The Paladin

by David Ignatius

  When the stewards had cleared the meal and served the espresso, Goldman put his feet up on the table. Dunne did the same. He was well fed and relaxed, and ready to stop sparring with his host and communicate.

  “What’s all this about?” asked Dunne. “I came here wanting to settle scores, and you’re treating me like royalty. What’s the hustle?”

  “We’re getting to know each other,” said Goldman. “You knocked on my door. I answered. I offered you an opportunity, you said no, so we went swimming and had lunch.”

  “Come on, man. Cut the crap. I’m serious.”

  Goldman studied his guest. Dunne looked like a big red cat, now that he’d had some exercise and been in the sun. Goldman was warier, moving in diagonal steps toward what he wanted to say.

  “Do you read much history, Michael? That was my undergraduate major, before I went to law school. My senior dissertation at Princeton was about Roman forts in the third century. It’s still sort of a hobby, ancient history, and I keep seeing ways in which it’s relevant to us right now.”

  “I can’t help you much there,” said Dunne. “My senior project was partying and hacking computers.”

  “Your education was more practical. But indulge me about the Romans. Why did they build all those forts? And so far from Rome. I mean, they constructed them in Jordan and Egypt. They had a string of forts along the Danube and the Rhône. They built Hadrian’s Wall in Britain. What was that about?”

  “Beats me,” said Dunne. “I didn’t go to Princeton. I’m a Pitt guy. The only British wall I remember from college is a song by Pink Floyd.”

  Goldman laughed and shook his head. He was used to smart people trying to pretend that they were dumb.

  “As I said, indulge me. The Romans had an empire, and they wanted to protect it, and they thought the only way they could do that was by getting their forces out to where the threats came from.”

  “They were threatened by the barbarians. People like your friend Jason Howe.”

  “Jason isn’t a barbarian, and it doesn’t matter, because he’s harmless now.”

  “Okay, then habeas corpus. Produce the body; I want him.”

  “We’ll come back to Howe, but let me finish: The Romans had enemies in the provinces, yes, but the real problem was that they were rotting at the core. Rome had lost its confidence and conviction. The empire began to crumble, with commanders grabbing for the spoils. The walls were breached, but not far away, close to home. ‘Rome’ survived only because the culture had taken root somewhere else, in Byzantium, where it could be protected. Are you following me?”

  “Frankly, no. Forget about Pitt and Princeton. I really don’t get your point.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Goldman said. He stood up and arched his back to stretch his tired muscles. He called for another espresso and a bottle of mineral water. He rubbed some lotion on his tanned face, so that it glowed a silky gold. He looked like he owned the yacht, despite what he’d said. He sat down again, refocused, and turned back to Dunne.

  As Goldman was speaking to a member of the staff, Dunne had reached into his pocket and removed a toothpick to clean his teeth. And something else, a tiny object that imperceptibly found its way into the upholstery in this upper lounge.

  “Okay, sorry about the Rome lecture,” said Goldman. “Here’s the simple, straight-up version of what I’m trying to say. Unless you’re an idiot, you can see that America is rotting from the inside out, too. It’s breaking apart. When America tries to project power, it fails. Iraq, Afghanistan, zilch. When it builds walls, they crumble.”

  “I’ve been living that story. America first, baby. What else is new?”

  “Well, come on, think about it. That same thing is happening with most other countries. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, Germany, France. They’re all stressed. Their wars are as messed up as ours. Ukraine, Yemen, the Uighurs. The big powers are paper tigers, all of them. Power doesn’t live in nation-states anymore. It’s gone somewhere else.”

  Dunne arched his eyebrows. “To the Cosmos, maybe.”

  “Clever man. ‘World order,’ as I told you earlier, for when the normal order isn’t working. That’s the idea. I represent a group of prominent people from all over the world. We don’t want to be on the receiving end of history, we want to shape it. Think of a private group, almost a club, that exists for the preservation of culture. We’re ‘Byzantine.’ And I mean that in the very best way.”

  “Big ideas make my head hurt, man,” said Dunne. “You said we’d talk about Jason Howe later. What about now?”

  “Okay, fine.” Goldman took the espresso from the steward and took a sip that left a black froth on his lower lip. He dabbed at it with his linen napkin.

  “Jason Howe was a test kitchen. He was a trial run. He imagined that he was the director of the show, when he was really just an actor. But that’s okay. People make that mistake all the time.”

  “So, he wasn’t the person who took me down.”

  “He pulled the trigger, but it wasn’t his gun. I could explain what happened to you, but it’s complicated. And it would only piss you off more, which is a waste of talent. That’s why I thought it was easier to offer a new start.”

  “You motherfucker.”

  “Excuse me?” Goldman pretended he hadn’t heard.

  Dunne strode to the edge of the awning. He looked over the side of the railing of this upper deck, as if estimating whether there was space to dive and clear the hull of the boat into the water.

  “Motherfucker,” he repeated. “A guy who fucks his mother.”

  Goldman took a deep breath. He finished his espresso. Against Dunne’s anger, he was a silk cushion.

  “You’re an idiot. Seriously. Your idea of vengeance against Howe is understandable, but misplaced. But attacking the larger forces in play here would be completely crazy. You really don’t appreciate what’s going on.”

  “This conversation is over,” said Dunne. “Take me back to the dock. Or shoot me, or whatever you’re planning to do on behalf of your bullshit league of pirates.”

  Goldman put up his hands in protest. He was a movie star, this one. Peter Pan with a snorkel.

  “I’ll take you back, of course I will. We’re not gangsters. Quite the opposite. We’re the good guys. We know how to do things that would make your head spin. Truly, all that crap you did for the CIA is kindergarten compared to the tools we have. We need smart people who can get around corners. Honestly, you’re missing the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “No. Fucking. Way. I’m going back to my cabin. Knock on my door when we get to Porto Cervo.”

  “What a pity,” Goldman called out after him. “What a damned shame.”

  Dunne stopped as he reached the salon door, propping his arm against a teakwood shelf.

  “I’m touched that you would pay so much attention to a guy with a prison record.”

  As Dunne made his wisecrack, gesturing dismissively with one hand, he moved the other to insert a sliver of wood, housing another microphone, into the inner corner of the shelf.

  “Maybe you have a guilty conscience,” said Dunne, heading toward his stateroom.

  By the time Dunne was ready to leave the boat, he had placed microphones in its main seating areas, each with a minute radio-frequency transmitter that would feed a parabolic amplifier he intended to plant in the hills above the ghastly billion-dollar marina. The tiny bugs wouldn’t last forever, but they would transmit long enough to provide Dunne with more information than he had.

  “I could say it was dangerous for you, leaving us like this,” said Goldman as he escorted Dunne toward the white leather balustrade of the gangplank. “But that wouldn’t motivate you to reconsider, I gather.”

  “Nope. That’s the only good thing about having your life destroyed. Threats don’t work very well.”

  “I could say that you’re being incredibly stupid, giving up a potential fortune.”

  Dunne laughed
as he stepped onto the deck. “Why would I want to be rich, if I couldn’t be pissed off anymore?”

  It was late afternoon when Dunne got back to the hotel. He spent the evening in the bar, watching a series of pretty girls looking at him flirtatiously, and then went to bed.

  26 Washington, D.C. – October 2016

  On the day that Michael Dunne was summoned home to Washington, his wife Alicia Silva was teaching two classes, introductory and intermediate Portuguese, at George Mason University. She was eight months pregnant with their second child. Her belly was so big that she could barely fit behind the wheel of her car. Her face had the radiant glow of expectant motherhood, warming and softening the honey brown of her skin.

  Alicia liked her teaching. George Mason was a sprawl of a suburban campus, just outside the Beltway but in the gravitational field of Washington. The university was big and anonymous, but the Portuguese program was tiny, with one permanent faculty member and Alicia as a part-time adjunct. Many of the students were military, foreign service, or intelligence officers preparing for a next assignment. They didn’t want to read fancy writers like José Saramago or Antero de Quental, they just wanted to be certified as language-proficient and get on the job.

  Which was fine with Alicia. Her Brazilian father had been a brooding doctor who according to family lore had dreamed of being a poet; her mother was a slim, Mozambican-born nurse who had aspired to be a dancer. Over time, Alicia had grown to like uncomplicated people, like her George Mason students and, she thought, like her husband.

  Michael had dazzled her when they met in Paris. She was a translator at UNESCO, the tall, beautiful, vivacious Brazilian girl who danced until the sun came up but never went home with anyone. She was a virgin when she met Dunne. She had been waiting for someone like him, she said. “Amor verdadeiro, nã;o envelhece.” True love is always the same age.

  She liked to sing in bed, or in the car, almost anywhere. Samba, Carnival, Brazilian pop music, or Top 50 songs by Rihanna and Beyoncé. She had named their first daughter Luisa after the most famous pop star in Brazil.

  Sometimes Alicia would whisper a Portuguese proverb in Dunne’s ear as they were falling asleep. “A noite é boa conselheira,” she would say. The pillow is a good counselor. Sometimes, when he had just returned from a long trip, she would wake him in the middle of the night and want to make love again.

  Alicia’s class ended at seven, so she didn’t return home from Fairfax until nearly eight. Michael had texted her that he was arriving that day but had to go to the office first. He had been away nearly two months. Her first thought when she got his text message was joy; now, maybe, he would be home when the baby was born.

  Alicia found her husband collapsed on the sofa, his head in his hands. The babysitter had already put their daughter to bed and gone home. Alicia walked toward him. He touched his palm to the fullness of her womb. The crescent bump in her tummy when he left had become the rounded, heavy form of his unborn child. He was smiling, but there was a sadness in his face.

  Dunne took his wife in his arms. As he rocked her, tears formed in his eyes. He excused himself and went to the bathroom and poured water on his face. When he looked at the image in the mirror, frightened and hollow-eyed, the face of a condemned man, he choked back tears again.

  “Está tudo bem, meu querido?” called out Alicia. She knew that something was wrong. Michael asked her if she wanted a drink, but she patted her stomach. He poured himself a vodka over ice, to the rim of the glass. He sat down next to her again on the couch. He took her hand in his. She was trembling.

  “I’m in a lot of trouble,” he said.

  “What is it, my darling? Is it a problem at work?”

  “I’m not even sure I understand it. Something went bad. They’re investigating me. I don’t think I did anything wrong, but they’re saying I broke the law and that I should get my own lawyer. The FBI wants to interview me.”

  “Oh, meu Deus. Nos salve,” she whispered. She wasn’t religious, but reflexively she made the sign of the cross.

  Tears came to Dunne’s eyes again. He brushed them away with his sleeve. There was so much he needed to say but couldn’t. He looked into her eyes, and then away.

  “If people say bad things about me, don’t believe them,” he said.

  “Never.” She took his hand. “Never.”

  “You know I would never hurt you. My work is crazy sometimes, and I make mistakes. But I love you.”

  “Of course. Why do you say these things? You are scaring me, Michael. It will be okay. Your friends at work will take care of you.”

  “I don’t know,” said Dunne. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” Now Alicia began to cry.

  * * *

  The next morning, the first newspaper story appeared in the Washington Post. Dunne picked the paper up off the lawn at six, standing in his bathrobe as he read the headline, front page, below the fold: “CIA Officer Accused of Spying on Liberal Media Group.” Dunne read the story all the way through, standing outside in the October morning chill, the sunlight rising through trees that were nearly bare of their leaves.

  The story was a hit job; the first paragraphs quoted congressional sources who had been briefed by the CIA inspector general on a violation of agency regulations that had been discovered overseas. The IG’s office hadn’t even waited twenty-four hours to brief Congress and leak the story. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dunne whispered to himself.

  He turned to page A-23 and read the jump. The story was written in the breathless style that newspapers reserve for conduct that’s presumed to be scandalous but whose details aren’t yet clear enough to describe in simple declarative sentences.

  The indignation factor was a presumed CIA attack on the free press. Despite a specific prohibition on agency operations against American journalists, an undercover officer had penetrated the overseas offices of an Internet publication called Fallen Empire, which was run by a crusading American journalist named Jason Howe; the CIA officer had sought to manipulate the news organization for intelligence purposes.

  The story quoted an anonymous member of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “Russian intelligence may do things like this, but not the CIA.” The head of a press-freedom group was quoted talking about the sanctity of the First Amendment. An unnamed “U.S. official” said that the officer under investigation had exceeded his authority, and that the matter was being referred to the FBI for possible criminal prosecution.

  The Post story didn’t identify Dunne by name, describing him only as an operations officer who had recently returned from assignment abroad. The committee had his name, obviously. The Post did, too, probably. It wouldn’t stay secret for long. Dunne had watched this process a dozen times with his colleagues. Shit flowed downhill. When a flap surfaced, the officers who had been asked to do the dirty work were advised to get legal counsel.

  Dunne finished the piece. His first sensation, other than the burning shame of being the target of a public investigation, was anger at himself for having been so foolish. He had known it was unwise to have trusted George Strafe’s assurances, but he had done it anyway.

  Dunne thought of hiding the paper from his wife, but when he turned back toward the house, he saw that she had been watching him through the window. He carried the paper inside and gave it to her.

  “It’s pretty bad,” he said.

  She read the story, and then walked to the kitchen, where Dunne was glumly eating his breakfast cereal, and put her arms around him. Dunne could feel the baby kick as she pressed against him.

  “It doesn’t mention your name,” she said hopefully.

  “The next story will, or the one after that. It will all come out.” As Dunne said those last words, he shuddered.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long. The Post may have been cautious, but the Internet wasn’t. Fallen Empire that afternoon published photographs of the supposed Microsoft employee named Edward Spitz who had wheedled his way into the “news organization�
��s” offices in Italy. Microsoft denied that it had ever employed Spitz. His social media history was briefly available, and then deleted, which made it worse. By then Michael Dunne’s true name was bouncing around the Internet, along with pictures of him from McKeesport High and the University of Pittsburgh.

  The CIA public affairs director asked the Post and the New York Times not to publish Dunne’s name, but when it surfaced on BuzzFeed, the mainstream papers went ahead. They named Dunne, interviewed former classmates, and patched together more comments from human rights groups about what a terrible thing he had done. Other than privately requesting caution in publishing details about sources and methods, the CIA had no comment.

  Dunne spent the day at home, in his office on the third floor overlooking the fifth fairway of the nearby golf course. There was early frost on the greens, and the rough looked tangled and brown. Dunne had planned this room as his special place, where he would put his technical books and computer gear. The books were still in boxes, and the only technical equipment Dunne had was a three-year-old Dell laptop.

  The FBI had requested an interview the next day. Dunne needed a lawyer, but even more, he needed advice from his former colleagues. Dunne made calls through the day, with mounting anxiety.

  He rang George Strafe’s office number, but the secretary repeated her line that he was away. He tried the DDO’s personal cell number, but the call rolled immediately to voice mail. He phoned the Ops Center and gave them Strafe’s personal alias and asked to be connected on an operational matter; but when Dunne supplied his password, the watch officer said it wasn’t valid and hung up. When he tried the number again, his call was blocked.