The Gun Runner's Daughter (25 page)

It was, in short, the perfect place for a person who had fallen victim to a political obsession.

Especially when that person was entirely unconcerned with his salary because he was the son of Johnny Dymitryck, who, up until his blacklisting, was among the highest paid screenwriters in the
studio system and who, from the blacklisting on, invested his earnings wisely enough to allow his son to become, in Jay Cohen’s often repeated description, the “best dressed lefty in
the country.”

If the people who’d blacklisted, investigated, and harassed his father had still been around, Nicky’s field of expertise would have been different. As it was, he
had to focus his journalistic sights on the longer-lasting Cold War institutions, and this he did with what can only be called obsession. His area of expertise was the small group of ex-army and
intelligence officers who run through the history of covert military actions of postwar America, from the Bay of Pigs, through Laos and Cambodia, to the Mossadeq overthrow in Iran and the coup
against Arbenz in Guatemala, and to their highest moment in the public eye, known as the Iran-contra affairs, and then, the placidity of their profitable enterprises barely rippled by the exposure,
onward.

Theodore Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, John Singlaub, Richard Secord, Thomas Clines: Nicky was not the only writer to have fallen victim to the temptation of figuring out what these men did, and
how they did it. But in that small community of journalists who gave—more often lost—their careers to the conspiracy theories that united these kinds of people across the history of
postwar America, Nicky Dymitryck was perhaps the most tenacious. That was fitting, because so was his chosen quarry, Greg Eastbrook, who had, since his closed-door congressional testimony on his
work for Oliver North in South America, so convincingly succeeded in his government work that in 1992 he retired his naval commission and announced his intention to represent California in the
United States Senate in 1994. A political ambition about which, in 1993—when Eastbrook won a bitterly contested Republican primary for the candidacy—Nicky stopped laughing.

He recuperated from the Harlanstrasse bombing, that April of 1992, in, of all places, Jerusalem, where he wrote his article on Allison’s father from his hospital bed. The
research was easiest here, on the spot. In addition, the hospital was first-rate, and not even that much-criticized country’s severest critic had ever denied the high degree of journalistic
freedom that was available there. His story to bed and largely recuperated from his injuries, Nicky flew out for brief visits to sources in Istanbul and Beirut, and had returned home to Los Angeles
by the time his Rosenthal story was published, in May.

It was not a good time. Nearly immediately upon his return, his engagement fell apart, and by the end of the month he found himself spending more nights on the couch in his office than at home.
And that was why he was at the office when, on an evening in early June, the
NAR
received a call.

“Mr. Dymitryck, please.”

“This is Nicky.” Half reading a newspaper, he answered automatically.

“Ah. Hello.” The voice at the other end was a man’s, and it was young. “I’m sorry about what happened with Hourani. I felt responsible.”

Recognizing the voice of the green-eyed young man from the bar at New Haven, Nicky let the newspaper fall. “Did you set the bomb?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you’re not responsible. Listen. I’d like to talk with you.”

There was a short silence, and Nicky began to worry that he had gone too fast. But then the boy was speaking again.

“Why?”

“I’d like to know who you are. How you knew about Hourani. Listen, there’s no one in the world who mistrusts my discretion. It can all be perfectly confidential.”

Again, a pause. Then the boy spoke carefully.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Somebody’s son. Somebody in the industry.”

The boy sighed. “Mr. Dymitryck. You don’t want to speak to me. I’m just a kid. What you want is to speak to a man called Dov Peleg. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” Scribbling, the phone between shoulder and ear. “Who is that?”

“Someone interesting. He worked for Israeli intelligence in the eighties. I believe he’d like to speak to you, too. He’s in Paris, and I’ve got the number. But you want
to catch him as quick as you can, ’cause I believe he’s in trouble. Can you write down the number?”

“Yes.” While he wrote, Nicky thought. This boy was going to tell him nothing else, he knew. But was there one thing he could get before the boy hung up? When he had taken down the
number, he said:

“What should I ask Peleg?”

It worked. Without pause, the boy said: “Ask him to show you a video he made of Greg Eastbrook and Ronald Rosenthal in Brooklyn.”

“Okay. Will you call me again?”

A slight, humorless laugh. “I doubt it.”

And then the line went dead, but only for the second it took for Nicky to dial Air France.

4.

Dov Peleg met him at a restaurant on the Place Balard toward three on a Sunday morning. That was a good choice, Nicky thought, as he crossed the deserted intersection toward the
restaurant: there was not another soul in this obscure southwestern corner of the city, and had there been, he or she would have been clearly visible. The restaurant was equally deserted: it was
open only for the truckers who would soon arrive for the greenmarket on the square, but it was still too early for them. Nicky waited for a few moments over a drink. Then Peleg came in.

He was scared, bitter, and drunk. He stood a few inches taller than Nicky in old jeans and a wrinkled, ill-smelling polyester shirt. The hair over his nearly spherical head was thin and greasy
in a way that bespoke not only a lack of cleanliness, but also ill health. But he was also clearly a practiced agent of some intelligence arm. He searched Nicky, quickly and cleanly, in the
bathroom, then examined his tape recorder. Satisfied, he led him back to the bar and they began to talk.

Peleg was a former Israeli intelligence technician. He had been ousted in the fallout surrounding Iran-contra. He could not return to his country. He hated Paris. If he was to help Nicky, Nicky
would have to pay, very handsomely, and help him leave the country. Nicky explained that his resources were very large. But he needed something very difficult. At last, Peleg turned his yellowing,
bloodshot eyes to his interlocutor.

“What do you need, friend?”

“I’m told you worked for Israeli intelligence in the eighties.”

With no acknowledgment, the other waited.

“I’m told you videotaped a meeting between Rosenthal and Greg Eastbrook in Brooklyn.”

Again, no response.

“I want that videotape.”

Now the other nodded. He didn’t have the tape. But he could tell Nicky where to get it. His price was a ticket to Australia and ten thousand dollars. For a time they haggled, while the
restaurant began to fill with the drivers of the trucks slowly filling the square, outside, in the dim morning light. In time they agreed that Peleg would tell him what was on the tape for the
ticket and two thousand dollars. On the spot, Nicky paid him cash—a portion of the funds that had been wired from Diamond’s Organic Communications account to Paris that morning: he was
not allowing the time for any assassinations. And then Peleg began to talk, leaning close, whispering.

“There was me, Bennie Friedman. Ron’s daughter, Esther, came in for a moment. She saw the whole thing. Ach, that girl. I used to think I’d marry her when she grew up.
Beautiful, these eyes like nothing I’ve ever seen.” Peleg’s eyes unfocused, and he fell into silence.

“So I have to find Rosenthal’s daughter?”

“Hey?” For a moment, the other looked lost. Then: “Oh no. She won’t help you. She’s Daddy’s girl. No, what you want is to find the son.”

And now he leaned across the table, breathing his breath of sour wine into Nicky’s face, and lowered his voice. “Listen to this, okay? No one knows this but me. The son was there
too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Eastbrook’s security checked the doors, the street, and scanned for bugs. But they never checked for a fourteen-year-old boy coming in through the maid’s door from the
kitchen. Why should they? The meeting was as dangerous for Ron as it was for their boss. They assumed he had secured the rest of the house. Remember, no one ever gave Greg Eastbrook high marks for
competence, right? And in the middle of the fucking meeting, this kid in pajamas walks in, half asleep.”

“What’d they do?”

“Oh, well. They laughed. Ron took the boy out, and they went on. But I was watching, and I know that boy. He is sly, just like his father. He knew what he had seen.”

“Why should he tell me?”

A pause. “You’re not Jewish, are you?”

“No.”

“Then you won’t understand. Trust me. You find him, you play him, you can make him do anything you want, so long as it hurts his father.”

“Why does he want to hurt his father?”

“To avoid going to the army.”

“The army? People like the Rosenthals don’t go to the army, Mr. Peleg.”

“Not in America. I mean Israel.” At Nicky’s silence, he went on. “I told you you wouldn’t understand. Just find the boy. If he can’t get the tape, he can
testify about what he saw. No one’ll believe an alcoholic Israeli spy. But they’ll believe him.”

“Where do I find him?”

“What month is this? June? Go to Martha’s Vineyard. Ocean View Farm. Go soon.”

At the door, Nicky asked suddenly:

“This kid, Rosenthal’s son. He has what color eyes?”

“Like his sister. Green as a field in spring.”

“Mr. Peleg. He was the one who sent me to you.”

“Was he?” The Israeli was clearly anxious to leave. Had he, Nicky wondered, recognized someone in the now crowded restaurant? “That doesn’t surprise me. The kid’s
fighting for his life. His father has his way, he’ll spend three years on the Golan. He’s a lefty, he’s queer, and he hates his father. When you see him, tell him I did my best.
But if he really wants to help, he’s going to have to do it himself.”

It turned out the Place Balard wasn’t as good a choice as one might have thought. Nicky returned to America safely. But Peleg, that same afternoon, died in a car accident on the way to
Charles de Gaulle Airport to catch a plane to Australia.

And, it turned out, Nicky had not been fast enough. Two days later, in late June of 1992, Nicky Dymitryck arrived on the little island-hopper to Martha’s Vineyard only to read, in a copy
of the
Martha’s Vineyard Gazette
that he found at the airport, the headline “Suicide at Gay Head” and the story that Paul Rosenthal, son of one of the island’s
wealthiest residents, depressed at his recent diagnosis as HIV-positive, had shot himself in the chest and fallen from the cliffs at Gay Head to die, as Allison would later write in a poem, under
some brilliant sky, in the sea moving like eels.

Summer 1992. Nicky left Martha’s Vineyard without trying to contact the Rosenthals. He knew there was no point. Back in Los Angeles, he locked the Peleg interview in the office safe, with
another copy at his father’s Malibu house, where he’d lived since the dissolution of his engagement. Nothing in the interview could be substantiated, and without substantiation, it was
only color. Besides, Eastbrook had just announced his bid for the Senate in a joint conference with Oliver North, and there was, for the
NAR
, serious work to do.

So it was not until two years later, in the summer of 1994, when Stan Diamond rented a summer house on South Beach in Martha’s Vineyard, that Nicky thought about Allison Rosenthal
again.

5.

At first, the coincidence seemed too much. Stan had just come back from Martha’s Vineyard, where he’d rented, for the following summer, a magnificent property on the
southern coast of the island, paying a $5,000 deposit on a total of $47,000 for a three-month rental. He’d received a lease, which was due back in mid August. Stan had signed the lease and
written a check. And only after mailing them back had he connected his landlord with the man in the newspapers.

Sitting in Jay Cohen’s office, holding Stan Diamond’s lease and canceled deposit check, Nicky considered. The property was under notice of a federal seizure, to be executed in a
matter of weeks. Renting the property was clearly illegal, but more than that, it was impossible: Ronald Rosenthal was known to have absconded to Israel. Clearly, the signature on the lease was a
forgery. Clearly, the intention of completing the rental was embezzlement.

His first question to Stan had been whether he was willing to execute the lease and send in, as required, the balance of one-half of the rental amount. It was a long shot, Nicky explained, but
he might be providing a valuable lever against Ron Rosenthal, whom Nicky knew to be in possession of damning evidence about Greg Eastbrook. That he conveniently left out the fact that the only
person the leverage could in fact be against was Rosenthal’s daughter, who was capable of testifying to Rosenthal’s interaction with Eastbrook—if not actually providing a video of
it—was because he doubted Stan would have the stomach for that. In any case, Stan agreed. The signed lease and check were sent, overnight mail.

Nicky waited as long as he could, until just before Labor Day weekend. That allowed whoever had forged the signature on the lease two weeks to deposit the check. Then he left: he was under
subpoena to testify in Washington about the Harlanstrasse bombing, which, two years after the fact, the House Intelligence Committee was finally looking into. That left him only a few days on the
island.

More important, Eastbrook was, by that August, three points ahead in the polls, and the election was only two months away.

This was, Nicky knew, a pretty long shot. But it was more than likely his last shot, so he could not afford to let it go.

And he was right. On Martha’s Vineyard, his suspicions were confirmed, three times. First when he found proof of the forged endorsement of rental checks. Second when he was beaten up.