He sat back.
'Really, Dick,' said Roger, 'it doesn't mean a damned thing. The Russian had some kind of internal situation he was dealing with and this was his solution. I didn't give up a thing. You have to trust me on this one. My record is perfect, you've known my dad for years, I was in the war, I'm one of the?'
'All right, Roger.' He turned to Frenchy. 'Short, I don't want you to send this.'
'Frankly, 'Dick,' I don't give a fuck what you want.'
Plans turned back to Roger.
'You moron. You idiot. You fool.'
'Dick, what possible difference could it make? I will simply explain?'
'Don't you see? When this hits CI, they will be on me like cats on a bleeding mouse. This gives them license to pore through every operation I've got running. It in essence screws me to the wall and sets me back years. And they'll leak to Congress, to the press, to some red-hunting senator.'
'Roge, I think what Dick is saying is that CI is run by someone who doesn't like him and wants to thwart him. Someone with ambitions as big as Dick's. And you've played into this august gentleman's hand. A few leaks, a few phone calls, a few indiscreet Washington cocktail party comments, and Dick will no longer have the ear of the Director and the president and our kind of senator. Isn't that right, 'Dick'? Oh, may I call you 'Dick,' because you know Dad and I rowed crew at Hah vahd with your nephew Teddy or Skip or Butch and your sister Biffy fucked your son Tad on the front porch of Dad's cottage in Naragansett one night after the crew finals.'
'All right, Short, that's enough. Roger, I'm going to ask you to leave now.'
'Sure, I-Dick, just a second. I don't think I should leave. He's going to fill your head with?'
'Roger, I said get out. You run along now.'
It was astonishing. Walter Short! How incredible! Why, the gall of the man. And after all Roger had tried to do for him. It's odd, isn't it, how some people just have no sense of obligation or appreciation.
He thought-in fact he wanted-to linger outside the ambassador's office and catch Dick after he dismissed Short. That way it would be settled, and it seemed clear to him that Short would have to be moved somewhere-that is, if he didn't Take the Hint (people like him never did) and offer his resignation. Some people just can't fit in, even when you bend over backward to accommodate them. They just don't get it. They haven't a clue.
Roger glanced at his watch and saw that it was now 5 P.M. Dan Benning was coming in from Gitmo that night and Roger had hoped to set up a meet between him and Plans over drinks. Dan, now there was a fellow who got it! Dan would certainly impress Plans, what with his background, his family, his Naval Intelligence experience, his Harvard degree, and Roger saw how he and Dan could make a team that he and Short never could have. Dan lacked Short's deviousness, his narrow hunger for self-advancement, his crudity. That had always upset Roger about Walter, but one did the best one could with what one was granted.
So he was at loose ends. He thought he ought to go upstairs to his office and see if anything new had shown up in the in-basket, plus he had a batch of reports to file and a few phone calls to make. None of this was particularly important, but nevertheless it had to be done, and he assumed moreover that he was coming up now on a period when he'd be working alone in Havana station, until a suitable replacement for Walter Short could be located. So he didn't want to get behind, with so much responsibility resting on him in the weeks and months ahead.
He walked upstairs to his office, nodding at people who nodded back gravely at him. They could sense the blood in the air too, he knew; they knew that the destruction of Walter Short was proceeding, and although so necessary, it made them all a little nervous. That is why they looked at him with such an odd sense of disturbance on their faces.
He reached his office, turned the doorknob and?
Say, what the hell?
He must have locked it before he left. Yes, that's it, probably subconsciously he'd sealed up, so as to impress Plans with his security arrangements. Of course. He'd locked it.
He got out his keys and?
Say, what the hell?
For some damned reason or another, his key didn't fit. He tried to force it, but then worried that he'd break it off. Damnedest thing! What on earth was going on? Locked out of his own office! Well, doesn't that take the cake! What a joke! And what a time to have it happen, with Plans in the building!
'All right, Short,' said Plans. 'Let's see what you've got.'
'What I have is: I win. If I don't win, you lose. It's pretty straightforward.'
He smiled.
Plans glowered at him. And then he laughed.
'Not bad. I could see three other ways to have played it, but I like your instinct for the jugular and your decision not to go against Roger, but to come at me. Pretty good. I like it.'
'Roger is?'
'Forget Roger. Roger is finished. Roger is on his way to an associate professorship at Iowa State. This was never about Roger. This was always about you. Always.'
'I don't understand.'
'I know all about China, Short. I know how well you did there. I know you were disappointed to be dumped here, working for a moron. But you had been discovered, Short. You know why? You shot three prisoners in China. I like that in a man and I've been watching you ever since. Do you know how rare that is, what a treasure that is? Handsome and adorable, well-schooled, polite, and an ice-cold killer, all in the same package? Amazing.'
'You didn't care about Castro?'
'Oh, a little. It doesn't matter. He'll be taken care of, eventually. He's not going anywhere. No, it was about Walter H. Short, of Williamsport, Pa., who was kicked out of seven prep schools for cheating or drinking, who was kicked out of Princeton for cheating, who became a nothing cop and scared everybody in his department so much they sent him to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to get rid of him. There, he shot and killed at least three people, found a mysterious and not-yet-understood way into the Agency, impressed his trainers and ended up in China, where he did better than anybody before or since.'
Frenchy said nothing.
'You had talent, Short. But did you have discipline, character, steel? Could you work with a Harvard idiot who got all the glory, whom everybody loved because he had a great serve? Could you be his little buddy? Could you play along, secure that you were the real thing and he never could be? Could you flourish in Cuba with gangsters, secret policemen, torturers? How tough were you, under the veneer?'
'I can do it,' said Frenchy. 'I think I've proven that.'
'Almost. Maybe more than almost. I loved the way when you were cornered, you fought back balls to the wall, and Roger never knew what hit him. He's wandering around now, wondering why his office keys don't fit the lock. It'll be a week before he has a clue. Feel good, Short? Triumph, revenge, justification?'
'It feels okay.'
'Don't give me that, Short. I've been there. It feels great.'
Frenchy had to admit. It felt great.
'You're almost there, Short. In Plans, full-time. No more embassy shit. The hard work of empire: clandestine guerilla work, extortion, hard dark ops, the odd arranged accident here or there. Only the cream get in, but my kind of cream, nobody else's kind of cream. Hard dark boys, for hard dark work. You're in the elite. They'll whisper your name at cocktail parties, the women will flock like hens, men will somehow know that you're special, you're an elect, and they'll defer to the man who's actually fighting the Cold War. Everybody respects the warrior, Short. We're wired up that way, deep in the snake part of our brains. Do you want it, Short?'
Frenchy knew the answer: yes.
He nodded. 'What do I have to do?' he asked. 'What else is there?'
'You've shown one weakness throughout this. Only one, but it's significant. A sentimental indulgence.'
'Tell me what it is, and I'll correct it.'
'Earl Swagger.'
Frenchy sat back. It was true. He loved Earl. He could never say that, but Earl was the best, the strongest, the truest. Nobody was like Earl and being with Earl was a privilege.
'He's your ideal man. He's very attractive. Incredibly brave, sublimely competent, utterly capable. What a
