Mission Compromised (33 page)

North smiled again at the younger man. “So what brings a knight out on a dog like this?”

The two men were now standing next to each other at the edge of the pine trees on the west side of the memorial. To the east, beyond the six men and their flag, the two living men could see Lincoln's rectangular memorial, Washington's tall pillar, with the White House just beyond—and to their right, the dome of the Capitol, all glowing white in the misting rain.

Newman didn't answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the passport he'd removed from the fireplace safe. He handed it to the older man.

Now it was North's turn to be surprised.

“Where'd you get this?” North said after looking at the passport with the name “William P. Goode” typed in beside the picture of a younger, thinner North.

“It was in a safe in my office, along with some files.”

For a moment North said nothing. “You're in my old third-floor office?” he asked finally.

“Yes. I'm now the director of the Special Projects Office at the NSC. I report directly to the National Security Advisor.”

North looked up from the passport. “Does he know—?” he started to say.

“No one knows, so far. At least I don't think anyone knows,” replied Newman.

North's expression showed that he was trying to recall something from a long time ago. “This was in a safe built into a secret compartment
in the back wall of the fireplace in my office. How did you know how to open the fireplace?” asked North, still holding the passport.

“Quite by accident … not long before I sent you that postcard to set up this meeting. I'd been stretching my back and had grabbed the mantel when it shifted and opened the concealed compartment. The safe inside was unlocked, and the passport was in the drawer.”

“Was there anything else in the safe?”

“Yes, a file pouch full of documents. Over a hundred pages, I would guess. I skimmed through them. I couldn't help but notice that a good number of the pages had either been signed or initialed by the President,” the younger officer said, his hands now thrust deeply in his pockets to ward off the cold.

“Hmm, that sounds about right. Man … after all these years—” North began.

Newman interrupted. “But that's not the main reason I asked you to meet me here tonight. I'm the one with a problem, and I need your advice.”

“What's that?” said North.

Newman took a big breath. There was no going back now. But he could trust this man, and he knew it. “The National Security Advisor has directed me to set up a joint U.S.—UK covert unit to go after terrorists and what they call ‘international lawbreakers' for the United Nations. The unit is supposed to hunt down individuals selected by the UN, and all of this theoretically has the backing of the President and the Prime Minister of the UK,” Newman explained.

“And … ?” asked North.

“And I don't know how legal any of this is, but I've been sworn to total secrecy. I can't even talk about it with the commandant, General Grisham, my wife—anybody.”

“And you thought that you could talk about it with me because you've come upon some of my old secrets in a hidden safe in my old office?” North put it as a question, but it could have been an accusation.

“No. It's not that at all. I'm looking for some guidance. Colonel, we've served together. I respected you then, and I do now. I'm in over my head in this, and I know it. But I'm thinking that this unit could be the means by which those who killed my brother in Mogadishu are brought to justice. Still, I don't want to get burned like you did. I need some advice.”

North paused for a moment before responding. “Let's take these things in order. First, launching a personal crusade from the NSC isn't a very good idea. I got involved in trying to save Americans—some of whom I knew personally—from their being tortured to death in Beirut. Then I got personally involved in trying to help the Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters. I'd come to know and admire them in their fight against a communist regime, and I wanted to help. As a result, my wife and children were targeted by terrorists, and my career was finished. I guess that's the result of getting
personally
involved.”

“Would you have done anything any differently had you known the outcome?” interrupted Newman.

North hesitated before answering. “I should have tried harder to get out of the NSC and back to the Marines in '83. But I fell for the line that I was ‘invaluable.' Hubris—the great sin. Other than that, would I have done things differently?” He paused again, looking thoughtfully at the monument. “On the whole … no.”

“Well then—” Newman started to speak.

But North continued. “Second, I think you're smart to have some real questions about this administration expecting U.S. military personnel
to serve in some kind of United Nations covert action program. As I recall, the oath we take is ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' There's nothing in it about the UN Charter.”

“But they keep telling me that everything we're being prepared to do is legal and that it's all covered by treaties and international law,” said Newman, his breath shining in the light reflected from the six bronze figures.

“Who are ‘they'?” asked North.

“The National Security Advisor to the President, Simon Harrod, and a deputy secretary general of the UN, who's also in charge of all the UN's military and peacekeeping operations. He identifies himself as a Russian general, by the way. From the way he talks, he's former KGB or GRU, I would guess. Neither the CIA nor FBI have much on him. He's apparently spent most of his career here in the States. Talks like he was raised on Long Island.”

“How was it pitched to you?” North asked.

“Straightforward. They tell me that what I'll be doing is sanctioned by Article 7 of the UN Charter. I've seen the UN Resolution, the joint U.S.—UK agreement, and the National Security Directive signed by the President. All of them are classified ‘top secret'—all with restricted distribution.”

“Do you have copies of any of these documents?” asked North.

“No.”

North sighed deeply and said nothing for at least fifteen seconds. “How about U.S. law? Have any of the oversight committees given their blessing?”

“I don't know. Dr. Harrod wants me to go up and talk to Senator Waggoner on the Armed Forces Committee.”

North snorted. “Senator James Waggoner? I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw his wizened old body. But then again, I'm probably not the unbiased observer that you need for advice on Congress. I've got too much baggage up on the Hill to be of much help to you there. How about at Headquarters?” North gestured to their right. HQMC was a mile to the south, at the opposite end of Arlington Cemetery.

“As I said, I was told specifically
not
to talk to anyone about this. But I knew I could trust you.”

“Well,” said North after thinking a moment, “you can trust General Grisham. If I have my facts straight, you were working for him at HQMC when you got orders to go to the White House. He was C. O. of BLT Three/Eight before you joined the battalion. I know him well. He could probably give you some good advice on this.”

North stopped talking and looked at Newman. The younger officer was deep in thought for a few moments, and then he said, “I'll think about that. But for now, I'm going forward, since I haven't encountered anything that would tell me I'm not carrying out a lawful order. Besides, it's not just a matter of picking up the phone and making an appointment to see General Grisham.”

“Why is that?” asked North.

“I'm under surveillance. There are two video cameras in my office, and I have lots of ‘escorts' wherever I go that are trying to keep from being noticed. I think that Dr. Harrod is building a file that will protect him if the mission goes south. I haven't done anything unethical or illegal, but he can make tapes ‘document' whatever he wants them to.”

“Well, what about the files you found in the safe? Come to think about it, the guy who designed and built that office back in the Reagan administration, a Dr. Richard Bale, is now deceased. I doubt that any
of the White House carpenters who actually did the construction are still around either. How did you get the combination? I left no record of it, and the guys in GSA probably have no recollection that the safe was even installed there, let alone what the combination was.”

“As I said, the safe was unlocked,” Newman replied. “I want to lock that stuff back in the safe until I can get to it later, after my mission. Do you still remember the combination?”

“After so many years? I'm good but not
that
good.”

“Really? You're a Marine, remember? Think of all the things you've committed to memory … your serial number, MOS number, weapon's serial numbers. Surely that combination's in that brain, somewhere …”

North thought for a moment. Then he took out a pen and wrote on the palm of his hand. He muttered to himself, eyes closed, visualizing the dial on the safe. He did it in his mind three times and confirmed the numbers. “You're right, Pete,” he said grinning. “I guess a Marine is like an elephant—he never forgets.” Then he showed his hand to Newman, who committed the numbers to his memory.

“What are you going to do with the files and passport?” North asked him.

“Do you want them?”

“No. Why don't you put the files back in the safe and lock it? They really aren't mine. They are the property of the U.S. government. Someday they probably ought to be declassified and shipped to the Reagan Library. But they don't belong to me.”

“But,” Newman interjected, “they prove that you were authorized to do all that you did when you ran the Special Projects Office.”

“So? That's all ancient history. Put the files back in the safe, close the drawer, spin the combination, and forget about it until we can
think about how those files ought to be handled. But this passport …” North fingered the blue folder with some affection. “This holds a lot of memories for me, and the State Department has canceled it, so it's of no use to anyone. Since it isn't really part of the files, I think I'd like to keep it.”

“It's yours, after all,” Newman said. “But there is something else about those files I'd like to know about before I lock them away.”

“What's that?”

“A lot of the documentation deals with the activities of this guy, William P. Goode—the name on the passport. But the last memo in the stack, dated 22 November 1986, the day before you were fired, was a memo you wrote to William Casey—the director of the CIA at the time—warning him to get ‘the real William P. Goode out of harm's way' At least that's how I think you put it. So, there's another William Goode out there somewhere, isn't there?”

“Yes …” North said slowly, wondering how much he ought to reveal. Even after so many years, he was still wary. Yet, it really was all over now. He had been acquitted of all those charges, and most of the details had already been rehashed over and over in the press. “There is a real William P. Goode. And he's a remarkable man. He was older than I. We switched the years on the passport. He was born in Ohio in 1934, not 1943 like the William P. Goode in this passport. He was orphaned as a baby and grew up at the Hershey Home for Boys, an orphanage in Hershey, Pennsylvania. In 1951 he lied about his age to enlist in the Marines, was decorated for heroism in the Korean War, and in 1954 was recruited by the CIA. They put him through college and he went to work for the Agency as a clandestine services officer. And he stayed with it even though his family was murdered in the sixties in one of those communist-inspired African revolutions. He retired
from the CIA in 1984 with a thirty-year pin and a bunch of medals no one will ever know about.

“Casey knew I was in over my head with the hostage business and the Nicaraguan Resistance. I was trained as an infantry officer, not a spy. In '85 he called Goode and asked him to work with me. Goode agreed and became my mentor, as it were. He's one of the finest, bravest men I've ever met. That's the
real
William P. Goode. Thank God, after all he had been through, he wasn't dragged through the mud with me.”

Newman was silent at the end of North's impassioned soliloquy. Then he said, “Is the ‘real' Goode still alive? I could sure use some help like he gave you.”

“Yes. He's still alive. But there was so much that went so very wrong late in 1986 that many of the friends he'd made were killed. When all that we were doing came unraveled, he dropped out completely. We stay in touch. He's deeply involved with a religious community based near Rome. He lives on his sailboat and does, as he puts it, ‘good things.'”

“You mean he became a monk?”

“Well, not quite, but kind of. But during his long career in the CIA he had come across this nondenominational religious community … , a group of people that practices what they call ‘basic Christianity' and live a communal life. They have a lot of missionary-type works, especially in the Middle East—like hospitals, orphanages, and hospices, you know? I think he was kind of burned out and found some kind of peace in this community.

“Now he lives on that sailboat—you should see that beautiful sixty-two-foot Tayana—and travels anywhere he wants, but mostly in the Mediterranean, looking for ways to help people,” North said
quietly. Then he got an idea. “You know, if you ever get into trouble in that part of the world, Goode would be a resource that might be of help …” North didn't finish the sentence.

“How would I reach him?”

North thought for a moment. “Here's my pager number. Call me—but never call me from your office or home or any other phone you use regularly. Go to one of the cell phone stores around here. Get yourself another cell phone under a ficticious name. Get a post-office box under that name somewhere away from where you live, but where it's convenient to pick up mail and where they can send the phone bill. Pay the bill with a postal money order. Use that new cell phone only to call me or someone like General Grisham. Never use it to call your office, the White House, your wife, your home, or anyone else you call from your office or home. Never use it from your office or when someone can see you use it.”