There was one thing he knew for certain. He would attempt to do whatever was asked of him—it appeared as though he had little choice in that regard. But when it was over, he would return to England. He would return to his ship.
Lightholler emerged from the hotel lobby at twelve-thirty. He needed fresh air and time to collect his thoughts. Despite the early spring sunshine, chill gusts of wind raced down Park Avenue. He flipped up his collar and wrapped his coat tightly around himself. He tucked his fedora under his arm. The avenue was teeming with people. Businessmen on lunch breaks, children capering from storefront to storefront, tourists in town to see the Titanic. Some samurai slouched against a phone booth, smoking. They gave him a quick once-over and resumed their conversation, eyeing the crowds with the detachment of zookeepers long since weary of their charges.
Since his arrival Lightholler had noticed a steady increase in the military presence. Not for the first time he yearned to be back in London. At least there the soldiers spoke English. New York enfolded him with the insincere embrace that most newcomers fell for. Before the navy and fresh out of the academy, he’d come to New York to celebrate the turn of the millennium. He’d visited Astor Place and taken coffee with distant cousins and listened as they reiterated the stories he’d been raised upon. John Jacob Astor and Charles Lightholler, clinging to the remains of a broken lifeboat, forging covenants that would be borne out in ways they could never have imagined.
Astor and Lightholler, New York and London. The two worlds that bound him.
A doorman approached him. “Call you a cab, Captain?”
“Thank you.”
The doorman gave an ear-splitting whistle and threw an arm up in the air. In moments a dilapidated yellow taxi pulled up to the kerb. Lightholler ducked into the back after handing the doorman a thousand-yen note.
The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. He asked for Lightholler’s destination in broken English. A thin pale scar ran from his left temple to just above his lip—probably a refugee from one of the Occupied Territories.
“St Marks Place,” Lightholler replied, and sank back into the worn leather seat.
Despite the chill, he wound down the grime-stained window as they proceeded east on 50th Street, then downtown on Second Avenue. On his right, the scarlet towers of the Summer Palace soared into the smog-ridden heights. To the left, through narrow intersections, he caught glimpses of the East River. The Brooklyn shore, grey and broken, stretched out along the waterway. As they crossed 14th Street, the spires and skyscrapers of Midtown grudgingly gave way to the tenements and brownstones of the Lower East Side. If you closed your eyes, he thought, just slightly, made the street signs a blur so that the names were illegible, you could almost believe the Japanese had never been here at all.
Almost.
The taxi pulled up at the Second Avenue corner of St Marks Place in a garland of brown exhaust. Lightholler paid the fare, just managing to escape the cab before it rushed back into the seethe of morning traffic.
IV
Kennedy took the call in what passed for the brownstone’s office. David Hardas’s voice sounded strained on the other end of the line.
“What have you got?” Kennedy asked, trying to keep his darker thoughts at bay. “Lightholler spent most of the morning on the phone. He’s just left the Waldorf.”
Kennedy checked his Einstein watch. It was twelve-forty. “Did he check out?”
“He wasn’t carrying any suitcases.”
“He won’t run. Who’s watching him?”
“Good question,” Hardas replied. “I saw the doorman put a tail on him.”
That was pretty fast. Not surprising, but fast. Playing host to the Russo– Japanese peace talks would attract some attention; involvement in the operation outlined by Saffel would garner a lot more. Kennedy had allowed the surveillance devices in Lightholler’s suite to operate just long enough to verify the identity of his visitors. His association with Project Camelot would confer immunity within the higher echelons of the intelligence communities. The question was: who had placed Lightholler under surveillance—the Germans or the Japanese?
“Abwehr or Kempei-Tai?” he asked.
“You won’t believe this, Major. They’re Bureau.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I made the doorman. He’s one of ours.”
Kennedy considered the possibilities for a moment. The Bureau’s mandate didn’t extend beyond the Confederacy’s borders. Camelot, by its very nature, was the exception. So what the hell was going on here?
“Then he’s double-dealing,” Kennedy said. “Has to be.”
“I doubt it. I caught the last part of his transmission, Major. Got zip on the standard Jap and Kraut bandwidths so I put it through one of our decoders for the hell of it. He was using a Bureau frequency.”
“Anything tricky?” Kennedy asked.
“No, Major. Routine settings. Way I see it, they don’t know we’re after him, or they simply don’t give a shit.”
“Neither option’s appealing.”
Kennedy tried putting it all together. First Saffel, now this. Was the CBI watching Lightholler independently, or keeping tabs on Camelot itself?
“Any mention of our visit to the captain?” he asked.
“None, but I only heard a snatch before he broke off.”
“What’ve you done about it?”
“I’ve got Collins and Shaw following the tail.”
Collins and Shaw: two CBI operatives who’d accompanied Kennedy here from Nevada. They’d been with him since Camelot’s inception.
“Do they know they’re following CBI agents?” Kennedy asked.
“It won’t take them long to figure it out. Is that a problem?”
“Could be. We’ll see how it plays out. Have them report back to you on one of our frequencies and get back down here. I need you here straightaway.”
Kennedy ended the call.
So another player had entered the game. Someone within the Bureau was offering new pieces and changing the rules, advancing pawns of a different colour. Behind them, emerging from the void, would come the knights, the castles and finally the sovereign.
But who was moving them?
V
It took Hardas twenty minutes to cross town. Shine handed him a glass of rye as he entered the suite. Kennedy ushered him towards a chair. He drained the glass and poured himself another, anticipating the worst.
Kennedy told him about Saffel’s report.
He listened, asking the occasional question and nodding his head gravely at each reply. It was bold and it was insane, but it was possible. Nevada had taught him that anything was possible. He smudged a finger through the pile of cold ashes on the table and spoke up.
“Why would the Germans pull a stunt like this now? As far as anyone knows, Camelot is ready to roll.”
“This stunt was years in the making. Maybe they were using Camelot as a smokescreen.”
“They wouldn’t be the first.”
Kennedy offered a cool smile. “It may amount to nothing. We need to know for sure before we start changing our own plans.”
“You think Lightholler is involved?”
“I have to assume the worst. I want you to prove me wrong.”
“And the Bureau knows what’s going on?”
“Like I said...” Kennedy’s voice trailed away.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Shine asked. “The CBI?”
Hardas started at the sound of the man’s voice. Shine made a habit of slipping into the background.
“They will soon enough,” Kennedy said. “I’m going to call in.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Hardas said. “Director Webster thinks we’re in Louisiana, Major.”
“If Webster has a watch team on Lightholler, it won’t take him long to connect the dots. We don’t want to be tarred with the same brush. Besides, we don’t have any choice. Camelot has been in the works for the past three years
and in all that time we’ve had free rein in its operation. Now that it’s on the boil, the Bureau sends another team across the border. I need to know why.”
“Why take the chance?” Hardas asked. “We’re about done here anyway. All we have to do is grab Lightholler and run. Hit Nevada and then...” he snapped his fingers, “we’re gone.”
“It’s not that simple. If Lightholler is part of the German plot, he’s a liability. We may have to forget about him.”
“Forget about him... how?” Shine asked.
Kennedy cast him a glance. “Just forget about him.” He paused a moment. “Thing is, we lose Lightholler and we lose our contingency plan.”
“We don’t need a contingency plan, Major,” Shine said softly.
“Everyone needs a contingency plan.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over to the window. He stood before it with his face twisted into a scowl, then turned his gaze towards the old flag and murmured, “I’ve got a bad feeling that this is where it all starts.”
“It’s too early,” Hardas said.
“We don’t know that. We don’t know how it begins, just how it ends.”
Hardas suppressed a shudder. It was time to ask the question no one wanted to hear.
“Do you think Webster knows?” he asked. “Do you think he has any idea about what we’re really up to?”
“I can’t see how,” Kennedy replied after a long silence. “He’d be doing a lot more than watching us if he even suspected such a thing.” When he spoke again it was with a measure of renewed vigour. “Morgan will be back around five, right?”
Hardas and Shine both nodded.
“Get going then, David. We need to know what we need to know. Martin, I need you to stay here. I have no idea how Webster’s going to react once I blow our cover. With a second CBI task force in New York— one that’s potentially hostile—we’ll have to move fast. I need us ready to ship out at a moment’s notice. Can you take care of that?”
“Sure thing, Major,” Shine replied.
“If Morgan gets back before we do, keep him in the dark. We need him clear and focused.”
“We need him like a hole in the head,” Hardas muttered.
Kennedy cut him off. “Keep a sharp eye out, Martin.”
Hardas rose to join Kennedy as he made for the doorway.
“If things go our way, we’re going to need somewhere close by to complete Lightholler’s recruitment,” Kennedy said, closing the door behind them. “Somewhere the CBI doesn’t know about.”
“I can think of a place,” Hardas said as they descended the stairs.
Outside the building, the afternoon sun assailed their eyes. Hardas lit up, then turned his face away to exhale before speaking. “Maybe we make for Neverland.”
“I thought that was what you had in mind.”
“It’s underneath the radar, Major, and it’s a day away from Red Rock. We fly in, turn Lightholler, fly out.”
Kennedy, silent, seemed lost in thought.
“A ranch in Arkansas is the last place anyone will be looking for us.” Hardas sensed Kennedy’s uncertainty and added, “If you think we can take Lightholler straight to Nevada, that’s what we’ll do—you’re the boss. But if you think we need a place to sort him out, where else did you have in mind?”
“Neverland,” Kennedy said after a moment. “Where else would lost boys go?”
Hardas had only visited the ranch once. He tried to picture a younger version of Kennedy playing pirate around the coves and thickets of Lake Hamilton.
“We’re not lost, Major. Just a little shook up is all.” Hardas tried to muster a smile. He took a drag on his cigarette and waited for a reply.
“Go down to the pier. Find out what the hell is going on. I’ve got a call to make.” Kennedy checked his Einstein. “We’ll meet back here at four.”
Hardas watched Kennedy leave. He thought about what he had to do and where he had to go. He thought about what he’d set in motion, all those years ago. He frowned and tossed his cigarette onto the pavement and made for the pier.
VI
The twin towers of the Krupp Corporation rose above the plaza where Fifth Avenue ended at Waverly Place, casting lengthy shadows across Wilhelm Square.
Standing at the entrance to the park, Kennedy caught a glimpse of the statue that had fascinated him in his youth. Age-worn and mistreated, the Kaiser’s effigy still held on to his stallion’s bridle with a firm grip. Under an Uhlan’s helmet, his fiercely moustached face glared down at the communist hordes who cowered beneath his mount. Streaks of rust smeared the high cheekbones of his grim visage with bloody tears. The plaque at the pedestal’s base, commemorating the Kaiser’s victory over the Soviets and the reinstatement of the Tsar in 1945, was barely decipherable.
The monument’s condition was symptomatic. “Little Prussia” was finally falling apart. In the brief interim between the Great War and the Second Secession there’d been a vast migration of war-weary Germans to the East Coast. The majority had settled around this neighbourhood, but what had been a thriving community nearly a century ago had been reduced to a few streets around the square. The ink had scarcely dried on MacArthur’s offer of unconditional surrender in 1948 before the first wave of Japanese settlers had arrived, and they’d been coming ever since.
All that remained were the Krupp towers and the park. Despite growing anti-German sentiment during the Cold War, the city’s new masters had thought it imprudent to change the square’s name. It remained an enclave to those Germans who were too old or too poor to leave.
Kennedy shook his head and strode past the statue across the park, to the southwest corner. He was greeted by a familiar sight beneath the spread of wide-branched trees. Men sitting on benches, hunched over the chessboards that had been carved into the tables. The youngest of them had to be at least sixty. They wore a variety of shabby greatcoats; the litany of a dozen German campaigns documented on the faded crests of their lapels.
Of all the places I could have chosen, he wondered, why come here?
In 1947, just prior to the Japanese Occupation, Joseph Patrick Kennedy I, his great-grandfather, had moved the clan south. The Secession may have been ratified in ’32, but for many Americans the country’s fracture was an ongoing process. A considerable number of New England families had gone on to form a Union enclave in New Orleans. While the Rothschilds and the Roosevelts maintained a ghetto-like existence in the fledgling nation, the Kennedys, with their new money and political connections, were readily assimilated into the burgeoning Confederate “aristocracy”. At least until 1963 and the bloodshed of Dealey Plaza.
Kennedy’s grandfather, Joseph Patrick II, was appointed the Confederate ambassador to the Union. He returned to the North in the late fifties with his youngest brother, Edward, while his brothers John and Robert stayed to pursue their interests in the South. Kennedy’s grandfather relinquished his post in ’63, when the circumstances of his brothers’ deaths laid to rest any desire he might have had for a future in politics. He’d stayed in the North, however, maintaining a residence on Fifth Avenue.
Nearly every winter up until the age of thirteen, Kennedy could recall accompanying his father to New York. His earliest memories were the journeys through old battlefields and towns, little more than smudges along the railway tracks. The sweet musk of the rocking carriages, the vacant stares of the border guards as they changed trains prior to entering the Prefecture of New York. Once he’d even made the long journey by airship.
Between visits to museums and galleries and quiet evenings at the mansion, his father would take him to the park. They would bring sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. They would stand and watch the men play chess in silence. Occasionally his father would lean down, whispering a soft explanation of the intricacies being played out before them, and Kennedy would nod between bites of his sandwich in what he hoped passed for understanding. Despite many offers, Kennedy’s father had always refused to play with the old soldiers.
The man placed two different pawns, one in each hand, behind his back. Kennedy had stared at the man as if his gaze could burn through his skin, as if he could see the very pieces themselves. The man had laughed when Kennedy sat unmoving as the bronze and orange leaves spiralled onto the untouched board. Eventually he shrugged his left shoulder.
“That one,” Kennedy had called out. “The left.”
“Not all choices will come to you so easily,” the man had said, smiling. “No matter how long you deliberate.” He opened his hand to reveal the black pawn rolling in his palm. “Chess is not a game of trust.”
Kennedy had frowned and turned to his father, who said nothing. The man set the board up with a briskness that belied his age, his elbows sweeping away the accumulated leaves, his fingers darting over the pieces as he positioned them.
“We start,” he said, advancing his king’s pawn with a flourish.
Kennedy responded by mirroring the move.
The man brought forwards a knight to threaten the pawn.
Kennedy advanced his own to offer protection.
The man advanced his bishop to threaten the exposed knight. He pointed a wavering finger at Kennedy’s pawn. “I think you like this piece too much.”
Kennedy had leaned back on his haunches, examining the board.
The man sat watching Kennedy’s face with a thin smile. “What to do? Threaten my bishop, thus imperilling your defences? Retreat your knight ignominiously and lose your much-loved pawn?”
Kennedy felt a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Either way, Joe,” his father said, “you have to lose something.” He knelt down and added, “Eventually you have to lose a piece. Just make it worthwhile.”
Kennedy had gone on to lose piece by piece, the man drawing him out in exchange after exchange until the board was sparsely populated by isolated pawns and other lower pieces. The two kings stood warily at opposite sides of the board.
The Company of the Dead Page 8
