“No, but go ahead.”
“Longworth has to be stopped; he knows I know it. He got me started with scraps of information and one pathetic example of what might have happened if Hoover’s files still existed. Remember, he knew those files; he retained a hell of a lot of damaging information. Then to make sure I was really hooked, he provided one more example: a southern congressman with problems, mixed up with the rape of a black girl and a killing he didn’t commit. Longworth put the forces in motion and me in the middle. But when he got everything going, he realized he’d gone too far. The trap was murder; he hadn’t figured on that. When he found out, he saved my life.”
“Thus saving the book?”
“Yes.”
“No!” Morgan got to his feet. “You’re talking like a kid around a campfire. And why not? It’s your job; all storytellers are kids around campfires. But for heaven’s sake, don’t confuse it with what is.”
Chancellor studied Morgan’s face. The realization was painfully obvious. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“You want the truth?”
“Since when have we changed the rules?”
“All right.” Tony drained his glass. “I think you did go to the Cloisters. How you got in I don’t know; you probably climbed a wall. I know how much you love the early morning, and the Cloisters at dawn must be something else.… I think you heard about Rawlins’s death—?”
“How could I? His office said the news was just released!”
“Forgive me. You heard that, I didn’t.”
“Oh, Christ!”
“Peter, I’m not trying to hurt you. A year ago no one knew whether you’d live or die; you were that close to death. You suffered a terrible loss; Cathy was everything to you, we all knew it.… Six months ago we thought—I honestly believed—you were finished as a writer. It had gone out of you; the desire had died; the kid around the fire was killed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Even when you got out of the hospital, there were entire days—weeks—when you didn’t say a word. Nothing. Then the drinking began. And then less than three weeks ago your personal volcano erupts. You fly in from the Coast more excited than I’ve ever seen you, filled with energy, wanting to go back to work with a vengeance. And I mean vengeance.… Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“The mind’s funny. It can’t take going from zero miles an hour to Mach one so quickly. Something’s bound to snap. You yourself said you didn’t know where you were for nearly four hours.”
Chancellor did not move. He watched Morgan, conflicting thoughts going through his head. He was angry with the editor for not believing him, yet he was strangely relieved. Perhaps it was better this way. Morgan was protective by nature; the events of the past year had magnified that natural instinct. If he believed Peter, there was no question in Peter’s mind what the editor would do. Morgan would stop the book.
“Okay, Tony. Let’s forget it. It’s over. I’m not entirely well. I can’t pretend that I am. I don’t know.”
“I do,” replied Morgan gently. “Let’s have a drink.”
Munro St. Claire studied Varak as he came through the door of the diplomat’s library in Georgetown. The agent’s right arm was in a sling, and there was a strip of gauze on the left side of his neck. Varak closed the door and approached the desk where Bravo sat, the ambassador’s expression grim.
“What happened?”
“It’s taken care of. His Cessna was at the Westchester airport. I flew him to Arlington and contacted a doctor we use at NSC. His wife had no choice, nor did she want any. Rawlins didn’t have assassin insurance. Besides, she’s a dirty book. I read her several episodes.”
“What about the others?” asked Bravo.
“There were three; one was killed. Once Chancellor was out, I stopped firing and concealed myself on the far side of the area. Rawlins was dead; what more did they want? They fled, taking their colleague’s body with them. I threaded the zone, picked up shells, replaced grass; there were no signs of any disturbance.”
Bravo rose from the chair, his wrath apparent. “What you’ve done is beyond anything we sanctioned! You made decisions you knew I would not condone, took action that cost the lives of two men, and nearly killed Chancellor.”
“One of those men was a killer himself,” replied Varak simply. “And Rawlins was marked. It was only a question of time. As to Chancellor, I nearly lost my own life saving him. I think I paid for my error of judgment.”
“Error of judgment? Who gave you the right?”
“You did. You all did.”
“There were intrinsic prohibitions! You understood that.”
“I understood there are hundreds of missing files that could be used to take this country right into a police state! Please remember that.”
“And I ask you to remember this is not Czechoslovakia. Not Lidice in 1942. You are not a thirteen-year-old boy crawling over corpses, killing anyone who might be your enemy. You were not brought here thirty years ago to be turned into your own Sturm und Drang.”
“I was brought here because my father worked for the Allies! My family was massacred because he worked for you.” Varak’s eyes clouded. Off guard, he couldn’t hold back the tears when he thought of the sunny morning of June 10, 1942. A morning of death everywhere, of succeeding nights hiding in the mines, of subsequent days and nights when, aged thirteen, he made X marks on a mine shaft, each symbol representing another dead German. A child had turned killer of consequence. Until the British brought him out.
“You were given everything,” said Bravo, lowering his voice. “Obligations were acknowledged, nothing was spared. The finest schools, all the advantages—?”
“And the memories, Bravo. Don’t forget those.”
“And the memories,” agreed Munro St. Claire.
“You misunderstand me,” said Varak quickly. “I’m not looking for sympathy. What I’m saying to you is that I do remember.” Varak took a step closer to the edge of the desk. “I’ve spent eighteen years paying for the privilege of that memory. Paid willingly. I’m the best in NSC, I’ll seek out the Nazi in any form he is revived in and go after him. And if you think there’s any difference between what those files represent and the objectives of the Third Reich, you’re very much mistaken.”
Varak stopped. The blood had risen to his face; he was close to shouting, but of course that was out of the question. Munro St. Claire watched the agent in silence, his own anger subsiding.
“You’re very persuasive. I’ll convene Inver Brass. It must be kept apprised.”
“No. Don’t call a meeting. Not yet.”
“A meeting’s already scheduled for this month. We have to choose a new Genesis. I’m too told; so are Venice and Christopher. That leaves Banner and Paris. It’s an awesome—”
“Please.” Varak pressed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Don’t call that meeting.”
St. Claire narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”
“Chancellor’s begun the book. The first part of the manuscript was delivered the day before yesterday. I broke into the office of the typing firm. I’ve read it.”
“And?”
“Your theory may be more accurate than you thought. Chancellor’s conceived of several things that never occurred to me. And Inver Brass is in the book.”
15
The cold snap came, turning autumn into winter. The election was over, the results as predictable as the frost that covered the Pennsylvania countryside. Mendacity and Madison Avenue had prevailed over vascillating amateurs. Nobody won anything of value, least of all the republic.
Peter had not paid much attention to politics. Once the players were fielded, there wasn’t much that interested him. Instead, he was consumed by the novel. Each morning was his personal adventure. He had refined the plot; the characters had sprung to life.
He was into the seventh chapter, the point where decent men were gradually reaching an indecent decision: murder. The assassination of J. Edgar Hoover.
Before the actual writing of a chapter he always outlined it; then he put the outline aside, barely if ever referring ring to it. It was a technique suggested by Anthony Morgan years ago:
Know where you’re going, give yourself a direction so you’re not floundering, but don’t restrict the natural inclination to wander.
It was strange about Tony, thought Chancellor as he bent over the table. They had talked several times since the incredible madness at the Cloisters several weeks before, but Morgan had never mentioned it. It was as though it had not happened.
Still Morgan had read the first hundred pages of the novel. He said it was the best writing Peter had ever done. That was all that mattered. The book was everything.
Chapter 7—Outline
A rainy afternoon in a Washington hotel suite. The senator sits in front of a window watching the rain splattering against the glass. He is thinking back thirty years ago, to his days in college when the incident had taken place that when revealed three decades later would take him out of the presidential race. It was the indiscretion Hoover’s messenger had confronted him with. He couldn’t recall how or when it had happened. His emotions had run high and wild and indiscreet. But there it was: his youthful signature on the card of an organization later revealed to be part of the Communist apparatus. Innocuous, of course; defensible, certainly—laughable, actually. But not in terms of the presidency. It was enough to disqualify him. It would not have been, of course, had his present political philosophy been in tune with the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s.
The senator’s thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the newspaperwoman, the columnist silenced by Hoover, now part of the Nucleus. The senator rises and offers her a drink.
The woman replies that if she could accept, she would not be there in the first place. She explains she is an alcoholic; she has not had a drink in over five years, but prior to that she was often drunk for days at a time. It was Hoover’s hook into her. During one such binge, photographs were taken.
“Committing unnatural acts with various unsavory gentlemen is the easiest way to describe them. But for the life of me, I don’t remember. Good God, how could I?”
Hoover has the photographs. Her dissent has been effectively muted.
The third member of the Nucleus arrives. This third person is the former cabinet member described in the first chapter, whose indiscretion is the fact that he’s a closet homosexual.
He brings alarming news. Hoover has made a temporary pact with the White House. Every viable candidate in the opposition will be reached and eliminated. Where facts do not exist, conjecture under the FBI imprimatur will be used. The bureau’s name is sufficient to wreak havoc among politicians. By the time defenses are mounted, the damage has been done.
The opposition will field its weakest candidate; the election of the incumbent is assured. Inherent in this agreement is that Hoover has no less damaging weapons to use against the White House. In essence, the director will soon control the pressure points of the country; he’ll be running it.
“He’s gone too far. The corpses are piling up too fast, too dead. He has to be removed, I don’t care how. Even if it means killing him.”
The senator is appalled at the cabinet officer’s words. He knows what it is to feel Hoover’s knife, but there are legitimate ways to fight him. He takes Meredith’s report from his briefcase.
The decision is made to reach the messenger, the man who operates with Hoover’s private files. Whatever’s required will be used to recruit him; above all, the files must be taken.
“First the files. If they can be used the way Hoover uses them, they can be turned around. They can be used for good! Then the execution. There is no other way.” The cabinet officer will not waver.
The senator will not listen further; he refuses to acknowledge the statement. He leaves, saying only that he is going to arrange a meeting with Meredith.
Peter stopped. There was enough to start with; he could begin the actual writing.
He picked up his pencil and began.
He was oblivious to time, lost in the accumulated pages. He leaned back on the couch and looked up at the windows, mildly astonished to see tiny flakes of snow drifting downward. He had to remind himself that it was late in December. Where had the months gone?
Mrs. Alcott had brought him the newspaper an hour ago and he felt like taking a break. It was ten thirty; he had been writing since quarter to five. He reached for the paper on the edgo of the coffee table and snapped it open.
The headlines were the usual headlines. The Paris negotiations were stalled—whatever that meant. People were dying; he knew what that meant.
Suddenly Peter stared at the one-column head in the lower right-hand corner of the front page. A sharp pain shot through his temples.
GEN. BRUCE MACANDREW APPARENT MURDER VICTIM
Body Washed Up on Waikiki Beach
Waikiki! Oh, my God! Hawaii!
The story was macabre. MacAndrew’s body had two bullet holes in it, the first piercing his throat, the second entering his skull below the left eye. Death had been instantaneous and had occurred some ten to twelve days before.
Apparently no one knew the general had been in Hawaii. Hotels and airlines showed no reservations in his name. Interrogations within the island’s military establishment produced no information; he had not contacted anyone.
Reading further, Peter was startled again by a paragraph head near the bottom of the page.
Wife Died Five Weeks Ago
The information was scarce. She had simply died “after a prolonged illness that restricted her activities in recent years.” If the reporter knew anything more, he had charitably omitted it.
The story then took a strange twist. If the reporter had been charitable to Mrs. MacAndrew, he impugned the general in terms worthy of the Hoover novel.
The Hawaii police are reportedly looking into rumors that a former high-ranking American Army officer was involved with criminal elements operating out of the Malay Peninsula through Honolulu. There are many retired military men and their families in the Hawaiian Islands. Whether or not these rumors are in any way related to the homicide victim could not be established.
Then why include the information? thought Peter angrily, remembering the pathetic sight of the soldier cradling his wife. He flipped the pages to find the continuation of the article. There was a brief biography devoted to MacAndrew’s military record, culminating in mention of the general’s sudden and unexpected resignation and his differences with the Joint Chiefs, speculations as to the extramilitary cost of his wife’s illness, and the subtle insinuation that the maverick general had been subjected to extreme psychological pressures. The connection between these “pressures” and the previously mentioned “rumors” was for the reader to draw, and no reader could help doing so.
The last part of the article took another turn, surprising Peter. He had not realized MacAndrew had a grown daughter. From the description in the paper she was an angry, independent woman.
Reached at her New York apartment, the general’s daughter, Alison MacAndrew, 31, an illustrator for the Welton Greene Agency, an advertising firm at 950 Third Avenue, responded angrily to the speculations surrounding her father’s death. “They drove him out of the Army, and now they’re trying to destroy his reputation. I’ve been on the phone with the authorities in Hawaii for the past twelve hours. They’ve concluded my father was killed fighting off an attack by armed muggers. His wallet, wristwatch, signet ring, and money were stolen.”
Asked if she could explain why there were no records of airline or hotel reservations, Miss MacAndrew replied, “That’s not unusual. He and my mother generally traveled under another name. If the Army people in Hawaii knew he was vacationing there, they would have hounded him.”
Peter understood what she was saying. If MacAndrew traveled anywhere with his mentally ill wife, he would of course use an assumed name to protect her. But MacAndrew’s
wife was dead. And Chancellor knew the general had not gone to Hawaii for a vacation. He had gone to find a man named Longworth.
And Longworth had killed him.
Peter let the newspaper drop from his hands. Revulsion swept over him, part fury, part guilt. What had he done? What had he let happen? A decent man killed! For what?
A book.
In his messianic drive to assuage his own guilt Longworth had killed again. Again. For he was responsible for Rawlins’s death at the Cloisters as surely as if he had pulled the trigger that took the congressman’s life. And now half a world away, there was another death, another murder.
Chancellor got up unsteadily from the couch and walked aimlessly about the room, the protected sanctuary where fiction took place, life and death only products of the imagination. But outside that room life and death were real. And they touched him because they were a part of his fiction; the marks on paper had sprung from the motives that drove other lives, brought about other deaths. Real life and real death.
What was happening? A nightmare, more realistic and grotesque than anything he might have dreamed, was being played out in front of a backdrop of fiction. A nightmare.
He stopped at the telephone as if somebody had commanded him to remain still. Thoughts of MacAndrew triggered images of a silver Mark IV Continental and a mask of a face behind the wheel.
Suddenly, Peter remembered what he had been about to do months ago, before the telephone call from Walter Rawlins that culminated in the madness in Fort Tryon. He had been about to telephone the Rockville, Maryland, police! He had never done so; he had never made that call! He had protected himself by forgetting. He remembered now. Even the name of the patrolman. It was Donnelly.
He dialed information for the Rockville area code. Thirty seconds later he was speaking with a desk sergeant named Manero. He described the incident on the back road, gave the date, and identified Officer Donnelly.
Manero hesitated. “Are you sure you want Rockville, sir?”
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