Code to Zero (11 page)

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Mrs. Sims frowned, mystified. The man leaving the Bonetti house had on Mr. Bonetti’s black raincoat and the gray tweed cap he wore to watch the Redskins, but he was larger than Mr. Bonetti, and the clothes did not quite fit.

She watched him walk down the street and turn the corner. He would have to come back: it was a dead end. A minute later the blue-and-white car she had noticed earlier came around the corner, going too fast. She realized then that the man who had left the house was the beggar she had been watching. He must have broken in and stolen Mr. Bonetti’s clothes!

As the car passed her window, she read the license plate and memorized the number.

The
Sergeant
motors have undergone 300 static tests, 50 flight tests, and 290 ignition-system firings without a failure.

Anthony sat in the conference room, fuming with impatience and frustration.

Luke was still running around Washington. No one knew what he might be up to. But Anthony was stuck here, listening to a State Department timeserver drone on about the need to combat rebels massing in the mountains of Cuba. Anthony knew all about Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. They had fewer than a thousand men under their command. Of course they could be wiped out—but there was no point. If Castro were killed, someone else would take his place.

What Anthony wanted to do was get out on the street and look for Luke.

He and his staff had put in calls to most of the police stations in the District of Columbia. They had asked the precincts to call in details of any incidents involving drunks or bums, any mention of a perpetrator who talked like a college professor, and anything at all out of the ordinary. The cops were happy to cooperate with the CIA: they liked the thought that they might be involved with international espionage.

The State Department man finished his talk, and a round-table discussion began. Anthony knew that the only way to prevent someone like Castro from taking over was for the U.S. to support a moderate reformist government. Fortunately for the communists, there was no danger of that.

The door opened and Pete Maxell slipped in. He gave a nod of apology to the chairman at the head of the table, George Cooperman, then sat next to Anthony and passed him a folder containing a batch of police reports.

There was something unusual at just about every station house. A beautiful woman arrested for picking pockets at the Jefferson Memorial turned out to be a man; some beatniks had tried to open a cage and free an eagle at the zoo; a Wesley Heights man had attempted to suffocate his wife with a pizza with extra cheese; a delivery truck belonging to a religious publisher had shed its load in Petworth, and traffic on Georgia Avenue was being held up by an avalanche of Bibles.

It was possible that Luke had left Washington, but Anthony thought it unlikely. Luke had no money for train or bus fares. He could steal it, of course, but why would he bother? He had nowhere to go. His mother lived in New York and he had a sister in Baltimore, but he did not know that. He had no reason to travel.

While Anthony speed-read the reports, he listened with half an ear to his boss, Carl Hobart, talking about the U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith, who had worked tirelessly to undermine church leaders and others who wanted to reform Cuba by peaceful means. Anthony sometimes wondered if Smith was in fact a Kremlin agent, but more likely he was just stupid.

One of the police reports caught his eye, and he showed it to Pete. “Is this right?” he whispered incredulously.

Pete nodded. “A bum attacked and beat up a patrolman on A Street and Seventh.”

“A
bum
beat up a
cop
?”

“And it’s not far from the neighborhood where we lost Luke.”

“This might be him!” Anthony said excitedly. Carl Hobart, who was speaking, shot him a look of annoyance. Anthony lowered his voice to a whisper again. “But why would he attack a patrolman? Did he steal anything—the cop’s weapon, for example?”

“No, but he beat him up pretty good. The officer was treated in hospital for a broken forefinger on his right hand.”

A tremor ran through Anthony like an electric shock. “That’s him!” he said loudly.

Carl Hobart said, “For Christ’s sake!”

George Cooperman said good-humoredly, “Anthony—either shut the fuck up, or go outside and talk, why don’t you?”

Anthony stood up. “Sorry, George. Back in a flash.” He stepped out of the room, and Pete followed. “That’s him,” Anthony repeated as the door shut. “It was his trademark, in the war. He used to do it to the Gestapo—break their trigger fingers.”

Pete looked puzzled. “How do you know that?”

Anthony realized he had made a blunder. Pete believed that Luke was a diplomat having a nervous breakdown. Anthony had not told Pete that he knew Luke personally. Now he cursed himself for carelessness. “I didn’t tell you everything,” he said, forcing a casual tone. “I worked with him in OSS.”

Pete frowned. “And he became a diplomat after the war.” He gave Anthony a shrewd look. “He’s not just having trouble with his wife, is he.”

“No. I’m pretty sure it’s more serious.”

Pete accepted that. “Sounds like a cold-blooded bastard, to break a guy’s finger, just like that.”

“Cold-blooded?” Anthony had never thought of Luke that way, though he did have a ruthless streak. “I guess he was, when the chips were down.” He had covered up his mistake, he thought with relief. But he still had to find Luke. “What time did this fight occur?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Hell. More than four hours ago. He could be anywhere in the city by now.”

“What’ll we do?”

“Send a couple of men down to A Street to show the photo of Luke around, see if you can get any clues where he might have been headed. Talk to the cop too.”

“Okay.”

“And if you get anything, don’t hesitate to bust in on this stupid fucking meeting.”

“Gotcha.”

Anthony went back inside. George Cooperman, Anthony’s wartime buddy, was speaking impatiently. “We should send in a bunch of Special Forces tough guys, clean up Castro’s ragtag army in about a day and a half.”

The State Department man said nervously, “Could we keep the operation secret?”

“No,” George said. “But we could disguise it as a local conflict, like we did in Iran and Guatemala.”

Carl Hobart butted in. “Pardon me if this is a dumb question, but why is it a secret what we did in Iran and Guatemala?

The State Department man said, “We don’t want to advertise our methods, obviously.”

“Excuse me, but that’s stupid,” Hobart said. “The Russians know it was us. The Iranians and the Guatemalans know it was us. Hell, in Europe the newspapers openly said it was us! No one was fooled except the American people. Now, why do we want to lie to
them
?”

George answered with mounting irritation. “If it all came out, there would be a Congressional inquiry. Fucking politicians would be asking if we had the right, was it legal, and what about the poor Iranian shit-kicking farmers and spick banana pickers.”

“Maybe those aren’t such bad questions,” Hobart persisted stubbornly. “Did we really do any good in Guatemala? It’s hard to tell the difference between the Armas regime and a bunch of gangsters.”

George lost his temper. “The hell with this!” he shouted. “We are not here to feed starving Iranians and give civil liberties to South American peasants, for Christ’s sake. Our job is to promote American interests—and
fuck
democracy!”

There was a moment’s pause, then Carl Hobart said, “Thank you, George. I’m glad we got that straightened out.”

Each
Sergeant
motor has an igniter which consists of two electrical matches, wired in parallel, and a jelly roll of metal oxidant encased in a plastic sheath. The igniters are so sensitive that they have to be disconnected if an electrical storm comes within 12 miles of Cape Canaveral, to avoid accidental firing.

In a Georgetown menswear store, Luke bought a soft gray felt hat and a navy wool topcoat. He wore them out of the store and felt, at last, that he could look the world in the eye.

Now he was ready to attack his problems. First he had to learn something about memory. He wanted to know what caused amnesia, whether there were different kinds, and how long it might last. Most important, he needed information on treatment and cures.

Where did one go for information? A library. How did one find a library? Look at a map. He got a street map of Washington at the newsstand next to the menswear store. Prominently displayed was the Central Public Library, at the intersection of New York and Massachusetts Avenues, back across town. Luke drove there.

It was a grand classical building raised above ground level like a Greek temple. On the pediment above the pillared entrance were carved the words:

S
CIENCE
  P
OETRY
  H
ISTORY

Luke hesitated at the top of the steps, then remembered that he was now a normal citizen again, and walked in.

The effect of his new appearance was immediately apparent. A gray-haired librarian behind the counter stood up and said, “May I help you, sir?”

Luke was pathetically grateful to be treated so courteously. “I want to look at books on memory,” he said.

“That’ll be the psychology section,” she said. “If you’d like to follow me, I’ll show you where it is.” She led him up a grand staircase to the next floor and pointed to a corner.

Luke looked along the shelf. There were plenty of books on psychoanalysis, child development, and perception, none of which were any use. He picked out a fat tome called
The Human Brain
and browsed through it, but there was not much about memory, and what there was seemed highly technical. There were some equations, and a certain amount of statistical material, which he found easy enough to understand, but much of the rest assumed a knowledge of human biology he did not have.

His eye was caught by
An Introduction to the Psychology of Memory
by Bilhah Josephson. That sounded more promising. He pulled it out and found a chapter on disorders of the memory. He read:

The common condition in which the patient “loses his memory” is known as “global amnesia.”

Luke was elated. He was not the only person to whom this had happened.

Such a patient does not know his identity and will not recognize his own parents or children. However, he remembers a great deal else. He may be able to drive a car, speak foreign languages, strip down an engine, and name the Prime Minister of Canada. The condition would be more appropriately called “autobiographical amnesia.”

This was exactly what had happened to him. He could still check whether he was being tailed and start a stolen car without the key.

Dr. Josephson went on to outline her theory that the brain contained
several different memory banks, like separate filing cabinets, for different kinds of information.

The autobiographical memory records events we have experienced personally. These are labeled with time and place: we generally know not only what happened, but when and where.

The long-term semantic memory holds general knowledge such as the capital of Romania and how to solve quadratic equations.

The short-term memory is where we keep a phone number for the few seconds in between looking it up in the phone book and dialing it.

She gave examples of patients who had lost one filing cabinet but retained others, as Luke had. He felt profound relief and gratitude to the author of the book, as he realized that what had happened to him was a well-studied psychological phenomenon.

Then he was struck by an inspiration. He was in his thirties, so he must have followed some occupation for a decade. His professional knowledge should still be in his head, lodged in his long-term semantic memory. He ought to be able to use it to figure out what line of work he did. And that would be the beginning of discovering his identity!

Looking up from the book, he tried to think what special knowledge he had. He did not count the skills of a secret agent, for he had already decided, judging by his soft indoor skin, that he was not a cop of any kind. What other special knowledge did he have?

It was maddeningly difficult to tell. Accessing the memory was not like opening the refrigerator, where you could see the contents at a glance. It was more like using a library catalogue—you had to know what you were looking for. He felt frustrated and told himself to be patient and think this through.

If he were a lawyer, would he be able to remember thousands of laws? If a doctor, would he be able to look at someone and say, “She has appendicitis”?

This was not going to work. Thinking back over the last few minutes, the only clue he noticed was that he had easily understood the equations and statistics in
The Human Brain,
even though he had been puzzled by other aspects of psychology. Maybe he was in a profession that involved
numbers: accounting or insurance, perhaps. Or he might be a math teacher.

He found the math section and looked along the shelves. A book called
Number Theory
caught his attention. He browsed through it for a while. It was clearly presented, but some years out of date. . . .

Suddenly he looked up. He had discovered something. He understood number theory.

That was a major clue. Most pages of the book in his hand contained more equations than plain text. This was not written for the curious layman. It was an academic work. And he understood it. He had to be some kind of scientist.

With mounting optimism, he located the chemistry shelf and picked out
Polymer Engineering.
He found it comprehensible, but not easy. Next he moved to physics and tried
A Symposium on the Behaviour of Cold and Very Cold Gases.
It was fascinating, like reading a good novel.

He was narrowing it down. His job involved math and physics. What branch of physics? Cold gases were interesting, but he did not feel that he knew as much as the author of the book. He scanned the shelves and stopped at geophysics, remembering the newspaper story headlined
U.S. MOON STAYS EARTHBOUND
. He picked out
Principles of Rocket Design.

It was an elementary text, but nevertheless there was an error on the first page he looked at. Reading on, he found two more—

“Yes!” he said aloud, startling a nearby schoolboy who was studying a biology text. If he could recognize mistakes in a textbook, he had to be an expert. He was a rocket scientist.

He wondered how many rocket scientists there were in the United States. He guessed a few hundred. He hurried to the information desk and spoke to the gray-haired librarian. “Is there any kind of list of scientists?”

“Sure,” she said. “You need the
Dictionary of American Scientists,
right at the beginning of the science section.”

He found it easily. It was a heavy book, but nevertheless it could not include every single American scientist. It must just be the prominent ones, he thought. Still, it was worth looking at. He sat at a table and went
through the index, searching for anyone named Luke. He had to control his impatience and force himself to scan carefully.

He found a biologist called Luke Parfitt, an archaeologist called Lucas Dimittry, and a pharmacologist called Luc Fontainebleu, but no physicist.

Double-checking, he went through geophysicists and astronomers but found no one with any version of Luke as a first name. Of course, he thought despondently, he was not even certain that Luke was his name. It was only what he had been called by Pete. For all he knew, his real name might be Percival.

He felt disappointed, but he was not ready to give up.

He thought of another approach. Somewhere, there were people who knew him. The name Luke might not be his own, but his face was. The
Dictionary of American Scientists
carried photos of only the most prominent men, such as Dr. Wernher von Braun. But Luke figured he must have friends and colleagues who would recognize him, if only he could find them. And now he knew where to start looking—for some of his acquaintances must be rocket scientists.

Where did one find scientists? At a university.

He looked up Washington in the encyclopedia. The entry included a list of universities in the city. He picked Georgetown University because he had been in Georgetown earlier and knew how to get back there. He looked for the university on his street map and saw that it had a large campus covering at least fifty city blocks. It would probably have a big physics department with dozens of professors. Surely one of them would know him?

Full of hope, he left the library and got back into his car.