The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [33]
Patchen absorbed this idea, then nodded his head.
“I’ll fire you in the morning,” he said. “If you live, and if you want to come back inside, it can be arranged. Foley won’t last forever with Lyndon Johnson.”
“The bar’s going to close. Let’s go in.”
Patchen had one more thing to say. Christopher was surprised: it was unlike Patchen to be the one who prolonged a conversation.
“It takes about a month to inform everyone in the field of a resignation,” he said. “I won’t hurry it. You may want to talk to the people in the stations.”
“Yes, there may be a question or two I’d want to ask.”
“If you need support in any kind of an emergency, you know they’ll give it to you. We’ll justify it later.”
Christopher smiled at him. “You shouldn’t be saying these things. What if I’m tortured?”
Patchen waved away the pleasantry. “Speaking of that, I wouldn’t rely too much on Wolkowicz. He and Foley are friends. The White House took an interest in Wolkowicz’s career after the Bay of Pigs.”
“Took an interest in his career?”
Patchen exhaled his dry laugh. “Wolkowicz was their idea of what a master spy should be. They all read those paperback books about secret agents. Wolkowicz carries guns and talks like a gangster. They were talking about Castro in one of the planning sessions—what to do with him after Cuba was liberated. Wolkowicz took out his revolver, removed a cartridge from the cylinder, and rolled the bullet across the table. In the Cabinet Room. That was when his star began to rise.”
Patchen opened the door for Christopher. “Now let me buy you one last beer,” he said.
5
Foley had not intended to return the phone call. When he saw the message on his desk he didn’t recognize the name of the man who had called him.
“He’s a Green Beret captain,” Foley’s secretary explained. “He’s on his way to Vietnam. He said his sister is a friend of yours. Her name is Peggy McKinney.”
Foley frowned and crumpled the slip on which the message was written.
“He said you and his sister met in Paris.”
Foley remembered. He handed his secretary the ball of paper. “Set up an appointment for him today,” he said. “Here.”
He put a plain sheet of paper in his own typewriter and began to write the letter he wanted Peggy McKinney’s brother to deliver for him. Then he phoned a man at the Pentagon and arranged to have the captain assigned to an army intelligence unit stationed on Saigon.
When the captain appeared in Foley’s office, he stood at attention in front of the desk. Foley, in shirtsleeves, grinned at him.
“Sit down, Captain,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I didn’t want to intrude on you—Peggy just asked me to call up and say hello.”
“I’m glad you did. Peggy’s terrific.”
The captain was about twenty-five, dark and fine-strung like his sister.
“You know,” Foley said, “it was right in this office that an officer like you was ordered to take the message to Garcia.”
“I guess those days are over, sir.”
“No, they’re not,” Foley said. “I have a job for you. You are not to discuss what I’m asking you to do with anyone, not even your supervisor. I’ve informed the right person in the office of the Army Chief of Staff. You and he and I, and we alone, are to know about this. Is that clear?”
Foley gave him a sealed letter for Wolkowicz and told him what else he wanted him to do when he reached Vietnam. He gave him a photograph of Christopher; he had had to call the Passport Office himself in order to obtain it.
“His real name is Paul Christopher, but he’ll probably be using an alias. Look at the picture and give it back to me.”
“What channel shall I use to report?”
“You don’t report. If you do the job, I’ll know it. And, Captain, I won’t forget you.”
“I don’t want anything for this,” the captain said. “Sir, I loved President Kennedy.”
“I know you did, son,” Foley said.
FIVE
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Christopher stood on the steps of the Galleria Borghese and watched Molly walk across the park with the pine trees behind her. She had spent the morning at the zoo while he wrote his profile of the Pope, and she carried a bag of peanuts in her hand.