(1976) The R Document (6 page)

He felt Karen’s hand tighten on his arm. ‘Don’t, Chris, don’t get involved further. I can’t explain it. But it scares me. I don’t like living scared.’

He stared out the window into the night. ‘And I don’t like living with mysteries,’ he said.

They buried Colonel Noah Baxter, former Attorney General of the United States, on a wet May morning in one of the few available plots left in the 420-acre Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. Relatives, friends, members of the Cabinet, President Wadsworth himself, were at the graveside as Father Dubinski intoned the final prayer.

It was over now, and the living, filled with sadness and relief, wended their way back to the business of life.

Director Vernon T. Tynan, his shorter sinewy assistant, Associate Deputy Director Harry Adcock, and Attorney General Christopher Collins, who had come to the rites together, were now leaving together. They walked silently in step down Sheridan Avenue, past the gravestones of Pierre Charles L’Enfant and General Philip H. Sheridan, past the eternal flame burning low over the grave of President John F. Kennedy, going steadily toward Tynan’s official bulletproof limousine.

The silence was broken only once, by Tynan, as they moved past a cluster of Civil War headstones. ‘See those Union and Confederate headstones?’ said Tynan, pointing. ‘Know how you can tell the Union ones from the Confederate ones? The Union dead have headstones with rounded tops. The Confederate dead have headstones with pointed tops - pointed, they said, “To keep those goddam

Yankees from sitting on them.” Know who told me that? Noah Baxter. Old Noah told me that one day when we were walking like this away from some three-star general’s funeral.’ He snorted. ‘Guess Noah never imagined how soon he himself would be here.’ He turned his face toward the sky. ‘Guess the rain’s through for the day. Well, we’d better get back to work.’

They had reached Tynan’s car, where an FBI agent held the rear door open. Harry Adcock climbed in, followed by Tynan, and then Collins.

In moments they had moved out of the cemetery through Arlington’s Memorial Gate, and headed over the Memorial Bridge, going between the gold statues of horses at the far end of the bridge and on into the city.

Tynan was the first to resume talking. ‘I’ll miss old Noah,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how close we were. I enjoyed the old curmudgeon.’

‘He was a good guy,’ agreed Adcock, who in public was usually an echo of his superior.

Til miss him, too,’ said Collins, not to be outdone. ‘After all, he’s the reason I’m here doing what I’m doing today.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tynan. ‘I’m just sorry he didn’t hang around long enough to see the fruits of his labor on the 35th Amendment come into being. Everyone gives the President credit for coming up with the 35th. But actually, Noah was responsible for getting it off the ground. He believed in it like a religion that could save us all. We owe it to him to put it over in California.’

‘We’ll try,’ said Collins.

‘We’ve got to do more than try, Chris. We’ve got to do it absolutely.’ He gave Collins an appraising look. I know old Noah would be counting on you, Chris, to push it over in the last lap as he would have done it himself if he were here. I tell you, Chris, Colonel Noah Baxter considered the passage of that amendment the most urgent priority of all.’

Sitting there in the back seat, squeezed against the steel-lined side of the car by Tynan’s expansive bulk, Collins caught the word urgent. Instantly, his mind went back to the night scene in the hospital when the priest had confirmed that Colonel Baxter had wanted to see him about something

urgent. Could it have had to do with the 35th Amendment? Later, Collins had told his wife that he didn’t like mysteries, that he intended to solve this one. At the time, he had had no idea where to begin. This moment, there seemed to be a place to begin. Maybe Tynan, who had been so close to Colonel Baxter, could offer something helpful, a lead.

‘Vernon,’ Collins said, ‘apropos of the Colonel’s priorities, something possibly relevant to that came up the other night when we were at the White House. It was all very strange. Remember how I had to leave in a hurry? Well, I got a message from Bethesda that Colonel Baxter was dying, and he wanted to see me on an urgent matter, to tell me something of vital importance. I rushed to the hospital, and went up to his suite. It was too late. He’d died just minutes before.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Tynan. ‘That is kind of strange. Did you find out what he thought was so important for him to tell you?’

‘That’s the point. I didn’t. He spoke some last words, just before dying, not to me but to a priest. He made his confession to the priest, the one at Arlington today, Father Dubinski. Well, when I heard that from the priest, I thought maybe in his last moments the Colonel might have got something off his chest that he wanted to speak to me about. But Father Dubinski wouldn’t say. He only said there was a confession, and confessions axe confidential.’

‘They are,’ Adcock chimed in.

‘What I’m wondering,’ Collins continued, ‘is if you have any idea of the kind of information Colonel Baxter might have wanted to communicate to me - some unfinished business in the Department he might have discussed with you -some program or job or background I should know about. It really puzzles me.’

Tynan stared at his chauffeur’s back a moment. ‘I’m afraid it puzzles me, too. I can’t imagine what Noah had in mind. I can’t think of anything outstanding we discussed before he had his stroke five months ago. I can only repeat what had been uppermost in his mind. Of the thousand things he was involved in, one dominated all others. That was getting the 35th Amendment ratified and made into law.

Maybe what he had to tell you had to do with that.’

‘Maybe. But exactly what about the 35th? It had to be something special if he summoned me to his deathbed.’

‘Of course, he didn’t know he was on his deathbed. So maybe it wasn’t all that special.’

‘He said it was urgent,’ Collins persisted. ‘You know, I was thinking of going back to that priest and giving him another try.’

Adcock leaned across Tynan. His face, blemished by acne, was solemn. ‘If you knew priests the way I do, you’d know you’d be wasting your time. Only God can get anything out of them.’

‘Harry’s right,’ Tynan agreed. He bent and peered out the window. ‘Well, here we are at Justice. Home again.’

Collins glanced outside. ‘Yes. Time to get to work. Thanks for the lift.’

He opened the door and stepped down into Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Department of Justice.

‘Chris,’ Tynan called after him, ‘better get your bags packed. The President is still considering sending you to California next week. He’s just trying to make up bis mind.’ ‘If he says Go, I’ll be ready.’

Tynan and Adcock watched Collins enter the building as their limousine started for the rear of the J. Edgar Hoover Building and the Director’s private parking place in the second of three basements beneath ground level.

As the car rounded the block and headed toward E Street, Tynan’s eyes met Adcock’s. ‘You heard all that, Harry, didn’t you?’ I sure did, chief.’

‘What do you think old Noah wanted to say to him that was so goddam urgent he had to say it before he died?’

I can’t imagine, chief,’ Adcock replied. ‘Or maybe I can, but don’t want to.’

‘Maybe I can, too. You think maybe Noah Baxter got religion at the last minute and wanted to spill his gut?’

‘Could be. Can’t say. No way to know. No way ever to know. Anyway, thank God, he didn’t have time to babble.’ ‘But he did, Harry. You heard. He babbled something to the priest.’

‘Hell, chief, that was a holy confession. A dying man making a confession, he doesn’t talk - he doesn’t talk business.’

Tynan screwed up his face. ‘How do we know? Call it what you want, a confession or whatever, the fact is that Noah talked to someone about what was on his mind before croaking. He talked, you hear me? He wanted to talk to someone about something urgent, and he talked to someone after all. I don’t like it. I want to know what Noah talked about and how much he talked. I want to know that very much.’

The limousine had dipped down the ramp leading beneath the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

Adcock took out a handkerchief, coughed and then expectorated into it. ‘That’s a tough one, chief,’ he said finally.

‘They’re all tough ones, Harry. After a while, they’re not so tough. Let’s be honest, Harry. Tough ones are our meat. The boss, J. Edgar himself, used to say that. Tough ones are our meat. We live by them. They sustain us. The Bureau’s profession is making people talk. Especially when they have information that endangers Government security. There’s no reason that priest - whatever his name is - ’

‘Father Dubinski. He’s at Holy Trinity in Georgetown. That’s where all the Government Catholics go.’

‘Okay, that’s where I want you to go, Harry. The Bureau makes people talk, and I don’t see why this Dubinski should be an exception. I think it’s time you went to church. Pay the good Father a friendly visit. Find out what old Noah said to him with his last words. Find out how much this Dubinski knows. If he knows what he shouldn’t know, we’ll find the means to shut him up. Harry, I’d like you to get right on that.’

‘Chief, you know I’ll do anything. But on this one, I don’t think we have a chance.’

‘Oh, no? Well, I say we’ve got every chance in the world. In fact, I say you can’t miss if you handle it right. Harry, for Chrissake, I’m not asking you to go in there unarmed. Have the Department run a thorough check on Father Dubinski first. These God lovers are no different from

anybody else. You know our axiom. Everybody’s got something to hide. So has this priest. He’s human. He must have vices. Or had them. Maybe he boozes on the side. Maybe he laid a choirboy once. Maybe he’s banging his eighteen-year-old housekeeper in the closet. Maybe his mother was a Commie. There’s always something. You go to that God lover with what he hasn’t confessed, and you confront him with it. He’ll talk all right. You won’t be able to shut him up. He’ll trade anything for our silence.’

The limousine had reached the second underground level and had drawn to a halt in the Director’s parking slot.

Tynan stared ahead, motionless for a moment. ‘I’m damn serious about this, Harry. We’re too close to home to have anything go wrong. Clear your slate. This is priority one. Okay, Harry?’

‘Okay, chief. It’s done.’

*

Vernon T. Tynan worked at his desk for two hours after the funeral, and then, at precisely twelve forty-five, he rose from his desk, went into his private bathroom to spruce up, pulled one of the Official and Confidential file holders out of the top-security cabinet, and walked briskly to the elevator.

Downstairs, in the second-level basement, between the indoor ballistics range and the gym, he found his driver and car still waiting.

‘Alexandria,’ Tynan said to the driver.

‘Yes, sir,’ the driver said automatically, and seconds later they were on their way.

It was Saturday. And every Saturday at this hour, as he had done since he had become Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tynan observed the sacred ritual of driving out to the Golden Years Senior Citizens Village to have lunch with his mother.

He had learned, some years after the death of J. Edgar Hoover, that the Old Man had lived with his own mother, Anna Marie, until her death in 1938. Hoover had treated his mother with kindness and respect, and it had been an example Tynan had taken seriously. Great men, he knew,

always had a big place in their hearts for their mothers. Not only Hoover. Look at Napoleon. The trouble with the country was that not enough young people, and older people, too, had respect for their mothers. There would be less crime in the country if wayward young men began to consider a regular visit to their mothers, instead of their guns, their Saturday-night special.

When they reached the Senior Citizens Village, and pulled up before the building where he had purchased a comfortable four-room apartment for his mother, Tynan reminded the driver, ‘One hour.’

‘One hour, sir.’

Tynan went into the building and swung left to her apartment door. He had an entrance key as well as an alarm key to her apartment. He pressed the red alarm signal to see if it was on or off. It was off. He would have to remind her again to keep the alarm on, even when she was in. No precaution must be overlooked, especially these days with hooligans and thugs and left-wing Commie terrorists rampant. It wouldnot be beyond some revolutionary conspirators to try to break in on the mother of the FBI Director, and then hold her for some incredible ransom, like demanding the freedom of all the other hundreds of left-wingers now incarcerated in Federal penitentiaries (where they belonged). Yes, he must definitely alert his mother.

He inserted the entrance key into the door, opened it, and went inside. He found her in her usual place, in the padded contour chair before the color television set.

‘Hi, Mom,’ he said.

She waved a veiny hand without looking up, and concentrated fiercely on the antics taking place on the television screen. Despite her absorption in her favorite game show, Tynan went to her and pecked a kiss on her powdered forehead. She acknowledged this with a quick smile, then held a forefinger to her lips. She said, ‘Lunch is all prepared. This’ll be over soon. Take off your jacket.’ She again riveted her attention on the screen, then held her sides and cackled with laughter.

Tynan laid down his file folder, removed his jacket, and hung it neatly on the back of a chair. He plucked a cigar

from the breast pocket, unwrapped it, nipped off the end of the cigar, and held his lighter a half inch from the cigar (as the President always did), inhaling and enjoying the aroma.

Smoking, he stood beside his mother, watching the mindless game show with her, then looked at her with pride.

He had done well by his mother. Had J. Edgar Hoover been able to see him now, this minute, the Old Man would have commended him.

At eighty-four, Rose Tynan was still as healthy as an Abkhasian - no, not that Commie place - as healthy as a Vilcabamban - much better - a Vilcabamban peasant. She was a down-to-earth Irishwoman, big-shouldered, hefty, with the mealy features of an Irish potato. Considering her age, she was in good shape, except for a slight stoop, an arthritic limp, and an occasional lapse of memory.