Sam Bourne - Pantheon

‘What?’

‘Brown suit.’

‘I see him, but-’

‘Just a hunch. Keep an eye on him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Karl Moran, Chicago Tribune. Biggest anti-war paper in the country.’

‘I don’t-’

‘Just watch.’

They slowed their pace, letting Moran reach the top first.

‘Give me the camera,’ James said. ‘I’ll go right, you go left. Remember, McAndrew won’t recognize you. If Moran sees you, it’s a coincidence.’

James dipped his head and climbed those last two steps. A moment later he was aware of a change in temperature, the close, muggy heat replaced by the cool of marble. His eyes took a second to adjust to the shade.

He stole only the briefest glance upward, to see the largest statue he had ever seen: a seated, stone Lincoln the size of a mythic god. He and the others in here looked like ants at the president’s feet. And there, on the other side of this shaded space, next to the engraved words of the Gettysburg Address, stood Karl Moran, talking to a man whose hat was pulled low over his face — a man who, James knew at once, was Preston McAndrew.

James raised the camera, just in time to see the men shake hands and part. He did not catch the moment of exchange, but in Moran’s hand there now rested a white, foolscap envelope. The journalist turned sharply and headed for the staircase.

Now, James told himself. Now. It would be so easy to walk those few paces, grab McAndrew, bring him to the ground if necessary, watch him gasp for air. The desire for revenge bubbled up inside him once more, hot and red. He would make that man pay for whatever wicked trick he had just performed, for depriving him of his wife and child, for murdering George Lund…

He took a step forward, ready to do it, even here, with all these people. He could feel himself throbbing, the blood thumping through him. But reason, the same rationality he had come to curse, held him back. He repeated to himself what he had to remember: that the threat to his country now was not McAndrew, but those documents. It was the envelope, and whatever dastardly information it contained, not the Dean, that had to be stopped. McAndrew had given those papers to Moran because he wanted them to be published so the goal now — the only goal that mattered — was preventing that from happening. To reveal himself at this moment, by apprehending, even killing McAndrew would not stop that. Rage could not help him now.

And so, biting down hard, he smothered the urge seething through him, watching instead through the viewfinder of this heavy, newsman’s camera as Preston McAndrew adjusted his hat, touched the cuff of his jacket and, with the tiniest smile of satisfaction on his lips, walked just a few yards away from him out of the shade, back down the steps and into the sunlight. How James longed to wipe the smirk off that face, to shatter it with the same force with which he had despatched that goon on the train. He swallowed the rising bile of frustration that rose in his throat.

Looking down, he could see Ed Harrison heading down the steps too. James caught up with him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I think we need to have a word with my esteemed colleague, Mr Moran.’

‘What are you going to say? How on earth are you going to persuade him to-’

The slower-footed Moran was within sight and within reach now. Harrison smiled. ‘Oh, I’m not going to say anything. It’s just I know one thing about the man from the Trib that your Professor McAndrew does not.’ He glanced at James. ‘That for Karl Moran, it’s never too early for a martini. I hope you can hold your drink, Zennor.’

This, James concluded with admiration, was the secret of Edward P Harrison’s success. He had noticed it even in Spain, when Harrison was thumping away at the double bass in that impromptu Olympians’ jazz band, knocking back the Sangre de Toro with the rest of them — yet somehow remaining standing when everyone else was keeling over, upright enough to woo one of Florence’s swimming team-mates once he had regretfully concluded that Florence herself was immune to his rugged adventurer charms.

Now James could only look on in awe as Ed filled and refilled the glass of the Chicago Tribune ’s correspondent in Washington. He had made a brilliant show of running into Moran on the walk back down Constitution Avenue, calculating that it would be too much of a coincidence for them both to be at the Lincoln Memorial at the same time.

‘Moran! Hold up,’ he had cried, slapping him on the back. ‘I need a man to celebrate with me and you’re just the fellow. What do you say to a pick-me-up at the Old Ebbitt Grill? Oh, and I’m buying.’

Moran — his hair ginger, his skin florid and his nostrils permanently flared — had glanced guiltily at the white envelope in his hand. ‘I really ought to get back to the office, Edward.’

‘Please, it’s Ed. And I shall have you back at your typewriter within the hour. That’s what, Karl, eight hours before deadline? That should be enough, even for you. And remember, today’s the first day of August. And what do we always say?’

‘Nothing happens in August,’ the two men chorused.

‘Now, meet my friend Jim, photographer for the Picture Post.’ James raised a silent hand, not sure if he was meant to risk the revelation of his accent. ‘And let’s get ourselves some refreshment.’

Ed kept chatting away, clearly keen to get to the bar before Moran had a chance to change his mind. Then, as they turned onto 15th Street, the three of them walking three abreast heading north past the White House, Ed looked over at James. ‘Oh, you needed to pick up some supplies, didn’t you, Jim?’

‘That’s right,’ James answered, entirely baffled. ‘Some new film.’

‘And you were going to get some stationery for me, weren’t you?’ At that Harrison had given the merest glance in the direction of Moran’s hands and James understood.

So now he watched as Moran downed what, by James’s count, was his fourth martini. At long last, the reporter who had been expounding on the scandal he was sure was brewing in Henry Morgenthau’s Treasury Department, how he reckoned Harold Ickes must hold some ‘stinking dirt’ on the president to have stayed in the Cabinet so long and why he couldn’t stand his father-in-law, finally rose to his feet and, swaying, moved towards the men’s room. To the horror of both Harrison and James, he took the white envelope with him.

‘That’s it,’ Harrison said, so sober he might as well have been drinking tea. ‘We’re just going to have to prise the damn documents from his hand. I’m going to pay a visit to Mr Moran in the men’s room.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ James said immediately. ‘You do that and, two minutes later, Moran will be telling McAndrew we’re onto him. He’ll have time to rethink.’

‘Damn.’

‘He mustn’t know we know.’

‘Damn, damn, damn.’

‘Here,’ James said, handing him the white envelope he had bought nearly an hour ago. ‘Let’s stick to the original plan.’

Harrison quickly opened his briefcase and pulled out a series of papers, which he scanned and assessed, then deposited inside the envelope. ‘At least these should keep him busy,’ he muttered.

‘What are they?’

‘Just a story I’ve been working on.’

‘A real one?’

‘Real enough to confuse Moran, even when he straightens up. Sprat to catch a mackerel.’

Moran was back. James had known only one or two dipsomaniacs in his time, one a friend of his parents, but they all had the same telltale trait: the smell of alcohol oozed from their pores. Moran was no different. But he was still sufficiently alert that, as he sat down, his hand remained on the precious envelope.