Memorial Bridge (42 page)

Dillon repeated this at the three other machines in that room—Underwoods all—each with its own sheet of paper, each with its own ID. One desk displayed a nameplate, "CPO Allen Dietrich," and he noted that too. Then he moved through the five other rooms of the office suite, using his lockpick twice. He took samples from every typewriter, eleven in all.

From the secretary's offices he went to the undersecretary's—seven typewriters—and then to the chief of naval operations'—twelve. Only once was he afraid, and his first impulse then was to reach for the gun that he no longer carried on his hip. In the middle of striking the keys of a typing-pool machine, he heard the footsteps of the night security guard. The sound was like the radio as the guard passed in the corridor outside. He did not alter his pace and was gone quickly, but Dillon forced himself to remain absolutely still for the full count of five minutes.

Otherwise nothing else went near wrong. No one else came even that close to noticing him.

It was ten before one when he came out of the Pentagon, in uniform again, carrying his leather satchel.

He stood on the top step of the river entrance, looking across at Washington. The monument was no longer illuminated—the powerful spotlights which had been developed in the war as antiaircraft beams went out at midnight—but under the clear light of a glowing moon he could see the giant obelisk and the low outline of the other buildings. The hum of a car passing drew his eyes down to the shadows of the nearby river boulevard. He heard the car shift gears as it took the low hill of the bridge over the lagoon channel, but he never saw it.

Sean Dillon wanted that moment to last. He felt no urge to hurry away from the scene of his violation. He was standing at the very heart of what seemed a new nation to him, taking in the silhouette of its capital, but no longer, as he had for years, from outside it. He had come to this city a decade before, when this same nation had seemed bereft. He himself had been full of yearning, but without knowing for what. Now he knew. Yearning for this, a role that mattered, a way to move this world, to affect it, to make it know that he had come here.

Cass was sitting in the Studebaker on the passenger's side. He opened the driver's door and got in, saying nothing. He put the satchel between
them, on top of the tan raincoat she had brought. Dillon started the car, snapped on the lights and put it into gear. He drove out of the lot toward the Shirley Highway access road, but at the point where it forked short of the highway, Dillon surprised himself by turning into the dark, abandoned lot of the Hot Shoppe, the small drive-in restaurant long since closed for the night. It was exactly the turn Dillon had taken once years before at the direction of Walter Dunlop, his FBI boss at the time. They'd been coming from Dillon's first meeting with Crocker, the event from which his entire life since had taken its shape. Dunlop had ordered him to stop there so that he could call and find out if Cass was still alive.

Sean stopped the car abruptly and pulled on the brake.

For a moment he stared out through the windshield at the illuminated wedge of blacktop, feeling as if he had just awakened from a dream. He turned toward Cass.

Her eyes welcomed him.

Pushing the satchel and raincoat off the seat, he reached across to her. As if she had somehow anticipated his all but unprecedented impulse, as if she knew the moment of his brimming had come at last and he could not stop himself spilling toward her, she went into his arms. They kissed.

Not even he had known that this was why he'd called her. Not the car, this. They were standing together against Canaryville all over again.

If they had been different people, or the same people in a different time, if the act were not loaded with a fearful, mortal consequence, they would have come out of their clothes right there in the car, but not even sexual intercourse would have been more an act of love than their prolonged, heated and, to them, already dangerous embrace. When finally they pulled away from each other, there was no question of speaking.

Dillon's hand shook as he adjusted the gearshift.

Cass kept her hand from trembling by pressing it on his thigh. She sat close to him, like a high school girl, as they drove into Washington.

Instead of going up Fourteenth Street, past the hulking Bureau of Engraving, Sean turned off on Maine Avenue.

"Why are you going this way?"

"I'm taking you to Boiling."

"But I was going to—"

"Darling," he said quietly, "darling." He fell still, then continued, "You were going to help me." He looked at her. "Wasn't that it?"

She saw in his eyes, in their absolute black center, the first sign that she had ever seen that his desire, his insatiable, mysterious, frightening desire, had been fulfilled.

"You were going to help me tonight, with this thing I have to do. Wasn't that what we both wanted?"

"Yes."

"Well, you have. You already have," he said so simply.

At 10:07 A.M. on November 17, 1948, in Room 340 of the Old House Office Building, Chairman Carl Vinson banged his gavel. The dust flew off the inclined mahogany surface in front of him, rising in the morning light that streamed through the palatial windows to his left. With that, the executive session of the full House Armed Services Committee came to order.

The hearing room was a spacious chamber decorated in florid style, with curved plaster molding on the ceiling and pierced shellwork lining the wall behind the dais. The dais itself, from the center of which Vinson presided, was like a mammoth altar, but with a pair of curved wings behind which sat the other committee members. The wings extended toward the rest of the room, as if to engulf it. Above the dais hung a brightly illuminated three-tiered chandelier, and at intervals around the dark paneled walls, matching crystal sconces glowed in the subdued light of the curtains drawn against the room's four large windows.

The witness table in front of and below the dais stretched across the room from one side aisle to the other, and seated there now were General Macauley, Lloyd Nevin to his right and a mustachioed, portly air force colonel to his left. Somewhat apart from those three, but still at the long table, another pair of civilians huddled; and at the opposite end, also apart from Macauley, were General Dillon and another civilian. Dillon, like Macauley, was wearing a crisp, fresh uniform with a stiff shirt and a perfectly knotted blue tie. His left breast pocket, compared to Macauley's riot of ribbons, had never seemed more the stretch of blank blue serge. Back of Dillon's chair was an easel holding yard-square display boards.

Behind the witnesses, because the session was closed, nearly all of the spectators' chairs were vacant. One pair of seats was taken, however, by General Eason and his exec, and another pair, at some distance toward the rear, by Randall Crocker, accompanied by Secretary For
restal's deputy. A lone navy captain sat in the last row, a notepad balanced on his knee. Near the firmly closed door sat the sergeant at arms.

This was an unusual session for any House committee, simply by virtue of every member's being present. Not a chair at the huge dais was vacant. The congressmen leaned forward on their elbows, Vinson of Georgia and Newfield of California, but also Allen of Pennsylvania, Thompson of New York, O'Connor of Massachusetts and a dozen others. Behind them, on the raised platform, were another dozen stenographers and aides, but none was moving. Vinson had had to strike the gavel only that once.

"General Macauley, you remain sworn. Do you understand, sir?"

"Yes, Mr. Chairman."

"Good morning then, sir."

Macauley nodded. Dillon, glancing sideways, sensed how the bomber general's fingers itched for a cigar.

"We await your statement, sir."

Lloyd Nevin leaned to the microphone. "Mr. Chairman, if it so please, before General Macauley responds to the document introduced into the record yesterday by the honorable congressman from California, the general would like once more to hear the honorable congressman's statement as to the document's origin and authorship."

"Not necessary, counselor. Not necessary at all. Congressman Newfield's statement is in the record."

"I understand, Mr. Chairman. I was thinking of those members not present yesterday." Nevin glanced along the full length of the dais. "I assume their attention has been drawn to the document in question, and copies have been provided."

"That's correct."

"My thought, sir, was to be sure the entire committee understood—"

"Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!" Fuller of West Virginia, a Democrat and an air force ally, took the hint and now had his hand raised. "Point of information, Mr. Chairman. I for one was detained yesterday, and I do note the lack of attribution, which frankly troubles me. Given the gravity of what it contains, I would like to hear about the author of this—"

"Mr. Fuller, we have Congressman Newfield's statement that this document was provided him by a constituent, that there are good reasons for anonymity. We have a member's word here, sir. And that settles it."

"But, Mr. Chairman—"

Down came the gavel.

"The chair entertained objections to the anonymity yesterday. On the strength of a colleague's solemn assurances as to the integrity of the submission, the chair overruled those objections and does so again. Now, General Macauley, if you please, sir."

Nevin once more preempted Macauley. "Mr. Chairman, for the record, sir. These are charges of a most serious nature, both as concerns the national security and the character and the conduct of a distinguished officer who, in leading over two hundred night air raids over Germany, risked his life—"

"Mr. Nevin, if you please."

But now Newfield spoke up. "Mr. Chairman, by your leave. If I can dispose of this by repeating what I said yesterday, I will gladly do so." Newfield was an owlish man whose dark-rimmed spectacles seemed too big for his face. The way he hunkered down on the dais made him seem even smaller than he was. Facing Vinson, he seemed the supplicant waiting for permission.

Vinson nodded impatiently.

"I was provided this document..." Newfield held up the dark pages of his photostat. Nothing in him hinted at insecurity or guile. His words were edged with, if anything, the melancholy of a reluctant witness. "...by a man personally known to me as a resident of the thirty-ninth congressional district in the state of California, and further known to me as an employee of the Consolidated Aircraft Company. For obvious reasons, given the unprecedented disclosures made in this document, I accept the author's contention that to reveal his identity at this time will result not only in the unjust destruction of a long career, but also in a terrible purging retribution among employees of firms contracted to supply the new Defense Department. We must protect such patriots who put country ahead of self in order to make sure that the Congress is informed of what is really going on in some of these companies."

Nevin had Newfield's eye. "And the manner in which the document was delivered to you?"

"Personally handed to me."

"In California?"

"Yes."

Vinson slammed his gavel. "Counselor, you are not interrogating Congressman Newfield."

Nevin sat back.

"Now, General Macauley, if you please!"

But once more Nevin darted to the microphone. "Mr. Chairman, since the allegations in this document involve not only extensive criticism of the B-36 airplane, but also and especially acts purportedly committed by senior air force officers, which, if true, would amount to numerous felonious violations of the law, the secretary of the air force was obliged by statute to immediately begin an official investigation of those allegations. Therefore, Secretary Crocker ordered the director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, General Dillon, to undertake said investigation. The first part of General Macauley's response, which is the air force response, is to be presented by General Dillon."

Vinson shook his head. "An investigation in its most preliminary phases won't tell us what only General Macauley—"

"Not preliminary, Mr. Chairman. General Dillon's investigation is complete. He has conclusive findings and is prepared to present them. I defer to General Dillon."

Vinson peered across at Dillon, made a show of studying him.

The eyes of all those politicians looked down on him, like the eyes of jurors, Dillon thought. He sat straight and still, aware that with his own eyes he had thrown up a solid, unmoving wall.

"All right," Vinson said. He flicked his head at a clerk. "Would you kindly swear the general in."

Dillon stood, raised his hand and, led by the clerk, made his oath in a loud, firm voice.

"For the record, General, would you state your name, rank and present position."

"Sean Dillon, brigadier general, United States Air Force. Director, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations."

"Which is what?"

"Mr. Chairman, the OSI is responsible for criminal, counterintelligence and security investigations within the United States Air Force."

"It's a new agency, isn't it?"

"The OSI was formally established by a directive of President Truman on June 2,1948."

"Just six months ago."

"That's correct, sir."

"And you already have the capacity for far-reaching overnight investigations?"

"We do the best we can, Mr. Chairman."

"Well, by all means then, General, do us the honor of reporting your findings." The chairman fell dramatically back in his chair.

Dillon turned to the easel behind him and took a yard-long rubber-tipped pointer from its ledge. He removed the covering blank display card and stepped back so that all of the congressmen could see the first exhibit. It was a photographic blow-up of the entire page of Newfield's document on which the explicit accusations against Macauley were listed. Dillon made a point to stand there reading the text to himself, allowing the members to do likewise. Displayed in such a way, the charges against the famous general were more sensational than ever. In the center of the blow-up, in red ink, were the four perfect lines of a box which set several sentences apart.