by Warren Adler
“Did I make a botch of it, Thompson?” Churchill asked.
“Not at all, sir. It was quite compelling.”
“The audience seemed bored.”
“Not at all, sir. Reserved would be a better word.”
“The applause was not exactly deafening,” Churchill mused, his voice tired.
“Thank God,” Thompson mumbled.
Churchill, thankfully, did not hear the comment.
“I have been told the newsreel camera broke down in the middle of the first iron curtain statement.”
“Attentive reporters will carry it, sir, despite it’s not being in the text.”
“Are there still attentive reporters? I wonder.”
Thompson knew the signs of a new wave of approaching depression.
“Better to have gotten the message across in your own way. This was a fine speech, sir, one of your best. Your view needed to be articulated.”
“And so it was,” Churchill snickered. “And an egg was laid.”
The cars moved forward and Churchill and Truman settled themselves in the backseat of theirs along with the college president.
Thompson held back deliberately, as the caravan moved on toward the president’s house. Now he was faced with the dilemma of body disposal and getting back to the train before it departed.
Standing in the lengthening shadows as darkness descended, Thompson watched as the ambulances and the medical personnel moved out of the locker room with their equipment. Although his course of action was clear, there were no guarantees he could accomplish it without incident. In such matters, many things could go wrong. If observed, the embarrassment to Churchill would be profound. Few, if any, would understand Thompson’s motives. The chances were that, if discovered, he would be detained and forced to reveal the facts of the attempted assassination.
It was of some small comfort to know that he did not kill this man. Of course, the evidence of the weapon and the vantage the man had chosen would prove his point that the man was bent on killing. But who? Truman? Unfortunately, the intended victim could never be validated. Only Thompson knew the truth. Churchill is a dead man. The words reverberated in his mind.
Would he be believed? He doubted it. Conspiracy theories would abound. If he was caught trying to dispose of this body, God knows what a Pandora’s Box would be opened. In his heart, he both detested and feared what he must do. The risk was enormous and his justification could easily brand him as a fool. Aside from the humiliation it would engender, what he was doing was clearly illegal and subject to punishment. Perhaps, too, he might be charged with murder. The thought was chilling, and he put it out of his mind. He knew what he had to do.
He moved quickly to the Chevrolet and drove adjacent to the locker room exit, then opened the trunk. Seeing the spade again, he saw its presence as an act of providence. The method of burial had been chosen for him.
The crowds were dispersing rapidly and he could see the line of lighted headlights as people headed away from the college. The police were no longer guarding the exits; apparently, they shifted their presence to the front of the gymnasium to supervise the departure of the crowds.
He moved through the exit door and found that it could be left open securely with a hook attachment and a metal eye drilled into the floor. The locker room was deserted now. He found the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. Moving inside, he looked into the gymnasium. People had begun folding and carting away the metal chairs. The cleanup work had begun in earnest. The photographers and reporters had moved out in buses.
Closing the door that led to the gymnasium, he quickly ducked behind the bank of lockers, pushed opened the door that led to the metal stairs, and dragged out the man’s body, setting it up at the edge of the lockers. Peeking out behind the bank of lockers, he noted that the area continued to be deserted.
Quickly he kneeled and, using the fireman’s technique, lifted the body and draped it over his shoulder, securing it by holding on to its wrist. His arm wound pained him and complicated the chore. He staggered with the effort for a moment but managed to raise himself upright. Suddenly, he was startled by the sound of metal crashing to the floor. It was a Luger pistol. He’d have to make another trip. Again he looked around the bank of lockers. Suddenly, the door to the gymnasium opened and a man looked inside.
“Somebody shut the lights,” the man said.
“Never mind,” another man said, and the door closed once again.
Carrying his burden, sweating profusely, Thompson moved through the exit door and threw his burden into the trunk and closed the lid. It took him a moment to catch his breath, and then he opened the car door on the driver’s side, abruptly closing it again when he remembered the Luger on the locker room floor and the assassin’s Mauser still in the stairwell.
Rushing back into the locker room, he picked up the Luger, put it in his belt, and then he entered the stairwell once again and moved up the stairs looking for the rifle. He found it quickly where it had fallen, removed the ammunition clip, and hunted around for the spent bullet and shell. He found the shell but could not find where the bullet that had grazed him had lodged. Finally, he gave up, calculating that even if it were found one day, people would not connect it to the event.
Then he remembered that he had dropped his Webley, which was also difficult to find. He had to move up the stairs to where he had been when he had dropped the weapon, and then moved down again. Still he could not find it.
He decided to remove the rifle first and come back again. The locker room was still in darkness, and he was able to get the rifle through the exit and into the backseat of the car. Then he returned to the stairwell to look for his Webley. As he moved from stair to stair, he heard movement in the locker room.
Although disconcerting, he continued to search for the weapon, finding it finally and returning it to his holster. When he came out the door to the stairwell, the locker room was a blaze of light and people were using it once again as a smoking lounge. With an air of nonchalance, he moved to the exit, which someone had closed.
“Speech was a little dry,” someone said, a man’s voice.
“Said a lot, though,” an older man answered. “Can’t trust those Ruskies? What do you think, bud?”
Thompson turned. The question was obviously addressed to him.
“Good show,” Thompson said, facing the men.
“He’s a Brit,” one of the men said.
“Figures.”
Thompson smiled and went out the exit door, got into the car, and began to drive out of the lot. His heart continued to pound, and sweat was pouring out of his body, dampening his clothes.
At the exit to the parking area, a policeman suddenly moved into view, waving a searchlight. Thompson braked the car, fearful that the policeman would ask for credentials to prove the ownership of the car.
“Where are you going, buddy?” the policeman asked politely.
Thompson flashed his identification as a member of the official party.
“I work for Mr. Churchill. Just had to pick up some material left by him inside the gymnasium.”
The policeman looked at the credentials and flashed the searchlight into Thompson’s face. If the man had been thorough, Thompson thought, using his policeman’s logic and training, he would have asked far more questions. Thankfully, he missed seeing the rifle that Thompson had thrown on the backseat.
Easy now, he admonished himself, realizing that the effort had tired him and he was beginning to make mistakes. It occurred to him suddenly that this mission required the incompetence of others to succeed.
The policeman waved him ahead.
He now had to work by instinct alone. He calculated that the reception at the president’s home would last no more than an hour, and the official party would make the twenty-mile drive to Jefferson City in about forty minutes. He estimat
ed perhaps another half hour or so before the train left the station. This left him little time to dispose of the body. Thankfully, the gas tank was almost full. The assassin had obviously planned well on that score.
He managed to follow the signs that pointed in the direction of Jefferson City. As he drove into increasingly rural areas, he searched for some side roads that might lead him into some deserted spot that could give him the cover he needed to accomplish his purpose.
After twenty minutes of driving, he took a chance and moved into a dirt road that ran parallel to a creek. He braked the car at a place that looked deserted enough for his purposes, took out the spade, and began testing the soil for the softest spot he could find. Then he began to dig. The pain in his arm was intense and his back was beginning to hurt. Using all the strength and endurance he could muster, he managed to dig a hole deep enough to serve as the final resting place for the body in the trunk.
He stripped the body, put it into the hole, and filled it up, patting it down carefully. The whole aspect of what he was doing disgusted him. As if to assuage these feelings, he said a prayer over the body, a catechism he remembered from boyhood, ending with “Forgive me, Father.” For some reason, he also remembered the last words of Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities and recited them aloud.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Not to know the true identity of the body struck him as un-Christian. With a heavy heart, he got into the car, drove another few miles, found another deserted spot, and again dug a hole in which he threw the weapons, the clothing he had stripped from the assassin, and other items he had found in the car, including what looked like a packet filled with U.S. dollars. Blood money, he thought as he threw the packet in with the rest and covered everything up.
By the time he was finished, he was exhausted. His arm was killing him, and his back pain had gotten worse. For the first time in years, he started to sob.
Had he done the right thing? Would the body remain hidden for years? In his early police training, he had been told that the earth held many secrets and bodies were often discovered during construction projects, many of them impossible to identify. He wondered if forensic science in the future would improve the process and make it possible for identification in all circumstances. He tried to wish it from his mind but knew he would have to develop some mental strategy to cope with the memory. His own death would take care of that, he thought bitterly.
Checking the time, he knew he was cutting it close. According to his calculations, the train would be leaving in less than a half hour. Reaching Jefferson City, he found an open pharmacy, bought bandages and antiseptic, and received directions to the station. It was impossible now to abandon the car anyplace but close to the station. At this point, he was too exhausted to speculate what would happen when the stray car was discovered. He parked the car within a short walk from the station, removed the spade and put it in a nearby garbage bin, and then walked to the station.
Thankfully, the train was still there, but he could tell by the steam rising from the engine that it would embark shortly. He nodded to the Secret Service men posted at the entrance to the car that contained Churchill’s suite and his adjoining compartment. He stripped, attended to his wound, which although painful did not look serious. Then he showered, slipped into clean slacks, shirt, and sweater, and knocked on Churchill’s compartment door just as the train began to clang forward out of the station.
He found Churchill had changed into his blue siren suit, preparing to leave.
“Thompson,” Churchill remarked, taking a lit cigar out of his mouth. “I thought you had been hijacked.”
“I was in one of the last cars in the caravan, sir. I was certain you were secure. The Secret Service has provided excellent security.”
Churchill inspected him but showed no sign of exceptional curiosity, for which he was thankful.
“I’m off for an informal supper and another round of poker with Truman and the boys,” he said. “I am geared for revenge, although I believe Truman and his minions will not be so merciful this time around.”
“I gather their reaction was less than enthusiastic.”
“I’m afraid so, Thompson. I expect brutality to reign. The press has been hounding Truman for his comments. So far he has been tight-lipped, but he did remark to me that he would try to make it right with Uncle Joe, a futile exercise I’m afraid. But then, I had no illusions that I would come out of this unscathed.”
Churchill smiled and took a deep puff on his cigar.
“But you have, sir,” Thompson said.
Despite his exhaustion, he enjoyed the irony.
“Not quite, Thompson,” Churchill said, moving toward the door. “The poker gallows await.”
Chapter 27
Maclean chuckled as he read the story Benson had written in the Washington Star. Hardly a scoop, it hadn’t even made it into the larger story above the fold. But then, as news stories went, it was already three days after the event—meaning, old news.
He read it over again and then aloud to himself:
It has been rumored that the Russians had somehow obtained a copy of Churchill’s speech in advance. This came as a surprise to most reporters following the story, who had not received the speech until a short time before Mr. Churchill delivered it. Officials at the British embassy, where Mr. Churchill had been staying prior to leaving for Fulton, were somewhat surprised.
The incident did prompt First Secretary Donald Maclean to take the matter seriously and call together senior staff to find ways to tighten security procedures, indicating that the relationship between Russia, Britain, and America had taken on a new dimension.
‘This is Washington, a city of busybodies,’ a British embassy source commented. ‘But considering that the speech was being delivered by the eloquent former Prime Minister, the Russians were wise to find a way to secure it in advance and prepare themselves for the consequences, if any.’
The aftermath was now in play, and from Maclean’s perspective, it was delicious. He looked at the mimeographed sheet, which he had had the information people at the embassy prepare. It contained many of the choice comments in the press, almost all negative.
Among the postings were what Maclean considered “juicy little facts,” which he had encouraged to be included. Items such as the information that sometime after the speech, Truman had telegraphed Premier Stalin and invited him to come to America and deliver his side of the story to the same forum at Westminster College.
Truman had even offered the battleship Missouri to bring him to America. Maclean and Boris had had a good laugh over that one. Of course, Stalin had refused, and he was quoted in Pravda as saying “the speech was a pack of lies.”
In New York, the widow of President Franklin Roosevelt denounced Churchill as a “warmonger” and in the nation’s capital, three senators, including Claude Pepper, termed the Fulton address “shocking.”
The New York Times had questioned Churchill’s “dangerous lack of judgment.” In Britain, the London Times criticized Churchill’s harsh description of the Communist governments, saying “the Western democracies have much to learn from Communism in the working of political institutions and the establishment of individual rights and in the development of economic and social planning.”
Pearl Buck, one of America’s most important writers and a Nobel laureate, told an audience that the world was “nearer war tonight than we were last night.”
To add insult to injury for Churchill, the “iron curtain” reference was not in the advanced text and many newspapers did not carry it. Nevertheless, an alert reporter from The Washington Post had caught the reference, and it became a sidebar to the story. The most dramatic mention was not even preserved for posterity as a filmed image. The only newsreel camera failed at exactly the moment
it was first mentioned.
Maclean reveled in the criticism and mishaps. Although there was some praise for the speech in very conservative circles, the overwhelming opinion of it was negative. A dark thought intruded: If his speculation had been correct and Churchill was harmed in any way, the results for his side would be decidedly negative. The speech had inflicted far more harm on Churchill’s position than on Maclean’s own.
The outcome was surely a debacle for the former prime minister. The Allies were weary of war and the timing and content of Churchill’s speech was, in his opinion, merely an exercise in pique, ego, and narcissism.
He kept a particularly amusing cartoon in his top desk drawer. Opening it, he looked at it again. It featured a tired “John Q. Public” sitting on a curbstone in Fulton amid the swirl of abandoned decorations and pennants. Underneath was the caption borrowed from a Kipling poem: “The Captains and the Kings departed.”
He was relieved. Everything was going swimmingly. Before the speech, Maclean had been quite worried that the Russians might overreact to Churchill’s potential remarks and take drastic action. In his meeting with Boris, he had urged him to press his superiors to stay calm. Churchill was Churchill, a born gadfly, a Cassandra with a cigar, out of office and powerless, which did not mean they could cavalierly shirk off his words of warning, but any punitive action against him would be counterproductive at this juncture.
True, he was able to cut a wide swath with his raging about so-called Russian duplicity and danger. Giving the devil his due, he had the ability to gain worldwide attention for his views. Unfortunately, he was on the wrong side of history.
Iron curtain, Maclean mused. He must have put that in as an afterthought. Great image, but then Churchill was the consummate wordsmith.
He was ready to put aside the incident of the so-called security breach. The source of Benson’s inquiry about the speech would remain a mystery. Perhaps, as Boris had suggested, he was merely fishing, using the age-old journalist’s ploy. Thankfully, the issue had blown over. Another potential disaster had been diverted. Nothing was perfect in this business. It would not be amiss to speculate that others might have their eyes and ears trained on the Russians. Perhaps their communications systems were not totally secure. For Maclean, the important issue was to deflect any suspicion from him. Indeed, he decided, his handling of this situation was brilliant and well worth a self-congratulatory pat on the back.