hmmm?”
“I suppose.”
“Mustn’t leap to conclusions. Very unscientific,” he admonishes. “Gotcha,” he adds, straightening up with a thin manila folder in his hand, and, for a silly instant, I imagine I am still in Theo’s office as he pulls out the proof of Marc Hadley’s sin.
“Colin Scott?”
Ethan nods. “The very same.” He walks back toward me, but this time he perches on the corner of his desk, which, like the rest of the office, is so neat that a casual visitor might be excused for supposing that no work goes on here. The obligatory photographs of his wife and infant daughter are so perfectly aligned that he must have used a ruler. The signed photographs of prominent Washington figures are quite a bit larger.
“Now, Misha, we have something of a problem here,” he begins apologetically, and I know a lecture on confidentiality is coming, for, although Ethan Brinkley possesses no ethics to speak of, he has the politician’s knack of talking as though he has plenty. “This information is technically the property of the federal government. If I were to show you this piece of paper, we could both wind up in prison.” Ethan’s bland face puffs up with pride at the idea that he controls so sensitive a document, even if he did steal it.
“I understand.”
“But I can tell you the contents.”
“Okay.” I see no legal difference between the two scenarios, and I doubt that Ethan does either, although he would doubtless swear under oath to a grand jury that he thought he was within the rules: If I don’t read the actual words on the page, if I only summarize or paraphrase, I am not precisely divulging the contents of the document, and so I’m outside the statutory prohibitions. Legal hairsplitting of that kind tends to make the public angry, but it is often a good way to escape responsibility for breaking the law. Politicians are fond of it, except when a member of the other party does it. We law professors teach it to our students every day as though it is a virtue.
“Colin Scott, Colin Scott,” he muses, pretending to read it all for the first time. “Not a very nice man, our Colin.”
“Oh? Not nice in what way?”
Ethan will not be hurried. He hates to relinquish center stage, even for a second, and is constantly rehearsing for the big chance that is on its way.
“He was with the Agency, of course. Well, you knew that.” I didn’t know, not for sure, and not even Uncle Mal, who knows everything, saw fit to tell me, but if the fact were a complete surprise, I would not be here. Still, the confirmation is a second strike against Mallory Corcoran. “A long time,” Ethan continues. “Mmmm. Foreign postings.. . Well, I don’t suppose I can tell you that. He was there in the old days, when they used to have what was known as the Plans Directorate. I see you never heard of it. Nice euphemism, isn’t it? They call it Operations now. The people who are out there, overseas, doing things. Well, well.” Still examining his pages. “This was back in the sixties, Misha. Large blank areas, pretty large. Not unusual with the gentlemen from Plans. Don’t know the full scope of his activities. But he was dirty, and the Agency dumped him. This must have been… yes, after the Church hearings. New broom and all that. He was old-school. A dangerous man to have around.”
“Why dangerous?”
But elfin Ethan prefers to dole out his precious little surprises one by one and wait for a reaction. “Colin Scott is not his real name, you know.”
“As a matter of fact I didn’t know, but I can’t exactly say I’m astonished.” When I am around Ethan, I seem to lapse into the same portentous constructions that are his only means of communication.
“It’s one of his names, of course,” Ethan presses on. “He has several. Look at this. Mmmm, yes. You see, Scott was a name they gave him, along with a new identity, after he was drummed out of the Agency. Set him up, let’s see, yes, he opened a little detective agency in South Carolina. Well, you knew that. But South Carolina was not his first stop post-Agency, and Scott was his second new name. Seems some old friends, not the friendly kind, rumbled to his old one. His old new one, I mean.”
“You mean enemies.”
“Well, yes.” Ethan is annoyed that I have broken into his narrative. He is having fun teasing me.
“What was his real name?”
“Oh, Misha, naturally, if it were up to me I would tell you, but, you know, national security and all that. Sorry, but rules are rules.” Apologizing self-importantly. All at once this mystery is awash in people who could help me understand what is going on but climb up on their principles to explain their refusal.
“What did he do in the Agency?” I ask, really just to keep the conversation going; in truth, I have just about run out of ideas.
“He floated.” Ethan smiles at my blank look. He loves jargon. “He was in Plans, as I told you, but he also worked for Angleton, who ran counterintelligence until he cracked up. Later on he did a little of the paramilitary thing in Laos, had lots of contacts up in the Shans-well, let me not bore you with any of these details. Point is, if there was a whiff of Communism, a fire to be put out, Mr. Scott was the kind they called. Not a fanatic, mind you. Not a Bircher or some such. That kind tends to go into politics, not intelligence, and, in truth, intelligence doesn’t really want them. No, our Mr. Scott was more your spear-carrier. One of your technocrats, let’s call him that. Totally devoted to getting the job done. The kind who followed orders, even if the orders were, shall we say, not the sort of thing that should ever see the light of day. A dangerous man, as I said, for just that reason. Past his time, of course. Dinosaur. Relic of an era the passing of which we do not exactly lament.” Implying that we do not exactly lament his death, either, whoever we are.
And implying something else, something I have feared but buried almost from the night when Uncle Mal first told me that Agent McDermott was a fraud; a fear that wakened rudely when I heard Sally’s story; a fear that clawed its way to the surface once Addison explained that dollar was really daughter.
“You’re saying he… uh, he killed people.”
“I cannot confirm that, of course,” says Ethan primly. “Let us just say that he is, or, rather, was, a dangerous man.”
I mull this over. A dangerous relic, a dinosaur, drummed out of the Agency, talking to my father in his study in the middle of the night, the Judge telling him that there are no rules where a daughter is concerned. A daughter, not a dollar. Then showing up a quarter-century later, pretending to be in the FBI, looking frantically for something or other, maybe trashing Vinerd Howse, then drowning at Menemsha Beach.
I am overlooking something, and I have a hunch it is something obvious.
Then I have it.
“Just one more question, Ethan. When exactly was Mr. Scott, or whatever his name was, thrown out of the Agency?”
Ethan assumes a pious pose. “Oh, well, I hardly think it would be proper for me to share actual dates with you, Misha. The law, is, well, the law is what it is.”
“But it was after the Church hearings, right? And the Church hearings were-when?-’74? ’75?”
“Around then, yes.”
So Colin Scott was already out of the Agency by the time Sally and Addison heard him arguing with the Judge. About daughters, not dollars.
Already out of the Agency. Recently out of the Agency. Bitter? Desperate? Ready to be seduced by Jack Ziegler’s rantings? And by the chance to-
“Ethan, one last thing.”
“Anything, Misha. Anything within the law, that is.”
“When the Agency first set him up as a private detective, where was that?”
“Maryland. Potomac, Maryland. Right across the river from Langley, you see.”
“And what name did he use then?”
“Oh, well, I hardly think-”
“Never mind.” I am on my feet. I cannot sit here for another second. “Thank you, Ethan. You’ve been helpful. If you ever need anything.”
“I appreciate that, Misha, I really do,” he murmurs, all the sympathy back on his face as he offers that practiced political handshake once more.
I cross the hall on rubbery legs, unlock my office, slam the door behind me, and collapse into one of the shaky side chairs. I lack the strength to make it to my desk, so I will have to weep here.
