Blink of an Eye

by William S. Cohen

  The informant, wearing a black balaclava-style mask, sat at a table next to an interpreter. Each question was repeated to the informant, who reacted with gestures and a whispery string of words, which the interpreter pondered and then translated. The process was numbing and slow. What all the words and pauses amounted to was this: The raiders were Iraqis—Al Qaeda suicide bombers “celebrating the departure of the occupiers.”

  The witness was identified as an Iraqi Army officer who had infiltrated an Al Qaeda cell in Baghdad. He emphasized that the terrorists known as Al Qaeda in Iraq had no connection with terrorists in Iran.

  As director of the CIA, Sam Stone theoretically had no more of a role in a presidential campaign than Falcone did. But it had been Stone’s case officers in Iraq who had found the whispering witness and presented him to the White House. Falcone, suspicious of the Iraqi, wanted a more solid source.

  Falcone had flown to Pakistan and traded some good intelligence about India to Muhammad Bashir Ispahani, director of Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI). Ispahani believed that Falcone was being bureaucratically bold, usurping what was supposed to be the work of the CIA. Falcone, in fact, had secretly cleared his visit with Stone, an old hand at trading intelligence.

  Ispahani’s risk had been a genuine one, for he could have lost a high-level agent in order to give Falcone rock-hard assurance that Iran had nothing to do with the attack on the Elkton. Each attempt to communicate with the agent, a ranking officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps put him in deadly peril and risked the exposure of the agent’s ISI control officer, who was under diplomatic cover in Pakistan’s Embassy in Tehran.

  “Our asset, to use your CIA vocabulary, provided the control officer with what we accept as dependable evidence,” Ispahani told Falcone, handing him the transcript of a cell-phone call from an Al Qaeda agent under ISI surveillance in Tehran to an Al Qaeda operative in Baghdad.

  “The Tehran caller,” Ispahani continued, “clearly is censuring his colleague in Baghdad for letting—and here I quote—‘local fools stage an incident that serves no revolutionary objective.’ Clearly, Iran was not involved.”

  Like most possessors of solid intelligence, Falcone decided it was too good to reveal, and so the President had to remain silent about the source. Falcone told Stone a substitute bit of evidence was needed. And Stone’s officers in Iraq found the Iraqi officer in time for his dramatic appearance before the Joint Committee. It was his testimony, rather than the cell-phone transcript, that became the Oxley administration’s publicly revealed foundation for confidently denying Iran had not been involved in the Elkton attack.

  The Joint Committee, as Falcone and Cunningham had expected, was in no hurry to complete its investigation. The committee members would not be able to file a final report until after the election in November. Word was slipped to Falcone that there were tentative drafts of both majority and minority reports being prepared. Off the record, Falcone was told that most members had concluded that, based on the evidence to date, they were convinced that local suicide bombers, not Iranians, had attacked the Elkton. But there were several vocal members who, without any persuasive evidence, in a minority report, put the blame on Iran. A copy of this report was leaked to Stanfield.

  Stanfield, a week prior to his party’s convention, got two days of publicity out of revealing the report, which added a new flair to his standard “Remember the Elkton” speeches. He did not explain how he had obtained the report. But political commentators suggested that the leaker was the author of the minority report, Representative Gregory Nolan of Minnesota.

  A Nolan spokeswoman denied that he had leaked the report to Stanfield. The pundits were quick to point out that Nolan could have handed the report off to someone who then had given it to Stanfield, and so the spokeswoman was not strictly lying. Nolan’s filing of impeachment resolutions had gained him a small share of attention by the media, and the speculation about the leak added to his notoriety. The bingo image, however, was replaced by more dignified photos and video moments of Nolan in committee, looking grim behind his nameplate.

  *

  DESPITE Stanfield’s best efforts to exploit the leaked report, Falcone believed that Oxley had put the Elkton issue behind him well in time before the reelection campaign’s final sprint. Falcone raised his glass to the moon and sipped a toast to his success. He prided himself on knowing how to play the media game: when to leak, when to punish, when to complain about coverage, in private or in public. But skilled and experienced as he was, he could never predict the life span of a piece of news.

  There was an ordinary kind of short-lived news: born one day (CALL GIRL NAMES SENATOR) and still alive for a short while, sustained by a second-or even a third-day angle (SENATOR RESIGNS IN CALL GIRL SCANDAL). The story then drifted off to the world of forgotten news.

  And then there was the kind of serious, multi-angled piece of news like the attack on the Elkton. Falcone had not been able to find a way to control its life span, but there was no doubting that the Elkton was no longer news. The Elkton was merely a new artifact in the endless war on terror, a war that spawned distant battlefields for an army of young men and women who lived lives paced not by the moon or by the seasons but by rotations and deployments.

  There had been Elkton moments, but only when those moments produced images for television: the President and the Joint Chiefs solemn at Dover when the bodies were slowly carried past; the strange sight of the wounded Elkton carried high and dry on the deck of the heavy-lift ship as it sailed to a Virginia shipyard; the televised tears in the eyes of Representative Nolan as he listened to the testimony of a sailor telling of his attempt to save a buddy who had died in his arms.

  That particular Elkton moment, however, endured.

  10

  SENATOR MARK Stanfield, Texas-tall and telegenic, with gray hair cut almost a tad too fashionably just above the collar of his Turnbull & Asser monogrammed shirts, exuded the confidence of a man never afflicted with self-doubt. He offered no pretensions to intellectual gravitas. The country was fed up with cerebral politicians who spent their time apologizing for America’s power and greatness. Men of action, and surely he was one of them, had little time for introspection.

  Stanfield had been barnstorming the country for months as the presumed candidate, and had won the majority of primaries, as all the pundits had expected. His nomination at the national convention in New Orleans would be a coronation and would be far more telegenic than the convention that had nominated Oxley. New Orleans provided more music, more stomping, and more excitement than Kansas City had.

  The stage managers of the convention had decided to get Stanfield and his running mate nominated on the same night, shortening the convention to two days and presumably winning votes by lessening the interruption of the networks’ regular schedules. Because Stanfield had little serious opposition, the only suspense was generated by his selection of a vice president.

  The first day and night of the convention was devoted to speeches by party stalwarts and celebrities who had ventured into politics in the waning years of their careers. One of them was a country singer who introduced a documentary on the rise of Stanfield: rodeo star riding bareback and one-handed. Texas Ranger hauling a perp into a courthouse. Lieutenant Governor presiding over the Texas Senate. And finally, U.S. senator in helmet and body armor climbing out of an armored personnel carrier in Afghanistan.

  Speculation about Stanfield’s running mate had narrowed down to a retired admiral with scant name recognition and the former CEO of an aerospace company who was equally unknown. Each of the candidates had a small base of supporters and brought no discernible political assistance to the Stanfield campaign.

  When the convention resumed on the second day, most delegates were on the streets or in the bars of New Orleans. The formal schedule, which started the prime-time television coverage, began with the routine nomination of Stanfield, an event that produced cheers and cascading balloons.

&
nbsp; Next came a prelude to the vice presidential nominations. Each of the two candidates was allowed to have two supporters make five-minute speeches prior to nomination.

  But between the moment when the first speaker finished and the moment before the next speaker strode on stage, an image suddenly appeared on the giant screen behind the podium: Representative Gregory Nolan weeping as he listens to the testimony of a grieving young sailor.

  Dozens of signs—“Remember the Elkton!”—sprouted from the sea of delegates, many of whom started shouting the same three words.

  Nolan, looking startled, rose from his seat in the Minnesota delegation. Dozens of supporters, surging in from a nearby aisle, formed a phalanx in front of Nolan and shouldered their way toward the stage. As the leaders of the group neared the stairs to the stage, the convention chairman at the podium pounded his gavel in vain.

  At the stairs, bedecked with a red-white-and-blue mass of bunting, supporters stepped aside. The chairman looked down, shrugged with a smile, and lowered his gavel.

  The chairman motioned toward the stairs and up came Nolan, a lean man in a blue shirt, no tie, with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. When he reached the podium, he ran his right hand through his close-cut gray hair. As television cameras zoomed in, the tattoo of a Celtic cross could be seen on his right forearm.

  “This has surprised me as much as it has surprised you,” he said, a smile spreading across his sweaty face. “I came here to vote for the one man who can save this nation … not to have you all vote for me. Before I can—”

  A chant began to sweep through the convention hall: “No-lan,” “No-lan,” “No-lan.” Nolan turned toward the chairman, who had reappeared on the podium. Behind them still loomed the huge image of Nolan and the sailor.

  The chairman started to bang the gavel again. The cheering and chanting slowly ebbed. The chairman pointed toward the Texas delegation. Cameras showed Mark Stanfield standing. He wore a white Stetson, a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and his trademark red string tie. Someone handed him a microphone. “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I move that Greg Nolan, a great congressman and a great American, be nominated by acclamation.”

  All the delegates were on their feet, cheering. The chant—“No-lan,” “No-lan,” “No-lan”—began again.

  “The chair accepts the motion,” the chairman said. He could hardly be heard about the roar. “Two-thirds of the delegates having voted in the affirmative,” he continued, “the motion is adopted.”

  Nolan’s acceptance speech was hardly more than a thank-you. He spoke a few words about God and country. Then, scrapping the schedule and confusing television commentators, he asked Stanfield to come to the podium.

  Stanfield hurried to the stairs, took them two at a time, and strode to Nolan’s side. He shook Nolan’s hand and grasped his right shoulder. As the two candidates raised their arms in victory, the screen behind them faded, replaced by a rippling American flag. Nolan walked off and Stanfield went to the center of the stage. The hall darkened, the crowd calmed, and Stanfield stood in a spotlight. He doffed his Stetson, held it at his side with his left hand, and began to speak in a deepening drawl.

  “I launch a crusade tonight, a crusade against those who hide behind the shield of their religion as they attack us and our way of life. I use the word crusade because I know that the word enflames our foes. It is a word that our timidity has erased from our vocabulary. I say crusade, crusade, crusade—in loving memory of those brave knights, who marched with a cross emblazoned on their armor to free the Holy Land.

  “Those warriors, those crusaders, must be our model as we take up their task in our time. I want to lead a crusade against fear, a crusade that will wipe out our enemies once and for all, a crusade that will use our military strength—not slick, soft words—to transform the land that had been holy into a land that is holy once more because it is blessed by freedom.

  “We live in a time of great peril, a time made even more perilous by an administration that cringes in fear, unwilling to take up the sword against the enemy who threatens our existence and the existence of Israel, the nation that preserves the heart of the Holy Land against all foes.

  “I pledge”—he placed his right hand over his heart—“I pledge to restore pride and power to our nation. I pledge this in the name of God—and in the name of Jesus Christ.

  “No longer will this great nation have a trembling leader, a leader who would not seek out, would not hunt down and punish those killers in Iran—the evil men who ordered their minions to kill brave American sailors.

  “I pledge that on my watch America will be America, Americans will be Americans, enemies will be enemies. On my watch there will be retribution and not appeasement, righteous anger and not sniveling apology, the glory of victory and not the shame of defeat.…”

  11

  AS STANFIELD neared the end of his speech and was saying, “Let us now pray together,” Falcone grabbed the remote. “That’s enough for me,” he said. Stanfield vanished from the television screen on a wall in the room that served as Falcone’s library.

  “Why turn him off?” Philip Dake asked. “What about ‘Know your enemy’?”

  “I already know enough about that son of a bitch,” Falcone said. “I suppose you can remember the whole quote.”

  “Well, the gist of it: ‘If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.’”

  “And,” Falcone said, ‘if you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always be in danger.’ Sun Tzu, The Art of War.”

  “Well done,” Dake said. “That calls for another glass of my wine.”

  Falcone reached across the low table between their chairs and picked up a bottle of Chardonnay. “So, you come over here and give me a bottle of Virginia wine—good wine, but Virginia wine—and you expect I’ll let you in on some NSC secrets.”

  “Right. Start disclosing. And, by the way, I got that wine for free. I own a piece of the winery.”

  For the book he was writing about Oxley’s presidency, Dake had been conducting on-the-run interviews with Falcone—a few minutes in Falcone’s office, a quick lunch in the White House Mess. Finally, Falcone had approved a long, formal interview in his West Wing office. It had been a relatively quiet day, mostly because of the political season, which effectively shut down Congress and focused most of the West Wing on Oxley’s domestic agenda. As Falcone was leaving his office, on an offhand impulse, he called Dake and invited him to drop by his apartment later and watch the convention.

  Dake eagerly accepted the invitation. Judging an informal costume would be right for a post-business-day interview, he donned a light jacket, a blue shirt without a tie, and dark gray slacks and drove into Washington from his home in nearby McLean, Virginia. As he often did when he was anticipating an encounter with a source, he began imagining the paragraphs the encounter would produce. Falcone, watching the nomination of Senator Stanfield, turned to me and said …

  “It’s the mention of Jesus Christ that most interested me,” Dake said. “Every politician knows that you can safely say ‘God,’ but ‘Jesus Christ’ cuts out a lot of people. Muslims, Jews, Unitarians, Buddhists, Shintoists, agnostics, and atheists, to name a few million. And what about saying ‘crusade’? That went out of the political vocabulary a long time ago.”

  “Well, maybe the Muslim haters will like it, and Stanfield’s base will like it, just like they’ll like ‘Holy Land,’” Falcone said. “The way he used the words, the Holy Land was certainly not a land for Muslims.”

  “How much do you know about Stanfield and Nolan?” Dake asked, abruptly returning to the convention.

  “And so the interview continues,” Falcone said wearily.

  “Sorry, Senator,” Dake said, using the title Falcone preferred over the impossibly awkward Mr. Advisor. “If you want to stop the interview, fine. We can just be social.”

  Surveying his refrigerator,
Falcone said, “I don’t have much here. I can order pizza. It’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

  “No thanks, Senator,” Dake said, patting his stomach. “I’m trying to lose a little.”

  “How about some scrambled eggs?”

  “Eggs will be fine.”

  Dake’s offer to “just be social” was a familiar gambit. He never took notes during an interview, giving his subject the notion that they were merely engaged in a bit of informal conversation. Not to worry. Just between us two friends. But he was reputed to have an infallible memory. He could quote verbatim every word spoken in an interview.

  Dake’s use of Senator puzzled Falcone. “It’s always been ‘Sean’ for you, Phil,” Falcone said. “Why the sudden formality?”

  “I guess it’s a reverence for power.”

  “No, seriously. Why the reverence?”

  “I don’t really know … Sean. Senator just came out. I think I suddenly thought, Power. Suddenly felt it wasn’t like the old days when you were in the Senate.… Maybe it was what we just saw at the convention. Maybe it’s because I spent some time today in your office, especially when I had to step out because suddenly you were plunged into something secret, something powerful. I guess it dawned on me that you’re helping to run the world.”

  *

  FALCONE grudgingly accepted, but officially hated, Dake’s talent for ferreting out and then disclosing classified information. Each secret Dake revealed meant that someone who had been trusted had violated that trust. One incident had particularly infuriated Falcone when he was a senator. Dake had disclosed a plan by the Sultan of Oman to support an assassination plot against a dangerous terrorist. Dake revealed that the CIA had provided the sultan with intelligence information that helped assure the operation’s success.