WINNER TAKES ALL

by Robert Bidinotto

  “You say there’s no evidence. But Dylan—how can you know for sure? I’m trained in crime scene investigations. There’s always forensic evidence left behind. Always. Hair. Fingerprints. Footprints, blood spatters, fibers, DNA. You had to have left something behind that could lead them right back to . . .”

  Her eyes widened and her voice trailed off.

  “What?” he asked quietly.

  She told him.

  FIFTEEN

  “I beg your pardon?” Trammel asked. He turned from the TV screen to face his wife.

  Julia sat opposite him at the table in their breakfast nook. She wore a long green satin dressing gown and a concerned expression.

  “I said: ‘You seem distant the past few days.’ Have I said or done something to upset you?”

  He realized he had been thinking a lot about Emmalee lately. Especially after their Saturday night tryst.

  “Oh. No. No, I have just been preoccupied lately. With work. I apologize if I have seemed a bit remote.”

  She nodded quietly. Then reached for the tall crystal glass and raised her Mimosa to her lips.

  Thinking her mollified, he turned back to the screen, perched anachronistically atop the William IV rosewood chiffonier against the wall behind her. CNN was reporting the results of the latest ABC News/Washington Post presidential poll. Spencer was down fourteen points behind Helm, now. Ridiculous that an Independent political novice could be polling this well against the presumptive Democratic nominee. Even though it was six months until the election, he and the Maestro had a great deal of work to do if—

  “It would be nice if we could share at least one meal without distractions.”

  He put down his fork and pushed away the plate bearing the remnants of his Eggs Benedict. Then pressed the mute button on the television remote.

  “What is the problem, Julia?”

  “It’s just that we spend so little time together, Avery. When I’m not in L.A. trying to get work, you’re off in New York or Geneva or God knows where, doing whatever it is that you do these days. So I was looking forward to spending Sunday together, for a change. But you got up so late yesterday morning, and then seemed so tired. And after a while, I could tell you’d forgotten. So I cancelled our matinee seating at the Center.” To what must have been his blank look, she added: “The Juilliard Quartet. Remember? It was supposed to be your belated anniversary present to me.”

  He saw the hurt in her eyes, and silently cursed himself.

  “Julia, dear, I am truly sorry. It was inexcusable for me to forget.”

  “Yes, it was!” She brushed away a strand of red hair straying into the green eyes. “What is it with you lately, Avery? This past month you’ve been so on edge, snapping at the house staff, giving me the cold shoulder. And yesterday—so lethargic, yawning all day. Are you depressed? Or is something wrong with your health? Is there something I don’t know about?”

  Holding her gaze steadily was an effort. He was not accustomed to feeling on the defensive. Usually she was compliant, easy to intimidate. He wondered if she suspected something.

  “It has been a difficult month. As you know.”

  “I do. No, I really do. Your plane blown up; those lost investments; Ash Conn assassinated. I get it. A lousy month. But I’ve had a lousy year. Almost two years, now, and still no new roles. So stop feeling sorry for yourself. You said it yourself: the Gulfstream and stock losses barely make a dent in our assets, right? And yes, I know Ash was a friend; but he was never that close to you, was he?”

  “No, he was not.” He raised his napkin, monogrammed with their initials, and dabbed his lips. “You are right. Perhaps I have just been feeling sorry for myself.”

  She looked off, toward the bright, sweeping curve of the window. Below, out of view, Monday morning rush-hour traffic would be pouring into the city, bringing its daily transfusion of vitality and power. For him, it was an unusually slow morning. His nine o’clock had cancelled; his first meeting, at the Russell Senate Office Building, was not scheduled until eleven. He glanced at his Rolex; that would be over two hours from now. So he could afford to give her the next half-hour. He had quite enough to occupy his mind without the further distraction of trouble from her.

  His eyes drifted involuntarily back to the silent TV screen . . . and the image of a dark, bearded man he had seen televised many times in recent weeks. The words beneath the face shocked him. He grabbed the remote and clicked the volume back on.

  “. . . that the body of the suspected ‘ecoterrorist’ was identified through dental records. Those same police sources are not revealing anything about the exact cause of death, other than to say they are treating it as a homicide. This surprising development comes on the heels of the stabbing death of Boggs’s close associate, Russell ‘Rusty’ Nash, just weeks ago in the same area. It raises questions . . .”

  He heard the scraping of her chair.

  Julia rose to her feet. The bright chandelier above her seemed to set her red hair ablaze. There was fire in her eyes, too. She threw her balled-up napkin onto the table, then stormed out, heading toward their bedroom suite.

  2

  “Two matters bring us here this morning,” said CIA Director Mason Houk, taking his seat at the head of the massive table in the director’s conference room. Behind rimless glasses, his gaze moved to Garrett’s face. “And both of them concern you, Grant.”

  The seating positions of those at the table foreshadowed his message. Of the “front office” executives present, Garrett had been shunted into the chair farthest from D/CIA Houk. That he was probably in trouble was underscored by the smug half-smile from his chief adversary, CIA Deputy Director Wesley Burroughs. A short, intense, dark-haired man with a pugilist’s face, the DD/CIA looked much younger than his fifty years. He occupied the first seat to Houk’s right—always close enough to kiss the boss’s ass, he thought. Perhaps the most telling harbinger, though, was that Garrett’s immediate boss—Les Sisler, Director of Operations—chose to sit opposite him, rather than in his usual spot beside him. Garrett was curious to see a few others present who were positioned far lower in the Langley food chain. He wondered what their contribution to this special meeting was intended to be.

  But mostly, Garrett wondered whether he’d still have his job by its end.

  “The first issue is the reorganization,” Houk continued. “As you all know, a panel of nine senior officers conducted the three-month study of the proposal. They polled four thousand employees and conducted fifteen focus groups.” He nodded toward Garrett. “Because of its impact on Operations, you in particular, Grant, were encouraged to express yourself on the plan during the discussion phase. And you did. Long and loud.” He ventured a smile.

  “With all due respect, sir,” Garrett replied coolly, “let’s be frank. Everyone knows the plan was a done deal when you first announced it. The ‘discussion phase,’ as you call it, was really just an extended sales pitch to us. Because not a single concern or suggestion offered by critics like me altered the initial plan in the slightest. Oh wait—let me correct that: You did accept my suggestion to change our directorate name from National Clandestine Service back to ‘Operations’ again, and the Directorate of Intelligence to ‘Analysis.’ But that was about it.”

  In the dead silence that followed, Houk and Burroughs seemed to be competing in who could send him the coldest stare. Across the table, Sisler would not meet his glance; he was hunched over, swirling his water bottle.

  “I assure you,” Houk answered, his tone only a few degrees less frosty than his glare, “we took all criticisms and suggestions to heart. But at the end of the day, the panel concluded we urgently needed to knock down the walls separating the directorates. For years, the technical staff in Science & Technology, the analysts in Intelligence, and case officers in NCS have functioned in their own little silos, like rivals and sometimes even adversaries. That can’t continue. Our national security requires cooperation across the directorates. We need to foster
a single, overarching ‘CIA intelligence officer’ mind-set that transcends tribal loyalties to one’s own directorate. That’s why the panel endorsed the new ‘mission center’ concept. Going forward, we’ll pool talent from each directorate into these mission-focused, fusion divisions, where they’ll all learn to work together for the common good.”

  Houk removed his glasses and began to polish them on his pocket handkerchief. In his late fifties, the D/CIA’s bland face was going to jowls and his once-brown hair to gray. A former two-term senator, then Secretary of State under a previous Democratic administration, Houk had been given this appointment seven years earlier by incoming president Gabe Glover. Glover made it clear that Houk’s charge would be to “rein in the CIA’s cowboy culture” and stop its “human rights abuses.”

  In particular, the Operations directorate was to be neutered. That wasn’t the stated goal, of course; but it was the tacit aim of the reorganization: to transfer the Agency’s geographical and topical-interest divisions—which used to operate under Garrett’s purview—to the authority of the mission centers. Each of the eleven centers was to be run by some nerdy desk officer, not an experienced ops officer. The case officers and covert operatives Garrett supplied to the centers would no longer answer directly to him; instead, they’d be errand boys and girls for the nerds. And before launching or running any time-critical operation, he’d have to argue with, beg permission of, then take direction from more new layers of politicized, risk-averse bureaucrats. And with their operations now exposed to many more people across the Agency, covert operatives in the field also faced far higher risks that their covers would be blown, too.

  “Now, Grant,” Houk began again, forcing his voice to warm slightly, “I understand why many case officers and Ops veterans like you aren’t happy with the redrawn lines of authority. I’m sure it feels like a demotion.”

  “My feelings have nothing to do with it. It is a demotion, plain and simple.”

  “Well, you’re right about one thing,” Wesley Burroughs interrupted. “Your feelings do have nothing to do with any of this. The debate phase has concluded; the decision to move forward with the plan has been made. What we”—his hand swept around to include the rest of the table—“need, right now, is an explicit buy-in from everyone here on the seventh floor. And your pledge to make the reforms work.”

  Houk nodded. “That’s right. Everyone else in the room is on board, Grant. So before we proceed, I need to know whether you’re with us.”

  Garrett was tired. The job had become thankless: the hours interminable, the victories rare, the betrayals frequent. He had been tempted for several years to pack it in and retire. The reorganization portended a national security nightmare. Until now, only an inexplicable sense of duty had caused him to hesitate, to try to blunt its worst consequences.

  Now, he had to decide whether he could endorse or participate any longer in their subversion of the organization to which he had given his life.

  Garrett eased back into the black leather chair, its creaking the only noise in the soundproof room. His eyes paused first on the large plate of fat cookies in the center of the table; they reminded him he’d skipped breakfast. Then rose to the opposite wall, lined with photos of past CIA directors and the presidents they served, reminders of the many years he had worked here. Then slowly around the table, at each person in turn, noting whose eyes met his and whose scurried for cover.

  Then to the figure of Mason Houk. The D/CIA sat motionless, waiting, arms crossed over his dark, somber suit. Behind him on the paneled wall, illuminated by a hidden spotlight, hung a large, two-tone metallic disk bearing the CIA emblem. Incongruously, it looked like a glowing halo floating above his head.

  Finally, his gaze rested on Wesley Burroughs—who challenged him with an insolent smirk.

  A moment ago, he had decided to tender his resignation . . . until he saw that smug half-smile.

  Now, looking at the arrogant bastard, Garrett’s teetering sense of duty was bolstered by a sudden, stubborn sense of defiance.

  He knew that if it weren’t for the dirt he’d compiled on Houk, and especially on Burroughs, they’d have fired him long ago. Even so, they were looking for any excuse—such as direct insubordination or provable law-breaking—to get rid of him.

  Garrett decided not to hand them one. He still had one major unfinished task to perform.

  He rocked forward. Placed his gnarled hands on the polished wood. Held Houk’s eyes.

  “All right. I’m in.”

  There were a few tentative smiles around the table, and a murmur of relief from Sisler. Not from Houk or Burroughs, though. The former simply nodded. The latter lost the smirk.

  “Good,” said Houk. “With that settled, we turn to the other matter. Wes has brought to my attention rumors from the Counterintelligence Center that you are continuing to raise the specter of a second Russian mole here.”

  Garrett scanned the faces. All registered shock or surprise.

  Houk pressed on. “Do you have any evidence to support that suspicion?”

  Garrett rocked back again. Crossed his own arms. Continued to scan the faces for subtle reactions.

  “Whatever suspicions or evidence I may have, and about whom, are not topics I’ll discuss in a room full of Agency employees.”

  For a few seconds, nobody reacted.

  “That’s outrageous!” Burroughs blurted. “I demand that you tell—”

  Houk rested a hand on his shoulder. “No, Wes—he’s probably right.”

  “But he’s insinuating that we—any of us—may be guilty of treason!”

  “It is outrageous,” muttered Agnes Headley, boss of the Directorate of Analysis. “I would think anyone in this room should be deemed trustworthy.”

  Garrett shrugged. “We all thought Muller—in the Office of Security, no less—was trustworthy. But, alas.”

  Headley’s mouth set in a thin grimace. They detested each other, and neither missed an opportunity to express it.

  “Happily,” she said, “we don’t have to question the loyalty of anyone, Mr. Garrett. We have been reviewing NSA intercepts that prove you’re wrong in your suspicions. At Wesley’s request, I’ve invited Kurt Spitzer to join us here. For those unaware, he’s chief of the Office of Russian and European Analysis. Kurt, go ahead and tell us about those intercepts.”

  Garrett knew Spitzer; in fact, he’d had to challenge the man’s opinions on more than a few occasions. But the veteran analyst had a friend in court: He had been an old college chum of Burroughs at Yale. Both entered the Agency right after school, and over the years they had boosted each other up the organizational chart. Spitzer wore long hair, expensive suits, and, like his pal, a perpetually arrogant expression. He paused to sip from his water bottle; then, pointedly ignoring Garrett, directed his eyes and words toward Houk and Burroughs.

  “Thank you, Agnes. These NSA intercepts”—Spitzer tapped a stack of papers on the desk before him—“are from the electronic communication link between the Russian embassy here and the SVR in Moscow,” he said, referring to Russia’s external spy agency. “As some of you know, NSA discovered and tapped into it last year and managed to decrypt the messages. The back-and-forth in these reveals how upset the Kremlin is about losing Muller. The SVR laments the loss of their, quote, ‘last Langley asset,’ unquote. They go on to wonder if their illegals can recruit a useful replacement. Which clearly indicates they don’t have anyone else on their payroll here.”

  Garrett didn’t argue. He didn’t want to reveal his evidence or to seem uncooperative.

  “That sounds reassuring,” he said instead. “But are we sure this is not just disinformation?”

  Spitzer shot him a look of disdain. “Moscow has no clue we’ve tapped communications with their embassy. It’s been a gold mine of intel for us.”

  “Thanks, Kurt,” said Houk. “Which brings us to my next point. With the reorganization, Operations no longer has responsibility for the Counterintelligence Center.
I know you’re used to exercising a lot of autonomy, Grant. But running your own CI investigations in-house was never okay. Now it’s completely outside of your authority.”

  “The last thing we need,” Burroughs added, “is another Angleton-style witch hunt.”

  Spitzer and Headley chuckled; others nodded. They all knew Burroughs was referring to the late CIA spyhunter James Angleton, who was passionately certain of the existence of a Soviet agent buried within Langley. His obsessive mole hunt caused paranoia that nearly paralyzed Agency operations for years.

  “Exactly,” Houk concluded. “So, as of this meeting, that sort of thing stops. If there’s any mole-hunting to be done, it will be handled by the appropriate CI people.” He looked around the table. “I wanted the executive staff here, just to make sure there are no further misunderstandings about the new chain of command.” He swiveled his chair to face Garrett.

  “So, Grant . . . do we still have any misunderstandings?”

  Grant Garrett had outlasted countless adversaries during his thirty-five years with the Company. Surely he could outlast and out-maneuver these weenies, too. At least for a little longer. At least until he unearthed the mole he knew was still burrowed somewhere in the Agency.

  But he’d have to find him, or her, while these front-office mandarins were watching his every move.

  Garrett kept his face blank and his voice steady when he answered.

  “None whatsoever.”

  SIXTEEN

  Hunter yawned, for the third time in as many minutes. He had been up late, his attention switching back and forth between his notes about Arnold Wasserman’s death, and those he had compiled about the well-coordinated political attacks on Roger Helm.

  Too little sleep last night. And too little progress on either investigation.

  Raising his big ceramic mug to his lips, he found it empty. He stretched, rose from his desk, and headed out of the office to the apartment’s kitchen. Luna was there, hunched over her water dish, her tongue darting up and down like a little pink jackhammer. While he filled the coffeemaker’s filter, he tried to tamp down his frustration over his lack of progress on either story.