The Parnell Affair (19 page)

He seemed more than undaunted, in fact entirely unaware of any reason to withdraw.  He seemed only to want confirmation that they had indeed said so much to one another.  Sally floated, and not upon a runner's high.  She did, however, notice the pains he took to move slowly; she didn't feel so delicate but the long years of always considering the possibility of electronic surveillance stymied the impulses in which she'd extravagantly indulged when no more than a champagne-laden table lie between them.  Nevertheless, she had to offer some encouragement, and those things other than romance between them stirred in her mind as well.

She said, “I know what you’re asking.  I don't blame the wine—I think that's just you being kind—but I had wondered if you'd feel the same way today.  I meant every word I said yesterday, and plenty I didn't say.  I'm in—for both things we talked about.”

“Oh, I counted on the one,” he said.  “The one that didn't keep me awake last night.  You still dislike talking on the phone, I think,” he said with a laugh.  “At least about some things.”

“Some habits die hard,” she said.  “I can't help feeling inhibited on a phone so I'll keep this short: I've just thought of something.  Given what you heard outside the halls of
our
government, what have others heard outside the halls of other governments?”

It was a good question.  Tobias remembered Vonka's piece mentioned “British Intelligence” and wondered if that's where the Niger docs had originated.  He spent the day phoning journalists he knew in the UK.  Some he'd known for years, some he'd only ever emailed and never spoken.  Tobias had often been consulted in years past whenever a story involved the US
Congress; his knowledge and brevity added nuance to foreign stories of US politics that they otherwise may have lacked.  Tobias had always been free with such advice, even ghost writing whole sections of other journalists' pieces—as it was often quicker—knowing that there was no consideration of competition and the favors may come in handy one day.  The day having come, he was not disappointed.

Though the Niger docs had made a small splash in the American media—mostly to do with the outing of Sally Parnell—they were of less interest in the UK.  Nevertheless, their passage through the Office of the Foreign Secretary and not MI6 had drawn a raised eyebrow or two, when it was learned.   Tobias heard later that week that there was a French connection to the document's source.  Tobias thought briefly of car chases, because of the phrase, before calling a former lover who now lived in Paris.

She'd covered a highly-publicized kidnapping in Colombia in the '80s while Tobias was covering the drug trade.  A passionate and jealous woman, it took Tobias over an hour of flowery oratory and lie heaped upon lie as to why he'd not called her in nearly three years—when last he'd needed something from her—before she would help.  After hearing him out as to the backtracking of the Niger docs—from somewhere in the US government, though not CIA, to the British Foreign Secretary, and not MI6, to a supposed French source—Tobias's former lover said she had a suspicion but little expertise in such matters.  Her third husband, however, had considerably more.  The excuse to see him seemed to please her and a day later she returned Tobias's call: a well-known purveyor of information in Marseille was rumored to have conducted the transaction—a cash transaction—between an agent of Anthony Bellow's government and an Italian source.  After thanking her profusely—if less than genuinely—Tobias called a stringer (a freelance journalist)
The Washington Observer
often employed in Italy.

The stringer, contrary to Tobias's expectation, needed not a day nor even a moment to dig up any lead toward the Italian source.  The stringer remembered a small story that appeared, without causing much stir, only a week prior, that bore upon Tobias's inquiry.  An Italian correspondent for the BBC had been approached by an unnamed source and offered the opportunity to buy what was now supposed to be the Niger docs.  Tobias had the correspondent, Liz Bourbon, on the phone—out of a dead sleep—in twenty minutes.

Her story was not long but, as brevity is the soul of wit, danger is the heart of interest.  Ms. Bourbon—cross, at first, at being awoken in the early hours of the morning but intrigued by the caller's identity—soon revealed that an SISMI (Italian Intelligence) agent had shown her the Niger docs and offered them to her for ten thousand dollars in October of last year.  Though she tried to coax out of him the document's origin, he only hinted at some fortuitous meeting with another agent, she assumed from another country.  Her producers rejected the offer but Ms Bourbon approached the US Embassy in Rome to see if they wanted her to buy the documents for them.  Even at that time, rumbles of coming war with Iraq had been heard.

“And that's where the story gets weird,” Tobias said.  A week had passed since they'd shared a bottle of champagne; knowing Sally wouldn't discuss the matter over the phone—and for other reasons—he suggested coffee at his usual breakfast café.  With his back to the pastry case, and aided by frequent coffee refills by the discrete Sam (the waitress), Tobias recapped his investigations to Sally.  “At first, she said,” said Tobias, “that the Embassy had seemed very interested, taking the matter seriously and seemed to grasp the urgency in making a decision.  Then, nothing.  After two days, she called them back; her contact was evasive and transferred her to someone else—she assumed more senior—who told her they had no interest and
no comment
.”

“No comment?” Sally repeated.  She wore sleek, light colored trousers that showed off her figure and a close fitting and deep neck-lined blouse (both purchased after to their last meeting).  Though she appreciated his calling her last minute—it made it harder for surveillance to get in place—she would have liked more time in front of the mirror.  “She wasn't asking them for a comment,” Sally said.

“Exactly,” Tobias said.  Knowing he was going to call and meet Sally, he'd taken his time and fashioned a seemingly negligent, casual outfit of jeans, open-collared shirt, and corduroy blazer (despite the still warm September): in fact, he'd paraded three other outfits in front of his insufficient bathroom mirror and taken nearly an hour trying to tease out a single strand of hair to fall rakishly across his forehead.  All he’d managed was to tire out his shoulders and so ran his hands over his head in defeat and called Sally.  “Liz Bourbon had called the US Embassy to see if they wanted the Niger docs, not to question them about their existence.”

“It doesn't prove they had a hand in the transfer of the docs to the UK,” she said.  She toyed with the handle of her coffee cup.  “I would doubt that.  It could, however, indicate they were warned off.”

“That's what I was thinking,” he said.  “Do you think Joe could use his contacts in State to find out who worked the Rome office last year and ask about it?”

“I'll ask him,” she said.  “Shouldn't be a problem.  What about the Sissy agent?”

“Uh, yeah, he—” Tobias said.

“SISMI.  Sis-me, sissy,” she said.  “Good natured rivalry and all that.”

“Oh, right,” he said.  “His name is Martin Orocco.  I wanted to try to locate him but—given how the curtain was pulled down at the Embassy—I figured if I ask any agencies officially, he'll drop off the face of the earth.  Any chance you could find out?”

“I don't know,” she said quietly, eyes moving in inward thought.  “Couple people I can ask.  You've moved quickly, haven't you?  Less than a week and you've traced their origin back to this guy.  Maybe if you have a spare hour you could find Amelia Earhart’s plane.”

“Heh, I'm people who knows people,” he said.  “Phone calls and flattery, that's all.”

“I feel useless,” she said.  “I haven't found out a thing.”

“Well, you get something on this Orocco fella and we'll be in business,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said.  “The only thing I've seen is that a lot of intelligence has been sent to some new office at the Pentagon: the Office of Special Plans, the OSP.  The funny thing is, we're sending raw intel, not processed.  A lot of it's misleading—or could be twisted to mean anything.  I hear it’s a multi-agency thing; wonder if the Niger docs found their way to the OSP along with everything else.  It's mostly intel about Iraq, after all.”

“That's ominous,” he said.

“Very,” she said.

“I suppose the Niger docs could be there,” he said, making a sandpaper noise on his chin with his hand.  “But thin as my contacts are in the Executive, they look Rubenesque compared to my Pentagon contacts.  I'll keep it in mind, though.”

“Maybe I'll find out who works there,” she said.  “Not that it matters unless the Niger docs are in fact there.”

“Yeah, so listen,” he said.  “I have to go to New York in a few days for the 9/11 remembrance thing (I'm covering the Senators' speeches and stuff; can't get out of it).  I was thinking, when I get back, why don't we have ourselves a proper date?”

Sally paused for half a second, refused to listen to one more whingeing thought, and—lifting her coffee cup—said: “This isn't a proper date?”

“Ha, you know, by today's standards, it just might be,” he said.  “God, there's this intern at the office—poor girl—who just had a first date that consisted of going over to the fella's apartment for pizza and video games.”

Sally covered her mouth and tried not to laugh.  “Oh, no,” she said.

“She seemed alright with it, too,” he said.  “I mean, I understand having to be a cheap date sometimes, if you're an intern, but Christ, at least go out for the goddamn pizza!”  Sally laughed into her coffee.  “Oh man, this is old age—it's finally happened.  I was about to say, 'Kids these days.'”

“No, no it's not,” she reassured him, grasping his forearm.

“I'm going to have to get a scooter!” he whined.

She laughed, “No!  You will not get a scooter,” she said.  “That's not every kid's idea of a date.  My Lucy's dating a boy and he would never think of calling that a date.  One time—
one
time—he tried that videogame angle.  She wasn't having it.  I don't know, though, I think it's the modern version of 'I have some lovely etchings you should see,'” she said in an affectedly deep voice and a sly wink.

Tobias paused for a moment longer than he could get away with, with Sally.

“Oh my god, for you it's Led Zeppelin albums!” she cried, taking his arm again and this time shaking it.

“Damn,” he said.  He laughed with her.  “Yeah, and concert bootlegs,” he said.  “But I'm still hip to how the cats get down these days.”

“Oh my god, stop,” she said.

“
We're
going to have takeout Thai,” he said, “and video games.”

“Well, in that case,” she said, “yes, I'd love too.”  I did it, she thought, I did it; he asked and I said yes—does he really mean we'll go to his place on the first date?

“Actually, I don't have any video games,” he said.  “I'm very sorry.  We'll have to go to a restaurant or something.  Try not to be disappointed.”

“Depends on the restaurant,” she said.  The smile slipped a moment later.

“Yeah,” he said, knowing what had occurred to her. “Don't want to be seen out by one of Lucy's friend's parents?” he asked, deliberately not mentioning any of the hundreds of people who knew her and Joe.  “Don't worry,” he said, catching her hand as it slipped off his forearm.  “I'll rent a car; we can go to one of those little getaway hotel/restaurants in Virginia.  There must be dozens of them.”

“I have a car,” she said; she'd orchestrated the details in seconds, from covers to transportation, contingencies—she would not allow excuses.  “And I know a great little place in Maryland, on the bay.  You like seafood?”

“Adore it,” he said, feeling her hand squeeze his.

A very thin ham sandwich on stale bread and a weak cup of burnt coffee—purchased on the run to the station—was in Tobias's immediate future.  Though they could have, perhaps, improvised Sally's explanations to family and had their date that night, Tobias could tell she was enjoying the anticipation.  You only have this early, nervous, enigmatic part of the relationship once with someone, he thought as he found his seat on the Amtrak from Washington to New York Penn Station: might as well enjoy it.  As he sneered at the coffee through its little plastic aperture, he admitted to himself that his misgivings over her marriage lingered.  But internal arguments about words like “separated” and “permissible” had to wait: Tobias saw Senator Snajder enter the car from the other end.

The well-rehearsed talking points flew fast and furiously all the way to New York.  Reporters accosted the various Senators and Representatives who'd taken the train, fishing for suitable quotes and sound bites, prompting them to un-vetted remarks but no one left message.  Tobias, seeing the circus, kept to his seat and picked up enough in traffic and from passing acquaintances to give a reasonable approximation of the altogether unnecessary speech.

In Manhattan, the mood changed noticeably.  Though the passersby between 33
rd
Street and Central Park—where Tobias had a room at
The Palace
—were as hurried and vexed or stumblingly bemused, whether resident or tourist, as ever they were, Tobias's impression of events changed.  He felt, as he thought through his itinerary for the next day, that his presence in this city on the verge of remembering an attack against it and the murder of so many of its people was an intrusion.  Like a stranger drawn to a funeral of a great man, alone in a room full of grieving relatives, Tobias thought of how his presence and journalistic recording of the day trivialized their honest grief.  Strange thought for a journalist, he told himself as he checked in at
The Palace's
front desk and then, to his surprise, he found himself wanting to call Sally and tell her about it.