“Is that the problem?”
Danielson looked at the slip of paper. She sat back in her chair and brandished the memo at Kathleen. “It was such a surprise. I’m a bit upset.”
“Not my place to stick my nose in,” Kathleen said, “but I can give you a little insight. That’s nothing against you.”
“I’d like to think so, but I’ve done the most work on it, spent every spare minute since I got back from Boston, and to have it canceled … I was afraid …”
Kathleen leaned on her forearms. “Do you know about the tiff between Mr. Isaacs and McMasters?”
“There’s some scuttlebutt. I haven’t paid much attention to it,” Danielson smiled in self-deprecation. “I don’t operate in that league.”
“Who does?” Kathleen smiled in return. “But sometimes some of us get caught up in the battles.” She turned serious. “For some reason McMasters has it in for Isaacs. Bob, Mr. Isaacs, is always having to tiptoe around him. It’s too bad. Mr. Isaacs can be pretty ferocious when he’s worked up, but he really is very sweet.”
“I’ve enjoyed working with him,” Danielson admitted. “He takes everything very seriously, but he’s reasonable.”
“Well, he won’t toady to McMasters, and McMasters took a dislike to him early on. I don’t know the details, but McMasters is behind the cancellation of that particular project. As I say, it’s nothing personal against you, I’m sure.”
“I’d like to believe that.”
“Do you still want to see Mr. Isaacs?”
“Yes,” Danielson said thoughtfully, “I think I still would.”
“Well, you’re welcome to make yourself at home, but I’ve got to finish this briefing paper.”
“Oh, please go ahead.”
Kathleen turned back to her keyboard. Danielson watched her fingers rap the keys and then began to think about Project QUAKER. The project fascinated and haunted her. She also wanted very much to please Isaacs with her performance. How frustrating to do your best, she thought, try to gain some appreciation and be thwarted by something beyond your control, in this case interference by McMasters, some high muckety-muck I haven’t even met.
She recognized the cord of tension, strong and familiar, the ambition to go her own way played against the need to satisfy another authority figure, no stranger at all. She slipped into a reverie, her thoughts drifting to her childhood, dim memories of the tragic, premature death of her mother in an auto collision with a drunk. Her father, a chief petty officer in the Navy, giving up the sea he loved to take a desk job, trying to be both father and mother, while she tried to be wife and daughter.
She had worked hard to do well in school, at first to protect him from further disappointment, but then more to satisfy her own drives. She had been only dimly aware of the degree to which he lived his life through her, of her irrational guilt that his situation was somehow her fault, of her own repressed resentment that she had to be strong for him, that she could never, for even a brief moment, set all her burdens on his broad shoulders. In hindsight, she saw how the seeds had been slowly planted for the bitter row that still tainted their relationship years later, despite their love for one another.
She was finishing high school and planning to join the Navy as he wished, but she aimed for, insisted on, sea duty. He wanted her to follow his path, but was too tradition- bound to countenance women on shipboard, particularly his own kin. Years of repressed feelings erupted. He called her headstrong and ungrateful for his years of sacrifice. “It’s not my fault that your wife died,” she shouted in return, and suffered immediate remorse.
In the aftermath of their fight, she had spurned the Navy and gone to UCLA to study engineering. Now she found the work for the Agency stimulating and enjoyed the notion that she played an important, if small, role in the strategic balance of power in the world. Still, during those low points like the present, she could sense her father looking over her shoulder.
Her head snapped up as Isaacs’ voice came over the intercom.
“Yes, sir,” replied Kathleen, glancing at Danielson. “Do you have time to see Dr. Danielson? She’s waiting here.”
Isaacs appeared quickly in the doorway.
“Pat, please come in.” He held the door for her and gestured her to a chair. “I’m sorry that was so impersonal,” he pointed his chin at the note still wadded in her hand. “I was too busy to get around, and it did have to be in writing anyway.”
“I didn’t mind that,” she lied a little, “but I was shocked.”
“It was sudden, a decision from upstairs.” Isaacs looked at the young woman, wondering how much of the real problem he should reveal to her.
Danielson searched for words that would not seem too bald an appeal for approval.
“I couldn’t help wondering, if I had made more progress, if I had isolated the source of the signal, would that have kept the project alive?”
Isaacs spoke thoughtfully.
“Perhaps. Unfortunately, we can’t answer that, since we didn’t find the source.” He noted the look of discomfort that passed over her face and hastened to add reassurance. “Please don’t feel responsible for this. You did some very good work to get as far as you did. You can’t blame yourself for getting bogged down. It turned out to be a problem with no simple resolution, and you had lots of other things to do the last two or three weeks.”
He disliked the tone of those words. By weaseling around the real issue, he made it sound as if she might shoulder some blame for not working quite hard enough or being quite bright enough. He sighed mentally. If this young woman had a future in the Agency, she might as well learn the ropes.
“Pat, let me level with you. Unless you had showed that this was a new Russian weapon aimed at the Oval Office, the project would have been killed. The decision really had nothing to do with the project itself. It was strictly politics.”
Danielson was relieved to hear these words from Isaacs, but as her potential guilt feelings receded further she found anger in their place.
“But that’s so unfair! I worked hard on that project. Why should it be canceled?”
“Maybe not fair, but logical in the scheme of how things really work around here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you want to get things done, you have to fight for what you think is right.” He pointed a finger at her. “Just as you’re doing right now.”
She met his gaze straight on. He continued.
“The fact that I use the word fight means that somebody holds opposite views, and they’re going to be fighting back. I push for what I think is right and get pushed back. You lose some skirmishes to win the battles. I’m sorry that this skirmish was particularly important to you personally.”
Danielson glanced at the closed door to Kathleen’s office.
“I guess I see.”
Isaacs was quick on the uptake.
“Kathleen told you about me and McMasters,” he stated flatly, then laughed gently as Danielson looked surprised. “Kathleen knows everything that goes on around here. I would have been disappointed if she hadn’t bent your ear a little out there.
“McMasters is old school, losing his touch and very defensive about it. I’ve had to challenge him on occasion and he doesn’t like that. Frankly, I don’t think he likes me. He may resent the fact that my grandfather wore a yarmulke. Who knows? The feeling is fairly mutual. In any case, let me give it to you straight out. He killed Project QUAKER out of spite because I killed some of his projects. Simple as that.”
The fire was in her eyes again.
“I don’t think that’s so simple. I think it’s wrong.”
“Wrong. Yes, I think it was wrong, too, but you’re not looking at the bigger picture. If I let McMasters get his way here, I can get other more important things done more efficiently.”
“But I don’t see how he can get away with this—this obstructionism.”
“For one thing he’s not a total loss. He’s effective at keeping up the day to day affairs of the Agency, as long as tricky strategic questions aren’t involved. If nothing else, he keeps the Director from meddling in the details so
