"Roger that."
As Fuller gave instructions to the military cops, Powers tested the driver's door lock, opened the door, and slid behind the wheel. There was the faint smell of Marilyn's perfume. He checked under the seat and in the glove box. Nothing but rental and insurance forms, maps, and a screwdriver. He compared the odometer reading to the rental form and shoved the form back in the glove box. He stepped out of the car. The trunk was locked. He went back inside the car for the screwdriver, and after a few tries he was able to pop the trunk open.
It was empty.
Feeling castrated, Powers ran his hands through his hair. The rain tickled his face as he looked around and considered the possibilities. If she'd gotten help from someone she wouldn't have picked a residential street lined with windows to transfer to another vehicle. But if she was on the run she might have considered her head start her only advantage and thus thrown caution to the wind.
Fuller walked across the cobblestoned street to join him.
"There's nothing in the car."
"Those are all apartment houses across the street. If you think it'll do any good we can go to the resident registration office and get the name of every occupant of every apartment."
"Wouldn't tell us anything."
The MPs came out of the building adjacent to the Mercedes Benz.
"Sir, that's a commercial building. The first floor is a German Versicherung. I think that means an insurance company. The second floor is the Syrian trade mission."
"What's that?"
"The Syrian trade mission. We knocked on the doors. There's no one at either place. Of course, it's Saturday."
Powers felt his stomach begin to churn. He felt warm.
"Sir? Do you need us for anything else? We're scheduled to go off duty." Powers said no and thanked the MPs.
"No problem, sir," said the taller officer.
"The woman who rented the car. Was she someone you knew?" Fuller said as the MPs climbed into their Volkswagen and drove away.
"Not very well," Powers said after a while. How was he going to be able to explain?
"No use standing here in the rain," Fuller said, moving to his sedan. "Jack-"
Powers turned and walked numbly to the car. Reaching down, he opened the passenger door and climbed in. The rain was machine-gunning the roof and windshield, and he realized he was soaked.
Fuller took out a clean handkerchief and dried his face and the top of his head. "I'll need the woman's name for my report," he said.
"Just write that I asked for assistance under Section Six in finding a female civilian employee of the U.S. Government. Your report should be classified Top Secret with limited distribution."
"Where's the rest of your surveillance team?" he said.
"I'm it."
"Kind of strange."
"What's kind of strange?"
"Following someone from Washington, DC, to Germany alone ... without a surveillance team," he said, smiling wryly.
"I'm not going to bullshit you. We both know a one-man surveillance means the people upstairs want minimum exposure. In fact, they probably won't like the idea of my asking the army for help."
Fuller took out a package of Kools and lifted a cigarette from the pack with his teeth. He flamed the cigarette with a Zippo lighter and lowered the driver's window about an inch for air circulation.
"I can relate to that," he said, emphasizing the re in relate. "Damned if you do and damned if you don't."
"In the Secret Service it's called Playing It by Ear."
Fuller nodded. "You ever heard tell of a pffft bird?"
"Can't say I have."
"Rather than flying straight like the other birds, the pffft bird flies in ever-decreasing circles until finally-pffft! It flies right up its own asshole. Same thing can happen during an investigation. Everything seems to be going right; then, all of a sudden, pffft! You're in a world of hurt."
"You've got that one right," Powers said. The rain came down in sheets, swirling back and forth across the road.
****
FOURTEEN
During the flight back to Washington, his mind awash in guilt, anger, and humiliation, Powers neither ate, drank, read, nor watched the movie. Leaning back in the seat with his eyes half closed, he relived the details of every moment he'd been with Marilyn, including the time they'd spent together in bed. Still in this state of self-absorption as the aircraft began its final descent, he'd convinced himself the best thing to do was simply tell Sullivan the truth: Marilyn had convinced him she wasn't a spy, they'd slept together, and she'd given him the slip. But Marilyn was the President's girlfriend....
Airplane wheels shrieked as they touched tarmac at Dulles Airport. The weather was still gray, as if, Powers thought in his state of depression, a storm was covering the earth itself. As the aircraft taxied toward the terminal area, Powers finally decided how he would play it with Sullivan. Because he'd been instructed to surveil Marilyn singlehandedly and thus couldn't be held accountable if she was to slip away, he'd simply tell the truth about everything in Germany-except, of course, that he'd slept with her.
At Secret Service headquarters, Powers felt the tension building as he walked down the long hallway toward Sullivan's office. He stopped in front of the door, took a deep breath, and entered. Lenore Shoequist stopped filing her long red nails and showed him into Sullivan's inner office.
Sullivan, looking drawn and pale as if he hadn't slept, got to his feet. "No calls," he said.
Lenore Shoequist smiled perfunctorily and pulled the door shut.
Powers cleared his throat. "She-"
Sullivan put a finger to his lips and led Powers to the security room. Inside, he flipped on the light and the air-conditioner switches and bolted the door. The room was stuffy and overheated and Powers felt his knees actually shaking.
"She gave me the slip."
"I already know what happened," Sullivan interrupted.
"How ... how did you find out?"
Sullivan turned away from him and worked the combination dial on the safe. Finally, the lock clicked and he pulled open the heavy steel drawer. He took out a green folder marked TOP SECRET and returned to the table. From the folder he removed a document. "Director Patterson called me to CIA headquarters this morning," he said, handing the document to Powers. It looked like a Teletype message. "He gave me this."
The message read as follows:
TOP SECRET-NO FORN
BEGIN MESSAGE
FLASH-USAREUR COMMAND (NATO)
ARMY INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION COMMAND
REPORTS IN AREA FOXTROT ONE US SECRET SERVICE AGENT POWERS ACTING UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL EXECUTIVE ORDER 1976 REQUESTED ASSISTANCE IN SEARCHING FOR POSSIBLE MISSING CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE US GOVT. (NFI) REPEAT CIVILIAN EMPLOYEE US GOVT. (NFI) SUBJECT'S RENTED VEHICLE FOUND IN DOWNTOWN KASSEL. SECRET SERVICE AGENT POWERS REQUEST LIMITED DISTRIBUTION ON THIS MESSAGE. (NFI)
END MESSAGE
TOP SECRET-NO FORN
Sullivan sat down at the table and took out a pen. "Start at the beginning," he said, turning the page of a yellow legal tablet.
Powers sat across from him. For the next hour or so, he related the events of the surveillance from the time he arrived in Germany until finding Marilyn's car. He included all the pertinent details, estimating times for his observations of Marilyn's actions as he went along. Sullivan took copious notes as he spoke. When he reached the part where Marilyn had first confronted him in the hotel restaurant, he was puzzled when Sullivan didn't flinch.
"The next day I followed her out of the hotel and she confronted me again," Powers said reticently. "She told me she was going to an art show and suggested I accompany her. I figured that under the circumstances, since she was already aware of the surveillance, I might as well."
"I would have probably made the same decision under the circumstances," Sullivan said, making a note.
"That night I accompanied her to a restaurant, a place called the Heilige Geist
."
"Did you sit together?"
"Yes."
"What did she talk about at dinner?" Sullivan asked.
"Casual conversation, nothing significant."
"Then what?"
Powers felt his stomach muscles tighten involuntarily. "We stopped for a drink after dinner."
"Where?"
"I think the place was called the Tanz Bar."
"How long did you stay there?"
"We had a couple of drinks."
Sullivan set his pen down. "Then what?"
"We returned to the hotel."
"What happened then?"
"You mean after we arrived at the hotel?"
"Yes."
Powers coughed dryly. "She went to her room and I went to mine."
"How were you able to keep an eye on her?"
"There was a bank of windows.... From my room I was able to keep an eye on her door."
"So you watched her room all night to see if she left the hotel?"
"I admit to catching a few winks. I hadn't slept since beginning the surveillance."
"I understand," Sullivan said in a fatherly tone. "When did you notice her missing?"
"In the morning."
"You went to her room?"
"I called her room and there was no answer."
"How do you think she got out of the hotel without you seeing her?" Sullivan said. There was a definite tinge of hostility in his words.
He shouldn't have lied. He just should have told the truth, faced the music. Now he was locked into the story. "I'm not sure," Powers said mournfully. "I must have nodded off for a few minutes."
Sullivan gave him an icy stare. "It's just you and me in this room, Jack. I have to know everything. This is too important not to know everything."
Powers felt perspiration running down the middle of his back. "I've told you everything."
Sullivan checked his notes. "Tanz Bar. Tanz means dance, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"Did you dance?"
Powers felt blood rushing to his face. "I don't recall."
"It's me, Jack. There's no one else in this room."
"Come to think of it, we might have danced."
"Did you or didn't you?"
"I didn't see any big deal-"
"You danced with her. Then what?" Sullivan said, staring at him.
"You mean when we left the bar?"
Expressionless and maintaining direct eye contact, Sullivan nodded. Just one nod. "When you left the bar."
Powers wished he could disappear or that he could wake up and have it all be a dream. "Like I said, we returned to the hotel."
Sullivan made a note on the pad. "Go ahead."
"That's about it. We went back to the hotel."
"She's a very attractive woman, isn't she? A ten on the ten scale."
"I guess you could say that."
"It must have been a strange feeling, being over there alone with this beautiful woman. Just you and her."
Powers ran his hands through his hair. There was no use lying anymore. "She spent the night in my room," he said quietly. "I woke up in the morning and she was gone...I'm sorry."
Sullivan's face turned red.
Powers heard his own heart beating.
Sullivan slid the TOP SECRET folder across the table. Powers opened it. In it was a piece of bond paper without letterhead. It read as follows:
TOP SECRET
CONTACT REPORT
Source 2048LKA, during a routine contact, stated substantially as follows:
During the last twenty-four hours an American double agent, a woman, possibly an employee of the CIA named Kasindorf, first name Mary or Marilyn, traveled to Damascus, Syria, via Paris and Ankara where she was met by Syrian Secret Service officials (nfi). Her travel is believed to have been part of an escape plan effected from Kassel, FRG, where she recognized an American surveillance and initiated escape plan. Syrian agents, operating under cover of the Syrian trade mission in Kassel, provided her with a forged Turkish passport (nfi). This information is believed to be reliable and is classified R-1.
END OF MESSAGE
TOP SECRET
Powers felt nauseated: nauseated, chastened, and helpless.
"I guess that answers the question whether Marilyn Kasindorf was a spy," Sullivan said.
"Are you going to tell the President?"
"I'm afraid so," Sullivan said apologetically.
"Will you have to tell him everything ... I mean about her and me?"
"I'm not going to volunteer anything. But if he asks, I'm not going to lie."
"I understand. I'd do the same thing."
Sullivan rubbed his hands together. "Patterson made an issue about following her without telling him. I covered it by saying the President told me to handle it, and he backed off. But he knows something's up. He'll be putting feelers out at the White House to find out what the hell is going on. The problem is he knows what the President thinks of him and how he's out of a job after the election. I'm afraid if he finds out about Marilyn and the President-"
"He'll leak," Powers said, thinking out loud.
"Good chance. Leak to cut some kind of deal with the other campaign, allowing him to stay at CIA during the next administration. But it's a big step for him to make. He's probably the only guy in this town with more political enemies than the President."
Powers shook his head for a moment.
"Jack, I know the train seems out of control for the moment, but we just have to take it one step at a time."
"What happens now?"
"The Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee is always briefed on American defectors within forty-eight hours. You'll be the main witness."
"How do I-?"
"Jack," Sullivan interrupted, "this was a White House security problem and I enlisted your help in handling it. I'll have plenty of plausible reasons for why I chose to handle it this way. And Jack Powers, as far as I'm concerned, acted properly, professionally."
"If Patterson finds out about Marilyn and the President and wants to make his play, the perfect scenario would be to leak to a member of the Oversight Committee. They'd ask me the question under oath-make me the fall guy."
"I'm not trying to minimize, but we have a lot going for us. The President has friends on the committee. If they are properly primed and if Patterson doesn't throw his spear, you should be able to slide through without a lot of hostile questions."
"One of them could drop the zinger, ask me point-blank about the President and Marilyn."
"The way you answer could change the course of American history," Sullivan said hoarsely. He coughed. "The Chairman is Senator Eastland. He and the President were roommates at Yale. If Eastland can be convinced to limit the questioning, we're home free."
"And if he doesn't, or if Patterson starts pulling strings, the President gets impeached." Powers put his head in his hands. "She knew she couldn't get out of the hotel without me watching her, so she conned me-reeled me in like a fish," he cried.
"It's not going to be easy to get out of this mess," Sullivan said. "It may call for some sacrifices."
Powers sat up. "I'm a Secret Service agent and I'll do what needs to be done," he said, feeling as embarrassed as he ever had in his life.
Sullivan walked to the safe and replaced the folder. He shoved the heavy drawer closed and spun the combination dial. "Unfortunately, the hardest part is yet to come," he said somberly.
"The President."
"That's right, Jack. He has questions."
"Does he suspect something?"
"When I briefed him and Morgan on the defection, he kept asking for specifics: how she got away from the hotel without you seeing her. I went through a song-and-dance about how difficult it was for you-following her alone and all-but he wasn't satisfied."
"You mean I have to brief him in person?"
Sullivan nodded.
"Can't you answer his questions for me?" Powers pleaded.
"The Pre
sident is a former prosecutor. He likes to hear things from the horse's mouth," Sullivan said.
"What if he gets specific?"
"Then you'll have to ... handle it."
"I mean what if he gets specific?"
"You'll have to do what you have to do, Jack."
"I can't lie to the President. Jesus H. Christ."
"Then tell him the truth."
"If I tell him the truth about Marilyn, my career is ended." Frustrated, Powers let out his breath. "Shit," he said angrily. "Shit."
"Or I could tell him for you. It would be easier if it comes from me."
"Either way I get fired."
"Don't forget. The President is twisting in the wind with you. She was his girlfriend. I'm going to do everything in my power to sweep this thing under the rug and keep you from getting hurt. You just have to trust me until we see which way the wind is blowing."
Powers felt reassured. Sullivan was a master at power games, a politician in his own right. He would take his advice.
"I'll phone you after I talk with the man. In the meantime, don't report back for duty. If anyone asks, you're extending your vacation to take care of some personal errands."
****
FIFTEEN
Outside Secret Service headquarters, Sullivan offered Powers a ride. Powers declined, preferring to walk and give himself time to get his thoughts together.
Sullivan climbed in his car, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb.
Standing there with a warm, humid breeze at his back, Powers suddenly felt as alone as he ever had in his entire life: alone and burdened with a sense of guilt and foreboding. Absorbed in this state of depression, he began walking slowly, aimlessly, in the general direction of the White House. Though fretting over his personal situation, he found himself thinking about Marilyn-and, again and again, reliving the time he'd spent with her.
In Lafayette Park, a diminutive patch of lawn and trees across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, he sat down on a bench and stared blankly at the tourists as they moved along the sidewalk and through the park. Though he wasn't counting, he spotted three women during the next hour or so he thought looked like Marilyn.
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