The Better Angels

by Charles McCarry

  “You think that’s what Laster intended to happen?”

  “I don’t suppose he thought Hassan Abdallah was going to make a contribution to charity. Half a million Swiss francs; that’s a million dollars. This could go on for a long time—longer than Laster may like.”

  Philindros’s manner, still, was passionless. He took a drink of water. In the shadowless room with its utter absence of noise, Philindros and Horace were as isolated as the crew of a two-man submarine. They saw what was happening: the onslaught of terrorists against Lockwood was taking the election away from him. Hassan had his own purposes; these happened, for the moment, to be Laster’s and Mallory’s purposes as well. Like all conspirators, each partner believed he could overwhelm the other when his usefulness had ended. Laster and Mallory did not know Hassan Abdallah.

  If Hassan made a victory for Mallory possible, Mallory’s prosecutors would drag Lockwood and Julian and Philindros and Horace into the dock and convict them of murder. The best Lockwood’s party could hope for would be a long, slow death like that suffered by the Republicans in years past. The FIS would perish. In its place, Mallory would put an intelligence service loyal to him, responsive as a whore to his wishes. When Philindros fell, all the men he had trained to love facts and despise politics would fall with him. It would be a coup d’etat disguised as a defense of the Constitution.

  Philindros gave Clive’s letter back to Horace. “I suppose you’ll go down to see Julian?”

  “Yes.”

  Philindros nodded. He looked at the television monitors, showing their usual static images: the computers, the security system, the communications apparatus—the most advanced equipment in the world. Like Horace, Philindros had no feeling for the way fleshless things worked, but he knew what machines could do if the right humans controlled them. He cleared his throat. “You’re still cleared to wander in and out of here, Horace?”

  “No one has ever stopped me.”

  “You haven’t talked to old Laux about this?”

  “About the general situation, as you know. Otherwise Clive wouldn’t have had that million dollars to hide in his cave, and we wouldn’t have had the bombs. I don’t know what use they are to us now. Hassan’s blowing up all these people makes the connection between him and Ibn Awad pretty obvious.”

  “Not everything works out. What’s Sebastian’s feeling?”

  “Indifference to the election, to the FIS, even to the bank. He’s going to die soon, after all. But he doesn’t like the idea of Julian, his best friend’s son, being paraded in chains. These old fellows are funny. If you’re born with one of the names they know, they think you ought to be untouchable.”

  Philindros sighed—for him as loud a signal as the first gun fired in a war. “Your brother fears for Lockwood’s life, and I think he has good reason,” he said. “Hassan has no interest in keeping anyone alive for a show trial.”

  “What’s your interest, Jack?”

  Philindros drank some water. “You know what it is. I want to save the FIS. If I have to save Lockwood to do that—a strange thought—well and good.”

  “You think Lockwood is savable?”

  “You’ve saved people who were in a worse state than Lockwood.”

  “Foreigners.”

  Philindros cleared his throat. He extended a forefinger and pressed it, hard, against Horace’s heart through the cloth of his tie and shirt. “They’re all foreigners to you and me, Horace,” he said. “Do you think that you live—I mean live—in the same country as Julian, even?”

  Horace looked at his friend for a long moment. He knew they were remembering the same broken men, the same lies about the things they loved. They had never spoken openly of the horrible death of the CIA; they couldn’t do it now.

  Horace said, “Are you licensing me?”

  “No. You have no official position. That is your license.” A cough. “You have this place, you have Rose. Do as you like. Nobody will interfere.”

  Horace let a moment go by, his merry eyes and Philindros’s sad ones locked. “Maybe we can have lunch after the election, or something,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  Philindros rose. There was nothing more to say. “Do you,” he asked, “have a ride uptown?”

  “Rose is waiting for me.”

  Philindros nodded. He unlocked the door, but instead of vanishing through it without ceremony as he usually did, he turned around. He had one more thought after all. “I’ve studied Julian,” he said; “he’s a man who likes to think that everything is his idea. He likes to feel his own weight.”

  “So did Talil.”

  “All the good ones do. But back to Julian: he won’t do anything unless he thinks it’s his own idea. Can you manage that, him being your brother?”

  Philindros’s feet moved, a whisper of leather soles against concrete.

  Horace smiled, touched by his friend’s embarrassment. “Maybe I can suspend sentiment this one last time,” he said.

  Philindros held out his hand. The gesture surprised Horace. Philindros nodded again, two or three times, as though recognizing all that was between them, the absolute trust, the years of facing the truth.

  “Good-bye,” Philindros said. “Do what you can. Julian will be thinking of the future. You and I, Horace, ought to remember the past.”

  Turning on his heel, he walked rapidly away down the long corridor of the inner vault, past the whispering machinery of his trade. If he saw Rose MacKenzie waiting for Horace, he gave no sign. Rose sent a look after him: amusement, the soft smile that women give to a harmless man.

  11

  Outside, Rose MacKenzie said, “The moon is full!”

  She walked into the center of Hanover Square and looked up. Long streamers of cirrus crossed the white face of the moon. Rose’s footprints were the only marks in the dusting of snow on the pavement. The streets of the financial district on Saturday night were as empty as a city of the dead, and as silent. The sky, threatening most of the day while Rose worked, unconscious of the weather, inside the vaults, was clearing before a wind blowing far above them. “Come out here and see this,” Rose called. Horace crossed to her and she pointed behind him. There stood a tall curved building with hundreds of windows of black glass, and in each window hung a reflection of the moon.

  “I wonder if the architect intended that,” Rose said. “Some archaeologist, centuries from now, will discover the basis of our religion in the ruins of that building: moon worship.”

  Rose giggled and took Horace’s arm. They decided to walk across the tip of Manhattan; Rose thought it was a good night for it, and she wanted to have a drink at the bar on top of the World Trade Center. The view of Manhattan was wonderful on a moonlit night.

  Rose let go of his arm as they sauntered through the darkened streets. It wasn’t difficult to see their way—the glass buildings reflected the moonlight, and so did the snow; they even threw shadows as they walked.

  An idea had formed in Horace’s mind when Rose, asking him to taste her baba ghanouj, had given him her election predictions. Now Horace presented this idea to Rose, as he had always presented everything to do with her work and his—as a scenario, a theoretical situation. Rose, as always, listened intently, then smiled as she saw the solution to the problem. Hundreds of times in the past, Horace had had some purpose to fulfill, something he’d brought into the computer room from the world outside. He was good outside, Rose was good inside. Often Horace’s humans failed, but Rose’s machines always performed as instructed.

  Horace gave her an inquiring look. They had stopped to talk in the middle of the street, and behind them in the snow ran the long double line of their shoeprints like the tracks of a pair of night animals in a northern forest.

  “Of course it’s possible,” said Rose. “It all goes over the telephone system on wires or microwaves. I can make the computers gossip. But it is wicked.”

  Her face shone with the fun of Horace’s idea. She took his arm again and they walked on
, weaving a bit—almost dancing. Rose’s coat was open, she didn’t mind the cold. Horace’s voice was calm as he stated the problems one after the other. Rose sometimes burst into laughter as she saw the solutions. She was a mathematician, and finding solutions to new equations was mind—boggling joy to her. She did her work as she made love: for the pleasure of it. The idea of guilt, of morality, had never entered her mind; she cared only for skill and results. In all her life she had loved only science and Horace. Mathematicians and idealists, with their juggler’s minds, had always loved Horace. He had never understood why; he himself, a nest of regrets, had never done any of the things he had done without knowing, to the last fraction, how much pain the act was going to leave behind it.

  “It’s possible, then?” he said. “I mean, possible with no conceivable trace being left?”

  “I’ve already said so.”

  “You don’t mind using the machines for this?”

  Rose laughed. “It’ll do them good. They’ll have to stretch a little.”

  Horace and Rose had their drink by the window high above the city.

  “‘Come back, O glittering and white!’” said Horace.

  Rose, looking uptown over the spires bathed in moonlight, didn’t need to ask what he meant. Horace had already quoted Sebastian Laux’s line to her. Among her books they had found the Fitzgerald short story and Rose had read it aloud. They had been together such a long time, anyway, that they communicated best in cryptic phrases. It was a sort of lovers’ shorthand: a single name, a line of verse, could bring back a whole region of their lives.

  “If we do it, you’ll have to bring sandwiches,” Rose said. “We’ll be locked in the vault all night. Pastrami; hold the mustard.”

  12

  Julian and Horace were alone in the house on O Street. The asthmatic walkie-talkies of the Secret Service detail, outside in the sleeping street, were muffled by drawn drapes. They listened to Beethoven—the Emperor Concerto again, but played this time by someone with a more timid touch than Horowitz’s.

  The brothers sat in silence in the half-light of Julian’s study. Horace had just told Julian that Rose’s computers were predicting certain defeat for Lockwood in the election. Julian closed his eyes. In the days since Horace had seen him, in New Orleans, he had been dehydrated by apprehension and fatigue. His collar was too large for his neck. He had heard the news Horace was giving him a hundred times in the last week; he had seen it in Lockwood’s eyes.

  “There are interesting times ahead,” Julian said. “Mallory does plan a witch hunt if he’s elected. A public burning.”

  Horace said, “Can Mallory really destroy Lockwood, destroy your whole political movement?”

  “Of course. Lockwood’s guilty and the movement is dying anyway.”

  “A lot of people will never believe that. Patrick Graham sees you as the last best hope of a man—`the better angels,’ he called you.”

  Julian laughed. “Patrick is not the American people. They’re frightened of life as it is. A lot of them want what Mallory wants—want it enough to elect him tomorrow. If they do, it will be the last vote they ever cast for a President. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted that, too.”

  Horace raised his big hands, pressed the fingertips together, and then flung them apart. It was an ancient gesture out of the Near East, signifying gain and loss and the power of fate. The music had stopped. Horace rewound the tape and started it again. Julian watched him with a smile playing on his lips.

  “You’re taking all this pretty well, Julian,” Horace said. “You know better than anyone what losing will mean.”

  “No, not better than anyone. Lockwood knows. But he believes in what he stands for—it’s extraordinary. He doesn’t know that power corrupts; there’s nothing dark in him, he never has to struggle against himself. If the people elect Mallory tomorrow, Lockwood will believe in their wisdom.”

  “You won’t?”

  “No. Let me tell you what I’ve never said aloud before. I believe in their folly. Caroline spent years telling me I should realize that the people is a great beast. I always knew it. ‘The two of you will fall,’ she said of Lockwood and me, ‘because you lack the guts to do unforgivable things.’”

  “And do you?” Horace looked closely at his brother; in his weariness, Julian had become almost jovial. Horace had seen this in spies after a big failure: what they had, what they could never lose, was the knowledge that they had, for most of their lives, fooled the world into thinking that they were something they were not.

  “Lockwood is Lockwood,” Julian said. “That’s what counts.”

  Horace returned his brother’s smile. As if he were joking, he said, “There is a way to save the situation, Julian.”

  Calmly, he explained how Rose MacKenzie and her computers could steal the election for Lockwood. The smile left Julian’s face; his eyes hardened.

  He said, “Explain the technical details to me.”

  “Julian, it’s just a game. Rose only worked out the details as a joke. She does that all the time. It’s a what-if situation. Such things amuse her.”

  “But she could actually do it?”

  “Yes, sure. According to Rose, it’s just a very sophisticated telephone tap. She has the best computers on the planet. She can invade any other data processing system in existence, read its mind, change its results. I’ve told you, she’s a genius.”

  Julian was not pausing for thought. “I can’t believe this can be done without leaving traces. Those election computers were designed —designed by Franklin Mallory—to be absolutely secure.”

  “Only a fool,” said Horace, “believes in the foolproof.”

  “Would she do it?”

  Horace avoided his brother’s eyes for an instant. It was the gesture of an embarrassed man. He was setting the hook in his own brother.

  “Yes, if I asked her to. But Julian, you can’t be serious.”

  “We’re dealing with a serious matter. The control of the American government, the life of a great man.” He gave a wry smile. “The murder of a great idea. You realize that personal freedom will simply vanish into history if Lockwood loses?”

  “But if he wins by stealing the election, doesn’t Mallory win anyway?”

  “Mallory can have the moral victory.” Julian straightened his spine. He was decisive. “Horace, I want this done. I want you and Rose to do this.”

  “Rose is an employee of the FIS; her equipment is FIS equipment.”

  Julian issued an exasperated sound, almost a bark. “You think there’ll be an FIS, as you’ve known it, under Mallory?”

  “If I do as you ask, and bring Rose into it, there won’t be an FIS as I’ve known it, as Philindros has made it. Julian, this conversation has gone far enough. What you ask can be done. The technical means exist, I’d even say the risk of detection is negligible. But you can’t do it.”

  “No? Why?”

  “You say yourself the President wouldn’t agree to it.”

  “He won’t have the opportunity.”

  “You won’t tell him?”

  “Philindros told him about Ibn Awad. Was that a good idea?”

  Horace started to reply, but Julian’s head turned sharply and he held up a warning hand; this was his house, he knew its noises. In a moment, Horace himself heard footsteps, the rapid jabbing of a woman’s heels, in the corridor. The door was flung open, striking the wall behind it like a slap, and Caroline burst into the room. A young Secret Service man was right behind her.

  “She let herself in with a key, Mr. Hubbard,” he said. “She was up the stairs before I saw who she was.” His pistol was in his hand and his face was ashen.

  Julian waved him his forgiveness. “Caro, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you in the spine,” he said.

  The guard remained as he was. Caroline ignored the drawn weapon.

  “Where are the children?” she demanded.

  Julian told her. She knew that Live Oaks was the safest place in Americ
a. In her relief, she began to tremble. Horace touched her and she drew away; his hand might have been groping under her clothes. Without a word, Horace left the room. The guard went with him. In a moment Caroline and Julian heard the rattle of glasses and bottles from the bar downstairs. Horace came back with three glasses brimming with neat bourbon; a bottle of Maker’s Mark was tucked under his arm.

  Caroline drank her whiskey at two swallows and held out the glass to be refilled. “I want to be with the children,” she said; her voice was thin, burned by the liquor.

  “All right. I’m flying down tonight. You should be with them.”

  Julian hadn’t touched his drink. There was no chair for Caroline in the tiny study and she refused the one Horace offered her. Instead she sat on the floor, cross-legged in tweed trousers.

  “I only heard about the terrorists yesterday when we docked in Southampton; Leo won’t listen to the news while we’re at sea. I took the first plane.”

  Julian made no reply to this. Caroline drank more whiskey and coughed on it; she wasn’t used to it any longer.

  “Horace, what are you two doing? Discussing where to hide after next Tuesday?”

  Horace gave her his twinkling smile. “Something like that.”

  “Frosty is going to lose? You are going to be kicked to death by jackboots? Julian’s children are going to grow up in a stink of lies about their father?”

  Julian said, “You’ve lost none of your wonderful subtlety, Cam.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Horace said, “Julian and I were just discussing the possibility of stealing the election for Lockwood. Would you approve of that?”

  To Caroline, Julian said, “Go downstairs. Watch television.”

  Caroline looked from one brother to the other; her eyes burned. “Like hell I will,” she said. “What is this?”

  “Caro, go. I’ll have you taken out bodily otherwise.”

  Caroline stood up. She picked up the bottle by its neck. “Do it,” she hissed, and went out the door. Soon the men heard the television, tuned very loud. Julian stared for a moment at the empty space where Caroline had been. Then he rubbed his eyelids with his fingertips.