However, he never got to his dessert that day.
Richards enjoyed the private dining room, which had gourmet food at modest prices. There were two other places to eat here: the small and dismal cafeteria for employees of other government agencies and guests, and the restricted better cafeteria which served the other CIA employees. This was so that visitors would not be able to see clandestine CIA agents having their lunch.
Richards had always detested that cafeteria, and the day he’d been promoted to a subdirectorate, he’d celebrated by ordering a particularly expensive Chateau Rothschild wine in this tastefully decorated place, which looked more like a fancy downtown restaurant than a commissary; then he’d drunk it all himself.
He was drinking no wine today. In fact, he was eating lunch faster than usual, and would have ordered just sandwiches in his offices if his pride did not disallow it. No silly ass like Everett Scarborough was going to totally disrupt a cherished perquisite of his office, no indeed.
Ivan, one of the black waiters in starched white shirts and ties, came up to him with a message. “It’s your office, sir,” said Ivan. “You’re wanted back immediately.”
“Did they say why?” said Richards, looking up with an annoyed expression.
“No sir. But they did say it was a priority.”
Having a waiter at the super-grade commissary named Ivan was a constant source of jokes for the officers. The rumor was that George Bush had hired him before leaving, just to annoy the next director who came to power.
“Thanks, Ivan. My compliments to the chef. I guess I can’t finish.” He patted his mouth with the newly laundered, embroidered linen napkin and then stared down at the unfinished food on the fine china. “Excellent, though. Please put the bill on my tab, and give yourself an extra five percent tip.”
“Thank you, sir. This must be important.”
Richards smiled deprecatingly. “And guess what! it’s top secret. Classified stuff of the very highest order.”
Ivan chuckled at the joke. “In that case, sir, you’d best not say another word to a man named Ivan.”
Richards laughed congenially and patted Ivan on his back. “That’s right. See you tomorrow. Hopefully.”
When he reached his office, his secretary—a man named Harold Finch, looked up from his typewriter and pulled off his dictation earphones. “It’s Operative Edward Myers, sir. You told me to send for you as soon as he came in.”
“Myers, huh? Well, well.” Richards cleared his throat. “Harold, why don’t you take lunch now?”
“I’ve already had lunch, sir.”
“A break then. A hard-working man like you always needs a break.”
Finch nodded. “I understand, sir.”
Harold Finch was paid not only by the CIA, but also from a private account by Brian Richards himself. He was paid for what he knew, and for what he did not know. Richards had no reason to distrust his secretary, but this meeting was something he should not even have a chance of overhearing.
Finch got up, and was calling the phone operator to make arrangements for reception of any incoming calls before he left. Richards cleared his throat, straightened his jacket, and then opened the door of his private library/conference room. Ed Myers was seated at the table, reading a magazine.
It was the gag around the agency, among those who came into contact with him, that Ed Myers was in the wrong profession; he should have started working for Walt Disney. He had open, blonde, California good-looks about him, a casual and lanky jokiness about him that creative types in Hollywood tended toward; smooth and slick and yet as all-American as a grown-up graduate of the Mickey Mouse club. He was tall and slender with short hair, cut at least once every two weeks, and when he shook your hand, as he shook Brian Richards’s hand now, you got the feeling of, Hey, the world is an up kind of place, along with general twinkly-eyed enthusiasm.
Nonetheless, Myers could be a hard and competent operative, Richards knew.
“Well, thanks for coming around, Ed. Sorry to make it sound so hush-hush and urgent, but it is!”
“That’s okay. Just got off the plane at National and had to head out here anyway to make sure my report got in the right pigeonhole.” The man did look tired. Richards noticed that the wrinkles around his eyes were more pronounced.
“You were in Berlin, I hear.”
“That’s right.”
“What, smuggling ballet dancers across the Berlin Wall.”
“You know I can’t talk about that kind of thing, Mr. Richards. Even to you.”
“Good man. Of course. Well, could we adjourn to my office?
I think I might be able to rustle up some coffee for both of us.”
Myers brightened. “Do I look that bad? Sure, I guess I could use some caffeine. Not as young as I used to be.”
“Who is, Ed? Who is?”
The two men walked back to the office. They both wore their laminated security badges of photograph and ID number clipped to the lapels of their coats. All just a part of the extensive security precautions taken at Langley, which included a barbed-wire fence around the perimeter of the building patrolled by armed guards and police dogs. No one could enter the perimeter without a proper ID-check and clearance. Even the janitors needed extensive security checks. This area was particularly cordoned off, with another check necessary to get past guards posted in glass booths in the hallway up ahead. There were those who claimed that the C in CIA stood for clandestine—but one acerbic wit had suggested that President Harry Truman, who had formed the agency back in 1947 with the National Security Act, simply couldn’t spell security.
Richards gestured to one of the cushioned seats fronting his desk, and then shut and locked the door. The room was soundproof now, so he felt a little better. What was going to go on here today was not the sort of stuff he wanted anyone in this area to even have the vaguest hint of.
“How’s the family doing, Myers?”
“Just great, sir. My son, especially. He’s really come around.”
“Good, good. Glad to hear it.” Richards walked around his desk, and then settled into his huge and quite comfortable leather swivel chair. The placement of his chair afforded him a pleasant panoramic view of the array of degrees, awards, and citations which papered his walls, his collection of books, his small locked filed cabinet, the pictures of his own wife and family, and the plush couch against the wall. A tum would give a beautiful view of the spring-clothed Virginia woods in back of Langley, but for now, his curtains were closed. The office was lit by tastefully placed electric lights; there were no harsh strip fluorescent lights above. Richards abhorred them.
“Families are wonderful, aren’t they?” Richards continued. “What would we do without them? But now, to business.” Richards brought out a small portable tape recorder and placed it on the desk between them. “I understand that you’re a friend of Dr. Everett Scarborough.”
“That’s right. He’s helped me ... and my son. Quite a bit.” A cloud darkened the man’s features. “This isn’t about Everett, is it?’
“It is.” Richards cleared his throat. “I suppose you haven’t been following the national news in Berlin. I’ve taken the liberty of having a few copies of news stories prepared for you to look at, Ed. But let me go over a few succinct facts in regard to the case.”
Richards outlined the party line on the situation, summing up with, “He’s apparently had some kind of nervous, perhaps even mental, breakdown. We don’t know—that attempted assassination over at the University of Maryland may have triggered it. All we know for sure is that he’s killed Captain Eric MacKenzie, and a top operator. He has interfered with top National Security Projects, and is running amok on some wild paranoid mission against the government of this country, claiming that we’ve kidnapped his daughter.” Richards pulled a paper from a stack, opened a page and showed it to Myers. “The latest is this. Scarborough’s editor at Quigley—Cindy Clinton—was killed last night. Shot and thrown in front of a New York subway
train. We have reason to believe that Everett Scarborough was involved.”
Myers’s face had remained impassive through the entire briefing. Even his normally expressive eyes had remained unemotional, if faded and tired. Now, though, he shook his head. “Everett? You know, this is awfully hard to believe. Everett Scarborough? I suppose he can be a bit of a curmudgeon—but my evaluation of him was always that he was an emotionally healthy individual.”
“Ours as well. As you probably know, Scarborough worked for the government in the sixties as a top consultant on Project Blue Book. After Blue Book concluded in 1969, Scarborough remained on-call—and also utilized Air Force and government facilities for continued information for his series of books and lectures that made him somewhat of a media star. His contact for these purposes was Colonel Walter Dolan. Our intensive interviews with Dolan have led us to believe that Scarborough has been headed for a crack-up for some time. Indeed, some grandfather memos from Colonel Dolan have been unearthed, expressing concern. It was a shame that we did not pay attention to this disintegration of a brilliant mind—but then, there are many other more pressing things on our plates. What we have to deal with now is the situation. And a situation which, by the way, is of express danger to national security.” Richards cleared his throat. “There is a possibility that Scarborough is in league with KGB subterfuge.”
Myers’s eyebrows rose. He stared at Richards for a moment and then chuckled softly. “Whew. And you’re expecting me to buy all this?”
Richards frowned. “These are the facts, Myers.”
“Okay, so maybe I’m too exhausted to play E. Howard Hunt to your G. Gordon Liddy, sir. I apologize. But Scarborough couldn’t do this kind of stuff. I know him well enough for that ... And what kind of national security are you talking about? He’s a UFO skeptic. That’s a cold topic.” Myers heaved a sigh, and rubbed his eyes. “Besides, we haven’t gotten to the nub of the matter yet, have we? Why are you telling me this? Because I know the man? You want my opinion? Well, my opinion is that Dr. Everett Scarborough is a great guy and all this must be some kind of dreadful misunderstanding.”
Richards pushed the tape deck forward. “This is why I called you in, Ed.” He hit the “Play” button.
Everett Scarborough’s voice, sounding uncharacteristically tense and uncertain, came through the speaker, addressing Ed Myers. He listened to the tape. There were three messages, the last two just short inquiries, both promising to call back.
Richards turned the tape off.
Myers sat for a moment, absorbing this. Then he turned and looked at Richards. “You bastards,” he whispered.
“Name of the game, Ed. You’re one of us. You know that these measures are sometimes necessary.”
“That’s my private line! I’m high enough for the privilege of not being bugged.”
“No bug. We just checked your tape. We thought that Scarborough might try to get to you for help. We turned out to be correct, Ed. And so, that is why you’re here. Tell me, would you have aided a wanted fugitive?”
“It might be nice to talk to him. To see his side of the story. There’s no law against that. That’s certainly far short of treason.”
“Certainly. In fact, that’s just what we want you to do, Ed. We want you to talk to Everett Scarborough. We want you to persuade him to turn himself in, so that this whole sorry business can be resolved.”
“And if he won’t turn himself in?”
“We have a contingency plan for that.”
“You mean that you want me to betray a friend!”
“When we take our oaths to this agency, and to our country, Ed, we take on a difficult responsibility that sometimes necessitates actions we loathe. Does the trash man relish rotting garbage? I think not—but it’s his job. This is your job, Ed, but more than that, it’s your duty.” Richards’s voice and posture assumed a standard officiousness, edged with a steely, cutting nasality peculiar to him in times when he exercised his authority, his command. “Need I remind you of those oaths you have taken, to say nothing of your responsibilities as a citizen of the United States of America? Need I remind you of the ample financial rewards you have received in line of duty?” Richards sighed deeply, looked away, and then idly thumbed a button. The drapes concealing the plate-glass window softly shushed apart, like the dresses of a woman, revealing the soft spring hues like watercolors on the palette of Virginia forest. “Nice view, huh?”
“Lovely.” Monotone.
“You think I didn’t have to stab some people in the back to get it?”
“God alone knows what you’ve done, Richards.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve got, what, two, maybe three years before you’re pegged for a nice desk job. No more gallivanting around the world, eh? Still, I suppose you’re not exactly relishing the idea. Desk jobs can be dead ends, can’t they, Ed? You know that; I know that ... I could help you get a view like that.” He gestured out the window. “And the power that view brings along.”
“Jesus Christ, Richards. Jesus fucking Christ and I’m wasting what’s left of my soul, taking the Lord’s name in vain on account of the like of scum like you.”
“I realize that I’ve put you under some strain, Ed. I’ll take that into account. I’ll ignore the name calling.”
Myers covered his face with his hands, breathed, took in the carbon dioxide. “Nope. Fry my ass. Give me a nice lowly desk job. I don’t care, Richards. I know other super-grades. You’re not the only bigwig around here. Something will look mighty fishy if you start dumping on me. To paraphrase a recent esteemed member of our damned corps, Read my lips. I will not do anything to betray my friend Everett Scarborough.”
“Oh, but you must, Ed. You see, you’re the only one within our number who can.” Richards tented his fingers a moment, thinking, and then opened a drawer. He pulled three files from his desk. One was blue, one was white, the last black. “Edward Myers, you have been privileged before to see classified materials. That is part of your job. However, as a lower grade, you of course are not entitled to see certain reports; you are not privileged to know certain truths. I think it’s about time, considering your extreme importance to us, to let you know a few facts. In these folders, more or less, are the reasons we need to contain the threat known as Everett Scarborough.”
Enlivened a bit from his exhaustion, clearly intrigued but loathe to show it, Myers looked down at the folders.
“Fancy,” he said.
“Project Blue Book. Project White Book.” Richards reached out, took the comer of the black folder and pulled it away. “Project Black Book.”
“I should have guessed. UFOs. So what. Everybody knows that the government still secretly monitors reports. Why all the show business, Richards?”
“Just have a look. I’ve prepared them especially for you.”
Myers picked up the folders. He paged through material of the blue, and then hurried onto the white. He read for several silent minutes, and then looked up at Brian Richards as though he were Satan himself.
“Hey—wait a second. Christ, Richards ... This ... This ...” He couldn’t get out the words.
“You’ve seen it now. You didn’t have to look, my friend. If you’re with us, you’ll not only have all the things I promised, but also a hefty bonus. A hundred thousand. No, let say two hundred thousand dollars.”
“This can’t be authorized, Richards! This is treason! Treason to the Bill of Rights, to everything that is holy, to human decency, for God’s sake.”
“It’s all because of this,” Richards waved the black folder tantalizingly. “If not for Black Book, the other two would not exist. Here, you might as well read it.”
“Why?”
Richards tossed the folder on top of the others. “Ed, we’re down to the bottom line here. It looks as though we’re in a bit of a bind, here. I have no choice.”
“No choice. What do you mean?”
�
�What time is it, Ed?”
Myers checked his watch. “I’ve got 2:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Savings Time.”
“How precise. Let me make this simple. If you do not now agree to help us to capture Everett Scarborough, by 2:32 P.M. tomorrow, your family will have experienced unfortunate and most tragic accidents. Fatal accidents. Now. What would you prefer, Ed. A dead family and a loyalty preserved, or a little help bringing in a criminal?”
Ed Myers went white. “This isn’t just Company talk.”
“No.”
“I’ve heard whispers.”
“Probably true, Ed.”
“You’re one—”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, God help me.”
“I doubt it, Ed.” Richards went to the private bar by the sofa and fixed Ed Myers a stiff drink. He knew that Myers liked dark rum and Cokes, and it took just a moment to fix one. He went to the ashen man and placed the drink in his hand. Myers gulped half of it down, his knuckles turning white on the arm of the chair.
This was quite typical.
Richards had experienced three, maybe four situations, quite similar to this. Sometimes, the Publishers had to recruit on sudden notice, and as Editor-in-Chief now, Brian Richards had done a few himself, mostly fellow CIA operatives.
They’d all reacted much the same as Ed Myers was reacting.
“Maybe you’d better read the Black, Ed. You’ll understand more then.”
Ed looked at the Black folder. His hand shaking slightly, he opened it and started to look at the papers it contained.
Casually, Brian Richards went back to the bar, grabbed the bottle of Jamaican dark rum and liberally freshened his new recruit’s drink.
Chapter 15
The standard route from New York City to Baltimore is simple. You just take Route 95 south. This involves traveling much of the trip on the dreaded and smelly New Jersey Turnpike, crossing the majestic Delaware Memorial Bridge, and then paying another two dollars’ worth of tolls to finish up with the JFK Expressway. The total trip takes between three and four hours, depending upon which side of the speed limit you care to drive.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 53
