He didn’t bother with greetings or small talk. “Today be a good listener,” he said. Even when he was saying momentous things, he always spoke in a quiet voice, as if he were only musing to himself. But it made him seem formidable, rather than mousy. “Answer direct questions directly, but try to figure out who’s got what agenda vis-à-vis Iraq.”
“Can you give me any more background? What should I look for?”
“This is strictly my read, not official at all. Commerce wants back into Iraq to sell some technology and to influence oil distribution. Agriculture wants to sell. That’s what Agriculture does.” He said this dryly, barely masking his contempt for those amoral hucksters over at Ag. He began twiddling the Annapolis ring on his left hand; its pale-colored stone caught the light from Betsy’s monitor. “Defense knows something they’re not sharing with us. Based on circumstantial evidence, I’m guessing it has to do with nonconventional weapons.”
Spector was ex–military intelligence and was probably as qualified as anyone to read Pentagon tea leaves. “Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is, as usual, running behind the parade, convinced that they ought to be running things.” Spector nodded at the window still open on Betsy’s screen. “As you’ve already noticed, Millikan’s going to be there from the National Security Council.” One of Spector’s tics was a refusal to use acronyms; he always spelled out the full names of agencies and departments, seeming to take great pleasure in the ones with the longest and most unwieldy titles. It enhanced his air of preternatural calmness and enabled him to put an ironic spin on everything, which made him much hated around town.
“This is big-time, isn’t it?” Betsy said.
“Yeah, and I’m sorry to say that King is going to represent your branch.”
Betsy was thrown off stride by Spector’s frankness. “I noticed that his name had been added to the list,” she said carefully. “You want me to go anyway?”
Spector nodded. “It’s Howard’s job to do the talking. It’s your job to keep an eye on things. I want your own report—‘Eyes Only’—to me by this afternoon.” He checked his watch and took a couple of steps toward the door, then thought better of it and turned back to her. “You will obviously not follow the usual distribution on this.”
In other words, Spector wanted Betsy’s report on, among other things, her own boss’s performance. Spector moved away at a racewalker’s clip; seconds later Howard King showed up. Betsy had been around just long enough to suspect that this was not a coincidence. Spector had known when King was going to arrive.
“Good morning, Betsy,” King smarmed as he brushed by her back on his way to the office. “Ready for the meeting? You can ride with me.”
Betsy had anticipated this and said, “I left my briefcase at home, so I’ll take the metro. See you there.”
King muttered something indistinguishable and went into his office.
Betsy had not left her briefcase in her apartment, she had actually strategically covered it with her raincoat.
On the streets of D.C. various functionaries walked with their raincoats on and heads down, chains bearing their badges giving them identity and value in the city. The Agency people looked with some disdain on these hoi polloi civil servants. They had been told that the Agency was the crème de la crème of Washington, a veritable elite knighthood, and they didn’t wear their IDs in the outside world. When Betsy presented her credentials at the Ag security desk, she was waved through with some deference.
On the third floor of the south building another security checkpoint loomed. Beyond it was the specially recrafted “secure conference room.” She was still ten minutes early, but all the chairs at the large oval table were filled, except for the one reserved for the Agency.
She reached into her purse and found an asthma inhaler. Feeling conspicuous in the hallway, she ducked into a side corridor.
As the burst of expensive pharmaceuticals expanded into her lungs, she was startled by a dry, smoky-sounding voice from nearby. “You should get yourself a carburetor for that thing.”
She coughed uncontrollably, forgetting to cover her mouth. “Excuse me. I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He was a worn-looking gentleman in a nice enough suit, the skin of his hands and face mottled, blotched, and lumped with age, cigarette smoke, alcohol, stress, and other malign influences. “Hi, I’m Betsy Vandeventer,” she said, stepping forward and extending her hand.
“From the Agency,” he said, shaking it. Betsy was startled to smell a strong odor of booze on his breath.
“Is it that obvious?”
By way of an answer he said, “I’m Hennessey.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh.” Hennessey was infamous in the Agency.
“Pleased to meet you.”
“You don’t have to say that. Anyway, about that carburetor.” He reached into the hip pocket of his jacket and drew out a white plastic cylinder about the dimensions of a beer can. From the opposite pocket he took out an inhaler, loaded up with the same brand of asthma medication that Betsy used. He fitted the outlet of the inhaler into one end of the “carburetor” and put the other end to his lips. “See, you spray the stuff into the carb. Then you inhale. Gives you better aerosolization. Or some shit like that. Jesus, isn’t the Agency providing you guys with decent health care anymore?”
Hennessey was a spy gone bad. Turning his back on a distinguished career, he had left the gentlemen’s club of the CIA and gone to work for the FBI, in the counterintelligence division. His job, in effect, was to investigate CIA employees and ruin their careers or throw them in prison on whatever pretext he could dig up. He had become a bogeyman of sorts in Agency folklore; Betsy was a little scared just to be talking to him.
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Hennessey, but I don’t want to be late for my meeting.”
“Hell, me neither,” Hennessey said, and fell into step with her. They presented their credentials at the security checkpoint and were waved through into the room. Betsy had been relegated to the status of wall-creeper as the result of King’s last-minute inclusion, so she chose a chair against the wall near King’s place at the table—which was still conspicuously vacant. Hennessey, unnervingly, sat next to her.
She wasn’t the only wall-creeper. Word had rapidly spread that Millikan himself was going to show up from the White House, and several division chiefs had been aced out of their chance for glory by their superiors.
She should have been thinking about her twin assignments—officially, supporting King with facts and figures, and unofficially, making observations that she’d later relay to Spector. In the latter category Hennessey’s presence there was certainly interesting. What on earth did he have to do with Ag Department credits to Iraq?
It was well-known that Hennessey and Millikan despised each other. Millikan was a noted Harvard professor who periodically came down to Washington, first to serve in the Kennedy administration and later—after becoming a leading light of the neoconservative movement—for Ford, Reagan, and Bush.
Undersecretary of Agriculture Larry McDaniel’s executive secretary scurried into the room and announced, “Dr. Millikan is meeting with Dr. McDaniel, so the session will not start for fifteen minutes. I know you are all extremely busy today, and Dr. McDaniel extends his apologies. He hopes that in light of the renewed importance of this meeting, you will understand. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering in some coffee and muffins, so please take what you want.”
For most of the apparatchiki at the meeting her announcement was a very good thing indeed. Not only would they finally be in on Something Big before it was reported in the Post, they would have the chance to munch on the High Fiber Department’s muffins, widely known as the best in the District.
Hennessey leaned toward Betsy, venting his booze breath into her face. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure. That’s okay, I’ll get it—”
“Siddown!” he grunted. “Muffin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What?” spat the Ivy Leaguer, too stunned to be offended. His gaze traveled down to Hennessey’s name tag. Then, suddenly, he was delighted to be the recipient of this folksy treatment. “Be glad to give you a hand, Mr. Hennessey.”
“Very kind of you,” said Hennessey with no apparent irony. He walked back to Betsy, the corners of his jacket swinging with their loads of pastry and asthma medication.
Washington was the best place in the country to watch bureaucratic strangers trying to scope each other out without seeming to. But as Hennessey approached Betsy, everyone in the room stared at him openly, and when he reached her, everyone seemed to look at her. She felt her face get hot. Hennessey handed her her coffee, and she spilled some on her hand.
“What the hell,” he said. “We’ve got fifteen minutes, might as well be comfortable.” He grabbed another vacant chair and slapped it down in front of her like a coffee table. He arranged the coffee and muffin on it, then pulled his own chair away from the wall and turned it ninety degrees so that he and Betsy were half facing each other, their heads close together like a couple of lovers having a tête-à-tête at a sidewalk café. “So,” Hennessey said in a quiet, conversational voice, “King has nabbed your place at the High Table so that he can be nearer to greatness. You’re here anyway, probably at Spector’s insistence. Spector probably figures that King’s going to be so conspicuous, because of his incompetence and his sartorial deficiencies, that he’ll grab all the attention. Meanwhile, you can be his fly on the wall—the cool, detached observer who reports to him later. Does that sound about right? That’s okay, toots, you don’t have to answer—I know you’re scared shitless.” He slurped his cool, pale, syrupy java. “So now’s your chance to observe. What are they doing?”
“Staring at us.”
Hennessey began to whisper, “M-i-c, k-e-y, M-o-u-s-e . . .”
Betsy felt the corners of her mouth twitching back and pursed her lips to counteract it. Hennessey hissed, “Look serious! You’re on the inside of the inside of the inside, and there is nothing here.”
McDaniel and Millikan entered the room.
“Case in point,” Hennessey said, and scooted his chair back to its original position.
Undersecretary McDaniel sat down at the head of the table, opened his leather folder, and said, “Is everybody here?” The eyes of everybody in the room swung to the empty seat reserved for the Agency. “Is there anybody here from our brethren up the Potomac?”
“Up shit creek, is more like it,” Hennessey whispered. “What you waiting for? Go sit in the chair, sister.”
Betsy’s heart flopped wildly a couple of beats before she realized that this was an example of Hennessey’s cadaverous sense of humor. He had spent more years in the Agency than Betsy had been alive, and he knew perfectly well that if she usurped King’s spot at the big table, he’d rip her head off.
The silence became unbearable when the door blew open and in walked King. He had always prided himself on being able to find a parking place anywhere in town. This time he’d clearly had trouble. He was sweating, muttering to himself, and staggered to his seat. “Sorry to be late, had some late cable traffic,” he said.
Hennessey made a noise deep down in his throat. Betsy couldn’t keep herself from glancing over at him. He was regarding King with a look of undisguised loathing and condescension, like a veteran theater critic watching a hack understudy blow his big entrance. King looked around the room as he pulled his chair back, trying to get a fix on Betsy’s location. A moment after he picked out her face, he recognized Hennessey. His jaw literally fell open, and he sank into his chair with an afflicted look on his face.
“Let’s begin,” McDaniel said. “You all know the issue at hand: that our friend Mr. Hussein has been alleged to be misusing funds from the taxpayers of the United States. Dr. Millikan, would you like to give us the perspective from the White House?”
“Thank you, Larry,” Millikan said. “Good morning, everyone. Glad our representative from the illustrious Department of Transportation could make it today: Mr.—” Millikan stopped, knitted his brow, and turned his head toward Howard King, squinting at his name tag, unable to quite make it out.
A look of flabbergasted horror spread slowly across King’s face. “King,” he rasped. “Howard King. Uh, pardon me, Dr. Millikan, but I’m from the Agency.”
Millikan had seemed brusque and hurried when he had started, but now he leaned back in his chair and slowly poured himself a tumbler of water, seeming to derive some enjoyment from letting Howard King twist. “Arms Control and Disarmament?”
“No, Doctor—”
“United States Information?”
“No, Doctor, Central Intelligence.”
“Oh, that Agency. I knew something was missing. Yes, of course. Forgive me, Mr. Howard King,” Millikan said. Having finished keelhauling Betsy’s boss, he sat up straight and turned away to address the center of the table. “I will get straight to the point. There is a lot of nonsense being reported in the press about Saddam Hussein and his ambitions. Some of it is being presented by our Israeli friends, who are understandably concerned by Saddam’s regrettable, though culturally typical, rhetoric. Some of it is being spread by the administration’s political enemies, who are talking their customary nonsense about the President’s lack of vision. I am here to tell you that Saddam Hussein is still a keystone in our Middle-Eastern foreign policy. Two administrations supported him in his struggle against the Iranians, who have nothing but ill will toward us. Senator Dole took a personal letter from President Bush to Saddam Hussein expressing our concerns about perceptions of his actions and statements that may or may not be accurate. Mr. Hussein has promised to get back to us on our concerns.
“Now, the reason I am here today is to try to get all of us reading from the same page. You are tasked,” he said, patting a stack of envelopes, “to provide, in three days, input to anticipate criticism of USG export-import credits to Iraq; to provide plans expanding and diversifying the agricultural and commercial credits presently extended to Baghdad; and to establish your implementation plans.”
Millikan’s assistant, White House Staff badge dangling like a gaudy fishing lure as he walked around the table, picked up the stack of envelopes and passed them around. Each was marked “Secret” and contained a freshly minted NSC Decision Directive. “Now,” Millikan said, “I have a meeting with the President in thirty minutes. Are there any questions or comments?”
The knowledgeable players of the game knew that Millikan wanted questions and comments as much as he wanted to get dog shit on his Duckers Wingtips, but custom dictated that he make the request. McDaniels began to close the meeting when King, who had been stunned into a coma, said, “You can be sure that we’ll be team players on this.” At which point he turned and glared meaningfully at Betsy.
Millikan mumbled, “I’m sure we can count on you,” sounding almost as if he were clearing his throat. His assistant sprang to the door and hauled it open for him, and then Millikan was gone, headed for the President’s office, leaving behind nothing but an indefinable aura of Greatness that was like pure oxygen to most of the people in the room.
McDaniel looked around the room and said, “Thank you for coming. We look forward to your contributions.”
“I’d give anything to read your report on this,” Hennessey said to Betsy a
s the meeting broke up. “Tell old Spector I give him my best.”
eight
DESIREE WAS fixing a bit of breakfast. Clyde was perusing the sports section of the Des Moines Register. Maggie sucked on a pacifier and dozed in her baby chair.
Clyde was still wearing his deputy sheriff’s uniform. He had just come off the night shift. Ever since he had announced his candidacy for sheriff, his boss and opponent, Kevin Mullowney, had assigned him to the night shift, or to jail duty, every day. These were considered the least desirable duties a deputy sheriff could perform. Clyde agreed that guarding the county jail was an ordeal, but he didn’t mind the night shift so much. He wasn’t getting any sleep anyway.
Last night he’d been given responsibility for the region lying to the north of the city of Nishnabotna, which basically amounted to lazily circumnavigating Lake Pla-Mor looking for interesting people and situations, and then shining the cop light on them. The vacation cabins along the lake’s shore were an inviting target for burglars, the parks and boat ramps a favorite haunt of teenaged lovers, fighters, drinkers, and drug abusers. All of these people were happy to make themselves scarce as soon as Clyde rolled up and pinioned them in the blue halogen beam of his cop spotlight. Sometimes he had to garble something harsh and unintelligible into his PA before they would get lost—the young women covering their faces and giggling uncontrollably, the young men valorously flipping him the bird.
It had been rainy last night, and so things had been slower than usual along Lake Pla-Mor. If an irate taxpayer were to corner Clyde Banks today and demand that he justify the amount that had been spent, during the last eight hours, on his salary, overhead, and benefits, Clyde would be able to offer only that he had recovered one of the university’s rowboats.
He had noticed it while proceeding along Dike Street, which ran along the top of the dam on the Nishnabotna River that had brought Lake Pla-Mor into existence. The boat, a big old dinged-up aluminum beast, had apparently drifted down the lake and got hung up in a mess of reeds and cattails not far from the spillway. Clyde knew that the water was only knee-deep there, and so he had parked his unit nearby, pulled on some waders from the trunk, sloshed out, and grabbed it. He payed out its bow rope, clambered back up on the shore, and then towed the boat away from the dam until he reached a swimming beach a few hundred yards farther north.
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