Truman's Spy: A Cold War Spy Thriller
Author: Noel Hynd
Date: 1990-02-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Espionage; Thriller; Historical Fiction; Mystery; Fiction
Description: It is early 1950, the midpoint of the Twentieth Century.Joe McCarthy is cranking up his demagoguery and Joseph Stalin had intensified the cold war. In Washington, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI is fighting a turf war with the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. Harry Truman is in the White House, trying to keep a lid on domestic and foreign politics, but the crises never stop. It should be a time of peace and prosperity in America, but it is anything but.FBI agent Thomas Buchanan is assigned to investigate the father of a former fiancée, Ann Garrett, who dumped Buchanan while he was away to Worl
Publisher: Red Cat Tales Publishing, Los Angeles

TRUMAN’S SPY

A Cold War Thriller:

America at Midcentury

By Noel Hynd

(February 2020 edition)

{21320-k}

"We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail... J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him.”

Harry S. Truman

PROLOGUE 1944-1945

During the summer of 1944, with the Second World War in its final year, President Franklin Roosevelt returned from a trip to the Pacific and spoke to the nation by radio from the Bremerton, Washington, U.S. Navy Yard near Seattle. He suffered an attack of angina pectoris, a severe symptom of coronary disease, midway through his talk. He clutched his chest at the podium and barely made it through his speech. Few of his listeners noticed what had happened and the press agreed not to report the incident.

Six days later, Roosevelt met with Senator Harry S. Truman on the White House lawn. The two men had lunch in shirtsleeves. By this time Truman had been chosen to be the President’s Vice Presidential running mate that fall, replacing Henry Wallace.

It was one of the few times the men met in person during the campaign. After the luncheon, the press asked Senator Truman about the President and his health. “He’s still the leader,” Truman answered. “Don’t let anyone kid you. He’s sharp as a briar.”

Privately, Truman wasn’t as sunny. “He had the pallor of death about him,” Truman confided to friends. During the luncheon, the President’s speech had been slurred. When he had tried to pour cream into his coffee, he had missed the cup altogether.

Still, like many terminally ill people, Roosevelt refused to acknowledge his mortality. The Presidential campaign went on and the Roosevelt-Truman ticket defeated Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York, and Charles Brinkman, 402 Electoral College votes to 92.  In January of 1945, Harry Truman became Vice President of the United States.

Eighty-two days later, Truman was presiding in the Senate when he brought the gavel down on the day’s business at 4:46 PM He then walked through the gray corridors of the Capitol and arrived at the office of House Speaker Sam Rayburn. There, at the end of each session, legislators would gather to sample Rayburn’s private supply of bourbon. Before Truman could sit down, Rayburn advised him that Steve Early, Roosevelt’s press secretary, had phoned. Truman was wanted at the White House. Truman excused himself and promised to be back shortly. He knew the President was out of town. He had no idea why he was being summoned.

Truman went to his office to pick up his hat, and then headed for his car. He skipped his Secret Service escort. His driver took him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where Eleanor Roosevelt was waiting for him in a second floor sitting room.

The First Lady rose to meet Harry Truman and put her arm around him. She spoke softly.

“Harry,” she said. “The President is dead.”

She explained that Franklin Roosevelt had died after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia.

Mr. Truman's first reaction was to express concern for Mrs. Roosevelt.

“Eleanor, is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

She shook her head and answered. "Harry, is there anything we can do for you? You are the one in trouble now.”

Stunned and stone-faced, the members of Roosevelt’s cabinet who were in Washington assembled in the Cabinet Room of the White House. At six thirty-five that evening, Harry S. Truman took the oath of office as the thirty-third President of the United States. Only then was the news released to the public, as well as the millions of American troops in combat zones around the world.

Shortly after taking the oath of office, the new President met with reporters.

“Boys, if you ever pray,” Truman said, “pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had all fallen on me.”

Ironically, in spite of the new President’s seemingly all-inclusive simile, even more had just fallen on him than he could possibly have imagined.

CHAPTER 1

There wasn't a mile of the county roads that he already didn't know by heart, Chief of Police Mark O'Connell thought to himself.  It was mid-December of 1949. The former special agent of the FBI had been in this new job for less than two months. It was strange how things worked out, he pondered, as he listened to the squeak of the well-worn windshield wipers on his police cruiser. He had always thought that he would retire from the FBI at age sixty with high honors and accolades. Then he and his beloved Helen could enjoy their retirement. Maybe they would go to Florida, he had always thought. Maybe they would buy a small motel and spend a busy, profitable retirement in God's bright sunlight.

Instead, he had been hounded out of the Bureau. His departure had been sudden, arbitrary, and - to his way of thinking - grossly unfair. Not that he had had any recourse other than to leave. Then, shortly after his enforced retirement, he had accepted an offer from the town of Peterton, Oregon, to become their chief of police.

Peterton was a friendly, rainy community of forty-six hundred people, fifty-two miles southeast of Portland. It was populated primarily by the descendants of liberal New England Protestants who had migrated from the East Coast to the West across the northern United States late in the nineteenth century. And it was a predictably amiable blue-collar sort of place, complete with two gas stations, a hardware store, a general store, three groceries, a lunch counter, a restaurant where children were always welcome, and a branch of one of the smaller state banks.

The Dobbs Lumber Company, which operated a sawmill five miles away in Harrisville, was the main local employer. Peterton was a place of good hunting, great fishing, and little crime. It was not at all a bad place to live or to be a police officer, particularly if a man liked his relaxation.

The previous police chief, a gregarious, well-liked soul named Bill Lucy, had grown old gracefully in his job. Chief Lucy had retired after twenty-six years, having never seen a gun fired in anger. What more could a peaceable former FBI agent want?

He slowed down his car on State Highway 45. There was a truck pulled to the side of the road, its lights flashing. Its right rear tire was on the highway's soft shoulders.

O'Connell pulled to a stop. He switched on the flashing red lights on the roof of his car, a signal of caution to any vehicle approaching from ahead or behind. He stared at the empty cab of the truck. There had been no crash. The truck was intact. Its engine was running. So what was wrong?

Recently O'Connell had entertained a lot of strange ideas. When he had started this new job, for example, he had had the feeling that he was… well, being watched. Or followed. Or something. It was instinct more than anything, a sixth sense developed during his fourteen years of fieldwork for the Bureau and three years as a soldier in Europe. It was something he could not shake.

His wife, Helen, told him he was creating worries for himself.

"We're better off here," she said. "A good job. A respectable community. Better for the kids." They had two children, a boy, four, and a girl, eighteen months.

“No excitement and no challenge," he had countered.

"We have a nicer home here than we've ever had before," Helen said, putting things in perspective. "And you have better working hours. You have dinner with your family every night. If we need extra money, I'll get a job. The lumber company needs bookkeepers."

"My wife work?" he had asked. "No, ma'am. Not unless I'm dead and buried." The rain swept into his face that night as he stepped from the car, a heavy flashlight in his left hand. He recognized the truck as belonging to one of the logging camps.

“Why then…? Who then…?”

He walked to the front of the truck and stood in its headlights for a moment. That creepy, eerie feeling returned. He now knew he was being watched. He knew he was under observation by a pair of unseen eyes that very moment. He put his right hand on the stock of his service revolver and…

A man's voice called unexpectedly out of the darkness.

"Mark!"

O'Connell squinted toward the woods. He felt his heart kicking in his chest. He saw a movement and began to draw his weapon.

"Hey, Mark? Take it easy, would you?"

O'Connell shined his flashlight toward the voice. A bearded trucker stepped from behind a clump of small trees. O'Connell recognized him. He was a big, hulking man named Walt Kowell. Kowell lived in Hibbing, the next town toward Portland, and worked for Dobbs Lumber.

Kowell's rain slicker was disheveled. His hand was at the fly of his trousers.

"Can't a man take a leak around here without someone calling the cops?"

O'Connell felt a surge of relief. His pistol had been a quarter of the way out of its holster. He pressed it back in.

"Kind of jumpy, huh?" Kowell asked. "I don't think Bill Lucy drew his iron in thirty years."

"I'm not Bill Lucy," O'Connell snapped. "And that's no place to leave a vehicle on a rainy night."

O'Connell saw Kowell recoil. The man's bemused expression vanished. The rain poured down upon both of them.

"I saw your truck," O'Connell said in a more conciliatory tone. "So I stopped. Couldn't you wait till you got home?"

Kowell shrugged sheepishly. "Not today."

Another car went slowly by, framing them in its headlights as it passed. O'Connell waved the car on, indicating that there was no problem.

"Come on, Walt," O'Connell said. "Get your rig out of here before someone skids into you. That's all I'm worried about."

In another three minutes Kowell's truck had disappeared down the road. O'Connell turned back toward town. It was six o’clock in the evening. He had completed his drive along the roads immediately surrounding Peterton, a trip he made at the end of every tour of duty. Now he could go home to dinner. If anyone had a problem, the police chief could be reached at home. Or one of his two deputies could put in the time to solve it.

The nearly fatal problem for Mark O'Connell, however, was having too much time to think. At age forty-two, he had recently fallen into the habit of examining his life in assiduous detail. He had put in all those years in federal law enforcement and he had fought with distinction during the war. His résumé sparkled. Until recently all of his career decisions had looked good.

He had served the FBI in the Atlanta office as well as in San Francisco, Tucson, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Seattle. Up until 1949 he had never had a blemish on either professional record,  military or Bureau. But in 1949 funny things began to happen.

Those funny things, as he called them, were now the matters he struggled to put out of his mind. There had been the Great Handsaw Caper - as it had disparagingly become known in the Bureau - at the Krieger-McGhie Army base in Spokane, Washington. There had been the Great Wobbly Witch Hunt in Tacoma, a massive waste of time fully sanctioned by the FBI. And finally there had been “Operation Morning Glory,” a Bureau-sanctioned investigation which had stretched from San Francisco all the way up to British Columbia. All of these, as the special agents liked to recall, were full-fledged wild goose chases.

But Mark O'Connell's instincts told him that somewhere among these three cases he had been onto something - something so subtle or so complex that even he, with all his experience, couldn't recognize it. And whatever it had been, it had made him a marked man.

Helen told him repeatedly that he was imagining things. She even suggested that he should see a psychiatrist. "Professional counseling" is what she called it. After fourteen years of stress, who could blame a man for needing help sorting things out? A lot of soldiers needed just such treatment, and not even that much of it, when they had come home from Japan and Germany. No one held anything against them.

"I'm sure the citizens of Peterton would be pleased to know that their chief of police is seeing a head doctor," O'Connell answered. No, he wouldn't go. But temporarily he discovered a form of therapy.

At an army surplus store in Seattle, O'Connell found an old Dictaphone with a generous supply of recording reels. So instead of talking to a psychiatrist, he sat at home many nights and talked to himself. He stayed up well into the black hours of early morning on more occasions than he could count. When there was nothing else to do, and when the recent past seemed a more oppressive burden than he could bear, Mark O'Connell sat in the solitude of his cellar at an old workbench by the oil burner. He sipped local Oregonian beer from long-necked amber bottles and put his thoughts on the Dictaphone.

He carefully marked each reel and stashed the full ones in a tool chest. This went on for a month. Then the horrible feeling gripped him again, starting in early December. He was possessed by this unrelenting sense that the more he talked into the Dictaphone, the more scrutiny he was under. After that, every night had its own madness. He became obsessive about pouring his thoughts into the recorder, starting with the Handsaw case, moving through the Wobblies, then concluding with “Morning Glory.”

As he spoke, more thoughts came back to him. Little details that he had never put into his final reports at the Bureau, tiny observations that hadn't even merited being set in writing in his notebook.

During the days his nerves were taut, his expectations askew. He began to see the signposts of every ordinary working day - a truck traveling too slowly through town, a telephone that rang unanswered, a neighbor's light flashing on and off for five seconds - in apocalyptic terms, the handwriting of a dire conspiracy against him.

Once, sitting alone in his basement at two forty in the morning, instinct told him to turn. He did. His gaze rose and quickly settled upon the dark two-paned cellar window at the summit of the cellar wall about ten feet from where he sat. For a moment a bolt of fear shot through him. He was sure that through the darkness the face of a crouching man had been staring back at him.

He yelled, whirled in his swivel chair, and pulled a forty-five-caliber pistol from his drawer. He charged up the stairs and bolted through the living room of his home. He threw on the outdoor floodlight and burst outside through the storm door.

He stood on his doorstep, a preposterous figure in bedclothes, slippers, robe, and handgun, perusing a quiet, misty night in the peaceful Northwest. He stood motionless for several seconds. There was not a rustle of a footfall on the wet leaves, not a car engine, not a crunch of a branch under a shoe.

He turned and reentered the house. In the dim kitchen he bellowed with fright a second time when he felt a human hand fall on his arm. He jumped.

"Mark! Mark!" It was Helen.

"What in God's name…?" she began. She stared at the gun. "I heard you scream," she said.

"I thought I saw someone," he said. "Someone was looking through the cellar window." She thought about it for several seconds. Quietly he closed the kitchen door and extinguished the outside light.

"Did you see anyone out there?" she asked.

"No."

Helen exuded a long sigh. Then she reached towards her husband and held him. O'Connell clicked on the safety catch of the pistol and pushed the weapon onto the kitchen table. He held his wife firmly.

"I wish you'd talk to someone," she said softly. Several seconds passed.

"Okay," he said at length. "After Christmas. In January."

"You mean it? You promise?"

"Yes," he said. And he meant it. Helen was right, as wives so often were. It was time to get help.

But was he imagining things?

The next morning he installed new bolts to the doors of his home. As for the basement window, he placed a cardboard screen across it. No one - real or imagined -would be peering through.

That same evening he was again in his basement talking into the recorder. Okay, so it was nutty, but he felt better making a spoken record. And as for the recorded reels themselves, the more than two dozen that he had now completed, there was no use leaving them sitting around. He placed them all in an orange crate, removed a loose panel from the basement wall, and hid the entire collection.

For the next few days, Christmas took his thoughts in a more pleasant direction. On a day off he took Helen to Portland to see the holiday lights and do some shopping. Helen bought some toys for the children and an electric razor for him. He slipped away for a few minutes to buy his wife a wool sweater, plus some eau de toilette - the new fad from France - from one of the perfume counters. Even after eleven years of marriage, he wasn't sure what Helen wore. But it smelled nice on the salesgirl, so he bought it. It would soon be Christmas and he wanted something nice for the woman he loved.

CHAPTER 2

In the third week of December 1949, Washington, D.C. was shivering through its coldest winter in a dozen years. Ice hung from the cherry trees along the Potomac. A mantle of snow adorned the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. Even Pennsylvania Avenue, where traffic crawled in both directions, seemed more like New Hampshire than the center of the American government.

In the White House during the waning days of the old decade, things were warmer. Sixty-three-year-old President Harry S. Truman dug in for an increasingly acrimonious battle with the Eighty-first Congress. He fought with the nation's legislators over everything from increased social security benefits to public housing to his scaling back of military expenses in the post-war era.

If Truman looked for solace in the tide of world events, he found none. In 1949 the President had succeeded in breaking the eighteen-month Soviet blockade of West Berlin with massive American airlifts of food and medical supplies. But Joseph Stalin was freshly invigorated at home. He had so thoroughly terrified the heads of his puppet governments throughout Eastern Europe that he merrily launched a new generation of purge trials in Russia.

In Asia, the North Korean government made ominous noises about reuniting their country in a manner they saw fit and using their huge army to do it. Nearby, General Chiang Kai-Shek and his pro-American Kuomintang Army had been driven from the mainland of China to Formosa. The U.S. consular staff would soon follow. In Europe, the Fourth French Republic teetered on the brink of ruin. Even in England, Truman's most loyal wartime ally, Winston Churchill, was now out of office.

From the perspective of the American capital, enemies were on the ascent and friends were halfway into their graves. It was a time when the support of public opinion deserted the President and galvanized around the conservative Senator Robert Taft, grandson of the three-hundred-pound former president, as well as the increasingly vocal, hard-drinking, and mean-spirited Joseph McCarthy. There was even talk that if the lid could be kept on the little guy from Missouri for two more years, a possible presidential candidacy by Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, might rescue the country.

Eisenhower, or “Ike” to most Americans, was the president of Columbia University. If only he would announce whether he was a Democrat or a Republican, matters would be clarified. It was just five years after a war that had compromised all humanity, and already the world was again on its way to hell in a hand basket.

As a final response to Pearl Harbor, the United States had sought to reorganize its intelligence community in 1946. The Japanese attack on Hawaii had taught a lesson. Inquiries during the world war had revealed that there had been significant indications before December 7, 1941, that Imperial Japan was up to something. Crates of documents, retrieved after the fact, had lain around unused and unnoted by American military and naval commanders in the years 1939 through 1941. Information that could have saved thousands of lives had been ignored.

Why? No single effective unit of the government had been equipped to assemble and analyze foreign intelligence. Thus, in the early months of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Strategic Services, the nation's first official espionage and counterespionage agency. But after the war the OSS ran afoul of special-interest lobbyists. The military intelligence services and the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover insisted that in peacetime the OSS would only duplicate the efforts of existing agencies. Eventually President Truman came to agree and abolished the OSS.

Within a few months, however, the President acknowledged his mistake. Whatever the faults of the OSS, it had been a single agency collecting and evaluating foreign intelligence and sending the information to the Oval Office. Without a central agency, Truman received an avalanche of contradictory, superficial reports.

One day, confused, irritated, and ill-informed, he exploded to his Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes. "As soon as possible," raged the President, "we've got to get somebody or some outfit that can make sense out of all this stuff."

Truman expressed the same wish in identical letters sent on January 22, 1946, to his military adviser, Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of War Robert Patterson, Secretary of the Navy John Forrestal, and Secretary of State James Byrnes. These four men were asked to consider themselves as the National Intelligence Authority. They were to plan, develop, and coordinate all foreign espionage and counterespionage activities.

Within a few weeks the four had assigned funds and personnel from their own departments to the authority. They formed what they called the Central Intelligence Group. To head the new CIG, Truman appointed Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers as the Director of Central Intelligence.

The appointment caused grumbling in official Washington. Souers was an admiral in the naval reserve and his civilian employment was currently as an executive in the Piggly Wiggly grocery chain in Truman's native Missouri. He had no experience in intelligence matters. Or, as some Capitol wags put it, "He wouldn't recognize a spy, but he sure knows fruits and vegetables."

Yet President Truman wanted a reliable method of being kept informed. So this, for a while, satisfied him. But the setup was unsatisfying to many others, including the directors of military intelligence and J. Edgar Hoover. All feared the erosion of their own powers.

There was also another man who found the arrangement unsatisfactory: Allen Dulles. Dulles had been one of America's most successful spies during the two world wars. Princeton-educated, from a staunchly Republican family, Dulles nonetheless had the President's ear and friendship.

Dulles agitated for a change in the intelligence system. Dulles had spent World War Two in Switzerland where, as the Swiss Director of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, he had worked on intelligence regarding German plans and activities. He had wide contacts with German émigrés, resistance figures, and anti-Nazi intelligence officers, many of them devoutly anti-Communist.

Simultaneously, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg of the Army Air Corps succeeded Admiral Souers in June 1946. Vandenberg was named chiefly because he was the nephew of the powerful Senator Arthur Vandenberg and managed to last only about as long as his predecessor, slightly less than a year. He, in turn, was succeeded by Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, whom Truman personally didn't like and whom he privately referred to as "a third-rate navy guy." America's new spy establishment, in other words, was off to a staggering start.

Yet, during Hillenkoetter's tenure Congress passed the National Security Act, unifying much of the American defense establishment. The act also replaced the National Intelligence Authority with a new structure called the National Security Council. Similarly, the Central Intelligence Group was abolished and replaced by a stronger and more independent unit.

It was called the Central Intelligence Agency.

Its purpose was to gather and coordinate information from outside the forty-eight states. The agency would have no official police or law enforcement powers. And, in turn, the new CIA was to be responsible, in theory at least, to the National Security Council. President Truman then appointed Allen Dulles as the agency's first director. Thus the embryonic CIA moved into the battered old complex that formerly housed the United States Public Health Service at 2430 E Street in the gashouse section of Washington known as Foggy Bottom.

The complex bordered on an abandoned brewery and sat amidst a squalid jungle of underbrush, enclosed by a wire fence and topped with barbed wire. From this location, and for many years thereafter, little green government buses ferried passengers, frequently mysterious men bearing secret messages or documents, to and from the Pentagon and the White House. And at this humble inception, the massive spread that would eventually house the CIA in bucolic Langley, Virginia, was merely a gleam in Allen Dulles's eye.

But it was a beginning. And like most beginnings, it had its awkward moments.

CHAPTER 3

Unlike the relatively new CIA, the FBI was housed in baronial splendor toward the end of 1949. The headquarters was at Constitution Avenue and 10th Street, in a suite of fifth and sixth floor offices at the Department of Justice.  J. Edgar Hoover presided from a corner throne room, surrounded by his ablest assistants in adjoining chambers. This was a straight-arrow, squeaky-clean place with light green walls, deep pile carpets, mahogany paneling, and countless American flags. A visitor to the Director's office, if he were kept waiting in the anteroom, would be faced with an armada of plaques - given by various religious, fraternal, school, and state police organizations - that heaped praise upon the Bureau and its Director. A revolving rack carried scores of pro-FBI editorial cartoons, mounted individually on hard cardboard backing. If these displays left the observer ready for more, there were also some of the more macabre relics of earlier Bureau adventures. Dillinger's death mask, for example, was in a glass case in the same anteroom, along with the straw boater Dillinger wore when gunned outside a Chicago movie theater. Completing the display was the Corona Belvedere cigar from the pocket of Dillinger's bloodstained, bullet-ridden shirt.

Behind the scenes, the Bureau increasingly reflected the disparity between the public image and the gritty, sweaty, day-to-day operation of American law enforcement. Though the Director was an American folk hero, Hoover had never led an investigation. He had never personally made an arrest. Despite being photographed weekly with an array of weapons, he had never learned to use a handgun. Yet the image of the Bureau before the public had never been more immaculate.

Hoover flitted about the country at his own whim, stayed in the finest hotels as a guest of management, and had his picture snapped hobnobbing with celebrities such as Milton Berle, Shirley Temple, Toots Shor, Bing Crosby, and Jimmy Cagney. Hoover always loved Cagney for his performance as an FBI agent in the 1935 Warner Brothers production, G- Men, a film that molded public perception of the Bureau. And the weekly radio serial, This Is Your FBI, remained a hit in its sixth year on the air.

The Bureau reflected Hoover's personal biases: he loved capital punishment in all forms, he hated the fact that women could now vote, and didn’t care for people of color. He threw around insults with great freedom: “pinhead,” was a favorite for an agent who was falling into disfavor or soon to be sacked.

There were few far right causes he couldn’t champion.  Almost daily the FBI was preoccupied with cases of a political slant or which emanated from political favor.  Hoover, completely ignoring the FBI's charter, personally assigned FBI agents to gather domestic intelligence on people he didn’t like or whom he suspected of un-American activities.

In October 1949, for example, eleven members of the Communist Party of the United States had drawn prison sentences of three to five years apiece for advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government. They hadn't done anything other than express their opinion. But in the climate of the day, that was enough to land them in prison.

The second perjury trial of Alger Hiss was also concluding in Manhattan. All indications were that Hiss would go to prison, too. The best was yet to come, however, as a section of Bureau spear-carriers on the fifth floor inquired into the affairs of one suspected Soviet spy, a disloyal American named Martin Sobell. The investigation of Sobell had also suggested some other American accomplices named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

After the war, the U.S. had tried to protect its nuclear secrets. But Americans had been stunned by the speed with which the Soviets had initiated their first nuclear atomic test, "Joe 1," on August 29, 1949. The consensus: atomic secrets had been leaked from the American research labs. Whoever had done it was going to pay a big price. That much was a “given.”

On these same premises, in a small, stuffy office in a far corner of the sixth floor, Special Agent Thomas C. Buchanan sat at a black Royal typewriter. He typed out his final account of an investigation involving a securities swindle. Recently put out of business were a pair of Miami-based land developers who had raised money and sold home sites from the Catskills to Sarasota. It was the kind of a case - hundreds of small investors burned by a pair of slick carpetbaggers - that provoked Buchanan's righteous indignation. The case had ended with indictments, convictions, tons of favorable publicity for the FBI, and the recovery of sixty percent of the loot. Within the next month, checks would go out to most of the investors. Buchanan was proud of his work.

He stopped typing for a moment. Buchanan reread his report. One could never be too careful in choosing one's words. Not only did Buchanan's immediate superior, Francis W. Lerrick, Assistant Director for the mid-Atlantic region, read all completed files, but Hoover also liked to read reports at random. Here trouble could materialize from nowhere. Hoover's attention might settle upon anything. One ten-year veteran of the New York office was abruptly transferred to Topeka when his report contained a quote from a Canadian ballistics expert who had been used as a witness during a trial.

"We keep all foreigners out of Bureau business!" Hoover had said in an aggressive memo.

On another occasion a Special Agent in Atlanta found himself ordered to lose fifteen pounds in three weeks. A final case report had included his medical records, revealing his six-foot, one-hundred-ninety-five-pound stature. Hoover had been placed on a diet by his own physician the previous Monday.

Buchanan typed the final two paragraphs. He leaned back in his chair and carefully reviewed the report from start to finish.

Had anyone walked into the office at that time, he or she would have seen a sandy-haired man of thirty-two, a handsome, very American-looking guy with a square jaw and dark blue eyes. He wore a white shirt and a red and blue striped tie. The jacket of his navy blue suit was draped over the back of his chair and his brimmed fedora, mandatory for all special agents, rested on a coat rack in the corner.

If it had not been for a turn of fate and the course of history, Buchanan might have been the architect he had planned on becoming. He had grown up in a comfortable town in the southeastern quarter of Pennsylvania. His mother was the daughter of anti-Fascist immigrants from Italy. From her he learned to speak Italian as a boy. She had come to America as a teenager and now taught the third grade in the local school. His father had been a medical doctor in family practice.

As a teenager, Thomas had shown an uncanny aptitude for numbers, sciences and languages. He had set his heart on going to Princeton University, his father's alma mater.

The turn of fate: a massive heart attack claimed Thomas's father at age forty-three in August 1932. His mother moved the family closer to Philadelphia, where they took up residence with his mother's unmarried sister. Thomas was enrolled at a private academy in Chestnut Hill, in accordance with his father's will. Here he demonstrated again his exceptional aptitude in sciences, math, and languages. He took up French and built an impressive academic record.

Princeton accepted him as a full-tuition student.  Lehigh University, however, offered him a full scholarship in engineering. This was 1936, and his father had not died wealthy. He went to Lehigh, graduating with high honors with a minor in Romance Languages. He wished to continue on for his graduate degree in architecture.

Then the course of history interfered. The Second World War began.

Buchanan served as an infantry captain in the United States Army's North African and Italian campaigns. He was part of the 1st Armored Division that had participated in Operation Torch, a combined British-American pincer operation against Rommel in North Africa. The allied operation outflanked and outgunned their German, Vichy French and Italian adversaries. They bypassed the Axis defense on the Mareth Line in late March 1943 and squeezed the Axis forces until Axis forces in Africa surrendered on May 13, 1943. The invasion of Sicily followed two months later, during which Buchanan won two silver stars and as many purple hearts. It was, in the terminology of the time, a “great” war, for Thomas Buchanan. Privately, he was happy to have survived it. He never expected to.

As an American officer fluent in Italian, he became an interpreter for his unit, as well as an adviser to the command of the American Fifth Army, following a transfer to a unit where he was needed for his language skills.

His unit encountered dogged resistance from retreating German forces as they moved north.  But Buchanan had been among the first American soldiers to reach the center of Rome late at night on June 5, 1944, initiating the liberation of the magnificent ancient city. Rome had been the first of the three Axis powers' capitals to be taken. Its recapture was a significant victory for the Allies and the American commanding officer who led the final offensive, Lieutenant General Mark Clark.

In Rome the next day, more units of English and American troops rolled in. Massive crowds came into the streets, celebrating, cheering, waving and hurling bunches of flowers at the passing army vehicles. Later, Buchanan watched as Pope Pius XII appeared on the balcony of St Peter's and addressed the thousands of Italians who had gathered in the square. It was a giddy time, marking a turning point in the war. Almost simultaneously, the Allied invasion of Normandy was taking place.

Buchanan stayed in Rome for three months. Then, his reputation as an interpreter growing, he was sent to Paris shortly after that city’s liberation. He was assigned to an intelligence unit, working with officers of de Gaulle’s Free French forces, as well as with the American command. He was finally sent onward to Berlin, where he worked again in intelligence. For four months he worked daily with officers of the Soviet Red Army, mostly tank and artillery commanders who had helped capture the city. At first, he liked his Russian peers. Quickly, however, he grew to distrust them.

Berlin in those days was a crucible for Buchanan, a learning experience he would never forget. The city was devastated. Utilities functioned only sporadically. Civilians wandered in sullen angry mobs, dazed and confused, clearing the streets and looking for missing relatives. Piles of rubble made driving hazardous. A few diehard snipers made any movement even more hazardous.

But the similarities between the four parts of the divided city ended with the physical ruin. The different sectors - American, British, French and Soviet - reflected the languages and cultures of the occupying forces. West Berlin was an island within the larger East German zone of Soviet occupation. It had a free press and cultural and economic links with the outside world. From the beginning, the Soviets confiscated the newspapers licensed by Western occupation authorities. Soon thereafter, they declared the western newspapers “contraband” and arrested anyone in possession of one. They quickly began to tell their people that the occupiers were the new fascists, which explained why most German Army and intelligence people and scientists had tried to surrender to the British and the Americans. Buchanan, in dealing with the Soviets, quickly learned what a big fat lie their entire system was.

In the bargain, he acquired skill in the Russian language and learned some subtleties about the American’s wartime ally “of convenience,” such as the difference between Red Army intelligence and the secret state police. In the larger bargain, he got a close candid view of how the Soviets set up little spy cells in the West, the espionage tradecraft often following in the larger path of black market activities and bribes.  He had seen the same thing in Rome with the underworld people who had moved in quickly after Mussolini’s soldiers had retreated.

When he left the military with an honorable discharge in early 1946, he was restless, as well as haunted, by the war.  His experiences were never far from his thoughts. At a VFW meeting, he ran into a retired colonel who had commanded his unit in Sicily. The colonel told him that the FBI was hiring.

"The work can be interesting, and the employer isn't likely to go out of business," the colonel had said. "If you decide not to make a career of it, it still won't look bad on your résumé. I know some people, Tom. I'll write you a letter of recommendation."

Buchanan entered the Bureau's training school, in April 1946. A fourteen-month tour in Chicago was his first assignment where, by chance, he occasionally partnered with an old Army buddy, a fellow officer whom everyone called “The Bear.” The latter, a fellow officer, had also served in Italy and had also joined the Feds. It was a pleasant and fortuitous reunion.

Buchanan did not have the commanding physical presence or bulk that typified many enforcers of American law, nor did he have the traditional gang-busting mentality for which the "G-men" had become the heroes of the gullible public and tabloid press. But he did have an outstanding analytical intellect, a persistent nature and a remarkable instinct for analyzing a crime scene.  This he coupled with an easy, calm, honest manner which was his basic nature, though those who knew him best knew he had his flashpoints: he could resort to quick explosive physical force when pushed too far. The overall equation inspired confidence in people and made them willing to talk to him. As a result, for his age, Buchanan was as fine a detective as the Bureau had to offer.

And yet, and yet.

He also felt unsettled, a man in transition, but from where to where? The war had deeply disturbed him. He found few people he could discuss it with other than fellow veterans. There was pain that he felt but couldn’t describe, things that had happened in combat that he chose not to remember, and faces of enemy soldiers, some alive, some dead, that he wished would go away but which he knew never would.  All of this, he battled every day. Socially, he was normal and perfectly presentable. Privately, he felt his psyche was in tatters and the war had turned him into a reclamation project. But if that was the case, so it was the case with most of the world and almost everyone who had survived the fighting. So he kept it all inside him, as much as he could.

CHAPTER 4

Buchanan reached for a fountain pen to sign the report on the land fraud case. It was ten minutes before six on a Thursday evening. Buchanan could call this a day. Not only had he completed a laudable piece of work, but he could also go home. The daily "he's gone" message had buzzed through the Bureau's corridors at four forty-five, signaling the departure of J. Edgar and his handsome, ever-present partner, Clyde Tolson. Tolson was now also an assistant director of the Bureau.

A few seconds later the intercom rang on his desk. Buchanan hadn't even replaced the cap on the fountain pen.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Tom," said a voice. Buchanan recognized it as Frank Lerrick's. "Tom, come down here, please. Something important has come up.”

Moments later Buchanan walked into Lerrick's office. Buchanan found the graying, craggy-faced, sixty-two-year-old assistant director sitting at his desk. Standing nearby was a wiry, sharply featured, dark-haired man in a gray suit. He was forty-year-old William Roth, chief of the Philadelphia field office.

Roth nodded to Buchanan as Buchanan came in the door. "You know each other," Lerrick said.

"We do," Buchanan answered. He and Roth shook hands. They had worked on cases together in the past. Both had spent time assigned to a special operation in southern Illinois.

Lerrick motioned to a thick manila folder on his desk. It was closed.

"Sit in that chair over there, Tom, and take a look at this," said Lerrick, indicating the file. He handed Buchanan the file. Thomas took it and seated himself in a corner chair. The only light was from a standing lamp. As Buchanan began to read, Roth took a position at the room's only window, a large eighteen-pane one that faced the Washington Monument. Against the evening sky, yellowish-white beams from a series of floodlights illuminated the monument.

While Buchanan read, Roth lit a cigarette. From time to time Lerrick's fingers drummed rhythmically and impatiently on the top of his mahogany desk.

Buchanan read for almost half an hour. The file focused upon a man named John Taylor Garrett and his family business, the Commonwealth Bank of Pennsylvania. Buchanan was twice startled to see both J. T. Garrett and Commonwealth Penn as the centerpieces of an FBI file.

Spending his final teen and high school years in Chestnut Hill, Buchanan had personally known Garrett, his bank, and his family.  John Taylor Garrett was an unlikely subject for a federal investigation.  He was the epitome of ”old money.” A distant Garrett ancestor had been on the Mayflower in the 1640s, and a later member of the Garrett clan had moved from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Philadelphia with the young Benjamin Franklin in the early 1700s. The Garretts had been a family of genteel Protestant bankers and merchants in Pennsylvania since the days of Franklin. The family had money in America before the newly independent colonies even had their own currency.

And yet, according to the report before Special Agent Buchanan, the inner workings of Commonwealth Penn were a maze of question marks. Garrett, who also had owned a family department store, had taken over Commonwealth Penn in 1934. The bank had been on the brink of ruin. Garrett had not only saved it but had also built it into a respected financial institution. It was not large. But it was prominent and significant, particularly as a privately owned independent bank. All of which made the bank's behavior even more bizarre.

Garrett was away fighting in the world war for five full years, leaving his wife and two daughters behind. During this time Commonwealth Penn was managed by a board of trustees. Mismanaged by a board would be slightly more accurate, said the report, as the enterprise plunged toward the ground again. The war ended just in time. Garrett came home and got his bank clicking again. Yet at the same time, Garrett turned into a social recluse. He took an occasional meal in his favorite Philadelphia spot - the dining room of The Barclay - and was rarely seen anywhere else. He ceased communication with even the best of his prewar friends.

While overseeing the renaissance of Commonwealth Penn, he also presided over the disintegration of his own family. As Tom Buchanan well knew, Garrett had two beautiful daughters, Ann and Laura. He had a socially prominent wife who divorced him after the war. At about the same time, both daughters inexplicably moved away.

The rumor mill in the Delaware Valley had all kinds of explanations for Garrett, his behavior, and the breakup of his family. Some said that he was a conduit for dirty money through the eastern United States. Others insisted that he had been shell-shocked in the war and had come home a mental case. Others alluded to a career in a U.S. Army intelligence unit, complete with unsavory associations, a mistress, and even a second family somewhere else around the globe.

Buchanan finished the report, closed the folder, and looked up.

"Okay, look,” he finally said. “If there's a problem with Commonwealth Penn that's the jurisdiction of the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia. If his daughters and wife are missing, that's a matter for the local police."

"The Philadelphia police can't be trusted,” Roth said. "And we don't want to tip our investigation.”

"The three Garrett women," Buchanan asked. "Any chance they were kidnapped?"

"There's no evidence to suggest that."

"Then what's the point?" Buchanan asked politely. "This still doesn't strike me as the basis of an FBI investigation."

Silence.

"May I ask who wrote this?" Buchanan asked. “The report cites some genuine intimacies of the Garrett family. The source was very close.”

“I wrote it," Roth said. "It's a briefing file; a condensation of a much larger piece of work."

“With all due respect, I don't see anything indictable here.”

More silence, then, “Mr. Hoover thinks Garrett has turned into a Red,” Lerrick said.

“On what basis does he think that?”

“Since when does our saintly Director need a ”basis,” Tom?”

“Exactly," mumbled Roth.  “The only thing Mr. Hoover knows about Reds is that he doesn’t like them,” Roth said. “It begins and ends there.”

Buchanan shrugged. “So what if he did turn into a Red?” he asked. “That’s his personal choice, isn’t it?”

A dreadful silence held the room. Then, “The Director doesn’t see it that way,” Lerrick said, “and I won’t relate to him that you asked an impertinent question like that. You’re welcome. Mr. Hoover says that John Taylor Garrett went pink during the war. He wants someone to look into this, build a case.”

"Ah! That's why I'm here, is it? I’m the ‘someone,’” Buchanan said.

“Tom,” Lerrick said. “You know how this works. Mr. Hoover is of the opinion that Garrett is a Communist. Your job is to investigate, acquire evidence, and prove that the Director is correct.”

“Sure,” said Roth. “It is so if the Director says so.”

Buchanan felt anger and indignation rising within him. “A touch of Pirandello, huh?” Buchanan asked.

“Who?”

"Never mind. I assume," Buchanan said, "that there's no coincidence here. Nothing having to do with the fact that I was engaged to his younger daughter before the war. To Ann Garrett. Is that it?"

"Of course, that’s why you were chosen,” Lerrick answered. Then, “You were in love with Ann?” Roth fished. A pause and…

“Very much so. I entered the armed forces in the weeks after Pearl Harbor, like millions of other patriotic young men,” Buchanan said. “Ann Garrett broke off our engagement in 1944. She said she wanted to get on with her life. I figured she had met someone else. I was sitting in trench twenty miles east of Naples. We had taken a town. Six hundred Italian troops had surrendered. I had just seen one of my best friends have his head blown off by a German mortar an hour after the Italians surrendered. I’ll never forget the day. I never saw her or anyone in Ann’s family again.”

“Why not?”

“I felt betrayed. She had broken my heart.”

“I hope it’s healed by now,” Lerrick said lightly. Buchanan shot him a nasty glance.

“Look,” Buchanan said. “I don’t want this case. Nothing involving the Garrett family, okay?”

"I wanted to get you eliminated from the investigation on those personal grounds, Tom," Lerrick explained. "But J. Edgar just laughed at me. He said, 'No, Frank, you have it all wrong. I want a relentless inquiry. And that's exactly what I'll get from a former fiancé.'"

"You know the Director, Tom," said Roth. "Whenever he can pump a personal or even a sexual angle in a case, he goes for it." Buchanan already had a few personal opinions on the quirky Director. He kept them to himself.

“Mr. Hoover’s got a fixation on stuff like that; the truth is we recognize it and we live with it,” Roth muttered. “But that’s between us, all right?”

"Hoover asked if you were in the middle of anything important," Lerrick continued. "I had to answer truthfully. I said that you were wrapping up a current case this week. That did it, I'm afraid. Thereafter, the Director would hear of no name other than yours."

A final silence held the room.

"I don't like losing men from this office," Lerrick concluded, "particularly quality men such as yourself. God knows, I never get them back." He sighed. "You're assigned to the Garrett case, Tom. Starting in January you're transferred to Philadelphia.”

CHAPTER 5

Buchanan cursed to himself as he pulled his overcoat tight against the cold of the midwinter Washington night. It was eight o’clock. He charged down the steps of the Department of Justice in a controlled rage and hit the sidewalk, still struggling with the belt of his coat. "Of all the outrageous, impertinent, moronic ideas."

Him? Thomas Buchanan? Investigate the Garrett family?

Sure, he told himself as he avoided a slick patch of ice on K Street, he could do a fine investigation. He could investigate anyone thoroughly. But why even flirt with the semblance of bias? If he found something significant against John Taylor Garrett, and later went to court with it, his actions would be seen as the vendetta of a young man who had been unsuccessfully in love with Ann Garrett. And wouldn't that come out at a trial?

Yet if he found nothing, wasn't there the inherent suggestion of a whitewash? A young agent assigned to probe into the Garrett affairs but still wishing not to offend the family. The foundations of any investigation had to be clean and sound. Didn't Hoover know that? Didn't Hoover always say that? Wasn't that one of the first things they had taught back at the National Police Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where Buchanan had reported after the war?

He cursed to himself again. He stepped off a curb on Pennsylvania Avenue. A piece of packed snow gave way. There was slush underneath. His foot rode the cracked ice to the pavement and a small, unwelcome flood of freezing water rushed into his shoe.

Roth's words returned. You know the Director, Tom. Whenever he can pump a personal or even a sexual angle in a case, he goes for it.

Hoover! Lerrick had even admitted that it had been J.E.H. himself who had made the decision. Hoover! That bombastic, unproductive fraud! A political appointment during the illustrious Warren Harding administration, Buchanan muttered, who was still entrenched during the Truman administration. It was common currency around Capitol Hill that the man from Missouri wanted to get rid of him but either did not know how or did not dare. Hoover sure had an instinct for survival, Thomas concluded. In the Washington political jungle, J. Edgar knew how to swing with the top apes.

Buchanan walked a few more blocks against the bitter Washington wind. He gripped his hat. He had lost more than one good Stetson fedora under the wheels of a Washington bus. Then, gradually, Buchanan began to settle down.

He tried to be rational. Maybe, he sometimes wondered, the FBI wasn't for him after all. For the past three months he had worked on the land fraud case. He had obtained convictions. At five o’clock that same day he had concluded his report of the case. Then a mere hour later he was assigned to investigate a man who, were it not for the world war, might have been his father-in-law.

Some step up!

He turned onto D Street at 9th. Even on these cold District nights he enjoyed walking home. He needed the exercise. And tonight he needed to cool off in more ways than one.

There were proper channels for grievances and he would go through them. He would get an audience with J. Edgar Hoover and appeal to reason. Give me a case with some big city hoodlums, he would request. Put me on the trail of some of them, he would ask, and I'll give them to you hogtied by Mother's Day. That's what he would do. And if Hoover did not respond, he would resign.

Crime was all over the place in America, he grumbled. Most of the big cities were feeling the impact of organized crime these days, from union racketeering to murder for hire. The states and the cities were pleading for federal assistance. Rumor was that Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee was about to introduce a resolution that would allow the Senate Committee on the Judiciary to investigate organized crime's role in interstate commerce. The FBI stood ready to help.

Buchanan trudged another block through the Washington night. Why didn't the Sanitation Department get some rock salt on these icy sidewalks? He was a man who still thought of himself as young and fit, but he had nearly fallen twice. His wet foot, freezing as it was, was doing him no favors of comfort, either.

He came to the corner of his own block. There was a small bar there. It was named The Haypenny and was fashioned after an English pub. It was a favorite of law and government students from Georgetown as well as secretaries from the Department of Justice and the National Archives. There was a large plate glass window in front. Buchanan glanced in.

Lately he perceived the crowd as growing younger at The Haypenny. Tonight did nothing to dissuade him. He kept walking.

The generational break, he had long since concluded, would be defined by who served in the war and who had been born too late. When he saw groups of happy young drinkers, an uncontrollably morose feeling sometimes gripped him. He thought of young men who had been born the same year as he, 1917, who would lie for all eternity in unmarked graves in Italy and North Africa. But that was past history, too, just like his romance with Ann Garrett.

His apartment was on the third floor of a clean brick building on the 100 block of 7th Street, S.E. The flat was part of a house that belonged to a Mr. and Mrs. Elvin Rafferty. The Rafferty couple were in their sixties. They lived on the first two floors but they had created a separate, locking apartment at the top of the stairs. Rafferty himself did not do much except sit around the living room or, in the summer, camp out on a big wicker chair on the front porch. There on summer afternoons he would turn on a big Philco console radio and follow Arch McDonald's broadcasts of baseball's Washington Senators - home games from nearby Griffith Stadium and road games from seven other disastrous points around the American League.

"Washington!" Rafferty habitually ranted. "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League! Next thing you know," he once complained to Buchanan, "they'll be integrating with colored like the Dodgers, the Indians, and the St. Louis Browns."

"Maybe when they do," Buchanan had answered gently, "they won't be in last place anymore. Those are some fine players in the Negro Leagues."

“It don’t change the skin color none,” Rafferty grumbled. “Or where the country’s going. Communists, you know.”

“One man’s as good as another,” Buchanan said. “There were some fine Negro units fighting for our flag during the war.”

“So you’re one of them who thinks like that, huh?” Rafferty said.

“You could say that.”

“Just don’t bring none of them in here and we won’t have no trouble.”

Rafferty was the grandson of a Confederate soldier - or so he liked to claim - but he had had a knee shattered in the First World War. He had hobbled around with a pair of canes for most of his adult life, but in the last few years arthritis had afflicted him. So he had sold his store and now sat home on a veteran's pension, plus social security, plus rent from the third floor, which his wife collected.

"It ain't the money, Mr. Buchanan," Mrs. Rafferty had said the day she first showed the apartment to him. Mrs. Rafferty spoke with the lilting inflections of the Mississippi Delta, which she admitted that she hadn't seen in years.

"It's these old legs of mine," she continued. "Ain't much better than my husband's these days. Don't have much use for a third floor, so we don't mind having company. 'Specially a nice young man."

"Yes, ma'am," he had answered.

She had looked carefully at him. "If you bring ladies back here," she said knowingly, "make sure they're nice ladies. And don't make too much noise. I don't mind none, but Elvin don't sleep so good. The monthly rent is fifty-five dollars."

Buchanan, seeing the fray on the carpets in the entrance hall, was sure to pay it on the first day of every month.

Tonight, Buchanan walked through the front door and up the two flights of stairs. He could smell the pot roast Mrs. Rafferty made every Thursday. He arrived at his own apartment, put his key in the door, and turned the lock. He felt the morning's mail brush against the floor as he opened the door. He threw on a light and soon found his way into the bathroom. There he hung his wet coat in the shower.

Philadelphia. Monday.

He poured himself a Scotch and settled into an overstuffed club chair in his living room. He was tired. He could use a few days off and knew he wasn’t going to get one. He had planned to go out for dinner or make some soup in his kitchen.

Instead, he fell asleep in the chair.

CHAPTER 6

In the frigid hours after midnight, someone set a man on fire near Barrier Point, a lonely section of warehouses and oil refineries near the United States Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. The man had been murdered with a single bullet fired into the crown of the head, a shot that had taken a course straight downward inside his body and stopped in his stomach. Then he had been saturated with gasoline and turned into a human torch. It was the final week and a half of the year 1949. It was an ugly way to celebrate.

A young chief petty officer named Dennis O'Brien was on guard duty at the navy yard. It was less than ten degrees Fahrenheit. The wind gusting up the dark Delaware River from the Atlantic Ocean made the air feel even colder. So O'Brien had permission to remain in his sentry booth for much of his shift and walk his four-hundred-yard section of the navy yard's perimeter only twice an hour. This he did for the final time at two forty-three. That's when O'Brien saw the flames.

A few minutes later an alarm rang at the fire company at 6th Street and Oregon Avenue. The fire fighters responded with a single engine and hosed down what they thought to be a trash fire. Only when the blaze subsided did the firemen realize that this particular call would have to be passed along to the Philadelphia Police Department as well. By this time the victim was unrecognizable. Only parts of his shoes, a tiny piece of clothing here and there, his bridgework, his eyeglasses, some jewelry, and a small piece of skin under his left arm had escaped the flames.

The homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department, Fourth District, was notified at twenty-two minutes after AM Two officers of that unit, Sergeant Fred Castelli and Detective Mike Foley, arrived at ten minutes before five.

They came in the same car, parked near the fire engine, and walked toward the wet, steaming remains. The dead man's charred limbs were contorted at impossible angles, from which rose a mixture of steam and smoke. There was a repulsive odor in the air, somewhere in between burning rubber and seared pork. Neither cop was moved. What hurt was the icy wind off the Delaware River.

Castelli grumbled. "What a night for a barbecue." Behind him he heard two of the firemen laugh.

Castelli was a good homicide cop when he cared to be, which was less and less as the years marched by. He was forty-one years old, single, five feet nine, 205 pounds before a good Italian meal, and 210 afterward. He drove a '46 DeSoto and had what his cop friends called “a duck-ass hairdo.” An aura of small-time violence clung to him. He always looked like he was on his way to a murder scene.

In comparison, Mike Foley, Castelli's partner, was a quiet, thin, spare family man of thirty-six. He had been a cop for eight years and a homicide detective for five. He had light, thinning hair and impassive blue eyes behind thick, silver-framed glasses. He looked  like a high school math teacher. With Castelli, Foley completed an unlikely couple.

There was nothing unlikely about the abilities of Castelli and Foley as murder detectives, however. At the end of each fiscal year they usually had several dozen “quality” arrests between them.

Castelli stared down at what remained of the corpse, his breath making small cones in front of him. He touched the dead man's left arm with the toe of his shoe.

"Know the worst thing about this?" he asked. "The gentleman's wallet may have burned up with him. Perfectly good money up in smoke."

Foley broke out a pack of Pall Malls. They smoked. Castelli turned toward the sound of an arriving car. "Here's the ME," he said to his partner. "Finally."

The doctor from the medical examiner's office was named Harry Wolf. Wolf was a man in his thirties who was on the staff of one of the city hospitals that specialized in D.O.A.s. Wolf's father-in-law was a ward boss in Kensington, which was how Harry picked up an extra check each week pronouncing crime and accident victims dead at the scene. Wolf specialized in tough calls such as this one, where he could take one glance and proceed straight to the paperwork.

"Don't forget to check his pulse, doc," said Castelli.
"What do you think, Wolf?" Foley added. "Natural causes?"

"How'd you guys like to wait for two hours next time?" Wolf asked, looking up from a pad of death certificates. "Or maybe I'll go get some coffee right now. Were you first officers on the scene? That means you stay until a doctor pronounces this guy dead and signs the form."

"So?  Sign it," said Castelli.

A contingent of young sailors in pea coats looked on from the other side of the fence. Wolf might not have signed it, but the wagon from the morgue arrived with a body bag and a set of shovels. So did Captain Robert Heintz from the Fourth District police command, along with the department photographer.

Heintz was a big, strapping man with gray hair and wide shoulders. He had seen things go bump in the night in South Philly since Prohibition. Much of what he had seen had been stranger than this.

"Just wrap him up and get him out of here," Heintz said. "And you, Wolf. Shut your trap and sign the form."

Wolf complied. Moments later, technicians loaded the charred human remains onto the body wagon and removed them.

There it was. An unidentified man had been murdered and his body mutilated beyond recognition. Off he went to the city morgue where his case would diminish daily among the priorities of the homicide division. It was all too typically the sort of case that drifts into the oblivion of the unsolved and forgotten among the big-city police forces of North America. All that was missing, so far at least, was one person who cared enough to take a closer look.

CHAPTER 7

In Oregon on December 23, the bank threw a noontime Christmas party for everyone who worked in the town center. Chief O'Connell attended. There was a light snow that day, and everyone made corny remarks about a white Christmas. Most of the shops in town closed towards three in the afternoon.

Chief O'Connell's nerves had been less on edge since the cellar window incident. While not convinced that he had imagined what he saw, he had nonetheless confronted his nightmare, and the nightmare had vanished.

So much the better. He had also agreed to go to Seattle to talk to a police psychologist instead of an actual psychiatrist. Probably Helen had been right all along about this, too, he told himself. She often had answers before he did.

By four-thirty the day before Christmas, the sky was dark. The light snow continued. Chief O'Connell went to his car to make his final run across the county roads. His deputies would be off this evening. Nothing serious had ever happened on Christmas Eve in Peterton since Oregon became a state in 1859. So by all odds the town would be safe if he went home a half hour early.

It was on Route 31 just to the southeast of the town that Chief O'Connell saw the brown Plymouth that had apparently skidded. There was a woman looking at the front end of the car where it had left the road. He slowed to a halt and turned on his overhead lights. He stepped out, noticing the California license plates on the car. A single woman driving home for Christmas was O'Connell's first impression. Yet, his suspicious nature always aroused, he observed immediately that the car was pointed north toward Washington, not south toward California.

"Trouble?" he asked.

"I'll say," she said. "I skidded. Take a look."

She was blond and very young, he noticed. Well, if she had skidded, he reasoned, maybe one big push could get the car back on the road. Or maybe he would use a heavy rope and give it a pull with his own car. Then, by happy coincidence, another car appeared behind O'Connell's police cruiser.

Fine. With the help of another man, O'Connell thought, he would have the girl on her way in no time.

O'Connell walked to the front of the car. It was off the road, all right, but he couldn't see any damage. The other car pulled to a stop. O'Connell looked at the girl's tire tracks. No skid marks. Odd.

"What’s the problem?" he asked.

The fool in the other car parked but maintained his high beams, irritating O'Connell. The other driver stepped out and walked a step or two in their direction.

"I don't know," the girl said. "Won't go."

"What won't go?" he asked.

"Car."

She spoke strangely. She looked anxious. And her car's motor was running. Then he looked at her more closely and - instinct again - saw something in her eyes, something that scared him just like he had been scared the other night. The other driver stopped walking. The girl quickly stepped back and away from him.

"You're not even off the road," O'Connell said to her. "Won't your car move?"

She said nothing.

"Answer me, will you?" The other headlights blinded him. Where had the other driver gone? The man had moved laterally. In fact, who in hell was…?

In the fraction of a second before anything happened, O'Connell knew he was as good as dead. The man behind him, the man he couldn't see because of the headlights, was raising a pistol.

Within that moment O'Connell's mind was perfectly lucid. It was as if he were grasping a small victory in the knowledge that he had been imagining something after all.  In a reflex to stay alive, O'Connell leapt to one side and groped for his sidearm. But the man  he couldn't see opened fire. Two bullets hit O'Connell squarely in the chest. The force of the shots hurled the police officer backward and to the side. His own weapon flew from his hand.

As the pain seared through him, he was aware of very little except his own agony. He steadied himself against his police cruiser, clutched his wounds, and stared. He had no idea where the woman had gone. He was only aware of yet another set of headlights coming from somewhere else, accompanied by the rumble of a truck.

The assassin fired twice again. Two more times O'Connell felt the cylinders of death ripping through his insides. The final shot blew him away from his own vehicle and sent him sprawling violently backward onto the snow.

He heard voices: a man and a woman. They sounded distant and they did not converse in anything he understood. Their words sounded garbled, and in all rationality, he thought that because he was lying in the snow dying, he could no longer understand the English language.

His final moments of consciousness had their own insanity. Everything seemed to be getting darker and brighter all at once. Visions of the war flashed. The pain wasn't in any one place anymore, it was all through him. And the wetness around him wasn't rain or melting snow. It was his own blood.

Something - a woman's body moving or was it an angel's? - crossed quickly in front of those damnable headlights. For an immeasurably short moment O'Connell had a silhouetted vision of the man who had shot him. The figure struck a chord of familiarity in his memory. O'Connell battled with it as he heard the roar of a motor. Then, seconds later, he had placed the man who had shot him. The shoulders and the outline of the head matched with the nightmare that had fled from his cellar window. And the voices were an echo of what he had heard in Europe during the war.

All that made perfect sense. O'Connell’s nightmare had come alive. As his strength faded, a vision of his wife and children spun wildly before him, and he was unhappy that he couldn't reach out and hold them. Simultaneously, everything closed in on him and the entire world spiraled violently into blackness.

CHAPTER 8

Where Special Agent Thomas Buchanan lived in Washington, there was a pleasant little Italian restaurant around the corner on 6th Street. There, a plump but endearing little woman named Cora held court each night. Cora was a widow from the war; pro-Mussolini partisans had murdered her husband, Gianni, in Rome in 1938. She had been more fortunate and had managed to flee to the United States, travelling by steamship from Genoa to New York.

She had supported herself during the war by cooking for friends, eventually setting up a small trattoria downstairs below street level in a brownstone. Her business grew and now she owned her own place, along with her brother, Ray, a former POW who had joined her after the fighting ended in Europe.

Together, they worked hard and prospered.  Ray kept the beer cold. Cora made good spaghetti with meatballs and wasn't shy about serving man-size portions. This Saturday would not be the first time Thomas Buchanan had eaten dinner there alone as he pondered a professional conundrum.  Nonetheless, he also enjoyed dusting off his wartime Italian and chatting with Cora and her brother in their native language.

It was also Christmas Eve and Cora’s was one of the few places open. Feeling very much alone, Buchanan showed up at six-thirty in the evening for dinner. “Cora’s,” as the place was called, was cheerful and full. There were tables and booths, red tablecloths and a black and white tiled floor. Cora had set up a Christmas tree by the front door.

Buchanan, feeling alone with himself, took a single table toward the rear.

“So?” he asked himself again. He pondered again as he sipped a glass of bold Chianti. How could he investigate John Garrett? What would this lead to? After ten years, would he come face-to-face again with Ann Garrett, the infatuation of his prewar youth, the first woman with whom he had ever fallen in love? And so what if the old man was a Red? Left to their own devices, the Marxists and their misguided fellow travelers pretty successfully made fools of themselves without help from anyone else. So what was with this particular burr under J. Edgar’s saddle? What was the real agenda, if there really was one?

He couldn't take this case. This was ridiculous. Personally degrading, snooping into the family and professional affairs of a one-time, potential father-in-law. As far as Buchanan was concerned, midway through a second glass of wine, it was settled.
He would not do it. Not a chance. Philadelphia right after Christmas was out of the question. He had made his decision. First thing in the new week, he would tell Hoover what he thought.

“How are you tonight, Mr. Buchanan?” Cora asked. She had help in the kitchen these days, more family from the old country it appeared, and waited tables herself.

“I’m fine. You?” he asked.
“Aside from some rheumatism, I’m very good,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” he returned.
“May the new year bring you God’s blessing and good fortune.”
“Thank you, Cora. The same to you and your family.”
“Nineteen fifty. Time goes by, doesn’t it?”
“Too fast,” Buchanan agreed.
Cora took his order and walked it to the kitchen. Buchanan thought of the Garrett assignment and reminded himself again of one of the simple truths of his profession.

Cases were not solved by magic and they were rarely solved by luck, though luck was appreciated when it appeared. Rather, the key element in any federal investigation was routine, unspectacular inquiry, done by the special agents in the field. Bureau leadership rarely left the safety of its Washington offices, other than to appear at an arrest to have pictures taken.

Buchanan had been around the Bureau long enough to have spoken with many of the veterans who had worked on a certain high profile case seventeen years earlier. The case had become part of FBI folklore.

He recalled it. A millionaire oilman named Charles Urschel had been abducted from his Oklahoma City mansion on the steamy Saturday night of July 23, 1933. Masked gunmen blindfolded him and drove him to a remote ranch in the Southwest. The kidnappers demanded $200,000 in ransom. The money was to be paid in old unmarked twenty-dollar bills or Urschel would be blown into the next dimension.

For his first week as a prisoner, Urschel heard little more than the sound of pigs outside the building where he was held, a farm sound that did not come as much of a surprise, considering his captors fed him ham at every meal. The only other sounds of note were the distant muffled voices of his captors and, reliably at nine forty-five each morning, the sound of an aircraft overhead.  Another flight passed overhead in the opposite direction at five forty-five each afternoon.

On the eighth day of his captivity a terrific Sunday morning rainstorm lashed Oklahoma and western Texas. Urschel did not hear the airplane. He wondered whether the noise of the storm had drowned it out, if the flight had been canceled, or if it wasn't scheduled on the Sabbath. Then, at five forty-five in the afternoon, a few minutes before his evening plate of ham, he heard it again. The date was July 30.

On the ninth day Urschel's family paid the ransom. The captors packed their unharmed prey into the trunk of a 1931 Chevrolet, drove him several hours over bumpy roads in sweltering heat. Then they dumped him on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. By this time the FBI was already on the case.

Agents later listened to Urschel's account of his captivity. They focused on the farm, the pigs, and the sound of the airplane. Dozens of agents descended on airline offices throughout the Southwest, poring over schedules and meticulously comparing flight records with the listings of cancellations and diversions for July 30. The search was long, tedious, and plodding.

But it was also thorough. Agents determined that on the day of the downpour an American Airlines flight from Fort Worth, Texas, to Amarillo had detoured around Wise County, Texas, the center of the storm. The aircraft landed safely in Amarillo. When the storm cleared, it made its return flight over its normal route that afternoon.

Agents chartered travel along the same air corridor. They determined that at nine forty-five each morning the flight would be directly above two adjacent farms in the town of Paradise, Texas. One of the farms raised chickens. The other raised pigs.

Its owner, R. G. Shannon, cured hams. Shannon's name rang a loud bell among federal agents. His daughter, Kathryn Shannon, was married to a big-time bad boy named George Kelly. Kelly was better known throughout America by his tabloid nickname, "Machine Gun" Kelly. Kelly was currently holding down the position of public enemy number two on Hoover's much-publicized charts, while John Dillinger remained in the top spot. But one clue led to another in the Urschel case and created a trail.

Two months later in Memphis, FBI agents cornered Kelly. "Don't shoot, G-men!" Kelly screamed, or so the publicists for the FBI reported. Thus they created a nickname, G-Men, and manufactured a legend when the country was thirsty for one. Reporters at the scene of Kelly’s arrest would make the incident famous, complete with bold, heroic, gun-toting agents surrounding the apparently humiliated criminal.

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI rarely let the public forget the Bureau's success in the Urschel kidnapping, even though later accounts contradicted some of the Bureau’s folklore. But Special Agent Thomas Buchanan never lost sight of the larger lesson.

It had been a relentless questioning of witnesses, investigation of facts, and examination of the details of the crime scene that had solved the case. Not gunfire. In that respect he anticipated an investigation of John Taylor Garrett and the Commonwealth Bank of Pennsylvania to be no different.

Buchanan enjoyed a fine dinner at Cora's. Over coffee, he read his mail and the evening Washington Star. He walked home, slept soundly, and spent a quiet Christmas day by himself.

By the next evening, he had recalled that the best path to advancement in the Bureau was to successfully complete the work placed before him. In this case, that meant the Garrett investigation. And he had also decided that he did not feel like putting his position on the line in mid-winter or looking for another job.

Most of the other agents he talked to in Washington said the Philadelphia office wasn't such a bad assignment. It was in the East, after all, and had the reputation of never being personally visited by Hoover.  So Special Agent Buchanan decided he would keep his mouth shut.

He would go through the motions, gather what evidence he could, maybe even locate Ann and see how she was doing. She was probably married with a family by now. The thought was bittersweet. Maybe seeing her again could finally put a lid on his feelings for her. As for her father, it was preposterous to think that a banker could have turned into a Bolshevik. The very thought made Buchanan shake his head. But, following that thought through to its conclusion, why not take the case?

CHAPTER 9

There would be only three of them - Milenkin, Sejna, and Filiatov - an unlikely troika of Soviet agents in America who had never before worked together. They would be in the United States to handle a pair of jobs considered too dirty and too risky for the Soviet residents.

Viktor Milenkin had been in the United States the longest and knew the country best. He had been born in Ukraine in 1925, the illegitimate son of a prominent Soviet chemist. His mother died in childbirth. At the age of four he had come to the United States with an aunt named Sonya, who became his legally adoptive mother. He was educated in the public school system of Palo Alto, California.

In 1939 Milenkin and his aunt were obliged to apply for American citizenship or return to the Soviet Union. They chose the latter, repatriating to Moscow.  From 1940 to 1942 Sonya worked as a stenographer at the Soviet Defense Ministry. At this time, she became the mistress of a handsome colonel named Andrei Volkov. Volkov was no ordinary officer of the Red Army. Rather, he was very "Western style" - perfectly fluent in English as well as Russian. He had extensive experience in the United States as well. He moved across international borders with ease. It was even rumored that he had a family in England or America.

Volkov was also assigned to the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye. The GRU, as it was more commonly known, was the chief intelligence directorate of the general staff of the Soviet Defense Ministry. The GRU was the military cousin of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police agency that would become the KGB.

Colonel Volkov saw possibilities for his mistress's boy. Like Volkov himself, the teenager had a perfect command of English, a native's knowledge of the United States, and a flawless American accent. So the colonel and those with whom he worked began planning ahead.

From the time the tide of World War II turned on the German-Russian front in 1944, through the hours of the Soviet victory in Europe, Volkov trained Viktor for an assignment in the West. By this time Milenkin had perfected his cover, had memorized his contacts and had demonstrated his devotion to his work. It was 1948. He was a young man of twenty-three.

In June of that year, the GRU equipped Milenkin with a freshly printed Swiss passport. He entered the United States in New York, destroyed the passport the next day in his room at the Hotel Astor and assumed the identity of one George Mulligan. Mulligan had been a young American soldier who had died in a Soviet hospital in 1942. Soviet operatives in America had retrieved his birth certificate from Davenport, Iowa, and had been delighted to discover that the young soldier had no surviving family. He was perfect. And so, for that matter, was Milenkin.

Thus with little fanfare, on a balmy summer afternoon in 1948, Viktor Milenkin checked out of the Astor and walked through Grand Central Station as George Mulligan. He had five hundred dollars in cash. With it, he rented a small apartment on Perry Street in Greenwich Village. Intelligent and well-spoken, he had within another week found employment as an installation man for New York Telephone.

Here was a perfect cover profession: Milenkin had flexible hours, access to people's homes and private buildings, and no one looking over his shoulder. Every Saturday morning, in accordance with a routine established by the GRU back in Moscow, he would look for "mail" in a piece of discarded piping nestled shoulder-high in the brickwork under the Williamsburg Bridge.

A month after his return to America, in July 1948, Milenkin found the first message in the base of the bridge. A note summoned him to a meeting in Battery Park the following Monday evening. Milenkin went and was surprised to find Volkov waiting for him, sitting calmly on a bench reading a Wall Street Journal.

They spoke to each other in English. To speak Russian even in subdued tones would be to invite suspicion, even on a park bench. Volkov explained that a critical operation was about to begin against the Americans. It would be an important campaign with global implications, Volkov said. It would firmly test the will and resolve of capitalism in the postwar years.

"Even though you will probably never see me again," Volkov explained to him, "I will personally serve as your control officer within the United States. You will continue to look for messages in the usual place and you will learn a method to communicate back with me. But you will contact me only in extreme emergencies. Your role will be that of a conduit. It is an important role, essential to the worldwide Communist revolution. Thus you must never question an order, never think about a message you may be relaying, and never exceed the role that Joseph Stalin has assigned to you. Is that clear?"

"Yes, comrade," Milenkin answered.

The younger man was in awe of Volkov's flawless English. Milenkin thought back to their previous meetings in the Soviet Union and recalled that Volkov had a strange hitch to his Russian. The conventional wisdom had it that he was a Polish Communist whose wartime valor had been rewarded with his current high appointment in the GRU. Milenkin, however, knew better than to pursue such points of curiosity.

"I'm sure that you're familiar," Volkov concluded, "with the repercussions suffered by those who have not fulfilled their assigned roles within the Marxist master plan."

Uncomfortably, Milenkin said he was. Even Trotsky in 1940 had paid a penalty for revisionism when Stalin sent murderers to kill him.

Volkov nodded. Then he patted the younger man on the shoulder and said a few words of reassurance. "I know I can have considerable confidence in you," Volkov concluded. "Just do what you're ordered. Don't try to think things out too much. For a young man in your position, that's where trouble always begins."

Time went by.

Few messages came Milenkin's way other than the initial one to confirm the methods of contact in the United States. What bothered Milenkin was that he had heard only once from his mother, Sonya, back in the USSR.  Adoptive or not, he loved her as much as any son could. She was the one person he was allowed to communicate with, and the one person allowed to communicate with him. Letters from her, like the other messages, were to come only through Volkov, her former paramour, at the usual drop point in the base of the bridge. It was well known, however, that even Volkov’s office had the occasional leak.

The silence from back home bothered the young man. But Milenkin - or Mulligan, as he now wanted to be known - settled into his job, made a few friends, went to movies with a female acquaintance here and there, attended baseball games and boxing events, and lived a very ordinary life. Aside from being an agent of the Soviet Union, he was, to all appearances, just like millions of other American men of his generation.

CHAPTER 10

In Philadelphia that following Monday morning, homicide detectives Fred Castelli and Mike Foley were, as usual, busy. Going into the new year of 1950, they had had a backlog of six cases. Now they had added the unidentified man found on fire at Barrier Point. That made seven. Fortunately since then, they had been breaking even.

A woman named Hazel Blackmun who lived on Juniper Street in South Philly had been found at home with her head bashed in. No sign of a break-in, no sign of a struggle. Just a couple of quick, sudden blows. A little digging around the neighborhood pointed to a stepson named Ralph who was in the habit of cleaning out the woman's bank account.

One afternoon while Ralph was at work, Castelli broke into the toolshed attached to Ralph's garage. There Hazel's stepson had stored a bloodstained hammer and an undershirt with some matching bloodstains. Murder was, as this case demonstrated, the felony most frequently committed by amateurs.

Then there was the burglary of Quinzani's grocery store two blocks from the Italian market, again in South Philly. Some malefactor had taken it upon himself to visit Mr. and Mrs. Quinzani's cash register one night while they - a couple in their sixties - slept upstairs. The intruder was noisy. Mr. Quinzani - a well-known and much-loved grocer in the neighborhood since 1921 - called the police, then came downstairs with a pistol. Mr. Quinzani was noisy too.

Shots were fired. Less than a minute later Quinzani was lying on the stairs, bleeding to death while a robber fled through the rear window, leaving a wake of cash in every direction. By the time Quinzani expired at St. Agnes' Hospital, Foley and Castelli were already on the case.

The killer had parked his car two blocks away on the other side of Ninth Street. Above a cheese and meat retailer at the Italian market, Mrs. Mary Giancobini often sat in the window. Mrs. Giancobini hadn't slept well at nights since her husband died in 1937. So she had seen a dark-haired, wiry man about five feet eight in height flee across Christian Street and jump into a car. She also saw the man push something dark—a pistol maybe—into his jacket. Mrs. Giancobini noticed that the car was from New Jersey and wrote down the license number. But she did not call the police. Instead, she told her son Francesco. Frankie Giancobini had been in and out of prison twice himself. He knew some other people who had unusual professions and he was wise to the streets.

A day later Castelli's home phone rang.

"You the guy investigating the Quinzani killing?" a voice asked. Castelli allowed that he was. "The guy who done it. His name was Joey Carter," said the caller. Castelli noted immediately that the concerned citizen referred to Carter in the past tense.

Carter was a two-bit hood from Trenton. And he could currently be located, the caller concluded, at Front Street and Snyder Avenue, right next to a furniture warehouse in the trunk of his brown-and-white Nash Rambler. Castelli and Foley found him, his throat cut, his testicles chopped off, his gun—the murder weapon—stuffed in his mouth, and the remainder of the money from Quinzani's cash register wrapped in brown paper for return to the victim's widow. Thus the Quinzani slaying was resolved, at virtually no expense to the taxpayer.

Some cases, such as the slaying of Hazel Blackmun, have straightforward resolutions. Others, such as the Quinzani murder, all but solve themselves. Still others, such as the grilled man at Barrier Point, require more inquiry and legwork.

Thus Castelli and Foley began the Barrier Point inquiry where the Quinzani investigation had concluded. In bars, grocery stores, and barbershops south of Snyder Avenue or over morning coffee at the Melrose Diner on Passyunk, they put out the word.  This being South Philadelphia, someone always knew something.

On the 1900 block of Mifflin Street, for example, around the corner from where Fred Castelli lived, resided a woman named Maude Romero. She was a widow from the war. On Saturday evenings she would draw every shade in her row house, assemble a stack of Sinatra 78's on the Victrola, tart herself up with some perfume from Bravo's Pharmacy on South 17th Street, and cook dinner for two. Then her policeman, Sgt. Castelli, would visit for the night. Maude was six years Castelli's senior. But she kept in shape and passed for thirty-seven in four important categories: age, hips, bust, and carnal enthusiasm. There were many men in the neighborhood who would have liked to have been in, among other things, Castelli's shoes.

Castelli and Maude tried to keep their affair a secret. Castelli used the back door to her home and they went to Mass at Holy Redeemer separately on Sunday morning. They kept things so quiet that the whole neighborhood - including their priest, Father Manzi - knew they were sleeping together. Captain Heintz was even in the habit of phoning Castelli at Maude's if anything urgent came up on weekends.

All of which illustrated Castelli's current problem. "No one in this city can keep his mouth shut. Everybody knows where I go for a good piece of tail," he growled to Mike Foley three weeks into the New Year. "And yet not one person will tell me who got grilled in the navy yard.”

No, no one was talking. It was possible that no one knew.

There wasn't even a hot rumor. No citizen of the city's underclass was reported missing, no one had vanished from a hotel room, no low-rent hood was vacationing in Cuba with a sudden windfall, no one had been scratched off any loan shark's debt books, and no names were unaccounted for on anyone's hit list. Fred Castelli and Mike Foley had never experienced any murder quite like this one.

Even the bullet that had killed the man returned from its ballistics inquest with peculiar biographical notes. The murder weapon was unassociated with any previous crime in Philadelphia. And the markings upon the death bullet suggested that it had been fired from a low-caliber handgun of military origin, though not necessarily American.

Castelli moaned long and low when he learned this. There was so much junk artillery floating around since the war. "It makes my life murder," he liked to joke. But nothing amused him or his partner about the Barrier Point case. The victim was a cipher. The killer was a spook. In any event, the absence of any information helped him draw one supposition. Whatever had happened, its genesis had been outside of the normal working activity of his district. And that meant that the Barrier Point case could elude a resolution for a long time.

CHAPTER 11

Alexandr Filiatov and Marina Sejna arrived in the United States more than a year after Milenkin.

Filiatov had cut his teeth during the final days of the war. As a sergeant in the Russian infantry, he had been in one of the first divisions to reach Berlin from the east. In the final days of the Third Reich, teams of Soviet, British, and American hit squads fanned out across Berlin looking for SS officers and Nazi officials deemed unworthy of postwar trials. Filiatov's division commander, knowing an efficient killer when he saw one, recommended him. A tractor mechanic before the war, Alexandr Filiatov finally had work he enjoyed.

In the days after the peace of April 1945, Filiatov remained in the army. The military life provided free food, heat, a uniform, and a few extra rubles each month with which to get drunk. His division stayed in Poland for many months. A Polish government-in-exile in London had been recognized by the United States. But Joseph Stalin - the Exalted One - had other ideas.

The January 1947 "elections" in Poland were dominated by Stalinists, who not only ran for office but also counted the votes. The Soviet Army remained present to see that the new government of Poland was protected from the democratic aspirations of the Polish people.

Around this time the NKVD was on a talent search in the satellite countries. They found Filiatov in Gdansk, kicking around the docks, getting into fights with Polish longshoremen, and looking for a bosomy ex-barmaid named Teresia who was scared to death of him. Over her, or at least over the physical rights to her, Filiatov had already redesigned one steamfitter's face with a broken bottle.

The Soviet Army transferred him back to Warsaw. There his war record was checked. When he passed muster for the type of operations the state security people had in mind, he was sent back to Moscow for a more thorough look. It was Colonel Volkov who did the evaluation. Volkov was a rising star in Soviet intelligence: his operations against the West had paid dividends for several years already.

In Moscow, in the oppressive gray office building at 10 Dzerzhinski Square where the Soviet secret police made their home, Filiatov was cashiered out of the infantry and into the military intelligence section, under the control of the GRU.  In Hungary that same year, he strangled a non-Communist labor organizer in the back room of a Budapest union hall. And in a doorway outside a Sofia nightclub early the following year, Filiatov shot an obstinate member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party who had criticized Moscow's agricultural policy in the Balkans. The criticism had been made during a church confession, but these things did have a way of getting back.

All of this brought Filiatov certain rewards. He was promoted to captain in the Soviet Army. He was returned to Dzerzhinski Square and immersed in an intensive English course. He was given a small apartment in Moscow. And to keep the apartment cozy and interesting for the star pupil, he was given a Russian wife. Again, this was Colonel Volkov's idea. A woman, he theorized, would also give the GRU an extra leverage against Filiatov.  "If Filiatov steps out of line," Volkov explained to his own superiors, "we can always take her away from him. Females are useful like that."

She was a girl more than she was a woman. Her name was Marina Sejna. She was pretty, blond, nineteen years old, and the niece of an admiral in the Atlantic fleet. She also spoke some English, which would later be improved with an extensive course in Moscow. She was also, as Filiatov would later boast to friends, "factory fresh" when he received her. A civil ceremony was performed on August 15, 1948. The official consummation was performed less than a half hour later when Filiatov dragged his tearful, frightened new bride into his apartment and, never a man of subtleties, rammed himself into her on a divan in the sitting room. Here was the one step along the way that gave pause to the colonel: a pregnancy would greatly complicate things, particularly if Marina wanted to keep her child. The next day the doctors implanted her with a device that she did not understand.

"There will be time for babies sometime in the future," Comrade Volkov told her, "as long as you faithfully do your duty to the Soviet state."

For Marina Sejna, this was a portion of the grand scheme that the party had in store for her. At first she contemplated hanging herself. But she soon discovered that as long as she gave in immediately to her husband's sexual whims and desires, she would be spared his other brutalities. So she dared not complain. Worse things had happened to other young women, she knew, both during and after the war. She even came to think of Filiatov as her protector. In a strange sort of way, with her uncle ranking high in the navy, her family influence protected Filiatov.

So Alexandr Filiatov and Marina Sejna settled into Moscow. They learned English. She was better than he but helped him along. This, in turn, even prompted some tenderness on his part. Time went by. At a moment in history when many Russians suffered, they were not unhappy.

After they had reached a certain level of accomplishment in English, they began to study American culture. They listened to tapes of American radio and were shown selected American movies, particularly those which showed - as their instructors explained it - bourgeois capitalist excesses or the genocidal warfare waged against the once-peaceable tribes of Native Americans.

Secretly, however, Filiatov enjoyed watching outnumbered brigades of white men mowing down wave after wave of feather-clad tomahawk-waving Indians. In spirit, the "B" westerns reminded him of the Eastern front against the Germans.

Midway through 1949, Volkov met with them again. He told them that they would soon be leaving their Moscow apartment to commence an important assignment abroad. They would be rewarded with an even better living location if they were able to complete their mission successfully.

So in October, a few days before the thirty-first anniversary of the Great Revolution, Marina was given pistol training. "You may someday need to save your husband's life," she was told. Shortly after that, the couple was equipped with Finnish passports.

Pistols. Passports.

Marina was under no illusions what her husband was. Nor did she have any real doubts as to the purpose of her own training. So it came as no surprise when a military aircraft took them to Leningrad. There they met a bus that transported them through several brick, concrete, and barbed wire checkpoints and across the border to Helsinki.

From there they flew to London and from London to Toronto. In a Greek restaurant on Queen Street two days after arrival, Colonel Volkov met with them a final time. The rendezvous had been prearranged in Moscow.

Volkov told the couple that he had extensive networks of Soviet patriots in the United States, all working for the worldwide revolution of laboring people. Then Volkov handed Filiatov an envelope containing two new passports and the couple's new identity.

They were now Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Abelow. Their cover story was that they had been displaced persons after the war but had been legally able to immigrate to the United States. Mrs. Abelow already had a sister who was an American citizen, or so the tale went. The passports were excellent forgeries, even bearing exit stamps from the United States five days earlier. Volkov bragged that he had an official stamp that an American friend had stolen from a desk in the U.S. State Department.

Filiatov and Sejna returned to their hotel and memorized their new identity. The next morning snow fell heavily in Toronto. The couple traveled by rail to Windsor, Ontario. The day after that was Thanksgiving Day, 1949, a holiday in the United States but a normal business day in Canada.

Comrades Filiatov and Sejna took advantage of the slow day at the American immigration control to walk across the Ambassador Bridge and enter the United States.

That easily, the assassination team was completely assembled within the borders of the United States. With Milenkin in place in New York and Volkov left behind in Ontario, Alexandr Filiatov and Marina Sejna boarded an eastbound train in Detroit. They already had their first assignment in the United States. Thereafter, they disappeared.

CHAPTER 12

“Commonwealth Pennsylvania Bank…” said Special Agent in Charge, William Roth, “was a tiny little operation in Dublin Township out in Bucks County back in 1933. “Roosevelt closed the banks for fourteen days after he came into office. Commonwealth Penn came within twenty-four hours of not reopening."

Thomas Buchanan sat across a desk from him at the Philadelphia office of the FBI. It was three thirty on the afternoon of January 2, 1950. Several neat manila files were piled in front of Buchanan, but he had spent most of the day listening.

Roth enshrouded himself in smoke, emptied an ashtray, and continued with ancient history. "At the end of the Depression," Roth said, "Commonwealth Penn had five employees: a president, a vice president and three tellers; no guards, no secretaries, not even a cleaning lady. The president and vice president took turns with the key to the bank's only building. They would unlock and lock the doors each day, serve as loan officers, and answer the phone if it happened to ring. The tellers would sweep the floor, dust the potted plants, and empty the wastebaskets. I doubt if they had more than eight hundred depositors. The place was a local joke. And as jokes went,” Roth continued, “Commonwealth Penn was pretty funny.”

Roth had all the numbers. "At the end of 1933, deposits were $316,000 and the purported capital was a very flat $100,000. But the bond depreciation was $298,000 and there were bad debt losses of $89,000, not yet taken,” he said. “Add it all up quickly in your head, Tom. What's that mean to you?"

"The bank was broke," Buchanan said. "It should have gone belly up."

"Should have,” said Roth. “Would have. But the banking law was different back then. A stockholder in the bank could be liable to the depositors for double the face value of the stock he owned. In Commonwealth Penn's case, that meant the bank was worth more dead than alive - except to the president and vice president - a pair of incompetent brothers named Paul and Joel Schusterman."

"How had they come to own the bank?" Buchanan asked.

"How else do morons come to own things?" Roth asked. "They had inherited it. I call it the lucky-sperm syndrome.'"

"Any family money?"

"A little," Roth said. "An uncle had made a bundle in the oil business in western Pennsylvania in the 1870s. The money had filtered down through the family, but these clowns were running out of it." Buchanan listened indulgently.

"Go on," he requested.

"Paul and Joel Schusterman wanted to keep the bank's doors open until they could think of something brilliant. They weren't equipped to think of something brilliant, of course. But they got lucky. John Taylor Garrett came along." Here Roth paused long enough to snuff his cigarette and check a date in one of the folders in front of him. "May 3, 1934," he announced. "That was the day everything changed at Commonwealth Penn."

That was also the day, as Roth described it, that John Taylor Garrett began walking on water with other people's money. Apparently Garrett had been bored to death running the family department store for the last decade. He had been on the lookout for another venture. So he spotted the Commonwealth Bank of Pennsylvania and its impending financial collapse. Here was a natural. The bank was right in Garrett's bailiwick and easy to be had. So Garrett made an offer to buy the bank. He had a pile of family trust money behind him as well as the cash flow from the department stores. But he wasn't planning to use much of his own resources.

Garrett offered the Schusterman brothers a deal. He would assume their debts and Commonwealth Penn's liabilities if they signed everything over to him. The brothers couldn't see how Commonwealth Penn could go in any direction except down. So they accepted the offer and jumped what they perceived to be a financially sinking ship.

"The second thing Garrett did was hop a train to Washington," Roth continued. "He went to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Familiar with it?"

Buchanan shook his head.

"It was a government agency, founded during the Herbert Hoover years but beefed up by F.D.R. It floated loans to businesses to keep them from going under. But the loans had to be collateralized, which was why the Schusterman brothers couldn't get one. You wouldn't have loaned a number two Ticonderoga pencil to those two guys. But John Garrett left the RFC with a loan for $150,000. Know what he talked the feds into taking as security? Eighty-five thousand dollars of preferred stock in Commonwealth Penn, plus a note for $65,000 from Garrett himself, secured by the title to his own home. The latter, I'm told, you are familiar with."

Buchanan nodded. "I've been there," he said. As an understatement, the remark was a conceit. But Roth was wise enough to let it go.

Buchanan recalled the sixty-acre estate with its Pennsylvania stone manor house, its stables, tennis courts, guest and gardener's cottages. The Garrett enclave was a big, delicious chunk of the American dream, surrounded by woods, streams, and meadows.

He could picture it well. He had last seen Ann Garrett there in June 1942, one day before he had gone into the Army. She had worn a red dress with bare shoulders that night. At age twenty she had never looked lovelier. Nor had she ever looked more grown-up. Ann Garrett and Thomas Buchanan had been engaged for a month and in love for more than a year. Looking back on it - from the perspective of a WPA-era federal office building almost eight years later - those months before the war seemed to glisten with an unreal, magical perfection, a dreamlike quality that he should have known would disappear.

Their plans were to marry as soon as the war was over, or as soon as he came home. Whichever came first. He had borrowed his father's big dark green Packard and had taken Ann dancing at a rambling summer ballroom at the Bucks County Cricket Club. Afterward…

Bill Roth jarred Thomas back to the present.

"After the visit to Washington by Garrett, Commonwealth Penn's capital was reduced to a more realistic $40,000 and the losses were written off. On paper John Garrett was in hock to Uncle Sam. But he also had himself a small, clean bank."

Buchanan tried to concentrate: there wasn't much in the way of business in Bucks County back then, Roth explained, which meant Garrett had to create some fast. In the eyes of the public, Commonwealth Penn was still a shaky operation, not the type of place a family wanted to put their money. But Garrett, thirty-six years old at this time, reasoned that his community was one of homes. He further saw that the county was expanding. So Commonwealth Penn went into real estate.

"Most banks at the time were scared to death of builders' loans," Roth said. "They were afraid the builder's house wouldn't sell. But Garrett outwitted the larger banks. He would issue the loan to the builder, then kick a few bucks back to the builder when the builder brought the buyer in for the mortgage. Then he would write the mortgage. Any mortgage. Well, he had guessed right again, because the government began guaranteeing the mortgages under the new FHA law. Soon, he had written more mortgages than he could cover through deposits. So he went on the road again, up and down the East Coast, from Maine to Florida, selling the guaranteed mortgages to larger banks. When he ran out of larger banks he started peddling the investment to insurance companies. As soon as one bought, they all wanted to buy."

Garrett built branches in five other towns. He repeated the procedures, always a few weeks ahead of the larger banks. By 1938 he had bought out two small competitors. By 1939 Commonwealth Penn had assets of $7,000,000. And by 1941 the bank was in eight figures, worth about $12,000,000.

"It bears remembering," Roth concluded, "that Garrett was Commonwealth Penn. It was a one-man show, and he was it. So he was worth approximately what the bank was worth. Plus what the family trust had been valued at to start with."

"Sounds simple," Buchanan said. "How to make a fortune in banking."

Roth crumpled his cigarette pack and prowled through the top drawer of his desk for a new one. "It is simple, Tom," he answered. "If you have twenty-twenty foresight and are five times as smart as all your competition."

Roth rejoiced. His hand settled on a fresh pack of Chesterfields.

"What happened next?" Buchanan asked.

"Someone started a war. At the end of 1941, the United States was drawn into it."

Buchanan remembered that too.

"And if Garrett went away to war like everyone else," Thomas guessed, "that left a one-man bank without its one man. No leadership, in other words."

"Exactly," Roth said. "Ever been in a boat without a rudder? That was Commonwealth Penn in Garrett's absence."

The bank drifted, Roth said, continuing the metaphor, straight onto the rocks. Garrett left a three-man board of directors in charge of the institution's business, the smallest-sized board then permissible under Pennsylvania state law. One of the board members was Garrett's family attorney, a personable old geezer who would have been more at home writing wills or defending drivers accused of making illegal left turns. Another board member was the department store's accountant, who knew how to tally up sums of money but not how to make it. And the third was Garrett's nephew, who was twenty-two years old and straight out of Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania. The kid had a recently punctured eardrum that would keep him out of the war. But he needed a job.

"For all the board accomplished," Roth said, "Garrett might just as well have invited the Schusterman brothers back into the chicken coop."

Deposits fell off. Competitors sprang up like mushrooms following a spring rain. The Philadelphia banks established outposts in Bucks County and systematically picked off Commonwealth Penn's base of business. The main branch was even held up at gunpoint by a deranged sailor, a source of considerable amusement in local banking circles: Why rob a bank where one could just as easily obtain a large unsecured loan, then default?

A few beads of sweat ringed Roth's forehead near his hairline. He stood long enough to open a window a crack. Outside, overlooking Chestnut Street and the federal courthouse, it was dark. A tiny current of cold air sliced into the office.

“Commonwealth Penn tried to play catch-up,” Roth resumed. “The bank hired some new loan officers. They were like arsonists summoned to a roaring blaze. They wrote loans to anyone who came in the door. Soon bad-risk borrowers were traveling from as far away as Pittsburgh with untenable business plans. No matter. They all came away with credit. When the bank examiners came in November 1944, they discovered that sixty-two percent of the new loans written in 1943 and 1944 were to applicants who had been turned down by at least one other bank somewhere in Pennsylvania. Another ten percent had been turned down in Delaware, Maryland, or New Jersey. And by June 1945," Roth said, working on a fresh Chesterfield and moving toward a conclusion, "the bad paper was thundering home to roost. A quarter of the commercial credit was in default and the bank was virtually insolvent. Take a guess what happened next."

"You tell me," Buchanan said.

Roth explained. Garrett reappeared, Roth said. Only this time Garrett did not have the mortgage and building businesses to save him. The bank floundered. But Garrett mesmerized the state examiners, kept the institution open, and eventually generated a respectable loan demand in the postwar economy. But by then he did not have the resources to cover the loans he wanted to write. So off he went on the road again, trying to sell loans the way he had once sold mortgages: Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. Then Maryland, Ohio, and Florida. This time the magic was gone.

"So what did he do?" Buchanan asked.

"No one knows exactly. This was sometime in 1947. But apparently he took his show even further on the road. Went to Europe, if our sources are straight. There was even a pair of rumors. One said he had taken off for South America with what remained of the cash assets of the bank. The other tale had it that he had killed himself. Neither was entirely credible. He showed up again after an absence of a few weeks. He was all bright and chipper. And the next thing anyone knew, Commonwealth Penn was rolling in money again. How did he do it?" Roth opened his hands and arms in a wide dramatic gesture of wonder. "I don't know. That's for you to find out."

The summation suddenly finished. Buchanan held Roth in his gaze for several seconds.

"Any theories?" Buchanan finally asked. Roth motioned to the stack of files.

"It's all in there," he said. "The bank is awash in unidentifiable corporate accounts, holding companies that only have initials, transactions that may or may not be coming from Europe and Asia, and letters of credit from London and Zurich used to generate loans from Commonwealth Penn. All this for a remote, struggling suburban bank? You tell me something's not wrong."

"It sounds like a textbook example of money laundering," Buchanan said.

"It's more than that. You'll see when you go through those files. Whatever happened, wherever the money came from, it caused Garrett's wife to leave him and his daughters to move far away. We assume they're alive, but we can't locate them. To give you a further example of what you're getting into," Roth said, "we can't even locate Garrett from day to day. He's a recluse. Works out of his home when he's in the area and disappears for the rest of the time. An invisible man running a bank with millions in assets from phantom sources." Roth blew out a long stream of smoke and fiddled with his cigarette. "Now factor in the political angle. If Garrett is a Red and his bank is unaccountably solvent, what’s going on? You'd have a better insight than any man in the Bureau. You knew the family.”

"Years ago," Buchanan said evenly.

"At least that's somewhere to start. Make your own good luck.”

Buchanan said he would.

"Here's something else," Roth said. "You worked in the Chicago office for a time,
didn't you, Tom?"

"In 1946. For about ten months. My first assignment."

"Did you know a special agent there named Mark O'Connell?"

Buchanan's attention perked. "Yes," he said with mild surprise. "Of course. I knew him quite well."

"He resigned from the FBI two or three months ago. He was working on something that may have touched upon the Garrett case. I don't know. He quit in anger over something petty one day. Took a job as a local police chief somewhere out west. The location is in one of those manila folders," Roth said, pointing with an index finger, "along with the reports he wrote of his final cases."

Roth cleared his throat, a rasping, guttural sound. "No one knows for sure if O'Connell turned up anything that touched on Garrett," Roth said. "But you might consider…"

"Taking advantage of the friendship and looking O'Connell up?" His tone suggested his annoyance.

"Exactly. Even if you have to travel. I'll authorize the expense."

Roth paused for a moment, then moved to the point.

"Look, Tom. You know how things work here. J. Edgar himself is going to be glaring over our shoulders. And I think you know that failure - real or imagined - is not tolerated very long in this agency."

Buchanan nodded. Roth managed a sympathetic smile.

"I better let you get reading," he said.

An inch and a half of gray ash tumbled from his cigarette onto his shirt, not for the first time judging by some of the stains on the clothing. He made a show of brushing it off. But he was finished talking.

Then, "Good luck," Roth concluded.

It sounded like a benediction as he departed.

Outside, it was night.

Thomas Buchanan walked slowly down a long corridor from the office of Special Agent in Charge William Roth. In his arms he carried the Bureau's complete files on John Taylor Garrett.

Buchanan entered his own office, the one to which he had been newly assigned. With a sigh he set the files on his desk. Near them was a small reading lamp with a green glass shade. Thomas turned it on and sat down.

A thousand questions besieged him. Where had Garrett's new solvency come from? To where have his daughters disappeared? What about Garrett's wife? A terrible emotion was upon Thomas when he reasoned that all three women could be dead. Why was foreign money pouring into a remote bank headed by the heir to a department store fortune? And whose money was it? Was this the repayment of a wartime favor? Or was this just good, aggressive business by John T. Garrett at a time when Commonwealth Penn needed it most?

For a moment Buchanan brooded on it without touching any of the files. Garrett had been an intelligence officer during the war, he reminded himself. Frank Lerrick had told him that much. What kind of intelligence work? And for whom? Was this an angle, or a trail leading off into darkness? Could the FBI get Garrett's wartime record from the United States Army or the State Department? Or would one of these files currently on his desk be able to guide him?

There was a night porter in the office, an illiterate old Negro named Charles who would run long errands for a fifty-cent piece. Buchanan sent him up to Broad Street to retrieve a sandwich and some coffee. Then, while still waiting for Charles to return, his interest gradually heightening, Buchanan drew toward him the stack of files on John Taylor Garrett.

He noted the time on his watch. Nine fifteen. He opened the nearest of the files and diligently set to work, attempting to reconcile his own memory of Ann Garrett's father with the man whose life the Bureau now wanted turned inside out.

CHAPTER 13

Laura Garrett, John Taylor Garrett’s other daughter, turned off the shower in her London flat. She stepped out of the stall onto the plush carpet on the bathroom floor. She reached for a towel from the heated rack. She ran the towel over her skin until she was dry.

Her stomach churned with anticipation. She had two hours to get ready. At six that Saturday evening a man named Henry Walters would call on her. It would be their first date. He would take her to dinner, then to the theater. It remained to be seen how the evening would go. But Laura had already made a decision about Henry. He was the man whom she wanted to marry. Laura Garrett was twenty-nine years old. She worked as a buyer for an expensive jewelry store named Pace's in one of the fashionable arcades near Savile Row. She maintained a comfortable flat on Brook Street in Mayfair. Like her younger sister, Ann, Laura was of considerable beauty, though with dark brown hair and greenish-blue eyes, she looked little like Ann.

Beauty was a funny thing to Laura. She knew how to show it and how to hide it and made conscious decisions when to do either. Tonight she had decided to show it. Two months previously, in early November 1949, she had first met Henry. It had been at a gallery opening for an expatriate American artist in residence in Knightsbridge. Henry was a thin, bookish man of thirty-one with glasses and short brown hair. Henry, who was also an American, was in a party of people from the United States Embassy in London. He was not the type of man who habitually turned the heads of beautiful women. But Laura found out his name and who he was. She also learned he was unmarried. He was, in short, just what she was looking for.

Meeting him directly, and getting him to ask her out, was more difficult. She began taking her lunch at the Audley Pub on the street of the same name. The Audley was around the corner from the embassy and not far from Pace's. By early December they had "met," by what he considered chance, when she had asked him to save her place on a banquette during a crowded noon hour.

Obviously he was aware that she was American. But Laura could always tell when her beauty intimidated a man. Henry was too shy to talk to her. So next, while allowing him to think that he had initiated the conversation, she asked him where she might catch a bus that would take her to Kensington.

He explained how to catch it.

"I'll never find the bus stop," she said helplessly. "Maybe you could show me."
It was a four-block walk, during which their conversation continued. She said she had graduated from Smith College at the end of the war. She was from Pennsylvania, she told him, and had worked for her father's bank briefly, then had moved to New York and worked as an assistant buyer at Tiffany & Co. Now she planned to work in London for a year.

"Where are you from?" she asked next.

"Shaker Heights, Ohio," he answered, explaining that it was a suburb of Cleveland.

"I knew a girl at Smith College who was from Shaker Heights," she said.

They exchanged names but had no mutual friends. Henry had a degree in international politics from Amherst College, he said, further elaborating that he was assigned to London for two years on business. But when she inquired what sort, he evaded the question. Then they arrived at the bus stop.

More lunchtime meetings followed. Over sandwiches of Scottish beef, accompanied by Spanish sherries and English ale, much small talk followed. Henry revealed that there was no woman in his life, either in London or back home. Laura let it be known that she sat home in her flat most evenings. Shortly after Christmas, Henry worked up the nerve to ask her out. Much to his amazement, she accepted.

Laura finished drying herself in front of the full-length mirror on the wardrobe of her bedroom. She studied her own body. She perfumed her neck and breasts. She was proud of herself. She had seen how childbearing, the drudgery of housework, and sedentary life-styles had taken their toll on many women of her age. But not Laura. She stood before the mirror for a few extra moments and looked at herself approvingly. She had the flawless figure that could turn a strong man into a bumbling fool.

She dressed carefully and was ready by the time her doorbell rang at a minute after six.

Henry brought her flowers. She invited him in. He sat patiently in the living room while she returned to the bedroom to put on a final piece of jewelry. Eventually he stood up and walked around, examining, as she knew he would, the appointments of the living room.

From where she was dressing, Laura could tell where in the room he was. She knew he had stopped at the mantel above the fire grate and was more than likely examining the photographs upon it. Then she was ready and came out to the living room. "I like your apartment," he said.

"Thank you. I share it," she answered.

She nodded toward a color portrait in a silver frame on the mantel. She knew Henry couldn't have missed it. "The other girl in the picture is my sister," she said. "Her name is Ann. It's her apartment too."

She pointed to another portrait on the other end of the mantel, this one black and white and very prewar. "Those are my parents," she said.

Henry took her first to dinner at a small French restaurant in Whitfield Street, then to a production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives that played to a capacity house in the West End. As it turned out, it was an altogether pleasant evening.

He brought her home by taxi. Laura made two cups of tea, as she always did when she brought someone home. She expressed surprise, however, that her sister was not home yet. Laura played shy, attentive, well spoken, and chaste. She let Henry lead the conversation. They revealed more about each other. Her father owned a bank back in America, she said. She had grown up with riding lessons, country clubs, and private schools. His own background was thoroughly middle class, he told her, and his father was an insurance executive back in Ohio. After Amherst, he said, he had taken a civil service exam just to see where it might lead. He had tested well and had gone into the state department.

"That's where I am now," he revealed for the first time. "My first tour of duty was Havana. I was in Washington for my second. London is my third."

"So you're a diplomat?" she said with some surprise. "For all the times we've had lunch, you never told me that."

"You never asked," he joked, loosening up.

"You said you were in business," she said.

"I am. Political business."

They shared another laugh. She was cautious about not asking him too much. But he did venture the information that he was a political officer.

"Well, I think that's very patriotic," she said at length, "working for the United States government. More people should serve their country instead of just finding ways to make money."

"It's not terribly exciting," he said modestly. "It's a job like anything else."

They talked for a while longer, enjoying each other's company. Forty-five minutes later she began to yawn and said that she really must be getting to bed soon.

He picked up his cue and rose to go. Laura let him kiss her at the door. She did not wish to proceed too quickly with him. But as he kissed her, she leaned to him in such a way that he knew her superb body might be his to enjoy someday.

He called her the next day and asked her to attend a party with him. She accepted. It was a private black-tie affair at the Savoy Hotel, sponsored by the United States Embassy. The evening was complete with Persian caviar and Dom Perignon champagne, courtesy of their wealthy Uncle Sam, who had ignored the California champagne, at least for this evening.

Another date followed after that.

Toward the middle of January 1950, the relationship had turned serious. One Friday evening, after drinks at the Café Royale, Laura told Henry that her sister was away for the entire weekend. She let him think about this while they watched a drama at the Duke of York Theatre. Then Laura invited him back to her flat.

This time she never made the tea. Instead, Laura fell into his arms. He clumsily began undressing her and, after a few token gestures of resistance, she reached to the light, turned it off, took Henry's hand, and led him to her bedroom.

There she slipped out of the rest of her clothes. She pulled a satin robe around her and sat down on the edge of her bed. Henry sat down next to her. She took his hand.

"I'll sleep with you only if you love me," she said.

"I do," he answered.

"Then let me hear you say it."

"I love you," Henry said. He kissed her as if he really did.

So began their affair. Henry, on the threshold of a great romance as well as a glamorous diplomatic tour in the English capital, felt like a man of the world.

Laura, for her part, kept her innermost thoughts to herself, nurturing her new lover and her career, knowing that she was completely in control. It seemed to both of them, a magnificent time to be young and American and making limitless plans for the future.

CHAPTER 14

Seven thousand miles west of London, and slightly less than a thousand miles south of Peterton, Oregon, the actress known as Lisa Pennington lay in a nightgown on the bed of a garishly decorated Los Angeles apartment.

Lisa’s apartment overlooked Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, a few blocks from UCLA. A paperback book of true crime stories titled Prescription: Murder lay across her lap. About an hour earlier she had lost interest in reading, although homicide was much on her mind.

It was three AM, several evenings into the new year of 1950, and her only companion was the nearly empty glass of bourbon and water that sat at her bedside. Her eyes tried to close, but she resisted sleep. Lisa was one-third drunk, one-third depressed, and one-third out of her mind with anger. She was, in other words, waiting for her errant husband to stagger home.

In her mind she spun wild fantasies about smashing him over the head with the Jack Daniel's bottle when he came in the door. And as he lay dying, she would calmly step over him carrying her bags. Then off to another country she would run with a younger, different man. One who would love, respect, and appreciate her. Not a man who stayed out nights whoring like her husband did.

Whoring.

She held the term in her mind and wondered about its vagaries. Was it whoring if he did not pay cash in exchange for getting laid? Was it whoring if he was working his way through the meat rack of willing starlets, just like every other two-bit film director in Hollywood? From the opposite viewpoint, was it whoring for a woman to sleep her way into a film?

Her mind drifted.

It was midnight back East. It was too late to call any old friends. It was too late to try to find a friendly voice on the telephone and admit that, yes, with her ambition, her abuse of drugs and alcohol, her misjudgment of the character - or lack of it - of certain men, she had maneuvered herself into one hell of a mess. There really wasn't any possible retreat into the past. No longer, it seemed, did she have any hope of reclaiming who she had been or what she wanted to be.

She cursed to herself. The sound of her own voice jarred her in the empty room. She reached for the glass of bourbon and water. She drained it with one long, loud, self-pitying gulp. She returned to the thought of running off with another man. She came back to it increasingly these days. There was, after all, no contract in Hollywood so ironclad that a sharp lawyer couldn't break it. Marriages were small stuff compared with some of the things she had seen.

Again her thoughts drifted. Here she was staggering through her twenties wondering how she could have allowed things to get so far out of control. Growing up, she had always been the prettiest girl in her class. In college she had moved easily into acting. She had left college for two years during the war, but then as a student at Northwestern University she had done exceptionally well in the college's dramatic productions. In 1944 she had gone to New York to test her aspirations on a professional level.

She took a single room at the Barbizon, went to several auditions, and played around with a stage name. Within three months she found herself in a small six-character comedy off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theater. It was the first play by a young man from Michigan. Lisa might have fallen in love with him. He was handsome, sandy-haired, and sensitive. But he was also gay. Nonetheless, Lisa had the only female role in his play. She made the best of it and she and the writer became close friends.

Two other roles followed. Neither play lasted long, but her name appeared favorably in Variety. By February 1946 she had her first Broadway role—all forty-three lines of it as a saucy, impertinent, leggy French maid—in a raucous comedy entitled Halfway to Heaven. There were sixty-eight new productions on Broadway that buoyant postwar year. Opportunities were there to be had. Sadly, it was during her twenty-week run in Halfway to Heaven, when everything else seemed to be going right, that she met Jesse Chadwick, the film director.

Chadwick, who had actually been born in Flatbush under the name of Bernard Cherkasky thirty-seven years earlier, had missed the world war for reasons that were unclear to everyone. His contribution to the Allied victory had been to roam the back lots of RKO, where during the war years he had churned out three second features, better known as “B” movies, a year. Inevitably one would be a western with an admirable, patriotic moral for boys and girls. The other two were usually contemporary wartime potboilers with some romance, some veiled sex, and a heavy propaganda message for adults.

RKO was actually RKO Radio Pictures. It had once been one of the so-called Big Five Studios in Hollywood, but these days, following years of inconsistent management, it was a maverick operation, part of the financial empire of tycoon-aviator Howard Hughes, who was increasingly a presence in the film world.

Hughes’s contributions to the film industry and American postwar culture were already part of a growing legend. As a producer, his films The Racket and The Front Page had been nominated for Oscars. Ten years earlier, Hughes had designed the steel underwire “push-up” bra for the prodigiously endowed sweater girl, Jane Russell, to wear under a sheer silk blouse in The Outlaw, another Hughes production.

Hughes, an airplane designer, had adopted modern wing-support technologies to uplift Miss Russell’s ample bosom,  with great commercial results. The film's release had been delayed for three years because of Russell's wardrobe and sensuous portrayal. Hughes finally decided to release the film without a Motion Picture Code seal, marking the beginning of the end of film censorship. Billboards pockmarked Hollywood and the nation with the film’s release, all of them featuring Miss Russell suggestively facing the viewer. George S. Kauffman dubbed the film and its promotion as, “A Sale of Two Titties.” The unofficial name stuck among Hollywood smart alecks.

But by 1950, RKO had no big name stars on its own roster other than up-and-coming actor Robert Mitchum, who had recently served a two-month prison sentence for marijuana possession, and Cary Grant, whose services were shared with Columbia Pictures.

Lacking in-house stars, RKO convinced other studios to farm out their biggest names to short-term deals. John Wayne had starred in 1943's A Lady Takes a Chance while on loan from Republic Pictures. By the late 1940s, he was soon working regularly with RKO, making nine more movies for the studio.  Gary Cooper had recently appeared in RKO releases and Claudette Colbert starred in a number of RKO co-productions. Ingrid Bergman appeared on loan from David Selznick in The Bells of St. Mary’s in 1945, the biggest RKO hit during the decade.  In a similar fashion, many leading directors made films at RKO during this era, including Alfred Hitchcock who made Notorious in 1946.

But more than anything, RKO relied on B pictures to fill up its schedule. Two of the top RKO earners, Cat People in 1942 and I Walked with a Zombie in 1943, had set the tone for what was to follow - Bing Crosby, Alfred Hitchcock and John Wayne notwithstanding.

Into this swampy world of low budgets, low quality and low morality, Jessie Chadwick fit perfectly. It was a world custom tailored for him. Post-World War Two Los Angeles was an anything-goes type of place, where the struggles between good and evil were felt on the streets every day, complete with many shady accommodations. It was also the time when the snitches began to rat out the accused leftists in the film industry. As if this mix weren’t combustible enough, ambitious underworld players like Chadwick’s pal Mickey Cohen came west from Chicago and New York to set up business.

In response, LA Police Chief William Parker created his unofficial “Intelligence Division.”  Beginning in 1946 its members had been assigned to root out mob influence in Southern California. Their means were often extralegal, including warrantless wiretaps and physical abuse of suspects in alleys, on hilltops above Hollywood, or private houses set aside for those purposes.

Jesse Chadwick was coarse and crude, but not stupid enough to get on the wrong side of either the William Parkers or the Mickey Cohens of his world. Additionally he had a feeling for what would sell to the American public. And in the actress who became known as Lisa Pennington, he saw the woman he had hoped would come along at least once in his lifetime. With her freshness, her delicately fragile but perfectly formed body, her straightforward, wholesome, blond American beauty, Lisa was to Jesse Chadwick exactly the woman whose appeal could be magnified on film. He was so sure of this that he paid for her transportation by train from New York to the West Coast in July 1946.

He met her on her arrival at Union Station in Los Angeles. Immediately he turned on the charm. He had friends in town that week and arranged for Lisa to take a screen test. Afterwards, he took her on a guided tour of the RKO studios as well as Paramount. Cashing in a few favors and eager to impress her, Chadwick arranged for Lisa to briefly meet Robert Donat and Leo Gorcey. He even got a distant nod from the surly, aloof Orson Welles, who would nod to anyone if it meant a debt was removed. At a party in Beverly Hills, Lisa met her idol, Ingrid Bergman, and actually struck up a friendship. Their paths crossed from time to time at RKO, and Lisa had lunch with her in the commissary as often as once a month.

All this time Chadwick kept a tight rein on Lisa. To keep the other Hollywood wolves away from her, he never let her out of his sight. And to make sure that his can't-miss discovery wouldn't jump ship on him, he continued to pour on the rough-hewn charm. She fell for it. Once smitten, it bothered her little that the consensus in the movie community was that Jesse Chadwick had the eyes of a cobra and morals to match. No matter. When he proposed marriage in April 1948, she accepted.

For marriage vows, Lisa Pennington insisted on something quick, quiet, and nonsectarian. She had intentionally never told Chadwick much about her family. They weren’t invited to the wedding. They would have disowned her. Chadwick figured that no respectable parents could possibly like him no matter what he did, so he was happy not to have to run the gauntlet of future in-laws. Thus, while both parties remained in the mood, a quick civil ceremony was performed by a justice of the peace in Burbank, California, that same April. A honeymoon followed in Acapulco, spent mostly indoors. After that Chadwick had plans for his discovery.

He took her to France, where the film industry was reawakening after the nightmare of the war. On the beaches of Nice and Monaco, Chadwick shot a low-budget, English-language murder mystery complete with American financing, a Brazilian producer, a French cast, a Hungarian cinematographer, an Italian crew, and a Serbo-Croatian director. The film was called, among other things, A Pretty Time to Kill, depending on the language in which it was being mentioned. It featured an ample number of shots of Lisa nearly nude going in and out of the water on the French beaches.

Swimwear was gradually disappearing in 1949. The suit that Lisa would wear in her husband's film had two pieces, neither of which covered very much by the standards set by Betty Grable.

Lisa was appalled the first time she saw it.

"Jesse, I can't do it," she protested.

"You'll be a pin-up all over the world," Jesse Chadwick promised his wife.

"I'm not sure I want to be."

"Do it," he said smoothly, "for both of us."

The first time she tried on the suit and had to step out of her dressing room in it, she felt like crying. Her husband nursed her along with a stiff bourbon and water. Out she came, blushing crimson, and began eight days of beach shooting. On the final day, in a scene shot in a hotel bedroom, she removed her top before the appreciative leer of the film's male lead. Even though she kept her back to the camera, the scene took more courage than she knew she had. Somehow she lived through that, too.

All of this was in June 1949. The film turned out well and was distributed around the world. It might have drawn the predictable Condemned rating from the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, which would have limited its American distribution. But Chadwick had some friends back in Brooklyn who paid the right people in the right archdiocese. So the film pushed the limits of decency, made a lot of money for both of them but flew under the radar of official censorship. It did not make Lisa the pinup star her husband hoped for, but it put her on the right track. Lisa did not blush much anymore, at least not over what she was asked to do in films. And Jesse Chadwick still had plans for her.

They returned to California. Lisa completed a part in one of her husband's final back-lot epics. The talk was that Chadwick, with sexy Lisa under his wing, was about to move up a notch in Hollywood.

Jesse's brother, Harry Cherkasky, who operated a talent agency, negotiated a deal with a producer named Joe Preston at RKO. Preston was loathsome, inarticulate, apelike and obnoxious. Aside from that, he was not a bad fellow and helped friends navigate the tricky new Hollywood blacklist.  He was also famous in the film colony for cheap, financially successful movies and a legendarily hyperactive libido.

Chadwick signed to direct three features for Joe Preston over the next eighteen months. The first of them, a light romantic comedy tentatively titled Hold the Phone! would star Lisa. Preston's brother-in-law, a guy named Michal Curtis, was currently finishing the script. Only a few details remained to be worked out between Chadwick and Preston, mostly of the sort that did not appear on paper.

All this accomplished, Jesse Chadwick had an emerging star on his hands, a studio contract in his pocket, and a beautiful woman named Lisa Pennington in his bed whenever he so desired. Thus it was a perfect time, from Chadwick's viewpoint, to start hedging his bets for the future.

Nightly Chadwick prowled the nightclubs, bars, and various other meat factories of Hollywood where fellow directors and producers swapped introductions to other young starlets who also wanted to ingratiate their way into films. The first time that Lisa suspected that her husband had slept with another woman she had been disbelieving. The second time she had been emotionally shattered. The third time she confronted him.

"Men are men," Chadwick had replied with complete calm. "It's just sex. The other broads don't mean nothin’.”

"Please stop it, Jesse," she begged him.

"Forget it," he said. "I need a lot of girls. I don't expect you to understand. But I do expect you to shut up and accept it."

Lisa threatened to leave. That's when Chadwick explained. His brother had her on a professional contract and he had her on a marriage contract. Much time, attention, and money had already been invested in her. If she tried to fight them or desert them, he explained calmly, or even if she persisted with this nonsense about divorcing him, he had some old friends from Bensonhurst who did odd jobs around the movie industry.

These men would find her wherever she was, he said, no matter what sort of protection she thought she had. Then they would go to work on her beautiful face and body. When they were finished mutilating her no one, much less the American public, would ever want to look at her again, much less pay to see her. Further, if she ever went to court alleging adultery, he would produce a dozen studio lackeys who would testify that they had slept with her. She would be publicly branded an ungrateful slut in addition to what she had received from the thugs from Bensonhurst.

This was how Jesse Chadwick did business. "Have I made this clear?" he asked.

He had. Lisa was too stunned and terrified to respond.

"Then don't ever again complain," he concluded. He finished the discussion by belting her hard - the first time he had ever hit her - across the side of the head. He was careful not to hit her in the face. The face might have to be photographed.

It was not long afterward, as her husband spent more and more evenings out and around Los Angeles, that Lisa began to find solace in the bottle of Jack Daniel's. And it was just such an evening in January 1950 that found her lying awake in the garishly decorated bedroom that she shared with her husband, a paperback across her waist, fighting off fatigue and refilling her glass of bourbon and water.

By quarter to three an uneasy sleep began to settle upon her. It grew deeper a few minutes later until finally she dozed. It was a quarter past four when she heard the door to the apartment open. She came awake instantly and was conscious of her own heartbeat. She recognized the rattle of her husband's keys, followed by the sound of the door shutting. Several seconds later the overhead light went on in the bedroom. She shielded her eyes.

"Turn it off, would you?" she mumbled.

He ignored her.

"Where were you this time?" she asked.

"You don't want to know," he said.

"Tell me anyway."

"I was with Joe Preston," he said.

He undid his necktie and began to unbutton his shirt. She thought for a moment he might blow into one of his rages and come over and beat her across the arms and head. He did it about once a week now, often late at night, and she was used to it. It was like having to screw him. She wished that he did it to her while she slept. That way she would be less conscious of it as it happened.

Instead, his attention settled upon the bourbon. He picked up the bottle that was next to her glass. He tried to remember how full it had been.

"How much have you had?"

"Enough," she said. "After a few months of marriage to you, Jesse, getting drunk is the only thing I enjoy."

"Booze and no sleep," he said. "By the time Hold the Phone! starts shooting you'll look like you're fifty years old." He looked at her tauntingly as he set aside the liquor bottle. He pulled his shirt off. "Lisa, you're supposed to physically arouse the men of America. How are you going to do that if you look like somebody's grandmother?"

"I don't know, Jesse. You have all the answers. You tell me, you bastard."

"Of course, that's if there's a production of Hold the Phone!" he said. "I can do only so much. You're the one who has to make the deal final with Joe Preston."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, coming awake. He sat down on the side of her bed.

"Lisa," he said; "Joe Preston is doing you a tremendous favor. He's putting you in a role where you'll be noticed. Don't you think that's going to turn into a significant advancement for your career?"

"Jesse," she said, sitting up. "Tell me what you're getting at. What did you promise him?"

"I said you'd have dinner with him at his apartment next Friday," he said. "Just the two of you."

She stared at him.

“And I said that I wouldn't expect you back until the next afternoon.”

For a moment their eyes locked, his completely calm, hers in horror. What kind of man bartered away his own wife's dignity for a step up in a world of celluloid? Before Lisa could fully comprehend that she had married just that sort of man, he rose and walked to the chair upon which he had draped his shirt. He removed the gold cuff links from the uncuffed sleeves.

Lisa rose from the bed and walked to him. She was beyond tears now, but not beyond rage and indignation, at least for the moment. He turned and faced her squarely.

"Yes?" he asked. With all her force she slapped him across the side of the face. The sound of the contact filled the room but barely fazed him.

"I won't do it," she said. "Never!"

"Yes, you will," he answered. Then suddenly he grabbed her arm and became very angry. "Listen, Lisa! If you had any schoolgirl prudery bottled up in you, you should have left it back home. There's a film contract involved here. There's big money. There's a career for you and me. Los Angeles is filled with girls who want to be stars. How the hell do you think one girl breaks away from the pack?"

"I will not go to bed with Joe Preston," she said between clenched teeth. She yanked her arm and broke free. He let her go. She broke from him, charged drunkenly away, and knocked over a night table as she fled. She stomped through their living room and locked herself in the guest bedroom.

Friday was five days away. There was plenty of time, Jesse Chadwick reasoned, for his wife to come to further understand the world beyond her irritating middle class values. For her part, Lisa tried to cry herself back to sleep, this time with deep, sobbing gasps. The moment was finally upon her when she had to admit to herself exactly what kind of man her husband was. But she also understood the seriousness of the threats of physical violence if she disobeyed Jesse Chadwick. He was in the habit of beating her - never in the face, where the evidence could be seen or where it would interfere with publicity photographs. But around the arms and the torso were fair game.

Somehow she managed to pass out. Somehow she managed to sleep. When she woke up shortly before noon the next morning, she felt sick to her stomach. Then, for the first time in her life, she felt like killing herself.

She rose from the sofa where she had slept and walked to the guestroom door. She was about to unlock it and come out, when she heard the telephone. Her husband picked it up after two rings. She stood and listened, realizing very quickly that he was talking with Joe Preston. She could tell because Jesse called him by his name and assured him that Lisa would be his dinner companion that following Friday night.

It was not the easiest of times, Lisa knew, for anyone in La La Land. Golden careers could turn to dust overnight with just the wrong phone call or a bad tidbit in the press. She had seen a friend hounded and destroyed.

In July 1946, William R. “Billy” Wilkerson, the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, had published a column entitled A Vote for Joe Stalin. The column named ten alleged Communist sympathizers in the movie industry, all writers or directors, including Dalton Trumbo and Howard Koch, who had written Casablanca. Lisa had met both of them and considered them friends. In the following months, Wilkerson published other columns containing a larger number of alleged Communists and sympathizers.  Several people Lisa knew were named.

In October 1947, drawing upon the list named in The Hollywood Reporter, a number of people working in the Hollywood film industry were summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had declared its intention to investigate whether Communist agents and sympathizers had been surreptitiously planting propaganda in U.S. films.

The hearings had begun with several Hollywood professionals, including Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild, testifying that the threat of Communists in the film industry was a serious one. Several of the accused appeared before Congress and refused to testify. Ten were cited for contempt.

In December of the same year, there followed a private meeting in New York City among forty-eight motion picture company executives at the plush Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, as anti-Communist a bastion as could be found in Manhattan. They issued a statement in response to the contempt of Congress charges against the so-called "Hollywood Ten" and more than three hundred employees in the motion picture and related industries who were also accused of being Communists or Communist sympathizers, present or past. All the big studio producers of the time signed the statement, including Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, Samuel Goldwyn and Albert Warner.

The “Waldorf Statement” as it became known, was a two-page press release issued on December 3, 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America. The forty-eight signers declared that the Hollywood Ten would be fired or suspended without pay and not reemployed until they were cleared of contempt charges and had sworn that they were not Communists. The first Hollywood blacklist was therefore in effect. Others would follow. But efforts to regulate or intimidate the political or personal behavior of those in the film industry did not stop there.

Lisa’s friend, Ingrid Bergman, had won an Oscar for Gaslight in 1944.  The Swedish-born Bergman had played Victor Laszlo’s wife in the patriotic potboiler Casablanca, a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's and a virgin saint in Joan of Arc. But none of this was enough to insulate her once public opinion had turned. Her image had been destroyed in 1949 when she commenced a relationship with married Italian director Roberto Rossellini on the set of Stromboli and became pregnant with his child.

Sensationalistic stories from Hollywood gossip columnists were swift and extensive. American religious groups demanded that Bergman's films to be banned. Sen. Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado denounced her by name on the floor of the United States Senate, calling her "a powerful influence for evil" and suggesting she be barred from the country for "moral turpitude."

Bergman took the hint. She fled to Italy and remained there.

Lisa Pennington had idolized Ingrid Bergman. These days, as Jesse’s prisoner, Lisa thought a lot about the beautiful, intelligent Ingrid Bergman. If people could do what they had done to Bergman, Lisa realized, imagine what they could do to her if she crossed the wrong people.

She would be better off, she decided, to just get drunk, keep quiet and let Joe Preston lay her.

CHAPTER 15

Mary Doyle, Buchanan’s new secretary and assistant, was a trim, graying woman in her fifties. She was a law-enforcement lifer, articulate, dedicated, and, above all, trustworthy.  Her father had been the chief of police in Olney, Pennsylvania, during the First World War. She had married a Pennsylvania state trooper in 1923. Together they had two sons and two daughters. In 1941, when manpower shortages beset critical government offices, she had gone to work at the Philadelphia field office of the FBI as a file clerk. She had been there since.

On the second Wednesday in January, Mary cleaned her desk of all previous business and cases. On Thursday morning she moved to a location outside of Special Agent Buchanan's office. There she oversaw the connection of two direct telephone lines to her desk as well as to his. When this was done, Thomas presented her with a condensed file of the case on which she would be assisting him.

"Please read it thoroughly," he told her. "Take your time. Then come back into my office." Mary took it to her desk and read it without looking up. At a few minutes after eleven that morning she buzzed Thomas on the intercom.

"Finished," she said.

"Good. Come on in. Ring Bill Roth also. See if he can join us."

Two minutes later Mary came through the door to Thomas Buchanan's office. She arrived with a pad and pencil. She seated herself to the left of his desk. Roth materialized a few minutes later.

"Mary, you've read the briefing report on John Garrett?" Thomas asked.

"Yes, sir," she said.

Buchanan turned toward Roth. "You're the head of this field office," he began. "I want you to know the direction in which I'm starting in case you have any suggestions."
Roth nodded and lit a cigarette.

Buchanan turned back to his assistant. "Mary, the first thing I want to know is the location of each of the four members of the Garrett family. Whatever John Taylor Garrett is involved in, by all indications it has affected his private life." He turned toward Roth for a moment. "May I have the use of some clerical researchers for the inquiry?" Buchanan asked. "I'll need at least two.”

Roth nodded. "I'll give you Valenti and Schafft. Two of our best."

Roth turned to Mary. “Mary,” Roth said, “tell them to put aside whatever they're working on. They can have today to get their desks in order.”

“I want to locate the Garrett daughters first,” Buchanan said. “If they had a falling out with their father, they may be inclined to talk to us. But we’re missing a location. They seem to have disappeared during the war.”

Buchanan continued to Mary. "Tell Valenti and Schafft that I'll brief them in this office at six tomorrow. In the meantime prepare a memo for them on the two daughters. Give Ann Garrett to Valenti, give Laura Garrett to Schafft. Trace the girls through school records and previous employers. Get copies of university alumni bulletins and put calls in to their school and university registrars. Tell them anything that works, but don't tip the investigation. Also, our files don't even confirm whether either girl ever married. Have Valenti and Schafft check the newspapers, the society pages. Finally, have our two researchers find out everything they can about Garrett's divorce. The decree should be public record. Get me a copy, please. I also need the names of the attorneys for each side."

"Yes, sir," Mary said, writing furiously. Buchanan admired the speed of Mary’s fingers. Had Mary set out to be a cardsharp, she might have been a great one.

"Now, Mary," he continued, "this is for you to check: Give the Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles the names of all four Garretts. See if any cars are registered to them. If so, get the addresses. Then contact Social Security in Washington and obtain their social security numbers. Also talk to the Internal Revenue Service. Maybe we can get an address that way. If any of these women are working, I want to know where. If anyone has that information, the IRS does."

Buchanan paused for a moment and then continued. "I also want to review John Garrett's income tax records. Tell the IRS I want to see as many years of his records as they have."

"Sir?" she questioned.  "The IRS won't cooperate without a court order. They're stubborn."

"The IRS and Social Security cooperate with our Washington office all the time," Buchanan said.

"That's Washington, Tom. This is Philadelphia," Roth explained.

Buchanan thought for a moment. "Put in a person-to-person call for me to the top man in each agency. I’ll talk to them. They'll come around when I tell them they’ll have to deal with Hoover next."

"Certainly, sir," she said. Mary smiled and flipped her pad onto a second page of shorthand notes.

"What else?" she asked.

Buchanan looked back at Roth. "Garrett did intelligence work during the war. What sort? Army? Navy? OSS?" he asked.

"No one admits he was theirs," Roth answered.

Buchanan thought for a moment. "That's typical, isn’t it?” he said. Then, "Who's the U.S. senator who plays golf with Frank Lerrick?" Buchanan asked.

"Richard Russell. Georgia. Nasty old Ku Klux Klansman.”

"He's on the Senate Armed Services Committee, isn't he?" Buchanan looked back to his secretary. "Mary, call Assistant Director Frank Lerrick at FBI headquarters in Washington. Tell him I need the home telephone number of Senator Richard Russell. Don't make the call to Senator Russell though. Just get me the number."

Buchanan waited until Mary Doyle finished writing and looked up. Then he spoke again.  "Two more things. Contact the Bureau's Chicago office. Find out how soon I can contact any special agent who might have been involved in an investigation touching upon John Taylor Garrett or Commonwealth Penn. Second, do we have any entree to the Mayflower Club here in Philadelphia?"

"Garrett's club?" Roth asked.

Buchanan nodded. "My uncle used to belong also. I'd like to have a working lunch. But without my name being immediately recognized." Roth considered it for a moment.

"A friend of mine is chairman of the Republican Club of Philadelphia. The club would be happy to host one of his guests."

"Perfect," Buchanan said. "Mary, book me for lunch. Single table. Monday of next week.”

“Anything else, sir?” she asked.

“No. Thank you. That will get us started.”

CHAPTER 16

"Ah, Fred Castelli," said Bernie Gedmon, looking up from the examining table in the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s office. "Am I glad to see you!"

"What's going on, Bernie?" Castelli asked.

It was Friday morning in Philadelphia. Bernie Gedmon was a young pathologist from Arkansas who worked the weekend shifts. Gedmon was rail-thin with shaggy reddish hair, glasses, and a volcanic complexion. He was the keeper of the dead, Castelli frequently observed, and he did not look too healthy himself.

"I called your office 'cause we got a chance to deal with something right away," Gedmon said. "You got a few minutes?" Gedmon walked away from the corpse before him. The men were in Examination Room C at the ME's office on Spring Garden Street at Eighth, around the corner from the police headquarters.

“Just tell me what this is about," Castelli said.

The pathologist led the detective from the examination room into a warmer hallway. "It's about the guy who got broiled near the navy yard," Gedmon said. "Someone wants to claim the body."

"What?"

"There's a Mr. Lee here in the waiting room," Gedmon said. "He came in about two hours ago. Can you believe that? He says that the dead man was probably his traveling companion from Taiwan. He says they were touring the United States. This guy, Lee, was in New York while his pal came down here to see the Liberty Bell and sample pretzels or something. Then his buddy disappeared.”

"By the river?" Castelli was skeptical. He followed Gedmon into a washroom.

"Well, I asked him about that. He said his friend liked to look at boats. Particularly navy boats. So I guess he went down to the yard and got in trouble with some bad guys."

Gedmon paused to wash his hands.

"Like I said, this just happened, Freddie," Gedmon said. "I called you right away. That's why I said it was urgent. I know how you feel about this case.  You'd like to get rid of it."

Castelli stared at Gedmon for a moment, then started to chuckle. Gedmon was right. Then Castelli considered the circumstances.

"There's a problem, Bernie," Castelli said. "This makes no sense. The body's torched beyond recognition. We don't know who the dead guy is. How does someone show up and identify the body?"

"Like I said. He knew where his friend went last."

"So how did he know his friend was dead?"

"He didn't. He went to Missing Persons first. Missing Persons sent him over."

"Where was this Lee guy while his pal was getting snuffed?"

"He says he was in Times Square in New York with ten friends. He says he has pictures and witnesses."

Castelli's mind was churning. "So how's Mr. Lee so sure this is his pal?"

Faintly, in the background, Hank Williams warbled in a hillbilly twang on Gedmon's Zenith table radio.

"He identified all the jewelry the dead guy was wearing. That and the eyeglasses," said Gedmon. "He even told me about the coat. Black wool, with a collar made out of monkey fur. There were particles left after the fire.”

"What?"

"I said, there were particles left…"

"No. Before that. What kind of fur collar?"

"Monkey fur," Gedmon repeated. "Hong Kong. Latest thing according to the Chinaman."

“What Chinaman?" Castelli asked.

"Lee. The guy who wants to claim the body. Lee's Chinese. So was the dead guy," Gedmon said.

For several seconds Castelli let it sink in. Then, "Show me," he said at last.

Gedmon brought Castelli to a waiting area in the Philadelphia city morgue. There was a slight, politely mannered Asian man sitting alone. He did not speak much English but he was able to explain that his name was Lee Huong. He produced a British passport. When Castelli opened it, the passport appeared to contain Lee's likeness.

Lee spoke in polite, formal, fractured syntax. He said his friend, the dead man, and he were touring America. Mr. Lee had stayed in New York while the deceased, whose name was Chin, came to Philadelphia. Mr. Chin liked to walk along rivers and look at ships, as he had previously explained to Gedmon.

"The navy yard probably attract him," Lee suggested.

"Even in winter?"

"Very cold where he come from in Nanking," Mr. Lee answered.

"Yeah," said Castelli. "But what bothers me is that it's such a long walk from Nanking. Know what I mean?"

Mr. Lee grinned amiably and bowed slightly. "Very honorable," he said.

Gedmon turned away to suppress a grin.

Castelli looked at the smaller man. He reached for the passport. Again, Lee nodded.

Castelli found a telephone in Bernie Gedmon's office. He called the British Consulate in New York. Given the passport number, the consulate confirmed that yes, there was a gentleman named Lee in the United States on a tourist visa. The address Lee gave even checked with consular records.

Next, Castelli called Captain Heintz. Heintz had served in the Second World War in the Pacific and did not like Asians.

"I just want to give my permission to get this guy buried," Castelli said. "I just want to sign, Cap. We're not getting anywhere on this guy anyway, and if he's a foreign Chinese, we're not likely to. This smells like a dead-end case, Cap," Castelli said. "We spend too much time here and it'll louse our productivity charts. But it's your choice, Captain."

"Ask him the routine questions," Heintz said. "You got some identification for the live Chinaman you have there?"

"British passport," Castelli said.

"Get an address in the U.S. Get a statement. Make it look like we were thorough. Sign the papers so that the ME can get the stiff out of the morgue. In a couple of days contact this Lee guy again and do some follow up. Then dump the case. You're right. I got other stuff for you and Mike."

"Yes, sir!" Castelli said.

He went back to Mr. Lee. He returned the passport.

"Yeah. I can sign," he said to Gedmon. He felt some relief. Deplorable as these things were, they happened in any city a few times each year. “Just keep the coroner's report in case we ever need it," said Castelli to Gedmon. "Then get this guy out of here."

"Very obliged," said Lee.  He bowed a final time and shook the policeman's hand. His perfect manners were starting to get on Castelli's nerves. Lee said that he would make arrangements with a funeral home immediately so that his friend could be buried.

"All the Chinese funeral places are on Race and Vine streets," Castelli offered. "I don't think anyone will embalm a Chinese guy except a Chinese funeral parlor."

"Already make arrangements," Mr. Lee said.

Castelli was working on a bad joke about checking for Chinese funeral parlors in the yellow pages. He laid off, even though he knew it would have split up Gedmon. Instead, he sent the young pathologist for the necessary papers to clear the body for the interment.

Castelli was relieved. A dead Chinaman, and a foreigner to boot, was a case with no sex appeal. And now, with the burning victim identified and buried, Castelli and Mike Foley could dismiss the whole incident and get on with cases nearer to home.

CHAPTER 17

The next Monday at one PM, Thomas Buchanan arrived at the front door of the Mayflower Club on Walnut Street near Rittenhouse Square.  He proceeded up the brick steps and into a club that he knew well.

An hour later, lunch finished, he sat alone at a table in the dining room. He dawdled over a ginger ale and observed the room. As he did so, he felt certain days of his youth beckoning to him.

After his father's death, his uncle had often brought him and other members of his family to lunch here on Saturdays, frequently followed by a football game at Franklin Field. Then the world war came. His uncle died in 1946, his aunt had dropped her membership, and Thomas had never gone back.

It was in 1941, he decided. It was in the spring of that year that he had last visited the Mayflower Club. He was working for a brokerage house that had a seat on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He was putting some money together, making plans to enter graduate architectural school in Boston and was working up the courage to ask Ann Garrett to marry him.

Today, as an adult and studying the place carefully, Thomas saw things that were never visible when he was younger. Much of the furniture was the same as it had been in the 1930s. The ubiquitous green carpeting was more worn than he had remembered it, and so were a few of the white tablecloths. But the oil paintings on the walls had survived intact, and so had the institution's membership. If the remorselessly Republican Mayflower Club had been a cross-section of America, Thomas Dewey would have been president. Buchanan suppressed a smile. His uncle, one of the club's few Democrats, used to joke that there were members who had had the pleasure of voting against Franklin Roosevelt four times.

Thomas watched three middle-aged waiters in black jackets hurry between the kitchen door and the dining tables. Busboys in white service jackets followed in their wake. A quartet of bankers sat near him and lingered over coffee.

Buchanan's attention tuned in and out of their discussion of prime interest rates. At the next closest table three ladies in their forties picked at their lunches. By ten minutes after three the dining room was nearly empty. The three women near him assembled their purses and shopping bags and made a slow exit toward the club's main lobby. The bankers had long since vanished. Thomas signed a guest check and looked across the quiet room. Perfect, he thought to himself.

Paul Evans had been the club's maitre d' since the Depression. Evans was a fair-complexioned man, squarely built. His hair was sandy, though thinner than Tom remembered it.

Evans was seated at a table near the kitchen when Buchanan approached him. The maitre d' had loosened his collar and tie. He had settled into some staff schedules on the table before him.  Thomas arrived at Evans's table and placed a hand on an empty chair.

"May I join you?" Buchanan asked.

Paul Evans looked up with a start. A moment passed as Evans tried to determine what was familiar about the young man before him. Another moment passed before recognition.

"Tommy Buchanan!" Evans exclaimed, standing.

"Hello, Paul," Buchanan said. He offered his hand, and the maitre d' accepted it. Evans's expression then gave way to an astonished smile.

"Well, I’ll be…It is, isn't it? Young Tommy Buchanan all grown up!" He set aside his paperwork and placed his hands on the younger man's shoulders.

Evans's touch was firm. Buchanan recalled Evans’s back-story. In his earlier years at St. Joseph's University he had been a fair athlete, rowing in lightweight fours. But then the October of 1929 had arrived. Evans had barely been able to put the money together to finish college, and, once graduated, had entered the hotel business. He had destroyed his right knee in a car accident late in 1934, which kept him out of the war. But he still rowed a bulky scull twice a week and his touch still showed it.

"Let me get a look at you!" Evans repeated. "Wouldn't your dad be proud? God rest his soul! And your uncle, too, bless him! Sit down, Tommy. Have a beer with me."

Buchanan eased into the extra chair while Evans reclaimed his own. Evans's right hand was aloft, signaling to the bar for a couple of bottles of beer and, since this was the Mayflower Club, a pair of pilsner glasses to match.

"Tell me everything," Evans insisted. "How did the war treat you?" he asked, turning suddenly serious.

Buchanan told him, taking a few minutes as the bottled beer arrived.

"And now?" Evans wanted to know. "Where are you working?"

Buchanan reached to his inside jacket pocket for his Bureau credentials. He laid them on the table without speaking. It took a moment for Paul Evans to digest what he was seeing.

"The FBI," Evans said. "Well, I'll be!" he said again.

He looked up and his eyes met Buchanan's. "I've got to tell you, son. I'm impressed. Congratulations!" He shook his head slowly to indicate just how impressed he was. “J. Edgar Hoover is my personal hero," Evans said. "One of the two finest Americans alive. Him and General Eisenhower, I'd say. I just don't see how Hoover does it. There he is in Chicago, calling the shots, to see that John Dillinger gets what he deserves. The next thing you know he's right there in New Jersey to arrest that kraut bastard who killed the Lindbergh kid. Then he's got you G-men taking care of Pretty Boy Floyd and then…? Who’s that creepy one they got? Lithuanian.  I think he’s in Alcatraz. Part of Ma Barker’s gang.”

“Alvin Karpis,” Buchanan said.

"Hoover's right there when the handcuffs are put on Karpis," Evans continued. "He's always right there when the handcuffs are put in place. Incredible man!"

No, Thomas thought. But he's always right there when the photographs are being taken. But there was no reason to destroy myths.

"Do you ever see J. Edgar Hoover yourself? To speak to?" Evans asked.

"Sometimes."

"Well, you tell him he's got a fan right here in Philadelphia," Evans said.

"I'll relay your good wishes,” Buchanan said.

"Oh, please do. I'd appreciate it. Cheers," he said.

Evans raised his glass and drank to the health of the Director and the Bureau. Buchanan took a sip at the same moment. Then Thomas steered the conversation to a few minutes’ discussion of intercollegiate football, rowing against the current at the Great Falls bend of the Schuylkill, and whether or not eighty-six-year-old Connie Mack would sell the Philadelphia Athletics as rumored.

"What are you doing back in Philly?" Evans asked at length.

"A little bit of work," Buchanan said. "Investigating a land swindle. Boring stuff, really. A bunch of small investors done out of a few bucks. But the federal laws have to be enforced."

"They do indeed,” Evans agreed patriotically.

Thomas looked around and gave Evans a conspiratorial grin. "Can I ask you a personal question?” Buchanan inquired.  "Ever see old John Garrett or any of his family?"

"From time to time,” Evans answered.

"How is everyone?”

"Oh, Mr. Garrett's in fine shape," Evans said. "He's a hermit these days, you know. Puts in an occasional appearance at his own bank. Fewer appearances in public." Evans toyed with a gold cuff link for a moment. "I saw him not so long ago."

"Did you? Where?"

"Why, right here," said Evans, motioning to a table at center stage of his dining room. Evans spoke as if everything were self-evident. "It was within the last few weeks." Evans was then struck with a revelation. "Say, you used to be pretty sweet on the younger Garrett daughter, weren't you, Tommy? Seems I remember that. You were engaged to Ann, weren't you?"

"I was. But I'm afraid I lost out on that one," Thomas allowed. "Long time ago. During the war she got tired of waiting. Broke things off in 1944.”

“Sorry to hear that. She probably met someone else while you were in the big fight in Europe. What a shame. Would have made a handsome couple, you and Ann. Did you ever marry?"

"Not yet.” He smiled. “Still looking. Ann was a tough act to follow.”

"Beautiful girl, Ann was," Evans said, his tone changing slightly. "Not that both the girls weren't knockouts.  I suppose every red-blooded male in the city was chasing the two Garrett kittens."

"Have you seen any of the Garrett women recently?" Thomas asked.

"None of them, Tommy," Evans answered. "Not for a long while."

"Where are they?”

"Well, Mrs. Garrett divorced John a few years ago."

"I'd heard that. Why did they divorce?"

"Who knows? It took everyone by surprise. It happened right before Christmas. It was so sudden that the hot rumor was that there would be a new Mrs. Garrett right after the holidays were over. But it never happened."

"Where did Mrs. Garrett go?" Buchanan asked.

Evans looked at the younger man strangely for a few seconds. "She died. Didn't you know?"

It was Buchanan's moment to return the astonished stare. "No. I didn't," he said.

"Poor old girl died of cancer about a year ago," Evans said. "Moved out to Illinois after the divorce. Lived in Lake Forest, I think, with a sister."

"Now that you mention it, I do remember that her family was from out there, right?" Buchanan asked.

Evans nodded.

"What about Laura? And Ann?" Buchanan asked next.

Evans began to grin. "Ah, Tommy, I hate to disappoint you. But the girls moved far away. I hear it was to Europe. Or maybe it was just Laura to Europe. Again, Tommy, it's funny you should bring it up. I was in New York a year or two ago. I saw this girl who was the spitting image of Ann Garrett ducking into a checker cab outside of Henri Bendel. She was with a guy who looked very ‘garment industry’ if you know what I mean. A real New York ‘Christkiller.’ Know what I mean?” He paused. “I thought she recognized me. She looked away real fast.”

“Maybe it was her,” Buchanan said.

“Ah, but who knows? A flash of blond hair, a rustle of skirt, and a glimpse of two beautiful legs. Could have been Ann, could have been a thousand other young girls in New York. Somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, or somebody's mistress. Maybe all three in one. Who knows where girls go these days or what they do? I honestly can't say for sure where Ann and Laura went. I'd tell you if I knew, Tommy. Honest.”

"Where in Europe?" Buchanan asked. “Vis-à-vis Laura.”

Evans shrugged.  "London, maybe. Paris, maybe. The Garrett sisters were big city girls,” Evans answered.

"And John Garrett never remarried?" Buchanan asked.

"Not that I ever heard of," Evans answered. "But a man of his standing doesn't lack for female companionship, you understand."

"Who was with him when you saw him last?" Thomas asked.

Evans fell silent. "Ah. It was an unusual evening. That's all I'll say."

"Oh, Paul. Come on." Buchanan laughed. "I'm just bringing myself up-to-date on some lost acquaintances."

Evans took a long wary look at his visitor. "We are talking off the record, right?"

"We're old friends, Paul. Aren't we?" Buchanan asked, carefully sidestepping Evans's question. "How old was I when my Uncle Hugh first brought me here? Was I twelve years old?”

"All right. It was a party of three," Evans remembered. "Not what we usually get in here."

"So Mr. Garrett was one. Who were the other two?"

Evans opened his mouth to speak and then abruptly stopped.  "This is official, isn’t it?”

Buchanan nodded. "Just tell me about Mr. Garrett. I'm not here to complicate your life. I just need some answers."

Evans turned serious and leaned closer, his voice lowering.

"One of the men at the table was Jerry DeStefano," he said, in a warning tone.  “Organized crime. Everyone in South Philadelphia knows him. He owns a meat-packing concern and a funeral home. Sometimes the two enterprises overlap," Evans observed.

"Who was the other man?"

"An Oriental. He's some sort of business contact that Mr. Garrett has with Asia," Evans said. "He looked to me like a full-blooded Chinese. His name is Sammy Wong."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure of what?"

"His name?"

"Oh, yes. I'd met him before through Mr. Garrett. And it is my business to remember names. They were all in high spirits. 'This is Mr. DeStefano,' Mr. Garrett said. 'And this is my good friend Sammy Wong. You've seen Sammy here with me before though, haven't you, Paul?’ The little Chinese runt sort of bowed to me. 'We've just concluded a wonderful business deal, Paul,’ Mr. Garrett continued, ‘so bring us a bottle of your best French champagne. We're having a celebration.’”

"And did they? Celebrate?" Buchanan asked.

"Yes.  They guzzled our last three bottles of 1939 Moët," Evans answered. "One bottle to each of them. The little Chinaman was putting away his own fair share, too, I might add. We had complaints from some of our regulars. Mr. Garrett and his new friends made a spectacle of themselves for the whole evening. You know what a tight place this is. The whole room was staring at them."

"A lot of witnesses, in other words. Maybe intentionally?”

"If you want to phrase it that way, yes," Paul Evans said. "Can you imagine this? There was even a newspaper photographer outside the club that evening. Just snapping some pictures. Took a shot of Mr. Garrett leaving with Wong and DeStefano. It was in the Inquirer the next day. We don’t allow press inside, of course. Troublemakers. But an Italian and a Chinaman. Some of our regulars were pretty indignant. Figured Mr. Garrett was trying to provoke them.”

“Didn’t you find all of this strange?" Buchanan asked.

“Sure.” Evans leaned in closer. “I guess you haven’t heard. There are stories that Mr. Garrett went pink during the war,” Evans whispered.

“Is that right?”

“I don’t know if it’s right, Tommy, but those are the rumors. Did too much business with Uncle Joe and the unwashed Russian hordes. That’s what the smart money is saying. Got himself indoctrinated or some such.”

He waved a hand to dismiss it. “I don’t get involved with stuff like that,” said Evans. “These paranoid days in particular.”

“Wise,” Buchanan agreed.

"I'm paid," Evans said guardedly, "to see that guests have a pleasant time in our club. I'm not here to analyze their behavior or make judgments."

"No," Buchanan said in a tone of conclusion. "Of course you're not.”

"No more questions, all right?" Evans asked in a lowered tone, an eye toward a man in a suit in the front entrance hall. “That’s the club manager. He wouldn’t approve of this conversation. In fact, you’d be doing all three of us a favor if you left now.”

“I’m appreciative,” Buchanan said, standing. He reached to his pocket and peeled off a ten-dollar bill. “Thanks for a great lunch. And wonderful to see you again.”

Evans gave a tight smile and a handclasp, snatched the ten-spot, and quickly retreated into the safety of his paperwork.

CHAPTER 18

Casa Granada was perched on a cliff in Malibu, nestled on stilts and poles upon several levels of rock overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The building was white stucco with red tiles on the roof and was a maze of Moorish arches, tiles and turrets. It sparkled in the sunlight of the American West Coast. On its grounds, set back away from the cliffs, were a tennis court, a croquet course, a swimming pool, and an array of lawn furniture. This might have been the home of any American millionaire whose financial triumphs had run far out in front of his cultivation. But instead of anyone, this year Casa Granada belonged to Joe Preston, aging satyr and producer of major motion pictures.

Jesse Chadwick turned his Cadillac into Joe Preston's domain at seven thirty that Friday evening. His wife, Lisa Pennington, sat quietly beside him. The car rolled smoothly down the palm tree-lined driveway that curved across a green lawn to Joe Preston's front door.

The Cadillac slowed to a halt. Jesse Chadwick turned and looked at his wife.

"Be nice tonight," he said. It was half a sincere request, half a warning. "Joe can help both of us."

"I hate you for this, Jesse," she said. She turned and looked him squarely in the eye. "Up until now I merely disliked you. Now I hate you."

"This will never happen again," he said. "How about if I promise you that?"

"Jesse," she said. "If you came into a house soaking wet in a raincoat, shaking out an umbrella and told me it was raining, you know what? I'd still look out the window to check." Chadwick thought about that for a moment.

"Know what? I like that," he said.

A boy in a dark jacket spotted their car from within Casa Granada. He burst from the front door. He was well scrubbed and grinning. He introduced himself as Miguel, Mr. Preston's houseboy. He greeted Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick by name and led them to the front door. Then he parked their car.

Joe Preston had been ready for his guests for an hour but made an entrance into the living room. He was a small, compact man in a dark silk suit. His face was angular, but his shoulders were wide and muscular. His hairline was receding and his eyebrows, which were dark and thick, had a downward slant to them, giving him a perpetually mean appearance. Whenever he smiled, which he did when he saw his visitors for the evening, he looked as if he had just evicted a widow.

Preston greeted his guests before a huge brick fireplace, which was flanked by two floral-print sofas. A girl of about twenty sat on one and said nothing. She had auburn hair and was very pretty.

"Jesse! Great to see you!" Joe Preston boomed from a few feet away. He came to Jesse Chadwick and pumped his hand. "And Lisa, you too!" he boomed next. He leaned to her and kissed her on the cheek. It was an awkward gesture. Preston and Lisa Pennington were the same height. Preston had to stretch himself on his toes slightly to reach her.

Lisa stiffened at his touch. Having to go to bed with him seemed all the more repellent as the prospect grew more real. Preston held both of his guests' hands as he continued to talk.

"Speaking of great-looking girls," said Preston, meaning it as a compliment, "I got someone else here for you to meet. Sally?"

Preston motioned to the floral-print sofa nearer the hearth. The girl with the auburn hair held a clear drink that had been punctuated with a twist of lime. She smiled when she heard her name.

"Sally's a model, but she's gonna be in films too," Joe Preston announced. "I foresee a big break for her in 1950." When it came to casting, Joe Preston and his libido had a remarkable clairvoyance for big breaks.

Lisa felt a slight sense of relief sweep across her. She was, it now seemed, not the only female in the room. With another young woman present, she reasoned, she might have misunderstood the devious purpose for the evening.

"Hi," Sally said, standing and greeting.

“Let's all have a drink," Preston said next. "Hey, Mike!" he bellowed. He clapped his hands. Seconds later young Miguel reappeared and took requests for liquor.

They seated themselves around the fireplace, which the houseboy fueled with logs. The room, as Lisa had a chance to glance around it, was aggressively decorated, with large swatches of bold colors colliding with each other. Scattered across the wall were minor canvases by several major modern artists. Several matching objets d'art in metal or clay stood in small spotlights on tables where no visitor could miss them.

The two women remained quiet as Chadwick and Joe Preston talked business. Lisa gradually tuned them out, though she was unable to keep from catching pieces of their conversation.

"I gave that broad her first role, you know that?" Preston said of an actress whose face had recently adorned the cover of Life magazine. "She was broke at the time and sleeping with a dumb muscle-bound Polack auto mechanic from Pasadena." Then he added, "If we get a halfway decent script for Hold the Phone! we can do one million dollars’ worth of business worldwide, I'm telling ya."

This was followed by a bawdy monologue about a certain handsome leading man whose sexual proclivities were somewhat less than traditional. His studio spent thousands of dollars building up a romantic he-man image and surrounding him with starlets on the beach. Meanwhile, the man's lawyers were quietly fighting off a messy suit brought against him by the parents of a fourteen-year-old schoolboy who had been in a recent film with him.

Joe Preston hated the actor and took great relish in repeating the story. "Not only is Henry a fag," Joe Preston chortled, "but he's a dumb fag as well. That's unusual. Most fairies in this town are brilliant."

Preston then shared with his audience the inside account of one of Hollywood's more dubious recent triumphs. The previous year, Preston had refused to make a final $2,250 payment to a well-known novelist who had written a film script for him. Preston had held out until the writer was forced to share the screen credit with him. Then the writer, a two-pack-a-day smoker, had contracted lung cancer and died. That left Joe Preston nominated for an Academy Award when the film became a critical success.

"Am I a bastard or what?" Joe Preston exulted. "I knew the guy was dying and couldn't fight me for long. You know, Jesse, I couldn't write an effective extortion note, yet I got myself nominated for an Oscar. That's hustling!" With a laugh Preston drained his glass. "Hey, where's the Mexican kid? We need more drinks here."

Neither Lisa nor Sally was halfway through hers.

"Did you win it?" Sally asked suddenly.

Joe Preston's eyes narrowed. "Win what?" he asked.

"The Oscar."

“If I had, sweetheart, don't you think the little statue would be sitting out here with bells on it where the world could see it?"

"Oh," she said.

"The academy doesn't like me, honey," he said. "They think I'm a crude meshuganah. They wouldn't give me an award unless I'd written the Torah." He shook his head. “Aaah,” he said. “The town’s tough enough. Everyone’s looking for Reds. Dalton Trumbo can’t work anymore, you know. Howard Koch and Julie Dassin are finished also. Just as well. We don’t need a bunch of Commies in our business. How many times can you shoot The Battleship Potemkin?”

Jesse Chadwick laughed. Sally was lost. Lisa was silent. Joe Preston rolled on.

In the kitchen a professional chef labored over a Pacific salmon. Dinner was served at nine. The chef made the presentation and Miguel served. Joe Preston talked business with Jesse Chadwick for most of the meal.

Miguel circulated and poured chilled California rosé wine even when none was needed. Seeking solace, Lisa fell into a conversation with Sally as the wine began to tiptoe up on both of them.

Sally said she was from Minnesota. Her modeling career had been limited so far to some unpaid shots in a department store catalog in St. Paul. Nonetheless, there she was in Los Angeles, seeking her fortune like everyone else and working at a perfume shop in Beverly Hills in the meantime. She was gullible, compliant, and had never finished high school. She had also never taken an acting class. But Joe Preston had said that she would do just fine if she just stayed in tight with the right people.

"I can believe Joe, can't I?" Sally asked her after dessert. Lisa looked her straight in the eye.

"No," she answered. "You can't."

Joe Preston, who had been listening to their conversation while carrying on his own, broke in.

"Time to go into the lounge, girls," he said. He had an unlit Cuban cigar in his hand. He offered a second one to Jesse Chadwick, who accepted it. Preston guided his guests to the next room.

In another twenty minutes the cigar smoke drove Lisa into a first floor powder room. She stood before the mirror and stared. So this was what it had come to, she said to herself, and these were the people among whom she circulated.

She was disgusted and demoralized. The desire to flee was again very strong. But where would she go? To whom could she turn? Who would protect her from Chadwick's thugs?

Well, she knew one way she could get back at all of them. From her purse she pulled a vial of laudanum. There were thirty in the vial, one powerful sedative for each day of the month. She had been saving them. Twice recently she had renewed the prescription her husband had gotten for her from the quack in West Hollywood, the man who dispensed anything the stars wanted, from mescaline to morphine, if the price was right. Lisa had ninety of these pills. Suicide was an option for Lisa that had appeared increasingly attractive in recent weeks. But if she did it, she told herself, or when she did it, she would choose the time perfectly. She would time it to…

There was a tentative knock on the bathroom door.

"Lisa?" asked a female voice on the other side. It was Sally. "Can I come in?" Sally asked.

“I’ll be out in a minute!” Lisa called back. Sally disappeared.

Lisa Pennington drew a deep breath. Through the haze of too much rosé wine, she tried to put Sally in perspective. Where did the nineteen-year-old fit into Joe Preston's plans for the evening? Where indeed, if she, Lisa, was expected to end the evening in bed with him?

The thought crossed her mind that Preston might have plans for two sexual conquests at the same time. Or maybe Sally was a live-in, something to pick up the slack when Preston wasn't busy chasing another man's wife.

Lisa blew out a long breath. She stared at the vial of laudanum in her hand. Drugs made things less painful when they occurred. Like when her husband beat her. Like the times she had to appear with barely any clothes in front of a camera and a dozen leering stagehands. Like tonight, when obnoxious little Joe had his perverse plans. She opened the vial. One of these pills normally knocked her right out. Two would numb the sensibilities of anyone. Three would…

The very idea of having to sleep with Joe Preston…! She trembled… Her hand was unsteady… She poured out three capsules and then threw them down her throat with some water…

Three hits of a strong sedative to get into bed with Joe Preston. Three capsules and a total loss of dignity.  She gazed at herself in the mirror. She stared long and hard, until she began to feel the drugs mix with the wine. She did not know whether to throw up or cheer.

No, she decided. She would not have this rodent of a man forced upon her! The deal was off. Her career was off! They could go to hell with their film! She would hide out from Jesse Chadwick's goons for the rest of her life if need be. But she wasn't going to bed with Joe Preston tonight.

She weaved slightly as she turned. Too much wine. Then there was a big rush from the laudanum. She listened carefully to her body. Three capsules. She felt the slow stroking of angels' feathers starting at the base of her spine. A dormant snake uncoiled in the small of her back. It wrapped itself warmly and cozily around her stomach and up to her lungs and breasts. Her senses opened. Everything looked as if it would be all right after all. She was flying.

She steadied herself.  She opened the door and walked back to the living room. She stopped short when she saw Joe Preston sitting on the floral sofa, a drink in one hand, the half-smoked cigar in the other. Joe was alone.

"Where's Jesse?" she asked softly.

"I was hoping you'd be undressed," he said.

"Where's Jesse?" she asked again.

"Gone." Joe Preston blew out a long puff of expensive smoke. “He left with Sally. Don't tell me that your husband didn't explain the sleeping arrangements for the evening."

"Only half of the arrangements," she said.

"Yeah? Which ones did you know about?"

"You and me."

The producer grinned and thought about it. "Come sit next to me," he said.

"I'm not doing it, Joe. You can take your film and stuff it."

Preston was unmoved.  "Not a wise position, Lisa. Be nice to me and I can help you. You refuse to play along and you get hurt worse than you could imagine. Pour another drink and bring it upstairs with you."

"Drink…?" she asked blearily.

She took a step toward the door, wobbled, and caught herself against the side of a chair. The chair started to slide on the hardwood floor. Lisa grabbed a lamp. Her head swam. The lamp gave way and she stumbled forward. Joe caught her and pushed her toward the other sofa facing the fireplace.

"Too much to drink, huh, Lisa? Well, have it however you like it."

"No, Joe," she said softly. "Don't do it."

Her head felt as if it were floating away from her body. Everything was bright, as if she were about to faint.  Joe's paws were all over her, reaching under her clothes, undoing buttons and exploring her.  She tried to push him off. But he was much stronger than he looked. And her head! Lisa felt as if she were on another planet.

"Joe!" she moaned. She knew what was happening. "Joe…have some decency.”

He laughed again. His hands overpowered her. She was pinned onto the sofa and her clothes were coming off piece by piece. She thought it would be a good idea to scream and tried to. But whatever came out of her throat sounded distant and weak. And who would stop this anyway?

The houseboy? As it turned out, no one.

CHAPTER 19

Special Agent Thomas Buchanan sat unhappily in his superior's office in Philadelphia. It was ten AM on Saturday morning, January 21. Bill Roth sat at his desk and smoked a Camel. His investigation of John T. Garrett and Commonwealth Penn was already turning into dust. Schafft and Valenti hadn’t come up with much.

"Motor Vehicles reported,” Buchanan began. "There's no operator's license or vehicle registration anywhere in Pennsylvania for Ann Garrett. Laura Garrett had a driver's license until 1948, but then let it lapse."

"And John Garrett?" Roth asked.

"License and two vehicles registered to his home in Devon. But he's never there and never at the bank. His cars are in his garage and neighbors say they never move. As of two days ago," Buchanan continued, "I've placed surveillance teams on the house and the bank headquarters. They're to call immediately if they see anything."

Roth nodded. "I hope he turns up sometime soon. We'll have to justify the manpower expense."

"Rosemary Garrett, John's wife, died of cancer in 1949. I found out from the maitre d' at the Mayflower Club. Then I reconfirmed it with the attorney who represented her during her divorce. There were no extenuating circumstances in her divorce or death that help us, though I'm still checking both."

"Why didn't she keep the house and stay in the area? That would have been more normal."

"The house has always been in the Garrett family. She took a settlement in cash and moved back to Illinois to be with her own family. She's buried there. Again, I checked."

"The daughters?" Roth asked.

"Ann lived in New York toward the end of the war. She worked at Saks Fifth Avenue for a very short time in 1944. Rented a small apartment on East 52nd Street. But no forwarding address after that and no inquiries at Saks from future employers. No marriage name and no one still in the little apartment building who knew much about her. She disappeared, in other words. The trail is completely cold."

“What do you make of that?” Roth asked.

“I see two possible scenarios,” Buchanan said. “She went out of state and got married elsewhere, resulting in a name change. Or she made a conscious effort to disappear.”

"Odd,” Roth said. “And Laura?"

"No trail at all. No employment record in the United States. No tax returns either." Buchanan paused for a moment. "I invoked Mr. Hoover's name to Social Security and Internal Revenue. They wouldn't show me records, but they checked them for me. No leads there. As far as John Garrett is concerned, he draws a routine salary from Commonwealth Penn and takes a standard personal deduction. That doesn't tell us anything, either."

Buchanan studied some notes that were across his lap. "One angle that our investigators Valenti and Schafft are still trying is through the girls' schools and colleges. They've made inquiries with the registrars' offices, which have yielded only old addresses. But we're trying to find alumni bulletins to see if we can find a lead there. One source suggested that both sisters might have moved to Europe. I'm starting to believe that may be the case. So I'm attempting to follow that up."

Roth extinguished his cigarette. Saturday morning briefings drove him to distraction. He hated being briefed on an investigator's lack of success.

"What about the U.S. Army?" Roth asked.

"They sent me a copy of Garrett's record. Standard stuff. Senator Russell's office speeded things along for us. Garrett was an exemplary soldier, in fact. A major in intelligence, as you know. But there's nothing in the file that's extraordinary."

"Where was he in the war?"

"France. Italy. Germany. Maybe more. Rumors say Russia, also.”

"What about the OSS?" Roth suggested. "Was Garrett in it?"

"The new people, the CIA, have those files. They don't return my calls. I'm going to contact Senator Russell again over the weekend. We may have to go that route."

Roth nodded. "Be careful with that one. I hear this new CIA is touchy.”

“They are. Hoover hates them and vice versa. I wouldn't even put it past them to give us a bum steer. Send us chasing our own tails. So I'll be careful," Buchanan said.

“I worry about those CIA people,” Roth said. “If they ever get hold of a big piece of power, look out. Who’s going to control them?” Buchanan nodded. He had to agree that Roth had a point.

Buchanan was on his feet and turned toward the door when Roth threw in an afterthought. “Oh, Tom, listen. I’ve been meaning to ask. Ever heard of something called ‘Operation Morning Glory’?”

Buchanan shrugged. “New one on me,” he said.

“Never heard of it?”

“No. What is it?”

“A toxic post-war hell hole in the Bureau,” Roth said. “Chicago office. It may have touched on Garrett. If you ever get drawn near it, see what you can find out. But be careful.”

“Don’t we have records here,” Buchanan asked, “or in Washington?”

“They’ve been filleted. Empty files. I haven’t broached it with Mr. Hoover yet. I’m just giving you a heads-up.”

“Thanks.” Buchanan was out the door a moment later, muttering. Morning Glory! Who gave operations these nonsensical names? Then, with an indulgent smirk, he reasoned it was probably Hoover or Tolson.

CHAPTER 20

President Harry S. Truman sat at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House and tilted back in his swivel chair. Truman's gray hair was neatly parted and his mouth was tight with tension. Behind the round lenses of his glasses, his eyes glistened with anger. He was reading the seventh page of an eight-page report brought to him by a trusted White House attaché named John J. Malone.

Malone was younger than most of the veteran members of the United States Secret Service and yet was third in command of White House security. To the President, Malone also fulfilled a critical function as a liaison officer with the National Security Council.

Malone, a dark-haired, quiet Missourian from Kansas City, was twenty-seven years old. He was the nephew of an old Truman friend in Independence. The President had known him since he was a boy. The President trusted him. So Malone served as the President's unseen eyes and ears in many matters of consequence.

Malone had stayed up till two AM writing the report now before the President and had presented it to the President at eight thirty AM that same morning. Now Malone watched uncomfortably as the President's cheeks grew florid with rage. The FBI, the report suggested, was diligently building an espionage case against a Pennsylvania banker named John Taylor Garrett. If established, the case would prove to be of considerable embarrassment to the White House.  Truman finished reading, set the report on his desk, and looked up to Malone.

"What's your source on this, Jack?" the President asked.

"Since 1946, as you know Mr. President, the CIA and FBI have been busy spying on each other. It's impossible for one agency to embark on a project without the other knowing. In this case, I have a friend at Central Intelligence who alerted us."

“We could use more friends over there,” Truman said. “Sometimes I wonder what those boys are up to.”

“I agree, sir. But this is what we have.”

Ever since the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, as Truman knew, Hoover had been looking for ways to discredit the CIA. His motivation was clear. By building a spy case that he could dump at the White House, Hoover reaped a triple benefit. He enhanced his own credibility as the nation's top cop and spy catcher, he embarrassed Truman, who had created the CIA against Hoover's wishes, and he discredited the CIA, which was made to look incompetent for missing the same case.

With or without evidence, Truman knew, as soon as Hoover had enough he would leak the story to friendly journalists like Walter Winchell and Westbrook Pegler, as well as conservative legislators like Joe McCarthy. It was the type of masterstroke for which Hoover had become feared in Washington.

"Hoover can't lose, in other words," said Truman.

Malone nodded. "There are a few things we can do."

“Thank God! Name them.”

"We could attempt to sabotage the FBI's investigation. We could fabricate some faulty information, which would send them in the wrong direction. We could try to take over the investigation ourselves. We could…"

"No, no, no." Truman's response was quiet and impatient. "I want to do the right thing, Jack," he said. "If we're dealing with a security breach, let's find out about and plug it up."

"We could make some accommodation with Hoover," Malone suggested next. "Give him something he wants."

"What he wants is his own private Gestapo," snapped Truman. "Well, that's one thing the lousy son of a bitch won't get from me. Do you think he has anything of substance on this Garrett?”

"No way of knowing. He certainly seems to think he does."

Truman thought for a few moments. "Who is running the investigation for Hoover?" the President asked. "Anyone we've dealt with before?"

"The FBI assigned it to a young agent named Thomas C. Buchanan. Hoover has him operating with relative independence.”

"What do we know about Buchanan?" the President asked. "Who is he?"

"From Pennsylvania. Solid career as an Army officer before the FBI.  Single. No hint of corruption or political bias. A 'good American,' you might say. An honest man.”

“Hoover loyalist?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Most of them are.”

"Get me a complete report on Mr. Buchanan," Truman requested. "That's the only way we'll know what we're dealing with. Do it today. I'll look at it tonight."

“Yes, sir,” Malone said. He rose and departed, leaving the first report in Truman's possession. The President picked it up and began to curse as he continued reading.

CHAPTER 21

Henry Walters, one of the five American Foreign Service political officers assigned to London, had spent half of that same day in an isolated soundproof office of the United States Embassy. There he had carefully retyped a report of his own. Walters's work would be submitted to U.S. Ambassador Lewis Douglas the next morning. If it met the ambassador’s approval, it would be returned by diplomatic pouch to the State Department in Washington the following evening.

The report was Walters's most significant piece of work since joining the Foreign Service. It summarized an American intelligence operation about to be launched from Austria against East Germany. Transport and backup systems for the operation were to be provided by Britain's Special Intelligence Service, which was why the report was being passed through London.

Walters hated the menial task of typing. Yet, he had written the report three times and retyped it painfully in each version. Sensitive material was a nuisance. The secretaries weren't allowed to see it.

Walters was meticulous about his own phraseology. To him, the purpose of the operation was questionable at best. The previous summer the CIA had set a trap for an East German military man named Hans Zolling, a graying, divorced general in the East German Army. The bait was a perky Danish-born stenographer named Lili, who was actually a citizen of the United States.

Lili had met the East German in July 1949 while both had vacationed in Dubrovnik. The general was upset. He had been a distinguished tank commander during the war. The Russians had recruited him from the Wehrmacht and given him two brigades of new Soviet made T-34 tanks. The T-34 tank was a low silhouette, medium-sized vehicle that had been the gold standard of the Soviet Army during World War II. Highly maneuverable and heavily armored, each T-34 carried an 85mm cannon and two 7.62mm machine guns. The T-34 had stopped the German drive on Moscow in 1944 and had entrenched the Red Army in Eastern Europe since 1945. Most military observers called it superior to its British and American counterparts and one of the most effective military designs of the past half-century.

But now Zolling was unhappy.  What the Soviets had given, they were now taking away, pulling away hundreds of his T-34’s and sending them east to no-one-knew-where. Something was up and Zolling, for one, did not like it. His command had been decimated.

So now he was set to defect and join the girl, who was half his age, in West Germany if only someone in the West could bring him out. With him he could bring an insider's knowledge of the East German defense ministry, an attractive commodity in the first year of NATO's existence.

Walters’s view was skeptical about the whole arrangement. In the report, he questioned how valuable the defector could be. At age fifty-two, Zolling had lacked the self-discipline to not lose his head over a twenty-five-year-old secretary. If a man couldn't see a simple woman in clear perspective, Henry Walters suggested, how good a perspective would he have on armaments, defense procedures, and weapons systems?

Similarly, how much could anyone believe a man who was ready to turn his whole life around over a few tumbles in the sack?

Walters's questions were rhetorical and phrased delicately. When he had posed a few of the questions to the senior American diplomats in London, no one had taken them seriously.

"Henry," Ambassador Lewis Douglas had even said in private, "I appreciate your concern. But when you're fifty-two-years-old yourself, if you live that long, you'll realize that any twenty-five-year-old girl is worth a scramble across barbed wire.”  The ambassador seemed to speak from experience.

Well, Walters concluded, if the operation crashed he could point to his own report as having questioned its wisdom from the start. If the operation succeeded, and if the tone of his report were ever brought before him for explanation, he could reasonably explain that he had been prudent in a matter of national security. He believed he had maneuvered himself where he could not lose.

And why not? He was on the rise within the U.S. Embassy. An exception had recently been made in his posting assignment, for example. His tour in London had been extended from two years to five. Those in power in his government were starting to trust him with security decisions. So why take risks? Cover everything.

Walters finished the report and personally placed it on the ambassador's desk where it would be read first thing in the morning. Now, finally, Henry Walters could be on his way.

Henry might have positioned himself well in diplomatic circles, but in romantic considerations he had been less skillful. He had promised to take Laura out to dinner. He was two hours late, hadn't bothered to call, and Laura Garrett was steaming by the time he arrived at her apartment in Mayfair.

"Hi," he said as she opened the door.

"Henry," she said. "It's ten o’clock." She looked angrily at her watch.  "Sorry," she corrected herself. "It's ten nineteen."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Something urgent came up at work. I didn't leave until twenty minutes ago."

"You've used that excuse before," she said.

"It's happened before. It will probably happen again."

"Not in this relationship," Laura said. "Good-bye, Henry." She attempted to close the door. He stopped the door with his hand.

"Can I come in at least?" he asked.

"No," she said. She glared at him. "Ann will be home any minute," she added.

"Good. Then I finally get to meet her."

Laura held the door in its place. "That's not what I meant, Henry," she said.

"Oh. Well, then, come on over to my place. Get your stuff. I'll wait."

"You show up here two hours late?" she snapped. "And I'm just supposed to leave and jump into bed and make noisy love with you?"

"Laura…"

“Good night, Henry," she said. "Don't bother to come by again."

He begged. He pleaded. He caught the door just before it closed. "Can't we talk at least?"

"There's nothing to say," she said. "Now, leave!"

"How," he asked aloud with mock melodrama, "can I just walk away from a woman I love?"

"Oh, brother…" she said. She rolled her eyes in dismay.

"I'm going to stand out here and scream until you let me in," he said in a louder voice.

"Henry, be quiet. Or I'll call the constables."

"They'll sympathize with me and knock the door in," he said. "Plus, I have diplomatic immunity."

She started to laugh, but still looked mad. Another few minutes of pleading by Henry did the trick, however. Laura said he could come in. But only for twenty minutes, she made him promise, and one cup of coffee. Or until Ann returned home, whichever came first. Considering Laura's mood when he arrived, this, too, was a triumph of diplomacy.

Half an hour later, after much small talk, Ann still had not walked through the door, Laura was calmer, and Henry was drinking a second cup of coffee. In a forgiving mood, Laura also poured a jigger of Martell’s VSOP into each cup of coffee.

Laura stifled a yawn. "You might at least do two things," she said to Henry Walters.

"And they are?" he asked.

"Promise me dinner tomorrow. The Cafe Royale or the Savoy Grill."

"Laura! I struggle along on a diplomat's salary."

"Then it's a Dutch treat. I have money. What good is it if we don’t spend it?”
He opened his hands in amazement. "What can I say? I'm cornered," he said.

"Don't say anything. Just answer my second question."

"You have to ask it first."

"What happened tonight?"

"Nothing," he said, "that you should worry about."

She made a distasteful expression. "Henry? Do we trust each other or not?" Laura pulled away from him.

"Embassy business," he said.

"There's embassy business every day."

"Not like this."

"Don't tease me," she said in mock anger. "Or I'll tease you." She ran her hand from his knee to his thigh. She patted him gently and watched him react.

"You're pumping me for information," he accused.

She pulled her hand away. "Henry. I grew up in America the same as you did. You and I go to bed together. I count the time between the days that I see you. If you really want to know what I'm angry about, I was waiting all day to have a few hours alone with you. I wanted to go out, have a nice dinner, then go back to your flat and make love. I'd like to be your wife someday. But tonight something was more important to you than me,” she said. “I want to know what it was, because maybe I'm wrong about us. Maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore."

He looked away. She had a way of intimidating him, not the least by suggesting an end to their relationship on one hand and undying affection on the other. He spoke softly. He tried to make what followed sound as important as possible.

"If I tell you," he said, "you can't mention it to a soul."

"Whom would I tell?" she snapped. "We don't know any of the same people."

"You have to promise."

"I promise."

"The U.S. is trying to get a military man named Hans Zolling out of East Germany," he said.

"So what?" she said finally with a yawn.

"Take my word for it. It's important. It's not the type of thing that women understand. But it's import…" He stopped in mid-sentence. "What did you say?"

"About what?"

"About being my wife someday," he stammered.

"Uh-oh. Shouldn't I have said that?" Laura leaned, to him and kissed him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't assume anything. And I was wrong to get mad at you, even though I don’t understand what the big deal is with your German.”

"No, no," he said quickly. "It's all right. I…"

"Can we forget it?" she asked.

"Okay," he agreed after a moment's thought.

He kissed her in return. Laura glanced at the door.

"I think Ann's making a late night of it again," she said. "Another naughty American girl abroad." Laura giggled. "Maybe we have a little bit of time," she said. "Want to lock the door?"

“Sure.”

"Let's do it quickly," she said. "I'll show you what you could come home to every night if we were married."

Henry said he would like that quite a bit. He undressed as Laura put a bolt latch across the door. And Ann Garrett, reliable Ann Garrett, had the good sense to stay away once again.

CHAPTER 22

The day in late January was warm, even by the standards of southern California. For the first morning since the horrendous evening with Joe Preston, Lisa had started a day without a drink or a pill, or both.

She reclined on a cloth-and-aluminum beach chair, the long type that allowed her to stretch her legs. She wore a cotton sweater and a pair of blue shorts. She hid her eyes beneath dark glasses and a straw hat. As she felt the warmth of the sun against her skin, she felt at peace with herself. On her legs were visible bruises from where Jesse had whacked her. There were marks on her arms and upper back also, but the sweater covered those.

She was on an isolated stretch of Redondo Beach. It was a Sunday morning, and her husband was scouting locations nearby for his upcoming film. Lisa was alone, listening to the waves break and the occasional squawk of gulls. She was alone and thinking.

Recently Lisa had spent a lot of time reexamining her life. She thought about her school days back East and about her choice of acting as a career. She wondered how things would have gone if she had stayed in New York. She would go back in an instant now, were it not for Jesse Chadwick and his threats. Everything, it seemed, from the movie she was about to shoot to the sex Joe Preston had forced upon her, now somehow emanated from her brutalizing husband.

And yet he had the nerve to be quoted in the newspapers on the subject of "cinema." What a filthy man. What a filthy life. What a filthy feeling Lisa had inside her. The sun rose higher. She closed her eyes. Sleep at home was an occasional thing these days. Often Jesse interfered with that, too. So this stretch of beach that she came to was a respite, even if her husband knew exactly where she was.

Lisa stared out across the blue waves and saw a sailboat on the horizon. She wished she were on it, no matter where it was going. Its destination looked more tranquil than hers.

Lisa had decided that she would kill herself. It was hard to come to grips with the fact that she would soon be dead. But that was the way it would be. Being dead would be less painful than living. It was just a matter of how she would do it. And when. She looked at the waves and wondered what it would be like to swim out as far as she could, until fatigue overtook her and the currents of the Pacific swallowed her.

Drowning. She did not like the idea that her body might never be found. She wanted a good burial. And she wanted to leave a letter behind explaining why she had killed herself and who was to blame. And then there was the matter of timing. When would she do it? When would the effect be at a maximum?

Or, she wondered, should she kill Jesse first? Maybe she should get a gun, shoot her husband, and then go murder Joe Preston before turning the gun on herself. The problem was putting the nose of a pistol to her head. She wasn't sure she could really pull the trigger, same with murdering Jesse or Joe. The thought, horrendous as murder was, appealed to her. But could she really do it?

No, she decided, there was really only one way. She would write out her suicide note, send copies to the appropriate people, lock herself in a hotel room, and take every one of the laudanum capsules.

That would do it. Recently, she had been checking the medical texts in the library. Fifty capsules would do the job. Fifty capsules would have her dead in an hour.

Lisa looked at her legs. She raised one and then the other, examining them critically. Years ago, when she was seventeen, a stocking manufacturer wanted her to model for his advertisements. Perfect legs, the man said she had. He wasn't a wolf or a playboy. He had seen her legs on an afternoon when she had been playing tennis. He had introduced himself and left a business card. Her father, however, would hear none of it. No modeling for any daughter of his. No acting either. Undignified, he said. Tasteless. Not worthy of his family.

Dad, if you could see me now, she thought to herself. The slave of a boorish movie director, swapped to an animal of a producer, lying on a California beach contemplating the most effective manner of suicide. She felt like dirt.

Lisa Pennington glanced down the beach. Two hundred yards away there was a figure walking in her direction. At first, with alarm, she thought it was Jesse. It would have been just like him to follow her here, to intrude on the little corner of the world that remained as her sanctuary. Then, to her considerable relief, she realized that the intruder was a woman.

Yet Lisa stared as the woman walked closer. The stranger was wearing a straw hat and a brightly colored striped dress. With one hand the woman held her hat on so that no breeze could take it. With the other arm she clutched something against her body: a purse, perhaps, or a book, or a small bag.

Without moving her head Lisa stared for several seconds more. Then she began to relax. She did not know the woman. Chances were, the stranger was just taking a stroll on the beach, enjoying the California outdoors, same as Lisa.

Lisa set her head back and closed her eyes. Where would she be buried, she wondered. Where would her possessions go? What would death be like? Should she bother to write a will? If heaven existed, whom would she see there that she knew?
Many years ago she had been engaged to a young man. She had given him her virginity and they had exchanged their vows of love. Then one day he had disappeared from her life, never to return. Unlike some young women her age, enjoying a new freedom after the war, she hadn't made love to another man until she had met her husband-to-be. Now that seemed like a mistake, too.

Her thoughts floated. Lisa savored the warmth of the sun upon her bare skin. She was still very pretty. She felt she would have had a lot to give if a decent man were ever interested in her. Why couldn't she just spend time relaxing in the sunlight with a man she loved?

Then she realized again that there would never be such a man. No self-respecting man would even want her considering the Hollywood tramp that she turned into. And maybe it did not matter anyway. This, she concluded, was her fate. What did one more premature death mean in a world in which twenty million people had just died in global warfare?

Several minutes passed peacefully. Her only sensations were a gently drifting motion that frequently preceded sleep, plus the sound of the ocean and the gentle touch of breezes playing across her skin. Then she was aware of a shadow crossing her face.

"Hello." A woman spoke from close by.

Lisa's eyes opened. The woman in the bright dress was standing next to her.

"Sorry," the woman said. "Did I startle you? You're Lisa, aren't you?”

Lisa did not recognize her.  "That depends. Who are you and what do you want?"

"Well, Lisa," the woman said with labored intimacy, "I just want to talk to you for a moment. Mind if I sit down?"

Lisa did not answer. The stranger sat down on the far end of the beach chair. She opened the cloth bag she carried and pulled out a notebook and pencil, setting the bag on the sand.

"I'm Esther Greeb," she said. "I'm a publicist for RKO Studios. I was told the wonderful news that Hold the Phone! goes into production at our studios in two weeks. That means we need to get together your publicity bio immediately so that we can start getting you in the newspapers."

"I don't want to be in the newspapers," Lisa said.

"The press is a marvelous source of free publicity," Esther said. "And you know what? They want to like you!"

Lisa leaned back in her chair, a wave of despondency upon her. She slid the hat down over her eyes.

"It's a Sunday morning, Esther," she said. "That might not mean anything to you, but it means something to me. Go away.”

"One of my favorite times to work," the publicist said. "I'm so glad I caught you in a free moment. We can get to know each other better."

Lisa moved the hat from her eyes. "I don't want to know you," she said. "Don't you understand English? I want you to go away."

"I don't have a salary, Lisa. Nor do I have a contract to become a star like you do. Nor do I have a wealthy husband. I lost my husband in the war, I have two children, and I get paid only if I get your bio sheets together this weekend. I’ll be candid. I don't loll around on the beach waiting to become a movie star. I fight to make ends meet. Do you understand what I'm saying? I need to do this interview."

Lisa moaned.

"Fifteen minutes, Esther. Then leave me alone." Esther had her pad out and began writing.

"Where are you from originally, Lisa?"

It took Lisa several seconds to answer.

“Wallingford, Connecticut," she said.

"Where's that?"

"Connecticut or Wallingford?"

"Wallingford."

"Near New Haven." She paused to think. Then her account of things came more readily. "But I grew up in Michigan. My mother still lives there."

"Is her name Pennington?"

"No. It's Ellison. Mrs. Margaret Ellison."

"Then Ellison is your real name, Lisa?"

Lisa looked askance at Esther.

"You're not going to print my real name, are you?"

"Lisa, dear. Some of these questions are for the studio employment records. You'll have a chance to take a good hard look at anything we write before the press sees it."

"Is that a promise?"

"A solemn promise, Lisa dear."

Lisa closed her eyes and imagined as she spoke. "My mother is remarried. Her name now is Ellison. Lisa Pennington is my stage name. I first started using it when I was acting off-Broadway in New York. Before that," she said, "I was Doris Elizabeth Oelsner of Wallingford, Connecticut. Doesn't have quite the memorable ring as Lisa Pennington, does it?"

"Do you have brothers or sisters?"

"A brother," said Lisa. "He's in the Navy. He’s stationed with the U.S. Sixth Fleet.”

Esther was writing furiously.

"And your parents?" she asked.

"Mom is a third grade schoolteacher back in Michigan," Lisa said. "My father was an electrician. Had his own shop. He died in the war."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Normandy," Lisa said. "A week after D-Day."

"Terrible," Esther said, her hand not missing a phrase. "Lousy Germans."

”Oelsner is a German name," Lisa said.

"Oh, of course, dear!" Esther looked up, on the defensive. "What I meant was, lousy Nazis!"

"Don't confuse the two," Lisa said.

"I won't. What do you like to do, Lisa?" she asked, not missing a beat. "You like to act, obviously. Sports?"

"I play tennis.”

"You look like a smart girl too. Let's put down that you like to read also. Let's make this good," she said thoughtfully. She knew what she needed. "What books shall we say you've read recently? How about The Sound and the Fury by F. Scott Fitzgerald?"

"That's William Faulkner."

Esther paused. "Are you sure?"

"He won the Nobel Prize this past year. I read the book. I'm sure."

"Fitzgerald did? He worked on some scripts at RKO before the war."

"Faulkner did," Lisa said. "Faulkner won the Nobel Prize."

"Oh. Well," she said, starting to scribble again, "let's put a Fitzgerald book in too. He's popular. Can you think of one?"

"How about Gatsby?"

"That's a good choice, Lisa. It's well known." She stopped writing. "What's the full title again?"

On it went for far longer than fifteen minutes. Lisa talked freely thereafter and Esther wrote everything in her notebook. The sun rose higher in the sky and the day grew warmer. Lisa pushed up her sleeves and tilted back her hat. And in a weird sort of way, Lisa enjoyed the bubble-headed banter back and forth, fraudulent and insincere as it all was. Sly, mendacious Esther wouldn't be confused with an atomic scientist, but her companionship took Lisa's mind off everything else.

The publicist felt she had enough by a few minutes after noon. She thanked Lisa, closed her notepad, and dropped it and her pencils back into her tote bag.

"See you soon," she said when the interview was over. She gave a faint wave.

"Yeah," Lisa answered. "See you," she agreed, knowing she wouldn't. She watched Esther turn and walk down the beach. The publicist retreated faster than she had advanced.

Esther turned in the biographical material to RKO two days later. The publicity people in Hollywood rewrote it, added whatever they felt would appeal to the public, and coupled it with a sexy photograph of Lisa that had been taken on the beach in France the previous summer. RKO's intention was to get some newspaper space as soon as possible for Lisa, to build her into a future star before Hold the Phone! was even in front of Jesse Chadwick's cameras.

A press release followed - picture, bio, and all. No one ran it past Lisa. No one showed her anything that it contained. Out it would go to five hundred fifteen newspapers and magazines.

Lisa had been around long enough to know what to expect as well. She had told a self-serving fib here and there and had believed not a word fed to her by Esther Greeb. In point of fact, Lisa was more concerned with enjoying the early afternoon sunlight than with the contents of a puff piece for the newspapers. The biographical notes probably wouldn't appear until after she was dead, Lisa reasoned. And what difference would they make to anyone - most of all her - at that point?

CHAPTER 23

Late on a cold afternoon in Philadelphia, Thomas Buchanan picked up his telephone and found himself again talking to Frank Lerrick, who was calling long distance from Washington.

Across a static-ridden telephone line, Buchanan learned that in Washington one of the clerical researchers assigned to the Garrett case had managed to obtain all the recent Smith College alumnae bulletins. Listed in a spring 1949 bulletin was a notice on Laura Garrett. The researcher had passed the information along to Lerrick. According to the bulletin, Laura was living in London and working for a prominent jewelry concern. Or at least that’s what was in the alumni magazine.

"London?" Buchanan repeated.

"London, England, Tom. The big one. Ever been there?"

"After the war," he said. “Sailed home from Southampton. Had a few days in London before leaving.”

“We checked with the British Consulate in New York. Laura has a visa to be in the United Kingdom. We even have an address.  Do you have a valid passport?”

“No. I spent enough time in Europe ducking Hitler’s bullets. Wasn’t planning to leave stateside for a while.”

“We’ll have a new passport done up for you. Won’t take long if it’s a special request for the Bureau.”

“I’m not sure Laura will talk to me,” Buchanan said. “She was the sister who never cared much for me. I doubt whether much has changed. Honestly, I’m not sure she’s worth the long trip.”

“Mr. Hoover wants it done.”

“Sure, but…“

“Let me explain something to you, Special Agent Buchanan," said Lerrick. "Truman wants to permit this new Central Intelligence Agency to handle all foreign work," Lerrick intoned. "Nothing for us, in other words. We're supposed to sit by while the CIA allows subversives to take over the country." The disdain in his voice was clear. "What Mr. Hoover feels the Bureau needs right now," he said with rising emphasis, "is the revelation of a Communist agent close to the Truman Administration. We need to nail one and nail him big. And if the case were made by virtue of work abroad, so much the better. It would show that the FBI can and should operate anywhere in the world. Clear?” he asked.

“Extremely. More than you might think.”

The Assistant Director's tone of voice softened. "And what are your thoughts? About this case, I mean. Is this a big-league case or midget potatoes? Do we have us a Red spy or not?"

"Sir, I've spent a month on nothing else," Buchanan said. "And I'm not yet sure.”

Over the static, Lerrick sighed. "It's just a matter of time. Also, be sure to check your weapon before you leave. The Brits are a bunch of candy-asses about letting our people bring guns into the country. What do you carry?"

"A Colt thirty-eight. Standard issue."

"Ever had to use it?"

"No, sir. Haven’t used a weapon since the war.”

"The day will come," Lerrick said. "It does for all of us.”

After a moment, Buchanan asked, "What about Laura’s sister?" The static crackled heavily again across the long distance line. “What about Ann?”

"Nothing on Ann yet," Lerrick said.

“So I’m going to visit Laura Garrett in London?”

“Can’t think of a better way to get some answers,” Lerrick said. “Want a word of advice, Tom?”

“Sure.”

“Whatever you do, come back from London with results.”

CHAPTER 24

On Saturday morning, February 11, Viktor Milenkin, who worked for the New York Telephone Company under the name of George Mulligan, took his weekly “spy walk” under the Williamsburg Bridge. He was accompanied by his dog, part Labrador, part German shepherd. Milenkin had named the dog "O'Dwyer," after the recent mayor of New York, or just "Bad Bill" for short.

Friends took this to be a mark of Milenkin's playful sense of humor. They mistook it, however, to be an Irish trait rather than a Russian one.

The wind in New York gusted up the East River the same way as, a hundred miles to the south, it swept up the Delaware. Milenkin was freezing. He wondered if he might make these walks every other week instead of each Saturday. There were rarely any messages left for him in the stonework under the bridge. Nothing from Colonel Volkov, wherever he was, and nothing from Mother Sonya back in Russia.

Recently, many other things had gone well for Milenkin. His American employers had given him a merit raise. Milenkin still lived very simply on Perry Street in Greenwich Village, but he now banked each week, even after taxes, a full fifty dollars more than he spent. As part of a Christmas bonus his employer had also issued him stock in the company. He was also now included in profit-sharing.

"Stock? What does that mean?" he asked when he received the certificate.

"It means you own part of the company," someone in Payroll told him. Milenkin took the certificate home and stared at it for hours. Then, in January one of his superiors had been taken ill and left the company. New York Telephone again promoted the man they knew as George Mulligan, and once again the company presented him with a raise. And the best news followed: Within another few months he was scheduled to go into the company's supervisory management training program. That would mean even more money, better working conditions, and increased status with job security.

Something else nice was happening, also. Milenkin found a special girl at New York Telephone. She was a typist. Her name was Barbara Harkavy. She was a plain girl from Brooklyn but she had taken a shine to him for several months. During the December holidays in 1949, she invited him to her family's place in Brooklyn for dinner.

To Milenkin's utter amazement, Barbara's mother, Mrs. Ellen Harkavy, had cooked a Russian-Jewish meal that was so good that it brought tears to his eyes. In return Milenkin took Barbara dancing at Roseland the next weekend and then to see All the King's Men at the Radio City Music Hall the Friday after that.

Focusing on the name Mulligan, Barbara liked to kid him about his Celtic heritage. George did not seem like Brooklyn Irish at all. He was, for example, the only Irishman she had ever met who did not hang out in bars or attend Mass at least once a month, sometimes going directly from one to the other. He answered that saloons did not appeal to him all that much, and churches did not either.

Secretly her observations gave him pause. Back in Moscow, the name Mulligan had seemed neutral American, with no ethnic implications. In California it might have been. But in New York it was not. So if Milenkin had adopted an Irish name and identity, here were a few tiny flaws in his new cover. Like discovering a painting that is a forgery, Milenkin knew that the unraveling of a fraud often came in small steps, until the smaller inconsistencies gave way to larger ones. At that time the authenticity of the whole canvas would collapse. If Barbara found little incongruities in his persona, Milenkin worried, wouldn’t someone who might be investigating him for more serious reasons?

Yet Barbara Harkavy and George Mulligan remained more than friendly, even if it was merely a cordial companionship at the office and then for a very low-key date on Friday night. He was always courteous to her parents and careful to get her home by the time he had promised. On those occasions when he had to wait for Barbara, he enjoyed conversation with her father, Irving, who liked to share observations and opinions on living in America.

"It's not Canaan, but it will have to do," Irving liked to joke.  For this, and for many other reasons, Mr. and Mrs. Harkavy became fond of George Mulligan, too. The irony was that Mrs. Harkavy kept referring to him as a "nice American boy."

In December Barbara went to bed with him at his apartment in Greenwich Village. That night Barbara came home to Brooklyn three hours late. Her parents, knowing that she had been with George Mulligan, said nothing.

Viktor Milenkin, however, was deeply troubled. He had been told in the Soviet Union that American workers were relentlessly exploited. But he had been given one promotion after another, had more money than he actually knew how to spend, now owned part of the company, and was being geared towards a management position.

He had been told that society in the United States was closed and oppressive. Yet he found Greenwich Village to be a cheerful, informal, tolerant, artistic, and friendly neighborhood, where he was free to go wherever or do whatever he pleased. There was nothing like the terror that had reigned in Russia during the purge trials, terror so widespread that people were afraid to even discuss it.

He had been told by officers he respected in Soviet military intelligence that Jews were dishonest, materialistic, greedy, and slothful, representing the worst of the capitalist class. Yet he had seen the proof that these notions were lies. The Harkavys were kind, hardworking, well-spoken, thoughtful, literate, joyful cultured people. Their daughter incorporated all of those qualities, and he was falling in love with her.

Milenkin, in short, was spending his subversive time in America in ever-mounting wonder and confusion. There was no one he could confide in, but deep within himself he bore a terrible secret: when it came to his Soviet masters, he was starting to harbor disloyal thoughts.

CHAPTER 25

Robert Sayre, the chief political officer of the United States Embassy in London, looked across his desk at his visitor and thought things over. "FBI?" said Sayre. "I see. How long are you staying?"

"Not very long, I'm afraid," Thomas Buchanan answered. "Maybe only a day or so."

"Heck of a trip for such a short stay. Are you a detective?"

"Sometimes," Buchanan said.

"What if I get Ambassador Douglas on the phone to Washington?" Sayre inquired. "Do you think Mr. Hoover could spare you for a few weeks?"

Buchanan laughed. "As much as I'd like to stay, I'm in the midst of a lengthy investigation. Mr. Hoover would say no." Buchanan paused. "What exactly is the problem?"

"What's always the problem? Security. A leak somewhere. What's your government security clearance?"

"One-AAB," Buchanan replied.

"Good," said Sayre. "That means we can talk."

Sayre was a chunky man with closely cropped brown hair. He wore glasses and looked worried. He went on to describe an intelligence operation that had emanated out of the U.S. Embassy in London the previous week.  "We had a defector all lined up," said Sayre. "East German named Zolling. Important man. Ready to talk."

"About what?" Sayre rubbed his chin.

"He was an expert on Soviet policy and military strategy. Europe, Africa and Asia. Successful tank commander during the war. I'm told he was going to give us the Russian military blueprint for the 1950s." Sayre shrugged. "That's presupposing Ivan Russkie has a blueprint."

"Ivan might not," said Buchanan. “But I'm sure Joe Stalin does."

Sayre nodded. Buchanan sensed some anxiety from Sayre. These days, Buchanan was getting used to it. Thanks to Hoover’s high profile, the mere presence of an agent put people on edge. For Buchanan’s purposes, it could be a blessing or a curse.

"What happened to Zolling?" Buchanan asked. "Anyone know?"

"Tortured. Then shot. Those are our initial reports. A lesson to others who'd be so foolish as to try to leave the East German workers' paradise."

Buchanan winced.

"Well," Sayre continued, "if you can't help me, maybe I can help you. Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for resident Americans in London with the last name of Garrett," he said. "I wonder if you could check the current visa files."

“Is this an ‘official’ visit?” Sayre asked.

“I’ve known the Garretts for years. Let’s call it social,” Buchanan said, spinning it nicely.

"Well, I know of one offhand. Laura Garrett," Sayre said. Buchanan was pleased. "You know her personally?" he asked.

"I've met her. Very pretty. Very intelligent girl. She's the fiancée of a member of our political staff. A man named Henry Walters," Sayre said. "Just bought her an engagement ring, unless I'm mistaken. One of those things.  No one could ever have imagined that an egghead like Henry would land such a beautiful woman."

"Is that right? Have they known each other long?"

"Whirlwind romance," said Sayre with a touch of envy. “Just since November.  Chance meeting in a pub," Sayre said. "Don't tell anyone, but it happens all the time. Young Americans abroad. They hear each other's accent; they start to chat. You know how these things snowball. You married?”

“No. Never,” Buchanan said. "Who talked to whom first?"

Sayre shrugged. "Who knows? Who cares?" He thought for a moment. "Henry's here today. Would you like to meet him?"  Sayre moved a hand toward his intercom.
Buchanan raised a hand to stop Sayre.

"In a few minutes," he answered.

Sayre shook his head. "Henry's in the political department. They could use some cheering up. That's the team that took the beating on the defection."

"Beating, how?" Buchanan asked, a small alarm sounding within him.
"This is between you and me and the four walls, right?"

"I hope so," Buchanan answered.

"There are five political officers here. They and they alone determined the route our people would take into Soviet occupied territory to bring Zolling out. Conventional wisdom says therefore that the leak has to be there. Yet it can't be there. All five have the highest possible security clearance."

"With all due respect," Buchanan said, "I had some experience with things of this nature in Berlin after the war. One's country is rarely betrayed by people with low security clearances."

Sayre looked at his visitor with an indignant expression.

“Sorry,” Buchanan said. “I’m suspicious of everything these days. And there are only a limited number of places where a security lapse could have occurred.”

“Well, quite right of you to be on guard,” Sayre said, retreating. “It’s your job.”

Buchanan kept it moving. “I wonder if you could check the visa files or any listings you have for Americans in the U.K. Specifically I'm also looking for Ann Garrett, Laura's sister. Or John Taylor Garrett, her father. This on the QT, of course. Don't even alarm Mr. Walters with the knowledge of this."

"Of course." Sayre left the room and reappeared five minutes later. There was no listing for any related Garrett anywhere in England, Scotland, or Wales. Nor was there any record of John or Ann into or out of the U.K. within the last year. There was just the single visa and work permit for Laura. Sayre asked if Buchanan might now wish to be introduced to Laura's fiancé.
“Let me talk to Laura first,” Buchanan answered. “In fact, don’t even tell Mr. Walters that I’m here. But perhaps you could point him out to me. You know, so I know what he looks like.”

Sayre shrugged.

“However you wish,” he said. “I have the ultimate respect for your Director, and anyone who works for him.” He paused. “Are you an FBI specialist in some of this international stuff? Spies and the like?”

Buchanan laughed. “Not at all, sir. I’m just a soldier home from the war. Why?”

“Maybe you should be. You have a head for it.”

CHAPTER 26

Laura's flat was in a five-story yellow sandstone building on Brook Street, half a block from Claridge's toward Grosvenor Square. Buchanan arrived the next afternoon after a night of rest. He was surveying the brief index of residents and was about to ring her bell in the entrance foyer on the ground floor when the door opened from within. A plump woman with black hair and very fair skin, a resident he figured, held the door open and admitted him to the building. Buchanan mounted two flights of steps and rang the bell at Laura Garrett's flat. A few moments later Laura opened the door.

"Yes…?" she said.

"Hello, Laura," he said. It took several seconds. Then she recognized him.

"My God! A ghost!" she said with what he thought to be horror. "Tommy Buchanan."

"I know it's rude to just drop in," he said. "But I'm in London for a day or two. And I thought…"

"Don't say another word," she said. "Come in. How long has it been since I've seen you? Five years? Seven?"

"Closer to ten."

Laura was still very beautiful, he noted, and as she closed the door she reminded him painfully of Ann. Her movements were the same. Her expressions were an echo of the woman Buchanan had once loved. She stood back a pace or two and assessed him.

"How extraordinary!" she said. "It's not every day that a man I danced with a dozen years ago drops by to say hello."

"I don't suppose it is."

"Make yourself comfortable," she said. She motioned to her living room. Her flat was spacious and well appointed. He entered and sat on her sofa. In response to her questions of why he was in London, Buchanan said he had a piece of important business that brought him here. As he spoke, he studied her eyes carefully. He detected something he did not like.

"Can I get you something cold to drink? Or hot?" she asked at length. Just tell me what, Tom, and we'll have it."

He settled on ginger ale. While she went for it, he used the washroom. On his way back he glanced at the array of clothes in an open closet in the hallway, the only closet in an otherwise spacious flat. When he came back and sat down, she drank some ginger ale too.

They talked for half an hour. Laura had been working in London for a few years, she said, just to get out and see the world. She was an occasional buyer for a jewelry dealer, she said, and had most recently fallen in love. This she glossed over quickly, as if embarrassed.

"And your family?" he asked.

"They're well." She seemed content to leave it at that.

He nudged. "Tell me about them," he said.

"Dad's back in America. He still operates Commonwealth Penn, of course."

"Seen him recently?"

"About three months ago."

"Is that right?" he asked. "November? Thereabouts?"

"I think it was. Yes."

"Then you've been back home very recently?"

"No. I saw him here."

"In London?  Your dad’s here?”

"Well, he was. He’s not now. Here. Have a look."

She produced a snapshot of the two of them. Buchanan could tell it was of recent vintage, taken on Westminster Bridge.

"How nice," he said. "Did Ann take this?" he asked, glancing up. "I noticed the name 'A. Garrett' next to the name 'L. Garrett' downstairs."

"No. A friend took the picture."

"Does your father get here often?"

"No. Not at all."

"It sounds as if his business is doing well."

Buchanan handed the snapshot back to her.

"I'm sure," she said. "We have father-daughter talks. Not business talks. I only assume the bank is doing well. He doesn't discuss it with me. Banking,” she said with disdain. “Not my favorite thing.”

Laura stood and moved to the mantel. She pulled down two family pictures in two silver frames. She showed them to Buchanan.

Buchanan stared at the photograph of her parents and expressed his sorrow over the death of her mother. He guessed that the photograph might be five years old. Then he moved his attention to the picture of Ann and Laura together. This was of similar vintage. Circa 1945, he guessed. It was an outdoor shot on a bright day. Buchanan recognized their home in Pennsylvania as background.

The vision of Ann unsettled him. He tried to imagine what Ann might have been doing at that point in her life, shortly after stepping out of his. Whatever it was, however, it seemed to have treated her well so far. Ann was as beautiful as he remembered her. And no matter how life had been treating her at the time, she was smiling in the photograph.

"And how is Ann?" he asked. "Your equally beautiful sister?" Laura started to laugh.

"Oh, Tom," she chided him. "You're not here chasing that old flame, are you? Tell me honestly."

He lied smoothly. "Not in the slightest," he said. "I'd just like to be remembered. Where is she?"

"She lives here," Laura said. "With me."

"Ah! Then I'll get to see her?"

"No. I'm sorry. She's out of London right now."

"What a shame. For how long?"

"Indefinitely."

"But she's normally here?" Buchanan asked.

"Usually, yes," Laura answered.

In the next room the telephone rang twice.

"Excuse me," Laura said. She stood and hurried to the phone. It was in the front hallway and out of his sight.

He turned the photographs over, hoping he would find the photographer's name. But he found none. When his attention returned to the shot of the Garrett sisters, however, he noticed how thick the picture seemed in its glass-and-silver frame. He examined the frame. Then, with Laura still on the telephone, he opened it. Within, he discovered a few more photographs stacked beneath the first. They were smaller-sized portrait of the two girls, identical to the photograph on top.

He tuned into Laura’s voice from the front hall. An impulse was upon him. His hands worked quickly as he stole a four-by-five black and white print. Then he heard Laura sign off the telephone and hang up. Buchanan pocketed the photo and closed the frame. Laura reentered the room.

"My fiancé just called," she said. "He's on his way over." Buchanan handed the frames back to her. She took them carefully and held them. "Tom," she said, "I'm getting engaged today. I'm not even supposed to know, but my boyfriend's bringing me a ring. I found out through friends."

"Congratulations! What's the lucky fellow's name? What type of work does he do?"

She stood and returned the framed portraits to the mantel. For a moment she looked unnerved.

"It's getting on in the day, Tom,” she said. “And it might be awkward if he found you here."

“I understand completely,” Buchanan said. “Maybe then I could ask you a small favor or two and I’ll be on my way.”

“What sort of favors?”

“I’d love to be able to contact your father. And your sister. Could you help me?”

“No, I can’t,” she said flatly.

“That’s disappointing. Why not?”

“Because I know why you’re here,” she said sharply. “You’re with the FBI and you’re trying make trouble for my father. So I have no interest in helping you.”

"Nothing can be further from the truth, Laura. I'd be more than happy to turn in a report exonerating an innocent man."

She stood, angrily facing him. "I've seen the way people like you operate, Tom. I don't like it or them. Or you. So I'll tell you what I know. I know that my father is completely innocent of any wrongdoing. But people like you who work for J. Edgar Hoover run around compiling files on innocent Americans. Then, if their politics aren't quite right, you start smearing them. I suspect you're after Dad because first he worked for Henry Wallace, then he contributed time and money to Truman's reelection."

“You’re wrong, Laura,” he said, calm words coming to him from somewhere. “And if you don’t want me contacting your father, or won’t help me, perhaps you could help me find Ann.”

“She has a boyfriend in Rome. Or maybe it’s a husband. Things are casual these days. I'd expect that she's staying there."

“I thought you said she lived here.” She glared at him. "Then again, I looked in your medicine cabinet,” he continued. “Women don't share their creams or their makeup or their lipsticks. I saw only those things that belong to you. And you wouldn't have disposed of all of Ann's things so quickly. Same with the clothes in the closet. Ann was smaller than you. Those are your clothes, plus a smattering of items to make it look like someone else lives here. Further," he said, "I know your father is a remarkable man. But among the most remarkable things about him would be this recent visit to the U.K., the one you just mentioned. What passport did he travel on?" Buchanan asked. "The United States Embassy here keeps track of all Americans who have come and gone. No John Taylor Garrett ever entered England. At least, not officially. So what name does he travel under? And what passport might he be using, Laura?"

Laura turned crimson in anger.

"Similarly I learn that you have a visa to be in the U.K., but Ann does not. That would seem strange, too, were it not for the fact that she has probably never been here anyway. Laura, listen. Don’t you think it would be wiser to tell me, an old friend of the family, before the professional inquisitors get a hold of this?”

"Go to bloody hell!” Laura shouted. “And I really don't think we have anything more to say to each other! But I'll tell you something else. For exactly that reason I'm damned glad you didn't marry into our family. You're an intellectual flyweight. You're a glorified two-bit cop, a second cousin to the Gestapo. Now, leave!”

He stood and gathered his hat and coat.

"If you see Ann, say hello for me, Laura. When you communicate with your father, as I know you will, tell him I'd like to talk to him. Is that fair enough?"

She pointed him toward the entrance hall and sent him on his way with a burst of profanities.

Down the block of Brook Street later the same evening, standing in the clear window of a pub, Buchanan nursed pints of warm English lager, thirty minutes to a glass, watching the doorway where Laura lived.

At six fifteen Henry Walters arrived, holding what appeared to be a gift-wrapped champagne bottle under his arm. He was upstairs for more than half an hour. Buchanan made note of the time. Laura and her Romeo reappeared a few minutes before seven. Henry raised his arm and flagged a taxi. The couple climbed in. Buchanan watched as the diesel vehicle accelerated noisily toward Hanover Square.

A fistful of questions posed themselves to Buchanan. How had Laura known he worked for the FBI, for example? Well, that one was easy enough, he brooded over a second lager. Barring a tip-off from the London embassy, Paul Evans from the Mayflower Club had alerted Laura’s father. And her father had alerted her. That meant Laura and her father were all in tight communication. Buchanan’s visit to the Mayflower Club had only been a couple of weeks previous. It also meant that Evans was in touch with John Garrett. Interesting.

Yet why had Laura lied to him so relentlessly? Why had she singled out a political officer in the United States Embassy for her affections when she could have her pick of men? Why, concurrent to their romance, had an important operation in Eastern Europe blown up?

And where was Ann? Not Rome. That was a bald lie: Buchanan could tell by the way Laura had spit it out.

Why would she not tell him? Buchanan’s hunch was that she was never with Laura in London, but rather served as an extra name on a doorbell. Well, fair enough. Many single women did such things for protection, creating the appearance that someone else might walk in at any time. But why was there no trace of the only woman with whom he had ever been in love?

Love.

Buchanan snorted to himself over a third lager. To fall in love required so much unpredictable human chemistry and interaction. A man and woman had to laugh together, maybe cry some, test their limits, go back and forth, touch each other, and reveal something true about themselves. He had had that once with Ann. It was right there from the very beginning yet had never been present with any other woman he had ever met.

Vulnerability. Some give and take. That indefinable chemistry. He wondered if he would ever find it again. He wondered if that emotion within him was yet another casualty of the world war.

Buchanan emerged from the pub. He stood in the drizzly London night. One part of him was now in open revolt against the rest of him. All of the excesses of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI repelled him: Illegal wiretaps. Bureau files filled with the dirty laundry of private citizens. Breaking and entering with no warrants. Black-bag jobs. Sound jobs.

Perhaps Laura had been right. Perhaps her father had done nothing illegal. Or perhaps - to imagine the unthinkable - whatever he had done, maybe John Taylor Garrett was a lesser evil than those who would prosecute him.

It depressed him, all of this. He had fought a war to return to this?

The rain intensified as he turned down Duke Street, walking away from Laura's neighborhood. He wondered if Ann was dead, like her mother. He shuddered.

A more troubling question was then upon him. With his disgust of Hoover's methods and motives, why had he just operated in much the same manner? Within his coat pocket was the small photograph of Laura and Ann. On impulse he had stolen it from the silver frame when she was on the telephone. He dipped his hand within his coat to reassure himself that he had it. It was there.

A few minutes later, a few blocks farther away, the rain was torrential. Buchanan took refuge under the canopy of a Persian teahouse and looked hopefully over his shoulder for a taxi. There were none. Then the worst thought of all seized him. For the first time it was completely credible that John Taylor Garrett was some sort of spy and Laura was his apprentice. A wave of demoralization was upon him when the next logical thought visited. Ann was her father's apprentice, too, only more deeply under cover than her older sister. She was so deeply into her devious role, he imagined, that he would never find her at all.

Disgust filled him. Yet in a weird, disgraceful, backhanded way, he was glad he had stolen the photograph. He would file it among his other souvenirs, all of which were increasingly bittersweet.

CHAPTER 27

Lisa Pennington sat by herself on the edge of a living room set in RKO Studio Number 6. Across her lap were the most recent script revisions for Hold the Phone! If there was one thing that Lisa was not in the mood for, it was light comedy. If there was a second thing she was not in the mood for, it was her husband. If there was a third, it was Joe Preston. Unfortunately the day would be filled with all three.

Her co-star was an aging leading man who had been a matinee idol in the late 1930s, mostly as a song and dance man, but whose celebrity had faded after the war. His real name was Damon Forbes. His friends and acquaintances called him by that name, but the public knew him by something more famous and more memorable. He worked less frequently now but took any job offered. Worldwide he still had a reputation, meaning Joe Preston was that much closer to several foreign sales by employing him, as long as the actor stayed sober. Lisa had met Damon for the first time the previous weekend.

"I always have an affair with my leading lady," he announced two minutes into their acquaintanceship.

"This time will be an exception, Damon," she said.

"I'll talk to Jesse about it," he said. She knew what he meant. Inside, she burned. The stories about her and Joe Preston had already made the rounds, promulgated primarily by Preston.

"When you do," Lisa replied sweetly, "tell him he can screw himself."

"I wouldn't say anything like that to Jesse," the actor said. "Not with his connections back in New York."

"Then don't say anything to him at all," she said. "And aside from when we're shooting, don't say anything to me either."

Sitting on the edge of the set on this, the first day of principal photography, she watched Damon make his entrance. She knew he had probably never read the script and would need cue cards stapled to props in order to remember his lines. Yet fan magazines still carried his picture, gossip columns tittered with his name, and when he seated himself at a prominent table at the Brown Derby, autograph seekers from the Prairie States, mostly middle-aged women, would form adoring lines. Damon Forbes flirted with them all, groped a few and sometimes managed to take some of the younger ones home. This morning, however, Damon had appeared on the set with his latest squeeze, a seventeen-year-old blond girl who had recently dropped out of Santa Barbara High School.

"Like her?" Jesse Chadwick asked his wife as he eased into his director’s chair next to her. "Her name is Cindy. Joe Preston supplied her to keep Damon happy."

"I'm so glad," Lisa said.

"You should be. That means Damon stays sober and keeps his hands to himself on the set. That's the deal. If he screws up, Joe sends Cindy home."

"Joe's got real talent for management, doesn't he?"

"Stop being a bitch. Do you know your lines?"

"Would it matter if I didn't? Damon never knows his."

Chadwick looked at her with contempt and anger. "Lisa," he said. "I could fight with you for the four weeks of this shoot. I could take you aside and beat the daylights out of you. I could dump you and give your role to someone else and delay the film by only half a day. Instead, I'm going to be nice."

"I'm so pleased."

Chadwick reached within his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope. He opened it in front of her. It was stuffed with money, mostly $100 and $500 bills.

"The completion insurance on this film would have cost $9850," he said. "But think about it. There are only four major cast members and ten minor. Everyone's in good health except for Damon, and he's not going to drink himself to death for another few years. So we didn't buy the insurance."

She turned to him.

"You what?" she said. "That makes you and Joe Preston financially liable for the whole production."

"Joe and I paid an insurance agent $1000 to fill out the forms. The forms we filed with RKO. The agent processed a check for $9850, kept his money, and tossed the other $8850 back to us." Proudly he motioned to the envelope.

"You are absolutely crazy," she said. "You and Joe would be ruined if the studio found that out."

"No one would ever believe it." He laughed. "And you're not going to tell anyone. Plus, we have an insurance contract we can dummy up after the fact. It's just a four-week shoot. Joe and I pocket an extra four grand apiece out of it."

"You're even dumber to tell me about it," she said.

"No," he said. "That's the point. You look like hell. You hate everything that's going on. So I'm going to make it worth your while to put on a happy face and act like you're a pussy cat in heat whenever the camera starts to roll."

She folded her arms in front of her.

"Eight hundred dollars," he said. "Right off the top. Cash. Just to cooperate."

"You think you can buy your way in and out of everything, don't you?" Lisa asked.

"Honey," he boasted. "I know I can." He took the money from the envelope, rolled it, and then snapped a rubber band around it. He picked up her purse from the floor and dropped in the money.

"There," he said. "My gift to you. Now you've accepted it. So no trouble from you until this film is over. Understand?"

She turned toward him and stared.

"Sure, Jesse," she said coldly.

"Good," he said. He leaned over and kissed Lisa on the cheek. She pulled away from him. Then he stood and walked away.

Marvelous, she thought to herself. Jesse had now indicated how she could ruin him. The time to commit suicide was two weeks hence, give or take, with most of the film complete but with key scenes not yet recorded. Jesse's budget would be shot, he would have no way of completing the movie, the studio would sue him, the press would crucify him, and no one in the future would hire him. To make it all perfect, Joe Preston would be dragged down, too. A strange inner peace came over her. She knew that she had no more than fourteen of fifteen days to live. But moreover, she had regained her mastery over her life as well as over two of the vilest men she had ever met. Now all that remained was summoning the nerve to kill herself and reclaim her personal dignity.

CHAPTER 28

Thomas Buchanan tightened his seat belt as the Trans World Constellation climbed into the sky above London and slowly swung an arc that would take it northward. The afternoon was rainy, and the pilot had already warned that some turbulence could be expected. Somehow, the more Buchanan flew, the less he enjoyed the experience.

Below him he saw the highways into London grow smaller as the airplane climbed. Then the aircraft was in the clouds and there was no ground at all. There was just the steady groan of the airplane's engines and the rumbling vibrations of its fuselage.

Nine hours and home, he mused. Well, he thought to himself, as soon as the stewardess passed down the aisle he would set himself up with a double scotch, maybe two doubles, and try to decide if he could be satisfied with this trip.

For several minutes Buchanan stared out the window, hoping to find answers in the billowing clouds in the sky above the north of England and Scotland. There were none. Eventually the stewardess provided a strong drink and Buchanan settled in.

At length he reached to the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the picture that he had removed from Laura Garrett's frame. He stared at Laura. He stared at Ann. He guessed that the picture had been taken five years previously. The feeling grew more persistent within him that Ann was no longer alive.

He looked at her, pressed the photograph back into his pocket, and leaned back in his seat. The aircraft's path steadied. The flight was smoother. He was tired. Sleep began to sneak up on him. He closed his eyes for several moments and could feel himself drifting back to a magical evening in June 1942.

He saw the big green Packard that had belonged to his father. Ann was in her fiery red dress with her shoulders bare. Thomas was twenty-four and she was twenty. The Bucks County Cricket Club had cleared all the tables to the sides of their sprawling dining room and the floor had been waxed for dancing. An orchestra played. Paper Chinese lanterns glowed on the walls and across the ceilings while candles flickered brightly on the tables. By the end of the summer at least two dozen of the young men whose families belonged to the club would be in the armed forces. Seven of them would die in Europe or the Pacific.

No one said it, but the cotillions and dinner dances of early summer were a way of saying good-bye and wishing the young men good luck. Already fourteen independent nations had fallen in Europe. England stood alone against Hitler. The Japanese held Hong Kong, Burma, Indochina, the Philippines, and Malaya.

The Battle of Midway had just concluded, and in a stunning, rousing outcome the United States Navy had destroyed a Japanese heavy cruiser and four Japanese aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six-carrier force that had launched the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier. The cost had been one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer, but it was a titanic victory at sea for the United States.  Yet thousands of young Americans would have to lay down their lives before this latest installment of tyranny could be banished from the globe, if it ever would be.

Thomas had held Ann closely as they danced, feeling her in his arms, wanting nothing more than the war to go away so that he might marry her. She had worn his engagement ring that night, and it had sparkled in the reflected glow from the lanterns and candles. So had Ann Garrett's eyes.

The band played their last dance a few minutes after eleven. Thomas and Ann stayed for a while. They chatted with friends, smoked, and drank champagne punch. Afterward they had left to go to the Packard, which was parked on the other side of a polo field. Thomas couldn't remember which of them had suggested it, but they had decided to stop by the lake that was just past the field. They had both had too much to drink.

A few minutes later Thomas had pried open the lock on the boathouse and they were upstairs by the big bay windows, overlooking the water and a first quarter moon.
"When I was a boy," he said, "I used to come up here and try to measure the lake. I always wanted to swim across it. Still haven't."

"After the war," she said bravely. "Maybe all the fighting will end and you'll be home by Christmas."

"They thought that in 1917, too," he said.

"We can always hope," she said.

"I just want to live through it and come back to marry you," he said.

"You'd better," she answered.

On the grand sofa in the boathouse meeting room, he pulled her to him and kissed her. Then, as he had done many times before, he gently pushed Ann backward, until she was reclining. He lay next to her. His hand was on her hip. He kissed her on the lips and then the throat. When she responded by pressing herself against him, his lips worked downward. With his free hand he loosened her dress where it buttoned in the back. The straps at the shoulders came loose. Her breasts were free, and, for the first time, she allowed him to kiss them.

"Tonight?" he asked. With a slight hesitation, she nodded. He looked at her.

"Ann, I love you so much. And this might be our last chance for a long time." She rolled away from him and stood with one arm folded in front of her to keep her dress from falling. Then, because of the war, because of the urgency in his voice, or maybe just because of the longing that she, too, felt, she began to smile.

"I guess a girl doesn't have to be perfect anymore, does she?" she asked.

He shook his head. “No one ever has to be perfect.”

"Do you think there's a blanket anywhere?" she asked.

He found one.

"I hope no one walks in on us," she said. He wedged the back of a chair under the doorknob.

"Promise to be gentle?" she asked.

"Ann, could I be anything else with you?"

No, she agreed, he couldn't be. Together they lost their virginity pleasantly, painlessly, and eagerly. In the months that later passed while he was in the United States Army, never once did he have the courage to reveal that for all the sincerity of his love for her, this had been a planned seduction. Nor did she ever confess to him that she had known exactly what he had planned when he had jimmied the lock on the boathouse door. She had known and wished that he had done it a summer earlier.

High above Ireland, thoughts came back to him that he hadn't had in years: Why had Ann broken their engagement? And what, he wondered, had ever happened to their ring? She had never given it back, and he had never requested it.

Buchanan nodded off and was asleep, the scotch only half finished. The airliner hit a placid stretch of sky and proceeded smoothly over the North Atlantic. Sleepiness overtook him and he drifted into a deep sleep. When he awoke several hours later, the flight was only two hours from Washington. On arrival he planned to stop quickly at the Bureau to retrieve his weapon and check his mail. He would then go directly home, crash into bed and take the train back to Philadelphia the next day.

Absently he wondered if the many facets of the Garrett case would ever make sense. Similarly he wondered if certain pieces of his life would ever make sense either. As the airplane began its descent toward the coast of Newfoundland, Buchanan marveled how those two concerns now seemed to dovetail so neatly.

When he appeared at his office the next day, however, things went in a different direction. Bill Roth buttonholed him on first sight in a Bureau corridor the next morning.

“How did it go? The trip? Got a report for me?”

“It went well, I’ll give you a write-up this afternoon.”

“I’ll look for it by three PM. But that’s not your most immediate problem.”

“Then what is?” Buchanan asked.

“Mr. Hoover wants to talk to you directly. And he’s on the warpath."

“Uh oh.”

Buchanan felt a rip of anxiety. Rarely were agents called before the Director in person. And when they were, the circumstances were always extreme, good or bad. This did not sound good to Buchanan, so it had to be bad.

"I have to tell you, Tom," Roth concluded, "I don't know what you might have accomplished  up there in the City of Brotherly Boredom or sipping tea at Fortnum’s, but all hell is about to break out on this case. You better have something positive to report. "

“I understand,” Buchanan said. “Do I call and make an appointment?”

“One is already scheduled. Eight AM tomorrow morning.”

“On a Saturday?”  Buchanan asked.

“The Bureau never sleeps. That means us.”

“Can’t wait,” Buchanan mumbled. “And maybe it doesn’t sleep, but it naps from time to time.”

“I didn’t hear that, Tom.”

“Thanks.”

CHAPTER 29

Detective Fred Castelli of the Philadelphia Police Department slammed down his telephone and stared straight ahead. "Son of a bitch," he snarled to himself.

For several minutes he stared out the dirty window of his office. Then he picked up the file in front of him, left his desk, and walked down the corridor to Captain Heintz's office. He found Heintz's door ajar. The captain was standing at his desk staring at his own paperwork.

"Hey, Cap," Castelli said, knocking. "Got a minute?"

Heintz said he did. Castelli entered and sat down. "What's bothering you?" Heintz said.

"That Chinaman," Castelli said. "Barrier Point. Last month.”

It took Heintz a moment. "What about him?"

"I was writing the final report," Castelli said. "I wanted to put in the name and address of the Chinese who claimed the body. I couldn't find the address he gave me at the ME's office, but I had the passport number. So I called the British Consulate in New York. Like we did last time."

"And?"

"His passport was a forgery. And the address he gave was a fake."

Now it was Heintz's turn to stare for a moment.

Castelli expanded. He had phoned the British Consulate in New York. But when he mentioned the name and passport again, he was put through to a security officer. After Castelli had called previously, someone noticed something familiar about the passport number. It had been reported stolen the previous week. A cursory check would have revealed this, but on a Sunday morning no one was empowered to do anything. They made a follow-up inquiry on Monday, but the query went to the wrong division in Philadelphia. That had been the end of it.

"Sloppy all around," Heintz muttered. "That means the ID of the body is suspect also."

Castelli nodded. "More than suspect," he said.

"What happened to the body?" Heintz asked.

"It was released to Mr. Lee. From there I don't know."

"Did you ever check in our own Chinatown?" Heintz asked.

"We never knew he was Chinese until the body was claimed, Cap," Castelli said. "If we canvas Chinatown, we'll get the usual results. As soon as you show a shield they ‘no speak English’."

"Yeah. Of course." Heintz rubbed his eyes. "I hate walking away from a murder case," he said. "Even if it's a chink murder case."

"Hey, Cap, look," Castelli said. "Mike and me can stay on it, but, talk about being at square one. No witnesses. No identification. No dental records. No legitimate missing person's report."

Heintz lit a Chesterfield. He considered his squad's options. "Write up what you can," he decided. "Mark it ‘John Doe,’ but keep it on your desk for a few months. How many other cases do you and Mike have?"

"Five. We normally carry six."

"Okay. You get the next thing that comes from South Philly or Center City. Put the Chinaman on the back burner. But keep your eyes open in case any other Chinese turn up torched. It might be the chinky way of welcoming in the New Year."

"They have a different new year, Cap."

"I meant it as a joke. Get out of here.”

Castelli was on his feet and quickly out the door. But as he trudged back to his own office, he felt his anger building. The body of an unidentified man had been claimed by a second unidentified man. Further, the second Chinaman had played him for a fool. Castelli knew he should have known there was something amiss when the claimant showed up early on a Sunday morning. In a decade and a half as a homicide detective, no one had ever turned up on a Sunday morning two weeks after the fact to claim a corpse. It was his job to notice what was out of the ordinary and to note its significance. Now, unlike before, he realized that there probably was nothing random about the slaying at Barrier Point.

Castelli spent the next week of February immersed in his work. A man turned up dead in a bathtub at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel on February 19. Castelli and Foley drew the case. They had the victim, an attorney from New York, traced to a pair of hookers within twenty-four hours and had busted the girls' pimp for murder within another forty-eight.

Castelli should have been pleased. But he wasn't.

The more he thought about the Barrier Point case, the larger it loomed. Once, toward dusk, he drove to Barrier Point and walked the area by himself, seeking inspiration.

Later that same week other thoughts of a more global nature started to unsettle him.

The Communists, entrenched in Soviet Russia for a third of a century, had set off an atomic bomb the previous September. And just the previous week the Russians had boycotted a meeting of the United Nations Security Council because their atheistic pals, the Red Chinese, had been denied admission to the world body.

But there had also been much in the news recently about Communists in America and how, according to some, the Red Menace was chewing away at the fabric of the nation. While Joe Doe was more concerned with new cars, low mortgage rates, and the booming postwar prosperity, there was apparently serious Communist infiltration into labor unions, newspaper publishing, and broadcasting. And everyone knew that universities were filled with Communists, particularly history, English and political science departments. As if to prove the point, eleven Marxists had been convicted in New York in 1949 for conspiring to overthrow the government, and Alger Hiss had been convicted of perjury just that January, a scant three weeks after the burning at Barrier Point.

Castelli had searched for a method in all this madness, a pattern that he could carry over into his personal life. But he couldn't find one. He couldn't see one, that is, until a week or so earlier on the tenth of February, a Friday.

On that afternoon the detective read a story on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The previous evening in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy had addressed a Republican women's club. In his speech McCarthy maintained that he had a list of 205 "card-carrying" members of the Communist Party who were employed by the State Department of the United States. McCarthy's speech, and the allegations therein, catapulted the Wisconsin senator to national prominence.

McCarthy was now on every radio, appeared on television for those lucky Americans who had one, and was on the front page of every newspaper. He gave voice to fears that every good American entertained. And if nothing else, Fred Castelli was a good American.

In the days that followed, as the senator and his aides scurried around Washington trying to find documentation for their charges, Castelli .began to look upon the Communist threat to the United States with a new seriousness. And, pledging to never again overlook a curious circumstance, he began to sense a strange design in the murder at Barrier Point.

The Chinese were Communists these days, weren't they? Communists were infiltrating America, weren't they? The Reds were spying on Americans, weren't they? The man who had been torched had been found right next to a U.S. Navy yard, hadn't he? And he was Chinese, wasn't he?

"Coincidence maybe," answered Mike Foley when Castelli began to concoct his new perception of things.

"Coincidence? Bullshit!" Castelli snapped. The dead man, he was sure, had been a Red agent of some sort.

"Uh-huh," said Foley, gently indulging his partner.

But Castelli pulled the case from the rear of his desk and began to carry it with him everywhere he went. It was off the back burner and onto the front. This business of Communists took on a new urgency for him, and he had his hero Senator McCarthy to thank.

His only problem was the one he had had all along. He had no angle on the case and nowhere to go with it. He had nothing more than a handful of theories, and increasingly, they weren’t making much sense, either. The world was a confusing place these days, Castelli concluded, and the dead Chinaman was a perfect example.

CHAPTER 30

At eight AM on a Saturday morning, Special Agent Buchanan was shown into Hoover's private office in FBI headquarters by Assistant Director Frank Lerrick. Hoover stared at the special agent as Buchanan took his place at the other side of a small round table. Lerrick seated himself in a chair away from the table behind Hoover.  John Edgar Hoover had blood in his eyes.

"Good morning," Hoover snapped.

"Good morning, sir."

"Give me an update on the Garrett investigation. I want to hear everything."

Methodically Buchanan began a detailed recapitulation of his entire investigation, starting with the initial inquiries in D.C. and Philadelphia, then onward to London and back to that morning in Washington. As he spoke, conscious of the sound of his own voice reverberating off the bare walls in the sparse conference room, he was aware that Hoover was listening not so much to what he said as for what he did not say.

Yet Buchanan knew better than to elaborate, even though his summary was too thin for anyone’s liking. Hoover had a way of jumping all over any small detail so Buchanan fed him very few.

Hoover wore a gray suit with white pinstripes. A handkerchief was positioned perfectly in his breast pocket. His shirt was white and crisply starched. His tie was red with navy stripes. The Director sat quietly, staring intently at the young agent in his employ. Hoover's hair was slicked back, and his dark crescent eyebrows were frowning downward. The features of his face were contorted into a belligerent scowl. In the midst of his monologue, Buchanan was struck by the observation that Hoover resembled an angry version of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall. Buchanan came to the conclusion of his report.

"So you have no definitive break in the case yet?" Hoover asked.

"No, sir." Mentally, Buchanan was ready for trouble. Hoover pursed his lips. "When do you think you might have one?"

Buchanan stuck by his instincts. "I couldn't promise, Mr. Director."

Hoover tapped a finger on the conference table. Buchanan knew it was a less-than-friendly gesture. The Director spoke again. "Have you been following the newspapers, Special Agent Buchanan?"

"I try to, sir."

"Good. It's important that you do," Hoover said. "Senator Joseph McCarthy is a close personal friend of mine. He made a very important speech the other night in West Virginia. The senator is alarmed - as we all are - about the infiltration of Communist agents into our political system. The senator used the number of two hundred five as the total number of agents he feels are currently in the State Department. Now some of the left wing press and their stooges in Congress are taking him to task for an exact count. The number here isn't really important, Mr. Buchanan. What's important is that Communists are seeking to overthrow our government and Senator McCarthy is standing up to them."

Buchanan knew where the conversation was headed.  He tried to steer it back to reality.

“Sir, with respect, if you don’t mind my asking, how familiar are you with Marxist theory or the ways the current Soviets operate?” As soon as the question was out of Buchanan’s mouth, he saw a pained expression in Frank Lerrick’s eyes. Buchanan was already sorry he had asked. He knew he had blundered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hoover snapped.

“Nothing in particular, sir. Only, when I dealt with Russians after the war, I learned a few things that…”

“Where were you stationed? What were you doing?”

“Berlin, sir. U.S. Army Intelligence.”

“U.S. Army intelligence is a contradiction in terms, Buchanan. And Berlin? Are you in Berlin now?”
“No, sir.”

"Then don’t pretend that you are. Do you think you know more than I do?”

“No, sir.”

“These are difficult times here at home," the Director resumed. "Enemies of this country are everywhere. Its friends must stick together." He paused for what seemed like an hour. It was probably closer to twenty seconds.

"John Taylor Garrett has been a generous benefactor to the Democratic Party both nationally and within the state of Pennsylvania for at least a dozen years. Pictures exist of Garrett with Roosevelt and Truman. Imagine the embarrassment of the political left in this country," Hoover suggested, "when it is revealed that Garrett is a Soviet sympathizer. He’s a sympathizer who has gone underground to conspire against the United States, as well as to use his bank’s financial clout to do so."

Taken aback, Buchanan stumbled. “Do we know that, sir?”

Hoover’s eyes darkened. “Of course we know that.”

“How do we know that, sir?”

“We know that because I know that!” Hoover barked. “Now build that fucking case and prove it!”

Buchanan drew a breath and eased back. He wisely remained silent.

Hoover relished the idea. He let it hang in the air. Buchanan managed to stifle his disdain for Hoover's partisan instincts. Lerrick looked as if he were playing poker. No expression whatsoever.

Hoover had made his point. The meeting was over.

Lerrick, who had been silent the entire time Hoover had held court, rose with Buchanan and guided him to the door and through it.

They proceeded down the corridor in silence. Then Lerrick fell in stride with Buchanan and spoke softly.

“We’re not experts on our Soviet lore, here, Tom. Not in theory, not in practice. If you know some of their tricks or manners, fine. Feel free, use what you know. Right here we just know they’re working against our interests and we want to stop them. Clear?”

“Clear,” Buchanan said.

“Don’t try to show off your knowledge or give anyone lessons. It won’t fly. You’re in the wrong place for that sort of thing. Don’t you ever forget it.”

“Yes, sir.”

They reached the elevator. Buchanan stopped. Lerrick went on ahead toward his own office.

CHAPTER 31

Something else extraordinary happened to Victor Milenkin on the morning of February 18, 1950. It was a Saturday morning when Milenkin strolled with his dog, O'Dwyer, under the Williamsburg Bridge. He put his hand along the stones at shoulder level as he always did. On this morning he found a construction pipe.

His heart skipped a beat. After all these weeks and months, finally there was something for him.

He recognized the handwriting of Colonel Volkov, his recruiter into the GRU and his control agent in the United States.  The message was in Russian. If Milenkin was certain that he was completely free from any surveillance, he was to place a potted plant visibly in his Perry Street window that same day. Then he was to return to the bridge on Sunday morning for further instructions.

He bought the plant at a Woolworth's on Sixth Avenue that afternoon. He placed it in his window immediately. The next morning by ten, Volkov, or someone, had placed another correspondence in another pipe in the supporting foundation of the bridge.

Milenkin experienced a rush of excitement when he found the second communication. It was sealed in an envelope. He clutched it tightly to him, walked home, and opened it. There was a photograph in it of a man he had never seen before, plus the man’s name, where he worked, and a few paragraphs of information on the position the man held in the American counter-revolutionary, pig-capitalist establishment. And there were instructions that Milenkin broke down by use of a pinhole codebook which he had had with him since his reentry into the United States after the world war.

The message was succinct. Milenkin was to pass along the photograph and a second set of coded instructions to a husband-and-wife team who were currently in the United States. They had a dead-letter drop in the second pew from the rear at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in lower Manhattan. There was a loose floorboard which would come up if a pair of nails were worked with a small screwdriver. Milenkin was to get the message into the box by Tuesday evening. The husband and wife would pick it up Wednesday.

For several hours George Mulligan disappeared and his alter ego, Victor Milenkin, came forth. The Soviet agent forgot about everything in his current life - his job, his dog and his woman friend - and reverted with enthusiasm to the role of a Soviet mole in American society. The glow of actually being able to do something for the Soviet Republic pumped him up to a high level of excitement.

Later that same evening, when he was lying in bed trying to sleep, listening to a music student practice her flute downstairs, some of the inconsistencies of what he was doing began to sink in.

For all of Monday, the twentieth, he was troubled. After months of disappointment when there was no communication for him beneath the Williamsburg Bridge, he was now sorry that he had finally received some. Suppose whatever was in progress blew up? Suppose the American police began to roll up the Soviet networks that had been involved? That surly-looking mid-western senator had been making news all month about Communists, and people would probably accuse George Mulligan, or Viktor Milenkin, of being one. A harsh prison sentence would follow. His life would be in ruins.

Well, he reasoned, he was a Soviet agent, after all. Or was he? Even he did not know. And what if the current mission were botched so badly that he had to leave the country fast? He did not want to leave the United States. Not fast, not now, and, for that matter, not at all. For the first time in his adult life, Viktor Milenkin realized he felt more at home in America than in the Soviet Union.

He agonized. He decided, however, that the odds of being caught and convicted were small, whereas if he disobeyed his GRU commander, he would endure some brutal repercussions. So he made the drop at St. Peter's. And then on Wednesday he did something he had never done before. He called in to work and told a lie. He said he was sick.

He was, of course, healthy as a racehorse. But he wanted to see who made the pickup from the church. He dressed himself casually that morning and went to the church. He took a seat and appeared to be absorbed in prayer. There he had a vantage point over the dead-letter drop, just distant enough so that he would not inhibit the pickup team from doing their job.

He waited for hours.

Marina Sejna came into the church at about three forty-five in the afternoon. Milenkin knew who she was. He knew by the way her eyes swept the building to see if the coast was clear. She knelt in prayer in a rear pew. When she did not leave the church in ten minutes, a man came in to join her.

Milenkin cringed when he saw Alexandr Filiatov.

The Americans might not immediately recognize what he was, but Milenkin did. He knew a GRU-trained hit man when he saw one.

Milenkin sat as still as possible. He heard the slight but unmistakable squeak of the floorboard as Filiatov lifted it. He was careful not to look directly. He kept his eyes straight ahead, focusing on the wall behind the central altar. There a reassuring mural depicted a benign, blue-eyed Jesus ascending to heaven amid harps, doves, and angels, everything short of confetti and soap bubbles.

Milenkin bowed his head. He heard the floorboard go back down with a tiny squeak. After a minute, he heard the footsteps of the woman leave the church. The man left two minutes later.

Milenkin exhaled a long breath. For the first time, he realized how badly he was sweating. He knew what he had witnessed because he knew how GRU operations worked in the West.

The big, thick-browed man who had made the pickup was an assassin. Obviously the woman was his second or his assistant. And the picture of the man in the envelope was their next assigned victim.

There was nothing Milenkin could do, of course, other than hope that the Soviet hit team proved unsuccessful and fled the country. He wished the whole thing would go away, leaving him to settle down to his job, his home, and his girlfriend. He had the right to these things just like… well, to use an expression that he commonly heard, “just like any other American citizen.”

But it was now out of Milenkin's hands. Alexandr Filiatov and Marina Sejna had their orders and their instructions. And they also had a clear photograph of their next target, Special Agent Thomas Buchanan of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Milenkin did not know Thomas Buchanan, but he felt sorry for him. Milenkin knew how extraordinarily efficient these hit teams had been in Eastern Europe. He reasoned they would be every bit as ruthless and effective here in America. Thus this Buchanan fellow was as good as dead.

CHAPTER 32

It was half past eight in the evening when the green and white District of Columbia taxi carrying Thomas Buchanan pulled to a stop in front of the wooden frame house on 7th Street, S.E. Exhausted as he was by a long day at the office, catching up from his last trip and preparing for yet another one, Buchanan was pleased to be back in Washington.

He paid the driver three dollars for the ride from Bureau Headquarters and then added a dollar as a tip. The driver thanked him. Carrying one small attaché case, Buchanan walked up the steps to the Raffertys' house.  As he pulled his key from his pocket, he shivered against the cold of the winter in Washington. For some reason, as he stood on the porch and fumbled with the lock, he thought of old Rafferty himself sitting on that same porch in the blazing summer heat, wishing for a breeze, listening to the hapless Washington Senators getting blasted by the New York Yankees.

As he inserted the key in the lock, he stopped. He turned slowly. He felt eyes upon him from somewhere. He scanned up and down 7th Street, but found it deserted aside from a young woman walking alone. He scanned the cars parked near the curb and saw nothing unusual.

Rubbish, he told himself. This assignment was getting the better of him. He was looking for two people, Ann Garrett and her father, who had turned invisible, and now he imagined invisible people watching him. It was after midnight, London time. A good night's sleep, he hoped, would cure whatever ailed him.

As he entered the house, Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty, the owners of the house, were nowhere to be seen or heard. That in itself was strange. Normally even at this hour the homey smell of dinner still floated in the air and the sound of their console radio frequently came from the parlor. But tonight, nothing.

Buchanan wondered if they were out visiting. They sometimes were. He hoped neither had taken sick. He climbed the first flight of stairs. Again he noted the quiet of the house. He mounted the second flight. There was a different feeling in the house, something he hadn't sensed previously. He stopped at the landing before his door and stood perfectly still. He glanced back downstairs and noticed that the lights were on in a pattern different from the one the Raffertys ever used. For that matter, it was odd that so many lights were on if no one was in the house.

He unlocked his own door. He stepped in and reached for the light switch, setting down his suitcase at the same time. Then, in a quick lapse of time that defied any standard of measurement, everything came together at once: the sense of being watched, the stillness of the house, the pattern of lights. He reached for the Colt .38 that he had placed back on his left hip, but the hand of an unseen man beat him to the light switch.

A pair of steel arms came down around his and completely immobilized him. The light flashed on and Buchanan stared into the dark, angular face of a bulky man he had never seen before. Buchanan couldn't see the man behind him. But the man before him wore a dark brown suit, a gray fedora, and stood several inches taller than he. A pistol was upraised and pointed directly into Buchanan's face. From six inches away it was very possible that if the trigger were pulled, the sound of the gunshot and explosive pain of instant death would be simultaneous.

"Don't move!" the gunman said. "Don't fight!"

Buchanan’s instinct was to stamp on the instep of the man behind him and kick toward the groin of the man in front of him. The business end of the pistol, however, was a convincing argument to the contrary. That, and the fact that if he were to be murdered, it would have been done already.

One of the steel hands from behind reached to Buchanan's hip and stripped him of his weapon. "Stay calm," the man in front of him said. "You're in no danger."

"Who the hell are you?" Buchanan asked.

The gunman retreated a step. Then he slowly lowered the pistol. The gorilla behind him loosened his grip and freed Buchanan.

"Frederick C. Clark," said the man in front. "United States Secret Service." He put his gun away and showed his Secret Service shield.

"William W. Kirby," said the man from behind. "U.S. Secret Service." Kirby was removing the bullets from Buchanan's revolver. "Nice to meet you." Kirby was a hulking six foot three.

"What's the idea? What's going on?" Buchanan asked. His fear subsided. Anger took its place.

"You have an appointment across town. Right away. We're here to pick you up."

It was Clark who spoke. He had a drawl and sounded like a Texan. Buchanan, mystified, looked from one man to the other.

"You could have asked. You didn't need the rough stuff."

"Had to make sure you'd come willingly," Clark said. "You'd be surprised how much resistance we get from rival agencies. Particularly from the FBI - Fat Boys Incorporated. No cooperation at all sometimes from Hoover’s people."

"Pity," said Buchanan. His heartbeat was starting to settle down. Clark motioned to the door. He said he had a car waiting outside, which confirmed Buchanan's feeling of being on view.

"Don't forget your keys," Kirby said. "You'll be an hour or so. We'll bring you home.”

Buchanan assessed them a final time. "May I have my weapon back?" he asked.

Kirby shook his head. "Not till your meeting is finished," he said. "Those are our instructions." Kirby had a deep voice and a slow, easy speech pattern. Buchanan guessed Tennessee or Virginia. "Come on along."

Moments later they were back out in the Washington night. A dark Plymouth sedan was now waiting in front of the Raffertys' home, its headlights throwing two bright yellow beams down the block. Its engine was rumbling and its driver was waiting.

“Where are we going?” Buchanan asked.

“To talk to the big boss.”

“What big boss?” Kirby laughed.

“There’s only one, Ace,” he said.

Clark and Kirby hustled Buchanan into the car. The driver was another Aryan straight arrow with a box top, blond crew cut. He noisily ground a gearshift on the steering column. The sedan began to move. The driver lost no time. He speedily navigated the streets and turns of the capital with a precision born of experience, as well as the knowledge that traffic laws applied to other vehicles, but not this one.

CHAPTER 33

The soldier on guard duty at the rear entrance to the White House recognized the Secret Service sedan and waved it through the iron gates. When the vehicle neared the White House itself, Clark and Kirby jumped out even as the car was still moving. They looked in both directions, as if they were expecting an attack on a visitor even within the grounds of the White House. The driver pulled the car to a stop. Buchanan stepped out of the right side. Clark and Kirby led him into a rear entrance of the American President's official residence.

"Just follow," Fred Clark said. "Don't ask questions." The two Secret Service men led Buchanan through a basement corridor, then into an elevator that was attended by a middle-aged man with ebony skin. The elevator rose to the building's main floor. Next, Clark and Kirby hustled Buchanan down a light green corridor and into a small room with a fireplace. Their mission accomplished, the two agents seemed to relax. Kirby left. Clark spoke.

"Just have a seat. I think he'll be with you in a minute."

"Who will?"

"Normally he's getting ready for bed at this hour. I'm sure he's still up tonight, though. He's been waiting for you."

“Who has?” Buchanan asked.

No answer. Clark departed. The door closed.

Buchanan had the feeling that the two agents were seated close by on the other side. He didn't feel like sitting, so he turned and looked at his surroundings.

He was in a snug conference room with pale beige walls. There was an American flag in one corner, a desk in the center of the room near a window, and a colonial divan with matching chairs. A fire, freshly lit, crackled in the fireplace, and above a mantel hung a picture of Jefferson - the famous portrait that adorned the two-dollar bill. It was a comfortable room with a relaxed atmosphere. It was very traditionally Washington and very American.

Buchanan was still standing, warming himself before the fire when the door swung open.

"Good evening, Mr. Buchanan," said the man who entered. "Welcome to the Great White Jail. Thank you for coming right away."

There was an immeasurably short moment between the time that Buchanan heard the famous nasal Missourian voice and the moment that he was able to turn and have his eyes properly focused. Entering the room wearing a maroon print robe, a sport shirt, casual gray slacks, and navy slippers was the thirty-third President of the United States.

Buchanan gazed at one of the most recognizable men in the world.

"Good evening, sir," he managed to say. Buchanan still had no idea what this was about. His eyes fixed upon the five-foot-nine-inch President. Harry S. Truman's gray hair was freshly parted, and his brown eyes were alert and searching. His head was round, and the orbicular eyeglasses dominated his face. The President spoke succinctly in crisp clipped tones.

"I understand you're back from a long, important trip," Truman said. "Please sit down. I won't keep you here long." Truman extended a hand to indicate a cherry-wood chair where Buchanan should sit.

"Thank you, Mr. President," Buchanan said. He retreated to the chair and sat.

"I hope the Secret Service didn't manhandle you too badly," Truman apologized. "My instructions were for them to bring you here directly, quickly and without fail. And I told them you were to communicate with no one until I'd spoken to you."

"They carried out your orders to a T, sir."

"’T’ for Truman!” joked the President. “Well, how good of them! Sometimes they can be heavy handed. Have you ever been in the Great White Jail before, Mr. Buchanan?"

“Sir?”

“The White House. That’s what I call it.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad, sir,” Buchanan said.

“Easy for you to say. You can walk out whenever you want. I can’t. And unlike every other previous occupant, I never aspired to be here. I wouldn’t even be here now if it weren’t for that overconfident clown, Dewey.”

“If you say so, sir. But I can honestly state that I voted for you, myself.”

“Well, that makes two of us, Mr. Buchanan. How about that?” Banter. Back and forth. Characteristically, Truman stood behind the desk and leaned forward on it, never sitting. He stared at the FBI agent before him. "London, was it?" Truman inquired. He spoke with the flat inflections of the American Midwest. “Is that where you were?”

"Yes, Mr. President.”

Truman assessed Buchanan for several seconds.

Then, "I'm sure you're aware of the speech Senator Joseph McCarthy made in West Virginia on February 9, Mr. Buchanan,” Truman said. “Did you hear it on the radio? Or did you read it in your morning paper?"

"I read part of it, sir."

"And what did you think?"

"Mr. President, as a law enforcement officer, I'm trained to differentiate fact from unsubstantiated charges. Senator McCarthy seems to deal in the latter.”

"Bravo!" Truman exulted. "I didn't know Hoover was hiring renaissance men over there."

"I can't guarantee that he is either, sir."

Truman smiled for an instant. "The facts remains though, Mr. Buchanan. First McCarthy charges that there are two hundred and five Communists in the State Department. Then the number is fifty-seven. Then it's eighty-one. The undistinguished senator is pulling numbers out of his hat, which is about the only use he has for a hat since he hasn't much of a head to put it on. And he’s drunk more often than he’s sober, which is why he can’t keep his numbers straight. But he also has a few cronies at your Bureau, including your Director. So right now, as we speak, McCarthy has his friends at the FBI putting together names and dirty files. Then they smuggle them to Senator McCarthy, trying to give some credibility to the reckless charges he's making." Truman paused for an instant. "You're not involved in that, are you, Buchanan?"

"Absolutely not, sir."

"Good! Know what my friend Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas says about John Edgar Hoover? He says it's better to have Hoover inside your tent pissing out than outside your tent pissing in." Buchanan grinned. "Well, I'd like to have John Edgar Hoover on my side too. But on my terms, not his. And don't think for a moment I don't know what he's doing. Hoover supplies names. Whether a man is guilty or innocent, the FBI supplies names and files of dirt. Don't deny it!" Truman snapped abruptly. "Over on Constitution Avenue they reduce everything to a cheap, partisan issue. Don't argue with me about that either," he said to Buchanan, who hadn't opened his mouth. "In fact, at this point, don't even speak until your President asks you a direct question."

Truman was increasingly angry. He paced for a moment. He pulled his glasses off and used the fat end of his bathrobe sash to polish the lenses.

"Joe McCarthy's a cheat, a troublemaker, a bastard, an alcoholic and a goddamned liar," Truman said softly. "And he's a dangerous goddamned liar! With a little bit of substantiation, the public will listen to him. There are a lot of screwball Americans out there with a Nazi streak in them. They're all listening to their radios or reading their yellow Hearst tabloids, waiting for someone to confirm that their worst fears and prejudices have a tiny bit of merit. That's what Senator McCarthy is pandering to. I'm going to fight him with every drop of blood I have." He paused and tucked his lower lip into his mouth in a pensive scowl.

Buchanan was wise enough to remain quiet, not knowing where the conversation was heading.

"Mr. Buchanan, the FBI is not the only agency that has files," the President said. "The Department of Justice has its own files. So does the Defense Department. What would you say if I told you that I have a personnel file on you?"

"Me, sir?"

"You're the only one in the room I'm talking to, dammit! Yes, you! Scholastic record. Army record. Professional record at the Bureau. You've done well. In fact, and I didn't bring you here to flatter you, I have a feeling you're an honorable man, unlike some of your federal police brethren over on Constitution Avenue. What do you say to that?"

"I'm flattered by your assessment, Mr. President."

"Oh, cut all that bull! Let's have a real talk!" Truman snapped. "I know that you've been assigned this case in good faith and that you're not one of the Hoover-McCarthy hatchet men." The President barely paused for a breath. "Further, I have a feeling there's a sense of decency in you, a lot of loyalty to your President, as well as some plain old-fashioned American common sense. So I brought you here to impress upon you one point.” Harry Truman was inordinately angry. "I know what's going on in this country," Truman said. "There's a tide rising. Not a Red tide, but an anti-Red tide. The Republicans and Republicrats - that's what I call their Democratic allies in the Congress - are trying to ride it into this building. Taft or McCarthy or some other Red baiting Neanderthal. God knows there are enough of them. They breed as fast as cats, as indiscriminately, and aren’t half as bright.”

Buchanan kept his eyes on Truman and listened, feeling his palms moisten.

"Well, I'm telling you something, Mr. Buchanan," the President continued, "and you can report this back to your Director. If John Taylor Garrett turns out to be a Soviet agent, so be it. I know damned well that Hoover would like nothing more than to have something on John Garrett since Garrett's been a generous Democratic benefactor for many years. But be sure of what you're doing. Mistakes will crucify many innocent people. Do you understand me?" Truman glared directly at him.

"I'm not sure I follow completely," Buchanan answered.

The President looked at him with displeasure. Then Truman's mood softened and he grew philosophical.

"Look at the work there is to be done," Truman resumed. "The American Negro is tired of hearing about American ideals but not witnessing them. Son, I'm a man from a Jim Crow state with two segregationist senators. I walk a tightrope on civil rights for the colored people. By God, I want to do what's right. The colored race has gotten the dirty end of the stick for too long in the United States. But if I push too hard, the South deserts me on Capitol Hill and the Negroes get nothing. If I don't push hard enough, the Negroes blast me, and Mrs. Roosevelt sends me letters. Not to mention what those professional bubbleheads in the American left say about me." Buchanan didn't twitch an eyelash. The President gazed at the fire but kept speaking.
"And how about the American Jews?" he asked. "They want a homeland for their European relatives, and I can't blame them. But I can't see how a partition of Palestine will work without a war. So how do you keep the Jews happy? Jesus Christ here on earth couldn't please them, so how am I supposed to do it?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Suppose the next world war breaks out throughout the Middle East. Without Saudi oil, every American tank in the world will grind to a halt. On top of this, Mr. Buchanan, the Soviets have the atomic bomb, plus four million Red Army troops in Europe ready to roll west. And all hell is ready to break out again in Europe. But those are my problems. Answer me this:  Is John Taylor Garrett a Soviet agent?"

"I don't know yet, sir."

"Is there any possibility?"

"Yes. A considerable one."

The Chief Executive was irked by the answer. "What makes you think so?"

Buchanan drew a breath. "As you know, sir, I just returned from London. There was an intelligence operation launched there against the East German defense ministry. We might have gained a defector who could have informed us of impending Soviet strategies in Africa and Asia. Unfortunately the plan failed.”

"I have a defense secretary named Louis Johnson. He informed me about it. So? A lot of these harebrained spy schemes fail."

"Only the five members of the political division in London knew the exact train route our agents in Europe were taking. Ambassador Douglas believes the leak was right there."

"Leaks can be anywhere. Douglas is a political appointee. I'd love to sack him. But the English like him. They think he's a typical American buffoon. Douglas can be wrong. Usually is. So what?”

"Well, perhaps it's only a coincidence," said Buchanan, "but one of the younger political officers is about to marry one of John Garrett's daughters. I further learned that she pursued him rather arduously. She singled him out, then chased him while letting him think he was chasing her."

Truman blinked. "Good God, Buchanan! All women do that!"

"Certainly, Mr. President. But if one wanted to draw suppositions about exactly where the leak might have occurred…"

"All right, all right! I see your point." Truman cut Buchanan off with a wave of his hand. "Did you bring this to the attention of anyone at the London embassy?"

"No, sir. I wanted to wait for instructions when I returned to Washington."

"Good." The President was thoughtful. He removed his glasses and pressed a thumb and forefinger to his eyes, rubbing them fiercely. Again the President was distant in thought.

"Can you imagine?" Truman resumed at length. "I slept for eight and a half hours last night. And I'm still exhausted. As you'll remember, I was vice president for only two months and twenty-two days before Franklin Roosevelt died. I've been tired ever since. I'm looking forward to the day when I can go back to normal living." Truman gave Buchanan a wry grin. Buchanan responded in kind.

"Unless I'm mistaken, sir, you recently ran for reelection. You campaigned hard and you won."

"There are days when I think I should have asked for a recount. Today is one of them."

Both men laughed.

Truman pushed his glasses back into place. "Mr. Buchanan, it's getting late. Let's finish. What if John Garrett is a spy or a Soviet agent? Then what?"
"Well, first we'd have to find him."

Truman responded sarcastically.  "This is not directed at you personally, son," Truman said, "but sometimes I don't think some of John Edgar Hoover's people could locate the Pacific Ocean from underneath the Golden Gate Bridge."

"We've been working on Commonwealth Penn quite hard."

"I'm sure you have," Truman said. "But suppose you have some evidence against John Taylor Garrett. Not some trumped-up case like the ones Joe McCarthy's people are trying to fabricate. But suppose you have something real. Presupposing that you can find Garrett, what then?"

"I imagine we'd have him arrested. And placed on trial."

"No," Truman said. "A trial would turn into another carnival like the Lindbergh case. Every screwball columnist like Drew Pearson, Westbrook Pegler, and Walter Winchell would use Garrett's existence as proof that another thousand Communists are somewhere in the government. It would set off a tidal wave of persecutions of innocent people, of moderate and liberal politics."

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"This is the part of our meeting that I hope you will not report to your Bureau,” Truman said. “If you establish Garrett's guilt, report it to the White House first. Justice can be dispensed quietly in this case. Believe me, it will be in the best interests of the United States." Buchanan sat before the President for several seconds.

"In other words, you're asking me to bypass my superiors at the FBI?"

"For two or three days, yes. You’ll leave here with a contact in the White House. Let us know. Then you can file your standard report. Too many American lives were spent fighting fascism in Europe to let it take hold here," Truman said. "John Taylor Garrett as a political case will only hurt the United States. But we can do something positive with it. For starters, we could trade him to the godless Soviets for some of our people whom they’re holding. Joe Stalin may be a murdering, dishonest, conniving rat bastard, but he'll also make deals. Sometimes he even keeps his end of them. Garrett has no value to us in any other way." Buchanan studied the President and considered the proposition.

"In other words," Buchanan said, "if there's to be a major spy scandal, you'd like it kept out of the newspapers."

"Yes," said Truman. "It would do the country no good."

"Nor your administration," Buchanan continued.

"My administration?" Truman scoffed. "As far as I'm concerned, Alban Barclay can come over and claim this job right now. No man in his right mind would want it. I'm interested in what's right, Mr. Buchanan." The President pursed his lips and thought for a moment. "Do you recall what went on in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, Mr. Buchanan? The purge trials?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, with a few more highly visible spy cases, that's the atmosphere we'll have here in America: witch hunts and political inquisitions in every court in the country. We can't have that. It would risk propelling a yahoo like Senator McCarthy into the White House. How would you sleep at night, Special Agent Buchanan, with a Cro-Magnon like Joseph McCarthy dealing with the issues of the hydrogen bomb, Palestine, North Atlantic defense treaties, the United Nations, civil rights, and China?"

"I suspect that I'd feel the same way about it as you do, Mr. President."

"Good! Because I can't force you to do this for me," the President said. "And I wouldn't dare try. God knows, for all the power of this office, the President is rarely nothing more than a public relations man trying to talk people into doing things they ought to do anyway.” Truman toyed with the sash of his robe again. "That's all," he said. “Thank you for your time.”

Buchanan stood and offered his hand to the President. The two men shook. On Buchanan's way out the door, Truman spoke to him once again, this time while reading something on the desk and without looking up.

"There's nothing much at stake here," the President said. "Civil liberties. The future of our democracy for the next few years. The lives and careers of scores - maybe hundreds - of individual Americans. You can go now.”

The Secret Service agents escorted Buchanan toward the rear exit of the White House. Halfway down the corridor leading from the President's study, however, Clark and Kirby led Buchanan into a small lounge beneath the rear portico.

When Buchanan entered the room, a man in a navy blue suit stood. He was younger than Buchanan, late twenties. He offered his hand.

"I'm Jack Malone, United States Secret Service," the man said. "I believe the President mentioned that you'd have a contact here."

"He did," Buchanan said.

"That's me," Malone said. He pulled a pad of paper from a side table and began to write. "I'm going to give you a telephone number," Malone said. "It will put you directly in touch with me if you have any problems or need any assistance. Memorize it. Destroy it before you get home tonight. And don't hesitate to use it if you need to."

Buchanan watched Malone write. Malone handed Buchanan the number printed boldly on a sheet of paper.

"Thank you," Buchanan said. He folded it but kept it in his hand.

Clark and Kirby led their guest back to the Plymouth in the rear driveway. Buchanan settled into the backseat. Clark drove, turning over the engine with a heavy foot. A minute later the sedan rolled past the Marine guard at the rear gates of the White House.

Clark and Kirby seemed in less of a hurry now. The car moved languidly across the wet, quiet streets of the capital. In the occasional light from a streetlamp Buchanan read the number off the sheet of paper. He memorized it. Then, during the drive back to 7th Street, S.E. in the back of the sedan, Buchanan borrowed Agent Kirby's cigarette lighter. In a car ashtray he burned the sheet of paper, putting an end to the most extraordinary evening of his life.

The next afternoon, however, another shoe dropped.  With no forewarning whatsoever, Frank Lerrick arrived beside Buchanan’s desk at half past three. With a thumb, he signaled that more trouble brewed and Buchanan was to follow.
“The chief again,” Lerrick said, indicating the direction in which Buchanan was to follow.

Again, they marched down the corridor of the FBI’s suite at the Department of Justice. Again, Buchanan found himself parked in front of Hoover.

“Go home and repack your suitcase, Special Agent Buchanan,” Hoover snorted.

“Excuse me, sir?” Buchanan said, convinced he was being transferred or fired.

“You’re traveling again tomorrow, young man.”

"Where to?"

"Mark O'Connell," said Roth. "Special Agent in Chicago when you were there, right?"

"Yes. Of course.”

“Friend of yours?”

“I considered him a good friend," Buchanan said with enthusiasm. "We served in the war together, too.” He smiled. “Everyone called him ‘The Bear.’ He was big like a bear. And he liked ‘Red’ Grange, who played for the Chicago Bears.”

"Special Agent O'Connell did some preliminary investigation into Commonwealth Penn last year. Then the investigation was dropped." Hoover paused. "O'Connell retired from the Bureau a few months ago. Lives in Oregon now. On Christmas Eve he took four bullets in the stomach.” Buchanan was shocked. Hoover indicated a folder on his desk.

"My esteemed associate, Mr. Tolson, and I were up to one AM last night reading this,” Hoover said. “Now you can read it. The shooting looks like a setup to me. Communists. Communists with guns right here in America.”

Hoover handed the folder to Buchanan who accepted it.

"Get out to Oregon to see what happened," Hoover snapped. “That’s all. Go! Now!”

CHAPTER 34

In a comfortable bedroom in Southern California, Lisa Pennington anxiously came awake at a few minutes before five in the morning. Her head hurt. Her back ached. Her stomach was a mass of jitters. She was starting to plan her own death.

She looked at the bed next to her. Her husband's place was empty. Once again Jesse had not come home. There was something about the times when he was shooting a picture that made Jesse Chadwick an even bigger louse than he was on ordinary days. When he had a film in production he behaved like a prince of the city, from bed to bed, from starlet to fading star.

"Some incredibly famous broads don't push your hand away," was a frequent Chadwick boast. While he had a film before the cameras, Jesse aspired to prove his aphorism as many times as possible.

Well, Lisa told herself, it would barely matter much longer. At least, not to her. She would undergo a few more days of filming. That way every bit of his production budget would be committed, with half of her scenes still left unfinished. She would leave by herself after filming that day. That would be maybe about five o'clock. Then she would commit suicide by drug overdose.  Crucial scenes in Jesse’s film would be impossible without her. His fraud with the completion insurance would be apparent. He would be ruined.

Well, yes. She realized now that she had the courage to do it. She had saved more than sixty laudanum tablets. She would wash them down all at once with a solid belt of bourbon. That would be enough to kill her.

She lay very still in bed, imagining what it would be like to be dead. The morning was gray. Dawn had not broken yet. She had the sensation of floating, of looking at herself from a great distance. She envisioned her obituary in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.  She envisioned her own tombstone with her dates on it. How terribly short her life seemed to be!

Her head pounded. Her nightgown was soaked with sweat. She was terrified of living like this, but equally frightened of dying.

The horrible truth was that she hadn't decided on the proper place to die. Somewhere in public, she wondered, where strangers would scoop up her body? In private, where her husband would find her?

In a hotel room? In a car? How important that final detail seemed. For several minutes she pondered it until the first glimmer of a bluish dawn filtered through her window, accompanied by a rustle of a curtain and a breeze.  A thought occurred to her. Why not do it at someplace famous? The Beverly Hills Hotel. The Brown Derby. Caro’s. She would bring even more publicity upon herself when she fell over dead at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She managed a smile.

For a moment she flirted again with the idea of fleeing. Maybe she could run off to Europe. To South America. She would become an expensive call girl, she told herself with a deliciously naughty tingle. She was a retired actress and American. She could demand top money from attractive men - men of means and influence. The only difference was she could choose her partners and she could charge them money. No more of the meat-rack bartering that her husband subjected her to in this city.

Again she shuddered. Everything came back to Jesse Chadwick. Jesse and his films. Jesse and his studio whores. Jesse and his goons from Brooklyn, who would inevitably track her down and maim her if she ran out on his film and fled the country.

It was the same old circular chain of logic. She was better off dead. At least she would die knowing she had some measure of revenge.

The previous night she had written a stack of letters. She had addressed them to the local newspapers and to a few papers back East. She described what she had been through, the type of man her husband was, who she had been before she changed her name, and exactly why she was killing herself. Ah, would the press ever murder Jesse Chadwick!

This was delicious, just thinking how she could ruin the man's life and career. It would take years before the scandal died. She would ruin him financially and ruin him socially. There would be no Jesse Chadwick films again. In that she felt she was doing a public service. The man had no talent anyway. Only nerve and mendacity.

Lisa rose from bed. She went to her purse. She reassured herself that the letters were in the purse and in one packet, just as she had left them. Her fingers trembled slightly as she flicked through them. There were eleven. There would be more. Eventually, on the day when she finally planned to take her overdose, she would even take the precaution of mailing them from different mailboxes around the city.

Then she would go somewhere and die. In her purse, brushing against the letters, was her vial of death. Sixty-four pills now, all set and waiting for her. The funny thing was, since she had been saving up the pills, she was drug free for the first time since before her marriage. Life was filled with strange ironies: finally drug free, she would soon die of an overdose.

She moved to the bedroom window. She loosened her nightgown and pulled it off. From her window she could see dawn breaking above the Hollywood Hills. Naked, just as she had come into the world, she sat down for a moment to watch the sunrise.

She felt oddly poetical. She felt, for the first time in years, at peace.

CHAPTER 35

Helen O'Connell sat in the kitchen of the Oregon home she shared with her husband when she heard the knock at the front door. She jumped in alarm. She had been reading a movie magazine. She had been engrossed by an article about Jane Wyman when the knocking jarred her back to reality.

She set down the magazine and remained perfectly still. She felt her heart pound in her chest.

She barely breathed. She listened. She stood, careful not to be visible from any window. She moved slowly to the second drawer of a kitchen cabinet a few feet from her stove.

She pulled the drawer open. The knock came again. Helen's hand pushed past the tableware to a pile of paper napkins. From beneath the napkins she pulled one of her husband's thirty-eight-caliber pistols. Helen kept it loaded. She usually had it within reach.

The house had been broken into once since Mark had been shot. Helen knew that whoever had been after her husband wasn't finished. Well, so be it. The next person who threatened her or her family would catch a bullet. Mark would be proud of her.

She moved from the kitchen to the living room, the pistol in her hand. Whoever was knocking was still there. She edged through the front hall. She heard a male voice call.

"Hello? Anyone there?"

The chain was on the front door. She held the gun aloft. She would open the door and have a look.

Her hand was on the knob. She turned it, expecting the worse. So help her, if someone slammed a shoulder into the door, she would shoot. Her palm was soaking against the handle of the gun.

She opened the door two inches. She stared blankly at the handsome man who stood before her in a hat and trench coat.

"Helen?" Thomas Buchanan asked. "Is that you?"

She blinked once and then recognized him. "Oh, God," she said in relief. “Tom Buchanan!" Her voice cracked.

"Helen, open the door," he said. "It's me. I'm alone."

She fumbled with the chain, unlocked the door, and pushed the pistol onto a side table. When Buchanan stepped into the house, Helen broke down into long, lamenting sobs and fell into his arms.

"They shot him, Tom," she cried. "They shot poor Mark and they broke into our home last week. I'm petrified…"

Her voice disintegrated into tears. Buchanan pushed the door shut behind him and kept Helen under an arm. He saw the pistol, locked the safety catch, and pushed it into his pocket.

"No one's going to do anything to you," he reassured her. "Come on. Come sit down. Let's talk. The worst is over. We're going to make things better now."

Buchanan sat Helen in an armchair in her living room. When she calmed again, he went to the kitchen and found some tea. It was Earl Grey. Thomas recalled from Chicago that this was what Mark O'Connell and his wife always favored. He brewed it and put the lights on in the house to dispense the gloom.

By the time he served the tea, she had stopped crying. A pile of tissues was in her lap. She dried her eyes and wrung her hands. The fingers of her right hand played with the wedding ring on her left. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see a friendly face," she said. "It's tremendous that they sent you.”

"I read the report two days ago,” Buchanan said. "It was horrible."

"I didn't think anyone would care about Mark. The Bureau drove him to quit, you know."

"That's what I figured. I can read between the lines of a Bureau document as well as anyone."

She looked at him strangely. "Are you here officially or on your own time, Tom?" she asked.

"Both," he said. "Mark was my mentor in Chicago, Helen. You remember that."

The memory of nicer days elicited a smile from her. "Indeed, I do!” she said. “Long, long ago. You were fresh out of the Army. A child."

"It was only four years ago," he corrected her, but went along with her joke. "And no one who was in the war was an innocent afterwards.”

She laughed and sipped her tea. Her hand was steady again. "My husband always said you were the best young agent in the Bureau. Everyone was heartbroken when they transferred you back East. But they send all their best men back East, don't they?"

"They sent me here today, didn't they?" he answered. He paused. "I want to know who shot Mark," he said. "Do you have any idea who did it? Did Mark know?”

"He suspected something, Tom," she said, "even if he didn't understand it. The last cases he worked on didn't make sense to him. He had this feeling that he had been on to something. He had this notion that there was a link between his dismissal from the Bureau and getting shot.”

“That’s a weird one,” Buchanan said. But Buchanan knew all about that instinct.

"Mark used to sit down in the basement late at night talking onto tapes," Helen told him. "He wanted to get everything down on record. In case something . . ."

Her voice trailed off.

"In case something happened to him?" he said.

She nodded. "He sealed the tapes in a panel in the basement wall," she said. "I didn't even think much about them. Then" - her voice broke again, but she forged on -  "three days after the shooting, someone broke in. Knew just where to go. Took the panel off the wall and stole every tape." That, she said, was when she sent her children away. The two kids were staying with a brother and sister-in-law in Eugene.

"And you don't know what was on those tapes?" Buchanan asked. He stood and picked up the teapot. He poured more for both of them.

"Only Mark could tell you that," she said.

"But he told you things," Tom said. "I know he always used to. He used to sound you out on cases. He told me that in Chicago."

That was all the prodding Helen needed. Braced with a second cup of Earl Grey, she began to recount her husband's fall from grace within the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He had joined the Bureau in late 1936, she recalled, having put in two years before that with the Massachusetts State Police. Thereafter, Special Agent O'Connell had put together a sterling record at every office to which he had been assigned. In one year alone, 1938, he had received three letters of commendation from the Director himself. Meritorious pay increases had come his way every six months, as regularly as clockwork. He had done prewar tours of duty in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco, then went into the United States Army in 1942. He had gone in as a second lieutenant and landed in the same division as Tom Buchanan in North Africa.

O’Connell had come out a major with a fistful of medals. The FBI hired him back and made him Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Chicago, which is how he and Tom Buchanan reconnected.

"It was after the war," Helen said, "that my husband went to 'sound school.' I encouraged it." She twisted her hands slightly. "I thought it would be safer than some other field work."

"Sound school" was a euphemism. Wiretapping and bugging was what it was, legal and otherwise. In the days after the war, particularly in the late 1940s, J. Edgar Hoover's personal radar began to intuit Commies, pinkos, lefties, and various fellow travelers under every bed.

Eavesdropping was the "in" doctrine. The Bureau in its best days used to watch, interrogate, and deduce; now it listened.

Mark O'Connell was one of the best listeners. Trouble was, he was also an independent thinker. In Chicago the remnants of the Capone organization and several rival groups still ran lucrative businesses in gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, burglary and hijacking. For sport, O'Connell invaded a few telephone junction boxes on the north and south sides of the city. Had anyone wished to act, O'Connell had enough after one week to break the biggest crime organization in the city. And since most of the crime was of an interstate nature, enforcement was within the province of the FBI.

"But it was against Bureau policy, Tom," Helen said. "Mark couldn't believe it. As far as the Bureau was concerned, the Mob didn't exist and the Mafia was a lurid figment of his imagination."

The orders came directly from Washington, she recalled. "Stop wiretapping guinea gangsters!" Hoover had roared into the phone to Bill St. Clair, the Special Agent in Charge in Chicago. "And give that O'Connell man a departmental rebuke for planting bugs we don't need."

It was O'Connell's first official chastisement in thirteen years. It would not be his last. O'Connell had spent his adult life fighting corruption as a civilian and fighting fascism as a soldier. He was one of those old-fashioned American Irishmen who combined conservative personal values with a keen sense of fair play and justice. It was why he and the younger Thomas Buchanan had seen eye to eye on so many things. They understood each other and shared the same view of the world.

"Chicago was a sewer," Helen said. "Corrupt cops. Dishonest judges. We even wondered about the U.S. Attorney's office sometimes. You're lucky you didn't stay there, Tom."

"No city has a monopoly on corruption," he offered. "But please continue."

What Hoover really wanted was "glamour" stuff, big-time kidnappers and bank robbers, Helen remembered. Or at least, that was the first thing he coveted. "But what he wanted even more, Tom," she explained, "was statistics."

Buchanan felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. He knew how the FBI's numbers game worked. Toward the end of each fiscal year, the gun would sound to start the new statistics race in each office. Hoover needed to petition Congress for a bigger budget every year and liked to display what he referred to as "new peaks of achievement." He was talking here of quantity, not quality. Heaven help the Bureau office that hadn't increased its numbers from the previous twelve months.

"They called Mark in the middle of the night once in February 1948," she said. "I was sick and I needed him. But Bill St. Clair was a Hoover crony and obviously wanted to be seen as disciplining Mark. So he had my husband away for three nights straight planting microphones in the Chicago offices of the Progressive Labor Party. Do you know who they are, Tom?"

Buchanan nodded. "Malcontents. Homegrown socialists," he said.  “Mostly harmless.”

Helen kept explaining. A few days later, she said, eleven members of the party were arrested for advocating the overthrow of the United States government. "Tom, these were a bunch of University of Chicago students and professors having their own little intellectual debate. They eventually pleaded guilty to some misdemeanor charge."

"But the Chicago office had eleven more arrests and convictions," Buchanan said.

That was the whole point, Helen agreed. And her husband let his feelings be known loud and clear what a waste of Bureau time this all seemed to be. It was not as if there was no real work to be done in the Windy City.

"These wop gangsters on the South Side have a piece of every truck and every crate of liquor that moves through this city," O'Connell had ranted. "And we're arresting college debate teams."

"Don't buck Hoover," Bill St. Clair had warned, "and don't duck his instructions. The Director is all-powerful and he knows what he wants."

Unfortunately, O'Connell had a trace of Gaelic irreverence within him, as well as a touch of the poet. "Buck him, duck him, and you-know-what him," O'Connell had retorted. That earned a second letter of rebuke for his personnel file, though he was becoming a living legend among other agents throughout the Midwest.

O'Connell was not alone in wanting to do constructive law enforcement work. His views traveled quickly through the local FBI bureaucrats who reported directly to Hoover. O'Connell thus received an official letter of censure from Washington. It was signed by the Director. It left Mark O'Connell just a few more smart remarks away from being dismissed with prejudice. Then Bill St. Clair, who didn't like letters of censure arriving for anyone in his office, tried to defuse the situation. He instigated Mark O'Connell's transfer to Seattle, Washington. But there was spite to it: The transfer was immediate, so that O'Connell would miss the birth of his second child. That, or he could resign.

"We were in no financial position for Mark to quit," Helen said. "Yet, we knew at that point he would never get an honorable discharge from the Bureau."

In a way, O'Connell and his wife welcomed the move to Washington State. The Chicago nonsense would be over. Their new location was pretty and peaceful. The pay was the same, but the hours were shorter and the money bought more. Things might have turned out better had the Seattle office not been every bit as hell-bent for statistics as Chicago had been.

That led first to what many of the Seattle agents disparagingly called the Great Handsaw Caper. Near the Krieger-McGhie Army base north of Seattle there was a government warehouse that stored obsolete carpentry tools. The warehouse was left over from the WPA. Security was nonexistent. For one period of several weeks in the late spring of 1949, the main door was unlocked. It swung open and shut at will with the May breezes of the Pacific Northwest.

A number of people who lived in the area were in the habit of helping themselves to tools. A handsaw here. A screwdriver there. An odd wrench, crowbar, or wire cutter vanished into the night. It was not the type of thing that was going to make the republic fall. No one thought much about it. The warehouse was a free store, provided by Uncle Sam.

But then a couple of corporals at Krieger-McGhie began helping themselves to greater quantities of tools and selling the swag cheap to private establishments in Seattle. The tools were so old that they weren't even recognizable as government property, though the soldiers did represent them as legal military surplus. The Seattle police, as an afterthought, sent a memo to the local FBI office. Mark O'Connell was put in charge of a squad of agents assigned to track the stolen goods.

"More bull," was how Mark O'Connell described the assignment to Helen. But he quietly set about his assignment. He went to several gas stations, mechanics, hardware stores, and carpentry outlets that had unwittingly received the filched goods. O'Connell took witness statements. O'Connell had twelve names of witnesses and recipients. None were considered by the investigating agents as culpable of any crime. Everyone involved, in fact, agreed to quickly return what he had bought and to be helpful to the FBI, Helen said.

"The head of the Seattle office was under pressure for big numbers, same as Chicago. So when he turned the names of the witnesses over to the Assistant U.S. Attorney, he authorized prosecution for receiving stolen federal property."

Buchanan listened. The story grew uglier.

O'Connell was asked to form an apprehension team, complete with rifles and flak jackets to look good for the newspapers. This, to bust a dozen shopkeepers. But O'Connell was further told to wait to make arrests so that the twelve witnesses/recipients could be officially declared fugitives. Seattle was also low on arrests of "fleeing felons".

Eventually ten of the twelve were convicted of relatively minor charges. None did jail time, though the two soldiers who had resold the tools served six months apiece. And all contributed to some gorgeously inflated crime statistics issued by the Seattle office in 1949.

The Great Handsaw Caper was an operation rivaled locally only by what Mark called the Great Wobbly Witch Hunt.

There was a domestic security division in the Seattle office and here again they needed wiretaps. Hoover wanted to know whether waterfront unions were being "infiltrated by Communists." And what better place to start than Seattle?  There resided dozens of veteran CPUSA members and aging "Wobblies," members of the Industrial Workers of the World who still clung to their rose-tinted memories of the 1930s.

Thirty-six agents from the Seattle office were assigned to the security squad. They spent their days shadowing a bunch of enfeebled, aging old Marxists, filling out surveillance forms, tapping private phones, reading mail the day before the addressee received it, and bugging their homes. Out of this came twenty-eight arrests for "security threats to the United States of America."

Out of this also, Helen explained in detail as she concluded, came Mark O'Connell's final and total disillusionment with the FBI. If this was what federal law enforcement was going to be in the 1950s, he wanted no part of it. He had two children to raise. O'Connell looked ahead in moral terms. Someday, when his kids were adults, he wanted to be able to look them in the eye.

“Mark concluded the Wobbly investigation with a trip to San Francisco. That’s where he stumbled across something real nasty that he referred to as ‘Morning Glory,’" Helen said.

“’Morning Glory’?” Buchanan asked.

“You’ve heard of that one?”

“In passing,” Buchanan said, remembering a mention by Bill Roth. “I was told to steer clear of it. Any idea why?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Helen insisted. "Mark said that one was poison.  Now, I don’t want to know. I’m angry at the Bureau. They didn’t do right by my husband, Tom.”

“I understand,” Buchanan said.

“Shortly afterward, the police chief's job opened in Peterton, Oregon. Mark asked me if he should take it. I urged him to. We were sick of the Bureau and its politics. So Mark resigned from the Bureau. I had no idea, Tom, that the past would follow him. How would I know that he would be shot? How could anyone know that? Yet somehow Mark must have suspected it. But how?"

"Instinct," Buchanan guessed.

"Instinct," Mark O'Connell's wife concurred.

It was past six in the evening. It was dark outside. Helen and Thomas Buchanan had been talking for three hours. "Have you been to the hospital yet?" Helen finally asked.

Buchanan shook his head. "I stopped here first," he said. "I wanted to talk to you before Mark. Assess the situation, so to speak.”

She nodded. “That’s good of you,” she said. “You were always a stand-up, guy. Not like some of the others.”

“Thank you, Helen.”

Mark’s surgeon bore the unlikely name of Sigmund Alan Hamburger, she explained. Dr. Hamburger had stitched the fallen Mark O'Connell back together on Christmas Eve when he had been shot.

"A man named Walt Kowell saved Mark's life," said Helen. "Kowell drove a truck along the highway where the shooting took place. Apparently, when the truck's headlights came around the bend, the man and the woman who had shot my husband fled right away. Otherwise… "

"Otherwise they would have finished what they had begun," Buchanan said. "Particularly if they were there specifically to kill Mark. And I think that's exactly why they were there. Whoever they were."

She nodded, and then lowered her gaze.

“How’s ‘The Bear’ doing?” Buchanan asked. “Tell me straight up.”

“He’s going to live,” she said bravely. “The worst is done. We’ll go over tomorrow,” she said, looking back up and rallying her courage. “I think he’ll be well enough to talk to you. And I know he’ll be pleased to see you. You, above everyone.”

“I’m flattered, Helen,” Buchanan said.

“We have a guest room,” she said. “It’s modest. We’re modest people. But please stay the night.”

“There’s an inn in town,” Buchanan said. But Helen wasn’t hearing of it.

“You’ll stay here,” she said. “Mark would tell you so himself."

Faced with such logic, Buchanan agreed.

CHAPTER 36

The next morning they drove in Helen's car, a blue 1947 Nash. Helen knew the route perfectly. It was fifty minutes from her home. When they arrived at the Army base at Shannon, Oregon, Helen showed a pass to a sentry and drove through the gates of the compound. She parked the car before the hospital, which was on the military base. She pulled the key out of the ignition and turned toward Thomas.

"I should tell you, Mark can't seem to walk," she said.  “There's no neurological reason for it, but he won't get up on his feet."

Buchanan had heard some strange things in the last month, but this was something new. "You mean it's a mental problem?" he asked.

Helen shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's them medications. We'll solve the big problems first, okay? Then we go on to the next ones."

The Army base was the home of the 52nd Infantry Division, a unit that had borne more than its share of casualties during the fighting in the Pacific. Thus it was not unrelated that a new Veterans Administration hospital had been constructed on the unit's grounds in the dark days of 1943. The hospital remained busy seven years later.

Helen led Thomas into the hospital and up six flights in an elevator. They walked to the end of a quiet, unguarded corridor. Helen knocked on the door of a private room in the farthest corner. The door was locked, an unusual touch for a hospital room. Buchanan took the locks to be a security issue and figured the staff had keys.

More security, a fake name for the patient: the sign of the patient's door said, BRAVERMAN, JOHN EDGAR.

Cute, Buchanan thought, particularly the first and middle names.

"Who is it?" called a voice from within.

"It's me," Helen called back. She stepped away from the door. "Unlock. I brought you a visitor."

Buchanan listened to the squeak of a wheelchair's rubber tires on the linoleum floor. He glanced to Helen, who offered a hopeful smile. Buchanan rolled his eyes and tried to present the best of spirits. Meanwhile, there was a fumbling with a bolt on the other side of the door.

The door swung open. A man in a wheelchair rolled away from the door and stared at his visitors. His head was bandaged and his left arm was in a sling. He wore blue and red striped pajamas beneath a white hospital gown. He stared at his visitors. Thomas saw the man's eyes take a quick, sharp look behind them to make sure that they were alone. A wide smile creased the face of Mark O'Connell, the man in the wheelchair.

"Son of a gun!" O'Connell said. "Tommy, you bastard!"

“Hello, Major,” Buchanan said by way of greeting.

Mark offered his good hand. Buchanan stepped forward. The two men didn't shake hands so much as they embraced.  Helen closed the door. Thomas stepped away from his friend and assessed him.

"You don't look so bad for an old soldier,” Buchanan said.

"I don't feel so bad either," O'Connell said, “considering how much my guts have been torn up. Listen, bolt the lousy door and sit down, will you?" O’Connell insisted.

O'Connell motioned to a chair. Helen sat on a bench near the window. Buchanan threw the bolt on the door and sat in a chair.

"Nice room," said Buchanan, looking around.

"We installed the door bolt ourselves," O'Connell said. "Dr. Hamburger gave us permission. You wearing your piece?" O'Connell asked.

Buchanan pushed away his jacket for a moment to show the thirty-eight-caliber Colt pistol on his left hip. "These days I don't travel without it," he said.

"Me neither," said O'Connell. He lifted up the left leg of his pajamas and showed Buchanan the snub-nosed revolver in an inside ankle holster. "This drives the nurses into a sexual frenzy," he said.

Helen looked away.

"I think he's recovering," Buchanan said to Helen. All three laughed. "What about the wheelchair?" Buchanan finally asked.

"I don't know," said O'Connell. "I just can't seem to stand up. Funny, huh? The doc says I got screws loose between the ears. That's why I don't stand up yet. Hell, give me time."

"I talked to your physician yesterday by phone,” Buchanan said. "Dr. Hamburger said you took four bullets in the upper torso. One hit muscle in the upper shoulder and exited. A second nicked your collarbone. That's why you have an arm in a sling."
O'Connell jerked the sling as if to show off. "A third passed through your left lung. A fourth just missed your heart. You're alive by about an inch."

"I know. I looked at the scars. The luck of the Irish on Christmas Eve." O'Connell grinned. He sighed and winced at some abdominal discomfort. "I guess God just didn’t want to call me yet, soldier. I'll tell you, my life was complete when I married the woman I loved, had two beautiful children, survived the war, and got to see the Boston Braves win the pennant two years ago. I’m a lucky man.” He paused. “Who's your ball team again, Tommy?"

"The Philadelphia A's."

O'Connell laughed. "You'd best stick to your work and stay away from Shibe Park. These are dark days. Bobby Shantz still pitching? I used to love watching that little guy.”

“He’s still with the A’s but doesn’t get much support,” Buchanan said.

“Oh. We can relate to that, can’t we? No support.”

Buchanan allowed that O'Connell had a point.

There was an awkward pause.

"Know what else, Tommy?" O'Connell said, turning suddenly serious.

"No. What?"

"The doc says it's a matter of time before everything works right again. Even the legs." He offered his hand again. Buchanan accepted it and held it for several seconds. O'Connell's eyes misted and his chin quivered. His mood darkened.

"I don't know, Tom," he said. "So many things don't make sense. He winced and tried to control some new pain. He gave Buchanan a wink. "Don't lie to me: Are you here official or unofficial?"
"Both. First off, I want to know who shot you. And why."

"Well, I'd also like to know. The Oregon State Police think I got plugged because I was about to write a speeding ticket. Or because I surprised some bank robbers. But no one was speeding and no bank had been robbed anywhere within five hundred miles. Ah, no one listened to the details. A woman. Then a man. Two cars. One in front, one behind. Blinding headlights. Come on. I know a professional murder when I’m on the shitty end of one."

Helen had heard the story enough times. She stood. “You’ll excuse me, I hope,” she said.

Buchanan stood and let her out. He bolted the door and settled back into his chair. He took out a notepad and a pen.

"Whatever you're working on, Tom," O'Connell said after Helen had left, "it must be important."

"It looks that way. I even met with Hoover the other day."

"Yeah?" O'Connell managed a wry smile. "The old man, huh? Let me ask you. Do you think Hoover's queer?" O’Connell asked.

Buchanan experienced a sinking feeling. He had forgotten, but O'Connell and several other agents in the Chicago field office had been obsessed with the character of their Director. They hypothesized among themselves until several received letters of rebuke in their personnel files.

O'Connell was still fixed upon the topic, Buchanan was sorry to learn.

"What about Hoover and Tolson?" O'Connell pressed. "Constant companions. Clyde calls Hoover 'Speed,' and Hoover calls Clyde 'Junior.' Both bachelors, both on the fey side. Right, Tom? Come on, admit it. With their boutonnieres and their snap-brim fedoras? You know, Tolson made Assistant Director within three years of joining the Bureau. Does that strike you as normal?”

"That was back in the twenties," Buchanan said. "Things worked differently then. And let’s not forget, the Director built this Bureau and runs it. We all can complain about the boss, Mike, but it doesn’t do much good.”

"They arrive for work together, lunch together, and have dinner together at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. What else do they do together, Tom? Got a guess?”

“No,” Buchanan said.

"Did you ever hear about the Guy Hottel incident?" O'Connell continued.  "Hottel was a big, handsome fellow. Enormously gifted athlete. Football player at George Washington University. He moved right into Hoover's inner circle, remember? Hottell, Tolson, and Hoover used to take their vacations together down south. Never any women, of course. Remember how jealous Tolson would get? And remember how Hoover used to walk right out of the spas and hotels where the three of them had stayed together? Hoover never paid any hotel bills. What conclusion do you, draw, Tommy?”

"I conclude that I know why you're an ex-agent."

"Sure. If he can fire a man like Melvin Purvis, he can fire any of us. If J. Edgar Hoover's not queer, then he's pretty weird," O'Connell said.

“Maybe, but I’m not spending any time on that thought,” Buchanan said. “Let’s change the subject, all right?

“Sure. Smart.” O’Connell said. “Hey, did you ever know a guy named Art Lacey, Tom?” O’Connell asked.

“Name sounds familiar,” Buchanan answered.

“I knew him in Rome,” O’Connell recalled. “Great pilot. Twelfth Army Air Corps, flew in North Africa and Italy. He was part of the 415th Night Fighting Squadron that Eisenhower created for Operation Torch.”

“Sure,” Buchanan said, recalling. “Now I remember him. You been in touch?”

“Oh, I got a great story for you, Tom.  Art came home to Oregon and wanted to set up his own business. But he still had a flyer’s blood running through his veins. Must have been from the days flying night cover for the invasion of southern France. You know how that restlessness stays with you.”

“I know all about it,” Buchanan said.

“Well, a couple of years ago, Art’s from Oregon remember, but he goes out to Kansas and buys himself a surplus B-17. His big idea was to fly it back to Oregon, jack it up high on wooden stilts, and make a gas station out of it. He paid $15,000 for it.”

Buchanan began to laugh.

“The surplus guys had a couple of miles of planes out in the prairie,” O’Connell remembered. “Art picks one out, but he didn't know how to fly a 4-engine bird so he read the manual while he taxied around by himself. He finally says, ‘Okay, I think I can do it,’ but the surplus guys said he couldn't take off alone. So he goes to a department store, buys a mannequin, puts that in the co-pilot's seat and takes off. He flies around to get the feel of his aircraft but when he went to land he realized he needed a co-pilot to lower the landing gear. He hadn’t read that part of the manual yet. So he crashed his bird and totaled another on the ground. Think the surplus guys were sore? Hell, no! They were all drinking beer and having fun. They wrote the broken birds off as ‘wind damaged’ and told Artie to pick out another. He found a buddy. He talked the new guy into being his co-pilot and off they went. They flew to Palm Springs, California, and - Artie’s out of money - so he wrote a rubber check for gas and refueled. Then they headed north for Oregon. They hit a snowstorm and couldn't find their way, so they went down below nine hundred feet and followed the railroad tracks. His buddy sat in the nose section and would holler, ‘Tunnel!’ when he saw one and Lacey would climb over the mountain. Well, they landed, he borrowed money, covered the bad check, and they got permits to move a B-17 on the state highway. The highway department, however, repeatedly denied his permit and fought him tooth and nail for a long time, so late one Saturday night, he just moved it himself. He got a ten-buck ticket from the police for having too wide a load. But by that time he was home so he jacked up his plane, opened a place for gas and food and he’s got a business going. How the hell do you like that, Tommy?”
“I love it,” said Buchanan.
“Some crazy times we live in, right, brother?”
“They are, indeed,” Buchanan agreed. It was a time, he had already observed in many private moments, when all things seemed possible, both good and bad, but mostly good, for the generation of American men who had survived the war.
“So what are you doing here, Tom?” O’Connell asked. “Look, there's a cute little nurse on this floor named Patricia. She wears black stockings and specializes at tossing visitors out. Talk to me before she chases you. What's this case you're working on?"

"It began as a bank investigation," Buchanan said. "I now believe it's much more than that."

"What bank?"

"The Commonwealth Bank of Pennsylvania."

"Oh, yeah! I've heard of it, all right. Small and independent, right? Philadelphia operation?” O'Connell asked.

Buchanan nodded in response.

"I'm investigating a man named John Taylor Garrett," said Buchanan. "He's the chief officer of Commonwealth Penn."

O'Connell didn't move a muscle as he thought. His arms rested on the wooden arms of his chair. He sat comfortably but at attention.

"His name came up in something I was working on in Chicago," O’Connell said. "I know what it was. The Bureau was studying some currency speculation between the United States and Europe, maybe some bad political influence from Joe Stalin. Stuff like that. We were looking to see if anyone had broken the law."

"I was given a file on the case back East,” Buchanan said. “I also took the liberty of requesting your report from Chicago, Mark. There's mention of Garrett and Commonwealth Penn. But there was never an indictment."

"There was never any substantial case. That's why," O'Connell said. "Other banks, yes. Commonwealth Penn, no. Maybe they just covered their tracks better than the others.” He shrugged. “Look,” he continued. “I got the notion that Hoover threw me on the Garrett case because he knew my father was a railroad man. Worked on the Rock Island Line for thirty years.”

“What did that have to do with anything?” Buchanan asked.

“Bankers, railroads,” O’Connell said. “Every railroad in the United States is built on subsidies provided by the federal, state, city or county governments. But who were the managers of the railroads? Wall Street and bankers. Their policies were to load the railroads with debt in good times, then run them through financial reorganizations during bad times. There was never any plan for debt retirement, just plans to shift the assets to their own accounts and bring the railroads to ruin. Know something, Tom?”

“What?” Buchanan asked.

“The first train robbery was committed on the Rock Island Railroad in 1873, just east of Council Bluffs. The gang got three thousand dollars. The same gang robbed the express car of the Missouri Pacific three years later and got seventeen thousand dollars. You’ve heard of them: The James gang. Jesse James, Frank James and the Younger Brothers. They used guns, got a few thousand bucks, and eventually almost all of them were killed. Thirty years later, the Rock Island Line was looted by a cabal of bankers known as the ‘Tin Plate Millionaires.’ They used fountain pens, bank accounts and holding companies. They got away with seventy million dollars and lived to brag about it. A lot of railroad men lost their jobs and homes. So that’s how I feel, Tom, that’s what I brought to the Garrett case. I think J. Edgar probably thought I might not be seeing a man like Garrett too straight.”

“You’re sounding pink, Mark,” Buchanan said with a wink.

“Ah, who the hell cares?” O’Connell snapped. “Maybe I am. I think of it more like ‘Progressive’ than pink.” He paused. “You know something? I’m a witch hunter if the witches are Communists. I am a Red-baiter, also. I would like to see them all back in Russia. But let’s not confuse those who are Commies with those who aren’t. That’s my issue: we got enough real stuff to worry about without inventing things. Just because I don’t like Commies doesn’t mean I have to like white collar thieves any better.”

They shared a nod.

“Here, here,” Buchanan agreed.

O’Connell continued.

“The people in Washington kept screaming for an indictment. Obviously they were after Garrett’s hide for some reason. I asked them how you could get an indictment if there’s no indictable offense? Robbery’s legal if you use lawyers and a fountain pen. We all know that.” He shook his head. “They didn’t like my attitude back East, dogface. On that and a whole slew of other stuff.”

“I can see why, Mark. But God bless you.”

“Thanks, soldier. I’m a cantankerous old goat, I guess, right?”

They drifted into talk of the war for a few minutes. Men they had fought with, places like Anzio and Palermo, Naples and Rome.

“Ever talk to Helen about the war?” Buchanan asked.

O’Connell shook his head. “Not for women, that stuff. You got a woman?”

“No. Not yet, I mean. Had one before the war but lost her.”

O’Connell nodded. “Hey, remember this one?”

He sang:
The Mademoiselle from St. Nazaire,
She never washed her underwear.
The colonel got the Croix de Guerre,
The son of a bitch was never there.
‘Twas a hell of a war as we recall,
But still, 'twas better than no war at all.

Buchanan laughed indulgently.

“I remember it all too well, Bear.” Then, “What about something called ‘Morning Glory’?” Buchanan asked next.

“Where did you hear about that crap?” O’Connell asked sharply.

“My boss back East mentioned it. Not favorably, I might add.”

“Did Helen talk about it?” O’Connell asked suspiciously.

“I asked. She said she didn’t know anything about it.”

“Well, good for her,” O’Connell said.

“So let's go back to the beginning," Buchanan said. "Helen told me about the Great Handsaw Caper. She also told me about the Wobbly Witch Hunt. I know you wrote reports. And I read them before I flew out here. I know they were puffed-up cases," Buchanan said. "But I know how reports have to be written in a certain tone to keep the Bureau panjandrums happy. Was there anything that didn't appear in your final report?"

"No," O'Connell answered. "It was just that those cases depressed me. Imagine, wasting agents' time and attention going after a bunch of broken-down old lefties and trying to take their Social Security away. Oh, man. It turned my stomach."

"Helen told me," Buchanan said. "That's why I want to know about what you called Morning Glory.”

O'Connell gazed angrily into the middle distance for several seconds.

Buchanan waited. "Did you make tapes on Morning Glory?" Buchanan pressed gently.

O'Connell nodded. “Eight of them,” he said. Then he stared at Buchanan.

"All gone?" Buchanan asked.

"All eight. Stolen.”

“Is there an official report somewhere?” Buchanan asked. “Something I could see?”

O’Connell grunted. "There is no Morning Glory file," O'Connell said. "I never wrote a report. It wasn't an assigned case, Tom," O'Connell said. "It was something that I stumbled across. I was still involved in it when I finally had my fill of the Bureau and resigned. I mentioned the code name once or twice on long distance with Bill Roth. That’s all. Ultra-unofficial. As far as the FBI was concerned, I was still on the Wobblies."

"And you reasoned…?" Buchanan began, starting to understand.

"I was furious at the Bureau. I didn't want to put my name on something half-baked. Also, they were shoving me down the shaft, so why should I do them any favors?”  He grew gloomy. "I can’t believe it," O'Connell muttered. “The tapes are gone?”

“That’s what Helen said.”

Not only had he sealed the box of tapes in the wall, O’Connell explained, but he had put a pair of bent staples into the space between the panels. If anyone had disturbed the panels, O'Connell would have picked up the intrusion immediately. Buchanan awarded him points on that move. O'Connell was right. No one else in the Bureau could have known the full story of Morning Glory.

"Listen, Mark,” Buchanan resumed.  “I think you were shot for a reason. And there are only two scenarios. One, someone picked you up in the midst of your investigation and figured you had to be silenced for what you might know. Or two, there was some sort of leak within the Bureau. And since you were working out of Seattle, the leak may have been there."

It was O'Connell's turn to sit without speaking. He pondered the implications.

"Well, we have to consider that possibility," Buchanan continued. "We infiltrate
the other side during investigations. Someday the other side might infiltrate us."

"Tom, that's more the type of thing that happens in an intelligence operation. Spies and the like. Foreign governments." He paused. “Plus, why is that FBI business? Isn’t this what the new boys on the block are supposed to be doing for us? You know, the CIA? Allen Dulles and all his self-righteous genius boys from Yale and Princeton?”

"Valid point," Buchanan said flatly. "But consider the times we live in, my friend. Homegrown Reds. Foreign-born subversives. Traitors in the State Department. John Edgar’s got a burr up his butt, Major. I’ll tell you a Bureau secret. Hoover’s reportedly got a list of ‘disloyal’ Americans, maybe a thousand of them, who’ll be rounded up in the case of a national emergency.”

“Is that a fact? I’m not surprised.” O’Connell paused. “I expect Dean Acheson’s name is on it. Same with that pinko Vice President Henry Wallace and that colored singer Paul Robeson.”

“I’m just hoping my name isn’t,” Buchanan said, lightening the mood a notch.

The notion drew a thin smile from O’Connell. The previous year, Robeson had been forced to go overseas to work. His entire schedule of American concerts had been canceled at the FBI's behest, a masterful bit of muscle flexing by Hoover, who hadn’t cared for Mr. Robeson’s frequent concert renditions of The Song of the Volga Boatmen.

Then, "Morning Glory," Buchanan prodded. “We’re old pals, aren’t we, Mark? I need to know. So tell me about it. Please?”

O'Connell drew strength from somewhere. His eyes were keen. He rose up in his wheelchair as he spoke.

"This is the story of a smuggler, Tom," said O'Connell. "Does a lot of business in the Orient. His name is Sammy Wong. Why are you looking at me like that, Tommy? Heard of him?"

Several seconds transpired before Buchanan could verbalize his response.

"If it's the same Sammy Wong," Buchanan said, "he was one of John Garrett's dinner guests the last time Garrett was seen in public."

“Well, in that case,” O’Connell said, “this should interest you.”

CHAPTER 37

Morning Glory had begun in San Francisco in 1949, O’Connell started, as Buchanan quietly listened. O'Connell was still in the midst of the Wobbly - or IWW - fiasco, spreading nets all over the Pacific Northwest trying to incriminate a bunch of broken-down old radicals.

"Really foul stuff, Tom," O'Connell said again. "Half of the Seattle office hated to come to work each morning."

Yet there was Dick Fletcher, the Special Agent in Charge in Seattle, with orders from Hoover. Fletcher was screaming for arrests and convictions, O’Connell related. Hoover had set quotas.

“So, hi-ho, hi-ho, in to work we come and go,” O’Connell said. “We went out every day to harass the wobbly old Wobblies.”

Buchanan nodded. While the Bureau had some fine moments, these were not among them.

"Dick Fletcher had some travel money plus the authorization for it on the Wobbly case. So then Fletcher got a further directive from the boss man," O'Connell explained. "Hoover's own handwriting: 'How far up and down the West Coast have these Communist bastards been infiltrating American unions?' Hoover asked. Fletcher wanted a man to go to San Francisco to check the situation. He asked me. I figured it was a fishing trip, wouldn't come back with much, but, frankly, I wanted out of Seattle for a few days. My sanity was worth something too, you know."

"Why didn't Seattle just ask the San Francisco office to run a few local checks?" Buchanan asked. "That would have better resembled the official procedure."

"Fletcher hated the San Francisco office. Claimed they would run the entire West Coast if allowed to, put us out of business in Seattle. You know how it works: Small office like Seattle asks big office like San Francisco to snoop. If the big guys pick up a scent, they shanghai your whole investigation. You've put in hundreds of man-hours, they run away with the arrests and convictions, and your own charts look like everyone's been busy picking toenails all year. Bureaus get closed, agents get dismissed, and bureau chiefs get retired at age forty over such things."

"Of course," Buchanan answered. "So you went to San Francisco on the Wobbly case, Mark. What happened when you got there?"

"Nothing happened," Mark O'Connell explained. "At least nothing having to do with the Wobblies. The longshoremen’s unions had been taken over by rivals during the war. The new boys on the piers were lead-pipe, punch-in-the-mouth guys. The only liberal causes they took a shine to were salary increases for their men, particularly the leadership." The ex-agent's memory was sharp now. "The new locals came in with some heavy-hitting Italian types and some Jew labor lawyers from New York back around 1947," O'Connell said. "They ran all the old-time FDR thirties liberals straight into the Bay. Sometimes literally. The Pacific piers were always a tough place, and they were tougher still when the stevedores, the maritime unions, and the guys who unloaded the fish and the freight organized new locals. Forget about those old bleeding-heart Socialists, Tom," O'Connell said. "They were gone. The louder ones ended up floating in the Bay. Shark meat, huh? And any new Red who came in and tried to start organizing ended up in the Oakland side of the Bay wearing concrete boots."

Buchanan said he understood.

O'Connell spent four days there, reaching that conclusion. His work was solid. He covered himself by conferring with a couple of local G-Men in the San Francisco office, Larry Herter and Jim Meadley. They had worked with O'Connell in Chicago. O'Connell knew he could trust them. He ran a check on the local unions through them and they confirmed that his information was good.

Buchanan, listening, recognized the names.

O'Connell paused and seemed uneasy with what came next. "Well, I was alone in the city," he said. "So, you know, I wanted to amuse myself one evening. Boys' night out, know what I mean?"

“Women?” Buchanan asked.

“Well,” he said, glancing at the door to make sure Helen was still distant. “Yeah. Why not?”

The idea revolved around an establishment called the Candid Camera Artist’s Model Studio and was a relic of the San Francisco World's Fair of 1940. Men could rent a camera for a few dollars at the door. In a lounge they could buy a drink. And in an adjacent "studio" they could snap pictures or just gaze at any of several young women who were sitting or standing around nude. Most of the male customers had no previous experience in photography. But who cared?

"The owner of the place was a former actor named Blake Warren," O'Connell said. He described Warren as an alert-looking character with sharp dark eyes and a trim mustache. He wore a tuxedo each evening to give his strip joint a touch of class. He also lived in an apartment right upstairs, where O'Connell said he also kept his business records.

At one time Warren had been known as the “King of the Robots,” O’Connell explained. He was sexually ambiguous and an odd character, given to ascots and flamboyant blond hair. He had performed in vaudeville and a few films, including one with Charlie Chaplin. But he had also made a good living performing in department store windows.

Warren possessed remarkable control over all his muscles, both voluntary and involuntary. For hours on end he could stand completely motionless in a store window, usually alongside a dummy dressed exactly the same way. The idea was to draw a crowd, some of whom would go into the store. The crowd tried to decide which was Blake Warren and which was the dummy. It wasn't easy. The distinction was sometimes vague.

"I knew Blake personally. Blake worked for us in Chicago during the war," O'Connell said. "I won't go into it, but you can imagine how useful a man like that can be in a surveillance situation."

Buchanan said he could conjure up a whole vista of possibilities.

"Anyway, Blake ran the Candid Camera place. I used to drop in now and then. I liked to have a drink with him and look at his girls. I couldn't put it in my report, though. That's another reason why I never wrote much on Morning Glory. How do I explain how I was in the Candid Camera Artist’s Model Studio to start with? By lying? Bad idea."

"Bad idea, indeed," Buchanan agreed. "What else did the girls do beside pose?"

"After a girl had put in half an hour on the stage, she was free to come to the lounge and circulate. She could let an enthusiastic fan buy her a drink. Blake Warren encouraged that much, you understand," O'Connell said. "His business was renting cameras and selling drinks. He didn't pay the girls to be there. Didn't pay them a nickel. And they didn't pay him anything either. So the models could meet a potential date there, maybe a sailor with a few extra bucks, you know? If the girl left with a man and conducted business elsewhere, that wasn't anything that involved Warren.”

“So it was a front for a brothel,” Buchanan said.

"Blake Warren was within the law," O'Connell said. He paused. "He helped the local police frequently. He had also assisted the Bureau in the past. We liked him. So we left him alone."

"I get it," Buchanan said.

"This is where we get to Sammy Wong," the wounded police chief of Peterton, Oregon, said next. “One evening, some of the girls who had been posing had made their way out to the bar. They were passing around among the audience. I took up a position at the far end of the rail. That's when I saw this Chinese guy come in, Tom," O'Connell said.

"He was smoking a dark cigarette and his hat brim was snapped low over his eyes. Sort of George Raft by way of Charlie Chan, get it? I was watching this carefully. Most white bar girls down in California won't go to bed with Oriental men, you know. The Orientals have a bad reputation, especially the ones just off the boat. They want to tie the girls up or do funny stuff, you know? Bunch of perverts, if you ask me."

Buchanan stifled a wry smile. O'Connell saw it and reacted defensively. "That's not just my opinion or upbringing, Tom. That's the reputation the Chinese have."

Buchanan said he knew, which was at least partially a lie. "Uh-huh," he said.

"So I'm watching this guy," O'Connell said. "I'm waiting for him to go rent a camera and enter the studio. But he doesn't. He just checks out the crowd, buys a brandy, and goes over to a table by the south wall. He puts his hat on the edge of a chair, sits, and smiles. I figure, this guy's just going to talk to any girl and leave with the first one who'll service a Chinaman. I look at his suit. It's expensive silk. I can see the shine on his tie clear across the room. And he's got a diamond on his little finger that could choke a horse. But then he confuses me again," O'Connell said.

"How?"

"He doesn't make a play for any of the girls. So what's he there for? I'm watching him in the mirror behind the bar and I'm wondering: Why is this man here at all? You can drink a lot cheaper somewhere else. Then I realize: this guy's a gangster, Hong Kong or Formosa style. I didn't recognize it right away because back in Chicago or up in Washington State you don't see the Chinese all that often, especially these new ones that are invading us now that Mao’s army took over. I watched this guy pick up his drink and reach for his wallet. He was right-handed, and he was covered by a left-handed wall. He had a choice of twenty tables, yet he took the only one that gave him a view of the entire room, plus both doors, the bar, and a set of service stairs that led down to Blake Warren's storage room. I could tell: the man's watching the room. He's making sure that no one's got surveillance on him. He honed in on me in a couple of seconds since I wasn't making time with any of the females. So I started talking to this little dark-haired doll who had been nude in the studio a few minutes earlier. She was dressed now. She talked a blue streak. She said she was a college student and needed the money. They all say that, you know. Must have been about nineteen. Very pretty. She said her name was Kim. She kept asking me if I wanted to leave with her and I kept putting her off. Finally she figured I was dense or something and came right out and whispered in my ear. For twenty dollars I could have sex with her. That put me on the spot. I can't leave with her while I’m watching Mr. Wun Hung Lo and I sure can't tell the girl I'm a Fed. So I said I'd come to admire, not to touch. She looked disappointed and went right on to some other guy in a suit. She left with him about five minutes later, and I got to tell you, I felt jealous. I mean, I was talking to her first, but this other guy left with her. But I had to talk with her, or Mr. Wun Hung Hi would have made me as a cop within five minutes."

"And you kept watching him?"

"Through the mirror behind the bar," O'Connell said again. "I watched him as best I could. See, when Kim started bargaining with me I had to pay some attention to her too. She was distracting me. I know another man came in and sat down next to Wong. I believe he handed him something. An envelope, maybe, under the table. Then the man left. A few minutes later Wong got up, popped his hat back on his head, and walked out also."

“I’m guessing you followed?"

"I figured I'd give him a tail, yes. Just for the hell of it if nothing else. Or at least I would have," said O'Connell. “But Blake Warren caught my arm as I was halfway to the door. ’Blake, pal, I have to be going now,' I tell him.

’Not a good idea, buddy,’ he answers.

‘But Blake, I have to.’

'The Chinaman's name is Sammy Wong,' Blake Warren told me. 'And you go out that door and he'll have you made in two seconds.'

'So you know him?' I asked Blake.

'I know enough,' Warren answered, 'to suggest that you stay away from him.' 'Then you talk to me about him,' I said to Warren. He said he would."

O’Connell paused for some water at his bedside table. Then he explained.

“Plain and simple, Tom, Sammy Wong was an opium dealer. No, that was like saying Henry Ford was a car dealer. Sammy Wong was opium in San Francisco. ‘Try not to hold his profession against him, old boy,’ Blake Warren said to me, ‘and for God's sake don't drag a federal case into my camera shop. Make me those promises, and I'll tell you all you want to know,’ he said to me.”

O'Connell made that promise, not knowing whether he intended to keep it.

“Wong was from a good family in China,” Warren explained.

“Good” meant wealthy and non-Communist before the civil war began in the 1930s. A rumor in the West Coast underworld had it that Wong had studied to be a doctor when he was a young man, which may have been where he gained an introduction to pharmaceuticals. There'd also been a reference here and there to a Madame Wong, suggesting that he had been married. But he wasn't practicing anything that would be considered legally sanctioned medicine anywhere in the world, and he was known to have a few mistresses scattered around Asia, the Philippines, and Hawaii.

“Mostly American and European girls,” Blake Warren said. “Heaven knows, the man can afford it. It's as if he has a permit to print money. Then again, at forty dollars a gram for opium,” O’Connell recalled, “his business was better than printing money, though his cover was that of an importer of inexpensive toys and novelties from Formosa. That’s what Blake told me for starters, Tom. But I couldn't just let it go at that," O'Connell said.

"I started to lean on Warren for extra information,” O’Connell said. “I wanted to know where Wong stayed in San Francisco. Was he a resident? Did he maintain an apartment? What about a company? He told me to try Morning Glory Import and Export, which was a one-flight-up job above a restaurant-cum-whorehouse in Chinatown. And he also suggested that Wong sometimes stayed at the California Pacific Hotel."

That was good enough for O'Connell. The next morning he dropped in on Herter and Meadley again and asked if they would cover his back while he visited the hotel. They said they would be delighted. All three chipped in ten dollars and Herter rented a $29.95 room in the California Pacific for the night of April 30. O'Connell brought along a miniature spy camera for the occasion. He visited the hotel and sat in Herter's room. Meadley worked the sidewalk across the street and waited till Wong went out for the evening. Then he called Herter's room from an outside telephone.

"The Chinaman's gone," he said.

Herter and O'Connell went to Wong's floor. Meadley took a position in the hotel lobby, watching for the Chinaman to come back. "Herter maintained a vigil on the elevators while I broke into the Chinaman's room," O'Connell said.

“Did you have a warrant?” Buchanan asked.

“Do bears crap in the woods?” O’Connell asked. “Of course not. Too much trouble and we wouldn’t have been able to get one, anyway.”

“Sorry I asked,” Buchanan said with irony.

"Meadley had all the angles covered in the lobby,” O’Connell continued. “If Wong reappeared, he would dial Wong's room on the house phone, give it one ring, hang up fast, and I'd be out. If for some reason this failed and Wong arrived back on the floor unexpectedly, Herter would start a loud conversation and delay him at the elevator banks. The elevators were around two corners from his room." He shrugged. “Wong carried a piece, so there was risk.  But our boys were armed, also, and the last thing anyone wanted was a shoot-out.”

“How did you get access to Wong’s room?” Buchanan asked.

O’Connell smiled. “The California Pacific was a casual old rat trap,” he explained. “The door locks fainted and gave way as soon as FBI hands touched them.”

"How much time did you have in Wong’s room?"

"I took twenty minutes and tossed the place thoroughly," said O'Connell. "Let me tell you. Wong was a sly little bastard. The room was pristine. Almost as if no one were staying in it. Just his suitcase."

"I suppose you broke into that too."

"Didn't have to. Wong left it open, as if he didn't care who snooped. Only one thing of interest in it. A tiny ledger in Chinese, sort of a notebook version of an abacus, all tight with his spidery handwriting. Chinese write real small, as if they got microscopes for eyes, or as if they're going to run out of paper." O'Connell stared at Buchanan for a moment. "Well, I didn't steal it. That way Wong would know someone was on to him. So I photographed it."

Meadley and Herter had the photographs developed the next day.

The San Francisco FBI office was pretty much a white-bread operation. No coloreds, no Jews, and, even more important on this occasion, no Chinese. Nothing more exotic, actually, than an Irish Protestant, so no one in the Bureau could read the pages.

Meadley passed them along to a contact in the San Francisco Police Department who managed to have them read. That put the agents back at square one. The ledgers suggested a flow of big cash, but the figures were coded. Without reading Wong's mind there was no way of knowing which amount flowed through which account in which financial institution and in which company. Like criminal geniuses such as Arnold Rothstein or Meyer Lansky, Wong kept his figures in his head. There was, in fact, nothing within the figures to even suggest a criminal activity or the dealing in opium. For all the trouble that O'Connell had gone to, he had nothing more than some hearsay against an importer of cheap toys.

Just for the hell of it, O'Connell continued, they resumed on Wong's trail that same day. O'Connell had to be getting back to Seattle and was increasingly at a loss to explain what he was doing in San Francisco. But there was always the chance of quickly scoring a major case, the kind of thing that could make an agent's career. So he couldn't bring himself to drop Wong. Not just yet.

Here Meadley got innovative. O'Connell pulled the address for Morning Glory Import and Export straight out of the San Francisco telephone directory. With virtually the same ease, Meadley checked a telescope out of the FBI's equipment room. Then they set up their own observation nest in a warehouse two blocks from Morning Glory Import and Export office. All this time the San Francisco Police agreed to lend them a stakeout team for two days, just to monitor Wong's movements from the California Pacific Hotel.

The telescope was trained directly into the window of Wong's office. O'Connell, Meadley, and Herter took turns watching while Wong was in residence. The Chinaman's office was a single room with two large single-panel windows. It was awash in papers, books, and correspondence; files that overflowed and steel bookcases that sagged.

"That office was cluttered to the rafters, Tom," O'Connell recalled. "Our little Asian dynamo needed nothing quite so much as he needed a secretary and some extra office space."

The watchers saw more than clutter. They observed an industrious little man who poured relentlessly over books and papers at his desk. He smoked Lucky Strikes all day and ate no more than an apple at lunch. He worked on the telephone for short periods of time. Mostly he went over the reams of correspondence in his office. The vision made sense.

Blake Warren had said that Wong was only in town for a week every few months, and the man seemed as if he was doing months of bookkeeping and correspondence all in one sitting. Meadley watched Wong make some of his phone calls and the special agent made noises about maybe invading the junction boxes in the basement of the building.

“Never mind a court order,” O’Connell said. “We never bothered in a case with a Chinese. We just made the recordings and saw what we got.”

Wong started working at ten AM and worked all day without a break.

"You'd think the little slope would leave to take a piss," Special Agent Herter had observed at the time. But he didn't, except for one time at two in the afternoon. Wong flipped a light on toward five in the afternoon and gave the watchers a clear view of what he was doing. And shortly before ten PM that night, Wong began to tidy up. He pushed things from his desk and shoved papers into folders. O'Connell was watching at the time and couldn't believe the casualness with which the man stuffed his files.

"We thought we'd hit pay dirt, Tom," O'Connell recalled. "We figured we knew where his records were. From here it would be simple. We'd maintain a stakeout, make sure Wong was far away, and then do a black-bag job on his office one night."

By “black bag” he meant an illegal entry, one of the specialties of the West Coast FBI field offices in the late 1940s.

"Wong left his shades up, left that packed little office all cluttered, stood up, and walked out. He went to the Shanghai Inn for some late dinner. He held his waiter in a long conversation, then ate nothing. Then he went back to the hotel. He spoke to no one, Tom, other than the waiter in the restaurant along the way. Not a soul. He was back to his hotel by midnight. Didn't even stop off at the Artist’s Model’s Studio," O'Connell added wryly. "And I didn't either."

"I assume," Buchanan said, "that you watched him all the way back to the hotel."

"All the way up the elevator to the fifth floor. From the street we saw his light go on,” said O'Connell, who was suddenly in discomfort from his bullet wounds. He fidgeted in his wheelchair. He was even more ill at ease with what he had to say next.

"He never came out of the hotel the next day," O'Connell said.

"What?"

And that, O'Connell resumed, wasn't even the most astounding part.

O'Connell, Meadley, and Herter spent the entire next day waiting for Wong to appear. O'Connell had the street covered. Meadley had the lobby. Herter alternated on the stakeout team with the ‘Frisco cops who manned the telescope. But the telescope itself wasn't picking up much that next day. The windows in Wong's office were now blocked by a black shade that hadn't been drawn the night before.

O'Connell left Herter at the hotel and drove to Chinatown. He parked his car two blocks from Wong's office and walked the rest of the way to the telescope point. There he peered at the black shade and cursed violently. Where was Wong? And who had been in and out of his office?

"I want to go into both places," O'Connell had said. "The hotel room and the office."

"When?" Meadley asked.

"Now."

They drove back to the hotel. Meadley and Herter waited down below. O'Connell admitted that he had been losing his composure by this point. He inquired at the front desk for Wong, but no one was registered at the hotel by that name. He rudely grabbed the reservation book and searched out Wong's entry. Not only was it not there, it had never been there.

O'Connell turned and went up to the fifth floor. He knocked sharply on Wong's door. There was no answer. He gave serious consideration to kicking the door in. Then a man showed up who introduced himself as Roger Lund.

“Lund was the house dick,” O’Connell said.

“What’s the problem?” Lund asked.

O'Connell stared at him. "You got a set of keys?" he asked.

"It depends on who you are," Lund answered.

"I couldn't decide whether to smash the bastard or just flash him the FBI shield," said O'Connell. But then the door opened. A middle-aged couple stood before them. They were a vacationing couple from Bridgeport, Connecticut. The previous guest, an Asian businessman, was long gone.

O'Connell stormed out of the hotel in a blind rage. He joined Herter and Meadley in their car. They drove back to Chinatown. There the warehouse was closed, but they bribed the night porter into letting them take the freight elevator up.

"I went to the door of Morning Glory Import and Export," O'Connell said. "I didn't know what I'd find. I knocked. No answer. So what the hell? I was out of control. There was a fire ax in the hall. I used it. The door was wooden and I knocked in the lock with the dull end of the ax."

Then O'Connell stood at the door he had broken open. He stood and stared. The office was empty.

"Just the desk and a chair remained, Tom,” O’Connell recalled softly. “Somehow overnight everything was gone into thin air. The shelves were neat and clean. There wasn't a paper clip on the floor or a scrap of paper anywhere in a drawer or basket.  It was as if it had been sanitized.”

The wounded agent shook his head.

“Practically before my very eyes, Tom," O'Connell concluded, "Wong had slipped his leash. All his clothes. All his records. Everything gone. Everything!  It was eerie. Wong had obliterated every trace of himself. It was as if Sammy Wong had never existed at all.”

Buchanan sat in an uncomfortable silence with his old friend and comrade.
"To this day, Tom," O'Connell concluded, "I can't figure it. Wong ‘made’ us some way. He knew we were watching. But I don't know how. Or when. Further, we didn't even have anything on him. All I had were empty time sheets when I went back to Seattle. Dick Fletcher blew a gasket.”

“But you named the investigation after Morning Glory Imports,” Buchanan said.

“We did. Yes.”

“If your time sheets were empty, how did anyone back East even know about it?”

“I talked it out with Fletcher. He mentioned it to Bill Roth back East and tried to smooth things over once he settled down. ‘Morning Glory’ came to be a code name for an operation that blossomed up out of nowhere and then led nowhere. Very bad for careers. Sort of like…Well, you know. You get the reference? You saw some of that bad stuff in Rome, I remember. In the brothels.”

“Like an opium dream. Opium from poppies. And Morning Glories are poppies.”

“Bingo, soldier,” said O’Connell.

O’Connell’s face went dark as if a distant thought had suddenly captivated him. He looked away and then back to Buchanan.

“Don’t I remember you getting into a fight in a bar with an Italian soldier your last night in Rome?” he said.

Buchanan was embarrassed by the recollection. “Yes, you do.”

“What was that flap about?”

“He was telling us we should go home now. We’d done the fighting, liberated the city, and they had no more use for us. I thought that was ungracious considering how many lives we’d laid down.” Buchanan paused. “Then he pulled an American flag off one of our tables and spat on it. I went nuts.”

O’Connell laughed. “Seems to me the MPs had to pull you off before you killed the idiot.”

“I think that’s true. When the MPs got me outside, they shook my hand and drove me back to barracks.”

O’Connell shook his head with a rueful smile. “Hell of a war,” he said.

“Hell of a war,” Buchanan agreed.

They shared another silence. This one was ended by a sharp rap on the door to the hospital room. On edge more than they had realized, both men flashed hands toward their guns.  But, “It’s the nurse,” O’Connell said. “I know her knock.” He indicated that the lock should be released. They tucked away their guns.

Buchanan stood. He admitted the nurse named Patricia, the no-nonsense one with the black stockings, to the hospital chamber. She brought with her Mark O'Connell's dinner and instructions for Buchanan to leave her patient in peace for the next hour.

"She's beautiful," O'Connell warned. “But she's tough. Better obey, Tom, okay?"

Buchanan withdrew to the hospital's cafeteria for coffee, taking with him a myriad of impressions and suspicions, all of them engendered by Mark O'Connell's meticulous memory. He tried to reconcile what he had just learned to what he had already known. Very quickly, he realized that he barely knew where to begin. He had a few hunches, however, and realized he would have to play them.

CHAPTER 38

Buchanan glanced at his watch. It was seven forty-five in the evening. O'Connell was back in bed now and Buchanan was seated in a chair across from him. Helen was at the nursing station raving about Twelve O'Clock High, which she had just caught up with earlier that day while the men talked. Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger were two of Helen's passions, shared, it turned out, by all the ladies on the nursing staff.

"Mark, you've been very generous with your time and energy today. I have a few more minutes before visitors have to leave. Tomorrow, unless plans change overnight, I have to return to either Philadelphia or Washington. That, or I'll have to go down to California for a few days. So in the minutes that remain, I'd like to put a notion to you about what you observed and what you experienced. May I?"

"Ha! Go ahead," said O'Connell.

"I don't have all the answers yet or all the details," Buchanan said, "so I can't give them to you. But I can speak in general terms. First, there's little mystery why you were shot. You knew something you shouldn't. Or you saw something you weren't meant to. We both know that much. But let's work Morning Glory in reverse. Take your own story and play it backward."

"Backward how?"

"I want to take a reverse look at everything you told me. For example, Mark, think back on the moments when you were shot, just before you lost consciousness. You said that the man and the woman were speaking to each other. But you also said their speech was unintelligible to you.”

“That’s right.”

“Foreign language?”

“I think so. Well, maybe.”

“Could it have been Russian?”

A frown, a grimace, a scratch of the head. "I don't know. I heard some Russian during the war. I’m not a language expert. Not like you, from what I remember.” He pondered. “I don’t know.  I wouldn't necessarily recognize Russian."

“But it could have been?”

“It could have been.”

"Fine. Now let's go back to San Francisco: the hotel. Wong's office. I suspect that you were so angry, Mark, and so emotionally burned out, that you missed the obvious. Wong probably moved from one hotel room to another within the California Pacific. He had a confederate there just in case he did acquire a surveillance team. He was never registered under his own name and he moved to his confederate's room as soon as you visited his. He was a small man too, correct?"

"Yes. That's right."

"So couldn't his confederate have removed him from the hotel in a trunk if necessary? A trunk with the proper air holes punched into it for breathing? This, of course, if he didn't just walk out by himself a week later."

"Maybe."

"Something similar happened at the warehouse, Mark. Wong left. He gave a signal to accomplices in San Francisco on the way home. They came into his office that night when there was no surveillance and moved everything of his to another office within the same building. From there, over the next few days, or maybe two weeks later, they moved all his records out, piece by piece."

"There's a problem," said O'Connell. "We watched Wong all the way to the hotel. How did he tip his accomplices? He wouldn't use the telephone for that, even in Chinese in his office."

"That's right," Buchanan said. "But what about the waiter in the Shanghai Inn? You said that Wong didn't eat much, and that he and the waiter talked a bit. So why was he at the Shanghai Inn? I checked a San Francisco map downstairs. That restaurant was way out of his way, and Wong wasn't hungry. Why not any chop suey joint on the way home? Why did he stop at this one?"

O'Connell's eyes were riveted upon Buchanan. "All right. Makes sense. Go on," he said.

"That takes us back to the model’s studio," Buchanan resumed. "You mentioned that he had a brief exchange with a man while you were talking to the bar girl."

O'Connell nodded.

"What did the man look like? No, don't tell me. Let me guess. Maybe in his very early fifties. Nicely dressed in a suit, perhaps. Very Anglo-Saxon features. Fair complexion. Sandy hair, though he probably wore a hat. Thin. Good-looking in a classically American way. Eyeglasses. Was that him, Mark?"

O'Connell replied, "Well, it was dark. But that fits what I saw."

"I’m guessing that was John Taylor Garrett," Buchanan said. "I would bet anything on it. And what you witnessed was a transaction. Something was handed from Garrett to Wong. Now, it's one thing for a banker to be carrying accounts of dirty or laundered money. But it's another to be exchanging parcels in a strip joint in a red light district. Right, Mark? It suggests more than a banker-client relationship, doesn't it? As, I might add, does the fact that you were gunned down by a Soviet male-and-female hit team precisely because of what you witnessed."

"But what did I see?"

"How else do all the pieces fit together?" Buchanan asked. "You witnessed a drop in a Soviet intelligence operation."

“Holy Moses. Are you kidding me?”

“No. That’s the picture that emerges. Again, I can’t prove it yet.”

O’Connell pondered it. "But I didn't know that at the time," he finally said.

"And they didn't wish to wait until you, or someone who could use you as a witness, would figure it out. So you became a target. You remain a target."

O'Connell turned it over relentlessly in his mind.

Buchanan glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to eight.

"No. It’s good but it doesn't work, Tom," O'Connell said.

"Why not?"

"How did they 'make' me, Tom? How did they know who I was? There was no surveillance on either of them, and they didn't pick me up as a Fed while I was at the bar."

"They didn't have to,” Buchanan said.  “Someone was covering for them in that studio. They were tipped off immediately. There’s only one answer to that.”

When the realization was upon him, O'Connell looked as if he would bolt from his hospital bed.

“Ah, no! Blake Warren?"

"I'm not suggesting Warren is a Soviet agent," Buchanan concluded, "but if Wong trades opium, he wouldn't go into an establishment for an important drop without someone watching for him. Who else in that studio would know all the cops, local and federal? It had to be Blake Warren. And it was also Warren who was watching you, stopped you, and tried to keep you from following."

"Some friend!" O'Connell snarled.

"In fairness, Warren did try to talk you off the case, remember? But he was protecting himself from both sides. He not only warned you, but he warned Sammy Wong as well."

For a full minute, O’Connell tried to sort it out.  Then...

“I still don’t get the Russian connection,” he said.

“I’m not sure I do, either,” Buchanan answered. “Not yet.”

“Then why are you working with it?”

“Because that’s who seems to be running pro-Soviet subversive operations here in the U.S. That, plus the notion that John Garrett may be involved with them. Plus, and this is between us, there’s an operation I know of in London which touched on a Garrett daughter and also involved the Soviet Union.”

O’Connell shook his head, not in disbelief but in amazement. He cursed long and low.

“That’s some crazy mixed-up stew, soldier.”

“We live in crazy mixed-up times, Major.”

“You may be too smart for your own health someday, Tom,” O’Connell warned.

There was a quick knock, and the door swung open. Buchanan had left it unbolted. Helen came in, accompanied by Nurse Patricia, who was working a double shift.

Buchanan turned to them.

“Could you give us maybe five more minutes, please?” Buchanan asked. The nurse and the wife looked at each other.

“Two minutes. Not one second more,” insisted Nurse Patricia.

“Thank you,” Buchanan said. When the door was closed again, he turned back to O’Connell. “I’ve listened very carefully to everything, Mark,” Buchanan said. “I’ve read several files and reports and I’ve asked questions all over Washington and Philadelphia. And yet something still eludes me.”

“What’s that?” O’Connell asked.

“I don’t get how this inquiry started,” Buchanan said. “What drew Hoover to the case?” O’Connell shrugged.

“Don’t know.”

“Come on, Mark. Send me out the door with something better than that. Give me a rumor if you can’t give me a fact. A theory. Another hunch to build on.”

O’Connell gave Buchanan a short nervous smile. Then a softening came over his face.

“Okay. But it’ll sound preposterous,” O’Connell said, making a distasteful face.

“Try me.”

“Hoover had this fixation,” he said. “Lenin’s ‘old mole.’ You know: that funny bit of Commie dogma about the revolutionary spy burrowing deep into capitalist society, only to emerge years later?”

“I know of it,” Buchanan said. “I didn’t know the Director to be a student of Marxist tactics.”

“He’s not. I think he read about moles once, then started banging a drum about it.”

“That would make more sense.”

“The feeling was that Hoover had Garrett pegged as one. He had this notion that there were Red spymasters and paymasters financing underground cells in America and Canada.” He paused. “I heard this through the grapevine. Pure hearsay. Sounds a bit haywire to me.”

“How so?”

“Garrett? Wealthy ‘old money’ family? Solid American Protestant upbringing. Onward Christian Soldiers and all that. Doesn’t smell like Trotsky to me, Tom. There’s no reason to think that.”

“Oh, there’s every reason if you examine it,” Buchanan said. “That’s the scary angle. Marx and Lenin both came from wealthy, professional families. And there aren’t too many deities much higher in the Red pantheon than Karl and Vladimir, are there?”

O’Connell smiled again and admitted that, no, there were not.

“The other thing about ‘moles,’ Mark,” Buchanan added. “It’s a long lonely tunnel all the way. So it takes a true believer, a devout individual.”

O’Connell shrugged. “You know more about that stuff than I do,” he answered. “And I still think the Director is barking up the wrong tree,” O’Connell added by way of conclusion. “But that’s just my opinion. No one listens to me.”

“You’re wrong, Mark.”

“About what?”

“I just spent several hours listening,” Buchanan said. “And I learned quite a bit.”

The door opened again. Nurse Patricia called the meeting over.

CHAPTER 39

It was ten-thirty PM Pacific Time when they emerged from the hospital; one-thirty in the morning back in Washington. Snow had fallen during the evening and the roads were slick. There was a motel down the block from the military base where the hospital was located.

“It’s too late to drive tonight,” Helen said. “We’ll need to take rooms.”

They registered separately, though the night clerk gave them a suspicious look.  Then they repaired to the diner attached to the motel for a late meal.  Half an hour later, his eyes red and heavy with fatigue, Thomas Buchanan sat across a wooden table from Helen, finishing a cup of bad coffee.

In Thomas's eyes, Helen looked tired in the harsh overhead light. Her face was lined. There were more gray streaks in her hair than he remembered. He looked out a window and stared across a parking lot. There were three cars and a pair of trucks sitting idly, their lights off.

“Have you decided where you’re going yet?” Helen asked. “What time’s your flight tomorrow?”

“I talked to Washington earlier today,” Buchanan said. “I’m going to San Francisco. That’s if the snow lets up.”

“San Francisco? What for?"  She set down her cup.

“I'm retracing Mark's steps," he said. “I want to see everything with my own eyes. There’s no substitute for what you see or feel firsthand.”

"Mark used to say that too," she said. "It's amazing. The two of you. Sometimes you think like brothers."

Buchanan smiled. And that's what Mark was thinking too: travel the same road, come to the same end, he concluded. That's why he warned me. Doesn't want me to get shot the same way he did.

"I always liked Mark," Buchanan said, not really addressing the point. "You know that? We hit it off real well together during the war. Instant buddies in Rome. We had the same style. Same thing in Chicago with the FBI. The same approach to a case."

His gaze shifted from the parking lot and settled into her eyes. Why, he wondered, was she looking at him this way? Helen had once been very pretty, but she had suffered too much along with her husband. Now her hazel eyes were drawn and sad. Her mouth was tinged with anxiety.

"Know something, Tom?" she asked. "It doesn't pay to be an FBI wife. You devote yourself to a good man, then Hoover's people run him out of the Bureau. Just when you think you're ready to enjoy a few of the pleasures in life, someone guns him down. If you're lucky enough not to be a widow, your life revolves around hospital wards."

Buchanan wanted to cheer her up. But because of the hour, because of his fatigue, he couldn't. Or maybe there wasn't anything to say. Maybe he shared the same skepticism but didn’t want to admit it.

"Why do you think he won't walk?" she asked.

"'Won't'?" he asked. "Or can't?"

"Won't," she said again. "I know that man pretty well. Something's in his head.”

"Like what?" Buchanan asked.

"For once, I couldn't even guess," Helen answered.

Buchanan considered this for several seconds. But in his increasing fatigue, he drew a blank.

"Maybe we're both tired," he said. "Imagining things."

He glanced at his watch. It was now midnight. “Getting late,” he said.

“Yeah,” Helen answered. “I should be sleepy but I’m not.”

Buchanan summoned the waitress. She wore a tag that said her name was Sylvia. She had red hair, wore a tight blue uniform, and was forty cheerful pounds overweight. She presented Buchanan with the bill for sandwiches and coffee. Thomas paid and placed a generous tip on the table.

"Thirteen years," Helen said, the thought apparently coming out of nowhere. "That's how long Mark and I have been married. That's not much time to spend with the right person, an eternity with the wrong one." She paused. "May I ask you a question?"

He knew what was coming. "Go ahead," he said.

"I can't believe you've never been married," she said.

"That's not a question," he answered.

"To me it is."

He smiled. "It almost happened once. The war interfered."

"You had a girl before Pearl Harbor?"

"The wedding date was already set. I suppose I should have moved faster," he said, suppressing a yawn. "I lost her when I was away in the Army."

"Oh. I'm sorry," said Helen.

He shrugged. "It's seven or eight years ago now. Seems like much longer." He wondered why she was asking.

"She was married when you came home in 1945?"

"I've heard conflicting stories. I don't know what ever happened to her."

"Ever tried to look her up?"

"Unsuccessfully," he said. “Didn’t really try that hard. What’s gone is gone in this world.”

"Not always."

“Well, that’s my experience. Oh, look, I heard some stories about my old flame. I didn’t want to believe them. Know what I mean? Sometimes it’s better to forget the past.”

“So true,” Helen said. She watched him for a few seconds. Then she looked away.

Then an impulse was upon Thomas. He pulled out the photograph he had stolen from Laura Garrett.

“As it happened, a friend found this old picture of her the other day,” he said.  “Take a look.”

He showed the photo of the two sisters. Helen examined it.

“I was engaged to the younger sister.  She’s the one on the left." He watched Helen intently as she looked.

"Oh, my! She’s very pretty," Helen said. "What's her name?"

"Ann," he said. He took the picture back.

"Just Ann?" she asked.

"Ann Who-knows-what these days," he said. "It barely matters. When I get back to Washington I have to remind myself to bury the picture in the bottom of a desk drawer. Then,” he said dismissively, “I can throw it away when I do find the right girl to marry."

"Good idea!" she said. “You wait for the girl who’s perfect.”

He laughed. “We’re all flawed, Helen, one way or another. Most of us are just lucky to be alive.”

She smiled. "Time to go, Tom," Helen said.

They stood and walked to the door. Thomas held the door for her and they stepped outside into the chilly winter night. He suppressed a shiver.  The snow was falling with big heavy flakes.

"Button your coat," she said. "It's cold."

Helen was someone's wife and someone's mother. She couldn't stop being either. But the advice was sound. He buttoned his trench coat and pulled his hat tight.

Behind him somewhere in the parking lot a truck turned over its engine with a clank and a growl that clashed with the cold and quiet of the evening. They walked several feet, maybe fifty. Buchanan led Helen to the door of her motel room.

"I'll see you at breakfast," she said. "I'll drive you to the airport."

"That would be nice," he said. "We should leave by eight-thirty."

She leaned to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“Tom?” she asked.

“What?”

“No one would ever know if we slept together. Just once.”

“Both of us would, Helen. That’s not ‘no one.’ And Mark’s my friend.”

She nodded.

“Of course,” she said. “Bad idea, I suppose. I’m sorry.”

“We’re both tired. Sleep well,” he said.

He watched her close the door. He heard the lock fall. Behind him the truck began to move. Then a whole canvas of deceit was upon him: Helen was in league with all of them. He had talked to her too much. She had set her husband up and set Buchanan up too. Now they would kill Thomas right there in that parking lot and they would finish Mark at the hospital.

He whirled. The truck was coming straight at him, its headlights in his eyes. Big flakes of snow impaired his vision. Exactly the same way Mark had gotten it, he thought. He looked to his left, then to the right. There was no cover at all. And Helen had bolted her door.

The truck's engine roared. Thomas reached beneath his jacket for his pistol. The truck moved toward him. The front of his coat was buttoned, just as Helen had advised, and his cuff caught between the buttons. He was as good as dead. He plunged his fist beneath the coat, ripped a button off and still couldn't get a palm on the pistol.

The truck swerved slightly on the slick asphalt. Its wheels cut away from him.

Thomas could see the driver from a space of about twenty feet. There was nowhere to dive, nowhere to hide. The truck window rolled down, the driver’s hand moved upward and made a motion in Buchanan’s direction.

Buchanan's palm reached the handle of his pistol, but the safety strap held the gun in the holster. The truck was just a few feet away. Thomas was riveted in place, frozen into his shoes and waiting to be shot down.

The driver of the truck flipped a cigarette out the window and gave Thomas a congenial wave of the hand, plus a smile. The truck turned, accelerated, and barreled toward the exit of the parking lot, its exhaust white against the cold mist, its big wheels kicking up a cloud of moisture, and its heavy diesel engine clanking.

And in Buchanan's throat his heart clanked, also.

He was grossly overtired, he told himself. His sense of reason was disintegrating into morbid, melancholy fantasy. No one was following him, no one had marked him for assassination, and Helen had been Mark O'Connell's devoted wife since 1937. He tried to convince himself that she hadn’t suggested a one-night affair, even though she had. Tonight was a mess.

He walked to his own door, unlocked it, and went in, ashamed of himself, his spirit in defeat.  He slept with the back of a chair lodged underneath the door handle and with his pistol loaded on the night table, an arm's length away. And for the foreseeable future he would dispense with the safety straps on his holster, he decided. Nor, until his nerves had stabilized, would he button his coat.

He slept fitfully, dreaming strangely.

Odd bloody images of combat in North Africa came back to him, like the time German machine gun fire had raked his Jeep and killed five of the eight occupants. Like the time a young soldier ten yards from him had stepped on a makeshift Italian landmine and lost both legs at the knees. And like the time in Rome when he had given in to temptation and visited a high-spirited Roman bordello two days after liberating the city and two, drunken, seventeen-year-old Roman girls had taken care of him sexually and then begged him to take them to America with him.

All this was interspersed and interlinked with a younger more innocent time when he was courting Ann Garrett and his dreams hadn’t been so badly compromised and his overall innocence was still intact.

The recent events of London rattled around his head too, as did images of Mark O’Connell and some nameless Russians who either did or didn’t shoot him down on a snowy highway. He recalled some of the Red Army officers he had met in Berlin and was convinced they would have shot their own mothers for half a bottle of vodka.
Better to leave the past alone, he had just advised Helen. But what if the past wouldn’t leave him alone? He had no answer to that and bolted upright twice during the night. Both times, he reached for his gun and had to remind himself with difficulty where he was.

Buchanan was glad when a gray dawn crept through the window. Ghosts were lurking everywhere and he knew daylight might help rout them. It usually did.

The next morning, the snow relented. A bright sun warmed the region.

Helen drove him to the airport. He caught a late morning flight to San Francisco.

Some days he felt he was fighting for his own sanity, and this was one of them.

CHAPTER 40

The Candid Camera Artist’s Model Studio was located in a gritty San Francisco neighborhood, not far from Treasure Island. It was on a street of tacky souvenir shops, a pair of untidy grocery stores, and a bookshop that sold print versions of what patrons could view live at Blake Warren's. There were also a couple of ominous-looking places that did some sort of import-export trade with the Orient, and a hotel that rented rooms by the hour. Passing the hotel, Buchanan saw an enormously fat woman with bright red lipstick sitting at the front desk, knitting.

She smiled to him. He nodded back.

The studio was locked when Buchanan tried the front door a few minutes before noon. The establishment had one window, but it was curtained. A hand-painted sign upon it simply said:

BAR/LIVE MODELS!

Buchanan stepped back from the front door and eyed the studio. There was no movement from within and no activity on the street. Recalling his conversation with Mark O'Connell, Buchanan looked in both directions. Somewhere there was an alley, he remembered, which led both to the studio's rear exit as well as to Blake Warren's domicile upstairs.

Buchanan saw an alley to the left and walked toward it. He did not plan to be gentle with Blake Warren this afternoon. Warren was a former actor and a consort of major criminals. Warren dealt with corrupt local police. Under the circumstances, questions posed by police officers, even federal agents, would be nothing new to him. The gentle, reasonable approach never worked with such men. If necessary, Buchanan told himself, he might have to be extremely rough with the King of the Robots. To a man trained to remain motionless in store windows or onstage for several hours, it would be easy work to remain silent or maintain a lie indefinitely.

Buchanan found the doorway in the alley. There was a pair of overflowing garbage cans near Warren's private entrance door. The alley smelled of urine. Buchanan stepped carefully around broken beer and liquor bottles. There were used condoms scattered. Presumably some of the "artist’s models" who worked at Blake Warren's were in the habit of saving travel time. They went into the alley and raised their skirts to take care of customers.

Such activities always provoked a Puritan streak in Buchanan, and each time he struggled to suppress it. In terms of human behavior and depravity, after the war this was mild. He had seen far worse in Rome, Paris and Berlin.

He stood in this alley from circumstances, he reminded himself, stemming from a bank investigation which had already branched into espionage and attempted murder. He was not about to bog down in moral judgments.

Buchanan stepped through an outer doorway and found himself in a locked vestibule. Now he faced two more doors, one of which opened only from the inside. There were three locks on one door and two on the other. Very likely there would be a chain or a bolt across each from the inside. The doorframes had been reinforced with steel strips. Obviously Blake Warren was not a man who liked unexpected visitors. Probably with good reason.

Through a crack in one door Buchanan could see steps leading upward. Buchanan reasoned that these led to Blake Warren's residence. It was the other door that had no knob to the outside. It made sense that this was the rear exit from the studio.

Beside the door to Warren's apartment was a single bell. Buchanan rang it. When there was no answer, Buchanan leaned heavily upon it. He was not about to accept a nonresponse from Blake Warren. Warren, wittingly or not, had been a party to the shooting of Mark O'Connell. Warren also operated an establishment within the gray area of the law. There were pressures that could be brought to bear on Warren if or when he proved uncooperative. But silence was the only response to the doorbell.

Buchanan stepped back into the alley. Above the studio was a single row of windows. Warren's living quarters, no doubt. One of the windows was open slightly. Not too far from it was a drainpipe. He estimated that the window was thirteen feet above the alley.

Buchanan’s crime scene instincts kicked in. Something seemed “off.” He thought it strange that a man who had three locks on steel-reinforced doors would leave a second-story window open. But there it was. He knew that people could be inconsistent. But at this juncture, the partially open window seemed as good as a written invitation. He had travelled this far; might as well have a look.

Buchanan walked back to the alley to check for pedestrians. There were none. He went back to the garbage cans, poured excess bottles off the top of each, and fastened the lids securely. He steadied the first can against the drainpipe and wedged it in place with a piece of lumber. He put the second can on top of the first and held it till it balanced evenly.

He pulled on a pair of gloves, both for better grip and to preclude fingerprints. Then he placed a foot firmly on the first can and braced himself against the drainpipe. He pulled himself upward onto the second garbage can. For one unsure instant the wobbly cans felt as if they would give way. Then the pipe broke free from one of its bolts. It rattled and trembled. For a full second Buchanan wildly waved one arm to steady himself.

But then the play from the pipe was gone. Buchanan was steady. Leaning against the bricks of the building to brace himself, Buchanan moved his hands upward. He could reach the windowsill. It was splintery and poised upon old bricks. For a moment it felt like either the wooden sill or the bricks beneath it would collapse.

Buchanan muscled himself up to the window. Peering in, he looked into what appeared to be a living area. He saw no one. Maybe, he decided, he would enter and wait for Warren. In the meantime he would have the benefit of a look around.

He pulled himself forward and drove an elbow between the edge of the window and its frame. He pushed the window upward, and with a final effort he pulled himself into Warren's residence. Intentionally he pushed off on the garbage cans and forced them to topple behind him.

He came to his feet in a hurry, listening to the crashing garbage cans. He stood still and drew his pistol. He kept his gloves on. There was no sound within the apartment. Without taking his eyes away from the room in front of him, he reached back to the window. He lowered it to the position in which he had found it.

If Warren returned, the garbage would appear as if dogs had knocked them over and the window would appear as he had left it. Warren was undoubtedly too clever to miss the implications of two cans standing on each other beneath his window.

Buchanan stood in Blake Warren's living room, listening to the pounding of his own heart. It was an ordinary living area, with a worn green sofa bracketed by two end tables, each with a pink lamp. There was a pair of stuffed chairs around a fireplace. There was a coffee table, a desk in a corner, and a pair of standing lamps. It looked like a modest hotel room. There were no books or personal items. On the coffee table was a small set of black and white photographs: some of Blake’s models nude. Well, no surprise there.

From where he stood, Thomas Buchanan could see two doorways. One was to a kitchen. He could see the entire space. There was no one there. The other door led to a bedroom.

Buchanan stood still for a full minute. His pistol was pointed in the direction of the bedroom. He had the terrible sense of another human presence somewhere in the apartment. But where? He could feel his hands sweat and his neck sweat. His legs felt weak. It was the same feeling he remembered from the war, just before combat. Just as he thought the truck driver was going to try to kill him in Oregon the previous evening, he now had the sense that someone was going to come out shooting. Instincts again.

“Come on, come on,” he told himself. “Calm, stay calm.” It was a mantra from the war. It came back too readily.

He walked slowly toward the bedroom. Then he stopped. "Blake?" he said. "I'm a friend. We need to talk. Are you there?”

Again silence. Still holding the gun, Buchanan checked a closet in the entrance hall. He checked the steps leading down to the doorway. He could see the stairwell. No one was there. Then his eyes settled on something else. He felt a chilly tremor take over his body.

The door downstairs was bolted from the inside.

He whirled, half expecting to see a figure moving toward him. But again there was nothing. But how could a door be bolted from within? Someone had to be there somewhere, unless the last person to enter had left via the window. There was no good answer to why someone would have done that.

Again he stood so quietly that he could hear himself breathe. Then he began to move toward the bedroom. He took one step, then another. He moved at an angle, holding his pistol aloft in case he needed to shoot.

"Blake?" he said again.

No answer. He reached the door.

He looked into the bedroom and scanned at eye level. There was no one there. It was an ordinary bedroom. There was a double bed and a dresser, a pair of lamps, side tables, and a large easy chair with big, thick arms. Above the bed was a framed reproduction of September Morn. It was a curious bit of decoration for a man in Warren's line of work: tasteful nudity upstairs, tawdry nakedness downstairs. But as Huey Long had said, every man a king.

Buchanan moved through the center of the room, past Warren's bed, and went to the room's single closet. He lunged at it and threw open the door. Again nothing. Only clothes, mostly men's, but, curiously, a few women's. He glanced to the bathroom. No one there either. The conclusion was overwhelming that he was alone. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling of a presence somewhere.

Slowly he pushed back his jacket and eased his pistol into its holster. He calmed. His breathing slackened. He moved from the bedroom. Then he began to see things that he had missed the first time.

In the living room there was a desk. None of the drawers were neatly closed. Buchanan walked to the desk and looked at it. The top of it was clear. In some drawers there was writing equipment: pencils, blank pads, envelopes, and tape. But several drawers were empty. So was the wastebasket. The contents both, he concluded, had recently been removed.

Why?

Buchanan turned. His gaze traveled around the room and settled upon the fireplace. Next to the hearth there was a basket with logs. But the fireplace itself overflowed with ashes; the particular feathery sort of ashes left by papers. Very recently, he guessed, someone had burned or removed every bit of Warren's correspondence.

Had it been Warren himself? Or someone more ominous? Again Buchanan sensed a presence.

Thomas began to calculate. Burning papers was a long job. It could take hours. He held his hand to the fireplace, and the ashes were cold. He stepped back. Then he saw he had left a partial footprint on the lightly colored floorboards before the marble of the fireplace.

He stared down at it. With sudden shock he realized what he was looking at. A bloodstain! And he had freshly tracked it there himself. Somewhere in that apartment he had stepped in blood.

When he turned he could see very faintly on the dark green carpet a set of partial footprints made by his shoe. He returned to the bedroom door and studied the carpet. He observed something he had foolishly missed the first time. The carpet was a dark maroon imitation Persian, with a navy, black, green, and gold pattern woven in. It was, conveniently, not the type of design that would reveal a bloodstain unless a man was looking for it.

But now that Buchanan looked carefully, the fresh stains were unmistakable, right in the center of the room. He had missed them the first time because his gaze, in more ways than one, had not been low enough.

He walked to the stains.

“Okay,” he said to himself. “What happened here?”

His Bureau training kicked in. The series of clues spoke to him and coalesced into a story. Someone, Blake Warren, he guessed, had been shot in the center of the room.
He had been shot and had fallen. There was a large stain, perhaps from where a bullet had hit a man in the chest. With the heart still pumping, much blood had flowed. Someone had made an attempt to clean up some of it.

There was a second stain, a large, thick one, bounded by a smaller one, one which stemmed from an explosion of bone and red mist. To Buchanan there was little question surrounding this too. After the victim had fallen, the killer had pumped another shot into his skull, blowing his brains out and killing him, or her, instantly.

Then, most ominous of all, both stains gave an indication that something heavy had been dragged through them. The body of the victim, Buchanan presumed, since a man shot in the chest and head didn't rise up and trot away.

Buchanan looked in the direction where the body might have been dragged. His eyes settled on a large wardrobe trunk, the type used in a previous age by touring actors and vaudevillians such as Blake Warren. The trunk was against the room's far wall.

Buchanan muttered a low profanity to himself. He knew what he was going to find.

He walked to the wardrobe trunk. There was a linen mat on the top of it. Buchanan removed it. He tried to lift the top but found it locked. A foul smell assaulted his nostrils and he knew - from his days in various pathology labs, from all the heinous crap that life had thrown in his path, from all the carnage in the war - what was near.

He reassured himself again that he was alone. Then he removed the bullets from his Colt. With two powerful blows from the butt end of the gun, he smashed the latching mechanism on the trunk.

He then drew a breath and lifted the lid.

The foul squalid stench of death blasted him in the face.

It gagged him.

Against his will, against all his years as a soldier and as an agent of the law, he grimaced and let out a gasp of horror. From Mark O'Connell's description, Buchanan recognized the body in the trunk as that of Blake Warren. But today the King of the Robots was motionless in a way he had never been while living. And there was no mistaking this for a performance.

What remained of Blake Warren’s head was leaning heavily against his shoulder. His legs were folded up against his chest. As Buchanan covered his mouth with a handkerchief and fought back a retch, he could see that his assessment of the bloodstains on the rug had been frightfully accurate. And, in a macabre sort of way, so had his sense of another presence in the apartment.

Buchanan gathered his concentration. He would have one chance to assess first-hand what had happened here. “Focus. Focus,” he told himself. “What do you see? What happened?”

An initial shot had pierced Warren's chest, he concluded. The wound had been grave, but probably not mortal by itself. But then there had been a second shot. This one had been an executioner's coup de grace. It had entered the crown of the victim's head, presumably from close range, and had traveled downward. The bullet, Buchanan saw, was probably still in Warren's stomach. There was a huge reddish-brown blotch of dried blood beneath Warren's right arm.

Warren's head had been smashed in from the top by the bullet fired at close range. The hair and the left eye were drowned and caked in blood. The right eye had a star fracture in the lens. Yet, in a final ironic touch, Warren was wearing the formal suit that he wore for operating his club. Probably no man had ever been better attired for a date with death.

Buchanan stepped back from the wardrobe trunk. He closed the lid. He walked into the next room and, using gloves, helped himself to a tumbler of Johnny Walker from Warren's kitchen cabinet. Then he sat down in the living room and thought.

He scanned the overall scene again.

“What happened here?” he asked himself again.

What was the big picture?

Whoever had killed Warren had been someone the victim had known: no break-in, no struggle. It had been someone Warren had trusted to even enter his bedroom. Someone like of one his girls? No, maybe someone like John Garrett. Or Sammy Wong. Or even the two of them. For several minutes he thought of them. Trying to picture the genteel Pennsylvania banker as a gunman was difficult, though less difficult than it used to be. Seeing Sammy Wong as an assassin was easier to Buchanan, based only on what Mark O'Connell had told him.

The mystery of the bolted door and the open window was, to his mind, solved. Whoever had done it, however, had intended to buy several days before the body was discovered. Hence the door had been left bolted from within. The killer had left via the window, pulling it shut and letting himself down the drainpipe or some makeshift ladder. Most likely, Buchanan ruminated, this was done in darkness. The fact that Warren had been murdered in his tuxedo also gave credence to the suggestion of a late night murder. Maybe even late the previous night. The blood looked fresh.

Buchanan stood again and went to the window. There were no streetlamps in or near the alley. All the more reason to believe it was done in darkness, probably an hour or two after Warren's girly-girly studio had closed. Buchanan looked for other exits from the apartment, but there were none. Every other window was locked. He even examined closets for false passages and found none. The killer had left this way, the reverse of the way Buchanan had entered. It was the only route possible.

But there were other answers that Buchanan needed. He walked back to the wardrobe and opened it again. Grimacing, he pulled the body of the dead man slightly upward. The bullet hole beneath the front right arm was matched by a larger exit wound in the topmost portion of Warren's back. Again the wound was serious, though it probably wouldn't have been fatal. Yet it had been more than sufficient to drop him. Most likely Warren had been standing in the center of the room and had been turning when the gunman fired.

Buchanan re-examined the angle of the wound. From the location on the rib cage, Buchanan could see that Warren's arm had been upraised when the bullet had been discharged.

Warren had known at the last minute that his visitor was going to shoot him. He had raised his hand at the final second in an effort to survive.

Buchanan closed the trunk. He pictured the upward flight of the bullet. The killer had seated himself in the armchair in the corner of Warren's bedroom. And he – or maybe she - had fired from about five feet away.

Buchanan looked at the chair. Then he looked at the wall behind him. If the bullet left an exit wound, it had to have continued and hit something. Simple physics. Buchanan searched for the spent bullet. With effort, he found it. The killer had repositioned the print of September Morn to conceal the hole.

Buchanan removed the print and borrowed a knife from Warren's kitchen. He dug the slug out of the wall. There was bone and flesh clinging to the bullet, as well as plaster and threads of Warren's suit jacket. Buchanan wrapped the bullet in a handkerchief and saved it.

Buchanan walked back to the center of the small room. From there it was easy to discern the trajectory of the first shot. It had come from six to eight inches in front of the left armrest of the chair, and an equal distance above and to the right of that same armrest. This told Buchanan something critical. The killer was left-handed as well as a good shot. A right-handed killer would have put a hole in the wall fifteen feet in the other direction.

There was one other detail Buchanan wished to take from the death scene. He walked to the trunk a final time. He felt the blood to see if it was tacky. He pressed his hand to Warren's chest to feel for warmth. There was none. He touched Warren's shoes. There was a give to the dead man's ankles. The feet were always the last to stiffen. He estimated that Warren had been dead for twelve hours. Buchanan’s initial guess was supported by what he found: the murder had happened the previous evening, probably just after Buchanan had bedded down in an Oregon motel.

The situation above the Candid Camera Artist’s Model Studio now read like an open book. Warren had had a rendezvous with a killer or killers the previous evening after the studio closed. They went upstairs together. It had been someone Warren knew well and trusted, as he allowed his killer to follow him into the bedroom and sit down in a chair. At some subsequent moment the visitor drew a pistol. Warren realized what was happening, turned, and raised an arm to protect himself. But the executioner fired. Warren fell. Then the killer stepped forward and finished him off with a bullet through the crown of the head.

Thereupon, the papers in Warren's desk were ransacked and burned. All books, particularly those pertaining to the business downstairs, were removed. More than likely the killer wished to remove any written record of contact with Blake Warren.

The killer managed to lift the dead man and put him into the trunk. To Buchanan's way of thinking, that might rule out a small Asian man Sammy Wong, unless he had help. But it did not eliminate John Garrett. Nor did it point against a male-female hit team, such as the one that had attempted to kill Mark O'Connell. But Buchanan, his forensic skills now in overdrive, sensed that there had been one killer there alone. Otherwise the body would have been carried to the trunk, not dragged.

It was possible that Warren had been murdered for reasons having nothing to do with Commonwealth Penn and the ensuing investigation. But Buchanan quickly dismissed them. One of Warren's "models" could have done it, he theorized again. But this didn't seem like a woman's sort of crime. Similarly members of the underworld, wanting a piece of Warren's business, could have killed him. But Warren would never have admitted an underworld assassin to his bedroom. Nor would a professional killer have gone there. An underworld gunman would have nailed Warren in the alley, a single shot to the back of the head. Like most murder victims in post-war America, Warren knew his killer well. What Buchanan wondered was whether he knew him, too.

One more thing was certain.

Buchanan was no more than a day behind the killer’s trail. The realization brought a shiver of fear to him, much like the ones he remembered from the war, much like the huge one he remembered from Italy when his Jeep was on the outskirts of Rome and the German attack from ambush nearly killed him.

He made a further mental note to himself, a reminder, really: be alert for another ambush. If Buchanan was close to the killer, the killer was also close to him.

CHAPTER 41

Buchanan spent another half hour prowling through Warren's apartment. His initial assessment of the situation seemed correct. Every piece of paper or correspondence had been removed from Warren's residence or fed into the fire.

He found a set of keys to Warren's door. He walked down the front stairs and went through the door. He closed it and pushed a wood splinter taken from the windowsill into the tiny aperture between the top of the door and the frame. If the splinter was not exactly as he left it when he returned, he would know that someone else had been through the door.

He left the building, passed through the alley, and walked down the street. From a public telephone at the end of the block he reached a long distance operator. Thereupon, he called Shannon, Oregon. His call was transferred by a Shannon operator to the military hospital. Then it was kicked through to the room of the patient known as Braverman.

Buchanan told Mark O'Connell what he had found. O'Connell expressed no surprise. Both men agreed that the death of Warren enhanced Buchanan's interpretation of recent events.

Buchanan spoke to O'Connell for several minutes. He asked for contacts of trustworthy local police in San Francisco, but O'Connell had none. O'Connell instead suggested contacting Meadley and Herter, his two FBI associates out of the San Francisco field office. Buchanan said he would. Someone would have to do a reliable follow-up, complete with proper fingerprinting of the apartment and official autopsy. Nothing could be left to error; sloppiness was unacceptable.

"And by the way," Buchanan asked in conclusion, "it might be a small point, but I just want to double check something you told me. Can you recall when you were watching Wong through the telescope? Can you picture him the way you saw him?"

O'Connell said he could.

"Good. What hand did he write with?"

"The right hand," O'Connell said. "Why?"

"Just a small point," Buchanan said. "I'll let you know. You walking around yet?"

"Don't feel up to it," O'Connell said.

"Better get up soon," Buchanan teased. "You got a damned fine woman there. Not everyone does. Someone might run off with her."

O'Connell laughed and appreciated the remark. "She’s not going anywhere right now, soldier,” he said. "She’s right here. And she also wants to say something."

Helen had been there all the time, waiting for her moment. Buchanan heard her voice come on the line. He had left her only five hours earlier when she had dropped him at the airport. He feared a problem.

"Hello, Tom," she said. "You being careful?"

"I'm trying to,” he said.

He stood in the booth watching the access to the alley adjacent to the Artist’s Model Studio. No one came. No one left. No nothing.

"You're a sly character, Special Agent Buchanan,” Helen said to him with mock indignation. “Either that or I wonder what kind of detective you are, missing something big and obvious.”

“What did I miss, Helen?” he asked.

"Do you get any of the Los Angeles newspapers?"

"Not usually. Why would I?"

“Been to any movies lately?”

“I rarely have time.”

"Go take a look at page twenty-four of today's Los Angeles Times. As if you don't know, Tom."

"I don't know," he answered.

"Then you should! And so should I. You know how I am about movies. And you know how I am about actors and actresses. You coy man, you. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what, Helen?"

"Page twenty-four, Tom. Bye!" She giggled. "I know your secret."

Buchanan was losing patience. Then Mark was back on the phone. He reassured Buchanan that Herter and Meadley were diligent and professional. They also had good contacts within the SFPD.  O'Connell gave him the two agents' home telephone numbers. Then he was off the line.

For a moment Buchanan stared across the street at Blake Warren's nightspot. Then, from the same phone booth, he called Herter and Meadley and summoned them. As he waited, he remained on the street for a few minutes. He stood in the sharp wind on an overcast San Francisco day and looked down the block. He saw a red wooden newspaper kiosk, staffed by a single old Japanese man.

Buchanan walked to the kiosk and purchased a Los Angeles Times. He folded it under his arm for later and walked back toward the dead man's apartment. It was still early in the afternoon and the studio was an evening enterprise. There was no activity at the door that led up to Warren's apartment.

The splinter was still in place. Good, he thought. No visitors.

Warren's death, Buchanan decided, fit into his current distillation of events. Warren had worked with Wong. But he had also witnessed something he shouldn't have, same as Mark O'Connell. Whoever employed Warren - Wong or maybe even John Garrett - knew the most rudimentary aspects of Warren's character. That was, he was a man who always had his price. And as a man with a price, he was not to be trusted: somewhere there could always be a higher bidder. So whatever Blake Warren knew, whatever he had seen, it was so explosive that his silence had to be assured.

A bullet to the temple purchases silence at economy rates.

Added to this was a conclusion that Buchanan had reached in London. The opposition, Garrett at least, knew that investigators were moving in their direction. So precautions were being taken. Buchanan had seen things like this in Berlin after the war. Somewhere someone was protecting one hell of a big secret.

Buchanan went downstairs. He used Warren's keys to enter the Artist’s Model Studio. He walked through the place, which seemed grim, tacky and ordinary in the glare of daylight and bare sixty-watt bulbs. Wearing gloves, he searched again for business records, paperwork, or even a safe. He found none. He found several hundred dollars in a strongbox bolted to the underside of Warren's desk in the rear room, however. Any robber could have taken it, pushing Buchanan further in the direction of his own theories of Warren's demise. In the back of a desk drawer, Buchanan found a fake panel and behind the panel was a German luger. It was loaded. He found another gun, this one a Browning pistol, in a compartment behind the bar. Warren had been a man with enemies.

Eventually Buchanan sat down at the bar. The telephone rang once. It was one of Blake's girls. She wanted to know if she would be needed that night. Buchanan told her Mr. Warren was ailing and the establishment might not open.

There was a silence and then the girl said, “What? Again?”

Then she hung up.

Buchanan opened the newspaper. He had forgotten what page Helen had mentioned. So he started in the sports section, glancing once or twice at his watch, wondering what was keeping Meadley and Herter. Time passed. He scanned the movie page, which also carried the radio listings. He read stories that bored him. He looked to see what was playing at the local grind houses. His eyes wandered down the page, then settled upon a publicity photograph of a film in production.

He froze. For Thomas this was a moment made up of many emotions.

The film in production was titled, Hold the Phone! It was directed by Jesse Chadwick, a New York-born director with a modest track record. It starred fulsome old Damon Forbes and a newcomer named Lisa Pennington. Buchanan stared at their pictures until his face was hot and flush and his hands soaked with sweat.

He read the story beneath the photographs. Mostly it was the claptrap credited to an RKO publicist named Esther Greed, rewritten by a Times staffer. Buchanan read how Jesse Chadwick had studied filmmaking in Europe and was going to emerge as one of Hollywood's hottest directors in the optimistic postwar years, this miracle to occur under the tutelage of that great humanitarian, patriot and producer, Joe Preston.

Buchanan read how starlet Lisa Pennington had grown up in Wallingford, Connecticut, had changed her name from Doris Oelsner, and had a mother named Mrs. Mary Ellison who taught school back in Michigan. And he read how Damon Forbes was entering his third decade of stardom.

Buchanan read all of this. He stared at the photographs and he wondered how people could print such things, much less believe them. Well, Hollywood was a dream factory, after all.

"Incredible,” he said aloud.

But he knew he had moved a crucial step closer to John Taylor Garrett.

There was a sharp knocking on the front door of the Warren’s studio. The sound jolted Buchanan for a moment. He turned and walked to the door. He admitted Herter and Meadley. He identified himself as FBI out of Washington, D.C., following up an investigation that touched upon the shooting of Mark O'Connell, their friend and one-time associate. Buchanan next led the two agents around the corner and upstairs to the trunk that contained the remains of Blake Warren. Methodically, Buchanan recapped everything.
"I'm working personally for Mr. Hoover," Buchanan said. "If anyone in your field office gives you a problem, refer them to the Director's office in Washington. Assistant Director Frank Lerrick will make the necessary impressive noises and will expedite anything for you."

They got the message. Loud and clear.

"Mark O'Connell was one of my closest friends in the Bureau," Buchanan continued. "He told me everything. Wong. Morning Glory. The hotel. The stakeout."

Buchanan described how he came to the studio that day and how he had found the corpse. He placed the San Francisco part of the case into their hands. Herter and Meadley barely blinked. They were a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of a tandem.

"I'd strongly suggest keeping the studio closed tonight," Buchanan said. "But when the girls arrive for work, have them questioned. See who was here last night. See who was hanging around late. We want to know who accompanied Blake Warren upstairs. And I think a complete toss of the place would be in order. I'd suggest that the Bureau do it before the local police. A safety consideration, I'd say."

They agreed.

"I want a complete workup of the murder room," he said. "I want fingerprints and I want the weapon identified. Two shots were fired. I have one bullet. The other's in the dead man's stomach. I also want an estimate of the time of death."

Herter and Meadley were amenable.

Buchanan walked to the street, feeling his pulse quicken as he walked. He took a taxi to the airport and bought a ticket for the next flight to Los Angeles. Nervously he waited forty-five minutes, took a drink in the airport bar, and then another. He hit an impasse. Afternoon fog had rolled in. All flights were cancelled out of the city by the bay.  Buchanan went to a hotel and spent the evening in the bar. They had a television.

The next morning he boarded a southbound Western Airlines flight via San Jose.   The flight took off at one-fifteen in the afternoon. His nerves were shot, but he finally had a good idea where he was going.

CHAPTER 42

Buchanan knew that a day's filming might wrap as early as three or four in the afternoon, depending on the behavior and sobriety of all involved. Or, if the producers were trying to beat a schedule, photography would go well into the evening. He arrived in Los Angeles at four-thirty.

He arranged for an FBI car to be at the airport for his use. He found it and drove to the RKO studios at Twentieth and Broadway in Santa Monica. He held aloft his FBI credentials at the front gate.

J. Edgar Hoover had more than one friend as a studio mogul. It didn't hurt either, that Howard Hughes, who was then the principal owner of RKO, shared J. Edgar Hoover’s distaste for Reds in the film business.

A few months earlier, the fallout from the Hollywood Ten inquiry had been a factor in the decision by Floyd Odlum, then the primary owner of RKO Pictures, to get out of the movie business before flag-waving lynch mobs came after him. As a result, the studio had passed into the hands of Howard Hughes. Within weeks of taking over in May 1948, Hughes fired most of RKO's employees and shut the studio down for six months as he had the political sympathies of everyone investigated, aside from himself.

Jesse Chadwick had passed scrutiny and was on his way up in Hughes’ studio. Similarly, FBI men had free rein to show up and prowl, keeping the talent nervous and on their toes. At the same time, several of the RKO executives often slipped J. Edgar Hoover sexual information about RKO’s most famous actors and actresses for J. Edgar's private bedtime reading. They also used their underworld contacts to give the Director information on purportedly rigged horse races at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park. It was a cozy arrangement for everyone who was god-fearing and on the inside. It was hell for everyone else.

"Is Hold the Phone! still shooting today?" Buchanan asked the security guard at the gate.

"As far as I know, sir."

"Can you tell me where?"

The guard consulted a clipboard and gave Buchanan a back-lot location.

Buchanan entered the studio with the guard’s blessing. He drove to the designated lot, his heartbeat quickening.

About a hundred yards from the location, a production assistant stopped him and said the set was closed. Buchanan flashed his FBI shield and everything changed. The production assistant indicated where he should park his car. Buchanan politely put the vehicle where the man had designated. Then Buchanan was asked again his business on the set.

"Seeing a friend," he said. "Where's Hold the Phone! shooting?"

The assistant indicated an outdoor set about two hundred feet down a brick path. The set purported to be the backyard of an American home. From the angle from which Buchanan viewed it, however, the house was a shell.

When he arrived on the set, no one took notice of him. There were several dozen people present, most of them milling around, attending to microphones, props, electrical cables, the camera, the script, or a table of food and drink. The crew, to the extent that they appeared to be doing anything, looked to be setting up the next scene.

Buchanan recognized Damon Forbes, sitting in a director's chair, his hand lecherously poised on the knee of a compliant teenage girl next to him. He recognized Jesse Chadwick, also. Chadwick was a man in motion, obscenely chewing out a pair of prop men for their tardiness in preparing a scene.

Sitting to one side, on a canvas director's chair, was the actress known as Lisa Pennington. Buchanan’s gaze landed on her and stopped. To Buchanan's incredulous eye, she looked tired, drawn, and tense, as if she were greatly preoccupied with some event distant from the film. She wore dark glasses over her eyes and a royal blue scarf around her hair, presumably to keep it fresh for the cameras.

Buchanan also noted that she looked bored and angry at the proceedings. He wondered if she was always like that but was able to loosen up when a camera was on her. He had no way of knowing.

He studied her for several seconds. She seemed like an outcast on the set. No one sat near her. One arm was folded across her lap, her head rested on the other as her elbow was on the arm of her chair. The FBI agent wondered what was wrong with the actress. Many old emotions cascaded back upon him.

There were two chairs empty on each side of her. Jesse Chadwick's chair was next to the camera. So, attracting as little attention to himself as possible, Buchanan walked through the technicians and prop men and moved in the direction of the actress.

He settled into the chair next to her. She refused to turn toward him. He faced her. Her profile was very pretty, even with the scarf and the glasses and even with her absent, angry expression. He wondered what Hollywood had done to her. He felt tongue-tied and scared.

Doris Oelsner. What a name!

Wallingford, Connecticut. What a lie.

A mother named Mrs. Mary Ellison teaching school in Michigan. What a farce!

He looked at her for several seconds, remarking how the years had changed her. Then he realized that she knew someone was next to her. Staring straight ahead was her way of avoiding small talk.

For the first time since he had entered the Commonwealth Penn case, his composure disintegrated. Words threatened to fail him. This was a moment he had speculated on for years. And now it was in front of him.

He had to remind himself that he was a professional with a job to do. He was there on work, no matter what other feelings he might have. But then the words just came out, unplanned and unrehearsed, simple and succinct.

"Hello, Ann," he said. “How’s life?”

Slowly Ann Garrett turned toward him. Buchanan saw an expression of total shock come across her face. For several seconds she stared in growing disbelief. He saw her mood, whatever it was—anger, boredom, he didn't know—give way to something else: total incredulity. She lifted her sunglasses as if she were trying to dispel a hallucination. Then she removed them.

“Tom?” she asked.

“One and the same,” he said. “Lot of years gone by, huh? I hope you don’t mind my coming by and saying hello.”

Their eyes met. Uncovered, her eyes went wide as saucers. "I do not believe this," she said. "Not today of all days."

"Please believe it, Miss 'Pennington,'" he said with sweet irony. “Hope you don’t mind a rejected old suitor dropping in unannounced.”

Buchanan grinned nervously and offered his hand to her.

"My God!" she said.

"No hard feelings, I hope. Not after all these years."

She stared and stared, just as he had stared at her photograph in the Los Angeles Times a few hours earlier.

"No. None, Tom," she said softly. Her expression was flat. "None at all. Oh, my God!” she repeated. “I do not believe this. Oh, Tom, this is wonderful. You don’t know how happy I am to see you!”

Jesse Chadwick appeared suddenly. He was in his usual mood.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked Buchanan, who was always angered by a belligerent approach.

Thomas eased back in his chair. "My name is Thomas Buchanan," he said. “Old friend of Miss Pennington.” Then, adding an insult too subtle for Chadwick, he added, "Who are you?"

"How the fuck you get on the set?”

"He's an old friend. I invited him, Jesse," Ann Garrett snapped.

"I want him out of here."

"You invite your friends, Jesse, God damn it! I invite mine."

"He goes. I’m calling the guards."

It was just the confrontation that Ann Garrett wanted. "He goes, I go," she said. "And see if you finish your film on time, Jesse."

She stood. Heads on the set began to turn. The background talk lessened, turned to a murmur, and then ceased.

Chadwick cursed at his wife and grabbed her by her shoulder. He was about to slam her back down into her chair. But in one swift, instinctively protective motion, Buchanan sprung upward.  He caught Chadwick with two flat palms against the chest. He hit Chadwick so hard that he lifted the director off his feet and sent him reeling backward several yards until he lost balance and sprawled clumsily onto his back.

"Sorry," Buchanan said. "I'll leave when I want to."

The crew gawked at what happened. Ann sat down again. Buchanan sat next to her. Mortified, Chadwick climbed to his feet. Behind his back, much of the crew was grinning or looking away to conceal smiles.

Joe Preston hulked over from somewhere nearby. "What the fucking hell's going on?" Preston ranted.

"We got a troublemaker on the set, Joe," Chadwick snarled. “Call security. Call the police.”

“Leave him alone,” Ann said.

Chadwick talked past her, directly to Buchanan. “Know what’s gonna happen to you, pal? Couple of busted kneecaps. How’s that? I got some friends around LA that make a career out of breaking heads. Normally they do it for pay. For me they would do it for fun. How does six months in the hospital sound to you?”

"That sounds pretty good, buddy," Buchanan answered. “How would you like to be arrested?”

Buchanan dropped his hand into his jacket pocket, flicked it back out with his FBI badge and ID, showing his gun at the same time.

“Tell me about your threat, shitbird. I got all day to listen.”

Chadwick froze when he saw the FBI shield. He stared at Buchanan without comprehension. He was burning and let go with a strong barrage of obscenities.

Chadwick's assistant director appeared and informed him the set was ready. Preston, the producer, angrily looked at all the parties involved and reduced it all to finances.

"Sort out your personal life later, Jesse," Joe Preston snarled. "I want this film finished on schedule. That’s all that matters.”

Preston stalked away.

Furiously Chadwick ordered his assistant director to ready the crew for the next take. Then he looked back to Buchanan. "You and I aren't finished," he said.

"That's up to you," Buchanan answered.

Chadwick glared at him, turned, and walked away.

Buchanan waited till he was out of earshot. "Sorry," he said to Ann. "I just came by to say hello. To see if you'd talk to me for a few minutes. I wanted to catch up on old times a bit. May we?”

“That would be good,” she said. Buchanan settled down into a chair.

"Sorry if I caused you some trouble," he said. "Do you have to work with that belligerent ape every day?”

“It’s worse than that, Tom,” she said. “He’s my husband.”

"Your husband?"

She nodded.

"Wow,” Buchanan said. “Sorry, Ann. I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well…” she said.

Ann's attention disappeared for a moment. It went somewhere and then came back. She pulled her scarf off. “That’s life, huh? Sometimes you get dealt a bad hand,” she said

A dresser came to her and ran a brush through her hair. When the dresser was gone, she turned back to her visitor.

"Do you know how long it's been," she asked, "since anyone has called me ‘Ann’?" She looked him squarely eye to eye. "I liked the way that sounded, Tom. I liked it a lot. Know what? You just changed my life. I really think you did."

She smiled.

"I have two more scenes today. We'll be here till six o'clock. Stay here and watch. We can go somewhere this evening." Then, after a moment, Ann added, “I know just the place.”

“What about your husband?” Buchanan asked.

“Screw him!” she said. “It’s Hollywood.”

CHAPTER 43

The attic was long, low, and stuffy. The single window looked toward Hollywood. The wallpaper was at least twenty years old. It was flecked, discolored pink, and disgusting. There was a single light overhead, but the instructions were to never turn it on, day or night. Alexandr Filiatov sat a few feet back from the window, reclining in a wooden straight-back chair, occasionally glancing through his binoculars at the rear of a house a quarter mile away.

Inside the Soviet safe house in North Hollywood, the state of restlessness was constant. Filiatov and his wife, Marina, traveling through the western United States, had hit what they thought was their final stop.

After shooting the Oregon policeman, they had burned the passports that gave their name as Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Abelow. They, as well as Colonel Volkov, were convinced that their backs were clean and that no one was on their trail. The colonel had personally provided them with new American passports following the receipt of their new assignment at St. Peter's Church in New York.

Now Filiatov and Sejna were Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Massounian. Their cover story was the same, as they had not yet needed to use it. Their instructions were continuing, and whatever they were involved in, they both knew it was important.

Volkov had twice made a rendezvous with them in California. This persistent member of the American secret police had made a pest of himself in both London and San Francisco, Volkov had complained. He was to be silenced before he compromised a critical Soviet network.

Through binoculars, at two-hour shifts, they watched the rear of another Soviet safe house where Volkov was temporarily staying. The colonel would give the signal. There were three yellow shades on the top floor of the distant house. If all three were to be pulled down, Filiatov and Sejna were to proceed against their target at the first possible moment. They were to shoot the FBI agent named Buchanan, then leave Los Angeles and drive on the highway leading south.

They were to use the Massounian passports, cross the border at Tijuana, and rendezvous at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. From there they would pass from Volkov's command to the GRU station chief in the Mexican capital. They would be transported to the Atlantic coast. A Soviet steamer would start them immediately back to Moscow and a heroic reception at Dzerzhinski Square.

Filiatov smoked endless cigarettes. The attic smelled like an ashtray. Filiatov lit one cigarette from another, snuffed the butt out on the side of his chair, and raised the glasses to his eyes again.

Downstairs Marina sat alone, combating her own form of boredom. She listened to a radio that was playing an American singer named Perry Como. Idly she wondered if she could smuggle a Perry Como record back to Moscow.

Filiatov knew where his target was. Thomas Buchanan had checked into the Commodore Hotel. All Filiatov wanted was a sign. Over and over he repeated the possible variations: Three shades down, proceed immediately. Two shades down, assignment canceled, return to New York for further instructions. One shade down, leave U.S. immediately. No shades moving, remain in place.

Filiatov kept looking. He barely cared which sign he received. He just wanted movement. Sitting and waiting, feeling the tedium mount, went against his character. Being cautious was one thing, inactivity was another. People made mistakes when they were bored and any mistake could be a disaster for everyone.

CHAPTER 44

Tom Buchanan and Ann Garrett dined together that evening at Romanoff’s, one of the more popular restaurants in Beverly Hills. Romanoff’s sat at 326 North Rodeo Drive. The décor was masculine and clubby with comfortable booths.  There was a dance floor that glistened from fresh wax. Drop dead gorgeous cigarette girls – short red skirts and long legs in black fishnet stockings - worked the dining tables. There was a constant bustle of well-trained waiters.  The place was busy this evening, as it was on most evenings. Buchanan felt strange being out to dinner with another man’s wife. But life was imperfect and, after all, Ann was an old friend.

Ann was radiant in a black dress and a red sweater that covered her arms. Two tables away from Buchanan and Ann Garrett, David Niven sat with his wife and a coterie of friends. Frank Sinatra, whose career was in steep decline, nursed drinks at the bar with a few friends who looked as if they had just arrived by train from New Jersey. Orson Welles held down the other end of the bar, while William Holden presided at a table for eight in a favored corner.

The proprietor and reigning genius, “Prince Mike” Romanoff wandered the aisles between tables, kept a sharp eye on everything, and said hello to everyone he recognized and everyone he didn’t.  He saw Ann, stopped and said hello, kissed her hand, and fawned for a full fifteen seconds.

She introduced Thomas Buchanan as “an old friend from back East.” Prince Mike bowed. The two men shook hands.

“Where’s your husband tonight?” Mike asked Ann.

“Otherwise engaged, I suspect,” Ann said without emotion.

Prince Mike grinned. “Not wise,” Mike said. “If you were my wife, I’d never take my eyes off you,” he said. “And I mean that in the nicest way possible.”

“I’d second that,” Buchanan said.

Ann looked away, deflecting the compliments. “See why I like it here?” she said to Buchanan. Mike’s hand settled on Ann’s shoulder and Ann embraced it with both of her hands.

“Mike’s a buddy and takes care of me,” Ann said.

“And Jesse Chadwick never comes in here, the slimeball,” Romanoff said in a low voice. “That makes everything so much nicer.”

Ann laughed hard at that one.

“Jesse’s a regular down the street at the Brown Derby,” Romanoff said conspiratorially, naming a friendly competitor. “I guess his taste buds got dulled by some of his films.”

Buchanan laughed. “And I thought Washington was nasty,” Buchanan said.

“You work in Washington?” Romanoff asked.

Buchanan nodded.

“Doing what?”

Buchanan showed his FBI identification. Mike nodded approvingly with raised eyebrows. “Say hello to J. Edgar,” the prince said. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“I’ll convey your good wishes,” Buchanan answered.

Buchanan knew who Mike was. Everyone did. He was a legend in his own time.

Prince Mike had arrived in the American film capital twenty years earlier and - with an engaging wink in his eye - had claimed to have been born in pre-Soviet Russia as Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff, a nephew of Tsar Nicholas II. And if you believed that, Mike had a bridge he wanted to sell you. Everyone in Hollywood knew he wasn't of the deposed Russian nobility but in a town full of fakes and pretenders, where fantasy had been elevated to an art form, it didn’t matter. The genial “Prince Mike” made friends easily.

Buchanan knew the backstory on “Prince Mike.” His real name was Hershel Geguzin. He had been born in Lithuania in 1890 and landed in New York as a boy. There for a while he worked as a pants presser in a tailor shop on the Lower East Side. Subsequently, he had travelled all over the world, surviving mostly on his wits and charm. As a con man, he had run afoul of the law in many countries for various petty scams. In France, he served prison time for fraud in 1932 before returning to America. Before the outbreak of war, he made his way to Hollywood and reinvented himself once again, opening his restaurant in 1939.

By now, 1950, the engaging Romanoff was popular in the American movie colony. He drew the top stars for lunch and dinner. He had even made a few screen appearances himself, including a significant appearance as himself in Sing While You're Able in 1937.

Romanoff had also been obliquely portrayed in 1941's Hellzapoppin', a film version of the successful Broadway musical revue. In the film, actor Mischa Auer played a real Russian prince who was pretending to be a fake Russian prince. Although he was penniless, the genial prince got him invited to high-society parties, where he sponged off the guests, gorged on the food and seduced as many loose ladies as possible.

In the movie, he explained to a fellow Russian expatriate, "Better that everyone should think I am a fake Russian prince. If they knew I was a real Russian prince, the novelty would wear off, and nobody would want me!" Such was Hollywood, where life imitated art and art made a mockery of life.

While Romanoff's featured a country club-style menu with items like Waldorf Salad, frog legs, Eggs Benedict, tomatoes stuffed with crab, filet mignon, and sausages on toast, the restaurant was best known for its artery-clogging chocolate soufflés, which were served to each guest in an individual portion.  Romanoff's restaurant had also popularized the famous dessert “Strawberries Romanoff”: strawberries in Grand Marnier, blended into whipped cream and softened ice cream. The concoction had actually been created by Escoffier when he was the chef at the Carlton Hotel in London, where Escoffier had originally called it "Strawberries Americaine Style." Passing through London many years ago, Prince Mike had enjoyed the dish. So, naturally, he stole the recipe.

Romanoff withdrew from Buchanan’s table and moved on to the next set of diners, turning on the warmth of his charm once again.  In a hushed tone, Ann Garrett admitted she had a crush on “Prince Mike” and loved Romanoff’s. She had insisted on going there. It was an exciting place, she said, the type where, if anything interesting happened, it would turn up the next day in all the papers.

“So! I can’t believe you found me,” Ann Garrett said, tuning back to Buchanan.

Buchanan mentioned the photograph in the newspaper and, with some sheepishness, confessed that a man did not forget the face of the first and only woman with whom he had fallen in love.

"You're very kind," she said. "You always were."

As they ordered dinner, he moved the conversation to several amiable minutes of small talk. It was time to catch up on the years gone by. Neither brought up the subject of their broken engagement.

Thomas lured Ann into doing most of the talking as they made their way through two martinis. She mentioned that her mother had died and that she wasn't on the best of terms with the other two members of her family.

To her chagrin, she admitted that she had eloped with a musician in 1944. She had run off and married in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The marriage turned bad very quickly. Her family managed to get it annulled. After that, unwelcome at home, she had taken off, living in New York for a while, scoring a couple of acting roles in the theater there, then taking a train to California. She said she met a married man named Stanley who had treated her well. Buchanan listened between the lines and painfully deduced that she had been his mistress for a while, something Ann confirmed by using the word “relationship,” but without elaboration.

Stanley, she said, was a banker like her father, but had business with the film studios. Through him, she met a director named Anatole Litvak, a Russian-European émigré who had since returned to Europe.  Buchanan sensed that Ann might have been Litvak’s mistress also, or at least had an affair. She spoke of him with great affection. Then, at a party at Litvak’s home, she recalled, she met Jesse Chadwick, who had promised to make her a star if she married him. She took this to be one of her last best chances, and had grabbed the offer, except, she said, it wasn’t working out quite the way she had hoped.  Two sips into a third martini, she shook her head.

“I’ll admit it. The years have been rough since you saw me last. I guess I’m a tramp now. A slut.”  Ann shrugged. “What can a woman do?” she asked rhetorically. “This town’s a snake pit.”

“Don’t be too tough on yourself, Ann,” he said. He placed a hand on hers, then removed it.

“At least I’m married now,” she said.

“Are you happy?”

“At least I’m married now,” she repeated.

A beautiful cigarette girl named Lucy came by in a skimpy outfit. She bent low near the table and flashed world-class cleavage to Buchanan.

Ann asked for a pack of Lucky Strikes. Buchanan bought the pack. He selected a Havana cigar for himself.

Ann lit up. She continued to talk. Buchanan could tell she was buzzed.

Her sister was off in Europe, she said, and she barely had any idea where her father might be. The bank made money and he trotted around the globe, she said, presumably showing the flag for his bank in international circles.

"He's unorthodox," she said.

Buchanan agreed that he was. He then tried several questions about her father and Ann sidestepped each of them with remarkable dexterity. She either wished to conceal something or avoid the subject altogether. He was disinclined to press the issue until she came around to the subject again.

She spoke of Jesse Chadwick with so little enthusiasm that Thomas didn't have to be a genius to know it was a rotten marriage. Not from what she had said, and not from what he had seen on the set. He asked if she enjoyed acting and the lifestyle it brought her. Her answer was no, and her voice suddenly turned very sad. During this time, Ann’s hand resettled on his as it lay on the dining table.

A noisy alarm went off in Buchanan’s head about affairs with married women, particularly in places like Hollywood. There were, in fact, all sorts of warning signals going off in Buchanan’s head. Ann had become, he told himself, exactly the type of woman he had no business being attracted to or getting involved with, not based on what she was like here and now in 1950. And yet, the old affection was there and he sensed it going both ways, the old attraction, the old pull that he had tried to dismiss when he had first seen her again on the film set after all these years. It was like being back on the same narcotic that one had kicked years ago.

Like most narcotics, it could be enthralling and exciting. He couldn’t help wondering how many men she had slept with, and whether he could ever accept that. Then he reminded himself for the umpteenth time in the last two hours that he was jumping way ahead of himself, straying way off a professional course, and looking into the eyes of another man’s wife.

Dinner was served. A bottle of California white wine arrived at the same moment. More time went by in conversation. Eventually, Buchanan moved toward the main event.

“I saw Laura recently,” he said.

"You've seen my sister?" Ann asked, incredulous.

"Two or three weeks ago. In London. She said that you'd been living there with her."

"What? Me? In London with Laura? In England?" She let a silence answer her own rhetorical questions.

"That's what she told me," Buchanan said. Ann remained quiet. "Ann, listen, I didn't believe it at the time either. Why would she have so specifically told me something that wasn't true?"

"Sounds like Laura was just fibbing to you a bit," Ann said.

"I take a slightly more serious view of it," he said.  "I'd traveled a long way to speak to a member of the Garrett family," he said. "I was in the mood for straightforward answers."

"Tom," she said, catching on and looking at him in a different light. "Why are you in Los Angeles?"

He drew a breath. In any interrogation of a witness there is a moment when the investigation can go either way. The witness will either fall silent or proceed. With Ann Garrett, Thomas Buchanan had reached that point. Yet deceit would only backfire.

"Ann, you know who employs me. Early this year," he said with steadfast politeness, "I was in Washington, having just concluded another case. The Director of the FBI determined that” - here Buchanan chose his words carefully again - "an inquiry might be made into the affairs of your father's bank. There appeared to be irregularities in some of their financing, anonymous sources for large foreign deposits, and…"

"Tom, you son of a bitch!" she snapped, her voice rising. “This is one of those Red-baiting things! Some sort of smear! I know the type.”

"Ann, please listen to me. I would like nothing more than to vindicate your father of any…"

"I can't believe you!" she snapped. "You come onto the set. You sit down next to me. You talk politely. And all the time, all you're doing is plying me for information! You're trying to put my father in jail, aren't you?"

“I’m trying to keep him out,” Buchanan said.

“Oh, sure. That’s what the FBI does, right? Let me tell you, Tom, there’s craziness in this country right now that I hate. Everyone rats on everyone else! Don’t like someone, claim he’s a Red. I hate it, Tom, and I will not play any part in it!”

In Prince Mike’s principality, an ugly scene was developing.

“Ann, listen to me. I want to be on your side.”

But she wasn’t listening. "Whatever my father is guilty of, I'm sure not telling you or anyone else! I may not speak to him. I may not get along with him. I may not even like him, but so help me, Tom Buchanan…."

She lost control of her words. She stood, picked up her wine, and splashed it onto his face and shirt. She lunged for her purse, but he put his hand on it.

"Ann, sit down. We're not finished yet," he said, calm but wet.

"You're not finished," she said, starting to cry, "but I am. Completely finished. You people are all alike!"

She pulled at her purse, but he kept his hand on it. When he wouldn't release it, she shoved her hand into it, knocking loose a bunch of letters. He tried to grab her wrist, but she pulled away. She held a vial of pills. Once she had those in her grasp, she stepped back.

"Good-bye!" she said with a solemn finality. And she kicked that line home with the most inventive torrent of profanity Buchanan had heard since he had dropped Jesse Chadwick that afternoon.

The entire restaurant was watching, just as the entire crew had watched him knock over Jesse Chadwick a few hours earlier. He went to his feet to block her from leaving, but she turned and stalked toward the washrooms rather than the front door. So he sat for a moment, watching her go. She weaved. She hit her hip on one table.

A waiter appeared with a towel and handed it to Buchanan. He took it.

"Thank you," Buchanan said. He mopped himself and handed the towel back. The waiter departed. Buchanan sat again. A moment later, “Prince Mike” cruised by, completely unruffled, whistling La donna è mobile.

“Are you all right, sir?” Romanoff asked.

“I’m okay.”

“Women….” Romanoff said. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

He raised his eyebrows and went about his business.

Lying next to Buchanan was a handful of letters, all uniform in size with Ann's handwriting on their front. Two of them were unsealed. Most were addressed to newspapers. Buchanan couldn't help himself: watching for Ann to return, he pulled one open and began to read.

He had a habit of scanning text quickly, of picking up key words, blending them together, and coming rapidly to a sense of what he was reading. The word “suicide" leapt out at him, followed a half a second later by mention of sixty-two laudanum capsules.

Comprehension came upon him.

He sprung up and raced toward the washrooms, leapt down a short flight of stairs, bolted past the men's room, and stopped when he saw the door to the ladies' washroom. He crashed through it, greatly startling a pair of young women leaving together. One of them shrieked.

But he saw Ann at the sink. She had been waiting for a moment of privacy. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. In one hand she held a Dixie cup filled with water. In the other, inevitably, she had a fistful of pills.

He lunged toward her as she shoved the pills toward her mouth. He hit her arm. Her arm flew upward and her fist broke open. Pills flew into the air in every direction, and he pushed a hand to her mouth, forcing it open and roughly shoving his fingers inside, sweeping away three pills that were on her tongue.

The water was running. He pushed her away from the sink. He swept every pill he could see into the running water and watched as her tablets of death washed away. She cried uncontrollably, cursing Buchanan at the same time, leaning against the washroom wall, until, her face in her hands, she slid down to the floor. There was no more battle, no struggle at all. He looked to the floor and picked up the few pills that had fallen. These, too, he threw away.

"Where do you get those things? Through your husband?" he asked.

She was silent, except for the sobs.

"Answer me, Ann." His voice was calm and reassuring. "I want to help you."

She didn't say anything, but she nodded.

"Might have known," he said. "What the hell does Jesse care if he kills you, right? He can always get someone else."

"And what the hell do you care?" she snapped. She looked at him and screamed. "And what the hell do you care? Huh? Tell me that! Tell me what the hell do you care!"

He faced her sympathetically and knelt down on the floor next to her. He placed an arm on her, not as an ex-lover would, nor as a man trying to rekindle an old romance. Rather, he made the gesture as a protector. Someone who did care.

"Enough to run in here and stop you," he said. "That's more than anyone else did, isn't it? Isn't that worth something?"

She looked at him, first in anger, then in desperation. She sobbed quietly.

"Ann, probably not more than a day or two has gone by since the war when I didn't think of you and wonder how you were. Your life is your own business. But I was not about to sit in an overpriced restaurant in Beverly Hills and preside over your suicide."

At first she gave no reaction. Then, before he knew what had happened, she was sobbing anew, telling him how scared she was, how her whole life had gone wrong and how, no matter what he might think now, no, she didn't want to die. All she wanted, she cried, was one person to trust.

While all this was happening, the washroom door opened. “Prince Mike” re-appeared. Behind him was one of the larger waiters, Serge, who doubled as the bouncer when the need arose.

“Sorry, Mr. Romanoff,” Buchanan said. "It's under control now. I regret the disturbance.” In the mirror, Buchanan could see the owner and his back-up. Prince Mike gave a gesture to close the door. The waiter closed it, remaining on the other side.

“These things happen. We call you a cab,” Romanoff said. “My man Serge here will take you out the back exit. No photographers back there.” He looked at Ann with kindly eye. “Her husband’s a monster,” he said. “Everyone knows that. I give you some time to gather yourselves.”

“Thank you, sir,” Buchanan said. The owner departed.

Buchanan turned back to Ann. Her sweater was askew, half on and half off. He saw the dark marks on her arms. Mean ones.

“Where’d you get those bruises on your arms?” he asked.

“I fell. I fall a lot. I’m a drunk and I’m clumsy.”

He knew spousal abuse when he saw it and had to suppress his fury. But he let it go for the moment.

“Tom,” she finally said, “please! Help me.” His hand was already extended. “God!” she sniffed. “I’m such a mess.”

Ten minutes later Buchanan led Ann out the back exit of Romanoff’s to a Beverly Hills taxi. He told her whatever the problems, whatever the danger she felt she was in, she would have protection. She didn't have to tell him anything or talk about her father. He wanted her safe from anyone who might harm her and far away from any more vials of pills or anything sharp.

He refused to take her home that night. Instead, he took her to the Commodore Hotel, where he had registered. He booked Ann into a single room directly across the hall. She had, he reminded her, a film to complete. When she made noises about not finishing it, he insisted. There was no point in giving Jesse Chadwick or Joe Preston any legitimate grievances.

At the Commodore, not completely understanding what he had precipitated, he left his own door partly open. Against it on the inside he propped a lamp and a wastebasket in such a position that both would fall and crash if anyone nudged the door. The noise would bring him quickly awake. But for several hours he sat up wide awake, a loaded pistol under his arm, trying to make sense of the Garrett family. On this he again failed. Then, toward three AM, still in the hotel armchair, he nodded off to sleep.

The night passed without further incident. A prearranged wake-up call roused him at six forty-five the next morning.

CHAPTER 45

Ann was on the set at eight AM the next morning, still overwhelmed by the events of the previous day. She was surprised to be alive. The scenes that were to be filmed that day revolved around, of all things, a cocktail party. There were thirty extras. The set had been rearranged from the day before to look like a different suburban house, this one with a swimming pool. That meant that the first scene of the day, which was to begin photography at eight-thirty in the morning, called for a black cocktail dress for Ann's character and suits for all the men.

The script called for one of the supporting actors, a blustery but likable rotund man in his fifties, to playfully pursue Ann, with whom he was hopelessly smitten, onto a diving board. Thereupon, following their dialogue, she would give him a peck on the cheek and step past him. He would forget where he was, take a step backward, and plunge into the pool in front of the other guests.

This was Jesse Chadwick's concept of high comedy. Yet the scene went smoothly and worked. Thereafter, Ann shot a scene with Damon Forbes, one in which he, playing her husband, followed her around the backyard, complaining about his wife's inattention to him.

The scene was technically difficult because Forbes stood only five feet six and Ann stood five seven. A miniature catwalk had to be specially constructed along Forbes's route which would add four inches to his height. Chadwick would shoot the scene never showing Forbes from the knees down. He would also film from an angle that would allow prop men to crawl on their stomachs to retrieve pieces of the catwalk immediately after Forbes had passed over them. For Forbes this was nothing new. The catwalk consideration had even been written into his contract. For two decades in Hollywood, Damon Forbes had never appeared full-length with another actor above the height of five feet two.

Behind his back, people joked that Forbes should have been in the 1938 film, The Terror of Tiny Town, the world's only musical western with an all-midget cast. The film showcased midget cowboys entering the local saloon by walking under the swinging doors, and other pint-sized cowboys galloping around on Shetland ponies while roping calves. Unfortunately, the cruel gags were over quickly and the film had been one of the great pre-war box office bombs.

In the afternoon Buchanan again visited the set, this time as Ann Garrett's guest. Jesse Chadwick conferred with Joe Preston. The producer attempted immediately to talk Buchanan into leaving.

"Jesse's afraid you'll get Lisa all agitated up," Joe Preston said. "I don't know how much you know about our business, but we got to get the most best shot in the fastest time."

Disregarding the violence Joe Preston inflicted on the English language, Buchanan answered.

"Your leading lady says she feels better with me here," he said.

"I could force you to leave," Joe Preston said.

"No," Buchanan answered, "that wouldn’t be a good idea. I had a talk with Howard Hughes this morning. Mr. Hughes said I could make myself right at home. If you don't believe me, call him."

Buchanan was bluffing. Preston backed off. Buchanan stayed on the set and Ann completed her final day of principal photography.

In the evening Ann avoided her husband again. The last twenty-four hours, since the failure of her suicide attempt, had been the most placid of the last year. She hooked her arm on to Thomas's as soon as they were off the set. Thomas initially felt awkward; Ann being married to another man. She was triggering all the old emotions he had for her. Yet the gesture seemed both gracious and platonic. Plus, he told himself, he might never have an opportunity to spend time with her again.

He was, after all, an employee of the United States government who worked in Washington. She was an actress living in southern California. Despite a bad marriage, she would probably stay there. It would have to be enough, he told himself, just to have seen her again.

But for Ann, already given to wide mood swings, an old love stepping back into her life lifted her spirits. It now seemed that all things were possible and all problems were solvable. Maybe, she told herself, this was a delusion. But if so, it was a nice one, and it would get her through the next days… as long as nothing happened to Thomas Buchanan.

Thomas had read about a little French bistro named Chez Jacques on Santa Monica Boulevard near the pier. He invited her there for dinner. This time, halfway through a bottle of wine, Ann let loose.

She told him about the depths to which her marriage had descended and told Buchanan about Jesse Chadwick's treatment of her. Without naming names she told him of how she had been pawned off to another man for a night of pervy sex, filmed in positions she found compromising, and, gradually, over the months of her marriage, had her dignity eroded by her husband's incessant womanizing.

Buchanan found himself listening with increasing anger.

"Do you still love him?" he finally asked.

"No. How could I?"

"So why don't you divorce him?" he asked.

She cited the professional contract she was hooked into with Jesse Chadwick's brother, as well as the not-so-subtle threats surrounding Chadwick's hoodlum friends.

"Do you really want to be protected from him?" Buchanan asked.

"Yes."

"Can you get some money on your own? Enough to tide you through for a few weeks?"

“I have a lot set aside,” she said. “It’s in cash in a safety deposit box.”

"Then go somewhere safe. Wait there. Keep in touch. At the very least," he said, "I can arrange full protection under the law. Taking things further, I could help you get out of the marriage."

"Did I say I wanted that?" she asked.

"What else could you be talking about?"

Her attention settled on something across the room, then returned. "Why would you do that for me?" she asked.

"Call it a favor for an old friend," he said.

"We were more than friends, Tom."

"Come on, Ann," he said. "We're trying to be honest, aren't we? I didn't come here to revive a romance that left off many years ago. I came here because I was assigned a case. If you're wondering if I've ever fallen in love with anyone else, the answer is no. I always wanted to marry you. But I didn't and you met other people. Well, that's done now. And I've worked things out in my mind."

He spoke with such dispassion that he amazed himself.

"If I can help you,” he continued, “and you go on your way, at least I'll have had that satisfaction. I didn't want to take this case, investigating your father and his bank, for exactly these personal reasons. But I've made peace with the situation." She considered his response.

"I understand," she said.

"Is that the answer you were looking for?" he asked.

She smiled in a relaxed way. "No," she said. "But it's an answer I can live with."

He didn't understand what she meant and was about to ask.

Then she spoke again. "I'm going to do you a favor," she said. "I'm going to tell you a story about Dad. It might make you understand him better."

Buchanan was all ears.

In the late 1930s, she said, her family had gone on a driving tour through the Midwest. Her father spent time in each city they visited, trying to rustle up some business with local bankers.

They stopped in Indianapolis, she remembered, and her father looked for some entertainment for the family. It was a blazing hot summer day, she said, and her father bought them tickets to the local music hall for that evening. John T. Garrett had always been a fan of the stage. Vaudeville was in its dying days, but a few acts, especially those of local interest, still managed to make a living.

Many of the acts on vaudeville bills weren't really acts. They were personal appearances, opportunities for the audience to see a famous person up close. On the bill on this particular night was John Wilson Dillinger, father of the notorious gunman, murderer, and native Hoosier bank robber. It was this appearance that Garrett wanted his family to see.

Buchanan wondered where this story was going. He listened quietly.

"Old man Dillinger didn't have much of an act," Ann said. "All he did was talk about his son, ‘Johnny.’”

The old man came on stage in shirtsleeves, suspenders, and a pair of blue serge slacks, Ann recounted. He stood there in the evening heat of the American Midwest in 1939, ran his hands up and down his suspenders, and talked about his son. It wasn't memorable stuff, except for the wrap-up. The old man glanced at his shoes and then his face looked up toward the audience.

"They say my son Johnny was a bad man," he concluded. "But you know," he went on, "after what them banks done to all of us during the Depression, maybe my boy Johnny wasn't so bad after all."

There was a moment of a silence. Then the hall erupted with a roar of approval. People were on their feet applauding the old man. They even brought him back for an extra bow, Ann remembered.

Garrett led his wife and daughters out of the show after Dillinger was finished. They quietly drove back to the inn where they were registered.

"We had a lot of discussions about that night in later years," Ann said. "But I'll never forget what Dad said first. ‘Don't ever forget,' he said. ‘That's what most people think of bankers.'"

CHAPTER 46

Buchanan paid at Chez Jacques. He walked out the front entrance of the restaurant and found an old habit from the war kicking in, namely, that when he emerged from a building he would scan the street and windows and rooftops and review them. In Rome in particular, last gasp snipers frequently took a potshot at American officers, then fled. In a way, the feeling now was no different. Somewhere there was an unnamed unseen enemy, lurking, waiting.

He scanned, then moved to where a line of green and white LA taxis waited. Ann said she would be safe that night and didn’t need to be guarded at the hotel again.  Her husband wouldn’t be home for a week, she said. Jesse was making his post-production plans. These included a trip to Las Vegas with a pair of fifteen-year-old girls, a trip on which he had already departed. One of Joe Preston’s many talents was procuring star-struck girls from the local high schools. He provided them for his stars and his friends, but only after trying them out firsthand himself.

"That's where Jesse is tonight," she said sourly. "On a talent hunt with Joe Preston."

Buchanan hired a taxi and asked the driver to take Ann home first. Buchanan came along on the long drive that would go to Ann’s building first, the apartment complex in Westwood, then return Buchanan to the Commodore.

"I understand a lot of things," he said when the car stopped in front of Jesse Chadwick’s home. "I understand why people steal. I understand why people kill. I know why people betray their country and I know why people crave power. What I don't understand," he said, "is why a man married to you would treat you like dirt and then leave you alone."

"Thank you, Tom," Ann said. She shrugged. "That makes two of us. I don't understand it either."

She leaned to him and kissed him on the lips. Then she pulled away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said. She opened the taxi door and he grabbed her wrist.

“Which window is yours?” he asked.

“Fourth floor. The corner.”

“Wave to me when you’re there,” he said. “Assure me you’re alone.”

She laughed.

“I’m not joking,” he said.

“Okay.” Impulsively, she leaned to him and kissed him. Then she was out of the cab a second later. Buchanan asked the driver to wait. He did.

Ann disappeared into the entrance foyer of her building. He watched her enter an elevator. He watched the fourth floor corner apartment, saw the light come on, and then counted the seconds until she appeared at the window. He would give her a minute.

It didn’t take that long. She came to her bedroom window and waved. He waved back. He wondered if he would ever see her alive again. He tried to repress the thought.

“Okay,” he said to the driver. “We can go.”

The taxi drove back across Los Angeles to the Commodore. The driver said little. It was a balmy night but clear. Buchanan enjoyed seeing late evening Beverly Hills and Los Angeles as he rode through the sleepy neighborhoods with his window halfway down. Twice he turned to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He wasn’t.

By now he was deep in thought and reflection. As much as he enjoyed seeing Ann again, he was troubled. All that had happened in the last few days still mystified him. He wondered how it put anything in perspective with Commonwealth Penn. Worse, it threatened to lead him off on an endless tangent. It was a matter of time before Hoover would be on his back.

He had now interviewed both Garrett daughters and seemed - for all that he could see - barely any closer to John Taylor Garrett than he had been at the outset. Almost lost in the shuffle was any political affiliation that Garrett might have, which was the whole point of the inquiry.

He arrived back at the Commodore. He rode a quiet elevator back to his room. The elevator operator, a gracious man of color, bid him a good night. He was still evaluating the events of the evening, convincing himself that he mustn’t get involved with Ann, and that by all standards of common sense, she was not the woman for him. He was pondering his next move when he unlocked the door to his room, stepped in, and was surprised to find the light on.

His initial thought was that the cleaning staff had entered to make down the bed. That, of course, was true. They would have left the light on also. But with his peripheral vision he perceived the figure of a man seated in the corner of his room.

It passed through his mind that he might be in the wrong room. But he had turned his own key in his own door, meaning that the man, of whom the legs lazily unfolded as Buchanan raised his sight, was waiting for him, and wished to conduct whatever was to follow in private.

Buchanan's next instinct was to expect to be shot. He jumped slightly, pulled at his weapon, and drew it. But by that moment Buchanan's eyes had focused on the intruder.

The man was seated peaceably in a hotel chair, his hat and coat on a side table. He was a handsome man in his fifties, graying gracefully, with features that might just have fit an Episcopalian minister.  He wore a dark suit, much befitting a place of prestige within the banking community, and he offered Buchanan an ironic smile as his eyes met Buchanan's.

"There's no need for a gun," the man said. "I'm unarmed."

Buchanan's eyes scanned the rest of the chamber as well as the bathroom before he was convinced.

“Your nerves are getting the best of you, Thomas Buchanan. I can’t imagine why. Are you afraid of something?”

Buchanan slowly holstered his weapon. The man reached to a cigar that he had placed next to his hat on the side table. "I'm getting tired of what's going on," the visitor said, unwrapping the cellophane around the cigar. "Inquiries. Investigations. Innuendos. You talk to one daughter, then to the other. I did my own share of intelligence work during the war. You think I don’t hear things? Where are we going with all that?”

“I have no idea. Maybe you can tell me.”  Buchanan said, using his foot to push the door closed behind him.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"I don’t mind cigars. I like them actually,” Buchanan said. “But not in my sleeping room."

The man used a small smoker's knife to clip the end of the cigar. He moistened the smoking end of the tobacco and lit it, creating a large bluish-gray cloud that surrounded him.

"This is a fine cigar," the man in the suit said. "No one cultivated objects to the aroma of a quality smoke." He puffed again. "Then again," the intruder said, "I never took you much for a man of cultivation. And, judging by the crude investigation you're running, you haven't changed much."

John Taylor Garret raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Care to chat?” he asked.

CHAPTER 47

Garrett laughed. "It's not much of a secret, is it? You've been asking questions on two continents. Are you ready to talk to me, or do you have other questions to pose behind my back?" Garrett made an expansive, mocking gesture with his open arms. He waited with exaggerated impatience. “I’m right here,” he said. "And I think, Thomas Buchanan," he said abruptly and with rising anger, "that you're pretty stupid. Who the hell do you think you are, trying to spy on me or intimidate my family or friends? I know immediately when some fool is asking after me!”

“Then what took you so long to come forward?” Buchanan asked.

“I'm going to do you a favor, Thomas. Not that I owe you one. I'll tell you what you're dealing with and I’ll give you a one-time-only warning to keep your nose out my banking business. Otherwise…“

“Cut the threats,” Buchanan answered. “You don’t scare me.” He stepped forward toward Garrett, snatched his cigar and felt it break in his hand. He stuffed it into an ashtray.

Garrett stared at him angrily but made no movement other than to bring his hands together, the fingers making a steeple. Then he put his hands in his lap.

Buchanan sat down again.

“What would you like to talk about?” Garrett asked.

"Your bank. Your financing. Where it comes from. What you do with it." He paused. "Any illegal activity you happen to be engaged in. It would save us both a lot of time."

Garrett looked at him coldly, then began to chuckle. "Oh, my," he said. "You've been set up, son. You, your incompetent FBI, and your spineless FBI Director have been played perfectly by the President and the Central Intelligence Agency. Can't you see that?"

"I want specifics if you're bothering to talk at all," Buchanan said.

"I went into intelligence work during the war, Buchanan. I was in the OSS. You know that much. Won a few medals. Did my share of work in Europe.”

"And Eastern Europe. And in the Soviet Union."

"I did exactly as I was assigned," said Garrett. "Probably the same as you. I came out of there with a fistful of medals and a presidential commendation."

"Yeah. So?"

"After the war I went back to banking. You know that much too. I had contacts overseas. I used them because my bank, Commonwealth Penn, had been poorly administered during the war. I don't mind telling you that my service to my country, which I do not regret, cost my family millions of dollars in lost earnings."

"Which you've now more than made up in foreign deposits."

“Is there a law against that?"

"If the money's laundered, yes. If the money is financing illegal activities, yes."

"And do you have a shred of evidence that any of it is?"

"I thought you were going to talk," Buchanan reminded him.

"Here's another basic principle of banking, Thomas Buchanan," Garrett said. "When you've used up the supply of business in one area, in order to survive you have to have an influx of business from somewhere else. I applied that principle when I first went into banking in the 1930s. I applied it after the war to save Commonwealth Penn again. Most bankers can't see out of their own backyards. I bring money from all over the world into Philadelphia and the region. That's the name of the game, isn't it? It benefits my employees and my community."

"As well as yourself."

"I admit it. As well as myself." He fingered the broken cigar and then discarded it into a wastebasket. "After all," he said silkily, "I'm a capitalist."

"Are you?" Buchanan let the question hang in the air.

"Now, what the hell does that mean?" Garrett answered.

"You have some odd contacts," Buchanan countered. “Jerry DeStefano, for example. A south Philadelphia hoodlum. Not a man cut from a bolt of traditional Main Line banker's cloth."

"No, he’s not. But if I were a traditional banker, Commonwealth Penn would have failed in 1933. Money is amoral as soon as it goes through a teller's window, Mr. Buchanan. Most wealthy men may have gained their station in life through questionable activities. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Morgan. These men were pirates by modern day morality. But they left foundations behind them to square the ledgers a bit. With Mr. DeStefano, I use his deposits to finance mortgages and home constructions in Bucks County. Because of deposits like that, people in my community are able to qualify for car loans, college loans, and home improvements that other banks might refuse. If Mr. DeStefano has made money illegally - which is his business, not mine - then I've played Robin Hood.”

Garrett laughed, his mood changing again. "You don't have anything on Jerry DeStefano other than his table manners. And you don’t have anything on me. That’s obvious.”

“How is it obvious?”

“Here I am. If I’ve done something illegal, arrest me.”

Buchanan didn’t move.

“I'm going on my way," Garrett said. He gathered his hat and coat. He stood. "But if you've got anything to ask me in the future, be an adult. Come ask me in person."

“What about a man named Sammy Wong? An opium merchant.”

“I don’t know the name.”

Garrett pulled on his coat and reached into his inside pocket. He wrote something in a notebook, ripped the page out, and handed it to Buchanan.

"This is my home address and business address," Garrett said. "I'm on my way back to Pennsylvania. You can look me up there."

"You recently met Sammy Wong at Blake Warren's strip joint in San Francisco," Buchanan said. "You transacted some sort of business. Warren was your point man. As a result, you sought to have both Warren and O'Connell murdered. My theory is that whatever business contact you had with Wong, it would be enough to send you to prison. When I connect all of that, I will arrest you.”

Garrett’s gaze remained straight ahead, then roamed the room and settled back upon Buchanan. Garrett barely drew a breath. Buchanan saw a hesitation. Then, for half a second he thought he saw what he wanted: uncertainty that he just might be able to prove he was right and link a federal case to Garrett.

“I even have a description of your hit team,” Buchanan continued. “Big thick man. Blonde woman. Pretty. Probably both are Soviets. That’s my thesis. How does that sound?”

Garrett removed his hat and coat.

"All right, Mr. Buchanan," said Garrett. "Listen up. Keep a man like Sammy Wong in perspective. Yes, I was in the OSS during the war. And yes, I operate a family bank. The bank has some foreign resources which some people would refer to as questionable. But I'll tell you something else."

Buchanan waited.

“After the war the President of the United States, whom I have known personally for many years, asked me to stay on in a certain capacity. He was furious at some of the recent rudimentary failures of the U.S. intelligence community. He was not sure how to structure the new centralized intelligence services. He wanted to be sure some of the men he trusted would be in his new CIA. He asked me to participate. I agreed. The work I'm doing, the activities for which you have me under investigation, are directly for the President and the CIA."

"Uh-huh," Buchanan said.

"Well, do I need to spell it out even more blatantly?" Garrett snapped. "Where were American troops fighting between 1941 and 1945? Didn't they teach you anything in those schools you went to? In the Orient, for example. In Italy, right in through Sicily and up the leg of the boot."

"I was there, myself.  So what?"

"So did it ever occur to you that the much-maligned Sammy Wong and the even more-maligned Jerry DeStefano might have done a few favors for the American government based on their knowledge of the homeland of their respective youths?"

Buchanan stared at him. In an awful kind of way, it made perfect sense. Even a career gangster like Lucky Luciano, with his lifetime of murder, extortion, gambling, and prostitution, won a pardon and a trip back home to Sicily, courtesy of Uncle Sam, in 1948. Luciano had guaranteed that ports in the northeastern United States would be free of saboteurs. Since the mob controlled the waterfronts, Lucky was the guy with whom to deal. And additionally, Luciano's knowledge of the southern Italian coastline, as well as the contribution of a gang of local partisan gunmen in Calabria to soften up the local Fascisti, had immeasurably aided the invasion of Italy from Africa in 1943. Now Garrett maintained that Wong and DeStefano had struck similar deals.

"And now I'll tell you something else," Garrett continued. "Your FBI has been positioned beautifully for a public embarrassment, and you're going to be the fall guy. John Edgar has made a lot of enemies in Washington with his secret files and his overt blackmail. Well, the White House wants to be rid of Hoover, and this investigation is how it's going to happen. The FBI has been goaded into investigating me. You'll file a report. Next Hoover will go public about me being a spy or a Communist or something ridiculous. Know what happens then? The Central Intelligence Agency acknowledges me as one of their own. Hoover will be crucified in the press for blowing a spy investigation and ruining the credentials of a good agent. Hoover will take the public blame and President Truman will finally have the public support to fire him. Good riddance to a bad man. And then I'll be proud to go home, run my bank, and call it a career."

Buchanan was silent.

Garrett continued. "The problem for you is that Hoover stuck you with this case precisely because it might go wrong. You're going to look even worse, investigating a man whose daughter dumped you. When the case blows up in Hoover's fat, effeminate jowls, my boy, he'll pass the blame to you. In his unsuccessful attempt to save himself, you, too, will be fired. You'll find you have no job and no friends. Maybe, if you're lucky and come ask me nicely, I'll make you a teller in one of my branches."

Garrett finally pulled his coat on. "You know something, Thomas Buchanan?  We have a saying in certain privileged circles. 'Every wealthy American family has three sons. The best of the three becomes a professional man—a doctor or a lawyer. The second best, if he doesn't go into the clergy, runs the family business. The third goes to an Ivy League university, then comes home to become an officer in the local bank.’”

Garrett paused. He patted his hat onto his head.

"That third son is usually personable, well educated, nicely mannered, and pleasant. He is also uncourageous and unimaginative. Through my banking career I've made it a point to avoid the employment of such individuals. And you are exactly that type of young man. So you see, I wouldn't tolerate that type marrying into my family either. I made that clear to Ann, and she came to agree with me. If you'll excuse the expression, that's why you were so unceremoniously dumped during the war. She finally came to agree with me."

He paused for a moment before concluding. "If only you'd been killed in the war. You could have gone out a hero instead."

Then he was out the door.

CHAPTER 48

Recently, many of Viktor Milenkin's free hours had been spent in the reading room of the New York Public Library. He was, by the end of February 1950, a tortured man. Raised as a boy in California and a teenager in Moscow, his soul was torn in two, his allegiance pledged to two masters.

As George Mulligan, the employee of New York Telephone, he had been placed in a management internship, as promised. He had a secure job and a woman he wanted to marry. He had an adoptive family in Brooklyn. But now what he wanted most was truth.

In the reading room and the periodicals room of the Astor Branch of the New York Public Library, he sought to find it. He read everything he could concerning Soviet Russia, the war, and the United States. Increasingly he realized that things were not as he had been told back in Moscow from 1939 until 1948.

Milenkin had been a Soviet resident in February 1946 when Stalin had made his famous speech dropping "the front of cooperative and agreeable meeting of the minds" between East and West. Stalin had reaffirmed the traditional Communist teaching on the causes of capitalist wars, blamed the United States and England for World War Two, abandoned the pretense that the defeat of Germany eliminated the danger of more war, lauded the new Soviet order as "the greatest, most mighty" in the world, and called for greater sacrifice by the Soviet people to "claim the rest of the century for the Soviet Union."

At the time Viktor Milenkin had bought every word of the speech. His own sacrifice was having been convinced by Colonel Volkov to go to the West as a mole. And when Winston Churchill made his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, less than a month later, Viktor had agreed with Stalin that Churchill was "a foolish old warmonger" like all other Western diplomats.

Hadn't the Americans and the British allowed the war to go on for two extra years to wear down the Soviets? Hadn't the western powers, along with their Chinese allies, geographically encircled the Soviet Union by 1945?  Hadn't the great Stalin been forced by strategic necessity to leave Red Army divisions in Eastern Europe as a barrier against Western aggression?

But as Milenkin spent time in the library, no one took notes over what he read. No book, pamphlet, or foreign journal was denied to him. His opinions began to change. He saw the Marshall Plan in a new light, for example. The Soviet Union had denounced the plan as "the American blueprint for the economic subjugation of Europe." Yet Milenkin learned for the first time that the Americans had generously promised to bolster the economies of all European countries, including the USSR, which had been ruined by the war. The Soviets originally accepted aid from the plan, and then withdrew in 1947, coercing the Poles and the Czechs to withdraw as well. Further, Communist opposition to the Marshall Plan in Italy and France led to violent strikes. And to actively and overtly combat the Marshall Plan, the Soviet Union formed COMECO, an agency structured primarily to assure that all Communist parties in the West obediently toed the Moscow line.

Added to this was the news of the terrible purge trials, which were resuming in the Soviet Union with much of the savagery of the 1930s. In terms of magnitude, thousands of victims were again being jailed, shot or incarcerated in mental hospitals. People were ”falling” from windows in record numbers. Hundreds of top party functionaries, names Milenkin remembered from the war and immediately afterward, had vanished, including many Communists who had sought asylum in the Soviet Union during the war. The only members of the party who seemed to be able to ride out Stalin’s latest storm were the trusted, faithful old Bolsheviks - Khrushchev, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Molotov, Beria, and Voroshilov - Stalin's longtime comrades in arms.

Still, the man now known as George Mulligan might never have believed it had he not received a shock in his own mailbox in late February.

There was an envelope for him with a foreign postmark. When he examined it, he saw that the letter was postmarked from Stockholm. Even more incredibly, however, the envelope was addressed to him in the unmistakable handwriting of his mother.

Mulligan was initially overjoyed to receive it. He walked upstairs to his neat Perry Street apartment, smiling broadly to himself. He opened it. Surely now the lines of communication had been fixed and the letter would brim with joyful news. He sat and felt his heart pound as he read it. Then he felt sweat soak into his shirt as his soaring joy turned into agony.

The letter was in English. It read:

My dear son,
I do not know if this letter will reach you, but I do know that I may never again have a chance to write. I will give this letter to a foreign man who is visiting Moscow and Leningrad. He is a Swede, a friend who is well positioned in the diplomatic corps and will return to the West soon. He says he will post this for me.
I have been an hour ago arrested for anti-Soviet activity. I think this is because the man I have been seeing from the trade ministry was arrested in October. I am told that he will be executed. In these cases, often the woman's fate follows the man's. This is the way things are in the Soviet Union today.

I know I have done nothing to warrant prison or a labor camp or death. I have been a good woman all my life and a dedicated worker of the Soviet State. But there are terrible criminals in power now, men who promote their own personal glory and not the interests of the Great Russian Republic. I sincerely hope that you are safe and well. But above all, I caution you to sever any link you have with the Soviet government, and in particular the deceitful Colonel Volkov. I believe this "Colonel" romanced me only to gain your trust so he could employ you as his agent in the West.

I have given Volkov many letters to mail to you but I feel he does not mail them. Otherwise you would write to me in return, I know. But through a friend I learned your new name and address. I am overjoyed to know that you are safe in America and will stay there in that great country. If I am ever free again to travel, I will try to find you. But do not try to find me, as it may sacrifice your own safety. If we do not see each other again, please understand, my dear son, that I love you with more than my heart could ever bear. Know also about Volkov . . .

I must go now.

I love you.

Your adoring mother, Sonya Milenkinova

Mulligan read the letter three times, each in ever-mounting disbelief. When he finished, tears flooded his eyes. He ripped at the paper, crumpled it, and flung it on the floor. He let go with a wail of agony so intense and so horrible that it brought O'Dwyer, his faithful mongrel, whimpering to his side, and Mr. LoBianco, his downstairs neighbor, to his door.

He put on a brave face and dismissed LoBianco. Then he went to his bedroom, closed the door, and cried like a little boy for several hours until he fell asleep.

For the next days he was quiet with friends at work. He did not seek companionship. When he spoke to Barbara Harkavy, his lover, he spoke very formally and with great preoccupation. Yet he did this with much difficulty. He needed her warmth and affection more than ever. Yet he dared not confide his darkest secret. His identity. Nor could he reveal his purpose in the United States.

Then something else happened. On March 2, a Thursday, there was a story in the New York Times that riveted his attention. It concerned a man named Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs's life had, in many ways, paralleled Milenkin's.

Fuchs had been born in Germany in 1911. As a young man he joined the German Communist Party in reaction to the barbaric excesses of the Nazis. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Fuchs fled first to France, then to England. There, as a naturalized Briton, he resumed his studies in the academic field in which he had demonstrated his brilliance: physics.

Even his detractors admitted that Fuchs was a gifted young scientist. Eventually he was offered a professorship at the University of Birmingham. His work would encompass atomic physics. That was in late 1941. In early 1942 he was contacted by Soviet agents and asked to give them access to whatever scientific information to which he was a party. Still a good Communist, he agreed.

In 1943 Fuchs was sent to work in the United States, first in New York, then at Los Alamos, where research on the first atomic bomb was in progress. During the years that followed, he continued to smuggle atomic information to his Soviet contacts. When President Truman told Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that the Americans had exploded their first atomic device, Stalin already knew - through Fuchs.

The physicist returned to England in 1946 and became head of the theoretical physics division of the new British atomic energy research station at Harwell. There he continued to pass atomic secrets to Moscow, though his infatuation with Marxism had cooled dramatically. He was, in fact, skeptical of communism, at least the way it was practiced by the Soviet Union. And, just as Viktor Milenkin would grow to respect his American peers a few years later, Fuchs had also acquired an affinity for the resolute, steadfast British and the work they were doing at Harwell.

But for Klaus Fuchs there would be no pleasant road back, even though he stopped passing secrets in 1948. An American Communist named Harry Gold was arrested by the FBI in early 1949. Gold, attempting to save his own skin, ratted on many fellow travelers, including Fuchs. Fuchs was questioned by MI5. Voluntarily he confessed. On March 1, 1950, his arrest was made public. Now he stood to draw a sentence of fifteen to twenty years in prison in the United Kingdom.

Viktor Milenkin, sitting in Washington Square Park on a mild late-winter day, shook all over when he read this story. Here was his life, the past, present, and future. Twenty years in prison! Where could he run? Where could he hide? What kind of life could he ever lead?

At work he now became sullen and quick-tempered. To Barbara he was short, then moody, then wildly emotional, breaking down twice into tears over seemingly petty little events. Surely she knew something was wrong. She couldn't be in love with a man as she was and not notice or not care. She asked him what was bothering him. He wouldn't tell her. She retreated. She thought she knew because she had seen it happen to her girlfriends. George had another woman.

“Do you want out of our relationship?” she asked him one night in the stairwell of their building.

No, he said. That wasn't it. He hugged her and cried again.

"And my name isn’t George. It's Viktor."

"What?" she said.

"It's Viktor Milenkin," he said.

She looked him straight in the eye for several seconds.

"So?" she asked. "Jack Benny's real name is Benjamin Kubelski."

She kept her hand on his shoulder. Barbara leaned towards him and kissed him on the side of the face. With that gesture of love, however, on an unswept set of steps in a lower Manhattan walk-up, she changed the course of several lives. She encouraged him to keep talking.

"I'm in terrible trouble, Barbara," he said. "I could go to jail."

She never took her arm from him. She never hesitated in her support. "Did you steal something?" she asked.

"No."

"Did you hurt anyone or kill anyone?"

"No."

"Then how bad could it be?"

"Very bad."

"I don't care. I love you."

"You better hear it all first," he said.

"I'll stick by you all the way, George," she said. "And so will my family. You're one of us."

He was dumbfounded by her reaction. Americans, real Americans, never ceased to amaze him. New Yorkers in particular baffled him. Every time he thought he had them figured out, they stunned him again.

She led him onto the BMT and they took a subway train to Brooklyn. They walked hand in hand to her home. They came in unannounced. Mrs. Harkavy was pleasantly surprised to see him, so she set an extra place for dinner. Milenkin could hardly comprehend that this was happening. His fear from reading about Klaus Fuchs had given way to a strange bewilderment. From the reaction of Barbara so far, his spirits were buoyed. Then again, he hadn't confessed anything yet.

Barbara sat him down at their dinner table. Mrs. Harkavy, with her worrisome, motherly eyes, brought him a glass of hot tea. Barbara's father sat down, too. So did Barbara. Dinner stayed on the stove for a few extra minutes.

"George has a problem," Barbara said. "I told him there's nothing we can't solve. Right, Daddy?"

"Right, angel," said Barbara's father, Irving Harkavy.

Viktor Milenkin surveyed the table, calmer but still incredulous. He squeezed a wedge of lemon into his tea. Then he sipped. Truly, he had no idea how these kind people would react if he told them the whole truth. But he had a feeling he should confess. So he drew a deep breath and tried to stop trembling. Only then did Colonel Volkov's conduit man in the United States begin to talk.

CHAPTER 49

At a phone booth in Los Angeles, Thomas Buchanan dialed a long distance operator and asked for the number in Washington, D.C., given him by Jack Malone, his Secret Service contact at the White House. At this hour it was Malone's home phone number.

It was one AM in the East. Malone answered the phone on the third ring, instantly coming awake.  No, he didn't want to talk on this line, he said. He would have to move to a line that he felt was more secure. Where was Buchanan calling from?

"The rear lobby of the Hotel Commodore," Buchanan answered. “We need to talk. Now.”

“No good,” said Malone. “The operators at those hotels listen in on all those public phones, hoping to catch gossip from a movie star which they can then sell it to a scandal sheet for five bucks. Can you try from somewhere else?”

“I can try.”

Malone asked him to call him again at a White House number in forty-five minutes and instructed him to be prepared to give a callback number. That would be at exactly eleven o'clock California time, two AM back East. Malone would be moving through the dark streets of the American capital to get to his office, despite the hour.

"Remember the date we met?" Malone asked. "Don't say it aloud. Remember which day of February it was?"

"Yes," he said. Easy to pinpoint. It was the date he had returned from England.

"Add the number of the date to the telephone number my assistant will give you. Then call that number and we'll talk."

Malone hung up.

Buchanan went to his car. He drove to Vine Street. First, he found an all-night diner but considered it too noisy. Shortly, he found a drugstore with a midnight closing. He bought a ham salad sandwich and a Coca-Cola at the lunch counter and staked out one of the two phones in the rear. He sat on a stool at the far end of the counter.

He kept his eyes upon the door. White House or no White House, Secret Service or no Secret Service, he trusted no one. He scanned in every direction the way he used to in Rome. It occurred to him that Jack Malone could have been jerking him around late-evening Los Angeles for a reason.

A Notre Dame alumnus used to say at the Bureau, out of Hoover's earshot, "Jesus Christ had twelve whom he trusted and one of them betrayed Him too."

Moral: never drop your guard. Always cover your back. The FBI parable of Jesus: always keep your weapon loaded and within reach. Follow the Savior but pack the ammunition.

Buchanan turned over the whole intrigue in his mind. Garrett had insisted that Hoover was to be deposed and he, Buchanan, was to be a fallen pawn in the game. Yet Malone at the White House and President Truman himself had - right before Buchanan's eyes - questioned Garrett's ultimate allegiance. And if the trail that Buchanan was following indicated anything, it was that Garrett was in league with the Soviets.

And yet, Buchanan ruminated, how did it fit together? Who was telling the truth? Garrett? Malone? Truman? Hoover? What was at stake? And most important, whom could Buchanan trust?

He dwelt upon this final question for too long a time. Then he arrived at a decision. He would have to trust the White House, the higher authority. As a soldier, he had been loyal to the President. He felt the same loyalty now. And at least when Truman had been before him, he had been direct and forthright.

Almost an hour after he had first tried, Buchanan put though a second call. He received the call back in return. He was ready to speak and Malone was ready to listen.
"Got a pencil?" Buchanan asked.

"I've got two in case I wear out the first one," Malone said. "Start talking."

Buchanan spoke in a low voice and kept his eyes on the door.

"I want any file you can find, CIA, OSS, or whatever, on John Garrett, a smuggler named Sammy Wong, and a South Philly hood named Jerry DeStefano. We've been through this before, Jack, but this time shake the trees. See what else we can find."

Specifically Buchanan wanted to know what wartime work they may have been doing. That done, Buchanan asked Malone to get in touch with London. Find out about an effort against the East Germans that had recently gone awry.

“The operative name is Zolling,” he said. “German defector. Former army tank commander. Had a battalion of Soviet T-34s. Also did security there, such as the CIA station that worked out of an office that overlooked the Russian Consulate, have any further idea what had happened? For that matter, did the English?”

Malone said he would get on it right away, even if he had to cadge info from friendly sources at Allen Dulles’ new CIA, and there weren’t many friendlies over there.

Buchanan rang off. Next he dialed the FBI night clerk in Washington, around the corner from the White House.

The night clerk on duty was someone Buchanan knew. His name was Todd. He was a big hulking man, at least six four, with a moustache and red face. Kindly put, Todd was not a towering intellect, but he was steady and dependable. He worked midnight to eight, and always came to work in a dark suit with a loaded forty-five caliber pistol under his right arm. He had been with J. Edgar Hoover since the 1920s and was loyal and trustworthy in a way that smarter men weren’t.

“Hello, Todd,” Buchanan said. “This is Tom Buchanan phoning from Los Angeles.”

“How are you, sir?” the night clerk responded without missing a beat.

“I’m fine, despite the hour. May I have you leave a message for Frank Lerrick?”

“Of course, sir. I’ll hand it to him myself when he comes in.”

“Perfect. I want files, if any exist, on a film producer named Joe Preston and a director named Jesse Chadwick.” Buchanan knew that Howard Hughes, the financial head of RKO, had been leaking information and salacious gossip to Hoover by the steaming bucketful. Maybe some of it could be put to good use.

Over twenty-eight hundred miles of nighttime phone line, Buchanan could picture the hulking Todd, pencil clenched awkwardly in a powerful fist, writing furiously.
“And,” Buchanan concluded, “most important: Preston and Chadwick will be arriving in Las Vegas within the next few days. They always stay at Bugsy Siegel's hotel. Or at least it belonged to Bugsy before some gangland sorehead fired shots through his window one night in 1947 and blasted him into the next dimension.”

Todd managed a gravelly graveyard-style laugh.

“That would be the Pink Flamingo Hotel, sir,” said Todd, who, for whatever reason, stayed abreast of such things.

"I want a surveillance unit on both Preston and Chadwick, if we can do that," Buchanan said. "It's important. I want to know who they arrive with, who they see, where they go, and what they do."

The FBI already had a sizable presence in Las Vegas. The agency guys were always scouting for ways to justify an assignment that had them hanging around loose women and slot machines. Watching film people was often even more entertaining than watching their films. So maybe, Buchanan reasoned, that presence could be put to good use in the Commonwealth Penn investigation too.

“Anything else, sir?” Todd asked.

“No. That will do it for now. Thank you, Todd.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

Buchanan hung up. He went to the soda fountain of the pharmacy, ordered a Coke, drew a long breath and felt that some progress had been achieved. No sooner had he exhaled than he heard a screech of tires and a tremendous crash out on the street.

He jumped, stood and looked. On Vine Street, a new Cadillac had skidded to a sudden stop and a banged-up Studebaker crashed into it from the rear. This was followed, not surprisingly, by a noisy, profane argument; two men, three women, all screaming at each other.

One of the men, the one from the Caddy, was a dark skinned man dressed entirely in orange, including a fedora. He was the one with the two women, both of whom were white and heavily tarted up. The other man, the Studebaker driver, had square clothes and a dowdy female passenger who looked terrified and clung to him.

Passersby stopped, gathered, and gawked.

A fight started. Less than a minute later two black and white LAPD patrol cars skidded to a stop. Four white harness bulls jumped out with billy clubs and joined the fun by attacking the man in the orange suit.

"Mister?" someone close by asked Buchanan. To his right the staff of the pharmacy was preparing to close down the lunch counter and sweep the floors. They asked him if he wanted anything more.

“Mind if I just sit tight till that mess outside gets settled?” Buchanan asked.

“Of course.”

At the fountain, he drank another Coke, nursing it till the possibility of gunfire outside had come and gone. Then, on his way back to his room at the hotel, he stopped off at the lobby bar and enjoyed something stronger.

CHAPTER 50

A few hours later in North Hollywood it was dawn.

From the street outside the Soviet safe house there was a fragment of laughter and some muffled conversation. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, passed on foot on their way to high school. Marina Sejna lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes and peered a quarter of a mile through the morning haze. Someone had finally adjusted the yellow window shades that she and her husband had monitored for days.

She walked downstairs quickly. She roused Filiatov. He came up to the attic, put the field glasses to his own eyes, and saw for himself.

Three yellow window shades, all pulled down overnight, as if the cover of darkness had somehow added to the mystique. Had Colonel Volkov been there to draw the shades himself? Or had someone called the location and given the instructions?
Filiatov and Sejna didn't know. Nor did they care. They didn't even wonder.

They packed the two suitcases that each of them had lived out of for these many months. Filiatov had more than memorized Buchanan's appearance. He had stalked him enough to know that his proposed victim was constantly back and forth between his hotel and some woman whom he saw at a film studio. Waiting along his route would not be difficult. The only complication was the fact that Buchanan was armed.

To Filiatov, that meant to lurk and fire the first shots was essential.

At least this will complete things in America, Filiatov thought. Working abroad was nerve racking. He was anxious to get himself and his wife out of the country.  The Americans might be dumb and vulnerable, he believed, but they were not to be underestimated, either. Already, several Soviet operatives in North America felt a noose tightening around them.

A man named Julius Rosenberg, for example, an American citizen, was part of a cell of young pro-Communist engineers who had filched thousands of classified documents reports from The Emerson Radio Company and turned them over to a conduit who transferred them to Soviet military intelligence. Filiatov had also heard that Rosenberg had recruited many sympathetic individuals at Emerson into NKVD service.

Together, members of the ring had stolen thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and turned them over to Soviet contacts. Rosenberg was particularly valuable: his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, had worked on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Julius had recruited him to the Soviet cause, too.

But those pests at the FBI were mulish and persistent as well as suspicious. Colonel Volkov had advised Filiatov on their last meeting that he might receive orders to flee America at any given moment. The Soviets had made numerous attempts to infiltrate atomic research at the University of California, Berkeley, and someone had been careless. They had learned that there was now an FBI file called CINRAD, Communist Infiltration of the Radiation Laboratory, and it implicated a consulting scientist named J. Robert Oppenheimer because of his earlier Communist sympathies.

There were a number of project members who had given secret information to Soviet agents. Several little cabals and cells were starting to unravel; there were spies and snitches. Prison or worse awaited anyone who was implicated.  The Americans were looking for reasons their atomic monopoly had been compromised, as well as perpetrators, and scapegoats, Volkov warned. They had some pretty keen people on the case, as well as a few bumbling fools who couldn’t find the ocean from the end of a pier.  Best for everyone to be extremely cautious, Volkov advised.

Now in North Hollywood, Filiatov set to work. He finished packing his bag. Then he sought to remove any trace of himself from the apartment. He stripped down, cleaned, and reassembled a Walther .38 that he would now wear beneath his left arm.

Twenty-four hours from now, he hoped, he would be on his way to Mexico, and after that, home. He could, he mused, be on the Soviet steamer in the Gulf of Mexico, making love to Marina. He had a violent, aggressive way that he liked to force sex upon her, tying her hands, then leaping upon her, the Russian military way with women. The style was as subtle as a punch in the nose. It amused Filiatov to think that while the funeral plans for the American federal police agent were still being set, he could be sailing home, pleasantly ravishing his wife on his way.

And yet, he had come to regard her with a growing affection, also. He was in the habit these days of shoplifting tiny jars of caviar for her, just to watch her nibble it, her lips sucking the expensive roe off the tip of a knife or spoon or finger. They were not unlike many other young couples in postwar America, living frugally but ennobling their lives with Bohemian or socialist values. To some degree, he would have been happier just to drop an anchor where he was, one anchor for both of them.

But an anchor in the United States was not an option.

CHAPTER 51

Buchanan's eyes flickered open in the Los Angeles hotel room. The telephone was ringing. Buchanan groped sleepily for the receiver and struggled to come awake. A long distance operator announced a person-to-person call from Washington.

Frank Lerrick, the Bureau's assistant director, was on the line. It was not a social call. "The Director," Lerrick intoned ominously, "is furious.”

"What time is it in Washington?" Buchanan asked.  “It’s four forty-five here.”

"Almost eight AM, Tom," Lerrick said. "And let me tell you, holy hell is breaking loose. J. Edgar wants a complete report on Garrett and Commonwealth Penn by Tuesday at noon."

"What?" he asked.

Lerrick repeated. The Director had galloped in to work that morning as if he had a burr under his saddle. He had been fuming noisily about Communists in the State Department, Communists in the university system, Communists in the fledgling television industry, Communists in the woodpile, and, for that matter, Communists in the Soviet Union. From this he had transposed onto the Commonwealth Penn investigation.

When, he demanded, would he see some results? Before Frank Lerrick could address the question, Hoover offered an answer. He would see some results on the second business day of the following week, he announced. He wanted "young Thomas Buchanan," as he called him, summoned back to Washington immediately to personally bring him up-to-date.

"There aren't results yet," said Buchanan, his indignation rising “I'm just making headway here."

"Staying at a ritzy Hollywood hotel for millionaire movie stars?" he said with reproach. "Having drinks with actresses about the town? Next we'll hear that you're taking nude dips in kidney-shaped swimming pools. Be on a plane out of Tinseltown today, Tom. I don't care if you have to fly back to ‘Cali-far-away’ again next week. Get here pronto and give J.E.H. what he wants."

Five minutes later, Buchanan was packing. By eight thirty AM he had checked out of his hotel.

He called on Ann before heading to the airport. Hold the Phone! was in its final days of photography. The day’s shooting script included one of the initial scenes. It was shot on an RKO set that was dressed to look like a suburban town somewhere in comfortable middle class America.

In one scene Damon Forbes was to make a fool of himself - a recurring source of humor in the script, and a talent that Forbes seemed to have refined - by mistaking Ann for his own wife as she came out of a grocery store. Ann, heavily laden with grocery bags, was to assume the man helping her into a car was her husband. The confusion was not to be solved until they got home, as the Forbes character played a vain man, who drove without his glasses, and Ann was to hold a bushy plant on her lap. Meanwhile, Forbes's actual film wife and Ann's husband were to be stranded together at the curbside, setting in motion the film's buoyant plot. The ensuing scenes, which would take place at Forbes's character's residence, had been shot the previous week.

Two scenes were shot in the morning. Buchanan watched. He sat next to a personable young man who had a script and several associated sheets of paper. As Buchanan snooped and looked onto the man’s lap, he saw that the man was making last second revisions in pencil to the day’s shooting script.  Between scenes, Buchanan struck up a conversation. The young man was the writer.

“Not a job I could ever do,” Buchanan said. “I wouldn’t know where to start in creating a story.”

Engagingly, the young man laughed. “Some days it’s pretty tough for me, too,” he said.

“What do you do when the story doesn’t hold together?” Buchanan asked.

“You unwrap your imagination and you fill in the blanks.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not. So you just keep asking yourself, ‘What if…?’”

“’What if…?’ huh?” Buchanan asked.

“It’s as good as any path out of the darkness,” the writer said. “You just need an idea that works.”

Joe Preston came nowhere near Buchanan, nor did Jesse Chadwick. During the next break, however, the writer had gone to confer with Chadwick. Ann came to Buchanan and sat next to him. Impetuously, she leaned over and kissed him, which surprised him. She gave his hand a long squeeze.

"Hey," he said. "That was nice. Any particular reason?"

"General principles," she said. “It’s good to be with you again.”

"How are things going?" he asked.

"All right," she said.

"How about Jesse?"

"Never came home again," she said. She sighed. "Maybe he's decided to leave me alone for a while. I don't know." A moment later, she continued. "After the wrap party tonight he and Joe Preston are on their way to Las Vegas with a pair of high school girls with fake junior college ID’s. The girls are here already." She rolled her eyes. “I had the locks changed. I’m going to move out tomorrow, but he doesn’t know yet.”

Buchanan moved carefully to the next topic. "I had a visitor last night after I left you," he said. "Your father."

She turned to him again, her eyes wide. "My father?"

"Does that surprise you?"

"Yes. It surprises me very much! What did he want?"

"He wanted to know why I was investigating him."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I told him exactly why," Buchanan said. "What I don't know is why he was on the West Coast. I assume, Ann," Thomas said, "that you didn't know he was in Los Angeles."

"No, I didn't." Ann wore a blank expression. She paused slightly. Her eyes narrowed in thought. "What else did he say?" she asked.

"Only a few things," Buchanan said.  He shrugged. "Your father told me that he had personally talked you into breaking our engagement during the war," Buchanan said. "And he told me that he was completely innocent of any current illegality or wrongdoing."

Her face went red. Ann disappeared into a deep concentration for a moment, only to emerge a few seconds later, as if wondering exactly how to respond. Then Jesse Chadwick's assistant director appeared. The next scene was prepped and the cameras were ready to roll, he said. Ann said she would be there in a moment. Ann did not answer Buchanan's question. Instead, she sat facing away from him.

"Ann?" Thomas finally asked. “Answer me please.”

“Yes, that part’s true,” she said. “I was young. I was stupid. He never liked you. You know that. He said you were a typical unimaginative and boring son of the American working middle class. Mediocre brains, average looks, not equipped to excel in any field. He convinced me I’d be foolish to sit by and wait for a war to end when you'd probably get killed anyway." There was a long, uneasy silence. "He could be very persuasive," Ann said. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Buchanan said calmly. “There. That’s done and finished, okay?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.” There was a pause. "But wasn't he away for much of the war?" Buchanan asked.

"Yes. We never knew when he would be home or away."

"He was in Europe, I believe," Buchanan pressed. "Did he ever talk about it?"

"He rarely said much of anything about the war itself," she said. "I know he was in intelligence work. That's about all."

"But on those rare occasions when he did say something, Ann," Buchanan pressed again. "What would he have said? Do you remember? I was wondering where John Taylor Garrett stood politically," Buchanan tried. "Did you ever have discussions during the war?  Did he ever make any statements on how he felt about our partners in the Allied effort? An opinion on Churchill? Or Stalin, maybe?”

"He spoke well of Roosevelt and Churchill, of course," she said. "Stalin, too. I can recall some conversations. But then, we all were supposed to speak well of the Allied leaders, weren't we?"

"Yes, we were."

"So I don't really know what you're getting at."

The assistant director turned up again.

"Miss Pennington…?" he asked. The message was clear.

"No," she said to Thomas. “I’m sorry. That’s all I have for you, Tom.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Ann glanced across the set and indicated a pair of teenagers sitting placidly on the opposite side of the set, awestruck by what they perceived as the glittery world of cinema.  Jesse Chadwick got up from where he sat with them and walked from the set, giving Buchanan a menacing look as he walked. Buchanan watched him all the way to where he disappeared down a corridor.

"When are they going to Las Vegas?" Buchanan asked, looking back to Ann.

"Tonight or tomorrow. Why?"

"Just wondering." He paused again. "I have to make a progress report directly to Hoover. I'm on my way back to Washington," he said.

"Today?" she asked, surprised.

"This morning."

She turned away. "Oh," she said. "I'm disappointed. I was hoping you'd come to the wrap party. Then maybe we could talk again tonight."

He was torn. "I won't be able to," he said. "I'm sorry."

"When will you be back?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe never. Maybe soon.”

"So you just drop into my life and out again? Just like that?"

"Ann," he said. "I'm concerned about you. Over ten years I never stopped thinking about you. But there are limits to what I can do for you. I can do anything you want on a professional level, if federal laws have been violated. But personally…"

"I'm another man's woman. Is that it?"

"With all my heart I wish you weren't. But you are. Unless you do something about it."

“Divorce him, you mean?”

“Yes. But it’s your choice, not mine.” He allowed a long pause. "Ann, if your marriage is rotten,” he continued, “you should go to Mexico and get a divorce. I can’t do that for you.”

She blew out a long breath and looked nervously onto the set.

“You're still scared of Jesse, aren't you?" Buchanan asked.

"I have reason to be."

He pulled a card from his wallet bearing his telephone lines in Philadelphia and Washington. He pushed the card into her hand.

“If you need protection or help, phone me. I’ll arrange it someway.”

She took his card. She looked at it carefully.

“That’s where you get all those bruises from on your body, isn’t it?” he asked. “He beats you.”

She glanced to her sleeves which were long. Nothing was visible.

“I saw them the night in Romanoff’s,” Buchanan said. “He hits you, doesn’t he?”

“Tom, no. I fall. I fall.”

“If I see him on the way out, I’ll have a word with him. Can’t hurt.”
“He doesn’t listen to reason, Tom. Okay, yes, he beats me. Please let it go.”

“We’ll see.” Buchanan stood. Ann stood also.

He embraced her and then let her go.

"Tom?" she asked. He waited. "Remember the story I told you about Dillinger's father? Dad always hated bankers and everything they stood for. I know that sounds preposterous, being what he is and what he does. But that's the case. He took us to see Dillinger, Senior, so that we'd know why he felt as he did. Does that seem inconsistent?"

"Not if viewed from a certain angle," Buchanan said.

"Then look at it that way," she said. "You're heading in the right direction."

"Thanks."

"Dad was wrong about a lot of things," she said. "Judgments on politics as well as on people. Know what I mean?" She was looking him directly in the eye.

"Yes, I do, Ann. Thank you.”

"Tom?" she said. She reached to him. Impulsively she pulled him to her a second time. "Be careful," she said.

"You too." He released her a second time.

She turned to walk back to the set. He gave her a gentle wave of the hand, wished her well, and left her to complete her film.

He followed the corridor toward the exit, the one in which Jesse Chadwick had taken. Out of Ann’s view, he stopped, scanned and waited. He got his wish. A moment later, Chadwick stepped out of a washroom.

Buchanan turned toward him. Chadwick gave him another glower. Up close, Buchanan could see that Chadwick was compactly built, muscular like a small bull. Well, Buchanan had dealt with worse during the war.

The two men approached each other.

“Why don’t you keep moving,” Chadwick said. “Before your clock gets cleaned. My whore is my whore and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. When she gives me sass, I knock her around. I don’t stand for that.”

“That right?” Buchanan said, his anger rising.

Chadwick responded with an obscenity. Buchanan made as if he were going to let it go, brush past Chadwick and enter the washroom. Then at the last moment, Buchanan sharply hooked his arm into the director’s arm and violently spun him around. Buchanan grabbed Chadwick by the throat, digging in the fingers, whirled him around and shoved him headfirst into the washroom where he slipped and fell onto the floor.

Chadwick cursed bitterly and came up swinging. But as Chadwick lurched forward he encountered Buchanan’s right fist which hit directly into his midsection and doubled him. Then Buchanan grabbed Chadwick by the front of the shirt, forced him upright, hoisted him off his feet as three buttons flew away, and slammed him against the rest room wall.

Chadwick knew better than to fight back. The hand that held him by the shirt just under the chin, was also flashing the FBI shield again. And Buchanan, in his fury, had drawn his revolver and had pushed the thirty-eight caliber nose of it directly into Chadwick’s right eye socket and clicked back the hammer.

“Okay, shitbird,” Buchanan said furiously, “listen up!”

Chadwick broke a fast hot sweat. His eyes were wide and he trembled.

“If I ever hear about one more instance where you’ve abused your wife or hurt her in any way, or if anyone hurts her in any way, I’ll hold you responsible. You’ll wish I’d pulled the trigger today and painted the toilet walls with your brains. Do you get that? If one word reaches me about any abuse, I’ll see to it that every bit of business you ever do is reviewed by the FBI. Every association you’ve ever had will be scrutinized; every tax document with your name on it will get an IRS audit.”

Chadwick squirmed. Buchanan had him by the throat and wasn’t letting go.

“Further, Mr. Hoover will put in calls himself on my behalf to Howard Hughes and the other studio heads to make sure you never film a picture in the United States again,” Buchanan said. “And after that, your underworld buddies, the ones you think of as your friends, will turn around and want to be doing favors for us. How’d you like to end up hanging on a meat hook? Is that something you’d understand?”

Chadwick grunted.

“You like to hit women, don’t you? Do you know what it’s like to be get hit? To be physically abused when you can’t protect yourself?” Buchanan asked.

With a choking grunt, Chadwick shook his head. He gurgled, “No.”

Buchanan brought his knee up and smashed Chadwick between the legs. When he bellowed, Buchanan released him and let him slide to the floor.

“Well, now you do. I guess everything’s clear,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan put away his gun and his shield.

Chadwick remained on the floor, writhing and clutching his groin.

Buchanan straightened himself and looked in on the set a final time. He caught Ann once more before she had to go before the cameras.

“We talked,” he said. “Jesse and I. It went well. I think he understands.”

Buchanan drove to the airport. He caught the next flight.

There would be a change of planes at O'Hare in Chicago, a delay on takeoff from O'Hare to National Airport in Washington, and a turbulent flight in a DC-3 as the aircraft rode out the fringes of a snowstorm above Ohio. It would be evening when Buchanan looked out of the left side of his airplane and saw the Washington Monument and the Capitol from the air. By that time he was exhausted.

But he was alive and in good health, much thanks to Frank Lerrick and his predawn phone call.

From nine AM in Los Angeles outside the Commodore, Alexandr Filiatov had sat in ambush in his own car, a pistol under a folded newspaper on his lap, waiting for Buchanan to emerge from the hotel.

At noon Filiatov guessed that he had missed his prey and had gone into the hotel to inquire. It was only then that the hotel informed the Soviet assassin that Mr. Buchanan had departed. The hotel graciously provided a forwarding address in Washington. Filiatov thanked the desk clerk and proceeded to the airport. He cursed violently to himself but remained on the trail of his target.

Later, from National Airport in Washington, Thomas Buchanan took a taxi to his home on 7th Street, SE. On arrival, Buchanan paid the driver, turned, scanned the shadows and walked up the wooden steps of the Raffertys' house. It was very late evening. There was a half-moon shining and it was very cold.

He turned the key in the door and entered. The house was dark, save for a light on the stairs. As a precaution, he held his weapon in one hand and his suitcase in the other as he climbed the steps. He locked the door to his room and barricaded it with a dresser. He slept with his pistol next to his bed and recalled again that he used to do that in Rome, Paris and Berlin, also. He knew the drill too well.

At least, he told himself, he was home and safe. In the bargain, he had actually located Ann. Already, he was trying to repress the feelings for her that had quickly re-emerged.

She was, he reasoned as he fell asleep, a severely flawed human being: someone else’s wife, formerly at least one other man’s mistress, a woman who had dumped him once and, given the chance, might do the same thing again. She had her history, he concluded.

Severely flawed, he repeated to himself. By events, by the war. Flawed and damaged, much like himself, he thought as he slipped into sleep. So why then did he feel such a pull whenever he was with her, whenever he looked into her eyes?

He had no answer to that and fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER 52

The next morning as Buchanan descended the Raffertys’ stairs to breakfast, he came to an abrupt stop. From the living room adjoining the entrance hall he heard familiar voices in casual conversation.

Mrs. Rafferty was talking about Bess Truman. Buchanan caught only a snippet of the conversation, but Rafferty changed the topic to Harry Truman. It was Rafferty's opinion that Harry Truman was, "doing too much for the lazy Niggers."

This was one of Rafferty's favorite topics, that and the Eleanor Roosevelt Clubs - to Rafferty, obvious hotbeds of sedition - that numerous ‘colored’ cleaning ladies in the South had formed. Rafferty was of the opinion, which he shared generously, that these women should be grateful to have a job in “good white” homes.

Buchanan had long since learned to keep Rafferty, if he wanted to rant, on the subject of the hapless Washington Senators, where his fury was more constructively focused. On politics, the man lived in the previous century and was on the wrong side of history.

But then Buchanan heard a third voice, a man's. He stopped and listened. For a moment he couldn't place it. Then he did.

"I think I hear Mr. Buchanan now," said the visitor. All conversation ceased.

Buchanan took one more step and stood at the doorway to the Raffertys' sitting area. He looked at the Raffertys plus their guest.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Rafferty," Buchanan said. "Hello, Jack," he said.

Jack Malone of the United States Secret Service grinned and stood. "I took the liberty confirming to your landlords that you'd be back this morning. At least for a short time," Malone said.

"But how did you know I'd be back?" Buchanan asked.

"I tried to phone your hotel in California," Malone said. "They gave me your forwarding number. And address."

“It’s a Saturday morning. Something must be important," Buchanan said.

"I think that's a reasonable supposition," said Malone.

"Mr. Malone has a job with the Treasury Department," said Mrs. Rafferty, impressed.

"Tom, you might want to pack your suitcase with a change of clothes, but I'd keep that coat on if I were you," Malone said. "We've got a drive in front of us. Have a quick breakfast. The scrambled eggs here are great,” Malone said. “I’d suggest three over lightly with toast and coffee.”

Buchanan glanced at his watch.  Eight AM on the nose. Buchanan’s body clock was keeping Pacific Time, however. It was painful.

“Whatever you say, Jack” Buchanan said. He was dead on his feet from the twelve-hour journey from California. Even worse, there was a written brief to prepare for Hoover.

“Go pack your bag, Tom,” Malone said, “while your landlady gets you some food.”

Twenty minutes later Malone walked Buchanan back to the street. A car was waiting, complete with the same helpers as on Buchanan’s previous trip to the White House. Special Agent Fred Clark of the Secret Service hopped out and opened the door. The engine idled noisily. Buchanan recognized it as the same vehicle that had transported him last time. There was also a second car waiting.

Malone went to the driver's side of the first car. Buchanan, in a hat, overcoat and gloves, stood across the car from him.

"Where to this time?" Buchanan asked.

"Just for a drive," Malone said. “If I were rude, I’d say just get in and shut up. But I’m polite. So just get in the front on the passenger side and shut up.”

Buchanan took his cue, tossing his suitcase in the backseat. There it landed on a case belonging to Malone.

The doors slammed. Buchanan saw that Clark was going to the car behind them. Special Agent Kirby slid behind the wheel of the back-up car. They hadn’t taken his gun from him, Buchanan noticed. At least that was a good sign.

"I hate secrets," said Buchanan.

"It's not time to talk yet," Malone said. "Believe it or not, our agency has a set of rules as to when I can reveal to a passenger where we're going. I can't do it yet. Not till we're completely sure we're clean." Clean meant no one uninvited was following. "Ready?" Malone asked.

Buchanan said he was. The car started to move.

They drove through a frosty morning. A glaze kept forming on the windshield and Malone kept jumping out at stoplights to whack it off. The city was strangely quiet. It was cold enough for snow but there wasn’t any. To Buchanan, who had been in California a few hours earlier, the temperature was all the more chilling. The heat in the car was erratic.

Buchanan sat quietly. The car radio was on, but Malone had the volume low. The broadcast sounded like a Blue Network pickup of a fake ballroom in New York or Boston. From the corner of his left eye Buchanan looked at the lines on Malone's face and wondered what percentage were job-related.

At the same time, Buchanan was angry at Malone's methods, his manners, and his missions. He was angry, also, he realized, that he had just left a woman in California who was married to a man who abused her and with whom he could fall back in love.
Malone had excellent antennae.

"You don't seem in the best of spirits," Malone asked.

"I'm not. Why should I be?”

“You survived the war. Shouldn’t that make you happy?”

“Was that meant as some sort of joke?” Buchanan asked, turning on his driver.

“Just one man’s opinion.”

“Then keep it to yourself, okay?  I’m also supposed to call Hoover today.”

“We’re advising him you’re with us. Don’t worry. It will all come out in the wash.”

“I do worry,” Buchanan snapped.

“Nothing I can do about that, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend.”

“That might change.”

Buchanan seethed for several minutes.

"Anything I can do to help?" Malone finally asked.

"Sure. Close this stinking case for me, drop a brief on Hoover's desk, toss me a thousand bucks out of one of your reptile funds and ship me back to California for six months of R and R. How’s that?"

"Anything more realistic?"

"Probably not," Buchanan groused.

After a small pause, Malone eased and spoke again.

"Tom, listen," he said, "I have a son eight years old, a girl five, and a boy three. They never see their father because the old man works at the White House. This evening, my wife's sister is baby-sitting, and I told my wife I'd take her to the movies. She wants to see On The Town. Sinatra, Gene Kelley and Ann Miller. Seen it?”

“When would I have had time to see a movie?”

“That’s my point, my friend. I’ve got to phone the wife and tell her it’s a no-go for tonight. So you see, here I am, same as you, because I have an important job to do. My wife is on my back every day to quit. But I can't. I promised the President I'd stay on for as long as he holds office. Okay?"

Buchanan angled a look at the side-view mirror. They still had their escort car behind them.

“Yeah. Sure.”

"Look," Malone said. "The fact is this. I made a promise to the President of the United States. That means something. And I'll tell you something, Buchanan. I got three kids growing up and I have to fight for every second that I can spend with them. But they're going to be adults in the 1960s. It sounds far off, doesn't it? Well, it's not. It'll come and go like that." He snapped his fingers sharply. "The thing is, someday they'll ask me, 'Daddy what were you doing when the bad guys were trying to take over the country?' And I'll be able to say, 'Kids, I worked in the White House. And I fought against that with every ounce of strength my body could muster.'”

"Okay, Malone. Good pep talk. Spare me the rest of it.”

"Thanks. You’ve really got a stick up your rear today, don’t you? You got women trouble?”

“No.”

“You don't have kids, do you?"

"I'm not married."

"Well, someday you will be. You'll have little ones. And maybe you'll understand me better. After all, what do we do on this earth that's important except keep it safe for our families and prepare it for those who come after us?"

"Jack, you should have been a priest."

“That’s a real nice thing to say. I went to Notre Dame, you know. So thank you.”
“It wasn’t entirely a compliment,” Buchanan said, faintly amused.
“Oh. Well, I’ll tell you God’s honest truth. I could have become a priest. Thought about it, but then I was in the Army toward the end of the war. I learned that I liked getting laid too much. So I took the thing with the Baltimore police for a couple of years and then joined Secret Service.”
“We’ve all got past stories,” Buchanan said.
“Yeah. Very correct on that.” There was a long pause. Then, “Let me bring you into the picture as best I can,” Malone said, consulting his rear view mirror.

"Please do," Buchanan answered.

"Senator Joe McCarthy is about to go public on the Garrett case," said Malone.

“What?”

"He has a press conference scheduled for Friday, March 17. That's soon. He seems to have a direct line on what you're doing." There was a long pause. "I have to ask you this, Tom, so forgive me: I assume you're not telling him directly."

“McCarthy?”

“Yeah.”

"I am not!" Buchanan snapped. “I wouldn’t talk to that drunken son of a bitch.”

"No, of course not. But Joe McCarthy is getting it from the FBI. Probably straight from Hoover, let's face it." Malone shook his head. "How do you feel about that?"

"I think it stinks!" Buchanan said with another flash of anger. "How the hell do you think I feel?"

"Yeah, I know." Malone shrugged. "But when it comes down to it, Hoover's your boss, right?"

"That doesn't mean Hoover can't be wrong. It doesn't mean an agent can't think on his feet by himself. What is this, Jack? An inquisition?"

“Do you think Hoover’s giving him info?”

Buchanan stifled an elaborate response. He went with, “It wouldn’t surprise me,” instead.

“Want to hear more?" Malone asked evenly.

"Sure."

"McCarthy's going to claim Mark O'Connell as a victim of Communist assassins in the United States. That should go over well with the American public, don't you think? A former FBI agent shot by Red gunmen on U.S. soil."

Buchanan remained silent. Then he cursed.

"And Hoover's going to second the pronouncement," Malone said. "Hoover plans to name O'Connell as a fallen hero of the agency."

"Hoover's people harassed Mark O'Connell out of his job," Buchanan said. "The Bureau does it all the time. After years of good work you fall into disfavor. Then they harass you till you quit. Look what they did to ‘Little Melvin.’”

“Purvis?”

“Yes.”

"Exactly. Look, I know that. You know that. That stuff goes on in any outfit, Tom. Office politics. Hoover plays hardball like everyone else in Washington. But John Q. Squarejohn Public thinks John Edgar’s a big shot hero. So who are we to pull down the statue? A nation needs statues, don’t you think?”

“Not the wrong ones."

“You got a subversive streak, don’t you?”

Buchanan shot Malone a hard sideways glare. The car edged through traffic

“Don’t worry. This is all between us. I’m not a rat,” Malone said.

Buchanan, as he sat there, wasn’t so sure.

"Yeah. Try selling bad stuff on Hoover to Mr. and Mrs. America,” Malone said. "Hoover never leaves his office except to have a free drink or have his picture taken. Never made an arrest in his life. Probably gets his jollies bouncing Clyde Tolson on his lap, or maybe it’s the other way around.  Yet if J. Edgar had any better a public image, he would have sunbeams breaking from behind his head."

Buchanan kept quiet. He was weary and had already said too much. Fatigue and anxiety hadn’t helped. He realized it and tried to remain silent. The two men rode without speaking for close to half an hour.

"The President says he wants to do the proper thing," Malone finally said, breaking a silence. "But he doesn't feel like having a spy scandal thrown in his face, either. Mr. Truman thinks he can trust you. Of course, we have no choice. You're running the only investigation of Garrett. You had a head start."

"By a few weeks," said Buchanan.

"The way everyone else sees it," Malone reminded him, "by a few years."

"Ah, yes," Buchanan said, remembering time spent in 1939 and 1940. "Of course. Family.”

“Family,” Malone agreed.

They pulled to a halt in front of an unmarked building a few blocks from the White House. Malone yanked up the parking break. “I have to get some stuff,” he said.

“Here?” Buchanan asked, looking at the sandstone building.

“Here,” Malone said. “It’s a Secret Service building. I’ll be in there for a little while. Kirby and Clark are going to remain behind you. I told them to shoot you if you get out of the car. So stay put.”

“Is that another joke?” Buchanan asked as Malone stepped out on the driver’s side.

Malone shrugged and winked. “Step out and you’ll see how funny it is, my friend.”

Malone disappeared into the building. Buchanan could see a flag and two armed guards in the vestibule as Malone entered. Then the door shut. Two uneasy hours passed. Then Malone reappeared. He carried two attaché cases that he tossed onto the floor of the back seat and a bag that he handed to Buchanan. The bag turned out to be packed with sandwiches. He stepped back in. “Long wait?” Malone asked.

“I’d say.”

“Tough crap.”

They drove down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House and left the government district. They fell into a more casual conversation.

Malone, it turned out, had been in the military, also, but was too young for the war. He had gone into the Army in 1945 and had been out fifteen months later, having never left stateside. He had grown up in Missouri, which was his connection, and loyal to Truman. The President had known his family when Malone was a kid. As the conversation continued, Buchanan found himself revising his opinion of the younger man. He started to like him.

Malone took a zigzag course of abrupt turns through Washington. Buchanan assumed the erratic path was to throw off anyone who followed. There was heavy traffic. Finally, "Are you holding on tight?" Malone asked. “Got a grip on that lunch bag?”

"Why?"

“We're about to jump the divider. I’d grab the door handle if I were you.”

They were on New York Avenue. Malone cut the steering wheel as hard as he could.  The car hit the divider in the middle of the avenue, went sideways for a split second, so severely that Buchanan thought they would tip, then completed a violent U-Turn. The car came off the center divider and jammed into traffic going the opposite way. There was a fishtail and a hard skid. Then things were right again and Malone hit the accelerator hard.

Buchanan felt as if his insides were about to fly out the car door with him still inside.  Malone scrutinized his rearview mirror to see if anyone else had done the same thing. He hit his breaks and went down a side street only to emerge a few blocks later and hit the accelerator in the opposite direction.

"We're clean," he said. "Doesn't that make you feel good?"

"What about Clark and Kirby?" Buchanan said.

“Gone. Their job was to watch for anyone who tried the same thing. If anyone had, the follow-up car was instructed to stop and arrest whoever had tried, even if they had to crash their vehicle to accomplish it. But no one did. That makes me feel good. It should make you feel good, too.”

Malone lit a Camel cigarette and offered one to Buchanan. Buchanan declined. Malone moved the car from third gear to fourth. Malone's eyes alternated between the road before him and the rearview mirror.

"What about all those files I asked you for?" Buchanan asked. "Wong. DeStefano and Garrett. Did you find any CIA entries for them?"

"Sure enough," said Malone. “I have them. Back seat. That’s what I stopped for. Didn’t say nothing to nobody. Just got them, myself.”

“Okay. That’s good. So just tell me this: Garrett claims that his Chinese gangster and his Italian-American gangster have both done work for the government. Any truth to it?" Buchanan asked.

"Enough truth to complicate matters for you," Malone said. "Look. Back seat again. I have everything. Right there. You can look at them now if you like," Malone said. "If reading in the car gives you a headache, you can look at them later. I just have to return them."

"So tell me where we're going now," Buchanan said.

"To a safe house in Maryland.  We've got a Russian who wants to defect. He knows about the unpleasantness up in Oregon."

"And who is 'we'?” Buchanan asked.  “Whose defector is he?"

"Right now, ‘we’ is Secret Service," Malone said. He offered a grin, suggesting that he had snaked the other services.

"How did you get him instead of the FBI or the CIA?"

"Interesting question," said Malone as he drove. "Instead of turning himself in to the police or tossing himself on the mercy of Hoover or Central Intelligence, the man got himself a lawyer. The lawyer had a tie to the Truman administration. Interesting, huh? The contact brought it to Mr. Truman's attention and the President gave it to me."

"What's this Russian trying to do? Cut a deal?"

"Protect himself, I suppose," Malone said. "Not rot in prison."

"Where do I come in?" Buchanan asked.

"You're going to question him. Decide for us whether he is legitimate. Then we determine what we want to do with him. You speak Russian, right?”

“I spoke some during the war.”

“Well, you’ll speak some more this week, comrade.”

“And by keeping him away from Hoover or the CIA, you can control the political damage if there is any."

"I said before, Tom," Malone answered with mild irritation, "The President has political concerns, too. Can't blame him." As he drove, his eyes slid sideways, from the rearview mirror to the road, to the side mirror and back. Buchanan wondered if he had developed the same habit.

"Look," Malone resumed, "there's the Congressional elections coming up this fall. You get four-hundred-odd reactionaries in the House of Representatives, a comparable number in the Senate, and America of 1952 will look like Berlin of 1933 all over again. You'll have Joe McCarthy riding into the White House making Adolf Hitler look like a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Want that?"

"President Truman asked me the same question,” Buchanan said. “You guys must think you know my answer.”

Malone laughed.

“There’s a lot on the line, Tom. You know what Governor Dewey said after he was defeated by Truman in 1948? He said, ‘The people have spoken, the bastards!’ The President doesn’t want to be chanting the same refrain this November.”

Then Malone was on the two-lane highway outside of Washington, cutting a path through the horsey Maryland countryside. Malone’s foot pressed harder on the pedal and the automobile’s engine roared and responded with everything that Detroit could pack under a hood.

They shared sandwiches on the ride. Malone rolled down the window when he smoked. They stopped at a gas station in Silver Spring, refueled, and used the washrooms. Eventually, the afternoon faded and darkness descended. Still, they drove. Their vehicle barreled through the evening and ate the dark highway. Fortunately, there was no ice on the road, or at least none they could see.

The cold towns rolled by in a Maryland winter: Wheaton, Layhill. Ashton.

Malone said little. In the darkness, entire vistas of suspicion took shape before Buchanan. One by one in a dark, wild flight of paranoia everyone had betrayed him: Ann, O'Connell, Hoover, Lerrick, and Malone. Maybe even President Truman, until the only good Americans he could trust were John Garrett, Hoover and Senator McCarthy. Buchanan dozed and came out of the nap feeling saner.

Finally, the car left the highway, made a pair of turns on an unlit country road, and was eventually upon gravel.

Lights appeared, as did a Queen Anne house. Buchanan saw the figure of a man with a rifle at a front window. The man disappeared moments after the car lights pierced the blackness of the driveway.

Buchanan’s nerves, his senses, were set to explode. If this was what these espionage games were all about, he wanted none of them in the future.

Or did he?

They had their pull, these challenges. There was nothing like full, lethal life-or-death danger to make a man’s senses and instincts come to full alert. He had felt this during the war and he felt it again here, in spite of himself.

Malone cut the engine. The car rolled to a slow stop. Malone yanked the parking break when they could go no more.  "Come along, my friend," Malone said.

From within the house someone illuminated an outdoor flood lamp. They walked up a flagstone path along a suburban garden. And suddenly, with the light, everything seemed very American, very familiar, and much less ominous.

Malone led Buchanan into the house through the kitchen. Malone washed his hands at the kitchen sink. He introduced Buchanan to a pair of Secret Service agents, one of whom had been the lookout above the driveway. The man still held an M-1 carbine. Another old friend from the war.  The house stank of stale cigarette smoke. Malone brought Buchanan along to the next room. At his entry, two more men sprung to their feet. One had been seated on a sofa, the other on a lounge chair.

One of the men was fiftyish and balding. The other was half the first man's age. Buchanan looked at the two of them and guessed that the older man was the defector.

"This is Bill Jaffe," said Malone, indicating the older man.

Jaffe wasn't defecting from anything other than Manhattan for a few days. He was balding and stout, with a reddish face. He was a partner, Malone continued, in a heavy-hitting New York legal concern named Exman, Grossman, and Zacharias.

Buchanan had guessed wrong. The younger man was the defector as well as Jaffe's client.

"Now," said Malone next, "Tom, I want you to meet the guest of honor. George?" he said.

The younger man nodded nervously. In the presence of his attorney, the man extended his hand and shook with Buchanan.

"Ты советские?" Buchanan asked. “You’re Soviet?”

"Да, хорошо, я. Но я считаю себя русским, а не советским,” the man answered politely, but surprised.  “Yes, well, I am. But I think of myself as Russian, not Soviet.”

"This is Viktor Milenkin," said Malone. "Also known in America as George Mulligan. Let's everyone sit down. I think George has quite a story to tell us."

Buchanan settled into a chair to listen, remarking initially how American the young Russian looked and sounded. He wondered where this was going and, a newly cynical streak emerging, figured nowhere good.

CHAPTER 53

Buchanan initiated some small talk in Russian. At first his own grasp of the language was halting. Then it quickly came back. Milenkin spoke an educated Moscow brand of his language; Buchanan spotted it easily from the subject’s speech patterns.

One of the keepers brought coffee. There was liquor on a table, too, but no one wanted to be the first one to reach for it.

“These days I prefer the name ‘Mulligan,’" the younger man finally said, slipping back into English with apparent ease. "I'm trying to put as much of the Russian stuff behind me as possible."

Buchanan was surprised at the Soviet's nearly flawless English. For a moment he wondered if he had misunderstood the purposes for which he was there. Mulligan, or Milenkin, looked and sounded more American than half the people Buchanan knew.
But then things became clearer. Jaffe, the attorney, spoke.

"My client, Mr. Mulligan," Jaffe said, "wishes to do a great service to the United States. He's willing to drop a Soviet spy network right in your laps, gentlemen. But, of course, my first concern is my client's safety and legal status, both from the Soviets as well as from American law enforcement."

"What's that mean, Mr. Jaffe?" Buchanan asked politely, settling in.

"It means Mulligan has a story to sell us," Malone said. "And we're here to listen."

“It also means that my client is here of his own accord and loves his adopted country,” Jaffe said. “We have a gentlemen’s agreement. He gives you some sample information. It stays off the record. You want to use it, fine, but considerations will have to be made.”

“It means he’s here to rat out some other people, but eventually take a walk himself, in other words,” Malone said.

“Let’s take it back a step,” Buchanan said. “As far as the FBI is concerned, I have a certain latitude in questioning. Even if your client has broken federal law, Mr. Jaffe, I can allow him to remain at liberty if I think it serves the greater good. On that understanding, I’m willing to be flexible and listen. Just don’t push my limits.”

“Mr. Malone?” Jaffe asked, looking to the Secret Service representative.

Malone opened his hands in a gesture of acceptance. “Ultimately, it’s Mr. Buchanan’s case. Secret Service is only an interested observing party. But I’ll go along.”

“Good,” said Jaffe.

Buchanan turned back to the Soviet and spoke in Russian, making sure he understood the procedure. The Soviet nodded briskly, smiled and said he did.

Buchanan looked at his watch. It was eleven PM Absently, he wondered what Ann Garrett was doing out West. Malone was loading a Webcor tape recorder, a big, bulky instrument, with six-inch reels. As he worked, he looked to Buchanan.

"He's got a job with New York Telephone and a girlfriend in Brooklyn," Malone said, as if that explained everything. "What bigger piece of the American pie could any man want?"

Buchanan was sympathetic. "A good job and a good woman," he mused. "Any reasonable man would place a high value on both commodities. I can't think of two better reasons to wish to stay in an adoptive country."

"Thank you," Mulligan said.

"We can't make any rigid promises," said Buchanan. "But I have access to the FBI director and Mr. Malone has access to President Truman. If you help us, if your story checks, we can help you."

"I've advised Mr. Mulligan of his rights," said Jaffe. "I also know that the President would be more inclined to help him than Mr. Hoover would."

"I'm certain you're right," Buchanan allowed. Malone set a reel of tape. He was ready to begin.

"Who's doing the talking first?" Buchanan asked. Jaffe, the attorney, was never short for words.

"If the tape is running," he said, "a few things should be stated at the outset." Jaffe ran through his own name as well as his client's. He then stressed that Mulligan was there on his own volition and was not subject to any imminent arrest or deportation. He was there because he wished to help the United States, Jaffe said.

"That's nice," Buchanan said. "But I'd like to hear it from him." Buchanan glanced at Malone who didn’t seem to know where to go next. Buchanan took it as his opportunity to run the room. He turned to Mulligan.

"Why don't you tell us in your own words, sir," he suggested.

Mulligan took his audience as far back as he could remember, recounting his boyhood in Ukraine. He remembered neither parent, he said, but he remembered his aunt Sonya, who would later become his adoptive mother, taking him strolling through the long stretches of square brick houses in the little mining town in the Donbas, where he had been born. The houses had been built by one John Hughes, he pointed out, a Marxist Welshman who had settled in the Soviet Union after the October Revolution of 1918. From his earliest years he could also remember the new granite sculptures of Lenin erected after Lenin's death in 1924. When he dwelt on this too long, his lawyer nudged him to sections to which American ears would be more receptive.

He told about his trip by steamship to America in 1929. He and Aunt Sonya had settled in New York first, then had worked their way westward during the Depression, settling in northern California by 1931. His aunt had caught on as a billing clerk for a wire company, and on this solid foundation she and her newly adopted son settled in Palo Alto. He recounted an American boyhood of the 1930s, and Buchanan, sitting in rapt attention, felt a strange empathy for him. Buchanan was wary, but convinced he was not making it up, at least not this part.

Mulligan spent an hour on this. Buchanan quizzed him on the small American details, who was in the Sunday funnies, what radio shows he liked, what his toys were. Milenkin was convincing.

He worked his way through his story toward late 1938. That was when the United States Department of Immigration caught up with them. The Americans forced his family's decision and back to the Soviet Union they went.

Buchanan glanced at his watch. By now it was after midnight. Malone changed the tape. Mulligan paused for a glass of water, and everyone took a bathroom break. When the tape spun again, the Russian resumed, moving quickly through his repatriation to the Soviet Union in 1939. More his aunt's decision than his, he said. Fact was, he said, he would have been much happier staying in school in California. Then again, he was only fourteen years old, and hardly capable of making a legal decision.

Then came the part that pulled Buchanan and Malone up on the edges of their chairs. Mulligan started to talk about how CPSU officials were looking for young people who had had life experience in the United States.

“They wanted spies. Moles,” Milenkin said. “If you spoke American English they wanted you for America. If you spoke British English, they wished to send you to a Marxist family in the United Kingdom. The purpose was to spy, observe, infiltrate and eventually to subvert.”

“And were you happy with this part of the deal?” Buchanan asked.

“I was happy with anything that would send me back to America,” he said.

Milenkin talked about the GRU and his training in Moscow in the oppressive big building at Dzerzhinski Square. Here Buchanan began to interject questions. He had heard enough stories from Russians during the war. He wanted to know if the details would check.

"Do you remember the floor on which you were trained?" he asked.

"Fourth."

"Can you describe it?"

Mulligan did.

“What path did you take from the front entrance to the GRU's section?" he asked. "Please describe it in detail. Tell me about the security system, how many doors you went through, what the rooms were like. What do you remember?”

“Excuse me, but how would you know those things?” Mulligan asked.

“I knew Soviets in Berlin in 1945,” Buchanan said. “I learned a few things. We also have people in Washington who know, who have been in Moscow. We will compare your tape with their knowledge.”

“Ah, that is very good. Fine.”

Mulligan complied. This took seventeen minutes. Buchanan threw another dozen questions at him, and Mulligan patiently answered every one. The tape, Buchanan knew, would have to be reviewed by someone more authoritative than he. But at least he would know whether or not Mulligan had ever been in the headquarters building of Soviet state security.

"It was in 1941," Mulligan said next, "when I first met Colonel Andrei Volkov."

"Who?" Buchanan asked.

"Colonel Andrei Volkov of the GRU," Mulligan said again. "The GRU is Soviet military intelligence."

Buchanan turned to Malone. "Is this Volkov anyone we know about?" he asked.

Malone shook his head. "Only what Mr. Mulligan is telling us," Malone said. "I ran it past a contact at CIA We didn't find anything. But to tell you the truth, they still seem pretty baffled by everything over there."

“Great,” Buchanan intoned.

"Colonel Volkov was my Aunt Sonya's lover," Mulligan said by way of endorsement. "Volkov found a good spot for me, translating documents from the British and the Americans during the war."

As always, Jaffe sought to put the proper spin on it. "It should be pointed out that the British and Americans were officially Soviet allies until 1947. Mr. Mulligan was thus helping our war effort as well as the Soviets."

“Sure,” Buchanan said. “It’s just a shame that our official allies were enslaving most of Eastern Europe at the same time. Makes for bad blood, know what I mean?”

Jaffe gave a tight defensive grin. Malone looked away.

Buchanan fished a small pad and pencil in his pocket. "I realize the name would be transliterated," he said. "But could I have a spelling?"

"V-o-l-k-o-v," Mulligan said with quiet cooperation. "First name, ‘Andrei.’ It was a nom de guerre. I believe he was Polish. That’s what I was told. He had been a leader of the Polish Communist Party during the war of 1939-45. Became a leader of pro-Soviet forces and was rewarded with a rank of colonel in the GRU"

"What was your source on that?" Buchanan asked.

"Nothing very good," said Mulligan. "Mostly hearsay. But sometimes hearsay is reliable on such matters."

"And sometimes it's not," Buchanan countered. "Sometimes widespread hearsay is an attempt to fabricate a credible cover story. I learned that the hard way from some of the Russian officers I worked with in Berlin after the war. They told cover stories so well and so frequently that even they started to believe them. Right?"

No one answered.

“I’d also find it strange that the GRU would put a Pole in a position like that,” he said.

“Why do you say that, Tom?” Malone asked.

“They just don’t work that way. They would use someone less ‘eastern’ if they didn’t use a Russian.”

“I only tell you what I observed and heard,” said Mulligan.

“Sure,” Buchanan said. “Continue.”

Mulligan stayed with the point, however. In Soviet intelligence circles, a man's reputation often preceded him. And very little got written down. So the fake truth became the new truth, in the best Alice In Wonderland style.

"A good point," Buchanan said. "Yet" - here he turned to Malone again - "if Volkov was a Polish Communist, shouldn't we have something on him? Shouldn't there be a CIA file or an OSS folio, or something?"

"We should have something but might not," Malone answered.  “Have you ever been over there to Foggy Bottom?”

“No.”

“Pretty scattered, my friend.”

“So it seems.” Buchanan made an exasperated expression.

“And who knows what name it’s under if not ‘Volkov.’” Malone shrugged again.             "Look at the Klaus Fuchs situation," Malone said. "The man was an overt member of the Communist parties in Germany and France before going to England and America. Red as the sails in the sunset. Yet the intelligence services of every Western democracy fanned on him when he went to work on the Manhattan Project."

Security work was often the kingdom of the blind, both conceded, without even a one-eyed man to take charge. Buchanan turned back to Mulligan.

"I'm just curious," said Buchanan. "And I suppose it's a small point: what language do you speak with Volkov?"

"I've seen him only once in the last three years," Mulligan answered.

"I asked what language you spoke.”

"I didn't mean to evade. We've spoken English and Russian in the past," said Mulligan. "It depends on the circumstances."

"How's his Russian?" Buchanan asked.

"Just about perfect."

"'Just about'?"

"He has a very faint accent that I've always taken to be Polish."

"Okay. And what about his English?"

"Even better," Mulligan recalled.

“Native?” Buchanan inquired. “Flawless?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Hard for me to tell. Didn’t hear much English.”

"And have you ever heard him actually speak Polish?" Buchanan inquired.

"No," Mulligan answered with a hint of defensiveness. "Why would I? I don't speak it myself."

"But in Moscow perhaps?"

"It's not the type of thing a Pole would do," Mulligan insisted. "In Moscow a Pole would try to be even more Russian than the Russians. Not even admit to speaking Polish.” He paused. “Katyn Forest, 1940. Anything Polish remained touchy, you know? Massacres. Death camps.”

Buchanan knew. But he pursued the smaller point.

"Then we don't know for certain if he is Polish?" Buchanan said. No, they didn't, the Russian admitted. But it was unusual enough that Volkov had something of a regal bearing. That in itself could arbitrarily arrange a funeral for a man in any intelligence service run by Lavrentii Beria, the boss of the murderous KGB. Beria was so much a man of the people that he had murdered thousands of them himself. Finally realizing this in the West, Mulligan had figured that Volkov must have been some turncoat Polish count with invaluable contacts both inside and outside the Soviet Union. Otherwise how could he survive?

"How old a man would this Volkov be?" Buchanan asked, still taking written notes.

"Fifty-something," Mulligan guessed.

“Mid-fifties. Early fifties? Late?”

“Mid.”

“That narrows it down to a few million gentle souls,” Malone said.

“And you said you knew him during the war? Volkov? In Moscow?” Buchanan pressed.

“That’s correct.”

“Then how could we not have something on him?” Buchanan asked, irritated and turning back to Malone. “Honestly, I’m starting to think our peers at Foggy Bottom are holding back on us.”

“Possible,” Malone said. “I know the President’s getting angry about the lack of feedback from over there.”

Buchanan turned back to Mulligan.

"Is there any other name we might know him by?"

Mulligan opened his hands in a gesture of helplessness. He didn't know of one. "And where did you say you saw him last?" Buchanan asked.

"I didn't say. But it was in Battery Park in New York City several months ago," Mulligan said.

"He was on American soil?" Buchanan said.

Mulligan nodded. He described the occasion and, for good measure - in an act that might assure his future position before a Soviet firing squad - physically described his colonel as well. Buchanan took hand notes and refused to look up.

"Don't you wonder how he seems to pass unnoticed across our borders?" Buchanan asked Malone.

That was no mystery to Mulligan. A forged passport was the key to trouble-free travel. He displayed his own as evidence. Buchanan took it and carefully examined it, from binding to photograph to the finely forged imprint of the State Department.

"This is really an excellent piece of work, I must admit," Buchanan said with a wry sense of amusement. "Almost better than some of our actual passports. And some people insist that our Russian friends are unsophisticated. A few years ago at Potsdam they didn’t have chairs or tableware. Now they have atomic weapons.”

“Wonderful,” said Malone.

“Russians and their fake identity pieces,” Buchanan said. “I saw a ton of them in Berlin when the war was winding down. Every Russian I met seemed to have a few different pieces. Some very crude, some quite good.”

He handed the passport back to Mulligan. "You wouldn't know what name Volkov travels under?” he asked, looking up. “Or what sort of passport? British? Canadian? Or whether he's in the United States currently?"

“Or even a ‘Displaced Person’ passport,” Malone chipped in. “I’ve seen a few of those.”

“’D.P.’ would arouse suspicion,” Buchanan suggested. “If this guy, Volkov, is good, if he’s a professional, he would be using something prosaic. The whole point of an espionage operation is to not stand out, after all. To just disappear into the fabric of daily life.”

Mulligan said that Volkov’s travel documents weren't the type of thing to which he would be privy.  And who knew how many he might have, anyway? Surely he had ”escape” documents if things blew up, at least two.

Buchanan found that credible.

"Fine. Please go on," he said.

"It was about 1945," Mulligan said, "that Colonel Volkov started talking about sending me back to the West."

Here, Malone and Buchanan let the Russian speak for several minutes without interruption. An assignment in America was something he relished in principle, he said, because he had always held a certain affection for his second country. Or so he insisted. It never occurred to him that he was coming back to work against America's interests. It was a job, an assignment, an adventure. And in retrospect he wondered if Volkov's courtship of Sonya had all along been nothing more than a sly recruitment rush.

Mulligan talked for the next forty minutes about his trip back to America, illegal entry in New York via an Albanian freighter, the switch of identity at the Hotel Astor, and the instantaneous assimilation into American society.

In the middle of all this, Malone clumsily reset the Webcor with a third tape. Buchanan then listened in fascination when Mulligan started to talk again, his flesh crawling as the mole conveyed the relative ease with which he wove himself into the fabric of America.

Buchanan’s attention drifted for a few seconds and he wondered if there were another ten thousand Red sleepers out there set to sabotage the interests of Uncle Sam.

Mulligan described his assignment in America. He was to find a job and disappear into mainstream American life. Then he was to serve as a conduit for messages, the drop point being the rocky foundations of the Williamsburg Bridge. He described the Saturday morning procedure and made it all sound very simple.

Mulligan seemed uneasy with what followed. The messages he passed along to others, he said, were coded. He had no idea what they said. But being a curious sort of man, he was in the habit of taking a peek at them. “Just for the hell of it,” he said, showing off his English. “Since they were coded, I wasn’t really peeking, right?” he asked. That’s how he saw the picture of Mark O’Connell in one envelope.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out cause and effect and that, inadvertently, he and his lawyer both stressed, Mulligan had been part of the apparatus that had sent a hit team to Oregon to shoot O’Connell.

"Can you remember when this was?" Buchanan asked.

Mulligan knew exactly. It had been December 13, 1949, less than two weeks before O'Connell had been ambushed.

"Thank you," Buchanan said calmly. He noted the date on the pad across his lap. But Mulligan's eyes never left him.

"I'm jumping ahead," Mulligan said to Buchanan, "but in the most recent correspondence there was a very clear photograph, also. It was of you."

For a moment a heavy silence passed around the room. Buchanan replied more calmly than he might ever have thought possible, considering there was a bullet out there somewhere with his name inscribed on it.

"I'm so pleased to hear that," he said after gathering a breath. "I was shot at several times during the war and no one connected. Maybe my luck will continue to hold.”

Malone gave him an amazed look.

“Well, what this means is that we're all on the right track with Garrett, doesn’t it?” Buchanan said.  “Go on," he said to Milenkin.

It was a male and female hit team, Milenkin-Mulligan continued, and for a moment Buchanan played with the idea of having to watch out for any couple he saw on the street. But Mulligan refined the nightmare a bit, relating how he had passed some time at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Greenwich Village, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Russian hoods who had come in to pick up a message. He was sure there were at least two of them, he said, and described both.

"You got a good look at them?" Buchanan asked.

"Close enough to hear them as well as see them," Mulligan answered.

"Then you could identify them as well as describe them?" Buchanan asked.

Mulligan said he could, then entered a detailed description onto the tape. His account matched the one Mark O'Connell had given for the blond woman, though O'Connell had never managed a view of the man's face. For O'Connell the actual gunman had existed only in shadow, silhouette, and gunfire.

"Well," Buchanan concluded amiably when Mulligan had finished. "At least I know who to look out for now, don't I?"

Malone offered a weak smile of support. It was two o'clock in the morning.

The rest of Mulligan's dialogue was nuts-and-bolts stuff, as if he were reverting into a tiny boredom after pouring out the best that he had to offer. He said again that he loved America and wanted to stay and that he sure as hell didn't want to end up like Klaus Fuchs. That's why he would let his girlfriend's family, the Harkavy clan of Brooklyn, send him to a lawyer they knew. He wanted to stay, marry, work, and go to New York Knickerbocker basketball games, he said.

“Basketball, huh?” Buchanan asked.

Milenkin even had a favorite visiting player, Max Zaslofsky of the Chicago Stags, he explained, going off on a tangent. How could an athlete miss with a good Russian name like Zaslofsky? All that, to the tired ears listening to him, sounded very rational.

Buchanan spent another forty minutes posing questions to him about his GRU training, his answers to be reviewed by whatever CIA contact heard the tape. Buchanan also took from him his fallback position, his one means of instigating an emergency meeting with either Volkov or another of Volkov's legmen.  The procedure was to reverse the pipe-in-the-stones trick, leaving a coded note to travel in the other direction.

"The colonel said that was a one-time-only procedure," Mulligan warned. "Only in cases of extreme danger."

Buchanan thought of Mark O'Connell shot down on a peaceful Oregon highway and Blake Warren stuffed into a trunk. He thought next of the two assassins loose in America looking for him.

“Well, perfect then,” he responded to Mulligan. "I’d say a case of extreme danger is exactly what we have now.”

CHAPTER 54

The interrogation concluded at a few minutes after three in the morning.
Attorney Jaffe promised that Mulligan wouldn't disappear. To be sure, however, Buchanan held his passport.

“He’s not planning to leave the country,” Jaffe said.

“In that case, he won’t need his passport,” Buchanan answered. “And let’s face it. He probably has another one, anyway. I’m not even going to ask.”

Mulligan’s instructions were to return to New York. If there was any activity in the stonework under the Williamsburg, he was to report that to Jaffe from a public phone at least two miles from where he worked and lived. Jaffe would report to Buchanan. Aside from that, Mulligan was to maintain his life as usual. Effectively, he had now become Buchanan’s mole into a Soviet network.

Malone took charge of the tapes, saying he would pass them to a CIA contact for immediate review, no names attached. A judgment would be made on their authenticity.
Thereupon, the extraordinary conference broke. After short naps by all, Jaffe and Mulligan started back to New York by car shortly after dawn, a Secret Service escort with them.

Malone and Buchanan started for Washington an hour later. For the first twenty minutes on the drive back to Washington, no word passed between the two men. Finally Malone said, "Come on, Tom. Tell me what you thought."

“I’m still sorting out my thoughts,” Buchanan answered, throwing half a glance in Malone’s direction. “Surely, we want to believe him. We want to know he’s a legitimate defector. But we mustn’t be too quick. The Soviets are elevating disinformation into an art form. They’ve been doing it since the war and, for that matter, long before.”

“’Dis’-what?” Malone asked.

“Disinformation. One of the new Russian black arts,” Buchanan said. “I had some experience dealing with the tactic in Europe after the war. Russians in Berlin, Communist Party functionaries in Paris and Rome.  Intentionally planting false information. A common tactic is to mix some truthfulness and verifiable fact with false conclusions and lies. That’s what Mr. Mulligan could be up to here. If I had ten bucks for every time some lefty tried to sell me a false bill of goods after the war, Jack, I’d be wealthy and retired.”

Malone smiled and watched the road ahead. There was a mist again, a thick one.

“Do you recall Mulligan referencing the Katyn Forest?” Buchanan said, his thoughts becoming vocal.

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you know what he was talking about?”

Malone shrugged. “I remember something during the war. Some propaganda point the Germans were trying to make. So much killing that it was hard to keep it straight.”

“He was talking about a mass execution of Polish nationals perpetuated by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police,” Buchanan said. “It was in the spring of 1940, if I recall. The order came from the Soviet Politburo and was signed off on by The Exalted One himself, our formidable wartime ally, Joseph Stalin. There were upwards of twenty thousand victims, from what I’ve learned over the years. The victims were murdered mostly in the Katyn Forest in Russia. They included pretty much the entire Polish Army officers’ corps taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. Another few thousand were Polish police officers and the rest were ordinary Poles who might prove a nuisance to the new Soviet occupiers. Writers, lawyers, owners of businesses. It was Stalin’s intention to destroy the structure of democratic Polish society. He did a good job of it.”

“Poor devils,” said Malone as he drove. “I thought it was the Germans who were responsible for that.”

“No. It was the Soviets. Credit Joe Stalin. When history is written, I think he’ll emerge as a greater murderer than Hitler, not that it matters.” There was a silent moment. “Take my word. That’s the nature of our new enemy these days.” He paused for a full minute as Malone lit a cigarette.  “But trust me on this as well: if there’s to be another war,” Buchanan added philosophically, “my hunch is it’s going to be fought as much in the shadows, the alleys and the embassies as it will in the open air of the battlefield. I’m not sure that favors our side.”

Malone offered no opinion.

“I mention this because that’s one of the issues I have with this investigation,” Buchanan said. “We have enough real enemies out there in this world. Why do we spend our time creating paper ones, fake ones, only so we can swat them down while our real foes grow stronger?”

Buchanan blew out a long, tired breath as the car moved toward the city limits of the District of Columbia.

"Vis-à-vis Mulligan: Does instinct count for anything?" Buchanan asked after a while.

"Eighty percent of the ball game," Malone answered. “The other half is luck.”

"I think he's telling the truth," said Buchanan. “Consider his position. He showed us his passport. We’re holding it. I’m sure he has another one for escape, of course, but he has told us where he lives. If he's a plant feeding us bad information, we’ll know pretty fast. He's a dead duck if and when a lie hits the fan. On the other hand, if the other side knows he’s been flirting with us, and if it wasn’t part of his assignment, I suspect they’ll kill him.”  He paused. “Either way, we need to watch him. He’s potentially too valuable to lose.”

“You have a flair for this stuff, don’t you, Tom?” Malone said.

“Aaah, who knows?” Buchanan answered dismissively. “I’m a mistake-prone guy fumbling in the dark the same as anyone else.”

"What's the angle tying ‘Colonel Volkov’ to John Taylor Garrett?" Malone asked.

“Ten hours ago I’d never heard the name ‘Volkov’ and no one else apparently had, either,” Buchanan said. “It’s a new one on me. I have some theories. But don’t know enough yet.”

"Try a theory on me."

"Okay. This Russian or Polish colonel is running a spy network in the United States," offered Buchanan. "Garrett is part of it. A big part. Or maybe that’s only what they want us to think. Maybe Garrett’s a straw man, a distraction, and we’re falling for it. Where is a witness who could corroborate Volkov, for example? Where is one piece of physical evidence? Where is one bit of financial documentation? Where is one incriminating recorded conversation? See what I mean?  We've been all over Robin Hood's barn on John Taylor Garrett and all we have is an overall impression and some random events which link together only because we’re forcing them to. We have nothing that would stand in a fair courtroom for two minutes. We have less now on our enigmatic Volkov. A whole bunch of devious relationships hang by no more than a few threads.”

“You’ve got that part right,” said Malone, not very pleasantly.

The car was drafty. To make it worse, Malone had opened his window a few inches to smoke. Buchanan pulled his coat tighter to him.

“Listen, Jack,” Buchanan said, thinking aloud. “When I was in Berlin at the close of the war, I got to know some of these Soviets reasonably well. It’s not what they wanted me to know that intrigued me, it’s what I picked up, the things they revealed without really knowing they were revealing. Little prejudices, bits of what one could call ‘tradecraft,’ ways of doing things.”

He paused to frame his thoughts.

“They put a lot of work in these moles and these little cells that they drop into the fabric of enemy society,” Buchanan said. “Some of the Soviet officers used to crow about their success with them in Nazi Germany. There was a very effective Communist underground all through the Reich, just waiting to spring up and attack when the Red Army was approaching. In the West, what I think I’m learning now is, the technique is the same. There’s no Red Army approaching but the little cells may be here. Spies at Berkeley. Operatives in New York. Traitors at Los Alamos. No wonder McCarthy and Hoover are having a feeding frenzy. My thoughts are between us, right?”

“Right,” Malone said.

“What strikes me is the principle is the same. The cells are small and tight. Self-contained and quiet. Very few people. One cell doesn’t know a member of another cell. It’s only the masters, the Garretts maybe, the mythical Volkovs, or some other big shots whom we haven’t even gotten to yet, who are the hub, the center of the little disloyal wheel. Even if we smashed all the hubs, put the masters in prison for two hundred years, those little cells would still be out there, waiting. Disturbing thought, isn’t it?”

“Very.”

“I have to think that someone in the Kremlin, around the corner from the men’s room maybe, someone has a list of all the little units in the United States, Britain and Canada. We remove a hub and they send a replacement. Or maybe the replacement is already here. The sub, waiting to come in from the bench. The pinch hitter who plays the rest of the game.”

“So what’s our solution?” Malone asked after a moment of thought. He took a final pull on his smoke, jettisoned the butt out the car, and rolled up the window.

“Ideally, we locate those hubs and turn them back. Control them ourselves. Or at least control what they do and know what they’re reporting.”

“As I said,” Malone said, shaking his head. “You have a flair for this.”

“Thanks. I think,” Buchanan said. “But I feel as baffled as anyone else.”

Buchanan’s eyes were at half-mast. He left the driving to Malone. After a stop for a late breakfast on the road, he dozed involuntarily. Two hours later, Malone gave him a tap on his arm. It was mid-morning and they were on Buchanan's residential block in Washington.

"Know what happened the night of the 1948 election?" Malone asked, still flirting with the same subject. “The entire Secret Service detail that guarded the President had a choice. They could stay with Mr. Truman or they could go guard Thomas Dewey, who everyone expected would be the President-elect by the end of the night. There were twelve men assigned to the White House. The other eleven men read the polls and went to guard Dewey. I stayed at the White House. The morning after, I was fourteen notches higher in the Secret Service detail in the White House. The other eleven guys were reassigned to the Treasury Building."

Buchanan laughed. “Congratulations. But why are you telling me this?”

"Mr. Truman rewards loyalty."

"Loyalty," said Buchanan, "or a good gamble against the odds?"

“Maybe both.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

The car stopped in front of the Raffertys’ house. There was one light on downstairs. A single man was walking slowly past the doorstep, appearing like a drunk staggering home. Buchanan stepped out, taking with him from the backseat his own suitcase, plus Malone's heavy folio containing the files Buchanan had requested.

"Oh," said Malone. "One other thing. Sorry. I fanned on this with the Mulligan situation. I meant to advise you about something else."

He started fishing through his pockets. Buchanan held the car door open, leaned in, and waited.

"When I contacted the CIA yesterday afternoon," Malone said, "this may or may not be of interest. Since 1948 the CIA have kept open files on unsolved crimes in the United States involving foreign nationals. You know, the type of mixed bag of stuff that never amounts to much."

"And?"

Malone found the sheet of paper he was looking for. He handed it to Buchanan.

"Some Chinaman was shot in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Right around the New Year,” Malone said. “Local police can't make head or tail out of it. No local angle, no motive, no ID, no nothing. But I thought, hell, Philly is Garrett's territory, isn't it? And he's been involved in various multinational stuff, so…"

Buchanan took the sheet of paper, his eyes suddenly wide in astonishment.

"A Chinese?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why?" he asked. "Tom, you look excited. Does that mean something?"

CHAPTER 55

Jesse Chadwick and Joe Preston arrived in Las Vegas with their new girlfriends the evening after completion of the principal photography on Hold the Phone!  Joe Preston felt better than Jesse Chadwick. Chadwick was still nursing a grudge against the FBI upstart who had bashed him in the RKO men’s room and was nursing a hurtful groin injury that he wouldn’t divulge to anyone.

But from a business perspective, they felt good.  The film was on celluloid, so there would now be fewer irritating problems with actors, unions, writers, and agents. Now it was a matter of seeing the film through postproduction. Chadwick did his own editing and Joe Preston rarely interfered with a director's final cut. The producer was too busy screaming into long distance telephone lines, bullying distributors, coddling theater owners, and ingratiating himself to reviewers. So Chadwick expected no trouble there. He was even pretty sure of himself as a film editor. A coarse, crude, grossly amoral man, Jesse Chadwick had an amazingly deft touch with light romantic comedy. Correctly, whatever else his faults, he thought of himself as a man who could dependably put the essential final flourishes on a film, the touches that would make Hold the Phone! a commercial success and Lisa a star.

Yes, it was still important to him that Lisa become a star. That way she had more value to him. Okay, he told himself, he would have to clean up his act with her, couldn’t beat or threaten any more, but he was equally convinced that she wouldn’t have the moxie to leave him. A divorce was a pain and the Catholic Legion of Decency would organize boycotts of her films. In the past, the busybody Legion had attacked White Cargo and The Outlaw, probably costing a couple of million dollars in unrealized profits. They had even condemned Miracle On Thirty-fourth Street because of its sympathies toward the divorced mother, played by Maureen O'Hara.

Lisa’s career would crash if she messed with a divorce. She wouldn’t dare do something that stupid, Jesse reckoned, after all the years she had worked to be in this position.  So when he and Joe Preston arrived in Las Vegas with two precocious high school girls, Jesse Chadwick was a man who was recalculating his equations. He had taken his lumps, but what else was new?  He told himself he had little to worry about.

Preston took care of most of the other important details. The girl who would accompany Chadwick was a slim, quiet brunette named Meg. The other was a busty, sandy-haired and giggly girl named Lynn. Both were seventeen, so Joe Preston, in procuring the girls, had taken precautions.

He had sent them, for example, to the studio gynecologist in Santa Monica. Meg and Lynn had received pelvic exams and both had passed: neither was a virgin. Thereupon, both girls had been fitted for diaphragms. Joe Preston had been in the business long enough to know that every scenario, onscreen or off, must be planned carefully, with nothing left to chance. For a weekend bacchanalia, there was nothing quite as sobering as the threat of a future lawsuit, or pregnancies.

Birth control had forestalled the possibility of pregnancy, but Preston had also obviated the possibility of future lawsuits. Some men in Hollywood procured girls at casting or modeling calls, then carefully worked them away from their parents. Preston was far too clever for this. He knew that the type of parent who brought young girls to such calls were bent on getting their daughters into show business, no matter what, usually so they could manage and steal much of their earnings.

These parents knew that the girls' virginity, even if it hadn't already been used as a bargaining chip for an important film role, wasn't going to last much longer anyway in Tinsel Town. So Preston, when he invited girls away for the weekend, covered all angles. He went to the girls' homes while they were in school, told whatever parent he found that the girls were invited away for a weekend.

"This," he would tell them as he looked them straight in the eye, "is your daughter's first big break in Hollywood. Naturally you'll be paid."

In exchange for the girls' services as "ingénue models," Preston would pay each set of parents five hundred dollars. He even drew up a short contract. He insisted that the papers be signed on the spot and not shown to any attorney. He paid the five hundred clams immediately and by check, then kept both copies of the contract, saying that the studio had to review the documents, which was a lie.

With the documents and the cancelled checks, he now had incriminated the parents just as much as himself. No recently converted Puritan would come screaming about what had happened to her wholesome daughter, not when he had written permission to take the girl away for the weekend.

The check was always drawn out of the account of whatever film he was working on and came out of the postproduction budget, the same as the entire trip to Las Vegas. That way Joe Preston and Jesse Chadwick didn't pay a cent. The financing of the film underwrote their basic short-term pleasures. Hollywood was a great way of life.

Both Jesse and Joe Preston booked into The Pink Flamingo in Las Vegas. It was their type of place where anything went and usually did.

The Flamingo had opened in December 1946.  Singer and comedian Jimmy Durante headlined the entertainment, with big band music by Cuban band leader Xavier Cugat. Many of owner Bugsy Siegel's friends in attendance, actors George Raft, George Sanders, Sonny Tufts and George Jessel, were also friends of Chadwick. Working with Siegel, rising-star gangster Mickey Cohen had helped set up the sports book operation at the new hotel. The Mick also was the guiding light in setting up the race wire, which was essential to Las Vegas betting. Within weeks after it had opened, the Flamingo was Nevada’s number two tourist attraction, second only to the impressive but squeaky clean Hoover Dam.

The Flamingo project had a curious backstory, with strange film business geometry:  Siegel and his New York partners Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano had invested a million bucks in a property already under construction by Billy Wilkerson, the owner of The Hollywood Reporter. It had been The Hollywood Reporter that had published the article A Vote for Joe Stalin that had named ten alleged Communist sympathizers in the movie industry, the writers or directors, who were eventually blacklisted as “The Hollywood Ten.”

Wilkerson had wanted to recreate the Sunset Strip in Las Vegas, with a European- style hotel with luxurious rooms, and gambling. But he soon ran out of money due to the high cost of materials immediately after the war. He sold out to his friend Siegel.

Bugsy took over the project and supervised the building, naming it after his stunning girlfriend Virginia Hill, the former mistress of mobster Joe Adonis. Virginia was a Chicago mob money courier whose nickname was "The Flamingo" because of her red hair and spectacular long legs.  At the time, Virginia had graduated from a mob money courier and had moved from Adonis’s bed to Bugsy’s.

Siegel's demise notwithstanding, the casino and hotel was still run by organized crime characters from back East, which gave it the exciting, immoral, tough-guy atmosphere that Chadwick and Preston liked. But conversely, the previous association with patriot Billy Wilkerson gave it a ”loyal American” feel. Chadwick even had a cousin who was a Newark, New Jersey, loan shark who operated with the protection of the same crime family that now ran the hotel. It was an incestuous type of place like that, where people saw old friends from bare-knuckle old immigrant neighborhoods back East.

The best part was that no matter what went on, there was nothing to fear from the local police and politicians. They were in the back pockets of the gangsters who ran the place, and the FBI rarely caused trouble anywhere in the area. For that matter, Hoover, as everyone knew, was a gambling man himself who liked to play the horses in Virginia, California, and Florida. Even J. Edgar liked to spend a few happy hours in front of slot machines when he passed through Nevada.

A few of the more creative casino operators even had some "special" one-armed bandits that would be hauled out for important guests such as Mr. Hoover, machines that were rigged to pay out eleven dollars for every ten pumped in. That way, special customers left happy and owners got little heartache from the law. Then again, J. Edgar Hoover also maintained that there was no such thing as organized crime. Nor, insisted the director of America's greatest crime-fighting force, was there any network of crime families either coast to coast or in the major cities of America. So federal law enforcement was not usually a problem over which anyone lost sleep.

The first thing Chadwick and Preston did on arrival at The Pink Flamingo was take Meg and Lynn to their respective rooms and bed them. This took only a couple of minutes. Then they cashed checks, also as miscellaneous expenses from the film's postproduction budget, and spent the afternoon at the blackjack tables and the roulette wheels. Meanwhile Meg and Lynn worked a couple of the nickel slot machines, then changed into sleek bathing suits, ordered drinks from the bar, and sunned themselves prominently by the Flamingo pool. They were too young to gamble or drink at the bars. But special drinks heavily laced with booze had been prearranged.

At the gaming tables Chadwick lost $700 in three hours. Joe Preston, born under a more favorable star, had won $150 by late afternoon. Being a film producer, however, it made sense either to lose other people's money completely, since he could always get more, or win big for himself.

So as a prelude to getting up from the roulette table, Preston pushed his $150 winnings plus his $100 bankroll onto the six numbers thirty-one to thirty-six, meaning Joe would have $1,250 if he won and nothing if he lost. The croupier called all bets, rolled the ball, spun the wheel, and the ball rode home on seven.

Joe was down one hundred of someone else's bucks, but no big deal. It had been a fun afternoon and he could cash another check for some heavier rolling after dinner. Meanwhile, he and Chadwick retrieved their girls from poolside, swapped them, and took them back upstairs to ease the tensions of the gaming parlor.

Before dinner, Chadwick met up at the Pink Flamingo with his old buddy, Mickey Cohen, to talk some business. Cohen was like a cat with eighteen lives, not nine. He had survived more than a dozen attempts on his life by 1950, including the most notorious one a year earlier when gunmen ambushed him with a barrage of bullets in his Brentwood driveway.

Cohen had escaped by careening through the usually quiet neighborhood streets, crouched under the dashboard of his Cadillac with one hand on the wheel. Now, the FBI learned, Cohen had converted his posh home on Moreno Avenue in Brentwood into a fortress, installing floodlights, alarm systems, and a well-equipped arsenal. He kept the arsenal, he had often joked to Chadwick, next to his 200 tailor-made suits. But in the meantime, Mickey had decided that a film should be made of his life.

“Hopefully,” he said to Chadwick,” I’ll live long enough to see it.”

Cohen would provide the financing, Chadwick would provide the expertise, Chadwick’s brother in law would write the script, Joe Preston would produce and Howard Hughes could umbrella it at RKO. No Reds need apply. It seemed like a project that could be a hit. Chadwick promised he would talk to his friends at the studios. Chadwick even envisioned a role for his wife, if she behaved herself, maybe as one of Mickey’s hookers.

Later the same evening Chadwick and Preston were invited to a private party given by a handsome young hood named Paolo. Paolo was from New York and was currently one of the hotel managers. Chadwick and Preston were guests of honor, being visiting filmmakers. Part of the deal here was that the host be allowed to sample one or preferably both of the two California girls that Chadwick and Preston had imported. The girls by this time were increasingly drunk, and one of them, Lynn, was initially scared of the frequency with which she was starting to get pawed and passed around. But as she grew drunker her inhibitions eroded and she, like her friend Meg, succumbed easily and even enthusiastically when passed from room to room.

Jesse Chadwick and Joe Preston, meanwhile, availed themselves of a selection of the house girls that had been provided for the evening festivities. All this socializing ran till three AM, at which time Chadwick reeled back to his room from two floors away.

He found Meg on the sofa, half dressed and dead drunk. But he locked himself in the bedroom with a red-haired girl of twenty-five named Tracy who had been around the block for a few years in Las Vegas. Tracy was older, a former chorus dancer and understood the services that some insatiably heterosexual men appreciated. She delivered them without the embarrassment, fuss, or argument that some younger girls displayed. For this, and for no other reason, Tracy was a salaried full-time employee of the casino.

Though neither Jesse nor Joe appeared for breakfast until two PM Sunday afternoon, the next day strongly resembled the first. This was, in fact, so much fun that Chadwick and Preston chose to extend their stay until Monday, even though Joe's girl, Lynn, was starting to be a pain. She claimed she was sick to her stomach and wouldn't come out of the hotel room, even if it did jeopardize her career in films.

All in all, though, it was a great weekend and just the sort of release both men felt they needed following the rigors of setting a fluffy domestic comedy before the cameras. By the time they took a casino limousine to the airport on Monday night, there were only two clouds on the horizon - one seen and one unseen.

First, the visible one. Some of the stories about Jesse Chadwick's behavior in Hollywood had followed him even to Vegas. It had gotten around that on occasion he would lend out his wife, the rising actress Lisa Pennington, to men who had done him favors. This had struck the fancy of Paolo, the young organized-crime bull who had money in the casino and managed the roulette rooms.

Paolo had seen Lisa's previous film, the bathing suit epic shot in France. Paolo had seen it twice and had decided that he was going to get into bed a few times with its female star. Thus it had been upon Paolo's orders that Jesse Chadwick had been shown such a good time on this visit.

Chadwick was seated in the hotel's coffee shop on Monday afternoon when Paolo swaggered over to his table. He quickly dismissed Joe Preston, who had the good sense to leave without an argument. Then Paolo told Chadwick that on the director's next visit, Lisa should come along, principally in repayment for the fine time Chadwick had just been accorded. Then he explained why he wished Lisa to be brought along.

Here Chadwick made one of his infrequent mistakes.

"Nothing personal, Paolo," he said, "but that was then and this is now. I don’t pass her around anymore, and even if I did I'm not lending my wife out to some second-rung guinea hood."

Paolo flew into a rage, leaping up from the table and threatening to break a leg off the wooden chair and use it right there on both of Chadwick's knees.

Chadwick, stunned, calmed Paolo and apologized in the most servile language possible. This appeased the gangster. But thereupon, Paolo loudly recounted another story that had traveled the two hundred miles east from Los Angeles.

Apparently, the story went, some young guy who also had designs on Lisa had appeared on the set of Hold the Phone! He had flailed Chadwick in the toilets and Chadwick hadn't even had the balls or the muscle to stand up to the guy.

Worse, the man had been seen squiring Lisa around LA the same evening. She had even kissed him good-bye on the set the next afternoon.

Jesse Chadwick, in other words, couldn't control his own wife. A man with no balls and no muscle didn't last long in society, Paolo crowed. Chadwick would be the laughingstock of the Southwest if he couldn't even put his own house in order.

This, in turn, drove Chadwick into a fury, though he was careful what he said to Paolo. He muttered something about showing who was boss.  Privately, however, he eventually reversed the way he had been thinking and decided that his wife needed to learn some respect. He would hire a couple of goons to menace her back in LA and maybe threaten her family back East. No actual violence, just renew the threat. That’s what he would do.

Where did that FBI pimp get off, anyway, he thought? Chadwick knew he had to show some muscle or no one west of Twelfth Avenue would have any respect for him.

"So I can count on seeing Lisa here next time?" Paolo asked.

"If you'll be here, she'll be here," Chadwick said.

"She'll wear one of those bathing suits from the movie out by the pool. Then you'll send her up to my room?"

"Yes," Chadwick promised, saying anything to calm Paolo down at this moment.

The mobster seemed appeased.

It was quite a conversation. It took place right in public, and both men were given to the idea that volume enforced any point of discussion. So everyone could overhear.  That led to the second cloud on Jesse’s horizon.

Despite the fact that J. Edgar Hoover wasn't in town, two other FBI guys were.

They were Larry Herter and Jim Meadley, Mark O'Connell's old friends from the San Francisco office. When Special Agent Buchanan had asked for agents to cover the arrival of Chadwick and Preston in Nevada, he had handpicked Herter and Meadley, they being familiar at least with aspects of the John Garrett-Commonwealth Penn investigation.

Meadley and Herter had covered Chadwick and Preston for the entire weekend, creating a pair of files, taking names, noting times and room numbers, and otherwise observing everyone's behavior with ever-mounting awe, surreptitiously snapping a few rolls of pictures in the bargain. Meadley and Herter were sitting at the next table in the coffee shop when Chadwick had his discussion with Paolo. And similarly, when Chadwick picked up the telephone in his hotel room to hire some thugs to come by Los Angeles and beat some obedience into his wife, an FBI wire was also on his line.

So by the time Jesse Chadwick, Joe Preston, and their two seventeen-year-old guests headed to the airport for the late plane to Los Angeles on Monday morning, Meadley and Herter had a couple of sensational documents.

They mailed them back East, where they made some spectacular bedtime reading for Mr. Hoover and several others back in Washington.

Federal enforcement people had nailed Charlie Chaplin on a Mann Act Violation, after all, transporting underage females across state lines for immoral purposes. So a flyweight like Jesse Chadwick would be no problem at all.

Meadley and Herter had also picked up on a few other gems to be passed along to Hoover. They knew about Mickey Cohen’s approach to Chadwick about the movie based on his life. They knew because they had been loitering at the same bar and listening when the meeting took place. So they included that anecdote in the report to Hoover.

Hoover had no love for Mickey Cohen, who often mocked him. So this was added to the Director’s private files as well, for use on another day in the future.

CHAPTER 56

Back in Washington, Ann was recurrent in Buchanan’s thoughts, but he now spent every free minute pouring through the various documents that Jack Malone had delivered to him, working late into the night at the Raffertys’ house at a spare desk downstairs that the bigoted old landlord had set up for him.

Buchanan suffered an object lesson of why President Truman and the other smart boys in the government were trying to centralize intelligence. Buchanan waded through one isolated, hand-typed file after another, often with notes cribbed in the margins in anonymous handwriting from unidentified readers. Little had been done to verify information or even coordinate it.

It was a researcher’s headache, leading smack into a researcher’s nightmare. His attention to it continued to drift and his eyelids quickly became heavy. More than once, late night, he fell asleep over text. It was hardly a path to advancement, much less enlightenment.

The papers, at the outset, were as impenetrable as a Moscow winter. There was something hidden here that was so small that he couldn’t put his finger on it or so immense that he couldn’t grasp it. In either case, he couldn’t find it.

Espionage!

“You have a feel for it,” Robert Sayre had said in London.

“You have a flair for this stuff, don’t you, Tom?” Malone had said on the drive in Maryland.

“Not really, gentlemen,” Buchanan muttered to himself at a minute or two before one AM on a Monday night in March. “I just appear less lost than anyone else.”

Lost in the woods, never to return, he told himself. A little inner voice snuck up on him. “Like those thousands of Polish officers,” it said.

Katyn Forest, he pondered again. He had first heard accounts while in Berlin, often from boastful blowhard Russians. Vasili Blokhin, the chief executioner for the NKVD, had been reported to have personally shot and killed six to eight thousand of the victims.  To Buchanan’s knowledge, Blokhin had survived the war and currently lived comfortably in Moscow. Upwards of twenty thousand people murdered, Buchanan reflected, most by handguns over several weeks. Reports had it that executions had been performed with German-made 7.65 mm Walther PPK pistols supplied by Moscow, as well as Nagant M1895s.

The murderers had employed German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the Russian weapons recoiled sharply. They made shooting painful after the first dozen executions. But now in 1950 the Reds strictly controlled the Katyn area east of Smolensk. When the International Red Cross had asked to inspect the site, Stalin severed diplomatic relations with them.

Buchanan pushed back from the documents before him. How, by any standards of humanity or decency, could people perpetuate such horrors? He shook his head. The longer he lived, the less he understood such dark things. But such was the barbarism of the current day enemy.

One AM arrived. He gave up the ghost for the evening.

Back in Los Angeles, for Ann Garrett things were much sunnier. The drugs were gone and, it seemed, so was her husband. Double play! She had a strange sense of elation now that the film was finished, a sense that she had performed well despite living through the most troubled time of her life. Oh, there would be postproduction work on Hold the Phone!, but most of that was done by technicians. There would be little for her to do other than watch the final cut as the film was put together.

That was if Jesse would let her.

For today at least, Jesse was gone. Same as the drugs.

Ann took the car to Malibu, found herself a quiet stretch of beach, and treated herself to a long, leisurely walk. She enjoyed the solitude of the Pacific shoreline in the off-season, the sound of gulls and wind, and the cadences of waves crashing on the sand. It was only in a moment like this, distanced from her husband or any other professional or personal obligation, that she could put her head in order. And as soon as that was straightened out, she could lend some structure to her life.

She walked a mile, maybe more. It was one PM. The sun was warm, suggesting the spring that was to come. This was the type of air and atmosphere that had led her to California in the first place. That, and the notion of acting. It seemed a lifetime ago, way back during the war before she had gotten mixed up with some of the dimmer lights of the glittery film business.

She knew what she had to do next. There was only one real way to take control of her life. She had to be single again. She had to unload her husband. She thought back on all the violent and escapist fantasies she had had about him and she realized how misguided they had been.

Another man? Flight to South America? Murder? Suicide? Nonsense!

Tom Buchanan, stepping out of her past as he had, had reintroduced her to logic. There were proper legal procedures for things like this, as Tom had reminded her. She had some money in the bank. She would get her things together from the apartment. In the next day or two she would rent a small place somewhere in Los Angeles or Hollywood, or maybe even a small apartment near Malibu. While Jesse was off whoring, she would move out.

She would hire a good lawyer and sue for divorce. She would negotiate out of her agency deal with Jesse's brother. And she would take control of her own future.

It all seemed so clear, so real, and so very possible on a bright Monday afternoon, March 12. There was no way it wouldn't all work out. She was so pleased that she started to skip.

She stopped two miles from her car, took her shoes off, and walked in the wet sand all the way back. She was exhilarated. She was free of the old shackles and ready to start her life again. She felt marvelously young with a glorious future spread before her. The past was done. Dead. Over. She was free again!

She arrived back at her car. She had a mad impulse to go back to the apartment and call Tom Buchanan back in Washington.

“And what would I tell him?” she wondered mischievously.

The words came to her She was astonished by them.

“I'd tell him I love him,” she thought.

For several seconds she stood by her car, thinking. The warm Malibu air riffled through her hair. Well, sure enough! That was why she felt as she did. She was in love again.

“Wow!” she thought. “Never imagined it would happen to me again! Better get that divorce as soon as possible! Maybe in Mexico. Maybe in Las Vegas.”

Vegas? What an irony! She knew where he was. She wondered what little tart Jesse was hustling. And even more important, she realized that she no longer cared.

CHAPTER 57

Buchanan finally met again with J. Edgar Hoover on Wednesday, March 15.

J. Edgar Hoover was roaring with anger. His eyes were practically popping, his face was red, and Special Agent Buchanan could see a vein throbbing on the side of the Director's neck. The Director was less than euphoric about his Commonwealth Penn briefing.

"That's it?" he asked. "That's all? No arrest is imminent?"

Buchanan began to backtrack over the Garrett investigation, citing the links he sought to draw between Peterton, Oregon; San Francisco; Washington; New York; Philadelphia; and Commonwealth Penn's headquarters in Bucks County. But the fact was, he said, he needed more time.

"Well, the fact is, pinhead," mimicked J. Edgar Hoover, "you can't have it!"

Frank Lerrick sat to one side in the Director's office at FBI headquarters. He lifted his gaze from the floor and sought to settle the air.

“Mr. Hoover, I don’t think a request for more time is unreasonable in a case as complex as this. I think this Special Agent has been working hard. At some risk to his personal safety too, I might add."

"Personal safety?" Hoover snorted. "Personal safety? Who gives a goat’s gonad about a single agent's personal safety when Reds are overrunning this country? I'll tell you whose personal safety is at risk! Mine! Every morning when I get out of the car on Pennsylvania Avenue and walk that final mile to work, the country's safety is at risk because I am at risk! Don't you ever forget it!" The Director glared at Buchanan. "How much extra time are you talking about?"

"Two to three weeks."

Hoover hooted angrily. "Two to three weeks!" he mocked.

He pushed himself back from his desk. "You'll have a new job in two to three weeks, and it won't be part of the FBI, I can assure you!"

Buchanan’s patience broke. "Then I should start looking now," he said. "I've done the best any man could under trying conditions. So, with all due respect, sir, give me the time I need!"

Hoover looked as if he were on the verge of a stroke. He stared at Buchanan. "You're just about finished in this man's Bureau, son!" Hoover shot back. "Count on it!"

"Oh, calm down and give him some more time, J. Edgar," Lerrick said, pretending that there was little argument at all.  Handsome Clyde Tolson entered the room without knocking, sat down quietly to one side. He said nothing. His hair, suit and tie were perfect. His presence settled Hoover.

"For what purpose?" Hoover asked. "This agent has traveled to Europe, gone up and down the West Coast at our expense, and had himself a grand old time. And what do we have? Fragments of a circumstantial case. That’s where we began.”

"I'm sorry, sir," said Buchanan, emboldened as his anger continued to rise. "But my understanding was that thoroughness would outweigh speed. I was also given two months at the outset.”

"Don't you argue with me, young man!" ranted Hoover. He pointed his finger accusingly. "You learn when to shut up. And don't you ever mock my authority in this country! Do you hear me?"

"Special Agent Buchanan is not mocking you, J. Edgar," replied Lerrick, his own impatience starting to show. "He's made a very reasonable request."

"I disagree! I want a conclusion this week," Hoover said. "By tomorrow, in fact."

"Absolutely impossible," said Buchanan. "If that's the situation, I'd have to hand you all the files along with my shield. It can't be done. So get off my back, damn it!"

Hoover looked stunned. He sputtered. Lerrick cut in quickly.

"J. Edgar, I beg you," said Lerrick. "Don't push a good young agent off the job. Please. Be a white man. Give him a week."

There was a full half-minute of silence. It felt like an entire afternoon.

"All right," Hoover finally conceded with a snarl. "Seven calendar days."

"Think you can have your arrest by then, Tom?" Lerrick asked.

“I have no idea,” Buchanan said. Hoover’s face became florid. “But I’ll do my best.”

“Dismissed!” snapped Hoover, waving both visitors out of his office. Only Tolson stayed behind.

Outside the Director's office, Lerrick and Buchanan celebrated their small victory. Seven more days was a crash situation. But at least Buchanan had that much.

"'Get off my back,'" Lerrick chuckled. "That's good. I don't think anyone ever said that to him."

“Glad you liked it,” Buchanan said unpleasantly.

“Tom,” Lerrick said, putting a hand on Buchanan’s shoulder. “Let’s go to any empty office. We need to talk through a couple of things. Off the record.”

Two minutes later they were in an office one floor and one wing away from Hoover’s suite. Lerrick slid behind a desk. Buchanan sat in the visitor’s chair.

“Tom, listen,” Lerrick began. “J. Edgar likes Senator McCarthy. He’s crude but he’s on our side.  Joe feels he needs a gimmick to get re-elected. He’s in a political doghouse with voters back in Wisconsin because he’s introduced no major legislation, gotten nothing for his state and is on no important committees. Newspaper correspondents here in Washington voted him ‘the worst in the Senate,’ and the vote was unanimous.”

Buchanan managed a small smile. “What else is new?” he asked.
“McCarthy made up the number of Communists in the State Department on the spur of the moment during his Lincoln's Birthday speech. And he had had his share of booze and just as promptly forgot what he said. His own people were caught off-guard by all the attention. So now McCarthy and his staff are racking their brains for some lead as to what he had said in the Wheeling speech.”

“No copy? No notes?”

“He had had a few drinks and he was just churning.” Lerrick shrugged.  “That’s why every time McCarthy counts Commies, he comes up with a different number. The day after the Wheeling talk, he changed the number from two hundred five to fifty-seven. And this time, they were ‘card-carrying Communists,’ as if the Commies carry cards. A week later, before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he said that he knew of eighty-one known Communists.  Someone finally asked privately, ‘Joe, just what did you have in your hand down there in Wheeling?’ McCarthy gave his usual smile and replied, ‘An old laundry list.’”

“So he’s a complete fraud,” Buchanan said, more as a statement than a question.
“Maybe. But a useful one. I think there are a lot of Reds around. And Joe’s got them crapping in their pants.”  He paused. “There’s a young Special Agent named Bill Sullivan who’s on the ascent in the Bureau. I like Bill. But he claims that the Bureau doesn’t have sufficient evidence to prove there is even one Communist in the State Department. But don’t say that to the big boss. Downstairs, Mr. Hoover has three dozen agents assigned to domestic intelligence and they’re poring over hundreds of Bureau security files to help support McCarthy's charges. And he’s doing even more. He’s now supplying speechwriters to McCarthy. They’re teaching Joe how to release a story just before press deadline so that the reporters don’t have time to ask for rebuttals. More important, he advised him today to avoid the phrase ‘card-carrying Communist' which can’t be proven. In the future he’s going to use ‘Communist sympathizer' or 'loyalty risk.’ That puts the burden of disproof on the accused, not Joe.”

“Classy,” said Buchanan tonelessly. “So McCarthy’s puffing up chasing down fake enemies while we could use the manpower for the real enemies? Am I hearing this right?”

Lerrick turned angrily on him. “Look, you’ll keep a lid on all this if you know what’s good for you.  The Reds fight us with lies, spies and infiltration and subversion. We fire back the way we can.”

Buchanan opened his mouth to speak again but Lerrick cut him off cold. “Just get Garrett’s scalp, Tom,” he said as he exited. “Then everyone will be happy.”

***

Thoroughly disgusted, Buchanan went back to 7th Street, SE, packed his things and prepared for his return to Philadelphia. Later that evening on the radio, Buchanan confirmed what the urgency had been in Hoover’s office.

Senator McCarthy canceled Friday's press conference and had now rescheduled for the Friday thereafter. He promised to talk about “Communist sympathizers” and “loyalty risks” at that conference.

Buchanan noted the seven-day's difference, and the wording. Now for sure Buchanan knew where all his work was going: to prop up one of the rising demagogues of the middle twentieth century.

Nonetheless, he marched on, returning late that evening to the untidy sea of ”borrowed” CIA files that Malone had provided, plus several FBI documents to which he had helped himself.

He sat again at the downstairs desk at the Rafferty manse. He worked way into the night. This time, however, he began to come up with some perplexing concepts. Namely, when he examined what was known about his principals over the last decade and a half, going back to 1935 as a starting point, the personal histories and trajectories of John Taylor Garrett, Sammy Wong, and Jerry DeStefano were very distinct and independent.

Colonel Volkov was invisible for many of these years, as if he had not yet entered the story. The late Blake Warren was also a nebbish, popping up here and there and then vanishing into the air with a poof, only to turn up again a few weeks later sitting with an extraordinary stillness in a department store window.

Yet at the same time, Buchanan began to sense an interplay between the various players in the drama. He couldn’t nail it, though. It was something he intuited more than he could put a fingerprint on it. His mind was a clutter of suspicions and uncertainties. He wondered if he was projecting, trying to impose a connection between scattered events.

Drowsiness overtook him toward one thirty in the morning, as it did so often with these late hours. He fell asleep at the desk, slumped forward over classified papers, not to awaken till five thirty when he heard Mrs. Rafferty clattering a coffee pot in her kitchen.

He assembled his papers and took them with him that morning, grabbing a taxi to Union Station from which he would catch a Pennsylvania Railroad express to Philadelphia at six twenty.

Again, he tried to decipher his documents in transit. And again, exhausted, he dozed. The war hadn’t killed him, he reflected. But this investigation might.

CHAPTER 58

Later in the morning, in South Philadelphia, there were three law enforcement people seated in a booth at a popular diner. A waitress named Rose with teased hair and a pink dress set plates of pastry and hot coffee before them. All three paused until she was gone.

"Okay, okay," said Sergeant Fred Castelli as Mike Foley looked on quietly. "So we made some mistakes. So some sloppy police work was done. I'll tell you. It's not like we bailed out on the case. No, sir. It was in the active file all the time."

"That means we're working on that case among others," Foley volunteered. "We go through a lot of cases a year."

"You're not kidding," said Castelli. "Since the war it's been unbelievable. Know what we used to call South Philly?"

"What?" asked the third man at the table.

"'Baseball bat territory,'" said Castelli. "People used to come out of their houses and settle their differences with a baseball bat. Now they use guns. You can't believe all the hardware that came back from the war."

"I can believe it, Sergeant," Thomas Buchanan said. "And I'm not interested in criticizing local procedure on a homicide. I just want to know about the Chinaman. That's why I'm asking questions."

"And what's it to you, again?" Foley asked.

"An ongoing federal investigation," said Buchanan.

His response, vague as it was, fell somewhere short of approval around the table. "Sorry," Buchanan said. “That's all I can tell you.”

“We’re talking about the guy we found in late December, right?” Foley asked. “The guy who was all burned up. The human egg roll.”

Buchanan nodded.

"And I wish to keep my inquiry as quiet and unofficial as possible,” Buchanan added. “No use creating any unnecessary disturbances within your department, right? That’s why I thought we'd meet here."

"Here” meant a table at the Melrose Diner on Passyunk. Unsolved homicides always seemed more promising over artery-clogging cheese coffee cakes and fresh coffee.

"Bullet to the head," Castelli said. "If I remember, it looked like he had been shot somewhere else. Then the body was set on fire." He paused and turned to his partner. “I can't believe the FBI is going to snatch this case away from us."

Castelli lit a Camel. He expelled some breath and a cloud of cigarette smoke. “I don’t like this.”

"I just want to know about it," Buchanan said patiently. "No one's taking the case away."

"That's what you Feds often do," said Castelli.

"I'll go through the official channels if you prefer," said Buchanan, irritation creeping into his voice. "In fact, we can proceed right at the top. I'll have Director Hoover telephone your commissioner. That would mean that you'd have to present your files to your commissioner within twenty-four hours. I'm sure the files are all tidy and up-to-date, showing a great deal of current activity. Right?"

Buchanan let the suggestion hang in the air.

"No, no. That's all right," Castelli said. "We'll handle things right here. Between us. Unofficial."

"Thank you," Buchanan said. "I think that's a good idea. So it was a bullet to the head?" Buchanan resumed at length. "Was the slug retrieved?"

"Yeah, I think it was. It was in his stomach. Traveled downward."

“Left handed shooter? Right handed?”

“Who knows?”

"Where is the bullet now?" he asked.

"At Fourth District Homicide," said Castelli.

"Then it would be available for trial? If there is trial?" Buchanan continued.

"Sure." Castelli shrugged. "Unless someone took it."

"Can you get me a report on the ballistics test?' Buchanan inquired.

Castelli said he would.

"And what happened to the body?" Buchanan asked next.

The two Philadelphia detectives glanced at each other, then recounted how Mr. Lee, the magic vanishing Chinaman, turned up on a Sunday morning to claim the corpse.

"And where's Lee?"

Castelli told about the forged passport and the fake identity.

“That’s odd in these parts, isn’t it?” Buchanan asked.

“Very,” said Castelli.

"But where did the body go?" Buchanan asked. "Someone had to take it from the ME's office. Someone had to bury it."

"You looking to dig it up?"

"Were the proper X rays done on the burned corpse?" Buchanan asked.

Castelli said he doubted it. Unidentified Chinaman, after all.

"Then, yes. I'm going to have to find the body and have it dug up," said Buchanan. He had some X-ray records of a man named Sammy Wong, he said, though he didn't admit that they were straight out of the CIA file provided by one Jack Malone. If X-rays could be matched, even on a charred body, Buchanan might have something that he could use in court.

Both Philly cops seemed repelled. Castelli mentioned Bernie Gedmon at the ME’s office was the person to talk to.

Buchanan looked at his watch. It was ten AM on a weekday morning. "Would this Gedmon fellow be working now?" he asked.

Finishing their coffee, Castelli and Foley said that he would.

"If there's a steel table with a gutter in use," Castelli said, "you can bet Bernie's there working. Slicing and dicing.”

“Weird guy,” Foley said. “Crazy way to make a living.”

“Isn’t everything?” Buchanan asked.

Rose the waitress happened past just in time to catch his remark. She tossed Castelli a wink and slapped their check on their table. Castelli patted her backside as she moved. Rose chuckled.

They drove to the medical examiner's office in Castelli's DeSoto. Mr. Lee had arranged for burial, all right. But a quick check of city interment records came up as cold as the corpse itself. There was no listing of any Mr. Lee having been laid to eternal peace in the days following his dismissal from Bernie Gedmon's office.

Figuratively at least, it was as if he had bounced up and walked away. In crime and politics in Philadelphia - professions between which the distinctions were usually vague - Castelli and Foley had seen a lot of things, but not that.

Not yet.

"Sergeant," said Buchanan, stumbling into an unfortunate choice of words, "I wonder if you and your partner would care to start digging."

They would dig, as it turned out, at city hall, not a bad place to look for buried bodies. What the two detectives wanted, at Buchanan's behest, was a burial that looked like it could have been the Chinaman. But none could be found.

Buchanan suggested another line of attack. From Gedmon's records he obtained the name of the mortician who had picked up the body.

Life, Buchanan had frequently observed, sometimes has a strange and perfect geometry. And so it was here. The elusive, deceased Mr. "Chin" had been picked up by the DeStefano Funeral Home on Snyder Avenue, a parlor of professional bereavement which was, by happy coincidence, one of the many enterprises of a local businessman named Jerry DeStefano.

Be it an irony or coincidence, Buchanan did not fail to notice: DeStefano had been the third man at John T. Garrett's last public supper at the Mayflower Club.

"Could you get me a list of funerals that DeStefano's parlor did during the two weeks after the Chinaman left the ME’s office?" Buchanan asked. "That shouldn't be difficult.”

"Anything else?"

"Yes. Two things. First, where does one find DeStefano himself?"

The two detectives looked at each other.

"It has to be arranged," Castelli said.

"Please arrange it. Unofficially of course."

"What's the second?" Foley asked apprehensively

"The maitre d' at the Mayflower Club in Philadelphia," Buchanan said. "His name is Paul Evans. I wonder if you could pick him up for questioning Thursday at about noon.”

"Unofficially?"

"No. Officially. Accessory to murder. Just pick him up and hold him. Also, see if you can have your friend Gedmon there at the same time. That will save us some legwork. I'll do the rest."

Again Castelli said it could be arranged.

CHAPTER 59

Across the continent in Los Angeles, it was a time of new arrangements for Ann Garrett also.

On Thursday morning she found a small house a few miles from the beach in Malibu, wrote out a check, and signed a lease. The house was owned by a Mrs. Calderon, a widow who was thrilled to be renting to an actress. Ann seemed like such a nice young woman, Mrs. Calderon thought. Clean and wholesome.

That same day Ann started packing her personal belongings from the apartment she shared with her husband. Jesse hadn't appeared yet, which was fine with Ann.

She heard he was in town, so she navigated in and out of the apartment carefully. She didn't want to run into him. She had only two or three carloads of things to take. Very little that she had acquired during the marriage still meant anything to her. Even the ring. She had taken it off and placed it on his dresser. Moving out completely, she reasoned, would take only a day.

There was something else on her mind too: Thomas Buchanan and the questions he had been asking. She had thought about them. The questions about her father. His politics. The falling out within the family. Who was she loyal to, she wondered. Her father, who had disowned her, or a man who could have been her husband and who had saved her life? Under the circumstances, she had now decided, she was foolish not to answer his questions as fully as she could. She would call Thomas later in the week, she decided, after she had completed her move. And she would talk. Oh, would she talk!

That evening Ann returned to the apartment to pick up a final armful of clothes. The living room was quiet when she entered. She closed the door and took two steps forward. Then she heard a man speak her name.

"Hey! You were?" he asked.

She froze. Jesse appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. He confronted her.

"A lot of your things are missing," he said with a menacing calm. "What's going on?"

She looked him straight in the eye. "I'm leaving you, Jesse," she said. “I’m moving out. I'm filing for divorce."

Jesse Chadwick's glare had a deadly stillness to it.

"No, you're not," he said softly.

"I've made my decision, Jesse," she said.

"Have you?" he mocked. "Well, I've made one too."

Ann jumped in surprise when another man appeared behind her husband. At the same time, a second man emerged from the kitchen behind her. Both were silent. Neither looked like a stranger to professional violence.

"Oh, God, Jesse," she said. "I beg you. No. Please don't do this."

Chadwick's voice was icily calm.

"Listen, when I was in Las Vegas, there was a man named Paolo who was laughing at me. He was laughing because that buddy of yours appeared on the set. Then you had the bad taste to be seen in public with him that night as well as the next day."

Her husband approached her, though not directly. It was as if he were circling for a kill. "You probably went to bed with him too, didn't you?”

"No, I didn't, Jesse. Please…"

One of the men had cut off the path to the door. Both men were big, broad-shouldered, and strong.

"Didn't I warn you?" he shouted. "Didn't I tell you that I had some friends back East who knew how to teach bad little girls a lesson?"

Now she was trembling. Jesse had been drinking. He was crazier than ever.
"Well," said her husband. "I put in a call. My friends sent these two gentlemen from out of town. We can deal with your FBI buddy, too. They're going to take you somewhere for a few days.. You will live through this, but not by much. And when you return, you will never cross me again."

By this time Jesse Chadwick was in front of her, his face contorted with rage, his eyes dancing with fury and indignation. He raised a fist and brought it toward her. Ann cringed and then fell away. She felt two steel arms grab her from behind, and one of the hands rose to cover her mouth. No scream would be heard.

But her husband's fist never landed. When she looked up, confused, the hand from behind still covering her mouth, she saw that the man nearer her husband had caught Chadwick's arm and stopped the blow.

"Isn't that our job, Mr. Chadwick?" the man asked.

"I suppose it is." He was still enraged.

“That’s what you hired us for, right?”

“Yeah. I did.”

"Then let us take care of it," the stranger said.

The man released Chadwick. The two men looked at each other.

"That's just about perfect," said the man behind Ann. He looked to his partner. "Do you need to hear anything more?" The partner shook his head.

"Okay," said the first man. "Let's get on with it."

He reached into his pocket and came out with a pair of steel manacles.

CHAPTER 60

Castelli, Foley, and Buchanan drove to a quiet block in South Philadelphia where, waiting in the back of the funeral parlor, was Jerry DeStefano, of the DeStefano Funeral Home and the South Philadelphia underworld.

DeStefano and Castelli had for years played handball at the same Y.M.C.A. on Broad Street. They were nodding acquaintances. Castelli introduced Buchanan to DeStefano, a short, wiry, black-haired man in a light brown suit.

"What's this about?" DeStefano asked. "Normally if there's a cop, I got nothing to say except through my lawyer."

DeStefano's lawyer's name was Irv, but his place was taken by a pair of DeStefano's lieutenants, who made themselves busy by staring out the windows and keeping their backs to the conversation.

“What are you? Private dick or police?” DeStefano asked.

“Police. The body of Sammy Wong," said Buchanan. "I want it."

"No got," said DeStefano. The men were seated around a dark mahogany table.

"Yes," said Buchanan. "I suspect you do. Somewhere.”

"This is a whites-only funeral house," DeStefano explained. "We don't stuff and mount no colored and we don't do no Chinese either."

"I didn't come here to be lied to," Buchanan said.

DeStefano's face came alive with muted rage. From the corner of his eye Buchanan could also see the expressions falling on the two cops.

"I said I ain't got it!" DeStefano exploded quickly.

DeStefano looked at the two police detectives. “Who is this hump? Get him out of here!" he roared, knocking his chair over as he stood up.

Buchanan didn't budge. Instead, he steadied his gaze on the mobster. The two police were nervous and trapped in between.

"Whatsa matter?" DeStefano hollered next. "I said, get him out of here!" DeStefano's two thugs began to gather behind him.

"Can't do it, Jerry," said Castelli softly. "He's federal."

DeStefano glared at all of them. “He’s what?”

Buchanan reached to his Bureau credentials and laid them on the table. "Bad move, Jerry,” he said. “You just made this an official visit. Too bad. I really thought," said Buchanan with infinite courtesy, "that you were going to be reasonable. But on the chance that you weren't," he continued, "I did take the precaution of reading a few files on you. Both FBI and CIA. Know what I’m talking about?”

"Sure, I do. I did work for OSS during the war," DeStefano said quickly. "Palermo to Calabria. I…"

Buchanan broke into his best Italian. "Mille grazie. But I'll do the talking, thank you," he said. “I know all about your favors to the OSS. I also know that you're currently a very prosperous man in this city. And I also know that your current affluence is not unrelated to a number of wire rooms around this neighborhood as well as the many slot machines that can be found in certain bars and barber shops along Snyder Avenue. There’s only so much money to be made burying people, right, Jerry?”
“That depends,” DeStefano snorted.

“Here’s the thing,” Buchanan continued in Italian. “Suppose I went back to Washington and cited your lack of cooperation. Well, let's face it. The FBI can always use a few easy targets. Another good Italian whipping boy, let's say. Capone's dead. Luciano's deported. Sinatra’s not even that popular anymore since he used a punctured ear drum to get out of the war. Jerry? Imagine how the Irish police captains and inspectors in this city will abandon you before a federal racket investigation. All the people you've been paying off for years will be angry with you for not surrendering the remains of a Chinaman and wrecking what they pick up on the pad each week. They'll be just as happy to have you in jail and have someone smarter running your former operations. Why don't you sit down?"

Buchanan motioned to a chair. Grudgingly, DeStefano sat. Castelli and Foley were more silent than the dead that awaited embalming in the next room.

"Now," Buchanan concluded, switching back to English "Be reasonable. I know you didn't kill Sammy Wong. You merely buried him. But you left no record of where. That is why I'm here."

"You're out of luck," said DeStefano. "He was cremated."

"I doubt it."

"Why is that?"

“As I explained, I spent part of yesterday evening reviewing your FBI file," Buchanan said. "I know how you think. An urn of ashes would be of no use to you at all. But a body that could incriminate a wealthy local banker in a murder case?" he laughed. "Well, that's something, isn't it? That's a commodity that should be kept for possible profit at a later date."

DeStefano said something about wanting to call his legal man, Irv.

"No, don't do that," said Buchanan. "If you do that, I'll do three things in return. I'll make a note back in Washington to have the tax returns audited for every business you own. Then I'll have every casket that you buried since December of last year opened and examined. Who knows what we'll find there? I'll make sure the event is covered in all the newspapers. And third, I'll personally see that a federal sledgehammer and ax team hits at least a hundred of your one-armed bandits here in Philadelphia. But if that doesn't bother you and you want to call your lawyer, Irv, I wouldn't think of interfering with you." He paused. “See? We can be friends and work together or we can have a fight, which you will lose. You’re a bright guy, Jerry. Make the right choice.”

DeStefano simmered. DeStefano seethed. At first he attempted to deny that he owned any business. Buchanan laughed and listed five from memory, including two in DeStefano's daughter's name.

Buchanan glanced at his watch. "Time is wasting," he said. “Come on, Jerry. Do yourself a favor.”

DeStefano thought about it for another few seconds. The thugs that he had stationed in the room barely moved. At length he glanced at Fred Castelli, who gave him a slight nod of the head.

"No publicity if I give you what you want?" DeStefano finally asked.

"None," said Buchanan. Castelli gave him a second nod. DeStefano cursed. Then…

“I did a double decker with him,” DeStefano said.

Then he explained.

Sammy Wong - and DeStefano confirmed that that's who the cooked corpse had been - had gone into the ground with another body, two to the coffin. DeStefano's parlor kept a few caskets on hand with some extra depth for just such purposes. The skeletal remains of Wong thus went into the earth in the same rosewood box as a DeStefano family member who had been mangled in a car accident.

The bodies were one on top of the other, with a false bottom, in a Roman Catholic churchyard on Tasker Avenue in the 700 block.

Buchanan turned to Castelli. “Which local judge would be fastest in granting a writ of exhumation?” he asked. "I want to get the body up as soon as possible.”

"Don't bother with the legal stuff," said DeStefano. “I’ll do you a favor. My people can have it up in a few hours. Easier that way.”

Buchanan didn't object. “Thank you, Jerry,” Buchanan said. “You’re a gentleman.”

Jerry, for the first time that day, glowed.

In the afternoon, Buchanan registered at the Ben Franklin Hotel on Chestnut Street. By ten o'clock that night the Medical Examiner, Gedmon, had compared the X- rays of Wong's remains to the records in the CIA file. There were enough similarities to confirm the identity of the body.

That sent Buchanan back to his hotel for the night, too anxious to sleep, and close enough to resolving the Garrett case to actually become excited. From his hotel room, he phoned Frank Lerrick at Lerrick's home in Chevy Chase. He requested a full time FBI surveillance on John Garrett. Lerrick said the surveillance could be put into effect with the first morning shift.

From the same phone, Buchanan also tried to call Ann Garrett in California several times. He worried about her and, in a strange way, missed seeing her once he had found her again. But each time the operator put the call through, there was no answer. And each time his call went unanswered, he worried more.

For a moment an image came up to him out of nowhere, one that he had carried with him during some of the worst fighting of the war in North Africa and Italy. It was a memory of him and Ann rowing on a lake in upstate Pennsylvania, laughing and flirting on a lazy summer afternoon in the months before he went into the Army.

It was a memory that he had held many times during the war, he had embraced it more than held it. He had it before him at times when bullets were flying and bombs were being dropped because if he was going to die, he reasoned, an image like that was the last think he wanted to see on this earth.

Then she broke up with him and that image had shattered also.

He tried the call a fifth and final time, kept getting the same long distance operator, and then gave up. For a moment, he was a man in limbo, unable to decide whether to move forward or drop back a step, to sleep or to continue his arduous trip through the files in his possession.

He made a small covenant with himself: he would look over the files for fifteen minutes. If nothing new materialized, he would give up and get himself some much-needed sleep. He sat again in the downstairs drawing room, his papers arranged at a desk, one stack for each of the three principals in his investigation, and again he tried to see what had previously eluded him.

Nothing came forward. He thought again of Ann and the last time he had seen her, and the brief conversation he had had with the genial young writer on her movie.

“What do you do when the story doesn’t hold together?”

“You unwrap your imagination and you fill in the blanks.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not. So you just keep asking yourself, ‘What if…?’”

Sleepily, Buchanan tried to unwrap his overworked imagination.

What did he know? From his files he knew that Wong had been in Asia during the war. He had been captured by the Japanese, then traded to the Russians who should have shot him but didn’t.

Garrett had been in Europe, ending up, it appeared, in the Soviet Union. The only thing they had in common was contact with the Soviets. And Buchanan had that in common with them, too.

Why would an opium peddler have been of use to Joe Stalin’s crew when he was worthless to Chiang Kai-Shek? It should have been the other way around. The events of one man’s life had no close attachment to the events of the other’s.

Buchanan dug back in. He backtracked. He reversed events.

He looked for converses and inverses.

Where was the interplay that brought together the political forces of wartime with the entrepreneur of a nearly failed bank?
Buchanan kept asking himself, “What if…?”
He overstayed his covenant by half an hour, frustrated and angry. He threw in a dead Russian tank commander and a spook named Volkov. He factored in a midlist actor who ran a front for a prostitution operation. And then there was a revelation. A flash of light.

At the heart of everything, there was a connection and a utility that finally suggested the possible interplay between all the dramatis personae in the playbooks before him. Suddenly he saw it. When he had it he stared into the quiet living room, the fingers of his left hand pressed to his mouth. The only thing that puzzled him now, as two AM crept forward again in the dark sleeping city of Philadelphia, was how he had failed to see it earlier.

He wondered if it would make as much sense in the morning.

CHAPTER 61

John Taylor Garrett was never the first to work at his own bank. He often came in at a quarter past nine, walked through the lobby of the four-story brick building on Lancaster Avenue in Devon, Pennsylvania, and proceeded to the staircase at the rear.

A fit man, he bounded up all four flights, even at his age. When he arrived on the floor of his office, however, on Friday, March 18, he knew immediately something was amiss.
"Ah, Mr. Garrett," said Eleanor Eshelbach, his secretary. "Someone to see you."

Garrett saw no one in the waiting area.

"Where?" he asked.

Mrs. Eshelbach gave a nod toward the closed door to the bank President’s office. Garrett pushed open the door. He glared angrily at the man sitting behind the desk in Garrett's own swivel chair. The visitor had his back to the door and his feet propped on a wastebasket.

Slowly the chair turned. Thomas Buchanan, seated at Garrett's desk, reacted calmly. He smiled. "Good morning," he said.

"What do you want?" Garrett asked.

"A few minutes to talk," said Buchanan, slowly getting to his feet and moving away from the desk.

Garrett pulled off his coat. He hung it on a corner rack. He regarded the younger man with extreme vexation.

"You're a nuisance,” Garrett said. He straightened his shirt and tie in a mirror within a cabinet. “I thought we were finished.”

“Not even close.”

Garrett eased into the leather chair behind his desk. "Maybe I'll just call the police and have you thrown out," Garrett said.  “Do you have a warrant?”

"I don’t need one. The local police know I'm here. I stopped by and told them. FBI credentials are convenient. I also disconnected your phone and deadened the alarm beneath your desk so you can't ring it with your foot. Further, I figured you might have a weapon in your desk. I saw fit to pry open the second drawer on the right side. As you can see.”

Garrett glanced down and saw the broken lock. "That's illegal," said Garrett.

"So is espionage."

"You’re one of McCarthy’s shills now? Is that it?”

"Your gun is still in there," Buchanan said, motioning to the broken drawer. "But I have the ammunition." He dug the bullets out of his pocket and showed them to Garrett. "I'll give the bullets back to you when I leave."

"I'm surprised you don't want to seize the gun for some test," Garrett said sarcastically.

"You wouldn’t leave something lying around that would be of interest. Besides, the weapon in your drawer is a thirty-eight. I'm looking for someone who uses a twenty-two of foreign manufacture. May I sit down?"

Buchanan motioned to a chair where he intended to sit down. Garrett didn't answer. Buchanan sat anyway.

"I'm going to make some calls to Washington after you leave here today, Tom Buchanan. You think you have friends? Well, I do, too.”  Garrett leaned back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. He could barely control his rage. "What is it that you want?" he asked.

Buchanan settled into his chair across the room from Garrett.

"Much of yesterday I spent going through a stack of government files," he said. "OSS. Department of the Army. FBI, CIA, a lot of stuff, most of it tedious, disorganized and dull. But when I connected the dots, I started to form a theory. Want to hear it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Good. I’ll begin with the names. You know them:  Sammy Wong. Blake Warren. Jerry DeStefano. I was hoping we might find a file marked ‘Volkov,’ after a certain elusive but ubiquitous Soviet colonel. I’m sure he’s there under another name. But I haven’t pinpointed that yet. You wouldn’t be able to help me with that one, would you?”

Garrett didn't bat an eyelash.

"Let's consider a Chinaman named Sammy Wong," resumed Buchanan.

"Backtrack with me. The man was an officer in Chiang Kai-Shek's Army. He was from a wealthy family in pre-Mao China. The man was captured by the Japanese and then turned over to the Russians in late 1944. Why? Out of the goodness of the Nipponese hearts? I think not. Similarly the man was from the segment of the Chinese military that was fighting the Communists, yet the Russians welcomed him with open arms. Strange, don’t you think? It raised my eyebrows.  Again, I asked myself why?  Nothing in the files suggested anything. But to me it was obvious. Why?”

"You tell me," Garrett said with heavy sarcasm.

"I don't need to. We both know. Wong was, after all, your business associate for many years. He dealt opium. That's where his family money came from, that's where his personal fortune grew. He had enough money to buy his way out of that Japanese P.O.W. camp. Fine so far. But then he went to the Russians. What do they want with a drug lord? Nothing. But what would they want with a man who had firmly established financial and trading ties with the West? Quite a bit. A man like that would be able to finance espionage networks in the West. I saw countless operations like this in Rome and Berlin during the dying days of the war. The black market people did the running and networking, the espionage people slipstreamed right behind them.”

Garrett looked bored.

“So the Russians cut him loose,” Buchanan continued, “and provided him with extra passports where necessary. They allowed him to continue his business. He kept some of the profits, the rest went to further Marxism in the Western Hemisphere. The problem is, or was, Wong remained useless without a supporting financial system where no eyebrows would be raised. Where, for example, did he keep all his money? How did it get laundered? How could it be placed in a bank in the United States where there was no chance that its true purpose would be uncovered and the assets frozen?”

“Come on, Tom,” Garrett said, no longer sounding quite so confident. “I know it’s the silly season where you work, but this is far-fetched beyond belief.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Garrett. The answer to my question is that the financial apparatus has to be hidden in a private bank administered by someone sympathetic to the Soviet cause. For this purpose we do not call upon the Rockefeller or Mellon family. We must have a man known to the Russians as trustworthy who also, conveniently, controls a private banking institution. In other words, you."

"I've never denied that Sammy Wong was a depositor in our bank. Where he got his money, what he did with it, was no concern of mine. We've had that tiresome discussion before."

"Consider though, Wong's deposits started to flow into Commonwealth Penn immediately after the war. How remarkably fortuitous for your bank! Here you were on the brink of ruin and this avalanche of money just happened to roll your way."

"Business contacts during the war," Garrett said.

"Business contacts, yes. From the war, of course. But you were in Europe, Mr. Garrett, weren't you? You were in Europe and Sammy Wong was in Asia. Yes or no?"

"I was in Europe. Where he was, I don't know."

"You were in Europe, but for many months, according to your own government's records, you were in liaison with several Soviet intelligence officers, particularly toward the conclusion of the war. At that time, I’m guessing that you revealed your true sympathies to your Soviet contacts and offered your services after the war. According to this theory of mine, you must have been brought to Moscow and introduced to Sammy Wong. It was probably toward 1946 when you had a major disappearance. In any case, you made contact with Wong, and the Soviets decided that you would be one of their top financial men in the West after the war. And Wong would use your bank as a conduit for money to finance espionage activities in the United States."

"Ah, complete nonsense,” Garrett snapped. “First of all, I would have no interest in financing Marxism. I'm a banker, for God's sake. A capitalist. I’d be putting myself out of business."

"Your daughter, Ann, says you hate bankers.”

"Ann would say anything. She's a drug addict, a whore, and a liar."

"My guess is you weren't able to recruit her to the Soviet cause, same as you were able to recruit your other daughter. Ann has kept your secret, but you've never forgiven her."

"I've never been to Moscow,” Garrett said.

"I know someone who saw you."

"Don't try to bluff me. This is preposterous."

Buchanan was undeterred.

"Problems arose, however, a few years ago,” he continued. “An Illinois bank was under scrutiny for various irregularities. The inquiry was handled by an FBI agent named Mark O'Connell. When that investigation branched onto a few associated institutions such as Commonwealth Penn, you grew nervous. Mark O’Connell must have been close to pay dirt but didn’t know it. It was time, you decided, to cover your tracks. You weren't sure quite what to do. The really messy black stuff wasn’t your territory, after all. You conferred with Sammy Wong from time to time in person. Once was in a strip joint in San Francisco. Another time was at the Mayflower Club in Philadelphia. In actuality, you didn't really have much to say to Wong because all this time you were planning to kill him. You just had to get him some time when the coast was clear and his guard was down. Such as a cold December morning in Philadelphia. You shot him yourself and set him on fire.”

"I saw Sammy in Canada two weeks ago," Garrett said. “He’s quite alive.”

“His remains have been exhumed from a coffin in South Philadelphia.”

“Someone is spinning you a lie.”

Buchanan continued. "And in San Francisco you shot Blake Warren because you sensed that he may have known the full involvement between you and Wong. That is, that the relationship concerned more than an opium dealer and his banker. Warren might have known that you were, if not Marxist yourself, working for the Soviet cause in the United States. Warren, if turned, would have made a devastating witness in a courtroom.”

Garrett sat transfixed, as if fascinated.  "Absolutely fantastic. And how would you know about a meeting in some strip joint if I shot the only witness?"

"Because Warren wasn't the only witness,” Buchanan answered. “Mark O'Connell, who was still working on an associated case spotted Wong meeting you. Warren told Wong that an FBI agent had seen the two of you together. Then Wong told you."

"But this FBI agent? You said he was shot."

"That's right."

"I suppose I did that too?"

"No. Different weapon. The same gun killed Warren as killed Sammy Wong. I have the slugs and I have the ballistics tests. But a Soviet hit team shot Mark O'Connell. Same as they're planning to shoot me."

Garrett laughed.  "As I said, preposterous." Garrett rubbed his chin. "Oh, wait a minute. I'm beginning to see all of this. I'm to be the next Alger Hiss, am I? Well, you can forget it. All you're doing here is spinning nasty fantasies. I'd fight every one of them in court and I'd win every time."

"I'm going to link you to Colonel Volkov, also," Buchanan said.

"Colonel who?" Garrett's tone was sharp and indignant.

"The Russian colonel, as if you don't know. Or was he a Polish colonel in his latest cover story? In any case, Mr. Garrett, Volkov's blown. His whole network in the United States is about to be rolled up. Listen to me carefully: this is a personal favor to you out of respect for the daughter you disowned. Be advised: the whole operation is finished.”

Garrett drew a long breath and exhaled slowly.

"Buchanan," Garrett said. "I have my ear to the ground, too. I know, for example, that you're still be pursuing my daughter. I'll tell you the real reason I don't speak to Ann. Ann's a disgraceful whore. She’s married to a pushy little Hebrew film producer who buys her drugs, gets her high as a kite, and then passes her around the Hollywood casting couches.”

“I’ve met her husband. Just recently. Interesting fellow,” Buchanan said.

“Is this a girl a father could be proud of? Ann disgusts me. Her lack of morals. Her lifestyle. Her lousy choice of career and her lousy choice in men, present company included."

Buchanan fixed his gaze on Garrett. He played his final card.

"There's only one major aspect of this I don't understand," Buchanan said. "And that's where Zolling, the East German colonel, fits into this."

Garrett looked up.

"What?" he asked.

"The Russians and East Germans knew that there was going to be an important defection. And they knew it was going to come through London. Laura compromised the operation, of course, and precipitated Zolling's death. But why was it so important to stop Zolling from defecting? As it is, you and Laura ran terrible risks to penetrate the American political corps in London. Risks, I might add, that contributed to your own exposure. What is it that Zolling knew? What was he going to reveal?"

Garrett remained outwardly calm.

"Want me to show you how wrong you are about everything?" Garrett asked.

"Sure. Prove that I’m wrong and I’ll leave.”

Garrett rose. Buchanan watched his hands carefully.

Garrett crossed his office to a bookshelf and pulled from it a newspaper. "When was Wong supposedly murdered?" he asked.

"Just before the New Year.”

Garrett flicked through the newspaper.

"Here's an example of the shoddy sort of case you're building," Garrett said.

He crossed the room again and presented Buchanan a Philadelphia Inquirer from January 14 of the same year.  There on the society page was the journal's photograph of Wong, Garrett, and DeStefano dining at the Mayflower Club, a photo taken the previous Saturday.

"I apparently took my guest out to dinner several days after I killed him, according to your scenario, Tom. Sure, you talked to our friend Paul Evans and he played you for the foolish little snoop that you are! He never told you the correct date of our dinner. Said it was around the first of the year but didn't say when. Then you got it in your mind that some barbecued corpse was Sammy Wong. Outstanding piece of detective work, Buchanan. Some case. You didn’t even get your dates right."

Buchanan stared at the newspaper as if his theory were collapsing beneath its own complexity. Meanwhile, Garrett sensed a kill on the counterattack.

"And a further question," Garrett said. "If I'm so alarmed at having been seen with Wong in San Francisco, why would I go out to dinner with him in Philadelphia?"

“Don’t know,” Buchanan said. "It's the one angle I haven't worked out yet," he confessed.

Garrett chortled.

"You don't have a case. You don't even have a theory that works."

Buchanan made no response.

"I told you that you were going to get your tail burned if you hung around," said Garrett. “Now you have. I’m going to take the gloves off and speak frankly. You and your FBI Director are nosing around something so sensitive that only President Truman and I know the full scenario. And do you know what your role is? Low-level security. Just running some checks to make sure that our operation is leak proof, which it is. What a fool you've been! You’re a janitor in the world of state secrets. You conjured up a whole theory around Sammy Wong's death, complete with Soviet agents and phantom financial structures and you don't even have the right date of a murder that didn’t happen."

Garrett laughed contemptuously. "Here you go!" he concluded.

Garrett reached to the newspaper and ripped at the page that bore his picture. He tore out the photograph of himself and his two dinner companions. He crumpled it and shoved it into the breast pocket of Buchanan's jacket.

"Take this," said Garrett, "and shove it up J. Edgar Hoover’s tailpipe! But in any case, get out of my office and get out of my life!"

Buchanan stared Garrett eye to eye for several seconds. The entire confrontation had reversed itself within a matter of seconds. Buchanan turned and walked from Garrett's office.

Buchanan felt Garrett's eyes upon him like a pair of daggers as he strode from the room. To Mrs. Eshelbach, Garrett’s secretary, Buchanan bore the resemblance of a man whose career had just crashed.

Garrett, watching him go, stood in his own office basking in his self-proclaimed triumph.

CHAPTER 62

One hour later Buchanan walked into the office of Detective Fred Castelli of Philadelphia's Fourth District, Homicide. In a chair beside Castelli's desk was a frightened Paul Evans. Castelli and Foley stopped talking. Present also was Bernie Gedmon from the medical examiner's office. Gedmon was sitting on the edge of a table, munching a sandwich.

Evans's eyes went wide when Buchanan appeared.

"I might have known," Evans said. "This has something to do with you."

"It wouldn't if you had told me the whole truth the first time," Buchanan said.

“What are you talking about?

"Perhaps you're unaware of it, Paul," Buchanan said courteously, "but you've helped obstruct a murder investigation. That subjects you to arrest. I have every intention of letting these police officers arrest you. Then I'll drive over to your club and inform them that you're trying to make bail."

Evans had already been sweating when Buchanan entered the room. The perspiration was rolling off his forehead now. Buchanan waited until Evans spoke again.

"What do you want?" Evans asked.

"I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Your answers better be honest, because you're going to jail if they aren't." More sweat rolled. "If you choose to cooperate, you'll be taken back to the Mayflower Club, where you may resume your work. A plainclothes Philadelphia police officer will be with you all day. You will not leave his sight. You may not talk on the telephone nor give any signal to John Taylor Garrett. If you do anything wrong, you will be arrested. Understand?"

He understood, Evans said.

Buchanan reached into his pocket. He withdrew the photograph that Garrett had ripped from the newspaper. He placed it on the desk before Paul Evans.

"Sammy Wong," said Buchanan. "I say John Garrett murdered him the morning of January 5. He nodded to the photograph and spoke directly to Evans. "Now. When was that photo taken?"

"Saturday, January 14," Evans said.

"That's right. Now, who's in the picture?"

Evans paused and stared at it.

"Well, come on, Paul," Buchanan pressed. "It's not something you should have to think about, is it? You know Mr. DeStefano, Mr. Garrett, and Mr. Wong very well from frequent visits to your club. So who's in the picture? It can't be Wong, can it? It was a stand-in, right?”

Evans sighed long and hard. "Garrett. DeStefano . . ."

Here he hesitated for several seconds until Buchanan cut in.

"You get one more chance to answer, Paul. Just one," Buchanan said. "You intentionally misled me. I didn't know what you were doing until I realized the importance of the dinner at the Mayflower Club, the reason why Garrett wanted people to remember that he and his guests had been there."

Castelli, fascinated, opened a pack of cigarettes.

"Tell us who's in the picture, Paul," Buchanan said again.

Evans blew out a long, frightened breath. "...I don't know the third man. Some Chinese guy. He looks like Sammy Wong. But it's not him."

Castelli and Foley had difficulty following.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said Buchanan. "But the point was to establish that Wong was alive in mid-January and in the company of John Garrett. So Garrett used a stand-in, an Asian man from a Soviet spy network in the United States, I’d guess. A man with a close enough likeness to fool a casual Western observer. That way Garrett could never be accused of pulling the trigger on him a few days earlier.”

"A Soviet what?" Evans asked.

It also accounted, Buchanan went on to explain, for Garrett's making a display of the evening, particularly after avoiding public contact with Wong for several years.

Buchanan turned to Gedmon and pushed the same paper before him. "Ever seen this picture before?" he asked.

Gedmon shook his head.

"How about the Chinaman?" Buchanan asked. "Ever seen him?"

Gedmon looked at it hard. "Uh uh," said Gedmon.

"How about you, Sergeant?" Buchanan asked Castelli. "Same question."

Castelli looked over Gedmon's shoulder. They both arrived at the same conclusion. The man who had stood in for Wong had later turned up again as "Mr. Lee" to claim the body.

"I think that makes a strong case for what I'm saying," said Buchanan. "And it certainly establishes ‘Mr. Lee’ as Garrett's confederate."

In response, Paul Evans said he was scared to death and didn't want to go to jail. In that case, Buchanan was quick to advise, he might consider cooperating from that point forward.

CHAPTER 63

Buchanan drove back to his Philadelphia office. It was nearing evening now in the eastern United States but was afternoon on the West Coast. He attempted again to phone Ann in California, but there was again no answer at her number.

He fretted. He worried about her safety, and the many threats her husband had made against her.

He tried to phone Meadley and Herter, his FBI contacts in California, his ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,’ but couldn’t reach them, either, which troubled him all the more. Nothing on that front was making sense. It reminded him of Rome at the end of the war when it would take four weeks to contact the right person and then no one would get back to him.

By default, he moved on to the concerns immediately before him.

He called Jack Malone at the White House. "Are you ready to move quickly?" Buchanan asked.

"As always," said Malone. “How did it go with Garrett?”

“Perfectly. Garrett used the alibi I expected," said Buchanan. "He thinks he's got a little time. Contact Mulligan in New York. Tell him to give the emergency signal. Try to bring Volkov in for a conversation. If the colonel takes the bait, then we can roll Garrett's whole network."

"Does Mulligan need a bodyguard?"

"Definitely," said Buchanan. "Is that my department or yours?"

“Yours,” Malone said. “FBI jurisdiction. Unless you want to bring the New York police in but that would take a court order and maybe ten days.”

“Forget that,” Buchanan said.

“That’s what I thought.”

Thomas said he would arrange the bodyguard protection through Washington. Better that than sharing with another agency at this point. The problem again, however, was bureaucracy. The Rome-at-the-end-of-the war syndrome lived on.

Then, with the end of his long investigation in sight, Buchanan also placed a pair of long distance calls to Shannon, Washington.

In his office in the Veterans Hospital, Dr. Alan Hamburger picked up the telephone. On the other end of the line, Thomas Buchanan inquired of the condition of the patient known as Braverman.

"He's doing fine," Hamburger answered. “’Braverman’ will be up and around just as soon as he wants to."

"Still not walking?" Buchanan asked.

"Sitting in a wheelchair. Medically we've stopped the infection and stitched the flesh wounds. Sure, there's scar tissue and some pain. But the man's biggest problems are in his head."

"Could he travel?"

"If he wants to," said Hamburger. "Heck, I'd just as soon discharge him."

"I'll see what I can do," said Buchanan.

Buchanan hung up. Minutes later he rang the hospital room of the patient. Helen answered. She gave the line to her husband.

"What I'd like, Mark," said Buchanan, "is for you to come East. Any way you could do that? Could you get to New York?"

"Depends on the purpose," Mark O'Connell said.

"Identification of a suspect," said Buchanan. "Arrests are imminent. We could use you for the arraignments.”

There was a pause on the line. "I'm not on my feet yet, pal," O'Connell said. "Helen will have to help me. I'm still rolling around in an FDR throne.”

If that was how O'Connell wanted to do it, said Buchanan, that's the way it would have to be. O'Connell said he could be in New York by Friday. Buchanan countered that local FBI agents would meet him in Washington and get him to the plane. Then other agents would meet him in New York.

Thereupon, Buchanan set down the telephone. He had set his trap as well as possible. Now he could only wait and hope. He picked up the telephone a final time and called Frank Lerrick in Washington, requesting that a cable be sent to London.  MI5 and Scotland Yard would be formally asked to take Laura Garrett into custody without any further delay or question.

Buchanan sat down the phone. Impulsively, he tried California again. Nothing. A conclusion was becoming painfully clear. Ann had slipped away from him once again. Or perhaps she had never been his at all. He had only imagined it.

A deep sadness was upon him. He tried to dismiss it, and with it, all thoughts of the woman who so frequently caused it. Then an hour later, another unpleasant shoe dropped via a late long distance call from Frank Lerrick in Washington.

"The Soviet Mission to the United Nations in New York guided a ‘diplomat’ out of the country this afternoon," Lerrick said. "The Bureau just learned about it. The Soviets took him to Montreal and put him on a morning plane to London. That's the normal route back to Moscow, from what we understand."

Buchanan cursed long and low. “You’re bloody well right it is,” he said.

"The passport was in the name of Volkov," said Lerrick. "Our Colonel Volkov apparently has full Soviet citizenship and complete diplomatic cover. Nothing we could have done even if we intercepted him."

“We could have done plenty,” Buchanan said. “They don’t play by rules. Who says we always have to? I’d be for following Volkov. He’s not walking away to a dacha outside Moscow if I’ve got any way to stop him.”

“What’s a ‘dacha’?”

“Do we have Milenkin covered in New York?” Buchanan asked.

“The New York office said they would follow up,” Lerrick said.

“Sure, but did they?”

“I assume they did.”

“Assume? Frank, if our investigation is blowing up, the Russian kid is at heavy risk.”

“Don’t be over dramatic. And besides, he’s a Russian.”

“Do we have a way to phone him?”

“No. If you want to go up to New York and have a look, Tom,” Lerrick said, “do it. Just be back right away. Should we detain Garrett?”

“Why waste the time?” snapped Buchanan.

“Really? After all this?”

“Okay, sure, try it. Send some agents around. See what they can find.”

Lerrick rang off. In anger, Buchanan threw down the phone so hard on his end that he thought he would break the handset. But he didn’t.

CHAPTER 64

By five o'clock the next morning, Buchanan was again in motion, arriving at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. He carried his gun, a change of clothing and his passport.

By eight AM he was in a cold, rainy Manhattan and by eight-thirty sensed impending disaster. He walked past the Perry Street residence of Viktor Milenkin and saw no FBI surveillance team.

What had happened?

Hadn't Frank Lerrick put the command through proper channels? Was the New York field office playing games with Washington's operation? Further, where was Jack Malone, who had said he would fly up to New York from Washington? He looked at the sky. Weather. The fates were not cooperating. Flights out of DC were late.

Buchanan sat in the window of a coffee shop down the block. No one came or went from Milenkin's building. Finally Buchanan went to a public telephone. He phoned Washington. Frank Lerrick said a young agent had been assigned to guard Milenkin immediately at five AM with a full team to follow during the morning. Buchanan cursed under his breath. This was the way operations fell apart at key moments.

Buchanan called New York Telephone. No, Mulligan's coworkers said, he had never shown for work that day. Most unusual. Buchanan muttered to himself. Either Milenkin had set them up with a fabricated tale for some purpose, or…

Or what?

Instinctively Buchanan's hand went to his weapon. He could feel the revolver riding on his hip, but he sought to reassure himself. Once again this instinct was building within him, this feeling born out of years of experience.

He walked back to Mulligan's address on Perry Street. Again there was no movement around the building.  He opened an outer door and stood in a vestibule near the mailboxes. The mail had been delivered for the day. Mulligan's mail hadn't been picked up. Buchanan wondered if that meant anything. He decided that it didn't.

There was an inner door with a lock. It was flimsy. Buchanan put his hand on the knob. There was play to it. He checked the street again, assured himself that no one was near, and then turned back to the door. He brought his leg up and kicked in the latch with the heel of his right foot.

He pushed the door shut. Mulligan lived on the third floor. Buchanan began to walk up the stairs. Then he heard footsteps above him. From the cadence and the weight of the footfall, he guessed it was a woman. He was right.

He looked above him and saw a flurry of skirt and a flash of leg. He kept his gun under his coat, just in case. He glanced up. He saw her coming around the turn of the steps on the second floor.

She hesitated slightly.

Then, "Hello," she said. She was dark haired and wore a scarf. She showed him a beguiling smile. She carried a small folio and looked like any other woman in her twenties on her way to work.

"Hi," he answered.

"Nice day, yes?" she said in passing.

She passed him and went down the stairs. At least she wasn't blond.

He continued upward until he reached the third level. He heard her footsteps reach the ground floor.

The stairway walls and hallway were yellow. There was a light bulb on the ceiling at each landing. It was covered by a plastic shade. The light was on but gave less light than the window at the rear of the hall. Buchanan had to turn a corner to find Mulligan's apartment. He did so carefully, with his gun hand drawn beneath his coat.

He stood still and listened. A radio played softly within Mulligan's apartment. But Buchanan couldn't hear anyone moving.

He remained at Mulligan's door. He was sweating furiously. Then another thought was upon him. It occurred to him that the sound of kicking the door in from below would have been enough to have alerted someone standing sentry.

Why hadn't the FBI surveillance been assigned properly?

Why wasn't the one agent assigned somewhere within view? He had seen no one except the dark-haired woman coming down the steps. Who was she? Whose lover? Whose wife? Where was she going to work at eleven AM?

Then another impression was upon him, one which was the sum of its parts and more. It occurred to him that Nice day, yes? was not really the type of thing a New Yorker would say. It was distinctly foreign.

Additionally, she had had her hair covered. He could have been looking at a wig. Similarly her shoes weren't quite American. And for that matter neither were the rest of her clothes.

He leaned to the doorknob and squeezed it. His heart kicked. He could sense the presence of a hand on the other side of the door. He held the knob and moved his eye to the peephole. Sometimes one could get a blurred image of the apartment within by looking through the wrong way.

But the hole was dark. Not black. Dark. There was a thumb or an eye or a hand on the other side of the door. Maybe.

Then he knew that if one hand was on the knob and the other on the hole, this might be the best moment he had all day.

He stepped back from the door, spun around in front of it to pick up momentum, and hit the hinge as hard as he could. Just as he did that, the door started to open from within. Buchanan blasted it forward.

Alexandr Filiatov, on the other side, was caught in midstride. The door flew back and whacked him in the chest and chin, staggering him. But Filiatov's own pistol was out also, aimed, equipped with a silencer, ready, and coming up to fire.

Filiatov cursed in Russian. When Buchanan heard the Russian he knew, just as he had in the waning days of the war in Berlin, that he was confronting the new opposition.

Buchanan hit Filiatov’s weapon with his arm. He deflected it to the side as the weapon discharged. Filiatov was off balance and staggering.

He reeled two steps backward, stumbled and fell over a magazine rack. But he raised the gun a second time. Buchanan hit the floor but felt the crack from a bullet as it sailed close to his ear.

It all seemed like it was happening in slow motion.

He's going to shoot me! He's going to kill me! Buchanan thought.

For what seemed like an eternity he was frozen with fear. In a vision that he would see for the rest of his life, he saw Filiatov's hand come up toward him a third time from a range at which the Russian couldn't possibly miss.

Buchanan's own revolver was extended outward. Instinct took over.

Buchanan felt two powerful blasts from the palm of his hand. He saw an explosion of red first in the center of Filiatov's neck, then in his forehead.

The Russian, half standing while he was trying to shoot, was propelled backward. His arm flew wildly upward. The Russian's final shot hit the wall three feet above Buchanan's head as the assassin tumbled backward over the rack.

For a moment all was still. Then there was a spasm to Filiatov's body.

Very slowly Buchanan went to his feet.

He stepped to the Russian and nudged the body with his foot.

He rolled him over but didn't bother to feel for a pulse. There was a wound the size of a baseball in the man's throat, and the front of his head was blown away.

Buchanan could see the man's brains. For the first time since the early days of combat in North Africa, the desire to vomit was upon Buchanan. But he turned away and suppressed it. He had seen much worse during the war. He had seen friends mangled and blown apart in ways more horrible than this.

He braced himself. He was back in a war zone, back in Italy going shack to shack, back in Paris going apartment to apartment, back in Berlin going cellar to cellar.

Good God above, he thought to himself, it’s all just one war and it never ends.

There was always one more enemy.

He already knew what he would find in the next room.

He stepped to Mulligan's bedroom, looked in, and for the first time in many years felt the overwhelming desire to cry.

“Oh, no. Oh, no,” he said.

There on the bed was Milenkin, his head tilted at an impossible angle, like a large bird with a broken neck. The man who had wanted so badly to live in America had died in America, instead. Somehow Filiatov had gained entry to the building. Somehow he had gotten the drop on the Russian émigré.

Somehow, without much resistance, Milenkin had been shot in the head.

Buchanan took one step closer and saw how Milenkin still wore what appeared to be his sleeping clothes. He had been murdered in his bed, probably while he had slept. Then the Soviet assassin had stayed to search the apartment.

If all of Joe Stalin’s apologists could see this, Buchanan thought. If all the Marxist idealists and theoreticians could see how the grand Soviet experiment worked in reality. But wishes were cheap in a room where a good man had been murdered.

As for the young FBI guard, Filiatov had dropped him too. The young man, who appeared to be in his twenties, had somehow made a foolish mistake and had come into the apartment with his guard down, probably shortly after he had received his assignment.

He was dead on the floor on the other side of the bed. He had a single bullet wound in the center of his chest, and another in the head. The young agent had been shot from ambush, Buchanan deduced, then finished with a coup de grace.

Buchanan looked at one victim, then the other.

"Filthy bloody murderers!" he cursed violently to himself. He fought back his own tears, tears for the young agent, tears for Milenkin and tears for Barbara Harkavy, who had lost her future husband.

He swore to himself as he felt his hand sweating on the palm of his own holstered pistol. Someone, he vowed, would pay for this!

Whoever had ordered this carnage would not live to brag about it!

Then he sensed something.

He froze. He was sure that he had heard something behind him, the faintest creak of an old floorboard in a Greenwich Village tenement. He turned slowly. He saw a human figure behind him at the apartment's front door.

It was the woman he had passed on the steps. And this time it was Buchanan's turn to be on the short end of the situation. Marina Sejna had her own pistol raised. It was trained on the center of Buchanan’s chest from a distance of twenty feet.

In a space of time that has no measurement, Buchanan knew he was a dead man. He had done what he had never done in the war and never done in his years of service with the FBI.

He had allowed an enemy to get the drop on him, same as the young agent on the floor, and now he would suffer the same fate. He felt his shirt clinging to his ribs.

There wasn't any escaping. She had him. Buchanan felt himself go white with fear. If he grasped for his weapon, he would be dead in an instant. If he bolted forward, he was dead just as easily. If he…

He thought of his childhood, his parents, and the home he grew up in. He thought of Ann. For split seconds he savored each before dying.

He stared at the beautiful Russian woman whom fate had destined to be his executioner. He saw that her hand was unsteady.

He took a long chance. He spoke Russian. “Put away that weapon, comrade,” he said calmly. “I’m a friend of Colonel Volkov.”

It was enough to buy him five seconds.

She answered in Russian. “What?”

Her hand wavered.

He repeated in Russian. “I’m a friend of Colonel Volkov! All hail the great Stalin!”

A voice exploded from halfway up the stairs. Malone’s. "Tom? Where the hell are you?"

Marina Sejna moved her head lightly in surprise. Buchanan was all over his only opportunity. He ducked down low and moved behind the bedroom door frame. Marina turned on him and fired. Bullets crashed into the woodwork around him and splinters flew toward his face. But Buchanan’s hand was in motion.

He thrust it around the door and fired twice in the direction where Marina had stood.

The shooting stopped. He withdrew his hand.

He felt his heart kicking like a boot in his chest.

He heard a body hit the floor.

"Jack! Look out!" he screamed to Malone's benefit.

His words echoed through the still building. Then he heard a groan from the woman who had tried to kill him. Gingerly he peered around the door. He peered just at the moment when Marina, with a final gasp of life, raised her pistol and squeezed off a final shot.

Buchanan spun backward. He felt the bullet part the air near his head an instant before it slammed into the wall. Then he heard her gun drop against the floor.

He heard her body convulse with death and could hear a gurgle of blood in her throat.

A moment later he knew it was safe to step out. One of his shots had hit her in the lower abdomen. She was half-braced against the door. She was slumped over in death, the gun gone from her hand.

“Jack!" Buchanan howled. “Up here!” he yelled.

He heard Malone respond from downstairs. “Guns! You all right?”

"It's over! Come up!"

Seconds later Malone appeared at the door, horror etched all over his face, as he, too, surveyed the massacre.

Buchanan walked to the woman he had shot. He had seen it all so many times before, but he was sickened, anyway. Her eyes were open and unfocused. He pulled a jacket from Milenkin's closet, stared at her for a moment, and then covered her.

"Dead," Buchanan said. "All of them."

Malone hesitated for a moment and then spoke.  When he looked back to Malone, Malone was covering his mouth with a handkerchief, turning away.

“Let’s step outside,” Buchanan said.

He guided the younger man by the arm.  Malone may have seen military service, Buchanan thought to himself, but he hadn’t seen the war.

"What in God's name happened?" Malone asked when they were in the hall.

"Surveillance didn't get here in time," Buchanan responded.  “Just this one poor FBI bastard." He motioned in the direction of the murdered agent.

"Why the hell weren't the teams in place?" Malone demanded. "How the hell long does it take to set a unit to protect a man's life?"

“Incompetence,” Buchanan said. “That’ll have to do for an explanation until something worse emerges.”

Malone cursed long and low. He retched.

“Can you deal with the New York cops here? I’m going to the airport,” Buchanan said.

“Airport? You’re nuts.”

“Maybe.”

"Tom, listen. I talked to one of your big bosses by phone an hour ago,” Malone said. “Frank Lerrick. Assistant Director.”

“So?”

“Did you talk to him this morning?”

“No. I was in transit by five AM.”

"He says there's an arrest warrant out for Garrett. But Garrett ducked his guard in Pennsylvania. Of course, the FBI will have the whole East Coast looking for him. He won't get far."

"That’s a laugh, Jack. If Volkov’s gone, Garrett’s gone. If the Colonel fled to London, I’m going after him.”

Malone shook his head.

"Further instructions from Frank Lerrick," Malone said. "I said I'd relay them. You're to cease involvement in this case immediately and report back to Washington. Have a report ready by the time you arrive."

"That's what he told you?" asked Buchanan.

"That's what he said. It stinks, huh?”

“More than that,” Buchanan said. The image returned of Milenkin on the bed. “Do me a favor, Jack. Handle the cops here when they arrive. And I left so fast that you didn’t get a chance to tell me about your call with Lerrick, okay?  Thanks.”

A minute later Buchanan was down the stairs and out onto Perry Street. He found a cabbie who drove him to Idlewild. There, in a bizarre meeting at New York's international airport, he crossed paths with Mark O'Connell in his wheelchair, freshly arrived from Washington State.

It was only while waiting for his own flight, direct to London, that Buchanan brought O'Connell current on the events that had put him in that chair. In return from O'Connell, he received the moral encouragement he needed to see the case to conclusion on his own.

CHAPTER 65

The following morning, Robert Sayre, the chief political officer at the United States Embassy, London, met Buchanan's flight at Heathrow. It was just past dawn. Sayre, with an embassy car, provided transportation into the city. The roads were quiet and wet.

For much of the first part of the drive, Buchanan was alone with his thoughts, listening only to the squeak of the windshield wipers in front of him. By the time Buchanan arrived in England, much had already happened. Gradually Sayre brought Buchanan up-to-date as he drove him from the airport into central London.

Several hours earlier Colonel Volkov had gone to the Soviet Embassy, valid Soviet passport in hand. There Volkov was not alone, as the past few hours had turned into a diplomatic Walpurgisnacht. In addition to a fleeing spy, the Soviet Embassy had a full-fledged defector on their hands as well, a woman who had somehow received word from the United States that the time had come to vanish to the worker's paradise.

"She's in the process of leaving the country right now," Sayre announced. "There's an Aeroflot flight to Moscow at noon today. I know for a fact that the GRU colonel is departing on it. I assume the Russians are planning to put the woman on it as well. They don't waste time getting their people out after an operation crashes."

"Laura Garrett, right?" Buchanan asked, although he knew without waiting for an answer.

Sayre nodded. "She was in Soviet hands before we received instructions to detain her."

"Naturally," said Buchanan.

"She knew ahead of time."

"They always seem to," Buchanan grumbled. About a mile later, he asked, "I suppose you know about her father."

"We received a full transcript by telex just a few hours ago. It was sent and received while your flight was in the air," the Foreign Service officer said.

Buchanan was about to ask if anyone had managed to station some Scotland Yard or MI5 people at the airport. But then he soured on even asking. Volkov was safe in Soviet custody. So what did it matter?

"On the other hand," Sayre began, "if John Garrett arrives in London, since he's a U.S. citizen…"

Buchanan interrupted. "Can't Scotland Yard detain Volkov?" he asked. "Can't someone stop him? There's a gallon of blood on his hands back in the U.S. There must be some angle.”

Sayre sighed. "The Brits don't see it that way, I'm afraid. Whatever Volkov did, he didn't do it on their soil. And if he did, they don't know about it. Further, if he goes from the Soviet Embassy to a Soviet auto to a Soviet aircraft …"

"Then the Brits don't have jurisdiction?" said Buchanan angrily. "Right? I’ve seen this game before.”

“Diplomats,” said Sayre, who was one himself. “What can you do?”

Buchanan growled again. The Brits didn’t seem to want to help, he realized. And there was the bottom line.

"I'm taking you to my office right now," Sayre explained a minute later. "I have a CIA report. It might interest you."

"On what?"

"Zolling. The East German colonel."

"The late East German defector," Buchanan said with no attempt to conceal his bitterness.

"Have it your way," Sayre said. "It's all the same thing to me.”

Buchanan said nothing, but watched the quiet, gray wet neighborhoods of the outer regions of West London slide by the car as the wipers continued to squeak.

They reached the American Embassy on Grosvenor Square by eight ten in the morning. Sayre and Buchanan entered past U.S. Marine guards. Buchanan stopped at the security room and checked his pistol, carefully following protocol.

Sayre led Buchanan to a reading room for classified documents. Buchanan spent the next three quarters of an hour reading a background dossier on Hans Zolling.

Zolling was, as Buchanan already knew, a member of the East German military and one of the satellite republic's liaisons with the Soviet Army. He was also a trusted part of Soviet defense planning in Eastern Europe. He had been sending signals to the West for twelve months. The CIA had promised to reunite him with Lili, the Danish cutie who had caught the aging satyr's eye the previous summer.

Lili had been the bait and the trap all by herself, if the report could be believed, and all the Americans had been hoping to gain was an insider's view of the East German armored units and maybe even defense ministry. That, however, had been up until November 1949.

Then Zolling had come across something bigger and better, and figured that while he was on a roll, he might as well go for a house and a car in Florida in addition to the lithesome Lili.

The "something bigger and better" was a file freshly lifted from the office of Walter Ulbricht, the vicious old Stalinist who was currently premier of the Democratic Republic of East Germany. The file was an outline of Soviet military expansion in 1950.

It was top drawer, top secret stuff and included the destination of all of Zolling’s beloved T-34 tanks that had gone missing.  Zolling promised something earthshaking: he knew precisely when and where Russian-backed military or Chinese-backed operations would and wouldn't occur that coming year.

Zolling promised all the blueprints, maps and numbers of troops, dates, and the degree of cooperation from Red puppet governments - as the report termed them - in Europe, Africa, and faraway Asia. Zolling had everything, in short, for the British and the Americans to prepare swift countermoves and blow whatever Red Armies were involved back into the sea.

This wasn’t just gold dust in espionage terms, Zolling had sworn. This was gold bullion, several bricks of it. When the Americans gained possession of it, he joked, they would give him two blondes, two houses, and two cars. His CIA contacts had been more restrained, but Zolling's offer was considered irresistible.

Back at Foggy Bottom, an American team out of Washington had been sent to bring Zolling and his file to the West. But at the last minute, the CIA backed away from it. When the American team arrived in London, there was delay and confusion, a trademark of the struggling new Central Intelligence Agency. There was a barrage of long distance calls, telexes and telegrams between Washington and London.

As Buchanan read the reports he couldn’t tell whether it was the White House, the FBI or the new CIA pulling the strings. Or maybe they were all pulling but in different directions, all working against each other.

The bottom line was that two days went by and then someone in authority somewhere decided to avoid having American fingerprints on the operation in case it blew up. Buchanan couldn’t find any reference to a security leak at this point but it was obvious to him that someone sure as hell had caught a whiff of one.

In any case, a call went out to a friendly service in Europe and a team of three freelance Italians was recruited to take a train up from Rome, cross into East Germany and get Zolling out, using a forged Austrian passport.

The Italians were to meet Zolling in Rostock, a northern city with access via a river to the Baltic Sea. The American team sent from Washington was to also go to Rostock, but to hang back and provide emergency support where needed, including firepower if things hit a crisis. The team members were émigrés from the war and native speakers. One was a former Wehrmacht major whom the Americans had found useful after the fall of Berlin. All three spoke Polish, meaning they could use that identity as a drop back position if needed.

That part, the émigré team, was fine.

No one was to use any of the existing German escape routes. No one was to contact the Bonn or Berlin residencies, even if they knew people. No women and minimal booze, even on slow evenings.

General Zolling was to surface at an inn in Rostock with his files, meet the Italians in the town’s only movie theater two blocks away, and then they would all go to a Portuguese ship on the docks.

The Italians made the hotel in a timely fashion and hung out in a coffee bar until filtering one by one into the theatre.

Zolling came in next, an hour later, gave a hand signal and the pick-up commenced. They all went quickly out the back exit in changed coats and in pairs, the file having also changed hands at this time. Everything was hunky dory.

They got to the pier an hour later, boarded the Portuguese ship, and the whole operation exploded. The East German Stasi had seized control of the ship and German State Police were armed to the earlobes.

The Portuguese crew had been muzzled and locked below deck. As soon as the unwitting Italians came aboard with Zolling, lights went up, doors were locked, the Stasi pounced and hammers started to fall.

The Italians were lined against a wall and machine-gunned. They were the lucky ones. According to reports out of Moscow, Zolling was captured, flown to Moscow, questioned for a week, eviscerated and shot in the basement of Lubyanka Prison.

Pictures were taken and circulated to deter this type of counter revolutionary behavior in the future.

A set of pictures was in the file in London. Buchanan gagged when he saw them, a neat set of fifteen post card-sized prints of pure horror, detailing once again man’s utter inhumanity to man.

The Zolling files, copies of which had been found in Zolling’s flat, were returned to Ulbricht before the earth could move for Western intelligence. The team of American-German émigrés, however, survived. They had been following Zolling closely enough to observe the boat when hell broke loose. There was nothing subtle about the shouting and the gunshots.

The team turned and fled, escaping just before an armada of German and Russian police locked down the area. No one could tell whether the tracking down of the back-up team was an East German operation or a Soviet one, but the smart money was on the Russians.

The trio made it by car all the way to a safe house in Dresden, driving nonstop and buying gas from black market contacts at depots hidden in the woods. For the next few days, all the check points along the East-West German borders were in chaos while the East Germans searched for “western fascist rabble.”

Someone managed to talk some good sense and patience into the team, however, and guided them southward instead of westward. They dropped all the way down to the Czech border, which was more porous thanks to some routes at higher elevation. Then they went into neutral Austria near Salzburg in the back of a potato truck.

The last mile was driven at night with the lights off on a mountain road without guardrails, with an old Magyar at the wheel sipping schnapps. They were half frozen to death, terrified but happy.  From there they reached Switzerland, and from Switzerland reached home via France and a French steamship from Cherbourg.

Buchanan swore to himself as he studied and analyzed the files. It was an oath taken in amazement more than anger. Visions of John Garrett and Sammy Wong flashed before him, as well as the image of Colonel Volkov, the globe-trotting GRU officer depicted in the testimony of the late Viktor Milenkin. There was also a vision of Laura Garrett. The file maintained, but provided no proof, that a young embassy staffer named Henry Walters, still under surveillance, had leaked critical information to Laura.

Pillow talk, most likely. Loose lips sank ships in more ways than a family newspaper could report. Then that image faded into a more recent one of Milenkin, dead on his bed in Greenwich Village, a few feet from the slain young FBI agent.

Buchanan drew a long breath and stood.

How long had this case been going on? Just since 1949? Or could it be described as going back years? To the prewar era, or into the time of John Dillinger in the 1930s?

He was exhausted. Many thoughts spiraled together, some of them not clear. Not yet. He found Sayre waiting for him in his office.

The diplomat looked at him solemnly. "Seems like we missed out on something big with Zolling," Sayre said.

"Maybe,” Buchanan said. “But it’s possible we can salvage a few things. Can you drive me to the Russian Embassy?"

Sayre shrugged. "Sure. Why?"

“I want to confront Volkov.”

“What for?”

“You never know.”

“Not legal, you know.”

“Who cares? I don’t.”

“Might create a diplomatic flap.”

“Why should we just allow him to slip away? He’s going to turn up in Moscow wearing more decorations than an Easter basket. Maybe we can sweat him. Maybe the Russians will fumble the ball worse than we did.”

“Worth a shot,” Sayre agreed.

Buchanan returned to the reception area and the security room.

The security officer seemed surprised to see him.

"Another man picked up your weapon, sir," the guard said to Buchanan.

"What!" Buchanan exploded.

"The man had FBI credentials himself, sir," the guard said. "Explained that you were absent without leave from the United States and were not empowered to carry an FBI weapon in a foreign country."

"You're telling me my gun was confiscated?" Buchanan asked.

"Yes, sir. My apologies, sir."

"What the hell office was he from?" Buchanan snapped, furious. "London? Washington?"

"Chicago. Said he was on special assignment, sir."

"Where is he now?”

“Gone, sir.”

Buchanan stood nonplussed. The long, long all-powerful grasping arm of J. Edgar Hoover, Buchanan wondered, or an ambulatory phantom?

Chicago? That went back a bit.

But with an aircraft waiting for Colonel Volkov there was little time to wonder. He turned back to Sayre. “Let’s keep moving,” Buchanan said.

CHAPTER 66

The Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a grim place in any weather, but grimmest of all on a cold March morning in a wet mist. By the time Buchanan arrived, an NKVD officer informed him that Laura Garrett had already departed with an escort to the airport. A Soviet jet awaited her. Military, not passenger.
Sayre made a call to the airport and confirmed Laura’s escape. Boarding a Soviet aircraft to remove a passenger was not going to happen.

"What about the colonel?" Buchanan asked.

The colonel was still inside, the guard said, preparing to travel.

The colonel had also struck a good deal. His diplomatic passport assured him of direct passage to the airport. Still a cautious man, he had sent Laura Garrett to the airport first. A messenger was to call the embassy when Laura was safely aboard the Russian jet. That call had been received minutes before Buchanan’s arrival. Now Volkov, having talked the British into clearing the area of police, would follow.

Buchanan spoke Russian to the guards. His ability in the language surprised them.

“When will the colonel be leaving?" Buchanan asked.

In so many vague words, the answer was sometime soon.

Buchanan took another long-odds shot. He pulled his FBI business card out of his pocket and presented it to the Soviet guard. The guard was in a baggy suit, one of those hellish concoctions that Moscow tailors produced these days. But he had an army haircut, Buchanan noticed. Probably an officer, middle range, he concluded. From the war, Buchanan could still spot such things.

"Tell the esteemed Colonel Volkov that I wish to congratulate him in person on his cunning. We have some unfinished business," Buchanan said. "I'd like to meet him, perhaps be his future contact in the West, perhaps with an eye to safeguarding his financial interests."

Sayre kept quiet.  The guard refused to take the card.

"Not possible,' the Russian said.

"Why don't you let the colonel make the decision?” Buchanan pressed. "Unless you want to risk demotion for making it for him. I’m an old friend of his family,” Buchanan added. “Advise him that there is only admiration here. No ill feelings.”

Buchanan gave a quick smile and a friendly nudge of the head, suggesting that it might be wise to run things past the bigger shot. As bluffs went, it was a magnificent one.

The guard summoned a superior. Diplomatic staff, Buchanan judged quickly, without doubt KGB. These guys didn’t sneeze without KGB approval. The Russians looked at the card and turned it over in case there was a secret on the back. They looked to it and Buchanan back and forth at least three times. They did everything except try to look inside it.

Buchanan's card was taken within the embassy. Buchanan waited. Ten minutes later another Soviet diplomat appeared. This one had a jowly, old-Bolshevik look to him and a war weariness that Buchanan recognized. He motioned at Buchanan. Buchanan’s request had obviously climbed the ladder of command.

"Please!" the Russian said. He indicated the next series of doors. “You come with me,” he said in Russian.

“Of course,” Buchanan answered, also in Russian.

Sayre tried to follow but was cut off by a pair of big thugs in army uniforms with holstered Tokarev TT-33’s on their sides, the standard Soviet pistol, ripped off from American FN-Brownings.

Two more uniformed Soviet soldiers appeared and led Buchanan into an inner reception area. Buchanan looked at the soldiers carefully. He guessed that one was about thirty and the other five years younger. The older one had scars on his face and hands.

The younger one had rosy cheeks and no military marks. It was simple: one had been in the war, the other hadn’t.

Buchanan was wary of both. He made as many mental notes as possible and tried to hold images of the faces he saw. He guessed that both were officers perhaps ranking around captain or major. He could tell by the way they swaggered and the way they expected to be obeyed.

Buchanan tried to chat them up. They were having none of it.  They reached a private room. The room was shadowy with one dim light and only two chairs. Beneath an oil painting depicting the glorious seizure of the Kronstadt naval base in 1917, one soldier motioned to Buchanan to stop and raise his arms. Buchanan obeyed.

The other man frisked him, complete with a firm clutch and a not-so-friendly squeeze to the groin, a typically unsubtle Soviet touch. They were both booze-breathed and stank of tobacco and sweat.

Buchanan winced at the grope and angered. The soldiers laughed. They were processing him in a predictable, workers-of-the-world production line fashion, Buchanan knew, and there wasn’t squat he could do about it.

Buchanan wondered again who had taken his weapon and why. But he knew if someone hadn’t, the Russians would have seized it there and would never have returned it. So in his mind, the weapon was a wash.

The older soldier stepped back. He grunted.

“Follow,” he said. He indicated a door and a hallway beyond. From there the soldiers directed Buchanan down a gray corridor.

For the first time in his life, Buchanan felt as if he were some sort of prisoner. A sickening sense of vulnerability was also creeping upon him. He now wondered if he had blatantly blundered and was about to be sent along to Moscow also, a trophy plucked out of J. Edgar Hoover’s toy cabinet. He would have tried to convince himself that they wouldn’t dare, but he knew their audacity knew no limits.

They led him to a small room where there was a table and two straight-back chairs, one of which was badly chipped and scarred. They engaged him in conversation in Russian now, realizing he was conversant.  They indicated that he has to sit in a particular chair and keep his hands visible. They spoke more rapidly and were drifting into a peasant dialect that Buchanan found challenging. The older soldier said something profane and idiomatic in Russian. Buchanan guessed that he was to wait here.

"Volkov?" Buchanan asked.

The soldiers said something unintelligible to him. Then one said something to the other in what Buchanan knew was Ukrainian. They laughed and left the room.

Buchanan noted the time. It was one thirty PM. He waited, wondering if he was being placed there so that Volkov could escape to the airport without their paths crossing. He decided that he would give it another quarter of an hour.

Then another mortifying thought was upon him. He went to the door and tried it. The knob was stationary from within. In point of fact, Buchanan was now their prisoner until someone in this embassy decided otherwise.

He sat and waited. From what he knew about the Soviets, he knew his answers would be forthcoming in a matter of minutes. Or years. Or never.

CHAPTER 67

An hour later the door reopened.

Buchanan's gaze rose from the floor and settled upon a handsome man in his fifties. The man wore the brown and red military uniform of the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye, the GRU, military intelligence.

The uniform was bedecked with medals and gold braid and was that of a ranking officer. And if the uniform was for shock or intimidation, it initially managed both. Thomas Buchanan immediately felt himself on the defensive, particularly in this room.

The Soviet officer glared at the FBI agent, then grinned slowly. Colonel Volkov, as he was known here, was not above gloating.

In return, Buchanan stared at him, not in shock or sense of surprise, but in anger as well as in recognition. The visitor spoke native English.

"My God, Thomas. You are persistent, if nothing else," said Volkov, as John Taylor Garrett now preferred to be called. He straightened his uniform jacket. Over his arm was draped a heavy brown military greatcoat. The colonel was set to travel.

"I put you out of business at least," Buchanan said.

"Did you?"

"You're on your way to the Soviet Union leaving the bank and one daughter behind."

Garrett nodded slightly. "Ninety-eight percent of the assets of Commonwealth Penn have been transferred to Gosudarustvennyi Bank SSSR, the biggest state bank in Moscow,” Garrett said. “The daughter I leave behind can manage the clean-up.”

“What about your depositors?”

“Out of luck, I’d guess,” he said blithely. “Or federal insurance. Who cares?”

Buchanan simmered. There was an awkward pause.

"Can you imagine this?" Garrett mused. "The British are so eager to get me out of their decaying little kingdom that they've promised me a car and free passage. Of course I want no part of it," he said. "Who knows where they would really take me. I'll use a Soviet driver and Soviet guards."

"Oh, I suspect the British would play by some rules, some standards of decency,” Buchanan said. "Even if you haven't."

"I haven't?" Garrett snorted and laughed. "That's a good one. Let me tell you something. To betray, you have to belong. I never belonged. You were right about a great many things. I hated the moneyed establishment in America as much as any man ever hated anything. I saw what the banks and capitalism did during the 1930s. An eighth of the country owns sixty percent of the property and ninety percent of the land. What kind of democracy is that? What kind of 'land of the people' is that?"

"So you went into banking to sabotage the system from within?"

"Not entirely," said Garrett. "Or, at least, not at first."

In the 1930s, he said, he had purchased Commonwealth Penn out his own very American sense of adventure and entrepreneurism.  He had seen how Wall Street and the banks had failed ordinary people and he wanted to operate one differently.  So he put his family name and money into the recovery of an institution that was itself on the verge of collapse.

"I wanted to be the local Robin Hood," he said with a trace of romanticism. "I wanted to provide a bank that was different, that could provide money to people when they needed it, not screw them when they were desperate. What I ran up against was the mentality of everyone else in banking. As soon as they knew what I wanted to do, they set about arranging for me to fail. Not once, mind you, but twice. It exasperated them that I'd kept Commonwealth Penn afloat in the thirties. But in the forties, when I came back from the war, they really had my number." He paused for a moment. "Let me assure you, Thomas, that’s when you learn to truly hate bankers, by extension you learn to hate the entire capitalist system."

"But to stretch the point," Buchanan said, "by the late forties your enemies may have had your number, but you also had theirs. Am I correct?"

Garrett nodded. "Absolutely,” he said.  “I was in Moscow half a dozen times during the war. You had it figured out pretty well when we last met. By the late thirties I'd decided that the only thing that I really wanted for America was the complete destruction of the capitalist system. So during the war I made a point of befriending my Russian contacts. Gradually I earned their trust. I undertook special jobs for them. Sabotage the inept French and prissy Brits here, undercut the Americans there. By 1944 I'd met with all the top Soviets. Stalin, Molotov, and Mikoyan, themselves. Later on Khrushchev, the hero of Stalingrad. They knew what I could do for them in terms of laundering money for Soviet activities in the West. So I had their blessing as well as their trust."

“So I’d guess the whole reason you went into intelligence work during the war," Buchanan said, "was to…"

"To get as close to the great Soviet experiment as possible. And I'm glad I did." He paused as if far away in thought. "You know, Buchanan, I don't in any way envy you. How do you come to grips with the neo-fascist America you'll be living in for the next years? Men like Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover are in the ascendance. Already the shadow of the swastika is across the land. An intelligent, brilliant performer like Paul Robeson is denied the ability to perform due to race and politics. How do you, as a man who enforces the law, reconcile yourself to that? Or are you one of them?"

It was the first significant question that Garrett had asked Buchanan. The FBI agent, groping for an answer for a second, stuck with his own line of questioning.

"And Ann knew how you felt? And Laura knew also?"

"Of course!" said Garrett. "I wanted them to work with me. Well, one daughter saw things my way, the other didn't. As it happens, I'm taking the better one with me. The other one I'm leaving behind." He looked at the younger man. "Of course, if you're still nursing that silly notion of romancing Ann, I suppose you'll have to stand in line."

"And Milenkin? And the young FBI agent?" asked Buchanan.

"Did Comrade Filiatov kill them?" Garrett asked. He appeared to not know.

"If Filiatov was your Russian assassin, yes, he did." Garrett settled back.

"Well, good. A few small victories for us. Milenkin was a traitor. The young FBI man was a perpetuator of the class oppression."

For the first time in his life Buchanan felt like drawing a gun and shooting a man for verbal provocation. Pity that someone had taken his weapon.

Garrett glanced at his watch. It was as if he had a plane to catch, Buchanan observed absently. Then Buchanan remembered that he did.

From his explanation of himself, Garrett launched into a protracted interpretation of the class system in America, a system which he said at once he hated yet which had nurtured him all his life.  His thoughts were concise at first and then bordered on delusional.

"You have to remember that I have nothing against America or Americans," Garrett said. "My disappointment is that my country could never elevate its system of government… And the struggle of the oppressors and the oppressed will continue through the better part of the century. It will eventually be won by the Soviet domination of land, sea, air and space…"

And eventually, with a taunting tone, "Mark my words on this. The next showdown between East and West will come before you know it. We'll see if America will have the courage to stop Communism by force of arms."

"And that's what Hans Zolling was going to explain, was he not?" Buchanan asked, jumping all over Garrett's statement.

Garrett grinned and patted Buchanan on the cheek. Buchanan shoved his hand away.

"Think whatever you like," Garrett said.  “I've been promised an apartment in Moscow and a vacation place on the Black Sea. I'll be there comfortably by the time anything happens at all."

Buchanan had every impression that Garrett would be there, enjoying a newly privileged position in the ”classless” Soviet society.  There was a knock on the door. One of the uniformed Soviet officers appeared and spoke to him in Russian. Garrett listened. Buchanan was free to go and Colonel Volkov should be leaving, too.  A Zil limousine waited across Archibald Park out front of the embassy at about a hundred feet from the entrance. The Zil would transport Volkov to Heathrow, the Soviet officer explained, and he could join his daughter at the airport.

Garrett straightened his uniform. He obviously wished to arrive in Moscow looking important. After all, he was.

"Come along, lad," Garrett said. "See me to the door. Just don't attempt any last-minute monkey business. Our military people here are under orders to use the iron fist if necessary. Frankly I suspect they would enjoy shooting you. I know I would.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Buchanan said.

Garrett ignored him.

Garrett allowed Buchanan to leave the room first. Then the two soldiers led them both back down the same gray corridors to the anteroom and the guarded front portals of the embassy. Without speaking, Buchanan walked beside a man he considered a traitor and a murderer. Not only were last-minute heroics ill advised, Buchanan realized, he couldn't even think of any. He was out of tricks.

Outside, the day had turned even darker. There was a steady rain and a cold, sooty London fog gripped London. Jack the Ripper weather. It matched Buchanan's mood.
The two men stepped outside the glass doors together. Garrett drew a deep breath, smiled wide, and seemed to exult in his victory. At the same time, Buchanan scanned the misty darkness. From somewhere he felt something uneasy welling up inside him.

Instinct again, just like he and Mark O'Connell used to say.

"So long, Buchanan," Garrett said, pulling on his coat. "I'm gone. No hard feelings?” Garrett offered his hand in closing.

Buchanan refused to accept it. “Go to hell,” Buchanan answered.

Garrett managed a laugh. “Figured you’d say something like that,” he said. Patronizingly, he patted the younger man’s arm. “You’re a loser and America’s days are numbered.”

The colonel straightened his officer’s cap. The soldiers at the door saluted him. Simultaneously, Robert Sayre joined them on the front steps, along with several uniformed Soviet soldiers. They positioned themselves so that neither Buchanan nor Sayre could interfere with the colonel’s departure.

Garrett took a final look, gave a wave and then a salute. He walked down the front steps, looked both ways, and prepared to cross the street. There were no police in evidence or pedestrians in the hard rain. The bus stop across the street provided the only shelter. A small motley group of stragglers were huddled there against the elements.

Buchanan held his face to his hand for a moment as he watched the Zil limousine that waited about fifty feet away on the opposite side for the trip to the airport. Its headlights sliced thin yellow cones into the gray afternoon and its heavy exhaust formed its own filthy small cloud behind it.

A pair of Soviet soldiers from the embassy made a move to accompany Garrett as he departed but he waved them away. “I can make it just fine,” he said to them. “No need.”

CHAPTER 68

From the front steps of the Soviet embassy, Buchanan watched helplessly as Garrett walked across Bow Street and arrived on the other side. The Americans had no jurisdiction. The British recognized Garrett’s Soviet citizenship and diplomatic cover. There John Taylor Garrett was, after all he had done, a spy and a killer, walking to freedom and a new life in the Soviet Union.

Garrett's pace was even and confident. Buchanan was frozen to where he stood, feeling much as he might if he were watching a film with a preordained but unpleasant ending. For a moment, and with great irony, he thought of Mark O'Connell some months earlier, himself alone out on an Oregon highway, anticipating disaster for days in advance, knowing that there was someone out there.

And then, again referencing O’Connell, Buchanan realized where his gun had gone and what was really about to happen. But he did nothing to stop the flow of events, even when he saw a man in a raincoat emerge from the bus shelter and turn toward John Taylor Garrett.

Garrett saw him too, but somehow must have thought that, no, this couldn't possibly concern him. He had played by rules, hadn't he? He expected civility under diplomatic laws. Who else was there to fear? Surely this was not the venue for a frontier standard of justice, as it might have been seen a century earlier in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.

The stranger lumbered for a few steps and then rushed toward the Soviet colonel. In the final second or two Buchanan heard a verbal exchange between the men, a duet of shouts, but couldn’t decipher it over the rain and other traffic. Buchanan even saw Garrett accelerate and try to run. Buchanan heard him scream and two bullnecked Soviets jumped out of the Zil to see what the problem was. But it was, of course, too late.

The gunman pushed a pistol directly into Garrett's chest, and pulled a trigger.

It was a heavy handgun, a police special of some sort. A loud blast ensued. The eruption from it rocked the silence of the street. Garrett reeled backward. He staggered and somehow stayed on his feet. Then the killer, with utmost calm, extended his arms in a pose like an American policeman and fired a second round into the colonel’s face.

The second shot sent Garrett sprawling backward against a building and then to the ground. At that time, the gunman fired a third shot into the victim, then turned on the Zil and fired twice in that direction, driving the Soviet babysitters low to cover, then threw a final shot into the escutcheon with the Soviet hammer and sickle above the embassy portals. The effect of the shot was to scramble the guards.

The gunman fled north on foot and around the corner toward Covent Garden. Buchanan started to run toward the fallen man, and he looked in the direction of the killer. The gunman seemed familiar with fog and rain and was able to disappear into it.

It would later be recalled that there had been no police in the area at the request of the Soviets. And the gunman vanished in an instant.

Buchanan was the first one to the side of the fallen spy, but it made little difference. The assassin couldn't possibly have botched the job from that range and with that firepower. Garrett was dead, his head blown apart. A crowd gathered slowly, mostly from the embassy. A few minutes later there were constables. Then more constables.

When too many police arrived, the Soviets returned to within their diplomatic mission. Two soldiers remained at the embassy's doors and watched without speaking. Others watched from behind drawn curtains that were pushed aside at the edge.

"Who was he?" someone asked concerning the slain man.

Buchanan stared down. "A Soviet diplomat," he said.

"Who shot him?" asked someone else.

Buchanan never raised his eyes. "Could have been anyone," he said. "Probably an enemy from the war. Who knows?”

"Probably a political thing," someone else said at length. "You know. From all those East European countries the bloody Russian Army seized."

“People hate the bloody Russians,” someone else said.

“London’s full of émigrés,” a woman added.

“And whoever it was, he's gone now,” Buchanan said.

“Sir?” one of the constables asked Buchanan. “You saw everything? Any notions?”

Buchanan stood and shrugged. “You know those Soviets,” he said. “Sometimes they murder their own people.”

It sounded as convincing as anything. When the constables didn’t say anything, Buchanan nudged them further.

“I’d explore that line if it were me investigating,” he said. “They kill their own all the time.”

CHAPTER 69

Two days later, sitting alone in a window seat on another Pan American Stratocruiser bound for New York, Buchanan pondered the lost trail and inquiry that had ended in London.

Why wouldn't a few men of his social standing and generation have been attracted to Communism? Why wouldn't many of them have taken the lessons of the Depression and applied them to social studies and come out with a formula for redistributing America's wealth? Why, when one thought of it, were banks held in such low esteem by so many Americans when John Dillinger was considered a hero? Why, when it came right down to it, did so many Americans hate banks?

How many men worked in banks in America? How many secretly sensed other ideals and aspirations? Of one sort or another, how many moles were there from within?
Buchanan thought of Hoover's reception room in Washington, with mementos of the Dillinger era. Out of a hundred million Americans, he mused, how many considered the outlaws the heroes and the FBI the villains?

Idly he wondered if Garrett had a point. Was the shadow of the swastika already across the land? Time would tell. He wondered how he would tell Ann her father was dead. He wondered how he might explain how he had died.

Would she cry? Would she blame him?

He wondered how she could spend her life with the monster, Jesse Chadwick, she was married to. He gazed out the window. Go to Greenland, and turn left, he relayed mentally to the pilot. He was eager to go home.

Before him he had his written report on the Garrett case. He had the whole thing right there, everything except the big secret, if there was one, which Zolling had. Buchanan would present the report to Frank Lerrick and Lerrick would hand it to Hoover. Hoover would pass it along to Senator McCarthy and away they would go. A news conference. A major Red scare. More headlines.

Buchanan hated himself for facilitating this. There were enough problems of national security to go around. Why did they have to play political football with something like this? As promised, he could slip a copy of the report to the White House on the q.t., just to make sure everything got to the ultimate destination. He wasn’t sure how that might work.

Elections coming up. The 1950s already promised to be a fairly turbulent decade, an end to the carefree, postwar era in America when all the average man and woman worried about was the new car, the new house, and the new baby. This report would help darken the impending decade. So, Buchanan decided, when he got back to America, he would have to retype and reword things accordingly.

He pushed it into a long manila envelope. He sealed it. He gazed out the window and closed his eyes.

He must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes again there was a pretty stewardess standing in the aisle, leaning to him and gently touching his shoulder to wake him. Outside, a bright sunlight engulfed the aircraft and flooded through the window. The flight was on its descent toward New York, the stewardess said, and the airplane would touch down on the runway within fifteen minutes.

The stewardess was pretty. Buchanan made small talk with her for a few minutes, and then noticed her wedding ring. He should find himself a good woman, he told himself. He was ready for the civilizing effect that a woman and a family could bring to a man’s life.

The right woman. A good woman. What, he wondered sleepily, did that mean these days, anyway?

CHAPTER 70

Two days later Buchanan reported to his office in the FBI’s suite within the Department of Justice. Less than half an hour after arrival he was ushered past the main anteroom to Hoover's office, past all the old trophies, plaques, and artifacts, past the flags and the congressional citations and into the so-called Throne Room to see the Boss himself.

Hoover's cheeks were red and puffy on this occasion, his brown eyes smoldering. He wore a dove gray suit with a white shirt, red boutonniere and dark regimental tie. He sat behind his desk. Frank Lerrick was stationed in a chair to the Director's side, his usual perch.

Buchanan felt Hoover's eyes burning into him from the moment he entered the chamber empty handed. He sat down on a hard wooden chair that had been set for him in the middle of the room.

"Where's your report?" Hoover snapped.

A slight hesitation, then Buchanan answered.

"I don't have it with me," he said.  “It’s not yet written. I don’t care to put down a complete report on paper at this time.”

"Excuse me?" Hoover snorted.

"I said I don't care to…"

"I heard what you said, Special Agent Buchanan!" the Director roared. "And just where in hell do you get off coming in here and saying something like that to me? Well? Where? Answer me that!"

"The case is closed and settled as far as Garrett is concerned," Buchanan said. "I have all the pertinent information, but I prefer to turn it over directly to the White House, along with other observations that I’ve made. Anything I give you is simply going to be passed along to Senator McCarthy for political purposes. I'm not comfortable with that. Frankly, it’s too important."

"Who do you think you are?" Hoover roared. "You don't make decisions like that!"

"I just did," he said. "Sir."

Hoover leaned back in his chair. This was Lerrick's cue to speak.

"Tom," the assistant director said, “all hell broke out in London when you were there. We all know that. A Soviet military man was murdered. The CIA has information and we don’t.”

“Is that right?” Buchanan responded casually. “Well, they have people on the spot, I think, in London. So I’m not surprised.”

"Do us all, including yourself, a favor.  Get out of here this minute. Go to your office and start writing.  Have something to us by tomorrow at noon.”

"No," Buchanan answered.

Hoover’s cheeks were turning the color of his boutonniere.

"Tom, it was bad enough that you went to London without instructions. You were a valued agent at one time. Don't make things any worse for yourself."

“Don’t be a pinhead!” Hoover snapped.

"I wouldn't think of it," Buchanan answered.

"What on earth is the problem?" Lerrick asked.

"Gentlemen, this Bureau is supposed to protect the innocent and serve justice. It does neither. You set me off on an investigation of John Garrett which you wanted to use solely to embarrass the White House. As it happened, I picked up on something much larger. We were on the right track for the wrong reason, but now you want to parlay that into partisan capital. Well, I'm not giving you the benefit of that. Worse in my opinion, someone in this office made a decision to allow Viktor Milenkin to be killed. I find that unconscionable."

Lerrick stared at the floor. Buchanan glared at both of them, back and forth.

"You don't even deny it, do you?" Buchanan asked. "A protection team could have been in place within minutes. Instead, you stalled. You wanted Milenkin dead. Easier that way. Inadvertently, a young FBI agent also died in all your bungling. Great for both of you. Two more martyrs to your cause. Better statistics. I can't convey to you how disgusted I am."

"Milenkin was a Russian," Hoover intoned.

"He helped us! So what if he was foreign born? So is Einstein.”

"Einstein's a Jew," snapped Hoover. “They help sometimes but they have their own cabal. That’s been proven. Now where’s your report?”

From that point Buchanan could sense his immediate future. As far as the Bureau was concerned, he would be either the "quick kill" - immediate firing, or. the "slow" one - the letters of censure, the petty professional harassments, the transfers to remote, cold- weather FBI outposts, and the reassignment to inconsequential cases.

All of it was much more than he cared for. There was still time to get out with relative youth, a feeling of accomplishment, and a sense of personal honor. Or he could write his report and hand it in and hope that the personal storm would blow over, even though he knew it wouldn’t.

Reaching within his jacket, he withdrew a letter of resignation and held it in his hand. But Frank Lerrick cut him off.

“Tom, you’re on administrative leave until you hand that report in. Let’s take a walk.”

Hoover picked up a set of papers on his desk and wouldn’t look at anyone. Lerrick gave Buchanan a jerk of the head and held his arm. He pulled him to the door, through it, and closed the door to Hoover’s office behind him.

“Are you crazy?” Lerrick asked when they were down the hallway.
“It’s how I feel, Frank. “

“Just write the report,” Lerrick said. “Give it to me if you don’t want to give it to Hoover. But just write it. Fast! I can’t protect you here forever.”

“Don’t even try,” Buchanan said.

CHAPTER 71

Toward noon the same day Buchanan stopped when he saw a familiar figure seated on a bench across the street from the Department of Justice. Thomas crossed through traffic and approached the man. Buchanan had expected to see the familiar face, but not quite so soon, not so blatantly and not in this spot.

The man was reading a late edition of the Washington Star when Buchanan approached. Buchanan slid into a seat on the bench beside him. “I wouldn’t believe anything you read in that rag, soldier,” Buchanan said.

Mark O’Connell folded away the tabloid and laughed.

“Not even Walter Winchell?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Buchanan said. “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad. On your way to see Hoover?”

Buchanan answered. “Just left, actually.”

“It couldn’t have been fun.”

“I survived the war. I’ll survive that madman. Same as you.”

“But will the country?”  Mark O’Connell asked.

“America survives,” Buchanan said. “We take our shots, we get knocked down, we make mistakes, and we get back up. The extremes come and go.”

“I hope you’re correct.”

O’Connell watched a Washington municipal bus for a few seconds as it discharged passengers, first the whites, then the non-whites. The cold weather had broken and there was suggestion of spring in the air. “You know what? I agree with you,” O’Connell said.

“How did you ever talk Helen into letting you follow me to London?” Buchanan asked.

O’Connell laughed. “I made a bet with her,” he said. “I said I wanted to go. She said I wasn’t getting on an airplane in a wheelchair. So I got up and walked to the ticket booth. Spent every dime on me to buy an air ticket. Had to use my old FBI credentials to get on the plane without a passport.”

“And then you followed me.”

“You didn’t make it very difficult,” said O’Connell. “Took the plane right after yours. You told me right where you were going. And of course,” he joked, “Helen told everyone that I’d gone fishing up in British Columbia.”

“What did you do with my gun?”

“After I used it, you mean?”

“After you used it.”

“Threw it off London Bridge.”

“Makes a good story,” said Buchanan.

“I always wanted to throw a murder weapon in a river. Something to tell my grandkids.”

“I’m sure.”
“What happened with Ann Garrett?” O’Connell asked eventually.

“You didn’t hear?” Buchanan answered. “From mutual acquaintances?”

“No.”

”I finally spoke to her yesterday. She’s okay. Her husband hired a pair of thugs to beat her.”

O’Connell waited for the worst. “And?” he asked.

“Meadley and Herter were watching Chadwick for me in Las Vegas at the time. Chadwick didn’t know what his out-of-town help would look like. So Meadley and Herter intercepted them at the airport when they arrived in Los Angeles, then posed as them, and arrested Chadwick just as they were supposed to take Ann away.”

“Well done,” said O’Connell.

“Just one of many charges against Chadwick now. Conspiracy. Mann Act violation.”

“Ow! Must have been quite a weekend in Las Vegas. What an outlaw town that is. Gambling. Whoring. I guess it’ll pass.”

“Don’t count on it,” Buchanan said. “Those things are popular.” He paused. “At least Ann’s got solid grounds for a divorce.”

“You’d romance a divorced woman?” O’Connell asked skeptically.

“The King of England did. Why should I have anything less than royal standards?”

O’Connell laughed. Buchanan stood.

“Take care of yourself, Major,” Buchanan said.  “I’ll come by Oregon and see you again sometime. As soon as I get this case wrapped up I’m going back out to California to see if I can connect with Ann.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Worth a final try.”

Buchanan shook hands with his wartime friend again. O’Connell held his arm tightly. “Tommy, you’re a good man.” He paused. “Oh, hey, Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“A lot of small town cop departments are hiring ex-military up on Oregon and Washington. It’s God’s country up there. You might like it. I could make some phone calls for you.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“God bless you, soldier.”

They embraced.

Buchanan let the moment ease and then pulled away. He crossed the street, hailed a taxi and gave an address on Pennsylvania Avenue.

CHAPTER 72

“I had hoped," said Buchanan carefully, "to see President Truman himself."

Jack Malone sat behind his desk within the White House and shrugged. "I don't blame you a bit," said Malone. "I’d like to help. But it can't be done."

Buchanan stared at him coldly and with increasing frustration.

"Look, Tom," Malone said, "if it were up to me, I'd march you in there right now and we could forcibly evict the Canadian prime minister from the Oval Office. But things aren't done that way in this building. Appointments have a priority as well as a set schedule. They also have to go through Mr. Truman's chief of staff and I can’t sidestep that. The President has a meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus at eleven AM, lunch with ten Midwestern governors, then afternoon appointments with the Israeli ambassador to the United States, the President of Mexico and…"

"What about tomorrow?"

Malone sighed. From memory he recounted.

"Tomorrow's schedule starts at eight AM with a briefing by the National Security Council. At nine-thirty the Secretary of the Treasury has an hour scheduled with the President. That's already a problem because the Secretary of Labor is booked in for ten-fifteen and has been for a month. Later in the day…"

"I'm asking for only twenty minutes. Or ten. How about ten?”

"I'm sorry, Tom, but it's hard enough for the Director of the FBI to get onto the President's schedule, much less…"

"I saw the President once before," insisted Buchanan. "I need to see him again."

Malone opened his hands with a frustrated gesture. “What’s the burr under your saddle, Tom?” he asked. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t trust Hoover to share the intelligence report that I’m supposed to write. I want to update the President myself. I’m on administrative leave at the FBI so I need to do this in person.” There was a pause.

“You were supposed to tip us your report. Instead, you want to meet the President. You realize what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling okay? Overstressed at all?”

“Highly stressed and getting worse. And yes, I do understand what I’m asking. I saw Mr. Truman once before. I’d like to see him again.”

All the names were in his mind, as well as in the report he wanted to write.

Wong. Garrett. Zolling. Europe, Asia.

Malone thought about it. Then he shook his head again.

"You're missing the obvious, Tom," he advised.

"What's that?"

"Last time the President decided he wanted to see you. This time it's the other way around. It doesn’t work that way. There’s protocol and I don’t have that much leeway to go around it.”  He paused. “Look. I’ll make some inquiries in the next couple of days. I’ll see what I can do. No promises.”

“All right,” Buchanan said. “All right.”

The call from the White House didn’t come. Two days turned into a week. March turned into April. Buchanan was a man in limbo. He stayed away from the Bureau. There was so much bubbling up inside him. He had not just the final word on Garrett but some insights on General Zolling, too. He couldn’t prove what he felt. But he felt it strongly. The information kept whirring around his head. It kept him up at night.

He thought again to his few moments with the Hollywood writer he had met on the set of Ann’s film.

“What do you do when the story doesn’t hold together?” Buchanan asked.

“You unwrap your imagination and you fill in the blanks.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not. So you just keep asking yourself, ‘What if…?’”

“’What if…?’ huh?” Buchanan asked himself.

Things seemed to settle between Buchanan and Bureau officialdom. He remained on administrative leave. He still put off writing his final report. Then toward the end of April, Buchanan received a legal notice in the mail. The FBI had suspended him for insubordination. An accompanying letter suggested that criminal charges might be filed against him if his “final professional documents,” the Garrett report in other words, wasn’t filed. He was also ordered to return his shield and weapon.

Finally, Buchanan settled in the Raffertys’ house again with a portable Royal typewriter, a stack of paper and some carbon paper. Carefully, he analyzed what he knew to be facts in the Garrett case. He started to work with the ‘what if’ aspects, complete with General Zolling, his T-34 tanks and his wounded pride with a diminished command.

He completed his final report in another week. Now it was early May. He phoned Malone at the White House again and was again rebuffed.

He felt himself at a dead end, emotionally and professionally. He felt that way because that’s exactly where he was. More days went by. He only had one move left. And he was increasingly anxious to put his personal life in order also, if he could.

On the second Friday in May, he packed his bags at the Raffertys and said good-bye. Rafferty was still hyped on the news.

"Truman admitted that the budget can't be balanced and McCarthy said the Communists are taking over. You don't know what to worry about these days,” he ranted. “Whether the country will be overthrown or overdrawn."

But old man Rafferty sent him off with something between a salute and a wave. Mrs. Rafferty gave him a hug. She had lost her son in the war, Buchanan recalled. There were tears.

Buchanan took a taxi to the Department of Justice and talked his way past the receptionist in the lobby. He soon found himself in front of Frank Lerrick in Lerrick’s office.

Buchanan presented the final report.

“So. Finally! About time and all,” Lerrick said, accepting it.

“Be sure the President is advised,” Buchanan said. “This isn’t just about John Garrett and Commonwealth Penn. It’s about the Soviets and their global designs, also. This information needs to be passed along to the people at Foggy Bottom, also.”

“The CIA?” Lerrick asked with disdain. “Don’t count on that.”

“Then make sure the President sees this.”

Lerrick eyed the manila envelope.

"Tom," Lerrick said. "I've worked here for years. If you give me a document the President needs to see, it will to be passed along to him. What in God's name do you think I'm going to do with it? Throw it in the Potomac? Do you think I'd still be in this job if I did things like that?"

Buchanan didn't answer. Lerrick's arm remained extended.

Buchanan stood. “Just make sure Mr. Truman sees it,” said Buchanan, standing. "Eventually lives will be at stake."

"Rather full of yourself, aren’t you?” Lerrick said. “Self-importance and all that over an investigation that’s dropped out of sight.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re still on administrative leave, you know. We need to read this before anything like that can be reversed.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” Buchanan said.

He presented an updated letter of resignation. He handed it across the desk, along with his gun and his once-cherished FBI shield. He said some good-byes up and down the corridor and walked out of the Department of Justice. It was May 7, 1950. In a funny way he felt liberated.

He went to Union Station and caught an overnight train to Chicago. From Chicago, he caught the Super Chief to Los Angeles. He brought one suitcase with him. In it was the carbon copy of the report he had handed to Frank Lerrick.

But by now, Buchanan wanted only to disengage. On the five-day train journey to the West Coast, he caught up with his favorite authors, Hemingway and Steinbeck, Orwell and Isherwood. It was the first time in weeks he had had the time to read. As for his own writing, the carbon copy of his report, he left it buried in his suitcase. He was sick of it and everything it contained.

CHAPTER 73

The man who stood on a quiet beach in Malibu California, on the evening of Sunday, June 25, 1950, hadn't shaved in two days. He walked by himself with bare feet through the wet sand. He wore a soft blue cotton shirt and khaki slacks that were wet at the cuffs from the surf.

Every few minutes Tom Buchanan, ex-soldier, former FBI Special Agent, looked toward a rise in a sandy hill. He was expecting someone.

He had been alone for several hours. The sun was setting, but the hour was already late. June 25 was one of the longest days of the year, sometimes in more ways than one. But this evening he was enjoying the solitude of the beach as well as the touch of the Pacific Ocean on his ankles and feet.

At a few minutes after eight he saw the woman he loved come across the top of the dune. Thomas waved to her. Ann waved back. Her pace quickened and she ran down the beach to join him. When they met, Thomas Buchanan held her and kissed her.

"How did it go?" he asked.

She shrugged. "This was my first callback on this script. I don't know. I may get the part, I may not. Should we worry?"

"No," he said.

“I also got a call from a theatrical producer in New York. There are a couple of roles opening on Broadway this fall.” She smiled. “Now that I’m free of Jesse, things are easier.”

Between them they had enough money to last several months. But long before that, he was sure, Ann would have another role and he would find a job he wanted, be it on the West Coast or the East. Meanwhile, they were enjoying some leisure time, the California sunshine and each other.

In May, Ann had slipped across the border to Tijuana and obtained a quickie Mexican divorce. It was recognized in the United States and allowed her to move on.
He took her hand. They walked together and watched the sunset. Eventually, she asked if he had heard the bad news of the day, the big story. At first he thought she was referencing something to do with the ongoing criminal charges against her ex-husband. But she wasn’t. They walked to a newsstand adjacent to the beach. He bought an EXTRA edition of the LA Times so he could see for himself.

He stared at the headlines. Then he read the lead story. It concerned events from the other side of the same ocean that rolled gently at his feet.

Each year June marks the monsoon season in north Asia, so showers had fallen across most of Korea during the predawn darkness of that same day. The South Korean Army, after months of false alerts, had relaxed for a weekend of vacation. The frontier defense force between North and South Korea - four infantry divisions and a regiment - normally consisted of thirty-eight thousand men. But this weekend, due to attrition of personnel, personal leave, a traditional holiday in Seoul, and sickness, the force was closer to thirteen thousand.

The North Korean People's Army, meanwhile, had amassed an invasion force of ninety thousand well-trained soldiers. This juggernaut was supported by close to two hundred Soviet tanks. This morning, rumbling across the thirty-eighth parallel and southward across the neck of the Korean peninsula, Soviet equipment and the tens of thousands of NKPA troops that followed would had risen to new levels of achievement.

Buchanan looked at the details in the article. The tanks were T-34s. At least a division of them recently arrived from the German front in Europe.

Thomas Buchanan felt sick. No single soldier on the thirty-eighth parallel had heard the "first shot" of the war. Rather, at about five AM on a muggy morning in Korea, there had at first been rain and silence. Then a minute later there had been an eruption of artillery fire, the advancement of the swift, brutal Soviet-made tanks, a hellish din, and explosions in every direction.

The invasion of South Korea by Communist troops from the north had begun what would be known in America as the Korean War. It had begun exactly as Hans Zolling had known it would many months in advance, with exactly the equipment that General Zolling had once commanded.

Buchanan folded the newspaper and looked at Ann.

For weeks his final investigation as an agent of the FBI had played upon his mind. For more than three months he had waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop. This finally was it.

"Want to take a trip back East?" he asked her.

"Where?"

"Washington," he said.  "A final bit of business.”

"I'll go anywhere with you," said the actress known as Lisa Pennington.

"Fine. We leave tomorrow. We’ll take the train, okay?”

But they never took the train. The next morning, Jack Malone was on the long distance line from the White House. Mr. Truman finally wanted to see Buchanan as soon as possible. He had already scheduled in an appointment four days hence.

“And I have to advise you, Tom,” Malone said. “The President is furious. He feels he was ambushed. He’s swearing like a sailor.”

“Uh oh.”

“And he keeps mentioning your name,” Malone said. “Be forewarned.”

Buchanan hung up. He made a local call and reserved two air tickets to Washington. Then he used long distance to book two rooms at Washington’s Shoreham Hotel. At least this time, he reasoned, he was not going to travel alone.

CHAPTER 74

"I can't believe what a low, conniving son of a bitch you are," Buchanan said as he sat in the Department of Justice thirty hours later. He was in the office of his previous boss, Frank Lerrick.

"We sent the report over," Lerrick replied calmly from behind his desk.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.” But Buchanan stayed with his accusation.

"You never warned the President. You never gave him my report. I had it all figured out. A Soviet-backed attack would come in Asia, probably Korea. That's what Zolling knew or sensed. His firepower was being taken from him and he knew they were going to Asia. That's why Laura Garrett took such a chance to prevent Zolling from defecting. It was going to be the next major military move against our interests, complete with Soviet equipment. I found out everything, cracked a Soviet network, made the correct suppositions, and you never told the President."

“Your report was ambiguous, poorly written and ill conceived,” Lerrick said. “I had to edit and rephrase. “Not our fault if ‘High Tax Harry’ didn’t read it.”

“You cut the heart out of it, in other words!”

“I cleaned it up for you!” Lerrick said. “I made it coherent.”

“Frank, I’ve seen your writing style. You couldn’t write an effective extortion note. Who told you to fillet it? Hoover?” Lerrick sighed.

“Yours was a poor piece of work, Tom. It was particularly poor in light of how much you spent of Bureau resources just to try to exact some revenge on the father of your old love interest. You’re lucky we don’t pursue the criminal actions against you.”

“You’re a damned liar,” Buchanan said.

Lerrick rubbed his eyes with his fingers.

“We have nothing further to discuss. Find the exit, Tom. We’re busy dealing with matters of national security in here. I have no time for chitchat. A steady hand is needed at America’s helm right now. If the lefties get their way, every school kid will be learning Peter and the Wolf in first grade, and Trotsky in second. So, if you please, scram.”

"I’m hardly finished causing you trouble."

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes.”

“Well, listen then,” Lerrick said. “Here’s something further for you to think about on your trip out the door. There was another reason that you were selected for the Garrett investigation. J. Edgar Hoover figured you were young, soft, stupid, and expendable. He didn't like you. Never did. It was always the Bureau's plan to fire you after the Garrett investigation, no matter what you accomplished. Fortunately you gave them good grounds by going to England against orders."

"And if I hadn't?"

"You were going to be fired for conflict of interest. You were investigating a man whom you knew. You should have pointed that out at the outset of the investigation."

"But I did. It’s why I was selected.”

"Sure," Lerrick said. “Who is the public going to believe? You, a fired agent, or J. Edgar Hoover? Buchanan, you haven't seen anything yet. This country's going so far right that you won't even recognize it by the time Joe McCarthy becomes president in 1952. So take a hike, Buchanan. That's all I have to say, unless you'd like to tell me who shot John Garrett in London. Was it you?"

“No. I was on the steps of the embassy. You know that.”

“Then who?”

"You run an investigative agency. Find out yourself. And keep in mind that you don’t have jurisdiction.”

Buchanan stood and grabbed his hat.

Lerrick sighed and shook his head with disappointment. But he was taking no chances over Buchanan's willingness to leave. He pressed a buzzer on his desk and two of Buchanan’s old acquaintances, Secret Service Agents Kirby and Clark, appeared from the hallway.

"Mr. Buchanan," said Lerrick by way of benediction, "just asked to leave. And, Tom? If I ever see you near the Department of Justice again, I'll have you arrested. You’re a pariah around here. You should go somewhere and just vanish."

Buchanan pulled away from Clark and Kirby, who stood behind him.

"I'll leave by myself," he said. The two other special agents followed him to the front door of the building, however, and didn‘t take their eyes off him till he was outside.

CHAPTER 75

In the White House, Harry Truman had little to smile about.

The Washington summer had already turned mercilessly hot and the air-conditioning was spotty at best. The national union of railroad workers was threatening a nationwide strike and the Democratic President had asked his Secretary of Labor to study the heretical move of nationalizing the rails, if necessary. But all of this was on the back pages of the newspapers.

The new war in Asia dominated the front pages. With astonishing swiftness America had been shaken from a five-year vacation from the cares of the world. By this day, June 27, President Truman had rushed back to the American capital from Independence, Missouri. He had ordered the United States Navy and Air Force to South Korea to join and support units of the U.S. Army, which was already there. Soon meaningless, bloody patches of earth like Heartbreak Ridge and No-Name Hill would be on the national consciousness.

In another move that same day, President Truman also authorized thirty-five military advisers to be sent to the Republic of South Vietnam. For the first time in the twentieth century American military force would boldly confront Communist military expansion.

Washington was again a tense city.

Downstairs at the White House, Thomas Buchanan sat where he had sat once before, in the office of Jack Malone of the President's Secret Service detail. He was alone. He had with him the carbon copy of the report he had handed in to the FBI.
Malone emerged from the Oval Office at six thirty-two in the evening. “The President will see you now,” Malone said.

“Thanks, Jack,” Buchanan said, standing. He patted Malone on the arm as he passed.

“Good luck,” Malone said softly.

Buchanan walked into the Oval Office and sat down.

Truman, looking much more haggard than he had four months earlier, looked up from his desk.

“Hello, Buchanan,” the President said.

“To start, I want to apologize, sir,” Buchanan said.

“For what?”

“I wanted to speak to you directly about a report I made to the FBI. I wanted to warn you of the contents, about Europe, about Asia, but I didn’t persist. About an East German general who tried to defect. But I couldn’t get on your schedule and I gave up.”

“You did what you could. That’s all any one man can do,” Truman said.

Buchanan reached forward and placed the neat carbon copy of his report on the President’s desk.

“What’s that?” Truman asked.

“The full report that the FBI never forwarded. Just for the record.”

“I’ll look at it this evening,” Truman said.

“Thank you, sir.”

Truman pursed his lips and shrugged. “What’s done is done and cannot be undone,” the President said philosophically. “Do you know who said that?”

“Lady Macbeth, sir.”

“Very good. Cultivated man, I see again. You understand the world, don’t you?”
Buchanan tried to deflect the compliment, if it had been one.

“I’m not sure anyone understands this world, sir,” he said.

“Oh, maybe not. Good point,” Truman leaned back in his chair. He was framed by the sunlight from the windows behind him that overlooked the Rose Garden.

“Your former boss, Mr. Hoover, submitted to me today a proposed plan. He would like me to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and detain twelve thousand Americans suspected of disloyalty. What do you think of that?”

“It sounds excessive to me,” Buchanan answered. “In violation of the Constitution, also, I’d guess.”

“I agree. I don’t plan to act on it. Not now, at least.” Truman scowled and then spoke again. “Let’s take it back a step, Buchanan. I’ve seen your c.v. In fact,” he said, glancing at his desktop, “it’s in front of me. You were in combat in Europe. I respect good soldiers. You and I have a bit in common. I was an artillery captain.”

“Well, sir, you outrank me considerably right now.” The President laughed.

“You know some important languages. Russian, right?”
“I’m conversant, not fluent.”

“Could you learn more?”

“More Russian? Of course.”

“Italian and French? How are you there?”

“Fluent, sir. Italian from my mother. French from university.”

“That’s excellent. You’ve been in combat for your country and battled some espionage. You’ve got some solid insight into the Soviet way of doing things, I believe. In addition to all that, I see you as a warrior, a man of intellect and integrity, and a stand-up loyal American. I like that.”

“I’m very flattered, sir.”

“What do you think of these right-wing people who make my life miserable?”

“I don’t like them, sir.”

“What do you think of Joe Stalin? And the Russians.”

“I don’t like Stalin. He’s a murderer as bad as Hitler. I have nothing against the Russian people, but I loathe their system.”

“Think we should trust them more? The Communists. Be candid.”

“No way in living hell, sir.”

Truman laughed.

“I hear Hoover fired you,” the President said.

“Actually, I resigned. But it hardly matters.”

“Might be the best thing that ever happened to you,” Truman said.

“Sir?”

“I saw you arrive here today with a young woman. Is she your wife?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, you might give it some thought. She’s quite beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it. And tell me this: are you looking for a job?”

“If one presents itself, I am.”

Truman laughed again.

“Here’s what I have, Buchanan. This morning I spoke to my friend Allen Dulles at the new Central Intelligence Agency. I talked about you. He’s very interested in meeting you. All hell is breaking loose in Europe. Berlin is going to blow up any day. It’s a matter of time before that bastard Stalin starts making some ugly moves. You also have situations like Italy and France where the voters might even bring the Reds into power via the ballot box. We saved them with American blood and resurrected their economies with Marshall Plan dollars. You’d think the bastards would be more grateful, but they’re not. So my friend Mr. Dulles will need all the good men he can get or we’ll see a hammer and sickle on top of two towers, the Eiffel and the Leaning Pisa.” A pause, then, “Interested?”

“In working for the CIA?” Buchanan asked, surprised.

“Yes,” he said.

After a moment of shock, “I would be,” Buchanan said.

“Good! You already have an appointment to see the Director tomorrow morning at ten. You can be there?”

“I will be there, sir.”

“Go to the front gate at Foggy Bottom. You’ll have a pass. It’s already arranged.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Buchanan said.

The President rose and came around his desk. He offered his hand. Buchanan stood. As was his habit when he liked someone, Truman used his free hand to hold the other man’s arm during the shake.

“There’s one other thing,” Truman said. “Being president is like running a cemetery. You’ve got a lot of people under you, but nobody’s listening and nobody’s telling you what’s going on. So maybe you can help me with a final point.”

“If I can, sir,” Buchanan said.

Truman stood close to Buchanan, put an arm around the younger man’s shoulders and spoke in lowered tones.

“The CIA was created with the best of intentions to serve this nation. But I don’t for a moment doubt that those Ivy League boys over there would run away with themselves given the opportunity. So I wonder if you’d mind coming by my office, maybe twice a month. Evenings. Jack Malone can set it up. Completely off the record. Just drop by and we’ll chat. Keep me posted. Informal. Be my watchdog. My eyes and ears over there at the CIA. Let me know what’s going on over in that snake pit. Between us.”

“Spy on the spies?”

“Call it that if you like. Feel free to say no if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“On the contrary,” Buchanan said. “I’d welcome the role.”

“What about the fifteenth and thirtieth of every month? Six thirty PM How’s that? At least for the next two years. Can you do that?”

“I can. If they hire me.”

“Well, then, we’ll meet again, Buchanan,” Truman said. “Godspeed to you.”

CHAPTER 76

Buchanan emerged from the rear exit of the White House shortly after seven o'clock that warm evening. He slung his jacket over his shoulder. Down the sidewalk a few paces past the Marine sentries he saw Ann Garrett waiting for him.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"Much better than I expected.”

"Anything you can tell me about? Or are these 'state secrets'?"  Her tone was gently chiding. He smiled and took her hand.

"I'll tell you the whole story," he said, "what I can of it, from start to finish. There have been too many secrets already."

“I don’t like secrets,” Ann said. “I don’t want secrets from each other. Do you agree with me?”

“Completely.” After a moment, out of nowhere, she said, “I can’t believe we found each other again.”

“Nor can I. Let’s be more careful this time. Okay?”

“Agreed.”

They walked together away from the White House.

Despite the challenges before him, and the nation, he hadn’t felt this comfortable with himself in ages: since before the war certainly, since before so many bad things started to happen.

He glanced at his watch.

“Hey, listen, Ann,” he said. “I know a little Italian restaurant called Cora's. It’s not far from where my old rooming house is. "Good food, run by a wonderful family. Better yet, I hear they have a new air conditioner. We'll go there for dinner and I'll tell you everything."

"Sounds good to me," she said.

A flood of late working government employees poured out of the various office buildings of the capital. Traffic slowed to the stoplights on the languid summer evening. At a corner where Buchanan liked to buy his daily newspaper he stopped and gazed at the evening edition of the Washington Star.

The headline concerned the war in Asia. The President's picture appeared just below. On one side, Senator McCarthy's face accompanied an account of a sharp new attack on leftists in the government. To the other side was a picture of J. Edgar Hoover, gloating indulgently as he received an award from a federation of local police chiefs.

Elsewhere, there was a picture of General Douglas MacArthur, corncob pipe and all: “Dugout Doug,” as some of his more cynical troops had called him during the war.

Mac was in Japan and surrounded by more military brass. But he looked as if he was spoiling for a fight.

Somehow Buchanan suspected that these images would stay with him for many years to come: the beleaguered President overwhelmed by events, surrounded by demagogues and warriors, but fighting valiantly. The 1950s, Buchanan concluded, had begun as one hell of a nasty decade.

He took Ann's hand as they crossed Connecticut Avenue.

Then he drew a deep breath and took one consolation.  There was no way to turn back the clock, of course. But there were ways to properly confront the future. At least they were a couple again and could face the future together. He was back with the only woman he had ever loved. That was a victory in itself.

THE END

To the reader:

Thank you for reading. I enjoy reader feedback, the good and (not that often, I hope) the bad. So if you wish. contact me at Nh1212f@yahoo.com. I maintain that e-mail account to communicate with readers, so feel free even if you just want to say hello.

I’m also on Facebook. Friend me.

If you enjoyed this book, you might enjoy others that I’ve written.

In the same genre is the recently published Return To Berlin, which is a sequel to Flowers From  Berlin. Some of my previous works (all recently revised) include Revenge, False Flags, The Sandler Inquiry, The Enemy Within and Firebird. I’ve also written several supernatural thrillers. If that’s the type of thing that you’d enjoy late on a rainy night with the electricity flickering, you might start with Ghosts, which is a current re-edit of a cult classic, a ghost story to shake your imagination.

Everything is on Amazon. Everything is on Kindle. If you liked Truman’s Spy, I’m happy to report that (one time) Special Agent Tom Buchanan will be returning in May of 2020, working for a new President in Eisenhower’s Spy. Here’s the jacket art and the link. Amazon is already accepting pre-orders. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082DLX7TS

Where possible, I try to keep prices low. I like my readers and try to treat them respectfully. Without my readers, I would have had to take an honest job years ago. ;-)

Enjoy. And thanks again for your time and readership. It is greatly appreciated.

Noel Hynd

Los Angeles, California

January 20, 2020

Table of Contents

- A Cold War Thriller:
- PROLOGUE 1944-1945
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- CHAPTER 23
- CHAPTER 24
- CHAPTER 25
- CHAPTER 26
- CHAPTER 27
- CHAPTER 28
- CHAPTER 29
- CHAPTER 30
- CHAPTER 31
- CHAPTER 32
- CHAPTER 33
- CHAPTER 34
- CHAPTER 35
- CHAPTER 36
- CHAPTER 37
- CHAPTER 38
- CHAPTER 39
- CHAPTER 40
- CHAPTER 41
- CHAPTER 42
- CHAPTER 43
- CHAPTER 44
- CHAPTER 45
- CHAPTER 46
- CHAPTER 47
- CHAPTER 48
- CHAPTER 49
- CHAPTER 50
- CHAPTER 51
- CHAPTER 52
- CHAPTER 53
- CHAPTER 54
- CHAPTER 55
- CHAPTER 56
- CHAPTER 57
- CHAPTER 58
- CHAPTER 59
- CHAPTER 60
- CHAPTER 61
- CHAPTER 62
- CHAPTER 63
- CHAPTER 64
- CHAPTER 65
- CHAPTER 66
- CHAPTER 67
- CHAPTER 68
- CHAPTER 69
- CHAPTER 70
- CHAPTER 71
- CHAPTER 72
- CHAPTER 73
- CHAPTER 74
- CHAPTER 75
- CHAPTER 76
- THE END