The Parnell Affair (26 page)

“But I found out where they are,” she said, gripping his hand.  “And I do have access, or I can slip in there easily enough.  You shouldn't give up on your story being as good as it can.”

“Slip in there?” Tobias said, stifling his sudden excitement.  “It's great that you can—and would do that for me; I really appreciate it—but I don't want you to get into trouble.”

“I won't get into any trouble,” she said, visibly pleased by his concern.

“If it's between my story not being as much of a success,” he said, wondering if he was now actively sabotaging his chances, “or you risking your job—”

“I'm not; I just told you,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said.  “If you know who has custody, maybe I should just approach that person directly, at least try.”

“But why don't you want
me
to help you?” she asked, looking hurt.

“It's not that I don't,” he said.  “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won't,” she said.  “I'll get them tonight.  Tomorrow night at the latest.  I'll bring them to you.  To your room.”

Her chest rose and fell as nothing was said for a moment.  Then, abruptly, she freed her hands and dove into her pocket for her phone.  A quick check of the screen and she was out of her chair.

“I'm sorry,” she said.  “I have to go.”

Tobias said what reassuring things he could in the few seconds it took her to gather her coat and bag.  She stepped toward him, in the attitude of someone about to kiss another goodbye, hesitated, and then fled.

That night Tobias paced the length of his hotel room constantly.  He'd talked to Sally after dinner but hadn't mentioned Marion's news.  Despite Sally's argument, the reasonableness of the sacrifice she described, the closer Tobias came to facing it, the more uncertain he became of his ability to do it.  He inspected the clock every few minutes until he hated the thing.  He conjured myriad images of insurmountable obstacles preventing Marion from getting the Niger docs or bringing them to his room.  He invented schemes for incapacitating himself: getting stumbling drunk, stuffing himself with greasy foods and laxatives until the room was unlivable, or utilizing the pay-per-view porn and furiously masturbating into unrecoverable impotence.  The last thought seemed hardly necessary; he couldn't imagine successfully sleeping with Marion.  And yet, he didn’t want to let down Sally, or seem less sophisticated than their plight demanded.  On the other side he didn't want to lose his self respect.  He stretched out on the bed, with every intention of fantasizing about Sally until his libido was too charged to say no to Marion, but all he could imagine was lying next to Sally afterwards.  And then he fell asleep.  Waking briefly at 2:00 am, he realized Marion would not come that night.

“Wonderful,” he said as he undressed.  “I can look forward to going through this again tomorrow night.”

Tobias didn't see Marion the next morning and the buzz around the UN explained why.  A resolution was expected at any moment.  It wasn't until that afternoon, however, that a resolution vote on Iraq was held.  The wording hinted at possible future action if Iraq did not fully comply with weapons inspectors, but its vagueness concerned both hawks and doves.

The council adjourned and left their chamber to meet the press, formulaic responses in hand.  The half circles of cameras and pants-suited-microphone-holders took down the post game comments as Tobias watched from the sidelines.  Marion followed the secretary out, a pleased look, bordering on smugness, wreathed her face and shaded her eyes.  Tobias walked over to where she stood off beyond the floodlights, as Secretary McLean praised the cooperation of his international partners.  Catching sight of Tobias, she walked over to meet him.  A condescending smile broke through her restraint, along with a look of mocking pleasure that froze the air in Tobias's lungs.

“Thanks for not publishing any of your baseless assumptions during the negotiations,” she said.  “That would have been an unfortunate additional hurdle for us as we worked toward international security.”

Her tone, her stance, they way she wore her clothes—she was back on message.  I got played? Tobias thought.  It wasn't as if it had never happened before, but infrequently enough that he needed a second for it to register.

For the first second, he was relieved.  But then the price of failure asserted itself.  No witty comeback rose to his defense, no face-saving air; he stood as if uncomprehending.

“What?” she asked, her youth showing in her casual scorn.  “Did you really think I'd jeopardize my career just to roll around with you?  You have quite the reputation around town, Mr. Hallström, but you're not
that
attractive.  And about ten years too old for me,” she added in a whisper before stepping away to merge into the chaos of cameras and reporters that orbited Secretary McLean as he left General Assembly Hall.

“I mean, for crying out loud!  She could have simply said 'no thank you' or 'no comment' or 'take a hike, Jack,'” Tobias told Sally as they walked from his apartment—where it was a little safer to leave her car—and went east toward his old neighborhood.  He'd taken the night train back the evening before and both had waited impatiently through the day.  He was back to jeans and a blazer—the October weather unusually warm that year—while Sally was back in Anna's tweed coat.  “Too old!  I thought the rule was half your age plus seven: I'm forty-two.  She was easily twenty-eight.  Hell, with her skin?  She could have been fifty-eight—and all of it spent on the beach.”

Sally made a screeching cat noise and laughed.  “You bitch,” she said playfully.  With the excuse of comforting him, she put her arm around him.  “Oh, I think you
are
a little hurt,” she said.

“Well, a little bit,” he said though he smiled ruefully.

“Listen,” she said and took a breath.  “I want to apologize.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said.

“I think I do,” she said.  “I think I gave the impression that I didn't take your reluctance seriously.  I did.  And though the betrayed spy in me is sorry we didn't get the documents,” she said and then smiled her own rueful smile, “the woman in me is very happy, relieved, you didn't sleep with that woman.”

Tobias snorted.  “
That
woman,” he said.  “
I'm
glad I didn't sleep with her: as cold as she was, she was likely to be frigid.”  Sally made another cat noise.  “And thanks,” he said, “though I knew the night we talked about it that you understood.”

“And if it makes you feel any better,” she said, “it was all bullshit.  Whenever a woman says you aren't
that
attractive, she means she's attracted to you.  Only, her sex drive doesn't run her life.”

“What makes me feel better is stepping out with you,” he said and kissed her gently as they walked.  “And, hell, it doesn't do my ego any harm to get shot down by some—woman,” he said, restraining himself.  “It was growing all out of proportion, what with receiving the attentions of the most beautiful woman to ever grace this city.”

She rolled her eyes but didn't say anything in case he wanted to continue along that vein.

To her disappointment, his attention snapped back to the investigation: “I guess what burns me up about it is that I came so close,” he said.  “That was the right place, the right time, and there had to have been opportunities.  Which, naturally, is why she went to the trouble of leading me on, so I wouldn't pursue any other opportunity to obtain them.  Stupid of me.  Don’t know how we'll find someone to leak the Niger docs now.”

“I managed to find a list of people who work at the OSP,” Sally said.  “Anything they lent out to State would have to go back.  They may have been returned today.”

“Well, well,” Tobias said.  “Anybody interesting?”

“Not in person,” Sally kidded.  More seriously, she continued: “Strangely high level people working at the OSP.  It's run by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dutch Faith.”

“Is that unusual?” he asked.

“He has no intelligence experience,” she said.  “It's unusual for a Deputy Secretary to take on the management of a project; he'd assign a team leader of some sort normally.”

“Tells you how important they see that office,” Tobias said.  “Could be it has more than one project under its purview.  Maybe the intel brief for McLean was only one of many projects.”

“That's probably it, actually,” she said.  “Special Plans: could be they have some roll in planning the invasion of Iraq, though they shouldn't need to.  Those plans should already exist; they have plans for attacking almost any country all ready to go, just in case.  Even the Netherlands.”

“Why would they want to invade the Netherlands?” he asked.  “Unless they
really
like good eels.”

“Who doesn't?” she said.  “It's supposed to be in case any American officers are taken there for war crimes trials.  Somehow, I can't see it happening.”

Tobias stopped walking; Sally faced him.  “Damn, we should have went the other way,” he said.  “There's a sushi place off Dupont Circle with great eels.”

“Thought we were having Cuban tonight?” she said.

“Well, if you'd rather have eels,” he said.

“Another night,” she said.  She quickly cased the street and then pushed him—with a strength that surprised him—back into a building's doorway alcove.  Her lips found his and her kiss was not the light little appetizer he'd served her earlier but a strong satisfying first course.  He'd only just recovered enough presence, however, to encircle her with his arms when she pulled back and stepped onto the sidewalk.  Her eyes flashed mischievously and she turned, indicating she was ready to continue walking.  He joined her, slowly finding his handkerchief to remove any traces of her makeup as she withdrew a small mirror and lipstick to touch up.

“Are you sure you want to go to a restaurant at all?” he said in a low voice.  She glanced over but neither her features or her voice answered him.  They kept walking.

“Did you recognize anyone else on that list?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said, finishing with her mirror.  “But I did find out where many of them work.  None of them have been transferred to the OSP outright, you see; they've been attached and so continue to hold their previous positions, too.”

“That could help,” he said.

“Incredibly,” she said.  “It'll be much easier to pick up a tail from Justice, say, than from the Pentagon.  I found it odd how many lawyers are attached to what purports—or, I should say, what we assume—to be an intelligence group.”

They came to a busy intersection and Tobias turned the conversation down memory lane.  They passed what had been the last of the old-time candy stores (now a bar), which Tobias—when a boy—had trekked to from where his family lived close to the river, and convenient to the general hospital where his mother worked.  Further on, an old movie theater had been torn down in favor of a high-rise but its memories still hung out on the sidewalk before it.  They wandered thus amongst recollection and gentrification until they came to the Cuban restaurant.

The days they had passed in telephone conversation while Tobias was in New York—which grew increasingly personal in nature do in part to Sally's reluctance to discuss their investigation on account of her suspicion of surveillance—had dispelled whatever lingering jitters survived their earlier walk down to the Maryland riverside.  The searching conversation of new acquaintances had expired: no longer did they question one another, trying to get to know each other better.  Now if they told each other stories it was to amuse, to incite laughter, or to touch on an interest already known: if they asked for the other's opinion, it was to enjoy the response, to engage, and to further an existing understanding.  As the night deepened, they grew more casually physical and yet more precise in their flirtation, as if carefully seasoning their anticipation.  Ironically, the lack of security outside returned their conversation to the discussion of the top secret, once they left the restaurant.

“So, on this list of OSP personnel,” Tobias began.

“Which you haven't asked me to leak,” Sally said.

“Well, it's nothing I want to print, so not really a leak, per se,” he said.

“Come on, ask me,” she said.  “I promise I won't call you old.”

“Oh, that's nice,” he said, though smiling.  She laughed.  “How long have you been waiting to say that?”

“Couple hours,” she said.  “What about the OSP?”

“Who do you like on it for a possible leak?” he asked.  “If you can remember the names: being the same age as I am, I'll understand if your memory's going.”

She bumped her shoulder into his arm and feigned a glare.  He put his arm around her waist.

“There are a couple lawyers from Justice I like,” she said.  “Leave them to me.”

“Oh?” he said.

“We'll see if
I'm
that attractive,” she said with a wink.

“I've never been jealous before,” he said wonderingly, looking off to the side, contemplatively.

“Are you now?” she asked brightly.

They'd come to Tobias's building; Sally's car was parked a few spaces away.  She began to slow her pace, even if it would only buy her a few more seconds before she left for home—but Tobias's arm suddenly constricted, pressing her to his side, and he propelled her forward and then up the stairs of his building.  Confused, she scanned the street, thinking Tobias must have caught sight of surveillance or someone who might recognize her.  Then she saw the urgency on his face was accented by his lady-killer grin.

“And just where do you think you're taking me?” she said as they trotted up the stairs.  She wasn't sure if he intended to bring her up to his rooms; she wasn't sure if she would go, if he insisted.  No thought of physical violence occurred to her, of course: Tobias had never struck her as dangerous to women in
that
way.  And in any event, with her boxer's instincts, she knew she could take him.  At that moment, however, her mind was consumed by the thought of him taking her.

“Away from any prying eyes,” he said as he deftly unlocked and flung open the door to his building foyer.

In the next instant, the rather less than romantic space between the rows of mailboxes and the front wall became the most secluded place in the world.  He put her firmly against the wall and, as their lips joined, his arms re-encircled her.  Their passion was instantaneous, as if they'd picked up from where they'd left off in an earlier doorway, earlier that evening.  The extraordinarily dubious belief that no one would either enter or leave the building mitigated any clandestine need to rush, once thoroughly embraced.  No longer some social mile marker, their kiss was not a declaration of any sort but an act for its own sake, to experience the other with every sense: the taste of each other’s mouths, of her neck, the sound of excitement and pleasure in a gasped breath, the smell of perfume and readiness, glimpses of each other’s eyes or—in a pause—a decadent gaze into her lover's face; she pressed herself so close, she could feel the proof of the effect she had on him pressing itself against her stomach; his hands unchained by privacy, sated his imagination of the body he'd longed for, caressing down her back and not hesitating to pass her waist and pull her closer still with a  satisfying grasp of her bottom.

Not wishing to end, to part, desiring to continue, Tobias nevertheless drew back enough to see her eyes.  Their expression was unmistakable.

“Come upstairs?” he asked, just managing to make it sound like a request, somewhat breathless from their exertion.

“Another time,” she whispered after a deep inhalation which cleared her eyes but saddened her features.  She took her hands out of his and touched his face as she kissed him again.  “Another time,” she said more composed.

“Okay,” he said, his eyes locked upon her as she slid toward the door.  The disappointment in his voice was not lost upon Sally.

“It's just that it's already late,” she said, returning to touch him once more.  “I'll already be missed.”

He took her caressing hand in both of his.  “I guarantee you're already missed and will be missed for the rest of the evening and into tomorrow and until I see you again.”  He kissed her lightly, a goodbye kiss.

She stepped again toward the door and her eyes strayed toward the stairs behind him, leading up to his apartment.  “Another time,” she said, and this time not to him.  “Another time,” she repeated as one part of her seemed to drag the other part out the door to the street and away.

“It doesn't matter,” President Howland said.  “At the end of the day, the UN resolution does what we wanted it to do.”

Back from another trip down to his Texas ranch, the President hosted the Defense Secretary and the Vice President in the Oval Office to discuss the recent UN resolution on Iraq.  Though briefed beforehand as to what they should expect, the SecDef and VP were nevertheless galled by the Security Council's refusal to authorize immediate invasion.

“But for three days,” Ben Butler said, straining his suit jacket's shoulders by pointing emphatically.  “What were they talking about for three goddamn days?”

“It doesn't matter,” Pete repeated, exasperated.  “We wanted a weak resolution to put all the responsibility for dealing with Saddam's nuclear program on Congress.”

“If
Congress doesn't laugh right in our faces,” Paul Kluister said, grinding his teeth.  “Why won't Congress say, 'Since the UN didn't believe it, why should we?'”

“Karl,” Pete said.

“Because we will have more evidence to show them,” Karl said, standing near the door to the appointments secretary.  “And because midterms went well: and those who picked up seats did so by following our national platform—stressing security.”

“And the UN resolution wasn't a total flop, Paul,” Pete said.  “It did demand weapons inspectors return.”

Paul made a rhythmic gesture with a cupped hand.  “They won't find anything,” he said.  “How does that help?”

“That
is
how it helps,” Karl said, his usual patience with the senior members of the Administration slipping.  “The inspectors find nothing and we say: 'See!  Saddam refuses to reveal his WMD program,' which necessitates invasion.  The language of the resolution is also vague enough that it leaves the door open for military action.”