“TransAsia is, at the bottom line, a good investment not because it will help a backward country come of age or spread the firm grip of peace in a region of the world that has only known war and starvation; it is a good investment because it will make money,” Fraser had said a year ago, and it was going to come true. In five years, Americans would be buying television sets assembled by workers in Hanoi and Hue and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). In eight years, production of a cooperative world-class car involving a complex of companies and nations would begin in Cambodia, which was still under Vietnamese dominance. And as Vietnam gained in industrial strength, Fraser had said, investment returns would enable U.S. industries to reform traditional areas of production that had become unprofitable — principally metal manufacturing and automaking.
The National Security Adviser had told the President that only a man like Henry Fraser could have conceived such a scheme and brought in enough people to make it work.
The President had agreed.
This Sunday, the head of InterComBank and the Adviser had spent the early afternoon at a private brunch and then returned to Fraser’s suite to discuss further details of the TransAsia scheme. Both men knew there were elements in the complex fabric of American politics that might have opposed TransAsia if they had been more aware of it. But TransAsia was one of those fringe matters in the consciousness of the nation that did not seem to deserve full attention. Which suited both men very nicely.
The Adviser was one of the men closest to the President. He had been with the “old man” from the first days, years before his first primary. He was part of the cabinet within the Cabinet that had easy and regular access to the private President. He had helped to convince the President on the worth of Henry Fraser’s economic plan; he had personally vouched for Fraser’s politics and political acumen. He had carried the ball for Fraser, as he repeatedly told his wife, and now he was carrying the ball for both the Administration and the TransAsia plan. The Adviser’s wife half-listened to his self-congratulations without comment.
Though the general public knew about TransAsia — a story would crop up every now and then in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times—the scheme was a matter of esoteric economics and therefore deemed deadly dull. The public was more concerned with the cost of bacon at the moment.
“Mr. Fraser.” The private secretary at the door inclined his head in a gesture obviously drawn from Fraser himself.
“Excuse me a moment,” Fraser said. He rose and followed the secretary through a connecting door into a small office which was bare of adornment. This room was not designed to impress visitors; it was a place to work. The curtains were drawn across the single window and the ceilings and walls were soundproofed.
“Mr. Vanderglass,” the secretary said.
“I’ll take it alone on the green line,” Henry Fraser said. The green line was the safe line, considered untappable. And Vanderglass was chief of (special) security operations for InterComBank.
The secretary withdrew and pulled the door shut behind him.
Fraser picked up the receiver. “Yes.”
“Completed. At ten-thirty hours this morning. I made the usual double check and fully confirmed.”
Fraser permitted himself the luxury of a moment of silence as he contemplated the information. He drew heavily on the sweet, musky taste of the cigar and allowed the smoke to escape slowly through his nostrils.
“Good work. Were there any complications?”
“No, none at all. Not in the operation itself. The only problem as I see it is Petersen. He’s disappeared since last night when one of our men was hassled by the police. They were—”
“Is this merely an annoyance or is it more serious?”
“It must be something.” Vanderglass’s voice sounded puzzled. “Petersen is a professional, one of our best men, we got him out of the Agency in 1977 when Turner threw the place up for grabs.… Yet the agencies were supposed to withdraw their men and.…”
It was not usual for Vanderglass to speak in fragments. Fraser cleared his throat and spoke harshly. “Are you on top of this situation or not?”
“There are some complications.”
“You said there weren’t.”
“Not with the prime operation. None at all. It went off on schedule this morning at ten-thirty. But there have been peripheral matters. This woman, the reporter, we haven’t been able to find her.”
“Who?”
“A detail. I don’t think it matters one way or another, now that the central problem has been taken care of.”
“I don’t want details left unresolved,” Fraser said. “Can you handle this or not?”
“Sure.” Vanderglass’s voice returned to its usual confident tone. The confidence infected Fraser; Vanderglass, after all, was an excellent man.
“All right. I have a dinner in Boston tonight and I’ll be back at the estate by midnight. You can reach me there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No details, Vanderglass.”
“I understand, sir.”
As he returned to the library, Fraser felt a stain of worry spreading across his feeling of confidence.
“Everything all right?” the Adviser asked. He was standing at the window, looking down on the island city.
“Yes. Everything.” Fraser looked at the Adviser’s back. “Tell me. Did you manage to take care… of that matter? The one I discussed with you earlier in the week?”
“What? Oh. You mean the agencies? I passed along the word to CIA.”
“Not through channels, I hope.”
The Adviser turned. “No. Not at all. Just perfectly low-key. I had a little chat with the Assistant Director, he was in charge of the project in the first place. He was the one who was so keen on it. The Director wasn’t really up on it, not until that… unfortunate matter at the Watergate Hotel. Damned reporters.”
“You’re certain? I mean, that the Agency pulled back its men?”
“Yes. Got a full report. I do my homework, I can tell you, Henry. I was telling Evelyn the other day, the difference between men who succeed and the men who merely fail spectacularly is all in the homework, attending to the details.”
Henry Fraser stared at the Adviser without speaking. “And the Agency pulled back?”
“Yes. Well, actually, there was a man from one of the smaller intelligence agencies, down there merely meddling, I wasn’t even aware of it until the A.D. informed me.”
“What?”
“Well, something to do with interagency rivalries or some such.” The Adviser smiled but he was now uncomfortable. Henry Fraser’s tone had changed perceptibly in the last moment. “Another agency,” the Adviser repeated, his voice rising on a note of good cheer. “It didn’t mean anything.”
“Did they withdraw?”
“Well, there was a problem. Said they couldn’t locate their man at the moment.”
“They what?”
“This was yesterday, I haven’t heard back—”
“There was another agent down there? For another intelligence agency?”
“R Section. You see, Henry, the intelligence apparatus is not quite as centralized as we would like it; as we’re going to make it by the next budget, I can tell you. Too much waste.”
“We’re not talking about politics at the moment.”
“That’s precisely the point, Henry.” Yes, the Adviser thought, Henry Fraser’s attitude had become distinctly unfriendly in the last minute. “Most people think the CIA is the whole ball of wax. I was telling Evelyn, if she only understood how complicated it all was. There’s R Section, and the National Security Agency which is a distinct entity, not to mention the Cointel arm of the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency. And the Mole Group. But I’m not supposed to mention them at all.”