Safe Houses

by Dan Fesperman

“Their code names are airport symbols, like the ones on luggage tags. TXL for Tegel, in Berlin. I oughta know, having flown in and out of there a few times. CDG for Charles de Gaulle in Paris. IAD for Dulles, meaning Washington. Or maybe Langley.”

  “Because that’s where they were based?”

  “And still were, for the other two, based on the postmarks. It probably also means they all worked for the CIA. Why else use code names?”

  “So then who’s Robert?”

  “Somebody who got your mom fired? He could be the whole reason for the severance agreement, based on what the letter says. What’s the wording?” He read it aloud: “ ‘He needs to be reassured of your continued compliance with past agreements.’ ”

  “If he was a Berlin guy, how would the other two have known him?”

  “He could’ve moved around, I guess. Maybe they all worked with him on something that went terribly wrong.”

  “Like Anneliese Kurz. Why else hang on to that old newspaper story?”

  “The timing fits, but there’s no mention of her in the letter. And what about those other names, the two for Robert’s last assignments? We should Google them.”

  “Or maybe it’s explained in the rest of the letters. Keep reading.”

  The second letter, which was the first one from CDG, had been mailed from Paris only two days after IAD’s. It concurred with IAD’s suggestion that they remain in regular contact. Henry read it quickly and set it aside.

  “Hand me the next one.”

  “We should read them together.”

  She slid closer on the couch as Henry picked up a white envelope from IAD postmarked in August 2003, roughly a year after the first two letters. Their curiosity was overcoming their awkwardness.

  The correspondence was fairly routine through the next several letters. IAD and CDG offered brief but news-less updates to TXL in August of 2003, 2004, and 2005. Everyone seemed to be doing well. IAD mentioned in her 2004 letter that “Robert appears to still be on his best behavior, so far as I have been able to determine, or at least he is no longer making his presence felt.” The following year, IAD noted that she would soon be retiring, which she said would leave CDG as “the only active member of our group.”

  The tone and timing of the letters shifted abruptly in May 2006, three months ahead of their usual annual updates, when CDG wrote, “I do believe I’ve spotted ‘Robert’ in a photo from 6A of this Tuesday’s NYT. Not named, of course (When is he ever!?!), but lurking in the background as always, this time on Capitol Hill. This would seem to confirm IAD’s earlier theory that he may be operating ‘in a more public phase,’ albeit in his usual shadowy way.”

  She’d enclosed a clipped newspaper photo. The focus of the picture was a witness testifying before the terrorism subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Four faces were visible behind him, and CDG had circled in red ink the one on the far left.

  “That’s him!” Anna shouted. “That’s the guy from the mall.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s that same half smile, smug and threatening. Yes, it’s definitely him.”

  “Now, if we only knew his real name.”

  “But we do know one thing,” she said, frowning now. “He’s not Merle.”

  “People can grow beards, you know.”

  She shook her head.

  “His age isn’t right. This is from eight years ago, and even then he looks ten, fifteen years older than the way everyone describes Merle.”

  The next letter was from IAD the following month. She wrote that a few discreet inquiries had revealed that Robert “has assumed an advisory role among select GOP congressmen, including several with aspirations to higher office. Please keep in mind that although I no longer have the unlimited archival access I once enjoyed, my connection in that area remains strong, should either of you need access to Agency documentation on this subject or others.”

  “So she worked in records?” Anna said.

  “Or was close to someone who did. All we know for sure is that she must have had a high security clearance.”

  “Now, if we only knew what my mom did. Or CDG, her buddy in Paris.”

  “They do seem like buddies, don’t they? Even in this stuff.”

  “IAD strikes me as kind of buttoned down. CDG, a little more fast and loose.”

  In 2007 and every ensuing year through 2012 the letters were routine annual updates. There wasn’t a single mention of Robert. Yet, even during this uneventful span CDG’s correspondence crackled with more life and color. You sensed a personality behind the words, as opposed to IAD’s gray tone of business-by-the-book.

  Their letters from only a year ago, postmarked in August 2013, also had no news of Robert. But CDG’s letter included a postscript that, judging from its personalized nature, she must have added only on her letter to Anna’s mom:

  PS—I’ll be retiring in a few months, several years ahead of the customary age for going on the shelf. It’s partly because I would like to enjoy my life and my travels while I’m still energetic enough to do so to the fullest. I suppose I’m also weary of bucking the same system that thwarted both of us in those earlier days, even though the gals new to our biz have been telling me for ages that opportunities for them have never been greater. Hell, by ’89 they’d even opened an on-site day care center, right there at Langley. More power to them, but alas for us. One good thing about putting myself out to pasture is that I will now dare to send you a cornball holiday snapshot in the coming season. Maybe I’ll even join Facebook! Although I gather that is still frowned upon by the powers-that-be. Regardless, I will always fondly remember our adventures together, both past and more recent.

  Yours, CDG.

  “Recent adventures?” Anna asked. “Would you write it that way if you were only talking about letters?”

  “I wouldn’t, but I’m not CDG.”

  Anna moved on to the last few letters. The next one, from CDG only four months ago, was the first one postmarked in York, and Robert finally reappeared.

  “Our friend Robert has at long last surfaced by name in the public sphere,” CDG wrote, “or at least is now clearly visible just below the waterline, as you’ll see in the current issue of Newsweek. ‘Spooky,’ indeed, although the story doesn’t even come close to describing his real duties, not to mention any of the unsavory things we were witness to. With his star so obviously on the rise, I now ask of you both: Is it time for us to act?”

  “We need to look up that story,” Anna said. Henry flipped open his laptop and quickly found Newsweek’s online archive, where he clicked on a tab for 2014. A gallery of all the year’s covers popped up.

  “What’s the date on that postmark?”

  “April 19th.”

  The cover story for the corresponding issue was headlined “Death on the Farm.”

  “Good God,” Anna said. “Talk about irony. Although I’m betting none of those farmers were murdered in their beds.”

  They clicked through the rest of the issue—a piece from Moscow about Russia’s vulnerability on energy, a primer on how to cheat on your federal taxes, a story on the seductive dangers of menthol cigarettes. They lingered for a moment on a story about a mysterious State Department contractor who got involved with Freemasons in a scheme to topple Fidel Castro, if only because it sounded like something that an ex-CIA man might get mixed up in. But there was no likely suspect.

  “There it is,” Anna said, pointing to a story headlined “The Spooky Six.”

  “No matter who is elected president in 2016,” the story began, “odds are that one of these half dozen men will have a lot to say about the winner’s stands on matters of intelligence and national security.”

  The bulk of the piece was six thumbnail bios—of six paragraphs apiece—about each of the aforementione
d “Spooky Six,” whom the article described as “the most respected and sought after, yet also the most reclusive and camera shy, of campaign advisors from the security and intelligence arena.” As if to verify the “camera shy” observation, none of the thumbnails came with a photo. All six supposedly had extensive backgrounds in intelligence. None was named Robert. Henry and Anna ruled out two whose backgrounds were in the National Security Administration and the Defense Intelligence Agency. The other four had all worked for the CIA, but there wasn’t enough further information to say which of them was Robert.

  Henry wrote down the names in alphabetical order:

  Alex Berryhill, Winslow Edinson, Kevin Gilley, John Solloway.

  “So close, but so far.”

  “Google them. It’s bound to give us something.”

  Precious little, as it turned out. Apart from the Newsweek piece, there was no other media coverage. The only other possible references were a few Facebook pages, some database listings offering addresses and phone numbers, a few property records and court citations—none of which included criminal charges—and a couple of business listings that had nothing to do with intelligence work or government employment. An image search produced a few photos, but none matched the anonymous face that CDG had circled in the 2006 clipping from The New York Times.

  “Fuck.”

  They clicked around a while longer before admitting defeat. They felt certain they now had Robert’s name, they just weren’t sure which of the four it was.

  “Back to the letters?” he asked.

  “Only three to go.”

  IAD’s last letter, also from four months ago, was her response to the Newsweek piece. The most intriguing thing about it was that she also appeared to be responding to whatever TXL, or Anna’s mom, must have said about the story.

  “While I agree with TXL that the time is near for exposure, in my measured view we should first marshal our available resources and then await the next opportune moment of public acclaim, in order to inflict maximum damage.”

  “ ‘Maximum damage,’ ” Anna said. “If you’re this Robert fellow, and you get wind of that, not too hard imagining how he might react.”

  There was no follow-up correspondence to indicate what TXL and CDG thought of IAD’s recommendation, but the next two of the three remaining letters—both from CDG in York—were as interesting in their own way as the correspondence about Robert.

  The first one was postmarked in late June—only two months ago. The personal tone suggested it was a message CDG had sent only to Anna’s mom. It was stapled to a Washington Post obituary for Clark Addison Baucom, a former intelligence agent who had passed away at the age of ninety.

  “Very sad to read of the passing of your onetime beau from Berlin,” the note said. “Yet, how interesting to find here the possible answer to one of your oldest questions about all those bodies of water, yes?”

  “ ‘Bodies of water’?” Henry said, but Anna had zeroed in on something else.

  “Her onetime beau was ninety? Good lord, he was thirty years older than her.”

  “And when she left Berlin he would’ve been fifty-five, the old goat. But what’s this big secret she’s talking about?”

  They read the obit, parts of which were as interesting as an adventure tale. In the final years of World War II, Baucom had been posted fresh out of Yale to Moscow by the State Department. It took him four days to reach the Soviet capital, a harrowing journey by plane, train, a bicycle, and, finally, by oxcart rattling through the ruined city. It was there that he began his work as a spy, an occupation that kept him busy throughout Europe until 1991, when he was mustered out of the CIA from a posting to Prague, two years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

  They noticed that CDG had made a small checkmark next to a paragraph describing his work just after the war, which said:

  In 1946, Baucom became chief of the political section of the U.S. embassy to Hungary. In Budapest he was assigned control over an intelligence network run by a small, secretive U.S. spy organization known as the Pond, which remained in operation until it was disbanded in 1955.

  Baucom left the organization in 1948 to join the then-new CIA, and his earlier work for the Pond only came to light following the discovery of the organization’s lost archives in a barn in Culpeper, Va. Those records, transferred to the National Archives in College Park, Md., were only recently declassified by the CIA.

  “The Pond,” Henry said.

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Vaguely. There were a few stories about it a couple months ago, right around the time of this obit. They didn’t get a whole lot of attention, but maybe your mom saw them.”

  Anna shook her head.

  “My mom never read any news except what was in the Easton paper. It was a willful disconnection, almost like she was scared of what she might find.”

  “Well, this letter sure did grab her interest. This was the week she got her research card at the National Archives.”

  “To go look up stuff about an old boyfriend?”

  “Had to be for more than that, don’t you think? Look at what CDG wrote. Bodies of water. The possible answer to one of your oldest questions. And…” Henry’s voice trailed off.

  “And what?”

  “Jesus. This letter arrived the week before I got the phone call asking me to come do this job—to keep an eye on your mom, and whoever was visiting.”

  “You think it’s connected?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she found something, and somebody else noticed. The only way to know is to take a look ourselves.”

  “At the Archives? With Merle still out there?”

  “Our leads on Merle are almost nonexistent. At least this is something.”

  “Okay, after we finish the letters.”

  The next one—the last one that Anna’s mom had actually opened—had been postmarked only two weeks ago. It might even have been the last item of personal mail Anna’s mother had ever read.

  Dearest TXL,

  This is to confirm that I have received your parcel, and also the copy of your recent documentary find. As to the latter, I would caution that the evidence is not conclusive. Nonetheless, I will of course guard all of this material with my life, just as you have done for so many years, in order to ensure that it will be available when the time comes. In the meantime, I will await further news of your inquiries.

  Best,

  CDG

  “The parcel,” Anna said. “Do you think she means the big envelope my mom kept at UPS?”

  “Let’s hope so, because that would mean it’s in safe hands.”

  “But maybe you’re right about the Archives. Sounds like she found something.”

  “And was looking for more.”

  Henry picked up the last envelope, still sealed. He handed it to Anna, who went very still and then turned it so Henry could read the front.

  “Look at the date of the postmark,” she said.

  “Is that—?”

  “Yes. This was mailed the day Willard killed them.”

  Anna took a deep breath to collect herself. The only sound was of paper tearing as she ran a fingernail along the top to slit the upper edge. Inside was a single folded page. Anna opened it and placed it on the table so they could read it together. There were only four handwritten lines.

  Having reviewed your parcel and your latest correspondence, I have made a few discreet calls. Be aware that the worst is true and the strands have crossed. High alert and greatest caution. Keep your snow globe handy.

  Anna put a hand to her heart.

  “It’s almost as if she knew what was about to happen.”

  “I think we better go take a look at those old papers.”

  42

  It wasn’t Henry’s first trip to the Nation
al Archives, so he was prepared for the majesty of the vast reading room, which overlooked a forest through a curving wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. The holdings were a wonderland of undiscovered secrets and hidden treasures, there for the taking by anyone curious and dogged enough to dig them out. Anna was suitably impressed.

  “Who wouldn’t want to work here? Any idea where we should start?”

  “Over there,” Henry said, leading her toward a narrow, glass-walled room where a few researchers and archivists sat a tables, filling out requests for the next round of “pulls” from the many corridors of documents stored on the floors above and below. “There’s bound to be a resident expert on this stuff. Or let’s hope so. Otherwise we’re in for a real slog.”

  Before leaving Poston they’d gone back into Anna’s mother’s office to take another, closer look at the ugly snow globe from Paris, if only because CDG’s final message had seemed to assign it some sort of significance. They blew off the dust, turned it over, tapped the base for any signs of a hollowed-out space, and peered through the glass for any possible clues that might be gleaned from the kitschy model of the Eiffel Tower and all those plastic snowflakes, suspended in water. Nothing.

  They’d then checked online about the Pond materials during the two-hour drive to College Park, and had been daunted by the sheer volume of materials that awaited them—eighty-three boxes, filed under Record Group 263, the holdings of the CIA. A staffer directed them to a reference guide for the Pond materials, but said they probably wouldn’t make much headway without assistance.

  “The guy you need is Larry Hilliard,” she said, pointing across the room toward a big fellow with a slight potbelly, in khakis and a polo shirt. “Good luck, though. He’s pretty busy.”

  Hilliard was seated at a long table, flipping through a thick leather-bound volume, totally absorbed. Henry cleared his throat, but Hilliard kept on turning the pages.

  “Excuse me. You’re Larry Hilliard?”

  He sighed and looked up. Milk chocolate skin, hair graying at the temples, gold wire-rim glasses. His eyes were a little on the sleepy side, yet they shone with curiosity and a touch of impatience. The overall impression was that of a docile bear who had just emerged from hibernation deeply hungry, only to be interrupted in his foraging.