The Wilson Deception (15 page)

 

W
ith the Metro closed for the May Day demonstrations, Fraser hired a taxi to take him to the Crillon. The taxi's progress stalled more than a mile from the hotel, the streets choked with excited people eager to make their voices heard after four years of compelled patriotism. Fraser paid the driver and set off on foot.

For the first several blocks, the demonstrators seemed cheerful, more like springtime revelers heading to a maypole dance than proletarians seething with resentment over the class struggle. He passed a group of smiling men who were pinning flowers on each other's lapels. The spirit rivaled that of the day in December, four months before, when Paris greeted President Wilson.

The mood began to shift as Fraser neared the Place de la Concorde. There were fewer women and no children at all. The faces looked harder. Strides seemed more determined. Some men carried wooden clubs poorly concealed in sleeves or inside waistbands. Fraser wondered what other weapons nestled under jackets and coats or inside boots. He shifted his leather at-taché case, which he had slung over his shoulder, so it rested against the front of his body. Then he casually draped his arm across it, hoping to frustrate anyone thinking to pluck it off his shoulder.

Flags, large ones, waved above the sea of heads. Black for anarchism. Red for socialism. A few French tricolors. The flagstaffs would be good weapons in brawls like the ones that were flaring in Germany and so many other countries. Voices shouted out slogans that sank, indistinct, into the crowd's rising roar. Gendarmes stood anxiously in pairs at every corner.

Looking down cross streets, Fraser could see companies of soldiers formed in ranks. At some streets, nervous cavalry horses stood in ragged lines, stamping and snorting, their muscles twitching.

He now had to weave around groups that listened to angry soapbox speakers. Chants welled up, staking out martial rhythms. Fraser realized his uniform would provide little protection when a melee broke out. A uniform might even attract violence from these demonstrators.

A chant began to dominate the crowd, one he could make out. “Down with the government! Down with the government.” Just two blocks ahead, the street spilled into the plaza. He brushed against shoulders as he squeezed through the crowd, nodding and keeping a mild expression on his face. With a last lunge, turning sideways, he made it to the Crillon's side entrance. He tried the handle, but it was locked. He shook the handle. He pounded on the door. There must be someone on the other side. No response.

The crowd was a solid mass between him and the plaza. There was nothing to do but push. Muttering “Pardon” and “
excusez-moi
” as an incantation, he started the effort. His progress was slow. At the corner of the hotel, he could see that the demonstrators had surged around the captured German howitzers that stood in phalanx on the immense square. The chant had died out, overcome by a deep, angry din. Individual cries bounced over it all. The roar washed over him then receded, like the ocean beating against a shore. Even voices close to him dissolved in the welter of sound. Cavalry was massing at the plaza's western end, to the left of the Crillon, at the Champs-Élysées. Those horses were restless, too. Their helmeted riders, headgear molded into a forward-leaning crest, kept their eyes forward, their faces blank. Fraser's heart began to pound. Then his ears did. He couldn't look away.

A cry cut through the uproar, clear and ringing, though individual words flew by. The troopers drew their sabers. They shouldered the weapons. Fraser turned. With new urgency, he pushed toward the hotel's front. Demonstrators flowed past him in the other direction, away from the cavalry. He snatched a glance. The line of horses was advancing. With a final heave, he reached the Crillon entrance, which was ringed by uniformed bellmen. Here, his army uniform worked. Two bellmen made room for him to pass. He hurried up the steps into the lobby.

The eerie quiet inside was unsettling. He straightened his uniform and checked that Violet's camera was intact. Cook was leaning in the doorway to the bar, which was empty behind him. He gave a slight shrug in Fraser's direction. Fraser strode briskly past him, heading for the rear of the hotel where the public restrooms were. He planned to take the rear stairs to Dulles' room on the fourth floor.

 

Lansing and his nephews each stood before a different window that overlooked the great plaza.

“My God, Foster,” Allen called to his brother. “Look at those splendid fellows. It's rather like watching the Princeton line as it marches down the field against Yale.”

“Yes, but Princeton doesn't use swords.”

“More's the pity. Then again, Yale doesn't use clubs and rocks, though they doubtless would if they could get away with it.”

Lansing cleared his throat but kept his eyes on the spectacle below. The troopers were swinging their heavy sabers, crashing them down on the demonstrators. For the most part, they used the flats of the swords against heads. The demonstrators had retreated fifty yards or so. Now they were so compressed they had nowhere to go.

“If you boys would abandon your schoolboy comparisons,” Lansing said, “you might take note of the historical moment before you. There”—he held his arms out, his voice sinking to a sepulchral level—“writhes the animal that threatens civilization, this beast of revolution, long-toothed and bloody.” He shook his head. “It has fed on the credulous and the feebleminded in Russia and Hungary. In the streets of Germany, in Egypt. Even in China. Everywhere, fools are on fire with this hateful philosophy of overturning the world, putting those on the bottom on the top. It's a form of madness.”

“Uncle,” Allen said with a wry smile, “aren't you being a bit melodramatic? This is France. Every time they have a war with Germany they finish it off with a dust-up among themselves.”

“Wait until this beast slinks into New York and St. Louis. You may no longer find me melodramatic.”

“Look!” Foster pointed down at the plaza.

The cavalry's advance had stalled. Some horses shied and reared. The troopers, many shouting at once, withdrew. They reformed their line. They started again at a brisker pace, swinging their sabers in a more determined manner, crashing against the wall of bodies. Many demonstrators turned and tried to flee, only to find themselves trapped. Some fell and slipped from sight, pinned to the unforgiving stones. Others fought back, swinging clubs and heavy tools against the troopers, grabbing at their legs to drag them down. A riderless horse, eyes wild, screamed and sprinted toward the Champs-Élysées.

When shots rang out, the crowd roar grew, fueled with fear and rage. The cavalry reformed its line, advanced again.

Allen, transfixed by the struggle, pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch. “Rats.” He gave the pouch an irritated glance. Empty. He walked to the door to the corridor. “Be back in a jiff,” he called over his shoulder. “Just getting tobacco.”

“For heaven's sake, Allie,” Lansing said without taking his eyes from the plaza. “Have a cigar if you must smoke. This is history unfolding before us.”

“I've been watching history unfold for the last four months, and a depressing spectacle it is. Won't be a moment.”

 

F
raser stopped to catch his breath at the fourth floor landing. The stress and long hours at the hospital had taken some pounds off his middle, but they hadn't done much for his stamina. Or his nerves.

When his chest stopped heaving, he peered into the hotel corridor. Cook had sketched a layout of the hotel for him. Dulles' room, Number 471, was on the back side, around the corner from the stairwell. A suitably inconspicuous location for a spy, an apparently junior functionary like Dulles. The corridor seemed deserted. With the demonstration lapping the sides of the building, most of the American staffers should have sought quieter quarters for the day. He was definitely hoping Allen Dulles had. To get to Number 471, he would have to turn one corner from the stairwell, a total distance of maybe forty feet. Thirteen strides? He took a breath and fingered the room key in his pocket. He stole another look into the corridor, checking both directions. He stepped out.

As Fraser rounded the corner, the door to Number 471 swung open. Dulles emerged from the room, then reached back to check the lock behind him. A startle reflex caused a hitch in Fraser's stride. Then he picked up again. Dulles looked up as Fraser approached. The younger man smiled.

“Major Fraser, you're on the wrong side of the building if you want to see the excitement.”

Fraser stopped, straining to keep the panic in his mind from contorting his face or clotting his voice. He tried for a befuddled look. “Ah, Mr. Dulles.” He looked up and down the corridor. “Say, I was looking for Major Barrett. We were to meet here in the Crillon, but he wasn't downstairs. And with the staff out defending against the unwashed hordes, I can't find anyone who knows his room number.”

“Barrett? Barrett?” Dulles cocked a hip and looked off reflectively. “Can't place him.”

“He's a gray-headed fellow, an old duffer like me. He's been detailed from the medical corps to Mr. Hoover's program, the food relief.”

“Hoover, yes, good man, doing the Lord's work. Although those surly louts out on the plaza could make a fellow swear off feeding the hungry for the foreseeable future.” Dulles looked curious. “You were meeting today? Surely you knew that this was the day for Mother France to eat her young.”

Fraser was growing comfortable with his lie. He decided to be garrulous, a harmless doctor beyond his best years. “That was certainly foolish. May Day isn't such a commotion back home. I need his advice on the medical corps demobilization, you know, how do we all get home when the peace is signed—bringing the Army of Occupation back from the Rhine? I guess he's been diverted by the crowds.”

Dulles grinned. “You've got ample time for your planning, as I'm beginning to wonder whether the treaty will be signed in my lifetime. Why don't you come watch the festivities with us? Uncle Bert has a front-row pew, and you don't want to be out on the plaza just now.”

Seeing little alternative, Fraser agreed. Why the devil, he wondered, had Speed shrugged when Fraser passed through the lobby? If Cook knew Dulles was in the building, a shrug didn't get that message across.

Moments after Fraser and Dulles strode down the hall together, a small figure in British khaki emerged from a room across from No. 471. He moved quickly and resolutely. With a room key, he let himself into Dulles' room and quietly closed the door behind him. Once inside, his bright blue eyes lit on the papers strewn on the desk. He began to sift through them, sorting them into piles. The pile closest to him held papers dealing with Syria, Palestine, and the petroleum of Mesopotamia. There were more than he had dared to hope.

 

The arrival of Fraser and Allen Dulles drew little attention in the office of the Secretary of State, as all eyes were trained on the violence on the plaza. Fraser and Allen stood before the room's third window.

“The shooting's stopped.” Lansing said. He pointed to his left. “You can see there, the army seems to have matters in hand.”

For more than a minute, the four men watched without remark. The struggle was now at the plaza's eastern end. Horses and sabers, wielded with a furious discipline, were driving the demonstrators back into the streets of the city. Fraser couldn't make out individuals in the writhing mass that retreated from the Crillon. Troop trucks idled before the hotel, loading up with arrested demonstrators who shouted defiance despite bound hands and bleeding skulls. A few scrambled over the German howitzers, leaping from one to the other in a perilous fashion that no sane person would try. Some figures, in random groups around the plaza, crouched over bodies on the ground. Not far from the hotel, two bodies lay unattended.

Fraser had seen street violence, once a race riot nearly twenty years before. At least this clash grew out of political disagreements over principles and values, not raw prejudice and hatred. The result, though, was depressingly similar. Broken heads. Broken bodies.

“Gentlemen,” Fraser said suddenly, “I'm a physician. I must go down and offer whatever aid I can provide.”

Allen Dulles looked up. “Of course you must,” he said, then gave a small smile. “Please give my regards to your charming daughter. And when you get out there on the plaza, do see to the injured troopers first. They are, after all, playing for our side.”

Mumbling insincere apologies for his abrupt departure, Fraser left. Once free of the Dulles clan, he dove into a stairwell. He reclimbed two flights, then again paused to gather his breath and wits.

At No. 471, he used the key to let himself in and began to pull Violet's camera from his case. Then he froze.

“For heaven's sake,” said the small man standing at the desk, glancing over his shoulder. “Close the door behind you or we'll have the whole city in here.”

Fraser did as instructed.

As the man returned his attention to the papers on the desk, he said, “Clever, you. You must have ditched Dulles and doubled back. As you see,” he airily waved a hand, “I caught a ride on your coattails. I am shocked, though, at this hotel's inability to protect its room keys. I wonder who else has one.”

Fraser still couldn't move. “Colonel Lawrence?”

This caused Lawrence to twist toward Fraser. “Do I know you?” He squinted. “I have no memory for faces. You will have to tell me who you are, though I would understand if you would prefer not to, in view of the . . . situation.” The airy wave again. He returned to the papers on the desk.

“I'm Major James Fraser, a doctor. I looked at your friend, Sykes, some weeks ago, when he was ill.”

Lawrence didn't look up. “Unspeakable, that.” He continued to sift papers. “Let's not speak of it.” He turned back to Fraser. “Please don't just stand there gawking. We're both here on secret missions. Bloody awkward, eh?”

Fraser remained silent.

“I suggest cooperation. Or at least mutual discretion.”

Fraser nodded.

“Fine. You look at that lot.” Lawrence pointed to a pile of papers on a divan across from the bed. “I'll finish with these.” His attention back on his work, he continued. “I'm looking for connections between England's petroleum lords and the American government . . . or the English government or the French government, for that matter. Anything concerned with American attitudes toward an independent Arab nation.”

Fraser, beginning to move toward the divan, said nothing. He thought he had planned this excursion carefully, but this was the second unexpected development. He never imagined encountering a fellow intruder, certainly not one willing to make common cause. Nothing to do about it now. He couldn't allow himself to think about the risks he was taking, how inexplicable this was. Just do what he came for and leave.

“Excellent,” Lawrence said. “I infer from your silence that you're bored by the subjects of interest to me. And what do you seek?”

Fraser didn't feel ready to answer that question.

Lawrence continued. “I'm willing to keep an eye out for what you need, get us both out of here more quickly, which would be to the advantage of us both.”

Fraser made up his mind as he picked up the papers on the divan. “Dulles may have an agent on the staff of the president's residence, though that may be hard to credit—”

“You mean the black boy? I saw something about it in that pile.” He gestured at another group of papers in the desk chair. “Slightly surprising, that.”

Fraser moved to that pile and looked desperately for any reference to Sergeant Joshua Cook. He found a memorandum to the file that mentioned neither Joshua nor John Barnes, but did refer to him by position and description. He positioned the paper on a window sill, then turned on a lamp. He pulled the camera out.

Lawrence had finished the papers on the desk. “What a very wise precaution. I feel rather stupid not to have thought of it. This is not my ordinary run of business. Perhaps you would return the favor by taking photos of the pages I need?” When Fraser hesitated, Lawrence added, “Major, we can cause each other great misery or not. I suggest not.”

Fraser examined the camera and tried to recall Violet's instructions. “Of course, Colonel. Just bring them over here to the light.”