The Mandarin Club (32 page)

“I don’t think I stayed.”

“You didn’t stay to brief him on this sensitive new information that might make a great headline?”

“There was a bill I was tracking for him on the floor. . .”

“Defense appropriations,” said Ms. Tedesco, referring to notes.
Impressive.

“Right. But wait a minute. What exactly are you getting at with this business about headlines?” Booth wasn’t going to let the insinuation hang.

Albertson stood, walking to where a window might have been—should have been—if they weren’t in some leftover storage room in the House staff annex. “Senator Smithson has something of a reputation for making public speeches about sensitive international military matters—”

“Never using classified materials as the source.”

“The fact is, there was a phone call from one Alexander Bonner to the senator’s private line in that office that very afternoon. A twelve-minute phone call.”

“So what? Senator Smithson talks to Bonner all the time.”

“All the time?”

“Sure. He’s a Washington correspondent from the state’s number one paper. He covers Capitol Hill and the diplomatic beat—especially big Asia stories. I bet he called half the committee members that same day.”

“He’s your old classmate, if I’m not mistaken,” Tedesco said, again being helpful.

“Right.”

“Weren’t you in some kind of fraternity together?” Albertson asked, flipping far back in his notebook. “With a bunch of other folks in this town now?”

“It was actually more like an extended family.”

“Family?”

“We were housemates. . . it wasn’t only guys.”

“Well,” Albertson said with a smirk, “I suppose it
was
the Sixties—and in California.”

“It was the Seventies, actually.”

“So, you had some little commune—and what was your organizing principle?”

“We stayed in a house together, and were just real good friends.”

“The Mandarin Club, it was supposedly called,” Albertson said, again studying his notes. “What was
that
all about?”

“We stuck together.”

“Why call yourselves ‘The Mandarins’?” Albertson still didn’t get it.

“It was just a play on words,” Booth said, letting out a sigh. “We were in this obscure field of language study. Even in a campus full of specialists, there weren’t many people studying Chinese then. Most of us had aspirations to positions of leadership. . . like the Mandarins who used to rule over the Chinese bureaucracy.”

“So, what became of your little Club?” Albertson said.

“We’ve stayed in touch.”

“And looked out for each other—‘stuck together,’ didn’t you say?”

“Yeah.”

“And covered for each other?”

Booth just shook his head. His inquisitors stole a glance at each other, and another long silence ensued. It was the silences Booth had come to dread. They afforded him too much time to reflect on the consequences of his every word.

“What’s your point, if I might ask?” said Booth. He felt better posing the questions than answering them.

“Our point?” Tedesco replied this time.

“I mean, if you think Smithson tipped Bonner, why don’t you ask the senator?”

“You’re the senator’s top aide.”

“But if you want to accuse the chairman of leaking something, have the decency to confront him directly. Don’t drag others into some partisan witch hunt.”

“So you think this is a ‘partisan witch hunt’?”

“That’s what he said, Agent Albertson,” said Tedesco.

“Sure,” Booth shot back, “stuff gets leaked all the time. Bonner is a nationally renowned reporter. The FBI only gets called in when somebody’s out to smear someone. It’s the same old shoot-the-messenger stuff they use all the time. I mean, look at the Wilson thing. Buncha White House guys blow a CIA agent’s cover to punish her husband—and you know who gets sent to jail? A reporter!”

“You’re getting way off the point—”

“That’s the way I see it, though.”

They stared at each other a while, Albertson sipping from a Coke can, Ms. Tedesco gripping her notes. There was very little air in the room. Booth could hear the ancient air conditioning unit straining to function.

“So, if we asked whether you spoke directly with Alexander Bonner on May the twenty-fourth, your answer would be no?”

“Yes. It would be ‘no.’”

“And did you ever discuss the CIA report regarding the Chinese missile build-up with him?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” Both the FBI agents leaned forward now, looking for a crack in the wall.

“He called me looking for confirmation. Some time in early June. You’ve got his phone records, so you can probably tell me exactly what day and time. I told him I couldn’t help him. Probably you got that on tape, too.”

“Let me disabuse you, sir,” Albertson said. “Federal judges don’t like us to tap reporters’ phones, even phones of guys who like to harm U.S. security by passing around classified stuff.”

They fenced on, parry and riposte. Booth got better at it as he went. The FBI couple became increasingly terse; both agents seemed convinced Booth was trying to cover up a politically charged matter for his boss. He was determined not to give them anything that might embarrass Smithson. Situational ethics, or no, he owed it to the senator to keep mum.

Booth cruised to the finish, breathing strong with his second wind, even as he grew more and more disgusted with himself. But then, just at the threshold of a successful exit, he was leveled by one final blow.

“Dr. Booth, that’s all we have for you today,” Agent Albertson said as he snapped his notebook closed. He looked up, eyes seeking their target. “At least, that is until we receive the final Committee authorization on fluttering.”

“Fluttering?” Booth did not understand at first.

“Polygraphs,” he elaborated. “Lie detector tests. Senator Landle has requested them for all interviewees in the second round. I’m going to recommend we start with you. Then maybe we’ll learn a little more about which reporters Senator Smithson has been unburdening himself to.”

Booth’s affected smile flattened. Struggling to suppress his horror, he got out of there as quickly as he could.

He walked in a daze back up the Hill toward the Capitol plaza. Throngs of tourists were suffering in the mid-afternoon heat, shuffling slowly up the incline towards the towering white dome. The sky was heavy with dark gray cumulus clouds, thickening for a thunder and lightning strike.

Booth turned left just before he passed the Senate steps, skirting under the marble stairs to the VIP entrance, then strode down the hallway in search of Jake Smithson.

Sure enough, he found the senator in his hideaway. Smithson would sit in the small room—just down the hall from the Committee’s ceremonial meeting space in the Capitol—puttering about with old family photos, and fiddling with the velvet, ceiling-to-floor drapes. It was, Booth believed, one of Smithson’s safer sources of relaxation.

The office seemed ageless, an intensely personal clubhouse suspended somewhere in another time. Smithson had filled the musty room with memories of family, not politics. It was almost devoid of the typical Washington-wallpaper that consisted of old head shots of grand personages. The exception was an autographed NASA photo of Smithson with Richard Nixon, of all people. The balance of the frames contained decades-old candids of his relatives. Smithson would walk about the room, tinkering with mementos as he meditated on the issues of the day. He might even sit at his desk, feet up, and take a power nap—a skill, he claimed, he learned in flight school.

“Yes?” said the senator with a hint of irritation at Booth’s knock. “Oh, it’s you, Martin. What’s up?”

Booth did not immediately respond, instead sitting without being asked. He eyed a can of Sprite on the Senator’s desk and suddenly felt parched.

“You OK?” the senator asked. “You look shook up.”

Booth still didn’t know how to begin. He didn’t have any plan here, any grand design.

“I, uh, I guess I’m having trouble living with contradictions.”

“Contradictions?”

“Yeah. Not sure what to do when competing values clash.”

“Whose values?” The phone rang, but Smithson ignored it, continuing the conversation. “You’re speaking in riddles, my friend. Who’ve you been talking with, the White House?”

“No,” Booth said, looking up to catch the concerned Chairman’s eye this time. “The FBI.”

“Oh. OK. So, you got ‘contradictions’?”

“Yeah.”

“They can be a pain in the ass.”

“But you’re better at them. Always were.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re better at balancing—dodging—whatever is the polite way to put it.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Why were you ‘dodging’ with the FBI?”

“I mean, maybe it comes with the territory, being a politician in the public eye and all.” Booth was stumbling. “I. . . I just don’t understand how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Juggle the ethical conflicts. Professional. Personal. Marital, whatever. I don’t know how you balance it all and walk about day and night as if you’re all there, one coherent whole.”

Smithson observed with horror the strange transformation affecting his aide.

“It’s the
contradictions
, Jake. I just don’t understand how you balance them.”

Smithson stared at his aide, then slowly began to shake his head in bewilderment. “I really don’t know what to say. I mean,
you
go see the FBI, and now you want
me
to defend myself? Were they quizzing you about my private life?”

“No. But by the way, what
are
you going to do when the subject comes up in the primaries?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I have to. I mean, a man’s got to live the life he’s made. God doesn’t expect us to walk around miserable if we’re trying to do His works.”

“Sorry, senator. They weren’t asking about your private life. See, the thing is, the FBI thinks you’re the one who leaked the satellite photos to the newspapers, to Alexander Bonner.”

“Me? Well, with all due respect, fuck ’em. Let ’em come after me with their lie detector crap. I just want to see them wire up Tom Landle and his boys, too. I’ll pay the price of admission for that.”

“You still don’t see it, do you?” Booth said, shaking his head slowly.

The phone rang again, but Smithson was intent upon him. “You still don’t get it.”

“About my personal life?” the senator asked.

“No, Jake.” He’d never called him Jake twice in a day. “I mean about the FBI. The satellite photos. The leak.”

“Screw the FBI. It’s just some partisan crap the White House has put Landle up to. To have me slimed as a guy who can’t be trusted with sensitive stuff. Well, you know what? They can’t pin this one on ol’ Jake.”

“It’s not you.”

“I know it’s not me.”

“It’s
me
, Jake.
I
gave Alexander Bonner the stuff.”

Senator Smithson took a last swallow of the soda as he sized up his long-time aide, seeing him now in a new light. “
You?
”

“Me.”

“Oh-kaaaaay. So. . .”

“So?”

“So, what
exactly
is the problem? How can they ever prove it was you? I mean, did they catch you doing it on tape?” said Smithson. “Did you say anything stupid to them today?”

“Sir, I’m afraid I did a very good job of dodging,” said Booth, who stood and began to pace, touching a photo here and there as he gathered himself in an unconscious mimic of his mentor.

“Afraid?”

“I looked two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the eye and lied under oath for over an hour. It’s a felony, I believe.”

“
Really
?” Smithson followed Booth closely with his eyes. “Can I. . . I mean. . . Martin, do you mind if I ask why?”

“Oh, man, that’s what I don’t know.” Booth’s shoulders were sagging. “At first, I thought—I convinced myself—I was covering for you. I owe you that, at least. To not get you in hot water for something I did.”

“I see. I appreciate that.”

“But in retrospect,” Booth continued, “I see more clearly. I see a lot of things more clearly. It was about
me
, about my own attraction to power. I perjured myself to save my own neck, to save my own career.”

“Actually, I meant, why did you leak the photos?”

“Because they’re lying to us—the Chinese, the State Department, the White House. They’re all goddamn liars. If we tolerate it, it subverts our whole system of government.”

“So you got back at them. Shit,” Smithson said, heaving a sigh of disgust. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

“Don’t you
see
? I got back at them by stooping to their level. By lying right back.”

“Damn it, Martin, you can’t put it that way.
They
are the bad guys here. You can’t give in to bullies like that.”

Booth had a vacant look.

“They’ll own you,” said Smithson. “You know, I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood. Navy docks down on the Oakland waterfront. Guys would come after you and shake you down all the time, just for your lunch money. You had to fight ’em—you just had to—even if you took a beating. Try to hurt ’em back. Make ’em bleed, too. That’s the only way they’d know to respect you and know not to mess with you next time.”

“Right.”

“This ain’t Debate Club. This isn’t a Stanford tutorial with some honor code you gotta sign.”

“Senator, I’m sorry. It’s just. . . that’s how I was brought up. Don’t go into the gutter with your enemies. Try to make this a kinder, gentler world.”

“Robert Kennedy?”

“Yep. The night Martin Luther King was killed. Speech in Indianapolis.”

“Great speech.”

“Made me cry when my dad read it to me—and I was just a kid then, a kid whose heroes were dying.”

No words passed between them for a time. Booth had always admired Smithson’s tolerance for silence—a politician who actually liked to think.

“What now?” the senator finally asked.

“It’s not fair, you know.”

“No. It’s not.”

“They lie to us, but we feel the heat.”

“Martin, if Reverend Booth were here, I’m sure he would remind you that God didn’t promise perfect justice on earth. Can’t you see there’s no moral equivalence here? Their wrongs are far more egregious than yours. ‘Fight injustice,’ he’d say. ‘And remember, God helps those who help themselves.’”