Desperate Measures

9

It was after dark when they reached Washington’s Beltway, headed south on I-95, then west on 50 to Massachusetts Avenue. Despite his exhaustion, Pittman managed to drive skillfully through the dense traffic.

“You seem to know your way around the city,” Jill said.

“When I was working on the national affairs desk, I spent a lot of time down here.” Pittman rounded Dupont Circle and took P Street west into Georgetown.

“Reminds me of Beacon Hill,” Jill said.

“I suppose.” Pittman glanced at the narrow wooded street. The paving was cobblestone. Ahead, it changed to red brick. Federal and Victorian mansions were squeezed next to one another. “Never been here?”

“Never been to any place in Washington. New York was about as far from my parents as I felt I needed to get.”

“Georgetown’s the oldest and wealthiest district in the city.”

“The remaining grand counselors live here?”

Pittman shook his head. “This is too ordinary for them. They live on estates in Virginia.”

“Then who did you come here to see?”

“A man who hates them.” Pittman headed south on Wisconsin Avenue. Headlights and streetlights made him squint. “The guy I’ve been trying to phone every time we stopped along the road. Bradford Denning. He’s elderly now, but in his prime, he was a career diplomat. A mover and shaker in the State Department during the Truman administration. According to him, he would eventually have become secretary of state.”

“What happened that he didn’t?”

“The grand counselors. They didn’t like him being in competition with them, so they got him out of their way.”

“How on earth did they manage that?”

“To hear Denning tell it-this was during the McCarthy witch-hunt era-they spread persistent rumors that Denning was soft on communism.”

“In the early fifties, that would have ruined a diplomat.”

“It certainly ruined Denning. He found it impossible to undo the damage, was given less and less responsibility in the State Department, and finally had to resign. He claims that his isn’t the only career the grand counselors ruined by claiming that somebody was a Communist sympathizer. The grand counselors then ingratiated themselves with the incoming Eisenhower administration, replaced the diplomats they’d attacked, and went on to control the highest diplomatic offices. That lasted until 1960 when the Democrats regained the White House with Kennedy. Kennedy wanted to work with friends and family rather than career diplomats. For three years, the grand counselors stood on the sidelines. But after Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson, who had disliked Kennedy, was eager to assert himself by getting Kennedy’s people out of the State Department and the White House staff. He welcomed the grand counselors back into diplomatic power. For the second time in their careers, they had managed the trick of being accepted by different political parties. In fact, by then they seemed to transcend the two-party system, so that when Nixon and the Republicans came back into power at the end of the sixties, the grand counselors had no difficulty in continuing to maintain their influence. So it went. In periods of intense international strain, various later Presidents continued to ask for their advice.”

“And Denning?”

“Had what to most people would have seemed a productive life. He taught college. Wrote for political journals. Contributed editorial columns to the New York Times and the Washington Post. But he always felt cheated, and he never forgave the grand counselors. In fact, he devoted most of his spare time to researching a book about them, an expose of their ruthlessness.”

“Is that how you know about him? Because of the book?”

“No. The book was never published. Near the end of his research, his house caught fire. All his notes were destroyed. After that, he was a defeated man. Seven years ago, when I was preparing to write a story about Millgate, one of the few people who agreed to talk to me told me about Denning. I came down here to Washington to see him. But he’d been drinking, and what he had to say was all innuendo-he’d once had proof, he insisted, but it went up in the fire-and I finally realized I couldn’t quote him. I never wrote the story, anyhow. After I was arrested and my jaw was broken by those two prisoners in jail, my editor assigned me to something else.”

Driving, Pittman brooded. Thinking of his reassignment had reminded him of Burt Forsyth, not only his editor but his closest friend. The fight in the construction area off Twenty-sixth Street was brutally vivid in Pittman’s memory, Burt stepping back as the gunman came into the shadows, the gunman shooting at Pittman, then at Burt.

Grief felt like arms around his chest, squeezing him breathless. They didn’t need to kill Burt, he thought. The bastards.

“You look awfully angry,” Jill said.

“Don’t you think I’ve got reason to be?”

“Without a doubt. But it’s surprising.”

“How so?”

“When you came to my apartment Sunday, the emotion you communicated was desperation. Your motive was passive-a reaction to being threatened. But anger’s an active emotion. It’s… Let me ask you a question. If somehow a truce could be arranged and the police wouldn’t be after you and the grand counselors would leave you alone, would you walk away?”

“After everything those bastards have put me through? No way.”

Jill studied him. “Yes, you’ve definitely changed.”

“You have no idea how much. This is Wednesday. Remember, a week ago tonight, I was ready to kill myself.”

Jill didn’t react, just kept staring at him.

“Say something.”

“I keep forgetting how deeply upset you were,” Jill said.

“Still am. None of this changes my grief for Jeremy.”

“Yes. You’ll continue to grieve for the rest of your life.”

“That’s right.”

“But if you wanted to die as much as you say you did, why didn’t you let the grand counselors do the job for you? No. In the last week, something happened to you to make you want the rest of your life to go on as long as possible.”

“You.”

Jill touched his shoulder with affection. “But you’d been on the run for a couple of days before you showed up at my apartment. You had plenty of opportunity to give in to your despair. You know what I think?”

Pittman didn’t answer.

“Fear made you feel alive again. While we’ve been driving, you told me how you sometimes have the sense that Jeremy’s with you, that he talks to you.”

Pittman nodded. “You think it’s foolish to believe that?”

“On the contrary, I’ll go you one better. I think Jeremy’s been pushing you into fighting back. I think he wants you to decide to live for something.”

Pittman’s voice was husky with emotion. “That would be nice to believe.” His throat ached as he squinted ahead toward the bright lights and congested traffic in the area of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.

Jill sounded puzzled. “What’s the problem ahead? An accident?”

Affected by the intensity of what they’d been discussing, Pittman was grateful to change the subject. “No, it’s always this crowded. Wisconsin Avenue and M Street are where the action is in Georgetown-bars, restaurants, nightclubs, shops selling everything you can imagine as long as it’s expensive.”

“Denning lives around here?”

“Not at all. He couldn’t possibly afford it. He lives on his college pension, which isn’t very much. No, when I finally got in touch with him on the phone, I told him I was a journalist doing a story on Anthony Lloyd’s death. I told him so many diplomats and politicians were canonizing Lloyd that I thought a dissenting opinion would give my story depth. I asked him if I could take him to dinner. He was more than happy to accept. He said he planned to go to a memorial service for Anthony Lloyd”-Pittman hesitated-“and then sit down to eat a big meal with me to celebrate.”