The Tears of Autumn

by Charles McCarry

  3

  Patchen walked Christopher to the door. Foley was still sprawled in the chair with his hand to his face when Patchen returned.

  “Get me a glass of water,” he said.

  When Patchen handed him the glass, Foley put it on the table beside him and opened his eyes; his pupils were still dark, as if bruised.

  “How well do you know this Christopher?” Foley asked.

  “We’ve known each other for twenty years,” Patchen said. “We came into the outfit on the same day. I’ve backstopped his operations for more than ten years.”

  “Then you can’t be very objective.”

  “You can check my assessment of Christopher with anyone else who knows his work,” Patchen said. “Three things: first, he’s intelligent and entirely unsentimental. Second, he will go to any lengths to get at the truth, he never gives up. Third, he is not subject to fear.”

  “Everyone is subject to fear.”

  “No. He’ll walk into anything.”

  “Then he’s crazy,” Foley said.

  “In that respect, maybe. But it makes him very valuable.”

  “This theory of his is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese—you know that, don’t you?”

  “I thought enough of it to bring you over here to listen to it,” Patchen said. “The theory, as a theory with no hard facts to support it, is sound enough.”

  “Is it? In what way, exactly?”

  “He’s right about two things. They had a motive, and they had the skill and the experience to bring off an operation of this kind.”

  Foley leaped to his feet. Standing over Patchen, he pointed a finger at his face. “Let’s get this straight once and for all,” he said. “They had no goddamn motive. None.”

  Patchen’s unblinking eyes did not change expression. “We both know they did, Dennis,” he said.

  Foley’s face was closed and angry. Patchen knew why; he understood that Foley, who had defended the living President with all the power of his mind, did not regard loyalty as something that stopped with death. Foley had stood next to the President of the United States, believing that everyone ought to love him as Foley did. He wanted to believe that only a madman would kill such a man as Kennedy had been; he wanted the world to believe it.

  “I won’t have any son of a bitch saying that what happened to Jack in Dallas was a punishment,” Foley said. He breathed deeply. “I want this matter dropped, right here and now,” he said. “Send Christopher back to wherever he comes from. Drop it, Patchen.”

  “You don’t think this should be brought to the attention of the President?—two lines on a sheet of paper.”

  “No. It’s not worth his time. If there is anything on paper, burn it. I don’t think you grasp the implications of what this nut is trying to get us to believe.”

  “I see the implications,” Patchen said. “All of them. So does Christopher.”

  “Who else is he going to go to with this?”

  “No one.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “He lives in secret, Foley. He doesn’t talk to anyone but us.”

  “You just told me he never gives up,” Foley said. “What if he decides not to give up on this, then what?”

  “Then he’ll solve it, one way or another. He knows everybody in the world, and he’s a very senior officer. He requires no support. He’s what we call a singleton—he operates alone, goes where he pleases.”

  “Then you’d better bring him back here and put him behind some nice, safe desk,” Foley said.

  Patchen shook his head. “No. He’d resign. He doesn’t need us—he’s as well known as a journalist in the outside world as he is as an agent in ours.”

  “What you’re telling me is that you have no control over him at all.”

  “No, I’m not telling you that. Control is not necessary. He feels about the outfit the way you felt about John Kennedy. He’d do nothing to harm us, or the country. Of course, his idea of what’s harmful to the United States might not be the same as yours.”

  Foley stared at Patchen, and then Patchen saw an idea being born behind Foley’s eyes.

  “Has Christopher ever been like this before—hooked on something?” Foley asked.

  “Lots of times. He’s usually been right.”

  “He’s usually been right, or he’s usually come up with data that supported his theory?”

  “It’s the same thing,” Patchen said.

  “It’s not. When was the last time he saw a psychiatrist? Don’t you have regular psychiatric controls on guys like him?”

  “Psychiatric controls? When a man breaks down, we take care of him, that’s all.”

  Foley said, “I’ve seen this guy twice. Both times he’s been compulsive about something. It could be a pattern.”

  Again Patchen said nothing. A pulse was beating in Foley’s temple; Patchen watched that.

  “Christopher may have done great things in the past,” Foley said. “I don’t doubt it for a minute. But how long has he been out there—ten years, twelve? He’s showing it. He needs a rest, David. You must have a quiet place where he can recuperate.”

  Patchen showed no surprise because he felt none. Foley, a much larger man, stood over him, giving off an odor of cologne and whiskey. Patchen understood how a woman about to be fondled by a man she does not want must feel. Foley, crude and emotional, seemed to him a ridiculous figure. Patchen’s lips parted in a smile.

  “Why don’t you put that suggestion in writing,” he said, “and channel it to me through the Director?”

  Foley departed, leaving his glass of water untasted. Ordering Patchen to fetch it for him had been a way of emphasizing the difference in their ranks. In Foley’s place, Patchen would have made the gesture at the end of the conversation, not at the beginning.

  4

  When Christopher came back into the house, Patchen played the tape recording of his conversation with Foley. Neither man said anything; the listening devices in Patchen’s living room were voice-activated transmitters that could not be switched off. They put on their coats and went outside.

  “The bars must still be open,” Patchen said. “Let’s walk. “I’d like a beer.”

  They were alone on the sidewalk, and when they reached Connecticut Avenue the broad street was empty of cars, though the automatic traffic signals went on working: the lights changed to red along its whole steep length, like cards falling out of a shuffler’s hand.

  “What now?” Christopher said.

  “It’s over. The problem is, Foley believes you. He doesn’t want your theory proved.”

  “You’re willing to drop it?”

  “Of course. If the White House doesn’t want it, we won’t do it.”

  “Well, it would have been nice if we’d got some Texan instead of Foley to talk to,” Christopher said.

  “The answer might have been the same. If the truth is known, the truth will come out. Nobody wants that—not even you.”

  “We know lots of truths that never come out, David.”

  “Not on this scale. This couldn’t be hidden. It would blacken the name of the dead President. It would stand foreign policy on its head.”

  They were in front of a bar, and Patchen started toward its door. “Let’s stop outside a minute,” Christopher said. “You know what’s involved here, David. If these politicians never know what happened, they’ll do it again.”

  “Yes. They will.”

  “You don’t think that’s worth preventing?”

  “I don’t think it’s possible to prevent it, Paul. You have a flaw—you think the truth will make men free. But it only makes them angry. They believe what suits them, they do what they want to do, just like the slobs we’re going to find lined up at the bar in there. Human beings are a defective species, my friend. Accept it.”

  “But don’t you want to know?”

  “Sure I do—I even say we should know, that we’re doing damage to the outfit, not to say the country, if we don’t
pursue this to the end. But we don’t run operations against the United States government.”

  “Foley is not the United States government.”

  “Foley would say you’re talking treason.”

  “I’d say that’s pretty melodramatic,” Christopher said. “We were told from the beginning that our job is to keep the water clean. We feed the politicians information, they do what they want with it. But we don’t doctor the information to suit political purposes, much less the emotional purposes of a short-timer like Dennis Foley. What Foley wants from us is a kind of treason —his illusions are more important than the truth.”

  “That’s what I just got through telling you.”

  “We don’t seem to be understanding each other very well, David. Would it help, do you think, if we spoke German?”

  “Paul, you really are an arrogant bastard,” Patchen said. “Your whole career has been a series of moral lessons for the rest of us. You won’t use a gun. You won’t betray an agent. You won’t give support to a regime that tortures political prisoners. You won’t countenance a coup against the Ngos, even though you’ve done more than anyone else to create a political opposition to them. Only your means justify the end. People have been telling me for years that you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and I’m beginning to see the point.”

  Patchen’s voice did not change its tone; he might have been reading aloud from a newspaper.

  “I guess I’m lucky to have had you as a protector,” Christopher said.

  “I can’t protect you from these people. You’re out in the open now, and they sure don’t like the look of you.”

  “Foley’s an amateur.”

  “We would have said the same thing about Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  “Yes, but he was operating against other amateurs.”

  “And he had professional advice.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  A man and a young girl came out of the bar, holding hands. They stood in the doorway for a moment, looking up and down the street for a taxi.

  “Have you tried the Cantina d’Italia, up the street?” Patchen asked Christopher, in a louder voice. “I think it’s the best Italian restaurant in the world, outside of Italy.”

  The couple walked by Christopher and Patchen and crossed the street to the taxi stand in front of the Mayflower.

  “You realize you’re not going to be able to go out under our auspices,” Patchen said. “Foley will have been on the phone to the Director. It won’t be permitted.”

  “Then I’ll do it on my own.”

  “You may die.”

  “That’s always a possibility.”

  Patchen let a moment pass before he answered. “You really don’t care, do you?” he said.

  “Yes, I care. Less than some, I guess. I’ve never liked the death of others.”

  “How are you going to handle it?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes. I want to understand what happens to you.”

  “I’ll either find out very quickly or not at all,” Christopher said. “I’ll have to walk in on them and tell them what I think, and watch the reaction. I think they may want it to be known.”

  “Want it to be known?”

  “Yes. Think about it. If no one knows, what was the point in doing it?”

  Patchen absorbed this idea, then nodded his head.

  “I’ll fire you in the morning,” he said. “If you live, and if you want to come back inside, it can be arranged. Foley won’t last forever with Lyndon Johnson.”

  “The bar’s going to close. Let’s go in.”

  Patchen had one more thing to say. Christopher was surprised: it was unlike Patchen to be the one who prolonged a conversation.

  “It takes about a month to inform everyone in the field of a resignation,” he said. “I won’t hurry it. You may want to talk to the people in the stations.”

  “Yes, there may be a question or two I’d want to ask.”

  “If you need support in any kind of an emergency, you know they’ll give it to you. We’ll justify it later.”

  Christopher smiled at him. “You shouldn’t be saying these things. What if I’m tortured?”

  Patchen waved away the pleasantry. “Speaking of that, I wouldn’t rely too much on Wolkowicz. He and Foley are friends. The White House took an interest in Wolkowicz’s career after the Bay of Pigs.”

  “Took an interest in his career?”

  Patchen exhaled his dry laugh. “Wolkowicz was their idea of what a master spy should be. They all read those paperback books about secret agents. Wolkowicz carries guns and talks like a gangster. They were talking about Castro in one of the planning sessions—what to do with him after Cuba was liberated. Wolkowicz took out his revolver, removed a cartridge from the cylinder, and rolled the bullet across the table. In the Cabinet Room. That was when his star began to rise.”

  Patchen opened the door for Christopher. “Now let me buy you one last beer,” he said.

  5

  Foley had not intended to return the phone call. When he saw the message on his desk he didn’t recognize the name of the man who had called him.

  “He’s a Green Beret captain,” Foley’s secretary explained. “He’s on his way to Vietnam. He said his sister is a friend of yours. Her name is Peggy McKinney.”

  Foley frowned and crumpled the slip on which the message was written.

  “He said you and his sister met in Paris.”

  Foley remembered. He handed his secretary the ball of paper. “Set up an appointment for him today,” he said. “Here.”

  He put a plain sheet of paper in his own typewriter and began to write the letter he wanted Peggy McKinney’s brother to deliver for him. Then he phoned a man at the Pentagon and arranged to have the captain assigned to an army intelligence unit stationed on Saigon.

  When the captain appeared in Foley’s office, he stood at attention in front of the desk. Foley, in shirtsleeves, grinned at him.

  “Sit down, Captain,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I didn’t want to intrude on you—Peggy just asked me to call up and say hello.”

  “I’m glad you did. Peggy’s terrific.”

  The captain was about twenty-five, dark and fine-strung like his sister.

  “You know,” Foley said, “it was right in this office that an officer like you was ordered to take the message to Garcia.”

  “I guess those days are over, sir.”

  “No, they’re not,” Foley said. “I have a job for you. You are not to discuss what I’m asking you to do with anyone, not even your supervisor. I’ve informed the right person in the office of the Army Chief of Staff. You and he and I, and we alone, are to know about this. Is that clear?”

  Foley gave him a sealed letter for Wolkowicz and told him what else he wanted him to do when he reached Vietnam. He gave him a photograph of Christopher; he had had to call the Passport Office himself in order to obtain it.

  “His real name is Paul Christopher, but he’ll probably be using an alias. Look at the picture and give it back to me.”

  “What channel shall I use to report?”

  “You don’t report. If you do the job, I’ll know it. And, Captain, I won’t forget you.”

  “I don’t want anything for this,” the captain said. “Sir, I loved President Kennedy.”

  “I know you did, son,” Foley said.

  FIVE

  l

  Christopher stood on the steps of the Galleria Borghese and watched Molly walk across the park with the pine trees behind her. She had spent the morning at the zoo while he wrote his profile of the Pope, and she carried a bag of peanuts in her hand.

  She wanted to look at Canova’s nude Pauline Bonaparte and the Caravaggios before lunch. “Just those two things, Paul,” she said as she made their plans. “You needn’t look so suspicious.” Molly could spend hours looking at painting and sculpture. “There are museum guards all over Europe who think you’re i
n love with them, the way you hang about,” Christopher told her. “Then you know?” Molly said. “Chaps with sore feet in dusty uniforms make me go all funny.”

  “Do you love me, now that you admit it, for my mind or for my body?” Molly had asked when he returned from Washington. Christopher could not separate the two. When he entered her, he felt himself grasped not so much by her flesh as by her idea of herself. Naked, she was as comic as a child; that was what had surprised him the first time he had her. He had imagined that she would be a solemn lover, but she laughed when she opened her legs, as if pleasure were a joke she played on life. They looked into each other’s face when they made love, smiling and chuckling.

  Now, as she came toward him, holding her hair in the December wind, he felt a smile pulling at his face, and when they kissed, he laughed. Christopher had a strange loud laugh that he could not control; strangers turned their heads when it exploded.

  “Ah,” Molly said, “I’ve just come from feeding a poor caged thing like you.”

  When the museum closed at two o’clock, they walked to a restaurant, and because it was Thursday, ate gnocchi and bollito misto.

  Molly ordered a spiced pear and said, “Why does food seem so romantic when one’s having a love affair? If I ate this much in a state of innocence, I’d weigh two hundred pounds.”

  When she had come back from Siena, she had moved into his apartment; she bought vases and filled them with roses and carnations. She put his books in alphabetical order, novels on one set of shelves, poetry on another, general works on a third.

  Molly said she had driven Cathy’s ghost out of Christopher’s bed. “Did you really not mind the way she put horns on you?” she asked.

  “Yes, I minded, until I saw her reason,” Christopher said. “She knew more about my life than you do, Molly. Cathy was a gloomy woman. Maybe she wanted an existence that was as corrupt as she thought mine to be. It wasn’t love, but it was the best she could do, to go down the way she thought I was going.”

  They were in bed, with Molly’s candles burning on all the tables in the room. “I know nothing about your life—are you all that bad when you’re away?” she asked.