favor: the day was starting out on a good note.
Twenty minutes later, Rubens parked his car in the lot of a suburban Maryland nursing home. He tried to force himself into an overtly cheerful mood as he walked the thirty feet or so from his car to the front door.
Overtly cheerful was a difficult act here. The home was a good one but far from lavish. The lower floors had the feel of a modest apartment house in a once middle-class neighborhood gone slightly to seed. The upper floors were more like hospital wards.
The truly grim floor was at the very top, where he was bound.
Rubens smiled at the receptionist — at this hour, the job was held by one of the uniformed security people, an older woman who worked here largely because her father was a resident — and passed on to the elevators beyond. Rubens was a regular visitor early Monday and Thursday mornings, known not only by the security guard and medical staff but also by the housekeepers and even one or two of the cafeteria personnel. They knew him not as William Rubens but rather as “the General’s friend.” The title was more of an honor than Rubens could have explained.
One of the nurses from the twelfth floor was waiting for the elevator, a tray of medicines in her hand.
“Morning,” she said.
“Hello. How is he today?” asked Rubens.
The nurse grimaced before she spoke; the expression communicated much more than her words.
“Good days and bad days,” she said.
“Yes. We all have them,” said Rubens.
“Yes, we do, hon. Yes, we do.”
As the General’s days went, this one would actually be classified as a good one — when Rubens entered, the old man who had once been the head of the NSA was sitting upright in bed, staring toward his window at the side of the room. The view was of a gray patch of an old train yard, long since abandoned to junk cars and piles of broken furniture. The window was dirty and turned the scene even grayer. But the General undoubtedly didn’t notice.
“Good morning, General,” said Rubens. “You’re looking good today.”
Major General John Paul Rosenberg (Ret.) turned in his direction and nodded. Rubens pulled over the metal chair and sat at the side of the bed.
“I picked up a book on Mussolini the other evening, of all things,” said Rubens. “A biography. The one by Fermi. I had never read it. I started thumbing through it and found myself engrossed.”
The General did not acknowledge the statement. Rubens — who had indeed picked up a copy of the book — began telling the General about what he had read: the Italian dictator’s childhood, his attraction to violence, his background. It was exactly the sort of conversation the two men might have had twenty years before, though then the roles would have been reversed. Then the General was trying to broaden Rubens’ sense and understanding of the world, arouse his curiosity in things beyond math and art. Military history and politics were special passions for Rosenberg, though when they talked about math and art, Rubens had found the General at least as knowledgeable as himself.
An odd combination, the General had said the very first time they had spoken — Rubens’ second day at the agency, at lunch.
Odd to others but not to Rubens. He had loved math as a boy; its logic brought order to his life and channeled his imagination. Art was more a family birthright, passed down in the genes. He was descended from Peter Paul Rubens, the Flemish painter who lived from 1577 to 1640 and was so famous that people besides art historians knew who he was — albeit often because his name had become a euphemism for “fat.”
Where many youths might turn to art as a relief from the rigors of school subjects like math, Rubens found relief in the other direction. His early years were nothing but art; he was saturated in it by the time he reached high school. The unemotional impersonality of numbers was a great comfort. Working on his doctorate had seemed more like a vacation than the rigorous exercise it was supposed to be.
The General had sent Rubens to MIT, where he’d obtained another doctorate, this one in political science. His thesis involved the intersection of information technology and foreign relations; part of it remained classified, though in Rubens’ opinion this was now due more to inherent bureaucratic caution than any real need for secrecy.
MIT had been important for other reasons. He had taken a postgraduate seminar in foreign relations and technology there, studying with George Hadash, now the national security adviser. In some respects Hadash had taken over the General’s role as career mentor, but the relationship was otherwise very different. Hadash, though certainly an intelligent man, had too many flaws. And the General — the General was not only Rubens’ intellectual mentor; he was also a bona fide hero. He had proven himself under fire, first as a seventeen-year-old private in the Italian campaign during World War II and later as a colonel in Vietnam. He’d earned his way to Officer Candidate School at a time when Jews were, at best, a novelty in the officers’ ranks, and if any man deserved the title “a soldier’s soldier,” John Paul Rosenberg did. From Rubens’ first day at the NSA, he had viewed Rosenberg with awe and reverence, both well deserved.
Their roles now were worse than reversed. To the General’s great credit, Rubens had used his intellectual gifts to broaden his knowledge in many ways. But the General’s deterioration over the last year, due to the accelerated effects of Alzheimer’s disease, had left him far emptier than the bright young man he’d set out to cultivate nearly two decades before.
“I’m hoping that the Mussolini book will explain something about his attraction to violence,” said Rubens. “I can understand the attraction to power. We all want to feel important.”
The General turned to him. “Marshall was very underrated. A hell of a man.”
This was not the non sequitur it appeared on the surface, Rubens decided. Mussolini had been Italy’s dictator during World War II. Marshall — George C. Marshall, clearly — had been the head of the Army and one of Roosevelt’s top lieutenants during the war. And, as the General stated, one of the most underrated leaders in American history, or certainly one of the most forgotten. How many five-star generals won the Nobel Peace Prize? Yet Marshall didn’t exist to most Americans.
Mussolini-World War II-Marshall. The connection was logical.
“An important leader,” said Rubens. “FDR seemed to understand his worth.”
“In Moscow, a difficult place to be.”
Rubens waited patiently for more information, but none came. After more than a minute of silence, he prompted with a comment about the KGB — this often got the General going, if only on a tangent. But the old man had fallen completely silent. After another long minute, Rubens began talking about Marshall, asking about the relationship between Marshall and President Truman. But the General no longer acknowledged him.
Rubens stayed for twenty minutes, as he always did. Then he rose to leave. He was almost to the door when the General’s daughter, Rebecca Stein, came in. She feigned surprise at finding Rubens there, though he knew the meeting could not have been by chance.
“William, how are you?” she said, holding out her hand to him.
“I’m very well, Rebecca.”
“What a nice surprise.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, I have to be on my way. Good-bye, General. I’ll see you later in the week.”
“Would you mind if we visited for a moment?” Rebecca asked Rubens. “I’ll come with you. We can talk while you walk.”
Rubens said nothing. He let her out of the door ahead of him, strolling toward the elevators neither slowly nor quickly.
“The competency proceeding,” said Rebecca. “I’ve started — I mean, we’re preparing papers.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’re going to, uh, uh,” she said.
“Object? I have to. Your father wanted me appointed guardian.”
“That’s up to the court,” said Rebecca.
Rubens didn’t answer. Technically, she was correct. But the court was bound by state law to take the incapacitated person’s wishes into account. Several years before, the General had specified that Rubens should look after his affairs if he became incapacitated. The document was in order, except for one small possible technicality:
