Memorial Bridge (69 page)

"Why are you saying these things?"

"Because if you won't violate your precious conscience for your son, you certainly wouldn't have for me. What I see, Sean, is that you've never cared about anyone but yourself, and that's the awful truth behind the shell of your famous integrity. Otherwise you would jump at the chance to go to your son when he asks for you."

"But he's guilty, Cass. He's a draft dodger. Nothing I do can change that. His future is at stake, yes. But he's in charge of it. He's not our little boy anymore. He has chosen to defy the government in a way that the government simply cannot allow. The government has to land on him. Its ability to field an army depends on the Selective Service System holding. Richard has to go to jail. He should go to jail."

"And you would not consider asking Mr. Hoover or Ramsey Clark to intervene, this once, for—"

"Of course I wouldn't."

"It's that 'of course' I hate in you."

"It has always been there, Cass."

She shook her head. "Once it wasn't."

Cass turned and crossed to the conference table and put her cup down on the tray. She did so carefully, without flamboyance. Then she picked up her bag and started toward the door.

"Cass?"

She stopped, her back toward him.

But he could not think what he wanted to say.

She left.

Dillon's colleagues returned to the room and they resumed their discussion of the current deployment of North Vietnamese regulars in the South. The assessment was crucial for Averell Harriman at the peace
talks in Paris. But Dillon's mind was only half focused on the charts and maps before him.

It was after three o'clock before he broke free to call her. "Look," he began, "you said some things I need to answer."

"Sean, I suggest you drop it. I'm not interested in—"

"I can't drop it. Now listen to me. You brought up Buckley. And I've been thinking. You were right. I didn't do it for you. I set him up because I hated him. I hated him for what he'd done to your uncle." Dillon saw the flash of an image, a pale mangled corpse dripping beside the blood pit. "And for what he'd done to Doc Riley. But you're right, it was my hatred. And I acted on it as I did because, if the law protected him, it was wrong. It seemed that simple to me. If the law protected Buckley, the law was wrong. And Cass, do you know what? I do not regret having manipulated the law to get him. And if I lied, I haven't regretted that either. Buckley died in prison after more than twenty years. I'm sorry the doctors couldn't cure his cancer because he deserves to be in prison still. That's the first thing I wanted to tell you."

Dillon moved the phone receiver to the other side of his face, from the hand that was wet to the one that was dry. He was standing in that same window, looking out at the river and the bridge. The black spire of Georgetown in the distance reminded him of the old Jesuit, of the sparrow in the hall.

"And the second thing is, you were wrong when you said I'd never put aside my conscience for you. Cass, you are my conscience. From the very beginning, you've been that to me. Are you listening?"

"Yes. Then I have to ask you something, if that's what I am to you. Something I swore I'd never ask."

"What?"

"How can you continue to be a part of this war?"

Silence. Dillon knew she'd never have dared ask him that if they'd been face to face.

"The war, Sean. You hate it as much as Richard does. How can you still be a part of it?"

"Cass, I have no choice."

"You do! You do! You could resign!"

"Cass, the peace talks are on in Paris. What happens there can justify all that's happened up till now, all the killing, everything! I'm part of that still, don't you see? I help with those talks. I keep our people on top of
what the other side is really doing. My work has never mattered more. Don't you understand? The peace talks are what will end the war. Not protests. I don't resign, because if I did, I wouldn't be quitting on President Johnson or General Westmoreland, but on hundreds of thousands of men who are still in terrible danger. They're the ones I think of now. If it was in my power to just bring them home today, I would. I helped get them there. I have to help get them home."

"Get them home by denouncing the war."

"That would give Hanoi another reason not to settle. I can't be a part of that. Besides, critics of the war are a dime a dozen."

"So are subservient generals, Sean. I hate to say it, but you are kidding yourself."

"Maybe so, Cass, maybe so. But it's not subservience I'm known for lately. I've seen everything I've believed in and given my life to not only corrupted but betrayed. And it breaks my heart. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"We're nearly drowned in lies over here. I know that better than anyone. Mostly, we've lied to ourselves. Well, that is something it's still my job to change. For me to walk away to preserve what little is left of my own integrity, as if I'm better than these others, would be a last betrayal. I have no illusions, Cass. But there are peace talks on in Paris. They are the best chance we have. That's why I stay."

"In Paris, all they do is argue over the shape of the table."

"That's not true. That's all the press sees happening. It's a potential breakthrough, Cass, take my word for it."

"And you want to see it through because of the boys."

"That's right."

"And what about
your
boy?"

"That's why I called you. I've been thinking about it. And I think there is something I can do, something you suggested."

"What?"

"Go to Hoover. Ask him to get the case against Richard dropped. I'm on my way there now."

"That's not what Richard would—"

"He'll never know, Cass. It's the best thing I can do for him. The government has plenty of discretion in these cases. They don't prosecute every violator, and there's no reason Richard shouldn't be one who draws a bye. Once he's out,
then
I'll see him."

Cass did not respond at first, her feelings were so complicated. But finally this was what she wanted, wasn't it? Richard out of that hateful jail? What did it matter, compared to that, that Sean was otherwise so wrong?

The Justice Department on Ninth Street—how many coundess times had he entered it, always with a clip in his step? After the Pentagon, it seemed a modest building. Even on Pennsylvania Avenue, with the temple-like National Archives looming to the east and the massive Victorian oddity, the old post office, to the west, Justice hardly registered as grand. But to Dillon, the halls of that building, unlike any other in Washington, were hallowed. Even now, when so few of his illusions remained intact, he could not enter the Justice Building without feeling a rush of affirmation. How different his life would have been if he'd remained here as a Bureau man. He would not have been an outsider all these years, for one thing. And his exercise of power would not have been thwarted at every turn by small-minded military turf-defenders.

But Dillon laughed, chiding himself at once. Exercise of power? If he'd stayed in the Bureau, he'd have had no problem with that, since he'd have had no power. Work for Hoover? Not a chance.

But working
with
him had been something else. Hoover and Dillon each occupied chairs on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where their intimacy had been implicit. Even as the aging FBI director had become a parody of himself, obviously ill equipped for the era of civil rights and political dissent, Dillon's respect for him held. Compared with the intimidated military men who made every decision with a furtive eye up the chain of command, Hoover's cantankerous willingness to offend seemed precious to Dillon.

The wall at the elevator was decorated with bronze bas-relief panels portraying the great lawgivers of history: Moses, Hammurabi, Justinian. As familiar emblems of the system to which he was devoted, the figures reassured him. Though he had come here explicitly to bend that system to his own benefit, he felt remarkably at peace. Unlike nearly everyone else in that city, Dillon had never cashed in a chit for himself, as Hoover would know better than anyone. Yet to do so now seemed wholly right. Hoover regarded himself as Dillon's mentor. It would please him to be asked for help, and to offer it. Dillon rode the elevator up to the director's floor, full of confidence.

At the door to Hoover's outer office, he hesitated for a second to savor the difference it was to come here in the uniform of a three-star general. To young agents, this same door could seem a gate of hell.

Miss Gandy greeted Sean with twinkling affection, but she stunned him then by saying that Hoover wasn't there.

"But you told me yourself not an hour ago that he would see me now."

"That was before, General. The director had to leave. He said that you should go into Mr. Peterson's office and talk to him."

"Peterson?"

Walt Peterson was the deputy assistant director for domestic intelligence, a position Dillon himself had held at the end of the war. Dillon barely knew Peterson. As he left Miss Gandy, he fended the certainty that he'd just been shunted aside. He knew damn well this had happened before. His current troubles at the Pentagon had begun when McNamara started sloughing him off to deputies. At Peterson's office, the secretary was ready, and she showed him in with nervous efficiency.

"Hey, Sean, how are you?" Peterson came at him with outstretched hand, like a salesman.

"I'm well, Walt. Nice to see you."

The two men took chairs opposite each other.

"The director was called away, I guess. He asked me to see you. What's up?"

Sean shook his head. "Not much point in my raising the thing with you, Walt. It's personal. I indicated as much to Miss Gandy, and I have to assume the director knew that. It makes no sense that he referred me to you."

"Unless it involves your son."

Peterson's direct statement caught Sean off guard. But then he understood how obvious it was. Hoover's refusal to see him was already a refusal to help Richard.

Dillon lit a cigarette to calm himself. "Why the referral to you, Walt? My son is a two-bit draft dodger, not in DI's purview. I'd have expected to be passed along to the fugitive section."

"Actually, these recent draft cases are on our docket. There's a difference between a draft dodger and a resister. I'm sorry to say, Sean, your boy mixed himself up with some of the wrong people. He's involved with a subversive group."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It calls itself Resist. It has cells in cities all across the country. It's an out-and-out revolutionary organization, committed to the overthrow of the entire Selective Service System. And we have reason to think it is an organization run by foreign operatives."

Despite a wave of nausea, Dillon laughed. "Foreign operatives! Walt, listen to yourself. You think Moscow is behind all these kids taking off for Canada? Jesus, Peterson. Who are you getting your briefs from? Herb Philbrick?"

"You wouldn't be amused if you saw the material I see."

"Then show it to me. Show me what implicates my son with subversives, what sets him apart from ten thousand other boys who have refused to report for induction."

"I can't. You know that."

"Why, because my clearances aren't up to level?"

Peterson looked away from Dillon, not replying.

"Then why isn't he charged with violations under the Smith Act? Subversion, acting as an agent of a foreign power, conspiracy. Why aren't those the charges? You have him for one lousy count of failure to report, and another of unlawful flight. Why are those the charges if he's so dangerous?"

"We can't bring our sources into court, that's why. But we're using what open violations there are to bring this movement to a halt. You know how it goes. Unfortunately, your son got caught in the first phase of our full-court press. I've no doubt he's just been duped, Sean. But he
is
active. His first phone call from jail was to Resist. He was active with Resist in Toronto."

"Which you have infiltrated, right? That's how you knew he would be at Randall Crocker's funeral."

"That was badly handled. I admit it."

"Badly handled! Christ, it was a funeral! Where do you get your agents now? The Cosa Nostra? They're the ones who make their hits at funerals."

"I said it was badly handled. What do you want?"

"I want the charges dropped against my son. Whatever you have going with this Resist operation, he's peripheral to it."

Peterson shook his head. "The indictment's been handed down."

"Hoover could have it quashed in an hour, and you know it."

"Mr. Hoover expressly told me, Sean, to convey his regrets on this. He'd like to help, but he can't. This is a national security case, and you should—"

"Don't give me that crap." Dillon's anger brought him to his feet. He leaned over Peterson. "This is my son. This is me. Whose side do you think
I've
been on for thirty years? I'm not accepting this from you. Hoover will have to tell me to my—"

A brusque voice from behind cut Sean off. "No, he won't, General."

Dillon turned to see in the side doorway the figure of Clyde Tolson, Hoover's alter ego. He'd obviously been listening to everything. "Mr. Hoover won't see you on this."

"He'd better see me, Clyde, because I don't think you can make clear to him how strongly I feel about this. I've never asked for
anything,
once! Nothing for myself, ever. I came here to ask, but now I'm telling! This is me! This is my son! And I won't let you dump a load on him that belongs on someone else. Do your work. If you have a case against Resist, develop it. If you have Soviet penetration in the antidraft movement, expose
that.
Don't pretend these easy-to-arrest, long-haired, hippie peaceniks are national security threats, especially not my son!"

Dillon had crossed to Tolson, always a sycophant. But now he seemed weak and old. In Tolson's flinching, Dillon saw something else. "Or is it especially that he
is
my son? Is that it? You land on him
because
of me? What, to prove how serious you are, to send Resist a message? Or who, the Kremlin?