of the boys who bothered her—well, from what I understand, they were in no shape to graduate when she was through. She’s made a lot of enemies, I’ll put it that way.” Back to the closet. This time he took down a metal box with a combination lock. He pulled out a small gun. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

  “No.”

  He showed her. “This is the Beretta 1951. Safety on. Safety off. Work the slide like so. Eight rounds in the magazine. Just point and shoot. Don’t worry about aiming. Point at your target and pull the trigger.” He handed it to her. “Light and portable, but plenty of stopping power. Just in case.”

  Margo’s lips quivered. She couldn’t quite manage a third thank-you, and Ainsley’s story about Agatha had rocked her, even though it was no worse than what she had suspected.

  “Lock the door,” he said, backing out of the room. “And keep it locked until you hear my voice telling you to open it.”

  “Wait.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “ ‘Jerry.’ What’s it short for?”

  That lovely smile again as his eyes softened. “Alas, my parents saddled me with ‘Jericho.’ Walls and all.”

  He was gone.

  But he was right. From the moment her head hit the pillow, Margo slept soundly. So soundly that she never heard him creep from the apartment; or return.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Reasonable Efforts

  I

  On Sunday morning, the Grozny stopped short of the quarantine line. Earlier, it had slowed, which was why it had reached the blockade two days later than expected. Today the ship had throttled back its engines. The President was in the residence, about to head out to 10 a.m. mass at St. Matthew the Apostle, when Bundy called upstairs with the news. “Are they sure?” Kennedy asked.

  “Yes, Mr. President. He’s dead in the water.”

  “And it’s definitely the Grozny? It’s not—I don’t know—a duplicate?”

  “Sir, Navy jets have been shadowing the ship for two days. The missile components are still carried openly on the deck. It’s definitely the Grozny.”

  “So Khrushchev’s ready to listen to reason after all.”

  Relief was patent in Kennedy’s voice, and his national security adviser wished he didn’t have to say the rest.

  “I’m afraid there’s more, Mr. President. I was just on with the DDI. He says the Soviets are actually accelerating work on the missile launchers.”

  “The SAMs?”

  “No, sir. The ballistic launchers. They’re speeding things up.”

  A long silence. “Are we sure?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “So, on the one hand, Khrushchev says he wants peace and he stops the Grozny, and on the other hand, he’s getting the launchers ready for war?”

  “Mr. President, you ordered GREENHILL to ask for a gesture of good faith to hold off retaliation for the U-2 shoot-down. Stopping the Grozny might be that gesture. As for speeding up work, well, there’s no deal in place yet. Wouldn’t we do the same in his position?”

  “Well, that’s very even-handed of you, Mac, but I’d have preferred if Khrushchev abandoned all work on the missiles. That would be a real gesture of good faith. Whereas stopping one ship while he speeds up the work is kind of …” He trailed off. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think. LeMay and that crowd will see it as a trick.”

  “Quite possibly, sir.”

  “Will they be right?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have enough information. Not until Fomin gets back to GREENHILL.”

  “Right. And the deadline is in—let’s see—twenty-eight hours. We attack Cuba tomorrow at two o’clock.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  Another pause. Then, more decisively: “Get the ExComm in early. I’ll be back from mass around eleven. Let’s start then.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Oh, and, Mac?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get in touch with GREENHILL. I want to know when she’s seeing Fomin.”

  No point in not saying the rest. “Mr. President, we may have a bit of a problem there. We’ve already called her apartment twice—Janet does the calling, using code words and so forth—and, well, her roommate seems to be trying to cover for her, but Janet thinks GREENHILL never came home last night.”

  II

  Margo was still in bed. Ashamed of herself, frightened, exhilarated, confident. Despite her misgivings, she had fallen asleep the instant her head hit the pillow, and when she opened her eyes it was quarter past nine. Two mornings in a row now, sleeping late. Not like her at all. Margo had been taught from childhood to be early to bed and early to rise.

  And not to wake up in a strange man’s bed—or any man’s bed, for that matter, until the man was her husband.

  That the man in question had slept in the other room only made the whole episode that much odder.

  A bulbous stain marred the plastered ceiling, and Margo allowed her eyes to follow it. She smiled wistfully, wondering whether she and Tom were still a couple; and wondering other things besides. She yawned. She could see the other interns at the office, snickering together as they tried to figure out exactly who Margo’s secret man might be. She imagined their reactions if they could see her now, in her borrowed nightshirt, hair nearly beyond repair. She rolled onto her side to look out the window, and spotted, on the bedside table, the pistol Ainsley had given her last night.

  The humor went out of her face.

  Everything came back to her then: not only the missiles, but Ziegler, and Patsy, and poor dead Erroll Haar, and—

  A light rapping on the door.

  Margo hopped from the bed. The nightshirt was really too short. She pulled on the robe, tiptoed across the plank floor, laid her cheek against the wood.

  “Yes?”

  “I have to go out briefly,” said Ainsley from the next room. She wondered how he’d known she was awake. “There’s eggs and toast for you on the table, and a bag on the sofa with a few other items you might need.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To check on a couple of things. Don’t go out. Don’t open the door for anybody. And keep the gun nearby.”

  A moment later, she heard his footsteps crossing the room, and she had an instinct that he was intentionally treading loud enough for her to detect him. He gave the impression that if he wanted to, he could walk across broken glass without making a sound.

  She waited, then opened the door. Slowly.

  Jericho Ainsley was gone.

  Margo sat at the table with the gun beside her plate, wondering whether Donald Jensen ever used to eat this way. She decided arbitrarily that he had. The eggs were overdone, but she didn’t care.

  She felt absurdly grateful.

  After breakfast, she washed the dishes in the stainless-steel sink and put them in the drainer. Then she turned to the bag on the sofa. Inside, she found slacks and underwear and a sweater, all more or less her size, along with a toothbrush and a hairbrush and deodorant. Had he gone out specially to some all-night clothing store, or did he keep a supply of such things around for his women? Embarrassed at
the turn of her own thoughts, she laid out the clothes on the bed and hurried into the bathroom. In the shower, she made a mental note to call Nana later this morning, and maybe Corbin, too, just to be sure everything was as it should be. Not that Ziegler would have any reason to act on his threats. As far as he knew, she’d given the note to Fomin.

  As far as he knew.

  Because Ziegler’s people couldn’t possibly have followed her. Doing so would entail too much risk—

  Wait.

  Margo stood there, hot water cascading over her brown body, and frowned. An idea that had been forming in the shadows began to creep toward the front of her mind. Ziegler’s people hadn’t followed her, because of the risk. Bundy’s people hadn’t followed her, because of the risk. But in Ithaca, Fomin and his people had followed her without hesitation. She remembered Niemeyer’s point in class all those days ago about the man with the grenade in the bank, and how the more the robber wants, the less certain we are that he’ll carry out his threat: another of the petits paradoxes.

  Fomin’s people had followed her.

  In Ithaca.

  And Margo saw, with sudden clarity, the answer that had been staring her in the face all along.

  She turned off the shower and, deep in her contemplations, dried her hair, wrapped herself in a towel, and walked out of the bathroom—

  —only to find Jerry Ainsley seated at the table as he leafed through the Sunday New York Times.

  “Good morning,” he said, eyes averted.

  Beet-red, Margo raced into the bedroom and slammed the door.

  Another first, she told herself, as she hurriedly dressed. Kissing a President, spending the night in a strange man’s apartment, then letting him see her half naked. She consoled herself with the knowledge that things couldn’t get any worse.

  Except, of course, they could.

  III

  “It’s a trick,” said General Curtis LeMay. “It’s obviously a trick.”

  Around the table there were several nods. The ExComm had returned to the matter left unsettled yesterday: On Friday, via the back channel, Khrushchev had communicated an offer to remove the missiles from Cuba in return for an American promise not to invade. Then, yesterday, Saturday, he had publicly insisted anew that only a trade for the Jupiters would do. Friday’s deal meant peace; Saturday’s deal meant war; the question was whether the President should act as if the Friday deal was still on the table.

  Kennedy glanced at his least favorite general. “Which part of it is a trick?” he asked.

  “The whole thing. They’re working faster on the launch sites, right?” His tone dripped disrespect. “Khrushchev says they’re willing to take those missiles out, but at the same time, they’re finishing them as fast as they can. Because they know, once they’re finished, there’s nothing we can do. At that point, the deterrent begins to deter.” LeMay drew a page out of the folder in front of him. “The Friday offer obviously isn’t from Khrushchev at all. Or, if it is, he’s not in charge. I have here an assessment from the Agency to the effect that Khrushchev’s hard-liners won’t let him back down.” He shut the folder again. “Friday was a trick. Saturday is their real position, and it hasn’t changed one iota since this blasted thing started. Add to that the fact that they’ve shot down one of our planes and killed one of our people. That shows real recklessness on their part. There’s no longer any choice, Mr. President. We have to go in.”

  Again, Bundy was disturbed by the growls of enthusiasm around the table.

  “Look,” he tried. “Khrushchev turned the Grozny. That has to be a signal that he’s ready to deal.”

  Admiral George W. Anderson, Jr., the chief of naval operations, shook his head, and unconsciously echoed the President’s argument from two hours ago. “A signal would be to start dismantling the missile launchers. Speeding up the work isn’t exactly an olive branch.” He turned directly to Bundy. “I’m sorry, Mac. I know you think we can negotiate our way out of this. But from what I can tell, we’ve been had.”

  McCone spoke up. “And even if Khrushchev does agree to remove the missiles, there’s still the matter of the IL-28 bombers he’s snuck into Cuba. Lest we forget, they carry nuclear payloads, too.”

  “We can handle that quietly,” said the attorney general. “I don’t think the public’s paying too much attention to the bombers. It’s the missiles that have everybody spooked.”

  “People are terrified,” said Sorensen. “They’re streaming out of the cities. Buses and trains are overwhelmed. Long-distance lines are so jammed that most calls don’t go through.”

  “That’s why we should make Khrushchev’s proposal public,” said Bobby.

  LeMay gave him a withering look. “You’re talking like this thing is settled. It’s a long way from settled.” To the President: “Sir, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. We don’t even know for sure who’s in charge over there in the Kremlin right now. The reason Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba in the first place was to make his hawks happy.” To McCone: “That’s the CIA’s analysis, right?” At large: “You think he’ll have the guts to take them out? Believe me, he won’t. We have to take them out. We have to invade. Today!” Suddenly he was pounding the table. “Mr. President, believe me, if you make a deal with the Reds on this, it’ll go down as the greatest defeat in our history.”

  Stunned silence greeted LeMay’s challenge. Nobody could remember a general pounding the table in the face of his commander in chief.

  A moment later, a babble of voices rose, but Bobby Kennedy’s was loudest. “That’s enough, General LeMay. There’s a plan, and we’re going to follow it. If we don’t have a deal by tomorrow at two, we start the attack. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

  “By tomorrow,” growled Maxwell Taylor, “they could have the rest of those launchers operational.”

  “Not likely,” said Bundy. “We can be hawks tomorrow. For today, we turned the Grozny, and Khrushchev says he wants to deal. It’s a day for the doves.”

  But Bundy was arguing against his own inclination. The hawks were righter than they knew. With GREENHILL missing, there was no obvious way to verify that Fomin really did speak for Khrushchev. The war faction of the ExComm had become like a train rolling out of control, and as the argument circled the table, one adviser after another seemed stuck on the invasion express.

  At last the President waved everyone silent. “We stick to the plan. We wait another day.”

  “Mr. President,” began several members at once.

  Kennedy wasn’t finished. “But let’s move up the operation to noon. That’s twenty-four hours from now. At noon tomorrow, if we don’t have a firm deal, and if we don’t know for sure that it’s Khrushchev over there, we go in.”

  IV

  Bundy stood in the foyer between the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office, watching to see who left with whom, because he knew the President would ask. Gwynn, from State, walked out deep in conversation with General LeMay and Admiral Anderson: hardly the most auspicious of sights. Secretary of Defense McNamara left not with his generals but with Adlai Stevenson, the United Nations ambassador, who was one of the few strong voices for negotiation remaining: a better sight.

  Unless, of course, McNamara was trying to persuade Stevenson, rather than the other way around.

  By this time, Bundy was seriously worried about the fate of his agent, GREENHILL. Warren, the driver assigned her by the Secret Service, had received a priority order by telephone last night, putting him on a plane to Chicago to join the advance team for a presidential trip that turned out not to exist. Nobody knew who had made the call. Nobody knew who had driven GREENHILL to and from her rendezvous with Kennedy. According to the director of the presidential protection detail, Warren swore that he’d asked about his usual assignment, and been assured that it was being handled. The caller plainly knew the right codes. Bundy wanted to press for more but didn’t dare: the director, who after all knew only the cover story, seemed to think it was a prank by
fellow agents, and therefore the proper subject of a reprimand if he happened to learn who was responsible. He didn’t think the episode worth a serious investigation, and might find it strange that the national security adviser was so concerned for the whereabouts of a Kennedy girlfriend.

  “Mr. Bundy.”

  He turned. Janet, his secretary, was beside him.

  “Did you try the apartment again?”

  “Twice. No word. I think I’m getting on her roommate’s nerves.”

  “Her roommate. Right. Did we assign protection for her?”

  “I took care of it. Mr. Bundy, Director McCone needs to see you urgently.”

  He glanced around. “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs, in your office.” She bit her lip. “He says he didn’t think you’d want your conversation to be overheard.” She leaned closer. “He said to tell you it’s about GREENHILL. And that he didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  V

  Doris Harrington was also beginning to worry. On Sunday mornings on P Street in Georgetown, very little ever stirred. But this morning a man she had never seen before walked his dog past her front door twice, and a van bearing the logo of a plumbing service that wasn’t listed in the Yellow Pages parked at the corner for two hours. Shortly before the van left, a stretch limousine with darkened windows pulled up across the street, but nobody got in or out. Around back, a couple was arguing in the yard abutting hers. The woman was nobody she recognized, but Harrington was fairly certain that the man who was shouting, although now dressed casually, was the same one who earlier had been walking the dog.

  Surveillance was nothing new to her. She had been encountering it, in one form or another, since her days in occupied Vienna. Long after she stopped running agents, she was still the subject of random checks, as was everyone with her clearance.

  But this was different. This wasn’t the FBI watching her briefly, to be sure she didn’t have a hand in the till. This was an open, full-scale operation, the sort that was intended to deter any contact with the subject.

  Harrington let the curtain fall. She rarely watched the television in the living room, but now she turned it on, in case there was news about Cuba. But the news was about America: empty store shelves, empty gas pumps, empty houses and apartment buildings in the big cities. For a decade or more, the government had been urging people to build backyard shelters or make evacuation plans. She didn’t know how many had shelters, but the number of frightened evacuees was in the millions.