The Chancellor Manuscript (45 page)

“Yes. He worked for them. He fed them the information.”

“And the fact that a language was spoken that he didn’t know.”

“Apparently he knew several.”

“Six or seven, I imagine,” agreed O’Brien.

“His point was that the men who took him at the Thirty-fifth Street house had to know he wouldn’t be able to understand what they said. They had to know
him
. Again, one of those four men. They all knew him, knew his background.”

“Another link in the connection. Could he at least identify the root of the language? Like Oriental or Middle Eastern?”

“He didn’t say. He only said that when the name Chasǒng was used, it was spoken fanatically, repeated fanatically.”

“What he might have meant was that Chasǒng has become a kind of cult.”

“A cult?”

“Let’s go back to Ramirez. He confirmed the slaughter, admitted the command foul-up?”

“Yes.”

“But he’d already told you Chasǒng was investigated by the Inspector General, that the losses were attributed to unexpected enemy forces who were superior in numbers and firepower.”

“He was lying.”

“About the I.G. investigation? I doubt that.” O’Brien got up and poured more coffee.

“About the findings, then,” said Peter.

“I doubt that, too. You could research them too easily.”

“What are you driving it?”

“The sequence. I’m a lawyer, remember?” The agent put the pot back on the stove and returned to the table. “Ramirez told you about the I.G. investigation without any hesitation. He just assumed you’d accept the findings if you checked them out. Then moments later he reverses himself. He’s suddenly not sure you’re going to accept them; and that concerns him. He actually pleads with you to leave it alone. You had to give him a reason to change his mind. It had to be something you said.”

“I accused him. I told him it was a cover-up.”

“But accused him of what? What were they covering up? You didn’t say because you don’t know. Hell, charges like that are the reason the I.G. steps in to begin with. He wasn’t afraid of those. It was something else. Think.”

Chancellor tried. “I told him he hated MacAndrew; that he froze at the name Chasǒng, that it was tied in with MacAndrew’s resignation, with a gap in his service record, with the missing files. That he—Ramirez, I mean—was filled with lies and evasions. That he and the others had gotten together because they were frightened to death—”

“Of Chasǒng,” completed Quinn O’Brien. “Now go back. What specifically did you say about Chasǒng?”

“That it involved MacAndrew! It was why he resigned, because he was going to expose it. That the information, the cover-up, was in the missing FBI files. It was why he was murdered.”

“That’s everything? That’s
everything
you said?”

“Christ, I’m
trying.”

“Calm down.” He put his hand on Peter’s arm. “Sometimes the most relevant evidence is right in front of
us and we don’t see it. We dig so hard for details, we miss the obvious.”

The obvious. Words—it was always words. The uncanny way they could provoke a thought, give rise to an image, prod a memory—the memory of a brief flash of recognition in a frightened general’s eyes. Of a dying man’s statement:
Not him. Her! He’s the decoy
. Peter looked through the thin, delicately woven slats of the room divider. His eyes were focused on the door of Alison’s room. He turned to O’Brien.

“Oh God, that’s it,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“MacAndrew’s wife.”

Senior Agent Carroll Quinlan O’Brien agreed to leave. He understood. Things were going to be said behind that door that were terribly private.

Also, he had work to do. There were four celebrated men to learn about and a remote stretch of hills in Korea that two decades ago had been a killing ground. Wheels had to start turning, knowledge had to be unearthed.

Peter entered the bedroom, unsure of how he would begin, sure only that he had to. At the sound Alison stirred, moving her head from one side to the other. She opened her eyes as if startled, and for an instant she stared at the ceiling.

“Hello,” said Chancellor gently.

Alison gasped and sat up. “Peter! You’re here!”

He walked swiftly to the bed and sat on the edge, embracing her. “Everything’s all right,” he said, and then he thought of her father and mother. How many times had Alison heard her father say those words to the madwoman who was her mother?

“I was frightened.” Alison held his face with both her hands. Her wide brown eyes searched his for evidence of pain. Her whole face was alive and concerned. She was the
most intensely beautiful woman he had ever known, and much of that beauty came from within her.

“There’s nothing to be frightened about,” he said, knowing the lie was preposterous, sensing she knew it, too. “It’s almost over. I’ve just got to ask you some questions.”

“Questions?” Slowly she took her hands from his face.

“About your mother.”

Alison blinked. For a moment he felt her resentment. It was always there when her mother was mentioned.

“I’ve told you what I can. She became ill when I was very young.”

“Yet she remained in the same house with you. You had to know her even in her illness.”

Alison leaned against the headboard. She was not relaxing, however; she was wary, as if afraid of the conversation. “That’s not entirely right. There was always someone caring for her, and I learned early to keep my distance. And there were the boarding schools from the time I was ten. Whenever my father was sent to a new post, the first thing he did was to find me a school. For two years when we were in Germany, I went to school in Switzerland. When he was in London, I was at the Gateshead Academy for Girls; that’s in the north country, near Scotland. So you see, I wasn’t in the same house very often.”

“Tell me about your mother. Not after she became ill, but before.”

“How can I? I was a child.”

“What you know about her. Your grandparents, her home, where she lived. How she met your father.”

“Is this necessary?” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table.

Chancellor looked at her, his eyes steady. “I agreed to your condition last night. You said you’d accept mine. Remember?” He took the matches from her and lighted her cigarette, the flame between them.

She returned his look and nodded. “I remember. All right My mother, as she was before I knew her. She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her father was a bishop in the Church of Heavenly Christ. It’s a Baptist denomination, very rich, very strict. As a matter of fact both her parents were missionaries. She traveled almost as much as I did when she was young. Remote places. India, Burma, Ceylon, the Po Hai Gulf.”

“Where was she educated?”

“Missionary schools mainly. That was part of the upbringing. All God’s children were the same in Jesus’ eyes. It was also fake. You went to school with them—probably because it helped the teachers—but damned if you could eat with them or play with them.”

“I don’t understand something.” Peter leaned sideways, across her covered legs, his elbow resting on the bed, his head in his hand.

“What?”

“That kitchen in Rockville. The nineteen-thirties decor. Even the goddamned coffee pot. You said your father had it designed to remind her of her childhood.”

“The happier moments, I said. Or should have said. As a child my mother was happiest when she was back in Tulsa. When her parents returned for spiritual R and R. It wasn’t often enough. She hated the Far East, hated the traveling.”

“Strange she should wind up marrying an army man.”

“Ironic, perhaps—not so strange. Her father was a bishop; her husband became a general. They were strong, decisive men and very persuasive.” Alison avoided his eyes; he did not try to reengage them.

“When did she meet your father?”

Alison drew on her cigarette. “Let me think. God knows he told me often enough, but there were always variations. As if he constantly, purposely, exaggerated or romanticized.”

“Or left something out?”

She had been looking across the room at the wall. She shifted her eyes quickly to him. “Yes. That, too. Anyway, they met during the Second World War, right here in Washington. Dad was recalled after the North African campaign. He was being transferred to the Pacific, which meant briefing and training in D.C. and Benning. He met her at one of those army receptions.”

“What was the daughter of a Baptist bishop doing at an army reception in wartime Washington?”

“She worked for the army as a translator. Nothing dramatic—pamphlets, manuals. ‘I am an American pilot who has parachuted into your beautiful country, and I am your ally’—that sort of thing. She could read and write several Far Eastern languages. She could even work her way through basic Mandarin.”

Chancellor sat up. “Chinese?”

“Yes.”

“She was in China?”

“I told you. The provinces of the Po Hai Gulf. She spent four years there, I think. Her father operated—if that’s the word—between Tientsin and Tsingtao.”

Peter looked away, trying to conceal his sudden apprehension. A dissonant chord had been struck, its abrasive sound disturbing. He let the moment pass as quickly as possible and turned back to Alison. “Did you know your grandparents?”

“No. I vaguely recall Dad’s mother, but his father—”

“Your mother’s parents.”

“No.” Alison reached over and crushed out her cigarette. “They died proselytizing.”

“Where?”

Alison held her extinguished cigarette against the glass of the ashtray and replied softly without looking at Peter. “In China.”

They were silent for several moments. Alison sat back against the headboard. Chancellor remained motionless and held her gaze. “I think we both know what we’re saying. Do you want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Tokyo. Twenty-two years ago. Your mother’s accident.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I think you do.”

“I was so young.”

“Not that young. You said you were five or six, but you shaved a couple of points. You were nine. Newspapermen are usually accurate in matters of age; it’s easy to check. That article on your father gave your right age—”

“Please—
”

“Alison, I love you. I want to help you, help us. At first only I had to be stopped. Now you’re involved because you’re part of the truth. Chasǒng is part of it.”

“What truth are you talking about?”

“Hoover’s files. They were stolen.”

“No! That’s in your book. That’s not real!”

“It’s been real from the beginning. Before he died, they were taken. They’re being used right now. And the new owners are tied in with Chasǒng. That’s all we know. Your mother’s tied in, and your father protected that connection
throughout her life. Now we’ve got to find out what it was. It’s the only thing that will lead us to the man who has those files. And we’ve got to find him.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! She was a sick woman, getting worse. She wasn’t important!”

“She was to somebody. She still is. For God’s sake, stop running away from it! You couldn’t lie to me, so you skimmed over it, then you circled it, and finally you said it:
China
. The Po Hai provinces are
China
. Your mother’s parents died in
China
. At Chasǒng we were fighting
China!”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know! I may be so far off base, but I can’t help thinking.
Nineteen fifty
 … Tokyo. Korea. The Chinese Nationalists thrown out of the mainland; they wandered pretty freely, I would think. And if they did, they could be infiltrated. Orientals can tell one another apart; Westerners can’t. Was it possible your mother was reached? The wife of one of the top commanders in Korea reached and somehow compromised—because she had parents in China. Until something snapped. What happened twenty-two years ago?”

The words came painfully to Alison. “It started several months before, I think. When we first got to Tokyo. She just gradually began to slip away.”

“What do you mean, ‘slip away’?”

“I’d say something to her and she’d simply stare at me, not hearing. Then she’d turn without answering and walk out of the room, singing bits and pieces of tunes.”

“I heard one in the Rockville house. She was singing an old tune. ‘Let It Snow.’ ”

“That sort of thing came later. She’d get attached to a song, and it would last for months. Over and over again.”

“Was your mother an alcoholic?”

“She drank, but I don’t think so. At least, not then.”

“You remember her quite well,” said Peter softly.

Alison looked at him. “More than my father knew, and less than you think.”

He accepted the rebuke. “Go on,” he said gently. “She began slipping away. Did anybody know? Was anything done for her?”

Alison reached nervously for another cigarette. “I suppose I was the reason something was done. You see, there was no one to talk to. The servants were all Japanese.
What few visitors we had were army wives; you don’t talk to army wives about your mother.”

“You were alone, then. A child.”

“I was alone. I didn’t know how to cope. Then the telephone calls started coming late at night. She’d get dressed and go out, sometimes with that dazed look in her eyes, and I didn’t know if she’d ever come back. One night my father called from Korea. She was always home when he called; he would write her the day and the time. But that night she wasn’t, so I told him everything. I guess I just blurted it out. A few days later he flew back to Tokyo.”

“How did he react?”

“I don’t remember. I was so happy to see him. I just knew everything would be all right.”

“Was it?”

“It was stabilized for a while; that’s the word I’d use now. An army doctor began coming to the house. Then he brought others, and they’d take her away for several hours every few days. The phone calls stopped, and she stopped going out at night”

“Why do you say ‘stabilized for a while’? Did things come unglued?”

Tears formed in her eyes. “There was no warning. She just suddenly went. It happened late one bright, sunny day; I’d just come home from school. She was screaming. She’d chased the servants out of the house; she was raving, smashing things. Then she stared at me. I’ve never seen such a look. As though she loved me one moment, then hated me, then was terrified by me.” Alison brought her hand to her mouth; it was trembling. She stared down at the blanket, her eyes frightened. She whispered the rest. “Then mother came at me. It was horrible. She had a kitchen knife in her hand. She grabbed me by the throat; she tried to plunge the knife into my stomach. She kept trying to stab me. I held her wrist and screamed and screamed. She wanted to kill me! Oh,
God
! She wanted to
kill me!”