The Second Saladin

Yost Ver Steeg would catch Ulu Beg in Dayton and be the hero. Yost! So hard for Miles to see him in a heroic light — or in any light.

Miles nursed his grudge bitterly, and under careful tending it became a fearsome thing, providing him huge amounts of energy. He hated them all: Yost and his chum Sam, Harvard buddies, watching out for and helping each other, without regard for him; and on the other side, Chardy, from another tribe altogether, jock, all heat and rage and power, who wouldn’t even see the slight Miles, he was so busy gazing into the mirror admiring his own heroism.

Miles hated them, but this turn of events had its curious benefits. First, he was amazed at how totally Yost had committed to Dayton. A slipup could spell massive disaster; then bye-bye Yost, and there’d be nothing Sam could do to help. But, secondly, Yost’s absence had a positive side: it gave Miles a taste of responsibility. Back in Rosslyn, people now reported to him. Sullen Chardy, though that was worthless. But others too, though they clearly didn’t enjoy it. Miles didn’t care what they enjoyed.

The wizard, for one, who’d come down from Boston for the day with reports on the surveillance of Johanna, and was astonished to find Ver Steeg gone. He sat in the office now, eyeing Miles uncomfortably, as Miles paged through the transcripts.

“I’ve marked the potentially significant ones,” the wizard said.

“Fine,” Lanahan said abstractedly. The exchanges were so boring, so banal. He tried to act them out in his head.

C: I miss you.

J: Oh, Paul, why can’t you be here?

But he could not bring them to life. They lay beyond his capacity to imagine, his realm of interest.

“She’s not cheating on him, shaking up on the side, anything like that?”

“Uh-uh,” the wizard said. “Or if she is, the phone transcripts don’t show it. Look at May twenty-sixth.”

Lanahan found it.

“Who is this guy?”

“A boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend.”

Lanahan read:

Someone told me they saw you with a guy. Twice. In two places, on two weekends.

Yes. An old friend.

You were holding hands.

Yes.

Johanna, are you in love with this guy?

I suppose.

Is he that guy you’d never tell me about? The guy you met overseas, when you were in Iran? The spook?

David, I have to go.

Johanna, I just want to make sure you’re happy. Are you happy?

I am, David.

Good. Then I’m happy too. It really makes me happy that this guy has brought you out of your funk.

Thank you, David.

If you ever want to talk, to chat, just shoot the breeze, or if you’re ever lonely or need somebody to see a movie with, you know where I am. Okay?

Okay.

I just want you to be happy. That’s what I want.

Thank you, David.

Okay. Goodbye.

Lanahan smiled. This David wanted Chardy out of the picture and himself into her bed, that’s what he wanted. “I just want you to be happy.” Lanahan shook his head again.

At twenty-eight, he was as cynical as a Roman whore. In all human behavior he recognized but two motives: What’s in it for me? And, what can I keep you from getting?

“So she’s clean? She’s okay?”

The wizard backed off immediately. He was an older man, plateaued out, stuck in Technical Services. He’d go nowhere, he’d been nowhere. He swallowed, a little uncomfortable on Lanahan’s spot.

“I just record it,” he said. “I don’t judge it. That’s for the analysts.”

“But you’re an old pro, Phil,” he said. He thought the name was Phil. “You’ve been around. Off the record. She’s clean. Come on. For me.”

The wizard tried a joke. “You’re not recording me, are you?”

Lanahan laughed. But yes, in a sense, he was recording him, if only in his head for possible future use.

“Of course not, Phil.”

“It’s Jay, Miles. But she’s clean. Or she’s got an operation going that’s so deep cover even she don’t know about it.”

He offered another smile, but Lanahan didn’t respond, noting the grammatical error under stress, figuring the man’s true origins had just shown. Working class, just like me. Only he stayed there; I transcended.

“How about visual surveillance?”

“It’s way off. He cut us way back. Mr. Ver Steeg.”

“He wanted people to take to Dayton with him,” said Lanahan.

“I stop by the house every third or fourth night and pick up the tapes. Then I have a girl transcribe it.”

“But there could be up to a three- or four-day lag?”

“That’s right, Miles. It’s the way he wanted it.”

“He smells the Kurd in Dayton,” said Lanahan. “He smells a deputy directorship.”

He scanned routinely through the transcript, seeing nothing beyond the mundane.

“Okay, well—” he halted.

He looked again, more closely.

Goddamn! he thought.

“You see this?”

“Huh?” The wizard rushed over, transfixed in the terror of having made a big mistake.

“Oh, that,” he said with relief, “sure, I saw it” — he had to make that point — “but I didn’t see anything in it.” He laughed. “So Chardy’s nephew in Mexico needs a few bucks? It didn’t seem to me—”

“No, you’re right.” Lanahan had always known how to lie smoothly. “Look, give me a few more minutes with this stuff, okay?”

“Sure, Miles,” he said, and left.

Lanahan leaned back in the immensity of his victory. A great excitement raced through his limbs.

What was his next step?

Tell Ver Steeg?

No, the hell with Ver Steeg. Tell Melman? Go straight to Melman, secret lord in all this? Should he go straight to Sam, who already liked him? His imagination inflamed suddenly. Here was a ticket up another step. Up, up! Briefly he saw himself on the deputy director level by thirty. Thirty! Youngest in history by seven years (he’d once checked) and the only Catholic to have risen that high. The image pleased him. He toyed with it, turned it in his mind, savoring its hues. He was not given to daydreams except on the topic of his own career, whose secret rhythm and contour he loved. He saw himself with power, prestige, respect.

He picked up the safe phone to call Melman.

“Operations.”

“DD’s office, please.”

“One second.”