The Wilson Deception

by David O. Stewart

  “Uncle,” Allen said with a wry smile, “aren’t you being a bit melodramatic? This is France. Every time they have a war with Germany they finish it off with a dust-up among themselves.”

  “Wait until this beast slinks into New York and St. Louis. You may no longer find me melodramatic.”

  “Look!” Foster pointed down at the plaza.

  The cavalry’s advance had stalled. Some horses shied and reared. The troopers, many shouting at once, withdrew. They reformed their line. They started again at a brisker pace, swinging their sabers in a more determined manner, crashing against the wall of bodies. Many demonstrators turned and tried to flee, only to find themselves trapped. Some fell and slipped from sight, pinned to the unforgiving stones. Others fought back, swinging clubs and heavy tools against the troopers, grabbing at their legs to drag them down. A riderless horse, eyes wild, screamed and sprinted toward the Champs-Élysées.

  When shots rang out, the crowd roar grew, fueled with fear and rage. The cavalry reformed its line, advanced again.

  Allen, transfixed by the struggle, pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. “Rats.” He gave the pouch an irritated glance. Empty. He walked to the door to the corridor. “Be back in a jiff,” he called over his shoulder. “Just getting tobacco.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Allie,” Lansing said without taking his eyes from the plaza. “Have a cigar if you must smoke. This is history unfolding before us.”

  “I’ve been watching history unfold for the last four months, and a depressing spectacle it is. Won’t be a moment.”

  Chapter 23

  Thursday noon, May 1, 1919

  Fraser stopped to catch his breath at the fourth floor landing. The stress and long hours at the hospital had taken some pounds off his middle, but they hadn’t done much for his stamina. Or his nerves.

  When his chest stopped heaving, he peered into the hotel corridor. Cook had sketched a layout of the hotel for him. Dulles’ room, Number 471, was on the back side, around the corner from the stairwell. A suitably inconspicuous location for a spy, an apparently junior functionary like Dulles. The corridor seemed deserted. With the demonstration lapping the sides of the building, most of the American staffers should have sought quieter quarters for the day. He was definitely hoping Allen Dulles had. To get to Number 471, he would have to turn one corner from the stairwell, a total distance of maybe forty feet. Thirteen strides? He took a breath and fingered the room key in his pocket. He stole another look into the corridor, checking both directions. He stepped out.

  As Fraser rounded the corner, the door to Number 471 swung open. Dulles emerged from the room, then reached back to check the lock behind him. A startle reflex caused a hitch in Fraser’s stride. Then he picked up again. Dulles looked up as Fraser approached. The younger man smiled.

  “Major Fraser, you’re on the wrong side of the building if you want to see the excitement.”

  Fraser stopped, straining to keep the panic in his mind from contorting his face or clotting his voice. He tried for a befuddled look. “Ah, Mr. Dulles.” He looked up and down the corridor. “Say, I was looking for Major Barrett. We were to meet here in the Crillon, but he wasn’t downstairs. And with the staff out defending against the unwashed hordes, I can’t find anyone who knows his room number.”

  “Barrett? Barrett?” Dulles cocked a hip and looked off reflectively. “Can’t place him.”

  “He’s a gray-headed fellow, an old duffer like me. He’s been detailed from the medical corps to Mr. Hoover’s program, the food relief.”

  “Hoover, yes, good man, doing the Lord’s work. Although those surly louts out on the plaza could make a fellow swear off feeding the hungry for the foreseeable future.” Dulles looked curious. “You were meeting today? Surely you knew that this was the day for Mother France to eat her young.”

  Fraser was growing comfortable with his lie. He decided to be garrulous, a harmless doctor beyond his best years. “That was certainly foolish. May Day isn’t such a commotion back home. I need his advice on the medical corps demobilization, you know, how do we all get home when the peace is signed—bringing the Army of Occupation back from the Rhine? I guess he’s been diverted by the crowds.”

  Dulles grinned. “You’ve got ample time for your planning, as I’m beginning to wonder whether the treaty will be signed in my lifetime. Why don’t you come watch the festivities with us? Uncle Bert has a front-row pew, and you don’t want to be out on the plaza just now.”

  Seeing little alternative, Fraser agreed. Why the devil, he wondered, had Speed shrugged when Fraser passed through the lobby? If Cook knew Dulles was in the building, a shrug didn’t get that message across.

  Moments after Fraser and Dulles strode down the hall together, a small figure in British khaki emerged from a room across from No. 471. He moved quickly and resolutely. With a room key, he let himself into Dulles’ room and quietly closed the door behind him. Once inside, his bright blue eyes lit on the papers strewn on the desk. He began to sift through them, sorting them into piles. The pile closest to him held papers dealing with Syria, Palestine, and the petroleum of Mesopotamia. There were more than he had dared to hope.

  The arrival of Fraser and Allen Dulles drew little attention in the office of the Secretary of State, as all eyes were trained on the violence on the plaza. Fraser and Allen stood before the room’s third window.

  “The shooting’s stopped.” Lansing said. He pointed to his left. “You can see there, the army seems to have matters in hand.”

  For more than a minute, the four men watched without remark. The struggle was now at the plaza’s eastern end. Horses and sabers, wielded with a furious discipline, were driving the demonstrators back into the streets of the city. Fraser couldn’t make out individuals in the writhing mass that retreated from the Crillon. Troop trucks idled before the hotel, loading up with arrested demonstrators who shouted defiance despite bound hands and bleeding skulls. A few scrambled over the German howitzers, leaping from one to the other in a perilous fashion that no sane person would try. Some figures, in random groups around the plaza, crouched over bodies on the ground. Not far from the hotel, two bodies lay unattended.

  Fraser had seen street violence, once a race riot nearly twenty years before. At least this clash grew out of political disagreements over principles and values, not raw prejudice and hatred. The result, though, was depressingly similar. Broken heads. Broken bodies.

  “Gentlemen,” Fraser said suddenly, “I’m a physician. I must go down and offer whatever aid I can provide.”

  Allen Dulles looked up. “Of course you must,” he said, then gave a small smile. “Please give my regards to your charming daughter. And when you get out there on the plaza, do see to the injured troopers first. They are, after all, playing for our side.”

  Mumbling insincere apologies for his abrupt departure, Fraser left. Once free of the Dulles clan, he dove into a stairwell. He reclimbed two flights, then again paused to gather his breath and wits.

  At No. 471, he used the key to let himself in and began to pull Violet’s camera from his case. Then he froze.

  “For heaven’s sake,” said the small man standing at the desk, glancing over his shoulder. “Close the door behind you or we’ll have the whole city in here.”

  Fraser did as instructed.

  As the man returned his attention to the papers on the desk, he said, “Clever, you. You must have ditched Dulles and doubled back. As you see,” he airily waved a hand, “I caught a ride on your coattails. I am shocked, though, at this hotel’s inability to protect its room keys. I wonder who else has one.”

  Fraser still couldn’t move. “Colonel Lawrence?”

  This caused Lawrence to twist toward Fraser. “Do I know you?” He squinted. “I have no memory for faces. You will have to tell me who you are, though I would understand if you would prefer not to, in view of the . . . situation.” The airy wave again. He returned to the papers on the desk.

  “I’m Major James Frase
r, a doctor. I looked at your friend, Sykes, some weeks ago, when he was ill.”

  Lawrence didn’t look up. “Unspeakable, that.” He continued to sift papers. “Let’s not speak of it.” He turned back to Fraser. “Please don’t just stand there gawking. We’re both here on secret missions. Bloody awkward, eh?”

  Fraser remained silent.

  “I suggest cooperation. Or at least mutual discretion.”

  Fraser nodded.

  “Fine. You look at that lot.” Lawrence pointed to a pile of papers on a divan across from the bed. “I’ll finish with these.” His attention back on his work, he continued. “I’m looking for connections between England’s petroleum lords and the American government . . . or the English government or the French government, for that matter. Anything concerned with American attitudes toward an independent Arab nation.”

  Fraser, beginning to move toward the divan, said nothing. He thought he had planned this excursion carefully, but this was the second unexpected development. He never imagined encountering a fellow intruder, certainly not one willing to make common cause. Nothing to do about it now. He couldn’t allow himself to think about the risks he was taking, how inexplicable this was. Just do what he came for and leave.

  “Excellent,” Lawrence said. “I infer from your silence that you’re bored by the subjects of interest to me. And what do you seek?”

  Fraser didn’t feel ready to answer that question.

  Lawrence continued. “I’m willing to keep an eye out for what you need, get us both out of here more quickly, which would be to the advantage of us both.”

  Fraser made up his mind as he picked up the papers on the divan. “Dulles may have an agent on the staff of the president’s residence, though that may be hard to credit—”

  “You mean the black boy? I saw something about it in that pile.” He gestured at another group of papers in the desk chair. “Slightly surprising, that.”

  Fraser moved to that pile and looked desperately for any reference to Sergeant Joshua Cook. He found a memorandum to the file that mentioned neither Joshua nor John Barnes, but did refer to him by position and description. He positioned the paper on a window sill, then turned on a lamp. He pulled the camera out.

  Lawrence had finished the papers on the desk. “What a very wise precaution. I feel rather stupid not to have thought of it. This is not my ordinary run of business. Perhaps you would return the favor by taking photos of the pages I need?” When Fraser hesitated, Lawrence added, “Major, we can cause each other great misery or not. I suggest not.”

  Fraser examined the camera and tried to recall Violet’s instructions. “Of course, Colonel. Just bring them over here to the light.”

  Chapter 24

  Thursday evening, May 1, 1919

  While the war raged, Fraser saw lots of soldiers in Paris. They came from Britain and Australia and America and France, from Africa and Asia. Soldiers on leave, still wearing helmets and muddy boots, tended to approach the city with a mixture of awe and anticipation. Moving in small groups or alone, most had read or heard about Paris but never expected to see it. After a quick look at the Eiffel Tower, many went in search of something to take their minds off the dangers they soon would return to. Staff officers, assigned to Paris for the duration, tended to be conspicuous for their self-importance. Occasionally, Fraser saw a full unit on the march or a cavalry contingent mounted and spurred, or even a convoy of trucks or a few of the new tanks that looked so terrifying but too often broke down.

  With the war over, the soldiers on the streets were all French. From the back seat of a taxi, he saw full infantry units installed deep into neighborhoods, lined up for evening meals at street-corner field kitchens. This was an occupying army, one that spoke the same tongue as those it occupied. It shared the history of the people who hurried past them nervously. But it still was an occupying army.

  He had been lucky to find a taxi so soon after the fighting, though once more he had to walk the last mile to his destination, a café in Montmartre. The street fighting hadn’t reached the volatile neighborhood. Rather, Montmartre had carried the struggle to the rest of the city. Local residents faced careful scrutiny and close questioning at a police checkpoint, but Fraser was waved through, his uniform working its magic. A group of sullen young men sat on a curb, watched by several soldiers.

  For Speed, who sought anonymity, Montmartre was a natural perch. The neighborhood had long been a magnet for the discontented of Paris, of France, of the world. Rents were low. People came and went at irregular times. Neighbors, assuming checkered pasts, asked few questions. The residents mistrusted, misled, and sometimes actively resisted any government agent. Over almost four months—ever since Joshua escaped from the army—Cook had lived at seven different addresses in the neighborhood, moving when faces seemed too familiar, when aloof nods of greeting threatened to evolve into words.

  Fraser found Speed and Joshua in a scruffy café several doors down from the Place Pigalle. Their table, with a jug of red wine and three glasses, was an island of calm amid shouts and arguments. Some faces displayed fresh bruises and cuts, presumably earned during the unpleasantness at the Place de la Concorde. Father and son were angled so they didn’t look at each other. Neither seemed happy to be there.

  Cook poured Fraser a glass of wine. They toasted the evening, though Joshua lifted his glass halfheartedly. Fraser asked if Cook had developed the photos of Dulles’ documents.

  “Sure did,” Cook said. “I could’ve used one of those gas masks in that dark room at the pharmacie.” He wrinkled his nose. “Those chemicals are something.”

  “Gas masks,” Joshua muttered. “You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe not,” Fraser said to Joshua with a smile, “none of us old folks does. But we’re lucky that your father’s many talents include developing photographs.”

  Cook dismissed the praise. “I never could afford to put many photos in that newspaper. Couldn’t get out to take that many, anyway. That damned rag was pretty much a one-man band, you know. But photos sure did liven it up.” He drank some wine and gazed at Fraser. “So I’m hoping there was a good reason for me to eat those fumes developing pictures of documents about oil in Mosul, wherever the Sam Hill that is.”

  Fraser smiled and poured himself a second glass of wine. He began to relax. The noise of the café reassured him, covering their conversation so it couldn’t be heard even a foot away. He sat back and told the story of his burglary, abetted by Lawrence of Arabia. “And if Dulles truly didn’t suspect anything funny was going on, our nation’s spy business is in very shaky hands indeed.”

  Cook began to laugh. Even Joshua cracked a smile.

  His father raised his glass again. “To shaky hands and honor among thieves!”

  They drained their glasses. Cook waggled two fingers at a barmaid, ordering another jug.

  “That Lawrence,” Joshua said, “he sounds cool as a cucumber. Like his reputation.”

  “Don’t I get any credit?” Fraser demanded.

  “For what?” Cook laughed. “For doing what he told you?”

  “What else was I supposed to do?”

  Cook kept right on laughing. Joshua shook his head in bemusement.

  “And why the hell didn’t you let me know they were all still up there? What was with that shrug of the shoulders I got in the hotel lobby?”

  “Now, hang on,” Cook protested. “A shrug’s a shrug, am I right? It means I don’t the hell know. I’d been all over that hotel locking stuff down for the demonstration and I didn’t know where anyone was. You’re the one was so steamed up you thought my shrug meant the coast was clear.” He smiled. “I’m glad you did. Turned out all right.”

  Fraser decided not to quibble. He wanted to talk about something else. “There’s something on my mind about all this,” he said. “I wonder if we might’ve just acquired a new partner, our British pal. What’s to keep him from trying to use Joshua for his own purposes, now that
he knows about him?”

  His question vanquished the pleasant feelings around the table. Each man stared at his wine glass, feeling the beginnings of headaches.

  “That Lawrence,” Cook said softly. “He’s a man gets talked about. Around the Crillon, I mean. I heard he isn’t really part of the British delegation any more. Something about how they stripped him of his credentials and he’s here in Paris on his own dime now.”

  Fraser made a face. “So why’s he still here? He told me he’s looking for connections between the oil business and the British government. But he’s wearing the uniform of the British government. Spying on his own government? For the Arabs? For himself?”

  “Might even remind a body,” Cook said, “of Dulles sending Joshua to spy on his own president.”

  The three men lapsed back into rumination. Cook spoke again. “One thing I noticed in those photos I just did for him—couldn’t help but read them—there’s something going on with the Germans. Seems that Germany owned part of this Turkish Petroleum Company, which the British control now, though maybe there’s still some Germans in it.”

  “Enemies on the battlefield and partners in business?” Fraser asked.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

  Fraser frowned. “But where does Dulles fit in? They’re his papers, even though he’s not being all that careful with them. Does he want the US in on this oil deal or is he trying to stop it? Or squeeze in for his own slice?”

  Joshua snorted. “You folks need to stop worrying about the wrong things. This is all swell about the Germans and the Turks and the British and the goddamned Hottentots, but how’s this all going to end for me? I’m still reporting every couple of days to Dulles and to Colonel Boucher, and maybe now to this Lawrence, if he decides he wants to track me down.”

  “Actually,” Fraser said, “Boucher hasn’t been after me for a few days. It’s been nice not to deal with him. What’s he asking you?”