by Tom Gabbay
I got up, went into the living room, and flicked the set on just in time to see Kennedy being treated to a wild ride into Cologne, his second stop in Germany. The route was jammed with fans straining to get a glimpse of that Kennedy magic. They loved the good looks, the boyish charm, the easy intellect. It was easy to love.
Of course, he wasn’t what he seemed to be. In fact, he was pretty much the opposite. The devoted family man was actually a sex-crazed maniac who needed to screw every halfway decent-looking female that came along. The tough cold warrior who stood eye to eye with Khrushchev and made him blink was really an egotistical dilettante who let the Soviet leader scare the shit out of him in their first meeting, tempting the premier to place nuclear weapons ninety miles off our shore, bringing us to the brink of war. And the idealistic crusader for justice was, in fact, a cynical cheat who stole the White House with the help of his crooked father and some Chicago gangsters. He was magic all right, but as any good witch doctor will tell you, magic is all based on misdirection.
Don’t get me wrong—I liked Kennedy a lot. He had roused the country from a ten-year coma and had excited the world with his energy, his ideas, and his eloquence. He made America look like the future. And, most important, he made me laugh. I was sold when he told an audience on the campaign trail that he’d just received a telegram from his father: “’Dear Jack,‘” he quoted from it, “’Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’” That comment got him my vote.
So what if he screwed every skirt in sight? If Jackie didn’t mind, why should I? And maybe he was a bit green when he first faced Khrushchev in Vienna, but he’d stood up to him when it counted. And as for politicians stealing elections—wake up if you think Nixon wasn’t trying to steal the same votes in 1960. Kennedy just did it better. In spite of the fact that he was a complete fraud and an expert con man, I thought the president was a breath of fresh air.
There were plenty of people who would strongly disagree, of course. Walk down Main Street in Montgomery, Alabama, with a JFK button on your lapel and you’d find out. You’d be lucky if you were just tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Yeah, there were folks out there who despised the president all right, hated him as much as most of the country loved him. But they weren’t the people the Colonel was talking about. He was talking about a conspiracy from within the government and, more to the point, inside the Company.
It was no secret that the president and the CIA were not on the best of terms. Hadn’t been since the Bay of Pigs. He didn’t trust them and they resented him. He’d fired Allen Dulles, who’d been director since 1953, put his own man in, then still ignored agency advice, effectively cutting them out of his administration. Everybody knew he had Bobby running his own half-assed covert operations out of the Justice Department, and it was not appreciated in Langley, to say the least. So I had no illusions about the president’s standing with the agency and no doubt that there would be few Company tears shed at his demise. But would they really go that far? The Colonel was talking about a coup d’etat by a group within the intelligence service of the United States government. It was enough to send a shiver up your spine.
“Jesus Christ, how the hell did you get this place?” Sam walked into the room unannounced. He didn’t have to bother with the doorbell because the clean-cut agent who was stationed in the foyer had let him in. “It’s bigger than mine!”
I gave the stock answer. “Friends in high places.”
“Not for long the way you’re going. Does it come with scotch?”
I went to the bar, poured two doubles even though it was barely past noon. Sam wandered over and stood in front of the television, which seemed to be providing minute-by-minute coverage of Kennedy’s day. He watched the mayhem for a moment then turned it off, without comment.
“How’s the trip going so far?” I asked.
“He’s a real pain in the ass when Jackie’s not along,” he replied, flopping into an armchair. “A goddamned bird dog off his leash.”
I handed him the drink and sat opposite. “Cheers,” he said, the glass already at his lips. He took a couple of good swallows and sighed. “Christ, Jack, I send you out for a little recruitment job and you come back with a plot to kill the president.”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“Yeah, lucky,” he echoed, examining the color of the whiskey. “Sorry about Powell. The guy desperately needs a proctologist.”
“No shit,” I agreed.
“Exactly,” he chuckled. “No shit.”
“And what’s with the help?” I said. “Why’s he using guys like Johnson and Chase?”
“Because I told him to.” He paused, sipped his drink. “They’re on temporary assignment, might as well use them.”
“What kind of temporary assignment?”
He gave me a look over the rim of his glass. “Johnson’s naval intelligence. Nothing to do with me.”
“Chase belongs back in the jungle, cutting somebody’s throat,” I said and Sam shrugged. He didn’t say anything for a minute, so I jumped on the lull. “What’s Iceberg?”
He looked at me and grinned. “You know, I think I’ll take this room after you leave.” He held his empty glass out and I took it over to the bar for a refill.
“You really sending me home?” I asked.
“I thought you wanted to go. Catch some more fish or whatever it is you do to pass the time. You know, I take my hat off to you, Jack. I could never sit around waiting for a fish to make my day. It takes a special kind of patience, I guess.”
“Go to hell,” I said.
“Booked in a long time ago, my son.” He took hold of the second scotch.
“What if the Colonel’s right?”
“You’ve been out of it a while, Jack. You don’t have the whole picture.”
“Wanna put me in it?”
“Love to,” he smiled, sipping the whiskey this time. “But it’s top-secret stuff. You know—”
“Like Iceberg?”
He shrugged.
“Come on, Sam,” I prodded. “You owe me some kind of explanation.”
“Do I? … Okay, then,” he conceded. “Iceberg’s the code name for a KGB cell that’s been operating in Berlin for the last couple of months. Highly trained and very secret. At least that’s what they’re saying in Langley.”
“What’s new about a KGB cell in Berlin?”
“It’s part of a political assassination unit.” He looked for a response but I didn’t give him one. “Iceberg’s specialty is damage control,” he added.
“What kind of damage control?” I asked.
“Hitting a target’s easy,” he began.
“Like Castro?”
“Well, relatively easy,” he corrected himself. “The hard part is damage control. Public perception. Come on, you haven’t been out of it that long. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Are you saying the president might be a target?”
“Washington doesn’t think so.”
“What do you think?”
He stood up and wandered over to the window before answering. “If he is, he’s the Russkies’ target, not ours.”
“Why would the Soviet Union want to assassinate Kennedy?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe they’re pissed off because the missile thing made them look bad. Maybe they don’t like his haircut.”
I gave him a look. “It doesn’t make sense, Sam. If they wanted to start World War Three they’d just fire off a few thousand warheads.”
“Maybe they don’t want to start a war. Maybe the idea is to make it look like our side was responsible. Or at least cause enough confusion so nobody’s sure.”
“Why do it in Berlin, then, where suspicion is going to immediately fall on them? They’d do it in New Orleans or Alabama if they wanted to make it look like us.”
“Maybe they want it to look like we were setting them up.”
I
had to laugh. It was the perfect Company answer. If it looks like a “6” it must be a “9” because the whole goddamned world is upside down.
“Know what I think, Sam? I think you guys have your heads so far up your intelligence ass that you can’t find your own tail.”
He looked a little insulted. “If they were gonna pull something, this is exactly how they’d operate. Your Colonel plants the idea that there’s an element within the U.S. intelligence community that’s plotting to assassinate the president. Afterward, the information gets out, along with a few other well-placed ‘clues,’ and there’s enough of a question mark that no one knows for sure.”
“Or,” I suggested, “the Colonel’s telling the truth and someone in the Company—”
“I wouldn’t talk like that, Jack. It could get you into real trouble. Real trouble. Anyway”—he changed gears—”chances are the East Germans are just running a chaos operation. Trying to get us to keep Kennedy in a low profile.”
“I thought about that,” I said. “There’s only one problem. Why would they insist on getting me all the way over here so they could run the story through me?”
Sam gave me a good long look before he hit me with it: “I was hoping you could shed some light on that, Jack.”
I didn’t like the implication, especially coming from Sam. It was natural that they’d think in those terms, but I didn’t expect it from Sam. It threw me.
“What does Powell think?” I asked coolly.
“He thinks you’re part of it.”
“Is that why I’ve got the babysitter?”
“Yes,” he said, to the point. “Powell insisted on it. You know, you didn’t exactly impress him with your team spirit.”
“Did you send me here to impress Powell?”
Sam shrugged, conceding the point.
“If you really thought I was involved you wouldn’t be sending me home,” I pointed out.
“I never said I thought you were involved.” He polished off his drink, set the empty glass on the table. “I’m sending you home because I don’t need you anymore.”
“Maybe I’ll stick around on my own for a while,” I said, just to test him.
“Not an option,” he said, leaving no room for negotiation. We stood there without saying anything for a few seconds—long enough for it to feel awkward.
“Well,” he finally said. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Anytime,” I answered. He smiled and headed for the door, picking up his hat on the way. He stopped at the entrance and turned back, casually dropping the question that was the real reason for his visit: “By the way … How are you supposed to get in touch with Becher? Do you have a signal or have you got a meeting set up already?”
“I thought you said you didn’t need me anymore.”
“Did I say that? What a tactless son of a bitch I am.”
“He said he’d contact me,” I said.
“I see,” he nodded, then exited with a shrug.
I stepped into the shower, pulled the curtain, and leaned into the tiled wall, letting the hot water clear my head. I was surprised and disappointed with Sam. Surprised that he was cutting me off, disappointed that he had doubts. I would have expected it from the likes of Powell, but Sam and I had history.
It didn’t even make sense that I was working the other side. What if they had managed to turn me? They’d want to get me reactivated, sure, but not by dropping a line to the agency that practically said “please send our new double agent, Jack Teller.” It was too stupid for words. Sam had to see that. Even Powell had to see it. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t thick, at least not that thick. On the other hand, maybe he was well aware of it and he was just blowing smoke. Maybe Powell had something to hide.
A chilling thought. What if there was a plot and the Berlin chief of station was mixed up in it? It made a kind of uneasy sense. He had dismissed the whole idea before I even got it out of my mouth—no questions, no concerns, no allowance for the possibility that there might be some truth in it. And if he was somehow involved, his next move would be to discredit me. Sam had said that Powell thought I was “part of it” and he made a point of saying the house arrest was Powell’s idea. Maybe Sam was trying to tell me something. Maybe he had the same idea but, for obvious reasons, couldn’t say anything.
If what I was thinking was true, then it wouldn’t be enough for Powell to ship me back to Florida. I’d never make it that far, or if I did, I’d wash up on the beach one morning in the near future and it’d be “poor bastard, what the hell was he doing out there in the middle of the night anyway?” I turned the shower off and laughed at myself. Powell was a topflight asshole, but I was getting carried away.
The phone started ringing in the bedroom. I stepped out of the tub, threw on one of the hotel bathrobes, and picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Teller?”
“That’s right.”
“This is room service.”
“Room service? I didn’t—”
“Do you remember me?” the voice said. “I served you yesterday evening.” I recognized the Colonel’s smoky voice.
“Yes …” I answered. “I do remember you.”
“May I confirm your dinner order for tonight?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“The same as yesterday and at the same time?”
I glanced at the clock at the side of the bed. It was twelve forty-five, giving me eight hours, more than enough to figure out how to lose my nursemaid.
“Yes,” I said. “That’ll be fine. Same as last night.”
“For one person, is that correct?”
“Yes, I’ll be alone,” I confirmed.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Teller,” he said, then hung up.
I waited before putting the receiver down, and sure enough, I heard the secondary click of the third party hanging up. I wondered if Sam knew about the tap or if it was off Powell’s bat. Either way, it was unlikely they’d tumble—the Colonel had played it well and I hadn’t blown it.
Now all I had to do was figure out how to get past the junior James Bond sitting by my door. I could either go through him—not likely since he had at least one gun—or I could go around him. The window was out of the question. It was six stories up and my Spider-Man days were long gone. Anyway, it was broad daylight. My best chance was to finesse him. I thought if I could get him inside I’d figure something out. Maybe I could even lock him in the bathroom.
I went through the living room and opened the door leading into the foyer. My sentry was slumped over a chair by the door reading an old copy of the Saturday Evening Post. One of the nameless foot soldiers who were kept around for this kind of duty, he was right off the production line—early thirties, short hair combed back with a dab of grease, and a cocky “don’t mess with me” expression on his face. The .38 that was tucked away in his shoulder harness peeped out from under his navy blue jacket.
“How you doing?” I greeted him.
“Just fine,” he answered coolly.
“I’m Jack,” I said. “Jack Teller.”
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “I know.”
“You?”
“Smith,” he deadpanned.
“Right. Well, Smith”—I smiled, quickly losing confidence in my plan—”I’m ordering room service, so what can I get you? They do a mean sirloin.”
He stared blankly at me. “Thanks, anyway.”
“Okay,” I said. “How about a drink?”
Still nothing.
“Look,” I persisted. “There’s no point in you sitting out here when I’ve got a whole suite in there. It’s a hell of a lot more comfortable.”
“I’m fine right here,” he said.
Jerk. He was told to stay and he was gonna stay no matter what I tried. “Suit yourself.” I shrugged and went back inside.
I considered a diversionary fire, with lots of smoke and chaos. It had worked for me one time in Caracas when I was in a similar jam, but Smith w
as the type who’d die of smoke inhalation before he left me. I wandered into the bathroom to take a leak and shave, running various scenarios in my head. I was thinking about the time that I lost an unwanted companion in Mexico City by donning an evening gown and tiara when I saw the answer, right there in the ceiling above me—an access panel.
I threw some clothes on (making sure I had my wallet this time), grabbed one of the Louis XIV chairs from the living room, placed it on top of the toilet, and climbed on. It was a high ceiling, but when I balanced myself on the chair’s carved wooden arms, I was able to reach high enough to push the panel aside. I grabbed the inside frame and, with some effort, managed to pull myself up. The chair went flying as I left it, making a hell of a sound as it bounced off the bidet. I waited, ready to pounce on Smith if he came running, but he stayed put.
There was a space between the false ceiling and the insulation above, but it was filled with electrical wires and pipes. Just enough room for me to squeeze through if I lay flat on my belly and pulled myself along the thin support beams that held the ceiling up. I figured I could follow the water pipes, which would feed every room along the length of the hotel, until I came across another access panel.
It was slow progress—dark, hot, and dusty. The insulation was getting up my nose and I was having trouble breathing. I was starting to think I should’ve stuck with the fire idea when I felt a panel in front of me. It sounded like it was raining below and I realized that someone was in the room taking a shower. There was no way I was going any farther and I didn’t like the idea of waiting there until the room was clear, so I did what I always did in a tight spot—go for it and hope for the best.
I pried the panel open with my room key and was met with a blast of hot steam. When it cleared I lowered my head and looked around. I spotted a woman’s robe hanging on the back of the door and then, rotating halfway around the room, a woman’s soapy body pressed against a clear plastic shower curtain. She was humming something while she lathered up, maybe “Bali Hai” from South Pacific. She had a nice voice. I don’t know exactly how long I lingered there, but the blood started rushing to my head, so I pulled myself back into the crawl space in order to plan my drop.
