The American Ambassador (24 page)

“Yes,” he said.

“The industrialist was seen with a woman in a café near the cathedral. The woman was fashionably dressed, apparently a tourist. Their conversation was animated, according to witnesses. Then he vanished, no word at all for a week. Finally the family receives a letter, demanding money and the release of prisoners in—Chile?”

“Spain,” he said. “Basques.”

“Yes, of course. The letter allows forty-eight hours for compliance, obviously an impossible limit. No more messages, and a month later the body is found in a car near the Église Saint Thomas. The authorities believe the kidnapers, murderers now, were making a point: in the Église Saint Thomas lies the remains, the tomb, of Marshal Saxe. A neat twist. Kidnapers with a sense of humor.”

“What was the point, do you know?”

Max grinned broadly. “And in the past two years there are perhaps three other
aktions
that I read about in the newspaper and say to myself, that
sounds.
Like Gert! That sounds like Gert and her American friend, although various groups claim responsibility. Muslims, Irish, Italians, Dutch. The
aktions
, with the single exception of the industrialist—whose name was not known outside Strasbourg—are always directed against anonymous people. Soldiers in a café, an obscure government employee leaving his home, a second-level police official. And now I wonder when I will read about someone conspicuous. Someone whose name will be recognized, in Europe and in America. I wonder when that will be. And I wonder whether I will be pleasantly surprised. Whether it will be a positive step, an advance on our long march. Helpful or not helpful. At the present moment, I have no way of knowing.” He sighed, lifting his eyebrows, a bank clerk reviewing the paper on a bad loan. “So there is worry. There is concern about reliability. I mean the stability and integrity of your operation. One respects independence, that is foregone. It is a necessity. It is to be admired. But independence can become egoism, no? A group that operates without regard for comrades whose advice and counsel would be valuable—such a group is often a liability, because of the element of surprise. We are on the same side, after all.”

“Security is necessary,” he said.

“My people. They are smart people, they are not idiots. They have experience. They have knowledge that you, perhaps, do not possess. Despite your success. Perhaps because of your success. My people worry. They worry all the time.”

He nodded, indicating the point was understood.

“This has nothing to do with security. This has to do with control. You can call it consultation.”

“Well,” he began. The fat fool. Control and consultation. When you had control and consultation, you had no security. When there was a bureaucracy there was insecurity.

“One last question. So that I am in the picture. I want to ask you about Munich. This is the Munich of October 22, 1983. Munich was a cause for concern. It was a broken operation, that was how we saw it. How we pieced it together. And if the authorities had not been so stupid. If they had only believed their own eyes, my Gert would now be in custody. You, too, in all likelihood.”

“I am told there was bad timing.”

“Bad timing, yes. Bad timing.”

“Perhaps the watches were not synchronized.”

Max shook his head. “She arrived at the hotel room at exactly the wrong moment. The security guard opened the door. She said she had knocked at the wrong room. And that oaf, that idiot, did not press. Did not ask her which room she wanted. Did not ask her for identification. Did not ask her to explain herself. Who are you, Fraulein? What are you doing on this floor? May I see your identity card? What is your errand, at two in the afternoon? And may I look into your handbag, please? No, none of that. Not one question. He waved her away, and so she was able to leave the hotel undetected, and unidentified. And unsearched. And it was only later, when the oaf was obliged to make a report—” Max opened his mouth, a soundless laugh. It was as if the fate of Europe had been decided that afternoon. “And you, friend. Where were you when my Gert was knocking on the door of room 409?”

“Synchronizing the watches,” he said. Max had the story about three-quarters right. It was a broken operation, and they had been very lucky. Bad timing. Poor Gert.

“Not amusing,” Max said. “And as it happened, the target of that particular operation of yours. That target was not the correct target. I tell you that in all confidence. And in all sincerity. If your operation had succeeded, it would have been a great embarrassment, a gross error.”

That depends on who you talk to, he thought but did not say. They stared at each other, Max waiting for a reply. Bill thought, So this is what they are like, so formal, and so much withheld. But that was the essence of formality, after all. Well, he had longed to meet Max Mueller and now he had. The famous revolutionist: a man with hair in his ears and a weary voice. A European, he was certainly that: wary, pessimistic, conscious of form. He resembled a sentimental Bolshevik aristocrat, cranky, querulous, resentful that Stalin was dead, Trotsky forgotten, and party discipline obsolete. Intelligent, but very cautious, a man accustomed to following orders. His life would be a series of Chinese boxes, he would know the outside shape of things, but not what the boxes contained. A man who was perhaps not quite certain of his own place in the scheme of things. “My people.” Who were they? East Germans, Bulgarians, one of those two; with the Soviets manipulating the wires. Max Mueller would not understand about free-lance
aktion.
He would not understand a campaign where everything was personal, including the discipline. He said, “That depends on who you talk to.”

Max gave a little contemptuous wave of his hand, with a harsh sigh,
pah
, Maria Theresa dismissing a courtier's limp explanation.

Bill smiled. He was beginning to like Max Mueller. He said, “About Munich. There are one or two facts you don't know. Maybe your people know, though I doubt it. I don't have the feeling that your people go very far below the surface of things. For example”—he decided to throw one pebble into the pond, to watch Max react—“the oaf is not an oaf.”

“It is not good to argue,” Max said.

“It is a question of point of view, the selection of the target.”

Max shook his head again. “A disturbing attitude, that is what I mean. That is what worries my people.”

“Your people worry me, Max.”

“Yes?”

“Their caution. Their insistence on discipline, but only their discipline. Their fondness for hired guns. Too many wheels within wheels, your people miss opportunities, on account of the bureaucracy. You're like the American Pentagon, you're muscle-bound. You're not flexible. You approach every operation like Desert One, and you fuck it up.”

Max laughed, amused and amazed. “You are quite wrong about that. We would never, never have executed a Desert One. Never.”

He said, “You never move at the propitious time, and at the other end of the scale—I take your point about Desert One, though you are wrong—you're terrified of failure. You won't move until the odds are one hundred to one and then someone says, Wait a minute. Too risky. Let's wait until the odds are two hundred to one. You want the error factor to be zero, and it never is. You have too many people and they talk too much. They talk to each other, and sooner or later the word gets around. Your people are dangerous. Dangerous to us, Gert and me. How do you think it is that I know about you. That I knew where to reach you, and how?” Max hesitated. “From Gert.”

“Not from Gert. You know better than that.”

“Well,” he said.

“Christ, Max. If you think that, you're really stupid.”

Max colored, and raised a warning finger.

“Gert does not
understand.
She does not understand things in that way.” He looked at Max, tense now. “Word is around, and I heard it. And I acted on it.”

“I am in all the dossiers,” Max said.

“Some, not all. And the information in them is wrong.”

“Yes,” Max said.

“Would you like chapter and verse?”

“No,” he said.

“Your people are too old. No offense, Max. But your people do not understand the situation as I do. They do not understand the Americans, and how the Americans react to a breakdown of order. I could read you the new regulations from the Department of State. I have them in my possession. Your people would dismiss these regulations as of no interest, obvious, in some ways amusing. They have to do with personal security of diplomats. New procedures for the protection of embassies, the families of diplomats. Who is assigned bodyguards, who isn't. They know that these measures are cosmetic only, more irritating to them than to us. And the idea is to keep them irritated, off-balance, uncertain, weary, and afraid. And angry.” As he spoke he paced the room. Max's eyes never left him. “Now we need help, Gert and I.”

“I will have to know details.”

He said, “No details.”

“Not every detail. But I will have to know the main lines. Surely that is understandable. It is normal. What do you expect from us, a blank check?”

“Yes,” he said.

“That is impossible.”

“I need four passports, two for me and two for Gert. American and German for me, German and French for Gert. Expiration dates two years from right now. I need two cars, one with German registry, one with French, rental cars, Avis. They try harder. The German car I want to pick up in Cologne, the French in Paris. I also need money, but that's less important. One can always find money in Europe during the tourist season.”

Max was silent a moment. “It takes time.”

“Two weeks, Comrade. Surely you can do it in two weeks.”

There was silence between them while Max thought, his eyes closed. He seemed almost to be dozing. “There was a report that you met your father in Hamburg, Your mother and father, a few years ago, that you met them and had a conversation. This is a report that we have and I must know if it is true.”

“It is true,” he said.

“You had them taken to your apartment?”

“An apartment. Not mine.”

“Gert was there?”

“No.”

“You talked for an hour, the three of you.”

“Ninety minutes.”

“Why? Why did you do this?”

“Why I did it is my business. Say I wanted to see them again. You can say that in your report.”

“You see,” Max said, “again. Again, this raises questions. It raises questions about stability. Such a meeting was not wise. It was dangerous to do such a thing. And its purpose is unclear and that, too, raises questions.”

“Everything worked out fine.” He smiled. “We had a full and frank exchange of views.”

“Herr North.” Exasperated.

“And our security—my security, and Gert's, and the security of our people—is for me to decide.”

“How many people are there. Under your supervision. Whose security is your responsibility?” There was no answer, as Max knew there wouldn't be. “What I am suggesting is that you are not an independent government.”

“Yes, I am,” he said. “That's the point.”

“It is not good to argue,” Max said.

He said, “Passports and cars.”

“I must know the details.”

“You don't want to know them.”

“Those are my orders. I will speak to my people. I will tell them what has been said here. What you have said, and what you haven't said. That is all I can do. They will decide.”

“How many people, Max? How large a meeting will it be? Two people, five? Ten? A ministry? And how many stenographers, and where will the transcripts go?”

“That is foolish,” he said.

“Well, Max. I can get the goods elsewhere.”

“Then why don't you? Why do you come to me, knowing that an explanation will be required? Surely you know that.”

“I thought it was time we met. I thought it was time we sat across the tea table face to face, got to know each other. To see if there was mutual confidence, and understanding. Your experience has been very different from mine. I wanted to see if we were on the same side, given our different experience, our backgrounds. What is to be done? I wanted to see what you looked like, your manner. The authority that you have. The questions you would ask. I do not know very many from your generation.” As he looked at him, he knew they could never work together; they were out of synch, and would always be out of synch. Perhaps it was a question also of nationality. Max Mueller had too much of the wrong kind of experience, too many failures, too many disappointments, too many after-the-fact justifications. Too much ideology, too little passion; too much history. He still distinguished between ends and means, failing to understand that the means were the ends; often the means were more expressive, more elegant, than the ends. Poor Max, he had ceased to appreciate possibilities, and his pessimism was infectious. He put his hand on the older man's shoulder. “And of course because of Gert,” he said.

“I need to know the main lines of your operation,” Max said.

He said abruptly, “Let's take a walk.”

Max hesitated, then rose slowly. “What about Gert?”

He said, “I'll see to Gert. You wait.” He smiled reassuringly and stepped into the bathroom. Gert was standing in the shower stall in the darkness. He could hear her breathing. He kissed her lightly and said they were going, would be gone for an hour, no more. They were taking a walk, he and her father. He and Max together, as they had planned. He repeated the words, and then he watched her nod. He lowered his voice and asked if she understood what she had to do when they left the apartment. She smiled brilliantly, and kissed him. He walked back to the living room.

Max was staring out the window, his expression thoughtful.