12

LET ME DESCEND FROM THE HEIGHTS OF HARLOT’S CONFIDENCE IN ME TO the low information of how I spent my working day. If I had finished training with high hopes for my immediate future, having spent many a night at the Farm discussing the best station to be sent to; if the merits of Vienna and Singapore and Buenos Aires and Ankara and Moscow, Teheran, Tokyo, Manila, Prague, Budapest, Nairobi, and Berlin had been weighed for their qualities as the most lively spot for commencing one’s career, I, in common with most of my class, was assigned to a job in Washington, D.C.

Then came another disappointment. I was not selected for any of the foreign desks. That was the usual prelude to getting an overseas post. An assistant to the Iran Desk in Washington could assume he was learning the ropes for Teheran. Ditto for the Congo Desk and the Japanese, the Polish Desk, and the Chilean. It was generally agreed among Junior Officer Trainees at the Farm that if you had to begin in Washington, Assistant to the Desk Officer was the best job.

Now, I was not an ambitious young politician, but I had enough of my mother’s social sense to know I had been invited to the wrong party. I landed in the Snake Pit, also known as the Boiler Room and/or the Coal Bin. On an unrewarding job, synonyms proliferate. In a huge room whose fluorescent lights droned away under a relatively low ceiling, in the very small draft of a few modest air conditioners situated in little windows on a far-off wall, we bumped and maneuvered around one another down aisles that were always too narrow for their human traffic. It was hot, unseasonably hot for October. On either side, six feet high, were old-fashioned wooden cabinets with shelves and file boxes.

We had a Document Room next door, a large chamber stuffed with stacks of papers as yet unfiled. The stacks grew to the ceiling. The names encountered in each pamphlet, station report, agent report, magazine reference, newspaper reference, trade journal, or book were supposed to be set down on a card with a summary of the information contained. After which, the card could be filed, and the document stored more permanently. The theory at the core of such labors was to be able to look at all the information available on any person the Company might be interested in. By such means, telling profiles could be formed.

It was chaos, however. Documents accumulated faster than we could card them. The Western Hemisphere Division was soon six months behind their tower of paper in the Document Room; Soviet Russia was four months back; China (given the difficulty of ideograms) a year and a half. For West Germany, to which I was assigned, only three months were in arrears. It was enough, nonetheless, to bring stress to every endeavor. I spent much of my time squeezing my way down aisles, or wiggling my fingers into a file box. Once in a while, there was honest panic. One morning, for instance, the Chief of Base in West Berlin sent a cable requesting vital information on one VQ/WILDBOAR. Since hordes of such requests came in, and the turnover of personnel at my low level was considerable, such chores were assigned by lot—you took the cable on the top of the pile at the Incoming Queries Desk.

Then you worked your way through traffic, doing your best not to collide with the body, its nose in a file, that was blocking your path down the aisle. The odor of sweat was ubiquitous. It might as well have been summer. The air conditioners had small lungs, and each one of us clerks—were we better, for all our training, than clerks?—was carrying his own anxious stir. It was not enough to find WILDBOAR for Chief of Base, Berlin; one had to find him quickly. The cable had been frantic: NEED ALL RECENT ENTRIES ON VQ/WILDBOAR. URGENT. GIBLETS. Yes, the Chief of Base had signed it himself.

I had had to wait in Records Integration Office down the corridor to obtain access to the PRQ-Part I/Part II/201-File Bridge-Archive, which hopefully was up to date and so could tell me who VQ/ WILDBOAR might be. On this morning, VQ/WILDBOAR did translate into Wolfgang-from-West-Germany, last name unknown, last address Wasserspiegelstrasse 158, Hamburg. That, at least, was a start. Back in the Snake Pit, I could continue my search through the two file boxes—each twenty inches long, each containing something like eighteen hundred index cards, stuffed with Wolfgangs who had been sufficiently inconsiderate to provide us with no last name. Wolfgangs who offered the courtesy of a last initial, a Wolfgang F., or a Wolfgang G., took up another three file boxes. Wolfgangs with a whole last name occupied ten. I did not know that so many Wolfgangs were interesting to us in West Germany!

Then I discovered they were not. My Wolfgang-from-Hamburg had been entitled to one card in the Snake Pit for the occasion on which he was arrested in 1952 after heaving a brick during a street demonstration in Bonn. Yet he had nothing less than fifteen such entries, carded from fifteen separate West German newspapers which reprinted the same West German wire service story. Absolutely invaluable stuff on my Wolfgang might well be lying somewhere in the Document Room at the other end of this interminable shed, but it had not yet been carded. I was, by now, irritable. In the lunch break, I sent back a cable to the office of Chief of Base, West Berlin. NOT ABLE TO SATISFY REQUEST FOR RECENT ENTRIES RE: VQ/WILDBOAR. SEND BETTER ADDRESS. KU/CLOAKROOM. It was my first cable out. My first use of my own cryptonym.

At end of day, an answer was routed back to me. CABLE 51—(SERIES RB 100 A). TO KU/CLOAKROOM: MOST RECENT, REPEAT AND UNDERLINE, MOST RECENT INFORMATION ON VQ/WILDBOAR IS OF THE ESSENTIAL, REPEAT, ESSENTIAL. FILE-RAT, ARE YOU INEPT? COME UP WITH YOUR OWN BETTER ADDRESS. VQ/GIBLETS.

The Chief of Base in Berlin was famous for his short fuse. Yet I had no idea where to look. If I didn’t respond to his cable, I could conceivably receive a Notice of Censure. It left me full of unspoken rage at Harlot. Why had I been left at the Snake Pit? Others in my training group were sited already at some of the best desks in Washington. Rosen was in Technical Services, a supersecret plum—was that due to his performance on the night of interrogation? Worse, Dix Butler, as I learned by way of Rosen, was actually operating out of West Berlin.

Just when my mood felt condemned to brood through the night—where is Wolfgang, and what would I do tomorrow?—I received a phone call from my father. Heading up something big and unnameable in Tokyo, as I learned from his first remarks, he was reporting back to Washington after a visit to stations in Manila, Singapore, Rangoon, and Djakarta. “Join me for dinner,” he said right off. “We’ll celebrate your release from the Farm. Montague will be there.”

“Terrific,” I said. I would have preferred to see my father alone.

“Yes,” he said, “watch Hugh tonight. He knows I’ve got the jam on a lot of doings in the Far East. He’ll be dying to know. Keep an item away from Hugh, and he carries on like you’re picking his pocket.”

Well, we had a rich dinner at Sans Souci, and a good deal of maneuvering did go on between Cal and Harlot. I could hardly follow the shoptalk about Sumatra, and SEATO, and the rigors of getting a little intelligence out of Singapore without ruffling the Raj. When Harlot asked, “How do you plan to hold Sukarno’s feet to the fire?” my father leaned forward, touched my elbow with his, and replied, “Hugh, that’s just what we won’t get into.”

“Of course not. You’ll listen to some total fool out there who’s covering every base and hasn’t idea one on how to proceed, but you won’t take a chance with me.”

“Hugh, I can’t.”

“I see where it’s leading. I sniff it. You’re going to try to photograph Sukarno in one of his circuses.”

“Throwing no stones,” said my father, “he’s certainly got a few going.”

“You’re on squander-time. It’s madness. You can’t trap Buddhists with sex. They place it somewhere between eating and evacuating. Part of the comedy of what goes in and comes out. You’ll need more than photographs to get Sukarno into your pouch.”

“The only alternative is the Colonels,” said my father. “I don’t know that they’re honest dinner guests.”

Such talk went on. I certainly couldn’t swear to what they were contesting, but I thought it wonderfully interesting. Before too many years went by, perhaps I, too, would carry on such conversations.

Of course, I was not enjoying the evening altogether. I was still in dread of tomorrow’s search for Wolfgang, and my stomach was raw. Harlot and Cal had taken, after the smallest acknowledgment, no further recognition of my last six months of training, and my graduation from the Farm. Nor had they given me room to talk about my present condition. After three martinis, I had begun to pack veal roulade into my gorge with a red burgundy whose nature seemed more complex than my own. Add Hennessey, and the attempt to smoke a Churchill with panache, and what I had hoped would be a party of celebration (and possible explanation for why I had been marooned in the Bunker) was now becoming a long march of gastrointestinal fortitude. I lost interest in Sukarno and how they would hold his feet to the fire.

Beneath it all, I was feeling the same sure resentment my father always stirred. Sad cry: He had no desire to see me for myself alone. I was his adjunct to business, pleasure, or duty. So, despite my physical discomforts, heavy as thunderclouds, I felt the same rush of love my father could also stir in me when he said at last, “I’m really waiting to hear about you, boy.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“He’s in the Snake Pit,” said Harlot.

By my father’s pause, I could tell this came as unexpected information. “Well, that’s a hell of a place to have him.”

“No. It’s advisable.”

“You put him there?”

“I didn’t keep it from happening.”

“Why? Did he do that badly at the Farm?”

“No. He landed in the top quarter of his class.”

“Good.”

“Not good, adequate.”

All this, of course, was being said in front of me.

“Then why do you have him in Files?”

“Because it’s a holding tank, and I plan to send him to Berlin. That’s an interesting place right now.”

“I know all about Berlin. I agree. But why isn’t he working at West German Desk?”

“Because it can be fatal to young fortunes. Four promising kids have come and gone from that slot in the last three months. Harvey chews them up before they have time to learn.”

My father nodded. He puffed on his cigar. He sipped his brandy. He took this much time to say in effect that he was a Far Eastern hand and did not know all that much about what was closer to home.

“I want,” said Hugh, “for you to write a letter to Harvey. A puff for Harry. Tell him what a great son you’ve got. Harvey respects you, Cal.”

This Bill Harvey, I could recognize, was the same Chief of Base, West Berlin, who had called me a file-rat. Why did Harlot think I should work for him? I was, despite the last full lecture imparted at the canal house, not without suspicions.

Perhaps my unhappy stomach could not hold its own bad news much longer. I told them of Harvey’s cable.

“I’m no longer,” I said, “exactly anonymous. He knows there’s a guy named KU/CLOAKROOM who didn’t produce what he wanted on VQ/WILDBOAR.”

They laughed. They could have been brothers for the way they laughed together.

“Well,” said Cal, “Maybe KU/CLOAKROOM ought to disappear.”

“Exactly,” said Harlot. “We can drink to the new fellow. Got a preference in the christening?”

“KU/RENDEZVOUS?” I proposed.

“Much too salient. Get over into the gray. Let’s start with KU/ ROPES.”

I didn’t like ROPES any more than CLOAKROOM, but I discovered it didn’t matter. It was explained to me that just as laundered money grew cleaner with each new bank, so did each change of cryptonym remove you farther from the scene of a fiasco. My new cryptonym would soon be altered from KU/ROPES to DN/FRAGMENT, then, over to SM/ONION. Last stop: KU/STAIRS. Harlot jotted down these names with little self-congratulatory clicks of the tongue, while my father chuckled in approval. They were cooking a dish.

“I don’t know how it works,” I protested.

“Worry not. Once I get this through, odds against discovery will go up to something like ten thousand to one,” said Harlot.

It still seemed to me that all it would take for Mr. William Harvey, Chief of Base in West Berlin, to find out who KU/CLOAKROOM was, would be to ask the West German Desk in Washington to get my real name over to him in a hurry.

No, my father assured me, it couldn’t happen that way.

Why?

“Because,” said Harlot, “we are dealing with bureaucrats.”

“Harvey?” I asked.

“Oh, no. The people between Harvey and you. They won’t see any reason to violate their rules of procedure. If West German Desk here at Headquarters is asked to furnish the identity of KU/CLOAKROOM to Chief of Base, West Berlin, they must apply first to Bridge-Archive, who, in turn, will reply that KU/CLOAKROOM has just been given a shift to KU/ROPES. Well, that means delay for West German Desk. Any alteration of cryptonym invokes a seventy-two-hour elapse before translation can occur. This protective regulation is a perfectly good one, by the way. Such a change took place, presumably, for some valid purpose. At this point, West German Desk probably decides to wait the required three days. It’s a minor search, after all. They’re just accommodating Harvey. He’s over in Berlin, and West German Desk is working for West German Station in Bonn.”

“Doesn’t Base in West Berlin have priority over West German Station in Bonn?” I asked my father.

“Don’t know about that. Bonn does have the Soviet Russia Division.” He frowned. “Of course, Berlin, on balance, could be more important. Only we’re not talking about real clout. We’re dealing with bureaucracy, and that’s a whole other kingdom.”

“Count on it,” said Harlot. “If Bill Harvey insists on immediate processing of his request, which is highly unlikely, because he’s bound to be mad at somebody else by tomorrow—it’s another day, after all—West German Desk still won’t be able to satisfy him directly. They will have to go a step higher to Bridge-Archive:Control. Right there, they will meet a STOP. I will have put it in. STOP will say: ‘Wait your seventy-two hours.’ If they don’t want to, they have to take it up even higher, to Bridge-Archive:Control—Senior. Now, that is a committee. Bridge-Archive:Control—Senior meets only for emergencies. I happen to be on the committee. One never presumes on Bridge-Archive:Control—Senior unless one can prove extraordinary need to know.”

He puffed with complete happiness on his Churchill. “Obviously, you’re safe enough for seventy-two hours. In the interim, we will switch your cryptonym from KU/ROPES to DN/FRAGMENT. That means West German Desk, far from discovering who KU/CLOAKROOM is, will have to recommence the process to learn the identity of DN/FRAGMENT. They’re still not near anything, you see.”

“DN,” said my father, “is the digraph for South Korea.”

“Yes,” said Harlot. “KU/ROPES has gone to South Korea and become DN/FRAGMENT. On paper, at least. Of course, an overseas cryptonym puts a two-week hold on Bridge-Archive. By then, Harvey, we can predict, will be well on to other things. Nonetheless, as a matter of pride, I believe in carrying these matters out properly. If Harvey, for any reason, becomes obsessed with finding out who you are, which is always a possibility, and waits out the two weeks, I promise that at the end of such interval, you will be shifted over to London as SM/ONION. Still on paper, of course. A fortnight further down the road, we will bring you figuratively back from London to the U.S., which, dear boy, you have not left in the first place. But we’ll have you back working as KU/STAIRS. Total write-off for Harvey at that point. He will see that a signature is on this business. It will tell him to lay off. He’s obviously tampering with something. No ordinary file-clerk gets three cryptonyms in one month including junkets to South Korea and London with protective STOPS from Bridge-Archive:Control. So it’s our way of saying to Bill Harvey: Bug off. Big guns are in place.”

It seemed clear enough to me. I would be safe. But why go to such pains?

My father must have been enough of a parent to read my cerebrations. “We’re doing it because we like you,” he said.

“And because we like doing it,” said Harlot. He nudged the ash from his cigar onto a clean plate as carefully as he might roll an egg with his forefinger. “I’ll also have to get,” he remarked, “KU/CLOAKROOM expunged from your 201. Then there’ll be no record at all.”

“I appreciate the troubles you’re taking on,” I said, “but, after all, I committed no crime. It’s not my fault if the Document Room is buried in backlog.”

“Well,” said Harlot, “the first rule in this place, if you value the size of the future contribution you want to make, is to protect yourself when young. If some mogul sends a request for information, supply it.”

“How? Do you tunnel through ten thousand cubic feet of uncarded documents?”

“Wolfgang was a student in a street gang, and he moved around a lot. You could have made up a report that kept him moving a little more. Send him to Frankfurt, or over to Essen.”

“Maybe,” said my father, “Rick should still do that.”

“No,” said Harlot. “Too late. It won’t work now. Too much attention will be paid to the false information. But the point for my godson to recognize is that in the beginning Harvey was not asking for a serious inquiry.”

“How can you be certain of that?” I asked.

“If Chief of Base in West Berlin is not aware of the frightful condition of the Snake Pit, he is incompetent. William King Harvey is not incompetent. He knew, given the chaos, there would be nothing up to date on VQ/WILDBOAR. I would say he sent the cable, and put his name to it, mind you, to scorch some of his people in Berlin. They probably lost contact with Wolfgang. It’s a slap in the face for them if our file system here has to do the job when they are in place over there. If you had provided some fiction for Wolfgang’s travels, Harvey could have used it to stir up his principals and their agents. ‘See,’ he would tell them, ‘Wolfgang has gone back to Frankfurt.’ ‘Impossible,’ they might answer. ‘He’s too recognizable in Frankfurt.’ ‘All right,’ Harvey could have answered, ‘get cracking and find him.’”

I could not keep myself from saying, “What if it was urgent to find Wolfgang? What if he”—I showed, I fear, a wholly callow spirit—“what if he was about to pass some nuclear secrets on to the Russians?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Harlot. “We’ve lost it at that point. We’re lumbered. The world ends because the Document Room is an impacted mass.”

My father took a long look at Hugh Montague and something was exchanged between them. Harlot sighed. “In fact,” he said, “there is one larger-than-life secret in West Berlin, and I may have to let you in on it before you go over. If you don’t have any idea of what it is, you could get in Harvey’s way.” He sighed again. “It’s a thousand to one that Wolfgang has nothing to do with larger-than-life, but if he does, we’ll know about it soon enough.”

“How?”

Hugh sniffed another measure of that air of the judicious and the corrupt which is common to courtroom corridors and cigars, and said, “We’ll get you out of the Snake Pit tomorrow, and on to intensive training in German.” That was all the answer provided.