The Wilson Deception

by David O. Stewart

  “Say, barkeep,” Fraser said with a smile, “I hear you’ve got a new cocktail here, called a box car?”

  Cook’s face showed no expression. “Do you mean the sidecar, sir?”

  “Perhaps I do.” They shook hands. While Cook mixed the drink, Fraser eyed the three brazil nuts left in the dish. They looked like rocks. He decided against them. A group of three next to him spoke intensely in what sounded like Spanish. He tried to eavesdrop, but could make no sense of their talk.

  “Don’t even try,” Cook said as he slid the drink in front of Fraser. “It’s Portuguese. Can’t make hide nor hair of it. I think they’re planning to buy Rio de Janeiro when they go home, after they peddle some bogus Brazilian bonds to a lot of French suckers.” He picked up the bills Fraser had left on the bar, then handed his change back to him. Fraser dropped the coins on the bar as a tip. The room key, which Cook had slipped to him with the coins, went into his trousers pocket.

  “Lively night?” Fraser said.

  “They all come here.” Cook started rinsing glasses in a sink under the bar. He had a good view of the lobby from that spot. He added, his voice covered by the enthusiastic Brazilians, “The Dulles boys went up an hour ago. Haven’t seen them since. Could be anywhere in the building.”

  “Well, I can’t hang around tonight. I’ve got early morning rounds at the hospital.”

  “You heard about Thursday?”

  Fraser shook his head.

  “May Day. Lots of chatter about it. The unions, the Bolsheviks, the anarchists, they’re all planning some big whoop-dedo. You know, they couldn’t raise hell during the war without getting shot, so they’re itching to do it now. I hear it may get rough.”

  “Sounds like that would be a good time for my project.”

  Cook nodded.

  “Maybe Joshua could arrange to make some report to Dulles the day before, make sure I find something good in Dulles’ papers. Or maybe he could give Dulles something that he shouldn’t have, then I find that.”

  “I’ll mention it to him.” Cook looked over Fraser’s shoulder. “Or you can tell him yourself.”

  Joshua approached them, still in his valet suit. “Another rush, Major Fraser. Admiral Grayson again, at the residence.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t exactly know, but there’s some grim faces back there.”

  Standing to leave, Fraser said to Cook, “Let me know anything you hear about Thursday. I’ll shoot for it.”

  Grayson met Fraser in the third-floor corridor. He looked tense and tired. “I suspect,” he began, “it’s some recurrence of the flu.”

  Fraser adopted a stern look. “From what I’ve read in the newspapers, the president hasn’t even begun to take the sort of rest that I prescribed, the sort of rest that’s crucial for recovery.”

  “Look here, Fraser,” Grayson snapped, “Woodrow Wilson is not some infantryman from Des Moines who can go off and rest in a hospital for weeks on end. Need I remind you who he is and what he’s trying to achieve right now?”

  Fraser choked back a retort about how dead men can’t achieve anything at all. Grayson spun and led him into the president’s room.

  A nurse rose from the president’s bedside, making room for Fraser. Mrs. Wilson remained in her chair on the other side of the bed. Wilson was propped half-upright on a stack of pillows. His skin was gray, his breathing labored, his eyes closed behind his glasses.

  Taking his pulse, Fraser asked, “Can you tell me, sir, what happened?”

  Wilson opened his eyes. “Ah, Doctor. You will form the impression that I’m frail.”

  “The strongest fall sick, sir. Did this spell come upon you as it did last time?”

  “No, not at all.” Wilson’s voice was hoarse. He struggled to clear it. “I couldn’t hold my pen. My hand, you know. It’s happened before, years ago. I can write with either hand, well enough, anyway. It’s sort of a parlor trick.”

  Fraser concentrated on his patient’s voice and appearance.

  “This time, I lost some vision.”

  “Which eye?”

  “The left.” He pointed with his right hand.

  “How is it now, the vision?”

  “The same. I can see you, and of course my sweet Edith.” He smiled slightly.

  “And you could walk? No limping?”

  Wilson took a breath. “Yes, though I was awfully tired. Really too tired to walk.”

  Fraser completed the examination with one-word instructions to the patient. His concern deepened and his anger with Grayson mounted.

  When he stood up and exhaled noisily, Wilson asked, “Your verdict is?”

  Fraser was forming a sentence in his mind when Grayson spoke. “Please, Mr. President. Allow me to consult with Dr. Fraser. We’ll be back in a moment.”

  Following Grayson out of the room, Fraser thought the top of his head might blow off. When Grayson closed the door behind them, he burst out. “If that’s the flu, I’m the queen of Sheba. You must know the last wave of flu has subsided throughout the city. And you also must know that the president has suffered a stroke, very likely not his first. From all appearances, this may be a damaging one.” When Grayson said nothing, he added, “He’s very sick.”

  For a moment, Grayson avoided Fraser’s eyes. He looked alarmed. Then he drew himself up. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked Fraser in the face. “You don’t know Mr. Wilson’s constitution as I do. I’ve treated him for many years. He’s not showing symptoms of a stroke, but rather a recurrence of flu. I’m shocked, and not a little disappointed, that you don’t see it.”

  “Good God, Grayson, a medical student would recognize this as a stroke. You must tell the patient the truth. He needs rest, a great deal of it, and we have no idea the effect this episode will have on his faculties. His judgment, his personality, they could be altered. If they are, heaven help us and the nation.”

  “You misunderstand, Major Fraser, the role of being physician to the president.”

  Fraser could think of nothing to say that he hadn’t already said. Hitting Grayson probably wouldn’t help the president.

  “Barnes!” Grayson called to Joshua, who was standing at the head of the staircase, awaiting any assignment. “Please arrange a car to deliver Dr. Fraser wherever he needs to be next.” With a sharp nod at Fraser, Grayson stepped back into Wilson’s room and closed the door behind him.

  Fraser considered following him into the room and speaking directly to Wilson, but decided against it. He had been summoned to consult with Grayson, not to take charge of the president’s care. And the president must be able to tell that this bout was nothing like the flu he had suffered weeks before. And even if he was too sick to realize that, then certainly Mrs. Wilson must. Very likely Grayson’s misdiagnosis was exactly what the Wilsons wanted. Well, Fraser would be no part of such duplicity.

  Frustrated, Fraser began to walk toward Joshua. As he reached the end of the corridor, the younger man unexpectedly lifted a tray holding a pitcher, then turned quickly and collided with Fraser, spilling water over both of them.

  “Son of a bitch!” Fraser exploded.

  Joshua grabbed a towel from a nearby table and began to dab at Fraser’s suit. He insisted that they step into a side room where he could dry Fraser’s jacket and trousers.

  Behind the closed door, Fraser continued to sputter. “For Christ’s sake, Joshua, there had to be another way to pull me aside. I’m drenched.” He wrenched the towel from Joshua’s hand so he could use it himself.

  “Sorry. This is what came to mind.”

  “So you heard?”

  “I figure they could hear you out on the street.”

  “And you understood.”

  “Not real complicated, is it?”

  Fraser gave the towel back. “Use it on yourself. You’re as wet as I am.”

  “The thing is, do I tell this to Dulles? To Boucher? I’m supposed to see both of them tonight, and this is real dynamite.”

&nbs
p; Fraser took a breath. “I don’t know.” He tried to think. “Oh, hell, no, you can’t tell them, certainly not Boucher.” He drew his lips into a tight line. His trousers felt clammy against his skin. “Based on what Grayson says, I suppose we have to assume that the president wants to conceal his true condition. And you”—he pointed his finger at Joshua—“work for the president.”

  “I work for a lot of people. And even if I work for him, is he in his right mind? Should his instructions be followed?”

  “Right.” Fraser leaned back against the door frame. “Right. I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can help you with that.”

  “How about you—what are you going to say to Boucher? You work for the president, too, as a soldier.”

  Fraser pulled his trousers away from his skin. “Damned if I know.” He made a quick face. “Oh, I suppose I do know. I certainly won’t bring it up.”

  “And if Boucher does?”

  “I suppose I’ll lie. It’s quite the fashion right now.”

  Two men began to rise from a table of four in the dining room of the Hotel Majestic, where the British delegation was headquartered. One turned to the smaller of two men who remained seated. Holding out his hand, he said, “I’m afraid my conversation didn’t interest you much.”

  Colonel Lawrence ignored the outstretched hand and replied in a low voice. “It didn’t interest me at all.”

  The other seated man, solidly built and jowly, tried to cover the moment by bidding a matey farewell. When the others were gone, he finished the champagne in his glass and nodded to a nearby waiter for more. He turned a bemused look on Lawrence. “Throwing over that career in diplomacy, are we?”

  Lawrence leaned forward on his elbows. “Mr. Churchill, nothing good will come of this diplomacy here in Paris. Not for Palestine or for Arabia or for Britain.”

  “How can you be so certain? Most of the known universe is here in Paris, all expecting great things of this conference.”

  “President Wilson, I’m afraid, is like an amiable host, endlessly prattling on about the League of Nations while the guests pilfer the silver. And the PM, well, he’s simply unable to focus on anything beyond the next edition of the Times.”

  “You’re most unfair,” Winston Churchill said. “Mr. Lloyd George often plans his strategies so they anticipate several consecutive editions of the newspapers.”

  Lawrence leaned even further forward. “You must understand. Clemenceau is irresistible, a force of nature. Bullets in flight turn away from him in terror.”

  Churchill took a moment to light a long, fat cigar, then spoke again. “What do you wish me to do? Mr. Lloyd George is my leader. I am but a modest Minister of War for a nation no longer at war.”

  Lawrence hated the cigar smoke. He tried to ignore it. “Get him to stall. He must delay. He’s very good at that. He can stop and tie his shoelaces, go out for a drink of water, or call in sick with indigestion. Mark my words, Churchill. No wise agreements will be reached here. Arabs, Jews, British, all will be better served by agreements reached somewhere else. Anywhere else. We must cut our losses.”

  Churchill held his cigar out and stared into the dining room. “The game, Colonel, is over Mosul and its oil fields. The Royal Navy must have them. It would be frightful to watch them fall into French hands.”

  “To block the French, we can use the Americans.”

  “Ah, the Americans,” Churchill said. “My mother’s people.” He puffed on his cigar, then picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “They can seem innocent at first blush, but it’s a tiresome ruse. They know rather too well what to do with oil fields.”

  Lawrence shrugged. “But don’t you see, the Americans’ interest would be strictly commercial—they wouldn’t disturb us politically, nor get in Prince Feisal’s way.”

  “If you’re serious about this, Lawrence, you must be able to solve this equation. How can we help the Americans just enough in this business to make it worth their while to stand with us, while setting up Feisal and our Jewish friends?” He placed the cigar back in his mouth and waved for the bill. “That’s what you must identify. The PM has been extremely good on this issue. He grasps that we must have those oil fields. And you may be assured that I will be watching very closely to make sure that the British position doesn’t weaken.”

  Chapter 22

  Thursday morning, May 1, 1919

  With the Metro closed for the May Day demonstrations, Fraser hired a taxi to take him to the Crillon. The taxi’s progress stalled more than a mile from the hotel, the streets choked with excited people eager to make their voices heard after four years of compelled patriotism. Fraser paid the driver and set off on foot.

  For the first several blocks, the demonstrators seemed cheerful, more like springtime revelers heading to a maypole dance than proletarians seething with resentment over the class struggle. He passed a group of smiling men who were pinning flowers on each other’s lapels. The spirit rivaled that of the day in December, four months before, when Paris greeted President Wilson.

  The mood began to shift as Fraser neared the Place de la Concorde. There were fewer women and no children at all. The faces looked harder. Strides seemed more determined. Some men carried wooden clubs poorly concealed in sleeves or inside waistbands. Fraser wondered what other weapons nestled under jackets and coats or inside boots. He shifted his leather at-taché case, which he had slung over his shoulder, so it rested against the front of his body. Then he casually draped his arm across it, hoping to frustrate anyone thinking to pluck it off his shoulder.

  Flags, large ones, waved above the sea of heads. Black for anarchism. Red for socialism. A few French tricolors. The flagstaffs would be good weapons in brawls like the ones that were flaring in Germany and so many other countries. Voices shouted out slogans that sank, indistinct, into the crowd’s rising roar. Gendarmes stood anxiously in pairs at every corner.

  Looking down cross streets, Fraser could see companies of soldiers formed in ranks. At some streets, nervous cavalry horses stood in ragged lines, stamping and snorting, their muscles twitching.

  He now had to weave around groups that listened to angry soapbox speakers. Chants welled up, staking out martial rhythms. Fraser realized his uniform would provide little protection when a melee broke out. A uniform might even attract violence from these demonstrators.

  A chant began to dominate the crowd, one he could make out. “Down with the government! Down with the government.” Just two blocks ahead, the street spilled into the plaza. He brushed against shoulders as he squeezed through the crowd, nodding and keeping a mild expression on his face. With a last lunge, turning sideways, he made it to the Crillon’s side entrance. He tried the handle, but it was locked. He shook the handle. He pounded on the door. There must be someone on the other side. No response.

  The crowd was a solid mass between him and the plaza. There was nothing to do but push. Muttering “Pardon” and “excusez-moi” as an incantation, he started the effort. His progress was slow. At the corner of the hotel, he could see that the demonstrators had surged around the captured German howitzers that stood in phalanx on the immense square. The chant had died out, overcome by a deep, angry din. Individual cries bounced over it all. The roar washed over him then receded, like the ocean beating against a shore. Even voices close to him dissolved in the welter of sound. Cavalry was massing at the plaza’s western end, to the left of the Crillon, at the Champs-Élysées. Those horses were restless, too. Their helmeted riders, headgear molded into a forward-leaning crest, kept their eyes forward, their faces blank. Fraser’s heart began to pound. Then his ears did. He couldn’t look away.

  A cry cut through the uproar, clear and ringing, though individual words flew by. The troopers drew their sabers. They shouldered the weapons. Fraser turned. With new urgency, he pushed toward the hotel’s front. Demonstrators flowed past him in the other direction, away from the cavalry. He snatched a glance. The line of horses was advancing. With a final heave, he reached the Cril
lon entrance, which was ringed by uniformed bellmen. Here, his army uniform worked. Two bellmen made room for him to pass. He hurried up the steps into the lobby.

  The eerie quiet inside was unsettling. He straightened his uniform and checked that Violet’s camera was intact. Cook was leaning in the doorway to the bar, which was empty behind him. He gave a slight shrug in Fraser’s direction. Fraser strode briskly past him, heading for the rear of the hotel where the public restrooms were. He planned to take the rear stairs to Dulles’ room on the fourth floor.

  Lansing and his nephews each stood before a different window that overlooked the great plaza.

  “My God, Foster,” Allen called to his brother. “Look at those splendid fellows. It’s rather like watching the Princeton line as it marches down the field against Yale.”

  “Yes, but Princeton doesn’t use swords.”

  “More’s the pity. Then again, Yale doesn’t use clubs and rocks, though they doubtless would if they could get away with it.”

  Lansing cleared his throat but kept his eyes on the spectacle below. The troopers were swinging their heavy sabers, crashing them down on the demonstrators. For the most part, they used the flats of the swords against heads. The demonstrators had retreated fifty yards or so. Now they were so compressed they had nowhere to go.

  “If you boys would abandon your schoolboy comparisons,” Lansing said, “you might take note of the historical moment before you. There”—he held his arms out, his voice sinking to a sepulchral level—“writhes the animal that threatens civilization, this beast of revolution, long-toothed and bloody.” He shook his head. “It has fed on the credulous and the feebleminded in Russia and Hungary. In the streets of Germany, in Egypt. Even in China. Everywhere, fools are on fire with this hateful philosophy of overturning the world, putting those on the bottom on the top. It’s a form of madness.”