The adults all laughed, and Penny collapsed against the hard wooden back of her chair.
George had said that exact phrase many times over the last three weeks, about several different places. It was perfect: it ended these dull interrogations in a way that made adults happy enough that they continued to bring him plates of food, and then every few days they took him to a new place. He did not know how long this sort of mystical conveyance would last, but he planned to keep saying it until it no longer worked, or until someone took him home again. The woman whom Billy Quick called Lila placed a smaller plate in front of him. She asked him if he liked smoked salmon, and he said yes.
“Thank you, Lila,” Billy Quick said as she retreated through the swinging doors.
Back in the kitchen, Lila ransacked the refrigerator and the shelves for other plausible food to bring out, hoping that when she did, Billy Quick would say her name that same way just one more time.
73
In the barn, Catta climbed into the wheelbarrow, and Sheila covered him with a horse blanket. She opened one of the barn’s big loading doors and pushed the wheelbarrow over the stretch of grass to the Hill House basement door. She walked past Billy Quick and his guests, who—Sheila whispered—were for some reason all standing at the kitchen door of the wrong house.
“I’m waving to them,” Sheila said. “They’re waving back.”
When Catta saw Sheila, he had not felt anything. She had electrified the known world for him over the last two weeks, and yet, when he had walked into the barn, hearing her voice say Who’s there? was the first time he had thought about her since he went to Baffin. He wondered if the relentlessness of Baffin had made him unfit for civilization.
“What did you see there?” Sheila said.
“So many trees,” he said.
The Hill House basement had endless nooks and hiding places where he could wait while he listened to what was happening upstairs. Sheila had told him that the Old Man was sick, that he had not been down since they’d come back from Baffin, and that made Catta want to see him. Knowing about Baffin would cure his grandfather immediately.
“We’re at the basement door,” Sheila said. “Everyone is gone.”
Catta was out of the wheelbarrow and through the basement door much faster than Sheila would have thought possible. She’d hoped he would turn around or at least look at her briefly before he disappeared, but instead he was up and gone almost in one motion, without turning. She never saw his face. It was not that she wanted him to thank her or even to acknowledge her insignificant presence, but rather that she had something vital to tell him, something that she could not say out loud. This thing would be easier to communicate if she could see his eyes.
“Look,” Sheila whispered. “God sent you a wheelbarrow.”
74
May 1964
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
That Wise Men panel, Forrest said, was not—I repeat, was not—meant to assess the legitimacy of Subotin. That was a false flag. Its purpose was to decide the fate of Jim Hillsinger.
Me? Hillsinger said. It was three days of Subotin talking.
The decision about Subotin was made months ago, Forrest said. Angleton said he’s dirty, and anyone arguing for him is dirty, too.
Hillsinger could feel the horror coming on, but it had not arrived yet. There was a yellow Counterintelligence sticker on his personnel file.
At the beginning of that panel, Forrest continued, you read the faked Astrakhov material but Danziger and Todd read the Counterintelligence memo about you.
Which says what? Hillsinger said.
Two important things, Forrest said. One is your role in managing Hannah Quick’s escape from the New York Board of Education’s witch hunt in 1955, and the other is your relationship with Hans Kallenbach.
I have no relationship with Kallenbach.
Understand, Forrest said, that everything I tell you has been documented by Counterintelligence. The facts are not in dispute, only their interpretation. They have a telephone transcript of Kallenbach identifying himself to your wife, apologizing for calling the wrong number, and hanging up. She seems to know him. She says, and I quote, “Oh, hello, Hans.” To Counterintelligence, that exchange looks like a prearranged request for a meeting.
They tapped our phone, too? Hillsinger said.
Everything, Forrest said. The complete package.
The horror now arrived: they had cornered him. Counterintelligence had been immensely thorough, although also wrong. Hillsinger’s choices were to trust Forrest completely or to flee, and he was not set up to flee. His only real option was surrender.
I told Peregrine Wilkie, Hillsinger said. I understand that he intervened via a third party.
That’s a tough one, Forrest said. It’s a predator’s law, and she was your sister-in-law. Your bad luck was that Bobby Sheppard defected and then Angleton took out his microscope on the Harlem teachers and, when pressed, your FBI contact rolled on you. Suddenly the extenuating circumstances didn’t matter. Now Jim Hillsinger is a high CIA official who kept a known associate of a defector out of jail, out of the papers, whatever. Angleton was incensed. Hence the surveillance and your phone tap, which in turn generated Kallenbach. I would not, by the way, tell your wife about this. The less she knows, the better I can protect her.
It is strange, Hillsinger said, that Lila seemed to know him.
You never met him socially?
No.
Angleton agreed, Forrest said, that both the Hannah Quick and Kallenbach things are arguably minor in and of themselves, but that they were actionable if part of a larger pattern. The Director suggested this Wise Men panel as a tiebreaker.
I was right about Subotin, Hillsinger said.
From the Counterintelligence point of view, Forrest said, you had multiple chances to make the correct decision—to reject someone they believe is clearly a KGB provocation. They showed you a version of the Astrakhov material, you saw Subotin himself get everything wrong, Danziger and Todd explicitly laid out the case for the prosecution, and, to judge by the transcript, Danziger even tried to bully you into safety.
Do you believe a real penetration exists? Hillsinger said.
Yes, Forrest said.
Then why am I not in jail?
The vote, Forrest said. The poll at the end was about you, not Subotin. Danziger voted No—meaning that you are guilty of treason—and Todd, as you know, voted Inconclusive.
Why was Todd Inconclusive?
Something you said at the end, apparently.
So it was a split, Hillsinger said.
Hung jury, Forrest said. The Director gave Counterintelligence a vote. Their vote was always going to be guilty, so to balance that, he gave me a vote, too.
You.
Me.
That’s why you’ve seen the transcripts.
Correct.
Have you already decided, Hillsinger said, or is your vote contingent on this meeting?
It’s done, Forrest said.
And?
I said Inconclusive.
Do you think I’m lying?