The Bostonian black seemed relieved to learn that my abductors had grabbed me instead of the girl. He seemed intrigued when I told him who I was in answer to one of his more casual questions. “Steve Victor, the Man from O.R.G.Y.?” was his response. He obviously recognized my name.
“It’s always nice to meet a fan.” I lowered my eyes modestly.
He leaned back in his chair and studied me. He seemed to be going over something in his mind. “You’re going to be our guest for a while, Mr. Victor,” he announced.
As it turned out, the “guest” facilities weren’t exactly first class. I spent the next day or so in a small basement room with a primitive john adjoining it. Room Service was right outside my door, and heavily armed. The cuisine ran to native fish and banana oil.
At the end of that time, I was escorted back to the room in which the original interview with the black man had taken place. He awaited me there. He was not alone. There was another man there with him.
“Sonofabitch!”
I recognized the second man. I’d have known him anywhere. The epithet that had escaped my lips was as much my identification of him as an exclamation of surprise at meeting him here.
Charles Putnam!
“Sonofabitch!” I repeated it, leaving no doubt this time that I was addressing Putnam.
He ignored it. “Would you leave us alone please?” he courteously asked the black man with the salt-and-pepper hair.
“Of course.” The black man left us.
Putnam surveyed me with some distaste, drumming his fingers on the desk top. I looked back at him with similar feelings, unintimidated. Our paths had crossed before; I don’t know how many times.
Charles Putnam was a top-ranking, murkily defined official in the U.S. government. He had something to do with the State Department, something to do with the Foreign Service, and something to do with the coordination of diplomacy with Intelligence. All this gave him access to the services of the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other espionage and counterespionage organizations connected with the government. Administrations came and went, but Putnam remained, seeming to grow in secret stature and in the power he wielded. He had been involved in and survived the Bay of Pigs, the Southeast Asian incursions, Watergate, and other fiascos. He was ruthless in his dedication to his country and selfless in the sacrifice of his personal life to the national purpose.
I have never been able to decide whether he personified the inevitable evil of nationalism or the highest ideals of patriotism in a democracy. It was on the latter grounds that he had recruited me, from time to time, sometimes unwillingly, into his service. On those grounds, and with the sweetening of an extremely high fee paid by the taxpayers. Still, neither fee nor patriotism had ever convinced me that cooperation inevitably required me to lay my life on the line—the only life I have, that is. Which is why I was not too happy to see him at this time. I needed money and I knew I’d be tempted. My connection with O.R.G.Y. had made me valuable to him in the past, and I had a hunch he was out to recruit me again now. So I looked at him with a jaundiced eye.
Looking at Charles Putnam was always unsettling. Somehow, he was always out of focus. He was middle-aged and had steel-gray hair and gray eyes. His face was square and his body was square and athletic. He wore gray suits, conservative, and he must have had a closetful of them over the years, each the same as the other. His personality was just as gray as his looks.
“Just how much do you know about Nicholas Swillhouse Dickson?” Putnam asked for openers.
“What everybody knows.”
That was no small amount. Nick Dickson had been in public life for over thirty years. He’d been a congressman, a senator, a vice-president, and a President of the United States. He’d made history by the way in which he’d become an ex-President of the United States. (Not that it had actually been proved that either he, his elected vice-president, or any member of the presidential stall ever stole anything that was nailed down.)
“Let me add to your knowledge.” Putnam sucked his teeth, and then went on, picking his words carefully, “You didn’t know, I’m sure, that Dickson is currently living on an island right here in the Caribbean.”
I admitted I hadn’t known that.
“The island is owned by Dickson’s long-time friend and confidant, the multimillionaire PeePee Rococco6 .” (I knew without Putnam’s telling me that Rococco’s first name was pronounced the way it sounded. He’d been christened “Pepe,” but his older brother had consistently and accurately called him PeePee when he was a baby; the name had stayed with him through adulthood.) “Dickson’s family is there with him,” Putnam continued. “Rococco flies in and out regularly. The Prussian Siamese twins are there too.” (This referred to Dickson's former chief White House aides, a heel-clicking, crewcut, monocled pair of beefeaters named Hans Katzenjammer und Fritz Jammerkatzen7 . . . or was it Fritz Katzenjammer and Hans Jammerkatzen? . . . or maybe Hans Katzenkatzen und Fritz Jammerjammer? . .
“What about the other German?” I was curious. “Is he there too?”
“You obviously don’t read the papers, Mr. Victor.” Putnam was disapproving. “Of course Dr. Heinrich Bussinger8 isn’t there. He’s just been appointed to a high government post, so he’s out of favor with Dickson.
“A high government post? Appointed?” I was confused. “But what post could Bussinger be appointed to that would be higher than secretary of state?"
“Premier.”
“Of the United States?”
“Of course not. Of Russia. He’s been appointed premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics9 .”
“But how could he be? He’s an American.”
“A naturalized American!” Putnam pointed out. “And now he’s a naturalized Russian.”
“That’s carrying détente too far!” I decided. “And isn’t it dangerous to our country? With everything that Bussinger must know about the U.S. government, couldn’t he do a lot of harm as Premier of the Russians?”
“Yes.” Putnam agreed. “And even more dangerous is his knowledge of Nicholas Dickson and the uses to which he might put that knowledge.” Putnam scowled. “I’m going to have to be very honest with you, Mr. Victor. We’re afraid that under Bussinger’s guidance the Russians will try to buy Nick Dickson!”
“Well,” I granted, “he’s sure shown he can be bought.”
“Precisely. And picture if you will, Mr. Victor, just what the Russians might be getting for their money. The propaganda value alone! Think of a former U.S. President describing the inequities of the democratic-capitalist system to the commie countries and the Third World. Think of the effect on the morale at home where the scandals of his administration have already rocked the nation to its very foundations.”
“And think of the military secrets he might sell them,” I remembered.
“No use worrying about that,” Putnam told me. “Bussinger leaked them to the Russians a long time ago and blamed it on the Pentagon. Or was it vice versa?”
“I think it was the Joint Chiefs who stole that information,” I recalled. “The administration promoted the admiral—or whatever he was—responsible to keep him from leaking the stuff to the New York Times.”
“That’s right,” Putnam confirmed. “The Pentagon always knew the New York Times was a bigger threat than the Kremlin.” He made a wry face. “But we’re off the subject. The problem isn’t Bussinger so much as it is Dickson himself. And not just that he might sell out to the Russians, either. He’s also been Ping-Ponging on the q.t. with the Red Chinese. Our information is he’s dickering over a deal to tell them our top secret diplomatic arrangements with the South Vietnamese, the Indians, and the Russians. Do you know what that could do, Mr. Victor? That could plunge the world into atomic war!”