“I’ll be right down,” Jeff said.
2
Jeff folded his reply to the cable into an envelope, and put it in his pocket with the cable itself. Then he walked to the Legation, and went to the message center. Quincy Todd was waiting there, and with him was Marge Collins, from cryptography. She looked pleased. Quincy said, “I think she’s got good news for you, Jeff, but she won’t tell me.”
She had an envelope in her hand. “I’ll give you this cable,” she said, “but first you have to give me back the paraphrase you got yesterday.”
“Why?” he asked. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
“Not any more. I’ve got orders to destroy it. You’ll see.”
Jeff brought the sheet of flimsy out of his coat pocket and handed it to her, and she gave him the envelope.
“Well, hurry up and open it,” Quincy Todd said.
Jeff opened the envelope. It was addressed as before. It read:
DEPARTMENT’S 49122692 CLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL IS TO BE DISREGARDED AND ORIGINAL AND ALL COPIES AND PARAPHRASES REMOVED FROM FILES AND DESTROYED. BAKER IS TO RETURN TO WASHINGTON ON FIRST PLANE AVAILABLE AND REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
Quincy Todd, who unashamedly had been reading over his shoulder, slammed him on the back and said, “Saved! You must have a cousin in Congress. When I heard about the one yesterday I thought they’d hang you.”
“They may hang me yet,” Jeff said. He musn’t let his hopes run away with his common sense. He guessed that Horace Locke must have done something. Horace Locke must have reached the Secretary, or this cable wouldn’t be ordering him to report to the Secretary. So the Secretary must know of his letters to Locke. The Secretary must know of Leonides. Whatever happened now, that vicious cable was destroyed. It did not necessarily mean the charges had been withdrawn, but at least they were held in abeyance. Back in Washington somebody had given him a fighting chance. “That means tomorrow’s plane, doesn’t it?” he said.
“Yes, tomorrow’s plane,” Quincy Todd said. “You’d better stick around the Legation, because the Admiral will be wanting to talk to you.”
“You think so?”
Todd smiled. “I certainly do.”
3
The Admiral had him at his table at lunch. The Admiral was affable and pleasant and very nearly apologetic. Jeff felt that the Admiral must believe he had powerful friends in Washington.
Actually the Admiral was congratulating himself on passing the buck to the Department. Something was going on back in Washington that he didn’t understand, and it was best that he stay out of it. Whatever happened, the Navy would be pleased that he had not involved himself in a State Department affair. He was concerned with policy, not administration, and this had become an administrative matter.
4
Jeff saw Keller that evening. “When you see the Secretary,” Fred cautioned him, “simply present the facts as you know them. Don’t be frightened. The Secretary’s very decent, very human.”
“I wonder if he remembers me?” Jeff said. “I wonder if he remembers when I took my orals?”
“He never forgets anyone,” Keller said. “His memory is phenomenal. He sops up knowledge, and facts, and he never forgets any of it. In a matter of this kind he’ll consider only the cold facts. But at least you know you’re going to get a square shake. That’s the important thing.”
That night Jeff went to the Arizona with Keller and Todd, and they watched Rikki Telredy dance. She smiled at them from the stage, but when the show was over she didn’t go to their table. She had drinks with some Russian colonels, and chatted at a table occupied by Polish diplomats, and finally left with a Hungarian drama critic. Keller said Rikki was a smart girl—very smart. Keller said to Jeff, “She’ll still be here when you come back.”
“Do you really think I’ll be coming back?” Jeff asked. He knew that he wanted to come back. He didn’t want to be a liquor salesman, or a school teacher, or a peddler of used automobiles, or even be rich. He wanted to be in the Foreign Service.
“I think you’ll be coming back,” Keller said. “I think you’ll be coming back, and that I’ll be leaving, because I think our job is finished here. I think there will be more productive work for us.”
“I wish you guys wouldn’t talk in riddles,” Quincy Todd said. “But one day I’ll have my revenge. One day I’ll stop being nursemaid to this Legation. One day I’ll have some other job. And I don’t care what it is I’m going to be mysterious about it. I’ll be so mysterious that nobody will know what I’m doing. Everybody will think it’s real important, and so I’ll get to be a Class Three, or maybe even a Two.”
5
Thursday morning Quincy Todd helped him pack. When they were finished Todd asked Jeff about the maps that covered an enormous footage of wall. They were beautiful maps. They were Army Air Force aeronautical charts of the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, of The Straits and the Baltic, of inner Europe and the Danube. They had been part of Jeff’s existence ever since Charley Born had presented them to him in Bari. It had been better than receiving a medal. Jeff said, “I think I’ll leave them here for a while.”
“I like your confidence,” Quincy said.
“Oh, I’m not so confident,” Jeff said. “I’m just tired of taking ’em down and putting ’em up. And if things turn out bad I won’t want them anyway.”
“I’ll take care of them,” Quincy promised, “one way or another.”
Jeff left on the evening plane.
6
When Jeff arrived in Washington he called the Secretary’s office from the airport. The girl said, “Oh, Mr. Baker. I’ve a message for you. The Secretary left instructions that if you came in in the morning he’d see you at eleven. Can you make it?”
Jeff looked at his watch. He had thirty minutes. “I can make it,” he said.
He checked his bags and went to the washroom and washed his face and combed his hair. He was glad he’d had the foresight to shave on the plane, but there was nothing he could do about his suit. When you slept in one position across an ocean then your suit simply announced that it had been slept in.
He got in a cab and said “New State” and looked again at his watch. He’d be on time.
He wondered if he’d run into Susan in the Department. He wondered if she had heard anything. He wondered if she knew anything at all of what had happened. He kept thinking of what he should tell the Secretary first, and discovered that he lacked any plan of what to say.
He reached New State and walked to the elevators, and his elevator was crowded and stopped at every floor. Everyone in the elevator looked so neat and freshly cleaned. He felt they must be noticing his suit, and the crushed collar of his shirt, and the wrinkled tie. They’d never guess he was thirty minutes off a plane from Budapest. But then, who knew where these other people had come from? Perhaps Saigon or B.A. or Hong Kong or the Mayflower Hotel. In Washington you never knew.
He got off at the fifth floor and gave his name to the receptionist, and he could tell he was expected, for she said, “Just a moment, Mr. Baker.” She lifted her phone and said, “Mr. Baker is here,” and another girl came out and said, “The Secretary will see you now, Mr. Baker.” It was happening too fast. He wasn’t getting a chance to think.
He followed the girl through the secretarial office, and there were four other girls sitting there typing, and one of them was Susan. Her back was turned towards him and he wanted to yell at her, but of course he didn’t dare.
7
The Secretary got up when he came in and extended his hand, and said, “I’m glad to see you again, Baker,” and he sounded as if he really was glad to see him. “Just sit down,” the Secretary said. He told the girl, “No calls until I let you know.”
The girl left, and he was alone with the Secretary.
There was a cable file at the edge of the desk, and now the Secretary drew it to him. “Good trip?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jeff said. “I slept all the
way across.”
“I never seem to have time to sleep on a plane,” the Secretary said. “Every trip I make I tell myself I’m going to take a rest, and sleep all the way, but it never turns out like that. There are always papers, always more papers.”
The Secretary glanced at the top papers in the file. “Now, Baker,” he said, “to save time I’ll tell you what I’ve done, and then when I’m finished you can add anything you want, and I’ll have some questions to ask you.
“In the first place I’ve talked to Matson and Quigley and Locke, and they’ve told me all they know of this matter. I want to apologize to you for one thing, Baker. I wouldn’t have initialed the cable requesting your resignation had I known at the time what I know now. I’m not blaming Mr. Matson for this. It is nobody’s fault but my own. However, that doesn’t mean that I may not request your resignation at the end of this interview. I’m just telling you that I initialed the cable without having complete information.”
“I see, sir,” Jeff said.
“After learning all I could in Washington I cabled our Embassy in Moscow, our occupation headquarters in Vienna, and the British in Klagenfurt. I requested any information that would corroborate your story.” The Secretary took three priority cable forms from the file. Those must be the replies, Jeff thought, and he knew that they were critical for him.
“Briefly,” the Secretary went on, “Moscow has never heard of any organized revolutionary movement in the Red Army or the Soviet diplomatic corps. Neither has Vienna. I am taking into account the probability that they might be the last to hear. But the important reply came from the British Zone in Austria. They are certain that nobody answering the description of Leonides Lasenko has crossed into their zone. They know nothing of any underground transmitters operating in the Hochschwab. They do have a good many Russian deserters who have taken refuge in their zone, but then, so have we.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jeff said. He wasn’t thinking of himself. He was thinking of Leonides. He tried to follow, in his mind, the route that Leonides and Marina, the gypsy girl, had taken out of Budapest towards the sanctuary in the Hochschwab. Perhaps the gypsies moved slowly. Perhaps they were very careful. Leonides said the gypsies alone knew how to run a border. He hoped Leonides was right.
“I do have one small fact to back your story,” the Secretary said. “It is a fact that the Russian Naval Attaché, Yassovsky, was recalled to Moscow and has since disappeared. But that happens to a lot of Russians. So you can understand, Baker, the position I am in. If your story about Major Lasenko and his underground was provable, then I would naturally believe your story about the penetration of Atlantis Project—which incidentally was quite a blow to us—and about everything else.”
“I understand, sir,” Jeff said. He wished his mind was sharper. His mind seemed numb, as if it had surrendered under the impact of the cables from Moscow, Vienna, and Klagenfurt. His mind had given up.
The Secretary lifted his head so that Jeff could see how grave and serious were the eyes behind the spectacles. He said, “I hope your story is true, Baker. It would be a great thing for us—for all of us, and I include the Russians—if it is true. If there are people within the Soviet Union who are willing to risk their lives for peace, then I would be confident of peace. I have not abandoned hope in any case, but such a thing would hearten me greatly. Is it true, Baker?”
“It is, sir.”
“You are sure of this Major Lasenko?”
“I am, sir.”
“Can you show me any proof—any small proof?”
Jeff shook his head. “This proof doesn’t exist, sir. I can only give you my word and my judgment.”
“And your judgment is immature,” the Secretary said.
“I don’t think it’s so immature,” Jeff said. “I think men my age: grew up awfully fast.”
The Secretary leaned back in his chair, and examined this statement. “In most cases that’s true,” he said. “But I’m not sure in your case. You see, Baker, your reaction to that explosion indicates that you might be a psycho. Now understand that I am sympathetic with men who suffered battle fatigue, but I must take this into account.”
“I know it, Mr. Secretary,” Jeff said. He hoped the Secretary would notice how calm he was. He added, “I’m not certain, but I don’t believe I could ever go to pieces again.”
“I hope not, but as you say, you’re not certain. And we have to be certain of our men, Baker. Particularly in a question like this.—which I believe is a major question—we have to be certain.”
Jeff knew that the cards had fallen against him. He had not been fully prepared for the worst, the worst was happening, and yet he found he could maintain his nerve, his calm, and his courage. He felt inwardly pleased with himself that this was possible. He said, “Mr. Secretary, I suppose you will want my resignation.”
“I think that would be best for us,” the Secretary said. “I was not going to demand your resignation, but since you yourself suggest it I think it would be best. If you remained, I could not under the circumstances entrust you with responsibilities fitting your ability. You would not like that.”
“No, I wouldn’t like that. But before I give you my resignation, Mr. Secretary, there is something I must submit. Please, Mr. Secretary, do not allow the Atlantis Project to continue. Because if you do, Mr. Secretary, it will cost lives. Some of our friends in Budapest will surely die.”
The Secretary rose. “I’m going to accept your suggestion, Baker,” he said, “but I’m also going to accept your resignation. Good luck, Baker.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Secretary.”
As he walked out of the Secretary’s office he was aware that the traffic of the State Department had congested in the outer offices while he had been inside. He realized that this matter which for him meant his whole life and his whole world was only twenty minutes out of one day for the Secretary of State.
8
In the outer office Susan was still at her desk, and now she was watching for him. He tried to smile at her, and she tried to smile back. She said, across the room, “I’m off at five.”
He said, “I’ll see you at five.”
He didn’t think that anybody noticed. He hoped not. He didn’t want to embarrass her. He realized that henceforth his association with her would embarrass her in the Department. From now on, he was an outsider, and branded unreliable.
He knew something else, too. He knew that she knew. She could tell by his face. He didn’t have a poker face, or a diplomatic face.
9
He went back to the airport and got his bags and dumped them in Stud Beecham’s apartment. He could tell by the neatness that Stud was off somewhere on a field trip, and the maid had finally caught up with the disorder. He was glad Stud was away. He would have to explain to a great many people, and in every case it would be difficult, even with Stud.
He bathed, and sent out a suit to be pressed, and fashioned a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and washed it down with milk, and then he sat down at Stud’s desk and wrote his resignation.
“To the Secretary of State
“Sir:
“Pursuant to our conversation of even date I have the honor to inform you that I am resigning from the Foreign Service of the United States.”
It was an archaic way of saying I quit, true, and yet the words seemed to possess their own majesty.
And once again he signed his full name, Jefferson Wilson Baker. He mailed the resignation in the letter box at Dupont Circle.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1
HE WAS WAITING at the Virginia Avenue entrance of New State when she came out. When he saw her his eyes became camera-like in their precision. She was sharp, and everyone else pouring down the steps of New State at the quitting hour was out of focus.
She came directly to him, her steps never hesitating, and she put her arms around his neck and they kissed right there at the corner of Twenty-first Street and Virginia Avenue, Northwest. In front
of God and everybody.
People stopped to stare. There was something of a jam at the entrance to New State. Washington is not like Paris, or New York. In Washington it is not good form to display affection in public. In Washington love is almost a bad word.
2
That evening he took her down to the waterfront for lobster. She had suggested that they eat at her apartment, but he didn’t want to do that. He was afraid that if he went to her apartment his resolution would dissolve, and they would spend little time eating. He had made his decision, it had been difficult, and it would only make it harder to tell her if they were alone in her apartment.
There was an hour spent in explanation of what he had done, and what she had done, and what both had left undone. And then there was the critical moment when she asked:
“Jeff, what about us? Where do we go from here?”
“Let’s go to the Footlight Club,” he evaded. He knew he had to end it, and yet he wanted all of this last evening.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“What happens to us now, Jeff—you and me?”
Now the time had come. Now he had to tell her. “I’m afraid this is our last time together, Susan,” he said.
“Jeff!”
She seemed startled and shocked as if he had struck her in the face, and yet he could not believe that it was this much of a surprise to her. She must sense, she must know that a man who had just resigned, by request, was not the same man who was beginning his career in The Department. “That’s the way it has to be, Susan dear.”
“But why? Why, Jeff?”