The Chancellor Manuscript (50 page)

Peter gripped the wheel. He remembered the words he had heard only hours ago.

I am listed in the State Department logs as being in conference at this moment …

Munro St. Claire, ambassador-extraordinary with access to the secrets of the nation, knew Varak was dead.

“Or Bravo,” said Chancellor angrily. “The fifth man.”

There were no further sterile locations available to O’Brien. His resources had come to an end. Even the most sympathetic of his associates would not help him. Saint Michael’s One had been destroyed; a four-million-dollar piece of government property had been blown up.

There might have been explanations for that disaster, explanations that could have conceivably been in O’Brien’s favor. But there was no explanation in the intelligence
community that covered the shocking revelation of a certain killing.

Varak’s corpse had been found on the scene, his body riddled with bullets.
Outside
the sterile house. Treason had to be considered.

Peter understood, but his understanding was of no consequence. Varak’s body had been found by the men following him, chasing him over the lawns of the Smithsonian, and it had been brought to Saint Michael’s to add an insidious complication.

No consequence. Who would listen?

The word was out A senior agent, Carroll Quinlan O’Brien, had disappeared. The urgent request for Saint Michael’s One had been relayed to the State Department from O’Brien’s office at the bureau. The clearance procedures included Varak’s name and the statement that the request was a joint operation between the FBI and NSC. The statement was false, and O’Brien was nowhere to be found.

And a secret debriefing center had been destroyed.

Phone calls made by O’Brien from booths along the highways and the back roads revealed a government net closing in with alarming swiftness. Quinn’s wife was frantic. Men had come to see her, saying terrible things—men who only days ago had been their friends. O’Brien could only try to reassure her. Quickly. He could say nothing of substance. Undoubtedly their telephone was tapped. Besides, he and Peter and Alison had to get out of each area where a call was placed. Phone booths could be traced.

Chancellor called Tony Morgan in New York. The editor was frightened: Government people had been in touch with him. And with Joshua Harris. They had made startling accusations. Peter had given false statements to a night-duty officer at the Federal Bureau of Investigation that had resulted in the deaths of Justice Department personnel. Further, he had assaulted an FBI agent in the Corcoran Gallery. The man was in critical condition; if he died, the charge would be murder. Beyond these charges there was evidence linking him to the destruction of highly classified government property, the value of which was four million dollars.

“Lies!” Peter cried. “The man I assaulted tried to kill me! He was a maniac; he was forced to resign. Did they tell you that?”

“No. Who told
you
? An agent named O’Brien?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t believe him. O’Brien’s an embittered career man, an incompetent. The government people made that clear. He was being eased out when you came along.”

“He saved my life!”

“Maybe he just wanted you to think so. Come back, Peter. We’ll get you the best lawyers. There are legitimate explanations, the government people realize that. My God, you’ve been under a terrible strain; last year you were barely alive. Your head was sliced half off; no one knows the extent of the damage.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“I don’t know it. I’m trying to find reasons.” Morgan’s voice cracked. He cared.

“Tony, listen to me. I haven’t much time. Don’t you see what they’re doing? They can’t admit the truth. They’ll try to correct the situation, but they can’t admit that the situation exists! Hoover’s files are missing!”

“Get away from the
campfire!
You’re
killing
yourself!” Morgan’s explosion came from deep within him.

Chancellor understood. Now Tony was being used, manipulated, too. “Did you mention the files?”

“Yes.…” Morgan could barely speak.

“Did they deny that the files were missing?”

“Of course. They were never missing because they were destroyed. Hoover himself gave the instructions.”

The lying was total. Phyllis Maxwell’s words came back to Peter.
They fear infected bloodlines
. Were they Phyllis’s? Or had he invented them? He was not sure any longer. Fact and fantasy had converged and they were one. The only certainty was Quinn O’Brien’s judgment:

The files had to be found and produced. There was no other way. Until then, the three of them were fugitives.

“You’ve been lied to, Tony. I wish to God it weren’t so, but it is.” He replaced the phone and ran from the booth to the car.

They found an almost deserted motel on the beach at Ocean City. Winter, two days before Christmas; there was a dearth of reservations. A doctor ministered to Quinn, taking the money but no other interest. A transient had fallen through a glass door. It was explanation enough.

On Christmas Eve the rogue agent came close to
breaking. Quinn’s wife and children were less than two hours away, but they might as well have been on the other side of the world behind fences of barbed wire, crisscrossed by searchlights. He could give them no words of comfort, not even words of hope. There was only the separation and the knowledge of the pain it was causing. Peter watched as O’Brien struggled with his fear and his guilt and his loneliness, knowing that one day his words and his emotions would be put in the mind of another. On paper. Peter was watching a man of reluctant courage whose panic was consuming him and whose heart was breaking, and it both touched and outraged him.

One professional. Two amateurs. Three fugitives. It was up to them now. There wasn’t anyone else. Alison could no longer be excluded; she was needed. Together they had to solve the riddle, or the destruction would continue. They would be destroyed themselves in the process. The unfairness of it all was appalling.

It was a painful Christmas. The three of them shared what the motel manager called his Upper South Suite. It was a second-floor complex with windows facing the side of the building as well as the beach. The entrance was below them in plain sight. There was a bedroom and a sitting room with a sofa bed, along with a small kitchenette. The decor was Middle Plastic.

They waited, knowing the wait was necessary. The radio and the television set were kept on to pick up any sudden breaks in the news, any hints that one hundred miles away in Washington someone had decided to acknowledge their disappearance. They bought newspapers from the metal machine in the lobby and read thoroughly. One article caught their attention.

“What does it mean?” asked Peter. “They want us to know they have proof we were there,” replied Quinn. “Subtle, aren’t they?”

“How could they know?”

“Easy. Fingerprints. You were in the service; mine are in any number of records.”

“But they don’t know about Alison.” Chancellor felt a surge of relief. It was quickly blunted.

“I’m afraid they do,” said O’Brien. “That’s why they used the ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ ”

“I don’t care!” Alison was angry. “I
want
them to know. They think they can threaten whomever they please! They won’t threaten me. I’ve got a great deal to say!”

“They’ll tell you they do, too,” said Quinn softly, walking to the window overlooking the beach and the ocean. “My guess is they’ll give you a choice—for reasons of national security. Keep silent about everything you’ve seen and heard, or face the disclosure of your mother’s activities twenty-two years ago. Activities recently come to light that cost upwards of a thousand American lives in a single day. Inevitably this will raise questions regarding your father.”

“Mac the Knife?” said Peter coldly. “Killer of Chasǒng?”

O’Brien turned from the window. “That’s too ambiguous. Traitor of Chasǒng would be more like it. Whose drug-addict wife whored for an enemy twenty-two years ago and killed American soldiers.”

“They wouldn’t dare!” cried Alison.

“It’s pretty farfetched,” added Chancellor. “They’d be in dangerous territory. It could snap back in their faces.”

“Revelations of this kind,” said O’Brien with a quiet conviction Peter recognized as being intensely personal, “are always the most dramatic. They go on page one. Later, whatever explanations there are don’t seem to be so important. The damage has been done; it’s not easily undone.”

“I don’t believe that,” countered Alison nervously. “I don’t want to believe it.”

“Take my word for it. It’s the story of Hoover’s files.”

“Then, let’s get the files,” said Peter, folding the newspaper. “We’ll start with Jacob Dreyfus.”

“He’s Christopher, isn’t he?” asked Alison.

“Yes.”

“It’s appropriate,” she said, turning her head to look at O’Brien. “I can’t believe there’s no one we can turn to.”

“There’s a senator,” interrupted Peter. “We can go to him.”

“But even he’ll want more than the case I built,” said Quinn. “Perhaps not two days ago, but now he will.”

“What do you mean?” Chancellor was alarmed. The other evening O’Brien had been so sure of himself. The files were missing; Quinn had the evidence. Things were desperate now.

“I mean we can’t go to him.”

“Why not?”

“Saint Michael’s happened. Destruction of government property, violations of security procedures. He’s bound by oath to report it if we make contact. If he doesn’t, it’s obstruction of justice.”

“Shit! Words.”

“Law. He may offer to help; if Varak was right, he probably will. But it’ll be after the fact. He’ll insist we surrender ourselves. Legally that’s the only position he can take.”

“And if we do, that’s where they want us! It’s no good!”

Alison touched his arm. “Who are they,’ Peter?”

Chancellor paused. The answer to her question was as appalling as the circumstances in which they found themselves. “Everyone. The man who has the files wants to kill us; we know that now. The people who know the files are missing refuse to acknowledge it and want us quiet. They’re willing to sacrifice us to get that silence. Yet, they want the same thing we do.” Peter walked slowly across the room past O’Brien to the window. He looked out at the ocean. “You know, Bravo said something to me. He said that four and a half years ago he steered me into a world I hadn’t considered. He told me to go back to that world, leave the real one to others. To him and people like him.” He turned from the window. “But they’re not good enough. I don’t know if we are, but I know they’re not.”

Jacob Dreyfus rose from the breakfast table, not a little annoyed. The butler said the White House was on the line. The damned fool was probably calling to wish him Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
It would not have occurred to the President to call on the first day of Chanukah. That was on the twenty-fifth day of Kislev, and not exactly a date commemorating the birth of Christ.

The word was that the man was drinking heavily. It was not surprising. There had been no administration in
the history of the republic like this one. The venality was unsurpassed, the lust for power the essential evil. Of course, the man drank heavily. It was his balm of Gilead.

Jacob considered not taking the call, but respect for the office demanded that he do so.

“Good morning, Mr. Pres—”

“I’m not the President,” a voice said. “I’m someone else. Just as you are someone else, Christopher.”

The blood drained from Jacob’s face. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. His gaunt legs were weak; he thought he might fall to the floor. The secret of a lifetime was known. It was beyond belief. “Who’s this?”

“A man who’s been working for you. My name is Peter Chancellor, and I’ve done my job too well. I’ve learned things I’m sure you never intended me to learn. And because of that we have to meet. Today. Early this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?…” Dreyfus felt faint. Peter Chancellor, the writer? How in the name of God could the writer have done this? “I don’t make appointments on such short notice.”

“You’ll make this one,” said Chancellor.

The writer was nervous; Jacob could sense it. “I don’t take orders. Nor have I ever heard of a Christopher. You used a clever ruse in reaching me. However, I enjoy your little entertainments. If you’d care to lunch with me one day next week.”

“This afternoon. No lunch.”

“You don’t listen—”

“I don’t have to. It’s possible my ‘little entertainments’ aren’t important anymore. Maybe I’m interested in other things. Perhaps you and I can reach an understanding.”

“I can’t imagine there being an understanding between us.”

“There won’t be if you talk to the others. Any of them.”

“The others?”

“Banner, Paris, Venice, or Bravo. Don’t talk to them.”

Jacob’s body trembled. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying they don’t understand you. I think I do. That’s the writer’s job—to try to understand people. That’s why you people used me, isn’t it? I believe I understand you. The other’s can’t”

“What are you talking about?” Dreyfus could not control his hands.

“Let’s call it a splendid temptation. Anyone familiar with Chasǒng would grasp the logic. But the others, they’d kill you for it.”

“Chasǒng? Kill me?” Jacob’s eyes blurred. A terrible error had been made! “Where do you want to meet?”

“There’s a stretch of beach north of Ocean City in Maryland; any cab driver can find it. So take a cab, and come alone. Get a pencil, Christopher. I’ll give you the directions. Be there by one thirty.”

Perspiration poured down Peter’s forehead. He leaned against the glass panel of the telephone booth. He had done it; he had actually
done
it. An idea born of fiction worked in fact!