Summit

by Richard Bowker

  "But it's true. Will you help me?"

  Poole stared at him for a long time. This was tricky. But everything Poole did was tricky. There was a faint sheen of sweat on Sullivan's face; his eyes were honest. "I'll try," Poole said.

  "Thank you," Sullivan said.

  "I can't guarantee anything, you understand," Poole hastened to add. "Winn has a mind of his own, and it'll take a lot of convincing for him to back out of the summit at this point."

  "I understand. If there's any information you need—"

  "Right. Just sit tight for now, and I'll be in touch."

  Sullivan looked like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "Thanks again," he said. "You don't know how—"

  "I think I do. Well, I've got a lot of work to do. Don't worry, Bill. It'll be all right."

  After Sullivan had left, Poole stared into space for a while, then picked up the phone and called James Houghton on a secure line. "I think you've got a problem with one of your boys," he said. "I just had a visit from Bill Sullivan."'

  "Oh Lord," Houghton said.

  "I brushed him off, of course. His theory is absolutely crazy. But I think you people had better keep him on a tight leash until after the summit. He's pretty wrought up."

  "Thanks for telling me, Tom," Houghton replied. "Well take care of him."

  "Excellent." Poole hung up, and then he resumed staring into space.

  * * *

  James Houghton and Bertram Culpepper dined at the kind of exclusive club to which Bill Sullivan could never hope to belong. He was their topic of conversation.

  Culpepper swallowed some of his carrot juice while he listened to Houghton recount what Sullivan had been up to. Culpepper had a theory that consuming large quantities of carrot juice would prevent the cancer that his chain-smoking would otherwise inevitably cause. Houghton found it difficult to watch the man drink the stuff, but he supposed it was all in the line of duty. "Have we in fact given the woman a lie-detector test?" Culpepper asked, fastidiously dabbing his napkin at the orange foam around his lips.

  "Of course," Houghton replied. "The results were inconclusive, naturally. Doctor Walpole says that's not inconsistent with someone in her emotional state and with her supposed mental powers. With a person like her, it's apparently difficult even to get a stable baseline from which to judge her responses. What about Hill?"

  "Hill's on vacation, won't be back till after the summit. I suppose we could find him and bring him in, but—" Culpepper gestured vaguely with his cigarette. "At any rate, he hasn't had a problem with his routine tests in the past. Of course, it could be that whatever is supposed to happen to these people allows them to fool the lie detector. Who knows?"

  Houghton nodded and sipped his Perrier. "It occurs to me that the disinformation could be working in the opposite way from what Sullivan suggests. We grab Borisova, and that means the Soviets have to figure out a way to neutralize her. So they hope that she can't use her powers without this machine, and they send the rest of the crew to New York, making sure we find out. We come up with Sullivan's theory, so we cancel the summit and get rid of Borisova and Hill. Not only do they score a propaganda victory by having us cancel the summit, we also do their dirty work for them by eliminating one of our agents and their most dangerous defector."

  "Or maybe it's simpler than that," Culpepper suggested. "We've got the real Borisova, but the Soviets think—or hope—that their machine will work even without her. In which case there's nothing much we can do about it short of canceling the summit and looking stupid."

  "Of course, Sullivan's information from Moscow may simply be incorrect," Houghton pointed out. "There's no independent confirmation of it yet."

  "And I have a feeling Sullivan wouldn't mind destroying Lawrence Hill," Culpepper added. "A lot of jealousy there."

  They fell silent and studied their menus. A fog of possible interpretations always settled over situations like this; sometimes you just had to make an educated guess and hope the sun would break through. Houghton shut the menu and finished his Perrier. "I think," he said, "that it all comes down to whether or not one believes in this psychic business. If one does, there is perhaps a threat of the kind Sullivan is worried about. If one does not, there is a different kind of threat-—to the summit, and how we look to the rest of the world."

  Culpepper nodded. "What do you think?"

  Houghton traced a pattern with his index finger on the white linen tablecloth. "The evidence for psychic phenomena is not especially persuasive," he murmured.

  "It's hogwash, and you and I both know it," Culpepper said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray for emphasis. "It's Roderick Williams's fantasy world. I think we should just sit tight and call the Russians' bluff."

  "I agree," Houghton said, glad at last to have it stated so bluntly. "There is one problem, though," he added.

  "Sullivan."

  "Yes. I'm not sure how stable the man is anymore. Visiting Poole was an egregious breach of security. We certainly don't want an unbalanced CIA man running around trying to destroy the summit. I'll speak to him in the morning."

  "And meanwhile I'll have him watched," Culpepper suggested.

  "Good." It was wonderful how well the two of them got along, Houghton thought. "Shall we order?"

  "Fine."

  Houghton had the medallions of veal. Culpepper ordered a salad and another glass of carrot juice. After he finished, he had the waiter bring him a phone. He lit up a cigarette, and he made a call to take care of the Sullivan business.

  * * *

  Colonel Thomas Poole changed into his jogging clothes, put his digital pulse-taking watch on his right wrist, and headed out into the Washington night. He ran up Sixteenth Street, past the hotels and the airline offices and the National Geographic Society and the Soviet embassy, then turned left on Massachusetts Avenue and continued on to Dupont Circle.

  As usual, he allowed his mind to roam as he made his way along the familiar route. And as usual, it returned home.

  He was the only child of two immigrant parents who were living the American dream. They had changed their name from Pulaski to Poole when they arrived in their new country. Then, starting from nothing, they had built up their own photography business, working day and night to afford their house in the suburbs and two cars and a good education for the son they adored.

  Thomas, in turn, adored them. Their life was wonderful.

  Their life was a lie.

  On his eighteenth birthday his parents told him their secret. Nothing was what it appeared to be. They were not immigrants from communist oppression, but Soviet KGB officers, who had left their homeland and all they loved after long years of training to operate under deep cover in America. The KGB had financed their business and had helped them buy their cars and house. Their business, in turn, gave them an excuse to travel around the country taking photographs—photographs, for example, of military installations and weapons factories.

  They did not want to keep the truth from him anymore, they said. They could live a lie for the rest of the world, but not for him. He could turn them in, if he wanted to—or he could join them.

  He was an all-American boy if ever there was one—senior class president, captain of the track team, Eagle scout, with an appointment to West Point almost certainly within his grasp. And suddenly it was all a sick joke. He screamed at his parents, he threatened to kill them, he threatened to call the FBI.

  They merely said: It is your choice. Our lives are in your hands.

  Finally he ran out of the house (as he was running now, turning onto New Hampshire Avenue and heading south toward the Watergate). He had no clear idea of where he was going; he just knew that he had to get away from the awful choice they had offered him. He must have run twenty miles, covering every street of the town where he had grown up. Past his church, his high school, the drugstore where he worked on weekends, the library where he did his studying. And when he could run no more, he sat on the ground in the par
k and cried until there were no more tears.

  And then he limped home.

  Nothing was said for a few weeks. Life went on. He didn't call the FBI, and that said something implicitly that finally had to be made explicit. His parents began to talk. He began to learn. He had lived so long with the banal American truisms about freedom and individuality that at first it was difficult to understand that there were other, contradictory truisms that good people believed in, not out of stupidity, but because the world was far more complex than America would have you think. His parents had answers for all his questions, and eventually he began to believe that their answers were correct.

  Were the answers in fact correct, or did he just believe them because he loved his parents? He didn't know, and it didn't matter after a while, because he made the commitment. He was not the kind of person who was going to change, once he had made a commitment.

  His parents wept with joy. And, he supposed, there were people in Moscow Center who also wept for joy when they found out. An asset like Thomas Poole did not show up every day. They brought him along carefully, willing to wait for the long-term payoff. And boy, had they got it.

  His parents were dead now, and he had his own family, blandly, innocently living the American dream. Someday he would face the same decision his parents had faced. He didn't know what he would do when that time came. He could only hope that his own life would end like theirs: with the torch passed on, and the dream intact.

  Until then, he had to keep running.

  His route ended, as usual, in Lafayette Square. It was busy, as usual, with demonstrators and tourists and even a TV newsman taping a story. Poole lay on the ground near the statue of Andrew Jackson and began doing his stretches. The night air was muggy, but the sweat felt good on his body. His hamstrings were a little tight, though. He would have to work on his hamstrings.

  "We note that your watch is on your right hand," a voice murmured from the bench next to him.

  Poole leaned forward and tried to rest his chin on his left knee. Definitely tight. He didn't bother to look up. "A CIA intelligence officer has figured out about Borisova," he muttered. "His name is Sullivan. He came to me because he wasn't getting any support from Houghton."

  "Figured out everything?" The voice spoke English with only a trace of a foreign accent.

  "As far as I can tell."

  "What did you do?"

  "I told him I'd try to talk the president out of going to the summit. That should keep him from doing anything rash until it's too late. And just in case, I told Houghton to keep an eye on him."

  A couple of black teenagers walked by and stared at Poole. He stared back.

  "That's not good enough," the voice said when the black kids were gone. "The summit starts the day after tomorrow. We can't risk any interference now."

  Poole switched to the other hamstring. "What else can I do?"

  "Kill him."

  "But that's absurd. It'll just make people pay more attention to his theory."

  "That's a risk. But it's a certainty he'll make trouble if he's not eliminated."

  Poole got up abruptly and leaned against the black wrought-iron fence to stretch his calf muscles. Killing didn't bother him, but stupidity did. "Why should I kill him?" he asked. "That would just throw suspicion on me."

  "Because it will be easier for you. He trusts you. You are important, Colonel, but this is more important even than you. You have helped get us this far. Don't let us down now."

  Poole grasped the cold iron. The first thing you learn as a spy is the necessity of obedience. He had no reason to think that the man in the gray overcoat sitting on the bench was any smarter than he was, or any more cunning. But he was the man he had been told to obey, and to do otherwise would have made his whole life meaningless. "All right," he murmured.

  "Fine. Now the formula for the drug—"

  "I can't get it. I've told you. Williams doesn't think I need it, and I can't make a convincing case otherwise. If I keep after him, he's liable to get suspicious."

  "Yes. We understand. Don't be surprised, however, if he gives it to you of his own free will."

  "How will that happen?"

  "Isn't it obvious, Colonel? The president of the United States will order him to. We must all obey orders. Good evening, Colonel."

  Colonel Poole leaned against the fence for a few more moments, and then walked slowly out of the square. He didn't bother looking at the White House. He had a job to do.

  Chapter 33

  Bill Sullivan stuck a frozen chicken potpie in the microwave and opened a beer. It was going to be all right, he kept telling himself. It was going to be all right. If anyone could get Winn to cancel the summit, Poole was the one. And Poole had believed him.

  There would be problems, of course. Winn would want to see the evidence. He would call in Houghton and the rest, and they'd try to talk him out of it. But the risk was too great, and Winn would understand that.

  And there might be retributions later, no matter what the president did. But Sullivan could live with that. Sullivan knew that he was right, and that he had done the right thing. And that was what mattered.

  The microwave's timer went off. He took his supper out of the oven and brought it and his beer into the living room. He turned on the TV. Some game show was on; the audience was applauding wildly while a blond woman gestured in awe at a new car.

  It was going to be all right.

  The doorbell rang as he reached for his beer. He spilled half of it. He tried futilely to wipe up the mess with his handkerchief, then hurried to the door as the bell rang again.

  Tom Poole was standing in the doorway. He was wearing jogging clothes; he looked tense. "Hi, Bill," he said. "I think we need to go over some things. Can I come in?"

  "Sure. Of course." He stepped aside and let Poole in. "Can I get you a beer?"

  Poole smiled. "No thanks."

  They went into the living room together. Poole smelled a little ripe. Had he actually gone out jogging with this kind of crisis on his hands? "Excuse the mess," Sullivan said. "I spilled something just now and—"

  "It's quite all right, Bill." Poole's hands were in the pockets of his sweat suit. He remained standing.

  Sullivan wished he hadn't been watching TV. A fat woman was jumping up and down. Couldn't he at least have put the news on? He quickly walked across the room and switched the set off. "What's up, Colonel?" he asked, turning around.

  Poole's hands were out of his pockets. He was holding a gun. It was aimed at Sullivan. "What's up, Bill, is that I have to kill you."

  Oh Jesus. He had wanted to play with the big boys, and now he was back in the game. He felt like crying. But it wouldn't do to cry. "Why?" he whispered.

  "You talked to the wrong man, Bill. You talked to the enemy. No hard feelings, of course."

  Sullivan stared at Poole for one split second while his mind raced. He knew how to do one thing—take a dive. And that's what he did now. Down behind a wing chair, then a quick roll and he was through the open door to the basement and tumbling downstairs. Had he heard shots? Yes. No time to worry about it. Poole was after him.

  The basement was dark, except for a shaft of light through the open door. Sullivan groped for a weapon, and found one. A hockey stick, sitting beneath the stairs with the rest of the equipment he hadn't used since Danny moved away.

  Poole was coming down the stairs. Sullivan poked the stick through the railing and tripped him. A hockey player learns how to trip people. Poole came crashing down. The gun went off as he hit hard against the concrete floor, and Sullivan could hear it skitter away. He extracted the stick from the railing and rushed over to Poole before he could reach the gun. Then Sullivan raised the stick with both hands and slammed it down against Poole's head. He could feel bone crack beneath the blow.

  Poole roared with pain and tried to grasp the gun.

  Sullivan swung again. And again. And again. He didn't feel anything after a while; it was just a mindless animal move
ment that he had to keep repeating in order to survive. Finally he flung the stick aside and retched on the basement floor.

  He would never be able to hold a hockey stick again.

  He staggered upstairs finally, sobbing and trembling. His back hurt, and he felt some bruises from his fall, but he hadn't been shot. He washed his face in the kitchen sink, then sat down and tried to think.

  You talked to the wrong man, Bill. You talked to the enemy.

  Could Poole have been a Soviet agent? Sullivan believed Hill was one—why not Poole, too? But could he convince anyone else of it? He doubted it. At least, not soon enough to affect the summit.

  It was up to him, then.

  And he was beyond the pale. He had killed the president's favorite staff member. The CIA and FBI would be after him. The Russians were already after him, apparently. So how was he supposed to succeed?

  Maybe he couldn't. But he supposed he had to try.

  He limped into the living room and looked at the spilled beer, the uneaten chicken pie. It had all seemed so easy a few minutes ago. He sat down and closed his eyes. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to watch TV and get drunk and go to bed. He wanted to be able to forget everyone and everything, and have everyone forget him.

  Well, not entirely.

  If only—

  He picked up the phone and dialed a number. His ex-wife answered on the second ring.

  "Hi, Maureen. It's me. I was just wondering if, um, I could talk to Danny."

  "He's out. At the movies."

  "Oh." What was she doing letting him go to the movies on a school night? He forced himself not to say anything. "Well, how is everything?"

  "Fine. How is everything with you?"

  "Oh, you know, the usual." There is a corpse in the basement, Maureen. For the first time in my life, I have killed a man. Help me, Maureen. Please help me. If only he hadn't screwed up in that parking lot on Christmas Eve, he wouldn't have to face what he now had to face. He had an image of his actions radiating through his life, each moment affecting every succeeding moment, like dominoes toppling in a long, long row that ended in death. One mistake had irretrievably ruined so many of those moments. He tried to think of something to say. "Danny enjoyed himself this summer, I think. My mother sure enjoyed seeing him."