The Berlin Conspiracy (11 page)

“Iceberg,” he replied reluctantly.

“That’s what I think, too.” Sam stood up, stretched his back. “Look into it.”

“Right.” Powell closed the Colonel’s file and tucked it into his briefcase. He stood up and turned to me. “How did you leave it with Becher?”

“I’m supposed to find out what I can and wait for him to get in touch,” I shrugged.

Powell curled his lip. “You seem to take directions from the Commies better than you do from your own side,” he said, very pleased with himself.

“If you’re on my side, Chief, then I do believe I’m fucked.”

“You’re fucked any way you look at it,” he smiled.

“Yeah, we’re all well and truly fucked,” Sam said wearily. “Aren’t we lucky?”

Powell spun around and headed for the door. I followed with Sam.

“What’s Iceberg?” I asked him.

“I’ll have a car take you back to the hotel, Jack. Get some rest and pack your things. We’ll have you on tomorrow’s flight to Miami.”

“What about the Colonel?” I asked.

He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about him. We’ll take it from here.”

They could turn
the whole thing over to Daffy Duck for all I cared—what the hell difference was it to me? The Colonel would evaporate, at least until it all blew over, but that didn’t matter if they were right about him working a disinformation campaign. It was all just bullshit, then, meant to scare us into keeping Kennedy in a low profile, away from large crowds where he could give rousing speeches that would make the old men in the Kremlin nervous. It was the kind of ridiculous operation that wasted everybody’s time, on both sides. I was happy to be out of it. That’s what I tried to tell myself, anyway. The truth was that I was hooked.

The Colonel didn’t strike me as a time waster, especially now that I knew a bit more about him. I’d been impressed by his bio. He’d joined the German Communist Party when the Nazis were clearly the future, and he’d fought on the losing side of the Spanish War. After capture and escape
from prison, he could easily have left war-torn Europe by going west into Portugal, then on to anywhere in the world. Instead, he went east, somehow making his way through German-occupied territories in order to volunteer for duty against the fatherland when it looked like he was choosing the losing side yet again. Whatever else he was, the Colonel wasn’t an opportunist, and not the kind of man who’d be wasting his time on something as silly as this.

And there was still that nagging question—why me? As Powell had pointed out, even if the East Germans did uncover a conspiracy, it was unlikely that the one person on the planet they’d feel the need to tell would be Jack Teller. But it was just as weird—maybe weirder—that they’d bring me all the way from Florida so they could run a disinformation campaign through me. In fact, it was ridiculous, since they were sure to know that I didn’t exactly have the agency’s ear anymore. I’d have to make that point to Sam.

On the other hand, my two days in Berlin hadn’t exactly been a picnic in the park. Hell, why not go quietly back to my sunny beach, make myself a pitcher of margaritas, and leave the whole sorry world to itself? If the Colonel was on the level, somebody else would have to deal with it. And if they didn’t… Well, there’d be a big flash of light in the sky and it’d be over before you knew it.

Johnson was right about the bed—it was like floating on air. It was too damn comfortable, in fact.

I got up, went into the living room, and flicked the set on just in time to see Kennedy being treated to a wild ride into Cologne, his second stop in Germany. The route was jammed with fans straining to get a glimpse of that Kennedy magic. They loved the good looks, the boyish charm, the easy intellect. It was easy to love.

Of course, he wasn’t what he seemed to be. In fact, he was pretty much the opposite. The devoted family man was
actually a sex-crazed maniac who needed to screw every halfway decent-looking female that came along. The tough cold warrior who stood eye to eye with Khrushchev and made him blink was really an egotistical dilettante who let the Soviet leader scare the shit out of him in their first meeting, tempting the premier to place nuclear weapons ninety miles off our shore, bringing us to the brink of war. And the idealistic crusader for justice was, in fact, a cynical cheat who stole the White House with the help of his crooked father and some Chicago gangsters. He was magic all right, but as any good witch doctor will tell you, magic is all based on misdirection.

Don’t get me wrong—I liked Kennedy a lot. He had roused the country from a ten-year coma and had excited the world with his energy, his ideas, and his eloquence. He made America look like the future. And, most important, he made me laugh. I was sold when he told an audience on the campaign trail that he’d just received a telegram from his father: “’Dear Jack,‘” he quoted from it, “’Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for a landslide.’” That comment got him my vote.

So what if he screwed every skirt in sight? If Jackie didn’t mind, why should I? And maybe he was a bit green when he first faced Khrushchev in Vienna, but he’d stood up to him when it counted. And as for politicians stealing elections—wake up if you think Nixon wasn’t trying to steal the same votes in 1960. Kennedy just did it better. In spite of the fact that he was a complete fraud and an expert con man, I thought the president was a breath of fresh air.

There were plenty of people who would strongly disagree, of course. Walk down Main Street in Montgomery, Alabama, with a JFK button on your lapel and you’d find out. You’d be lucky if you were just tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. Yeah, there were folks out there
who despised the president all right, hated him as much as most of the country loved him. But they weren’t the people the Colonel was talking about. He was talking about a conspiracy from within the government and, more to the point, inside the Company.

It was no secret that the president and the CIA were not on the best of terms. Hadn’t been since the Bay of Pigs. He didn’t trust them and they resented him. He’d fired Allen Dulles, who’d been director since 1953, put his own man in, then still ignored agency advice, effectively cutting them out of his administration. Everybody knew he had Bobby running his own half-assed covert operations out of the Justice Department, and it was not appreciated in Langley, to say the least. So I had no illusions about the president’s standing with the agency and no doubt that there would be few Company tears shed at his demise. But would they really go that far? The Colonel was talking about a coup d’etat by a group within the intelligence service of the United States government. It was enough to send a shiver up your spine.

“Jesus Christ, how the hell did you get this place?” Sam walked into the room unannounced. He didn’t have to bother with the doorbell because the clean-cut agent who was stationed in the foyer had let him in. “It’s bigger than mine!”

I gave the stock answer. “Friends in high places.”

“Not for long the way you’re going. Does it come with scotch?”

I went to the bar, poured two doubles even though it was barely past noon. Sam wandered over and stood in front of the television, which seemed to be providing minute-by-minute coverage of Kennedy’s day. He watched the mayhem for a moment then turned it off, without comment.

“How’s the trip going so far?” I asked.

“He’s a real pain in the ass when Jackie’s not along,” he
replied, flopping into an armchair. “A goddamned bird dog off his leash.”

I handed him the drink and sat opposite. “Cheers,” he said, the glass already at his lips. He took a couple of good swallows and sighed. “Christ, Jack, I send you out for a little recruitment job and you come back with a plot to kill the president.”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Yeah, lucky,” he echoed, examining the color of the whiskey. “Sorry about Powell. The guy desperately needs a proctologist.”

“No shit,” I agreed.

“Exactly,” he chuckled. “No shit.”

“And what’s with the help?” I said. “Why’s he using guys like Johnson and Chase?”

“Because I told him to.” He paused, sipped his drink. “They’re on temporary assignment, might as well use them.”

“What kind of temporary assignment?”

He gave me a look over the rim of his glass. “Johnson’s naval intelligence. Nothing to do with me.”

“Chase belongs back in the jungle, cutting somebody’s throat,” I said and Sam shrugged. He didn’t say anything for a minute, so I jumped on the lull. “What’s Iceberg?”

He looked at me and grinned. “You know, I think I’ll take this room after you leave.” He held his empty glass out and I took it over to the bar for a refill.

“You really sending me home?” I asked.

“I thought you wanted to go. Catch some more fish or whatever it is you do to pass the time. You know, I take my hat off to you, Jack. I could never sit around waiting for a fish to make my day. It takes a special kind of patience, I guess.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

“Booked in a long time ago, my son.” He took hold of the second scotch.

“What if the Colonel’s right?”

“You’ve been out of it a while, Jack. You don’t have the whole picture.”

“Wanna put me in it?”

“Love to,” he smiled, sipping the whiskey this time. “But it’s top-secret stuff. You know—”

“Like Iceberg?”

He shrugged.

“Come on, Sam,” I prodded. “You owe me some kind of explanation.”

“Do I? … Okay, then,” he conceded. “Iceberg’s the code name for a KGB cell that’s been operating in Berlin for the last couple of months. Highly trained and very secret. At least that’s what they’re saying in Langley.”

“What’s new about a KGB cell in Berlin?”

“It’s part of a political assassination unit.” He looked for a response but I didn’t give him one. “Iceberg’s specialty is damage control,” he added.

“What kind of damage control?” I asked.

“Hitting a target’s easy,” he began.

“Like Castro?”

“Well, relatively easy,” he corrected himself. “The hard part is damage control. Public perception. Come on, you haven’t been out of it that long. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Are you saying the president might be a target?”

“Washington doesn’t think so.”

“What do you think?”

He stood up and wandered over to the window before answering. “If he is, he’s the Russkies’ target, not ours.”

“Why would the Soviet Union want to assassinate Kennedy?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe they’re pissed off because the missile thing made them look bad. Maybe they don’t like his haircut.”

I gave him a look. “It doesn’t make sense, Sam. If they wanted to start World War Three they’d just fire off a few thousand warheads.”

“Maybe they don’t want to start a war. Maybe the idea is to make it look like our side was responsible. Or at least cause enough confusion so nobody’s sure.”

“Why do it in Berlin, then, where suspicion is going to immediately fall on them? They’d do it in New Orleans or Alabama if they wanted to make it look like us.”

“Maybe they want it to look like we were setting them up.”

I had to laugh. It was the perfect Company answer. If it looks like a “6” it must be a “9” because the whole goddamned world is upside down.

“Know what I think, Sam? I think you guys have your heads so far up your intelligence ass that you can’t find your own tail.”

He looked a little insulted. “If they were gonna pull something, this is exactly how they’d operate. Your Colonel plants the idea that there’s an element within the U.S. intelligence community that’s plotting to assassinate the president. Afterward, the information gets out, along with a few other well-placed ‘clues,’ and there’s enough of a question mark that no one knows for sure.”

“Or,” I suggested, “the Colonel’s telling the truth and someone in the Company—”

“I wouldn’t talk like that, Jack. It could get you into real trouble.
Real
trouble. Anyway”—he changed gears—”chances are the East Germans are just running a chaos operation. Trying to get us to keep Kennedy in a low profile.”

“I thought about that,” I said. “There’s only one problem.
Why would they insist on getting me all the way over here so they could run the story through me?”

Sam gave me a good long look before he hit me with it: “I was hoping you could shed some light on that, Jack.”

I didn’t like the implication, especially coming from Sam. It was natural that they’d think in those terms, but I didn’t expect it from Sam. It threw me.

“What does Powell think?” I asked coolly.

“He thinks you’re part of it.”

“Is that why I’ve got the babysitter?”

“Yes,” he said, to the point. “Powell insisted on it. You know, you didn’t exactly impress him with your team spirit.”

“Did you send me here to impress Powell?”

Sam shrugged, conceding the point.

“If you really thought I was involved you wouldn’t be sending me home,” I pointed out.

“I never said I thought you were involved.” He polished off his drink, set the empty glass on the table. “I’m sending you home because I don’t need you anymore.”

“Maybe I’ll stick around on my own for a while,” I said, just to test him.

“Not an option,” he said, leaving no room for negotiation. We stood there without saying anything for a few seconds—long enough for it to feel awkward.

“Well,” he finally said. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Anytime,” I answered. He smiled and headed for the door, picking up his hat on the way. He stopped at the entrance and turned back, casually dropping the question that was the real reason for his visit: “By the way … How are you supposed to get in touch with Becher? Do you have a signal or have you got a meeting set up already?”

“I thought you said you didn’t need me anymore.”

“Did I say that? What a tactless son of a bitch I am.”

“He said he’d contact me,” I said.

“I see,” he nodded, then exited with a shrug.

I stepped into the shower, pulled the curtain, and leaned into the tiled wall, letting the hot water clear my head. I was surprised and disappointed with Sam. Surprised that he was cutting me off, disappointed that he had doubts. I would have expected it from the likes of Powell, but Sam and I had history.