Gertz ignored the rebuke. He didn’t have time to joust with Hoffman. The staff meeting was in ten minutes.
“Here’s what I need from Headquarters. Number one, silence. This organization never existed. It doesn’t exist now. So that will make it easy when it doesn’t exist in the future. Do we agree on that? No statements, no briefings, no IG reports. Deaf and dumb.”
“We will be silent as lambs. What’s number two?”
“I may need help with relocation, severance, all of that. We have some decent people. I want them taken care of. Otherwise, they’ll talk.”
“I thought you had arranged all of that, dear boy. Weren’t you supposed to be self-funding?”
“Nobody’s perfect. And it appears that my funding mechanism isn’t quite as airtight as I thought. Contamination problem. It could even involve fraud, the lawyers tell me. I put the Brits on the case a few days ago. Serious Fraud Office. They love catching rich Americans who have been gaming the system.”
“Oh, do they, now?” Hoffman chortled. “It really is sauve qui peut , isn’t it?”
“That’s the Gertz family motto, Mr. Hoffman. Along with, ‘Don’t get caught.’”
“You are an unpleasant man,” replied Hoffman.
“So what?” he said.
“I have one piece of advice for you in this self-demolition exercise: Don’t leave any loose ends. They have a way of catching up with one, or should I say, with you.”
“I won’t. Speaking of which, where’s my faithful employee, Miss Marx? I take it she works for Headquarters now. What’s she doing?”
“Well, that’s just it. She’s looking for loose ends. Clever girl, Brave, too.”
“She won’t find any. But if she can figure out how this mess happened, more power to her.”
“That’s very generous of you, old boy. And unless I’m mistaken, she’s well on her way.”
“This is a fun conversation, Mr. Hoffman, but I’ve got to go. I have a staff meeting and then a flight to D.C. Give the director a kiss on the bum for me, eh? That’s your specialty.”
“You are a most unpleasant man,” Hoffman said emphatically as he hung up the phone.
The double doors of the conference room on the third floor were open wide, but the staff trickled in single file, as if it were a TSA security line at the airport. People were mostly silent. They looked tired and on edge; many of them had been sleeping at the homes of friends of relatives for the past week; they had been taking the bus or borrowing vehicles from neighbors, instead of driving themselves to work in their own cars. Most of them had stopped using credit cards. The rumor mill had it that anything with a digital address, even in alias, was insecure, so people tried to protect themselves. Some had even sent their children away.
They were scared, plain and simple. Their boss, who was supposed to explain it all to them, had been away on unexplained travel, and when he was in the office, he was short-tempered and distracted. People didn’t want any false assurances of security, they just needed to know what was going on.
The room was nearly full when Gertz arrived. He made a circular motion with his finger to the video technician, to the get the camera rolling for the secure videoconference. He waved to friends and coworkers and shook a few hands as he made his way to the podium. They were nervous, everyone fearing some new disaster, but the boss was smiling, so most of them smiled back. He had worn a tie to the office that morning, but had taken it off before the meeting. In his open-necked shirt he looked, if not quite relaxed, at least less uptight than in recent days.
When he reached the podium he tapped the microphone once, to make sure that it was on, and then started speaking.
“Ladies and gents, I want to share some good news,” he began. There was a flutter in the room. The people who knew Gertz best didn’t react at all; they understood that he was just clearing his throat.
“I want to report that we are taking decisive steps to protect our people, here and overseas. I know how difficult this period has been for everyone, and it would be wrong to ask you to live with continued uncertainty. That would not be fair to any of you, not after how hard you have worked.”
That brought nodding of heads and some exhalations of relief. One woman who worked in Support actually said, “Amen.” But Gertz was still priming the pump.
“Your security and safety have to come first. That’s my point. I have been looking for a way to do that, while at the same time continuing The Hit Parade’s mission and normal operating tempo. I am sorry to say that it cannot be done. You can’t maximize two variables at once, as my economics teachers told me in college. The variable I have decided to maximize is your security.”
Gertz paused, and people looked at each other, wondering what he was telling them, beneath all the fluff. But he was getting around to it.
“What that means, unfortunately, is that we are going to have to close down our operations, and we must do it in a hurry.”
Now there were groans, and someone in the back muttered, “No way.”
“Nobody hates this more than me, folks. This is my baby, and I have lived and sweated every minute of our time together. But we are losing people, with many more at risk, and I cannot rule out the possibility that our most secure procedures and systems may have been compromised. That puts everybody in jeopardy. We can’t live like that. Am I right? Tell me if you disagree.”
The docile souls up front who had been following along on cue nodded their assent once more. Of course he was right. He was the leader. He had the big heart.
“I had asked Sophie Marx, our chief of counterintelligence, to lead our effort to identify the security problem that has led to the deaths of your colleagues. Perhaps that was unwise on my part. As some of you cautioned me at the time, she is a relatively junior officer without much management experience. In any event, she has failed to make progress, and during this time The Hit Parade’s risk profile has actually increased. She made an unauthorized trip to Pakistan, at a time when such travel was forbidden, and she was attacked, unsuccessfully. I blame myself for this poor choice of personnel. She has been relieved of duty, pending a more detailed investigation.”
Marx had aroused so much envy with her rapid rise that people nodded in support for her firing, too, especially some of the women in the office, who might have been expected to back up one of their own. In bad times, every organization needs a villain on whom to blame bad events, and Gertz had given them one.
“We are going to have to move quickly now, and with good discipline. A retreat under fire is the hardest maneuver in warfare, as our ex-military colleagues know. So here is what we will have to do over the next few days:
“First, our cover company, The Hit Parade LLP, will declare bankruptcy the day after tomorrow. I asked the legal team to begin preparing the papers last week, as a contingency. Now they will be filed. We are a small company and very privately held, so that shouldn’t generate too many ripples. In the meantime, we need to get all the secure paperwork and computers out of here. My deputy, Steve Rossetti, will coordinate this rapid movement with the associate deputy director’s office at Headquarters. Some of you will have to stay late tonight and tomorrow to get everything bundled and on the trucks. Again, I leave the details to Steve.”
Gertz turned to face the video monitor and the foreign staff. He was like an actor that way. He knew how to cheat to the camera, to establish an intimacy with his audience that was palpable, if also false.
“May I say to our brothers and sisters overseas, who have been taking the biggest risks without complaining or panicking: I want all of you home within a week. We will close all the foreign offices as quickly as we can. If you can’t find a tenant for your office space or apartment, just leave it. We’ll clean that up later. We will be bringing everyone home under false documentation. I want you to contact your nearest embassy or consulate and ask for the senior CIA officer. They will get you documentation and cash.