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Rat Race

<h2>CHAPTER 19</h2> "The President will see you now, Mr. Tompkins," said the White House usher, as he beckoned me to follow him. A pleasant, rangy, mild-mannered man rose from behind the great desk and shook my hand. "Glad to see you, Mr. Tompkins," he said. "General Vaughan has been telling me great things about your work. What can I do for you?" As I looked at the guileless, friendly face, my heart sank. Here was one man who should not be deceived. It would be as easy as stuffing a ballot box. "Mr. President," I told him, "when I left the Pentagon Building yesterday, I had an elaborate report to submit to you. But I decided that the President of the United States was entitled to the simple truth." "That's right!" snapped the Chief Executive. "So if you'll listen to me for five minutes," I continued, "I'll tell you the strangest story you ever heard." President Truman coughed. "General Vaughan has told me of the fine work you've been doing for Z-2," he observed. "As you can imagine, I'm terribly busy taking on this job." "Mr. President," I began, "to begin with, there's no such organization as Z-2. If you'll listen for a few minutes I'll tell you the whole story." I did. At the end of it, he smiled at me. "Mr. Tompkins," he said, "you're a married man, aren't you?" "Yes, Mr. President." "Then you tell Mrs. Tompkins for me that I want her to take you home and take good care of you for the next few weeks. You've been overdoing it. This Z-2 work has taken it out of you. You need a rest. Now don't you worry about Z-2," he continued. "What you need to do is to take things easy. The work will go right ahead. I'm putting Z-2 under General Wakely. This country needs better intelligence services and they ought to be concentrated under one responsible head, if you ask me." "But I tell you, Mr. President," I insisted, "there never was such an organization as Z-2. I invented it in order to clear myself with the F.B.I." He flashed a boyish grin at me. "But there's no doubt that the Alaska went down like a stone?" "She went up like a sky-rocket, sir." "Then this thorium bomb doesn't sound as though it was practical, sinking one of our ships like that." "Mr. President," I argued, "any bomb will explode if it is deliberately detonated. This bomb was deliberately touched off by Professor Chalmis. He wanted to prevent its use in warfare." The President nodded. "Yes, yes, Mr. Tompkins. You explained that to me before. Now you be sure to tell your wife to take good care of you. When you're rested up, you come on down and see me again and we'll talk some more about this Z-2 work of yours. We can use men like you in the State Department. I'm sorry I don't know more about it, but all of President Roosevelt's papers have been removed from the White House and I don't even know what he told Stalin at Yalta. Perhaps you'd better talk to the State Department before you take that rest. That's what they're for. Thank you for seeing me." Two beefy Secret Service men appeared in the doorway. "Is there any particular man I should see at the Department, sir?" I asked. "I want to get this whole business cleared up." The President stood up and shook my hand in dismissal. "Just go across the street and tell them I sent you," he said. "Good day to you, sir." The two body-guards closed in on me, so I bowed slightly and withdrew from the President's office. In the anteroom, I found General Wakely pacing up and down like the father of triplets. "How did it go, Tompkins?" he asked. "You had five extra minutes. Did you get a chance to give him a fill-in about the Navy and you-know-what?" I shook my head. "My orders are not to discuss that matter any further, General," I told him. "But what about Von Bieberstein?" the chief of M.I.D. demanded. "Can you give me a lead?" "My instructions, General," I said, "are to discuss matters with the State Department." "The State Department!" Wakely was outraged. "Why, they're nothing but a bunch of Reds! They tell me there are men over there who have spent years in Russia." "If I am ever allowed to tell you who Von Bieberstein really is," I told the General, "you will understand why I am not allowed to discuss it with you now. This is a matter for the Big Three. It is out of my hands entirely." At the gate of the White House drive I was suddenly halted by a piercing "Hi!" It was Virginia Rutherford. She dodged her way between two stalwart sentries and took my arm. "Winnie!" she cooed, as soon as we were across Pennsylvania Avenue, "you utter devil!" It seemed safest to say nothing. "Winnie," she continued. "Do you realize that the Army of the United States dragged me out of bed yesterday morning and flew me down here just to discover that you are a bigger liar than I thought you were?" "Please don't blame me for General Wakely," I told her. "He's an Eagle Scout in high places. I was getting on fine until you showed up, and please don't raise your voice at me. If I know the Army, you and I are being tailed right now by the counter-intelligence." Virginia snuggled closer to me, as we dodged through the crowd in LaFayette Park watching the White House. "To think," she said dreamily, "that all this time you have been an American secret service agent. Ain't that something?" Again it seemed safest to say nothing. "Yes, Winnie Tompkins, super-sleuth!" she continued with an edge on her voice you could have shaved with. "All last winter, when I was under the impression that we were canoodling from bar to bar, you were working for Uncle Sam! It's one of the best stories of the war, Winnie. Sleep with Tompkins and lick the Axis!" This was getting under my hide. "Virginia," I told her, "I have just spent the last twenty minutes trying to convince President Truman that I'm not a secret agent. He will have none of it. He says I've been working too hard and need a rest." "You devil!" Virginia chuckled dangerously. "You absolute, utter demon! Here is civilization at the crossroads and what does Winfred S. Tompkins do to amuse himself. He strolls down to Washington and persuades the Generals and the Admirals and the President that he has been winning the war for them instead of winning the wife of his family physician. That's what I call funny." "Have it your own way," I agreed. "If you can persuade General Wakely that I'm a fake, more power to you. He believes that you are one of my best operatives and nothing can shake him." "So that's what you call them? Your operatives? That's wonderful. If I'm ever asked, 'Grandma, what did you do in the second Great War?' I'll say, Johnnie I was an operative under W. S. Tompkins, the ace American Agent." "Would you mind not talking quite so loud," I again begged her. "Those two men following us might misunderstand." She glanced over her shoulder. "You mean those five men following us, don't you, Winnie?" I looked behind us. She was right. A group of five, if not six, people were trailing along behind us. Lamb and the F.B.I., Ballister and the Navy, as well as the Army's counter-intelligence and the O.S.S., were probably represented. "Five is right," I agreed. "You see, Virginia, I'm a pretty important person. You noticed, I hope, that President Truman took time out to chat with me." "What's he like?" she asked irrelevantly. "Of course, Roosevelt was all wrong but he had something on the ball. Who's this little guy from Montana, anyhow?" "Missouri," I corrected her. "He's from Missouri and don't you ever forget it. That's what he is, Virginia, a little guy from Missouri." We were at the Willard. "Here, Virginia, I must leave you," I told her. "You can't follow me up to my bedroom and anyhow I have a message for Jimmie from the President of the United States." "Nuts!" she answered brightly. "You're not fooling me for one little minute. You've just lied yourself into a bigger jam than you've lied yourself out of. Well, I'm on to your game." When I reached the room, there was no sign of Jimmie. This statement should be qualified. She herself was not to be seen but various articles of clothing were scattered around the room and there was a rush and gurgle of water from the bathroom which suggested that my wife was taking a bath. She was. "Winnie?" she called through the half-open door. "Theesa tha floor-waiter," I grunted. "You wanta me? I busy." "Waiter," she commanded, "please leave the room at once." "What'sa alla so secret, hey?" I asked, still speaking in subject-race style. "Letta me see!" I took the handle of the door, wrenched it open and pushed. There was an angry screech from inside, followed by an indignant, "Winnie, you beast! Get out of here!" I didn't, so Jimmie dropped the bath towel she had draped defensively across her shoulders and subsided laughing into a warm, soapy bath. "You are the absolute limit!" she declared. "I'll never forgive you for this. Tell me, what the President was like?" "Very nice," I said. "He reminds me of one time I saw a little fresh-water college football team play Notre Dame. You sort of wanted the little guys to make at least one first down, but you knew that if they did, it would just be an accident. No, Truman's one hell of a nice guy but that doesn't mean he could lick Joe Louis. Anyhow, he was complimentary about my work and he sent a message to you. Pity he couldn't deliver it in person, like the floor-waiter." "For me?" I nodded. "He said that I needed a good long rest and that you must take very good care of me." She looked up at me, large-eyed, through a haze of steam. "Oh, Winnie," she declared. "I am so proud of you. To think that all the time you've been doing secret intelligence! And I believed you were just chasing around after those silly girls. Don't you think you could have trusted your wife?" she asked. I shook my head emphatically. "That was part of my cover," I replied. "If you hadn't been worried about me it wouldn't have looked natural. If I'd told you, you wouldn't have worried and the Axis agents—" I left the thought trailing. Germaine sucked reflectively on the corner of her wash-cloth. "Yes," she agreed at last, "I can see that, but I don't see how I can ever trust you again." I laughed. "Then don't trust me," I told her. "We'll still have a good time. Suppose you get dressed now and come downstairs and we'll have champagne cocktails to celebrate." "Celebrate what?" she asked, loosing the stopper with her toes. "Celebrate the liquidation of Z-2," I said. "It's being taken over by the Army. My work is done anyhow. And tomorrow I have to see the State Department. Mr. Truman tells me they need men like me—God help them!" "The State Department!" She jumped out of the tub, scattering water lavishly on the floor and on me. "Are they going to make you an Ambassador or something?" "Come down to earth, Jimmie," I urged her. "I'm a Republican from New York; not a Democrat. I may have done an even better job than they think I've done, but I know one thing I didn't do to qualify for a diplomatic job." "What's that?" she asked, towelling herself vigorously. "I never contributed a dime to the Democratic National Committee," I confessed. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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