The Twentieth Day of January

by Ted Allbeury

  He did favours large and small, and never asked anything in return from either individuals or organizations. He wasn’t a soft touch, he listened to the stories, and asked pointed questions; and when he paid out he knew whether it was for the expansion of a business, influence in a political party, a demanding mistress or an impending audit. He made no judgements and gave no advice, but it all went down in the little black books which, when they were full, were sealed in plastic bags and taped inside the cold water tank in the roof space. Not that there were all that many people in New York who could read shorthand in Armenian.

  After Dempsey left, Kleppe walked over to the control panel alongside the row of hi-fi equipment. There were twenty-four heat-sensing buttons, a few of them marked with symbols, the majority coloured but blank. Kleppe’s forefinger lightly touched eight of the sensors and alerted the elaborate security controls that protected the apartment.

  He walked slowly up Sutton Place, and used a public telephone to speak to his contact at the UN. He turned left at 57th, and two blocks later he took out a bunch of keys from his coat pocket and opened the door of a small jewellery shop. Inside he switched on the showroom lights and walked through to a small back office. On the glass table were piles of invoices and receipts, and he leaned over, looking at a typed list of figures on a sheet of paper as he took off his coat. Still reading, he pulled up the chair and sat down. He reached inside his jacket and took out a small calculator, and one by one he totalled the receipts and invoices. He sat for a moment looking at the totals and then scribbled a note on the pad by the telephone. When the door-bell rang he stood up and walked unhurriedly through the showroom, and nodded to the man who stood there brushing snowflakes from his hair.

  “Come in, Yuri, you can do that inside.”

  The other man stamped his feet on the mat inside the door, and leaned with one arm against the wall as he slid off his galoshes.

  Kleppe closed and locked the shop door, and walked back to the office. He was sitting on the edge of the desk when the other man came in. The man had an unsmiling face, and he lowered his big frame awkwardly into the chair, pulling his wet coat loosely together, as if to exclude himself from the luxurious setting. His hands were enormous, with finger and knuckle joints so large that they looked swollen. One eye didn’t move, and he squinted up at Kleppe with the other.

  “Is this place safe, comrade?”

  “It has been for the last five years, Yuri. But you don’t have to stay long.”

  The man’s big hand lay flat on the glass table and unconsciously smoothed its surface as he spoke.

  “Colonel Rhyzkov was not impressed. He assessed him as a neurotic, and arrogant with it.”

  Kleppe half-smiled. “Dempsey is an American, well educated, intellectual and independent. He would be bound to react aggressively against a man like Rhyzkov. Dempsey wasn’t impressed by Rhyzkov, for that matter.”

  The big face jerked up quickly. “What were his comments about him?”

  Kleppe swung a leg as he sat on the table, apparently looking with interest at his black shoe and its silver buckle.

  “He just asked if we couldn’t afford to pension off old soldiers.”

  “But Rhyzkov isn’t old. He’s barely fifty.”

  Kleppe sighed, and turned to look at his companion. He spoke very quietly.

  “I suggest you keep him out of sight in this country, Yuri. He gives a bad impression. He’s a political dinosaur and he looks it.”

  The big man’s eyes blazed with anger. “That is a scandalous thing to say, Viktor.”

  Kleppe smiled with cold, hard eyes. “You must accept my judgement, comrade. I have survived for years among these people, Rhyzkov would not survive for a day. I don’t want him near my operation. Is that understood?”

  “Are you threatening me, comrade?”

  “Threatening, no. Warning, yes. Moscow have instructed me to do something. Leave me alone to get on with it.”

  The one blue eye moved to look at Kleppe’s face.

  “Have you no sort of real hold on this man?”

  “It’s not necessary, Yuri. The man is committed to us. Has been since he was in Paris. Always will be.”

  The big man stood up, his one sound eye still on Kleppe’s face. Then he turned and walked slowly to the shop door and let himself out. It was still snowing, but his mind was too occupied to think of his galoshes. He carried them in his hand. It was a strange, wild country, America. He was glad that he could keep to the Soviet enclave in the UN building, and the apartment on East End Avenue.

  CHAPTER 5

  Nolan’s team covering Kleppe followed him to Kennedy and waited to check that he actually boarded the plane and that the plane took off. They checked his booking with SAS. It was a direct flight, non-stop to London, leaving London an hour later for Copenhagen and Stockholm. Kleppe was booked through to Copenhagen under the name of Greenbaum.

  Just before ten o’clock they went up the fire-escape stairs at the back of the block and the team put the big rubber suction pads on one of the windows, holding the glass in place while the glazier cut the glass at the edges of the frame.

  As the team leader moved the long, thin, electronic lance across the floor of the apartment Nolan looked around the room from the window area. The walls were all panelled in a reddish-coloured wood and the floor was of oak parquet blocks. On a long shelf on the right-hand wall was an array of hi-fi equipment, and some sort of control panel. Across the space in front of the window was a long polished table with eight chairs spaced round it. There were no pictures, and no books. The team leader’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “It’s OK, Mr. Nolan, but you’ll have to keep to the white tapes, there are weight switches under the parquet blocks.”

  “Can you check the walls for me?”

  “You betcha.”

  Nolan looked at the hi-fi without touching. There were two Sony 7055As. Two Sony cassette recorders, two big Revox tape-recorders and the control panel. He counted the square heat-switches. There were too many just to control the hi-fi. Some of them probably controlled the elaborate electronic security devices. But even with that there were too many. He leaned over to look at the connections on the backs of the receivers. Plugs and wires linked the recorders and there were four sets of leads from the speaker sockets into the control panel. Both receivers had leads from the antenna sockets to the panel. Nolan straightened up and beckoned the radio expert.

  “Can you trace where the antenna wire goes to without touching the equipment?”

  “Sure we can. I can use the cable tracer.”

  The antenna lead went under the shelf panel, behind the wall panelling, and was lost at ceiling level.

  They found the access to the roof void in the ceiling of a broom cupboard. They checked for electronics and found an elaborate circuit that would trip if the cover was lifted. One of the team took instrument readings and another pressed buttons on a pocket calculator. A long wire was fastened to a pipe with a crocodile clip, and the other end of the wire was taped to a corner of the access cover.

  Nolan lifted the cover gingerly as he stood on the middle rung of an aluminium ladder. It was dark, and he peered over the edge of the flooring as he slowly swung the torch. It was a big area, and empty except for three standard water tanks. And it was clean. Far too clean. He went up on his elbows, swung up a knee and stood up. He called down for the radio man, who came up the ladder with his black leather case.

  “Show me where the antennae are, and tell me about them.”

  He shone his torch on the far wall as they walked over carefully. The man clamped a fork-like instrument on the first cable and then the second.

  “They’re both normal 75 ohms jobs.”

  “What about the third one?”

  “That doesn’t go down into the room, it ends at the floor here.”

  “What is it?”

  The man took Nolan’s torch and followed the wire upwards and across and then round the tim
bers on the loft.

  “It’s a short-wave aerial, Mr. Nolan.”

  “Receiving or transmitting?”

  “It’s OK for both. It’s got remote controlled cut-offs for various wave-lengths. The first one’s about twenty metres operation. Round about fourteen megahertz.”

  “Was there anything downstairs that could use it?”

  “No they’re FM and AM. No short-wave stuff.”

  Nolan knelt down and shouted through the opening.

  “Rod, are there any electronics in the ceiling area of the flat?”

  “No. We checked before you went up. Just the access panel, that’s all.”

  Nolan walked across the whole of the floor area running the torch light along each plank of the flooring. It took ten minutes but there was nothing.

  He took the plyboard covers off the water tanks and shone his torch into the water. In the second tank he saw the black plastic bags. He took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. When the bags came out of the water he let them drain off. He untied one bag and lifted out the book. As he turned the pages he saw that it was all handwritten.

  He lowered them down to the team below.

  “Photograph them now, both sides of each page, and let me have them back.”

  As he was straightening up he saw the socket on the wall by the antenna wires. He shone his torch upwards. It was in a wooden, bracket-like box right in the corner, and as the radio man unscrewed the front panel he guessed what it would be.

  They lowered it carefully to the floor. It was in a dark green metal housing and the radio man whistled softly as they looked at it.

  “It’s the latest they’ve got. I’ve never seen one before but we’ve got photographs and an operation manual for it.”

  “What’s it do?”

  “It’s a top-grade receiver-transmitter. It puts out very high-speed morse. You could transmit four thousand characters at least in half a second. That’s probably why he’s got two Revoxes. Uses them to gear up the speeds. The boys will go crazy when they see this.”

  Nolan laughed. “Afraid not. It’s staying right here.”

  “Can I have some photographs, Mr. Nolan?”

  “Sure. Tell Rod you want them.”

  It was another two hours before everything was back in place and the glazier was waiting to put in a new window. When he had finished, they washed all the windows, cleaned the snow from the balcony, folded the plastic floor coverings, and left.

  Logan Powell spent the whole day taking briefings and situation papers from the present Administration. President Grover was philosophical about his defeat. His four years in office had seen no great issues resolved. If anything, issues had been ignored, and it looked as if the American public liked it that way. They wanted peace and prosperity and a chance to play with their toys.

  For two days Dempsey had examined position papers and reports and made those routine decisions that allowed his temporary team to function while Powell’s major appointments were being considered. It was a time to convert euphoria to usable energy. He picked up Powell from his temporary office and drove him to the hotel. Dempsey had arranged for them to have adjoining suites with the flanking suites taken as offices.

  They sat in shirt-sleeves in comfortable armchairs and Powell gave him instructions about various people he wanted to see in the next two days. Dempsey poured them another drink before he started what he expected to be the first of a series of tense dialogues.

  “There’s something I need to talk with you about, Logan.”

  “I’ve told Cheevers to put out a press release tonight that I’ve appointed you Presidential Chief of Staff.”

  “It wasn’t that. It’s about you.”

  “Oh? What about me?”

  “You know that we’ve had a lot of help from way back to get you into the White House?”

  “Sure I know. They’ll all get their pieces of cake in due course.”

  “Most of the help came from the same quarter, Logan. I’m sure you recognize that.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “There are things that they want.”

  “Like what?”

  “A peace pact, troops withdrawn from Europe, trade both ways.”

  “Those are issues for governments, not individuals.”

  Dempsey looked steadily back at Logan Powell. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Logan.” For a moment he was almost convinced that the surprise on Powell’s face was genuine.

  “Are you saying that the Soviet Government were on my side during the election?”

  “They were on your side long before that, Logan. They got you into the State Capitol.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Powell’s face was reddening with anger.

  “What do you think made you Governor?”

  Powell shrugged. “They liked my programme. They wanted change.”

  Dempsey shook his head. “There were a dozen contenders who would have been equally suitable. It was the strike got you nominated and it was the strike got you in the State Capitol.”

  “And I arbitrated and settled the strike, for God’s sake.”

  “How do you think the strike started, Logan? Why do you think it just happened when your nomination was a totally outside chance?”

  Powell was silent for long moments, and then he said quietly, “Are you saying that those bastards fixed a strike so that I could arbitrate and look good?”

  “You knew that at the time, Logan. You and I don’t need to pretend. But you knew when you were negotiating with Siwecki that the strike had been fixed.”

  “Did Siwecki tell you this?”

  “Logan, Siwecki was doing what he was told to do.”

  “What else have they fixed?” Powell’s voice was edged with anger.

  “It’s cost about thirty million dollars and cashing in on twenty years of organization.”

  Powell shook his head. “That’s their view, not mine. The people voted and they voted for me. They’re too late, my friend. I’m President-Elect and if they play games with me they’ll be exposed and sent packing.”

  “Your programme promised peace and prosperity. You can deliver it—with help.”

  “What we do to get peace and prosperity will be negotiated between governments, no other way.”

  “Nobody’s suggesting any other way. To get prosperity we need peace. They want that, too. To get peace we need disarmament. They want that, too. With a peace pact you’ve got tens of billions of dollars to direct and provide the prosperity. Half a dozen Administrations have tried to deliver it. Yours can be the one that succeeds.”

  Powell leaned back in his chair.

  “You’ve been with them all the time, Andy. You’ve known.”

  “You wanted to win, Logan. I helped you do it. Others helped me.”

  “And what happens if I refuse?”

  “Refuse to cut down arms? Refuse billions of dollars of Soviet trade? Refuse decades of peace? You’d have to be very stupid or very stubborn to do that.”

  “Answer me, Andy. What happens if I refuse?”

  “You’d cease to be President. When the scandal died down I guess you could earn a modest living somewhere in Europe.”

  “And how would they fix that?”

  Dempsey shrugged. “A leak to a journalist would be enough.”

  “The leak would expose them, not me.”

  “The Communist Party of the United States would take the blame, not the Soviets.”

  “Nobody would believe the Soviets didn’t know and support it.”

  Dempsey said quietly, “And nobody would believe that you didn’t know and support it. You’ve been back-marker all the way, Logan. For the Governorship itself. And four years later you’re given the Party’s nomination as presidential candidate. An unknown. And on January twenty you will be President. How do you think that was possible? I’ll tell you. Millions of dollars, and collecting old debts and obligations. Theirs, not yours.”


  Dempsey leaned back in his chair. He had gone as far as was necessary. He had watched Logan Powell turn a blind eye to a hundred situations that stank of conspiracy and contrivance. But turning a blind eye was not the same as not knowing. Powell was bitten by the power bug the same as all the others. From the moment there was a chance that he could be Governor of Connecticut he would have done anything to make it certain. And all the initial diffidence, when it was put to him that he might be the Party’s candidate for President, was gone the moment it looked a real possibility. Logan Powell had left the dirty washing to him and hadn’t given a damn how it was done. Now he had the prize, the power, he’d cling to it as all the others did.

  Dempsey leaned forward and poured them both another drink. He raised his glass.

  “To Jan twenty, Mr. President.”

  Powell shook his head as if to break his thoughts and lifted his own glass.

  “To both of us, Andy. May God help us.”

  Dempsey knew that already Powell’s mind was back in the White House. And at the back of his mind he would be working out how to cash in on the political prizes that the Soviets were laying out in front of him. Powell would rationalize them as being what he intended all along.

  Long after Dempsey had gone, Powell sat hunched up in his chair, his mind recalling incidents from way back. Grainger, the frontrunner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, stepping down in his favour and buying a half-interest in the Johnson real-estate business a couple of weeks later. Siwecki’s half-smile as they finalized the strike arbitration. Campaign funds that never seemed to run dry. Wards, cities, counties, States, delivered against the odds, where newspaper analysts had shown that to get his turnout he must have picked up votes from militant left-wing areas. Visitors in Dempsey’s apartment who were never introduced. Times when the talk stopped as he walked in, and never started again. Strong Democratic cities who had given him their vote. State-level politicians who came out in his support with whom he had never exchanged a word. Militant Trades Union leaders who had carried “Powell for President” placards. The TV lighting that had made Grover’s face look old and haggard, and the Gay Libbers who cheered so vociferously at Grover’s meetings. He could swear he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known. Guessed maybe, for a split second here and there, but guessing wasn’t knowing. But his signature would be on documents and instructions. They would have made sure of that.