The Parnell Affair

by James, Seth

The dinner over, they stepped out into the cool fall evening. Sally had her coat around her shoulders and her hand through Tobias's arm. As they walked slowly, reluctantly toward her car, he asked if she would like to look at the water. It was a moonless night, and the little cove upon which the hotel restaurant was situated had few houses to define its shores; he was asking something else. She breathed her agreement and they passed through a trestle set amongst a tall hedge. A narrow path of slate wound down to a few tables and benches at the water's edge.

  Away from the hotel's lights, the night closed in around them. The evening sounds of crickets hummed indistinctly beneath the tide lapping against the low seawall, which lined the waterfront. With each slow step, Sally's thoughts increased in speed and urgency but groped among the myriad conflicted concerns her circumstances imposed. She'd said many things a married woman should not, that night and before, but she'd not taken those steps out of marriage that Joe had taken with Ms Fromsett. What had seemed an exciting, sensual first step back to the land of the living—this inevitable first kiss; not the tame greeting of friends’ kiss or tired goodnight of an ancient couple but the apex of an enveloping embrace, more passionately akin to a sexual act—now smothered under unintended implication: what if all she felt was a betrayal of Joe? Not the dizzy ecstasy she'd vividly imagined at times during the preceding weeks, the lustful reaction to a man she wanted mind and body, but a startling realization that no matter how disappointed her marriage had become she could not disentangle herself from it. What then?

  “Can't see a thing down here,” she said.

  “We don't have to go down,” he said. “Would you rather go back?”

  “No, no,” she said. To herself she added: alright, subconscious, if you screw this up for me, I'm throwing us both in the water. “I just mean, I think it'll take a minute for our eyes to adjust to the darkness.”

  They halted when their feet crunched on gravel. Suddenly feeling violently warm, Sally pulled off her coat and dropped it over the back of a nearby bench.

  “It's nice down here,” he murmured, as she turned back from the bench.

  “Yes,” she sighed. His hand was on her hip but she wasn't sure if he'd put it there or she had.

  “It occurred to me,” he said slowly, as their features grew more distinct in the faint light, “that as often as we've talked, I've never been alone with you.”

  “Alone with you,” she breathed and stepped closer.

  Whatever anxious patter remained in her mind was cast aside, lost in the rush of every other thought that flew toward him. The look on his face as his arms encircled her was of amazement, boyish joy, and lover's need. He'd changed for her; in the taking of a breath he'd changed from a man whom she found interesting, intelligent, handsome and sexy to something else: all those things but now also something needful for no other reason than that he was he. And that was enough; a feeling that takes a paragraph to describe takes only a moment to feel; her desire to act upon it, to join with him, however briefly, animated her body as if it were an entity apart. Far from feeling carried away, she urged it on, surging upward in Tobias's embrace to find his mouth.

  Throughout the drive home, whenever she shifted gears, her hand found his or his arm or thigh, if only for a moment. He would then kiss her hand or bare shoulder or neck or cheek. They laughed at themselves, at the unspoken restrictions they'd breached and those they still obeyed. They pulled over once, pretending to look at a map, and were secretly thankful another car's headlights raked across them—thankful they hadn't gone further than more kissing, in a car at least.

  They spent a few more minutes together in front of his building before he reluctantly withdrew. She felt a childish curiosity at what he'd be thinking and doing after she left, when she saw the state in which she was leaving him. Perhaps it would have disappointed her to learn all he did was collapse into his favorite chair upon reaching his apartment; perhaps, but his thoughts of her may have been gratifying.

  “Well, to hell with it,” he told the room. “If it's a mistake then it's a mistake.”

  His smile and inward stare were not those of a man who thinks he's making a mistake.

  His ME was more reluctant than Tobias had intimated to Sally to letting Tobias attend the Security Council meeting in which Secretary of State McLean would present the United States case for war with Iraq. The paper was pleased Tobias obtained unofficial confirmation of Secretary McLean's attendance but plenty of wrangling in Congress needed covering as well. Only Tobias's threat to use some of his vacation days—he never used all of his yearly allotment in any event—swayed the editors. He'd go one way or another and they felt it best not to alienate him. The long train ride to New York was much more peaceful than his last, but Tobias's mind was, if anything, more disquieted: how to find someone who knew of the Niger docs, to solicit a leak; what if war were approved; and what of Sally? All such thoughts contended for preeminence.

  Though the Security Council was not due to convene until the next day, the UN nevertheless had much to accomplish first. While delegates made speeches to mostly empty seats in General Assembly Hall, Tobias stalked the halls to which he was allowed access, looking for someone who could set him on the right path. By in large, he met only other reporters. With no other resource, he listened to those around him and learned that McLean would arrive at three to meet with the British Foreign Secretary Jack Hay for a last consultation. It was generally agreed by observers that this meeting—as well as the use of the public lobby entrance by the Secretary of State—was a secret deliberately kept poorly so that video of their meeting would give the impression of greater unity.

  When the Secretary arrived, his brisk stride and square shoulders—reminiscent of his long army service—and the crowd of microphone armed reporters, supported by cameramen, converged. His vanguard of staff cleared a way through the press toward General Assembly Hall, out of which slipped Jack Hay, flanked by several people. Questions and flashing and clicking cameras all competed for the attention of the two men who, with studied disinterest, ignored all but each other. Their handshake and warm words of greeting duly recorded, this piece of political theater came to an end: security then swept aside the press, and the Secretaries passed a cordon or guards on their way to the Security Council Chamber.

  Tobias watched it all from where he leaned against a wall, the usual station for print journalists at such events. He watched the staff members who'd accompanied Secretary McLean. In particular, he looked for any signs of youth or credulity or discontent or stupidity—in short, the subtle signs of someone who could be easily approached to leak the Niger docs.

  The Security Council meeting not due until the next day, Tobias assumed the Secretary et al would—having completed the show—retire to the Conference Building for any last-minute prep they might need. Tobias repaired there as well. Knowing where to go was not difficult, all he needed was to follow the seasoned journalists who'd attended UN meetings in the past: a cagey group, as unaffiliated as panderers stalking a red light district and just as furtive. The men were lean and balding and nearly all lit cigarettes as soon as they were outside; the women were narrow shouldered and wide bottomed unless as rail-thin as marathon runners, with short unattractive hair and inconspicuous clothes. They did not walk as a group. Tobias watched them around him and thought how like hungry bears, thin from winter, on their way to the salmon run, they appeared. No excitement, no displeasure, just a job; they were as cynical from being lied to as a cop but without the tired fury. Just a job; their faces held no emotion, unless hating the relief they felt from the cigarettes: congeniality, affability, annoyance, obsequiousness were all masks they'd wear at the right time and for the right mark. Tobias felt his own face from inside; smirking again.

  Security, both theirs and the UN's, flanked the Secretaries as they left the General Assembly building's restricted entrance. The press pass around Tobias's neck was an unreliable shield: it might keep him from being arrested but wouldn't stop him
from being deflected. The Secretaries and staff expected this second wave of reporters, however, as it swept across the grass on an intercept course. For the most part, the journalists were looking for timetable information—as a ruse to open dialog—or a preliminary statement, a quote for a blog or the next morning's introduction of the meeting. It all had a fair resemblance to a relay race: one journalist quietly asking a question as McLean passed, nodding his head to the Secretary's answer and then falling back a step to hear the next journalist's question and its answer. Tobias, and a couple others, tackled the staff, who also expected their turn.

  Tobias, as it frequently occurred, drew a fairly young and reasonably attractive female staff member. For the minute and a half they had between buildings, she was willing to talk but she was on message. A few terse comments drove off journalists nearby, but Tobias's little lady didn't give him the push: no romantic impulse need exist, most people—for whatever reason—are with rare exception more willing to talk to an attractive person.

  “I know the Secretary's schedule must be packed tight,” Tobias said, “but could anyone from State maybe take a few minutes? I had a couple questions about the intel to be presented.”

  “The schedule is calling the shots today, I'm afraid,” she said, eyes moving between him next to her and her nearest colleague. “The brief tomorrow will make very clear our position; I'm sure it will answer your questions.” She tried a diplomatic smile.

  “Maybe someone from the OSP?” Tobias asked; it'd worked before.

  “I'm sorry?” she said, though clearly she knew what he was talking about. Probably she was unsure if she could talk about it.

  “The Office of Special Plans,” Tobias said lightly. “The guys who wrote the brief for the Secretary. I'm sure his presentation to the Council will be great but I was just hoping someone wouldn't mind a few clarifying questions afterward.”

  “The only contingent I'm familiar with is the State Department's,” she said. She only needed to say nothing for another ten seconds.

  “Maybe we could chat afterward?” Tobias suggested. “I just don’t want to get anything wrong, Ms—”

  “Dupree,” she said after he held the pause over her head. “I'm not sure what my schedule will be like after tomorrow.”

  “Dupree,” Tobias said. “Thanks. Like I said, I'm Tobias Hallström; I'm at The Palace, even a phone call would be a big help, if you find a spare five minutes.” He turned on his grin full blast.

  “Well, I’ll try,” she said as she slipped past the guards and safely away.

  Tobias smiled until he turned and then it fell off him like a hat in a stiff wind. He'd wanted some confirmation of the Niger doc's presence the first day. Maybe that's unrealistic, he thought. Anyway, it'll take a few days after the presentation for them to write the resolution. Plenty of time to find a leak.

  The next day, Secretary McLean presented the Security Council with details of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. Strangely—to Tobias, who watched with a few other pressman from the enclosed gallery above—nuclear material procurement played no greater role in the proceedings than biological or chemical capabilities. Recordings were offered that purportedly illustrated the Iraqi military's efforts to conceal its stockpiles; Tobias wondered at their authenticity. Vials supposedly containing anthrax were displayed; Tobias laughed—it must be admitted, nervously—at the thought of UN security allowing anthrax into the building. Next came maps and reports from inspectors, and satellite photos, and Tobias kept listening for mention of a nuclear program but only allusions to it were made. He watched the Russian and Chinese Ambassadors' reactions to each piece of evidence; both were inscrutable, rarely taking notes, though they'd have people for that. Occasionally, Tobias would find the staffer Ms Dupree, sitting a few seats behind Secretary McLean: she located him in the box above and opposite her, once but quickly looked away.

  Little conversation—let alone serious questioning—followed Secretary McLean's presentation. The real debate of detail and what the UN would resolve to do would take place away from the cameras. As the Security Council broke up, Tobias joined the reporters and cameras awaiting the dignitaries’ departure. He bypassed the crowd around McLean—though he smiled at Ms Dupree—and found the Russian ambassador to the UN walking briskly toward the hallway out, fumbling for a cigarette. Tobias introduced himself, stressed he wasn't taking notes, and tried to keep up.

  “I was surprised at how little was made of Iraq's supposed nuclear ambitions,” Tobias said.

  The ambassador snorted. “Perhaps because no such ambitions exist,” he said, not looking at Tobias. “But such things are no doubt kept for private discussion.”

  “Had you been given any advanced warning of what to expect in the way of evidence?” Tobias asked.

  “Nyet,” the Ambassador snapped in Russian; no. “Very little; and that, vague. We shall see.”

  Tobias was compelled yet again to halt by a security checkpoint. The Russian Ambassador strode on.

  Very little of the Conference Building was open to the press and that bit was not used by any of the dignitaries unless they wanted to make a statement. Tobias dutifully hung around until word reached him that the delegates had left for the day. He had been able to discover the Russian Ambassador's hotel and so departed for it, thinking the Ambassador and his staff had no reason to conceal what was said behind closed doors, considering their government's dim view of the US march toward war.

  At the hotel, Tobias found he had missed the Russian Ambassador by a few minutes: he'd left for dinner. Installed on a lobby couch, Tobias had a cup of coffee, called his hotel to see if there were any messages (no), and then called Sally. He'd toyed with the idea of hunting down a rare bottle of Finish vodka but Sally, as it happens, knew the Ambassador and knew he wouldn't care for it (being a Francophile, he preferred Armagnac) or, worse, would be insulted. She suggested, if Tobias really wanted a nice chummy chat, to follow up in the elevator two high-class escorts that would certainly arrive shortly after the Ambassador's return.

  “Or, if I'd rather not have my arms broken?” he asked.

  “Ha, well,” Sally said, thinking, “if he looks a little bleary when he returns, he'll want a steam tomorrow morning.” She gave him the name of a place in midtown.

  Tobias called the night editor back at The Observer and had a photo of the Russian Ambassador emailed to him. At the Palace hotel, Tobias asked the concierge to print the email. Returning to the Ambassador's hotel at 5:00 am the next morning, Tobias paid a shoe shiner in the lobby $50 to keep an eye out for the man in the picture and to call Tobias when the man left. Tobias couldn't sit in the sauna and wait for the Ambassador, it could be hours—he'd be a steamed dumpling by that point. At the club, Tobias nearly called the whole thing off when he found out the price for non-members. He thought of Sally and then pulled out his credit card.

  At half past six, the phone call came: the man in the photo, the shoe shiner said, had stumbled through the lobby, supported by his security, to an awaiting car. Tobias then disrobed and sat in a towel on a locker-room bench, pretending to thumb through emails on his phone. After ten minutes, a tall Russian security man slipped into the room and gave it the once over. Tobias locked up his phone and went into the sauna. A few minutes passed—with certain lines from Dante occurring to Tobias as he concentrated on breathing—before a heavy-set, paste-white, and surprisingly hairless man stumbled grumblingly through the door, a towel of considerable size worn nearly at his armpits. Tobias recognized the Ambassador but the Ambassador looked in no shape to take notice of anything. Not wanting to get thrown out on his ear too quickly—though the heat made the possibility tempting—Tobias gave the Ambassador a few minutes to become human. When he heard snoring, Tobias rose.

  Two other red and sweating men chatted quietly in one corner about something Tobias couldn't make out. They made no objection when Tobias indicated the ladle with which patrons increased the steam by pouring water over heated rocks (fake
rocks, heated by circulating hot oil from a furnace below; the majority of steam was generated in the basement; tradition). A hiss akin to sizzling bacon and Tobias sat down next to the Ambassador. He sat heavily; the snoring stopped.

  “You're a persistent bastard, aren't you?” the Ambassador said, mumbling as though the effort to move his lips was more than Tobias was worth.

  “Christ, I don't know how you Russians do it,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I'm ready to be put on a plate alongside some asparagus and wild rice.”

  “Don't talk of food,” the Ambassador hissed. He smiled though. “Ah, you say that but you are no soft American,” he said and punctuated his remark with a finger jabbing Tobias's ribs.

  “I'll be nice and tender if I stay in here much longer,” he said.

  The whole world, Tobias thought, from pretty female staffers to fat Russian men, everyone takes time to talk to people they find attractive. Not that he thought the Ambassador swung that way; it made no difference; he gave Tobias time. Young women see a fantasy of their future in an attractive man; old men see a fantasy of their past.

  “Take a plunge after and you'll know why half the world steams their skins,” the ambassador said.

  “I'll do that,” Tobias said.

  “Now, what in the hell did you come here for, huh?” the Ambassador said. He was grinning now, woken up. “You think those fools had anymore to say behind closed doors? You are off the record.” It was not a request. Tobias thought of the security outside; he didn't care.

  “I'm off the record,” Tobias said. “They didn't give you a copy of all their intel?”

  “Of course not,” the Ambassador said. “What you think? They risk revealing their sources?” His perfect English slipped.

  “But without independent verification, how can you believe the evidence?” Tobias asked.

  “I asked the same thing,” the Ambassador said, heaving forward to lean his elbows on his knees. “But there's little enough to verify. All of it could be faked; that's nothing new. Always the question is this: what costs more? To believe or not?”