“Got shit in your ears, baby-cakes? Repeat after me: I am a lesbian.”
“I am most definitely not a lesbian.”
“But you’re gonna be,” Farrell said, softly. “If you’re gonna do this mission. That’s why you’re here, and that’s why I will be your training supervisor, because I most definitely do play for the other side.”
Melanie was surprised. This was as bad as Dragon Eyes casually telling her to disrobe. A lesbian, for God’s sake? Farrell watched her absorb the news.
“You don’t have to look so disgusted,” Farrell said. “Lesbians have to get their licks in, too, sometimes.”
After three seconds, Melanie burst out laughing despite herself and then saw Farrell grinning back at her.
“Let’s start over, shall we?” Farrell said. “Welcome to the Farm’s hall of mirrors. When we’re done with you you’re going to be just as good an actress as the one you look like. Call me Gabby.”
Melanie’s introduction to the curriculum of the Applied Physiology Department came thirty minutes later when she accompanied Gabby to a lecture in the department’s small auditorium. There were six attendees, five men and herself. She deduced that the lecturer was an Englishman as soon as he began speaking. He was also the poster child for the effete world of Old Boy public school graduates, tall and willowy, complete with supremely languid gestures, a broad Oxbridge accent, just a little too much hair, and a three-piece suit that fairly shouted bespoke. His subject was the television miniseries Brideshead Revisited, and in particular, the character portrayed by the actor Nickolas Grace, called Anthony Blanche in the show. He showed a few scenes from the series, where Blanche manages to outrage just about everyone within visual range with his bombastic homosexual antics.
“There’s ‘out-there,’ and then there’s ‘out there,’” the lecturer drawled. “No one encountering Antony, as he pronounced the name, would have any doubt whatsoever that here was most definitely a queer. And yet, many at Oxford back in the twenties and thirties would have simply smiled and said, So what? Remember, the author of the book was Evelyn Waugh, himself a homosexual when even being a homosexual was a crime in England. Anthony Blanche outed in a pub in the East End of London would have been found headless in the Thames by morning. At Oxford, he was just another self-promoting eccentric and his homosexuality was of zero consequence.
“So: How does Anthony Blanche bear on what you will learn here in the Department of Applied Physiology? I’ve been told that you are operatives who are going to have to adopt a homosexual cover in order to meet your objectives. One would think that the easiest way to do such a thing is to employ actual homosexuals, but apparently, that’s not an option. Here’s the thing. Most people who are gay are pretty much indistinguishable from people who are not gay. Except, some of the time other homosexuals can sense that another person is gay. The term of art is ‘gaydar,’ a semimythical sixth sense that allows a gay person to detect, as it were, that another person is one of ‘them.’ It is hardly infallible, but an awful lot of gay people believe in it. So, if you are not gay, and are going to pose as someone who is gay, then you will need to explore the phenomenon of gaydar, and we will show you how.
“Now if one ran into Anthony Blanche, as amazingly depicted by the openly gay actor, Nickolas Grace, one would not need gaydar, would one. But recall the scenes I showed you: Charles Ryder encountering Anthony Blanche. Was Charles gay? Waugh hints at it in one of the chapters, where he has Sebastian Flyte comment that ‘we sunbathed naked on the rooftops of the estate, and we were at times, wicked, very wicked, indeed,’ or words to that effect. Recall that Charles Ryder and Sebastian were close friends, but it was more of a case of the young and relatively impoverished Ryder being swept into the decadent orbit of the obscenely rich Lord Sebastian Flyte, whose house measured thirty-two thousand square feet, not counting the wings, situated on three thousand acres of lawns and gardens. And yet their friendship, patron to hanger-on, was not really depicted as a gay situation, nor would Ryder’s classmates have assumed that. It was more a whiff of something going on behind closed doors than overt sexual display. That’s what you’re going to be exposed to.
“The second thing you will learn here is how to avoid the inevitable ‘proof of purchase.’ If you’ve been masquerading as a gay person and your target calls the question, as it were, what do you do? We will teach you what to do, what to say, and how to get out of actually consummating a homosexual relationship, unless of course you want to, although I would assume the Agency has its own version of gaydar, what?”
There were some uncomfortable sniggers in the tiny audience.
“Now: I work for British counterintelligence. We have had some sad experiences with gay people in our organization. Historically, to be outed, found out, or compromised as a homosexual in the intelligence business led to blackmail or worse. Nowadays, the more enlightened elements of the Great Game would say: Not so much. Or, as the privileged boys at Oxford would have said: Who cares? That said, in certain parts of the world being accused of homosexuality gets you thrown from the roof of a six-story building. Don’t let so-called modern and enlightened views of gender equality—the end of the he-she-it labels—lull you into a complacent view of the danger associated with this particular label. Let’s watch some more movies.”
At the end of the lecture, Melanie accompanied Gabby back to her office.
“What’d you think of that?” Gabby asked as she handed Melanie a bottle of water. “And, by the way, I’m going to call you Virginia because that’s going to be your name in this op.”
“No fucking way, is my first reaction,” Melanie said. “My first op of this sort they wanted me to vamp a Chinese general. I give good vamp. But the physical realities of a lesbian relationship just leaves me cold. No offense, Gabby—this isn’t some religious bias.”
“None taken, Virginia,” Gabby said. “What sort of men do you prefer? I know that’s personal but I need to know.”
“Older men. Sophisticated, interesting men, men who’re amusing, like to have fun, and who are not on the hunt for a wife and kids.”
“Is there anyone now we have to think about?”
Melanie smiled. “There’s one but he’s well out of reach, I think. I may make a play one day, but…”
“Somebody in the Company, perhaps?”
“Not anymore,” Melanie said.
“Okay, then here’s what we need to do with you. You’ve had a facial remake and it’s drop-dead gorgeous. In the pantheon of sexual objects, unattainability can be a serious amplifier of desire, as in the millions of young men who fell in love with Grace Kelly—fancy that!—after seeing a couple of her movies. She seems to be the perfect woman, thanks to the gallons of illusion they pour over the silver screen. In our world, my world, however, that phenomenon is just a bit different. The most exciting game of all is when we meet another woman who doesn’t know she harbors latent homosexual desires. She’s beautiful, sweet, nice, friendly, soft, a little demure, possibly a bit fragile, and not the least bit gay. But like those Grace Kelly fans, we can imagine the possibility of softly enveloping the dear little thing and introducing her to her real role in life.”
“Okay, I get that,” Melanie said.
“Good, because that’s what we’re going to teach you how to be, with perhaps just a fillip of discreet tease included.”
“And also that bit about how to avoid the inevitable ‘proof of purchase,’ right?”
“Of course, my dear. Of course.”
FIFTEEN
Preston Allender, sole proprietor of the Birnam Woods Import Company, escorted a breezy young decorator to the front door of the house.
“It’s for Corinda Wadley,” the young man gushed. “So, of course, it has to be special and unique.”
“Of course,” Allender said, fighting an urge to roll his eyes. He had no idea who Corinda Whazzit was, but obviously she was an architectural trend-setting goddess of some kind, one of many in this town of supe
rheated egos. “I can guarantee the ‘unique’ part; the trees that produce that wood grow on the quiet side of a single volcano on Java. An entire wall paneled in that will absolutely be one of a kind. Think amber room.”
“Perfect,” the decorator said. “Michaela Valentine told me to contact you; she said if anybody could come up with a one-of-a-kind it would be you.”
“Let me know the precise square footage plus your craftsman’s wastage estimate and I’ll put things in motion,” Allender said, as they shook hands and the decorator left.
Allender went through to his tower study and made some notes on what he needed to acquire. It had been over a year since he’d left the Agency, and he’d found the perfect endeavor to pursue. His father, who’d hailed originally from Northern California, had long been a woodworking enthusiast. Living in Taipei, he’d discovered the amazing world of Asiatic trees and their exotic woods. Allender could still remember sitting in his father’s woodworking shop in the back of the family compound, with the scent of perfumed veneers taken from trees in Java, Burma, Japan, and Malaysia permeating the air, while his father turned sheets of gleaming wood from skinned tree branches.
His father would take him along on his expeditions out into Asia’s jungles in search of exotic trees. He would also collect rough-cut gemstones, such as unpolished rubies in Burma and blocks of jadeite along the coastal villages of Indochina. From Japan he accumulated a netsuke menagerie crafted from Borneo rosewood and ivory, and from Hong Kong a Qing dynasty chess set made entirely of exquisite white jade. His parents slowly sold off the jewelry collection to fund their own retirement years; the exotic-wood specimen collection, however, was never sold, and Preston still had the bulk of it stored in his town house basement. With his parents now gone, he still liked to take a Scotch downstairs and ruminate through the drawers of gorgeous veneers stored between sheets of rice paper. The most expensive and rare woods were kept in a walk-in vault, built during the Second World War by a previous owner. The vault was twelve square feet, with concrete walls two feet thick and containing six large safes.
With literally nothing to do after being forced out at the Agency and the usual postgovernment jobs proscribed to him he’d decided to resume his passion for acquiring beautiful veneers from faraway places. He traveled mostly into Asia, where his Mandarin gained him admittance to the more selective markets. The idea to turn his hobby into a business had come when he’d had some of the rooms in his own town house refurbished. He’d wanted to panel one of them in a spiral-grained walnut, but couldn’t find anyone who could actually supply the veneers in a size suitable for paneling. He’d asked his neighbors on one side, both decorators, and one of them observed that someone could make a fortune in Washington if he could provide veneers like that. Birnam Woods was born a month after.
Finding the wood wasn’t that difficult. Getting through all the import restrictions brought on by environmentalist groups was. Allender knew ways and means of getting exceptions from the ever-expanding regulations and special licenses by enlisting the aid of people he knew on the Hill. At the supply end in Asia, of course, all it took was money for the product and the occasional well-directed bribe.
The phone rang as he was enjoying a Scotch while perusing his order book. It turned out to be a staffer in Carson McGill’s office. Could Doctor Allender come out to a meeting at Langley first thing in the morning? He asked the caller why. That briefly stumped the staffer, who could only come up with a rather lame “Because he told me he wanted to see you first thing in the morning? Sir?”
He told the flustered young man to inform Mr. McGill that he was busy tomorrow morning, and then hung up. McGill himself called back five minutes later.
“My dear Preston,” he said, in an exasperated voice. “Don’t be an ass.”
“I have things to do tomorrow morning, Carson, and Agency business is no longer my concern, remember?”
“Yes, yes, I know that. I still need to talk to you, and I need to do so in a secure environment. I’m the acting deputy director, now, by the way.”
“Well, good for you,” Allender said.
“How’s your little ex-im scheme working for you these days, Preston? No problem getting federal licenses or anything like that? No EPA queries on whether those precious veneers of yours are sustainably farmed?”
“Fuck off and die, Carson,” Allender said, mildly, and then put the phone down. Officious little prick, he thought. Come see me or I’ll call Commerce and get them to claw back your licenses? He snorted in disgust. His first response had been the correct response.
The next morning when Allender came down for coffee, however, he groaned when he spied a black Suburban with tinted windows sitting out in front of his house. Another one was parked across the avenue. He shook his head, went to the kitchen, fired up the coffeemaker, and made two cups of coffee, which he took to his study. He then went to the front door and opened it. A minute later Carson McGill was sitting uncomfortably in an antique Victorian wing chair as if he had a broomstick up his grommet.
“Okay,” Allender said. “Since you went to all this trouble, why are you here?”
“I’ll get right to it,” McGill said. “Hank Wallace is dead.”
Allender blinked as he absorbed this news. “What happened?”
“We have no goddamned idea, is the short answer,” McGill said. “He didn’t come in to work, so his EA went out to the house in McLean and found him sitting in his study, in a recliner, wearing PJs, bathrobe, and slippers, eyes wide open and deader’n a doornail.”
“Who’d the EA call?”
“Me, of course,” McGill replied.
“Oh, right,” Allender said.
“Yes,” McGill sighed, ignoring the sarcasm. “Naturally. The cause of death is officially ‘undetermined.’ Autopsy revealed no causative mechanisms. No trauma, no toxicology vectors, organic disease. There were no signs of forced entry. No evidence that anyone else had been in the room. Nothing moving on the security cameras. No houseguests. According to the housekeeper, nothing out of place.”
“When did this happen?” Allender asked. “I’ve seen nothing in the news.”
“Two weeks ago,” McGill said. “We’ve kept it clamped down. That’s why I’m now the acting deputy director, by the way.”
“Who else?” Allender said.
“In any event, the Agency decided to keep it close-hold until we could determine what happened. Or at least that’s what I tried to do.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that the director, in his unending quest for bureaucratic transparency and fair play, told our best friend in Congress, Congresswoman Martine Greer, who immediately asked the Bureau to conduct an investigation.”
Allender grunted. The Bureau. The enduring enmity between the FBI and the Agency was legendary throughout the Washington bureaucracy, a fact of which the chairwoman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was undoubtedly, and happily, quite aware.
“They getting anywhere?”
“They are not,” McGill said, giving Allender a meaningful look. “In fact they’ve asked for some help. From us. Actually…”
“No, thank you,” Allender said quickly. “I’m retired, remember? I distinctly remember doing that. Retiring. In your office. Harsh words and everything, yes? And all at your initiative.”
McGill raised his hands to forestall any further protests. “The Bureau has formally requested that the Agency assign a senior liaison officer to their investigation team. I want you to do it.”
“Good grief, Carson. Don’t you think they want someone who’s still in service and not some guy who was forced out and doesn’t even have his clearances anymore?”
“Actually,” Carson said. “they will recognize that this is a great idea. An active-duty Agency officer would always have two masters—his boss back at the Agency, and the Bureau’s team leader. A retired officer, on the other hand, could work exclusively for her.”
“Her?”
“Yes, her name is Rebecca Lansing.”
“If she believes that, she must be pretty new in town,” Allender observed.
McGill laughed. “Indeed,” he said. “She’s actually one of Hingham’s pets, seconded a year ago to the Bureau headquarters. Basically, I suspect that the older hands at the Hoover Building fell all over themselves ducking this tasking. She apparently zigged when she should have zagged. If it’s any help, she’s quite attractive.”
“Wait a minute,” Allender protested. “If she’s an Agency crossdeck, then what the hell do they need a another liaison officer for? Isn’t that why she’s there in the first place?”
“Why she’s there is known only to J. Everett,” McGill said. “I don’t know her background, other than that she’d recently completed three years as the Company officer on a joint antiterror task force out in LA at the FBI field office. She’s probably one of Hingham’s famous ‘dark’ sources. Is that coffee for me?”
Allender handed over the second coffee. McGill took a sip and then his face brightened. “Excellent,” he said. “To be candid, we’re not exactly enthusiastic about having Buroids under our feet. I think they want a second liaison officer so that they can spread the blame when they come up empty-handed.”
“Exactly what I would think, too,” Allender said. “So, are we done here?”
“Well,” McGill said, ignoring him again. “I talked to His Lordship, himself, just this morning. Told him I wanted to bring you back in for this one.”
Allender grunted. “I’ll bet he just broke wind with joy at that proposition,” he said.
McGill smiled. “You’re half right,” he said. “Between you, me, and the gatepost, I think he agreed in order to give you the opportunity to step in something so that he could fire you all over again.”
“Sounds about right,” Allender said. “So tell me: Why would you want me to get into this mess?”
“Because we think Hank Wallace was running a swan,” McGill said.
Red Swan Page 13