“They contain multitudes,” Street said, smiling at Charlie.
“Charlie, after your run-in with McCarthy and Cohn at Connie Hilton’s party, we think you had an even bigger target on your back,” Winston said. “Carlin was already chomping at the bit to get you in line. But that was to control you, not kill you.”
“And that was the night Charlie was set up,” Margaret realized.
“Indeed,” said Winston. “Carlin got his henchmen to arrange that whole thing—the knockout drug, the staged accident. But we didn’t know any of that until just recently. I begged Allen Dulles for help. Turned out he’d had you tailed that night and had the photos that cleared you.”
“But we didn’t find out until yesterday,” Street said. “Right before I brought them to you.”
“Allen’s a cagey bastard and he wouldn’t just turn anything over. Now I owe him.”
“What do we need to do to make sure they don’t try to kill us again?” Margaret asked.
“That was just Carlin and his team,” Winston Marder said. “Not the whole club. But you need to drop the General Kinetics thing.”
“Drop it?” Charlie said, alarmed.
“We think the club is in factions right now,” Street said. “They’re being torn apart over McCarthy. Kennedy brought McCarthy into the club in ’forty-nine. He got McCarthy to agree not to campaign against Jack during his Senate run three years later. They’ve all been allies.”
“But McCarthy since then has gone nuts,” Kefauver added.
“There’s a struggle going on in the club,” Winston said. “They all see McCarthy is out of control and needs to be stopped before he takes on Ike in ’fifty-six. The Dulles brothers and some of the generals and CEOs are looking to end the problem. It may prove easier for him to be hoisted with his own petard.”
“We suspect a few defense-contractor CEOs are monks or second-tier abbots,” Street said. “They want the enormous defense contracts to proceed, and McCarthy’s focus on the army is causing them huge problems.”
“McCarthy smeared General Marshall back in 1950; they thought he was going to stop there?” Margaret asked.
“Gotta hit the rat on the head the moment he pokes his head out of the sewer,” Charlie agreed. “But that holds true for General Kinetics too, Dad.”
“That’s nonsense,” Winston said angrily. “The chemical weapons program is vital. The Hellfire Club isn’t wrong about that.”
“The Reds are a menace, Charlie,” Street said.
“Look at how they manipulated Margaret, sending that zoologist to get close to her with me and you as targets,” Winston said. “You need to stop being naive about the Reds. There are forces at play here that are much bigger than your ideals and the way you think the world should work.”
“But you’re playing by the same corrupt rules as the Hellfire Club,” Charlie said. “You agree with those rules?”
“That’s like asking if we agree or disagree with oxygen,” said Winston. “Or the tides.”
“This is how it works,” Street said. “I’m quite certain I like it even less than you do, but these are the realities.”
“General Kinetics is going to change the way they do business,” Winston said. “And you need to keep your mouth shut. That’s nonnegotiable.”
They sat in silence. Kefauver took a left onto Rock Creek Parkway. Margaret looked out her window at the circular Doric temple that stood just off the road, dedicated on Armistice Day 1931 by President Hoover as a tribute to the men and women of Washington, DC, who had given their lives in “the Great War.” As if there would never be another. Simpler times, Margaret thought.
“It’s just stunning that this whole time, you and my dad have been working together,” Charlie said.
“It’s even more stunning that he convinced Carlin that he was working for him,” Winston observed.
“That’s actually a good point,” Margaret said, turning to look at Street behind her. “How did you win the trust of…” She searched for the words.
“Of a bunch of old white bigots?” Street finished for her.
“It’s a smart question,” Winston said. “My daughter-in-law possesses much more intelligence than her husband.”
“I gave them just enough information to trust me,” Street said. “Intelligence comes from people of all colors; they might be bigots, but they know that much. Intel comes from Arabs, Africans, Jews, Chinese…”
“You realize, Charlie, Isaiah was working on trying to learn more about the club long before they set their sights on you,” Winston said.
“It was your dad’s idea originally,” Street said. “When I came here in January of ’fifty-three, I pretended to be a willing source for them. Given my background in the OSS, they were interested.”
“I brought it up to Dulles, who mentioned it to Hoover,” Winston said. “They wouldn’t have invited Isaiah over for supper, but they were happy to take his information. Or have him be a button man to kill you two.”
Kefauver sighed impatiently and turned on the radio. “Y’all talk too much,” he said to himself.
“…showdown between Senator McCarthy and the U.S. Army,” the announcer said. “McCarthy claims the army is behind a conspiracy to discredit him…”
“And he’s right!” Kefauver laughed. They fell silent, listening to the news. Kefauver left Rock Creek Parkway and worked his way to Dent Place in Georgetown, through tree-lined streets where young lawyers and secretaries briskly walked to bus stops.
“Here we are!” Winston said, clearly relieved to be pulling up to Charlie and Margaret’s town house.
Winston patted his son on the knee.
“Remember what Falstaff said, my son,” Winston said. “‘The better part of valor is discretion.’”
“But I still have a lot of questions,” Charlie said. “The other day we stumbled on these documents about the Hellfire Club in England in the eighteenth century. So Ben Franklin brought it to the U.S.?”
Street chuckled. “Charlie, we’re still trying to figure out everything going on in the club today; we don’t even know who all the members are now. We damn sure haven’t traced its genealogy.”
“Legend is that Franklin replicated the club once he returned to the colonies,” Winston said. “But we don’t really know. We’re only just now getting a handle on this, thanks to Ike.”
“Why thanks to Ike?” Charlie asked.
“You’ll see,” Winston said. “Now, please let us go so I can phone Dulles and we can clean this all up.”
Margaret opened the car door. “It was nice to see you again, Winston,” she said drily, as if they were coming from a mixer and not a fatal shoot-out. “And nice to see you again, Senator Kefauver. It has been way too long since you were kind enough to take us to see The Pajama Game—we need to repay the favor, have you over for dinner.” Kefauver laughed.
She stepped out of the car and straightened her blouse. A passerby would have no idea of the chaotic, bloody night she’d just survived. She leaned toward the passenger window.
“And Isaiah, you and Renee need to come over soon,” she continued, a caricature of a Georgetown hostess. “Tell her I’ll call her. Toodles!”
Street grinned. “Your wife is crazy,” he said to Charlie.
She stood on the sidewalk and looked expectantly at Charlie, who remained in the crowded backseat.
Charlie nodded at her but first turned to his father and said in a low voice so Margaret wouldn’t hear, “Are we safe?”
Winston hesitated. “I…I don’t know. I don’t know who wanted you gone other than Carlin. I assume Hoover and Dulles want this sorry chapter over. You will have to keep your mouth shut about General Kinetics. That’s not negotiable. You need to burn any copies of the Van Waganan dossier, the info on the chemical plants. You do that, and maybe we can put this all behind us. I’ll make some calls as soon as we get to Kefauver’s house.”
Street opened the back door and stepped out, followed by Charlie. They shook hands.
“We’ll talk soon,” Street said.
“I owe you,” said Charlie.