terrace that sheltered them from the cold air but still gave them a great moonlight vista over Sheep Point Cove. The conversation never strayed from financial matters, politics, and social issues. Alden knew enough about Laska to realize there would be little in the way of lighthearted banter. But it was a good conversation between men who were in general agreement with each other, enhanced somewhat by a gentle dose of Charles Alden’s ass-kissing of his presumed future employer.
After dinner they walked out back for a moment, sipping Cognac and discussing events in Hungary and Russia and Turkey and Latvia. Alden felt he was being te offisize='3'>Asted on his knowledge and his views, and he did not mind. This was a job interview, or so he’d told himself.
They moved to the library. Alden commented on the man’s great collection of leather-bound tomes, and as they sat across from each other on antique leather sofas, the CIA political appointee praised the magnificent home. Laska shrugged, explained to the younger man that this was his summer cottage, or at least that’s what he called it in front of those with whom he did not keep up the facade of being a populist. He told Alden that he also owned a twenty-two-room penthouse apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, a beach house on Santa Barbara that was the largest in the county and one of the largest oceanfront properties in California, as well as a lodge in Aspen, which was the site of an annual political retreat that hosted four hundred.
Alden had been to the Aspen retreat, twice, but he did not want to embarrass his host by reminding him of this.
Laska refilled both men’s snifters with another splash of impeccable Denis-Mounie Cognac from the 1930s. “Any idea why I’ve asked you here today, Charles?”
Alden smiled, cocked his head. “I’m hoping it’s about a position, should President Kealty fail to win reelection.”
Laska looked above the eyeglasses resting low on his nose. He smiled. “I’d be proud to have you come aboard. I can think of a couple of key spots right off the top of my head where we could use you.”
“Great.”
“But it is bad form to begin selling the parlor furniture while grandfather is still upstairs on his deathbed. Would you agree?”
Alden said nothing for a moment. “So… I am not here to discuss my options for next January?”
Laska shrugged. His cashmere sweater barely moved as his narrow shoulders went up and down inside it. “You will be taken care of in a post-Kealty America. Do not fear. But no, that is not why you are here.”
Alden was at once both excited and confused. “Well, then. Why
Laska grabbed a leather-bound folder resting on the end table next to the sofa. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and placed them in his lap. “Judy Cochrane has been meeting with the Emir.”
Alden’s crossed legs uncrossed quickly, and he sat up straight. “Oh, okay. I need to be careful about that matter, as I am certain you understand. I can’t give you any information regarding—”
“I am not asking you anything,” Laska said, then smiled thinly. “
Alden nodded stiffly.
“Mr. Yasin has agreed to allow the PCI to handle his representation in the Western District of Virginia for the Charlottesville attack three years ago.”
Alden said nothing.
“As part of our agreement with the Department of Justice, Judy and her team are not allowed to detail the capture of the Emir nor his imprisonment until the day he was delivered by the FBI to the Bureau of Prisons.”
“I’m sorry, Paul, but you are already treading in waters that are too deep for me.”
Laska kept talking as if Alden had not protested. “But the story he tells is quite incredible.”
Alden indulged the old man, who, quite possibly, held the key to ld t tAlden’s future. He explained, “The attorney general questioned me at length about any CIA involvement in the Emir’s case. We had no participation whatsoever, and I communicated that to him. That is already more than I should say to someone without the proper clearance.”
Laska shook his head, talked over the last part of Charles Alden’s words. “He says he was attacked on the street in Riyadh by five men, shot when he resisted, then kidnapped, brought to a location in the United States, and tortured for a number of days, before being handed over to the FBI.”
“Paul, I don’t want to hear—”
“And then the FBI shipped him off to some other location for several months, a so-called black-site prison, before delivering him to Florence, Colorado.”
Alden raised his eyebrows. “Frankly, Paul, this is starting to sound like a bad movie. Pure fantasy.”
But Laska relayed the Emir’s claims as fact. “He got a great look at four of the men who kidnapped and tortured him. And although the Emir is, if you believe the allegations against him, a terrorist, he is also quite an artist.” Laska took four pages from the file in his lap and offered them to Alden.
The deputy director of the CIA did not reach out and take them.
“I’m sorry” was all he could say.
“You said they were not CIA. So you will not know these men. What is the harm?”
“Frankly, I am very disappointed that your true motivation for having me over this evening was nothing more than—”
“If you don’t know them, Charles, just hand the pages back to me, and you will not spend the next several years testifying as the former head of Clandestine Services of the Central Intelligence Agency. The man at the helm when an illegal rendition was performed in an allied nation against the direct orders of the President of the United States.”
Alden emitted a long sigh. In truth, he didn’t know what many of the CIA’s foot soldiers looked like, as he rarely left the seventh floor at Langley. Did Laska think the Agency’s paramilitary men just hung out at a water cooler on the top floor, covered in grease paint and battle gear, waiting for their next mission? Certainly, Alden told himself, he would not be able to recognize a drawing of any field man in the Special Activities Division, the CIA’s paramilitary arm and the operators who would have had the training to make this happen. After talking to AG Brannigan about the Emir’s capture a year earlier he’d gotten the impression DOJ thought the Emir had been picked up by some Middle Eastern intelligence agency for some personal beef and then snuck into the United States and dumped at the FBI’s door in order to curry favor at some later date. It was a mystery, yes, but it wasn’t anything Alden had to worry about.
He decided he’d take a look at the drawings, shake his head, and hand them back. If that was all it took to secure a position in a Laska foundation after his time in CIA ended, then so be it.
He shrugged. “I’ll indulge you and look at the pictures. But I won’t discuss this matter with you any further.”
Laska smiled. His square face widened. “It’s a deal.”
Alden took the pages, crossed his legs, and looked up at Laska. The CIA political appointee retained a slightly annoyed appearance while doing this.
Laska said, “What you have there are photocopies of sototaiome tracings Judy made of the Emir’s original drawings. The quality is not perfect, but I think they get the point across as to what the men look like.”
This first picture, just as he expected, was a detailed but not particularly lifelike sketch of a man’s face, a face Charles Alden did not recognize. The man was young, white, and his hair was shaded in with a pencil, presumably to indicate that it was black or dark brown. He wore some sort of bandage on his chin. Below the picture were some handwritten notes. “Kidnapper 1. American, 25 to 30 years old. 183cm. This man shot me on the street. He was wounded slightly on the face, hence the bandage.”
It was a decent drawing of a good-looking guy in his twenties, but otherwise Alden did not find the photo remarkable.
Charles shook his head no for Laska’s benefit and moved on.
Drawing number two was of another young man. He wore his hair shorter than the first man, and it was dark. He was nondescript in every other way. The text under the drawing said: “Kidnapper 2. 28 to 35 years old. Shorter than #1.”
Still, Alden didn’t know the man.
Another shake of the head, and on to the next drawing.
