“Take this gentleman to room seven, please.”
Peter followed the uniformed man down a carpeted hallway. A window at the far end of the corridor overlooked the waters of the bay. Chancellor thought he saw iron grillwork beyond the glass. They reached a door with the number seven on it; the bellhop rapped lightly.
“Yes?” said the voice behind the door.
“Needle one,” said the tall bellhop softly.
“Tour,” replied the voice behind the door.
“Eleven.”
“Thirteen.”
“Ten.”
“Terminate,” said the unseen man. A bolt slid back; the door opened. O’Brien was silhouetted in the dim light of a comfortable sitting room. He nodded to the bellhop and motioned Chancellor inside. Peter saw him put a pistol back in its holster.
“Where is she?” Peter asked instantly.
“Shhh.” The FBI man closed the door, a finger against his lips. “She dozed off about twenty minutes ago. She hasn’t been able to sleep; she’s worried sick.”
“Where is she?”
“In the bedroom. Don’t worry, there’s a set of electronically tripped windows on the water side, with grill-work and bulletproof glass. No one can touch her. Let her be; we’ll talk.”
“I want to see her!”
O’Brien nodded. “Sure. Go ahead. Just be quiet.”
Chancellor opened the door a crack. A lamp was on. Alison lay on the bed, a blanket draped over her. Her head was angled back; her strong, lovely face caught the light. She was breathing deeply. She’d been asleep for twenty minutes. He would let her rest only a little while longer. What he had to do would be best done when Alison was close to exhaustion.
He closed the door. “There’s a breakfast alcove back here,” O’Brien said.
The sitting room was larger than Peter realized. At the east end, beyond a slatted room divider, was a round table by a window overlooking the water. Peter could now clearly see the grillwork behind the glass. The area contained a small kitchenette. There was coffee on the stove; O’Brien took two cups from a shelf and poured.
Peter sat down. “Not exactly a regular motel, is it?”
O’Brien smiled. “It’s a good restaurant, though. Very popular with the social set.”
“A proprietary? CIA?”
“Yes to the first. No to the second. It belongs to Naval Intelligence.”
“Those men outside. The clerk, the bellboy. Who are they?”
“Varak told you. There aren’t many of us, but we know who we are. We help each other.” O’Brien drank from his cup. “Sorry to throw you with Morgan’s name. I had a reason.” “What was it?”
“You and the girl will be out of here in the morning, but Morgan will still be registered. If anyone picks up your trail and it leads them here, the name Morgan in the registry will mean something. They’ll come to room seven. We’ll know who they are.”
“I thought you knew who the maniacs were.” Peter drank his coffee, watching O’Brien carefully.
“Only some of them,” replied the agent. “You ready to talk?”
“In a minute.” The pain in his head was subsiding, but it was not gone. He needed a few moments; he wanted to think clearly. “Thanks for taking care of her.”
“You’re welcome. I have a niece about her age—my brother’s daughter. They’re very much alike. Strong, good faces. Not just pretty, you know?”
“I know.” The pain was nearly gone. “What were all those numbers about at the door?”
The FBI man smiled. “Corny but effective. Not much different from what you read in spy novels: progressions and timing, mainly. That’s what you writers don’t seem to know about.”
“What are they?”
“A basic code with a number. As the respondent I add a number, and the contact is trained to associate that number with another figure—plus or minus. He has to reply pretty damned quickly.”
“What happens if he doesn’t?”
“You saw my gun out. I’ve never used it that way, but I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have shot him through the door.”
Chancellor put the coffee cup down on the table. “We’ll talk now.”
“Good. What happened?”
“Bromley followed me on the train. He tried to kill me. I was lucky, but he wasn’t. He ran from me and threw himself off the train.”
“Bromley? It’s impossible!”
Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out the revolver he had recovered on the train. “This was fired through a seat in the middle of the third or fourth car on the two o’clock train from Washington. I didn’t fire it.”
O’Brien got out of the chair and walked to a telephone in the alcove. He spoke as he dialed. “The man we placed with Bromley was on official assignment. We can check him out right away.” The agent became the executive. “Security. Surveillance, D.C. area, Duty Officer O’Brien … Yes, Chet, it’s me. Thanks. Clear me, please.… This is O’Brien. There’s a special agent covering a subject named Bromley. The Olympic Hotel, downtown area. Raise him, please. Right away.” O’Brien held his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Chancellor. “Did you go back to the hotel? Did you tell anybody—Ramirez, anyone—that you were taking the train?”
“No.”
“Taxi drivers?”
“I’ve taken one cab since nine thirty. He drove me to Bethesda and waited for me. He didn’t know I would be going back to Union Station.”
“Jesus, it doesn’t—Yes, yes, what is it? You can’t?” The agent’s eyes squinted as he spoke into the phone. “There’s no response at all? Send a backup squad down to the Olympic immediately. Get clearance from the D.C. police, and let them help. That man may be in trouble. I’ll check with you later.” O’Brien hung up; he was bewildered and showed it.
“What do you think happened?” asked Peter.
“I don’t know. Only two people knew. The girl and myself.” The agent stared at Chancellor.
“Now wait a minute. If you’re—”
“I’m not,” broke in O’Brien. “She’s been with me every moment. She hasn’t used the telephone; she’d have had to go through the switchboard here.”
“What about the men outside? The ones who are so good with progressions.”
“No way. I waited until the last train before I told anyone you might show up. And even then I never mentioned your means of travel. Don’t mistake me, I’d trust them with our lives. It was just easier, less responsibility spread around.” The agent walked slowly back to the table; then he suddenly brought his hand to his forehead. “Mother of Christ, it could have been me! Outside the Hay-Adams, when we were getting into the car. She was upset; I told her then. He could have been waiting in the drive by the wall. In the shadows.”
“What are you talking about?”
O’Brien sat down in weary disgust. “Bromley knew where you were; he could have been waiting for you outside the hotel, hoping to get you in close range. If he was, he could have overheard me. I think I have to apologize for nearly getting you killed.”
“That’s an apology I find hard to accept.”
“I don’t blame you. What about this Ramirez? Why did you go see him?”
The transition from Bromley to Ramirez was too rapid for Peter. It took him several moments to clear the image of the sick old man from his mind. But he had made his decision. He would tell the FBI man everything. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the bloodstained scrap of paper with the names written on it.
“Varak was right. He said the key was Chasǒng?”
“That’s what you held back on the phone, wasn’t it?” O’Brien asked. “Because of MacAndrew and his daughter. Ramirez was at Chasǒng?”
Chancellor nodded. “I’m sure of it. They’re all hiding something. I think it’s a massive cover-up. Even after twenty-two years they’re frightened out of their minds. But that’s only the beginning. Whatever’s behind Chasǒng will lead to one of these four men.” Chancellor handed O?
??Brien the scrap of paper. “Whoever he is, he has Hoover’s private files.”
The agent read the names; the blood drained from his face. “My God! Have you any idea who these people are?”
“Of course. There’s a fifth man, but Varak didn’t want him identified. He thought a great deal of him and didn’t want him hurt. Varak was convinced the fifth man was used, that he was not involved.”
“I wonder who he is.”
“I know who he is.”
“You’re full of surprises.”
“I found out through Bromley, but he didn’t know he told me. You see, I knew the man. Years ago. He resolved a personal quandry I was in. I owe him a great deal. If you insist, I’ll give you his name, but I’d rather see him first myself.”
O’Brien considered. “All right. Fair enough. But only if you’ll let me have a support option.”
“Speak English.”
“Write out the name and give it to an attorney who will hand it over to me after a reasonably short period of time”
“Why?”
“In case this fifth man kills you.”
Chancellor studied the agent’s eyes. O’Brien meant precisely what he said. “Fair enough.”
“Let’s talk about Ramirez. Tell me everything he said; describe every reaction you recall. What was his relationship to MacAndrew? To Chasǒng? How did you know it? What took you to him in the first place?”
“Something I saw at Arlington Cemetery and something Varak said. I put the two together; call it an educated guess … or perhaps it fit something I might have written. I don’t know. I just didn’t think I could be too far wrong. I wasn’t.”
It took Chancellor less than ten minutes to tell it all. During his narrative Peter could see Quinn O’Brien making mental notes, just as he had done the night before in Washington. “Let’s leave Ramirez on a burner and go back to Varak for a minute. He built his connection between Chasong and one of those four men on the list because specific information was leaked that couldn’t have come from any other source but one of them. Is that right?”
“Yes. He worked for them. He fed them the information.”
“And the fact that a language was spoken that he didn’t know.”
“Apparently he knew several.”
“Six or seven, I imagine,” agreed O’Brien.
“His point was that the men who took him at the Thirty-fifth Street house had to know he wouldn’t be able to understand what they said. They had to know him. Again, one of those four men. They all knew him, knew his background.”
“Another link in the connection. Could he at least identify the root of the language? Like Oriental or Middle Eastern?”
“He didn’t say. He only said that when the name Chasǒng was used, it was spoken fanatically, repeated fanatically.”
“What he might have meant was that Chasǒng has become a kind of cult.”
“A cult?”
“Let’s go back to Ramirez. He confirmed the slaughter, admitted the command foul-up?”
“Yes.”
“But he’d already told you Chasǒng was investigated by the Inspector General, that the losses were attributed to unexpected enemy forces who were superior in numbers and firepower.”
“He was lying.”
“About the I.G. investigation? I doubt that.” O’Brien got up and poured more coffee.
“About the findings, then,” said Peter.
“I doubt that, too. You could research them too easily.”
“What are you driving it?”
“The sequence. I’m a lawyer, remember?” The agent put the pot back on the stove and returned to the table. “Ramirez told you about the I.G. investigation without any hesitation. He just assumed you’d accept the findings if you checked them out. Then moments later he reverses himself. He’s suddenly not sure you’re going to accept them; and that concerns him. He actually pleads with you to leave it alone. You had to give him a reason to change his mind. It had to be something you said.”
“I accused him. I told him it was a cover-up.”
“But accused him of what? What were they covering up? You didn’t say because you don’t know. Hell, charges like that are the reason the I.G. steps in to begin with. He wasn’t afraid of those. It was something else. Think.”
Chancellor tried. “I told him he hated MacAndrew; that he froze at the name Chasǒng, that it was tied in with MacAndrew’s resignation, with a gap in his service record, with the missing files. That he—Ramirez, I mean—was filled with lies and evasions. That he and the others had gotten together because they were frightened to death—”
“Of Chasǒng,” completed Quinn O’Brien. “Now go back. What specifically did you say about Chasǒng?”
“That it involved MacAndrew! It was why he resigned, because he was going to expose it. That the information, the cover-up, was in the missing FBI files. It was why he was murdered.”
“That’s everything? That’s everything you said?”
“Christ, I’m trying.”
“Calm down.” He put his hand on Peter’s arm. “Sometimes the most relevant evidence is right in front of us and we don’t see it. We dig so hard for details, we miss the obvious.”
The obvious. Words—it was always words. The uncanny way they could provoke a thought, give rise to an image, prod a memory—the memory of a brief flash of recognition in a frightened general’s eyes. Of a dying man’s statement: Not him. Her! He’s the decoy. Peter looked through the thin, delicately woven slats of the room divider. His eyes were focused on the door of Alison’s room. He turned to O’Brien.
“Oh God, that’s it,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“MacAndrew’s wife.”
31
Senior Agent Carroll Quinlan O’Brien agreed to leave. He understood. Things were going to be said behind that door that were terribly private.
Also, he had work to do. There were four celebrated men to learn about and a remote stretch of hills in Korea that two decades ago had been a killing ground. Wheels had to start turning, knowledge had to be unearthed.
Peter entered the bedroom, unsure of how he would begin, sure only that he had to. At the sound Alison stirred, moving her head from one side to the other. She opened her eyes as if startled, and for an instant she stared at the ceiling.
“Hello,” said Chancellor gently.
Alison gasped and sat up. “Peter! You’re here!”
He walked swiftly to the bed and sat on the edge, embracing her. “Everything’s all right,” he said, and then he thought of her father and mother. How many times had Alison heard her father say those words to the madwoman who was her mother?
“I was frightened.” Alison held his face with both her hands. Her wide brown eyes searched his for evidence of pain. Her whole face was alive and concerned. She was the most intensely beautiful woman he had ever known, and much of that beauty came from within her.
“There’s nothing to be frightened about,” he said, knowing the lie was preposterous, sensing she knew it, too. “It’s almost over. I’ve just got to ask you some questions.”
“Questions?” Slowly she took her hands from his face.
“About your mother.”
Alison blinked. For a moment he felt her resentment. It was always there when her mother was mentioned.
“I’ve told you what I can. She became ill when I was very young.”
“Yet she remained in the same house with you. You had to know her even in her illness.”
Alison leaned against the headboard. She was not relaxing, however; she was wary, as if afraid of the conversation. “That’s not entirely right. There was always someone caring for her, and I learned early to keep my distance. And there were the boarding schools from the time I was ten. Whenever my father was sent to a new post, the first thing he did was to find me a school. For two years when we were in Germany, I went to school in Switzerland. When he was in London, I was at the Gateshead Academy for Girls; that’s
in the north country, near Scotland. So you see, I wasn’t in the same house very often.”
“Tell me about your mother. Not after she became ill, but before.”
“How can I? I was a child.”
“What you know about her. Your grandparents, her home, where she lived. How she met your father.”
“Is this necessary?” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table.
Chancellor looked at her, his eyes steady. “I agreed to your condition last night. You said you’d accept mine. Remember?” He took the matches from her and lighted her cigarette, the flame between them.
She returned his look and nodded. “I remember. All right My mother, as she was before I knew her. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her father was a bishop in the Church of Heavenly Christ. It’s a Baptist denomination, very rich, very strict. As a matter of fact both her parents were missionaries. She traveled almost as much as I did when she was young. Remote places. India, Burma, Ceylon, the Po Hai Gulf.”
“Where was she educated?”
“Missionary schools mainly. That was part of the upbringing. All God’s children were the same in Jesus’ eyes. It was also fake. You went to school with them—probably because it helped the teachers—but damned if you could eat with them or play with them.”
“I don’t understand something.” Peter leaned sideways, across her covered legs, his elbow resting on the bed, his head in his hand.
“What?”
“That kitchen in Rockville. The nineteen-thirties decor. Even the goddamned coffee pot. You said your father had it designed to remind her of her childhood.”
“The happier moments, I said. Or should have said. As a child my mother was happiest when she was back in Tulsa. When her parents returned for spiritual R and R. It wasn’t often enough. She hated the Far East, hated the traveling.”
“Strange she should wind up marrying an army man.”
“Ironic, perhaps—not so strange. Her father was a bishop; her husband became a general. They were strong, decisive men and very persuasive.” Alison avoided his eyes; he did not try to reengage them.