“Where’s my daughter?” “She and Mr. Van Buren are still at the Farm. They’re scheduled to come back later this morning.” McGarvey took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “Have Carleton up here at two sharp, I think I can give him two hours.” “Yes, sir.” Dick Adkins, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence came from his adjoining office with a newspaper. “You’ll need every bit of those two hours, and then some,” he said. He nodded to Miss Swanfeld. “Will that be all, sir?” she asked. “Let’s do letters after lunch.” “Yes, sir.” Miss Swanfeld turned and left the office, softly closing the door behind her. “She’s priceless.” “I’d be lost without her.” “Have you seen the Port?” “Not yet.” Adkins laid the Washington Post in front of McGarvey. “Apparently we tried to recruit the good senator right out of college in ‘69, but he couldn’t make it through the confidence course. He ended up getting himself drafted and sent to “Nam.” The headline read: CIA WANNA-BE GUNNING FOR NATION’S TOP SPOOK.
“Maybe this will quiet him down.”
“Not likely. Nobody likes us right now, and Hammond didn’t dodge the draft. There’s talk about putting him up for President in three years.” McGarvey sat back. “We’ve survived worse.” “Name one,”
Adkins shot back. He was a little irascible this morning, his eyes red. He was a short man, a little paunchy and usually diffident; this morning his cheeks were hollow, and he looked like he wanted to bite something. “Bad weekend?” “Ruth is sick again.” His eyes narrowed.
“Every god dammed doctor we’ve taken her to says the same thing; it’s in her head. There’s nothing physically wrong with her.” His jaw tightened. “But they don’t have to hold her shoulders while she’s heaving her guts out in the toilet bowl at three in the morning for the fifth time that night.” “What about a psychologist?” “She won’t see one,” he replied bitterly. He had changed over the past months. They had two girls, but they were away at school. It was for the best, but it left Dick alone to handle the tough situation. “Maybe you should get out of here for a couple of weeks,” McGarvey suggested. “Take her someplace warm. Hawaii.” “After the hearings.” Adkins cracked a smile. “God only knows what I’d come back to if I left now.”
“Seriously, Dick, there’s no job in the world worth your wife. Anytime you want to pull the pin, say the word and you’re out of here.” Adkins nodded tiredly. “I appreciate it. But for now she doesn’t seem to be getting any worse same old same old. We’ll go after the hearings.” “I was thinking about that over the weekend.” “I know, I talked to Carleton on Friday. He’s worried that you’re going to tell the President no thanks, and hang on here only until someone else can be confirmed.” “It wouldn’t be the end of the world.” “True. But the general picked you for the job, and he’s a pretty good judge of character. At least stick it out for a couple of years. This place has never been run so well.” “Did you read the over nights An idiot could do this job.” “And some have,” Adkins said. “Lots of grass fires out there, any one of which could start a forest fire.” “Haynes has other people he can name who’d get past Hammond without a problem.”
“Need we say more?” Adkins asked. “This place would go back to being run like a Fortune 500 company, or worse, like a political constituency. I for one don’t think that would do the country any good. And I’m not alone in that opinion. But it’s your call. Take your own advice; if you want to pull the pin, just say the word. But don’t screw around, Mac. Don’t bullshit the troops. Either do the job, or get the hell out right now and save us all a lot of trouble.”
Adkins was right, of course. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said THE BUCK STOPS HERE. The sign on McGarvey’s desk could have read, THE BULLSHIT STOPS HERE. He had a hell of a staff; the right people at the right time; professionals who were willing, like Adkins was this morning, to tell the boss the way it really was without fear of repercussions. The CIA had not been run that way for years, if it ever had. He looked up. “I want to see the in-depths on the over nights especially the India-Pakistan situation. I think it’s going to heat up even faster than anyone believes, and we’ll have to play catch up over there.”
“I’ll set up an Intelligence Operations briefing this afternoon.”
“Let’s put it on the nine o’clock agenda. I want something for USIB at ten. But first I want to see a file summary of everything we know.”
“Will do.” “Now, what do we have on the situation in Havana? Do you know who the guy was?” “Navy lieutenant commander Paul Andersen, stationed at the Naval Intelligence unit at Guantanamo Bay. He flew up to Miami on Thursday, picked up a new identity, and Friday flew to Havana with a delegation of travel agents and cruise ship reps. He’d apparently set up a meeting with Hector Sanchez, the second-in-command in Cuban Military Intelligence Internal Affairs. Something is supposedly going on in Castro’s private security detail. Sanchez was going to talk to Andersen in trade for asylum and presumably a stack of cash.” “Was it a setup?” “Naval Intelligence is still working the problem. Havana police found his naked body in the alley behind his hotel. He’d been beaten up and then took a dive, or was thrown, out his tenth-floor window. That was about ten minutes after the prostitute he’d hired left the room.” “What about our people on the ground?” “They’re working on it. But they’ll have to burn a couple of assets to get anywhere.” “Do it,” McGarvey said.
“All right,” Adkins replied. “No one is safe anymore. But that has to change.” “We’ll give it a try.” When Adkins was gone, McGarvey called Otto Rencke’s extension in the computer center on the third floor. Back like this he was having trouble with people depending on him. Part of the job. But trust gave him an odd feeling between his shoulder blades, as if someone with a high-power rifle was taking a bead on him.
Otto answered on the first ring, his voice sharp, even shrill. “What do you want?” “Good morning, what’s eating your ass?” “I’m busy. What do you want?” “I want to know what you were doing at my house yesterday, and why you just sat in the driveway without ringing the bell.” “Somebody else.” “What?” “Somebody else. I wasn’t out there.
Louise and I spent the entire weekend painting the apartment. And each other.” Otto’s tone of voice softened a little; more like his old self. “Maybe you oughta get security out there, ya know. Don’t want it purple. That’s the color for a shroud. Bad. Bad. Bad dog.
Something might be gainin’ on you, ya know.” “What are you talking about?” “Not ready yet,” Otto replied distantly, as if his mind had suddenly gone elsewhere. “Difficult, delicate. Still pastels, but I don’t know, can’t say. Just look up, Mac; we all gotta keep our eyes really open, ya know. All the time, not just in the night.” Rencke broke the connection, something chiming in the background noises of his office, and McGarvey was mystified. When Otto was in the middle of something he tended to go off to his own little world. But this was different. He had never had this harsh an edge before.
SIX
HE HAD TO WONDER IF WHAT HE HAD ACCOMPLISHED HAD REALLY MATTERED AT ALL, OR IF HIS CAREER HAD BEEN NOTHING BUT A WASTED EFFORT.
The U.S. Intelligence Board meeting ran ten minutes past the lunch hour, but nobody grumbled. There was a sense of accomplishment now that a new DCI was at the helm. McGarvey presented the distinguished service intelligence medals to Whittaker’s people, grabbed a quick sandwich at his desk while dictating letters to Ms. Swanfeld, then returned a few phone calls and did some work on the draft of his opening statement. He spent a couple of contentious hours with Carleton Paterson, who insisted on playing devil’s advocate; acting as he thought Senator Hammond might act, working at every turn to provoke McGarvey into making an angry outburst; say something impolitic. “If it gets too bad, I’ll keep my mouth shut,” McGarvey promised. “I might throttle the senator, but I won’t say a thing.” “Hammond’s not a bad man like Joe McCarthy was,” Paterson said seriously. “He really believes that what he is doing is for the good of the country.” “I know, and I won’t actually choke him to death,” McGarvey said, smiling.
“Not unless I snap.” Paterson gathered his papers and stuffed them into his attache case. “I used to wonder if there was anything behind that super efficient cool, macho exterior of yours. Like maybe a sense of humor.” He shook his head. “I guess I just found out. I suggest you don’t take your wry wit into the hearing chambers. You won’t have a lot of understanding friends there.” “No DCI has.” “True.” After his directorate meetings and his talk with the ambassador to India, he went down to the competition-size pool in the basement gym to do his laps. It was 6:00 P.M. Yemm swam with him, as usual. DCIs were not allowed to drown themselves, even accidentally, especially not on Yemm’s watch. And anyway, Yemm needed the exercise, too. The act of swimming was mindless,
