Saving the Queen Read online

Black woke up feeling better, and rather keen to experience the practical test to which, he had been told, Harry would put him. Blackford was to draw up a plan for transmitting to Contact X an envelope containing five thousand dollars in cash. In other words, a fairly thick envelope. Contact X, a woman, was unknown to him; Black would have only a telephone number for her. The rendezvous must be for later than 5:30, giving X time to get away from her work, and before 6:30, when X was due at home. The conversation over the telephone should not last longer than thirty seconds. Truax’s code name: Angel: X’s reply, in response to Angel’s identification, would be:

  “Could you please wait until I get a pencil?”

  If a different answer was given, Blackford should apologize for ringing the wrong number.

  Blackford should now devise a plan of maximum simplicity, least likely to alert anyone who might be tailing him, or the person he was contacting. The plan required that he specify: an identification for X, an identification for himself, time, place, technique, and emergency signals. The minimum physical contact, the better. Blackford was told to take as long as he wanted.

  He called Harry back into the room an hour later.

  “How’s this?” He handed Harry the text of the telephone message he would give Contact X. It read:

  This is Angel.

  (Assume contact gives proper reply.)

  Tonight, at 5:36, approach the newsstand at the ground floor of the National Press Building. The first magazine on the bottom rack, all the way to the left, is usually Yachting. Behind it is usually another copy of Yachting. Whatever is behind the outside issue, the envelope will be clipped to the inside of it at 5:35. At 5:36, ask the newsstand vendor whether he carries Yachting. If he’s busy talking to someone else, just say, “Yachting?” If by 5:38 no one has asked that question, within the earshot of someone six feet away, I’ll remove the envelope. If when you ask for Yachting, you hear someone say: “It’s last month’s issue,” walk away without purchasing the magazine. Any questions?

  He looked up at Harry.

  “I figure you don’t need more identification than that, is that right?”

  Harry pursed his lips. “What if the magazine behind Yachting is a man’s muscle magazine. She going to be forced to buy it because the money is inside?”

  Blackford was ready.

  “If that’s the case, I’ll slide a decorous magazine behind the Yachting, or else I’ll put Yachting behind the muscle magazine.”

  “All right,” said Harry. “Now: Work it out as if you needed a receipt—how does she hand it to you?

  “After that, work it out so that you need to find out first where the contact usually goes after the office, so that you don’t have to derail her to an arbitrary drop, like the National Press Club.

  “After that, work it out so that the contact has to work alongside a companion who can’t know anything that’s going on.

  “After that, work it out so that the package you have to deliver is the size of a portable typewriter.

  “After that, call me.”

  Black enjoyed the variables, and he indulged himself in a formulaic way of writing them out. By the end of the afternoon, Harry was well pleased, and gave him the address to which he should report the next day.

  When he got home, the telephone was ringing. It was Sally, in some excitement. Her roommate, during the year Sally spent studying in Paris as an exchange student from Vassar, had married the Shah of Sinrah, or, more accurately, had been married by the Shah of Sinrah. Well, this morning the White House social secretary had tracked Sally down at Congressman Gordon’s office to say that the Empress had requested that her old roommate be invited to the dinner being given for the Shah. And that the invitation extended to Miss Partridge’s escort, but his name would have to be given right away to the Secret Service.

  “I called every engineering professor at George Washington trying to track you down.”

  Black swallowed.

  “You’ve got to admit it, Black, you haven’t exactly hit George Washington like the Messiah, but never mind, the Messiah hasn’t hit George Washington that way either. Anyway, I couldn’t find you, so I gave your name just the same, and the Secret Service people cleared you in a couple of hours, and …”

  “Sally! Hold it! Hold it a minute! You cleared me with the Secret Service? And we’re going to the White House for dinner? When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Tonight! What am I supposed to wear, my lacrosse uniform?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t have your tux with you, so if you’ll look in your closet, you’ll find Jim’s, he’s exactly your size. It wasn’t easy to get it from him. He wanted to pose as you and go as my escort, but I told him No incest at the White House.”

  “What time?” Black’s heart was pumping, less with excitement than with acute pleasure—he had done a tourist’s tour of the bottom part of the White House, his first, as recently as last Saturday; and he had never regretted giving Sally a key to his apartment.

  “Eight. That gives you two hours. Get a cab and pick me up—no, you might have trouble getting one. The bar at the Hay-Adams—I’ll get there at 7:30. You come there, and we’ll saunter across Lafayette Park and have dinner with the Trumans and the Shahs. Black?”

  “Yes.”

  “What shall I call her?”

  “Call who?”

  “The Empress. I mean, I used to practically lend her my toothbrush, and it was only four years ago. Do I have to curtsy?”

  “Americans don’t curtsy.”

  “Not even to the Queen of England?”

  “Not even to the Queen of England.”

  “How would you know—all you know is how to build bridges.”

  “Sally, we are a republican country. Can you imagine Benjamin Franklin curtsying?”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Well, can you imagine his wife curtsying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, we’ll be in a receiving line. Do what the women ahead of you do. But don’t call her Tootsie, or whatever you called her—”

  “Michelle.”

  “Well, don’t call her Michelle. If it’s impossible to call her Your Highness, just don’t call her anything. That always works.”

  “So do you. Stop talking. I’m going to start dressing.”

  They met at the Hay-Adams and Sally ordered a daiquiri, Black a tom collins. He bent his head over obediently—he had become used to it—as Sally recombed his hair, and was embarrassed when she whispered, within earshot of the bartender, “You look divine tonight.”

  He felt pretty divine, he thought to himself. He had taken to exercising in the morning and weekends, and was a trim 170 pounds, and his light suntan belied the troglodytic life spent plumbing the mysteries of the spooks. Sally was animated and sparkled like the window of a jewelry store, from whatever angle, her eyes, nose, ears, hands, throwing off rays of animation.

  “Shall we have another?” It was 7:40.

  “No,” he said, paying the bill. “Let’s saunter.”

  They had to walk slowly to avoid being early. Most of the guests were arriving in limousines, so there was no wait at the northwest gate when they showed their invitation to the guard. He checked it against a master list and waved them in. They walked leisurely on by the shadows cast by the descending sun on their right, around to the ground floor, and began to mingle with people for the most part twice and three times their age, looking at the brightly lit displays of china given to the predecessors of President Truman by affectionate, grateful, intimidated, and vanquished chiefs of state. Waiters with trays of drinks circulated. Sally refused, Black accepted champagne. Word passed around that the guests should now go up to the foyer, that the President and the Shah would be descending the staircase in a few moments. When they did, grandly, “Hail to the Chief” sounding out in majestical tempo by a division of the Marine Band, followed by the national anthem of Sinrah, the guests were stock-still. Truman, with Michelle, came down first, foll
owed by the Emperor and Mrs. Truman. Truman was talking away, and smiling, and passed through the crowd purposefully to anchor the receiving line. He smiled robustly at faces he recognized. When he brushed by Black and Sally, they found themselves standing more or less at attention, which the President evidently noticed, because he paused, leaned over to Black, and whispered, “At ease.” Black smiled, and the aides who overheard the President chuckled. The Empress, meanwhile, spotted her former roommate, broke away from the President to embrace her. The Shah’s expression, behind, was inscrutable, though Black, viewing it coolly, decided Michelle had better bear the Shah a son very quickly. He guessed that royal spontaneity in Sinrah was not a specialty of the house.

  The receiving line was an anticlimax. The Empress had only time to ask Sally for news of Priscilla Lane, their third roommate; and Truman merely said, “Good evening, son.”

  They sat at a table for eight. He was between the wife of the American ambassador to Egypt and the wife of the president of General Motors. Sally, opposite, had Mr. General Motors and the Ambassador.

  Both ladies asked the usual questions and Black reestablished, for the thousandth time, that one had only to say one was an engineer to catalyze that haze-in-the-eye behind which all attention wanders. But this time, buoyant from wine and excitement, he decided to press on, and reengaged Mrs. Motors during the main course.

  “I’m a Republican,” he said, “but I think Truman will go down in history for Operation Down Under—that’s what I’ve been working on since I graduated.”

  He tried to sound a little pompous and was a little frightened at the ease with which he succeeded.

  “Operation Down Under?” She looked up, struggling to refocus. “What’s that?”

  Black looked around him, as if by instinct, and leaned closer.

  “That, Mrs. Wilson, is secret information.” He paused, having brought his fork to his mouth. Then he stopped, lowered the fork, and said:

  “But I suppose it can’t be a secret from you and your husband. Nothing is, I guess.” He allowed a moment’s pause, and was gratified that she had moved her head closer to his, to catch his words.

  “Operation Down Under,” said Blackford in a semi-whisper, “is the mechanism that sinks the whole of central Washington underground, under an atomic-proof carapace.”

  “When are they going to do that?” Mrs. Wilson looked startled.

  “They have done it, Mrs. Wilson. The biggest project since the Manhattan Project. It was completed a month ago. I’m only in on the maintenance. All the President has to do is push one button and most of the city of Washington sinks down five hundred feet, and a concrete dome envelops us. In fact”—Black was carried away—“the button is over there right behind the President.” Blackford, with Mrs. Wilson arching her neck in parallel, craning his neck, stood up slightly, then sank back.

  “No. You can’t see it from here. It’s behind the curtain. Remember, that’s secret information.”

  The toasts were effusive, as Black expected, though the Shah seemed nervous—he had had limited experience with chief executives like Truman—but there were no discordant notes, and the President invited everyone to the East Room for a “little entertainment.” As they got up, Blackford saw Mrs. Wilson dive for her husband and point toward the curtain behind the dais. Her husband listened, spoke a single word, looked in disgust over at Black, shook his head, and escorted his wife to safety. Black dove for Sally and they walked out, animatedly exchanging monologues about their experiences during dinner. In the Green Room the guests were given coffee and liqueurs. Black spotted the new president of Yale, Whitney Griswold. He approached him.

  “Blackford Oakes, Yale 1951. How is our alma mater?”

  Griswold, unattached at the moment, was genial, and asked what Black was doing.

  “Well, among other things, I’ve just read Buckley’s God and Man at Yale.”

  “You must have a lot of time on your hands,” Griswold said, allowing his eyes to catch those of a crusty figure approaching him. They exchanged greetings. Griswold turned—

  “What was your name?”

  “Oakes.”

  “Mr. Oakes, this is Mr. Allen Dulles, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  Black shook hands and then winked mysteriously and asked sotto voce: “How’s tricks?”

  Dulles stared at him silently, then turned to talk with Griswold. Black eased away toward Sally—his querencia, his love—to lick his wounds. She was chatting with an overly handsome marine captain, one of the White House escorts bobbing about, performing duties official, semiofficial, and quite unofficial. This one, for instance, was asking Sally what she was doing later that evening.

  “What she is doing later is with me,” Black interposed, pleased with his timing. The captain moved to withdraw, though not until after he had maneuvered Black’s eyes down toward the chestful of war decorations.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said, leaving, in favor of caution—for all he knew, Black was the son of the chief of staff or Truman’s nephew or Pendergast’s natural son. Sally was generally pleased, and they went together to the East room and listened to Eugene List play Chopin for about twenty minutes. Then President Truman rose, approached the microphone, thanked List, and invited the guests to stay on as long as they wanted to and dance, and everyone stood up, and he escorted the Empress out of the room, followed by the Shah. The room lighted up with talk and laughter, and Black thought it must have been so when Louis XIV went off to bed, though in those days there would be somebody missing, somebody like Sally, he mused, but tonight again she would be all his, and as they lay in Mr. Ellison’s bed, listening to his soft music, they would tease each other and observe an oh-so-strict protocol.

  Four

  One week to go. It was almost over. Black’s final instructor, “Alistair,” had obviously spent much time in England. He was a gray man, his mein, hair, face, suit, shirt. But he had an air of competence and experience which Black quickly deferred to, concluding that he was now in the company of someone high in the organization. He felt like a freshman taking introductory physics from Edward Teller. Alistair began by telling Black that he was expected, during the next two weeks, and indeed until otherwise notified, to read in great detail about the English Establishment. He was to go over, every day, a half-dozen English journals, the serious and the yellow press. He was to develop a knowledge of the principal members of the two major political parties, of the Houses of Lords and Commons, of the court, and of the diplomatic and business world.

  “That is a tall assignment, and obviously you are not expected to arrive in England two weeks from tomorrow with the same knowledge of English affairs that a native would have. It is only the beginning of an extensive program of familiarization, the purpose of which will be explained to you when you get to London.”

  When Anthony Trust had first told Blackford that he would be going to London, his general submissiveness before the counterintelligence discipline prevented him from asking questions about the oddness of his destination, or even from wondering very much about it. Apparently that his mother lived there was the operative point. Perhaps if his mother lived in Pago Pago, he would be sent there, on the grounds that cover means all. But in due course he had permitted himself to wonder. London. There was a sense in which that was the equivalent of dispatching a young counterintelligence agent to Chicago. Surely London, crawling with British agents, was presumably more concerned about the activities of an exuberant revolutionary nation from which she was insulated only by France and the English Channel, not necessarily in that order of importance, and had altogether adequate intelligence facilities, in contrast with a republic insulated, besides, by three thousand miles of ocean? But, of course, London was a great metropolis, where even people who looked like Peter Lorre sank into the woodwork, and Blackford’s job, presumably, would be to help the English locate the bad Peter Lorres. He thought for a while about it, but soon dismissed it, having by this time come aro
und to the proposition that if the CIA was nuts, there was little he could do about it except discover it in due course and get the hell out. If it wasn’t, it would do him no good to try to outguess motives which very intelligent Americans were making it their business to make it hard for very intelligent Soviet agents to guess at, let alone bright young Yalies, fresh from their bright college years.

  Alistair told him that there was no point in his trying to answer questions until Black had gone through some of his homework. Most of those questions would be answered in his reading. But in each of the succeeding days, Alistair would brief Black on a technical aspect of his deep-cover life in London, and he would begin now, on the question of communication.

  As a general rule, he began, all communications will be oral—to your superior, given under circumstances prescribed by him.

  “If your superior fails to make a rendezvous, or if communication with him through routine channels should lapse, you are to write a letter to”—he gave Black a note paper on the stationery of the Hay-Adams Hotel on which was written: Mr. Alan Wriston, United States Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London.”

  “In that letter you will say, ‘Dear Mr. Wriston: I am informed you are the gentleman who can advise me what the duty is on taking English-made suits into America. I am traveling about Britain, but will telephone you in two or three days. Meanwhile this note, in the event it is necessary to undertake any research. Yours truly, G. Truax.’

  “Two days after dispatching that letter, you are to sit by your telephone between five P.M. and seven P.M. and a substitute contact will be made. The person who telephones you will say, ‘This is George Allan from the Embassy.’

  “Now, if he says anything other than that, listen to what he has to say, and play along, agreeing to any suggested rendezvous. Then pack a bag and follow the same procedures you would follow in the event you find you need to leave the country.”

  “What are those?”

  “I’m coming to that.”

  He gave Blackford another piece of paper, on the stationery of the Pullman Company. Written on it was: “1. The London Library. 2. The Shakespeare Hotel, Chapel Street. 3. The Adelphi Hotel.”