Shall We Tell the President? Read online

  “Right, boss.”

  Calvert depressed the telephone cradle with his hand momentarily and then dialed the Metropolitan Police. Two more quarters, leaving sixteen in his pockets. He often thought the quickest way to check out an FBI agent would be to make him turn his pockets inside out; if he produced twenty quarters, he was a genuine member of the Bureau.

  “Lieutenant Blake is on the front desk. I’ll put you right through.”

  “Lieutenant Blake.”

  “Special Agent Calvert. We’ve seen your Greek and we’d like you to put a guard on his room. He’s scared to hell about something so we don’t want to take any chances.”

  “He’s not my Greek, damn it,” said Blake. “Can’t you use one of your own fancy guys?”

  “There’s no one we can spare at the moment, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m not exactly overstaffed myself, for God’s sake. What do you think we’re running, the Shoreham Hotel? Oh hell, I’ll do what I can. But they won’t be able to get there for a couple of hours.”

  “Fine. Thanks for your help, Lieutenant. I’ll brief my office.” Barry replaced the receiver.

  Mark Andrews and Barry Calvert waited for the elevator, which was just as slow and reluctant to take them down as it had been to take them up. Neither of them spoke until they were inside the dark blue Ford.

  “Stames is coming back to hear the story,” said Calvert. “I can’t imagine he’ll want to take it any further, but we’d better keep him informed. Then maybe we can call it a day.”

  Mark glanced at his watch; another hour and forty-five minutes’ overtime, technically the maximum allowed an agent on any one day.

  “I hope so,” said Mark. “I just got myself a date.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “The beautiful Dr. Dexter.”

  Barry raised his eyebrows. “Don’t let the boss know. If he thought you picked up someone while you were on duty, he’d send you for a spell in the salt mines in Butte, Montana.”

  “I didn’t realize that they had salt mines in Butte, Montana.”

  “Only FBI agents who really screw it up know there are salt mines in Butte.”

  Mark drove back to downtown Washington while Barry wrote up his report of the interview. It was 7:40 by the time they had returned to the Old Post Office Building, and Mark found the parking lot almost empty. By this time at night most civilized people were at home doing civilized things, like eating moussaka. Stames’s car was already there. Goddamn him. They took the elevator to the fifth floor and went into Stames’s reception room. It looked empty without Julie. Calvert knocked quietly on the chief’s door and the two agents walked in. Stames looked up. He had already found a hundred and one things to do since he’d been back, almost as if he had forgotten that he had specifically come back to see them.

  “Right, Barry. Let’s have it from the top, slowly and accurately.”

  Calvert recounted exactly what had happened from the moment they had arrived at Woodrow Wilson to the moment he had asked the Metropolitan Police to put a guard on the room to protect the Greek. Mark was impressed by Barry’s total recall. At no point had he exaggerated or revealed any personal prejudice. Stames lowered his head for a few moments and then suddenly turned to Mark.

  “Do you want to add anything?” he asked.

  “Not really, sir. It was all a bit melodramatic. Although he didn’t come over as a liar, he was certainly frightened. Also there’s no trace of him in any of our files. I radioed the Night Super for a name check. Negative on Casefikis.”

  Nick picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Bureau Headquarters. “Give me the National Computer Information Center, Polly.” He was put straight through. A young woman answered the phone.

  “Stames, Washington Field Office. Would you please have the following suspect checked out on the computer immediately?—Angelo Casefikis: Caucasian; male; Greek ancestry; height, five feet nine inches; weight, about a hundred and sixty-five pounds; hair, dark brown; eyes, brown; age, thirty-eight; no distinguishing marks or scars known; no identifying numbers known.” He was reading from the report Calvert had placed in front of him. He waited silently.

  “If his story is true,” Mark said, “we should have no listing for him at all.”

  “If it’s true,” said Calvert.

  Stames continued to wait. The days of waiting to find out who was in the FBI files and who wasn’t had long gone. The girl came back on the line.

  “We have nothing on a Casefikis, Angelo. We don’t even have a Casefikis. The best the computer can offer is a Casegikis who was born in 1901. Sorry I can’t help, Mr. Stames.”

  “Thanks very much.” Stames put the phone down. “Okay boys, for the moment let’s give Casefikis the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume he is telling the truth and that this is a serious investigation. We have no trace of him in any of our files, so we’d better start believing his story until it’s disproved; he just might be on to something, and if he is, then it goes way above me. Tomorrow morning, Barry, I want you back at the hospital with a fingerprint expert; take his prints in case he is giving a false name, put them through the identification computer right away and make sure you get a full written statement, signed. Then check the Met files for any shooting incidents on 24 February he could have been involved in. As soon as we can get him out, I want him in an ambulance showing us where that luncheon took place. Push the hospital into agreeing to that tomorrow morning, if possible. To date, he’s not under arrest or wanted for any crime we know about, so don’t go too far, not that he strikes me as a man who would know much about his rights.

  “Mark,” Stames said, turning his head, “I want you to go back to the hospital immediately and make sure the Met are there. If not, stay with Casefikis until they do arrive. In the morning, go round to the Golden Duck and check him out. I’m going to make a provisional appointment for us to see the Director tomorrow morning, at 10:00 A.M., which will give you enough time to report back to me. And if, when we check the fingerprints through the identification computer, nothing comes up at all, and the hotel and the restaurant exist, we may be in a whole heap of trouble. If that’s the case, I’m not taking it one inch further without the Director knowing. For the moment, I want nothing in writing. Don’t hand in your official memorandum until tomorrow morning. Above all, don’t mention that a senator could be involved to anybody—and that includes Grant Nanna. It’s possible tomorrow, after we have seen the Director, that we will do no more than make a full report and hand the whole thing over to the Secret Service. Don’t forget the clear division of responsibility—the Secret Service guards the President, we cover federal crime. If a senator is involved, it’s us; if the President’s involved, it’s them. We’ll let the Director decide the finer points—I’m not getting involved in Capitol Hill, that’s the Director’s baby, and with only seven days to play with, we don’t have time to sit and discuss the academic niceties.”

  Stames picked up the red phone which put him straight through to the Director’s office.

  “Nick Stames, WFO.”

  “Good evening,” said a low, quiet voice. Mrs. McGregor, a dedicated servant of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was still on duty. It was said that even Hoover had been slightly frightened of her.

  “Mrs. McGregor, I’d like to make a provisional appointment for myself and Special Agents Calvert and Andrews to see the Director for fifteen minutes, if that’s possible. Anytime between 9:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. tomorrow. It’s likely that after further investigation tonight and early tomorrow, I won’t need to bother him.”

  Mrs. McGregor consulted the Director’s desk diary. “The Director is going to a meeting of police chiefs at eleven but he is expected in the office at 8:30 and he has nothing marked in his diary before eleven. I’ll pencil you in for 10:30, Mr. Stames. Do you want me to tell the Director what the subject of your discussion will be?”

  “I’d prefer not to.”

  Mrs. McGregor