“I received a briefing about that caper,” she said. “My source told me that the PRC intel infrastructure here in D.C. was decimated. General Chiang took a whole lot of people down with him. Why would that be?”
“Chiang staffed his operation here in town with members of his own faction, possibly even his own family. Competing factions back in Beijing probably saw an opportunity to wreck his whole crew.”
She nodded. “One more question, Doctor, and then I’ll answer yours. When they recalled you to active duty, did they tell you to help the Bureau or to lead them on a series of wild-goose chases while Langley tries to figure out—and deal with, in-house—what really happened?”
Allender recognized the crucial question. He had never met this woman before, but she had a reputation at the Agency of being hostile to how Langley performed its mission and was always ready to cause trouble for the Agency management. Having finally met her, however, Allender had the sense that to lie to her would get him nowhere, and, after meeting Yang Yi, he was beginning to feel like maybe, just maybe, Carson McGill hadn’t told him quite everything. “The latter,” he admitted.
“Thank you,” she said, emphatically. “Thank you for being straight with me. Now I’ll be straight with you. Hank Wallace and I have been at each other’s throats for years now. I think he played fast and loose with the millions we threw at the Agency, all in the name of national security, and I also think that if he could have found a way to knock me off my perch he’d have done it in a heartbeat.”
“So you’re devastated that he’s dead,” Allender said.
“Totally,” she said with a cold grin. “But here’s the thing: I’m up for reelection, along with everyone else here. It’s a year away, of course, but some rumors have surfaced back in my district that I am a closeted homosexual. Now, my district is correctly characterized as a churchgoing, Christian-family-values, Bible-thumping, gun-loving, and hugely conservative bunch.”
“How deplorable,” Allender mused.
She snorted. “I am, by the way, not a homosexual, so this is malicious. It might be coming from the guy who’s running against me, but I kinda don’t think so. It’s just not his style.”
“Maybe someone on his campaign staff?”
“No—his family is his campaign staff. It just doesn’t add up.”
“Someone here, then?”
“Interesting you should say that,” she said. “We’ve had a staff slot here in the committee staff office, as opposed to my district staff office, that’s held open for a liaison officer from the Agency. It’s not a big deal—he’s supposed to interface with middle management over there in Langley and facilitate my committee staff’s questions, from both sides of the aisle. Working-stiff level. That being said, I fired the last guy they sent over because he was patently nothing more than a spy for Henry Wallace.”
“How’d we react?”
“Langley sulked a little and then gapped the billet for a while. But just lately, they sent a replacement, a drop-dead-gorgeous blonde who has, according to Tommy, rebuffed the best efforts of every one of my male staffers to get a date. In the meantime she’s been sidling up to me, personally, with what I would call unearned social intimacy.”
“As in, I play for the other side; how about you?”
“Yes, exactly that.”
“If you’re not gay, what’s it matter?” Allender asked. “Calibrate her. Call her in, explain that you’re the boss and she is one of the working stiffs, as you call them, and tell her to knock it off.”
“Did that,” she said. “Since then I’ve been getting the wounded-doe act.”
Allender thought about it. He could sort of see it: Get a photo of the chairman with the thirty-something hottie, preferably something that at least looked intimate, and then get that back to the district to bolster the rumors. On the other hand, that kind of crap would hardly constitute a black swan—that was just standard election dirty tricks, and besides, outing a gay congresswoman was hardly the cataclysm it used to be.
“I don’t know this guy who’s taken Hank’s place, this Carson McGill,” she continued. “I’ve met him, of course, but he’s been the DDO so he’s not exactly a public figure and Hank made sure I dealt only through him. But, as I said, McGill’s the one who called me about the situation with Wallace. I felt something wasn’t kosher, so that’s why I grabbed the Bureau by the scruff of its righteous neck and threw it at Langley. Kicking and screaming, I might add.”
“But the Bureau works for Main Justice,” Allender pointed out.
“One of the Bureau’s most important missions is counterintelligence, which gives the intelligence oversight committee, namely me, the power to do that. Basically, I’m trying to keep Langley honest.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t see anything over there resembling progress. They haven’t really asked me for anything at all except some potential evidence saved from the autopsy.”
“Isn’t that kinda strange?” she asked. “You’re making it sound like they’re just sitting on their hands. Like they don’t take this situation seriously.”
Allender threw up his hands. “Beats me,” he said. “The woman leading the Bureau team is a loaner from Director Hingham’s stable.”
The congresswoman shook her head in bewilderment. Time to end this, Allender thought. She knows less than I do. He smiled at her. “Thank you for your time and for being straight with me,” he said. “I’ve obviously got a lot more homework to do. May I please contact you again if I think I’m getting somewhere?”
“You betchum, Red Ryder,” she said. “Here’s something you may not know. Being the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence I just might—might, mind you,—have access to some useful assets of my own. My AA out there will give you a number to call if you ever get into real trouble, okay?”
“Thank you,” he said, although he could not imagine what “assets” a House committee chairman could have. Besides, if he needed that kind of help, he’d call the Agency op center, not some congresswoman’s AA.
“One more thing,” she said.
“Yes, Madam Chairwoman?” he said.
“Can I see…?”
He thought about it for a few seconds. “Remember,” he said, as he got up and approached her desk. “You did ask.” He bent forward and took the glasses off.
“Holy. Shit,” she whispered.
“Just so,” he said. He stared down into her eyes until he saw the first nervous tic in hers. Then he put the glasses back on, thanked her again, and left. In the small mirror by the door he could see her sitting at her desk with one hand over her mouth.
He went down to the security office, showed them his newly minted Agency credentials and FBI building pass, and asked for a discreet way out of the building so that he could avoid prying eyes. A sergeant was detailed to take him to the tunnel connecting the Cannon House Office Building to the actual Capitol building. There he went down the white marble steps and then walked the four blocks over to Union Station. If there had been watchers outside the Cannon, of either persuasion, he should be clear of them.
He sincerely hoped.
Metro’s Red Line would take him directly back to Dupont Circle, where he would then have to decide whether or not to go into the Bureau. On balance, he thought he needed time to think, so probably not. If they needed him, they’d call.
SEVENTEEN
The following morning Allender had his driver take him to Langley to meet the woman who coordinated forensic investigations within the Agency. Appropriately, she was a pathologist who’d been enticed away from the Bureau’s lab ten years ago. They met in her office and Allender asked why there was a problem getting tissue samples in the Wallace investigation over to the Bureau.
“What tissue samples?” she asked. Her name was Dr. Willis Cooper. She was in her fifties, with prematurely gray hair and a heavily lined, no-nonsense face. “And what Wallace investigation?”
“Let me back up,�
� Allender said. He told her what Carson McGill had told him about the death of Henry Wallace and the ensuing autopsy. She shook her head.
“All news to me,” she said. “Admittedly, I don’t play at those levels. I did see an Agency-wide notice that Deputy Director Wallace would be away for medical reasons for the next sixty days or so, but dead? No. And I can assure you that none of my labs, in-house or contract, have done an autopsy on the deputy director of this agency.”
Whoops, he thought. He realized that he might just have screwed up. McGill had told him that Wallace’s death had been kept close-hold. But he’d also said that the Borgias had handled the remains and the autopsy. If that was true, this woman would know about it.
“Doctor Allender?” she prompted.
“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking. Let me ask you this: If the DDO wanted an autopsy done, and done without anyone in the Agency knowing about it, how would he proceed?”
It was her turn to think. “Most forensic pathologists work for hospitals or law-enforcement agencies,” she said. “If the DDO has a captive lab, say, at a university med school, or maybe even out at the NMMC Bethesda or the Defense Department med school there, then he could get it done and I’d be in the dark. Still, you’re saying Hank Wallace is dead?”
“So I’ve been told,” Allender said.
“Except you have a problem, don’t you—you don’t habeas a corpus, and that notice was bogus.”
“They told me that someone in your office told them the samples would be forthcoming,” he pointed out. “Any idea of who that might be?”
She shook her head. “Nobody who works for me, Doctor. You have a name?”
He held up a finger and got on his phone to Lansing. Rebecca put him on hold and then came back with a name. Allender thanked her and gave Cooper the name. Melissa Wheatley. Cooper drew a blank.
“Got a headquarters directory?” he asked. She did and she looked. No Melissa Wheatley in the Langley HQ directory.
Allender sighed. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them he saw Cooper’s reaction. He put the glasses back on and apologized.
“Holy shit, it’s true,” Cooper said. “That Dragon Eyes stuff. Goddamn! And you did interrogations?”
“Among other things,” he said. “But now it seems as if I’ve been drawn into something a little more complex.”
“By no less than Carson McGill,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Well, sir, my advice is to watch your ass. There are rumors upon rumors that he’s on the make for the top slot. And while none of us are all that impressed with the current director, most of us cube slaves would be less than thrilled with someone like McGill at the helm.”
“Fancy that,” Allender said. “So: Do I have to tell you to not speculate out loud about Henry Wallace?”
“No, you do not,” Cooper said. “I’ve got four years until I get my retirement.”
“It can come sooner than that, if certain people feel so inclined.”
She grinned at him. “You being a classic example, or so I’ve heard.”
“Just so,” he said. “Thank you.”
“I’ve got a suggestion, though,” she said. “Go out to Bethesda. It’s actually called the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center now, but everyone in town still calls it Bethesda. I’ll give you the name of a senior pathologist there. See if his people did the autopsy, assuming what you’re saying is even true.”
“Would you call him, tell him I’m coming to see him?”
“Want me to say why?”
“You don’t know, but I’m some high muckety-muck in the Agency, and I’m also a doctor.”
“Can do easy, boss.”
* * *
His driver took him out Wisconsin Avenue to what had been the navy’s national medical headquarters complex and was now the National Military Medical Center. The gate guards directed them to building 9, which contained the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Services. Upon checking in, he was met by a navy commander named Bill Waring, who wore the insignia of the navy’s medical corps on his shoulder boards. They sat down in Waring’s office. Allender introduced himself and then asked if their department had performed an autopsy on one Henry Wallace of the CIA.
“When would that have been?” Waring asked.
Allender realized he didn’t know, but said it would have been within the past thirty days. Waring consulted his computer, which apparently had decided to slow down to a turtle’s pace that morning.
“Who was he?” Waring asked as he waited for the machine to find the name.
“A senior officer at the CIA,” Allender replied.
“CIA?” Waring said. “You guys have your own labs, don’t you? I mean, when Willis called, she didn’t say this involved an autopsy…?”
“She didn’t know that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Allender said. “I’ve been detailed to the FBI to help with a tangential investigation. They were told that tissue samples had been retained prior to Wallace’s cremation. That’s what I’m really trying to find out: where are they, and if they’re here, can you get them to the FBI lab.”
Waring was still looking at his computer with an expression that said he wanted to give it a glass of water. “Tissue samples?” he said. “We don’t normally do that, unless we’re talking a homicide or something like that.”
Allender said nothing.
“Oh,” the doctor said. “Okay, if this damned—wait. Last name Wallace, first name Henry?”
“Yup.”
“No record,” Waring announced. “Who would have sent the remains here?”
“The Agency.”
Waring looked at him as if to ask, The whole Agency, or someone in particular? Allender still did not elaborate.
“Okay,” Waring said. “I get it—this is spook shit. But: Whoever did send remains to us would have had to specifically ask for bodily fluids, tissue samples and specifically which tissue: organs, brain, extremities, et cetera. Otherwise, we report cause of death and then request instructions for disposition of remains. Okay?”
“And there is no record of a Henry Wallace being here?”
“There’s no record of a Henry Wallace being here,” Waring said. “In our clammy little hands. Want me to check the big base?”
“The ‘big base’?”
“The whole medical facility, Doctor Allender. This is the National Military Medical Center. We have thousands of people come through Bethesda—excuse me, the Walter Reed NMMC. Inpatients, outpatients, vets, civilians, even presidents, occasionally.”
“Of course you do, and yes, please, let’s query the big base. And I apologize for playing sphinx with you. It’s just the nature of our work.”
Waring ran the keys and then sat back. “What’s your specialty, if I may ask?”
“I’m a shrink. Specialty is interrogation training. I’m actually retired but I’ve been recalled to help with the Wallace—problem. I was an assistant director in our training department for clandestine services.”
“Wow—they do that? Recall people? Don’t they have people?”
Allender smiled. “Sure they do,” he said. “None of whom wanted to touch this case with a ten-foot pole. So: Get a retiree. No career implications. Once it’s done, he goes back to pasture.”
Waring grinned. “Now, that I understand. You guys have no exclusive lock on bureaucratic bullshit, believe me. This place—”
The computer finally responded. “Well, now,” Waring said.
Allender raised his eyebrows.
“Igor here says that the name, Henry Wallace, is in a restricted part of the database, and that access is denied to us mere quacks by no less than the US Secret Service.”
“What the fuck,” Allender said. “Secret Service? That’s the White House.”
“We-ell, yes,” Waring said. “But if the president of the United States has a medical emergency, like, he gets shot here in town, or needs a physical, this is wher
e he comes. There are two floors in that big white tower where no one is allowed in, even when His Majesty is not in residence. If access to one Henry Wallace’s records is being denied by the Secret Service, then he could well be on one of those floors of the tower building, and probably, he’s not dead. I didn’t tell you that, but…”
Allender just stared at him. Not dead? This was getting murkier and murkier, he thought. Carson McGill, what the hell are you up to? He decided he’d better go ask McGill himself that question. He thanked the commander, asked him not to speak about his visit, and left.
EIGHTEEN
At the Langley headquarters main entrance he stepped through the security procedures and then was asked to wait. Three minutes later he was met by two men who asked him to come with them to see the DDO. Allender complied and soon found himself cooling his heels in McGill’s outer office. After a fifteen-minute wait, five senior-looking men came out of McGill’s office, ignoring him entirely, and then the secretary invited him into the inner sanctum.
“Preston, dear fellow,” McGill chirped as he came in. “They told me you were in the building.”
“And I presume that’s because Security had standing orders to notify you if I ever came into the building,” Allender said. He needed a coffee, so he went to the side table and helped himself.
“So what’s so urgent that you’re here, unbidden and unannounced? I’m wearing two hats these days, so please keep it short.”
“Hank Wallace isn’t dead, is he?” Allender asked. “That short enough for you?”
McGill put down the memo he’d been reading and stared at Allender. “Whatever are you talking about, Preston?” he asked, his face a professional blank now.
“You tell me, Carson,” Allender replied. “And for the record, I don’t like playing charades. If you’re not willing to explain, then I’m out of here.”
“Hang on, now, Preston, hang on. Surely you’ll understand if I tell you that there are layers to this matter. Boxes within boxes. The right hand doesn’t always know what the left hand knows, and that’s how we keep secrets, remember. How’d you find out, by the way?”
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