by James, Seth
“It probably wasn't true,” she said. “He was getting a little senile. He was a despicable misogynist in many ways, but it was hard to hold it against him because he was so harmless, so funny. Like a little crippled Pan.” They shared a laugh.
“Oh, boy,” he said, shaking his head. “I'm a bachelor, too: I wonder if that's how I'm going to end up in thirty some years—as a cautionary anecdote.”
“You, a bachelor?” she said, looking him over. There you go, she congratulated herself; keep going. “How many divorces?”
“None,” he laughed. “Really.”
“Are you sure?” she said.
“You think I might be married without my knowledge?” he asked, waited a beat and then dropped his lopsided grin in a feigned look of surprise and fear. “Christ, you don't think that's possible, do you?”
She laughed the way a woman laughs when happy that a man has tried to make her laugh. “Well, as long as you were never in Vegas,” she said, “and drunk, you're probably safe.” He made a 'whew' gesture.
“I guess you came by to talk to Joe again?” she asked. “He went back to the office today.”
“On a Friday?” Tobias said. “Probably an all email day,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
“I can only imagine,” she said, thinking: why did you steer back to work?
“Clearing out from his trip to Niger,” Tobias said. “Did you go with him? Oh, and I already have confirmation,” he said quickly, reaching into his jacket and tilting Joe's white paper into view. “Off the record and all that; just wondering.”
“That's okay,” she said as the NOC perked up her ears. “I don't think where we go is a secret—he's not with the State Department anymore. We moved back here so the girls could have a more normal school life; high school's tough enough, wasn't it?”
“Always,” he said. “For everyone.”
“But I sometimes miss all the traveling we did,” she continued. “And I don't seem to do as much for my business as I used to. So whenever I get the chance—” she said and trailed off.
“Right,” he said. “Did he happen to tell you what we talked about earlier?”
“Yes,” she said, “but I couldn't—”
“Oh, no, of course not,” he said. “I was just wondering if he was still considering letting me write a little of what we talked about or, I don't know, tell me a bit more?” he said and gave her his lady-killing grin with all the trimmings. “Or has your husband made up his mind and I ought to just give it up and go write the story I can write? Which, I have to be honest, is still a pretty darn good story.”
“I don't know if Joe's made up his mind or not,” she said slowly. “You'll have to ask him.”
“I'll do that,” Tobias said. “Sorry to take up so much of your time—”
“Oh, no, you're not,” she said quickly. “I wasn't trying to—I'm just going grocery shopping, nothing urgent, really,” she said and thought: oh, well done, very smooth; I thought Lucy was the teenager. “I just don't want to say anything about what Joe might be thinking and you print it and it turn out not to be true.”
“I'd never,” Tobias said. “Can't do that—and not because I'm such a nice honest guy. If word got around that I was pestering people's wives into making statements,” he said and thought she frowned ever so slightly at the word 'wives,' “no one would ever talk to me again.”
“I'm sure lots of people would talk to you,” she said. “Do you want me to tell Joe you stopped by or are you going to try to catch up with him at the office, later on?”
“I probably shouldn't bug him when he's up to his ears in email,” Tobias said, looking at nothing for a moment, which wasn't easy while standing in front of Mrs. Parnell. “The thing is,” he said, stepping closer and lowering his voice, “this is such an important story. So much is riding on any story dealing with WMD; what with the Administration looking very determined to have a war. Not that the cable and radio news seem to see it that way,” he said and rolled his eyes impatiently. “But you know what I mean: it's so important, I don't want to mess it up.”
“I know what you mean,” she said slowly.
“Do you?” he asked gently.
“Of course,” she said. “No serious person takes war lightly.”
“Maybe I'm way out of line to ask you this, Sally,” he said and she felt a thrill run from her thighs to her throat, “but maybe you could kind of bring it up with him? I'm not saying make him go on the record: just nudge him a little,” he said and grinned. She has grey eyes, he thought, how often do you see that? “Keep it on his mind, you know? After the way he stood up to Saddam at the US Embassy during the Gulf War, I know he's a man who has the strength to do the right thing, but maybe keeping things fresh in his mind wouldn't hurt?”
“I'm sure it's been on his mind,” she said. “But I'll bring it up to him. I guess life runs at a pretty fast pace for newsmen.”
“Ha, during working hours anyway,” he said. Don't you dare say something about when you're not working and then ask her to have a drink, he scolded himself. What the hell is the matter with you? She waited. “Speaking of which, I better get back to it.”
“Of course, don't let me keep you,” she said, thinking: he was sticking around for me, wasn't he?
“I wish you would,” he said and then thought: fuck, fuck, fuck! “On a day like today,” he added quickly, stepping backward and gesturing skyward, “the last thing I want is to sit inside all day—but I think my editors may just insist. Thanks for talking to me,” he said, stepping just close enough to shake hands. Hers didn't tremble, but did it linger?
A little sweaty-palmed there, fella, she thought: was he nervous? She smiled brightly and said, “It was a pleasure meeting you. Drop by any time.”
“Thank you,” he said and beat a hasty retreat before any more foul ups.
As he drove back, Tobias talked to himself (a habit of the solitary). “Well done,” he growled. “Why don't you pick up the wives of all your sources? Maybe sire a few kids on her: I'm sure Joe would like a son.” Tobias drove on, avoiding the main roads, taking his time. “It could have been worse, but you almost lost it at the end. Good Christ, but you could see why. She is beautiful,” he said, gripping the steering wheel. “And yet, it was almost as if she wasn't used to guys tripping over their tongues to compliment her—a thoroughly gorgeous woman like that! Don't understand it. I'd think she couldn't take out the garbage without neighbors popping up over the hedge with offers of a glass of their latest old vintage port and 'Oh, the servants just happen to be away, my dear.' Surprised she doesn't have a servant to do the grocery shopping for her, on that street.”
Though Joe had grown up with servants in the house, Sally had not and it never occurred to her to hire any when they returned to the states. Joe had never brought it up, as he was attempting to fashion something along the lines of middleclass normality: hadn't had much success with it, except superficially. Maybe all normality is superficial.
As Sally drove in the other direction, she ran her mind over the encounter professionally: everything he said, she said, the subjects covered, possible underlying motivations, she considered everything. Stop, stop, she thought finally, this isn't work. I'm glad I did it; I forgot how much fun flirting can be when you finally just do it. She was not unaware of what must have inhibited him and knew very well nothing was likely to come of their conversation. But the way he'd had to keep a check on himself, and how charming he'd been when he'd slipped, made her feel wonderful. She felt good about herself in a way the leers of customers in the dry cleaners or fathers at her daughter's soccer games or Mr. Thisleworth across the street could never make her feel. She didn't walk like a woman just come from a four-mile run as she pushed her cart into the super market. Her smile was not that of the contented housewife—until she saw Arthur MacGregor comparing foot powders near the pharmacy counter. He worked for State, an old friend of Joe's, and Sally's intermediary with CIA. They exchanged pleasantries and
Arthur communicated to her the need to make contact with part of a cell she'd created in Pakistan—someone was getting cold feet and it was up to Operations officer Parnell, NOC, to put a fire under them.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen,” the President said as he slipped into the Oval Office. “My weekly radio address—no, please sit down,” he said to the VP and SecDef as they made the motions of men preparing to heave up to their feet. The President sat on the couch opposite them; they were all old enough friends not to shake hands at every meeting. “Oh, uh,” the President said, looking around.
“Here you go, sir,” Karl said, handing Pete a bottle of tomato juice and a glass without ice. Karl remained standing.
“Okay, Karl, shoot,” Pete said.
“A week has passed since we asked Joe Parnell to,” Karl said and paused, “to put his country before his pride and support the Administration.”
Vice President Kluister snorted.
“Right,” Pete said, nodding his approval at Karl's phrasing. “You were going to put out a feeler.”
Karl shook his head sadly. “He was insolent as ever,” he said.
“Time to blow the whistle on this Joe Parnell,” Paul said, chewing the name.
“He's had enough time to see sense,” Ben Butler, the SecDef, said.
“How bad is it in the Senate?” Pete asked Karl.
“Bad,” Paul answered. “Perkins'll keep the party in line but any war resolution could sit in committee forever. Even if it came to a vote, the Dems would probably filibuster.”
“With the current evidence, that is probably true, Mr. President,” Karl said.
“All because of that goddamn white paper?” Ben Butler said. “Tell those hand-wringing pansies to keep their mouths shut and—”
“We want them in,” Karl said, interrupting. “If they are in, if they have to vote for war powers, it will hurt them with their core constituencies in '04. Allow us to pick up seats in both houses.”
“Smart,” Pete said, nodding. “Always looking ahead, Karl: good. But in the short term?”
“In the short term,” Karl said, “Ben is correct: that white paper is killing us. Wild scandals and rumors could damage Parnell's reputation but would not affect his findings.” He paused and a Cheshire-cat smile twitched at his cheeks. “Unless we show he deliberately misled Congress with his report. We can use the fact that he found no evidence as evidence that there is a fact. I should say, 'she' actually.”
“I don't need specifics,” Pete said, holding up a hand. “You're confident?”
“Absolutely,” Karl said.
“You're going to use his wife?” Ben Butler asked. “You said something about that earlier.”
“Let's leave it with Karl,” Pete said.
“You'll see it this Sunday,” Karl said to Ben. “If you read The Washington Observer.”
“And this'll get us back on track for phase one?” Paul asked.
“Here we go again: now you got him saying phases,” Pete said to Karl. They laughed.
“Sorry, Mr. President,” Karl said, still chuckling. “It is really only two parts of how to move Congress to grant war powers. We want to conjure in their minds the image of a nuclear 9/11. First, we need to create a nuke in the hands of someone who would use it against us: by using Parnell's report against him, we put that nuke in Saddam's hands. Part two is showing that Saddam has contact with Al Qaeda—so everyone worries about them using his nuke on us. Show those two elements and no one in the Senate could dare vote against war powers.”
“Right,” Pete said. “We had a reassuring number of phone calls today after my address—just for special—about terrorists.”
“And how's that second phase coming?” Paul asked.
“We want a confession from an Al Qaeda enemy combatant, preferably,” Karl said.
“Confessing to what?” Paul asked as if he'd never heard of the idea.
“To working with, or at least communicating with, Saddam,” Karl said. “The tricky part is getting the confession.”
“Of course it is,” the VP said. “These sons-of-bitches are hardcore fanatics: can't bribe them, can't reason with them. They want nothing more than to die in Allah’s name,” Paul said, rolling his eyes and making a rhythmic hand-gesture.
“That's what these young ladies in the Senate don't understand,” Ben Butler said. “We're not dealing with normal people—so normal tactics aren't good enough.”
“And this, Mr. President, is what phase two is up against,” Karl said. “Normally we would buy the information or eavesdrop on the organization—”
“Hold on, hold on,” Pete said. “Listen, I appreciate you taking the trouble to keep gory details and, uh, grey-area stuff away from me. I really do appreciate it, gentlemen,” he said, taking each one in his gaze in turn. “But let's be frank for a second: we don't have any evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. The confession, or confessions, would be the only evidence.”
“It's all we'd need, Pete,” Paul said. “It's all we'd need. Just that, and the Senate would be stampeding to vote yea.”
“But what I'm getting at, Paul—” the President began.
“I know,” Karl said. “How to get it out of them? Like Ben says, it takes special means. The way we interrogate now is not doing the trick; we have seen that from the interrogations we have done at camp X-ray in Gitmo up until now.”
“You let me run an interrogation,” Ben Butler said, “and I'll have one of those filthy dogs singing like Patty Duke.”
The VP laughed. “He would, too,” he said, cocking a thumb.
“That would be a lot of interrogations for you to run,” Karl said, smiling. “If we could let the military and CIA go beyond what the Army Field Manual says—”
“Hold up,” Pete said, raising a hand. “You mean, let me see,” he said, looking at the ceiling, “uh, adjust interrogation methods to the cultural realities our soldiers and agents face with Al Qaeda.”
“That's it!” Karl said. “That was a good one, sir.” He stooped to the coffee table and scribbled on a piece of White House stationary. “But such changes have to be put in writing or the agents on the ground will never do it—they would worry about legal ramifications.”
“An order isn't enough?” Ben Butler demanded.
“A written one is,” Karl said.
“How it's written, that's the key,” Pete said. “It should be written in such a way to stand legal scrutiny but give the agents the impression anything goes—just get the results.”
“That is,” Paul grunted, “if these disloyal bastards running CIA will send out the order.”
“Shit, we can hand-deliver it to Gitmo,” Ben Butler said.
“I have talked with John Wu over at Justice,” Karl said. “He's got an idea of how we could write it—but he needs some specific techniques to do it right. Who knows about these 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques,' to use a phrase he likes?”
“Ha!” Ben Butler laughed. “I know where he got that, the bastard,” he said, chuckling. “Good boy. Hell, I know about them. Before I finished Naval Aviator training, I had to go through survival school. There, they teach you how to handle it if you go down: escape, evasion, survival, and dealing with being captured. This was a while ago,” he said, sharing a grin with the VP. “Now a-days they call it SERE school: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape or some shit. Basically in this school they simulate being tor—uh—harshly interrogated by Russians or Chinese or someone. The psychiatrists who run that school would know all about the 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' you need Karl. They could kind of reverse engineer the SERE school, build a program for getting the confessions, and help this boy Wu right his opinion. I can set up a meeting.”
“Whoa,” Pete said. “Who's at this meeting and where would it take place?”
“He said this boy at Justice needs to talk to the psychiatrists who set up the SERE school,” Ben Butler said. “We'll do it at the Pentagon—keep those CIA shits y
ou're worried about out of it,” he said with a wink at Paul.
“That's not a bad idea,” Pete said. “Actually, it could work for something else, too. If all goes well, we'd have the nuke and the connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda in a couple months, right? Then, we should present our case to the UN.” Everyone groaned. “No, wait a minute, it'll be okay. We really should. Look at it like this: no matter what is said to the UN, they never go far enough to actually solve anything, right?”
“Goddamn useless jackasses,” Ben Butler concurred.
“So if the Security Council passes even a wishy-washy resolution, it will help us,” Karl said, “by putting more pressure on Congress to do what is needed.”
“Right,” Pete said. “It means there's nowhere else to go to, no one else to ask: Congress does it—by giving us war powers—or Saddam gives Al Qaeda nukes and they blow us up.”
“And if the UN shoots us down?” Ben Butler asked.
“We will have some great evidence by then,” Karl said. “And we can make it tough for the other Security Council members to vote against: we could have Nate present the case,” he said, meaning Nathaniel McLean, the Secretary of State.
“Hell, I don't see 'McClean' trying too hard, somehow,” Ben Butler said.
“He's got a great reputation,” Paul said with a smile. “Time for him to cash it in. Always supposing the goddamn CIA doesn't load him up with their contrary opinions!”
“And that brings me back to Ben's meeting at the Pentagon,” Pete said. “Instead of a one-shot meeting inside the Pentagon—where we're safe from interference—let's set up an office there. We need several things done and the Pentagon would provide the security, the provenance, and the support to accomplish them.”
“What things, exactly?” Ben asked. “Other than helping this boy Wu to write his legal opinion.”
“I was thinking,” Pete said. “Instead of having CIA and DIA and the NSA and Energy and the military and who knows who else each brief Nate on what we know before he goes to try to convince the Security Council, we could set up an office that would collect data from each of these organizations and write a comprehensive opinion.”