She turned to look, and saw the vague outline of a human figure in the shadowy corner of the building—sixteen floors up.
Maggie turned back to Forrestal, who looked at her now with anger and fear combined. “Maybe they’ll blame you,” he whispered.
He let go.
Maggie could do nothing but watch as he fell, landing far below on a roof only a few stories above the ground, his body askew and his legs buckled into horrible angles. She looked for movement, but there was none.
Closing her eyes to rein in her emotions, Maggie then turned to see Mrs. Stevens, still in the corner, eyes wide, tears welling.
“Out. Now,” Maggie said quietly. “Get your can and get to the elevator. I’ll take the far stairs. Get to the loading dock and get a car running. Meet you there. Go!”
Nodding, Mrs. Stevens fumbled for the door and headed for the bathroom to retrieve her garbage can. To her credit, she walked with only a little bit of a hurry. And it wasn’t like the elevators were busy. A moment later, Maggie heard the faint ding of the bell.
That was when she walked out and slowly made her way toward the stairs, well away from the nurses’ desk and the corpsman.
It was probably for the best that she didn’t encounter anyone on her way to the stairs, because she was in no mood to play nice, and she really didn’t want the hassle of leaving screaming, terrified people in her wake.
JAMES FORRESTAL DEAD
Falls to His Death 13 Stories Up at Naval Hospital
PRESIDENT DECLARES FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY A ‘WAR CASUALTY’
Doctors Claimed Improvement Prior to Fall
BETHESDA, Md., May 22—Former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal fell to his death early Sunday morning from the 16th floor of the National Naval Medical Center here. The cause seems to be suicide.
Mr. Forrestal had apparently refused his usual sleeping pill at 1:45 a.m., and was left alone in his room, where he was reading a passage from Sophocles. He was later discovered having fallen from a window in a kitchen across the hall from his room, a belt from a bathrobe found tied to a radiator nearby.
President Truman received news of Mr. Forrestal’s death early this morning on the radio and was said to be shocked and grieved beyond measure. The White House later put out a statement saying: “This able and devoted public servant was as truly a casualty of war as if he had died on the firing line.”
The National Naval Medical Center reported Mr. Forrestal’s death as occurring around 2 a.m. According to the hospital’s statement, the window in the 16th floor diet kitchen was easily opened, and the screen easily removed. Mr. Forrestal’s body hit a small promontory on the fourth floor, then came to rest on top of a third-floor roof.
The sound of the falling body was heard by Navy Lt. Dorothy Turner, a duty nurse on the seventh floor. She led the investigation that ultimately discovered the tragedy.
Mr. Forrestal, 57, had resigned as Defense Secretary on March 28, and was admitted to the Naval hospital here on April 2 where he was diagnosed with “severe occupational fatigue,” something akin to the shell-shocked condition some soldiers experience during wartime. Up until these tragic events, Forrestal’s doctors had considered him well on the way to recovery.
A corpsman was assigned to check on the former Defense Secretary every 15 minutes, while a psychiatrist slept in a room across the hall so as to be on call at all times. Neither man reported anything unusual. A full investigation by the Navy has already commenced, though the man’s doctors, speaking on condition of anonymity, report that “sudden and acute despondency” can be common in certain mental conditions.
The hospital denied early reports of a person or persons unaccounted for on the 16th floor, attributing a subsequent search of the building at approximately 2:10 a.m. to finding potential witnesses to the tragedy and security of patient welfare.
Forrestal, the nation’s first Secretary of Defense, is to be given the honor of burial at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday at 11 a.m., and it is believed President Truman himself will lead the mourners.
May 25, 1949
President Truman threw the newspaper on his desk in disgust and looked up at Roscoe Hillenkoetter. “I tell you what, Hilly: I’m about ready to lock them the hell up, you hear me? These girls of yours, these Variants, they knew full well how Jim felt about them. And that’s because your boy Wallace wasn’t shy about giving his opinions. Can you sit there and tell me—tell me to my face, Hilly—that these Variants didn’t want to see Jim Forrestal dead? Because that’s what it feels like, doesn’t it?”
Hillenkoetter adjusted his suit jacket and squirmed a bit on the couch in front of Truman’s desk. To Truman’s credit, the President was holding this one pretty close to the vest; folks like Hoyt Vandenberg, Detlev Bronk, Vannevar Bush, that prick Montague, none of them knew about it. Just Truman, Hilly, Wallace, and the two girls themselves.
The trick was in ensuring that didn’t change.
“I don’t know what more I can tell you, Mr. President, I really don’t,” Hillenkoetter said, taking a puff from a cigarette and placing it back into the ashtray. Being CIA Director was hell on the nerves on a good day, and this wasn’t a good day. His wife would kill him if she knew he’d been smoking. “I believe them, pure and simple. Jim Forrestal, God rest him, was going off the deep end. They didn’t so much as nudge. In fact, Miss Dubinsky did her level best to try to calm him down, but he was too far gone.”
Truman got up and paced the Oval Office. He remained impeccably dressed, but there was an air of frustration and nervousness around him that made him seem rumpled, like somehow his demeanor needed a good ironing. “You know, I bought into this hook, line, and sinker, Hilly, that these Variants of yours, well, that they were just normal people, right? That they were average, everyday patriotic Americans who just happened to be blessed with these strange abilities. You assured me that your program out in Nevada would give them a grounding, a goal, something to keep them going and keep them in check. What if you’re wrong? What if I’m wrong? Hell, what if Jim Forrestal was right and they’re all little Hitlers or Stalins waiting to happen, but this time with goddamn comic book powers?”
Hillenkoetter sighed, then opened the briefcase next to him, pulling out one of the null-area generators and placing it on the coffee table in front of him. “Then let’s get ’em in here and find out, sir. You’ve got a good head for people. They’re right outside.”
Truman’s gaze was fixed on the alarm clock–sized device. “They’ll know it’s on, right?”
“Most likely.”
“So, while that means Miss Dubinsky won’t be able to fool with my head, what’s it mean for Mrs. Stevens?”
Hillenkoetter leaned back into the couch cushions. “She doesn’t really notice it at first, but the intensified mental acuity and rapid reasoning fades pretty quickly. It’s only when she’s out of range, or the device is turned off, that it all snaps back into place. She doesn’t like it, frankly. Says it makes her embarrassed for how dumb she feels.”
Truman grimaced. “Seems a cruel thing to block someone from thinking straight.”
“Especially the smartest person in the country,” Hillenkoetter replied. “Maybe the world.”
The President sighed and returned to the chair behind his desk. “All right. Keep that handy, but for now, let’s go without it. But if I start acting funny in any way, you flip that thing on, you hear me?”
Hillenkoetter put it back in his briefcase and closed it, leaving it unlocked. “Yes, Mr. President.”
Truman nodded, then lifted up his phone. “Send the two ladies in.”
A moment later, the right-hand door of the office opened, with a Secret Service agent ushering Maggie Dubinsky and Rose Stevens inside. Hillenkoetter gave them both a quick, practiced once-over: Both wore conservative dresses and suits, practical heels, they’d gotten their hair done up, their makeup was tasteful. So, they at least knew to dress up for the occasion. Mrs. Stevens was looking around wit
h her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open, reminding Hillenkoetter of when he’d first brought Danny Wallace to meet the President a few years prior. Star-struck and nervous.
Maggie Dubinsky seemed like neither of those things, even though she knew full well her ass was on the line. Or maybe it was because her ass was on the line. Her face was a mask with a very small, unthreatening smile painted onto it. Her eyes were clear and intently focused—on Hillenkoetter, on Truman, on the hand the President extended to her.
“Miss Dubinsky, Mrs. Stevens,” Truman said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Maggie took the President’s hand and shook it gently, with only a hairsbreadth more force than a woman in her position might otherwise offer. “It’s an honor, sir. We’re here to help,” she replied, her smile widening just a crack. Hillenkoetter was surprised her entire mask didn’t crumble.
Because that was it, wasn’t it? He’d read it in the reports about her, time and again. The more you play with emotions, the less you believe in them. If that emotional reality, for want of a better word, was basically made of wet sand, to be molded as you saw fit, then it stood to reason that any emotion would be viewed as false, fleeting, and phony.
Mrs. Stevens, on the other hand, was perfectly effusive, assuring the President that both she and her husband had voted for him against “that horrible Mr. Dewey.” Truman thanked her for helping him prove that famous headline wrong. Mrs. Stevens looked like she might pass out in sheer rapture. And she was supposed to be the genius of the bunch?
Truman made a big show of pouring coffee for the ladies—he was as much an emotional chameleon as Maggie, but far better with his masks—and then sat down next to Hilly on the couch facing the two women. “I want to start by thanking you both for your honesty and veracity in your report from the Bethesda hospital,” Truman said. “I’m sure it occurred to both of you that you could’ve made things easier on yourselves if you hadn’t.”
Maggie’s brow furrowed for a split second before the mask fell back into place. “Ah, yes. Well, we saw what we saw, Mr. President. In my experience, anything but the truth tends to make things worse. I told my kindergarteners that back in the day.”
Truman smiled, but Mrs. Stevens picked up the thread before he could continue. “And I know, Mr. Truman—I mean, Mr. President, sir—that it’s our word against, well, nobody else’s. But Miss Dubinsky and I have some ideas about what we saw, and we want to run them by you if we might. Would that be all right, Director Hillenkoetter? Mr. President? If we did that for just a minute or two?”
Truman gave Hillenkoetter a perfectly bemused look before waving his hand at them. “By all means, Mrs. Stevens. I’m curious as to what you have to say.”
Mrs. Stevens cleared her throat and sat up a bit straighter on the couch. “Now, before we really dive in here, I know for a fact, Mr. President, that Miss Dubinsky here was not using her Enhancement on that poor man, your friend James Forrestal, before he died. I would swear by it in court.”
At this, even Maggie looked surprised. “How do you know that?” she blurted out, her mask shattered and replaced with both concern and even a hint of … amusement? Hard to tell on her, Hillenkoetter figured.
“Let’s just say you and I shouldn’t play cards,” Mrs. Stevens replied, patting Maggie’s knee lightly. “You have what they call a tell. I’ve noticed it with many of the Variants whose Enhancements require positive cognition triggers. When you engage your cognition triggers, and I mean you in particular, I can see contraction in your trapezius and a slight widening of the pupils.”
All three stared blankly at Mrs. Stevens. “And in English?” Hillenkoetter prodded.
“Oh, right,” she said, blushing. “When Maggie uses her Enhancement to change someone’s emotions, her neck and shoulder muscles tense up in a particular way, and her eyes change a bit.”
Maggie looked at her hard for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, OK, then.”
Truman, however, leaned forward with interest. “And you’re saying that other Variants have a similar tell?”
“The ones that need to think about their particular Enhancements, yes. Myself, for example, my Enhancement is always on, apparently. I don’t really need to think about thinking. Why, that would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? But the others, they each have their own queer little thing that lets me know they’re up to something.”
“You’re very observant, Mrs. Stevens,” Truman said. “And here I thought I was a cardsharp!”
Mrs. Stevens smiled graciously. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t really play cards anymore. It’s far too easy for me to calculate the probabilities of a given hand. Not much of a challenge these days!”
Hillenkoetter interrupted. “Anyway, let’s get back to what you saw.”
This time, Maggie stepped in. “We think it was an Enhancement of some kind.”
“What was an Enhancement? Mrs. Stevens just got finished telling us you weren’t inside Jim Forrestal’s head,” Truman replied, his demeanor changing quickly.
“I wasn’t,” Maggie said coolly. “I think there was another Variant affecting him.”
“What’s your proof?”
“For one, Jim Forrestal told us directly that he’d been plagued by shadow figures of some kind. It’s why he didn’t like to sleep, and why the staff at Bethesda had kept him on sleeping pills. He was seeing shadows move and whisper. And I saw one outside the window where he jumped, up on the wall in the corner above.”
“What’s more,” Mrs. Stevens continued, producing a folder from her own little leather folio, “we have reports here from Commander Wallace, from his Damascus trip, that describe something very similar indeed.”
Truman scowled deeply. “So, what are these shadows?”
Maggie shrugged, which struck Hillenkoetter as a bit too practiced. “Don’t know. Given that both Danny Wallace and Jim Forrestal may have seen them, we can at least say that it doesn’t take a Variant to see them. Maybe it’s an Enhancement from an unknown Variant out there. Maybe it’s something else entirely. The world gets stranger every day.”
“Of course, Secretary Forrestal’s death could just be part of his psychosis,” Mrs. Stevens added. “The MAJESTIC-12 program could’ve been wrapped up in that too. He was certainly concerned enough to tell others about it.”
Truman leaned back on the sofa and ran a hand across his face. “Yes, indeed. And while we’re on the subject, the last person I ever wanted to know about this whole mess was Hoover, and now we have a recording of him talking about it with Frank Wisner. Oh! That reminds me.” Truman opened a file folder and flipped through typewritten transcripts. “I’m betting your ‘Joe on Capitol Hill’ could be Joe McCarthy. Senator from Wisconsin. Pugnacious fellow, that one. I know he and Jim Forrestal were social.”
Maggie and Mrs. Stevens traded a look, the latter smiling wide. “That’s good to know. How do you want us to proceed?”
“Well, I’ll be honest with you, ladies: I’m not sure I want you to proceed at all,” Truman said. “Forrestal may have double-crossed me a couple times over, but that’s just Washington for you. I still considered him a friend. I appreciate your candor, but that doesn’t exactly clear you of suspicion, you realize.”
Mrs. Stevens looked taken aback at this, but Maggie’s mask was firmly in place once again. “So, let us clear our names, Mr. President,” she said. “We still need to track down the extent of Jim Forrestal’s security breach around MAJESTIC-12. More importantly, we need proof of these shadows. If we get that, then it corroborates our report. If not … well, then. We’re in your hands.”
Hillenkoetter watched Truman closely as he thought about it. There was a lot on the President’s plate—continued tensions with the Soviets, the Red Chinese on the march, money flowing out the door to help rebuild Europe, and any number of domestic battles that Hillenkoetter didn’t know about or care to know about. And once again, Truman had a very sticky situation with the Variants to contend with.
Finally, the Pres
ident stood, and everyone rose with him. “All right. Ladies, clean this mess up. I want to know exactly who knows about our operation here, and I want proof of this … phenomenon … you may have seen. Plus, if there are any more so-called suicides or accidental deaths in connection with this mess, I’ll have no choice but to hold you both responsible. I don’t need to tell you what that means for you and your fellows. Are we clear?”
Maggie nodded grimly. “Very. Thank you, sir.”
Everyone shook hands again, and the ladies were ushered out the door. “I don’t like it, Hilly,” Truman said. “You sure she didn’t mess with my head while we were talking?”
Hillenkoetter couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Mr. President, you just threatened to throw her in a deep, dark hole along with all the other Variants. I don’t think she was in your head one bit.”
Truman was not amused. “I meant it, Hilly. I’m starting to see a little bit of what got Jim so worked up. We’re letting these people walk free out there among us. And I don’t know if I can trust them.”
“I trust them, sir,” Hillenkoetter said, officially putting his career on the line. “They’ll find out what’s going on.”
“They better,” Truman said. “Otherwise … ” The rest was left unspoken.
June 12, 1949
The man standing in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square was thin, not very tall, starting to bald a little. His suit looked a little big on him, frankly, and Frank thought he kind of looked like somebody’s bookkeeper, maybe. But as the man stood on a bench next to the Martyrs’ Monument—a big, modern sculpture of two people, their arms raised—Frank saw the crowd’s rapt attention. Antoun Saadeh could give one hell of a speech.
“You have lived at the mercy of others for far too long,” Saadeh said in the Lebanese Arabic dialect, which Frank could piece together well enough. “The Ottomans, the French, now the Americans and English, perhaps. Or will you give your loyalties to the Muslims? The Christians? The Jews?
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