The Parnell Affair (4 page)

“Back to these documents for a sec,” Tobias said.  “Who's seen them, who has them?”

“Ah, well,” Joe said, smiling graciously but without pleasure.  “I believe I am the only person outside of the inner circle of Administrative power to have seen them—and certainly the only one to have mentioned their existence to the press.  So, I'm not sure I'm ready to go any further.  There is another reason, as well, but it is impossible to corroborate, unwise to discuss.  I will say this, however, still off the record, I was asked to change my opinion.”

“I bet you were,” Tobias said, leaning his elbows on the table.  “The evidence seems to speak for itself and only someone with you reputation and experience could counteract it.  Who asked you to change your opinion?  Who was the messenger, I mean?”

Joe shook his head subtly with a flicker of a smile.

“If I know who to bug, I can come at this from the other direction—” Tobias began.

“I appreciate the tactic,” Joe said, interrupting.  “But there are other—other considerations.  Believe me, I am tempted to tell you a terribly interesting story.  It's why I asked you inside.  I need a little more time to think about it,” Joe said, nodding to himself.  “There is only one possible source in this case: no 'sources close to' or 'anonymous this' or 'senior officials.'  If you print it, I may as well go on the record as there could be no other source but me.  Let me think about it.”

“Of course,” Tobias said, sitting back and raising his hands.  “Of course.  Take your time.”

The front door opened and someone came in breathing heavily.  Tobias leaned to his left and saw a blond haired woman of medium height in running shorts and a t-shirt wrapping ear-phone cords around something.  Though hardly a major figure in Washington, Joe Parnell was well known enough for people inside the beltway to comment upon his beautiful wife.  Tobias could see why.

“That'll be my wife,” Joe said, standing up.  “One moment.”

Hundreds of rock concerts in Tobias's youth drown out whatever Joe said to his wife in the other room.  Tobias did hear her trot up the stairs, however; he poured the unsweetened tea down his throat with a grimace and met Joe coming the other way in the living room.  They exchanged a few pleasantries and a hand shake.  Tobias gave him a card and told Joe to take his time: if and when he was ready to release part or all of his story, in whatever manner, Tobias would be there.  Joe thanked him at the door and assured him he would have an answer soon.

President Howland raised a finger to pause Karl Kristiansen in his daily brief.  The President then refilled his glass of tomato juice.  His doctor had been telling him for years to improve his diet, but his wife only succeeded recently by pleading the country's case, its need for a healthy and vigorous President.  Pete didn't eat much in the way of vegetables, but his doctor said the tomato/vegetable juice—provided it was low sodium—would make a marked improvement.  Pete reluctantly agreed and was surprised at how quickly the juice grew on him.  He now drank three or four bottles a day without prompting.  It did, at times, have an unintentional impact on the atmosphere of the Oval Office, but as long as there were no important visitors due he didn't mind.  I'm old enough to fart up my office if I want, he'd thought several months before, but when did I start excusing myself for doing it in public the way anyone would excuse themselves for a belch?  Must be a sign that middle age has passed, the fifty-six year-old remarked.

“We only have one more piece of business,” Karl said as he watched the President stow the bottle of tomato juice back in his desk.  “Camp Delta is ahead of schedule on construction and can begin operating immediately.”

“Camp Delta?” Pete asked.

“In Guantanamo Bay, sir,” Karl said.  He looked quickly out the south facing windows to be sure no one filmed him secretly; he could easily be seen from where he stood at the corner of the President's desk and he feared lip readers.

“Of course,” Pete said, lowering his glass without having tasted its contents.  “The place due to receive POWs—I mean—enemy combatants from Afghanistan.”

“And elsewhere, sir,” Karl said.  “It does not really matter where we find him.  'Him' being a subject suitable for stage two of our strategy.”  He paused as Pete took a quick pull from his glass.  “We do have Al Qaeda and Taliban enemy combatants in Gitmo, at Camp X-Ray,” Karl continued.  “But it would be better if we used someone closer to Osama Bin Laden—or better yet, someone connected to 9/11.”

“A bigger fish,” Pete said.  “As far as stage two goes, we need a confession linking Al Qaeda to Iraq—will the military go along with, uh, with how it’s been proposed to get it?”

“We have a couple ideas, Mr. President,” Karl said.  “I talked with John Wu, over at Justice, and Wolfson at Defense.  We have an idea, even an architecture of how we might create the necessary environment down there.  But they need clarification on certain—let us call them—mechanical issues before any action can be taken.”

“Mechanical,” Pete said quietly.  “Well, the nation's interests are threatened: whatever it takes.  What do Wu and Wolfson think?”

“Nothing firm, yet, Mr. President,” Karl said.  “Basically, a memo authorizing some techniques that will open the door for whatever is necessary to get what we need.”

Pete put aside his glass; it tasted a little sour, he thought.  “Whatever it takes,” he said grimly.  “Hold it right there,” he said, throwing himself back in his chair.  He shot his why-isn't-this-done look at his Chief of Staff.  “Why are we talking at all about stage two?  Has stage one—and when the hell did we start calling these things stage one and two?—has stage one been rectified?”

“Not just yet, Mr. President,” Karl said.

“Karl, there's no point in getting ahead of ourselves,” Pete said, leaning his elbows on his desk, pointing with one finger.  “For this to work—that is, to convince Congress—we need them to think Saddam has a nuke and he's talking to Al Qaeda: a nuclear 9/11, remember?”

“I do, Mr. Pres—” Karl began.

“We can't have just one part, Karl,” Pete said.  “You're off working on the second step but the first one's a shambles.  What are we doing about Joe Parnell and his monkey wrench?”

“It is under control, Mr. President,” Karl said.  “We are giving Parnell a few days to think things through.  He got a little emotional the other day; I thought that was odd for a former ambassador.  After a week, I believe he will see that his obstinacy helps no one: could not help him, does not help us—who does it help?  I will have a third party approach him again and see if he has come to his senses.”

“And if he hasn't?” Pete asked.

“I have a plan,” Karl said.  He'd said those same words with the same twinkle in his eye for the whole of President Howland's political career.  “There is a way of using his denial as proof that what he says is not there is there,” he said.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “May even be better this way.”

Sally's hair was still a little wet.  Though she had blown it out after her shower, she could feel it damp against her pillow as she lie in bed, absently watching the television news with the sound muted.  Never had a TV in my bedroom growing up, she thought as talking heads and flashing pictures tried to make a meal out of the upcoming visit of Anthony Bellow—the UK Prime Minister—to the President's Texas ranch.  Never wanted one, Sally continued, couldn't understand the attraction and yet here I am.

“There he is,” she murmured when the weatherman blasted the camera with his pearly whites, his just-blond-enough hair, and his smoky blue eyes.  “Commercial,” she sighed impatiently as Todd was replaced by the magical cleaning power of a man with a beard.

Sally lifted her head off the pillow to look at the fly of her jeans.  They were new and she couldn't flip them open one-handed the way she used to do with the pair her younger daughter habitually borrowed.  She smiled a little at the thought that she'd kept her figure well enough to swap clothes with a seventeen year-old, even at forty-two.  Not that anyone cares, she thought, it's just me and Todd the weatherman.  She gave up and used both hands to undo the button.  Not inspired by the detergent man, she ran a finger casually across her stomach, kept flat if not defined by her running and training.  Training had also kept her arms toned.  She passed her hand up her open blouse, absently fingering her nipple before putting her arm back under her head.  The newest SUVs chased each other across the screen and she ignored them.  Her right hand, touching her stomach, descended within her jeans but in turning over to slip a nail under the top of her panties, she felt a callous on her knuckle against the soft skin below her navel.  She quickly brought her hand into view to examine it.  Her twice weekly boxing—which she'd picked up in a college club and maintained—had helped with her figure but the speed bag had crusted over a knuckle, right through her gloves.  She dropped her hand to the bed.

“What am I doing?” she breathed.  She sighed and asked the empty room: “Is this it?”

For now it is, she thought.  Her marriage to Joe Parnell had been over as a real marriage for about ten years.  She'd met him in Europe after college, after joining the CIA.  His position in the embassy made him an attractive proposition professionally, but Sally had felt attracted to him before she knew who he was.  At twenty-three, she thought, I thought he was something else.  She didn't pretend the utility of his Foreign Service credentials meant nothing to her: of course they did, but she hadn't any grand illusions about love or soul mates.  She'd thought of lovers as the best of friends who had sex, not religiously fated helpmeets.  With authorization, she'd revealed her NOC—non official cover—status to him after he proposed and before she'd said yes.  I suppose the fear—that wonderful girlish fear of a lover's rejection—really convinced me he meant as much to me as any lover could, she thought.  He couldn't have been happier.  His job had cost him his first wife (and their estrangement had cost him his first daughter; something that still affected him deeply).  But with a wife in the business, as it were, she'd never get bored or want to go back to the states—she'd understand the calls on his time the State Department made.  They had two daughters, she'd picked up a masters in economics (to add to her PR bachelors), and risen in the CIA to her present position as hybrid NOC officer: unlike the typical CIA case officer who works out of the embassy—and thus enjoys
diplomatic immunity—a non official cover officer enters a country unofficially and so, if detected while recruiting foreign agents, would be arrested, detained, and possibly executed (depending on the country).  NOCs typically masquerade as business people or tourists, giving them access to people and places that would draw suspicion if visited by a “political officer” from the US Embassy.  But Sally's hybrid status provided the best of both worlds: as the wife of an ambassador she enjoyed diplomatic immunity (would be deported if found out) and access to a level of diplomatic functions the typical case officer could never attain, while simultaneously she pursued the “businesses” she had begun prior to marriage—CIA front companies—which allowed her a reason to talk to the NOC brand of foreign recruit.  These advantages combined with Sally's innate tenacity and boldness to allow her to succeed where others had failed: she'd set up intelligence cells across Europe, Russia, North and East Africa, North Korea, and Pakistan.

And here I am waiting for Todd the weatherman to give me his son-of-a-bitch's smile above those shoulders of his so I can masturbate, she thought.  She smiled at herself and closed her eyes.  The problem with being best friends who have sex is that the fire can die down—and all that's left are two friends who don't have sex.  A lover is not a best friend, she thought: how did that ever get to be the ideal, anyway?  They'd returned to the US in 1995 so their younger daughter could attend an American middle school and older daughter an American prep school.  Joe had left State and opened his policy group.  And taken a mistress.  It's not fair to call her that now, Sally thought.

She'd felt like the mistress, truth be told.  Not at first, not that night when Joe had taken her to dinner unexpectedly and explained he had developed romantic feelings for another; not when she gave her blessing, as it were, for Joe to try to be happy (they'd agreed to stay together for the children's sake before returning to DC); not on her birthday or his or Mothers Day or New Years for the first couple years when they'd deliberately drink too much, reminisce, and screw; not until the look in his eyes had the subtlest note of pity for her, then
she
felt like the mistress.  They'd stopped having sex over two years ago.  New Years Eve 2000.  They'd gone to the usual diplomatic parties—good for his policy group and for her cover, work—and the whole night the thought of their sleeping together upon returning home alternately sickened her with self-loathing at the scraps of intimacy thrown to her a couple times a year and then, trying to be rational and see it as a way of staying sane while the children grew up, she'd felt the memory of lust he'd inspired in her nearly twenty years before.  She was almost relieved when he'd kissed her good night and rolled on his side.

And that was it, Sally thought as she opened her eyes to see she'd missed Todd and the weather.  My own special Y2K, she thought and smiled wearily.  He was always really great about it, she continued, we were through as a married couple but we were still best friends.  We talked about moving on while still in Paris before the return.  We knew it was going to happen.  And anytime I needed him to stay home, during those first two years, and keep up the illusion, he did.  Any sacrifice.  I wonder if he'd have given her up, she thought.  That would have meant losing her job as his private secretary at the group, though.  Of course, I'm the idiot in all of this, she thought seeing the weather was due again any minute.  I could've taken a lover at any time, she thought; he even encouraged me in his own gentle way.