The Company_ A Novel Of The CIA Part 31

"Me you just had," Bernice said. "I'm talking supper, baby."

"Maybe sausages," Eugene decided. He called over to the Greek behind the counter. "Sausages, Lukas. A frying pan full of them. With hash browns and one of your Greek omelets with lots of eggs and onions. And coffee."

"Looks like you two lovebirds worked up an appet.i.te again," Lukas said with a lecherous smirk. He'd seen them at the counter often enough to know they were always ravenously hungry after they had s.e.x. "What about the little lady?"

"Ditto for me except for the hash browns," Bernice told the Greek. "I'll have a c.o.ke with, and a raspberry milkshake after."

"Coming up," Lukas said, neatly cracking eggs into a bowl with one hand.

Thirty-five minutes later Lukas collected the empty plates and Bernice attacked the milkshake, noisily sucking it through two straws. When she came up for air she raised her head and squinted sideways at Eugene. "You've been looking pretty pleased with yourself the last few weeks, baby. It makes me happy to see you happy."

Eugene glanced at the Greek, who was scouring frying pans at the far end of the counter. "There's a lot to be happy about. Counterrevolution got a b.l.o.o.d.y nose in Hungary. Colonialism got a drubbing in Egypt. It was a good month for socialism."

"Oh, you kill me, Eugene-even out of bed you're pa.s.sionate. I have known a lot of socialists in my life but you're the cat's whiskers." She took another sip of milkshake. "Eugene, baby, correct me if I'm wrong," she said, her expression suddenly very intent, "but when communism triumphs, when America goes socialist, you'll be heading home."

Eugene stirred sugar into his second cup of coffee. "I suppose so."

"So can you?

"What do you mean, can I?"

"After living here all these years, after getting accustomed to... this"-she waved at the b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper traffic on the avenue behind them-"can you go back to communal living?"

"I haven't been corrupted by materialism, Bernice."

"I didn't say you were, baby. I only mean, like, the transition could be hard." She smiled at a thought. "You ought to go back slowly, like a deep-sea diver coming up to the surface."

He had to laugh at the image. "You're something else, Bernice. I'm not a deep-sea diver!"

"In a way, you are. You're a Russian deep-sea diver, braving sharks and stingarees to explore the capitalist wreckage in the murky depths." She spotted the scowl in his eyes and said quickly, "Hey, Lukas can't hear us." She smiled wistfully. "Pretty please-take me with you, Eugene, when you go home." She checked on the Greek and, turning back, went on in a whisper, "I want to live with you in Mother Russia, baby. It's my dream."

"It's not the way you think it is," he said quietly.

"How is it?"

"There's a big housing shortage-two or three families sometimes share one apartment. There are long lines in stores-you have to stand in three of them before you can buy anything." He tried to think of what else he could say to discourage her. If he ever did go back, who knows, he might be able to pick up where he'd left off with Azalia Isanova. a.s.suming she wasn't married. a.s.suming she remembered him. Even after all these years he could still reproduce her voice in his head. We will together explore whether your l.u.s.t and my desire are harmonious in bed We will together explore whether your l.u.s.t and my desire are harmonious in bed. "Another thing you wouldn't like, Bernice," he added seriously, "there's no jazz in Russia."

Unfazed, she murmured, "But the proletariat owns the means of production, which means the workers aren't exploited by the capitalist cla.s.ses. The way I see it, having to share a toilet is a small price to pay. Anyway, the communal apartments and the lines and the no jazz, that'll all get straightened out once they've moved past socialism to actual communism. Isn't that so, baby ?"

"They may fix the apartments and the lines. I don't know if they can fix the Jazz."

"I'd be willing to go cold turkey on jazz if it meant I could live in the socialist motherland," she said gravely. "It's a hypothetical, sure, but it's important to me, Eugene. So yes or no, will you take me with you when you go back?"

Eugene could see she wouldn't let go until he gave her an answer. "Both of us are under Party discipline, Bernice. Which means that even if America goes communist, the Centre might not want you to abandon your post. They'll need people like you here to keep track of things."

Bernice looked miserable. "So I might have to stay in America for the rest of my life, is that what you're saying?"

"You and Max are front-line soldiers," Eugene explained. "When America goes communist, streets will be named after you. h.e.l.l, you'll probably be promoted to important positions in the superstructure."

"Like what?"

"Someone with your track record could be a.s.signed to the White House, for all I know."

Bernice brightened. "You're not just saying that to cheer me up?"

"No, honest to G.o.d, really, I think it's a possibility."

Bernice swayed away from Eugene and shook her head and laughed and then swayed back toward him, as if she were high on milkshake. "What I'm going to do now is tell you something I never told a living soul. I talk about permanent revolution and the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat and exploitation and Alienation and all that gobbledygook, but deep down I don't really understand it."

"What is communism for you, Bernice?"

She thought about this. "For me," she finally said, "communism is resistance to indifference. It's caring about people more than you care about yourself."

Eugene leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. "You are one h.e.l.l of a comrade in arms, Bernice."

"You, also, Eugene, baby."

The DCI'S six-thirty tour was running late. Several of the Company's senior People, Leo Kritzky among them, had been held up at the old State, War and Navy Building next to the White House, waiting for Vice President Richard Nixon to turn up for a briefing on the situation in Hungary. Allen Dulles himself had been closeted with a team of Company psychiatrists trying to figure out what to do about Frank Wisner. The Wiz's erratic behavior had set tongues wagging. The failure of the Hungarian uprising had obviously hit him hard. At first the old DD/0 hands attributed his violent mood swings to stress and exhaustion; they hoped that, with time, his spirits would pick up. d.i.c.k Helms, Wisner s chief of operations, had been covering for his boss; gradually the Clandestine Service officers began bypa.s.sing Wisner and bringing their problems and projects to him. Helms, a patient bureaucrat who instinctively mistrusted risky operations, drew the appropriate conclu sions from the Hungarian debacle and closed down "rollback." The emigre paramilitary units in Germany were disbanded, secret arms caches were sc.r.a.pped. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were put on short leashes; the days when they would broadcast lessons on how to fabricate Molotov c.o.c.ktails and incite the "captive nations" to riot were over. Under Helms, the Central Intelligence Agency hunkered down and concentrated on the tedious business of collecting and interpreting intelligence on its princ.i.p.al adversary, the Soviet Union.

Dulles, shuffling into the DCI's private dining room in his bedroom slippers, turned up for the tour twenty minutes past the appointed hour.

"Look at his feet," Elizabet whispered to Ebby as the Director worked the room, chatting up the officers nibbling on canapes and drinking Champagne.

"He has gout," Ebby told her. "He wears slippers around the office because his feet swell."

"Gout is an upper-cla.s.s Englishman's disease," Elizabet said with a straight face. She moistened her lips on the Champagne in her gla.s.s. "Your Mr. Dulles is an American. He can't possibly have gout."

"I'm sure he'll be relieved to hear that," Ebby told her.

Dulles made his way over to Ebby and offered a hand. "Lot of water's flowed under the bridge since we met in the Alibi Club."

"Wasn't water flowing under the bridge. Director," Ebby replied. "It was blood. I don't believe you know Elizabet Nemeth?"

The Director eyed Ebby for a moment, trying to decipher his observation. Turning to the slim woman at his side, he immediately brightened. Dulles was known to have an eye for the ladies; office scuttleb.u.t.t had it that he consoled his wife every time he started a new affair by sending her on a trip toCartier's for a fresh ration of jewelry. "I have read all about your heroism, young lady," he declared in his booming voice, turning on the charm, sandwiching her hand between both of his, showing no inclination to let go. "If you worked for the Agency we'd be giving you one of our medals today as well as Ebbitt here."

"Elliott was serving American interests and earned his medal," she said. She slipped her hand free. "I was serving Hungarian interests," she murmured. A parody of a smile appeared on her lips. "Someday, perhaps, a free and democratic Hungary will remember its dead sons and daughters."

"I'm sure it will," Dulles agreed enthusiastically.

The low rumble of conversation gave way to a strained silence. Looking past the Director, Ebby saw that the Wiz had appeared at the door. As he strode across the carpet to s.n.a.t.c.h a gla.s.s of Champagne from the table, his eves flitted wildly around the room. Draining his drink in one long gulp, he grabbed a second gla.s.s and then ambled over, with a sailor's rolling gait, to the Director and Ebby.

"Well, now, Frank, what's the word from inside the beltway?" Dulles asked.

"In recognition of my contributions to world socialism," the Wiz announced, rolling his Rs, hardening the Gs in a good imitation of a Russian speaking English, "the Kremlin has promoted me to colonel general in its KGB." He raised his gla.s.s to salute the DCI. "Comrade Director," he plunged ahead, "you and your staff have performed in the highest tradition of socialist surrealism. Marx, Engels, the nomenklatura that rules in their name, are proud of you. The phantom of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin will pin on you the Order of Aleksandr Nevsky. The ghost ofYosef Vissarionovich Stalin proclaims you a Hero of the Soviet Union. Without encouragement from the Company, the misguided peasants and workers of the Hungarian Banana Republic would never have risen up against their fraternal brothers in the Red Army. If you and your comrades had not pulled the rug out from under them, who knows? They might have succeeded in their anti-socialist folly."

Dulles looked around anxiously. "You've had too much to drink, Frank," he said under his breath.

Bull's-eye," Wisner agreed. "Alcohol's the problem. Soon as I dry out things will fall into perspective. The twenty thousand dead Hungarians, the two hundred thousand who fled the country-that was only our opening bid. We'll up the ante. We'll send more people off to die for us." He chewed on his lower lip, then punched Ebby lightly on the shoulder. "You f.u.c.ked up, chum. You didn't stop them. What went wrong?"

"You tell me."

"Sure I'll tell you. What went wrong is n.o.body, me included, had thought it through-"

The Champagne gla.s.s slipped out of the Wiz's hand and clattered to the floor without breaking. He kicked it under a table with the side of his shoe. "Out of sight, out of mind," Wisner said. His jaw continued to work but no words emerged. He used his forefinger like a rapier, thrusting and circling as he drove home points that existed in his head. Around the dining room people looked away in embarra.s.sment.

Several of the Barons managed to steer the Wiz into a corner and Dulles hurried through the ceremony. The citation was brief and to the point: Elliot Winstrom Ebbitt II was being given the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Agency's second-highest award, for courage far above and far beyond the call of duty; he had performed in the highest tradition of the clandestine service and, in so doing, had brought honor on the country and on the Company. Dulles offered some tongue-in-cheek remarks about where Ebbitt could wear the award; since CIA medals were, by nature, secret, they were known as jock-strap decorations. Gla.s.ses around the room were raised in tribute. Ebby was asked to say a few words. He took a step forward and stood there for a moment, gazing down at the medal in the palm of his hand. Images blinded him-the rag doll of a figure ground into the gutter by a Russian tank, the twelve bodies twisting slowly from branches above it. Breathing hard, he looked up.

"Remember Hungary, please." He caught Elizabet's eye. She wiped away a tear with the back of her fist and nodded imperceptibly. "For G.o.d's sake, remember where we went wrong so we don't go wrong in the same way again."

Waiting for an elevator in the corridor afterward, Ebby looked pale as death. When the elevator arrived, Leo stepped into it with Elizabet and him and, turning to face the doors, punched the lobby b.u.t.ton. The elevator whirred downward. Leo glanced sideways at Ebby.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he said. "You okay?"

Ebby shook his head. "I'm not okay. I have the bends. From coming up too fast."

Leo didn't understand. "Coming up from where?"

Ebby remembered the wild-eyed priest guarding the door when he and Arpad and Elizabet emerged from the tunnel into the Kilian Barracks! "Coming up from Gehenna," he told Leo.

PART THREE.

There was something very queer about the water, [Alice] thought, as every now and then the oars got fast in it, and would hardly come out again.

Snapshot: an amateur photograph, taken at sea from the bridge of an American destroyer, shows sailors scrambling down cargo netting to rescue a man in a drenched khaki uniform from a half-inflated rubber raft. As the image is fuzzy and the figure is bearded, the Pentagon didn't raise objections to the publication of the photograph in the late April 1961 edition of "Time" magazine as long as the person rescued wasn't identified as an American national.

1.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, DC, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1960.

"IF YOU PUT IT INTO ONE OF YOUR BOOKS," d.i.c.k BISSELL RAGED TO E. Howard Hunt, a full-time CIA political action officer and occasional writer of espionage potboilers, "n.o.body would believe it." Bissell, a tall, lean, active-volcano of a man who had replaced the ailing Wiz as Deputy Director for Operations, loped back and forth along the rut he'd worn in the government-issue carpeting, his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulders stooped and bent into the autumn cats-paw ruffling through the open windows of the corner room. Hunt, a dapper man who had been a.s.signed to kick a.s.s down in Miami until the 700-odd anti-Castro splinter groups came up with what, on paper at least, could credibly pa.s.s for a government in exile, kept his head bobbing in eager agreement. "Someone who shall remain nameless," Bissell continued, "came up with the harebrained scheme of flooding Cuba with rumors of a Second Coming. The idea was for one of our subs to surface off the Cuban coast and light up the night sky with fireworks to establish that the Second Coming was at hand, at which point the Cuban Catholics would identify Castro as the Antichrist and send him packing."

"Elimination by illumination," Hunt quipped.

Shaking his head in disgust, Bissell said, "The G.o.d-awful part is that this happens to be one of the better schemes that made it as far as my in-box."

The intercom on Bissell's desk squawked. The DD/0 lunged for the b.u.t.ton as if it were an alarm clock that needed to be turned off before it woke anyone. "He's here," a woman's high-pitched voice could be heard bleating. "If you want to see him I'm afraid you'll have to go down to the lobby and rescue him."

Bissell, in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and suspenders, discovered the Sorcerer in the room behind the reception desk where the uniformed security guards played pinochle; cards, obviously discarded in haste, were scattered across the table. Two of the guards, holding drawn and c.o.c.ked automatics with both hands had the intruder pinned to the wall while the third guard, working up from the ankles, frisked him. When the guard reached the shapeless sports jacket he gingerly unb.u.t.toned it and reached in to extract Torriti's pearl-handled revolver from the sweat-stained holster under his armpit. The Sorcerer, a smudge of a smile plastered on his bloated face, puffed away on a fat Havana as he kept track of the proceedings through his beady eyes.

"You must be Harvey Torriti," Bissell said.

"You got to be d.i.c.k Bissell," the Sorcerer replied.

"He stormed through the lobby like gangbusters," one of the guards blurted, preparing a retreat in case the intruder turned out to be someone important. "When we went and asked him for Company ID, he waved a wrinkled piece of paper in our faces and headed for the elevator."

"We could tell he was carrying," another guard insisted, "from the way his shoulder sagged."

Bissell glanced at the wrinkled piece of paper in question. It was a deciphered copy of the Operational Immediate, addressed to Alice Reader (the Sorcerer's in-house cryptonym), summoning Harvey Torriti back to Was.h.i.+ngton from Berlin Station.

"In addition to which, he don't look like no one named Alice," the third guard put in.

"Okay. n.o.body's going to second-guess you for going by the book," Bissell a.s.sured the guards. "I'll vouch for Alice, here," he added, a laugh tucked away in the s.p.a.ces between his words.

He crossed the room and held out a hand to the Sorcerer. Soft sweaty fingers give it a perfunctory shake. Torriti retrieved his revolver and started to follow Bissell. At the door he pirouetted back with the nimbleness of a ballet dancer, sending the hem of his jacket swirling around his hips. "You need to demote these downs to janitors," he told Bissell. Leaning down, he hiked one leg of his trousers and, in a blur of a swipe, came up with the snub-nosed .38 Detective Special taped to an ankle. "They missed this f.u.c.ker," he announced gleefully. He smiled into the livid faces of the three guards. "No s.h.i.+t, if looks could kill I'd be dead meat now."

"You really shouldn't have baited them the way you did," Bissell said once they were safely past the gawking secretaries and back in his office.

Torriti, rolls of body fat spilling out of a chair, one arm draped over its high wooden back, the other caressing the cigar, wanted to get the relations.h.i.+p with the DD/0 off on the right track. "Don't appreciate being ha.s.sled," he announced.

"Asking you for a laminated ident.i.ty card doesn't come under the category of ha.s.sling, Harvey," Bissell suggested mildly.

"They weren't asking. They were ordering. Besides which I long ago lost any G.o.dd.a.m.n ID I might have had. Didn't need any in Berlin. Everybody knew me."

"I can see everybody here is going to know you, too." Bissell nodded toward a sideboard filled with bottles of alcohol. "Can I offer you some firewater?"

Peering through the cigar smoke, the Sorcerer studied the sideboard. The DD/O's stash of whiskey seemed to have Gaelic brand names and boasted of having been aged in barrels for sixteen years; he supposed that they'd been bottled and put on the market as a last resort when the family-owned breweries faced bankruptcy. For Torriti, it was one thing to be a consenting alcoholic, another to actually drink this upper-cla.s.s p.i.s.s. Good whiskey burned your throat. Period. "Today's Friday," he finally said. "Its a religious thing. Fridays, I go on the wagon."

"Since when?"

"Since I noticed the labels on your whiskey. Your booze's too ritzy for my tastes."

The Sorcerer eyed the DD/0 across the desk, determined to get a rise out of him. He was familiar with Bissell's pedigree-Yale by way of Groton, an economist by training, an academic at heart, an officer and a gentleman by lineage, a risk-runner by instinct. It was the risk-runner who had attracted Dulles's attention when the Director (bypa.s.sing the Wiz's chief of operations, d.i.c.k Helms) shopped around for someone to replace Frank Wisner, who had been diagnosed as a manic-depressive and was said to have retreated to his farm on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Maryland, where he spent his waking hours staring off into s.p.a.ce.