The Twentieth Day of January

CHAPTER 3

Nolan and MacKay sat in silence as they waited for Morton Harper. The message had said that he would be ten minutes late. There was no reason to talk. They had gone over every aspect of the information they had gathered and it was for Harper to decide.

MacKay’s eyes wandered round the room. The walls were all painted white. There were no paintings, no photographs or decoration. The desk was typically Scandinavian in plain teak, the chairs were comfortable but not luxurious. There were no book cases or shelves. Indeed, there were no books. No silver-framed photographs of wife and family on the desk, no clue to the character or mind of the man whose office it was. And, MacKay thought, perhaps that was the clue to the man’s character. He felt no need to persuade or influence. The room was a room for listening rather than talking, so far as its occupant was concerned. Harper came in, quietly for so large a man. He smiled and nodded to both of them as he walked around and settled at his desk. He reached for the ashtray and lit his cigar.

“I’ve seen both your reports, gentlemen, but I find no logic in them. You state the facts, both of you, and then draw conclusions that appear to be based on instincts rather than facts. Explain. You first, Nolan.”

“Kleppe is a long term immigrant. Came from Norway via Canada. Has been a citizen for about twenty years. He deals in precious stones, mainly diamonds, and has shareholdings and interests in a wide range of businesses. He operates out of a luxury apartment in Sutton Place that is packed full of electronics. Security devices. He has no servants, not even a daily help. He has contacts at top level in most government departments and with influential politicians in the Republican Party. Dempsey has been a frequent visitor over the last ten years. There’s nothing on our files, the FBI files or the NYPD. Not even a traffic offence.”

Harper waited to see if there was any more and then nodded to MacKay.

“I found your report intriguing. Tell me more.”

“I must emphasize, sir, that these are my views, not my service’s views. They may share them, I just don’t know. I believe we assume too readily that people join the Communist Party from considered conviction. That they have weighed up capitalism and found it wanting. In my experience there are very few of these, and in my view Dempsey is typical of most people. He joined the Party when he was a student; a more carefree student than most because he had no worries about money or career. His father was, is, a millionaire. And he joined the Party because he was in love with a girl who was not only a Party member but a Soviet citizen. It was a gesture to her. And because of her he did not see Russians as monsters. His own Russian was beautiful, she didn’t dig the streets of Moscow, she painted. And I’ve no doubt he got a picture of a society that had a human face. When he and his girl were beaten up and jailed he turned to his own government’s representative for help. It was refused. He would guess why. With their usual long-sightedness the Soviet authorities stepped in. Not directly, but through an American. A man who can draw on Dempsey’s goodwill for years to come. The girl goes off to Moscow—a perfect hostage. Dempsey will hate his own government and feel grateful to the Russians. And you couldn’t have a more malleable puppet than that. It’s not difficult to love a regime that exists thousands of miles away, that you never see.”

Harper leaned back in his chair, looking at some distant spot on the white ceiling.

“Are you married, Mr. MacKay?”

“No, sir.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven next birthday.”

There was a long silence and then Harper slowly sat up in his chair and faced the desk. He seemed to be watching the ash on his cigar. Then his head came up slowly.

“You needn’t give reasons; and I’ll ask no questions. But I want you both to say what you would do as of now. You first, Nolan.”

“The election is tomorrow. I should wait for the result. If Powell wins I should go ahead with a full investigation.”

“And you, Mr. MacKay?”

“I should wait for the election results but I should go ahead with the investigation whether Powell wins or loses.”

Harper half-smiled. “You force me to cheat. I will ask a question. Nolan, why does it depend on Powell winning?”

“The influence that Dempsey could wield on a President could have devastating results. But only on a President.”

Harper nodded. “And you, Mr. MacKay?”

“To me what matters is that if Dempsey is being used to influence Powell it’s because the Soviets intended that. Whether Powell knows or not is of vital importance, too. But most important of all is, have the Soviets tried to do this?”

Harper shook his head and said softly, “I go ahead with everything you’ve said except that. The most important thing at the moment is, if it has happened, can we prove it?” He closed his eyes as if to exclude everything except what he was saying. “I want you to imagine what happens if the worst turns out to be true. From tomorrow night we should have until the twentieth of January to establish hard evidence. Evidence that high officials would find credible, and sufficient to impeach a President-Elect; or, if not that, so destroy his credibility that his position would be hopeless. And who do I tell, gentlemen? The incumbent President who represents the opposing Party? The Chief Justice who has no power to act? This would have to be for Congress if it went that far; and you can imagine the damage it would do to this country—to the world, perhaps. The trauma of Watergate would seem like light relief compared with this.” He turned to them both.

“Nolan, wait until tomorrow night after the result is declared. If something went wrong I could be accused, perhaps rightly, of influencing the election. Then, whatever the result, you go ahead. Let me know what resources you need and I will arrange them. And Mr. MacKay, would you object if I asked my friend Magnusson if you could be attached to Langley for a period?”

“No, sir.”

“I think you should cover anything that concerns Europe. That should be your official position, anyway.”

He stood up. “You must keep this between the three of us. Nolan. And I should like you to read again the Fourth Amendment. You, too, Mr. MacKay.”

MacKay slept until midday, shaved and bathed, and leisurely breakfasted watching TV.

He read through the Fourth Amendment in a copy of the Constitution that Nolan had found for him. And, because he was British, he turned back to the first page where it said, “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice…” And he read on and on through all the Articles and Amendments. He felt a great warmth for those men two centuries ago who had argued and fought to ensure that the abuses and privileges of Europe’s monarchs and despots could never happen in their new country. Even two hundred years later it was still of its time. The old-fashioned words still applied. It was often abused, and frequently difficult to practise, but it was there. A bench mark, a rock in a sea of troubles. He thought of Morton Harper and Nolan. They hadn’t dodged the issue, and when Harper had said that they should read again the Fourth Amendment he had meant it. Not as a cover for himself but as a reminder of the other side of the coin.

Magnusson telephoned and gave him the OK and, despite being on an insecure line, told him to watch his step. He was treading on very thin ice, Magnusson said, and the bouquets could easily turn into brickbats.

In the late afternoon Nolan telephoned to say he would be along about eleven. His mother was going to have three weeks with them in Washington and he was meeting her at the airport, at nine.

MacKay had met Nolan’s wife. She was an admiral’s daughter who had met Nolan when he was a Navy flier in the Korean war. A pretty girl with a sense of humour and well used to the vagaries of service life that kept men at long stretches from their families. The five-year-old daughter was some consolation. Nolan was a frequent visitor to London, generally on his way to Berlin, and there was clearance between CIA and SIS for an exchange of a wide range of intelligence between SF14 and Nolan’s Russian section. MacKay envied Nolan his vast resources and the American valued the British organization’s uncanny, instinctive analysis of the KGB operations that covered them both.

It was well after eleven when Nolan arrived, and they sat watching the network election programme. Powell’s lead had been cut but there was little doubt that he was going to win. The blue-coloured Powell States were beginning to dominate the election map, and the commentators were slowly coming down off the fence.

Just before two o’clock Grover conceded, and the cameras moved over to Hartford where Powell and his helpers stood in a milling mass in front of the State Capitol. On his right was his wife, and on his left was Dempsey. Nolan identified a few of the other local worthies for him. Then, as the microphones were thrust towards him, Powell spoke. He was sweating under the TV lights.

“I want to say thank you to all those who have worked so long and so hard to get me elected. I shall be leaving shortly for Washington but I shall be back here in a few days’ time and then we’ll really celebrate. God bless.”

Nolan reached forward and switched off the set, then opened his black leather briefcase and tossed a thick brown envelope on to the bed.

“There’s money, open air-tickets and CIA documents in your name. You might need them. You can draw on CIA funds at any of our embassies or consulates.”

“I thought maybe Amsterdam first to see if I can find Kleppe’s old girlfriend?”

“OK. Wherever you go, will you liaise with the local US embassy or consulate so that I can contact you quickly? We’ll use the diamond business as our cover on this. And we’ve given it a codename. Operation 66. We’ve got sixty-six days before the inauguration.”

“When are you starting?”

“Tonight. I’m putting in for surveillance teams, signals units and researchers. I’ll have them by tomorrow.”

“Who are you checking first?”

“Dempsey, but I’ll have enough people for Kleppe if you come up with anything.”

“How does Harper feel about me being involved in this?”

Nolan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, a Britisher helping to investigate an American citizen, the President-Elect.”

“When Harper spoke to your guy the deal was that you were liaising with us and that, apart from the question of routine, you would not inform your own people about what we are investigating or what we uncover.” Nolan looked at MacKay. “We trust you, and we trust Magnusson.”