“Lots of reasons.” It was terribly difficult to put them into words. Could he say that he would be a bitter man, and a bad husband who envied his wife’s work? Could he explain that he couldn’t bear to live in Washington any more? Could he tell why he would want to avert his head every time he passed the Department of State? For one career alone he had been prepared, and now that career was gone as finally as if he had passed the age of retirement. And she was to have been part of that career.
She leaned across the table and took his hand in both her hands, and held tight to his hand. “You’re not thinking straight, Jeff,” she said.
“Yes I am thinking straight.”
“No you’re not.” She was trying to speak lightly and with confidence. “You’re out of the Department now and we can get married. I want to marry you. I want to be with you every night, Jeff.”
He tried to pull his hand away but she clung to him. “It wouldn’t work that way, Susan. You marry me and you know what’d happen?”
“We’d live happily ever after.”
“No we wouldn’t, Susan dear. You’d find yourself transferred to being stenographer on the Costa Rica desk. They wouldn’t let you take the nine o’clock conference any more. They’d put you in a cubbyhole for life. They don’t want women in sensitive jobs whose husbands have been kicked out of the Department with a mark on them.”
“You haven’t any mark, Jeff.”
“Yes I have. Nobody will say so, and nobody will speak of it, but I have a mark.”
The grip on his hand relaxed, and he drew it away. “My darling,” she said, “my Jeff. I don’t care if I have to work on the Costa Rica desk, or even if they put me in the International Boundary Commission, or the Hemp and Flax Policy Board.”
He shook his head, and she thought how much older he looked. He had grown up, attained maturity and mature judgment. “You think you wouldn’t care,” he said, “but you would. Just as I am going to care. There will be no moment when I will not wish I was back in the Department. I’ll get a job all right, and I’ll have enough money for myself, and outwardly there won’t be any blemish on me. But inside I’ll never feel right.”
“Oh, Jeff.”
He knew she was beginning to understand, as Rikki had understood. He was poison. “Can you imagine how it would be,” he went on, “if you still had a job in the Department and we still lived in Washington and we invited our friends in the Department to a cocktail party, or dinner? They’d clam up. They’d be afraid to talk in front of me. I’m an outcast, Susan.”
“I can quit. We can go away, Jeff,” she said.
“No, Susan.”
“You don’t have to be married to me to live with me,” she said.
“That won’t help. That’d be worse. That isn’t the way we were supposed to live, Susan.”
She saw she was defeated. She lowered her head so he could not see the defeat in her eyes. “Pay the check,” she said quietly, “and take me home.”
As they went out of the door she said, “Jeff, you forgot your hat.”
He put his hand on the top of his head, awkwardly, as if he expected a hat to grow there. “I guess I didn’t have it on tonight,” he said. “I must have left it somewhere.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
1
THE CENTURY PASSED its halfway mark, and raced onward towards its destiny.
One night late in January, at eleven o’clock Central European Time and five in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time, a new shortwave radio station went on the air in Europe. It called itself RFR—for Radio Free Russia—and it pirated a wave length in the eleven megacycle band, right next to Radio Moscow, so that everyone who customarily listened to Moscow heard it.
It caused quite a sensation, because it was the first Russian resistance radio.
2
Madame Angell was among the first to hear it in Budapest.
She didn’t remember when she had been so excited, and yet there was no one to tell except Sandor, the building superintendent and elevator operator, who naturally wouldn’t believe her.
She put on her tattered and stained wrapper and rushed out into the hallway, not that she expected to find anyone there, but simply because she felt she must do something.
The room that had been occupied by Mr. Baker was still vacant. Mr. Todd had paid the rent for January, as if he expected Mr. Baker to come back. She entered this vacant room. She hadn’t made a thorough inspection of the room since Mr. Baker left, and now was as good a time as any. Mr. Baker had always been so attentive when she brought him the news. She had liked Mr. Baker. And who could tell, the American might have forgotten some candy, or a package of sugar?
It was peculiar that he hadn’t bothered to take down his maps. She examined the maps carefully, and she recognized that they were very good maps. How wonderful it would be if she herself had those maps! How much more the international broadcasts would mean with maps such as these.
Yet she dared not take them down, for fear Mr. Todd might come and see they were missing.
She looked in the bureau drawers. Sure enough, there was half a chocolate bar under a newspaper. She took a bite, and put the remaining fragment in the pocket of her wrapper. She wished either Mr. Baker would come back, or Mr. Todd would get her another American. She missed her sweets.
She looked in the closet. There was a shape in the top of the closet. She reached up and took a hat off the top shelf. It was Mr. Baker’s black homburg. She was aware that it was the only hat Mr. Baker had and she wondered how he could be so careless as to forget it.
She scurried out of the room and back into her own apartment, taking the hat with her. It was, anyone could see, an expensive American hat, a diplomat’s hat. It would bring a fancy price on the Black Bourse. One didn’t see hats like this in Budapest, except on the heads of foreign diplomats. It would, she estimated, bring three hundred forints. That was a considerable sum of money.
Yet she hesitated to sell it. She had a premonition that Mr. Baker was coming back, and if she kept his hat for him, he would reward her with sweets, and that was better than money.
Madame Angell put the hat into her own closet, and listened again to this fascinating new station, that was Russian and yet was not Russian.
3
Others were listening.
In the American Legation on the Szabadzag-tér a bi-lingual monitor was taking it off the air. He soon knew it was important enough to be recorded, and switched on the recording machine.
In Klagenfurt the monitors of the British Political Warfare Executive were listening. The signal of RFR was very strong in Klagenfurt, and the chief monitor ordered that other stations in the British Zone of Austria tune it in, and obtain a triangulation, for he suspected that the transmitter was very close.
In addition he had a watch order for such a station. London had wanted to know whether such a station existed. London had said Washington was curious. He had replied that no such station had ever been on the air in his area. Up to now, he had been right. Washington must have known something.
In the morning he would draft a synopsis of these broadcasts and telegraph them to London, although he suspected that the transmitter was sufficiently powerful to be heard both in London and across the Atlantic.
It was heard in London. A complete text was recorded, quickly transcribed, and sent to Whitehall, with a copy to Washington. This was an unusual matter.
It was even heard in Washington. Out on the Maryland capes the monitors of Central Intelligence Agency, dialing for Radio Moscow, had picked up this RFR instead. They missed the first few minutes of the broadcast, but they kept themselves eagerly tuned to the rest. And they recorded it, and prepared to send a special bulletin to the War, Navy, Air and State Departments so they’d have it in the morning.
The CIA cabled its people abroad for additional information.
4
Radio Moscow was the first to react to the new transmitter. At two in the morning, in a Hindu broadcast to India, Moscow sa
id:
“The desperate Anglo-American political warfare offensive has just tried an infamous trick. Using a British station in the British Zone of Austria they now pretend to be the mouthpiece of a Russian counter-revolutionary movement.
“There is no counter-revolutionary movement against the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. No such station as RFR actually exists. It is most contemptible. At no time since Lenin overthrew the Czarist regime has there ever been such complete accord and tranquility within the Soviet state.”
When they heard Moscow’s denial the British in London and Klagenfurt, and the Americans in Budapest and Washington knew that RFR was genuine. It was the goods. They got their propaganda planners out of bed to tell them the news, and lay plans to capitalize on this crack within the Soviet ranks.
5
Admiral Blankenhorn heard of it at breakfast. When his Filipino mess boy brought breakfast to the Admiral’s bedroom he also brought a summary of the night’s news, and the monitoring report, the mimeographed paper still damp, from the Legation.
On this day there was a special box drawn on top of the monitoring report, headed “BULLETIN.”
It read:
“A new short wave station with a very strong signal came on the air last night with news and propaganda especially directed to Russian troops in the occupied areas. Its call letters are RFR—for Radio Free Russia. It also calls itself the station of the Second Russian Revolution.
“This new station claims to represent a group of Soviet military men and government people. It says that an underground battle against the present regime has been going on.
“A portion of the broadcast was devoted to a memorial to those men, who, this station claims, have already died for the Second Russian Revolution. It mentioned twenty or more names, but of special interest to this post were the names of Yassovsky, former Naval Attaché, and a Major Leonides Lasenko, who had been stationed in Budapest, according to the broadcast. According to the broadcast Yassovsky was murdered after torture at a Black Sea naval base, and Lasenko was shot to death while trying to cross the border into the British Zone of Austria. Also named as a hero was an unidentified gypsy girl who supposedly gave her life trying to lead Lasenko to safety . . .”
The Admiral didn’t read any further. A good commander expected the unexpected. On occasion the Admiral hadn’t been a good commander. There were ships in Iron Bottom Bay to prove that. But he was learning.
The Admiral thought it over very carefully as he had his two poached eggs on toast, frozen orange juice, and small cup of coffee. And when he went down to the Legation he drafted a cable to the Secretary of State:
“I have always had greatest confidence in Jefferson W. Baker and for this reason felt that his story, improbable as it may have seemed at the time, be brought to your personal attention.
“In view of today’s developments I feel that Budapest is the logical place in which to initiate liaison with the Russian group fighting against the present Soviet regime. I also feel that Baker, working under Keller’s direction, would be the logical man to undertake such liaison. Naturally operations of the other project which must be unnamed have been discontinued ever since I talked to Baker.”
This was what was known, in military parlance, as seizing the initiative. The Admiral didn’t want to be returned to Navy yet. If he was returned to Navy now they’d put him in command of an inactive fleet. They’d give him a battleship as a flagship all right, but the chances were that it would be an old battleship. It might even have been used at Bikini, and therefore be so radioactive that neither he nor anyone else could safely board it. It would be much better, for the time being, to remain in Budapest.
6
Jeff Baker read the news in The Post. He had gone around the corner to the little breakfast shop on Connecticut Avenue, and he’d bought a Post on the way so he could go through the help wanted ads. He didn’t really think he’d get a decent job out of the ads, but whenever he read them they gave him ideas. It wasn’t tough to get a job—a job—but it was hard finding a job he thought he’d like.
He sat down on a stool in the breakfast shop and ordered a pineapple juice and ham and egg sandwich, and first black coffee. He would drink this first coffee, and then he’d read and eat, and then he’d have another coffee, as was his custom. He opened The Post and looked at the front page headlines. Headlines are so impersonal. It takes a long time for you to understand that a headline can be personal. Like this one-column headline on the first page:
“FREE RUSSIA RADIO
TAKES AIR; PLEDGES
DEMOCRATIC ACTION”
He read it three times before he realized it might be personally interesting.
Then he raced through the banks, and the lead, and came to the paragraph about Leonides being killed, and he couldn’t eat any more.
The waitress said, “Whattsa matter, bad egg?”
He said, “Oh, no. The egg’s all right.” He wanted to get out of there. He wanted to be by himself. He left a dollar on the counter, which was more than his usual payment and tip, and left. He went back to the apartment on Riggs Court. He lay full length on the bed, face down with his toes hanging over the end, and cried. In the course of a lifetime a man has so few real friends that when he loses one it is as if he himself had died a little.
Jeff’s mind distorted the first impact of the news, the way minds will when emotion elbows out cold logic. His first thought was that with Leonides dead he’d never be able to prove what he had told. Then he began to understand that the broadcast itself was proof.
He had a tendency to feel elated. He had a bloated “I told you so” feeling. He tried to fight down this feeling, but he felt he must talk to someone. Stud had now left for the office. It was not yet ten o’clock so Susan would still be in her conference. He hadn’t seen Susan. Now he wanted to see her.
There was Horace Locke. He dialed the State Department, and asked for Locke’s extension, and Locke answered. He said, “Hello, this is Jeff Baker. Mr. Locke, did you see the story about the Russian broadcast—I mean about RFR like I told you?”
“I saw it,” Horace Locke said calmly. “I was just going to call you.”
“Well, what do you think about it, Mr. Locke?”
“I think this is an excellent time for you to contain yourself. You were right. But it is not enough that you be right. You must accept your rightness gracefully and diplomatically. You’ve won a victory, Jeff, but you mustn’t gloat.”
“I don’t quite get it,” Jeff said.
“Think it over,” said Horace Locke, “and I think you’ll get it. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to be a diplomat. You can be tough now. You’re on top. But if you’re smart you’ll be generous.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeff said. He thought it over, and he understood what Horace Locke meant.
7
Gerald Matson heard of the broadcast. The news of it went through every Division of the Department, even into the Visa Division. Matson didn’t quite know why he was in Visa, instead of Chief of Balkans.
He had taken a backward step. Quigley, the security man, had talked to him, and talked to Anya, and even talked to Iggy. Everything had been pleasant, and conducted in what the Department called a “good atmosphere,” but Matson knew he was through, finito, kaput.
8
The Secretary of State learned of the broadcast, and of Moscow’s reaction, at the nine o’clock conference. Usually the Secretary plucked his early morning news out of Art Godfrey’s broadcast. But on this morning he overslept and missed Godfrey.
The news was on the top of the Secretary’s nine o’clock conference file. Usually the monitoring reports were on the bottom, for they were considered of less importance than the spot news, and the cables from London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Moscow. But on this day the girl who arranged his file—Mrs. Pickett—had somehow managed the file so that the monitoring reports met his eye first.
The Secretary looked at this thing, and digested it. Al
l its potentialities were instantly clear to him. He knew that what some of his advisers had said could not happen, had happened nevertheless. He sought a parallel in history, and found it easily. People had said the Japanese would never surrender, that the Japanese were monolithic and would fight fanatically to the last man. But Zacharias and Mashbir had contended otherwise. They’d said the Japanese were human beings, and being human had no love of death. The Russians too were human.
The Secretary’s thought changed from politics to people. He said, “Where’s Jeff Baker?”
Everybody was silent. Nobody knew.
“What happened to Baker?” the Secretary demanded. “Where is he?”
Nobody said anything except the girl who took the nine o’clock conference and all she said was, “I know where he is, Mr. Secretary.”
“I’d like to see him,” the Secretary said, “after the conference.”
Everybody at the conference—the Undersecretary, and the Assistant Secretaries, and the Chiefs of Division, and the Special Planners—looked at Susan Pickett. An unexpected thing had happened: It was as if a chair had spoken.
“I think I’ll be able to find him,” Susan Pickett said.
The Secretary said, “Thanks, Mrs. Pickett.” His eyes were hurting again. He frowned and took off his glasses and laid them across his file. Sometimes he wondered whether he knew everything that went on inside The Department of State.
About the Author
PAT FRANK (1908—1964) is the author of the classic postapocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon, as well as the nuclear satire Mr. Adam. Before becoming an author, Frank worked as a journalist and also as a propagandist for the government. He is one of the first science fiction writers to deal with the consequences of atomic warfare.