Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (11 page)

“The term ‘algorithm' conjures two contrasting images, wouldn't you agree? The first is of a device, which in fact need be no more than a scrambled SATCOM phone. The second is a series of symbols, perhaps equations or formulae, perhaps not, that can be recognized by the weapon itself and allow it to activate; an infinitely elaborated version of your basic remote control.

“We are not talking about identifying who may or may not be in authority on any given system at any given point in time. We're a step beyond that: where a nation's command center is when it gives the instruction to launch.”

“So the codes you were supplied were the ones effective at the moment Zhugov sequestered the warheads.”

“Precisely,” Ian said. “Think of it as a dialogue. Each party talks and responds to the other. But there's no going forward unless and until you have and have made sense of both parts.”

Philip arrowed in. “So since everything's a game, you've hidden the codes in your backgammon set.”

“Amongst other places,” Ian suggested.

“May I ask where?”

“In a microchip just beneath the inlay on red's thirteen point.”

“And it's SATCOM ready?”

“My customers would not be satisfied in any other way.”

“What makes you so sure they won't use the warheads once they have them?”

“They would need a more effective delivery system than the one they now possess.”

“In time they might acquire one.”

“That would be possible only from Iran today, and there's too much bad blood on both sides for that. Tomorrow, who knows? North Korea and Ukraine have sold ballistic missiles, though, so far, smaller ones. Pakistan may go into the market. So might others, in due course. Somehow I don't believe that it will matter. True enough, the world—certainly this corner of it—is unusually combustible these days, but whether they style themselves monarchs or revolutionaries, we are dealing—as I've only ever dealt—with men who love power, not death. Everyone has his principles, and that is and always has been mine.”

“I fully understand. I wouldn't be involved in this otherwise. But suppose they do sell them?”

“No doubt it will be to like-minded people for a very large profit. Who am I to try to squeeze the last drop of juice from an orange?”

“Who is anyone, really? Only a fool fails to understand that once a thing's gone, it's gone. In a way that's the first rule of business. The sorts of things we are concerned with, mind you, mustn't be allowed to go into the wrong hands, ever. But I take you at your word that these won't. Actually, I'll even go a bit further. The conventional wisdom may be that proliferation is entirely a bad thing. The more players with arms, the greater the chance one will go off, even trigger another, which will trigger a third. That's the accepted logic. Yet it contains a perfectly obvious flaw. Could not one equally argue that the wider the distribution of nuclear arms, the more certain it becomes that the result will be a standoff?”

“One could do so very plausibly,” Ian said, exhaling the pungent smoke of his cigar, “and I have many times, as you know. You're preaching to the preacher.”

Philip's emerging smile struck Ian, not for the first time, as that of a corrupted angel. “And if that is true, then we are not only making an indecent day's profit. We're also providing a service to humanity.”

Ian's blue eyes glimmered. Such was the nature of the human condition, locked in its morphing death dance of evil and good, he thought, that no individual could be expected to fix it with clarity. “History,” he said, “has arrived at stranger conclusions.”

Chapter Nine

Early in the morning,
after Greg Logan's film had been screened, Ty took a NetJet flight from Nice to Washington. At Dulles Airport he quickly cleared both immigration and customs and collected the rental car he had prearranged, a deliberately inconspicuous Taurus. As instructed, he followed the access road to I-495, the Washington Beltway, and the heavily trafficked inner loop of that to I-270. Within an hour he was exiting onto Maryland Route 15, at the Victorian spa town of Thurmont. Past the town he ascended toward higher elevation. A blacktop running a ridgeline of the Catoctins led him at last to a campsite marked only by number and approached by an unremarkable road through high forest. Some way down this road, out of sight of ordinary traffic, stood the gate to an unspecified military installation.

The Naval Support Facility Thurmont, colloquially known as Camp David, was both larger and busier than Ty had imagined: an unexpected, landlocked outpost of the U.S. Navy incorporating a village of cabins for the use of the President and his guests as well as barracks and facilities for several hundred staff. He parked, as directed, in front of a low gray-clapboard building that held a theater and a bowling alley. The camp's commander welcomed him there and promptly ferried them, via golf cart, along gravel paths that descended to his cabin. This bungalow sat on a slight hill rise a short distance from the President's. Beyond a shallow vestibule its floor plan centered on a comfortable sitting room of the sort that might be found in any good American hotel. Directly off it, at right angles to each other, lay two more or less identical bedrooms, each with its own bath. A sailor placed Ty's bag on a stand in the one directly opposite the front door.

The camp commander, who also bore the rank of naval commander, said, “Dinner will be at seven o'clock in Laurel, which is at the other end of this road on the left and by far the largest of the lodges. You can't miss it. Remember, out this door, left, and left again.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Ty replied.

“In the meantime have a nap or a walk or both. If there's anything we can do for you, someone's always at the other end of the telephone.”

“Thank you,” Ty said, then after the captain had departed, settled into a corner of the striped-chintz sofa. On the glass coffee table before him rested a bowl of fresh fruit. He picked up a small bunch of seeded red grapes. As he devoured these, he paged through the leather-bound guest book that rested on the same table. In neat type it listed all the previous occupants of Dogwood as well as the dates of their visits. Among the long record of officials and presidential friends were many names he recollected from the newscasts and newspapers of his childhood.

A few minutes later, Ty had ambled only as far as the bungalow known as Holly, on the front porch of which a man sat on a rocker, a book open in his lap, his face raised to the breeze, when he heard a golf cart coming toward him from behind. He and the man on the porch nodded to each other, after which Ty kept walking until the golf cart pulled to a sharp stop beside him.

“Mr. Hunter?” inquired the young officer at its wheel.

“Yes?”

“The President would like to see you, sir.”

Ty's expression showed his surprise. “Now?” he asked.

“At Aspen Lodge, sir,” the officer said, gesturing toward the passenger seat.

The large living room of the President's lodge was L-shaped, with a cathedral ceiling. It was paneled in yellow pine. On the far wall, panoramic plate-glass windows that could not be opened looked across the valley to mountain foliage in the distance. Nearer, an old plantation of tall evergreens stood just below a ridge on the horizon. Off to the left, a single fairway and putting green had been built into the hillside that fell away from the house. And to the right of this, a kidney-shaped swimming pool, bordered by flagstone, had been terraced into the land.

Ty was still taking in the view when Garland White appeared from a hallway at the front of the lodge.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunter. Thank you for coming,” the President said, with more intimacy than Ty would have expected considering that they had met only once before. Politicians could be funny that way, Ty thought, having met a number of them by now. Either they drew you in or pushed you away; sometimes both.

“Mr. President,” Ty replied, instinctively straightening himself. Garland White struck him as the kind of man who habitually appraised the weight and fitness of those he encountered. As with most politicians, there was an aspect of the peacock about him. Middle-aged, with dark hair grayed at the temples but dyed above, he was a couple of inches shorter than Ty. Although he did not possess the kind of looks that would have won him approval from casting agents in search of a leading man, his features were arranged with camera-friendly symmetry.

“What an absolutely glorious day Daphne has for her sixteenth birthday,” the President mused. “She'll be thrilled you're here. Thank you for coming.”

“It's my honor,” Ty replied. “Thank you for having me.”

“I hope you don't mind, but I was eager to have a word with you, in confidence, before you're surrounded by adoring teenage girls.”

Ty smiled. “Just so you know,” he said, “they're a little younger than my usual demographic.”

“Women become more sophisticated every year,” Garland White reflected, “which is a real shame. These days the only people who don't want to be grown up are grown-ups, am I right?”

“I suppose it's the old ‘the grass is always greener' phenomenon,” Ty said.

From the dim dining alcove where a swinging door opened onto the kitchen, a Filipino steward wheeled in a trolley bearing a selection of tea and coffee, bottled drinks, a brimming silver-plated ice bucket and glasses.

“Tea or coffee? Or something stronger?” the President asked.

“Tea, please,” Ty told him.

“China or India?” the steward inquired.

For an instant the question threw Ty. “China, please,” he replied at last. “Is that Lapsang souchong
I see? That would be perfect, with no milk or sugar but a slice of lemon if you have it.”

“Have a seat, please, wherever you like,” the President told him. “If you don't mind, I've asked George Kenneth, my national security advisor, to join us.”

Ty offered a faint nod but remained silent.

“Here he is now,” the President said, shifting his focus to the front door, where a man of willowy frame paused uneasily as he balanced a stack of variously colored folios cradled in the crook of his left arm. Something about him was familiar to Ty, who could not for the moment place him.

“Sorry,” Kenneth apologized, abstractedly and without appearing to mean it. His diction was cultivated, his manner, although he looked to be only a few years older than Ty, world-weary.

Initially, their conversation felt idle. Then, when the steward had completed his service and retreated, Garland White began, “I'm sure it's needless for me to say this, but I will anyway. This conversation could not be more sensitive.”

“Understood,” Ty said, although he did not yet.

“You have never been to Camp David before, and you were here today solely for Daphne White's birthday,” George Kenneth added, settling into his seat.

“That's how I remember it,” Ty agreed.

“Anyway, Ty,” the President went on. “May I call you Ty?”

“Everyone else does.”

“Your security clearances have naturally lapsed.”

“It's been a while.” Ty felt suddenly anxious, in the grip of forces beyond his control.

“After you left the service, why would you need them? Last evening, as certain facts began to emerge, I took the liberty of having them reinstated. You are now, once again, ‘Yankee White.' Not that you will be speaking—or must ever speak—of these matters to anyone not in this room at present. The precaution is more for my benefit than yours.”

“Classified information is classified
for
the President,” George Kenneth explained. “Legally, he is free to disclose it to whomever he wishes. Politically, it could create a firestorm if he were ever to do so.”

“No one ‘not in this room,'” Ty repeated slowly and softly, as if conjuring all possible ramifications of that condition.

“Unless such a person has been authorized by one of us,” the President said. “For all intents and purposes, that means no one else in the administration, no one on the Hill—”

“They're all footnotes straining to jump into the main text,” Kenneth added dismissively. “It also means no one in the press, obviously, and no one in your family or in your bed.”

“Does the name Ian Santal mean anything to you?” the President asked.

“I was at a party on his yacht only the night before last.”

“We know that.”

“Am I being watched?” Ty asked with mounting, barely concealable irritation.

“By the paparazzi, not by us,” the President assured him. “Your photograph was on the wire.”

“How much do you know about him?”

“Only that he can be charming. That he is a collector, of lots of things. That he believes and hopes there's life in outer space. And that he has a beautiful goddaughter.”

“Santal's been on our radar for quite some time now,” Garland White continued. “Originally as a trafficker in ideas, wistful ones for the most part, and for many years now, although our people were never able to pin it on him, we're pretty sure in weapons.”

“Ever more nasty ones,” George Kenneth said, stirring cream and sugar into a cup of steaming black coffee. “High-end stuff by now, even perhaps of the ultimately catastrophic sort.”

“You won't be surprised to learn he didn't mention that,” Ty said.

“I'll come right to the point,” Garland White said. “Over the years Professor Santal maintained many friendships in Russia. No doubt these were born during his days on the Left, but when circumstances made it desirable to do so, he adjusted to market forces just as they did. The most intense of these friendships was with a Colonel Zhugov, who had responsibility for some of the Soviet Union's most advanced nuclear weapons. We have picked up chatter suggesting that recently an unspecified number of those may have gone astray and may now be on their way to market.”

“What kind of chatter?” Ty asked.

“Neither reliable nor unreliable,” George Kenneth answered. “It might be a rumor pure and simple. Or it could be a rumor based in fact. We have very little to go on, but what we do have suggests that some sort of deal's afoot. Buzz among the competition, you might call it—questions without answers, jealousy and curiosity, the usual vain search for an angle in.”

“None of it from Zhugov, I assume.”

“Not from his grave,” George Kenneth replied.

“Forgive me. You hadn't mentioned that. When did he die?”

“What is today—Friday?” the President asked. “He would have died on Sunday, isn't that correct, George?”

“Of natural causes?” Ty inquired.

“Ostensibly,” said Garland White. “He was sixty-three years old, retired. It's said he suffered an acute myocardial infarction, which he may well have done. Equally, he may not. Our Colonel Zhugov, it turns out, was a bit of a hypochondriac. For any number of years now, he's had all of his medical checkups done in Germany. None, other than simple chronological age, ever turned up any risk factor for heart disease, not elevated cholesterol or triglycerides or blood pressure, nada. Of course, anything's possible.”

“And he did die.”

“Thirty-four years before the age at which his father did,” George Kenneth clarified. “Thirty-six years before his mother's age at the time of her demise. He hailed from hearty stock.”

“I don't mind telling you I'm a bit confused,” Ty said.

“When the Soviet Union fell, chaos, if it did not exactly reign, was more prevalent than many reports would have suggested.”

Ty hesitated. “Are you suggesting there were loose nukes after all?”

“No. I am suggesting that we don't know, with one hundred percent certainty, that there were not. Very likely we will never know—unless one goes off.”

“If the chatter isn't baseless, you suspect that Ian Santal may be implicated. And given that he lives on a ship and is very selective about whom he invites aboard, you think I might be your way in. Obviously you have no one inside, and as improbable as it might strike some people, you've concluded that I'm your best candidate.”

“Ah, the fog lifts,” George Kenneth exclaimed, not unpleasantly.

Now Ty remembered where and when he had previously encountered Dr. Kenneth. It had been a few years before. They'd been guests in separate segments on
Charlie Rose.
George Kenneth had been in Washington that day, Ty in New York, promoting his latest film on the eve of its opening weekend. They hadn't actually met, but Ty recalled that the onetime Harvard professor had been hawking his book,
Cooperation and Cooption.
Somehow the dryly academic title had stuck in Ty's mind, and he had judged it a distant long shot for the bestseller lists. Yet, to his astonishment, it had grown, gradually by word of mouth, into a cult favorite. A banner on the cover of the last edition Ty had seen in an airport bookshop had boasted, “Over One Million Copies in Print.”

Garland White gave his aide a taming glance, then turned back to Ty. “Will you do it?” he asked.

“It would be difficult, sir.”

“Is that because of your other commitments?”

“It's because there aren't any, actually,” Ty replied. “A little more than forty-eight hours ago, as you know, I was aboard
Surpass.
I was asked there because my friend Greg Logan had been invited by Sidney Thrall, who heads the studio that released
Something to Look Forward To.
Sid knows everyone everywhere. I suppose it's his business to. Anyway, the party had nothing to do with any movie—or with the festival, officially. It's just that there were a lot of us in town, and apparently Santal thought we'd be a good audience for his goddaughter's jewelry. She's a designer.”