I took a roll, which was by now cold, and bit into it. I noticed he was carefully avoiding saying “CIA.”
“Oh, really,” Stearns said, putting a hand on Truslow’s shoulder. “Such ridiculous modesty.” To me, he added: “You know Alex is on the short list to be named director.”
“I do,” I said.
“There must be a serious scarcity of qualified candidates,” Truslow said. “We’ll see what happens. As I was saying, Truslow Associates is engaged in a number of projects that Langley prefers, for one reason or another, not to be directly involved in,” he said.
Stearns put in: “You know how congressional oversight and such can gum up the work of intelligence. Especially nowadays, with the Russian thing out of the picture.”
I smiled politely. This was a particularly common strain of conversation within the Agency, usually among those who wanted CIA to be liberated to do whatever the hell it wanted, like use exploding cigars on Fidel and assassinate third-world dictators.
“All right,” Truslow said, lowering his voice. “The ‘Russian thing,’ as Bill puts it-the collapse of the Soviet Union-created a number of unique problems for us.”
“Sure,” I said. “Without an enemy, what’s CIA for? And then, who needs the Corporation?”
“Not quite,” he said. “There are plenty of enemies, and unfortunately we’ll always need a CIA. A reformed CIA, a better CIA. Congress may not realize that now, but in time it will. And as you know, CIA is retooling, concentrating far more on economic and corporate espionage. Defending American companies from those foreign countries that seek to steal their industrial secrets. Which is where the real battles of the future lie. Are you aware that shortly before his death, Harrison Sinclair established contact with the last chairman of the former KGB?”
“Through Sheila McAdams,” I said.
He paused, his chin up, surprised. “That’s right. But apparently Hal was in Switzerland too. Both he and Sheila met with Orlov. Think back to the death throes of the Soviet empire-the failed coup d’état attempt of August 1991. At that point the old guard knew the game was up. The Communist Party bureaucracy was already in a shambles, the Red Army had turned tail and was now supporting Yeltsin-then seen as the only hope for preserving Russia, at least. And the KGB-”
“Which,” I interrupted, “engineered the coup.”
“Yes. Engineered, masterminded the coup-though it’s nothing to be proud of, the way it was bungled. The KGB knew that in weeks, perhaps months, it was going to be shut down.
“It was at that point that the Agency began to watch the Lubyanka especially closely. Watching to see whether it would accept its inevitable death sentence-”
“Or rage against the dying of the light,” I said.
“Well put,” Truslow said. “In any case, it was at that point that the Agency began to detect an unusually heavy shipment of diplomatic ‘bags’-truckloads of mail sacks and cartons, to be exact-moving from Moscow to the Soviet embassy in Geneva. The recipient, and requisitioner, was the KGB’s station chief.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Stearns said, and arose. “I’ve got to get back to the office.” He shook Truslow’s hand and departed. We were now, I realized, getting down to it.
“Do we know what was in the shipments?”
“Actually, no,” Truslow said. “Something quite valuable, I imagine.”
“Which is why you want my help.”
Truslow nodded. He finally took a bite of his roll.
“How, exactly?”
“Investigation.”
I paused, considered. “Why me?”
“Because-” He lowered his voice, and continued: “Because I can’t trust the boys at Langley. I need an outsider-someone who knows the ways of the Agency but is no longer connected.” He paused for a long time, as if wondering how frankly he could speak. Finally he shrugged. “I’m in a bind: I don’t know who in the Agency I can trust anymore.”
“Meaning what?”
He hesitated. “Corruption is rampant at Langley, Ben. You’ve heard stories, I’m sure-”
“Some, yes.”
“Well, it’s much worse than you can imagine. It’s at the point of criminality-of outright rogue action.”
I recalled Ed Moore’s warning: “There’s turmoil in the Agency… A dreadful power struggle… Enormous sums of money changing hands…” At the time, it seemed the overheated, irrational doomsayings of an old man who’d been in the business too long.
“I need specifics,” I said.
“And you’ll have specifics,” Truslow said. “More than you’ll care to know about. There’s an organization-a sub rosa group, a council of elders… But we mustn’t talk of these things here.”
Truslow’s face had flushed. He shook his head.
“And what,” I asked, “did Hal Sinclair have to do with these shipments?”
“Well, that’s the mystery. No one knows why he met with Orlov, why he was so secretive about it. Or what was transacted, exactly. And then came word-rumors-that Hal embezzled a good deal of money-”
“Embezzled? Hal? You believe these rumors?”
“I’m not saying I believe them, Ben. I certainly don’t want to believe them. Knowing Hal, I’m sure that-whatever the reason was that he met secretly with Orlov in Switzerland-it wasn’t out of criminal intent. But whatever he was up to, there’s good reason to believe that he was killed because of it.”
Had he seen the photograph Moore had given me? I wondered. But before I could ask, he resumed: “The point is this: In a matter of days the United States Senate is about to commence hearings into the widespread corruption within CIA.”
“Public?”
“Yes. Some sessions will no doubt be closed to the press. But the Senate Select Subcommittee on Intelligence has heard enough of these rumors to look into it.”
“And Hal is implicated, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Not publicly. Not yet. I don’t even think the Senate has heard these tales. They have heard only that a good deal of money is missing. And so Langley internal affairs has hired me to look into this. To see what Hal Sinclair was up to in the last days of his life. To find out why he was killed. To find the missing money, to find out where it went, who was involved. The investigation must not be done in-house-the corruption is too rampant. Thus, Truslow Associates.”
“How much missing money are we talking about?”
He shrugged. “A fortune. Let me leave it at that for now.”
“And you need me…”
“I need you to find out what Hal was doing, meeting with Orlov.” He looked up at me, his brown eyes bloodshot, moist. “Ben, you still have the perfect right to say no. I’ll understand. Given, especially, what you’ve been through. But from everything I’m told, you were one of the best in the field.”
I shrugged, flattered and appreciative, but not sure how to reply. Surely he’d heard tales of my “recklessness.”
“You and I have a lot in common,” he said. “I could tell that about you from the start. You’re a straight shooter. You gave the Agency your all, but you always felt it could be better than it was. I’ll tell you something: in all the years I’ve been with the Agency, I’ve seen its fundamental purpose jeopardized by ideologues and zealots on the left and the right. Angleton once said something to me: he said, Alex, you’re one of the best we have-but the paradoxical thing is, what makes you so good at the work is the fact that on some level you disapprove of it.” Truslow laughed ruefully. “At the time I denied it till I was red in the face. But in the end I realized he was right. My gut tells me you’re a similar creature, Ben. We do what we think has to be done, but there’s a part of us that stands aloof in disapproval.” He took a deep sip from his water glass and smiled to himself, seemingly embarrassed that he’d gone on so.