Pay Any Price Page 3

“If I ever say Nancy Rawlins to you, you’ll go to sleep like this and do everything I say.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never go to any other doctor but me. If you want me for anything, wherever you are you phone Washington 547–9077 and ask for Joe Spellman. If I’m not there you leave your telephone number and I’ll get straight back to you. If I can’t see you I’ll tell you who to see. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me the number and the name.”

  “Washington 547–9077. Joe Spellman.”

  “Good girl. Now I’m going to wake you up and you won’t remember any of this. Wake up when I’ve counted from ten to one. Here we go … ten, nine, eight … you’re beginning to wake … seven, six … lighter and lighter … five, four … you’re waking up and you feel fine … three, two … open your eyes … one. Now you’re awake.” He paused as her eyes fluttered open. He smiled. “How do you feel, kid?”

  She smiled. “Fine. What about the injection?”

  “You’ve had it, sweetie.” He stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow. A nurse is coming over to look after you. So sleep tight.”

  “I’m glad you’re the doctor. That was really a lucky break for me.”

  “See you tomorrow and sleep well.”

  3

  As the warning lights went on Boyd fastened his seat-belt. He wasn’t looking forward to his assignment in Washington. Liaison officer between the CIA and SIS was worse than any field operation. If you got on well with the CIA then London began to be suspicious that you were taking the easy way out. Keeping in with the Americans. If the CIA hinted that they weren’t happy with you London went through the motions of urging you to try harder. Probably going along with Langley’s criticisms but urging patience and forbearance. Both sides’ assessment of your usefulness was based on whether they thought you were helping them get away with more than they should. There were no winners in the Langley job. Just a question of losers, bad losers, or ineffectives. Somebody had once said that if CIA/ SIS liaison in Washington ended up with his guts hated by both organizations it was the nearest you could get to knowing that the job had been well done. There was only one consolation. Unless you really made a genuine hash of things there was automatic promotion when you returned to London.

  Twenty minutes later he gathered up his hold-all from under the seat and joined the queue for the exit. At the bottom of the steps a man in a blue suit touched his arm. “Boyd?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name’s Schultz. Otto Schultz. Langley. I’ve told them to clear your bags straight through. I thought we could have a meal here at the airport and then I’ll take you home.”

  “Thanks. Isn’t it a bit late to keep you working?”

  Schultz smiled and reached for Boyd’s hold-all. “Not this particular night. Maybe you’d forgotten. It’s election day here and we’ll all be staying up for the results on the tube.”

  “Of course. When I got my travel orders I noticed that I’d be arriving on the day but it had slipped my mind.”

  Schultz smiled. “Let’s go and eat first. It’s not a bad restaurant.”

  They chatted mild “shop” until the coffee was served, when Schultz said, “There’s nothing in our background stuff on you about a wife. Is there one?”

  Boyd shook his head. “No. I’m afraid not. Not even a steady girl-friend.” He grinned. “But to save them the trouble of finding out, I’m not queer either.”

  Schultz made no pretence of not being interested in Boyd’s statement but he smiled and said, “We’ll have to see if we can’t fix you up over here.” He waved to the waitress and signalled that he wanted his bill. “Meantime let’s go back to my place. We’re putting you up in the spare room for tonight and we’ll talk about something permanent tomorrow.”

  Boyd was introduced to Patsy, Schultz’s wife, and four friends who had come round for election-night drinks.

  By 10.30 local time it looked as if Kennedy was a landslide winner and Patsy turned to Boyd. “You must be tired, Jimmy. Don’t stand on ceremony. Just go off to bed as soon as you feel like it.”

  Boyd looked at Schultz. “Are you going to stay on, Otto?”

  “Yes. It matters to Langley who wins. And Kennedy’s only picked up what he could expect so far. The ball-game’s not over by a long way yet.”

  By midnight it looked as if Schultz was wrong. Kennedy’s margin by then was over two million and the first returns from Los Angeles County looked as if California was falling to the Democrats. But by 3 A.M. it was certain that Nixon was going to take more states than Kennedy.

  They were having breakfast when Schultz came back from the telephone. Their guests had left and Patsy was in bed. As Schultz slumped down at the table, reaching for the black coffee he said, “That was a call from the office. They just heard that the Secret Service team has moved into the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport. That means they already know that he’s won.”

  “Does it matter to Langley who wins?”

  “You bet it does. It matters a lot.”

  “Who were they hoping for?”

  Schultz shrugged. “Not the one we got.”

  “Why not?”

  The American leaned back in his chair until it creaked. “The Republicans are professionals. They want law and order maintained so that big business can get on with the job. Kennedy has got his support from the students, the blacks and the Southern States that Lyndon Johnson brought him. We’re never going to know where we are with Kennedy. He wants to look good and that isn’t what makes a good president so far as Langley’s concerned.”

  “Does that influence your personal vote?”

  Schultz laughed drily. “No way. I voted for Kennedy. When all the votes are in you’ll find that it was damn nearly fifty-fifty between him and Nixon. How about we get some sleep and I’ll take you in to the office late this afternoon.”

  “I can carry on if you want.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Sure I do.”

  Schultz nodded approvingly. “Fine. Let’s go. I’ll introduce you to a few people you’ll be working with apart from me.”

  The snow started falling on the streets of Washington about mid-day and by the time the office- and shop-workers were heading home the streets were covered, and all through the evening the snow fell relentlessly, building up until, by mid-evening, the District lay frozen and gripped under a carpet of ice and snow.

  Soldiers were using flamethrowers to melt the ice around the inauguration stand and, as the snow still fell, open fires were lit along the Mall in an attempt to keep it clear for vehicles.

  President-elect Kennedy and his wife were attending a concert in Constitutional Hall and they were not back in their Georgetown home until 3.30 A.M. Ten minutes later the snow abated but the icy-cold wind from the Potomac and the Tidal Basin was whippingup frozen snow that stung the faces of the troops who had just come on duty. It was the early hours of Friday the 20th of January. Inauguration Day.

  By noon that day there were still ten degrees of frost, but the crowds had assembled despite the punishing cold. At 12.30 John F. Kennedy appeared on the stand and the crowd cheered their man and the thought that they could soon be back in the warm. But Cardinal Cushing was not the man to forego the opportunity of such an important convocation. As he spoke the sun came out to camouflage the cold. At 12.51 Chief Justice Warren administered the oath.

  The President stood there, hatless and coatless, the harsh wind whipping at his hair, leaning forward, a posture that was to become familiar, to emphasize his words, and as he spoke into the microphones the Boston accent seemed suddenly to represent and symbolize the vigour of a new style of administration.

  “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans … unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and abroa
d … Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty …”

  34,221,463 of his fellow Americans had voted for their new-generation President. And those who watched knew that they had got what they wanted … a knight in shining armour who spoke political poetry not prose. Better even than Lincoln.

  In 1960 there were only thirty-five convictions in US courts for offences connected with organized crime, but after John F. Kennedy became President of the United States and his brother Robert became Attorney-General there were hundreds of such convictions. Apart from the growing staff of lawyers and field investigators there was a special group known as the “Get Hoffa squad.” No attempt was made to hide the fact that the Kennedy brothers had declared war on organized crime, and in the slow war of attrition there were signs not only that they were winning but that the syndicates knew it. The Mafia leaders and the men they controlled were not intelligent men. Their thinking was always crude and obvious. Violence, murder, money and sex were their only weapons, and their experience had proved that these primitive weapons always worked.

  Senators, Congressmen, judges, lawyers, police-chiefs and tycoons were men. Their motivations were much the same as those of the Mafia bosses. Power, status, money and good living. Rich men lusted after yet more money or power, and simpler men who sat on judges’ benches rationalized their pay-offs as little more than reasonable enhancements of their inadequate pensions. And for all manner of men there was the awareness that their Mafia contacts could fix anything, anywhere. You had only to ask and it was delivered.

  It was always Christmas with the Mafia, and you didn’t have to know how it was fixed, whether it was tickets for the big fight or a pretty young blonde for the weekend. They arrived on time and they were always the best. And those were just the crumbs. The votes or the money were the protein at the feast. And you didn’t have to do much to earn it. A word in an influential ear, a vote against unfriendly legislation, a liberal attitude on the bench to an “accidental” homicide, a word to a city gambling board when an application for another casino was meeting opposition. You could easily convince yourself, if you wanted to, that the Mafia was only the working boys’ version of the Ivy League.

  There was a feeling too, amongst the racketeers, that the Kennedys themselves were a kind of Mafia. They looked after their own; and who had more patronage to dispense than the President of the United States? But one thing they recognized for sure. The Kennedys weren’t looking for money. They’d already got more than they needed.

  There were many meetings in luxury hotel suites and lush casino offices about how to deal with the Kennedys, where all the traditional weapons of suborning the influential were discussed. Only money was excluded from the considerations. The Kennedys were rich but this generation of Kennedys wasn’t greedy. And they didn’t need anything fixed. The President of the United States, whoever he was, commanded all the fixing that the mob had to pay millions of dollars for. But there must be something. Every man had his price. It was just a question of working out what it was.

  Sam Giancana was the Mafia capo in Philadelphia and when he appeared before the McLellan Committee he did them the honour of removing his dark glasses. There was nothing wrong with his eyesight and his glasses no longer gave him any protection against being recognized. His big nose, the wide, thin-lipped mouth, and the restless eyes were instantly recognized by all who had reason to fear or hate him. As he sat with his lawyer he was concerned that the cameras should show him as being completely at ease. There was no reason why they shouldn’t, because he was completely at ease. He tried to make that clear by probing with his tongue at his yellowed teeth, his mouth half open as he listened to the committee’s counsel reading another long statement of evidence before putting yet another question.

  Giancana’s shifty eyes wandered along the line of committee members and settled on their senior counsel as he turned over to the last page. There was no doubt he was a good-looking fellow, with a round face that reminded Giancana of those plump puzzi on the church ceiling back in Palermo. But he wasn’t as good-looking as his brother, the President. The older man had what the media called charisma. Giancana reckoned that he too had charisma even if he wasn’t as handsome as Jack Kennedy.

  Then his lawyer’s elbow brought him back from his daydreaming. “He asked you a question, Sam.”

  Giancana said loudly and with sincerity, “I respectfully decline to answer under the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that an answer might tend to incriminate me.”

  Bobby Kennedy glanced briefly at the cameras then back to Giancana.

  “Mr. Giancana. Do you realize that you have pleaded the Fifth Amendment in response to thirty-one questions from this committee?”

  Giancana shrugged, smiling amiably. “If you say so, counsellor.”

  Kennedy wasn’t smiling. “Would you tell us, if you have any opposition from anybody, that you dispose of them by having them stuffed in a trunk? Is that what you do, Mr. Giancana?”

  When Giancana sat silent Kennedy picked up the next statement and started to read it aloud. And in that moment Sam Giancana had what he thought was an inspiration.

  In the morning, before the Las Vegas sun was scorching the dusty city, the cavalcade went out to the Sahara Country Club, and the President drove the first ball off at the first tee and handed the driver to Frank Sinatra. It was a pro-amateur match in aid of charity and the driver was to be auctioned later in the clubhouse.

  In the early evening the President spent almost an hour at the University of Nevada and then went on to Paradise Road and the Convention Center to start the basketball game. Two hours later he was back at the University campus, but this time in a tuxedo and black tie for the concert in the Judy Bayley Theater. It was an Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber programme, but the promoters had been aware of the fact that John F. Kennedy could be restive at orchestral concerts and they had included a lush piece of Korngold to go with the Adagio for Strings before the interval. But despite this, anxious eyes noticed that the President was paying rather more attention to the pretty, dark-haired girl sitting two seats along from him than to the all-American music.

  In the interval one of his aides made the usual diplomatic excuses about the war injury to his back, and the President was driven to the airport where Airforce One was waiting for him. A different but equally diplomatic aide made out a press pass for the pretty, dark-haired girl who now sat with the secretaries and radio operators in the main cabin. She had been granted a half-hour interview with the President in his private quarters on the plane. She made no notes because she wasn’t a journalist, but in her handbag was a torn page from a diary, with the President’s direct-line telephone number.

  For several months Boyd helped smooth out the routine snags that occurred between the two stylistically different intelligence organizations as they placed their differing emphases on one aspect or another of joint operations. And translated the objectives of one to the other when their intentions appeared to be in conflict. But it wasn’t until mid-April of the following year that a serious problem arose. Schultz called Boyd at his apartment and they met in the Washington Hilton for a drink.

  “We need your help, Jimmy. You’ll have guessed what it’s about.”

  “The newspaper headlines. Cuba.”

  “Yep. It’s a total disaster. I saw the situation reports coming in during the night. Everything that could go wrong went wrong in spades.”

  “I doubt if we can do much in that area.”

  “That isn’t where we need the help. The President’s going berserk. Blaming it all on the CIA.”

  “Wasn’t it a CIA operation?”

  “Sure it was. Eisenhower gave the go-ahead and Kennedy had to pick it up when he took over. But he made it into a half-assed operation. Took away air-cover and resources. He knows that he’s got to carry the can in
public but behind the scenes he’s gonna chop off heads. And most of them will be CIA heads. And the Kennedys aren’t just sticking to the Cuban mess. They’re gonna settle a lot of old scores with that as the excuse.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell your people that a good word for us in the White House right now will get London a lot of cooperation in the future. It’s raining blood in Langley and it’s gonna get worse in the next few days. Every country in the world is going to enjoy hauling us over the coals in the United Nations. OK, we can take it, but if somebody doesn’t stop what’s going on in the CIA at the moment the damage is going to take ten, maybe fifteen years to repair.”

  “What exactly do you want?”

  “A phone call to the White House from somebody right at the top in Westminster. No need to pull any punches, but just pointing out that life has to go on, and damage to the CIA is damage to the whole of the free world.”

  “That’s hardly likely to make them stop putting Langley through the mincer.”

  “I know that. All we ask is that the White House stop in their tracks for just five minutes and think about what they’ll do when they’ve carved up Langley.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But it won’t be the PM, he’s far too shrewd for that. Maybe Selwyn Lloyd or Lord Home could be persuaded. It would be as individuals, not officially.”

  “That’s OK. Just so that somebody makes them stop and think.”

  “I’ll go to the embassy now and use their radio.”

  “Can you let me know the reaction when you get any?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  A senior British Minister with an American wife found reason to visit the Washington embassy and had ten minutes with Bobby Kennedy after a theatre party, and the ambassador himself said a few words to the President while delivering the British government’s top-secret report on the Soviet Union’s launching of its first manned space-rocket. Neither approach made any perceptible difference but Langley noted the attempts and were grateful.