Alternities

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  Tackett yawned. “Willie can sleep easy tonight.”

  “He’ll find something else to worry about.”

  “Probably.” Tackett said, another yawn fighting through. “I have to go to Washington next week. Am I going to be able to tell the President that we’ve got a productive team in place? Or just bodies?”

  “I’d stick to bodies,” Monaghan said with a twisted smile. “You promised me sixty days, remember?”

  “I’m not changing speeds on you,” Tackett said, setting the mug aside and rising from the sofa. “I just know he’s going to ask. Can you give me an interim report, oh, midday Tuesday before I leave?”

  Monaghan joined Tackett standing. “Will do. By then Kelly will have had a chance to look over what we sent him.”

  Nodding, Tackett clapped a hand on Monaghan’s shoulder as he passed by en route to the door. “Good enough. Call it a day, Bret. Let’s go home.”

  THE JEWELED DAGGER

  A film by Stanley Kubrick

  Based on the book by Jessame Frank

  Reviewed by Richard Barthold

  Sixteen years later, “July 3, 1961” and “Norfolk” remain referents which require no explanation, even to those born after the fact. Sixteen years later, the horror is barely diminished, the memories undiluted by time.

  One minute, the cluster of communities at the confluence of the James River and Chesapeake Bay were quietly riding out the afternoon rain that was dampening holiday plans. The next minute, 31,000 lay dying, murdered when self-proclaimed peace activists, caught inside the Norfolk naval base, triggered the 20-kiloton warhead they had hoped to “confiscate.”

  Like Lincoln’s assassination and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Norfolk stands as the signal event of its time, the dividing line between past and future. Norfolk worked irrevocable change on both the nation and the world, and shock waves from the explosion are still rippling through both individual lives and global politics.

  The dimensions of the drama have defeated four previous efforts to capture it on film, frustrating directors as able as Herschel Tague (7-3-61) and as facile as Byron James (Rendezvous: Norfolk). In this, his first film in four years, director Stanley Kubrick has rendered all past and future attempts irrelevant, delivering a cinematic triumph which is at turns brilliant, infuriating, empathic, and prophetic.

  As always, Mr. Kubrick takes chances. Unlike in Algonquin, the director’s labored study of the American muse, The Jeweled Dagger profits from all of them. Brilliantly intercutting between the hour after the explosion and the weeks before it, Mr. Kubrick weaves a multibraided story which begins at the end and ends at the beginning. Casting against type, Mr Kubrick extracts a career-rescuing performance from June Haver in her startlingly intense portrayal of Earth First organizer Diana Hams.

  There is a temptation to enumerate the liberties Mr Kubrick takes with both Mrs. Frank’s narrative and the official record. But Mr Kubrick’s success comes in large part from his ability to see beyond pedestrian details in the pursuit of the essence. The result is a story somehow more compelling than mere truth.

  Left untouched and presented with devastating irony is Mrs. Frank’s controversial thesis that the Norfolk disaster was not something Hams and her co-conspirators did to us, but something they did for us. There can be no question that the anguish of Norfolk changed attitudes about nuclear weapons worldwide, effectively aborting the arms race and fueling the drive toward internationalism. But can Hams be credited with farseeing that outcome, and thereby judged a martyr rather than a villain?

  Deftly, Mr. Kubrick eschews both sentimentality and propaganda in favor of a Platonic dialogue with the viewer The contrast between a vast military mindlessly creating weapons it did not want to see used and a small band of idealists purposefully using a weapon they did not want to see created has never been more powerfully presented that in The Jeweled Dagger’s closing minutes.

  There are a hundred images contained in the film’s 142 minutes which vibrate with raw power or reckless pathos. Many are contained in the film’s most daring sequence, the seemingly endless parade of faces of Norfolk victims which opens the film. Invading their privacy, the camera shows them crushed, bloody, burned, and yet tranquil in death.

  We do not know them, the soundtrack offers only sounds of a sort that can be heard in a dying fire, and yet Mr. Kubrick manages to make us cry for their loss. By the end of the film, when Mr. Kubrick offers the nuclear fireball as a cleansing flame, a crucible for change, it is possible to see those deaths in a different light. It is a stunning reversal, and the capstone of a landmark film which promises to stand as a signal event in its own right. Bravo, Mr. Kubrick. Bravo.

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  Uncertified Thoughts

  Indianapolis, Alternity Blue

  It took nine days to get the new class on the streets.

  The first five days were consumed by orientation sessions at the satellite station house on South Shelby Street. Wallace faced slanguage drill, law and custom work, and a heavy dose of Kelly’s house rules for moles. In the technology lab, better known as the toy shop, he was introduced to coinless phones, filmless cameras, and a tabletop photofax machine which seemed like nothing less than magic in a box.

  A few hours were spent in hurried cover construction; he kept his runner name, Ray Wallach, but changed his vocation to commercial safety inspector to conform to the cell to which he had been assigned. Wallace decided to be single (to support the living arrangements), a graduate of Indiana Technical College (one of three institutions where the Guard had an agent who could intercept any inquiries), and a native of Chicago (his real hometown being too nearby and thereby too dangerous to claim).

  There was even homework: reading the three Indianapolis newspapers in search of puzzling references. Most of them were in the ads, like the employment classified seeking a “chromatic designer” or the house-for-sale listing promising “green-walling, full interlink, and speed bath.”

  Throughout the orientation, Wallace felt rushed. It was too much too fast, but at the same time rudimentary—too little for what they were going to be asked to do. Someone was in an awful hurry.

  There followed three days of supervised exercises, privately dubbed the dog-and-pony show by the hurried agents. Driving a car that ran on a tank of liquid fuel instead of a phased-capacitance battery. Buying food with a transfer card. Shopping without gaping at the plenty like a tourist from India.

  The exercises progressed to errand-running, all of which felt manufactured. Did anyone really need flowers delivered to Crown Hill Cemetery? Or photographs of the mayor of Augusta? Or a land survey on a Lynhurst home?

  By the morning of the ninth day, Wallace was reading the message clearly. Fowler was right—the stationmaster did not trust the new class, and he was not the only one. There was deep skepticism on the part of the entire Blue team about the quality of agent they had been sent, a suspicion that the newcomers had not been properly vetted.

  A suspicion, Wallace had to concede, which was not without foundation. By the ninth day, three prospective moles had already been demoted to the analysts’ tank where Fowler and the rest of the newcomers were laboring. And there were several others that Wallace would have recommended without hesitation for the same fate.

  Of the three miscreants, one had managed to get a station car stolen by letting it run dry on an errand to Trader’s Point and then leaving the keys in the ignition when he went for help. Another had upbraided a local for wearing an American flag patch on his shirt, precipitating a fight that left the mole bloodied and confused. The last, showing true cultural tunnel vision, tried to bribe a city hall clerk to get copies of a public court proceeding.

  That morning, the stationmaster himself had come to the satellite station to talk to them. Matt Kelly was a compact, stiff-necked man, older by ten years than anyone else on the staff, a telltale sign that his Blue counterpart was dead. A neatly clipped black beard and large oval glasses mi
nimized the impact of piercing black eyes.

  “The Section needs backgrounders on a large number of locals,” he told them while an aide passed out small manila envelopes. “I expect each of you to contribute to this work. What we know about your particular subject is in your assignment packet. Track them down and assemble a profile.”

  For the span of ten seconds, the only sound in the room was of tearing paper. Inside Wallace’s envelope was a stiff white card on which was typed:

  Barbara J. Haggerty, birthplace St. Francis Hospital, Beech Grove, Indiana, March 2, 1946, no LNA.

  Wallace’s thoughts raced. Beech Grove was one of the dozens of little villages in danger of being enveloped by a growing Indianapolis. So this was local work. The kind of work that was easiest to get done. Which meant that if they really cared about Barbara Haggerty, someone would have looked her up long ago.

  “How much do you want to know?” one innocent asked.

  “Everything,” Kelly said with withering curtness.

  The assignment was a rehearsal for the real thing, a final exam, Wallace realized. Blue Section would never see the reports.

  “When do you want it?”

  Kelly’s tone was chilly. “Yesterday.”

  Which meant that Haggerty was almost certainly still somewhere in the metropolitan area. Probably alive. Certainly findable. It was a test, not a wild-goose chase.

  “In case those answers confused you, I’ll spell it out,” Kelly was saying. “The perfect report has everything in it that the requestor wants to know, and it’s ready the moment he wants to know it. Which means there are no perfect reports. But at least you have something to shoot for.”

  Wallace looked down at the card again. A tough draw. Women were usually harder to track than men. With a man you could work both forward from the past and backward from the present. But marriage made a woman vanish, her identity submerged in her husband’s name. And Haggerty was the right age and era to be married by now.

  “Each of you should draw a standard expense advance from the bursar before you leave here,” Kelly said. “And see the transportation manager if you need a vehicle. But make sure you need a vehicle before you ask for it. Janet guards her budget like a mama lion guards a cub. Questions?”

  No questions, Wallace thought. He had been hoping for a chance to show himself the equal of the “regulars,” as the station’s veterans had begun to refer to themselves. Barbara Haggerty was that chance. No questions. Just get out of my way and let me to it.

  Washington, The Home Alternity

  “My first impression is that it’s a bad deal, at least from our end,” Gregory O’Neill said. “I would think we’d want to try to make sure that at least those ten stay on British soil. Strategically, it makes no difference whatsoever. But there’s some important symbolism there about commitment, about going to the wall if the need arises.”

  Peter Robinson nodded, unsurprised. “That’s how I see it, too. The question that concerns me is why Somerset made the offer.”

  “It sounds like he’s getting nervous, afflicted with a touch of NIMBY syndrome. Or someone in his Cabinet is nervous and managing to make his concerns heard.”

  “Bob Taskins’ opinion is that very few people in the British government are wise to the Weasels,” Robinson said.

  “There’s Home Secretary Caulton. According to Bob’s initial report, Caulton didn’t exactly leap to embrace the news that the missiles were there. And from their side, the case for relocating the launchers is easy to make. Somerset warned us that if they were discovered, he’d disavow any knowledge.”

  “Having them in such an out-of—the way place strengthens that claim.”

  “It does.” O’Neill paused. “There is something else, though. I didn’t see it at first.”

  “Which is?”

  “My first thought—my very first thought—was something on the order of, ‘that s.o.b, wants to have it both ways: He wants our missiles there for show, but he won’t risk making the islands a Soviet target.’ ”

  “Like asking for a watchdog for your house and then keeping it in a storage shed because of the mess.”

  “Exactly. Which made me wonder about his commitment, whether he’d ever be willing to see the missiles used. But now it occurs to me I may have had it backward.”

  “How so, Gregory?”

  “It could be a sign that he is committed to the program, that he’s thinking ahead to the domestic end of going public. Britain has been nuclear-free for a long time, since we closed our last base there in sixty-six. Having the Weasels off-shore might provide the necessary psychological distance for Parliament to accept them. In any event, Somerset might well think it necessary.”

  “Maybe I should talk to Mr. Somerset directly and get this cleared up.”

  “That might be wise,” O’Neill said. “But even if that is what’s on his mind, I still think it’s a bad deal for us. Because if we move the launchers to these BP oil platforms, they’re not mobile anymore. Once the announcement is made and everyone—including the Soviets—knows where the missiles are, we lose a major strategic advantage.”

  “While gaining a lot more firepower. Tough tradeoff.”

  “True.” O’Neill doodled idly on his notepad. “Perhaps Somerset might consider having a few eggs in each basket,” he said finally. “He can announce the fixed launchers publicly, and let Moscow know about the others privately. Best of both worlds.”

  “Interesting. You’ll run it past the strategy folks in the Pentagon?”

  “Pm going back there directly. I’ll take it up with the British action team. Maybe we should bring State in, too.”

  “I’ll worry about that.” Robinson said “Thank you, Gregory. I’ll let you go back to whatever it was I stole you from.”

  “Budget meetings.”

  “Ah—I did you a favor, then. Oh, and Gregory? I’d like you to come up to Camp David this weekend. Madison has been bugging me to look at some initiatives, and I thought I might as well hear from you and E.C, at the same time. Be ready, will you?”

  Indianapolis. Alternity Blue

  Profile-building was a game of biographical hide-and-seek, and Wallace had learned how to play before leaving Home. There were a hundred ways to get to a subject. He could play the old friend, the credit investigator, the lawyer seeking an heir. Neighbors talked. Relatives thought they were helping.

  The hospital’s record of birth gave him a starting point: a yellow frame house on First Avenue, its backyard butting up against a railroad marshaling yard. The Haggertys had long ago left that address, but the elderly woman raking leaves in front of the house next door remembered Barbara had attended Butler University.

  Three more links—the Alumni association, another helpful neighbor, and (armed with the new surname) a phone directory—brought him to the duplex Barbara Barrett, nee Haggerty, and her husband called home. That part had taken barely six hours.

  The street was quiet, and Wallace was tempted to enter the house. It was the most direct, most efficient source possible, the shortest line between two points. But in midafternoon, with the Barrett family’s patterns completely unknown, the risk of being caught was too great.

  As though in compensation, the contents of the Barrett mailbox offered several leads, among them a gynecologist’s name and address from a bill, and a copy of Instructor magazine bearing Barbara’s name.

  Twenty minutes in a phone booth playing the “May I speak to… oh, I must have the wrong number” game produced the name of the intermediate school where his quarry was employed. He went there directly and posed as the parent of a student who would be transferring in. That almost got him in trouble: He had to field questions about his “daughter’s” education voucher and other matters on which he was ignorant.

  But it also got him not only inside the school, but inside the principal’s office, where a lockless file drawer was plainly marked staff. He made no move then to rifle it, even when the principal was called out for a
moment. It was an older school, minimally secure and isolated in a parklike campus. He would come back.

  Midnight found him hiding in the campus’s natural area, timing the police patrols. He went in just after 3:00 a.m., hoping he had not overlooked an alarm system.

  Haggerty’s file was a biographical treasure trove: a personal data sheet, an application for maternity leave at the end of the spring quarter, even her supervisor’s annotated evaluations. Wallace used the office’s own photofax to copy the documents, and was out in less than fifteen minutes.

  “Go where you must, only leave no trail.” Wallace had been faithful to the injunction. He had been quiet and quick. The only trace he left was a broken window in the back, something which would be lost in the white noise of random school vandalism.

  He read through the file in the morning, his short night abbreviated further by the early rising of his roommates. As he read, Barbara Haggerty slowly became a person. Little by little, she acquired a history. And before long, she would acquire a face.

  Wallace had devoted the morning to pursuing some of the many leads offered in the file. The time was profitably spent; he had enough to stop any time. But it was important to see her, to allow her to spring up from the flat, cold file into three-dimensional reality. One glimpse could likely tell him a hundred things he did not yet know.

  And so he waited, invisible among the parents, older siblings and contract buses filling the pickup lanes outside the school’s main entrance. The building emptied at four, a tidal wave of humanity dispersing itself with remarkable efficiency among the idling vehicles. The staff began to trickle out by ones and twos a short time later. Wallace had suspected they would not linger long on a Friday.

  Finally his quarry appeared at the doors, her arms wrapped around a small stack of books. Even harried and fatigued, she was more attractive than in her resume photo, a halo of soft curls around a dark-eyed oval face, slim legs flashing below the knee-length skirt of her instructor’s uniform. For a moment he was tempted to approach her. “Mrs. Bennett, I’m John’s father. I wanted to ask you how he’s doing—”