by John Meaney
We watched for half an hour, learning nothing, from the moving images. Then we saw Jürgen Schenck drag a small table into position. On top of it, Klaus Eisenmenger placed a map.
"I can see letters," said Pinchas. "Something ending in ON."
"You've got good eyesight." I'd always thought his glasses were fake.
"Uh-huh. London, maybe. Or Washington?"
Then another burst of sound.
"—die Salz und Pfeffer—"
Pinchas turned to me, starting to say something, then pausing. After a second, he said: "What is it? What did you spot?"
But I could only shake my head.
Something...
"I don't know."
"Hang on a minute."
Pinchas got out of his seat, stopped the projector, and ran it backwards. Then he replayed the previous few seconds of film, again with the burst of German.
"Anything?"
"Not a clue. It's gone, whatever my subconscious had noticed."
The film continued.
"Nothing much happening," said Pinchas. "It seems to be—Hang on."
On screen, people were moving around. Back in the hotel, a couple of men had left half-way through the meeting. Because there were things they shouldn't know about?
Another man entered, thin and loose-limbed, and sat down with his back to the camera. He crossed his legs. The way he moved... It looked familiar.
"This guy," I said, "was in the FPDA offices. We weren't supposed to see him."
"All right. I wonder who he—"
"—material provided. Here's—"
The new man spoke in English.
"—or Appleton. Sank—"
That was Klaus Eisenmenger, also speaking English. Had he said sank or thank, as in thank you?
"—or swolled. Nasty pee—"
At least, that was the way I heard the Englishman's answer. Fragments of words were worse than silence.
"How about lipreaders?" I said. "Perhaps they can get something out of this. Who do we have?"
"I'll find out." Pinchas rubbed his face.
"What could they—? Shit."
The image had grown static, and already it was growing brown and bubbling. The film was trapped in the projector, melting against the bulb's heat.
"Balls." Pinchas switched the thing off. "I'll get the technician to splice it. And they'll have made more than one copy."
"Yeah." I was thinking about my moment of almost-insight. "I don't think there's anything to be gained by watching the rest. Just a guess."
"Ah."
Pinchas's eyelids drooped. Either he was falling asleep or concentrating. Then he walked across to a wall-mounted internal phone and removed the handset.
"Yes. Pinchas here." His gaze flicked toward me. "Could you see if Manny Silverberg is still in the building?"
He waited.
I let out a breath.
Then Pinchas said: "Could you direct him to the projection room? The bigger one? Thank you."
After replacing the handset, he added: "Having Manny inside your head twice in one day? Some people would pay good money for that."
"If you say so."
But I was looking forward to it.
This is how it went. I sat in place, and Manny dropped me, very fast, into deep trance. But he didn't ask me to bring the memory right back.
"I want your deep unconscious to signal me. Raise your right forefinger for yes, your left forefinger for no. Do you understand?"
My right forefinger moved by itself.
"And do you have a clear understanding yet of what it is you noticed?"
It was my left forefinger that lifted, signalling No.
"And will you be able now or soon to retrieve the information you know is hidden there?"
Right forefinger.
"Imagine your eyes closing again, and then you can..."
Everything faded out.
When I came out of trance, Manny was saying: "You could always sleep on it, David."
And I yawned, feeling tired.
"I'll come with you," said Pinchas. "Down to the medics."
"And I'll see you both," murmured Manny, "soon, I hope."
Then he was gone.
"Is it just me," I said, "or does time distort when Manny's around?"
"It's not just you."
We left the projection room, and headed for the medical rooms on the third floor. There was a nurse on duty but that was all. She nodded when Pinchas said we needed only a quiet room for me to rest. I went inside, lay back on a couch, and slid into a relaxing sleep.
A really welcome sleep.
When I woke up, the first thing I saw was the wall clock. I'd been asleep for two hours. Yawning, I sat up, then looked up toward the ceiling.
And stared, because what I saw was not the room's interior, but a clear image in my mind.
A rifleman atop a pillar rearing high above a bridge, the river's placid waves playing underneath. Sunlight reflecting off grey waters.
And a short motorcade of black limousines moves along the roadway, pulling up before an apartment block. Stone-faced men exit first, surrounding the good-looking, idealistic forty-something man.
He smiles, looking at the familiar Charles River.
Everything was vivid.
Then the crack of sound.
It echoes through the quiet morning air. Dark blood spurts across the already paling face. One hand is flung out as his body spins and he drops, all hopes and ambitions extinguished.
He is dead, the man.
There was a tap on the door, then Pinchas walked in.
"Manny said you'd be awake around now."
"I wonder how he knew."
Pinchas moved his mouth, the beginnings of a smile.
"So. Any luck?"
"Oh, yeah."
I rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand, not wanting to say what came next.
"Tell me."
"They're planning to kill him. President Kennedy. "
Ten minutes later, we were in Schröder's office, and I was repeating my conclusions.
"I spent every summer in Boston, when I was young. The rest of the year in England."
It might have been my grandmother who paid for the annual flights. I'd never been sure.
"And this Longfellow Bridge?"
Towers like gigantic salt and pepper pots support the road-and-rail link that spans the Charles River.
"Everyone calls it the Salt and Pepper Bridge."
On tape, we'd caught the words Salz und Pfeffer.
"And President Kennedy's mother" – Pinchas shrugged – "lives in the area."
Schröder and I looked at him.
"My wife" – his sad smile existed for half a second – "liked reading about famous people."
"We need to tell the CIA," I said.
"Maybe." Schröder shrugged his big shoulders. "We're going to need their help in tracking down the bomb. And it is on their soil, probably."
"The bomb."
"Yes. It's time to liase with them, but being careful what information we—"
"But the bastards are planning to kill Kennedy."
"As they tried to kill President Einstein, which you put a stop to, Wolf. And well done. But it's not the only thing Black Path are up to. Their operation is a programme of assassination and the bomb. That should have been obvious after Moscow. They saw the opportunity, GRU-trained killers handed to them on a plate, and went for it."
"It's a moot point" – Pinchas was polishing his glasses – "as to how much influence individual people wield. For example, if a president was replaced by someone else, what difference would that make?"
I found myself blinking at him.
"What are you getting at?"
"If the personal relationship between JFK and Einstein is stopping America's secret commitment to the Soviets—"
"To hold back," said Schröder, "if the Soviets decide to take Berlin. And maybe head for the Elbe Strip after that?"
Berli
n is small and the Red Army is massive. At what point would someone on our side decide to employ nuclear weapons?
"Right," said Pinchas. "If Kennedy dies and an A-bomb goes up in New York, how much attention will the Americans be paying to Berlin's problems?"
I could only think of the awful destruction inside the US. Pinchas was right. Which meant we had to tell the Americans about Crossman. We had to.
JFK deserved to live.
"Ignatieff," Pinchas muttered. "Perhaps I've not played him as well as I could. Perhaps he's playing me."
That sounded like a non sequitur, but it wasn't. In training, we take the neophytes through paper exercises involving subterfuge and leaked information, double and triple agents, and the rest. They try to work out the fictitious characters' motivations and forecast their actions. Some scenarios are impossible to decipher, and that's always a hint that the game-planners have introduced a third or even fourth clandestine party into the background. Usually, what's revealed is a mish-mash of conflicting clues, leaving you too confused to act.
"What are you thinking?" Schröder asked Pinchas.
"Ignatieff gave us – gave you, Wolf – the dossiers, but without the men's current whereabouts or any details of the original GRU mission." Pinchas put his glasses on, took them off again. "I think they were being trained to take down heads of state. To destabilize the target countries. I think that was the original intent, the GRU bosses changed their minds – or the Politburo changed their minds for them – and the programme was shut down."
Schröder narrowed his eyes.
"And you think that mission is active?"
"Run by Black Path. Their version of the mission. Maybe they're using the assassins to help them with the bomb programme they already had underway. Or maybe a dead Kennedy would be enough for the Soviets to go ahead with their invasion plans."
The Soviet invasion plans could almost be in the Nazis' best interests, provided they stopped with Berlin and didn't take over the whole of Outer—
"Oh, fuck," I said.
"We know they have Soviet assets, including someone high ranking in the GRU. What if there's a deal between Black Path and a, what, a clique of senior officers? Maybe even Politburo members. "
"And the deal would be...?"
"To let Outer Germany remain German, if they allow Red Army tanks to roll through unmolested," said Pinchas. "Hell, maybe the Reds would even give some of New Jerusalem back to the Nazi bastards."
Enemies to the West of us, enemies to the East, none of it a fucking joke.
"And I'm wondering something else as well," added Pinchas. "Did Black Path recruit the assassins under false pretences?"
"We discussed this before." Schröder stood up. "It doesn't seem likely they—"
"That was before we knew about Strang."
"Oh."
Unusually, Schröder sat straight back down. Normally, he liked to pace around. But this was more disturbing than the geopolitics: the realization that Black Path had a counterpart to Manny Silverberg. Perhaps even someone who was superior in covert manipulation. Maybe Zadok had been acting under some kind of compulsion.
The hangar in Sheremetyevo, the wordless fight, primitive and to the death... there had been no time to talk, to ask about motivation.
"If they're planning to blow up New York," said Schröder, "and also kill JFK, maybe it doesn't matter whether they volunteered or were brainwashed."
Pinchas shook his head.
Then someone knocked on the door, and I spun to face it.
Calm down.
There was reason to feel unsettled.
"Come in," called Schröder.
Isser, the young neophyte, entered. He was carrying a batch of glossy photographs.
"Sir."
He put the photos down.
"We'll call if we need you." Schröder lowered his chin. "That's all."
"Thank you, sir."
After twenty minutes poring over the pictures, I was tired. We had deduced exactly nothing.
"At least I was right about the neos," I said.
"Good guess," answered Pinchas. "Shame they didn't get anything."
I'd thought he might have deployed a watch-team in Munich. The neos had in fact photographed everyone entering and leaving the FPDA offices over the course of several days. One of the men captured in the pictures was thin, with longish blond hair: the Englishman who'd attended the hotel meeting. But it wasn't enough to identify the bastard.
"I don't suppose Manny would help you spot something?" asked Pinchas.
"No," I said. "I really don't..."
"What?"
"Shit. Hand me that, will you?"
There was a magnifying lens that Schröder had been using.
Balls. Couldn't I have seen it earlier?
The Englishman in the photograph was carrying a folder, one of those leather things with a zip, the latest thing for high-level executives who don't need an overstuffed briefcase. They require only the high-level view, for strategic decision-making. Except this guy wasn't a businessman, he was an academic. The roundish logo embossed on his folder indicated just that. And the folder was unfastened, with the end of a slide-rule just poking out. It was obvious now.
"This mark here." I pointed, then slid the photo to Pinchas. "I can even tell you what the inscription says."
"I can't make out the words."
"Me neither, but I know them. Dominus Illuminatio Mea. I saw that symbol every day for years, as a PhD student."
On my degree certificate it says DPhil, but it's the equivalent of a PhD so that's what I call it. Me and everyone else.
"Where's that?" asked Pinchas.
Schröder said: "Oxford University. We already knew that Black Path are searching out English scientific expertise. So we know where to send you, Wolf."
"I've a friend there who'll help me."
Pinchas smiled for the first time in hours.
"You've an English asset in place?"
"Actually, he's French," I said. "More of a liability."
But it would be good to see Charles Montagu again.
TWENTY-FIVE:
LONDON, April 1963
The Big Smoke was almost as I remembered it. Nearing Hammersmith beneath a grey sky, with drizzling rain half-surrounding the Martini clock and the bright, animated Lucozade ad, we passed beneath past the skeletal beginnings of a new flyover. But it was still the same city.
I'd talked to Charles by phone last night to arrange a meeting. I needed to be in Oxford by four o'clock this afternoon, giving me six hours to spare. A zig-zag pattern through London to break the back of any surveillance, and then a train from Paddington: everything was under control.
Sort of.
Last night, when I'd said I was popping over to England, Charles had replied: "Have you ever considered giving me more than ten minutes warning?"
"Not really," I'd told him. "So are you free, old chum?"
"Of course. Hold on." There'd been a rustle of paper. "Can you be here for four p.m. tomorrow?"
"I don't see why not."
"Good, because our guest speaker fell off a bicycle and broke his leg. Or so he says. I think he was in bed with his housekeeper and tumbled onto the floor, but what do I know?"
"Er... Guest speaker?"
"Don't worry, Wolf. You'll be fine."
That was when Charles had hung up.
By the time the driver dropped me off in Baker Street, the rain was monsoon-heavy.
"Tippin' it down," said the driver, "for a change."
"Right." I pulled pound notes from my wallet. "There you are."
"Ta very much. Mind how you go."
I got out, placed my suitcase at my feet, and pulled on my lightweight raincoat. The black cab pulled away and disappeared. Then I went down into the Tube station and came out via another entrance, walked past Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium.
All clear. I walked on until I found a phone box.
From inside, I scanned the environm
ent – nothing – then asked the operator to connect me with the physics department in Oxford. When a secretary answered, she tried to put me through to Charles' extension. No one picked up.
"Can I take a message?"
"Tell him David Wolf is arriving on schedule. I'm giving a talk tomorrow. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
"No, I'm so sorry."
"That's fine. See you tomorrow."
Wonderful.
I pressed Button B, and my change, a sequence of big pennies, slid out of the slot.
When in doubt, drink coffee.
Except this was England, so I went to look for a Lyons Tea House, because they're cheerful and they're everywhere. Afterwards, I went to the Planetarium and watched the show. It was a reminder of the vast cosmos, and our tiny insignificance. We're part of a magical whole, and our problems are trivial details. But we have to deal with them.
Moscow. Munich. London. The trail led westward like an arrow.
Back out on the street, it was time for vigilance once more.
That afternoon in Oxford, I left my bag in my college room, and walked to the physics department. Under my arm was a large-format proof copy of Feynman's Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1, which the publisher had sent me for review. It was excellent. It was also big enough to conceal an enlarged surveillance photo of the nameless Englishman leaving the FPDA offices.
I walked past the antique ochre-grey buildings, filled with the cumulative psychic resonance, the weight of eight centuries of tradition. Fussy, parochial, arrogant and maddening. But confident that whatever they're working on, they're doing it as well as anyone, and that's the part of Oxford I love.
In the department, I asked the porter where I should go.
"You're in the big lecture theatre, sir." He sounded like a staff sergeant. "Everyone's coming."
"Er. Good."
But there was a staircase leading up to offices, and a few minutes yet before my lecture. So I diverted my route and ascended, intending to peek inside each room, hoping to recognize see the man whose photo was hidden in the Feynman.
From above, someone said: "Any luck, Sergeant?"
They had to be policemen. I stepped into the upper corridor. Two men in suits and a uniformed constable were standing in front of an open office.
