The Henderson Equation (19 page)

"Surely, Scottie, you're not going to use that old
wheeze," Nick said. "We just won't buy such scare tactics."

"We protect you as well. However undeserving."
His sarcasm dripped with charm.

"It is amazing how parochial you people sound,"
Nick said, his annoyance showing now. "You've made the watchdog as
tyrannical as the burglar. All the things we are opposed to in the enemy have
become everyday tools of the CIA. Lies, domestic spying, covert mind bending,
subterfuge beyond the pale, assassination squads."

"Now you've said it," Ambruster interrupted.
"Assassination squads. Not just one man. Squads. Why not armies?"

"Diem, Trujillo, Tshombe, Allende," Nick said,
counting off the names on his fingers.

"There's not a shred of evidence."

"You people are far too clever for that."

"Fairy tales," Ambruster said, washing down a
biscuit with coffee.

"You mean it's never been an option?" Nick asked.

"It's always an option. We're not playing dominoes by the
king's rules, old boy. I only said there's not a shred of evidence."

"Is that an admission?" Nick asked quietly.

"Of course not."

"Every investigation alludes to discussions of
assassination conspiracies, ties to the Mafia, hit men," Nick pressed.

"We discuss these possibilities all the time,"
Ambruster said. "But that doesn't mean we do it. Like talking about sex
when we were teen-agers. Besides, if you had the chance would you have planted
a bullet in Mr. Hitler's brain? It might have been better for the world. Or
Stalin's? We might have saved millions."

"Does that mean you're for its use?"

"I didn't say that."

"You implied." They were clever, Nick thought.
Only a fool would expect such an option to remain unvoiced. Of course they
would discuss it.

"The moral issue is one for the commander-in-chief to
decide."

"Would you act if you were ordered to?" Nick
pressed.

"Absolutely not," Ambruster said without
hesitation.

"You'd resign?"

"Without question."

"On moral grounds?"

"How you people harp on morality! In the absence of
war such an act could be interpreted ... it would be interpreted as an act of
murder, punishable by death or imprisonment, even though it might be an
excellent, a cheap way to remove a tyrant."

Nick searched carefully for Myra's reaction. She was
strangely silent. When they were going after the President she became livid
whenever the CIA was mentioned. Now she seemed disinterested, docile.

"What's wrong with our way?" Nick asked,
continuing to watch Myra.

"Yours is a particularly disgusting form of
assassination, involving torture first under the guise of self-righteousness.
After all, who made you the judge?"

"Without us, who would keep you all honest?"

"Gentlemen, please," Myra intervened. Ambruster
held up his hand, like an opponent asking for time out.

"I admit our excesses," Ambruster continued,
"but I truly believe we need this apparatus. True, it has gotten too big,
too unwieldy, too all-encompassing, too spendy. All right. Let us accept that
it's overgrown and clumsy. But, believe me, it is needed. We have got to keep
our iron in the fire." His eyes drifted over them into the garden as if
there were private mysteries to be seen there.

"And we've got to keep ours in," Nick said.

"You don't have to love us, just be tolerant. We're on
your side. All we ask is that you exercise some sense of responsibility. Leave
us room."

"In other words, screen out what you think
damaging."

"Not at all."

"What then?"

He could see Ambruster's rising exasperation. Soon the
issue would be joined.

"This thing with Henderson, for example. It's
preposterous. Your Gunderstein has been burrowing into us like a sand
crab."

"What's preposterous?" Nick asked, feeling for
the matter's pulse.

"The allegation, for one thing. As I've just told you,
there is no evidence to suggest that the CIA was ever involved in overt
assassination operations. Two congressional committees have tried; the
Rockefeller Commission has tried. All they've come up with is hearsay,
circumstantial rot, innuendo, the typical politicized grab bag. Frankly, they
don't worry me as much as you, the
Chronicle."
He paused again, his
coffee cup descending on his saucer with a clatter. "My God, Nick, isn't
there any avenue of appeal? Can't you go on trust? The implication of the
allegation is that we just shoot down any government leader who does not
cooperate. We do owe something to history, you know, and to the generations
that come after us; if they come after us. Do you think we'd like future
generations to know us as cold-blooded killers?"

Nick contemplated the elements of Ambruster's pleading:
responsibility, sense of history, decency, national security. He had had them
all before. There were times when he could be persuaded, he thought. Perhaps
Ambruster's point was not without value. Was it Henderson who clouded the
issue?

"It all boils down to the same thing, always the same
cry. You'd like us to hold the story, wouldn't you?"

"I'm asking you to be responsible."

"And you deny categorically that these operations ever
existed?"

Ambruster thought for a moment.

"Categorically," he said finally, "we do not
assassinate people. We've been repeating it so many times we're hoarse."

Nick suspected that Ambruster was defining his position
narrowly. Henderson was not being accused of pulling the trigger. He was
alleged to be only the match-maker, the puppeteer.

"Do you also deny that Henderson ever worked for
you?" Nick asked.

"He's not in our personnel records," Ambruster
said precisely.

"He admits being on detached service from NSA for
special assignments."

"You'd have to check with NSA, then." It was the
usual bureaucratic cop-out. "I suppose it's now a special crime to have
worked for any intelligence agency. Talk about the arrogance of power." He
looked at Myra, whose eyes narrowed. "You have become too powerful for
your own good, you know." Ambruster sighed. He sipped his coffee silently.
"I'm here," Ambruster continued, "because I truly believe that I
can appeal to your sense of responsibility. Imagine the kind of power that you
now wield in this country in the hands of less responsible people. It could
happen. I've seen it happen elsewhere. You're in control of the most powerful
instrument in the country. I'm sure I don't have to make that point. You've
just toppled a President. I'm sitting here trying to use all my powers of
persuasion to make you see that there are some matters that have to be
carefully weighed against other factors. Our special problem is that we're
absolutely powerless to defend ourselves and if you continue to discredit us we
will ultimately be destroyed as an effective weapon of self-defense."

Ambruster was rolling out his big guns now. Was he
succeeding? He looked at Myra for some clue to her reaction but her features
revealed nothing. She was merely the affable hostess.

"Suppose, just suppose," Nick asked, "that
we come up with proof, witnesses, participants, who contradict your denials.
What then? Is it responsible of us to still kill the story?"

Ambruster thought for a moment. "My appeal to you is
to kill the story in any event. It can build. It can get out of hand. As for
so-called witnesses, that too would be pure speculation since I assure you the
story would not be true."

"But suppose they swore..."

"Look, Nick, the situation is academic. However you
ran the story it would be damaging, witnesses or not. You'd be basing
everything on half-truths. Impressions."

"Facts, Ambruster, not impressions," Nick shot
back. "And we insist on confirmation from at least two sources."

"We in the intelligence business know that two sources
do not necessarily a truth contain. We sometimes need twenty, thirty, and even
then we still do not see the total picture. Ask thirty witnesses to describe an
accident and you will get thirty different versions, all insisting upon the
truth of their observations, yet somehow off the mark in terms of
absolutes."

"Then you might as well challenge the whole concept of
the news business. We do the best we can."

"Unfortunately, that's really not good enough."

"Better our way than yours."

"There will come a day when you'll be worse than we
could ever have been."

"At least you have the ability to petition us."
Nick looked around the room. "In these pleasant surroundings, everything
so civilized. If the situation were reversed we'd be sitting on some wooden
bench in some stark whitewashed room with knotted guts and sweaty palms."
Nick felt the sweat of his own palms.

"You've been watching too many old movies."

He could see the unyielding stubbornness in the man, the
abstracted superior high-mindedness. Surely Myra could detect his insufferable
contempt. He watched her calmly sipping her coffee. He felt again the backwash
of fatigue. The conversation seemed to be drifting. Perhaps sensing this,
Ambruster made one more stab to refocus his plea.

"Let's just say that none of us is perfect. I'm here
to try and convince you to think carefully before you leap on matters
pertaining to us. I've tried to be candid."

"You couldn't be candid, even if you tried," Nick
said. He noted the edge of sarcasm in his voice, his politeness worn thin. He
turned toward Myra. Her control was infuriating. Why had she maneuvered him
into this position?

"All I can do is appeal to your conscience,"
Ambruster said. It was the last arrow in his quiver. Looking into the garden,
Nick blinked into the sunlight. If he were not a responsible man, he told
himself, he would have run Gunderstein's piece as is and hang the human
fallout.

Then Ambruster was standing up, a tall corpulent figure, as
he moved toward Myra and took her hand. She stood up and took his arm, leading
him past Nick.

"I'm not sure I made any impression," Ambruster
said, holding out his hand. "At least I tried." Nick gave him a
sweaty hand again, having forgotten to rub it dry against his trousers.
Ambruster accepted it and smiled as he moved forward on Myra's arm.

When they had gone, Nick sat stiffly playing with a spoon,
nervously banging it against the heel of his hand. Why couldn't he make it
simple on himself, Nick thought. Why this personal flagellation? Was he
determined to make a stand against Myra?

"Under it all, he's a rather sweet man," Myra
said, flowing back into the room, sitting down, and pouring another cup of
coffee.

"He's a viper," Nick said, pouting.

"I think we owed him the hearing, Nick. We've been
murder on the Agency."

"The bastards deserved it," Nick said, lighting a
cigarette and drowning the match in tepid coffee.

"He admitted that, Nick. He's inherited an awful bag
of worms."

"They'll never change," Nick said. "The
old-boy code. Protect the inside. Screw the outside. He would rat on his own
mother if it meant protecting all the old boys. I don't trust him as far as I
can spit."

"I don't know, Nick," she said. She was watching
him, but, it seemed, not seeing, looking inward, reflecting on something within
herself.

"Don't tell me you believed him, Myra?" He hoped
he had broken into her thoughts.

"I felt his sincerity, Nick," she said, her
attention regained. "At least on that single point."

"The Henderson issue?"

"Well, yes." She was trying to be casual.

He watched her cautiously, forcing alertness. Behind her
tranquil air he could sense the determination, the iron will, assertive now. He
knew he was not simply being persuaded. He was being assaulted. The meetings
with Henderson and Ambruster were merely strategies. He felt himself grow
tense, his vulnerability a heavy weight in his gut, his knowledge of her power
over him galling. It was happening now, overtly. She was groping for total
command.

"Maybe Gunderstein always presses too hard," Nick
said. "It's part of his method." Hell, why was he going over this
ground? Last year she had proclaimed Gunderstein a national hero.

"Henderson is our kind," she said quietly, the
use of the collective pronoun a continuing offense. "He represents
everything we stand for, Nick. We've spent hours talking about it. He's honest,
liberal, decent, intelligent. Above all, he's a leader. And damn it, Nick, this
country needs leadership. He's fair, balanced, objective, charismatic. If we
allow him to get entangled in this mess, we'll destroy him, not as a man, Nick,
but as a potential president. And that in my opinion would be a national
tragedy."

He could not help but admire her calm eloquence, although
his essential cynicism about the motives of politicians made her appeal
ludicrous. Surely she couldn't believe what she was saying, not after a
lifetime in Washington. He is your man, he wanted to say. Your possession. Your
toy. She could, after all, order him to kill the story, he thought. But she was
too smart for that. Why confront when you can outflank? Besides she might force
him to resign, pressure him to react to some wellspring of pride buried inside
of him. Without the
Chronicle,
what was his life?

"You know I'm giving it a hard look," he mumbled.

"I know, Nick."

Looking again into the sunlit garden, he noted that the
glint of coldness on the sculptures softened as the sun changed its angle. The
sense of age in the pre-Columbian conception seemed to calm him, draw him into
a timeless orbit. He could feel her gaze lift, wash over him briefly, then
retreat again.

"Let's examine it carefully," she sighed.

He was happy for the respite, impotence clinging to him
like sweat.