CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1
QUIGLEY HAD CROSSED the Atlantic sixty-four times by ship, and this was his fiftieth crossing by air, and therefore something of a milestone. He kept a notebook to record miles traveled, and times of departure and arrival, and amusing non-official incidents en route, so that when he got home he would have something to talk about with his wife. This record was also useful when he made out his expense vouchers, and figured his per diem travel allowance. No Department finance officer or general accounting office auditor ever questioned the figures of William Quigley.
On this day, after he was seated in the Constellation, and had wedged his dispatch case against the plane’s cushiony side with his leg, he took out his notebook—the thirtieth of identical size and shape that he had used up since joining the Department—and wrote, “December 25, 1949.” December 25th. Another Christmas away from home.
He waited while the stewardess brought him chewing gum, and asked whether his seat belt was fastened, and did he want a paper or magazine. This was always the most enjoyable part of the trip home. When the neat, clean stewardess smiled and spoke to him, and he smelled the washed, engineered air inside an airplane, he was already back in America. America sent shining, metal slivers of itself through the air, filled with America’s conveniences and luxuries and speed and efficiencies, to bring its wanderers home.
The motors showed their power, the plane began to move, and when he was sure they were airborne he wrote, “Took off from Budapest 9:32 A.M. Central European Time.” He looked again at the date. In a few days the first half of the century would be gone. It had been some century, so far. In this half-century—in his lifetime—the wonders he had seen! The electric light, the telephone, automobiles, airplanes, radios, all the new sciences, the new drugs, television—they all belonged to his century. None of them had been around when he was born. What a century it could have been, but what a century it had been. He wondered whether the second half would be any better than the first. It couldn’t be much worse. Or could it? What would the school children, oh, in two thousand years, remember of his century? Would they recall all the wonders, or would they recite, “The Twentieth Century was the century of the atomic bomb and the beginning of the Second Dark Ages?”
He wondered whether he had done anything to help things along and he was still wondering when he fell asleep. While he slept the pressure of the dispatch case was comfortable against his leg.
He slept from Budapest to Vienna and he slept from Vienna to Prague and from Prague to Shannon. In Shannon he ate roast beef sandwiches and drank a quart of rich Irish milk. It was when they were halfway across the Atlantic that he put his dispatch case across his knees, opened it, and checked the envelopes within. When he came to Jeff’s letter to Horace Locke he balanced it on his fingers and it was very thin and fragile, not at all like the other bulkier envelopes with their heavy red seals. He put it back in the dispatch case. Then he slept again.
When the plane touched down at National Airport he took out his notebook and wrote, “December 26, 1949—arrived Washington 10:57 A.M. E.S.T.”
Customs and Immigration knew him, of course. As he got into a cab a newsboy was yelling about a new crisis, but he didn’t buy a paper because he didn’t want to know of any more crises. He debated what to do first, and decided that business must come first, and said, “New State.”
“Virginia Avenue entrance?”
“That’s correct.”
2
While he waited in Gerald Matson’s secretarial office he wished he’d stopped at the airport restaurant for coffee. People came in and out of Matson’s office as if they were attached to an endless chain. He said to the receptionist, “I beg your pardon, but did you give Mr. Matson my name?”
“Mister—” the receptionist hesitated—“Quigley, was it?”
“Yes, Quigley. I just came in from Budapest. Didn’t the Admiral cable that I was coming?”
“I really don’t know,” the girl said. He could see that she hadn’t been long in the Department. He classified her as a CAF-4, engaged to a CAF-5.
“Well perhaps,” he suggested, “you’d better tell Mr. Matson that I’m here from Budapest, and I have to see him on important business.”
“All our business is important,” she parried. She thought he was a peculiar little man, who probably sold insurance. She rummaged in a drawer until she found a handkerchief, wiped her lips off, and did them over again, wider.
Into the mind of Quigley there crept a pixie. “You will, eventually, tell him I’m here, won’t you?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes, eventually.”
Quigley thought, I’ve never done anything like this before, and why I should start at my age I don’t know. But it might be fun and I think I’ll try it because at my age one doesn’t have much fun. “When you decide to present my name to Mr. Matson,” he said, “would you also give him a message? Just a few words?”
“Okay, Mister Quigley. See, I remember your name.”
“So you did. Just say, ‘Atlantis has been penetrated.’”
She thought it over, and said, “That sounds dirty to me. Who’s Atlantis?”
“Never mind. Just tell him.”
She repeated, “‘Atlantis has been penetrated.’ Okay, Mr. Quigley, as soon as Mr. Soukis has conferred with Mr. Matson, I’ll go in there and say, ‘Atlantic has been penetrated.’”
“Atlantis.”
“Oh, sure. Atlantis.”
A man came out of Matson’s office, and the receptionist said, “Well, there goes Soukis. He’s a big Greek. But I mean, big. Now I’ll tell Mr. Matson you’re here.”
She came out again almost immediately. She didn’t stop in the outer office, but fled into the hallway. Behind her was Gerald Matson, his dark eyes blazing like beacons in the pallid desert of his face.
3
Quigley’s interview with Matson lasted through the lunch hour, and into the afternoon. Quigley presented the documents, and then told what could not be put down on paper. He told everything, because he was a perfect reporter. He mentioned everything except the letter he had for Horace Locke. This he classified as a personal matter.
When he had finished Matson asked, “And what did the Admiral recommend?”
“He wants Baker recalled.”
“I don’t blame him, but what about Atlantis?”
“He’s laying that in your lap, Mr. Matson. Keller has discontinued operations.”
“He’s not going to put it in my lap. It’s Keller’s baby.”
“Isn’t it your baby, too, Mr. Matson?” Quigley asked gently.
Atlantis was his baby, of course. It was true he had not conceived it, but he had adopted it, nurtured it through the infancy of planning, presented it to all the best people, and pushed it into active maturity. He displayed it in the Department’s higher levels with a parent’s pride for a genius son. Atlantis multiplied his importance in the Department. It placed additional personnel under his control, and gave him access, at any time, to those who decided national policy. It had won him a place on the Planning Board. It had elevated the Balkans Division, so long a Department stepchild, almost to the level of Western Europe, and certainly to the level of Central Europe and Far East. If Atlantis succeeded he would share the credit with Fred Keller. He could look forward to an important Embassy. Perhaps even Paris. Anya would love Paris.
If Atlantis failed he would lose ground. If the circumstances surrounding the failure smelled of carelessness or scandal, it could be—Matson had a horrible vision. “This Baker,” he remarked, “has certainly fouled things up. Not that I didn’t expect it. I expected it all along. My opinion is that he got himself into trouble and concocted a story, and as he became more involved he piled one lie on another, in the manner of all liars. Furthermore, I think he was deliberately malicious.”
“Whatever mistakes he may have made,” said Quigley, “I won’t believe Jeff Baker is malicious. I’m not even sure he made any mist
akes.”
“Oh, yes, he’s malicious!” said Matson. “He knows very well that my wife is a White Russian! So he cunningly contrived to quote this so-called Russian turncoat as blaming this so-called penetration on White Russians here in the United States. You know what I think it is? I think it’s a plot!”
Quigley crossed his knees, and seemed to be absorbed in adjusting the crease in his trousers. “You know,” he said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You don’t think my wife would be indiscreet, do you?” Matson said.
“Anybody can be indiscreet—even me.”
“Oh, come on now!”
“What do you intend to do, Mr. Matson?” Quigley asked.
“I’m not sure—yet. But I expect to do something fast.”
“Are there any more questions you wish to ask me?”
“No. I’ll call if I need you.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Matson.” Quigley was in a hurry to leave.
When he was gone Matson picked up the telephone and called his wife. “Anya,” he said, “where’s Iggy?”
“Why, he’s still in Hollywood.”
“That place is full of Reds.”
“What are you talking about?”
He hesitated, while he tried to frame the question safely. “Anya,” he said, “now don’t be angry, but I want to ask you something. Do you remember when Iggy was in Washington and we were discussing something very important, and I told you not to talk in front of him?”
“Of course I remember it. Why did you bring it up?”
“You didn’t talk to him any more, did you?”
There was that infinitesimal moment of hesitation, that the lie detector can diagnose but the human ear can only sense, and never with sureness. “Why, of course not, dear.”
“That’s good, dear.”
“Why, what’s this all about, Gerald?”
“Never mind. Forget it.”
“Now, Gerald, don’t tell me forget it! You call up with these mysterious questions and want me to forget it. I want to know what’s the matter. After all, I’m a woman, and a woman is a curious creature.”
“Can’t talk about it over the phone. Just remember that you never mentioned anything to Iggy.”
“Why, I didn’t, dear,” she said, and hung up.
Gerald Matson made up his mind.
4
And Quigley was walking up the stairs of Old State, on the Pennsylvania Avenue side.
He found Horace Locke at his desk. They had not seen each other for two or three years, but their greetings didn’t show this. In the space of their service and acquaintanceship two or three years was not a long period of time. They greeted each other as if they had lunched together at the Occidental only a week or two before.
Quigley unsnapped the lock on his case and Horace Locke said, “That’s a nice case you’ve got, Quig. Your old one finally collapse?”
“I traded,” said Quigley, “with young Jeff Baker.” He brought out Jeff’s letter and handed it to Locke. “I brought this letter from him.”
Horace Locke took the envelope and turned it in his hands. He saw that the flap was unsealed—saw that it had never been sealed. “Do you know what’s in here?” he asked.
“No. Not exactly. I know it contains two names. Two important names. I don’t know what they are. I presume you got Jeff’s other letter, safe hand?”
“I did.” Horace Locke allowed his mind to search its experience and reach a conclusion. The conclusion was that Jeff trusted Quigley implicitly. Jeff had left the letter unsealed for a purpose. Jeff wanted him to know that Quig was a friend. So Horace Locke could ask the question. “What kind of trouble is the boy in?”
“I’m going to tell you,” Quigley said. “I don’t know what’s come over me. Everything about this case is classified, some of it confidential, some secret, and some of it top secret, and I’m still going to tell you.”
“I used to be allowed to keep secrets,” said Horace Locke.
“So you did. So you did. But I feel you’ll have to take action, as well as use discretion.”
Horace Locke looked out of the window at the White House, and the Capitol beyond. It was his view. He had seen it a long time. But it always fascinated him, for somehow it seemed always to be changing. It was almost as if the buildings changed with the character of the people inside them. “I’ve known ever since Friday that I would have to take action,” Locke said. “I knew Friday why I had been waiting here all this time.”
“I don’t think it will be easy for you,” Quigley said.
“I will do what is required.”
“I know you will.” For the second time he told the story. It did not differ in so much as a word from the story he had told Matson.
It was dusk when Quigley left Old State. He should have called his wife. If she knew that he had arrived in the morning, and still hadn’t called, she would be angry. And she would know what time his plane landed, because of the notebook. He crossed to the Willard, and bought twelve roses. Roses in mid-winter Mrs. Quigley could not resist.
5
Horace Locke considered his first step. Eventually the affair would have to go to the Secretary. Of that he was sure. Certainly the news of this Russian fission should go before the Secretary at once. The news was not unexpected to Horace Locke. He had been awaiting news of this kind. He knew the history of dictatorships. They always appeared colossal and monolithic from the outside, but inside they were hollow. They were like the buildings erected for fairs. They didn’t last. By his very form of suppression, the dictator invites and compels violence from his opposition. And no ruler lives without opposition. Daggers had dispatched Caesar, bullets Mussolini. There are not enough spies to watch a whole people nor enough jails to contain a fraction of a dictator’s enemies. So the Soviet dictatorship, too, would come to an end.
But more pressing was the predicament of Nicholas Baker’s son. If Jeff Baker were discredited, and tossed out of the Department, his story of the Russian resistance would never be believed. It might not be believed in any case, but once he was deprived of his official standing Jeff would have no chance. Not even the newspapers would touch it. They’d label him a disgruntled young man who had been fired from the Department, probably as a security risk, and not to be believed.
The best thing was to sound out Matson. He didn’t like Matson, but he understood him. He deduced it would be in Matson’s interest to get rid of Nick’s son. If Matson discovered that Jeff had a friend—perhaps of little influence but still of sufficient voice to be heard in some circles of the Department—Matson would hesitate. He knew Matson.
He dialed the Balkans Division. A girl, probably the receptionist in the outer office, answered. “I would like to speak to Mr. Matson,” he said. “This is Horace Locke speaking. It’s urgent.”
“Who did you say?” the girl demanded.
“Horace Locke.” He could not say, “I am Adviser to the Diplomatic Monuments and Memorials Commission.” That didn’t mean anything to anybody. He said, “In the Department.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said in a sing-song Tennessee twang, “but Mr. Matson has gone for the day.”
“Has he gone home?”
“How do I know? He’s gone.” The receptionist clicked off her key. Well, she thought, it was sort of a white lie. Mr. Matson was already running into overtime, drafting one of those cables. And the longer he stayed, the longer they’d all have to stay. This guy whose name she’d never heard before called up and said something was urgent, and if she put him through to Mr. Matson they might be all night. So she had done her boss a favor, and herself too. She had a dinner date and she didn’t want to be late because her fellow would soon be a CAF-6 and then they would get married and she could get out of this damn nine-to-five slavery. Nobody would know, and she wasn’t hurting anybody.
Horace Locke called Matson’s home in Alexandria. He wasn’t home yet. Anya Matson didn’t know when he would be home. He must be working
late at the office.
Horace Locke waited thirty minutes, and dialed Balkans again. The receptionist was still there, and he thought it strange that she would be there if Matson had left for the day. “Are you the same one who called before?” she asked.
“Why yes.”
“Didn’t I tell you he left?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t ring here any more. I’m busy.”
Horace Locke put down his telephone gently and leaned back in his chair and told himself to control his temper. Rebuffs like this always made him feel badly, made him want to go off somewhere where there weren’t any people, and he knew that this feeling was not right. It seemed to Horace Locke that people were changing. They all seemed rude and snappish, as if they were fighting their way into the subway after an exhausting day. He was appalled by their uniform rudeness. The waiters, the barbers, hotel clerks, Pullman porters, taxi drivers, redcaps, druggists, telephone operators, building guards—their characters all seemed in the process of chemical change. Fear and uncertainty were corroding them with selfishness and greed, and the corrosion showed in rudeness. “Maybe I’m silly,” Horace Locke told himself aloud. “Maybe I’m just getting old, and it’s me, not other people. Maybe I’m old and irritable. I must be getting old, or what would I be doing sitting here and talking to myself?”
He tried Matson’s home once more, and he still wasn’t there. Well, probably Matson wouldn’t make his decision at once. It would take two or three days. He would see Matson in the morning.
He wondered whether it would do any good to try the Secretary’s office, and decided against it. He had no right to know anything of this affair. It would be most presumptuous for him to take it to the Secretary. It might even endanger the chances of Nick’s son. Anyway he wasn’t sure the Secretary would see him. He had known the Secretary many years before, and from time to time had had business contacts with the Secretary, but he had not seen him, now, for four years. So he didn’t dial the Secretary, although he had a hunch the Secretary would still be on the job. Horace Locke went home to his club.