Not until he was led into the vast first salon of the suite was Earnshaw positive that he had been here before. It was the very suite that he had used as President in what seemed another era. It was the suite Hermann Goering had commandeered for his headquarters when the Nazis had occupied Paris in the Second World War. This was the suite Dr. Dietrich von Goerlitz, one of the world’s half-dozen wealthiest industrialists, was using today.
He realized that he was once more alone. Goerlitz was not here to greet him. The liveried butler had vanished. Earnshaw examined the salon with full recognition—the stucco murals showing Napoleon in Egypt, the wood-burning fireplace with the decorative gold sphinxes, the magnificent Empire furnishings. Then he remembered how he and Isabel, accompanied by Simon Madlock, had wandered through the incredible complex of rooms attached to the suite which included another salon like this one, six bedrooms, four baths, and those elaborate servants’ quarters. Involuntarily Earnshaw shook his head in wonderment, as he had done in the past: that certain people lived like this. It made him feel as uncomfortable now as it had then, to realize how uncompromisingly he had defended a society in which capitalism took care of its own, and how persistently, he had attacked Big Government, the welfare state, and all forms of socialism as wicked.
The grandeur of this Hotel Ritz suite reminded him of Goerlitz’s power—how do you bargain with a man who has everything?—as contrasted with his own dubious position, which was supported only by past honors and no present strength.
Restlessly, he thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and moved to the windows. Below, he could see the European compact cars, mechanical bugs, spinning around the octagon of the Place Vendôme. He studied the imposing column in the center, topped by a statue of Napoleon wearing a laurel wreath and Roman toga, and somehow Napoleon was transformed into Goerlitz, and Earnshaw forced his gaze from this to the parked cars beyond and the deluxe shops lining the shadowed rim of the square.
He heard no one enter the salon. There was only the instinctive feeling—as if someone was staring at your back, as if your ears were reddening because someone was discussing you—that he was no longer alone. He spun around. An elderly man, hunched over a Malacca cane, was in the room with him. For a moment, Earnshaw was speechless at how so few years had so enormously aged, and apparently enfeebled, Dr. Dietrich von Goerlitz.
“Good day, Emmett,” the elderly German rasped. “So you are here.”
“How are you, Dietrich? It’s been a long time, too long.”
Mentally alert and as prepared as an actor about to emerge from the wings to center stage, Earnshaw summoned up all of his social charm and warm amiability. He had started forward, as one who was wanted and welcomed, intending to take the German’s hand, but before he could do so, Goerlitz’s cane pointed him to a stately Empire chair between the carved coffee table and divan. “Sit there, Emmett,” he ordered.
Off balance, and somewhat abashed, Earnshaw veered in the direction of the chair and sat down. He saw Goerlitz hobbling to another antique armchair, decorated by gold sphinxes and resembling a throne, opposite him, across the low table.
Settling with a grunt, Goerlitz muttered, “Damn gout.” He hooked the cane on the back of the chair, asking, “Drink? Champagne? Sherry?”
Recalling a dinner at Villa Morgen, the Stammhaus in the suburbs of Frankfurt, Earnshaw remembered in time that his host was a teetotaler. “No, thank you, Dietrich.”
Goerlitz blew his nose and fixed his unblinking agate eyes on Earnshaw. “You have not changed,” he said grumpily. “You are the same healthy pumpkin.”
Earnshaw wished that he could return the compliment with sincerity. In truth, although the German was less enfeebled than he had first thought, Goerlitz’s physique had deteriorated. Strands of blue-gray hair were still combed neatly across his head, but his forehead resembled the ribs of an accordion, his eyes surmounted large bloodhound bags, his bulbous nose was a crisscrossing of reddish veins, his cheeks and jowls were age-spotted loose folds, his suit coat and the vest with its gold chain were too large for his wasted, concave chest.
“You’re looking trim, Dietrich,” Earnshaw managed to say. “You’ve lost weight. It befits you.”
“If you want my diet, I suggest you apply to the International Military Tribunal,” Goerlitz growled. “It is a four-year diet served only in Spandau Prison in Berlin.”
Earnshaw squirmed, and worked at the knot of his tie. It was evident that even if Goerlitz had weakened physically, he had not weakened in any other way. He had always been brusque, vainglorious, arrogant, cunning, taunting, and to these qualities, now exaggerated, there had been added a certain dismaying spitefulness and venom. He was still the heir to a dynasty that had first gained power under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and although Goerlitz had suffered, he could mock his tormentors, for his family dynasty had not only survived World War II but had grown ever more invincible.
“Well, I’m glad you think I look all that healthy, Dietrich,” said Earnshaw, seeking some small portion of sympathy, “but actually, I haven’t been in tip-top shape. I was unable to run for another term, you know, because of some kind of cardiac insufficiency. And then, after Madlock passed away, and then Isabel—you remember my wife?—well, I just haven’t had the strength I used to have.”
“But you are still strong enough to insist to come to Paris to see me.”
Earnshaw hoped that he was not perspiring. “Yes, as I’ve made clear, I wanted to see you. I was very pleased when your boy called me to say we could get together. He’s a nice boy, your Willi. You must be very proud.”
It was as if Goerlitz had not heard the last. He reached behind him for the cane, clutched the handle, and brought it in an arc before him. He brushed it with a wrinkled hand, then, as if addressing the cane instead of Earnshaw, he said, “You have insisted we must confer because you have heard—from an unimpeachable source, as you put it—that I am about to publish my memoirs and that I have devoted a chapter to your activities as President of the United States. You know the contents of this chapter—”
“Only to a limited degree,” Earnshaw interrupted.
“—and from what you know, you believe you can provide me with more information than I possess—”
“More accurate information, Dietrich.”
“—and by this meeting you can help me avert certain legal difficulties. Is that correct?”
Earnshaw shifted in the chair. “I didn’t say legal difficulties, exactly. I said, well, I suppose I meant I might save you embarrassment, and unnecessary controversy that would result if you make any mistakes.”
“So now we know why you are here. You want to save me.” His wrinkled face shrunk into a cruel semblance of a smile. “How decent of you, Emmett. How extremely thoughtful.”
Earnshaw felt the dampness inside his shirt collar. With a finger, he pried loose the collar that had pasted itself to his neck. “Naturally, Dietrich, I have a stake in this, too.”
“Naturally,” agreed Goerlitz with thick sarcasm. “Yes, naturally.” He weighed his cane in one hand, then laid it across his lap. “How did you hear of this chapter in my memoirs?”
“Well,” said Earnshaw nervously, “well—uh—a—an English friend who—uh—who is in publishing—”
“Of course,” said Goerlitz shortly. “Actually, I am not truly interested in your sources. What I have recorded in my memoirs is no secret. It has been a secret only from the press, so that a distorted version of my comments does not get out to the world before the entire volume is published. I am here, among other reasons, to make contracts for the publication of my story. Soon it will appear everywhere, and everyone will know what I have chosen to speak about. No, Emmett, I have no secrets. We can speak openly.”
“I’d hoped we could.”
Goerlitz had tugged a large old-fashioned watch from his vest pocket, glanced at it, returned it to the pocket. “In a busy day I have set aside thirty minutes for you. There are but twenty minut
es that remain. I suggest you tell me exactly what you have to say.”
Earnshaw could feel his breathing quicken and become irregular, and he wondered if he had brought his pillbox. He reached down into his pocket. It was not there. But then he realized he could not afford to waste time worrying about a temporary physical discomfort. Minutes were precious. He had been putting off the showdown. He must come to grips with it, now or never.
“Yes, if you don’t mind, I will speak bluntly, Dietrich. We are—are—uh—old friends, old, old friends, and old men, and we have seen much in our days, and for both of us there is little time left. I think we can be honest in a—in a special way—I think so—uh—within the confines of these four walls, can’t we?”
“You are wasting time, your time and mine,” said Goerlitz. “Speak your mind.”
Earnshaw nodded nervously. He had pulled a cigar from his pocket, but he did not unwrap it.
“As I understand it, Dietrich,” he said, “you have written that I was—uh—I was an indecisive Chief Executive. You have said I had no interest in my office. You have said I delegated decisions to my subordinates, mainly to Simon—Simon Madlock. Correct me if I am mistaken in what you wrote.”
“You are not mistaken. That is what I wrote. Except you are too kind to me and to yourself. I phrased those judgments in much more severe language.”
“All right. Be that as it may. In any case, you’ve blamed me for hastening Red China’s emergence as a nuclear power. You’ve blamed me and you’ve blamed Madlock for China’s getting possession of the neutron bomb, a rocket arsenal—”
Goerlitz raised his cane to interrupt Earnshaw. “I have not blamed you for China’s ultimate power,” he said. “To blame means to censure or condemn someone for his acts. I do not censure or condemn you for helping China build the neutron bomb. I am not like you Americans, Emmett. I do not pick heroes and villains. I am as pleased for China to have the bomb as I am for your country to have it. I am in business with both sides. In my memoirs I have only stated that you, first, and Madlock, second, are responsible for China’s new power.”
“You know very well what that means,” Earnshaw said in an uncontrolled flash of anger. “In my country, in my world, that so-called statement puts blame on me, accuses me of nothing less than treason.”
“Not treason, Emmett,” said Goerlitz. “Culpability. Irresponsible weakness. Disinterest. All of these are crimes, too, for a leader. No, Emmett, I have not charged you with premeditated murder, to use a term from your law. I have charged you with potential manslaughter through inexcusable negligence.”
“And I reply that you are misinformed and on the verge of fostering a dangerous lie,” said Earnshaw heatedly.
“If that is a lie,” said Goerlitz, “what is truth, Emmett, what is truth?”
“The truth is in the record,” snapped Earnshaw. “You can read it just as easily as anyone else can. Everyone knows my stand, and my Administration’s stand, on the People’s Republic of China and on that Mr. Kuo Shu-tung. I would not deal with them unless they were ready to stop all aggression and join us in nuclear disarmament. That was my unswerving policy.”
“Apparently, your memory is failing you, Emmett. According to the complete record, you did deal with the People’s Republic of Red China. You dealt with them extensively.”
Earnshaw tried to comprehend what the German was saying. When he thought he understood, he was partially relieved. “Oh, you mean those preliminary lower-level conferences we had with them in Warsaw, The Hague, Calcutta? Yes, of course, we had to communicate, keep those lines open, if we were ever to bring them to the peace table. And the Zurich Parley? Yes, I agreed with Simon Madlock that this was as far as we could go in our attempt to reason with them. But I wouldn’t call that dealing with the Chinese. No, not a—”
“Emmett,” Goerlitz interrupted harshly, “I am not speaking about those public-relations and propaganda conferences. I am referring to what really happened. I am referring to your underhanded, secret dealings.”
Earnshaw straightened. “What in the devil does that mean? Secret dealings? What secret dealings?”
“Come now, come now, I am in possession of the documents, the letters bearing your signature, which authorized my firm in Germany to supply certain materials, on behalf of the American Government, to. the Chinese Reds through intermediary nations like Albania. It is something German firms have done occasionally before, as in 1966, when they sold Luftwaffe Sabre jets to Pakistan through Iran, to overcome your arms embargo. It had been done for others, and it was done for you.”
Instantly, Earnshaw remembered the night in the Dorchester Hotel when Sir Austin had shown him actual photocopies of such documents and letters, typed over his own signatures. He had forgotten, and now the reminder of this evidence shook him. He heard Goerlitz speaking again.
“You don’t deny the existence of such papers, do you?” Earnshaw felt confused. “I—uh—no—well, Dietrich, I did see some photostats of these—uh—papers in your possession—yes—some orders for you to fill, to be paid for out of our special defense funds, yes. Now I remember.”
Goerlitz toyed with the cane. “You signed them or you did not. One or the other.”
“I signed them. But you know, Dietrich, I have no recollection of actually signing them. I simply haven’t. I was signing so many things. I mean, on most I was fairly well informed, but many papers were relatively unimportant. Simon Madlock would simply pile them on my desk and explain the important ones as I endorsed them. Possibly some of these materials that went to China, the authorizations for such, were among the papers I signed. But what we gave them couldn’t have been important or Madlock would have briefed me first.”
Earnshaw could see his host considering him with open contempt. Goerlitz’s head slowly went up and down, as he said, “They were important, in terms of evaluating China’s growth to its present position of power.” He had edged himself forward, bending toward the end table near the divan to open a drawer. He extracted a sheaf of papers, held together with a large clip, and tossed them across the coffee table toward Earnshaw. “There is the complete file. The photostats are of documents that are reproduced in my book. Have a look for yourself.”
With trepidation, Earnshaw picked up the sheaf of correspondence. After a minute, he knew that every one was on the stationery of the White House. A few were signed by him, and many by Simon Madlock. He had peeled them back slowly. Document after document, letter after letter, authorizing the purchase of materials—defined only by reference numbers—from Goerlitz Industriebau in Frankfurt-am-Main to be shipped, by them, via Albania, for ultimate delivery in Shanghai. Other correspondence authorized Goerlitz to arrange unpublicized economic meetings in Frankfurt and in other European and Southeast Asian cities, between representatives of the United States and those of the People’s Republic of China.
Not one page of the correspondence was familiar to Emmett Earnshaw.
He looked up, heartsick.
Goerlitz had been observing him. “Emmett,” he said, “are those signatures of yours and Madlock’s authentic?”
“Yes.”
Goerlitz hit the carpet gently with his cane tip. “Then, there is your record.”
Earnshaw dropped the papers on the table. He felt hot and feverish. He stared at the German, and finally, he began to shake his head and then kept on shaking it. “No, Dietrich, that is not my record. Maybe it makes no sense to you, but I know nothing about any of this.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed Goerlitz, now thumping his cane hard. ‘That is the whole point of my chapter. It is not Madlock I expose. It is you. It is you, Emmett. Because of your weakness, you abdicated your Presidency to Simon Madlock. You were not interested in these vital matters. He was. You would not act, so he acted in your stead. He performed in your name.”
Deeply shaken, Earnshaw tried to find words. “I refuse to believe it. There’s something missing. I knew Simon like a brother. He was incapable of performing b
ehind my back in such a way.”
Goerlitz snorted. “You would do well to read Nietzsche. ‘Wherever I found a living creature, there I found the will to power.’” The German paused. “Perhaps I knew your friend and aide better than you did. He was loyal, it is true. He would not usurp your power. He would only try to fill the vacuum left by your disinterest in power, and naturally would attempt to fill it with his own species, performing in your best interests, he thought.”
“It still makes no sense. Why would he want to help those Reds in China this way? He didn’t want a future war—”
“No, he did not,” Goerlitz interrupted. “He was a man of peace—in my opinion a foolish one, an impractical one—so he acted this way only for peace. Was he right or wrong? Perhaps the Summit will answer this question. No matter. The fact remains that the world condition that exists today is largely due to your dereliction of duty, to Madlock’s experiments on your behalf; and since I was in the midst of all this, I believe I have every reason to publish this little private episode in our recent history.”
The unassailable revelation of his beloved and trusted aide’s hidden role in his own affairs had stunned Earnshaw beyond protest or denial. He sat as hunched over as his host, as old and gray, twisting his cigar. He lifted his head. “I—I’m trying to—to—uh—digest it, Dietrich. I’m trying to make heads or tails of your charges.”
“I shall summarize it for you quickly, and then we can be done,” said Goerlitz. “Be attentive, please. I am not your Madlock, remember… While you were in the White House cutting paper dolls and playing cards and occasionally prattling about lower taxation, your ship of state was without a strong hand at the helm, and floundered deep in foreign waters with no charted destination. So, in effect, Simon Madlock took over at the helm. He thought he had a foreign policy that would make you a great man of history. He was a well-intentioned person, your Madlock, but a stupid one, muddy-minded, overidealistic, evangelistic, determined to bring peace in our time in his own way. He saw that your country’s future would forever be interlocked with China’s. He saw, also, that China had to be reasoned with, but could not be reasoned with so long as it was distrustful of American capitalistic imperialism and American goals. He set out, silently and behind the scenes, to woo China out of Russia’s orbit and into America’s orbit by proving, with tangible gifts, that America was friendly and wished only peace. He needed a discreet means by which to contact China. He could not depend on another nation. He needed an individual. He knew that I was trading with China, so he sought me out for the role of unofficial intermediary. His idea was to create a Marshall Plan for China, no strings attached. He would give me orders for materials, and I would pass these along under many guises, but with the donor always clearly known. These orders represented economic aid, even to new materials for nuclear power plants. Using mainly your signature or approval, but sometimes entirely on his own, employing any funds authorized by Congress that did not have to be accounted for, Madlock implemented his policy. The Chinese were suspicious, but receptive. Perhaps, in time, they might have come around, and you would have had an enormous diplomatic victory. But Madlock went too far. He personally handpicked Professor Varney to go to the Zurich Parley, because Varney was a dreamer like himself. Madlock was positive that Varney would be the last seduction needed to bring China over to your side. This was a major risk, and Madlock knew it, but he deliberately took it—in your name. He loaded Varney down with assorted classified information, feeling sure that these bits and pieces would impress the Chinese and disarm them long enough to get them to the peace table. However, Madlock miscalculated. Varney went a step further than Madlock had foreseen. Varney defected. And China, momentarily lulled by your peace offensive, awoke and could not believe its good fortune. Overnight, peace on Madlock’s terms went out the window.
The Plot Page 48
