There was no tape recording running today, when Wellington entered the office. The man at the desk looked up from a typewritten report he was reading and said, “Sit down.” After Wellington sat, he said, “Minor business first. We have approval for you to go ahead in Port au Prince.”
Wellington lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise. “On the side of the angels for once.”
“It won’t be angels who rush to fill that vacuum,” the other man said. “On the matter of your father, I submitted that plan of yours and we just got an approval.”
“Good,” Wellington said. He showed no emotion.
“I suppose you’re already aware of this, but I recommended it be denied. My own vote went for death.”
“I thought it would,” Wellington said.
“It’s simpler than your plan, it’s safer, it’s neater, and God knows it’s cheaper.”
“The family will absorb part of the cost,” Wellington said.
“You can’t be sure of that. You haven’t talked to them yet.”
“They’ll do it.” Wellington nearly smiled. “We can have that meeting now,” he said. “That will please Howard.”
“Was there any trouble stalling it?”
“No. There were a few points where pressure could be applied.”
The other man leaned back in his chair, brooding at Wellington. “Circumstances alter cases,” he said. “No one is unemotional after all. If it hadn’t been your father, you would have been the first to see the only sensible thing to do was kill him.”
“Probably.”
“If he wasn’t an ex-President, the President wouldn’t have gone along with a risky idea like yours.”
“That could very well be.”
The other man brooded a half-minute longer, then shook his head and sat forward once more. “The Chinese have been very unhappy about your intercept.”
“I expected they would be. I thought they’d have tried something by now.”
“They will. You lost an in-law last night.”
That seemed to be a change of subject. Was it? Wellington nodded, saying, “Yes. My Aunt Elizabeth.”
“Anything in it?”
“No. It was a death from natural causes.”
“You’re sure.”
“Completely. Her heart gave out.” Wellington shrugged slightly. “There are natural deaths in this world.”
“Not so many. It turns out we have files on her. She goes back to the Dies Committee.”
This time Wellington did smile. “A great deal of trouble,” he said. “A leftist from birth to death. I was very fond of her.”
“Yes, I know. A part of your perverse streak. They intend to grab Lockridge at the funeral.”
Wellington frowned. “How solid is that?”
“Grade A, absolutely sure.” He picked up a manila envelope and tossed it onto Wellington’s side of the desk. “That’s what we have. Not very much yet. I’ll try to get more.”
“The funeral’s the day after tomorrow.”
“I know.”
Wellington opened the envelope and read the recap of agents’ reports. The Chinese intended to kidnap Bradford in Lancashire on Friday, during the course of Elizabeth’s funeral.
The other man waited till Wellington finished reading and looked up, and then said, “A question is now raised.”
“Who stops them?”
“Exactly. Do we reveal ourselves to your family? I would prefer not to. Could we manage an unobtrusive block without your family’s cooperation? Doubtful. Could we trust the family to protect Lockridge themselves? Risky.”
“They’ll have to be told,” Wellington said. “About the grab, not about us. I’ll organize them, but we’ll keep a unit of our people in the background, just in case.”
“You are taking on a dangerous responsibility.”
“Your skirts will stay clean,” Wellington assured him. “Everyone is aware this is my baby.”
“Just so you’re aware of it,” the other man said.
ii
Raised gold lettering on the broad oak-veneered doors read COLLINS, WELLINGTON, SMART, Attorneys-at-Law. Down the left hand door in more gold letters ran a ladder of names, not in alphabetical order. Fourth and fifth from the top were William Wellington and Walter Wellington. Third from the bottom was John Bloor.
The elevator opened onto this massive-doored entrance, flanked by leatherette sofas on one side and a receptionist’s desk on the other. Even more impressive than the doors were the receptionist — a stunning blonde — and the button-bedecked beige telephone switchboard on the desk in front of her.
Wellington stepped from the elevator with Eugene White and Meredith Fanshaw, with whom he had flown up from Washington. In his usual manner, he hung back and allowed Eugene to deal with the receptionist, who had apparently recognized Meredith and would have preferred to do her talking to him.
The law firm of Collins, Wellington, Smart had opened for business here in Boston nearly eighty years ago, the Wellington in the firm name having been the father of Bradford’s wife, Dinah, and the source of Wellington Lockridge’s first name. Bradford himself had worked here for seven years after getting his law degree from Harvard and before first running for Congress in the family’s home district in Pennsylvania.
Unlike the common practice of law firms, Collins, Wellington, Smart had chosen not to change its name as old partners had died or retired and been replaced by new men. There was no longer anyone named Smart connected with the firm, though there were still several Collinses. The William and Walter Wellington listed on the door were grandsons of the founder Wellington, themselves now both men in their fifties. John Bloor, Robert Pratt’s former college roommate, married Walter Wellington’s daughter, Deborah, adding another intra-family entwining of the type that Wellington’s superior down in Washington took such proletarian offense to.
The firm’s original offices had been in the second story of a four-story brownstone building near the Common, from which it had gradually expanded until, by the end of the Second World War, it had spread through the entire building. The firm also owned the building by then, having bought it in 1937 and redubbed it Collins House. A fine example of nineteenth-century Boston architecture, Collins House had been rich in dark woods and heavy fireplaces and tall narrow windows, high ceilings and intricate moldings and complex chandeliers, all elements tending toward the encouragement of the concept of Collins, Wellington, Smart as a settled and reliable old legal firm.
But progress is inexorable. The time had finally come when Collins House stood in the path of urban renewal, when the wiring was hopelessly inadequate for modern office machinery and air-conditioning, and when even some of the older partners were casting envious glances at the new forty-story chrome and glass ant farms being constructed all over New England by insurance companies who didn’t know what else to do with their money. After a great deal of wrangling between the traditionalists and the modernists the move, eleven years ago, was finally made, and as Collins House fell to the wrecker’s ball the firm of Collins, Wellington, Smart moved into the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh floors of the Alliance Assurance Building on the other side of the Common. Some of the old mantelpieces and pier glasses had been carried over from Collins House and now appeared in odd corners of various offices, like the Ghost of Elegance Past.
The change of locale for this second family meeting had been Wellington’s only significant defeat so far in this affair, and even so it was a defeat he didn’t particularly mind. Eugene White had been prepared to set up the second meeting in the same place in Washington, but Howard had raised an objection that no one had been successfully able to argue against, pointing out that although a dozen fairly important individuals might be able to meet once in official Washington on unofficial business without attracting much attention, they would never be able to do it twice. Particularly with the expanded attendance list this time. If everyone showed up — and they should — they would be nineteen strong.