Tales From the Black Chamber (11 page)

“It's
beautiful
,” she whispered to John. The room in front of them was paneled in cherrywood and mahogany, and lit with brass-and-frosted-glass sconces on the walls and a large, circular white fixture in the ceiling above a mosaic in the center of the floor. The insignia was of a raven atop two crossed keys, ringed by the motto
ntia immo multiplicant
, “entities do indeed multiply,” a wry inversion of Occam's Razor.

Twelve six-panel oak doors with brass nameplates led out from the side walls, six to her left, six to her right. Against the walls separating the doors sat ten gorgeous, heavy writing desks from, she guessed, the first couple decades of the last century. The five on her left faced this door, the five to her right faced the far wall. They looked almost brand new, despite their obvious age. Each had a large, green felt blotter and a heavy brass desk set, with a letter opener, magnifying glass, etc. Modern paraphernalia—computers, cell phones, newspapers—lay incongruously upon them.

On the left side of the opposite wall stood a small sliding door next to a little brass panel around a black Bakelite button, apparently an elevator of some sort. On the right-hand side of the wall hung a large, life-sized oil painting of—Anne did a double take—Calvin Coolidge, next to a flagpole with a raven-and-keys finial.

Most spectacular were the wide, arched floor-to-ceiling windows in the room. At first glance, Anne thought she was looking out over the D.C. skyline, but then she remembered that she was five stories underground. She squinted a little and realized that they were
trompe l'oeil
paintings, and that they couldn't have been more recent than the 1920s or '30s, given the distinctly smaller Washington they depicted. Through some trick of lighting, they gave the appearance of sunny daylight. Anne was impressed.

Five of the desks had occupants, all of whom looked up at Anne and John as they came through the door. A fiftyish black woman in a bright pink suit smiled at them, and a fair, youngish man whose blond hairline was well receded peered over a yellow legal pad with a half scowl. A lithe woman with shoulder-length curly brown hair and a regal Semitic nose was speaking into a phone but raised an eyebrow in their direction in aristocratic acknowledgement. A tall, barrel-chested, brown-haired white guy peeked around a large computer monitor with evident curiosity. And last, sitting at a desk, moving papers was—

“Special Agent Hunter!” Anne burst out.

“Call me Steve,” he said, deadpan. “I'm not a special agent and my name's not Hunter.”

Anne looked open-mouthed at John, who put a hand on her shoulder. “I'll explain in a minute. Let me introduce you around.” He guided her to the closest occupied desk. “This is Wilhelmina Chase. Wilhelmina is the most important person in the office. She's been here the longest, knows where all the bodies are buried—”

“Mostly metaphorically,” Wilhelmina cut in with a big smile.

“—and keeps track of the physical plant and all of our finances.” John gestured towards an enormous spreadsheet on Wilhelmina's computer. Wilhelmina took Anne's hand, and said warmly, “Welcome, dear. This place takes a little getting used to, but once you get your feet under you, there's no place you'll rather be.”

“Thank you,” said Anne, feeling oddly comforted.

“Next, this is Michael Himmelberg, our chief—indeed, sole—legal Counsel, as well as one of our best investigators.”

Himmelberg was already rising when John started speaking, and offered his hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Wilkinson,” he said very formally. “Please call me Mike.”

“Anne. Thank you,” she countered.

“You know Steve,” John said, pointing in his direction. “His last name is actually McCormack. He's an investigator, our Armorer and our Hunter. Which is why he thinks it's funny to use that as an alias.”

“It is funny, John,” said Steve.

“It was the name of the
Post
's film critic. You don't think that's eventually going to tip someone off?” John asked, half-heartedly, clearly revisiting the site of a long-ago defeat.

“It's a common name and it makes me happy,” said Steve, though it was hard to discern any happiness in his poker face.

“Right,” said John fatalistically. “On the phone here is Claire Krakauer.”

Claire held out a hand, flashed a brilliant smile, and mouthed, “Hi,” and rolled her eyes toward the phone to indicate she couldn't get off right now.

“Claire's our minister of propaganda, if you will. She's in charge of making sure we don't appear on anyone's radar, as our Liaison to other bureaus and agencies—usually in the guise of someone from a different agency. She works the government, is an investigator, and will outfit you with the credentials you'll need from time to time.”

“Okay,” said Anne, still overwhelmed.

“Last, and never least,” said John, walking her down the aisle, “this is Joe McManus.”

Joe stood, drawing himself up to six-two by Anne's guess, looking even bigger because of his broad build. “Hi, Anne. I'm Joe,” he said in a soft voice with a kind smile. “Since John doesn't really understand what I do, I'll save him a minute. I'm the Telegrapher. What that means these days is: I run all of our computer systems, and ensure that we're properly networked into all the law-enforcement, intelligence, and other agencies' machines so that when we dig around in their computers it looks unremarkable. I also gain access to other systems as necessary. Phones, satellites, that kind of stuff.”

“I could have said that,” objected John, laughing.

“Yeah, but not as well,” said Joe.

“True enough,” conceded John. “Joe's also an investigator, so you'll work with him from time to time.”

Anne said to John, “I don't quite understand. I thought I was being hired as a librarian. For a foundation. You're telling me that this is the government? And that I will be doing some sort of investigation? Investigating what?”

Joe and John looked at each other with a knowing smile. “Let's go into my office, Anne,” said John. “Joe, could you bring Anne some coffee?”

“Sure,” said Joe, smiling that winning smile again. “Or would you rather have espresso or tea or hot chocolate or something, Anne? We've got all sorts of stuff in the galley.”

“Coffee's great, thank you,” said Anne. “Just black.”

“Black it is,” said Joe. “And welcome to the Black Chamber.”

John took Anne through one of the twelve doors. The brass plate on the door read H
ISTORIAN
. His office could have been in any university, with floor-to-ceiling shelves covered with books of all ages, only the furniture was of a piece with the rest of the building: heavy, dark antiques. They sat, John behind the desk, Anne in the one guest chair. Joe brought in the coffee and excused himself, closing the door behind him.

John let Anne drink a little coffee in silence.

“Wow, that's good,” said Anne.

“We tend to splurge on luxuries. We're not like the rest of the government in that, or many other respects.”

“The government? What did Joe mean when he said, ‘Welcome to the Black Chamber?'” Anne asked.

“That's what we call ourselves,” Joe explained.

“Why?” asked Anne

“Have you heard of ‘the Black Chamber' before?”

Anne shook her head. “Should I have?”

“No, it's mostly a trivia question. The Black Chamber was the first American code-breaking body, sort of a proto-NSA. It was founded by this brilliant but weird guy named Herbert Yardley who, years later, ended up breaking codes for the Republic of China, reporting at one remove to a charming guy named Tai Li, also known as ‘Chiang Kai-Shek's Hatchet Man,' ‘the Killer,' and most charmingly, ‘China's Himmler.'”

“Wow. That must be a story.”

“It is. Yardley actually wrote a book about it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yardley started off as a code clerk in the State Department. Around 1910, he realized that the U.S. had no facility whatsoever for breaking codes.”

“They didn't? Wasn't that a problem?” Anne furrowed her brow.

“Nope. Yep. So Yardley basically reads every book on cryptography in the Library of Congress. Even though they're quite outdated, he gets the basics. He then starts breaking the codes in the messages that he handles in the code room at State and tells his superiors that the U.S. really needs some code-breaking ability. They agree, and by the time we're into World War I, he's running a code-breaking shop and is reading all sorts of German, British, Italian, and French cable traffic.”

“Wow. Good for him.” Anne nodded for him to keep telling the story while she took another sip of coffee.

“And good for the country,” John continued. “Yardley catches German spies and saboteurs and proves the government of Mexico is colluding with the Germans. Once we're into the war, he's able to learn where and when various German offensives are going to take place. After the war, however, there's some controversy over keeping the Black Chamber up and running. The Navy is willing to pony up some money because it's of obvious use to them, plus their own short-lived, World War I code-breaking shop managed to break exactly zero codes. The State Department begrudgingly kicks in the majority of the funds, but insists they can't operate in the District of Columbia.”

“Why not?” Anne asked.

John rolled his eyes as if to say, ‘government,' then explained, “Probably to lessen the chance of a diplomatic incident. And maybe to keep some psychological space between State—mostly striped-suit-wearing, upper-class, Europeanized, wealthy WASPs—and the motley crew of academics and oddballs Yardley had put together to do what State saw as dirty work. Anyway, Yardley keeps on keeping on up in New York, breaking Japanese and Russian codes—of which he's frankly admiring, incidentally—until one day he gets the news that the new Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, has learned of the Black Chamber's allegedly nefarious doings and pulled his budget.”

“Oh, wait,” Anne said, with the eagerness of a student who's suddenly recalled an answer. “I do remember something about this. ‘Gentlemen don't read each other's mail,' right?”

“Right,” said John. “That was Stimson in his memoirs, years later. He later became Secretary of War during World War II and did a one-eighty on the desirability of reading your enemies' mail.”

“Hitler was no gentleman?” joked Anne.

John laughed. “I've never understood Stimson's original thinking, myself, given that he must have known that other ‘gentlemen' were reading each other's mail. The British required every telegraph company operating on their transatlantic cables to provide the Admiralty with a copy of every telegram sent over the cables within ten days. Not coincidentally, the Admiralty is where the British code-breaking section was located.”

Anne took another drink of coffee, then said, “I still don't understand what that Black Chamber has to do with this Black Chamber. You said their headquarters was in New York.”

“For that, you need to know a little something about our patron saint.” He pointed in the direction of the Coolidge portrait. “Do you know anything about Silent Cal?”

“Dorothy Parker's line on the occasion of his death.”

“‘How could they tell?' Right.” He laughed. “Well, Coolidge was one of those presidents who were massively underrated at the time, like Eisenhower or Reagan. Most of the smart set saw them as incompetent provincial boobs. Silent Cal supposedly did nothing; Eisenhower played golf; Reagan napped. Or so we believed. When you look at the historical record, though, all of those guys had depths and smarts way beyond what they ever let show in public.”

“Not that I don't believe you,” said Anne, with a skeptical moue, “but, well, I'll withhold my judgment until I see some proof. At least in the case of Reagan. And thank God you didn't include George W.”

John laughed. “Just don't believe everything you read in the papers, is all I'm saying.” His face grew solemn as he continued, “Right before Coolidge is re-elected, his younger son Calvin is playing tennis on the White House courts and gets a blister on his foot. It pops, goes septic, and he dies. He was sixteen.”

“Oh my God.” The thought of parents watching their teenaged son die constricted Anne's throat and turned her stomach.

“Exactly.” John nodded in sympathy. “Coolidge is just crushed, and most historians agree that he's never the same man after that. His 1924 campaign is subdued, though he's popular enough that he wins the entire country outside of the Deep South and Wisconsin.”

“Wisconsin?” Anne asked, grateful for the distraction of an intellectual quandary.

“Bob La Follette, the third-party, Progressive candidate was from Wisconsin.”

Anne nodded understanding. “So what does Coolidge have to do with the Black Chamber?”