The Hellfire Club(104)

“The, ah, loose association that I’m in,” Winston said. “And Isaiah.”

“What is this ‘loose association’?” Margaret asked. “Central Intelligence? FBI? I don’t understand.”

“You will soon enough, but I’ve said all I can,” Winston said.

“Margaret, surely you realize that clandestine services in the U.S. are made up not only of organizations you know about, but also ones you don’t,” Street offered.

They stopped at a red light.

No one spoke. The light changed and they drove on in uncomfortable silence.

“I assume you can tell us about the Hellfire Club at least?” Margaret asked. “Who are they?”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” Winston said. “We think its monks include Carlin, Hilton, McCarthy, the Dulles boys, Hoover, Ambassador Kennedy, um…Who else?”

“Duncan Whitney from General Kinetics,” Street said. “We don’t know them all. You got closer to the club, Charlie, than I ever could.”

“And what do they do?” Margaret asked.

“Control almost everything,” said Kefauver.

“Make a lot of money,” Street said.

“They all have networks of people who owe them favors or people they’ve compromised,” Winston said. “And yes, they’re getting rich but they’re also fighting Commies.”

“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.