Dead or Alive

“I suppose so, but that happens with a lot of people. I generally accomplish my missions, and that’s why I stayed around so long. Mr. Alden, what is the purpose of this interview?”

“Well, as deputy DO I have to be familiar with people in the Clandestine Service, and looking over this, I see that you’ve had a most colorful career. You’re lucky you lasted this long, and you can now look back on a singular career.”

“And my next assignment?”

“There is no next assignment. Oh, you can go back to The Farm as a training officer, but really my best advice would be for you to take your retirement. It’s well earned. Your retirement papers are ready for processing. You’ve earned it, John,” he said, with the cold hint of a smile.

“But if I were twenty years younger, you would not have a place for me?”

“Maybe an embassy posting,” Alden said. “But neither one of us is twenty years younger. The Agency’s changed, Mr. Clark. We’re getting out of the paramilitary business, except when we have people assigned directly to us from Delta Force, for example, but we’re trying to get away from the hands-on stuff that you and Chavez have specialized in. The world is a kinder and gentler place.”

“Tell that to New Yorkers, maybe?” Clark asked evenly.

“There are other ways to deal with things like that. The trick is finding out ahead of time and encouraging people to take a different path if they want to get our attention.”

“How, exactly, does one do that-theoretically, of course?”

“That’s an issue we address here on the seventh floor, on a case-by-case basis.”

“Out in the field, issues like that one don’t always arrive in your lap in a manner which allows referral to headquarters. You have to trust your people to take the initiative, and support them when they do so intelligently. I’ve been there. It can get awfully lonely out there in the field if you do not have confidence in the people behind you, especially when they’re five thousand miles behind you.”

“Initiative works well in the movies but not in the real world.”

When’s the last time you were out in the field in the real world? Clark wanted to ask but did not. He was not in here for an argument or even a discussion. He was here only to listen to the voice of God, and relayed from this academic asshole. It had happened before at the Agency, but back in the 1970s, when he’d avoided involuntary retirement for the first time, with the help of James Greer, he’d made something of a name for himself working in the Soviet Union on “special” missions. It had been nice, once, to have an enemy everyone believed in.

“So I’m out?”

“You will retire honorably, with the thanks of the nation, which you have served well, and at peril to your life. You know, reading through this, I wonder why you don’t have a star on the atrium wall.” He referred to the white marble wall with gold stars that memorialized the names of field officers who’d died in the service of the CIA.

The book that listed those names-it was in a glass-and-brass case-had many blank spaces showing only dates, because the names were themselves classified, even fifty years after the fact. In all likelihood, Alden took the executive elevators up from the security parking under the building, and so was not routinely forced to look at the wall-hell, not even to walk past it.

“What about Chavez?”

“As I told you, he’s eligible for retirement in just ten more weeks, counting his time in the Army. He’ll retire as GS-12, with full benefits, of course. Or if he insists, he can have a training post at The Farm for a year or two, before we send him off to Africa, probably.”

“Why Africa?”

“Things are happening there-enough things to keep us interested.”

Sure. Send him to Angola, where they’ll take his Spanish accent for Portuguese and help him get whacked by some leftover guerrillas, right? Not that you’d care one way or another, Alden. These kinder and gentler people never really cared much for individuals. They were too interested in the big-picture issues of the day, forcing square reality pegs into the round theoretical holes of how the world was supposed to look and act. It was a common failing among the politically astute.

Clark said, “Well, that’s up to him, I suppose, and after twenty-nine years, I guess I have my retirement pretty well maxed out, eh?”

“Pretty well,” Alden agreed, with a smile about as genuine as a man about to close the sale on a 1971 Ford Pinto.

Clark stood. He did not extend his hand, but Alden did, and Clark had to take it out of simple good manners, and good manners were always disarming to the assholes of the world.

“Oh, I almost forgot: Someone wants to see you. You know a James Hardesty?”

“Served with him once, yeah,” Clark replied. “Isn’t he retired by now?”

“No, not yet. He’s working with operational archives, part of a project for the DO we’ve been running for about fourteen months-sort of a classified history project. Anyway, his office is on the fourth floor, past the kiosk by the elevators.” Alden handed over the room number, scribbled on a blank sheet of paper.

Clark took it and folded it into his pocket. Jimmy Hardesty was still here? How the hell did he evade the attention of people like this Alden prick? “Okay, thanks. I’ll catch him on the way out.”

“They need me in there?” Ding asked when Clark came out the door.

“No, he just wanted me this time.” Clark adjusted his neck-tie in a prearranged signal, to which Chavez did not react. And with that, they took the elevator down to the fourth floor. They walked past the kiosk staffed by blind vendors who sold such things as candy bars and Cokes-it always struck visitors as creepy and sinister, but for the CIA it was a laudable way to provide employment to the handicapped. If they were really blind. One could never be sure of anything in this building, but that was just part of the mystique.

They found Hardesty’s office and knocked on the cipher-locked door. It opened in a few seconds.

“Big John,” Hardesty said in greeting.

“Hey, Jimmy. What’re you doing in this rat hole?”

“Writing the history of operations that nobody will ever read, at least not while we’re alive. You’re Chavez?” he asked Ding.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on in.” Hardesty waved them into his cubbyhole, which did have two spare chairs and almost enough room for the extra legs, plus a worktable that acted as an ersatz desk.

“What year are you in?” John asked.

“Would you believe 1953? I spent all last week on Hans Tofte and the Norwegian freighter job. That job had a real body count, and they were not all bad guys. Cost of doing business back then, I guess, and the sailors on the ship should have thought twice before signing on.”

“Before our time, Jimmy. Did you talk to Judge Moore about it? I think he had a piece of that operation.”

Hardesty nodded. “He was in last Friday. The judge must have been a handful in his younger days, before he took that seat behind the bench. Him and Ritter both.”

“What’s Bob Ritter doing now?”

“You didn’t hear? Shit. Died three months ago down in Texas, liver cancer.”

“How old was he?” Chavez asked.

“Seventy-five. He was at MD Anderson Cancer Center, down in Texas, so he had the best treatment available, but it didn’t work.”

“Everybody dies of something,” Clark observed. “Sooner or later. Nobody told us about Ritter over in England. I wonder why.”

“The current administration didn’t like him much.”

That made sense, John thought. He was a warrior from the worst of the bad old days who’d worked in Redland against the main enemy of the time, and cold warriors died hard. “I’ll have to hoist a drink to his memory. We butted heads occasionally, but he never back-shot me. I wonder about that Alden guy.”

“Not our kind of people, John. I’m supposed to do a full report on people we whacked along the way, what laws might have been violated, that sort of thing.”

“So what can I do for you?” Clark asked his host.