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‘Law school. Legal practice, then assistant District Attorney. All this time arguing that we should pull out of Vietnam, but at the same time fighting for veterans’ rights.’
‘Then?’
‘Two terms in the House of Representatives.’ Which was when Pearson had met him, when Pearson had become his alter ego. ‘Now in his second term in the Senate. Outstanding record since his first day in DC.’ Pearson smiled. ‘Which I’m bound to say, of course. Supports industrial development but not at the expense of the environment. Believes in budget control but not at the expense of things like health care. Sees the need for a strong national economy but not at the expense of the Third World.’
Haslam remembered the photograph on the desk. ‘Family?’
‘Jack met Cath at Harvard. She’s a lawyer, specializes in human rights. They have two girls, both at Sidwell Friends.’
So now you know Jack Donaghue – it was in the way Pearson stopped talking, the way he put the coffee mug on the desk.
‘And from here?’
Pearson laughed and stood up, looked out the window. The door from reception opened and Donaghue came in, followed by an aide. He was taller than Haslam had expected, leaner face and steel-grey hair.
‘Senator, may I introduce Dave Haslam from England. Dave’s a friend of Quince Jordan and Mitch Mitchell.’
‘Good to meet you.’ The handshake was firm. Behind Donaghue the secretary and aide were reminding both him and Pearson that they were due somewhere else ten minutes ago.
Sorry – Donaghue’s shrug said it – have to go. He held out his hand again. ‘As I said, good to meet you.’ The eyes were unwavering. If Donaghue runs for the Democrat nomination he’ll get it, Jordan had said over lunch. And if Donaghue gets the nomination, he’s the next president. Donaghue turned and left the room, the aide trying to keep up.
Pearson held out his hand. ‘Stay in touch.’
By the time Haslam reached the corridor it was already empty. He walked to the ground floor, found a set of pay phones, called the apartment and activated the answer phone. There were three messages on it, two asking him to call about security consultations and the third from Mitchell inviting him to beer and barbecue at the Gangplank.
Donaghue’s last formal meeting on the Hill that evening ended at six. At six-fifteen, and accompanied by an aide, he attended a cocktail party thrown by one of the lobby groups, at seven a second. It was the standard ending to a standard day. At seven-thirty he drove to the University Club on 16th, between L and M. The building was six-storey red brick, with a small drive-in in front. In the daytime the street would have been lined with cars bearing diplomatic plates from the Russian Federation building next door, the parking tickets plastered over their windscreens always ignored. In early evening, however, the only vehicle was a patrol car of the uniformed division of the Secret Service, the White House emblem on the side and the driver slouched in his seat and reading a Tony Hillerman.
Donaghue parked the Lincoln in one of the bays and went inside.
The atmosphere was refined yet relaxed – the University Club had long enjoyed a more liberal reputation than others in town. The main dining-room was on the left, and the library and reading-room on the right, behind the reception desk. On the first floor was another set of rooms, one of which he had hired for his fortieth birthday party, plus a more informal restaurant, and the bedrooms were on the floors above.
He smiled at the receptionist, spent three minutes talking to a group of other members, then went to the fitness rooms in the basement. Even here the upholstery was leather. He collected a towel, stripped, hung his clothes in a locker, took a plunge in the pool, and went into the sauna.
Tom Brettlaw arrived two minutes later.
Brettlaw’s day had begun at seven. At seven-thirty the inconspicuous Chevrolet had collected him from the family home in South Arlington and driven him the fifteen minutes to Langley. The only clue to its passenger was the greenish tinge of the armoured windows and the slight roll of the chassis. The guard on the main gate was expecting him. The driver turned the car past the front of the greyish-white concrete building, down a drive beneath it, and into the inner carpark. Brettlaw collected his briefcase and took the executive lift to his office on the top floor.
The head of the CIA – the Director of Central Intelligence – is a presidential appointment, as is his deputy, normally a serving military officer. Beneath the deputy are five Deputy Directors, all career intelligence officers. Of these the most powerful is the DDO, the Deputy Director of Operations, the man in effective control of all CIA overt and covert operations throughout the world. For the past four years Tom Brettlaw had been DDO.
His office was spacious: two windows, both curtained, a large desk of his own choosing with a row of telephones to his left and a bank of television screens in front. The leather executive chair behind the desk was flanked by the Stars and Stripes and the Agency flag, and the walls were hung with photographs of Brettlaw meeting prominent politicians, most of them heads of state. The mantelpiece of the marble fireplace was filled with the mementos given by the heads of those foreign intelligence services with whom he had liaised over the years, and the floor was covered by a large and expensive Persian rug. To the left of the main room was a private bathroom. In the area of the room to the right of his desk was a conference table, chairs placed neatly round it, and in the bookcase along on the wall to the left of the door was concealed a minibar. During his street days Brettlaw had done his time in the jewel of the CIA crown, the Soviet division, heading it before his promotion to DDO. It was a background he did not allow to pass unnoticed. Even before the collapse of the Soviet empire, those in the division noted with satisfaction, Brettlaw had always made a point of offering visitors a beer, and suggesting they tried a Bud. Not the Budweiser from the US corporation bearing the name, but a Budvar from the Czech Republic. Failing that a Zhiguli from the Ukraine.
The report from Zev Bartolski had come in overnight, for his eyes only and requiring him to decrypt it personally.
Brettlaw and Bartolski had joined the Outfit at more or less the same time, done their field training together at The Farm, their explosives and detonation training together. Worked together in the Soviet division when the going was rough and the shit was hitting the fan. Shared everything, the risks on the way in and the rewards on the way out. Which was why Zev Bartolski was now Chief of Station in Bonn.
By eight Brettlaw had finished the decrypt and locked the report in the security safe; at eight-fifteen he was briefed on global developments in the past twelve hours. At eight-thirty he held his first meeting with his divisional heads, at nine-thirty his regular conference – when both men were available – with the Director of Central Intelligence, the DCI. From ten to eleven-thirty he conducted a further series of meetings with his divisional heads, plus section heads where appropriate, the topics covering the responsibilities entrusted to his stewardship.
Satellite intelligence; liaison with intelligence bodies in the new republics of what had once been the Soviet empire; economic intelligence and industrial counter-espionage. The significance of the Balkan conflict on Islam fundamentalism, and the march of Islam north and west. The surfeit of weapons on the world market, the possibility and cost of buying up part of the former Soviet stockpile, and the latest reports on the availability of weapons-grade plutonium on the black market.
Brettlaw’s personal system of operating reflected the Agency’s: each operation, each transaction, was placed in its separate box. Within each box were further boxes, boxes within them. Finance separated from analysis and analysis separated from operations, covert separated from overt. Of course there were overlaps and of course there were areas of shared knowledge, but only where appropriate and only where it would not endanger security. Only the Director of Central Intelligence fully cognisant of all that was happening. And below the DCI only one man knowing and planning where everything came together, where the jigsaw of pieces became one game. The Deputy Director of Operations, the DDO.
The discussions continued: a possible coup in a Central African state, the implications of the success or failure of such a coup and the loyalties of the current head of state and the colonel allegedly seeking to replace him. Developments in Central America, always a delicate issue, and conflict between the former Soviet republics.
All the topics and operations discussed that morning would be reported not only to the White House, but to the politicians on Capitol Hill. Not to all the politicians, of course, but to the select committees on intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the members of each appointed because of their maturity and sense of responsibility, and their deliberations closed. So that, constitutionally at least, everything the Agency did was accountable.
Except …
That sometimes the politicians who held the Agency’s purse strings would not understand. That sometimes even experienced men and women like those who sat on the select committees might not like what you were required to do. Because in his world you dealt not just with the present but with the future, therefore some of the sides you were required to support and some of the plans you were required to lay might not necessarily be those which the present politicians would like to be identified with. Because the politicians could never see further ahead than the vote that afternoon and how it would affect their chance of re-election.
It was for this reason that Brettlaw had instigated the black projects, for this reason he had constructed the system of switches and cut-outs by which he could conceal from his political masters those projects of which they would not approve, whose funding was hidden in the labyrinth which constituted the modern banking world.
Of course others had done before what he was doing now, and of course he himself did not always like what he was required to do or the people he was required to do it with. Of course he loathed the right-wing fanatics as much as the left-wing lunatics. Understand such movements, however, get the right people in the right places within them, get his people in the key positions, and in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time the US of A would still be safe.
For people like Brettlaw it was not just a dream, not even just a goal. It was the raison d’être, the reason for being, the source and the justification and the whole goddamn rationale for everything. That as the world crept sometimes too boldly into the next millennium, the children of his children – the children of everybody’s children – would be safe. Even though they did not know of him or the role he played in securing that right for them. Even though it was probably best that they did not know.
Of course some would find it strange: the funds to key figures on all sides of the Balkans conflict, be they Serb or Croat, Christian or Muslim; the politicians, military and intelligence people who would decide the future of the Middle East. The same with the black funds being channelled to those who would be the key people in those countries so recently released from Soviet domination and now facing internal and external crisis, even Moscow itself. Plus the plans for the Pacific Basin, the so-called democracies or the self-confessed dictatorships upon which the economic future of the nation depended.
Even things like economic intelligence.
Industrial counter-espionage, that was the buzz word on the Hill nowadays. Stop the opposition spying on America’s industrial secrets. And within the term opposition he included military and political allies. But if even your friends were doing it to you, then what the hell was he doing if he didn’t do it back? Industrial counterespionage was in, however, and industrial espionage was out, so he had to do it through the back door and forget to tell the people on the Hill.
It was eleven-thirty. The man who now sat opposite him, Costaine, was his Deputy Director for Policy, one of the operational people. One of the Inner Circle, therefore part of the black projects. Not the Inner Circle of the Inner Circle, not one of the Wise Men like Zev Bartolski, but there were few men like Zev Bartolski at any time and in any place. Which was why Zev was more than just CoS, Chief of Station in Bonn, why Zev was a cornerstone of Brettlaw’s plans for the future. Why his brief lay far wider than the standard operating orders. Why, in the best tradition of the best in the business, Bonn Chief of Station was little more than a cover.
‘Everything in order?’
‘Yes.’
Costaine was tall, mid-forties, with a crewcut which gave him a fit appearance.
They went into detail. Boxes in boxes, though; Costaine knowing only what he was allowed to know – not even Zev Bartolski was allowed to know everything. And Costaine knowing nothing of the financial arrangements which supported his operational activities.
It was eleven-fifty.
Myerscough was in his early forties and slightly overweight, with light wire-framed spectacles. Myerscough was good, one of the best. It had been Myerscough who had set up the financial network for the black projects, who had chosen the bank through which they would run the funds, then made the contact with the fixer in the bank and got him on side. Established with him the lacework of nominee companies through which the black funds were laundered. But not even Myerscough, especially not Myerscough, knew anything about how the funds were used.
Myerscough was also careful, even had his own little intelligence set-up, people in places like the Federal Bank and Congress who reported on any interest shown in any of his accounts. Not that they realized who they were working for, of course; and not that they looked for specific accounts. More like the old Soviet and East German systems: report on everything. Then Myerscough and his people would pull those in which they were interested. Brettlaw didn’t necessarily like it: Myerscough never had been a field man and never would be, therefore didn’t have the instinct, didn’t know when to shut up shop and get the hell out. But if Myerscough was happy playing in DC then he wasn’t looking elsewhere.
‘Any problems?’ Brettlaw asked.
‘Couple of minor things,’ Myerscough told him. ‘Sorted out within hours.’
‘What about Nebulus?’
One of the switch accounts in London.
‘Nebulus is fine.’
‘Anything else?’
Myerscough shook his head.
Brettlaw concluded the briefing, took his sixth coffee of the morning, lit another Gauloise, and began to prepare for his appearance before die House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that afternoon. Two, sometimes three days of every month were taken up with such appointments. For the DCI it was one day a week. When Brettlaw was a politics major at Harvard he would have called it democracy.
It was twelve-thirty; he took a light lunch in the executive dining-room and was driven to the Hill. The committee began at two, jugs of iced water on the tables and die members in a semicircle facing him.
‘The payment of $50,000 to a Bolivian government minister was in line with Congressional Order 1765 …’
‘At present the Agency is running two operations in Angola …’
Even though the session was closed there were always too many members wanting to score political points, too many wanting to make names for themselves.
‘With respect, Congressman, I have already explained that to the Senate sub-committee on terrorism …’
You ever been a bag man in Moscow, he had wanted to ask one of them once. Your balls frozen and the KGB hoods sitting on you. Yet still you had to make the contact, still you had to bring it home.
The hearing closed at four-thirty; he made a point of shaking hands with each of its members and was driven back to Langley. At six-thirty he held his penultimate meeting of the day, an hour later he arrived at his last.
The Lincoln town car was parked opposite the University Club and the Secret Service car was half a block down, though he assumed there was another in the alleyway behind. It had been more fun in the old days, before the end of the Cold War, when the building next door had been the Soviet embassy. Now it housed merely the Russian Federation, so that even though the game was still running and the place was still staked out, the edge of driving up 16th had gone for ever.
He walked through the reception area, went to the fitness area in the basement, collected a towel, locked his clothes in a locker, took an ice-cold ten seconds in the plunge bath, and went into the sauna. The wall of heat almost stopped him. He took the towel from his waist, laid it on the wood seat, and sat down.
‘How’s Mary and the family?’ Donaghue asked.
‘Fine. Cath and the girls?’
‘Doing well.’
It was twenty-five years since they had been room mates together at Harvard, since they had studied together and worked their butts off to make the football squad together. A quarter of a century, give or take, since the long grim afternoon, still remembered, at the Yale Bowl. The annual game between the universities of Harvard and Yale, the Crimsons and the Elis. The last play of the last quarter. Yale leading, Brettlaw quarterback and Donaghue wide receiver, the ball in the air and the world holding its breath.
A little over twenty years since their numbers had come up and they had gone to Vietnam, Brettlaw into Intelligence and Donaghue into the Navy. Fourteen months less than that since Brettlaw had heard about Donaghue and kicked ass – filing clerk up to four-star general – to get him out and on the first flight home, to get him the best doctor in the best hospital in town.
A little less than twenty years since they had been best man at each other’s weddings, and, a couple of years after that, godfather to one another’s firstborn.
‘We ought to get together sometime. Have a barbecue.’
‘Let’s do it.’
The sweat was forming in beads on their foreheads.
‘Good session with the committee this afternoon?’
‘No problems.’
‘But?’
‘The enemy’s still there, Jack. Others might forget it but we mustn’t.’
The sweat was pouring in tiny rivulets down their bodies.
‘Hope you’re keeping your nose clean, Tom.’
Because if I run for the nomination I’ll need all the help I can get. And if I make the White House and if there’s nothing you’re trying to hide from me, then you’re head of it all, you’re Top Gun, you’re my Director of Central Intelligence.
‘You know me, Jack.’
The Potomac was silver in the evening sun. The six of them sat on the upper deck of the houseboat, sipping Rolling Rock and munching through the steaks, plus the crabs and lobsters Mitchell had bought from the fish market at the top end of the marina.
None of the others present that evening were connected with the security industry: two were actors, one was a lawyer and one a landscape architect, though all lived on the boats. Each of them knew of Mitchell’s Marine background, of course, each had laughed at the upturned helmet now used as a flower pot and the Marine Corps badge next to the family photographs, but few had noticed the scuba mask and parachute wings above the main emblem, and none had asked. Haslam had, of course, but Haslam knew anyway, because after Vietnam some of the boys from Force Recon had served with the Rhodesian SAS and Haslam had met a couple when, years later, they’d passed through London.
The evening was quiet and relaxing, the others at the front end of the sun deck and Haslam and Mitchell by the barbecue at the rear.
‘Make the Hill this afternoon?’ Mitchell checked a steak.
‘Yeah.’ Haslam was tired but relaxed.
‘Meet Donaghue?’
‘Briefly.’
‘What you think of him?’
‘Impressive, though all he had time for was a handshake. Quince was suggesting he might run for president.’
‘So I hear.’
Mitchell flipped the steak on to a plate and called for someone to collect it.
‘How’d you know Donaghue?’ Haslam poured them each another beer.
‘How do I know Jack Donaghue?’ Mitchell threw two more steaks on the grill. ‘Long story, Dave, long time ago.’ He hesitated, then continued. ‘You know what Force Recon was about, behind the lines most of the time, never off the edge. I was lucky, came back in one piece. Thought I’d come home the hero.’ He laughed. ‘Like the old newsreels of the guys coming back from World War Two, girls and cheer leaders and ticker-tape welcomes. Instead they treated us like shit.’
Criticize the war, Haslam remembered Mitchell had once said, but don’t criticize the kids who left home to fight in it.
‘No job, no past that anybody wanted to know, so no future.’ Mitchell was no longer tending the barbecue, instead he was staring across the river, eyes and face fixed. ‘Ended up doing the wilderness thing in upper New York state, a lotta guys up there, then joined the Forestry Service.’ He laughed again. ‘Finally I ended up on the coast, Martha’s Vineyard, picking up any jobs I could. One day I bumped into Jack Donaghue.’ When Donaghue and Cath and their first daughter – there was only the one then – were on holiday and he himself was serving take-outs at Pete’s Pizzas in Oak Bluffs. ‘Jack told me about GI loans.’ The following morning, drinking beer in the rocking chairs on the veranda of the wood shingle house on Narangassett Avenue which the Donaghues had rented, the smell of summer round them and the ease of the Vineyard relaxing them. ‘He and Cath talked me into taking one, hassled me in to going to law school.’ He laughed a third time, but a different, more relaxed laugh this time. ‘Didn’t even ask for my vote.’
When Haslam left it was gone eleven. He was asleep by twelve. The telephone rang at four.
Could be West Coast, he thought; three hours’ time difference so it was only just gone midnight in LA. Unlikely though. Or Far East, where it would be mid-afternoon, though he had few contacts there. Most probably Europe. Nine in the morning in London, ten in the rest of the Continent.
‘Yes.’
‘Dave. This is Mike.’
London, he confirmed. You know the time? he began to ask.
‘The two o’clock flight out of Dulles this afternoon. You’re on it. A job in Italy.’
3 (#)
