Ted Allbeury - The Twentieth Day of January

“I want to do a deal, Nolan.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ll write out everything. Names, addresses, money, everything, but I won’t sign it, and I won’t give evidence, until you’ve done your part.”

“What’s my part?”

“You get Halenka and the little girl over here permanently.”

“What if she doesn’t want to come?”

“She will.”

“Will you dictate the main points as a précis right away?”

“If you want, but it depends on the deal.”

Nolan looked at the troubled blue eyes and spoke quite gently.

“You know the Soviets are unlikely to play ball.”

“She’s my wife, Nolan. We were married by proxy. It’s quite legal.”

“That won’t make any difference.”

“It makes her an American citizen.”

“That won’t make any difference either. There’s no percentage in it for them.”

Dempsey looked at him, weighing up the odds before he spoke.

“They would trade her for Kleppe.”

“He’s a prime witness.”

“There’s very little he can cover that I can’t cover.”

The bravado had suddenly gone. Dempsey was pleading now. The hostage he had given to fate all those years ago still controlled his thinking. It passed through Nolan’s mind that if some diplomatic oaf had not alienated this man in 1968 neither of them would be standing in the steel-clad interrogation room now.

“He’s their man, Dempsey. He must be their top man in the US. A court may not believe your evidence, and Moscow would dismiss it all as a ridiculous plot by the CIA.”

“I won’t write a word, Nolan, until I know.”

“You’ll only have my word. Nothing more.”

“I’ll accept that.”

After Nolan spoke to Harper he did not go back to Dempsey. He walked down the driveway of the house and then to the shore of the bay.

It was bitterly cold as he stumbled over the shingle, and the snow still lay in hard icy lumps between the stones at the edge of the breakwaters. The sea looked heavy and solid under the black clouds, unfriendly and menacing as the incoming tide bit at the sandy shore. Nolan stood looking across the bay, his mind trying to follow the threads of what had to be done. It was like working out all the variations three moves ahead in a chess game. It was possible but unlikely. There were always responses that had not been evaluated.

There was already enough evidence to satisfy Elliot and Bethel when it was presented to them. But there would be others whose attitudes would depend on party politics, and some of them could be part of Kleppe’s network. He had seen the names in the black books from Kleppe’s water tank. Salvasan, the Republican National Chairman, had supported their investigation at the meeting with Harper, but from Oakes’s statement it looked as if the party Vice-Chairman, de Jong, already had some knowledge of what had gone on at the time of the Haig strike.

Harper had not been satisfied that Dempsey’s evidence would be enough. Enough to do what? It would depend on what the politicians decided to do. If it was a contested impeachment then Kleppe was not for sale, and if he were not for sale then there wouldn’t be Dempsey’s willing evidence. Which one was the key? Kleppe or Dempsey?

Nolan turned to walk back to the house and as the ice crackled under his feet on the marshy land he knew he had the answer in his head. He didn’t know what the answer was, but he knew it was there somewhere.

He walked down with the guard to Dempsey’s cell.

Dempsey was still lying stretched out on the sleeping bag, his eyes closed, but he was not asleep. As Nolan pulled up the chair alongside him Dempsey opened his eyes.

“Well?”

“I’m still talking with several people. The decision isn’t entirely mine. There’s one more question I need to ask, and I need the truth if I’m going to help you.”

“What is it?”

“Did Powell know what was going on?”

Dempsey swung his legs down so that he was sitting up. His hands massaged his face, his fingers rubbing his eyes. He looked up slowly at Nolan. “He was never told in so many words, but he knew all right.”

“He knew the strike was fixed?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t party to the fixing. He wasn’t party to any of it. He just went along, turning a blind eye and reaping the benefits.”

“Since he was elected have you given him specific instructions?”

“Yes.”

“The defence cuts, withdrawing troops from NATO. Those were your instructions?”

“Yes.”

“He knew where they came from?”

“Sure he knew. I told him.”

“Did he protest?”

“Nolan, he was riding a tiger. He daren’t get off or he’d have been eaten. And he knew it.”

“What was the Soviets’ ultimate aim?”

Dempsey shrugged. “God knows. I doubt if Kleppe knows.”

“Why did you go along with this?”

Dempsey looked up at Nolan’s face.

“You won’t ever understand, Nolan. I loved Halenka. I had enough money to give her anything she wanted. She didn’t want anything. I joined the Party as a gesture to her—to show that I loved her. She didn’t ask me to, she wasn’t all that impressed when I did it. She was no more a Communist than I was. She was just a girl. Those French bastards beat us up and put us in jail. I wrote to our embassy and they left us to rot. Kleppe got us out. OK, they had an interest. I was in love with a Soviet girl. Some day I might be useful. It was years before they approached me. I’d almost forgotten about Kleppe. But I hadn’t forgotten about Halenka. And I hadn’t forgotten that some pig in our embassy had given us the thumbs down. Just a nod and the French would have released us. I was nineteen or twenty. Halenka was eighteen. What the hell danger were we to the United States?”

There were tears of anger and frustration in Dempsey’s eyes as he looked at Nolan for an answer.

“It was stupid, Dempsey, I give you that.”

“No, my friend, it was more than that, it was deliberate, inhuman. She was pregnant, and she was my girl. And I was a US citizen born and bred. And because I scratched my name on a piece of paper they let us rot. The Soviets didn’t let us rot, they got us out. Our embassy didn’t make the rules. They carried out the rules that Washington laid down. I bought a Washington Post at Orly the day they let me out. D’you know what the main news item was? The President was defending his bribe-taking crony who he’d nominated as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

Dempsey trembled with anger, and Nolan sensed that he was creating resistance by his questions.

“D’you want something to eat?”

Dempsey sighed and shook his head. And at that moment Nolan’s radio bleeped and a message came through that there was an urgent phone call for him.

It was Harper speaking from Washington.

“I’ve had a call from Powell’s secretary. He wants to see me. What’s the position at your end?”

“I’m going to get a statement from Kleppe or an interview taped with a witness present. And then I shall do the deal with Dempsey.”

“How long do you need?”

“Twenty-four hours. Maybe a little longer.”

“Is there any chance that there were witnesses when your team picked up Dempsey?”

“None. He was driving his car. The street was empty. I’ve seen them do it. Even when you know what’s gonna happen you don’t absorb it.”

“If Powell raises any question about Dempsey I’ll have to give a denial.”

“I don’t think he will.”

“You’ve seen MacKay’s report on Mrs. P?”

“Yes. Interesting, but it doesn’t help us.”

“When will you be ready for another meeting with Elliot and Bethel?”

“Sunday afternoon?”