Pat Frank - Forbidden Area

Another evening had passed without him mentioning marriage. All he’d said, of importance, was that one night soon he’d need the car. He had promised some of his buddies to drive them to Jacksonville. He might be away for only a night, or for several days. It depended on length of leaves. 6

Raoul Walback was the first of the Intentions Group to reach a man on an upper level of government. The CIA Director was in Switzerland that week, but his Deputy Director for Administration, Clarence Clarey, was available. Raoul approached him on the social plane—he had a hunch this was the best avenue to Clarey’s attention—and asked him to dinner at his club, the Lochinvar. Clarey instantly accepted. Most of the CIA executives were upper upper, in New York or Chicago as well as in Washington, but Clarey was definitely upper middle, and his family probably lower middle. Raoul had never seen Clarey at the Lochinvar, or on the course at Burning Tree or even Chevy Chase.

Raoul greeted Clarey in the club foyer and had drinks sent in to the lounge, hung with portraits of the Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and the two Presidents who had belonged to Lochinvar. Between the first and second highballs a waiter brought menus and Raoul ordered for them both—Chincoteague oysters, terrapin Maryland, duck stuffed with wild rice, and a spirited Chablis, ’38. He could see that Clarey was impressed, but he refrained from mentioning the troubles at the Pentagon until the liqueur. Then he told the story, with emphasis on the need for haste. “I think you, as Deputy Director, can and should present the whole matter to the National Security Council,” he concluded. “We have to break this forecast out of Clumb’s desk.”

There were certain facts about Clarey that Raoul Walback didn’t and couldn’t know. One of them was that Clarey had been in government for twenty-four years, and he had not achieved his present eminence, and a $15,500 salary, by exposing his neck to the sabres, even though blunted, of major-generals, or by making recommendations, and attracting the attention, of any such powerful bodies as the National Security Council. Nine of those twenty-four years Clarey had spent as a $2,400 clerk three floors below the Archives Building. He escaped from this dungeon in 1941 by transfer to a new organization called the Coordinator of Information, then being established by General Donovan. CIO gave birth to twins, OWI and OSS, and after the war OSS metamorphosed into the CIA. Generals and admirals, professors and professional spies, researchers and administrators came and went. Clarey stayed on. By adhering to the government’s immutable laws for survival—shunning all controversy, buttering his superiors, and keeping in touch with his congressman—through normal attrition he was now deputy director. He had not the slightest intention of jeopardizing his position and eventual pension, not for the hydrogen bomb or anything else. He rolled the stem of his glass between his fingers, pretending deep thought before he spoke. “To tell you the truth, Raoul,” he said, “I’m rather glad it happened.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m glad it happened. We need you back with us. I may say that both the Director and I have been somewhat disturbed by the actions of your group in the Pentagon. Stepping on our toes, you know. Duplication of effort. After all, CIA is responsible for gathering and analyzing strategic intelligence. By sending you as our representative to the Intentions Group, we really weakened our own position.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” Raoul said. “We think it probable that we’re going to be attacked. By Russia, that is. On or about Christmas Eve. After Christmas, there won’t be any CIA, or Pentagon either.”

Clarey leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Oh, come now, Raoul. You’re over-dramatizing the situation. Now I’m no expert on Eastern Europe, but Russia hasn’t got the savvy and know-how and organization to attack this country.”

“They have savvy enough to make hydrogen bombs, and they know how to build aircraft and guided missiles and submarines to deliver ’em, and organization—why, Clarence, the Communist organization controls half the people on earth.”

Clarey said, “One day the whole thing will collapse.”

“Perhaps. But not by this Christmas.”

Clarey finished his crème de cacao. He didn’t want to offend Walback, whom he knew to be on good personal terms with the director, but the young man was talking madness. Obviously, he was overworked. “Raoul,” he said, “you have a place in the country, haven’t you? Why don’t you take off for a week or two, and then come back to us. Speaking personnelwise, we really need you back in CIA operations very badly.”

“I think,” Raoul said, “that a vacation is exactly what I’m going to take.” 7

The Secretary of State, that evening, was delivering a major address on East-West economic problems before the Foreign Policy Association. The Under Secretary was in the Philippines. One Assistant Secretary was waiting at National Airport to greet the Emir of a Middle East principality richly endowed with oil. The other assistant secretaries had already left Washington for the holidays. Since Christmas fell on Tuesday, and Christmas Eve would be devoted to office parties for those government workers remaining in the capital, a long weekend was coming. So Clark Simmons, in desperation, telephoned Walter McCabe at home. McCabe was a special assistant to the Secretary of State, with a nebulous overlordship of Eastern European Affairs.

Unfortunately, McCabe was entertaining the Yugoslav ambassador and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at dinner. He was carving the roast when the phone rang. When the maid said it was a Mr. Simmons, from the Department, McCabe did not at first place the name. McCabe was not a career diplomat. He was a super-market millionaire from Georgia, a generous contributor to the last election campaign. “Tell him if it’s important,” he told the maid, “he can call me back later.”

At ten o’clock Simmons called again, and by then McCabe had recalled that Simmons was the expert on Russia now working on some sort of a hush-hush job in the Pentagon. McCabe’s guests were still there, and both he and Mrs. McCabe were annoyed by the interruption, particularly since the maid publicly relayed Simmons’ insistence that McCabe come to the phone.

McCabe took the call on the extension in the study. “What’s so important that it won’t wait until morning?” he demanded.

“I wouldn’t like to talk about it on the phone. I think I’d better come on over.”

“Oh, come now. Let’s not be security-happy.”

Simmons was a little rattled. He didn’t know McCabe very well. He said, “Mr. McCabe, this is a matter of the national safety.” The phrase, “a matter of the national safety,” was used seldom, and never recklessly, in the Department. Its meaning was at once literal and cabalistic. It meant: “Drop everything else. This is of supreme importance.”

McCabe was not aware of the phrase. “What do you mean?”

“I’d better come on over.”

“Now look, Simmons, I’m entertaining some very important people. You’d better give me a general idea of what you want.”

Ever since he had been created a Foreign Service Officer, Class Eight, Simmons had been taught to take it for granted that all phone calls over unscrambled wires were monitored. He had been told never to say anything into a telephone that you would not care to have broadcast over the NBC combined network. So he found it difficult to phrase what he had to say. “I’d better start in at the beginning. We have been working on this forecast, and it must be got out immediately, and now our group has been abolished by General Clumb. You know he’s . . .”