maybe better. We won't have any trouble with him. But this man, Karp, is still something of a loose cannon. He has a copy of the film, and we need it back.'
'We should do him, Bishop. I told you, he saw me.'
'Don't touch a hair on his head!' Bishop snapped. 'That's all we need. And don't give me any smart ideas about convenient accidents. We're past all that. The lid is just about nailed down once and for all and I'm not looking forward to spending the rest of my life waiting for another investigation. Nor are you, I imagine.' He waited, but the other man said nothing. 'This is a retrieval, pure and simple. You'll wait for the apartment to be completely empty, and then you'll go in and get it. And Bill?'
'Yeah?'
'Don't get seen again. Our friend would be extremely upset if you were seen again.'
NINETEEN
Karp had to admit it, Claude Wilkey knew how to run a meeting. He was running it in the wrong direction, but at a good clip. They were sitting around the conference table in the chief counsel's office-Wilkey, Karp, V.T., several young, intense-looking men whom Wilkey had recruited, and a small, tight-faced young woman, the new administrative chief. Bea Sondergard was gone with Crane.
Wilkey was talking. He had a pleasant, light, confident voice, well suited to reasoned academic discussions. He looked like the professor he was: a bland, pale face topped by thinning brown hair, horn-rims magnifying mild blue eyes. He wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows over a knitted sweater bearing a diamond pattern, slacks, polished loafers, and a striped button-down shirt with a foulard tie. Everyone else in the room, including the woman, wore dark suits.
Wilkey's lecture was well organized and easy to understand. The staff had one purpose and one purpose only: to complete the committee hearings as quickly as possible and to write a report. The staff would be reorganized into teams, each responsible for a section of the final report; the intense-looking men would be in charge of these teams. As Wilkey described their duties, Karp realized that no one was assigned to the conduct of any field investigation.
'What about the people we have in Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas?' Karp interrupted. 'What happens with those operations?'
'I'm afraid we're closing all that down,' explained Wilkey in a patient tone. 'We simply don't have time for it.'
'You read my report?' Karp demanded. He had, on Wilkey's request, composed a brief summary of the major new leads he had uncovered: the Depuy film, the CIA papers, the interview with Mosca, the trove of material from Guel's house, the investigation of P. X. Kelly. He had included some of the more obvious next steps.
'Yes, I did. Interesting. But really, you don't have anything I can bring before the committee, do you? Some unsolved murders, a film of uncertain provenance, suspicions…' He glanced at his new people as if to say, This is just what we want to avoid. 'No, I want to redirect the core of this effort toward the scientific analysis of solid evidence.'
'You mean like the magic bullet? That's what you call solid evidence?'
Wilkey pursed his lips. 'Yes, that's what we have to work with. We're going to settle the scientific issues, the forensics, the autopsy, once and for all. That's what the Congress expects and that's what we intend to do.'
Karp was about to make his old point about the chain of evidence for all the physical sequelae of the assassination being hopelessly corrupt, but thought better of it and slumped disconsolately in his chair. The meeting resumed. Wilkey was also, it appeared, going to deal with the organized crime issue 'once and for all' as well. Karp listened without interest. Of course they would try to pin it on the Mob! Congress would love that-Wilkey had written a book on the Mafia, Karp now recalled-because of all the powers in America, the Mob was the only one that didn't have a lobbying office in Washington. Not an official one anyway.
The meeting broke up. It was clear to Karp that the 'team leaders,' all three of them Wilkey's men, were not going to report to him in any meaningful way. It was a neat and familiar bureaucratic maneuver. The graceful thing would be for him to resign, which he intended to do as soon as possible.
He walked out of Wilkey's office and through the corridors. There was a heightened purpose in the air. People were bustling about, carrying papers; the new people were cracking the whip.
Karp had no doubt that Wilkey would produce a professional report, on time and within budget.
He went out of the building for a bite to eat. The snow had melted off the roadways but lingered in slushy piles in the gutters. The temperature was moving up into the fifties and the cherry trees in front of the botanical gardens were showing the little knobs that would be blossoms in a week or two. He doubted that he would be there to see the famous display.
Two hot dogs and a root beer later, Karp walked back to the Annex and went to see V.T.
V.T. was arranging files on his long table, working off a large stack of paper that he was distributing among the various folders.
'What zeal!' said Karp. 'I guess our new leader's inspired you to really start working.'
'Yeah,' said V.T., 'old Claude has that charismatic, inspirational quality that makes you want to do a lot of busywork, puke your guts out, and quit.'
'You're quitting.' It was not a question.
'The resignation's being typed,' said V.T. 'In fairness to my successor, I'm just placing the last of this stuff in the personality files. Then I'm out of here. You?'
'Me too, I guess,' Karp responded in a dull tone. 'I need to call Clay and tell him the party's over.'
V.T. looked up from what he was doing and sat on his desk. 'Well, it's true. We gave it our best and we got whipped. Like Clay said, way back, we were way over our heads. If they had wanted a real homicide investigation…'
'What did they want?' asked Karp, idly flipping through some folders. 'Remind me.'
'To forget. Warren was right, in a way. Blame it on a nut, conveniently dead, and forget it. And then we can blame all the failures of the country on the loss of Camelot-that fucking war, the riots, crime, greed, every goddamn thing we don't want to take responsibility for. If only Kennedy had lived! So. Tidy up the files and go back to real life.'
'We never found out who Turm was, did we?' asked Karp waving a file.
'No, we didn't. I doubt Mr. Wilkey will be overly concerned, however.'
'No, but I'm sure he'd like the bastard's phony name spelled right.' He showed V.T. the file tab. 'It's not T-E- R-M. It's T-U-R-M.'
V.T. looked at the lettering. 'Turm with a U. Are you sure?'
'Positive. Mosca saw the forged passport. He made a point of mentioning it.'
V.T. turned away from him. 'Turm with a U. Oh, God. Oh, shit.'
'What's wrong? Why does it matter?'
V.T. slammed the file to the floor and whirled. His face was stricken, going white around the eyes and mouth. 'Those bastards! Those fucking infantile macho bastard cocksuckers…'
'V.T., what's-'
'Turm with a U. It was like a kid's game with them, wasn't it? Secret passwords and wiseass fake names. They didn't even bother to be subtle about it, because who was going to look? And it's an impossible move, so who would catch on? And nobody did, and now it fucking doesn't matter.'
'Newbury, what the fuck are you talking about?'
'Turm. It's the German for rook, the piece in chess. And, of course, there's Bishop. And Caballo is the Spanish for knight-the one with the sneaky moves. And PXK isn't some goddamn Irish trucking executive in Baton Rouge. It's chess notation, but it's a notation for an impossible move, so of course, nobody would ever get the joke. Except the bastards who thought it up.' V.T. sat on the edge of his desk and hung his head, as if exhausted.
'What do you mean, chess notation?' asked Karp.
V.T. looked at him bleakly. 'In chess notation P x K, with a little x in the middle, would mean 'pawn takes king.' It's never used, of course, because the king is never taken in chess. The game ends in a checkmate, when the
