Ride a Pale Horse (12 page)

“How on earth did you find out?” she asked in wonder.

“Pure luck—a luncheon conversation about disinformation, actually, with an old friend.” Schleeman shook his head over that memory. There he had sat, stating firmly that any publisher or editor with his wits about him would know if any of his reporters were outlets or conveyor belts for twisted information, only to be asked, “What do you think Sam Waterman is doing when he’s writing as Steven Winter?”

Karen’s eyes were speculating. “Was it—”

Schleeman looked at her. “No, it wasn’t Peter Bristow who dropped that bombshell, although he must have heard about Waterman. It was an old OSS friend, now a senior officer with the CIA, and one of the sharpest and most intelligent men I’ve met. He knows what he’s talking about.” Menlo certainly did: he had been eating, breathing, sleeping for the last thirty years with the problems of national security.

“Has Waterman discovered that you know what he really is?”

“Were there any of his poisoned darts sent in my direction?”

“No. He was concentrating on my life-style and working methods.” He really threw me off balance, too. She sighed.

“I’m sorry about that, Karen.” And he meant it.

“Well”—she smiled—“we have to protect your sources, haven’t we? And as long as I know the reason why he didn’t get this job, I don’t feel I’m responsible. So all’s well that ends—” But it hasn’t yet ended, she told herself. “That encounter in the café was no accident, was it?” Peter Bristow hadn’t thought so. She remembered the sudden turn of his head as she named Waterman and the reporter called Andreas Kellner, the alert look in his eyes as he asked for every detail—even about a girl named Rita who spoke almost-true American. As for Kellner’s use of the word “farrago”—that had created a brief moment of complete astonishment. Bristow’s lips had tightened. He made no other comment.

“Not an accident, I think. It’s an old pattern. We used it back in 1942. Some things don’t change.” But Schleeman was puzzled. Waterman, if he hadn’t graduated into actual espionage, was being used by forces he wouldn’t even believe existed. “What did they want from you?” What could they have wanted might be the right question, but he refrained from pressing it.

“The girl—I heard only her first name, Rita—kept gushing about how she’d love to be a correspondent who travelled abroad, I must have talked with so many interesting people in Prague, didn’t I meet any Czechs and get to know them?”

“You were supposed to be flattered.” It always was a good method to draw out a confidence and learn of some unusual incident. “But I gather you didn’t mention the defector. And what did Bristow have to say?”

“The same as you,” she said carefully.

“More or less.” More or less. “Are you holding out on me, Karen?”

She flushed. “I don’t know everything myself. I’m sure Peter Bristow will tell you—and me, too—whatever can be told. He owes us that, doesn’t he?”

“He takes you seriously?”

“I believe he does.”

“And he’s taking action?”

“He is. I hope.”

“I’ll have to be satisfied with that, I suppose.”

There was a small silence.

Yes, decided Schleeman, she could tell more, but someone or something has locked her tongue. This story may be bigger than I even guessed. “What did you think of Bristow?”

“He was easier to be with than I had imagined.”

Schleeman was amused. He had known Peter Bristow ever since he went to Harvard with his son—they had roomed together at Eliot House. Both had served, after graduating, in Vietnam. There, Bristow had been tapped by Military Intelligence to join a unit dissecting enemy propaganda, and that had led as a natural step into a CIA section that countered disinformation. “Never found him unapproachable. He was a history major, you know. Contemporary history. Almost became a college teacher after the war. But, as he told me, instead of lecturing on current events, he now deals with them in a more practical way.” Schleeman noticed Karen’s interest. “Too bad you can’t do an interview on him. He’d make good copy.”

“That’s the last thing he’d want. Remember your party for the Brazilian ambassador?”

Schleeman reflected. “Oh, yes—about two years ago. What of it?”

“I met Peter Bristow there. Very briefly. The moment he learned who I was, he made an excuse and left. You saw it, didn’t you? You were standing behind him.”

Sharp memory she had: it always surprised Schleeman. “He left not because you were a reporter who’d note everything he’d say. He had just seen his ex-wife enter the room with a Colombian millionaire. A damned gate-crasher, too, and her current lover. The divorce wasn’t even two months old. I’d say that wasn’t the happiest time in Bristow’s life.” Not all memories of past marriages were good ones, Karen. Some were downright bitter—like his own when he recalled his first wife, which he did as rarely as possible.

“Why was there a divorce?” The question, involuntary, had escaped.

“He didn’t make enough money or have enough spare time for all the things she wanted. A beautiful woman—outwardly, that is.”

“But surely she knew the money he made or the time he had for a social life before she married him.”

“Washington and its parties can go to some women’s heads,” he reminded Karen. “So now she’s got her rich Colombian and all the emeralds that came with him.” Schleeman pushed a manuscript into the desk drawer and rose. “She was a damn fool, if you ask me. Now, what about an early dinner tonight? I’ll give you some background on Rome. I lived there for a couple of years. Or are you too exhausted again?”

“No. I’d love something to eat.” And no more questions about Prague or Vienna. She laughed as she added frankly, “I’m starving.”

Starved for what? he wondered. “Look out for Aliotto,” he said. “I hear he’s quite a wolf.”

“I’ve handled wolves before.”

Much too well, Schleeman thought as he locked his office door behind them.

Thursday evening arrived and found Karen about to leave New York. The outbreak of hostilities at her house on 49th Street had been settled to the satisfaction of superintendent Max. Birney, the second-floor tenant who had planned to add French windows and a balcony to the back of his living-room (at his own expense, and surely Miss Cornell would see he was adding to the value of her property), hadn’t listened to the suggestion that his balcony would overhang the one sunny area in Max’s backyard where tomatoes, lettuce, and zinnias grew. He did listen, however, to the fact that, if her property values were improved, then taxes would be higher and his rent would have to be much increased. That prospect brought capitulation. Birney knew quite well that his present rent was far below today’s rates. So with all that settled, and thin dresses packed for Rome’s end-of-summer heat, and her column on Czechoslovakia along with the Austrian interview all edited by Black and reviewed by Schleeman, she could take the evening flight from Kennedy with her mind at rest.

Except for Peter Bristow. He hadn’t tried to reach her. What was happening? Had Vasek escaped—was he safe? Had the letters been dealt with? The cassettes heard and acted upon? Probably she’d never know what had been going on all this week. In a month or so, she could write the story of Vasek—or perhaps she’d not be given that clearance for six months, if ever. The play was over as far as she was concerned—her part in Act I was ended, and any appearance in Act II or III had been written out. Was that it?

Yet she felt she ought to let Bristow know that she was leaving for Rome. He might possibly, just possibly, want to reach her in Washington or New York to make sure everything was normal and under control. It was something she had been arguing with herself since she had started packing. She was supposed to word any telephone message in the code he had suggested; the trouble was that it didn’t fit. Yet without “lunch” or “dinner” appearing in her call—no name, he had said—how would he know who was leaving the message?

It took her the taxi ride to Kennedy to make up her mind about contacting Bristow. She shouldn’t mention Rome; “travelling” might be enough. All she was trying to do, she persuaded herself as she at last stood before a telephone at the airport with the required coins in her hand (so easy to charge it to her New York number, but this way was safer), was to keep Peter Bristow unalarmed if he found she was unreachable.

Her message, after three rehearsals, seemed passable enough to her. Bristow’s answering service (a man’s voice) was attentive. Karen spoke clearly. “I’d love to have lunch or dinner with you, but I must cancel all engagements for the next few days—I’ll be travelling. I’ll call you when I return.”

Not her best composition, but adequate, she hoped. She had ten minutes left to catch her flight.

Bristow reached home and checked with his answering service for the second time that evening. It was accustomed to his constant calls. Normally, they were around five hours apart; since Saturday, three hours and sometimes less. There had been no messages from Karen. Tonight, there was one. He heard it, asked for it to be repeated. “When was it made?” At six forty this evening he was told. It was now just after nine o’clock.

He went over Karen’s message again. Travelling where? A holiday in Vermont, a jaunt to California, where? Schleeman would know; and then again he might not. If she was taking a short vacation, no one at the
Spectator
would know how she was using it. Perhaps that woman who had the Washington apartment where Karen roomed? Mary Dunstan. He ’phoned her several times, reached her eventually. He was a friend of Karen’s, he explained and stayed nameless. Did Mary know where he could reach her? Mary didn’t know; only that Karen wouldn’t be in Washington next week. “Thank you,” he said, cutting off what was about to become an interested conversation. It was now eleven o’clock.

On Friday morning, he telephoned Menlo as soon as he reached his office, something he rarely did and only in emergencies. Menlo was senior enough to call you and not you call him. Bristow found him about to leave for a meeting, but he was sufficiently interested (Menlo had unbent a great deal since the six-man conference last Monday) to ask, “Anything special?”

“Have you heard from Aitchison?” Aitchison was Menlo’s particular friend at the FBI who had obliged Menlo with someone to keep a watch over Karen. As Menlo had said, she was their secondary witness: she could back the statements made by their first witness to the truth—Farrago. Menlo even dubbed them “Senior” and “Junior” as a safe method of discussing their activities over a telephone.

Menlo asked quickly, “Is Junior in trouble?”

“No. Just travelling.”

Menlo didn’t like that either. “Where?”

“I thought Aitchison might have heard.”

“I’ll check. I’ll call you. This meeting won’t take an hour.”

A short but important meeting, judging from Menlo’s haste and an excitement in his voice that couldn’t be disguised. Bristow replaced the telephone, tried to concentrate on his own work.

Menlo’s call came fifty minutes later. “See you in my office. Bring the file on
Blitz,
will you? I’d like to discuss its recent editorials on Lebanon that are being quoted in Europe.”

Bristow retrieved the bulky folder on
Blitz
from the file room—a newspaper, written in English, published in India, financed and directed by the Soviets. It initiated much of the disinformation that appeared later in Pakistan, the Middle East, and soon afterwards in Europe. As he was leaving, Wallace Fairbairn entered, glanced at the bulging folder with a tape tied around it that could barely hold it together.

“Who the hell wants that old turkey?” Fairbairn asked. “Menlo? What does he hope to find there now?”

“Whatever it is, he’ll find it.” Fairbairn dropped his voice. “Heard anything about that envelope we delivered?”

“Not a murmur. We’d be the last to hear anyway.”

Fairbairn could agree with that. “How did you get hold of it?”

“It was handed to me. Simple.”

“And no explanation—that’s odd. If I know you, Pete, you had a look-see inside.”

“Too well sealed. Couldn’t risk it,” Bristow said. “Or did you chance it?”

Fairbairn shook his head. “Scared me off, too. Wonder who’s dealing with it?”

“No doubt the computers.” They laughed and parted.

Bristow found Menlo alone in his office and waiting with a touch of impatience. “Sorry to be late. I met Fairbairn, who wanted to know about the envelope.”

“Oh?”

“Natural curiosity. I gave it to him to deliver here. The envelope was well sealed.” And its delivery had been prompt, receipted with the exact time of its arrival. There had been no slip-up there.

“So I noticed. Your work—or Miss Cornell’s?”

“Hers. After I had read the letters.”

“I’ve news about them. Have a chair, Bristow.”

Good or bad? Bristow wondered as he sat down to face Menlo across his desk.

“We met with the Soviets. At first, there were some denials. Then protestations of ignorance. Then well-simulated anger against our attempt to slander the Soviet Union. But they kept talking, two whole days of sharp argument. In the end, there was an agreement. The letters would not be used in any way by either side. Abel Fletcher requested and received a written statement to that effect, signed by Andropov. In turn, the Soviets received an identical statement signed by the President.”

“As easy as that?” Bristow’s disbelief was plain. “It’s too simple.”

“The arguments could have dragged out for weeks. But Bob Schlott was there, with rows of ribbons on his chest, stating that we were making the letters public on Friday—today, that is—if no agreement was reached. And Drayton, at his diplomatic best, observed that such a revelation about disinformation was necessary to place full blame on the men who had concocted these letters for any assassination they had planned.” Menlo paused, imagined that scene, smiled. “Must have been quite a session. Our representatives are now on their way home. Their reports reached us just two hours ago.”

Bristow said, “What made the Soviets listen? Has Farrago escaped and they haven’t found him?”

“He’s out. They haven’t found him. We haven’t, either, but they don’t know that. What they do know is that these three letters are missing. We have one of our agents’ word on that. He was present when the Czechs found the letters gone. They had been sent there, I gather, so that Prague could disseminate them and keep Moscow’s name unsullied by the whole dirty business.”