The Director: A Novel (40 page)

“Okay,” said Weber. “Charge withdrawn. Tell me something else, since this is truth or consequences. Did the Russians have a handle on Jankowski? Did he help them get inside the agency?”

Beasley paused before answering.

“I don’t know. I’ve wondered that myself. The SVR would have burned him, for sure, if the president hadn’t fired him. But I never saw any sign that he was on the hook to the Russians, and I was looking.”

Weber nodded. He decided to believe that, too. He had one more question, which hadn’t formed in his mind until that moment.

“Why did the president wait so long to fire Jankowski? A lot of people suspected he was stealing money. It was an open secret, but the president didn’t do anything back then. What changed?”

“You want my guess? Because it’s no more than that.”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Cyril Hoffman liked Jankowski. He told the president he would manage the problem. When Hoffman decided Jankowski was going down, it was lights out.”

Weber closed his eyes, trying to figure out in the flickering dark of his mind how these pieces fit together. His eyelids felt heavy from fatigue, as if weights were pulling them down tight. Beasley saw the drained look on his boss’s face and reached out his hand.

“Hey, you okay, Mr. Director?”

Weber sighed and opened his eyes. It was oddly reassuring to see Beasley across from him, his perfect tie wrinkled, his white collar beginning to sag from perspiration.

“I have a favor to ask, now that I’ve run you through the wringer,” said Weber.

“What’s that, boss man?”

“It’s very sensitive. If anyone ever asks about this conversation, I’ll deny it happened.”

“Okay. Got it. Mutually assured destruction.”

“This is no joke, as you’ll see. It involves Hoffman. I want you to pull anything you may have in your files on his overseas investments.”

“Say what? Have you lost your mind?”

“No. The opposite. I know there was an investigation a few years ago about Hoffman’s ties with some Chinese high-tech companies, through a Pakistani friend of his who used to be head of the ISI. It was briefed to the Intelligence Advisory Board when I was a member. I want some paper on that.”

“Shu-wee!” said Beasley. “That could get me fired.”

“Yeah, but so could all this other shit we’ve been talking about. I need it quick, like tomorrow morning. You need to go in and out. Get one of your secretaries to do it, so you don’t leave any traces. Can you do that?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Survival,” said Weber, “and a continued prosperous future.”

Beasley appraised the director. It was true what he’d said: He was learning.

“You are a tough motherfucker, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” said Weber. “Let’s go home.”

They exited the apartment by the back stairs, but this time Weber made for the bright lights of Eighteenth Street and turned the corner at M, back toward Lucky Ladies. Two burly men were standing outside the entrance, scanning pedestrians on the sidewalk. When they saw the director coming toward them, they jumped. The Escalade was parked down the block, and a few moments later it was rolling toward them.

“I’m your nigger,” whispered Beasley as they stepped toward the car. “You can count on me.”

Weber spoke into his ear.

“You’re my colleague. And it’s a fact: I am counting on you.”

34

WASHINGTON

Graham Weber considered how
to approach Cyril Hoffman, a man who for all his eccentricity was an intimidating presence. Hoffman had been balancing the equities of the spy agencies, Congress and the White House for so long that it had become intuitive. In this dexterity, it was sometimes said that he had taken on the characteristics of the Pakistani or Jordanian intelligence chiefs with whom he had dealt for so long, but that was an injustice: Hoffman was a tidy, cultivated gentleman, not a Third World secret policeman. He always had a notion of where he wanted to end up, even if it was not usually apparent to others. He had been appointed director of National Intelligence for the simple reason that he was the country’s best manager of the craft. He was good at solving other people’s problems and then receding back into his world of opera and rare books.

Weber by comparison was a Washington amateur. That made it hard for him to find an angle of approach, a need or vulnerability on Hoffman’s part that he could turn to advantage. But Weber sought his own leverage in the financial records he had requested from Beasley.

Weber was pondering how to initiate the conversation. But as it happened, Hoffman approached Weber.

The intelligence director called Weber on the secure phone from his office in Liberty Crossing, a few miles west of CIA Headquarters. He proposed that the two of them should go on an “outing” together. There was so much to discuss, he said, and the office didn’t seem like the right place.

“I suggest that we go boating,” ventured Hoffman. He explained that he kept a small sailboat at a marina on the Potomac, just south of the airport. He proposed a nautical rendezvous that afternoon, if Weber could clear his schedule: It was a clear day with fair winds; high tide was at three, so they should meet at the marina at two-thirty, sharp.

Weber apologized that he was due at the White House that afternoon for an NSC meeting. But Hoffman said cheerily not to worry about that, the meeting had been canceled. When Weber’s secretary Marie called the Situation Room a minute after he hung up with Hoffman, she was told that the meeting had just been postponed because some of the principals couldn’t be present.

The two intelligence chiefs arrived at the Washington Marina within a minute of each other. They made an improbable sight for the handful of people at the landing that early November afternoon. The two shiny black SUVs pulled up to the gray face of the boathouse; the security details had already staked out the wooden dock. Overhead was the roar of a Delta jet coming in to land at the airport a half mile away across the shallow bay. A young couple who were pedaling their bicycles along the Potomac bike path stopped to watch; they were shooed along by one of the security men.

Hoffman descended from the open door of a Lincoln Navigator, a car even more grotesquely large than Weber’s Cadillac Escalade. He was wearing boat shoes and a pair of faded cranberry-red pants. For a topcoat, he wore a jacket embroidered with the DNI’s logo on the left breast and his name,
Cyril
, in script on the right. Atop his head was a sun-bleached cap that had the word
(REDACTED)
, in parentheses, stitched above the brim.

Weber was wearing the outfit he had put on that morning for work. In deference to Hoffman he had worn a tie, but when he saw his host’s boating costume, he took it off and put it in his jacket pocket. Hoffman had Weber on the back foot already; Weber wondered if the director of National Intelligence had discovered his recent discussions with Ruth Savin and Earl Beasley and was attempting a preemptive strike. But the CIA director was not entirely defenseless; he’d had a productive morning with Beasley, before Hoffman’s call.

Hoffman’s sailboat was already rigged and moored to the dock, its sails flapping in the wind. A man in jeans and sneakers stood by the forestay, holding the boat steady. Under his jacket was the bulge of a weapon.

“My yacht,” said Hoffman, gesturing toward the small craft. It was a nineteen-foot fiberglass sloop, from a class known as the “Flying Scot,” as simple a boat as you could find. On its stern was painted its name, (
REDACTED
), along with its home port,
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Hoffman stepped gingerly into the vessel and assured himself that everything was shipshape before inviting Weber to join him. His round gut bowed the blue shell of his windbreaker, but he moved with surprising agility. Weber clambered aboard with less finesse, and the little boat dipped sharply when he stepped in. The security man in sneakers steadied the craft while Weber boarded, holding the side stay to keep it from rocking. Weber settled into place along the port railing.

“Do you know how to work the jib?” asked Hoffman.

“Nope,” answered Weber. “They didn’t have a yacht club in Pittsburgh.”

“I can manage it,” said Hoffman contentedly. He reached around Weber and trimmed the jib, pulling the sheet through a wooden jam cleat.

“Cast off,” he told his aide on the dock, who undid the bowline and laid it on the foredeck. Hoffman trimmed the flapping mainsail until it was taut and gently filled with wind. He pulled the tiller toward him and the little boat glided off on a puff, while Hoffman hummed to himself.

Weber was sitting on the leeward side, his weight tipping the boat toward the water as it slipped away from the dock.

“Move, please,” said Hoffman, gesturing to the windward side. Weber transferred his frame to the other side of the cockpit, and the craft immediately righted itself and gurgled forward. Another plane was just overhead, casting a large shadow on the water and ruffling the sails with the exhaust of its engines.

“Isn’t this just . . . ripping?” asked Hoffman, gazing with pleasure at the wide expanse of the Potomac. Weber nodded dutifully, though his face betrayed discomfort. He pulled his cashmere blazer tight against the breeze.

“There’s a Top-Sider jacket in the hold,” said Hoffman. “Put it on. You’ll feel much more comfortable.”

Weber reached under the deck for the windbreaker. His movements rocked the boat and he had to grab for the railing to steady himself. When he put on the yellow slicker, he stopped shivering.

The boat was churning along, making for the wooden breakwater that skirted the western edge of the harbor. Hoffman adjusted the jib and checked to make sure that the centerboard was properly lowered. Then he turned to Weber, taking off his (
REDACTED
) cap so that the bill didn’t obscure his view of his companion.

“Comfortable?” asked Hoffman.

“More or less.”

“Good, because I need to discuss something uncomfortable. Sorry to drag you out on the water, but I couldn’t think of a more secure place to have a conversation.”

“I figured.”

“You’re in trouble,” said the DNI.

“I know,” answered Weber.

Hoffman continued as if he hadn’t heard the response.

“Your problems come in different shapes and sizes. The biggest is James Morris. He’s on the wind, you can’t find him and there is every reason to believe he is up to serious mischief. I believe the NSA director sent you a little something summarizing his concerns about young Morris and his misadventures.”

“It scared the hell out of me,” said Weber.

“As well it should. How much do you know about Morris?”

“A little,” said Weber. “I’m digging for more. What can you tell me?”

“Two things that might be useful. First, he is, forgive the term, a pervert.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

They were nearing the breakwater. Hoffman eyed the sail. He reached past Weber for the jib sheet and pulled it out of the cleat so that it fluttered for a moment in the wind.

“Ready about,” said Hoffman. He pushed the tiller away from his rotund form, announcing at the same moment, “Hard a’ lee.”

The mainsail swung amidships as the boat turned into the wind. Hoffman pulled in the jib sheet on the starboard side and cleated it, motioning at the same time for Weber to transfer his bulk to windward. This ballet took less than five seconds and the boat was skimming off on the other tack. Hoffman moved with economy; even with a touch of grace. He studied the sails and the sky, seemingly lost in the rigging of his little boat.

“You were saying,” pressed Weber. “How is Morris a pervert?”

Hoffman blinked, paused and blinked again.

“Let us say he has peculiar sexual tastes. Far be it from me to question another person’s personal behavior and interests. Live and let live, says I. The problem with Mr. Morris is that he ‘acts out,’ in a way that exposes him and the agency to danger.”

“He ‘acts out’ what?” asked Weber.

Hoffman answered clinically, through pursed lips, as he enumerated the behavior.

“Bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism, bestiality, coprophilia, urophilia, acrotomophilia. A full spectrum of deviant activity, I would say.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s sloppy. He allows himself to be known. That is the part that is not forgivable. The rest, piff, what do I care? But he is beginning to raise eyebrows.”

“Not at the agency. This is the first I’ve heard of any of it. The book on him is that he’s a weird, smart kid who knows a lot about hacking.”

“He is all that: a useful fellow in most respects. But he is also a deviant. That is rather common in the hacker underground, or so I am told. They have been poached in pornography, these hackers. That is part of the cult. Obtaining illegal or extreme imagery is a rite of initiation.”

“Is that so?” said Weber vaguely. He felt stupid and wished, even more than before, that he wasn’t captive on this little vessel with a skipper who resembled Humpty Dumpty in boat shoes.

Hoffman gently wagged a finger toward Weber.

“Your problem, if I may say so, is that you consort with other high-minded individuals like yourself, who couldn’t conceive of such activities and thus tend to overlook the evidence. But you might ask that nice young woman Ariel Weiss, whom you’ve been consulting. I’ll bet she has her suspicions about what Morris does after dark.”

“How do you know about her?”

“Please, Graham. I don’t want to seem boastful. But there is very little that I don’t know. Every intelligence agency in the nation reports to me, and there are few people in senior positions who don’t owe me a favor of one sort or another. Dr. Weiss is an ambitious young woman. Of course I know her.”

Weber was silent, pondering what Hoffman had just told him, and also the puzzling question of why he had chosen to share this information now.

The little boat had made its way to the middle of the broad river. Ahead lay Bolling Air Force Base and its neat rows of military housing. To the west, upriver, was the compact epicenter of national government: Congress, the civilian agencies, the White House, the monuments and museums, all arranged symmetrically as if the federal establishment were a formal garden. The president was weak, it was universally believed; the Congress was enfeebled by partisan divisions; it was as if the balance wheel had broken and the real work of the government had stopped, but the garden remained immaculate.