Pay Any Price

by Ted Allbeury

  Boyd had compared notes with Mercer at Special Branch Liaison. Their information was overlapping except for Randall’s details of the alleged CIA number which Boyd took down.

  He checked in his own notebook for the CIA at Langley and reached for the phone.

  He dialled carefully and when the Langley telephone operator replied he asked for extension 2971.

  “Schultz.”

  “Hi, Otto … Boyd … SIS.”

  “Hi, Jimmy. Where are you?”

  “I’m in London.”

  “Are you coming over?”

  “No. But I need some information, off the record.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve got two cases I’m investigating. Both concern people who could possibly have been used under hypnosis for intelligence work. One of them’s a girl. Her name’s Debbie Shaw. She was given a phone number to ring in Washington if she ever needed a doctor, and was told to ask for a Joe Spellman. The number was Washington 547–9077. Her boy-friend dialled this number and whoever replied said it was CIA Langley. When he asked for Joe Spellman he was put through to a man, and when he asked again for Joe Spellman they hung up. He dialled the number again and after some palaver with the White Plains operator she said there was no such number listed and it certainly wasn’t CIA Langley or the office on Pennsylvania Avenue. Could you do a check on that number for me?”

  “Sure. Any chance it was a wrong number he dialled?”

  “Could be, but I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll see what I can ferret out.”

  “Otto … can you keep this to yourself?”

  “Sure. What’s bugging you?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling in my bones.”

  “OK. How’s the beautiful Katie?”

  “Fine. You and yours OK?”

  “They’re fine. I’ll come back to you.”

  It was three days before Schultz called back and Boyd could hear the hesitation in his voice.

  “Is that you, Jimmy?”

  “Yes. It’s me, Otto.”

  “That query you raised with me. How far d’you want to go with it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s say it’s kind of complex.”

  “That means the number was for real.”

  “It’s for real all right. But it’s not in my area.”

  “Can you pass me on to whoever’s responsible?”

  “There’s problems involved in doing that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like trouble.”

  “For you or for me?”

  “Both of us, I guess.”

  “I’m being dumb, Otto. I haven’t got the message.”

  “Let me ask you a question. Are you going to carry on these investigations no matter what?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if you were told to lay off?”

  “Nobody’s going to suggest that, Otto.”

  “Don’t be too sure. The ice is very thin at this end. Maybe I should come over and talk with you. How about that?”

  “That would be fine. Are you sure it’s necessary?”

  “I’m sure all right. When can you fit me in?”

  “As soon as you can make it.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK. I’ll be on Concorde. Can you meet me in?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “See you.”

  He stood watching as Schultz came through Immigration and Customs. He looked more like a farmer than a senior officer of the CIA. His family were farmers, or had been until oil came to Olney, when their five hundred acres, modest by Texan standards, became the next best thing to a goldmine. They still ran several hundred steers on the land but it was more from cussedness than necessity. Otto, the eldest of three sons, had practised as a lawyer in Austin for three years before he was lured into the CIA.

  Then Schultz was waving to him as he came through the glass doors to the reception area.

  “It’s good to see you, Jimmy.”

  “Good to see you too. I’ve got the car outside.”

  “Is it parked OK?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’d like to have a talk with you here before we get on to an official basis.”

  “Let’s have a meal in the restaurant.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Despite his curiosity Boyd waited until they had got to the coffee before he got down to business.

  “Tell me what all the song and dance is about, Otto.”

  “This part’s just between you and me. Off the record completely. Not to be repeated, or I’ll swear I never said a word out of place.”

  “Sounds grim.”

  Schultz nodded. “Maybe you’ve hit the right word there, pal. Anyway let me give you the picture. I checked on your number. Very discreetly, and got nowhere. It didn’t exist. I dialled it myself and it didn’t answer or even ring. So I probed a bit deeper.” Schultz paused to light a cigar. “D’you ever meet a guy named Grabowski while you were over with us?”

  “I remember the name but I’m not sure if I met him. It rings a bell. I’ve got an idea he was an observer down at Camp Peary when I was there on a visit.”

  “That’s the guy. Well now, Grabowski is CIA and a senior man. About the same level as me. But he’s got a lot more clout than I’ve got. In certain directions anyway. And that’s because of his job. Although he’s as official as I am he works outside the official area. I hate the description ‘dirty tricks’ but that’s Grabowski’s job. He protects his heavies from outsiders. Including protecting them from the FBI and State Police. He supervises what they do. If CIA top brass want something doing that’s unconstitutional or illegal they just nod to Grabowski. He’s a kind of cut-out. If anything came out it’s Grabowski who’d get chopped. Nobody higher up could be blamed because they didn’t give him any orders to do anything naughty. He’s a kind of fuse. He blows but the circuit stays intact. OK?”

  Boyd nodded without speaking.

  “Your Washington telephone number is one that’s used by Grabowski’s mob. One of many all round the country. I did some checking with a pal of mine in communications and in fact it’s one of a couple of dozen numbers that aren’t even controlled by the CIA. They are controlled by a special high-security team from Fort George Meade. The National Security Agency. These numbers have all sorts of uses that vary from time to time depending on what’s going on behind the scenes with Grabowski. I spent twenty-eight solid hours checking what your particular number was used for.” Schultz paused and then looked at Boyd’s face. “I wish I hadn’t.”

  Boyd waited for him to go on but he didn’t, he just looked morosely at the cigar he was stubbing out in the ashtray.

  “You’d better tell me, Otto.”

  Schultz looked up, and his sigh was deep and heart-felt.

  “Now remember what I’m saying. I can’t prove this; and if I could I’d end up in the river. That number was a last resort contact for the Mafia in the six months before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A last resort contact with the CIA. There’s no record I can find of the traffic on that line, but there is a phone-log in the archives that shows that, last resort or not, it was in constant use from June 1963 rising to a peak in November of that year, after the President was killed. Then the number lay more or less dormant until early May in 1968. Bobbie Kennedy was killed in LA in June 1968, since when that particular number has hardly carried a couple of dozen calls.” Schultz pursed his big lips. “Are you getting the drift of all this, my friend?”

  “No. Not for my problem anyway.”

  “I’m coming to your bit. With an emergency number as important as that the technicians put in a switching device. It has a list of numbers in sequence of importance that incoming calls are switched to if there is nobody manning the main number. Anybody on that line has a separate telephone that responds to that number only. You can’t make outgoing calls on it even, so that it’s always f
ree. It was obvious by now that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with a straight enquiry so I called in some old, old debts that were owing me and I got the list of all those alternative numbers. Their actual normal phone numbers.

  “The first number was Grabowski. The second was one of Grabowski’s senior men named Costello. The third was a CIA doctor named Symons. A psychiatrist. The fourth was a CIA doctor named Petersen. Also a psychiatrist. The rest don’t matter so far as you’re concerned, but they interested me.

  “I then did another piece of checking on your stuff. I got a list from the Pentagon of dates and places where this Debbie Shaw performed. In a period of about eighteen months Symons was at the same camp as she was, on twelve occasions. I moved over to Immigration records and the print-out shows she came in and out at least four times after she ceased to be a performer. And that’s it, friend. That’s how it is tonight, as Cronkite says.”

  As Boyd sat there absorbing Schultz’s information he remembered the words that Walker had said to Ansell—“You don’t like the Kennedys, do you?”

  “What do we do, Otto? Where do we go from here?”

  “If I had any sense I’d catch the next Pan Am flight out of here and go fishing for a month. How about your side? Has my information slotted into your piece at all?”

  “There’s a lot of indications that one or both of the psychiatrists are over here. The ex-soldier and the girl have been used under hypnosis in the last two years. The girl had been used in the last four months. I’m almost certain of that. And it can’t be a coincidence that the guy you mentioned—Symons—was at the camps when she was. It was too often to be coincidence.”

  “Go on.”

  “You know what I’m driving at.”

  “Maybe I do. But I want you to say it, not me.”

  “This guy Symons is the direct connection. He can tell us what’s been going on. He needn’t talk about any US aspects. Just the UK scenario.”

  “You don’t think he’ll actually talk do you?”

  “Why not?”

  “You realize what he’s been involved in?”

  “More or less.”

  “You don’t, James. But I guess that’s understandable. I’ve already tried to trace Symons and Petersen. So far as CIA records are concerned they don’t exist.”

  “But you said you’d checked on the army camps where he and the girl had been.”

  “I also said that those were Pentagon records. It was an accident that those existed. The CIA obviously don’t realize they exist. They weren’t operational records but nominal rolls so that rations and allowances can be drawn for officers and men accommodated at a camp. Routine administration. If he’d been a civilian on a camp his name would still have gone on the rolls. But he’s not on CIA records any more. Not even the confidential ones. Because he’s been stashed away somewhere. We’ve got dozens of official committees from the Senate downwards still investigating the Kennedy murders. And private investigation committees by the score. Journalists, broadcasters, private citizens. They’re all in the Kennedy industry. It’s my guess they daren’t leave him around for anyone to question.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, Jimmy. His name’s third on a switch list for a secret telephone number for the sole use of the mob and the CIA. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You mean he was part of an assassination plot?”

  “I’m saying nothing, my friend. You read the books. Draw your own conclusions but don’t ask me mine.”

  “So why tell me all this if I can’t use it?”

  “I didn’t say you can’t use it. I just said you can’t tell anybody else, no matter who they are, what I’ve told you. How you use it is up to you.”

  “Are you disturbed by all this, Otto?”

  “I’m angry. I’m outraged by it. But I ain’t gonna do a thing about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m scared.”

  And he pulled his passport out of his inside jacket pocket and opened it. It was made out in the name of Paul Jackson. When Boyd looked back at Schultz’s face, he said, “Thanks for putting me in the picture. Have you told anybody your end?”

  “Not a soul. I wouldn’t last two days.”

  “You’re sure it’s as rough as that?”

  “Quite sure. And if you’re wise you’ll take the same view. Have you told anyone I was coming over?”

  “No.”

  “Katie?”

  “Nobody at all.”

  “I’ll go straight back tonight then. There’s a flight in about an hour. I’ll stay on my own. There’ll be people around who might recognize me and I can lie that away, but not if they see me with you.”

  “If you do get any more information will you pass it on to me?”

  “Maybe. I don’t promise I will. One last thing. I suggest that nothing about your investigation is passed to your liaison officer at Langley and nothing goes in the routine exchange of information summary. The item you saw could start them off if anybody reads the damned thing and it rings a bell. And remember if they go for you it won’t just be the heavy boys, the top brass will have given their blessing. Don’t imagine for a moment that you can debate the rights and wrongs with them. For them there will be only one right and that will be you—dead. There’s too much at stake for them to do anything else even if it means knocking off a hundred people instead of just one.”

  “But at least half a dozen people must know right now.”

  “More than that, pal. Far more than that. But they’ve all got a heavy investment in forgetting what’s happened. If you’re wise you’ll join ’em. Tell your boss that it’s a dead end and you’re wasting funds and time.”

  Boyd half-smiled. “Thanks a lot, Otto. See you.” And he stood up and walked away.

  20

  It was midnight when he got back to the flat and she’d waited up for him. There were three canvases propped up along the front of the settee. They were arranged so that he would see them as soon as he came in. He closed the door and leaned back against it looking at the paintings. They were of the creeks around Chichester. Bosham, Itchenor and Dell Quay. Thick but smooth impasto done with a palette knife, long tapering masts that took your eyes up to the solid blue skies and foregrounds that reeked of mud and mosses cradling the hulls of rotting dinghies and converted lifeboats.

  He turned and saw her standing at the bedroom door, smiling. Smiling at his interest, and smiling with her own pleasure of knowing the paintings worked.

  “They’re beautiful, Katie.”

  “D’you really like them?”

  “They’re beautiful as paintings, and wonderful in how you’ve made them seem to have movement. The boats just moving on the water. The breeze in the reeds and the sky, like you’re lying on deck on your back.”

  “Two are sold already.”

  “Which two?”

  “That’s for you to decide. One’s for you. Whichever one you prefer.”

  “The one of Bosham.”

  “I guessed you’d choose that one. Have you eaten?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s have a drink to celebrate my sales.”

  He poured them a generous whisky each and she sat on his lap on the armchair.

  “Are you tired, James?”

  “So, so.”

  “You look tired. Or something.”

  “It must be something.”

  “You look a bit down. Is everything OK?”

  He smiled gently. “It’s never really OK, my love. We only get what’s not OK. And when we’ve made it OK we start on another new shambles.”

  “Cartwright phoned. He said it was nothing important. He’s a bit of a flirt your Cartwright, you know. Why hasn’t he ever married?”

  “He has. He married a Stradivarius when he was about sixteen.”

  “How long are you staying this time?”

  “I’m not sure. At least another two days.”

  “Are you sure there’s nothing
wrong?”

  “What’s worrying you?”

  “You. You’ve seemed far away these last two days. As if you weren’t really here. I’ve seen you worried before, but not like this.”

  “It won’t be much longer, Katie.”

  “So you are worried.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Can you tell me? Even vaguely.”

  “No.” He sighed. “I wish I could.”

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  She lay in bed with her arms round him but they didn’t make love, and for the first time since they were married she was scared. He had never before said that he wished he could tell her what concerned him. Usually when he was worried he was on edge, pacing around, unable to keep still, but she had never seen him like this before, uneasy, uncertain, barely listening or comprehending when she spoke to him. His usual response was to snap out of his mood and take her out. But tonight he seemed lethargic. At the end of his tether, totally preoccupied by whatever his problem was. It was all out of character. He was always so self-confident, so self-assured. In control of himself and whatever problems he had. Maybe he had done something that might cause him to be dismissed by the service. But they seldom did that. You got shunted to one side. To a desk job or a routine job. It was a long time before she slept, and when she woke the next morning he had already left. She turned to look at the alarm and it was only seven o’clock.

  Boyd pressed the bell at the side of the door and waited. If Randall was there he would probably still be asleep. It was several minutes before the door opened and he recognized Randall from the routine description.

  “Mr. Randall?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes to talk?”

  “No. I don’t know you.”

  And Boyd could see the almost empty whisky bottle and the glass on the table inside the room.

  “My name’s Boyd, Mr. Randall. I think you could help me and maybe I could help you.”

  “I don’t need any help. What d’you want to talk about?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about Debbie. Debbie Shaw.”

  Randall was shaking his head as Boyd pulled out his ID card and held it up for Randall to see. Randall’s mouth was open and he stank of whisky as he half closed his eyes to look at the card. He belched and looked back at Boyd’s face, his eyes trying to focus.