Spy in a Little Black Dress

VI


Washington, D.C., May 1952


It was shocking to see. There he was, the trusted valet for the British ambassador to Turkey, and he was using his position to pass on top secret documents to the enemy. And he wasn’t acting alone; he was receiving help from a beautiful refugee Polish countess he had designs on. His idea was to take the money he accrued as a spy, quit his job as a valet, and retire to Rio de Janeiro, where he and the countess would live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

To make matters worse, the traitorous valet was being portrayed by the suave British actor James Mason.

Jackie sat back in her seat and tried to concentrate on the movie, 5 Fingers, which began with a statement that the events depicted in the film were based on a true story. As she watched, she tried to evaluate the movie based on her own experiences as a neophyte spy for the CIA, paying careful attention to the valet’s tradecraft and comparing it to what she had learned as a trainee at the Farm.

Jackie looked at her watch in the dim light cast by the projector beam overhead. It was almost three o’clock. She wasn’t used to going to the movies during the day. And she wasn’t really here to watch the movie. Yesterday, when she had returned to her car in the parking lot of the Times-Herald, she saw that someone had dropped an envelope on the front seat. She opened it and withdrew a single piece of notepaper. Printed in large block letters, the note read:

TOMORROW

3 PM

UPTOWN THEATRE

BALCONY

ROW 3/SEAT 7

She knew that the Uptown Theatre was located on Connecticut Avenue past Dupont Circle in Cleveland Park, a neighborhood where inexpensive housing made it possible for underpaid congressional aides and other young professionals to pool their resources and rent houses together. So early this afternoon, she’d arrived at the Uptown, not knowing why she was here or whom she was supposed to meet. She found the designated seat in the balcony, which was deserted, and sat through the coming attractions, the newsreel, the travelogue, and the cartoon before the actual movie got under way.

As she waited for three o’clock to arrive, Jackie thought back on her recent conversation with Allen Dulles at the Pickle Factory, the CIA’s own term for its temporary headquarters in Foggy Bottom. As usual, it took place in his office. The only unusual aspect of the meeting was the fact that his assistant, Tod Henshaw, was not also present.

Dulles began by once again asking Jackie to go over the particulars of her visit to New Orleans, which was now almost one year in the past. During that time, Jackie had continued her training at the Farm, had gone to work as the Inquiring Camera Girl for the Times-Herald, and had seen her assignment to Cuba scrapped over what Dulles had termed “the continuing and uncertain political turmoil” in that country.

“During World War Two,” Dulles explained to Jackie, “the Abwehr, German military intelligence, employed a listening post in New Orleans so they could receive reports on when convoys departed the port. They operated out of one of those stately old mansions right on St. Charles Avenue, not far from where you stayed, actually. After the war was over, Stasi, the East German intelligence service, took over the listening post and ran it for their new masters, the Russians. We knew about the listening post and decided to let them keep it going, just on the off chance we could use it to feed them false information. I guess, when they got wind of your arrival and saw you visit the professor, they got curious and decided to find out what you were doing in town.”

Dulles cleared his throat, an indication to Jackie that he was about to switch conversational gears. “And what about your collateral assignment?”

“Jack Kennedy? I’m sorry to say that I had to break a date with him in order to go to New Orleans.”

“Having Jack Kennedy on our side could be even more of a plus than we first thought. I’m sure you know that he has formally announced his candidacy for the Senate. With a crackerjack campaign manager like his brother Bobby, the odds are good that he’ll defeat Henry Cabot Lodge in November and become a national force.” Dulles pursed his lips. “You probably haven’t heard from him because he’s been so busy with his campaign, so you’ll have to use your ingenuity to get his attention again.”

“I’ll do it,” Jackie said, having no idea how she would, but confident that something would occur to her in due time.

“Now, about Cuba,” Dulles went on. “I’m sure you know that our old friend Fulgencio Batista is back in power. Eighty days before the national elections, he staged a coup and took over the reins of power again. He may be a dictator, but he’s our dictator because he leaves our business interests there alone and because we don’t want anyone else coming in who might favor the Communists. If the island goes Red, it could cause all sorts of problems for us, especially being only ninety miles away from the U.S. coast.”

Jackie nodded in agreement. During her research, she had learned that Cuba, if it fell into Soviet hands, could be used as a staging post for an invasion of the U.S. Or worse, with these new rockets in development by both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Cuba could be used as a launchpad to hurl nuclear-tipped missiles at cities up and down the eastern seaboard, a truly frightening prospect, especially if Washington, D.C., was the chief target. And this was a possibility that she knew the CIA and the State Department were taking all possible steps to prevent.

Dulles continued, “Your trip to Cuba is back on. But this time your assignment is a completely different one.”

Jackie looked surprised. She had figured that the Cuban mission was dead in the water.

“Batista’s takeover has angered many Cubans, as you can imagine. There are several groups in opposition to him, actively plotting his ouster. One such group is led by an attorney. He was running for office in the last election, but Batista’s coup put an end to his political career. So he has gathered a handful of followers and is hiding out in the Sierra Maestra, the mountains of Oriente Province. That’s where he was raised. His family are wealthy landowners there. We want you to go to Cuba and meet with this lawyer. Find out what his intentions are should he ever come to power. Is he a friend of the U.S.? Or does he lean more to the left?” Dulles paused. “The far left.”

He looked at Jackie and smiled, a facial expression that Jackie had not often seen him indulge in.

“The funny thing is, this lawyer once had a promising career as a baseball player. He was scouted as an excellent left-handed pitching prospect with a mean curveball. He even came here, to the States, for a tryout with the Senators. But he just didn’t have the stuff, as the sportswriters say. That’s why he ultimately decided to become a lawyer instead.”

“And what is the name of this southpaw?” Jackie asked.

“Fidel Castro.”

Jackie filed the name away for future reference. “And who is going to take me to meet him at his mountain hideout?”

“Your Cuban contact is a young man named Emiliano Martínez. He was a law school classmate of Fidel Castro’s and a fellow student activist. They were both recruited by the Ortodoxo, the Cuban People’s Party. It had a strong following among student groups at the University of Havana who were hoping to become the country’s future leaders.”

Another idealistic young politico in the Jack Kennedy mold, Jackie thought. Sounds promising.

“And will I be going undercover, like the last time?” she wanted to know. The memory of her cover story in Paris was a sore spot with Jackie, since it seemed that everyone she met there was able to see through it in about two seconds.

“In a limited way. But I have someone else who will brief you on that part of your assignment. Because it also concerns your visit to New Orleans.”

That could mean only one thing. Jackie asked, “Walker’s treasure?”

Dulles put up his hands. He obviously didn’t want to give too much away.

“Patience, Jackie. The man who will brief you is somewhat unconventional and will get in touch with you in his own way and his own time. His name is Robert Maheu. He’s a former FBI agent. He now works as a freelance security consultant. And we sometimes make use of his—how shall we say—unusual abilities.”

And with that, Jackie had found herself dismissed.

Now, here she was, at the Uptown Theatre, watching 5 Fingers and waiting for this Robert Maheu to show up, as he was obviously the one who had left that unorthodox invitation in her car yesterday.

At three o’clock on the dot, Jackie’s patience was finally rewarded. A man came down the aisle and sat in the seat next to her. Jackie looked around at the empty balcony. It seemed that they had the place all to themselves. In his right hand, he held a briefcase, in his left a bag of popcorn. She wondered if the popcorn was just for the sake of verisimilitude or whether he really planned to snack on it during their meeting. He seated himself, put the briefcase down on the floor, then offered the bag of popcorn to Jackie.

Jackie looked at him and said, “No, thank you.” Jackie loved going to the movies, but she drew the line at eating fattening snacks from the concession stand.

“Okay, then, more for me,” the man responded and shoveled a handful of popcorn kernels into his mouth. Jackie tried to get a good look at him, but it was difficult in the darkness of the theatre. She did get a sense, though, that he was a man who felt at home in both darkness and shadow.

“Oh, I’m Robert Maheu,” the man said. He held out his hand for Jackie to take, then thought better of it. He produced a handkerchief, used it to wipe the butter off his hand, then offered his hand again to Jackie.

Taking his hand, she said, “I’m Jackie—”

But Maheu cut her off. “Yes, I know who you are. Thanks for meeting me here. I know this is an unusual location.”

Jackie nodded in appreciation of his understatement.

Maheu glanced up at the screen. Jackie had lost track of the narrative, but it looked like James Mason was navigating the back alleys of Ankara in order to lose a Nazi tail.

“How do you like the movie so far?” Maheu asked.

Jackie tried not to look exasperated. Surely Maheu hadn’t asked to meet her here to discuss the cinematic merits of 5 Fingers. She turned to him and said, “I’m afraid I’m finding it difficult to concentrate.”

“You know what I find so interesting about this movie?” Maheu asked, and charged on before she could even respond to his question.

“James Mason’s character is a spy for the Nazis. But he doesn’t do so out of any political or ideological commitment. He does it because he wants to make money and become a man of leisure. I think that’s kind of interesting, don’t you? Especially in light of the reason I’ve asked you to meet me here.”

Finally, Jackie thought, then broke in before Maheu could have the chance to continue. “Does it have something to do with Walker’s treasure?”

“I’m coming to that,” Maheu said, as though the question was impertinent on Jackie’s part.

He put aside the paper bag of popcorn, now empty, and picked up the briefcase and put it on his lap.

While fiddling with the combination lock on the briefcase—Jackie had no idea how he could see the numbers in such dim light—Maheu said, “Your boss, Mr. Dulles, asked me to do a little investigating on your account. Apparently, you were doing some research and took things as far as you could go. I have my own… special… resources, so he thought he’d let me take a crack at it.”

Having opened the briefcase, Maheu reached in, removing a spiral-bound reporter’s notepad and riffling through it until he found the page he wanted. He looked at it, causing Jackie to wonder if the man had eyes like an owl’s that could pierce the darkness.

After conferring with the notebook, Maheu looked up and said, “This Malachi Simon was a real character. He would pretend to be a scholar, complete with forged credentials from Oxford or Cambridge, and talk his way into university libraries and private collections, where he would then razor map illustrations out of ancient texts to sell on the open market for inflated sums.

“I traced the map he stole from the Walker Collection at Tulane to a man named Enrico Salazzo. He was a Hollywood set decorator in the thirties. I talked to some of his relatives—he’s dead now—and they knew nothing about any map. So I guessed that was a dead end.”

Jackie couldn’t keep the disappointment from showing on her face.

Maheu continued. “But I had a hunch. I went to Universal Studios, where he worked, and talked to some of the people in the art department there. I found this one old geezer who remembered working with him. He said that this Salazzo was a real practical joker. Said he liked to work an anachronistic prop into every movie he worked on. Something small so the audience wouldn’t notice unless they looked real close. But people are usually too busy watching the movie to pay that careful attention. And if they are, that means something’s wrong with the movie.”

He laughed, then caught himself and cut it off so as not to draw any unwanted attention to himself. Since the balcony was still empty, Jackie thought that this was a bit of unnecessary paranoia on Maheu’s part.

“So that got me to thinking,” Maheu went on. “With the help of the old geezer, I went through the property logs for the movies Salazzo worked on. And there were a lot of them, I can tell you. Looked at them till my eyes glazed over.”

Jackie wanted to tell him that her eyes were about to glaze over if he didn’t get to the point soon. But she was too polite to say anything and just let him tell the story in his own way.

“Have you ever heard of the Mexican Dracula?” Maheu asked Jackie, abruptly changing the subject.

Really, Jackie thought, how many detours can this man make in one conversation? She tried to hide her growing frustration and shook her head. “I barely know about the regular Dracula. Bites necks, drinks blood—isn’t that right?”

“In a nutshell,” Maheu agreed. “Well, at any rate, it turns out that there are two different versions of Dracula. The one with Bela Lugosi that everyone knows, made in 1931. And one that was done at night, on the exact same sets, with a different director and a Mexican cast. The studio decided to do it that way rather than show the American version dubbed or with subtitles in Spanish. The movie’s actually supposed to be better than the American version. The Mexican lead actress is sexier, and the movie is supposed to be scarier.”

Jackie tried to figure out a way to signal to Maheu that he was really getting off the beaten path here. But before she could, he found his way again.

“Well, at any rate, I found out that Salazzo worked on the Mexican Dracula. And do you know what the property log for the movie shows?”

Before Jackie could answer, Maheu infuriatingly went on.

“It shows that Salazzo inserted Metzger’s treasure map on a wall in Dracula’s castle.”

This time, Jackie broke in before Maheu could cut her off.

“Then all we have to do is watch the movie, and we’ll see the treasure map?” She felt incredibly elated.

“Yeah, I thought of that too. Only one problem, though.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The reel that shows the map on the wall is missing. For some reason, the negative disappeared a long time ago, and it’s not in any of the surviving answer prints still in circulation.”

Coming hot on the heels of her relief, Jackie’s disappointment made her feel like a marionette being jerked up and down at the hands of a sadistic puppeteer.

Maheu just sat there as though another thought had crossed his mind. Taking advantage of his momentary pause, Jackie plunged right in and said, “Mr. Maheu, there’s one thing I don’t understand. What does any of this have to do with my assignment in Cuba? What’s my cover story supposed to be?”

“I’m coming to that,” he said in an aggrieved voice, as though unhappy at having his silent contemplation interrupted.

The screen turned momentarily bright, and in the sudden illumination, Jackie could see Maheu’s notepad open in his hand. The page she saw had three words on it:

THE THORNDYKE FUND

And they were underlined three times as though to denote their importance.

Jackie wondered what the Thorndyke Fund was and why it should be of such seeming importance to Maheu. And what was it doing in the same notepad that contained all his Walker sleuthing? She decided to add the name to her mental filing cabinet, which was expanding daily due to all the new demands of her CIA training.

Maheu closed his notepad with one flip of his hand, put it away in an inside coat pocket, and reached into his briefcase, from which he produced a movie flyer.

“You’re going as yourself, a reporter from the Times-Herald, to cover a cultural event in Havana. It’s already been cleared with your boss. So you don’t have to worry about having to memorize a new legend.” Jackie remembered that “legend” was CIA lingo for a false identity.

“And what is this event?”

Maheu held up the flyer for Jackie to see. Even in the shadowy light she could read what it said:

ONE NIGHT ONLY

THE “MEXICAN” DRACULA

THE LOST VERSION

EL TEATRO DE CINEMA

PRESENTED BY

EL PRESIDENTE

FULGENCIO BATISTA

“They found the film?” Jackie asked in amazement.

“Yes, they found a complete work print in the vault of some old movie exhibitor in Havana. Batista is declaring it a ‘cinematic miracle’ and is hosting the movie to show that he’s the new steward of Hispanic culture. It’s a publicity stunt to take some of the sting out of his coup. What a con man.” He shook his head in rueful admiration, then paused and said, “That’s some coincidence, eh, about the movie being found?”

You can say that again, Jackie said to herself.

To Maheu, she said, “So do you think he’ll get away with it?”

“Who, Batista”—he turned to the screen—“or James Mason?”

Jackie didn’t answer, but turned her attention back to the movie. James Mason was stealthily removing top secret documents from the ambassador’s safe and using a camera to copy them. You’re lucky, Jackie thought. Mason had only another hour to find out his fate. The problem with real life was that it usually took a lot longer to find out one’s own.