The Willard (13 page)

Catherine looked weary. “Are you saying that if he had lived there might have been more war and that the North and South might not have mended their fences? You really think Lincoln’s death and not his life led to reconciliation?”

“I’m saying that Lincoln died and we had reconciliation. We had a hero—a sad-looking man who had persevered during a long, lonely war where he was hated in the South and ridiculed in his own government. He lost a child while in office and seemed to internalize the sacrifice of every mother whose son gave his life on the battlefield on
either
side of the conflict. That much we know. It’s what we don’t know that could hurt us. What would have happened if he had not been killed? That’s the part we don’t know and it’s much too dangerous to ever find out.”

“I’m not saying I’m going along with this and I still hope it’s just a bad dream,” Catherine’s voice trailed off and Chase could tell she was struggling with her thoughts.

She looked him in the eye. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

C
HAPTER 24

TOM KELLY

1962

The next forty-five minutes went by in a blur as Edward Chase spun an unbelievable tale. He explained to Tom that he was a guest in 1962 Washington and what it meant to have a tear in the fabric of history. It wasn’t long before Tom was battling a raging headache for which Chase effortlessly passed him a couple of aspirin without being asked.

This guy knows I have a headache, or should I say he knew I was going to have a headache and he knew I was toying around with Alice in Wonderland imagery and crazy rabbits at tea parties. I’m not sure if he’s nuts or if I am, but something is definitely very wrong here
.

“So it’s 1962 and the Russians want a do-over with the whole Cuban thing. Let’s say I buy that theory,” Tom said. “That doesn’t explain what I’m doing here. I’m pretty low-hanging fruit at my own chosen profession, which happens to have absolutely nothing to do with politics or national defense anyway, so please tell me what a middle-aged man who dabbles with movies can do to help this situation. And don’t say anything about “Argo” because I’m pretty sure that ruse only worked once.”

Chase was calm, as always. “You are here precisely because of what you do for a living. You may have noticed the White House is full of men in suits and they have every kind of expertise at their fingertips having to do with politics and
national defense. They have spies, and people who spy on spies, and there are a lot of things they know. But there’s something they don’t know that you do,” he answered.

“And what’s that, Mr. Chase? How much vodka it takes to make you forget you just watched four million dollars of your investor’s money go down the drain or how many Russian hookers can fit in a phone booth?”

“You know Nikita Khrushchev and his back channel network,” Chase responded.

Tom was slumped in his chair and he let out a chuckle. “And how is it that I came to know this information?”

“You learned about it in your role as a filmmaker.” Chase passed a battered script across the table.

Tom looked at the cover.
The “K” Factor
. Under the main title there was a subtitle:
Khrushchev and the KGB
. Tom had never seen the script before, nor heard the title, but his name was on the next line right there on the cover.

“I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen it before and I certainly didn’t write it,” he protested. “Let’s not forget, I wasn’t even born when all this happened.”

“None of that really matters now. In this timeline you are still Tom Kelly and you have spent your adult life making films. You’re not a big name but some of your work has been noticed by important people. This script is an example. It was never developed into an actual film because there were a lot of people who were pretty nervous about what you had uncovered. The project died before it got off the ground, in large part thanks to some of those dark-suited men down the street who are currently wondering if there’s room for them in the nuclear bunker.”

Chase continued, “You spent a year on the ground in the Soviet Union developing a network of contacts under the guise of a propaganda film that would be pro-Communist. Nobody there knew you were an American. You worked up a good cover
as an eccentric Argentinian with deep pockets and you stayed away from the naturally suspicious types on the Soviet payroll. Instead you courted the fringe. I believe you call them “want-to-bes” who were impressed with your story about glorifying the motherland on the silver screen and they hoped to play a role so to speak. Money talks in a place where the average worker spends more time worrying if he’ll be visited in the dark of night by the secret police than whether or not his retirement is looking secure. You passed around the cash and, in return, bought access to the pipeline that rides the fine line between
government-sponsored
and
government-secret
. Some of the information made it into your fictional script, but the powers that be know there is much more that you didn’t put on those pages.”

Chase passed a file folder across the table. Tom opened it to find pages and pages of notes in his own handwriting. “The rest is in there,” Chase pointed to the notes.

Tom was stunned as he flipped through the pages. There were names and dates and aliases. He saw crude drawings of Moscow streets and buildings with lines and arrows pointing to the margins where he had described the things and people to be found in each place. There were letters on official government letterhead that were written in Russian but had the English translation handwritten between the lines, again in his handwriting. And photos. There were photographs of the Soviet premier in public places, but also in private. Some appeared to have been taken in the man’s bedroom as he sat in his nightclothes and nursed a tumbler of vodka. There were men in uniforms and other men who had the same G-man look as our American FBI agents, only with a Russian flair. There were women too. Women who were in all forms of dress, both professional and the other kind of professional. There were names written on the backs and descriptions in some kind of shorthand.
Olga, St. Petersburg, 44–61, exit
. Strange though it was, Tom knew what it meant. The woman in the photo was Olga, (
an alias), and she could access the back channels via a St. Petersburg contact. Even though the Soviets called the city Leningrad, these loyalist contacts still used the old city name, St. Petersburg. The street address for the drop on her end was 44 and she would drop responses to him two blocks away at number 61.
Exit
, meant that she had gone underground and Tom remembered why. Someone found out about her children who lived with their grandparents in a peasant village hundreds of miles away and sent an unpleasant message regarding what would happen to them if she didn’t stop her activities. She disappeared on a Thursday and Tom had hoped it was her own doing and that she hadn’t been forcibly silenced. She was one of the nicer ones and could be trusted. He hoped she was somewhere warm and sunny with her children.

He had no idea how he knew these facts, but a cursory glance through the notes and the script seemed to open the floodgates and he suddenly “remembered” everything that was written there.

“There is a lot of communication flowing through unofficial channels between Washington and Moscow,” Chase warned. “Think of the game of telephone that you played as a child. How often was the message at the end of the game the same as it was at the beginning? Multiple hands mean multiple opportunities for errors, accidental or otherwise. Somewhere in the communication process there is a problem. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not and whether or not it has happened yet. What I do know is that getting a message confused when both men have their fingers on the launch buttons can only end in disaster. That’s why you’re here, to help the White House navigate this communication exchange. You have to find the error and fix it.”

Tom could hardly move. “How will I know when I find it? They’re not exactly going to hand me a transcript to review.”

Chase paused before he answered. “Look carefully, Tom. Because if you don’t find it you won’t have to worry about disappointing your mother. You’ll never be born.”

C
HAPTER 25

CALVIN WALKER

1963

In rapid succession, four enormous men grabbed Calvin, searched him for weapons, pushed him into a kitchen chair, and re-aimed their weapons at him. During the abrupt welcome someone had finished dragging the boxes inside and closed the door. Calvin was in the belly of the beast now and a single wrong word could mean the end for him. It was no time to show fear. These people thrived on making people fear them.

“I thought I told you to put those down. I’m not armed, as you are well aware.”

The quiet one leaning against the stove finally spoke. “As we are well aware. . .fancy, fancy. That’s fancy talk you’re making there. I don’t know if we understand fancy talk like that here in the hood, do we boys?”

The others snickered, but kept their guns pointed at Calvin.

The same one continued to talk, but he had left his perch and was beginning to slowly circle Calvin. “Are you some kind of college boy? Cause we love the college boys down in here.” The others laughed, but it was menacing. “Yes, sir, the college boys all want to come in here and help us. But you too old to be a college boy. Maybe you a
pro-fess-a
” the thug said as he strutted around. His underlings kept laughing. They were his audience. “Is that it? You a
pro-fess-a
come down here to teach us how to
talk to the white folks? Them college boys and
pro-fess-as
, they wanna talk about stuff and pass out flyers and make speeches. You a speech-maker, boy?” he asked as he kicked the leg of Calvin’s chair. “Did you come here to
talk?
Cause you in the wrong damn place for talkin’,
Pro-fess-a
.” Suddenly he spun around and came within an inch of Calvin’s face. He put his gun under Calvin’s chin as the others began to get more excited. “You got one minute to tell me how you found us and why I shouldn’t waste you like one of them pigs that’s black but thinks they’s lily white.”

Calvin’s head was spinning. He could imagine what the scene looked like and for a split second wondered how any of this was remotely possible. But he had more urgent matters to attend to, including the gun presently pressed into his lower jaw. His instinct for self-preservation took over and he said the only thing that came to his mind.

“It doesn’t matter how I found you. The important thing is I can get you Martin Luther King. Tonight.”

A look went around the table and the guns went down. As he rubbed his chin where the muzzle had been pressed he wondered what he had just done.

C
HAPTER 26

OLIVIA FORDHAM

1913

Olivia regained her composure and introduced herself to Victoria. She had a fleeting thought about the absurdity of her grandmother being a teenager while she herself was a mature woman of seventy. It was topsy-turvy like everything else had been since she had awoken from her nap.

“I’m not acquainted with Ms. Sutherland but, Mr. Chase, the concierge, may be of assistance. He’s busy at the desk right now, but he’ll be along in a moment and we can ask him,” Olivia said.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

“Would you like to sit down?”

Victoria smiled. “I would like to sit down very much. The journey from Philadelphia has been a bit hard on my feet I’m afraid.” The two women sat down as Olivia thought of her grandmother’s house in Philadelphia. It had been in the family for several generations and she loved to visit there when she was a girl. She remembered that her grandmother had lived in the house her entire life. It was strange to think the young girl before her may have just left that same house to come here.

“Did you travel here by yourself?” Olivia asked. She was mentally trying to do the math to figure out how old Victoria was.

“No, a family friend who lives here acted as chaperone, but I’m on my own now. My parents are quite bothered by the idea but I’m seventeen and more than capable of taking care of myself. And it is 1913 after all, and not 1850,” she said defensively. Olivia thought she sounded terribly childlike.

“I meant you no offense, Victoria. What brings you to Washington?”

“I’m sorry if I was defensive. It has taken weeks of arguing with my parents to convince them to let me come. I’m here to take part in the parade for women’s suffrage. I think it’s time women have an equal voice in their government. Don’t you agree?”

My goodness. She certainly has no trouble speaking her mind
.

“As a matter of fact, I do agree. Is this Ms. Sutherland part of the group?”

“Yes, and she’s an acquaintance of the gentleman who escorted me on the train. He spoke on her behalf and assured my parents she is a quality person. That’s what ultimately convinced them to let me come. I’ve written to her and she is to meet me here at the hotel and instruct me on how I might be of service.”

“What do you hope to do with this organization?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know. A few months ago I happened upon a rally in Philadelphia where the suffragists were making their pleas to the crowd. Someone handed me a pamphlet and starting talking with me about the issue. I thought it was very important, but Mother was waiting and we had to leave. She told me not to speak to ‘such people’ as she called them. A day later, one of the members came to our house and asked for me. I suppose someone told them who I was, although I’m not sure why they were interested in talking with me. She left more information and started coming by to see me every couple of days. I attended a few meetings and started to get very interested in what they are doing. Mother says they
want to use me because our family name is important in Philadelphia.”

“What do you think?”

“I think they need young people like me to help get the word out. The ladies who are in charge are very capable and I think they probably need others like me to help make signs or go door to door and talk with people. I’m happy to do whatever is needed to make a difference.”