Her head snapped up as Isaacs’ voice came over the intercom.
“Yes, sir,” replied Kathleen, glancing at Danielson. “Do you have time to see Dr. Danielson? She’s waiting here.”
Isaacs appeared quickly in the doorway.
“Pat, please come in.” He held the door for her and gestured her to a chair. “I’m sorry that was so impersonal,” he pointed his chin at the note still wadded in her hand. “I was too busy to get around, and it did have to be in writing anyway.”
“I didn’t mind that,” she lied a little, “but I was shocked.”
“It was sudden, a decision from upstairs.” Isaacs looked at the young woman, wondering how much of the real problem he should reveal to her.
Danielson searched for words that would not seem too bald an appeal for approval.
“I couldn’t help wondering, if I had made more progress, if I had isolated the source of the signal, would that have kept the project alive?”
Isaacs spoke thoughtfully.
“Perhaps. Unfortunately, we can’t answer that, since we didn’t find the source.” He noted the look of discomfort that passed over her face and hastened to add reassurance. “Please don’t feel responsible for this. You did some very good work to get as far as you did. You can’t blame yourself for getting bogged down. It turned out to be a problem with no simple resolution, and you had lots of other things to do the last two or three weeks.”
He disliked the tone of those words. By weaseling around the real issue, he made it sound as if she might shoulder some blame for not working quite hard enough or being quite bright enough. He sighed mentally. If this young woman had a future in the Agency, she might as well learn the ropes.
“Pat, let me level with you. Unless you had showed that this was a new Russian weapon aimed at the Oval Office, the project would have been killed. The decision really had nothing to do with the project itself. It was strictly politics.”
Danielson was relieved to hear these words from Isaacs, but as her potential guilt feelings receded further she found anger in their place.
“But that’s so unfair! I worked hard on that project. Why should it be canceled?”
“Maybe not fair, but logical in the scheme of how things really work around here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you want to get things done, you have to fight for what you think is right.” He pointed a finger at her. “Just as you’re doing right now.”
She met his gaze straight on. He continued.
“The fact that I use the word fight means that somebody holds opposite views, and they’re going to be fighting back. I push for what I think is right and get pushed back. You lose some skirmishes to win the battles. I’m sorry that this skirmish was particularly important to you personally.”
Danielson glanced at the closed door to Kathleen’s office.
“I guess I see.”
Isaacs was quick on the uptake.
“Kathleen told you about me and McMasters,” he stated flatly, then laughed gently as Danielson looked surprised. “Kathleen knows everything that goes on around here. I would have been disappointed if she hadn’t bent your ear a little out there.
“McMasters is old school, losing his touch and very defensive about it. I’ve had to challenge him on occasion and he doesn’t like that. Frankly, I don’t think he likes me. He may resent the fact that my grandfather wore a yarmulke. Who knows? The feeling is fairly mutual. In any case, let me give it to you straight out. He killed Project QUAKER out of spite because I killed some of his projects. Simple as that.”
The fire was in her eyes again.
“I don’t think that’s so simple. I think it’s wrong.”
“Wrong. Yes, I think it was wrong, too, but you’re not looking at the bigger picture. If I let McMasters get his way here, I can get other more important things done more efficiently.”
“But I don’t see how he can get away with this—this obstructionism.”
“For one thing he’s not a total loss. He’s effective at keeping up the day to day affairs of the Agency, as long as tricky strategic questions aren’t involved. If nothing else, he keeps the Director from meddling in the details so we can get our job done. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.”
“But how can you write QUAKER off as unimportant. Doesn’t it worry you that we don’t know what that signal is?”
“You misunderstand me. I am worried about that signal. I’m sorry as hell McMasters canceled it. But we don’t really have any proof that it’s important. That’s why he picked it. And there are other projects of proven merit that can proceed without his interference.”
Danielson sat, looking angry and unconvinced.
Isaacs wondered how much of her reaction was righteous indignation and how much resentment at not being allowed her own way on the project. Did she betray some inflexibility in the face of interference? She would have to learn to get along if she wanted to move up.
“How did you come to work for the Agency?” he asked.
The change in topic and tone caught her off guard.
“I beg your pardon?”
Isaacs folded his hands and leaned on his forearms. “I was thinking about your future in the Agency. That got me to wondering what brought you this way in the first place.”
Danielson gave him a long look, wondering what was on his mind. She did not reveal her inner thoughts often, but as her boss, maybe Isaacs had a right to be curious about her underlying motivation. He did seem sympathetic. She was in a mood to talk and succumbed to that.
“It’s funny you should ask.” She relaxed back in her chair and looked at her hands then up at Isaacs. “I was thinking about that while I was waiting.
“Like anyone, I suppose I had a mixture of emotional and logical reasons. I had a desire to serve my country. My senior year I interviewed a bunch of Orange County firms, and the Agency, mostly out of curiosity. They ended up offering me a stipend to go to graduate school and a job when I got my degree. That appealed to me.” She laughed briefly. “If some of my fellow graduate students at Stanford had known I was funded by the Agency, they would have gone wild.”
“Hot bed of radicals, eh?”
“Well, you know, that’s the time of life for feeling that way. I guess I was raised differently.”
Isaacs leaned back in his chair. “It’s been a long time since I looked at your file. You were raised by your father, if I remember correctly.”
“Since I was five. My father has been a big influence on me, for better or worse. He was Navy. I suppose the Agency is my way of carrying the flag.”
“Nothing wrong with that. We’re all here for that reason in one form or another.” He regarded Danielson for a long moment.
“Do you plan to make a career in the Agency?”
“I haven’t any thought of quitting.”
“Not the same thing. Right now you’re down in the trenches, working hard, trying to please everyone.”
Danielson wondered if he had been reading her mind as she had daydreamed in the outer office.
“You have three choices,” Isaacs continued. “You can continue doing what you are doing. You can move up. Or you can do something else. You ought to think about it. The Agency would love to have you right where you are, hard working, productive, underpaid, forever. If you want to get out of that slot you need to set your sights.
“I’ve been watching you. Your work on Tyuratam has been first rate. You didn’t crack QUAKER, but your insight about the trajectory would have escaped a lot of people. That showed a rare gift for breaking out of established channels of thought. You have the talents necessary to get ahead. I’d like to see you do it. But it’s a big challenge.”