Target Churchill

by Warren Adler

  An implicit policy of Special Branch was that all such incidents be shrouded in secrecy and not recorded anywhere, leaving no trace. The most serious of these attempted murders occurred at Chequers, the PM’s official country house. Before Churchill would embark to go anywhere, Thompson would carefully check the route, surveying possible clandestine targeting places. Secretly, he would pay a visit to the most dangerous spots, often working by pure instinct.

  If he were suspicious, he often sat in a car where he could deflect a bullet before it hit Mr. Churchill. Yes, he would gladly put himself in harm’s way to protect his charge.

  It was, of course, almost impossible to guard his man during the numerous stump speeches he made running for Parliament. But if the Prime Minister were to speak in an enclosed space—the House of Commons excepted, since that was thoroughly vetted by MI5, he was always careful to scout the premises in advance, checking even after his colleagues had scoured the area. He rarely trusted anyone to “cleanse” an area completely.

  He trusted no one to be as thorough as himself. At one speech in a hall in Hampshire, his attention had been drawn to a man who seemed innocent and harmless, but for some reason he seemed to radiate suspicion. Thompson got to him just in time. He had a live grenade in his pocket and admitted later, in a private, merciless interrogation carried out by Thompson himself, that he was an assassin hired by the Gestapo; his reward, whether he lived or died, was a lifetime stipend for his family. He had been committed to an insane asylum for life.

  Once at Chequers, a gardener who had miraculously gotten through the clearance process, had been observed on the grounds near a hedge through which could be seen Churchill’s study. Thompson, who knew the spot intimately and checked it out whenever the prime minister was in residence, found the man poised with a rifle ready for a shot at Mr. Churchill. Thompson quickly dispatched him to oblivion. In that case, he had done the cleanup job himself.

  There were other incidents as well, all kept secret. At times, Special Branch would alert him to a dire possibility, and he would quickly follow through, sometimes on the sketchiest of clues but which offered just enough intelligence to stop the potential assassin in his tracks.

  He felt no compunction or remorse at preemptive strikes aimed at preventing an assassination of the prime minister. Better left unsaid and unthought of, he told himself. He recalled two other incidents of potential assassins being dispatched without any official reporting. Only he knew those; he tried never to think about them. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes not, like now. What he feared most was that someone might read his thoughts. Of course, it was ridiculous, but then many fears were. Again, he tucked them away in his memory vault.

  Hearing this lovely young woman expressing such anxiety over the fate of Mr. Churchill felt chilling. Perhaps, something was in the air. He believed implicitly in such psychic moments, a kind of telepathy that could never be explained. Such precognition baffled him, but he never distrusted the feeling when it came over him. He would never share such ideas with anyone, not even his wife—and certainly not Mr. Churchill, who would have called them poppycock and nonsense. Nevertheless, his own proofs were unassailable.

  More than once, he knew, such sensations—such mysterious insight and awareness—had saved Churchill’s life. In his heart of hearts, he knew his job was a calling, ordained perhaps by supernatural forces commanding that he protect this great man and assure him a long and productive life for the benefit of all mankind. Thinking such thoughts often brought tears to his eyes.

  Twice he sat by Mr. Churchill’s bedside when he was at death’s door, once when a car in New York had struck him in the thirties and during the war when an attack of pneumonia had brought him close to the brink. He had prayed all night, not simply to the Anglican God of his church, but to all gods of all religions everywhere. He had come to believe in the very fabric of his being that as long as he was on the job, Churchill would never have to worry about his mortality.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Churchill. His face was flushed, and he seemed to carry with him an air of amused reflection, as if he were chuckling at some joke known only to him.

  “I’m afraid, Thompson, I did not carry the day for Albion.”

  “You lost, sir?”

  Churchill nodded and smiled sheepishly.

  “Like swimming with sharks, Thompson! The Yanks bested me. They are masters of deception and bluff.” He chortled. “And there were the usual language difficulties. They call the knave a ‘jack’ and a sequence a ‘straight.’ Imagine?”

  “It is not only the ocean that separates us, Prime Minister.”

  “The price was well worth the lesson. Truman is canny and bold, shrewd and cautious, and at times, is excellent at the bluff. The Americans are quite sentimental and lacking in cold-blooded ruthlessness. They felt sorry for this old English gentlemen’s poker incompetence and began to let me win when my chip pile had shrunk to disastrous proportions.”

  “How, sir?”

  “One of the fellows, Ross, the president’s press secretary, let me bid up my knave against his ace, then when the pot was large enough, the man, clearly holding the winning hand, folded. It happened often enough until they felt that I had partially recouped. I won one large pot with a pair of deuces. I did not let on.” Churchill began to laugh uproariously. “Of course, they did not let me carry the day. As I left the table and had barely closed the compartment door, I heard Vaughn say: ‘We didn’t want him to brag to his limey friends that he had beaten the Americans at poker.’ I must say I loved the experience. This Truman, Thompson, is genuine, a true man of the people. Poker, Thompson, is a great teacher of character.”

  He looked animated, not at all tired. He sat in a chair for a long time lost in thought. Then he looked around the compartment.

  “Where is Miss Stewart?”

  “I’ll get her, sir,” Thompson said. “She knows she is on call. We must get the speech stenciled and mimeographed for the press.”

  He found her compartment, which she shared with one of Mr. Truman’s secretaries.

  “Be right there!”

  She arrived flustered and distraught. Churchill paid little attention to her. A typewriter sat on a desk in a corner of the compartment. Thompson could see that she hadn’t prepared herself mentally for such swift action.

  “Step lively, please,” Mr. Churchill snapped. “You have the text?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me have it.”

  He put on his reading glasses and glanced over the text. Then he nodded and whispered the line, “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’”

  “Shall I put that down, sir?”

  “No. I was quoting Lincoln, one of their few presidents who wrote his own speeches. It brought something to mind.”

  He looked over the text again.

  “I am troubled,” he muttered, “over the paragraph where I talk about the division of Europe. Iron fence seems so… so unmemorable. I actually used the line in an earlier letter to Truman, but I just don’t like it.”

  “I’m afraid, sir, we have to sign off on the speech tonight. Tomorrow, we will be in Fulton.”

  “It will come to me, Thompson.”

  “It always does, sir.”

  “Well then, I guess I have no choice. Of course, it won’t prevent an insertion when I deliver the speech.”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  “Well then, proceed,” said Churchill. “Nevertheless, in my mind it is still a work in progress.”

  She began immediately to type the final draft onto a stencil. It had already been arranged that Thompson would have the stencils run off on the press office mimeograph machine on the train. He would gather up all the copies and guard them until the time for their release.

  “And after you finish that, Miss Stewart, type the working text I will use. Do
you remember the instructions?”

  “Verse form, sir. I do remember.”

  Churchill nodded, reached into an inner pocket, and pulled out his leather cigar case. He clipped off the end of a cigar, and Thompson was quick with his lighter. Churchill puffed deeply and observed the ash, then fell into a deep silence for a few moments.

  “Damn,” he said suddenly.

  “What is it, sir?” Thompson asked.

  “I was thinking of my toast to Stalin in Tehran. Words….” He paused and shook his head.

  “I was present, sir.”

  “Yes, of course, Thompson. I do remember.”

  He nodded his head, a gesture, Thompson knew, of recollection. The man had an uncanny memory. He watched as Churchill lifted his hand as if he were holding a glass and making a toast.

  “‘I sometimes call you Joe,’” he began, recollecting, “‘and you can call me Winston if you like, and I like to think of you as my very good friend.’ …What hypocrisy! Then, I said: ‘The British people were turning politically pink’ …Ending with… ‘Marshal Stalin, Stalin the Great’ …The memory of the toast often stirs up my black dog.” He looked up suddenly. “He could be infuriating! Once, in front of Roosevelt, he actually called me a coward. Later, he told me—after I walked out of the meeting—that his translator had misinterpreted his words.”

  “You did your best, sir,” Thompson said, trying to refocus Churchill’s dark thoughts.

  Considering the importance of the upcoming speech, Thompson was determined to do anything in his power to stop the black dog from attacking Churchill. He sensed that his recollections of Tehran were bringing him farther down.

  “The sad fact of it, Thompson, was that I liked the man, despite my distaste for everything he stood for and represented. When I visited him in Moscow, I thought we had really bonded. He had a certain attractive air.” Churchill grew pensive. “Franklin liked him as well, perhaps too well. Dear Franklin!”

  He sighed and sucked in a deep breath.

  “Now there was charm personified. With Stalin he was clearly seductive, using all of his skills of allure and bewitchment as if that was all that was needed to win him over. There were moments, Thompson, when I felt like a rejected suitor.” He chuckled. “‘Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.’ Can you imagine? Jealous of Stalin for attracting my friend.”

  Thompson was not shocked at the metaphor. Churchill was an incorrigible romantic.

  “Stalin trumped us, Thompson. Power was his true mistress.”

  “This speech should balance the scales.”

  Churchill puffed deeply on his cigar. Thompson sensed that he was fighting hard to repress his black dog.

  “Do you think the United Nations will be a true family of nations, able to resolve domestic spats and assure a peaceful future?” Churchill asked. “Truman is quite hopeful.”

  “And you, sir?”

  He shrugged. He put on his glasses and read through the text of his speech that he still held on his lap. Then he spoke the words dealing with the United Nations: “‘We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace, in which the shields of many nations can someday be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel.’”

  He put the text down again.

  “I truly hope that the future will match my words. Sure, Thompson, it is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look farther than one can see. I wish I were more sanguine about the future.”

  “Surely, you don’t think that someday there will be another war, sir?”

  “Will it matter what I think now?”

  “Of course, it does, sir,” Thompson said, “Your remarks could set the world on a course that could have an enormous impact on the future.”

  “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,’” Churchill said.

  Thompson had heard this quote from Julius Caesar many times before.

  “Well, then, sir, we are in high tide.”

  “Perhaps, Thompson,” Churchill said, standing up and walking to the adjoining bedroom.

  Thompson watched the young lady typing away with great diligence.

  “He will be fine, Miss Stewart. Not to worry.”

  “Yes, sir,” Victoria said, but her response seemed tentative.

  Chapter 19

  Miller awoke from a dreamless sleep in the backseat of his car. The pain in his leg had accelerated, and his ankle had begun to swell. Swallowing a few aspirin tablets, he untangled himself, managed to get out of the car, and limped around until he was able to walk.

  One more day, he thought, trying to will his mind to withstand the pain.

  Resisting pain had been one of the hallmarks of his SS training. Yielding to pain was a violation of the code. One endured pain. Maintaining silence under extreme torture was a fundamental caveat. “Death before dishonor” was the mantra.

  “Heil Hitler!” he shouted into the still morning, as he moved in a widening circle around the car.

  Before falling asleep, his mind had buzzed with various scenarios designed to accomplish the deed. Only when the final details had emerged—etching a matrix of action in his brain—was he able to sleep.

  The killing of Winston Churchill had taken on the trappings of ritual, and his mind hearkened back to the earliest days of his SS indoctrination. Himmler had imbued them all with a sense that their existence had been ordained by destiny. Their godhead was Adolph Hitler, master of their lives and future. They were the chosen, the pure-blooded-Aryan ideal, the perfection of the master race.

  He realized now that he had been tested and preserved for a reason. Their defeat, too, had been a test of their endurance. Now these mongrels, these Jew-loving pigs, the puppets that unwittingly danced to the strings of the sinister Yids would learn the power of vengeance. The death of Churchill, Churchill the poseur, Churchill the golden-tongued serpent, would validate their resurrection. Because Franz Mueller was one of the chosen, he was confident of his survival. His planning was, he was certain, being dictated by the godhead assuring his survival. Adolph Hitler lives in me, he told himself. The Russians were merely tools of Hitler’s will.

  “Sieg Heil!” he shouted into the rising sun. “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

  The sound rolled over the deserted landscape. He felt charged with the electricity of ecstasy.

  He drove the car into town and had coffee and scrambled eggs at a counter in a crowded luncheonette. The cacophony of voices around him seemed to merge into a single word: Churchill. Obviously, this was the most important event that had happened in Fulton since its first settlers had arrived.

  “Here for the big brouhaha, buddy?” the waitress behind the counter asked.

  He nodded and smiled.

  “Town’s gone crazy,” said the waitress.

  “It’s a great honor,” said a uniformed mailman, sitting next to him. “Somethin’ to tell my grandchildren.”

  He made no comment. They would not only remember the day, they would remember the moment.

  He paid the check and, following the plan that had etched itself in his mind, walked down the main shopping street, going over those items that were essential to his plan. In every store window was a sign proclaiming Churchill Day.

  By all means, Churchill Day, he snickered.

  He passed a clothing store with two mannequins in the window—one male and one female. He was particularly interested in the female mannequin and the wig that adorned her head under an Easter bonnet. He noted that a chain hung down on one side of the door to the shop with a lock hanging on one of the loops. This struck him as prescient, since the locking system was the same as he had considered for the door to the scorecard perch.

  Then h
e went into a hardware store and bought a length of chain, a lock, and a metal cutter. In the Woolworth store, which dominated the main shopping street, he bought white stockings, white shoe polish, a lipstick, and a hand mirror. The clerk had looked at him curiously but executed the purchase without comment.

  He was enormously satisfied at the imagination and verve of his plan, which seemed to be dictated by some mysterious outside source. Dimitrov had left him to his own devices. Years back, when he had killed the Finkelstein brothers, he had been somewhat imaginative, but that paled beside what was planned here. It was as if a play had been created in which he was the principal actor.

  He found a parking space on the campus, already buzzing with activity, but something odd was happening. Some people were bringing metal chairs out of the gymnasium, and others were bringing metal chairs in.

  “What’s going on?” he asked one of the volunteers.

  “They’re putting in smaller chairs and taking out the larger ones. They’re going to seat nearly three thousand people, shoehorn them in.”

  Good, he thought.

  The shift gave him a greater opportunity to get lost in the increased activity. Yesterday, he had spotted the truck with rolls of bunting. It was gone now, but at the side of the building, he noted a pile of unused bunting. He lifted one of the rolls and put it on his shoulder and walked to his car. His luck was holding. No one paid him any attention.

  He put the chain and the lock in his pocket, and then opening the trunk of his car, he removed the loaded rifle. He inserted the rifle in the roll of bunting, then closed the trunk and put the bunting roll back on his shoulder. He carried it to the rear of the building where the entrance to the locker room was located.

  Two policemen manned the entrance. On the door was a sign with a red cross, indicating that it was designated as the first aid station, which the map in the newspaper had indicated. The policemen were chatting and disinterested and let him by with a smile and a friendly salute. The locker room was empty, although the door to the main gym was open, and he could see the people working frantically to rearrange the metal chairs.