The Berlin Conspiracy (32 page)

The Victoria, five stories high and L-shaped, was one of several buildings overlooking the plaza from the west side of the square. The facade curved ninety degrees around the corner of a narrow street that fed into the plaza. The southern half of the building, where we were, was parallel to city hall and directly across from the speaker’s dais, about a hundred and twenty yards away. Well within the bull’s-eye range of the Tokarev in the hands of a good marksman. Combined with a second gun placed in the apartment complex on the opposite side of the narrow road, there would be a forty-five-degree convergence of fire onto President Kennedy’s head.

Ideally, you’d want your third gunman firing at the target from ground level. Given that almost every square foot of the area was filled with spectators, it would be tough to conceal the third man, but I noticed a patch of trees to my left that was unique in that it hadn’t been invaded by spectators. I couldn’t see who was securing the area, but there was an ambulance parked next to it with a clear path through the crowd. A perfect setup for escape and weapons disposal.

“Babysitter, this is Big Daddy. … Over.” I could feel Horst freeze up. “Hello, Babysitter … Over.”

“What shall I do?” Horst asked urgently.

“This is Big Daddy, Babysitter. Please acknowledge. … Over,” Fisher said impatiently.

“Answer it,” I said, trying not to move my lips.

“How can I? He will know! He will hear my accent!”

“Do Bogie,” I said.

“Babysitter, are you receiving?! … Over!” Fisher’s blood pressure was on the rise.

“What do you mean, do Bogie?” Horst said, closing in on panic. “I’m not an actor!”

“You are now….” I said. Horst drew a breath, picked up the radio, and leaned into the television speaker.

“I hear ya, Big Daddy. … Go ahead. … Over.” He sounded more like John Wayne than Bogart, but it seemed to do the trick. I was starting to believe in God.

“We’re not seeing the kid’s face too well, Babysitter,” Fisher said. “Push him up a little closer to the window … so he catches the light. … Over.”

I stepped forward.

“How is that? … Over,” Horst said into the radio. I wanted to tell him to keep quiet, but I was pretty sure they’d have a telephoto lens on me now and might see me move my lips. I’d been half-right about the photographs anyway. They were getting me on film standing at the window—I just couldn’t see why Harvey wouldn’t want a shot of the rifle hanging out of it at the crucial moment.

There was a slight delay before Fisher came back on the line. “Okay, Babysitter … That’s fine.” Then another voice, in the background, came on over the open mike. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Harvey King himself:

“Who’s that on the roof?” he said.

“One of ours, I think …” Fisher answered.

“Don’t fucking think!” the voice barked. “Find out and get it cleared! I don’t want anybody on that roof until—!” Then Fisher remembered to take his finger off the send button.

Until what?! … Until the shooter turns up? … Was Harvey going to place the sniper on the roof above my window? … Why? … What advantage was there?

Did he think it would be a better escape route? Maybe he didn’t want to risk the possibility that the gunman would get caught up in the hallway “shoot-out” that was supposed to leave me dead. That made some sense. Witnesses would appear as soon as they heard shots in the hallway. Since they
would be well aware of exactly how much time had passed between the president being hit and the Secret Service man gunning me down, the two events would have to happen within, say, thirty seconds of each other. It wasn’t enough time to ensure that the gunman would get away cleanly. If he had fired from the roof, on the other hand, he could slip out of the hotel while everyone converged on the fourth-floor hallway….

“Okay, that’s it, Babysitter….” Fisher’s voice came back online. “Put the kid back to bed and keep out of sight. … I’ll buzz you when we start the countdown. … Over and out.”

Horst pulled the curtains shut, then fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

“This was a close shave,” he finally said.

“We’re fine,” I said. “But I’d work on that Bogart impression if I were you.”

“What is the meaning of
dow-bed?”
Horst asked a few minutes later. He was pacing again, this time with his nose in the Bible.

“What?”

“D-a-u-b-e-d,”
he spelled, then sounded it out. “Dow-bed.”

“Daubed,” I corrected him.

“What is the meaning?”

“Well …” I started to say, but came up short. “What’s the context?”

“Context?”

“Read the whole sentence.”

“’They have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others
daubed
it with untempered mortar.’ Also ‘untempered mortar’ I don’t understand.”

“To daub is to plaster, I think, and untempered mortar … I guess that’s some kind of soft cement.” Horst shrugged and went back to his walking and reading.

“Is that the Ezekiel passage?” I asked after a while, my curiosity getting the better of me. He displayed the page with “Babysitter” written across it.

“Let’s hear the rest,” I said.

“From the beginning?”

“From what you just read me.”

“Okay,” he said. “It’s going like this: ‘They have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar.’ “He gave me a knowing look before continuing:” ‘Say unto them that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and yea, O great hailstones shall fall and a stormy wind shall rend it.’ Rend it?” he asked.

“Blow it up,” I said. Horst nodded and continued.

“’Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. … So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. … Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it;… to wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord GOD.’”

“
This is Big Daddy
to all units. … Repeat, this is Big Daddy. … All units please acknowledge, over.” I grabbed the radio.

“Babysitter acknowledging, over,” I said, clicking on. A long minute passed, just the static noise of the television filling the space. Then Fisher’s voice came crackling back.

“Okay, we’re looking at a green light. … Countdown begins on my signal. … Get set for ten and stand by….”

I opened Chase’s briefcase, which was lying on the bed, and grabbed the stopwatch. It was a Company special, the first digital timepiece I’d seen. I set it for ten minutes and we waited.

Fisher came back after a short delay. “Okay, we’re ready to roll,” he said. It was a big moment for him and you could hear in his voice that he was enjoying it. “Stand by … three … two … one. …”

I hit the start button and the seconds started ticking off. The clock by the bed showed it was a couple of minutes short of one o’clock, when Kennedy was supposed to appear on the dais. It occurred to me that only the Germans could keep things on schedule in the midst of all this insanity.

“We’re operational,” Fisher announced. “All systems are go!” He sounded more like he was blasting a rocket into space than murdering his president. “Stand by. …”

We were on the clock now. No more theories or conjecture, no time for maybe this or maybe that. Whatever was gonna happen was gonna happen
now
and it was gonna determine whether the world kept turning on its knife’s edge or went spinning out of control. Everything was plugged in, switched on, and, like Fisher said, all systems go. I could see that Horst was pumped up, too. He had that look—the slightly deranged, supercharged look that I’d seen on the faces of too many boys. Boys who were so juiced on adrenaline that they were prepared to rush headlong into a machine gunner’s nest with bayonet fixed. Whenever I saw that look I knew chances were pretty good that I was looking at a soldier who wouldn’t come out the other end.

Horst said something but it was drowned out by a sudden deafening roar from outside. The thunderous cheer shook the entire building, rattling doors and windows in their frames and twisting the butterflies in the pit of my stomach into a tangled knot of nervous energy. Kennedy had arrived on stage.

“NINE MINUTES!” Fisher barked out.

Time to make my move, but I needed to do it alone. I knew the odds were against me, and making a casualty out of Horst wouldn’t improve them any.

“Stay here!” I shouted over the din.

“No!” he yelled back. “We go together!”

There wasn’t time to think, let alone argue. I grabbed
Chase’s handcuffs out of my pocket, quickly slapped one manacle onto his wrist then locked the other to the metal bed frame.

“I’m sorry, Horst,” I said, clipping the radio to my belt and heading for the door. “But it’s better this way.”

The cheering built to a fever pitch, then the crowd started to chant: “KEN-NE-DY! … KEN-NE-DY! … KEN-NE-DY!”

Horst gave me this parting look—a combination of hurt and anger that I can still see clearly to this day. He felt betrayed and offended, but I dismissed it then, partly because there was no time to do anything else, but also because I believed that I was doing him a favor, maybe even saving his life. And, in some feeble way, I think I was thinking about Hanna.

The hallway was unnervingly quiet. Another great cheer went up, muffled by the hotel’s thick walls, then evaporated, leaving an expectant hush in the air. I guessed that Kennedy had stepped up to the podium.

“EIGHT MINUTES …” Fisher’s voice called out over the radio.

I spotted a “Fire Exit” sign and followed it up the long corridor. Walking quickly at first, then breaking into a run.

Kennedy’s familiar voice cut through the silence:

I tried to ignore the second thoughts I was having about leaving Horst behind. I told myself that no matter how humiliated he felt, he’d be safer where he was than tagging along with me. If it all worked out I’d retrieve him before anyone knew what had happened. If it didn’t work out… well, he was still better off handcuffed to the furniture than being teamed up with a dead patsy. By the time things went sour, he’d probably have figured out that I’d left the key to the cuffs in Chase’s briefcase and, I hoped, have the good sense to make a quick exit. Anyway, it was done, so I had to let it go and I did.

“SEVEN MINUTES …” Fisher announced.

I hesitated at the emergency exit. I knew I’d run into security somewhere along the line, wondered if this was the place. I put my ear to the reinforced door, but all I could hear was my heart pounding like a jackhammer and the president’s voice:

The crowd roared its approval. I grabbed the Lucky Strikes out of my jacket pocket….

More applause and I reached for the handle. …

Wild cheers and I almost bounced out of my skin as “SIX MINUTES!” blared out of the radio. I jumped back, threw myself against the wall. Fumbling around, I managed to hit the off switch on the radio, then froze. Didn’t move, didn’t breathe. I clutched the Lucky Strikes, ready to pop anyone who tried to come through the door.

The crowd went wild. … A drop of sweat rolled down my forehead, burning as it filled my eye. I drew a breath, reached for the handle again, but stopped short when I heard a radio sputter to life on the other side:

“Big Daddy to Hero,” Fisher’s voice crackled out. “What’s your position? Over.”

“The north stairwell, fourth floor, over,” came the response from behind the door.

“Okay, Hero … Stand by,” Fisher instructed him.

I didn’t recognize the voice, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that “Hero” was the Secret Service agent who’d decided that instead of protecting the president today, he’d help knock him off. He was also my executioner and I was sorely tempted to open the door and put a poison pellet up the bastard’s nose. I thought better of it, slipped away, and doubled back, jogging the length of the corridor. I was hoping, but not really expecting, to find an unguarded stairwell in the south wing.

The cheers faded away and Kennedy’s voice filtered through again:

Kennedy had to pause, unable to continue over the frenzied response that this statement elicited. It was a simple enough observation, almost a cliche, that would get polite applause anywhere else in the world. But this wasn’t anywhere else; it was Berlin, and the wall was more than an abstract idea to them. It was a desecration of their city and a violation of their lives, separating them from family and friends. They abhorred it and Kennedy had said the words they’d been waiting for. The words they’d come to hear.