Back Channel (42 page)

“What’s wrong?” Margo asked. She supposed the date must have gone bad. Maybe Patsy had been crying all night. “Hey. What is it?”

Patsy’s head swiveled slowly. Her eyes narrowed. “You selfish bitch,” she hissed.

Margo blinked. “What did you call me?”

“A selfish bitch.” Enunciating sharply. “I got beaten up last night. Did you know that? Do you even care?”

“Patsy, I’m so sorry. Did you call the—”

The blond woman slapped Margo’s hand away. “You should be sorry. It was your fault.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The men who beat me up. They said it was a warning to you.” She turned away, shaking her head. “I don’t know why they knocked me around and not you. I don’t know whose husband you’re sleeping with, but these guys said for you to stop.” She stood up and headed for her bedroom, but paused to fire a final shot over her shoulder. “So—will you please think about somebody else for a change?”

She slammed the door.

Again the President was furious. At first Bundy thought that it was the open defiance of his authority in the ExComm meeting that had him so angry. Bobby hastily explained. J. Edgar Hoover had called. His people had uncovered evidence of a cabal, he said, a group of government officials intent on wrecking the Cuba negotiations. No, no, he didn’t have names yet. But he did know what they were demanding.

Here the President interceded. “They’ve turned your idiotic scheme on its head,” he raged, waving a filmy piece of paper. “Look at this. Either I blow up the negotiations, or they’ll make sure everybody knows that I’m having an extramarital affair. Not only that, but an
affair with a nineteen-year-old black girl.” He tossed the pages across the desk. “What am I supposed to do about this, Mr. Bundy? Tell me that.”

Bobby pointed to the paper. “Hoover was kind enough to messenger that over. It’s a photostat of a letter his people found somewhere. A draft, evidently.”

The national security adviser was crestfallen. The point of the cover story had always been to give a benign if troubling explanation for the surreptitious meetings. It had never occurred to him that it might twist around and bite them. “Mr. President,” he began, not sure where to begin. Then he stopped, and read the letter. Twice. “Mr. President, I don’t believe the writer of this letter is aware of the back channel.”

“He obviously is aware, Mr. Bundy. He says I’m having an affair with a black girl!”

“That’s my point, sir. He seems to believe the affair is genuine. I believe that the negotiations he wants you to blow up are the embassy negotiations. Not the back channel.”

The Kennedy brothers exchanged a glance. The President still looked ready to bite somebody’s head off. Then, without warning, he grinned.

“Well, the embassy negotiations aren’t going to amount to a hill of beans anyway. If whoever’s in this cabal doesn’t want them to work, they’ll be happy, I expect.”

Bobby was uneasy. “Maybe Hoover himself is part of the cabal. Maybe Hoover
is
the cabal. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

The President frowned. “What would he want?”

“A place at the table.”

“Which he cannot have,” said Bundy. “We have to be very clear about this, Mr. President. Bring J. Edgar Hoover into that room, and you have a very different ball game.”

“You’re right.” The President turned to his brother. “We should thank Director Hoover for his vigilance on behalf of the nation’s security at this difficult time, and assure him that there’s nothing to the story of the affair, et cetera, et cetera.” He laughed. “And be sure to tell him we expect him to track down this cabal as fast as he can. I want lots of arrests, tell him.”

Bundy was unamused. “You know, it’s possible Hoover is telling the truth. Such a cabal could exist.”

“Hence my demand for arrests,” said Kennedy, still smiling. “Now let’s talk about this evening, shall we? Who’s she seeing first, me or Fomin?”

“She’s seeing you, Mr. President. We have to convey the mood in the room. We don’t know exactly what’s going on. Khrushchev’s public statement this morning that he’ll only take the missiles out if we give him the Jupiters is exactly the opposite of what Fomin told
GREENHILL
. She has to make clear that Khrushchev can’t have the Jupiters under any circumstances, and that your decision to hold off retaliating for the U-2 shoot-down is a gesture of good faith only. It can expire at any moment.”

“Do we tell him that the deadline is two p.m. on Monday?”

“No, sir. But we do tell him that Khrushchev’s out of time. We can accept the Friday offer, and promise not to invade Cuba. That gives them the fig leaf that the missiles are defensive only. It’s a lie, but we can live with it if they take them out. That’s as far as we can go. Fomin has to be made to understand that there is nothing else to give.”

“And there’s one more thing,” said the attorney general, all business now.

“What’s that?” asked the President.

“If we’re going to do a deal based on the back channel, we have to confirm, once and for all, that it’s real.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that Fomin has to provide some kind of evidence that he really is speaking for Khrushchev.”

“Bobby’s right,” said Bundy. “We need proof.”

Kennedy shook his head. “Khrushchev is ten thousand miles away. It’s not like we can pick up the phone.”

“We need something.”

As it happened, at about the same time, the Washington police responded to a report of a hit-and-run outside a posh apartment building on upper Connecticut Avenue. The victim was a man named Erroll Haar, a reporter for one of the tabloids.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

As soon as she climbed into the car, Margo sensed that something was amiss. She was at the right corner—Wisconsin and Newark, just outside Giant Food—and she recognized the black Chevy’s familiar plate. The driver, however, was not Warren. He was towheaded and charming and gave his name as Jack: “Like the boss,” he said, and laughed. Jack drove with the same smooth alertness, but Margo’s flight-or-fight reflex remained in overdrive. Perhaps it was the way he kept smiling and joking about where she was headed tonight: Warren had never so much as smirked.

Margo sank down into the leather seat. Patsy had been beside herself. You can’t be going to see him again, she kept saying. You can’t. Unable to tell her the truth, Margo had to settle for pleading with her roommate to get out of the city.

Why? Patsy demanded. Because they might beat me up again? Or will they do something worse next time?

Margo said she was sorry it had happened, she couldn’t talk about it, and she would do what she could to make sure it didn’t happen again.

Leaving the apartment in yet another fancy dress, she all but cringed with guilt and self-horror.

“We’re here, ma’am,” said the new driver. Margo looked up. They were outside the townhouse on East Capitol Street. There was no sense of excitement this time. No thrill. Only the aching guilt, and fear twisting
inside like liquid heat. This time, she promised herself, she would not yield to the President’s charm. Their assignations were part of a façade, nothing else.

A façade that was now threatening those around her.

She climbed from the car and crossed the street. Burning with anger and purpose, she strode past the guards without a glance.

It was well over an hour before she came back down.

As the car ticked through the night toward the meeting with Fomin, Margo brooded. She supposed some of Kennedy’s somber mood had rubbed off. This was it, she told herself. This was the moment at which the negotiations succeeded or failed. She took out her compact and fixed her makeup. She had done it already in the bathroom but still felt dirty. She should be heading home to check on Patsy, not to another meeting. She sighed and looked at her wrinkled dress. She put her compact away and looked around. The plan was that the driver would take her up to Chevy Chase Circle, where she would catch the bus south to the Yenching Palace.

The only problem was that he wasn’t heading north.

She leaned forward. “Excuse me—Jack, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That was it, she realized. That was the other thing that bothered her. To Warren she was always “miss.”

“Jack. Where are we going?”

“Ma’am?”

“We’re supposed to be heading to Chevy Chase Circle.”

“Change of plans.”

“Authorized by whom? I’m the only one who knows where I’m supposed to be dropped off.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

He was driving faster now. They were in a neighborhood she didn’t recognize, but from the sight of the Capitol dome in the misty distance, she guessed they were down in Southeast: one of the higher-crime areas of the oft-ravaged city.

“Where are we going?” she demanded. No answer. “Who are you?”

The car stopped with a jolt, and her chin struck the seat back. They
were at a little park. The road was separated by a median strip, and small aging row houses stood across the way. Dark faces peered from the stoops.

“We need to talk, Miss Jensen,” said the driver.

“Who are you?” she asked again, fingers on the door handle.

“It’s locked, Miss Jensen. You can’t get out until I let you. I know you have to get to another meeting, so let’s not waste time. My name is Jack Ziegler. I am not, at the moment, affiliated with the government. Not officially. I represent a group of people who are aware of your meetings with Aleksandr Fomin, and very concerned about them. We have one purpose, Miss Jensen. To shut down the back channel before the President betrays his country.”

A lot of things went through Margo’s mind. That she herself might be in actual physical danger. That the back-channel negotiations weren’t nearly as secret as McGeorge Bundy seemed to think. That her dress and face were truly a mess this time: of their five meetings, this was the one that had left her least presentable. That, although the people across the street were fellow Negroes, this was the sort of neighborhood that Claudia Jensen had raised her granddaughter to keep out of. That Jack Ziegler was somewhat shorter than average, and was the sort of small man who would always address tall girls like herself with condescension and disdain. That she now understood why Patsy was beaten last night. But most of all she was remembering the urgency of the President’s message. She would have to try what Fomin called the fallback, for use if an emergency left her unable to make their scheduled meeting.

An emergency like, say, being kidnapped by some kind of rogue conspirator.

All of this actually went through her remarkable brain in about six seconds, at the end of which, remembering the lessons of Varna, she simply shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ziegler snickered. “That’s right. There aren’t any negotiations, are there? You’re just the President’s latest girlfriend.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Yes, Miss Jensen. It is. The point is, we know the truth.”

“Who’s
we
?”

“We’re professionals, Miss Jensen. We know how it’s done.” When Jack Ziegler smiled, he looked like the playground bully after a victory. “The President isn’t a bad man, but he’s inexperienced. He’s surrounded by amateurs. Wall Street lawyers. Academics. Limousine liberals who think they’re experts on national security.” Jack Ziegler pinched the bridge of his nose as if physically restraining further criticism of his titular superior. “We’re the real experts, Miss Jensen. And we’re being shut out. This isn’t ego. It’s reality. Kennedy and the intelligentsia on his ExComm are going to get the world blown to pieces.”

For a mad moment she found her mind cataloguing
intelligentsia
—another double-dactyl word—before she forced herself to focus. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the President of the United States is being duped. Those back-channel negotiations of yours—they’re dangerous, Miss Jensen. The people at the other end aren’t even close to Khrushchev’s inner circle. That’s what our sources tell us. We’ve tried to tell the White House. They won’t listen.”

Margo covered her eyes, as much to still the trembling in her hand as to slow the whirl of her thoughts. “I still don’t understand what you want.”

He had the envelope ready. “Tonight, when you see Fomin, give him this. Don’t tell the President. Don’t tell anybody.”

“I don’t know who Fomin is.”

A baring of teeth too large for the slender face. “Please don’t play those games, Miss Jensen.”

“I’m not the one playing games, Mr. Ziegler. And you can’t seriously expect me to trust you.”

“I’m not asking you to trust anybody. That’s the point. Don’t trust Fomin. Don’t trust Kennedy’s people. Don’t trust me. You can tell Fomin exactly where the envelope came from. If you’re right—if Fomin is on the up-and-up—and if he doesn’t like what he reads, if he doesn’t believe it, then he’ll ignore it, so no harm done. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, Miss Jensen. I think Fomin will find the message is important. I think he’ll read it and end the negotiations and probably get out of the country on the next Russian plane. You’re just the messenger, Miss Jensen. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Whoever Fomin is, why don’t you deliver the letter yourself?”

“You know better than that, Miss Jensen. A man like me can’t be seen within a mile of a man like Aleks Fomin. And he wouldn’t let himself wind up in a situation—say, the back seat of a strange car—where it’s possible for a man like me to hand him a note. But you he trusts. If you hand him the envelope, he’ll take it.” Another car was pulling up. “I’m sure Fomin has arranged a fallback. Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you where it is. This man will take you wherever you tell him to.”

“I’ll call a cab.”

That ugly smile again. His gesture encompassed the block. “From where?”

“Just let me out. I’ll think of something.”

“You’re resourceful, Miss Jensen. But this isn’t one of those moments when you have to prove yourself.” He put the envelope in her hand. At the same time, the door lock popped. The man from the other car opened the door for her. Margo already had one foot on the pavement. “A moment more,” said Jack Ziegler. “Listen to me. You’ve done well. You’re colored, but you have a grand future ahead of you. You’re reliable, you’re intelligent, and you’re brave. You know that the people I represent wouldn’t go to all this trouble unless we had good reason. We don’t want to pick a fight with the President. This is for the good of the country. We don’t have another motive. So, please, Miss Jensen. Deliver the envelope.”