Grand Master

by Buffa, D. W.

  Bobby Hart liked to think of that, his father’s gruff laughter, the straight, no-nonsense look in his eyes when he talked about the way things had changed in the agency he had once loved. There was always a difference, he had insisted, between those who were there at the beginning of something and those who came later. That was the lesson he had learned, the lesson he wanted to pass on: you had to be there at the beginning to know what it was about and what you were there to do. Things changed, got all mixed up, and before you knew it the thing you created became more important than what it had been created to do.

  “I’m not just talking about the agency, you understand; it’s true of everything: things are always clearer at the start.” And then he had looked at his son in a way Bobby never forgot, with pride and hope, but more than that, a sense of trust, the certain knowledge that Bobby would not disappoint the high expectations he had for him.

  “The first time you ran for office, that first campaign for Congress - you weren’t thinking then what you had to do to get re-elected; all you thought about were the things you wanted to do, the changes you thought needed to be made. That’s why you’re different from all the others, the ones who just want to stay in office - you still think like that. The whole point is not to stop.”

  Though Bobby was certain that his father had given him far too much credit, what his father had said became a kind of second conscience, a constant reminder of the kind of man he was supposed to be. It was surprising how often it had worked in the early years after he was first elected; how often, when he was tempted to go along with a majority opinion with which he disagreed, he heard not just his father’s words, but his father’s voice. It had become so much a part of him over the years, that second, deeper judgment, that he seldom any longer had occasion to remember where it came from and how it had started, but he remembered it now, as he took his chair in the committee room and looked across at the director of the CIA sitting with his hands folded at the witness table. From somewhere in the shadows of his mind, he heard his father’s voice, reminding him of his obligation, as clear and distinct as the day he first heard him say it.

  The Chairman of the committee, Wilson Breyer of New Hampshire, gaveled the session to order. A former state court judge, with a mind narrowed to the strict necessities of the law, Breyer listened to the arguments of others but only seldom expressed an opinion of his own. There were those on the committee who suspected that it was because he did not have an opinion on anything that mattered, and it was a fact that no one could remember when he had voted on anything except with the majority. Hart was more charitable. He was willing to take the Chairman at his word when he insisted that it was the business of a chairman to do what he could to get a consensus. Everyone agreed that Wilson Breyer ran things on schedule. The meeting had been scheduled for 4:30, and by 4:32 he had already finished with the opening preliminaries.

  The Chairman’s scholarly face was set in an attitude of interested attention, someone who would never take sides and would make sure that everyone was treated fairly. His hands were a different story. Kept out of sight, lest they betray him, one of them was always moving in a strange, manic dance, the nervous irritation he could never quite control.

  “The committee has been called into session to hear from the Director of the CIA, Louis Griswald, what the agency has learned about the reaction to the death of President Constable and his replacement by Vice-President Russell.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that from his place two seats down, Bobby Hart had turned toward him. His hand stopped moving; a nervous smile flashed briefly across his mouth. Believing that the smile was for him, the Director smiled back.

  “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There’s really not much to report." Louis Griswald had never felt the need to hold himself to the tight discipline Wilson Breyer had learned in court. Broad shouldered and broad across the hip, he did everything with a certain swagger. He did not sit with his feet planted on the floor, looking straight ahead, but sideways in the chair like someone sitting with friends on a Saturday afternoon, lying about his golf game or what he had done on the athletic fields of Princeton thirty years before.

  “Not much to report?” inquired the Chairman in a quiet, affable tone.

  “Nothing that we would regard as serious, radical elements in the Middle East claiming that the death of the President was Allah’s act of vengeance for the ‘Great Satan,’ speculation in various capitols about what, if any, change of policy might be expected from the Vice-President - I mean from the Russell administration. In other words, nothing you wouldn’t expect and nothing that could be construed as a new threat. There’s no evidence that anyone views what happened as an opportunity to move against us, either here or abroad.”

  Shifting his bulky frame around, Griswald placed his thick arms on the table and hunched forward. His eyes, set beneath heavy lids, narrowed into a grim, almost brutal stare. “That doesn’t mean they won’t; only that if they’re planning something, we don’t yet know about it.”

  Hart knew what was coming next; anyone who had been on the committee more than a year knew what was coming next.

  “As I’ve told this committee time and time again: we don’t have the assets - we don’t have the budget, we don’t have the legal authority - to gather all the intelligence we need.” The Director pushed back from the table, folded his arms across his ample chest, and slowly looked from one member of the committee to the next, daring them, as it seemed, to disagree.

  Charlie Ryan laughed. “Isn’t it a simple rule of mathematics, Mr. Griswald, that you multiply any number by zero and you still get zero? We could double your budget - we did that, remember, just two years ago - and you would still blame us when you had nothing to report. It’s an old game, Mr. Griswald, and I for one am getting a little damn tired of it!”

  “We do what we can with what we have,” the Director shot back. “But you’re right: I can’t guarantee results, no matter how much money you might give us; all I can tell you is that it would improve our chances. There are no guarantees in this business. We do what we can with what we have,” he repeated with all the blind assurance of a catechism.

  Ryan started to say something, but thought better of it, or, rather, just gave up. There was no arguing with this kind of posturing. He glanced across to see if Hart had anything to add.

  “Director Griswald, I’m interested in the intelligence you had before the President’s death."

  The question caught the Director off guard. He did not want to admit that he was not sure what the Senator meant, and so he did not say anything.

  “Before the President’s death,” repeated Hart.

  Griswald bent his head slightly to the side. He still did not answer. The silence began to speak a language of its own. Other members of the committee, reading over a document, conferring quietly with an aide, stopped what they were doing. Hart’s gaze stayed fixed on Griswald; the Director kept staring back.

  “The President’s death,” said Hart in a voice that took on a new insistence, and a new authority, in the solemn silence of the room.

  “I’m not sure I understand the question, Senator,” finally admitted Griswald.

  “The President died in a hotel room,” said Hart, choosing his words carefully. “Died of an apparent heart attack. There have been rumors that he was not alone. If that is true, if he wasn’t alone, then…well, you can see where I’m going.”

  The Director was not sure he did. The line across the bridge of his nose deepened and became more pronounced, as his eyes drew close together.

  “If he wasn’t alone,” persisted Hart, “that leads to the possibility that something may have happened, that he didn’t….”

  “Die of natural causes?” Now Griswald understood. “I suppose it might; but you asked about any intelligence we might have had before the President’s death. If you mean, did we hear of a possible attempt on the President’s life, then, no, we didn’t.” With a show of reluctance, G
riswald added that, like everyone else, he “had heard those same rumors - about the President not being alone when he died; but for the rest of it, that which had anything to do with his death, I haven’t heard anything like it, and have no reason to think it’s true.”

  But that meant, as Hart immediately understood, that if what he had been told by Clarence Atwood was true, that the head of the Secret Service had told the Director of the FBI and the FBI had started an investigation, no one had yet told the CIA.

  “So then, as far you know, no one in the government, no one in the FBI, is looking into the possibility that President Constable, instead of dying of natural causes, was killed?”

  The question, the simple stated possibility, seemed to give the Director pause. He stroked his chin for a moment before he replied. “No; not that I know of.”

  Hart pressed the point. “And if they were, would you expect to be informed?”

  Griswald did not hesitate. “On a matter of that importance: yes, absolutely.”

  “’Yes, absolutely.’ Very good. Thank you.”

  The Chairman started to ask if anyone else had a question, but Hart interrupted. “There is something else I would like to ask. There have been other rumors - not about the President’s death, but about certain dealings he may have had with foreign interests. Have you - has the CIA - any information, any intelligence, on any dealings President Constable may have had in which he received payment from sources overseas?”

  The committee, almost equally divided between the two parties, started buzzing. The Chairman quickly called them to order. “Mr. Hart, do you have something specific in mind? That is a fairly broad allegation you’re making, and I would think that -”

  “I’m not making an allegation, broad or otherwise, Mr. Chairman. I’m simply asking if the Director knows of anything that would support the kind of rumors I’ve been hearing; the questions that I know for certain have become the subject of an investigation.”

  “An investigation, Mr. Hart? I haven’t heard of anything like that.”

  “Not a criminal investigation, Mr. Chairman; not an investigation by the Justice Department; an investigation by reporters, one which, from what I understand, might be published in the papers anytime now.”

  The Chairman pressed his hands against his head. There was a bleak expression on his face. “Even in death…,” he muttered, a reference to the character of the late Robert Constable that did not need to be explained. “Yes, yes; all right,” he added quickly, anxious to move on. “Go ahead; ask the Director what you were going to ask.”

  “Have you, Mr. Griswald, learned of any improper dealings with foreign interests, whether these were foreign government or foreign nationals?”

  The Director had begun to sense that there was more going on than a routine attempt to run down a rumor. Hart knew something, and that meant it was not safe to answer until he had a better idea exactly what it was. He took refuge in a bureaucratic excuse. “I’m not prepared to answer that at the moment.”

  “You’re not prepared to…?” Hart warned him with a look. “Are you sure that’s the answer you want to leave with this committee?”

  “I can’t answer the question, Senator,” he replied, turning up the palms of his hands to show that it was out of his control. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have any personal knowledge of what you’re asking about, but the agency keeps track of a fairly large volume of financial transactions, so it’s possible that someone -”

  “I didn’t say anything about financial transactions, the kind the agency tries to follow. I asked whether you had any intelligence about the possibility that the President of the United States had been bribed, bribed to do certain things that benefited certain foreign interests. I’ll ask you again, Mr. Griswald: Do you know anything about this?”

  “As I said, I have no personal knowledge -”

  “Does the agency have any intelligence on a French investment firm, The Four Sisters?”

  “The Four Sisters? No, I don’t recall that name.”

  “Would you mind checking into it and getting back to us?’

  “Yes, of course; as soon as I can.”

  “Immediately, if you don’t mind,” said Hart with an icy stare.

  “Yes, Senator; right away.”

  When the session ended, Charlie Ryan caught up with Hart in the hallway outside. “What’s going on, Bobby?”

  Hart kept walking. He did not look at Ryan. Their footsteps echoed in the empty marble corridor. Ryan did not press the issue until they were outside the Capitol and starting down the steps. “Something happened in that hotel room. You said ‘died of an apparent heart attack.’ Apparent? You think he was murdered, don’t you?”

  Hart stopped on the first landing. The summer heat was still intolerable. Dark clouds marched in a long unbroken line across a broken, yellow sky. His mood, prisoner to the weather, became somber and almost fatalistic, a sense that things, however bad, would soon get worse. He turned to Ryan, the closest friend he had, and with a rueful expression in his deep-set eyes confessed that it was not a question of suspicion. “This is between us: the President was murdered. The woman who was with him was a hired killer, an assassin. The Secret Service thought she was just another one of the women he took to bed; the agent actually helped her get away. The poor bastard thought he was doing the right thing, what he had to do to protect the President’s reputation.”

  Ryan whistled between his teeth. Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, he kicked at the stone step. The questions Hart asked Griswald, the answers Griswald gave, took on a new and different meaning, a meaning Ryan was not slow to grasp. “Constable was murdered; but if Griswald was telling the truth, the CIA doesn’t know anything about it; and from what he said, neither does the FBI?”

  “I was led to believe they did,” replied Hart. “Which means that, if Griswald is telling the truth, either the FBI has lied to him, or someone has lied to me.”

  “Someone?”

  Hart did not hesitate. He trusted Ryan and he was getting nowhere on his own. He needed help. “The Secret Service. Clarence Atwood told me two nights ago that he had kept the FBI informed and that the bureau had begun its own investigation.”

  “An investigation? - Constable was murdered, and no one is talking about it? What in the world…?”

  A group of schoolchildren, taken on a tour of the Capitol, were coming down the steps. Eager to get away from their dull history lesson and out into the open air, they drowned out everything with their cheerful, triumphant voices. Ryan waited until they passed. “Someone has put you in a box, haven’t they?” He searched Hart’s eyes, certain he was right. “Constable was murdered. You know it, but you can’t talk about it - can’t even ask about it except in this oblique way, raising every question with Griswald except the one that counts. But who, why would anyone…? She told you, didn’t she? She asked you to find out what you could.”

  It was a point of some interest, how quickly those who knew something about her thought that whatever was going on Madelaine Constable must be at the center of it. Hart, as he had gradually come to recognize, had been like everyone else in this regard. He had not been at all surprised, the day she had asked him for his help, to learn that the Secret Service had reported to her what had happened and then, for all intents and purposes, left it to her to decide what to do next.

  “When did she do it - last week, after the funeral?”

  “I said I would see what I could find out: if there were any rumors, any intelligence, about who might have wanted to do it. The concern is what happens when this goes public, when everyone finds out that it wasn’t a heart attack, it was murder.”

  “It’s been a week,” objected Ryan. “How long do you think you can keep something like this secret? And, for God’s sake, how long do you think you should? It’s going to come out, you know.” Ryan kicked at the step again, harder this time, more emphatically. He swung his head up, not all the way, just far enough to searc
h Hart’s waiting eyes. “It’s coming out soon, isn’t it? Quentin Burdick is on it, isn’t he? You asked Griswald about The Four Sisters; what Burdick was asking me. That’s the connection, isn’t it? What are they - The Four Sisters? What have you found out?”

  Hart glanced back up the steps. More schoolchildren were coming, and groups of sweaty, red-faced tourists, dressed in shirts and shorts, cameras slung over their shoulders, heading for the relief of air conditioned buses that would take them to other famous landmarks or back to their hotels. A few of them, catching sight of Bobby Hart, began to wave. “Let’s get out of here,” said Hart under his breath as he smiled and waved back.

  They moved in the lazy rhythm of a burning southern summer, a slow, unhurried procession, through the leafy park like grounds of the Capitol. The heat was all around them, each step a dim reminder of something distant, far away, as if instead of moving forward they were destined never to move at all, held in one place by the thick molasses air. They walked in silence until they crossed the street and passed through the side entrance of the Russell Senate Office Building. Speech required effort.

  Hart’s office, or rather his suite of offices, was on the second floor. His staff, overworked and underpaid and all of them glad for the opportunity, were crammed into cubicles so small that if one of them stretched her arms there was the danger she might hit both her neighbors at once. They worked from early in the morning until late at night, and weekends they worked just as hard at home. It was not a job; it was a calling, and they thought themselves far more fortunate than friends of theirs who had gone to work in hot pursuit of money and the things it could buy. Most of them were in their thirties, still too young for disillusionment; some were younger, just out of law school, with long distance dreams of one day winning a Senate seat of their own; a few, like Hart’s administrative assistant, David Allen, a rumpled veteran of the political wars both at home in California and here on Capitol Hill, were older than the relatively young senator and more devoted to him than anyone other than his wife.