The Parnell Affair (17 page)

“I better stop myself,” he said.

“Oh, damn it all,” she said.  Her leg found his again under the table.  “You've told me some of what happened when you were young—and thank you; it means a lot to me to be trusted, and I know all about concealment, from both sides—but what were you like back then?”

“Well, I wasn't really interested in girls—until I saw what you could do with them,” he said, leering comically.

“Not that,” she said.  “No man who's still dangerous to women at your age had any interest in girls as a boy.  They all had some other interest.  What was yours?”

“Led Zeppelin,” he said.

“No way,” she said, imitating a roady's squeal.

“Oh yeah,” he said.  “That, without anything else, makes my brother my hero because he introduced me to them when I was about eight years old.  To
Led Zeppelin I
!  Not like those band-wagon fans,” he said with facetious scorn.  “The epic glory that is Zeppelin is enough, but it led to my career, too, which makes his introduction to them life-alerting to boot.”

“Listening to Led Zeppelin,” she said slowly, “made you a journalist.  Right.  Of course.  It was on the tip of my tongue.”

“Ha!” he said.  “Some people followed the Dead, I followed Led Zeppelin.  Well, mom worked a lot of nights, dad was safely drunk, and there were no siblings around to tell on me,” he said with the bravura of someone familiar with pain, “so at thirteen I started sneaking off to go to concerts.  Hitchhiking, usually.  Sometimes by train.  I stayed away two days once, pretending to call from friends' houses!  My senior year in high school, I wrote a review of a concert for the school newspaper (extra credit: needed it).  Mrs. Walsh, the advisor, thought it was so good she sent it off to the local paper.  They paid me $25, which was enough for a seat at another concert I wanted to see.  And a cycle started that continued after graduation.  I became a sort of arts-and-entertainment reporter for the now defunct
Standard
.”

“So, without a college education,” she said, “you went from concert reviewer—I'm guessing a long-haired, pot smoking concert reviewer—to covering
Congress?  That's, that's impressive.”

“I had beautiful hair,” he said wistfully, looking into the distance.  He gave her a wink and said: “I have some pictures at home I could show you that will make you very disappointed in how I look now.”

“I doubt that,” she said.  “But I'd love to see them sometime.”

“Anytime,” he said.  “But I did go to college, eventually.  Even took a masters in Journalism.  Mom made a deal with me.  Dad had died in '78—mom said he went to see Magnus,” he said, watching history with a sad smile.  “She was right, I think.  Died of a broken heart.  So, it was just me and mom.  (Mary showed up for the funeral but returned to California with her wife afterward; I think she'd been in secret contact with mom.)  Anyway, mom wanted me to make something of myself so she agreed to fund my concert going—with airfare, if necessary—provided I went to college part time.  Deal!  Once the paper saw I was becoming more serious—I was writing honest to god English sentences—they had me cover a wider variety of stories.  Mostly stories where my appearance and counter-culture credential would be an asset, which often meant crime stories but not from within the police beat.  A lot of drug stories, and this wasn't the happy '60s weed smoking or '70s
eight balls at the disco—this was 1981.  Crack had just hit the streets.  Can't tell you how many times I've had a gun in my face or fired off at me.  And the cops were no help until I discovered a few undercover vice squad guys and kept quiet about it.  After that, they trusted me and I got tip offs.  And didn't get 'accidentally' shot by them.  When the
Standard
folded, I joined
The
Observer
to cover the so-called war on drugs.”  They both chuckled, Sally covering her mouth negligently.  “Yeah, that's worked out great but it made my career.  I spent half the '80s in South America; the other half was split between talking to gangs and harassing Congressmen about drug laws.  That eventually led to the glorious position it is now my honor to hold.”

Sally golf-clapped and affected a comically tearful expression.  “It really is quite an achievement, though,” she said.  Underneath the table, her other leg joined the first to encircle one of Tobias's.  “Going to school while working full time—half of it out of the country—all the way through your masters.  How the hell did you even do that?”

“Lot of transfer credits,” he said.

“You're joking,” she said.

“University City of Bogotá, baby,” he said.  With soccer fan flair, he chanted: “C-U-B!  C-U-B!”

She couldn't contain her laughter.  Not with both hands.

“And just what's so funny about that?” he asked, enjoying her smile, her laugh, her happiness too much to be stung.  “Why does everyone get a kick out of my going to the University City of Bogotá?” he asked.  She tried to answer but couldn't.  “I mean,” he said, rocking his leg forward and back between hers a few inches, “if I said the University of Warsaw, would you laugh?”

“Warsaw is a considerably older city,” she managed, his leg enticing her out of her laughter.

“Okay; I did my masters at U. Maryland,” he said.  “In two non-consecutive years.  Is that funny?”

She nodded, saying, “A little bit.”

“Oh, I get it,” he said, enjoying the rarity of
being
teased—Tobias was used to doing the teasing.  “This is Ivy League snobbery.  Okay, hot stuff, where did you go to school?”

“Education is only as good as the student pursuing it,” she said, affecting a sardonic smile.  “Fortunately, Stanford provided a wonderful faculty with which the erudite students could engage.”

“For crying out loud,” he mumbled.

“The Pantheon-Sorbonne was much the same,” she continued, adding to her air until it crackled with effected privilege.

“I think we're going to need that other bottle of champagne—or maybe just the ice bucket back,” he said, laughing at her queenly expression.

“Actually, I loved Stanford,” she said normally.  “And the teachers were great.  But it was the people, the other students, who made it such a pleasure.  I don't think I would have enjoyed a similar school on the east coast: from what Joe's said—though from him it was praise—the big time east coast Ivy League schools sound like they're pretty hard, socially, on scholarship kids.  That was me.”

“I imagine Stanford's just the same,” Tobias said.  She gave him a questioning look.  “Come on, how often does a woman with your looks face social torment?  The boys of Stanford were probably falling all over themselves to be of service.”

“I don't buy that,” she said.  Her beauty hadn't entered a conversation this often in years; buying it or not, she was enjoying it.  “That couldn't be it because it wouldn't affect the girls.”

“They'd be intimidated,” he said.

“No,” she said, elongating the word.

“You paused before you said that,” he said.

“Well, if they were intimidated, it had nothing to do with my looks,” she said.  “I was in the boxing club and was the best one there.  We even had an exhibition against the men's team—by weight class.  I drew their team's best, as it happened, this featherweight machine.  God was he fast!  It was a good thing I had three inches of reach or I wouldn't have stood a chance.  KO'd him, though,” she said, smiling at remembered pride.  Then the smile turned a little sad.  “Poor guy.  It really hurt his pride to be knocked out by a girl.  It's so stupid,” she said, eyes unfocused, perturbed: “Does my punch land more lightly than that of a man my size, if I throw it well?”

“I agree with everything you say,” he said, feigning a terrified monotone.

She laughed and playfully slapped his cheek and pointed at him.  “Good,” she said.  “I'm glad you've finally come to your senses.”

“I'm carried away by my senses,” he said, lingering a moment.  “So, a boxer, eh?  Nice.  Judging by your face alone, you must have been outstanding.”

“Ha!  Thanks,” she said.  “I was pretty good, I think it's safe to say.  Funny: I joined on a whim, just to stay fit.  And like your Zeppelin fandom, it probably changed my life: I think it helped in the agency's decision to recruit me.”

“I'd heard they recruited from universities,” he said.  “These days, it's kids who speak some sort of Arabic.”

“Back then,” she said, “during the cold war, any language helped.  The game was still played all over Europe.  I was fluent in French: had taken to it during high school, minored in it at Stanford, and spent my summers in Quebec.”  She smiled at some memory and shook her head.

“What?” he asked, sharing her smile.

“Just seeing how fate can play the long game,” she said.  “I met a man one summer.  I was nineteen, he was forty.”

Tobias whistled.

“Yeah,” she said.  “Not an evil seducer of young women, though.  He was beautiful and urbane, charming—and not your sort of charm.  He wanted to introduce me to a world of culinary enjoyment, sensory exploration, be it music, food, art or sex.  I knew more than I let on.  He enjoyed his role; I enjoyed mine.  Or maybe I should say label.  I wasn't any more in love with him than he was with me.  He was my summer fling,” she said with a curious smile, “for a few years.  But looking back on it, taking him as a lover dispelled all the illusions about difference in age—and set me up for the big fall with Joe.”

Tobias could still feel her legs around one of his but they had relaxed, as if she'd forgotten they were there, and so he kept very still.

“I had a PR bachelor's,” she said, “but the agency fixed it so I looked as if I was more interested in finance.  My first assignment was in banking.  Finance is a big part of maintaining a functioning intelligence apparatus.  I'd only been in Paris a couple of months when I met Joe at some plush 'do.”  She shook her head.  “
He
was gorgeous.  Everything Michele—my Québécois lover—wanted to be, Joe actually was.  Physical passion—for once—was equaled by intellectual interest.  We clicked immediately.  Later on at the party, when I learned he worked at the embassy, it felt right.  Maybe it was the champagne,” she said, touching her glass with a smile, “and the elegance of the people and feeling I was out in the world on an important task and, not least of all, being twenty-two—it felt right.  Oh well,” she said, shrugged and took a sip of her water.  “We had a good run.  I took a masters in economics from the Sorbonne, had two beautiful children, and maybe someday I'll tell you how I stopped French nuclear technology from passing through Algeria to Libya, which was my first big operation and led eventually to entering Russia after the fall—with Joe's State Department mission as the perfect cover—to recruit agents to monitor Russian nuclear inventories, which in turn led to my being sent to do the same in many countries.”  She smiled at her hubristic catalogue but the smile died.  “And so what if the marriage didn't last and the job—” she left the sentence hanging.

Tobias waited a moment before he said quietly, “I can see why you said they took the last thing you had.”

“I still have a few things,” she conceded wearily.  “Joe's still a friend.  I don't—can't—confide personal things to him, not anymore, but he's still a friend.  The smarter of the two of us,” she said, forcing a laugh, “he's moved on.  I wish I could, already; just to feel that life wasn't on pause anymore would be something.”

Watching one another from within the confines of perception, these two people—who'd spent their lives in the detection of falsehood and concealment, who knew well the stories told by the subtlest contortions of the face, the involuntary admissions of breath and posture, which the skilled could forge and the perspicacious read—in a few passing seconds said much without sound.

She laughed.  “What are we?” she asked.  “A couple of mimes.”

“I guess we could say it out loud,” he offered.

“No,” she said, the smile dropping from her lips.  “I know we're on the same page.”

“And if we say it,” he said, “we'll have to deal with it.”

“I want to deal with it,” she said.

“But not this second,” he said.  She took a breath; he held up a hand.  “Let's let that lie unanswered.  You said you had to know why they took everything away.”

“Yes,” she said.  “For the sake of my agents who were killed because of the Administration's betrayal.  That's what's kept me from sleeping but I suppose there's more to it.  I never thought of myself as someone who'd be remembered.  My actions, my service to my country, whatever success I've had as well as whatever failures I've suffered, as a spy those things were for me and maybe a few superiors to know.  Not the world.  My life, my work, however important, was mine, private.  And now?  To be remembered, to be inscribed in the history of man as an incompetent who willfully ignored her duties to cover up her failure—I can't live knowing that those lies will follow me into the grave.  And I have to know why they're so hell bent on starting a war.  The rhetoric is so hot and baseless, predicated, it seems, solely upon these Niger documents that cannot say what the Administration claims.”

“Then we have to find them,” he said.  “With them in hand, we could demonstrate their impossibility and call into question their authenticity.  I could write words like “forged” and phrases like “false flag.”  Then we'll know who did this and why.  Then your agents will have justice.  But we have to get those Niger docs first.  So I have to ask, how far are you willing to go?  You're still in the CIA.”  She sat back, the question of using seeping back into the undertone of the conversation, slightly but significantly altered.  “It's up to you if we pursue them any further,” he said.  “Pursue anything any further.  But if we do, we'll need some idea of who's seen these documents, where they are now, and who's responsible for them.  With that, maybe we can track down someone willing to leak them.  I'll need that kind of help.  If this forgery angle goes where we think, if the Niger docs were made to order, to start a war, this'll be the biggest story since Watergate—but I'll need exactly that sort of inside information.  So I have to ask: how far are you willing to go?”