by James, Seth
“Um, yeah, I—I think so,” Gerald stuttered. “How do you know about the OSP?”
“I never reveal sources, Mr. Hicman,” Tobias said. “Let me guess, the meeting he kept you out of was about sending intel to the OSP. But if he didn't want to send something,” Tobias said, mostly to himself, “then he'd just keep it locked up. Hmm, the other people at the meeting? The meeting was with someone who was taking your intel back to the OSP! That's it and Thoblon didn't want you at the meeting because he didn't want you to see what he was sending.”
“I can't,” Gerald said. “Listen, I'm sorry, I can't confirm any of this.” He looked at Tobias, thinking. “I won't say it doesn't make some sense, though. I couldn't understand why he did it.”
“But you can now?” Tobias said.
Gerald didn't answer.
“You haven't told me anything, Mr. Hicman,” Tobias said reassuringly. “I had the details already, and should have seen where they were last month,” he said, not bothering to indicate the 'they' were the Niger docs. “Well, I guess I didn't know there was bad blood between McLean and Thoblon, but you certainly didn't tell me anything classified.”
“No, of course not,” Gerald said, smiling superciliously, as if embarrassed for Tobias. “In any event, I don't believe the existence of the OSP is classified. The particulars of what is sent to them, maybe, but not its existence. And those particulars won't be secret for long, either: the OSP is writing the definitive opinion on Iraq's nuclear threat, which they will brief to the Secretary who will, in turn, take it to the Security Council. Don't quote me on that just yet, I don't think it's been officially announced. It will be soon, though.”
“I'd heard a few rumblings about more sanctions,” Tobias said, “possibly a call for military action. The Secretary of State will make the case to the UN?”
“That's the scuttlebutt,” Gerald said.
“And the OSP is writing the brief he'll give?” Tobias asked.
“They're assembling all the useful data from the relevant organizations, yes,” Gerald said and took a breath as if to launch into another long description.
“But the office is at the Pentagon,” Tobias said. “Why there if they're not ultimately planning for war?”
“I wouldn't go that far,” Gerald said. “The office space had to be found somewhere, and the Pentagon obviously provides excellent security. It happens. We once had a large project and couldn't find the space at Foggy Bottom and so ended up using rooms at the Department of Agriculture.”
Tobias wound down the conversation, allowing Gerald a few more long explanations. They parted with a handshake and Tobias went in search of a cab. He passed several as he thought through what facts he possessed and the assumptions he'd built upon them. You knew the whole time, you idiot, he thought, and now they're inside the Pentagon. Good luck finding a leak there.
It had hung in the closet long enough to put a crease through the knees of the trousers. Tobias checked the clock on his night table for the sixth time in ten minutes. She'll be here in an hour, he thought, but you better figure this out now. You have to wear a suit, he thought while examining its creased knees: it's bound to be a nice place and, anyway, you're always better off over-dressing than under-dressing.
“Why don't you rent a goddamn tux, then?” he said as he thrust his charcoal suite back into the closet and chose another one.
Where in the hell is that slack-jawed, squealing little soccer mom, Sally raged at the window overlooking her front lawn. I have to be out the door in thirty minutes and haven't even started my makeup. She still wore her running shorts and t-shirt, though she had a full mental inventory of what she would wear and bring with her.
This has always been an interesting shade of blue, Tobias thought as he made room in his closet with outstretched arms. His eyes flicked over to a black suit at the far end of his closet, the blood-red shirt he'd always worn with it inside the jacket. It is not 1987, he told himself firmly, and even if you could fit into that perfect example of Italian sex-machine—he unconsciously thumbed the material—she could be taking you to a crab shack! No, no, it'll be nice—but it won't be a disco!
“Mom, Jenny's here,” Lucy called from the steps as she came up. Sally jumped from the window—where she'd been sighing in relief—and assumed a stretching position. “What are you doing?” Lucy asked from the doorway.
“Still a little tight from this morning,” Sally said. “Thought I'd do another stretching routine.”
“Oh,” Lucy said. “Do you want anything from the mall? Or have you bought enough already?” She reached out to slide the wall closet door open an inch.
“Watch it, you,” Sally said. “Haven't you borrowed enough of my things? We'll have to go shopping soon, just the two of us. The fun is in the finding and taking home, not the getting.”
“Getting presents can be fun,” Lucy said. “Depending on how they're given.” What was that look in her eye, Sally thought, what was that look? “Give me a present sometime and I'll show you how.”
“I'll give you a present, alright,” Sally said, covering her sudden unease. Does she know something? “Go on,” she said. “Don't keep Mrs. Ficklebaum waiting.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “She could have let us drive and then she wouldn't have to wait,” she said and left the room.
“She's just a little cautious, dear,” Sally said, following Lucy to the top of the stairs. And an overprotective git, she thought. “Try to be cool about it.”
“I will,” Lucy said, going downstairs.
“Have a good time, babe,” Sally said. “I love you.”
“Love you, too; bye,” Lucy said. The front door closed a second later.
Finally, okay, that's it, now don't change your mind, Tobias thought, holding up his charcoal suit again. Is she really going to look at your knees? Man is it ever easier to take out a woman six or eight years younger, he thought and then paused in his sifting through ties. He continued a second later, thinking: nope, not going to open that can of worms right now. What is wrong with the air conditioning!
Okay, okay, that looks even, Sally thought while examining her face in the bathroom mirror. I can barely see this eye shadow, she thought, no no leave it, less is more. She arranged her hair at her shoulders and then flung herself from the room. No time; thanks, Mrs. Ficklebaum. She peeled off her running shorts, climbed into her dress—a very pale peach colored silk, daring in length and cut, and too close fitting for underwear—grabbed pumps and purse and ran down the stairs. She shuffled through the contents of her little clutch and then paused to remember putting her sneakers in her car. Her champagne-colored sable coat was over her arm as she passed the hall mirror—she froze.
You look good, you look good, Tobias silently told his bathroom mirror. He'd selected a shirt that appeared black or deep purple depending on the lighting and angle; it contrasted nicely with the more predictable color of his suite and made an excellent backdrop for a brilliant azure tie. Now if your hands would quit sweating, you'd be ready to go.
He's only a reporter, Sally thought while holding her sable coat at arm’s length. How's he going to feel if you show up wearing half his salary? Damn it, Joe. She hung it back up, clutched her purse between her knees, and rifled the closet. Is it really going to be that cold? You need the coat to cover the dress upon re-entering the house later tonight. This puffy down coat would look real sexy, all right. Sally came to a long tweed coat her older daughter Anna had inadvertently left behind. Why does this feel like stealing from my mom?
Perfect, absolutely, keep pacing like a maniac until you sweat through your shirt, Tobias told himself as he re-crossed his living room. Alright, Zep, now more than ever, baby, he thought as he reached his Hi-Fi. He played Whole lotta love but not very loudly. You put that on to sing along with “I want to be your backdoor man,” didn't you? Bet kids today think that's hysterical, backdoor meaning something else now. For crying out loud, they're separated! He's got a mistress he's going to marry. L
eave it alone already.
Of course you're here you son of a bitch, Sally thought at Mr. Thisleworth leering at her from his garbage pail: why don't you climb into that thing? A few blocks from home, she took a deep breath. Just relax, she told herself, this is going to be great. She began to believe it. So you're nervous; you should be. But it's going to be fun. This is not an operation. It's a hot date with one hell of a sexy man. A man whose been working hard to get you a little justice, maybe risking his job—he was really something, calling them out on c-span that day. And anyway, tonight will be away from the city, nothing to worry about—god, it's been too long. I bet he's nervous, too, she thought: he seemed nervous that afternoon with the champagne.
“You been foolin', baby I been droolin', all the good times baby I been misusin'!” Tobias belted out in accompaniment to his third iteration of Whole lotta love, now turned up full blast. He didn’t hear the buzzer the first time, though luckily Sally hit it twice and he caught the tail end of the second. She was in front of his building. He slammed out of his apartment without answering it.
He came down the stairs two at a time and to a skidding halt opposite the foyer doors with Sally looking through the glass at him. She pointed; she'd caught him. He made the disappointed gesture of a sports fan whose team missed a field goal, but his face gave it the lie. No calculated grin but a beaming smile met Sally as he joined her on the front stoop. That is until the thought confronted him: fuck, fuck—kiss or shake hands, kiss or shake hands?
She kissed him on the cheek. He sighed with pleasure and relief and then stepped back to arms length.
“You look amazing,” he said. She'd left the tweed coat in the backseat of her Audi A6.
“Thank you,” she said. “You, too. I love this tie, great color.” She wasn't looking at his tie.
“Beautiful,” he murmured and then shook with a silent laugh. “Listen,” he said more soberly, “before we head out: I don't want to spend the whole night talking shop—and I know you don't either—”
“No,” she agreed.
“But I have something that won't sit still in my mind,” he said. “I think I know where the Niger docs are.”
“What? Where?” she said.
“Well, where they were, anyway,” he said, considering. “No, no, where they are now, too. They're probably at the OSP.”
“Oh, well that stands to reason, I guess,” she said. “All sorts of intel has gone there, although they haven't said why.”
“I found that out, too,” he said. “The OSP is writing a brief of the Administration's case for war, which the Secretary of State will deliver to the UN next month.”
“Interesting,” she said, stressing each syllable. “I'm no analyst—despite having been officially moved from the Directorate of Operations to Intelligence—but we could read a couple of things into that. One: the people at the OSP don't know the Niger docs are fake or, two, they know but want them around to ensure the other intel they select for this brief supports them. You said you know where they were?”
“Yeah and it looks like we were a little slow on the uptake,” he said. “Jon Thoblon had them.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Pretty sure,” he said. “You remember you said he was at Joe's meeting, they came out of his briefcase, he's the one who handled them?”
“That's provocative, I'll admit,” she said. “But it doesn't follow that he'd go on carrying them around with him.”
“Not by itself,” he said. “But about a week ago, at a State Department meeting to transfer intel from the Bureau of Arms Control and International Security to the OSP, Thoblon physically prevented a fella from INR from attending.”
“That's even more provocative,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “It was the simplest answer to where they were, and I missed it. If we'd thought of it a week ago, we could have asked Joe to slip in there and do things I wouldn't want full knowledge of afterward.”
“Ha, I guess,” she said. “Certainly would have been easier than stealing them from the Pentagon. I could give it a try, I suppose. Only my Le Femme Nikita costume is at the dry cleaners until Thursday.”
Tobias made a low noise in his chest. “You would look incredibly sexy in that,” he said huskily. “God, you really do look beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, enjoying that subtle loss of expression a man's face assumes when his interest is entirely captivated. “How did you find out all of this?” she asked, and then broke the spell with a sidelong glance at a couple passing on the sidewalk.
“A guy from State,” Tobias said. “The one Jon Thoblon chucked out of his office. You're right, though: getting them from the Pentagon could be tough. It has happened: the Pentagon Papers. Still.”
“If I could get a list of its members,” she said, “the OSP's, we could try to find one among them who'd leak.”
“How would you get that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I'm being made the manager of a team of analysts,” she said. “I'll have access to plenty.”
“That's one way,” he said. “You know what? It could be that they'll send the Niger docs along to the UN for the Security Council meeting. Only someone in-the-know—like you—could tell they're fakes, I'm guessing, so they may think they'll fool the diplomats at the UN.”
“They could,” she agreed, nodding her head as she thought more about it. “And the UN leaks like a sieve.”
“I got to get up there for it,” he said.
“I'm really grateful,” she said with surprising earnestness, placing a hand on his forearm, looking him in the eyes.
“My pleasure,” he said.
“You're not—” she began to ask about his job security and then changed tack. “What does your editor think of all this? He doesn't mind you neglecting your beat at Congress?”
“No, don't worry about that,” he said with a smile. He motioned to the car and they walked down the steps. “I'll tell them about Secretary McLean addressing the UN—which hasn't been officially released—and it'll allow them to scoop the competition. That'll make them happy. More to the point, though, it'll unquestionably indicate a prelude to war. Wartime on a newspaper, as on a battleship, means all hands on deck.”
They spoke little at first, as they drove out of the city and into Maryland: the questions answered—or half answered—vied with new questions for the attention of their inner thoughts. The context of an evening out together asserted itself, however, and they laughed away the momentary embarrassment of their silence. With self-deprecating nonchalance, which only age seems capable of imparting, they admitted the nervousness and vanity in which they'd both indulged earlier. That simple step toward memory lane led them back to similar though far more nervous nights from their youths, the anxiety anesthetized into sentiment by time. They were laughing before they reached the river.
The restaurant was to a crab shack what a Turner is to a jailhouse tattoo. Elegant without ostentation, possessed of a luxury of space as all restaurants appear to those who live within the confines of a city; the view of the bay through the south-facing wall of windows was breathtaking. Or would have been, if either Sally or Tobias had noticed. The restaurant was a part of a small but charming hotel; the reception desk had to be passed to reach the maître d'. Sally wondered just how active her subconscious had been when she'd selected this restaurant. She tried to steal a glance at Tobias, to see if he was reading anything into the proximity of so many available, private bedrooms. The next second, however, they stood before the dining room and Sally surveyed the dozen or so couples enjoying their own nights out. Some of the men noticed her and risked a lingering glance; some of the women hated her with their eyes while others seemed to ignore her and stole shamelessly appraising looks at Tobias; most were involved in their own conversations; some intimate, some heated though suppressed, a few even bored; young couples on dates and a twenty-third anniversary. The dining room was filled with people li
ving their lives and Sally was finally there, among such people again, a life of her own to live. Tobias could see the excitement dancing in her eyes and that she heard neither his compliment of the place or the waiter's beckon. He guided her forward with a hand gently at the small of her back and she returned to the present immediately as they found their table.
Sally had pressed against the few fingers that had touched her until she felt the whole of his hand on her. She felt also the reluctance, the regret as he let his hand drop. And though entirely irrational, she expected his lips would find the back of her neck. She knew, consciously, that they wouldn't but her skin tingled with expectation nevertheless. Rejoining the living was not merely a return to the simple pleasures of the board. As they talked quietly about the restaurant, what they'd drink, the menu, Tobias touched her fingers with his; not holding hands but a light, tactile attention. Sally found herself as fascinated by the sight of his touch as by its sensation. The waiter's appearance avoided another silence but he wasn't appreciated for it. The interruptions dinner service would impose seemed intrusive to Sally until she remembered they had the entire night ahead of them. She tried to shift her seat to keep the hotel's reception desk—with its clerk handing out keys—out of her peripheral vision. She tried not to speak in innuendos. She tried not to hear them. She tried. But after the food arrived and Tobias noticed her watching his mouth, he made a joke and laughed away a little of the not unpleasant tension. But she continued watching his mouth, thinking about what he could do with his mouth, his lips; what she could do with hers. Her desire was not merely physical, though: she wanted to return to the human race entirely; to be a disappointed woman no longer; to strip away trepidation as she longed to strip off her clothes and be again a whole woman, a lover. But Tobias and Sally were not there yet. Until now, they were less trusting each other as damning consequence and hoping.