The Art of the Devil (6 page)

Inside the Buick again, he turned back toward the setting sun. Isherwood's rendezvous with Max Whitman – and hence with Richard Hart, and hence with fate – was still three days away. Before then, Hart had business in Gettysburg.

He felt almost sorry for Agent Francis Isherwood, whom he had never met, and who would never know what hit him. The man was a fellow veteran. But war required sacrifices. And despite the lack of uniforms or conventional battlefields, this was definitely war. The theaters were not trenches or beaches but country clubs, like the one in which Eisenhower had ingested an insufficient quantity of succinylcholine (the doctor who had misestimated the dosage, now deceased, would not find the chance to repeat the mistake), and grassy rises overlooking presidential motorcades outside of Washington … and rocky ridges above twisting, hazardous mountain roads.

GETTYSBURG: NOVEMBER 14

S
cowling, Isherwood closed the newspaper.

For a few moments, he looked emptily at nothing. No denying, he reflected: the simple small-town America in which he'd grown up was a quickly fading memory. Once upon a time, all a boy could ask for was a cool glass of lemonade, a jazz quartet on a bandstand, and a pretty girl in a flowered skirt. But now scientists had identified a new peril called ‘smog'. Soviets were perfecting an improved hydrogen Bomb, capable of destroying the world two hundred times over. Doctors had found strontium-90 in children's baby teeth. Fallout shelters were being urged to stock cans of pineapple juice, for treatment of radiation burns; unrest roiled South America, the stock market had tumbled fourteen billion dollars in the wake of Ike's heart attack, and Formosa festered like an open wound. Khrushchev's saber rattled, Israel agitated for Gaza, and the Warsaw Pact challenged NATO …

He tried to push it all away. The coffee was hot and the week was new. He had seventy-plus hours of sobriety beneath his belt, and today he would try again to call his wife.

With a sigh, he let his eyes drift shut. Waiting in the darkness were the days leading up to Omaha: a bunch of wiry, scared kids, training and fooling around, with a slightly older man – Isherwood himself – supervising, cigarette burning jauntily between fingertips. He saw in a flash Dick Harrison, playing cards and grinning. And then another flash, quick as heat lightning at night: Dick Harrison three weeks later, gutshot on the beach, begging for water, bubbles of red frothing from the corners of his mouth. Here was Freddy Penworth, laughing with tears streaming down his face as he jammed a fresh clip into his Greaser. Here were Germans raking the gray sand with terribly organized parallel lines of Schwarzlose machine-gun fire; and Isherwood, tangled in barbed wire and soaked with the blood of his fellows, returning fire blindly, fruitlessly. Here were the survivors after the landing: grim, dark, ranks thinned, faces aged: Bosford, Carlson, Vasquez, Guerra, Wilson, Mahoney, all old before their time.

The landing had been only the beginning. Here was Francis Isherwood sixty hours later, in the dead of night, two klicks inland, sneaking up on a young Nazi standing guard over a makeshift supply depot. Isherwood grabbed a clump of hair with one hand, drawing his KA-BAR across the exposed throat with the other. A parabola of blood arced onto frozen grass. He dragged the body, with head barely connected, into a nearby hedgerow, and then pressed on without looking back.

And here was Evy, drenched in sunlight three years later, brightly singing Doris Day from the passenger seat of the Studebaker: ‘My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time.'

Groaning, he rubbed at his temples. Duty called. He must finish the task of familiarizing himself with every agent, farmhand, security patrol and square foot on the farm. A survey of town, concentrating on centers of gossip – drugstores, lunch counters, bars – would acquaint him with any suspicious characters lurking about. But applying himself to the task at hand could keep him distracted for only so long … and he had passed those package stores, on the outskirts of town, beckoning …

After the briefest fillip of hesitation he opened his eyes, pushed back from the rectory table, folded the newspaper beneath one arm, and went to face the day.

Four miles away, over scrambled eggs and coffee, Richard Hart perused the same articles in the same newspaper.

In Buenos Aires, Provisional President Lonardi had been overthrown by General Pedro Aramburu. In Russia, the Soviets were working on a bigger Bomb, with a payload equal to one million tons of TNT. Closer to home, the stock market recovery was sluggish. And in Germany rearming had begun – atrocity of atrocities! – which the newspaper's editors downplayed. But of course they did. Eisenhower's America, as the senator said, was weak and irresolute, determined to coddle and circumvent the enemy rather than engage them full-on.

Had General Eisenhower only shown more backbone, thought Hart, they could have avoided this current geopolitical morass altogether. America could have beaten the Russians to Berlin. On April eleventh, 1945, following an advance of sixty miles in a single day, a spearhead of the US Ninth Army had reached the Elbe River, leaving only sixty miles more between themselves and the capital city of the Third Reich. But Eisenhower had hesitated, fearing that German armies might regroup to make a last stand in the Alpine mountains of southern Bavaria, where the impenetrable territory could extend the war indefinitely. And so, from that day forward, he had concentrated on preventing such a retreat, leaving the way open for the Russian advance and everything which had followed.

Turning from international news to national, Hart scanned for an article, as he had every day since returning from Denver, concerning a body part discovered in Colorado's South Platte River, or Chatfield or Cherry Creek Reservoirs. He found none. The story might not be big enough to make a national paper. Yet he kept looking anyway – from morbid curiosity, or from a lingering pang of guilt.

Pushing the newspaper away, he finished his coffee and then stepped out onto the sidewalk, buttoning his dark coat against the chill. The rooming house had been chosen for its location: far enough from the center of town that he could avoid the worst of the crowds, but close enough that he could conveniently reach the bench before the Plaza Restaurant every day at noon.

Even on its outskirts, Gettysburg harbored a noticeably larger population than its infrastructure could comfortably support: a side effect of the President's sudden proximity. The faces crowding the sidewalk belonged to fox-like journalists or stern members of the Signals Corps, or to the administrative team of Chief of Staff Sherman Adams, who according to the papers had been installed above the post office where Ike could summon him at a moment's notice. All the extra eyes put Hart on edge; at six-foot four, he was not exactly inconspicuous.

The day was windy but mild, with skies of dazzling blue. He drove west, toward the Eisenhower farm. Parking a safe mile away, well off the road, he screened his vehicle behind branches and foliage. From the glove compartment he removed a pair of binoculars and Peterson's third edition of
A Field Guide To The Birds
. Then he walked through the forest to within five hundred yards of the Eisenhower farm's main gate, where he concealed himself behind a wide oak, laid prone, brought binoculars to eyes, and waited.

During the war he had become accustomed to the stresses, both physical and mental, attending long-term surveillance. For the first hour, then, he barely felt the discomfort of remaining motionless in raw terrain, holding Bushnells to his eyes and focusing on the distant gate. Throughout that hour he saw minimal traffic into and out of the farm. A single delivery truck pulled up to the gate, unloaded its cargo, and turned around again. A single dark Chevrolet, driven by a slight bald man, exited in the direction of town. A pick-up truck carrying sightseers made several passes before giving up.

By the second hour, Hart felt the prone position catching up with him. In Italy he had been young, eager, and in peak physical condition. Now he carried a few extra pounds around his midsection, and his muscles were not quite as toned as they once had been. An ache began in his knees and elbows, radiated out to his other joints, and soon turned his entire back into a throbbing mass of bone and gristle. Changing position on the forest floor relieved the stress only for a moment. His nicotine center insisted that tobacco would alleviate his discomfort. But smoking might draw attention, which despite his birdwatching cover he hoped to avoid, and so he denied himself the cigarette, much to his body's displeasure.

By the third hour, he was deciding that he had become too soft for such work. Civilian life, advancing age, and the material benefits of association with the senator had weakened him … but even as he was thinking it, luck favored him at last. The gate opened again, disgorging the second vehicle of the day: a Studebaker sedan.

Through the lens of the Bushnells, Hart found the driver behind the wheel. Francis Isherwood looked older than in the photographs Hart had been given – rounder in the face, rumpled and paunchy – but the resemblance was unmistakable, and the model of the car was right. He had found his target.

He waited until the sedan vanished from sight (Isherwood drove quickly, recklessly) and then stood, joints creaking. Brushing off his dark coat, he hurried back to the Buick. He would not catch the man before he reached town. But in a place the size of Gettysburg, the Studebaker should not be difficult to locate again, despite the crowds.

Indeed, forty minutes later Hart found the vehicle parked on the main drag outside a drugstore. Inside, Isherwood sat before a malted and a cheeseburger, chatting easily with a red-headed girl behind the counter as he ate. Parking across the street, Hart feigned reading the morning's newspaper while keeping an eye on his quarry.

Upon exiting the drugstore, Isherwood walked to a nearby phone booth. There he stood for another few minutes, feeding nickels into the coin slot, looking increasingly frustrated. Emerging at length, he glanced up and down the street before striking off on foot. Leaving the Buick, Hart paced him, maintaining a secure distance.

Five minutes later Isherwood stepped into a small bar-and-grill. Through a window Hart watched the man order a seltzer and then exchange words with the bartender. If a small town had a pulse, barkeeps and counter clerks were its arteries; Agent Isherwood had put his finger unerringly on Gettysburg's lifeblood. Hart didn't know what questions the man was asking, but he was proving himself a dangerous fellow to have sniffing around.

Leaving the bar, the agent stopped at a chemist's to buy a small gift-wrapped parcel. He then returned to his car and drove at an illegal speed to the outskirts of town. Parking in a gravel lot by a package store, he left the Studebaker again, carrying a brown paper bag. After depositing the bag in a dumpster, he climbed back into the bullet nose and continued west. Hart debated between following and checking the dumpster. Checking his watch, he saw that the hour of his rendezvous was almost nigh. He decided on the latter.

The contents of the paper bag turned out to be an ordinary, half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

Curious.

Hart drove back into town. At one minute before noon, he settled down onto the agreed-upon bench before the Plaza Restaurant (‘LOUNGE STEAKS CHOPS SINCE 1863'). Smoking, he waited. On the walkway before him, a little girl wearing a bonnet threw a crying fit as her mother tugged hard on one arm. A motorcycle without a muffler circled the pavilion, revving its engine unnecessarily. Two teenagers sauntered past, each loudly laying claim to the title of pinball champion. When the wrought-iron clock in the center of the pavilion read 12:15, Hart stood again, pitching away the butt of his second cigarette. He would try again tomorrow.

He took his midday meal in the same bar-and-grill Isherwood had visited, in case a garrulous bartender revealed some insight into the man's purpose; but the shift had changed, and the barkeep was gone. Yet the day had been far from wasted. Hart had identified his target and some of the man's habits – most saliently a tendency to drive too fast – and confirmed the make of his automobile. When he encountered Agent Isherwood again on the dark mountain road, he would have no trouble finding his mark.

Polishing a pair of brass candlesticks in the dining room, Elisabeth became slowly aware of a gaze drilling into her back.

Turning, she saw a girl watching her. Pretty if chubby, the girl had skin the color of sandalwood, and lively eyes beneath smears of blue mascara. ‘You replaced Babs, right?'

Elisabeth nodded.

‘My name's Josette. What's yours?'

‘Elisabeth.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Elisabeth.'

Cautiously, Elisabeth nodded again.

‘Dunbarton's taking a nap. Want to sneak a cigarette?'

Elisabeth hesitated only briefly. ‘Why not?' she said lightly.

They went out through a side door and hid behind a venerable oak. Without warning the sky had turned the color of bruises, livid with thickening storm clouds. The air was frigid enough to make Josette shiver beneath her thin afternoon maid's uniform, although Elisabeth, accustomed to mountain climates, felt comfortable.

‘How'd they find you so quick?' Lighting two cigarettes, Josette casually passed one over. ‘Usually it takes a year for anyone to get hired here, with all the security precautions.'

‘I had a good recommendation.' Elisabeth puffed her tobacco to evenness. ‘I used to work for Senator Bolin.'

‘Ooh – fancy.' Josette looked at her with naked interest. ‘Well, I've been here almost two years already. If you've got any questions, just ask.'

‘Thanks.'

For a few moments, both smoked in silence.

‘So what do you think of Dunbarton?' Elisabeth asked.

‘She's not bad. Although … Well, I don't like to complain. You catch more flies with honey, right?'

‘Just between us,' promised Elisabeth.