that you never share anything w anyone again."
Continuing to squint, Pittman turned to Gable.
"You're sweating," the grand counselor said. "Look at your forehead.
It's pouring off you. Surely you're not nervous. In a negotiation, you
should never allow your emotions to show. Certainly I never do."
"It's the temperature in this room. It's too hot in here." Pittman
wiped his forehead.
"My doctor has given me instructions that the temperature must be kept
at eighty. To remedy a mild health problem of mine. Take off your
sport coat if the temperature is making you uncomfortable. You're
wearing a sweater also."
"I'm fine." Pittman refocused his attention, concentrating on the view
through the window. The man in the golf cart had disappeared behind the
wall at the bottom of the slope. "That fax, the one that arrived a few
minutes ago."
"What about it?" Gable asked.
Pittman looked directly into Gable's steel gray eyes. "It was for me."
Gable didn't respond immediately. "For you?"
"What does he mean?" Winston Sloane asked.
Ignoring his colleague, Gable told Pittman, "That's absurd. Why would
anyone send a fax to you here? How could anyone do that? The fax
number is confidential.
"The same as your telephone number is confidential," Pittman said. "But
I arranged for your daughter to phone you last night. And for Jill to
phone your confidential number, Winston. And then we phoned Victor
Standish's confidential number. Too late in that case. He'd already
blown his brains out. Because he couldn't stand hiding the secret you
shared. But if I had no trouble using my contacts to learn those
numbers, I assure you it was just as easy for me to find out your fax
number. The message is Duncan Kline's obituary. I'm sure we'll all
find it interesting."
Gable frowned with suspicion. "Mr. Webley, see that my visitor remains
exactly where he is while I get the fax message from my office."
Webley raised Pittman's .45. "Don't worry. He isn't going anywhere.
Pittman watched Gable stand with difficulty and proceed from the room.
His back as regally straight as he could make it, Gable disappeared down
a corridor.
Pittman was uncomfortably aware of more sweat sticking his brow . His
anxiety, combined with the heat in the room, made him nauseated.
Avoiding Webley's intense gaze and Sloane's nervous expression, Pittman
turned again toward the wall length window. It took him a moment to
adjust his vision to the painful glare of the sun. The fir trees were
even more beautiful. The green of the spring grass was made exquisite
by his terror. In the distance, golfers passed trees near a pond.
Abruptly a motion caught Pittman's attention. At the hottorn of the
slope on Gable's estate. Close to the wall, This side of the wall. The
man who'd driven the golf cart toward the opposite side of the wall was
now in view, climbing the slope toward Gable's mansion. Pittman didn't
know how he had -gotten over the wall, but it was the same man, Pittman
could tell, because the man in the golf cart had worn a white cap and a
red windbreaker, the same as this man. Despite the sheltering cap, it
was now possible to see that the man was elderly. But he moved with
slow determination, climbing, holding something in his right hand. And
as he trudged higher, beginning to show the physical cost of his effort,
just before pine trees obscured him, Pittman realized with hastily
subdued shock that he recognized the grimacing elderly man.
Pittman had bought a drink for him last night. He'd followed him to
Mrs. Page's mansion. He'd taken him to a hospital when the elderly man
collapsed. Bradford Denning. This morning, Denning had snuck from the
hospital's cardiac ward, and now he looked totally deranged as he
stumbled into view again, leaving the fir trees, struggling higher
toward the house. With equal shock, Pittman distinguished the object in
Denning's right hand-a pistol held rigidly to his side. .
No! Pittman thought. If Gable sees him, if Webley notices, they'll
decide that I've tricked them, that I can't be trusted, that
everything's out of control. The moment they realize Denning's armed,
they'll shoot him. And then they'll finish me.
1 0
The echo of faltering footsteps on a stone floor alerted Pittman. He
straightened, turned from the window, hoped that no one else had seen
what he had, and directed his full attention to Eustace Gable, who
entered the room, looking considerably frailer and older than when he
had left. Ashen, the grand counselor regarded the single sheet of fax
paper that he had brought from his office. "How did you obtain this?"
the old man asked. Pittman didn't answer.
Gable assumed as imperious a stance as he could manage. "Answer me. How
did you obtain this?" Not knowing the substance of the message, knowing
only that it was what he had asked Mrs. Page, using her contacts at the
Washington Post, to send to him, Pittman hoped that he sounded
convincingly casual. "Surely you haven't forgotten that lately my
assignment has been obituaries. ",Pittman stood, approached Gable, and
attempted to take the fax from Gable's rigid grip.
Gable resisted.
Damn it, if I don't get a chance to read this ... Pittman thought in
hidden panic.
Unexpectedly, Gable released his grasp.
As if he'd seen it numerous times, Pittman glanced offhandedly down at
the text. It was from the obituary page 0 the Boston Globe, December
23, 1952. The death notice for Duncan Kline.
Pittman 's temples throbbed, sickening him. "I'm sure it was a
difficult matter for you to decide-whether to arrange for a small
discreet notice about Duncan Kline's passing or whether to allow the
larger obituary that one might expect for a remarkable teacher who had
taught many remarkable students. In the first case, Duncan Kline's
former colleagues and students might have been suspicious about the
indignity of giving him only a few words. They might have sought out
more information. But in the second case, they might have unwittingly
learned too much if the circumstances of his death were elaborated. As
it is, you struck a prudent compromise - "
The room became deathly silent. nking with furious speed, Pittman
imagined Bradford Denning struggling higher up the slope. The old man
would not yet be close enough to be a danger. But Pittman had been
disturbed by his resolve. He remembered how Denning had pressed his
left hand to his pained chest while his right hand clutched his pistol.
"The obituary tells you nothing," Gable said. "It's been a matter of
public record for mote than forty years. If there was anything
incriminating in it, someone would have discovered it long ago."
Pittman raised his voice. "But only if someone knew what to look for."
The faster his heart rushed, the more his lungs felt starved for oxygen.
His reporter's instincts had seized him, propelling his thoughts,
thrusting them against one another, linking what he already knew with
<
br /> what he had just now discovered, making startling connections.
"Duncan Kline died in 1952," Pittman said. "That was the year he
suddenly appeared at the State Department, de to see all of you. July.
Eisenhower had won the ican nomination for President. All of you were
busy ru ning the reputations of your competitors while you prepared to
jump ship from a Democratic administration to one that you were sure
would be Republican. Your conservative, anti-Soviet attitudes were in
tune with the times. The future was yours. Then Kline showed up, and
he scared the hell out of you, didn't he?"
As yet, Pittman had no idea why the grand counselors had been afraid of
Kline, but the intensity with which they listened to Pittman's
insistence that they had indeed been afraid of Kline gave Pittman the
incentive to follow that line of argument.
"You thought you'd buried him in your p"t," Pittman said. "But suddenly
there he was, making a very public appearance, and yes, he scared the
hell out of you. In fact, he scared you so much that in the midst of
your determined efforts to convince Eisenhower and his people to bring
you on board, you took time out-all of you-to go to a reunion at
Grollier. That was in December. Kline must have put a lot of pressure
on you since July, When he showed up at the State Department. Finally
you had no choice. You all went back to the reunion at Grollier because
it was natural for Kline to be there, as well. It wouldn't have seemed
unusual for you and Kline to be seen together. While you tried to
settle your differences without attracting attention."
Pittman's nervous system was in overdrive as he studied Winston Sloane's
reactions, the old man's facial muscles tightening in a stressful
acknowledgment of what Pittman was saying. For his part, Eustace
Gable's expression provided no indication as to whether Pittman was
guessing correctly. "Duncan Kline had retired from teaching," Pittman
continued. "He was living in Boston, but this obituary says he died at
a cottage he owned in the Berkshire Hills. I don't need to remind you
they're in western Massachusetts, just south of Vermont. In December.
Why the hell would an elderly man who lived in Boston want to be at a
cottage in the mountains during winter? Under the circumstances, the
best reason I can think of is that he made the relatively short drive to
the cottage after he attended the reunion at Grollier. Because his
business with all of you wasn't finished. Because you needed an
isolated place where he and you could continue discussing your
differences. "
Pittman stopped, needing to control his breathing, hoping that his
inward frenzy wasn't betraying him. As frightened as he was, he felt
elated that neither Gable nor Sloane contradicted what he had said.
Imagining Bradford Denning climbing the slope outside, not daring to
risk a glance toward the window to see how close Denning had staggered
to the mansion, Pittman shifted toward a wall of bookshelves at the side
of the room, desperate to prevent his - audience from facing the window
and seeing what was happening outside.
Pittman pointed toward a section of the obituary he held. "Duncan Kline
was English. He came to the United States in the early 1920s, after
teaching for a time at Cambridge - "
Pittman's stomach tensed as he made another connection. British. If
only I'd known earlier that Kline was British, that he came from
Cambridge.
,I'm sure it must have been quite a coup for an Anglophile school like
Grollier to have acquired an instructor from Cainbridge as one of its
faculty members. Ironic, isn't it? Over the years, Grollier's students
have gone on to be congressmen, senators, governors, even a President,
not to mention distinguished diplomats such as yourselves. But for all
its effect on the American political system, the school's philosophical
ties have always been to Britain and Europe. I've seen the transcripts
of the seminars you took from him. Kline's specialty was history.
Political science.
Winston Sloane's face turned gray.
Pittman continued. "So a political theorist from Cambridge bonded with
five special students and trained them for their exceptional diplomatic
careers - The five of you provided the philosophical underpinnings for
almost every administration since Truman. The theories Duncan
Kline-instilled in you "No! When we were young maybe," Winston Sloane
ohjected. "But we never carried through on Duncan's theofies! "Winston,
enough!" Gable said.
"But listen to what he's saying! This is exactly what we feared! He'll
destroyour reputations! We were never Communists! "
And that was it. What Pittman had fervently hoped, that one of the
grand counselors would unwittingly volunteer information, had finally
happened. The word Communists seemed to echo eerily . At once the room
became disturbingly silent just as everyone in it seemed frozen in
place.
Slowly Eustace Gable took out his handkerchief. He coughed into it in
pain. Winston Sloane peered down at his gnarled hands, evidently
ashamed of his lapse, realizing how severely he'd declined from having
once been a great negotiator renowned for keeping his counsel.
For his part, Webley showed no reaction. He just kept pointing the .45
at Pittman.
Gable cleared his throat and put away his handkerchief. Despite his
problems of health and age, he looked so dignified that he might have
been conducting a meeting in the White House. "Complete your thought,
Mr. Pittman . "In 1917, the Russian Revolution electrified
anti-Establishment British intellectuals. Liberal faculty members at
British universities, especially at Cambridge, became enchanted with
socialist theory - The eventual results of that enchantment were the
British spy rings-former students who'd been recruited by their
professors at Cambridge-working for the Soviets to undermine England and
the United States. Guy Burgess. Donald Maclean. Kim Philby. In fact,
now that I think of it, Burgess and Maclean defected to Russia in 195
I.Philby was suspected of having warned them that they were about to be
arrested as spies. The next year, Duncan Kline made his threatening
appearance outside your offices at the State Department. I guess you
could say that he was more advanced than Philby and the others. After
all, Philby had been converted in the thirties, whereas Kline had become
a Communist sympathizer a decade earlier, in the twenties. He must have
been an exceptional seducer-sexually, politically. And after all, you
and your friends were so young, so impressionable. You graduated from
Grollier in 1933. You attended college, some of you at Harvard, others
at Yale. Meanwhile, the Depression worsened. Kline's Communist
theories presumably continued to be fascinating to you, given the chaos
of the country. But eventually you stayed loyal to the capitalist
tradition. Did it finally occur to you that if you followed Kline's
theories and undemiined the Establishment, you'd be undermining
> yourselves, inasmuch as you were the next leaders of the Establishment?"
Pittman stared at Gable and Sloane, but neither man responded.
"I think you're opportunists," Pittman said. "If communism had taken
control of the United States, you'd have insinuated yourselves into the
highest levels of the new system. But once the Second World War
started, communism lost its limited appeal here. The Soviets appeared
to be as a threat as the Nazis. So you insinuated yourselves into upper
echelons of the State Department. There, you not only jettisoned your
former Communist attitudes; you also gained more power by eliminating
your competitors, claiming that they were Communist sympathizers. "
Pittman thought nervously of Bradford Denning clutching his pistol,
struggling up the slope past fir trees, toward the mansion. "In the
anti-Communist McCarthy hysteria of the early fifties, you built your
careers on the sabotaged careers of other diplomats. Then Duncan Kline
showed up and threatened to ruin everything. What did he do? Hold you
up for blackmail? Unless you paid him to be quiet, he'd reveal that you
were as vulnerable as the men you accused of being Communists, is that
it?"
The room became so still that Pittman could feel blood pounding behind
his eardrums.
Eustace Gable forlornly shook his wizened head. His tone was a blend of
discouragement and disappointment. "You know far more than I expected.
" The old man exhaled wearily. "You've demonstrated remarkable
journalistic skills. That's why I permitted you 'to come here-so that I
could judge the extent of your knowledge. But you're wrong."
"I don't think so."
"Duncan didn't attempt to blackmail us. He didn't want money," Gable
David Morrell - Desperate Measures Page 40
