up at his face like a supplicant.
I opted for the supplicant option, in case you’re interested.
“Listen, Drummond, your client betrayed this country in ways too horrible to contemplate. Sure, you’re only doing your job, and believe it or not, I admire that. But when you learn everything your client did, you’ll want to strangle him. He’s responsible for more havoc than you can imagine. We’re still trying to assess the damage, but it’s probable we’ll add murder to the crime of treason.”
In an outraged tone, Katrina said, “Murder? That’s bullshit.”
He pinched his nostrils and stared over at her. She was shrewdly trying to provoke more information from him. Smart girl… nice move… very commendable.
Unfortunately, Clarence didn’t get to this level by being stupid. He went across the room and stared out his window. “William Morrison not only gave the Russians the names of agents and turncoats, he also exposed the inner workings of our foreign policy deliberations and helped shape our responses to Russian acts that would turn your stomach. In the history of espionage, there’s never been one like him.”
When neither of us responded, he continued, “Your client’s a master of duplicity. He worked right under our noses for over a decade and fooled everybody. For three years Mary Morrison headed up the task force responsible for finding the traitor. He slept beside her every night, so forgive me if we seem reluctant to share sensitive information. There’ll be no orchestrated effort to stonewall you-hell, I’ve already assembled twenty attorneys to cull through the evidence, but don’t you get on your high horse, Drummond. It won’t sell.”
I tried to listen to his every word but was having some difficulty coming to terms with that one nasty zinger he’d let slip. Mary Morrison had been in charge of the molehunting task force-she’d been sleeping with the man they were now convinced was her prey. If Morrison was in fact a traitor, she’d been cuckolded in ways that almost defy the imagination.
I stood up and Katrina followed my lead. “Mr. O’Neil, thank you for your time, and I look forward to getting your team’s products at the earliest possible date.”
A self-satisfied smile erupted on his face and remained there as I fled out his door. Score: Clarence one, Drummond zero.
Back in the car, Katrina said, “Gee, you handled that well.”
“Thanks.”
“I wasn’t serious.”
“I know.”
“Am I missing something here? What was that about his wife?”
“Mary Morrison was the CIA station chief in Moscow. You know those Washington power couples you always read about? Bill and Hillary. Dole and Dole. The Morrisons were all that in the world of supersecret agencies. Oh, and incidentally, I had a fling with his wife in college.”
Sometimes, say things quickly enough and it doesn’t register. She frowned, however, and remarked, “A fling, huh? She wasn’t the one who talked you into defending her husband? Tell me this isn’t so.”
“The relevant point is that he asked for me,” I said, partially answering her question, and partially not.
“Then you and he are acquainted also?”
I nodded, and she asked, “How well acquainted?”
“More than I want to be.”
“Why’s that?”
“He’s a jerk.”
“He’s a jerk?”
“You’re right. Let me amend that. A social-climbing, ass-covering, arrogant, self-serving, mealy-mouthed jerk.”
“Are we having objectivity issues?”
“What’s not objective? The subject’s a jerk and all else flows from there.”
Wisely, she decided on a different tack. “I was under the impression you guys promoted capable people to such high ranks. Don’t tell me Hollywood had it right all along?”
“I never said Morrison isn’t capable. I worked with him once, back when I was in the infantry. Back before he met Mary, even.”
She leaned against the door and said, “Tell me about that.”
“I was a team leader of a unit that was ordered to take out a terrorist cell that was planning to murder some American diplomats in Israel. Only our intelligence agencies intercepted a few of their messages and somebody decided to preempt it. Morrison was the liaison officer from the intelligence community. I had no complaints there. He knows his job.”
“What part did you have complaints about?”
“Him. He was bossy and abusive to my people. He started telling us how to prepare for the mission, how to plan it, how to cut eggs. I told him to back off, and he rudely reminded me he was a lieutenant colonel and I was a lieutenant. He started angling to come along. I said no, he wasn’t part of the team, wasn’t screened, wasn’t trained. It was dangerous for him, and dangerous for us.”
It wasn’t hard to guess where this was going. “But he went anyway?”
“Some general who was a buddy of his pulled strings. He ended up on the plane.”
“And did it cause a problem?”
“I suppose that depends whose side of the story you listen to.”
“I believe I’m stuck with your side.”
“We landed on the coast twenty miles north of Beirut, then worked our way by foot down to the Shiite quarter of the city. We were all dressed up like Arabs, our hair and mustaches dyed black, our skin tinted. Morrison kept bossing my team around. We exchanged words a few times, and he got testy, so I got testy back. I couldn’t figure out what his game was. I assumed he was just a guy who wanted to have a war story to tell his grandkids. I underestimated him.”
“How so?”
“The target turned out to be different. Wasn’t anybody’s fault, it just was. We used our night-vision goggles to stake it out and saw nearly twenty guys, instead of the six we’d been told to expect. The whole mission had been rehearsed down to the minutest detail, and I had only eight men. Morrison insisted we had to call it off. I said we’d just replan it on the fly. The terrorist attack was scheduled for four days away, so it was then or never. He kept insisting, and that’s when I figured out his game. He was a plant. The intell folks were scared about what would happen if their information turned out to be wrong and the mission got bollixed. He was their bureaucratic stopgap.”
She nodded like that made sense. “And…?”
“We gagged and hog-tied him, took down the target, and picked him up on our way out.”
“And you have hard feelings? Have I missed something here?”
“Indeed so. We went back to Bragg and he went back to his intelligence unit in Maryland. A few months passed and my team was ordered to attend some ceremony. On the appointed day Morrison arrived with his general officer buddy, then some guy was reading the citation for Morrison’s Silver Star for gallantry in action. He got credit for the whole operation-planning it, leading it, even courage under fire during the takedown.”
“I see.” She stared out the windshield while I spent the rest of the drive to Golden’s office wondering how I was going to compartmentalize my feelings toward the lousy prick I was defending.
The address I’d been given turned out to be a big, modern office building on 14th Street, a few blocks from the White House. We took the elevator to the twelfth floor, the doors slid open, and there stood two fierce-looking badasses with Uzi submachine guns pointed at our chests. Eddie has a real sense for how to orchestrate a warm welcome.
I grinned somewhat awkwardly. “I’m Major Drummond, and this is Miss Mazorski. We have an appointment to see Major Golden.”
The one on the right whispered something into his lapel, and another guard instantly appeared, only this guy wasn’t carrying an Uzi, just a big black pistol in a shoulder holster even an unpracticed eye could detect, since he had his jacket off so you’d be sure not to miss it.
“Damn, guys, nobody told me this was a gun party. I would’ve brought mine and we could all whip them out and play who’s-got-the-biggest-gat.”
