Collision

by William S. Cohen

  In the 1980s, Komov, then a KGB colonel, had urged the creation of the room to foil CIA laser-beam eavesdropping that had been revealed by a defecting CIA officer. “There is reason, Comrade President, for extreme secrecy,” the Komov note said.

  Lebed had heard about Komov long before the transition period following President Putin’s death. Komov had been the prime instructor in the KGB counterintelligence school when he first met the new KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the KGB was replaced by the Federal Security Service, Putin had been appointed its director. He overruled regulations and ordered Komov kept on well beyond retirement age. He was made director emeritus of the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, which gave him access to any secret document.

  Putin had always treated Lebed like a nephew, giving him numerous insights, such as why he kept Komov as an advisor on intelligence issues. Putin lavishly praised Komov for his truth-to-power honesty and his institutional memory, which went back to the beginning of the Cold War.

  Putin credited Komov with a sixth sense for detecting defectors. His counterintelligence colleagues called him Comrade X-ray for his ability to see through the façade of anyone contemplating defection. But Komov, looking back on his long career, remembered most of all the two times when he had detected a defector only to have his suspicions ignored by his superiors.

  While Lebed understood the importance of Komov’s experience and counsel on intelligence matters, he distrusted Komov and feared that his loyalty ran to his friends in the old KGB.

  Lebed had been surprised by Komov’s capacity for total recall and had learned to respect him despite suspicion about his link to former KGB officers and security zealots known collectively as the siloviki—“the people of power.” Their ever-suspicious, xenophobic views aroused the liberal left and threatened Lebed’s promise to pursue a more moderate and less authoritarian form of governance. Anyway, he already had a well-connected advisor in the siloviki: his principal fund-raiser, Kuri Basayev.

  *

  President Lebed and Nikita Komov sat across from each other at a narrow table in the Deaf Room. Komov, at ninety-one, was lean and sat ramrod-straight. His narrow, sharp-chinned face was thatched with wrinkles. His white hair was short-cropped. He wore the formal blue gold-belted uniform and black boots of a KGB colonel, a fashion statement frowned on by the civilian-attired employees of the Security Service.

  “Now, Colonel, you said that this had to be an extremely secret meeting,” Lebed said as soon as Komov had taken his seat. “What is it about?”

  “It is, sir, about Kuri Basayev.”

  Lebed frowned, took off his wire-rimmed glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Without commenting, he replaced the glasses.

  “A middle manager in our counterintelligence directorate opened a case file on Basayev and was censured by his superior—a rather brash, inexperienced analyst,” Komov said in his crisp baritone. “He ordered that the file be erased. But I was alerted and, before the file was cast into digital oblivion, I saw it and preserved it. This preservation is not known to the manager of the directorate—I mean ‘department,’ the modern term that is deemed less sinister than ‘directorate.’”

  “What was the basis of opening a file on one of my trusted advisors, a man who himself is a veteran of the Security Service?” Lebed asked, glaring at Komov.

  “I well know, sir, that he served briefly in the service when Comrade Putin was the director. I met him briefly after a lecture I gave to new recruits. He soon left the service and began making his fortune.”

  “I am well aware of his biography, Colonel.”

  Komov nodded and went on: “During the financial crisis caused by the greed of Wall Street, Basayev lost a great deal of his fortune. He then enlarged his criminal activity—drugs, money laundering, and some bloodshed; the details are not important. What is important is that American surveillance sharply increased, and—”

  “He’s no angel,” Lebed said, shrugging. “I have been aware of what you call his criminal activity. Drugs? Not into Russia, correct? Money laundering? Of concern to America, not of much concern to us. And bloodshed? Well, he is Chechen.”

  “What you say, sir, is only partially true. Basayev’s drugs are finding their way into Russia. But it is not the crimes that inspired the opening of a counterintelligence case file. It is the shift in the structure of the surveillance.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He has been under total surveillance by America. Total surveillance is very expensive and reserved for important targets.”

  “Well, as a known advisor to me, he would be important.”

  “Yes, sir. He would get the full menu: CIA, NSA, FBI.”

  “And so? Please, Colonel, get to the point.”

  “The FBI continues a surveillance operation that is highly visible for anyone looking for it. But the CIA has changed its pattern—and, I believe, has not informed the FBI, much as the KGB would not inform the GRU about a shift in surveillance. I have seen this before.”

  “You have seen everything before, Colonel,” Lebed said with a condescending smile.

  “Yes, counterintelligence is more art than science, sir. A CIA counterintelligence chief named James Jesus Angleton called it ‘a wilderness of mirrors’—and took credit for the phrase. In fact, the phrase is incomplete and was from a poem by a modern poet, T. S. Eliot.”

  “I am aware of T. S. Eliot,” Lebed said. “He stopped being modern a while ago. What are you getting at, Colonel?”

  “Eliot wrote, ‘In a wilderness of mirrors, what will the spider do? Suspend its operations?’ The point for counterintelligence was: Do not be bothered by the mirrors; just keep watch on the operation. Our analyst noticed that the CIA has changed the operation. They are no longer giving Basayev the kind of surveillance designed to see—and hear—what he is doing. They have subtly modified the operation to see if he’s being followed by us and to see whether he’s doing what they told them to do. Your valuable advisor, sir, is a mole, working for the CIA.”

  Lebed stood, his face contorted in rage. “Get out!” he shouted.

  Komov sprang to his feet. “Sir, no one else in your Security Service had the courage to tell you about the Basayev file. And no one knows that I have seen it.” Komov reached into his tunic and took out four sheets of lined paper bearing handwriting. “I have written a report containing what is known and suspected. After you read it, you can decide whether to accept my facts or accept my resignation.”

  29

  On the day after Cole Perenchio’s murder, Taylor arrived in his office, as usual, at precisely 8:30. “Good morning, Molly. I … Do you know if Cole Perenchio had any kin?”

  “I don’t really know anything about him, Ben. Is something wrong?”

  “He’s dead, Molly. Shot last night.”

  “My God! How—”

  “Is there anything in the Post?” Taylor asked, pointing to the folded paper on Molly’s desk. She handed it to him and he rapidly flipped through the front section, then to Metro. On page five of the Metro section he saw a two-paragraph story with a one-column headline, “Killing on Capitol Hill.” “Here it is,” he said, folding back the page and handing it to Molly.

  “Unidentified man?” she asked. “But…”

  “That’s Cole. Unidentified.”

  “Did you—”

  Without answering her, he went into his office and directly to the Four-Eyed Monster.

  At the worktable he checked his e-mail and then plunged into outlining the PBS-special idea. He had been at work for about fifteen minutes when his phone buzzed.

  “What’s up, Molly?” he said.

  “It’s a Mr. Sarsfield,” she said, pausing to add, “That is, Agent Sarsfield. I will send him in.”

  Taylor stood as the door opened and the prototype of an FBI agent—fit-looking white male in his forties, wearing a black suit, white shirt, blue tie, and shoelaced black shoes—stood for a moment in fr
ont of Taylor and flashed his badge and identification card. “Special Agent Patrick Sarsfield,” he said, swiftly pocketing a black leather case that looked like Detective Seymour’s. Taylor idly wondered if there was one stockpile for all government ID cases. He put out his hand, as did Sarsfield.

  “There are usually two of you,” Taylor said.

  “Like Mormon missionaries,” Sarsfield said with a quick smile. “Budget cuts. And we are obliged to help out the dear old Capitol Hill coppers who don’t have much detecting to do.” As Taylor motioned Sarsfield to a chair next to his desk, the agent added, “Don’t quote me about the Mormons. I can see my flippancy surprises you.”

  Taylor responded with a smile of his own. “Well, it is engaging. I’m sure you’re a pro and know how to use your flippancy as a way to loosen up your … what? Suspects? So what can I do for you?”

  Sarsfield already had his black notebook open and his silvery pen poised. “I think I know the basics. Detective Seymour e-mailed his report to the field office, and the FBI people in charge of things like dealing with cooperation between federal cop outfits set up the deal. We—that is, the bureau—cleared its jurisdiction with the U.S. attorney’s office. So it’s an FBI case … my case, with Detective Seymour as consultant.”

  Taylor slowly went to his desk, stood behind it for a moment, and then sat down, trying to use that moment to assume a calm air. Sarsfield took a few notes as Taylor again recounted the phone call from Cole Perenchio and the discovery of his body. After a short pause, he tapped his pencil on the open notebook and, nodding his head toward the monitors, said, “I was a bit surprised to see you in your office.”

  “Why?”

  “Your friend Cole Perenchio was killed last night.”

  “We live in violent times,” Taylor said.

  “Yes, violent times indeed,” Sarsfield said. He nodded toward the worktable. “What are you working on?”

  “A NOVA show on asteroids.”

  “Inspired by the SpaceMine announcement about the asteroid?”

  “Well, that and other things,” Taylor responded, trying to keep himself from blurting out, What the hell is this all about?

  “I heard about the asteroid from my ten-year-old son. Mind if I tell him that you’re planning a show about asteroids?”

  “Well, no date’s been set yet,” Taylor said, feeling himself relax. “But, sure.”

  “He’s a big fan of yours. We tape every episode of Your Universe. Danny replays them a lot. And we’ve been to the planetarium a million times.”

  “Well, I’ll be sure to invite him to the show. There’s usually a preview. I’d like to invite you and Danny,” Taylor said, paused, and then added, “Now, what’s going on?”

  “Dr. Taylor,” Sarsfield said, “you’re a person of interest, not a suspect. But we—the FBI—don’t know as much about the victim as we’d like.”

  The calm in the room vaporized as Taylor loudly asked, “And what does ‘person of interest’ mean?”

  “There’s no legal definition of it. It’s just a term that we use.”

  “Seems to me I heard that term before. It was used on that poor guy the FBI accused of setting off a bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta a while back, and the guy you accused of sending anthrax through the mail? Bruce Ivins. He…”

  “Committed suicide before we could formally charge him.… Look, we’re talking to you because we want to know certain things.”

  “What things?”

  “General information about Cole Perenchio. Specifically, what he was going to tell you.”

  “I told Seymour and I’ve told you, I don’t know what he was going to tell me.”

  Sarsfield flipped some pages on his notebook and asked, “Do you know a man named Peter Darrow? Or Daniel Bruce?”

  “Look, Agent Sarsfield, I don’t know anyone by those names. And I believe you’re on some kind of fishing expedition, rather than an investigation. And, from what I know, when the FBI has a real case, two agents do the questioning. I’m ending the fishing expedition right now.”

  “Please, Dr. Taylor,” Sarsfield said in a tone that was neither friendly nor pleading. “No need to get excited. I can assure you that those names are pertinent to a homicide. And they came out of what we believe to be a concurrent or related case involving the shooting at Sullivan and Ford.

  “And, as to the late Mr. Perenchio, we think that if you put your mind to it, you’ll figure out, at least in a general way, what it was he was hoping to tell you.”

  Taylor sat down. Again shaking his head and speaking slowly, he said, “So. Let me get this straight. You—the FBI—believe that Cole—and maybe me?—might be involved in a mass shooting. And you want me to be the mind reader of a dead man. Right?”

  Sarsfield did not answer.

  “Obviously,” Taylor continued, “the FBI has some ideas about Cole. But you’re not going to share them with this person of interest.”

  “Dr. Taylor, there is something we both know,” Sarsfield said, his voice sharpening. “It involves you and the White House. The way you handle my—the FBI’s—request for information in this case will have a direct effect on the matter involving the White House. Goodbye.” He closed his notebook, rose, and walked out of the office.

  A moment later Molly came in and said, “I think we both need our morning coffee. Oh, and by mistake I left your phone open. And I accidentally recorded your interview with Agent Sarsfield.”

  30

  Several weeks before, Ray Quinlan, President Oxley’s chief of staff, had informed Taylor that he was under consideration to be the President’s science advisor. If he was appointed, Taylor would want to put SpaceMine and asteroids high on his advice list. He would also be running the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where billion-dollar, politically thorny decisions about energy and environment issues would undoubtedly get priority over far-future ventures in space.

  Quinlan had ordered Taylor not to tell anyone about the possible appointment. But he had told his old friend Sean Falcone. He did not seem surprised by the news, and Taylor wondered if Sean had had something to do with the appointment.

  Taylor and Falcone went back a long ways, to the start of Taylor’s career, when he was working at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Ames was NASA headquarters for SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the universe. NASA officials put Taylor on the team that was sent to Washington to testify before a Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Sean Falcone of Massachusetts, a champion of NASA and SETI. Falcone had also been vainly trying to get the Senate to restore the old Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, created by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. The committee had been abolished in 1977. By then, NASA was already suffering budget cuts, even though the Apollo program was still going on.

  Congress cut off the SETI funds, but Falcone continued his interest in space and kept in touch with Taylor. Falcone was still in the Senate when Taylor was transferred to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, about fifteen miles north of Washington. NASA, sensitive to political winds, had kept a low profile about the UN-sponsored Outer Space Treaty (officially, in long-winded UN prose, the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies). But Taylor had taken the risk of losing his job by testifying before Falcone’s committee and openly ridiculing the mind-set of anyone who were suggesting that a way be found to opt out of the treaty. No senators were prepared at the hearing to openly gut the treaty or declare that it no longer served America’s security interests, but Taylor came off as too arrogant and sarcastic during his appearance. Scientists were supposed to keep their heads down and remain completely deferential to those who controlled their agency’s budgets.

  As the President’s national security advisor, Falcone discovered that the treaty needed to be amended to deal with commercial activities in space and to clarify the ownership and property rights of all celest
ial bodies. President Oxley, however, did not want to rouse the fury of anti-UN voters and stoke their visions of black helicopters shooting down America’s sovereignty. But Falcone stubbornly kept the treaty on his wish list. And Taylor’s energetic support of the treaty helped win Falcone’s influential backing when Taylor was a candidate for the Air and Space Museum post and now for his nomination as the President’s science advisor.

  *

  Taylor had thought he should give Falcone more time to recover from the shootings before calling him. But the visit from Agent Sarsfield changed his mind. He needed the immediate advice of a friend and a lawyer. Usually he called Falcone at his office number, but, imagining the chaos there, he tried Falcone’s cell phone.

  Falcone answered on the second ring and, before Taylor could speak, said, “Ben, we need to talk.”

  Taylor for an instant was surprised to hear Falcone identify him. Taylor had never got used to caller ID and the fact that phones made “Smithsonian” his ID.

  “We certainly do,” Taylor said. “How about the club at twelve thirty?”

  “See you then,” Falcone said, knowing that Taylor’s club was not the Metropolitan. His voice was tense, and it was obvious that he did not want to talk on the phone.

  They would meet in the elegant old Massachusetts Avenue mansion that housed the Cosmos Club. There was an old Washington saying: “The Metropolitan Club is for people with money; the Cosmos Club is for people with brains; and the National Press Club is for people with neither.”

  Falcone belonged to the Metropolitan and the Cosmos. Taylor was a member only of the Cosmos. Someone had once described it as the perfect place for Mycroft Holmes to have met his brother, Sherlock—quiet, Victorian, a place where power dined with power, where intellect toasted intellect.

  Included among the Cosmos Club members had been three presidents, two vice presidents, a dozen Supreme Court justices, thirty-two Nobel Prize winners, fifty-six Pulitzer Prize winners, forty-five recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And Sean Falcone and Ben Taylor.