Nature of the Game (6 page)

“Who called?” said Denton.

“An ex-contract type, I guess. He, ah … He was drunk, probably nothing, you know, but … Weird.”

“And?” asked the Director of Central Intelligence.

“And … you asked if anything unusual happened. I mean, we get hot calls from time to time, plus wrong numbers and cranks, so this might not really be unusual.”

“What's been done?” said Denton.

Jones swallowed. “That really is Mike's department.
I
was given no indication that this guy could be another Lee Howard.”

In 1985, Lee Howard, a former CIA analyst with a history of alcohol and drug problems, first sold secrets he knew and then escaped to the Soviet Union while under surveillance by the FBI.

Denton turned not to Mike Kramer, head of Security, but to both Jones's and Kramer's boss: August Reed III.

“What about all this, Gus?”

“Naturally,” said Gus, “we're keeping a close eye on the situation.”

“What is
the situation?
” pressed the new DCI.

“Just the rattling of odd, old ghosts,” said Gus, who'd been a Skull and Bones man. “Drunken ghosts, I might add. Nothing important. Certainly no business.”

Denton returned the smile and as his eyes swung from August Reed III, said, “What do you think, Billy?”

“For now,” said Billy evenly, “I think we should leave troubled ghosts alone.”

Denton let his eyes float from Billy's clouded glasses to Noah's impassive face. The second hand of a clock on the wall swept full circle.

“Anything else?” asked Denton. No one spoke. The new CIA Director smiled at this troops. “Meeting adjourned.”

In Denton's study, Noah looked from Wes to Denton.

“It was Billy's grenade,” said Noah, taking a swig of his Scotch. “Jones just pulled the pin.”

“Not now, Noah,” snapped Denton. “Besides, Gus Reed brought Jones, so Reed has to be in on the deal.”

“I'm lost,” said Wes, who knew exactly where he was.

“
Something's happened
,” said Denton. “If it's bad, nobody wants to get blamed for it. You know the game.”

“What makes you think there's anything like that?”

“Survivin' forty years in this business,” drawled Noah.

“You've worked in intelligence for forty years?” asked Wes.

“I lived politics since grade school,
cowboy
. Spook shit is just a part of that.” Noah shrugged.

“I trust Noah's instincts,” said Denton. “And my own.”

“Besides,” said Noah, “there's the file.”

“What file?” asked Wes.

Noah grunted disdainfully.

“Whether Jones brought up the incident because of a political scheme or blurted it out because of nerves,” said Denton, “if I make an issue of it, I elevate it to the Director's level. If it is scandal, then I'm tarred with it. If it's trivia, then I waste my time and am
perceived
as wasting my time. If I ignore it, it might go away. Or explode.”

“Why not trust your troops to handle it?”

“They're not my troops. Yet. If any of them has something to hide … The old problem, Wes: Who watches the watchers?”

“What about this file?” Wes asked again.

“Two pages of zip,” said Noah. “No photo. Says the guy had ‘minimal' Agency contact through the Green Berets. If it was so minimal, why the hell did he have the emergency number? Contact severed in the 1970s. Went crazy. A dozen call-ins—paranoia, booze. A ‘delusionary pathological liar.' Hands-off instructions. But orders to not piss him off, to log and notify.”

“The caller mentioned a bar in Los Angeles. Noah checked with LAPD. The night our man called, another man died in that bar.”

“Who?” asked Wes. “How?”

“You tell us,” said Noah. “Nobody else wants to.”

Wes couldn't wait anymore. “What do you want me to do?”

Denton looked at Noah; got a shrug. And the bulldog grin.

“We want you to ascertain what's happened,” said Denton. “And help resolve any problems for America's intelligence and strategic interests that may intersect with that.”

“Sir, I'm a Marine officer. What do you want me to
do?
”

“Hell, Wes,” said Noah. “We want you to track this som'bitch down. Find out who he is, what's he doing and why he called, and then fix it if it don't sit with the program.”

“And do it quietly,” said Denton. “Keeping in mind that my profile must remain above any problems. And that absolute confidentiality must be strictly maintained.

“We want you to be our point man,” said Denton.

“Bird dog,” said Noah.

“Stalking-horse?” ventured Wes.

“Is that what you're thinking?” asked Denton.

“What I'm thinking is there has to be more to this than what you've told me or it wouldn't be worth all this trouble.”

“Precisely,” said Denton.

“Why me?” asked Wes. “I buy that you won't trust CIA guys for this. Conflict of interest. But why me?”

“The logical choice is FBI,” said Denton, “but the Director and I don't see eye to eye. The Bureau would love to go fishing in my agency's business. As for the other civilian agencies … I don't have a feel for them.

“Which leaves uniforms. Our man is ex-Army. They can't be objective. Even if they could, the Air Force and Navy would cry foul, the Army getting a special relationship with me. The Marines are lowest in clout and thus nonthreatening to everyone.”

“The man you're hunting may be a drunk, but once he was a hell of a soldier. He had to be a paratrooper to be a Green Beret. A general once told me that only guys who fall out of airplanes understand other guys who fall out of airplanes. You had to become a paratrooper for Recon.”

“Plus you kinda been playing cop over at NIS,” said Noah. “This is close to cop.”

“And,” added Denton, “you're a lawyer. After Watergate, Iran-contra … I'd like to have an attorney's eyes on this.”

“'Course,” said Noah, “we don't want you tangled up in nitpicker nonsense. ‘Legal' has a flexible meaning out here. What's most important is secrecy—and results. That's why we want a Marine. Get the job done. We'll worry about the law.”

“We can't make this seem a major effort,” said the CIA Director. “Nothing with a bureaucratic identity. Nothing with a future that agitates everyone into circling their wagons. We can just barely get away with turning one man loose.”

“Me.”

Denton shrugged. “I got you out of Nowhere, New Mexico, launched your career. You've never mixed with Intelligence, so you're clean. Nobody knows you, nobody hates you, nobody mistrusts you. But the NIS, the Laird Commission, Vietnam … You're no lamb. You have no family encumbrances, and you're here in Washington.”

“You ransacked your files,” said Wes. “What if I say no?”

“Then I thank you for your time. And remind you that all this is confidential. That I have keen ears. Send you back to your cubicle where you can stay safe and snug until your pension.”

“Hell, Wes,” said Noah. “You know you want to say yes! You ain't a cubicle kind of guy.

“'Sides,”—Noah leaned forward—“we're good friends to have. There's colonel up ahead, if you make the cut. You're behind a lot of good men in cut-back times. War College would help. Good word on the Hill. Who knows what could come up?”

“We're making no promises,” Denton added quickly. “We want you to do an honorable job. For your country.”

The three men stared at each other.

“What if nothing is there?” said Wes.

“If that's what you find—and that's what's true”—Denton shrugged—“then we're all better off.”

“What if it is a bureaucratic shot? Zap the new DCI?”

“We'll deal with that,” said Noah.

“What if it's something more?”

“Then you'll be there to help us,” said Denton. “Help us help our country. You will be there, won't you, Wes?”

Again, silence drifted through the room.

“Understand me,” Wes finally said. “I'll do this job—if I believe some answers you'll give me. But I'll do it because it will be my job: no trades. Eagles land on my shoulders, I get them because I earned them, not because I bargained for them. Don't do me any favors I don't ask you for, and I'll work for you.”

“Then it's a deal!” Denton smiled.

“What questions?” said Noah.

“Can you square this with the Corps?”

“By Monday morning, I can horse-trade the Commandant to transfer you on detached duty to my personal staff.”

“People at Langley won't like it,” added Denton. “Trust none of them—not even Billy Cochran. Trust no one but Noah and me.

“Work through Noah. Work it your way. We want no paper on it. No ties to the CIA. Use whatever resources you can scrounge. I can't give you a ‘please assist' letter. Tell no one more than you need to. Noah will arrange your expenses.”

“Let's be sure everyone knows his place,” said Wes. “I work for you. Not Noah. Am I to assume that whatever he tells me comes straight from you? Unedited? Unrefined? And what I send back gets there the same way?”

Denton shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Noah has my full confidence,” he said.

“I'll assume he speaks directly for you. And if I have any doubts, I'll go straight to you.”

The Director looked at his longtime right-hand man.

“I know about deniability, cutouts,” said Wes. “And getting left out in the cold.”

“Oh, do you now?” said Noah.

Denton waved his hand to calm his men.

“You've got it,” said the DCI. “Of course.”

“What if I get in trouble?” asked Wes.

“Trouble's not what this is about,” said Denton. “If there is trouble, it's to end with you. This is a new era. The last thing America needs is another spy scandal. Understand?”

“Yes sir,” said Wes.

“Tell no one about tonight,” said Denton. “Be surprised. You'd be a logical selection, even if you weren't who you are.”

“Who am I?” asked Wes.

“You're the chosen one,” said Denton.

The Director stood and his men followed suit. He shook hands with Wes.

“Leave the uniform in your closet,” he told Wes.

Wes's shirt was soaked. He was exhausted.

“Why are we doing this?” Wes asked.

“Nature of the business.” Denton shrugged. “Bottom line? I need to know why that guy is so damned unimportant.”

CHINA KINDA GUY

N
ick Kelley met Jud on a cool April 1976 morning, in Washington, D.C., while working as a muckraker for columnist Peter Murphy. Nick was typing on a battered Underwood manual in his cluttered office at the rear of a mansion seventeen blocks north of the White House, concentrating on his story about a stamped SECRET General Accounting Office study leaked to him by a Senate staff source. The GAO study suggested that the Pentagon was squandering $500 million on a missile system because Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wanted to use it as a bargaining chip with the Soviets at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

“Excuse me,” said a man's deep voice in the hall.

Standing in the hall was a man who, unlike Nick, topped six feet tall. They both wore blue jeans. The man's chest and biceps were so muscled his arms curled out from his sides like parentheses. A brown polo shirt strained across his shoulders. The man's hair was ruddy, curly and shorter than Nick's over-the-ears black locks. The stranger's eyes were diamond blue.

“You're …,” said the man, hesitated; smiled. “You're Nick Kelley. And you wrote a novel.
Flight of the Wolf
.”

Nick blinked:
How'd this guy get past the receptionist?

“Am I right or am I right?” said the stranger.

“Yes,” answered Nick. He turned away from the typewriter so that his body hid the security-stamped report on his desk.

“See?” The man's grin was infectious. “Told you so. I recognized you from the picture on the cover.”

“No one's ever done that before,” said Nick.

“Interesting book,” said the stranger. “I know a little about that stuff—spies.”

“Oh,” said Nick, big-time cool.

“Yeah. I was in Special Forces.”

“Really,” said Nick. In 1976, before he decided the Vietnam war was a tragedy, he'd flunked an Army ROTC enlistment physical. In the haunted world of heroes where Nick lived, he'd fantasized about being in the Army's Special Forces, wearing the elite green beret. He'd read the books. Knew the words to the song about the unit that in 1966 climbed the rock charts. Reporting had taught him military jargon. “What were your MOS areas?”

“I was primarily a zero seven. Intelligence.”