The Parnell Affair

by James, Seth

  Just after ten in the morning, John Lodge, the Director Central Intelligence (DCI), walked briskly into Henry's office. A Princetonian born, raised, and educated, Lodge was a career civil servant who'd served in CIA, Justice, on the Congressional staffs of intel committee members, had been a frequent member himself of special intelligence commissions, before being appointed Director by the former President. Despite all of that he was damn human. He brushed aside Sally's outstretched hand and gave her a fatherly hug. He waved the others to follow him to his office.

  Once seated and the appropriate calls made to have updates sent immediately to his office, Lodge asked Sally to walk through what she knew, a sort of informal debrief. She told them of Joe's meeting with the President and subsequently with Senator Perkin's son, of the threat against her and the reason for it. Sally felt her heart flutter when she heard herself describe what now sounded like silly and innocent reasons for not following procedure and informing her handler (Arthur MacGregor) as soon as she'd learned of the threat. Her sense of guilt must have shown on her face as she fought to maintain eye contact with the Director and Deputy Director.

  “None of us would have predicted the Administration would act this recklessly,” Lodge said. “Yes, you should have mentioned it, but I probably would have come to the same conclusions Joe did. That confronting the President would have, in all likelihood, made matters worse. Looking at it through hindsight? Nothing could be worse than now, but at the time—” he said and shrugged.

  “It defies belief,” Henry said. He shook his head slowly.

  “May I ask a question, sir?” Sally asked Lodge.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Why wasn't I told about these documents I was supposed to find, prior to the operation?” she asked.

  “Good god! You don't actually believe this garbage?” Henry said, slapping the copy of The Observer Lodge had brought.

  “This stays in this room,” Lodge said, nodding significantly at Sally. “We were never told of their existence, have never seen them, and we didn't tell the President we were sending you.”

  “We've never—how do we even know they exist?” Sally asked incredulously.

  “We don't, strictly speaking,” said Lodge. “And I'm in no position to ask now. Not because of you,” he added, seeing her color. “Because of my sending you. The VP has never trusted the CIA, not since the Nixon Administration.”

  “He has some wild theories about the agency's lack of loyalty,” Henry said with a wink. He'd been an analyst at the time.

  “They found out about you going to Niger—” Lodge began.

  “How?” Sally asked.

  Lodge looked at his office wall in the direction of the DDO's office. Then he said, “Who knows? The point is, they found out. I don't have much clout with them these days,” he said and all of them bit their tongues (they'd get nowhere if they began rehashing 9/11 and assigning blame). “Characterizing your operation as a kind of disloyalty gave them all the leverage they needed. I had to send SAD teams into Northern Iraq to pacify them.”

  Sally sat up straighter. The Special Activities Division was in part the CIA's paramilitary force—through its Special Operations Group (SOG)—used in a capacity similar to Army Special Forces: contacting and assisting local resistance fighters, raiding, disruption, sabotage, and assassination at the C-in-C level. Their entry into Iraq was a prelude to war.

  “So it's inevitable?” Sally asked. “They've already decided? And sacrificing me and my agents was what? A way to counteract Joe's report?”

  A knock came at the door and a younger man stuck his head through when Lodge said yes.

  “Sorry, Chief,” the officer said. “Kyong didn't make it.”

  “Damn!” Henry said.

  “How?” was all Lodge asked.

  “Shot on the LZ,” the officer said. “The helicopter managed to slip back across the border.”

  Sally had a vision of Kyong Jong-ha, a physicist, sixty-three—whom she had recruited to send information from inside North Korea's nuclear program—running through the woods, terrified by the howling of tracker dogs behind, looking up at a small black shape in the sky approaching a clearing ahead, redoubling his efforts to meet it, stepping into the open and falling amid pain, never hearing the shot that killed him. She wondered if he had seen the helicopter.

  “And Kim Yong-woong?” Lodge asked.

  “Due to make contact in twelve hours,” the officer said. “He's trying to cross into China.”

  Lodge nodded and the officer withdrew. A moment was allowed to quietly slip by.

  “I'll go to the President tomorrow,” Lodge said. “Someone should go to jail for this.”

  “It won't be who's responsible,” Henry said.

  “No,” Lodge murmured. “But somebody. In the meantime, you'll report to Henry. Debriefing will take quite a while but afterward—”

  “My career's over; we all know that,” Sally said. “Let's—”

  “Like hell,” Henry said. “We can always use good people in the DI.”

  “Your average analyst reading newspapers in the basement has years more experience at your game,” she told him, waving away the suggestion. “And next year, anyone coming out of Operations will have a year's more experience than I; and the next year, two years more; and then three years more; and I can never catch up. To hell with it, we've much more important things on our plate now,” she said. “I fall on my sword.”

  “You were pushed,” Lodge assured her.

  “Whichever,” she said wearily. “There're still a lot of my people in harm's way. Now, Pakistan,” she began and shifted the conversation away from her metaphorical funeral to Kyong Jong-ha's real one and on to pulling her people out of danger.

  Sally had a long day ahead, particularly after the formal debrief began. More terrible news followed with few successes, but a few. Nevertheless, she felt reluctant to leave headquarters, late that night, to drive home to tell her daughter that she'd lied to her the whole of her life, endangered her for a job. Rationally, she knew Lucy was a sane, mature-minded, and forgiving young woman and that Lucy wouldn't think of herself but would worry more about her mother. But Lucy was a good excuse for the tears that blurred the road ahead as Sally left CIA.

  The Monday after Les Vonka's damning exposé, Tobias called Jim MacPherson to ask about the Senator's schedule. Jim was working hard: the planned schedule had been thrown out and a lot of new items added, all concerned with WMD and intelligence gathering. Most significantly, the SSCI hearings that had been indefinitely postponed in July were now scheduled for Wednesday. Jim had more questions than answers for Tobias. Tobias had no answers.

  Covering the Hill, Tobias had few Executive Branch contacts and would have to wait a few days for the rumor mill to churn out what he wanted to know. Beyond anything else, he wanted to know who had outed Sally Parnell. Though Vonka's editorial had cut the floor out from under Tobias's story on Joe and Niger (Vonka's story had tattooed “liar” to everything Joe had ever said about Niger, making Tobias's story impossible), Tobias wasn't striving to revenge himself on Vonka or avenge Sally. He felt as though he'd let down both Parnells; that they'd had a reasonable expectation of candor and discretion of Tobias and that The Observer's injurious story had betrayed the trust they'd placed in him. That he'd taken no part in Vonka's story meant nothing to Tobias: he took responsibility for his sources, saw protecting them as his duty. For this attitude, Tobias would never gain the sort of national recognition a dredging smear like Les Vonka enjoyed. But no one spit after saying Tobias's name either (except people who'd earned his scorn).

  Tobias wanted to make it up to the Parnells in some way. He could, of course, write an editorial of his own—if the Editor in Chief, Chuck Ailes, would allow it—to present the counter evidence, to call Vonka a criminal, to question the Administration's motives. If he'd had any counter evidence, that is. But even if he had, he didn't know if the Parnells would want their lives dragged into the paper a
gain. The only thing he felt they'd appreciate from him was the identity of Vonka's “sources within the Administration.”

  Wednesday found Tobias outside the capitol building, practicing his Spanish with the shave-ice vendor while waiting for the closed-door SSCI hearing to break for lunch. When it finally did, Tobias took out a staffer who'd sat in on the meeting to take notes. She wouldn't tell him much, but her coyness couldn't disguise that she had little to tell in the first place. Tobias did learn that the Niger docs had not been distributed to Congress, that instead a supposedly detailed summary had been written for the committee members.

  Over drinks at G & J Steakhouse the next evening—the sort of after session drinking done only when the usual summer recess has been abbreviated—Tobias mused about the Redskins' draft picks and preseason outlook among a group of Representatives. Their usual pack of nervous staffers stayed close when Tobias squeezed in between bar stools, eyeing him from within their masters' shadows. Not until later in the evening, when coffee and liqueurs were called for at the nearby tables, did the “Representative speaking on condition of anonymity” dismiss his coat-holder. Whether it scared their enemies or impressed their friends, talking with Tobias in public seemed relished more by Representatives than Senators. But that's all it was: the hangover next day and mid-triple digit bar tab got Tobias exactly nothing. “That sort of thing, kid,” he was told by a man only three years his senior, “they'd keep very close to the vest.” Thanks, brother, buy your own Manhattans next time.

  Friday brought more of the same. Even snatching ten minutes of Jim's Senator's time only earned Tobias the same something he'd heard all week: “Hell, Tobias, I can't understand why you'd ask me. It was your paper which printed the story. Why not ask Mr. Vonka?” Tobias lamely answered something about independent investigations but had no real answer, no professional one. Third time lucky, he scoffed as he left to find his bike.

  That night, he played his last trump: he knew with the summer recess cut short that many Congressmen would be in town sans wife. He also knew one of the White House communications staffers got her job because of a glowing recommendation from the Senator whose apartment Tobias watched from across the street, concealed amid a storefront. When a cab pulled up to the apartment building at 2:30 am, Tobias hustled across the street and got into the back against the surprised curse of the driver and embarrassed “excuse me” of his fare. She recognized Tobias and, with the blood drained from her face, agreed to share the cab back to the all-night diner near his apartment. Once there, over coffee, Tobias indirectly reminded her of all he'd kept to himself: her affair with a married Senator, his recommendation, her affair with Tobias years ago, and his talking a cop out of busting her for possession one time. He gritted his teeth, knowing how unfair he was being, not looking at her as he spoke. To his relief, she laughed in his face—sweetly. She said it must be some hot information he needed, to come at her like that. She squeezed his arm to let him know there were no hard feelings and laughed again at the image of him casually blackmailing her. He felt absurd; the whole foolish scene made him cringe, knowing she'd never let him forget it; knowing she knew him so well she had nothing to fear. He asked who Vonka's source was, who'd outed Sally Parnell. His friend said she'd heard nothing, that it wasn't talked about, even the expected testimonials of unwavering belief in the Administration's line. She said: “Why don't you ask Les Vonka?” She laughed again. She knew why.

  Neither sleeping in nor the full breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast, fried tomato, beans, plantains, and three cups of café con leche improved Tobias's mood the next day. Home from the café, he indulged his growing rage with countless iterations of The Immigrant Song, visualizing with a writer's detail the source of the gore about which the soft fields of green whispered.

  “I ought to wring the little bastard’s neck,” he finally growled after throwing himself in his deep leather chair. The only thing to ring, however, was his cell phone.

  “Hi, it's Sally,” she said. “Parnell.”

  “Hi!” he said, shooting out of the chair. “Hey, how are you?”

  “I'm,” she said, “I'm okay. Considering.”

  “Look, I'm—” he began.

  “Don't say you're sorry a dozen more times,” she said, a small laugh in her voice.

  “No, I—ha!” he said, catching himself.

  “I know you had nothing to do with that story,” she said. “I never thought you had.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He took a few pacing steps, feeling lighter. “I didn’t but I'd still like to help in any way I could. Whatever it is.”

  “I don't know if you can,” she said, “but I'd like to talk to you, if you have time today.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Uh, too early for a drink?”

  “Ha! These days?” she said. “No, it's not too early for a drink. Where?”

  Tobias gave her the name and address of his local pub, Victor's. First place that came to mind. After they hung up, he changed out of his sneakers for shoes, grabbed a blazer, ran a hand through his hair, and left. Now, don't get distracted by how she looks, he lectured himself as he walked. These people have just been attacked in the paper, her career ruined, his reputation smeared: leering at Joe's wife is an indignity you can spare the guy.

  Still stuffed from his huge breakfast—and the temperature still in the 90s—Tobias ordered a glass of chilled Beaujolais. He could only sip it. Nearly a half hour passed, which Tobias spent finishing someone's abandoned crossword puzzle, before Sally arrived. No sign of Joe.

  Dressed in light-tan hip-hugging pants with a belt and a short-sleeved low-necked white blouse, she looked like an angel or some Nordic dream, with her hair the color of champagne. But any distraction Tobias might have worried about vanished when she removed her sunglasses to scan the bar for him: her skin was pale and her eyes care-worn, though she smiled bravely through them when he stood up. He pulled out the seat next to him for her; she declined a glass of the Beaujolais and instead ordered a gin and tonic.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said after a moment passed silently.

  “I asked to meet you,” she said.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Listen, anything said here, I want to assure you, is off the record. And it means something when I say it.”

  “I know,” she said. “But really, I don't know how much is off the record at this point.”

  “Just the name of Vonka's source in the Administration,” Tobias said. He drained off the rest of his wine and indicated he'd like another as Mike the barman set down Sally's G&T.

  “So you guessed why I wanted to see you,” she said. “I know it's a lot to ask; I'm sure he's as reluctant to reveal a source as you are.”

  “Maybe,” Tobias said. “But in this case, only because I'm asking. I've been at it all week but it's not the sort of information anyone around Congress is likely to know. I could ask him,” Tobias said slowly. “The thing is, we're not exactly pals. As a matter of fact, he hates my guts.”

  “I see,” Sally said and took a sip of her drink.

  Tobias thought he heard a reproach in her voice. “I could use it to my advantage, of course,” he said quickly. “Or try to. I could try to get him to let something slip; get him riled up enough to shout; could tell him it was illegal and maybe he'll tell me 'if so-and-so does it, it's legal' or something like that.”

  “It is illegal,” Sally said. She had been disappointed frequently during the last week and supposed she was expecting to be disappointed again. The NOC officer in her, who'd recruited dozens of agents, told her that expecting to get nothing was the surest way to get nothing—the subject feels justified in living down to your expectations. Sally knew she ought to treat the conversation like a recruitment, but the idea wouldn't take and she caught herself letting the silence weigh on him, hoping he'd speak. “It's very illegal,” she said. “There's a law, The Intelligence Identities Protection Act. And this being the United States, anyone who violates it ought t
o go to jail.”

  “Yeah?” Tobias said, a little surprised and not at the law's existence. “I'll look it up before I go at him. If that's what you want. I only say that because enough things have been done to you without your permission,” he added quickly.

  “That's sweet of you,” she said. “But that's what I came to ask.”

  “You got it,” he said. “First thing. There's another way, though: I'm just throwing this out there so you have options. I could go in there and antagonize him, try to scare him, and he may let something slip: or I could call in a favor with someone friendly to him. She's married now, so I'm not sure she'd be up for any techniques that would absolutely get us the dirt.”

  “I see,” Sally said and shared his smile.

  “But there you go,” he said. “Good cop and bad cop. Or naughty cop. Whoever you want.”

  “I want you to ask,” she said. Another pause. She arrested a shift in her seat when the cushion's leather made a rude noise against whatever fabric her daughter's low-rise pants were made out of.

  “Consider it done,” Tobias said. “He should be in on Monday; I'll ask then. With this law against revealing agents' names, do you have any legal recourse?”

  “Operatives,” she corrected. “Or Operations Officers: agents are the spies I recruit.” Sally sighed and used a napkin to sop up the condensation pooling around her glass. “We went to Justice,” she said. “Or, rather, Joe went. On Monday, when I was at headquarters. At first they refused to even admit a crime had been committed. It took a hell of a lot of phone calls and Joe shouting at people before they'd admit I was CIA. At this point, it's 'under consideration,' which means they won’t say yes to an investigation and don't have the guts to say no.”