“That’s just not likely.”
“When the plans to use hijacked passenger jets to destroy commercial buildings turned up in an apartment in the Philippines, it seemed unlikely then that anything-”
“Enough!”
Laramie quieted down at his tone. Rader leaned back, lifted his macchiato, and sipped. He swirled the coffee in the cup. She liked that he was mulling it over, or at least giving the outward impression that he was mulling it over. She suspected she should enjoy the moral victory. She could sense defeat looming.
Rader coughed. “You and I,” he said, “are far from privy to the policy-making issues faced by our administration.”
Laramie couldn’t decide whether she wanted to strangle him, or yawn.
“Nor,” he said, “do we have any exposure to the administration’s intel docket. It could be, for instance, that Peter Gates had prior knowledge of your discovery, and evidence in favor of, or possibly against your theory, perhaps presented to him by another analyst, or agency. You’ve done some good work here, but the key to assessment lies in the chain of command. Your initial findings and the style of your original report were a bit inflammatory, no?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I believe that your ideal strategy, that which will allow your findings to be most effectively considered, is to offer this additional intel as a private gesture.”
“A private gesture? Malcolm, I’m coming to you so you can take this in the right direction, but considering what I’m coming to you with-”
“A peace offering,” Rader said, continuing. “‘Memo to Peter Gates: Here’s something more. I leave it in your hands. I conclude nothing. I leave policy decisions to you. Thank you for your guidance.’”
Laramie was favoring strangulation.
“Better yet,” he said, “I’ll take a look at the document you mentioned. Why don’t you slug it as a confidential brief, addressed solely to me. Do not duplicate the document. Do not forward to file. I’ll suggest any formatting changes you’ll need; you tidy it up; then we feed it to Rosen. Perhaps only verbally. This allows him, in turn, to present your findings to Gates, who will, based on history and experience, know what to do and when, guided by his judgment of the most appropriate timing.” Rader was nodding at the good sense his plan made. “We work it this way, and Gates is pleased. Rosen comes off as handling his staff like a champ, and you and I get some credit. You, specifically, show that you’ve learned from your earlier brush with-well, disaster.”
Laramie looked at him. She thought about how many people she was discovering were concerned not only about their own careers, but also those of others, including even her own, when, oh, by the way, there appeared to be a couple more important issues at stake. She thought about taking her frustrations out by giving Rader some kind of harsh, sarcastic reply, decided against it, and thought instead of the punch line delivered by Eddie Rothgeb in his Saturday morning lecture, and the fax that followed.
Politics: give them what they want to hear.
“That,” she said, “is a pretty good idea, Malcolm.”
“Hey, it’s how we work around here. I don’t need to tell you that.” He smiled, the patronly boss, and Laramie offered a smile in return. Two happy, career-minded professionals, she thought, sharing coffee in the commissary.
“No,” she said, “you don’t, Malcolm. Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Anytime,” he said. “Anytime you’re buying, that is.” He chuckled.
Laramie yawned.
She knew a place in Annapolis. It took her ninety minutes from Langley; leaving early didn’t spare her the usual rush-hour traffic, but she didn’t mind the drive. It helped to clear her head, and she wanted to do this far from home, and certainly nowhere near the office. She parked in the public lot tucked behind the town’s main drag, walked two blocks to the waterfront, and turned into a narrow shop with the word MORPHEUS painted on its green awning. It was six-fifteen when she arrived, toting the same bag she’d brought with her to O’Hare on the Rothgeb trip. She took the bag everywhere-used it like a purse, but it was big enough to throw just about anything inside. Today it held her wallet, keys, makeup, and the one-page fax from Eddie Rothgeb.
Morpheus looked like a narrow, single-store version of Starbucks, only lit like a nightclub; its small waitstaff offered coffee, a few pricey pastries, and, on a rental basis, T3 Internet time. Use your own or take a spin on one of the house computers.
Laramie had endured a tedious dinner date about three months ago; they’d eaten around the corner at an Italian place with white tablecloths. The dinner conversation had stunk, but she’d wandered in here to split a slab of cheesecake with the guy afterward. Not her usual menu choice, but Laramie usually ate big if she was having a terrible time with men. If you aren’t interested and the date is already under way, there’s nothing much to do or talk about, and you aren’t worried about how you look anymore, you know you won’t even consider swapping bodily fluids-why not blow out the diet for the day and give yourself something to be annoyed at later? A reason to run a couple extra miles in the morning.
It turned out that her busted-date dessert spot had been a cyber café, and she’d remembered that walking out of the commissary following the sissy-drink session with Rader.
She talked to the coffee jock behind the counter and paid for an hour on one of the computers in cash. She picked out a Mac, clicked onto the Yahoo! portal, and created a new account under a fictitious name. Trying a few clever code names, she discovered all of them to be taken. In the end she settled on EastWest7.
Then she confronted the blank screen.
There was, she supposed, only one question that remained once all the secret-agent, leave-the-office-early-and-drive-to-Annapolis excitement was over, and she was forced to figure out what to say to Senator Alan Kircher: had she really found something that warranted the clandestine whistle-blower routine? Rothgeb and his theories aside, the minute she engaged in a dialogue with somebody outside the Agency on the topic of classified intel, her future with CIA would probably prove instantly and drastically shortened. Somebody, somewhere, would eventually find out what she was up to; they always did. Laramie thinking she could last two weeks or two years, but sooner or later, send this correspondence and she’d be pink-slipped.
She composed a note on the screen before her:
Dear Senator Kircher.
Our friends in the East may not be as friendly as your friends are telling you.
An intelligent source
And there it was. The whistle-blower’s first correspondence-Deep Throat’s opening salvo. Eddie Rothgeb’s screenplay, she thought, proceeding as outlined.
Her right hand depressed the mouse and the cursor sent the e-mail, Laramie thinking her fingers possessed the courage that she did not. No matter.
Whichever part of her had done it, she thought, that was all it took.
18
There came the cold sweat-the sheen that chilled his skin. He burrowed into the sheets, hiding from the wrath of the ceiling fan, its wind biting icily at his sweaty skin. In the fitful, restless circuit that followed, he would fall into the dream, exit it shivering, cover his perspiring skin from the elements with the sheets, and fall again into the dream.
Brief, abrupt segments of the forgotten period of his life would appear in different ways, from different angles, so that even within the cycle of the same three nightmares, he would learn something new about the portions of his life his conscious mind required him to forget. The visions came in blurred, stunted images, each snapshot bringing another, bursting into his mind’s eye then retreating-never clear or complete.