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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: The Kill Zone
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At ten he was to meet with the U.S. Intelligence Board, which consisted of the heads of all the U.S. military and civilian intelligence agencies, over the Pakistan issue. There was a possibility that Pakistan and India would soon be going thermonuclear. The President and his National Security Council
were going to want a very tight estimate on the situation, and soon.
At noon he was scheduled to award four medals to two of Dave Whittaker's clandestine ops people for work they'd done in Tajikistan uncovering the links between four Russian officers who'd stolen a small nuclear device from a military depot in Dushanbe and Osama bin Laden. Afterward he was having lunch with four postdocs from Harvard who were working on research papers dealing with the economic impact that the CIA's presence in some third world countries was having. His job was to help them as much as possible to find the right answers and point them in directions that would do the least harm to the Company.
At one he would be returning phone calls and working on the draft of his opening statement to the Senate Armed Forces Subcommittee on Intelligence. At two he would be meeting with the CIA's general counsel, Carleton Paterson, about the hearings. At four he had a series of meetings with various department heads in the Directorates of Operations and Intelligence on specific issues and concerns, many of them about personnel, committee appointments, mission emphasis and, as usual, funding.
Sometime after that he had to fit in the new ambassador to India. By six he would do his laps in the CIA's basement swimming pool, and hopefully by seven he could leave for the day.
Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the snow-covered woods, and for a moment McGarvey stopped to think how many decisions had been made from this room—some of them good, even brilliant, others incredibly stupid—all of them affecting the lives of someone somewhere in the world. Now it was his turn if he wanted to run the gauntlet in the Senate. Something he still wasn't sure that he wanted to do.
There were a couple of Wyeth prints on the walls, bookcases along one, couch, leather chairs and a coffee table along another; a private bathroom and, directly off his office, a small private dining room that he often used for small conferences. A door connected directly with the office of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence.
Underlined in red was the meeting with Carleton Paterson. The patrician former New York corporate attorney had a respect for McGarvey that just bordered on the grudging, but he had done his best to pave the way for the hearings. “Hammond will try to embarrass you and the Agency at every possible turn,” Paterson kept warning. “His aim is to get you to withdraw of your own accord; short of that he'll want to prejudice public opinion so badly against you that the President will be forced to pull your nomination. It's happened before.”
“Maybe Hammond is right,” McGarvey told him.
“About you being the wrong man for the job?” Paterson asked. He shook his head, took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his handkerchief. “The CIA has been run by political animals for too long.”
McGarvey started to object, but Paterson held him off.
“In the end the general became your friend, I understand your feelings. But Murphy was primarily a politician. Something you are not.” Paterson put his glasses back on. “When someone cuts open my chest I don't want it to be the president of the hospital board. I want it to be the surgeon who's gotten his hands bloody; someone who's done a thousand heart transplants, the last dozen of which he did just last week.” He inclined his head. “You, my scholar with a gun, are just that man.” He chuckled. “The problem will be getting you confirmed. Hammond's not your worst enemy. You are.”
Ms. Swanfeld set his coffee down. “You're free after lunch, the four professors from Harvard canceled, and the pool is yours at six.”
“Where's my daughter?”
“She and Mr. Van Buren are still at the Farm. They're scheduled to come back later this morning.”
McGarvey took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “Have Carleton up here at two sharp, I think I can give him two hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dick Adkins, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence came from his adjoining office with a newspaper. “You'll need every bit of those two hours, and then some,” he said. He nodded to Miss Swanfeld.
“Will that be all, sir?” she asked.
“Let's do letters after lunch.”
“Yes, sir.” Miss Swanfeld turned and left the office, softly closing the door behind her.
“She's priceless.”
“I'd be lost without her.”
“Have you seen the
Post
?”
“Not yet.”
Adkins laid the
Washington Post
in front of McGarvey. “Apparently we tried to recruit the good senator right out of college in ‘69, but he couldn't make it through the confidence course. He ended up getting himself drafted and sent to 'Nam.”
The headline read: CIA WANNA-BE GUNNING FOR NATION'S TOP SPOOK.
“Maybe this will quiet him down.”
“Not likely. Nobody likes us right now, and Hammond didn't dodge the draft. There's talk about putting him up for President in three years.”
McGarvey sat back. “We've survived worse.”
“Name one,” Adkins shot back. He was a little irascible this morning, his eyes red. He was a short man, a little paunchy and usually diffident; this morning his cheeks were hollow, and he looked like he wanted to bite something.
“Bad weekend?”
“Ruth is sick again.” His eyes narrowed. “Every goddammed doctor we've taken her to says the same thing; it's in her head. There's nothing physically wrong with her.” His jaw tightened. “But they don't have to hold her shoulders while she's heaving her guts out in the toilet bowl at three in the morning—for the fifth time that night.”
“What about a psychologist?”
“She won't see one,” he replied bitterly. He had changed over the past months. They had two girls, but they were away at school. It was for the best, but it left Dick alone to handle the tough situation.
“Maybe you should get out of here for a couple of weeks,” McGarvey suggested. “Take her someplace warm. Hawaii.”
“After the hearings.” Adkins cracked a smile. “God only knows what I'd come back to if I left now.”
“Seriously, Dick, there's no job in the world worth your wife. Anytime you want to pull the pin, say the word and you're out of here.”
Adkins nodded tiredly. “I appreciate it. But for now she doesn't seem to be getting any worse—same old same old. We'll go after the hearings.”
“I was thinking about that over the weekend.”
“I know, I talked to Carleton on Friday. He's worried that you're going to tell the President no thanks, and hang on here only until someone else can be confirmed.”
“It wouldn't be the end of the world.”
“True. But the general picked you for the job, and he's a pretty good judge of character. At least stick it out for a couple of years. This place has never been run so well.”
“Did you read the overnights? An idiot could do this job.”
“And some have,” Adkins said. “Lots of grass fires out there, any one of which could start a forest fire.”
“Haynes has other people he can name who'd get past Hammond without a problem.”
“Need we say more?” Adkins asked. “This place would go back to being
run like a Fortune 500 company, or worse, like a political constituency. I for one don't think that would do the country any good. And I'm not alone in that opinion. But it's your call. Take your own advice; if you want to pull the pin, just say the word. But don't screw around, Mac. Don't bullshit the troops. Either do the job, or get the hell out right now and save us all a lot of trouble.”
Adkins was right, of course. Lead, follow or get out of the way. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said THE BUCK STOPS HERE. The sign on McGarvey's desk could have read, THE BULLSHIT STOPS HERE. He had a hell of a staff; the right people at the right time; professionals who were willing, like Adkins was this morning, to tell the boss the way it really was without fear of repercussions. The CIA had not been run that way for years, if it ever had.
He looked up. “I want to see the in-depths on the overnights, especially the India-Pakistan situation. I think it's going to heat up even faster than anyone believes, and we'll have to play catch up over there.”
“I'll set up an Intelligence Operations briefing this afternoon.”
“Let's put it on the nine o'clock agenda. I want something for USIB at ten. But first I want to see a file summary of everything we know.”
“Will do.”
“Now, what do we have on the situation in Havana? Do you know who the guy was?”
“Navy lieutenant commander Paul Andersen, stationed at the Naval Intelligence unit at Guantanamo Bay. He flew up to Miami on Thursday, picked up a new identity, and Friday flew to Havana with a delegation of travel agents and cruise ship reps. He'd apparently set up a meeting with Hector Sanchez, the second-in-command in Cuban Military Intelligence Internal Affairs. Something is supposedly going on in Castro's private security detail. Sanchez was going to talk to Andersen in trade for asylum and presumably a stack of cash.”
“Was it a setup?”
“Naval Intelligence is still working the problem. Havana police found his naked body in the alley behind his hotel. He'd been beaten up and then took a dive, or was thrown, out his tenth-floor window. That was about ten minutes after the prostitute he'd hired left the room.”
“What about our people on the ground?”
“They're working on it. But they'll have to burn a couple of assets to get anywhere.”
“Do it,” McGarvey said.
“All right,” Adkins replied. “No one is safe anymore. But that has to change.”
“We'll give it a try.”
When Adkins was gone, McGarvey called Otto Rencke's extension in the computer center on the third floor. Back like this he was having trouble with people depending on him. Part of the job. But trust gave him an odd feeling between his shoulder blades, as if someone with a high-power rifle was taking a bead on him.
Otto answered on the first ring, his voice sharp, even shrill. “What do you want?”
“Good morning, what's eating your ass?”
“I'm busy. What do you want?”
“I want to know what you were doing at my house yesterday, and why you just sat in the driveway without ringing the bell.”
“Somebody else.”
“What?”
“Somebody else. I wasn't out there. Louise and I spent the entire weekend painting the apartment. And each other.” Otto's tone of voice softened a little; more like his old self. “Maybe you oughta get security out there, ya know. Don't want it purple. That's the color for a shroud. Bad. Bad. Bad dog. Something might be gainin' on you, ya know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Not ready yet,” Otto replied distantly, as if his mind had suddenly gone elsewhere. “Difficult, delicate. Still pastels, but I don't know, can't say. Just look up, Mac; we all gotta keep our eyes really open, ya know. All the time, not just in the night.”
Rencke broke the connection, something chiming in the background noises of his office, and McGarvey was mystified. When Otto was in the middle of something he tended to go off to his own little world. But this was different. He had never had this harsh an edge before.
… HE HAD TO WONDER IF WHAT HE HAD ACCOMPLISHED HAD REALLY MATTERED AT ALL, OR IF HIS CAREER HAD BEEN NOTHING BUT A WASTED EFFORT.
 
 
 
 
T
he U.S. Intelligence Board meeting ran ten minutes past the lunch hour, but nobody grumbled. There was a sense of accomplishment now that a new DCI was at the helm.
McGarvey presented the distinguished service intelligence medals to Whittaker's people, grabbed a quick sandwich at his desk while dictating letters to Ms. Swanfeld, then returned a few phone calls and did some work on the draft of his opening statement.
He spent a couple of contentious hours with Carleton Paterson, who insisted on playing devil's advocate; acting as he thought Senator Hammond might act, working at every turn to provoke McGarvey into making an angry outburst; say something impolitic. “If it gets too bad, I'll keep my mouth shut,” McGarvey promised. “I might throttle the senator, but I won't say a thing.”
“Hammond's not a bad man like Joe McCarthy was,” Paterson
said seriously. “He really believes that what he is doing is for the good of the country.”
“I know, and I won't actually choke him to death,” McGarvey said, smiling. “Not unless I snap.”
Paterson gathered his papers and stuffed them into his attaché case. “I used to wonder if there was anything behind that superefficient, cool, macho exterior of yours. Like maybe a sense of humor.” He shook his head. “I guess I just found out. I suggest you don't take your wry wit into the hearing chambers. You won't have a lot of understanding friends there.”
“No DCI has.”
“True.”
After his directorate meetings and his talk with the ambassador to India, he went down to the competition-size pool in the basement gym to do his laps. It was 6:00 P.M. Yemm swam with him, as usual. DCIs were not allowed to drown themselves, even accidentally, especially not on Yemm's watch. And anyway, Yemm needed the exercise, too. The act of swimming was mindless, just like the treadmill in the mornings, freeing McGarvey's mind to drift to Otto Rencke, who, despite his eccentricities, or perhaps because of them, was possibly the most valuable man in the Agency. He was able to see things that no one else could. He'd once explained to McGarvey that he had worked on the problem of describing color to a blind Indian mathematician. “Toughest thing I ever did, ya know. Oh, wow, but it was cool.” Using a complicated series of tensor calculus matrices, he was able to first establish neutrality—white. Then he separated the equations into their constituent parts; the way white light separates into a rainbow of colors through a prism. “The eighth-order equations were my prism, and in the end Ravi kissed me, and said, ‘I see. Thank you very much.'” The same concept in reverse, representing very difficult mathematics by colors, was Otto's breakthrough. He'd already quantified millions of pieces of seemingly random data and intelligence information into the form of mathematical equations, so now he could reduce the complicated decisions that an intelligence officer had to make into colors. Pastels were at the edge of his understanding; not strong, not clear. But lavender, and especially purple stood for very bad situations—acts of terrorism, assassinations, even wars. To this point Rencke had never been wrong, not once. When a color showed up he could predict what was coming.
They got dressed at seven. On the way down to the car they stopped at the third-floor computer center. This was where Otto usually worked, in the midst of the Agency's mainframe and three interconnected Cray supercomputers.
The huge, dimly lit blue room was kept cooler than the rest of the building. It smelled strongly of electronic equipment, and no one ever wanted to speak above a whisper. Mysterious forces beyond human ken were in operation here. The computer was like the tabernacle that held the host on a Catholic Church altar; holy of holies. There were niches and alcoves scattered throughout the room, nestled amidst the equipment, where the human operators worked. They hadn't seen Otto for most of the afternoon, though no one could say exactly when he had left. It was like that down here; he was an elusive figure, like the shadows beneath a shifting pattern of clouds. The niche where he usually worked was a filthy mess of computer printouts, paper cups, milk cartons and McDonald's wrappers strewn on the floor and on a long worktable; wastepaper baskets overflowing, shredder baskets filled, classified satellite downloads lying everywhere. The infrared and visible light images appeared to be mostly of Eastern Europe and Russia.
McGarvey
recognized the Baltic coastlines of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia up to Finland, and then the cities of Helsinki, Leningrad and as far east as Moscow. One of the monitors displayed the sword-and-shield logo of the old KGB against a pastel pink background. McGarvey touched enter, and the screen immediately went blank.
“Doesn't look like he wants anyone snooping around,” Yemm said.
“Apparently not,” McGarvey replied absently. He stared at the blank screen. He was concerned. There was nothing currently on the front burner about the KGB. But Otto was in the middle of something. What?
Time to talk to the Company shrink? He looked at the piles of classified photographs littering the area. He didn't want to lose Otto. Or even worse, he didn't want Otto to run amok; the entire CIA could suffer. The damage could ultimately be worse than what Aldrich Ames had done to them.
He telephoned the computer center night duty supervisor and asked him to clean up the monitor area that Rencke had been using and secure any classified documents he found.
“He won't be happy, Mr. McGarvey.”
“I'll talk to him.”
On the way home he stared at the heavy traffic on the Parkway, suddenly depressed. It was dark already, and it was supposed to snow again. He shivered even though it was warm in the car.
“Do you ever think about getting out of the business, Dick?” he asked.
“Every day, boss,” Yemm replied. “Every day.”
The answer seemed particularly bitter to McGarvey. But then everyone was in a screwed-up mood lately. It had to be the weather. And for him it
had to be that he had no real idea why he had accepted the President's appointment.
Time to step down. He'd done his bit. He'd fought the wars, though very often he had to wonder if what he had accomplished had really mattered at all, or if his career had been nothing but a wasted effort. And here he was now at the helm. It was a job he'd never wanted. Yet almost every DCI whom he'd served under had been in his estimation primarily a politician. Not a career intelligence officer, like in Britain.
The CIA was falling apart. Had been for years. The Agency had become nothing more than a glorified extension of the White House; DCIs told the administration nothing more than it wanted to hear, when it wanted to hear it.
Time for the truth. Trouble was that McGarvey didn't know if he was up to the job.

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