“Yes.” He shook her gently and she opened her eyes.
“Tell you, I’ll go down a little south of downtown, try to find a quiet place.”
“Someplace where I can get a car,” Devereaux said.
“Legally?”
“Any way I can,” he said.
Rita stretched, rubbed at her hair, shivered in the cold cabin. She looked at Devereaux.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“Get to the airport,” he said.
“What if it’s being watched?”
“It’s a big airport.”
“They’ll be watching the Washington flights.”
“We’ll go to St. Louis first,” he said. “Then change for a Washington flight.”
The ship chugged toward the shoreline. The lake was empty in every direction. The sun was blood red above the horizon.
“You were there,” she said quietly. “In Asia. Was it as Tunney described?
“Yes,” he said.
She reached for the book and picked it up and started to drop it into her bag. And then she looked at him and handed it to him.
He didn’t take it. “Hold on to it,” he said. “We still have a long way to go.”
36
The President did not speak during the entire presentation. The late hour was not agreeing with him; it seemed to age him. His eyelids were puffy and his cheeks were drawn and pale; but the matter at hand was too urgent to wait for morning. And the President was too angry to sleep.
Once, when the National Security Adviser sought to make an objection to the recitation, the President turned on him a withering look that expressed both anger and disgust.
Hanley handled most of the recitation; Galloway provided an introduction and a short wrap-up. In deference to the President, who did not smoke, Galloway’s omnipresent pipe was not lit. Galloway fidgeted with it as he spoke; he was still nervous because he realized how close it had been.
They all realized it.
The problem was what to do now.
They were in the Oval Office of the White House and it was nearly midnight on Wednesday, thirty-four days since Leo Tunney had walked out of the jungles of Cambodia along the Thai border to the United States Embassy in Bangkok.
Most presidents used the Oval Office for small chats or infrequent television appearances or ceremonial occasions. The room was actually too small for the number of people summoned to it tonight. But the President preferred it. He sat behind the big desk near the flag stand and listened to the summing up by the director of R Section.
The President’s counsel, who sat next to the Chief Executive, leaned over and whispered something to him. The President cupped his ear in a characteristic gesture and then looked at the Adviser.
The Adviser felt compelled to speak. “Sir. TransAsia had the blessing of this Administration. It was not only a patriotic effort but part of our new aggressive thrust around the world and it deserved our full cooperation and support. I did no more than support it.”
“The hell you didn’t.” It was the harsh voice of the Secretary of State, who had been the Adviser’s mortal enemy from the earliest days of the Administration. “You tampered with national security in the name of national security. You let a private company set foreign policy for this Administration. And you let them betray our new friend in Asia and endangered the entire Chinese connection. What the hell do you think the Thais are going to say about this at this hour?”
The Secretary of Defense, a man of infinite discretion, was no less blunt. “You used the CIA. Used it again just when we were at the point of rehabilitating it, getting this new interagency intelligence bill through Congress. You played right into the hands of the liberals in Congress.”
“All right,” the President said. “Three hours ago, the Chinese were informed. At this moment, six Chinese divisions are on the Cambodian border and they are going across. I have talked to the Soviet Union on the hotline and I’ve warned them to stay out of this matter. We’ve put our SAC on alert and we’ve stationed six missile cruisers off Cuba. It’s going to be tit for tat, we told the Soviets, and we mean it. If those missile sites had been functioning now, there wouldn’t have been a damn thing we could do to avoid war. Do you realize that? The Chinese would never have permitted those missiles to stay aimed at them. They would have either capitulated to the reality of the Soviet presence in Asia or gone to war. It would have been their war and our war, gentlemen. The world’s war.”
“Will the Soviets permit the Chinese to destroy the missile sites?” It was the President’s counsel.
Galloway said, “We received a report at eleven P.M. from the Board of National Estimates. They think the chances of a Soviet backdown are sixty to forty for.”
“The odds,” the President said. “The odds are in our favor.” The words were heavy with irony.
The National Security Adviser was pale; his hands trembled in his lap.
“We were used,” said the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, speaking for the first time. “First the Adviser used us, then InterComBank through the Adviser. I think we’re blameless in this matter.”
“Do you?” asked the President.
“Leo Tunney had been our agent. We have a charter to gather intelligence abroad. And to analyze it. We felt it was well within our charter to investigate Tunney.”
“But when the Adviser told you to turn over certain documents to a private concern? And when you actively aided a private security army to threaten the civil liberties of this… this newspaper reporter—” The President seemed unable to continue.
“Sir.”
It was Hanley; everyone seemed surprised.
“Sir, I think the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is correct.”
Even Galloway gasped.
“They had a legitimate concern. But they were misused. An agent follows orders, even an Assistant Director. I think, if I may say this, that the larger matter illustrated here is that expressed by President Kennedy when he helped to charter the Section.”
The President stared at him.
“He summed it up this way: ‘Who will watch the watchers? Who will spy upon the spies?’ If it hadn’t been for our own involvement, this matter would not have come to light. If I may say so, sir.”
Galloway was stunned to silence. The statement was so obviously self-serving for the Section — so obviously a plea to keep the Section from being disbanded — that they were all shaken by the boldness of a man they privately considered a little clerk.
“That can be discussed later,” the Secretary of State said.
“No,” said the President. “Perhaps Kennedy understood something better than I did.” The President, though a member of the other party, was an admirer of Kennedy. “Perhaps the Section is a useful double check against this kind of abuse ever happening again.”
The Adviser then said he would resign for the good of the Administration and to save the President any embarrassment.
“No,” said the President. “You were fired three hours ago. The press corps is assembled and I intend to talk to them when this is all over. We are not going to have a Watergate again. This stinks of Watergate. Intelligence agencies used for private vendettas, spying on innocent people—”
They all knew “innocent people” meant reporters. There was a long story now in the early edition of the Washington Post, which they had all read. The story told the truth but not all of it; the main element missing was Devereaux. That was intended; it was a part of his bargain with Rita.
Shortly after two in the morning, Galloway offered to drive Hanley home.
“I’m sorry,” Hanley said. “I have to go back to the office—”