The young analyst did not disappoint.
“Thank you, Master Po.”
MATHIAS, WEST VIRGINIA
MARCH 29
You know you can’t do things like that, Sam. You are your own worst enemy.”
Vanalika Chandra stretched languidly on the bed, the sheets still tousled and slightly damp from sex. She arched her back slightly. It was just one more thing she did that reminded Sam of a cat. He ran his finger lightly across her thigh. Her skin was the color of cinnamon.
“I know,” Sam acknowledged. He’d just finished telling Vanalika about his unfortunate exchange with Richard Newton the night before. “It was not my finest hour. The worst part is that I kind of enjoyed it. Newton is living proof that you can be a stuffed shirt and an empty suit at the same time, and I liked being the one to expose that for all to see.”
“You don’t understand.” Vanalika sat up and Sam let his gaze wander idly for a brief moment over her perfect body. “All of the people in that room feel like you made Richard Newton look. Yes, they’re arrogant narcissists, but they also suffer from imposter syndrome. They wake up every morning asking themselves if today’s the day. The day they get caught. Exposed as ignorant frauds who don’t know enough or aren’t smart enough or wise enough to be in the positions they’re in. They’re all insecure little children underneath. What you did to Newton you could have done to any of them. He just made the mistake of speaking carelessly in front of someone who both knows what he’s talking about and has no idea what’s good for him.”
Vanalika reached for a pack of Marlboros on the nightstand.
“Now who doesn’t know what’s good for her?” Sam asked, as he lit her cigarette with the Bic lighter that had been set next to the cigarettes.
“I’m cutting back,” Vanalika protested. “I only smoke after sex, and even then only after good sex. That means my husband doesn’t know. He thinks I quit six months ago.”
“And how is Rajiv?”
“Dull. And traveling a lot, fortunately.”
Vanalika, the political counselor at the Indian Embassy in Washington, was married to a wealthy and powerful Indian businessman. It had been an arranged marriage, but whatever advantage their families had hoped to gain from their union had been made moot by the couple’s failure to have children. A blessing, Vanalika had once confessed to Sam. She and Rajiv remained married more out of habit and duty than because either of them was really invested.
It had been almost a year since she and Sam had become lovers. It was an illicit affair. Vanalika, in particular, would face both personal and professional disgrace should it become public. Sam was not much safer. He was employed by Argus Systems, but Diplomatic Security owned his clearances. Not without reason, DS considered adulterous relationships with foreign government officials an open invitation to blackmail. If the State Department knew about his relationship with Vanalika, DS would strip Sam of his clearances—and his access to classified information—in less time than it would take to soft-boil an egg. They were careful. This weekend was one of the few they had been able to steal. The cabin in the Shenandoah Valley was a three-hour drive from the Beltway. It was rented in a false name and isolated enough that there was no cell reception.
Vanalika flicked the ash from her cigarette into a glass ashtray advertising Greenwood Mountain Lodges and leaned back against the pillows.
“You seem a little down for a man who just got lucky with an incredible exotic fox. Please tell me that what Newton said didn’t get to you. He was just being spiteful because you wounded his pride.”
“No, it’s not Newton,” Sam replied. “At least not what he said. But I can’t help comparing where he is with where I am. Argus was a nice soft landing spot for me after the State Department and I came to our parting of ways. But I miss it. I’m not happy with the way it ended, and I’m not thrilled about being at a Beltway Bandit. I never saw myself bellying up to the government trough as a contractor. Somehow, I always thought I’d have a little more self-respect.”
“Times change, Sam. There’s no shame in what you’re doing. Contractors are doing more and more of the heavy lifting in your government. Mine too, but Delhi has a long way to go before it catches up with Washington.”
“That’s just the point. It was one thing when federal agencies were outsourcing noncore functions. I don’t especially care who runs the State Department cafeteria, for example. That’s not an inherently governmental responsibility. But these contracting firms are sprouting up in the D.C. area like mushrooms or Starbucks. They’ve gone from running the Pentagon’s shuttle-bus service to making government policy. Argus works on national security. That’s about as ‘core’ a function as I can think of.”
“In which case, the American people are lucky that you’re the one doing the job. I’m sure you’ll be a star. Maybe I can leak you some classified information just to make sure that you get off on the right foot.”
“Got anything good?”
“Well, I hear that the Indian political counselor is having a torrid affair.”
“Do tell. Is it serious?”
“Very.” She giggled.
“I’m still not sure I see the harm in the contracting boom,” Vanalika continued. “Governments are big and slow, and private companies can often do things faster and cheaper. What does it really matter as long as the work is getting done and getting done well?”
“Look, I know a guy at the CIA who’s worked on analyzing satellite imagery for twenty years. It’s pretty tedious work, but it’s important and highly technical. He’s the guy who can tell you when the North Koreans are getting ready to launch a missile. He’d also be the first to tell you that he was glad for the steady work and government benefits, but he did the job because he was a patriot and he was helping to keep his country safe. A few weeks ago, he left the CIA and took a job at True North, a fairly typical consultancy with a contract to analyze overhead imagery for the Agency. You know budgets are tight when even Langley is looking to downsize. This guy resigned on Friday and was back at the same office on Monday doing the same thing at twice the salary. The only difference is that now he’s got a red contractor badge rather than a blue Agency badge. Oh, and one more thing. He’s no longer sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. Now he’s responsible to his corporate masters and the company’s shareholders. What he’s doing is ultimately about profit and loss, and that feels wrong. Not as wrong as Richard Newton, mind you, but wrong.”
Vanalika frowned slightly and her forehead furrowed as though she were suddenly deep in thought. She had an agile mind that allowed her to skip lightly from topic to topic, and if Sam wasn’t careful, he sometimes found himself a beat or two behind in their conversations.
“Are you sure that Newton is wrong?” she asked. “About Rangarajan, I mean. I’m worried about the damage he could do to the relationship with Pakistan even inadvertently. He’s young and inexperienced. Some of the decisions he’s made could be seen in Islamabad as provocative. Certainly Talwar seems to see it that way. You and I have read the same intel reports. The things the Pakistanis are saying in private are alarming and unremittingly hostile. Talwar neither fears nor respects Rangarajan. We don’t need both, but to have neither seems a very dangerous set of circumstances.”
“Rangarajan’s got to walk a fine line,” Sam agreed. “But he’s no babe in the woods. You don’t get to the top of the Congress Party without good political instincts and an understanding of power. He knows he can’t push Talwar and the clerics too hard, but neither can he afford to look like a pushover himself. That’s not an easy balance to strike. I’m not saying that he’s always got it right. But I think he’s doing okay. And I believe he’s genuinely committed to peace with Pakistan.”
“God, I hope so,” Vanalika said. She left her cigarette smoldering in the ashtray and laid her head on Sam’s shoulder. Her hair was jet-black and thick and smelled of
lavender. Vanalika was not a classic beauty. Her nose, for one thing, was just a little too prominent and a little off center, the result of a childhood horse-riding accident she had once told Sam. In repose, she was rather ordinary-looking, but she had a megawatt smile and dark eyes that sparkled with intelligence and wit. To Sam, she was beautiful and challenging, and he was grateful for the time they had together.
Vanalika sat up to retrieve her cigarette.
“I just can’t image that either side really wants a war,” she said, “no matter how tense things get in Kashmir.”
“They don’t need to want it. They just need to choose it. There are some things they’ll want even less than war. When it comes to issues of pride and identity, nations and leaders can be almost unbelievably shortsighted. No one in power wants to look weak, and when leaders get caught in the kind of standoff Talwar and Rangarajan are in right now, it can be easier for them to go down the road to war than the road to peace. It sometimes seems the path of least resistance. At first. What comes later is something else. No one ever seems more surprised by war and its costs than the leaders who make that particular choice.”
“Peace has its own perils,” Vanalika observed. “Rangarajan has reached out to Talwar, but the clerics in Islamabad have broken every agreement they’ve signed so far. If Rangarajan is seen as weak, the Pakistanis will just keep pushing and taking until there’s nothing left to take.”
“I’m not saying you need to ask these guys to the prom. I’m just saying that Rangarajan is right to be looking for some kind of compromise. Geography is destiny, and India and Pakistan just can’t escape each other.”
“Not every situation is amenable to compromise. What if the European powers of the day, horrified by the violence of Shiloh and Antietam, had sent peacekeepers to America to separate the North and the South in your civil war and force a negotiated settlement? Would the world be a better place? Sometimes victory may be the best outcome to conflict even if the costs are terrible. Sometimes, maybe, it’s worth any price.”
“The Union and the Confederacy fought with ironclad warships and muzzle-loading rifles,” Sam replied. “India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Once you cross the nuclear Rubicon, there’s no going back. You need to find a way to live together without killing each other.”
“Kind of like my marriage,” Vanalika suggested.
“Exactly like your marriage,” Sam agreed.
“Vanalika,” he said, suddenly serious. “Why don’t you leave him? Move in with me. We can stop skulking around. Maybe even go out to dinner in D.C. in a restaurant with a wine list instead of a selection of light beers in a can.”
“Sam, we’ve been over this,” Vanalika replied, with a hint of reproof in her voice. “I like what we are. I don’t need more. I don’t want more. Rajiv is a snake, but I know how to handle snakes. He doesn’t make me happy; he doesn’t make me unhappy either. You make me happy, Sam. Even so, we’d never make it as a real couple. And, in any event, you’re living with someone already.”
“The boxes of Indian takeout piling up in my fridge would beg to differ. Who, pray tell, is my live-in love?”
“Janani. You’ve been living with her ghost for seven years. A mere flesh-and-blood girl could never measure up to that kind of competition.” Vanalika reached over and gently stroked his cheek. “We have a good thing here. Don’t spoil it by trying to rescue me from the dark knight. I don’t need rescuing.”
“Do you really think my motives are so simon-pure? Maybe I’m just in it for the sex.”
“You do seem to have a thing for Indian girls. Am I just the latest in a string of South Asian conquests? Another jewel in the crown?” She smiled as she said this to show that she did not mean anything unkind.
“That’s right. I’m a Mughal emperor and you’re my barbarian princess.”
“Oh, come on. Talk to me. You know everything there is to know about Rajiv, and I know next to nothing about your past. I don’t mind sharing you with Janani. I just want to know what she was like. Are you with me because I remind you of her?”
“No. She was different than you.”
“Different how?” Vanalika wrapped her fingers around Sam’s and pulled his hand up to her lips. She kissed his knuckles softly.
“You’re a Brahmin, Vee. You grew up in comfort with power and privilege. You wear it well. It looks good on you. But you wear it easily because you’ve never known anything else. Janani was Dalit.”
He felt Vanalika stiffen almost imperceptibly at that revelation. It was so slight that she might not even have been aware of it, but with her body pressed up against his, Sam could feel it.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really.”
Vanalika shifted onto one elbow. There was a gleam in her eye as though he had just told her something shocking or salacious. Sam understood why this piece of information about his former spouse would be so titillating. The Dalit were untouchables, members of the so-called unscheduled castes whose ancestors had been tanners or butchers or laborers doing work that the Hindu religion considered unclean. The structure of the caste system was complex and multidimensional, with four major castes and literally thousands of subdivisions. But however you looked at it, the Brahmins were at the top and the Dalit were on the bottom. Caste was a rough analogue to race in the United States. Officially, discrimination on the basis of caste was against the law in modern India. There were affirmative action programs in place for low-caste Indians at universities, in government ministries, and in state-run businesses. There had even been a Dalit president of the country. Life for the lower castes had definitely improved over the last twenty years, but prejudice remained, buried just under the surface. And it ran deep, especially in rural areas. High-caste families would not dream of letting their children “marry down.” Sam doubted that Vanalika, who was from the highest echelons of Indian society, had many—if any—Dalit friends.
“Janani was from Dharavi,” Sam explained. That in itself was a powerful statement. Dharavi was one of Mumbai’s largest slums, a million people living in an area half the size of Central Park, most without running water or reliable electricity. Janani had been born into poverty and, by all rights, she should have died in poverty. But there had been a spark to her, a drive.
“Her parents died when she was young and one of the convent orphanages took her in. Somehow, she stayed in school when nearly all of her classmates dropped out to work, or beg, or marry, or steal. She had a talent for art, and the nuns helped her get a scholarship to the University of Mumbai. When I met her, she was running her own graphic-design company. It was small but growing. She had her own apartment. She had made it all the way out. There are not many who do. Most of those who make it out cut all their ties to their former lives. After we got married, Janani could have left Dharavi behind her forever. As the wife of an American diplomat, she could have essentially ceased being Dalit. She wouldn’t do that. She taught art to Dalit kids and worked with various aid agencies active in Dharavi right up until she died. She was”—Sam paused as he grappled for the right word—“extraordinary.” The word was a poor stand-in for how Sam felt, but it would have to do.
“I know that I’m the one who is technically married, but I can’t help being a little bit jealous of Janani. I hope she doesn’t mind.”
“Quite the contrary. She’d like that. Janani never shied away from a little competition.”
Sam reached over Vanalika for the iPhone that was sitting on the nightstand. Argus had offered him a government-standard BlackBerry, but the IT department was willing to at least tolerate his iPhone, something the more controlling State Department would never do. He glanced at the screen. There was still no reception.
“The one woman in my life I really need to talk to I can’t reach,” he complained.
“Lena?”
“Yeah. It’s her birthday. She�
��s twenty-four today. What does that make me? Thirty-eight, maybe?”
Vanalika laughed. “Don’t worry. You’re not old, Sam. You have some miles on you. But the warranty’s still good.” Vanalika was almost ten years younger than Sam. She teased him about his age occasionally, but always gently, as though she knew he was sensitive about it. Sam was not one of those men who felt compelled to fend off awareness of their own creeping mortality by chasing after much younger partners. He had had opportunities. Women, he knew, found him attractive, even if in something of an unconventional way. One former girlfriend had described his appeal as “nerd chic.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Vanalika continued. “Why don’t you get dressed and go get us a bottle of wine at that place we passed on the way in. There should be reception down there and you can call Lena. And I’d like a bottle of West Virginia’s finest cabernet.”
“You want some pâté on a crusty baguette to go with that? Maybe a moon rock or a piece of the true Cross?”
“Just go,” Vanalika said, pushing him playfully toward the edge of the bed. “If you can find even a halfway decent bottle of wine, I’ll find a suitable way to reward you. I promise.”
Sam dressed quickly and stepped out into the crisp chill. Up here in the mountains, winter had not quite released its grip. The drive down to Mathias took no more than fifteen minutes. In honor of his daughter, Sam popped Lena Horne’s 1962 album Lena on the Blue Side into the CD player and listened to her velvet voice as he steered his Prius down the dark and windy road. He and Janani had shared a love for Lena Horne’s music, and they had listened to her so much through the course of the pregnancy that it seemed a natural choice to give her name to their daughter. In a box somewhere in the attic of their Capitol Hill townhouse, Sam still had the vinyl LPs they had played.
Mathias had a family-style restaurant, a general store, and three bars of cell reception. Sam parked in front of the general store and used his Skype app to make a call to Mumbai. It would be morning there, but Lena was an early riser. She picked up on the third ring.
Secrets of State Page 3