The Tears of Autumn (35 page)

“Lê Thu was not a secure code name—it contains a clue that led me to Do Minh Kha, and through him to everything else. But the family didn’t think that security mattered, because they weren’t going to use the phrase outside the family. What mattered to them was that it gave a name to their collective hatred for Kennedy and for Americans in general.

“What the family needed from Do was precisely what gave us our chance to penetrate the operation. They needed a cutout, a go-between, who could activate Kennedy’s assassin. They couldn’t do it themselves because the assassin could not know, could not be permitted to guess, who he was working for. It was a matter of security—and, more important, a matter of motivation. An assassin being approached by the Vietnamese would know at once who was using him to kill Kennedy. They couldn’t have that. Also, they are realists—they knew that even Oswald probably wouldn’t have done it for a Vietnamese, let alone a South Vietnamese. Oswald would have believed Diem was a Nazi, and his sympathies lay elsewhere.

“So they needed a cutout who was a white man. Do Minh Kha is in charge of the section of North Vietnamese intelligence that handles liaison with other Communist intelligence services. He had debts he could call in. The family didn’t care who killed Kennedy. They didn’t think it mattered who pulled the trigger—Yu Lung had already assured them the assassination attempt would succeed.

“Kennedy’s horoscope gives not only the auspicious time for the assassination, November 22, but also the place, Dallas. Yu Lung had selected that city as the most favorable geomantic location. He drew up a long treatment of geomantic conditions in Dallas. The only limitation he put on success was that the assassin must not fire toward the north or northwest; under the principles of geomancy, these are directions to be avoided. Oswald fired almost due west from the window of the Texas School Depository. I don’t imagine he’d been instructed to do that. It was a coincidence that Kennedy’s car was traveling in a westerly direction.

“They knew Kennedy would be in Dallas on November 22. The American newspapers had reported this fact, and you can be sure that the Vietnamese, in Hanoi and in Saigon, had a complete file of clippings.

“When Do Minh Kha went back to Hanoi after seeing Nicole in Vientiane, he found Manuel Ruiz there. Ruiz was on his way to the Congo to organize a guerrilla force, and he’d come to consult with the world’s leading authorities on guerrilla warfare, the North Vietnamese. Ruiz was surprised that Do knew where he was when I tracked him down in the Congo— of course, Do didn’t know; I was lying to Ruiz—so he probably didn’t tell Do what his target country was.

“However, Do had to tell Ruiz what
his
target was—John F. Kennedy. Do wanted an assassin for one-time use. Ruiz told him about Oswald. The Cubans had contacted Oswald, on an unwitting basis, when he was in New Orleans during the summer. He’d tried to pass himself off as an expert on guerrilla tactics. The Cuban network in New Orleans informed Ruiz— that was his department. The Cubans assessed Oswald, decided he was a nut and dropped any idea of recuiting him.

“Ruiz didn’t think the Vietnamese had a chance of killing Kennedy, even though Do Minh Kha was absolutely confident the operation would succeed. Ruiz played a game with the Vietnamese. He agreed to approach Oswald and activate him as Kennedy’s assassin. You saw in the report what Ruiz thought of Oswald. But he went ahead, as a favor to Do. The irony is extraordinary: to this day, Ruiz doesn’t know that he was an agent for the Truong toe—he thinks the Kennedy assassination was a North Vietnamese operation.

“At the instigation of an agent of Ruiz’s in New Orleans, Oswald went to Mexico City, leaving New Orleans on September 25 by bus. He arrived in Mexico City at ten in the morning on September 27 and registered at the Hotel Comercio, as the Cubans had instructed him to do. That day he went twice to the Cuban embassy and once to the Soviet embassy to apply for visas. He was refused in both places. Ruiz picked him up on that day and kept him under surveillance. When Ruiz was certain that Oswald was clean—that there was no U.S. interest in him and no American surveillance, he contacted him by phone, using a coded recognition signal.

“David tells me there are three dead days in Oswald’s stay in Mexico City. The official investigation has not turned up anything on Oswald’s activities between September 27 and October 1, when Oswald left Mexico City by bus.

“Ruiz talked to Oswald on September 30, in the park called the Alameda. You have Oswald’s reaction in the report. He took Ruiz’s bait. When Oswald walked out of the Alameda, he was activated, and President Kennedy was a dead man.

“Ruiz went on to the Congo. Oswald went back to Dallas.”

Dennis Foley left his place by the window. Christopher saw through the window that two White House Cadillacs were drawn up at the curb; the chauffeurs stood smoking on the brick sidewalk. The meeting was taking more time than Foley and Trumbull had expected. Foley, at the bar, poured neat scotch into his glass. His harsh blue eyes were fastened on Christopher’s face.

“The killing of Oswald seems to have been unrelated to the Vietnamese,” Christopher said. “There was unbearable heat on the Soviets. Oswald, after all, had been a defector to the USSR. The Russian service believes in direct, drastic action. The KGB had Frankie Pigeon in cold storage. They used Pigeon, and Pigeon used Ruby, to take the heat off. Pigeon earned a million dollars with one phone call.

“Ruby was a kind of fringe figure, more a hustler than a hoodlum, according to Pigeon. He’d always wanted to be on the inside with the syndicate, if that’s what it’s called in real life. Pigeon just told him to make a hit for the syndicate, and Ruby jumped at the chance. Pigeon says Ruby used to hang around the edge of the mob in Chicago and was always trying to keep in touch after he moved to Dallas. The syndicate never wanted any part of him. And it still knows nothing about the way Pigeon used Ruby to kill Oswald. Pigeon’s terrified that they’ll find out. They’d kill him. He broke discipline. He did it on his own, for the money.

“Frankie Pigeon scoffs at Ruby now for being a romantic about Kennedy, but I think Pigeon regarded killing Oswald as a patriotic act, just as much as Ruby did. Pigeon had no fear that Ruby would talk: he’d want to prove to the syndicate that he could observe
omertà.
as well as any Sicilian. Once Oswald was dead, everything calmed down for the Soviets in twenty-four hours—literally. From their point of view, it was a sensible operation, and cheap at the price.”

3

Trumbull sighed. “I swear I never heard anything like that,” he said. “Men killing Presidents of the United States, and other men killing the assassin, and nobody knowing who they were working for or why. That part doesn’t make sense at all.”

“It makes every kind of sense,” Patchen said. “That’s the way it’s done. I can show you files on a dozen other cases. The pattern is classic. In other circumstances I’d say it was admirable.” He turned to Christopher .“One thing about the operation against Oswald. Are you sure about the counterfeit money?”

“Yes,” Christopher said. “That’s what the bank records show. Klimenko carried ten thousand hundred-dollar bills to Zurich. Fifty of the bills were counterfeit. They have the serial numbers of the money manufactured by the SS during the war. The KGB just passed the fake money on to Pigeon. Dolder und Co. caught it right away. Of course they informed the Swiss police. I don’t understand it. Maybe the Russians didn’t check all the serial numbers; maybe they just gathered up all the hundred-dollar bills lying around in their safes. You know how sloppy things can get on an emergency operation. They had no reason to plant the counterfeits on Pigeon, unless they’ve got some idea of blackmailing him with the syndicate. That’s too complicated, even for them.”

Foley returned to his chair with a fresh drink in his hand. Liquor and anger had colored his face. He sat down beside Trumbull and stared for a moment into the empty air. When he began to speak, he used the abrupt sentences Christopher remembered from their first meeting in Paris.

“J.D. asked you to tell us about your methods, but I didn’t hear any mention of those,” he said. “Suppose you tell us how you came by all this data.”

“By spending money, mostly,” Christopher said.

“Oh. You mean you’ve been zipping around the world like Sam Spade, bribing hotel clerks?”

“I paused to bury one of my agents, Foley.”

Foley bent his long torso, leaning across the coffee table so that his face was close to Christopher’s.

“Let me recapitulate,” he said. “One of your agents, this Luong, was killed in Saigon. What was the death toll from the bomb in the car—five, six? Then you killed the two Vietnamese kids you call assassins. In Zurich you broke into a bank, using an unreconstructed Nazi as a burglar. In Italy you caused two American citizens to be shot, though not, by your account, killed. You kidnapped and tortured another American citizen. You left four Cubans dead and another wounded in the Congo. For a moralizer, you’re quite a fellow.”

Foley opened the file containing Christopher’s report and spilled the photographs over the table. He arranged the pictures of the dead Vietnamese gunmen and those showing Frankie Pigeon, bound and naked, in the interrogation room.

“You expect us to put value on information obtained by these methods?” he asked. “You expect us to believe in someone named Manuel Ruiz, hidden in the jungle, and to believe he’d simply
tell
you what you say he’s told you?”

Foley, as he finished speaking, became aware of Patchen, who did not so much move as change the tension of his muscles.

“Paul, don’t answer,” Patchen said. “Foley, let me say this to you: first of all, Christopher didn’t kill his own agent; he has a reputation amounting to an office joke for keeping agents alive. Second, he didn’t put two pounds of
plastique
in his own car. Third, he didn’t expect to cause the deaths of those two Vietnamese gunmen. He wanted to talk to them, for reasons I think you understand very clearly—reasons he was honorable enough not to spell out in a report that may yet go to the President. I have no such scruples.”

“David, I’m not talking to you,” Foley said.

“Oh yes you are,” Patchen said. There was no more resonance than usual in his flat voice, but Trumbull threw Foley a glance and held up his palm. “Go on, David,” he said.

“Christopher’s methods are justified by their results,” Patchen said. “That’s the rule. That’s always been the rule. Christopher’s been given promotions and medals by his government for playing by that rule better than almost anyone else has ever done. You haven’t lived his life. You can’t imagine it, much less understand it.”

“All right, David,” Trumbull said.

Patchen slowed his speech, but went on. “There’s a tape recording of the conversation with Manuel Ruiz, and a living witness to Christopher’s presence in the Congo,” he said. “Christopher left Ruiz alive, and Pigeon too, when it would have been easy to let them be killed. We can lay hands on both of them whenever we’re instructed to do so. Pigeon still has the counterfeit money, and the Swiss police know the serial numbers. We know the movements of Manuel Ruiz, and of Do and his daughter. The evidence is incontrovertible. Christopher has given you the truth. You don’t like it, Foley. You never have. You think he has some motive to soil Kennedy’s memory. The question is, will you ever learn?”

Rolling his glass between his palms, Trumbull nodded slowly, as if agreeing with whatever thought was passing through his own head.

“Well,” Trumbull said. “What we seem to have here is a pretty good case against all the people Paul has put the finger on. We’ve got two men who believe it in this room—am I right, David? You buy what Paul’s told us?”

“There’s no choice,” Patchen said. “It’s not just this reporting. There’s collateral intelligence in our hands that confirms almost everything he’s told us. With a little more work we can remove every shadow of a doubt. Every shadow.”

“Okay,” Trumbull said. “That’s you and Paul. I respect your judgment, David, and your work, Paul. Then there’s Dennis, here—I take it he doesn’t believe it, and he won’t believe it.”

Foley said, “That is correct.”

“Then there’s me,” Trumbull said. “I guess I make the decision. Do we trot this in to the President? He’s the man. The rest of us are just his lookouts.”

Trumbull collected the scattered pages and photographs and put them back in order.

“If I show this to the President, what’ll he do?” he asked. “He can go on TV and hand the American people another brutal, horrible shock, or he can read it and keep it secret and worry about it for the rest of his Presidency. The country has got to come together after this tragedy down in Dallas.
Got
to. We’ve got something to do in Vietnam, and we’ve got to do it. We can’t do it without public understanding and support for our policy. Wouldn’t you agree, Dennis—David?”

Foley nodded. Patchen, as usual, gave back no indication of his thoughts.

“I’ll tell you a plain fact,” Trumbull said. “If the American people believed that a bunch of Vietnamese got together and killed John F. Kennedy, they’d want to go over there and nuke that country—
nuke
it. You’d never get another dime out of Congress for South Vietnam. You’d never get an ounce of support from the press—those fellows love Kennedy’s memory almost as much as Dennis does.”

Trumbull riffled the pages of Christopher’s report. “You’ve got to be careful who you let change history,” he said. “You’re sure that this is the only copy of this thing?”

“There’s a photograph in Christopher’s head,” Foley said.

Trumbull gave Christopher a smile of great sweetness. It was the last time he looked at him.

“I’ve grown a lot of gray hair, son,” he said, “but I’ve never seen anyone do the things you say you’ve done. I want you to know I believe you did it all. And I wish you luck—I mean that, Paul.”

Trumbull stood up and went to the fireplace. He picked up the poker and stirred the logs. Kneeling with an apologetic, arthritic groan, he fed Christopher’s report into the flames, sheet by sheet. Bits of charred paper, lifted by the draught, flew up the chimney.