The Coldest Warrior Read online

  Weisenthal’s wife pulled him forward, uncomfortable with the crowd that had gathered, but her husband resisted. He looked at Antony.

  “I can see your father’s death still deeply troubles. Clouds hang over you.”

  Antony looked at Weisenthal. His voice was thick with sarcasm. “How could that be? A quarter century gone and my father not yet forgotten?” Antony wiped concern from his face. “See how easily I move from shade to sun.”

  GABRIEL ACCOMPANIED ANTONY and Greenburg out of the Russell Senate Office Building. They stood at the top of the wide marble steps under a brilliant blue sky. Antony slipped on his dark glasses, adjusting their fit against the glare, and then gave his judgment.

  “He played the room. How much of what he said was true? How much was intended to present him in a good light? And his conversion, playing Saul on his way to Damascus. Now he raises goats and plants organic vegetables. Givemeafuckingbreak.”

  Antony looked at Gabriel. “He is trying to distance himself from what happened. How often did he use the phrase those times, as if there was that world, and now there is this world, and the circumstances then justified what today looks like carelessness, or a crime? Well, that’s bullshit. The man flew to the fucking Congo with poison toothpaste to assassinate Patrice Lumumba.”

  Silence lingered among the three men after Antony’s outburst.

  “He put me at a disadvantage from the moment I confronted him,” he continued. “The idea that I would bring a gun. I didn’t know what to say.”

  Antony’s eyes had drifted to the nearly empty street, where fierce heat melted the asphalt, but then he turned and faced Gabriel. “Everyone says it’s a black hole; we may never know what happened. That’s bullshit. Total bullshit.

  “They say it could be this, or it could be that, and everything in your CIA is a hall of mirrors. When people say that, what they’re really saying is that we’ll never know what happened.”

  Antony pointed across the park at Pennsylvania Avenue and the Hotel Harrington, twelve blocks away. “Something did happen in that hotel room. And it is knowable.”

  i i i

  GABRIEL’S VOLVO WAS parked two blocks away, near the Folger Shakespeare Library. He started the car, which had been baking in the sun, and let the air-conditioning cool it down. Washington’s heat wave had emptied the sidewalks.

  What was next? He’d taken the assignment thinking he’d get an answer quickly, but nothing was easy in this case, nothing played out as he expected.

  And then the unexpected happened.

  Gabriel heard tapping on the window and turned to find Herb Weisenthal standing on the passenger side, alone. His face was close to the window, lips moving but soundless. Gabriel opened the window.

  “Can I join you?” Weisenthal asked. “It’s hot out here.”

  Gabriel nodded. “Door’s open.”

  Weisenthal slipped into the passenger seat, glancing around to see if anyone was watching.

  “We haven’t met,” he said, “but I know who you are. You were in Berlin after the war; then you left Operations and rejoined after the Bay of Pigs. Someone was smart to get you back. Those were dark times. Surprising that we never worked together.”

  Gabriel said nothing. Let the man talk.

  “This isn’t a particularly convenient way to have a conversation,” Weisenthal noted.

  “No, it’s not,” Gabriel said. “I’m late. It’s hot. We’re parked in the sun.”

  Weisenthal looked at Gabriel. “Wilson was a colleague to both of us. A decent man. The family suffered.”

  Gabriel wondered what Weisenthal was doing in his Volvo. “Yes, he was a good man.”

  “Somehow my name came out in all this. First, it was the invitation. Then other documents appeared under FOIA requests. Every name but mine was redacted.”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  Weisenthal shook his head. “Of course I am being set up. Sacrificed. I gave the Agency twenty-six years of loyal service.”

  Weisenthal’s lips tightened, and his eyes narrowed, and his voice now had an indignant vibrato. “Trust,” he said. “There’s a word that I could devote an hour to. In our work, trust was expected of us, and we expected it in return. I could give you a whole lecture on trust and its possibilities for disappointment.”

  He looked away for a moment, but his eyes returned to Gabriel. “We put our trust in Japanese war criminals after VJ Day for their knowledge of biochemical weapons they’d used in China. We trusted Nazi doctors who’d recorded the time it took for prisoners to succumb when immersed in vats of freezing water. Trust, you see, in those cases, was our ability to set aside scruples to work with war criminals in order to better prepare ourselves for war.

  “There is another kind of trust. Can you trust a man who has the power to harm you? We trusted our colleagues in MI6, but only up to a point. We trusted our Soviet double agents because their lives were at risk. That trust had nothing to do with whether they were good or bad men. It had to do with fear. Fear engenders trust. We trusted our colleagues in the Agency, but not enough to do away with the polygraph. Trust. A simple notion and yet a complex idea with shading and nuance.”

  Weisenthal looked at Gabriel. “I know you have doubts about the Wilson case. The circumstances are bizarre and strain our ability to accept them. Do you trust the official story? Do you trust me when I tell you that I have nothing to add?” Weisenthal continued to meet Gabriel’s eyes. “I have done my part. Now it is up to you to believe it, or not.”

  Weisenthal’s eyes drifted to the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol, wrapped in her scaffolding. A helicopter hovered overhead with a huge sling that would carry the symbol of democracy away for much-needed restoration.

  “We trust in God,” he said. “But trust among men takes work. It can be exhausting to calculate the degrees of trust. I’m tired.”

  Gabriel heard a deep release of fatigued breath. He saw a small man, quiet by the window, burdened. Gabriel said nothing.

  “Faith can help us trust,” Weisenthal said. His tenor voice had turned surprisingly pleasant. “This brain of ours, how ingenious it is, able to deceive, hope, regret, and trust all inside its thick skull.” He tapped his head, then smiled kindly. He opened the Volvo’s door, stepping into the afternoon heat. Before closing it, he lowered his head and added, “I don’t know you very well. This is our first talk. I understand you like to row.”

  Gabriel hesitated.

  “That’s what I’ve been told. Is it true?”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll call you. Let’s meet one morning and talk again. The Potomac Boat Club.” He smiled. “Yes, I am a member. The first Jew.”

  13

  The Oval Office

  It was warm at 7:30 p.m. across Washington, and in the Oval Office it was even warmer for Phillip Treacher and two other senior staff sitting on either side of the president, suffering the ire of a man known for his calm demeanor. At that hour once a week, the president convened his last meeting of the day to review the week’s schedule, discuss pending matters, and bring up concerns that didn’t otherwise fit into his crowded calendar. A deep russet sun glowed through the curved wall of windows behind the Resolute desk.

  The president wore a white shirt, gray suit, bold red tie, and a small American flag lapel pin. He had the temperament of a Midwestern gentleman who found himself suddenly thrust into the White House, having been pushed forward with the hope that his reputation for common decency would keep the White House free of scandal. They had just finished discussing the Mount Kenya Safari Club and had turned to next year’s election. His brow knitted when he came to the end of a memo that described his falling approval ratings. He violently crumped the paper and tossed it at a wastebasket by the desk, missing.

  “I’ve got the pulse of a corpse,” he snapped. “I’ve dropped thirty-two points in six months.” He looked at his three staffers. “Get me something to campaign on.”

  The meeting ended.


  Phillip Treacher heard his name called as he was walking out.

  “Got a minute, Phil?” The president opened a cabinet in the credenza under the Remington sculpture. “Drink?” He held out a bottle of gin. “I forgot, you’re still on the wagon. Mind if I do?”

  Treacher was numb to the temptation. Twenty-two years. But it never got easier. “Go ahead, Mr. President.”

  “You okay? Job okay? And your wife?”

  Treacher acknowledged the three questions with a single nod. “Fine, thank you. All good.”

  “The First Lady still thinks I was to blame for tripping Tammy at the Correspondents’ Dinner. I didn’t want to be late, and we were pushing through the crowd. Tell her that we’re still looking for a way to make it up to her.”

  The president took a generous taste of his gin. “You don’t look well. The job gets to you if you let it. You need to find a way to push forward.” He toasted alone. “To keeping calm.”

  Treacher raised an empty glass in solidarity. “Amen.”

  “I leave the meshugaas here in the office and walk to the family quarters with a clear head. Doesn’t work all the time, but it’s a strategy. You need a strategy so you’re not overwhelmed.”

  The president pointed, indicating they should exit the French doors that led to the South Lawn. As they approached, the vigilant Marine guard on duty outside opened the doors, and the two men passed through to the warm night.

  “Presidents never open a door,” he said to Treacher. “It took me months to get used to that.”

  A tepid evening breeze was a pleasant change from the stifling atmosphere in the Oval Office. Dusk was rapidly falling, and with the evening came the alien sound of cicadas and a degree of relief from the seasonal lethargy that descended on the capital during summer months. It was Thursday, but the city’s population was preparing to flee the heat for the coolness of Chesapeake Bay.

  The two men ambled along the portico. Treacher stopped when the president paused to look over the expanse of freshly mowed lawn, and farther away, the low government buildings that fretted the tree line—unbroken except for the Washington Monument’s dark spire. Treacher felt the president’s preoccupation, which had settled in with his gin, and he knew there was something on the man’s mind. The impatient honking of cars detoured around the construction that was tearing up downtown Washington drifted toward them.

  “Goddamn subway,” the president said. “Today I got word the digging severed the hotline to Moscow. For six hours we didn’t know if it was incompetence, sabotage, or war.” The president shook his head at the dark comedy of an accidental nuclear holocaust.

  “Nobody knows what it is like to sit in that office,” he said. “The burdens, the crises, the worry, the nonsense. Everyone who gets past Dorothy wants something—a favor, a demand, a decision. It’s a big job with big headaches. You feel the pressure, too. I can see it in your face. You should get out. Not out of the job,” he quipped, laughing. “Out for fun. Take Tammy to the theater. There’s a production of Richard II at the Folger.” He winked. “A timely choice. I prefer South Pacific, but I allow the First Lady to drag me to Shakespeare once a year. Our treat.”

  “Kind of you, Mr. President. I’ll ask Tammy.”

  “It won’t make up for the ankle, but it will make us feel better.”

  Upon passing a second Marine guard, the president threw back the dregs of his drink and handed him the empty glass. “Too much comes across my desk,” he said. He tapped his skull twice in an exaggerated show of emptiness. “There is only so much room up here. I can’t fill it with nonsense and crap. I wish we lived in Jefferson’s contained world, but we don’t. He was the last president, maybe the last man, to believe—not arrogantly, but in an enlightened way—that he could know everything important about the world. He filled his library at Monticello with every important book ever written. You could hope to know everything then. That world is gone and perhaps it never existed, but the explosion of information has wiped out even the contemplation of that idea. That one man could know everything, or should. Some information is needed, much of it is useless, all of it takes up space. I don’t need to know everything.”

  The president turned to Treacher and lowered his voice. “Understand?”

  The men continued to walk onto the lawn away from the White House. Freshly cut grass was fragrant in the warm air, and moths circled the portico’s pendant lamps.

  “Nixon made a lot of mistakes, but the one I find hardest to understand, particularly for a paranoid man, was the whole tape fiasco. How could he not know that his every word, every curse, every insult, was being recorded? All those private remarks that were never meant to leave the Oval Office brought him down.” The president continued out of earshot of the Marine guards. He stopped suddenly and faced his deputy chief of staff.

  “Let’s talk here, Phil.”

  Treacher met the president’s eyes.

  “The Wilson family.”

  Treacher nodded. “You did the right thing, Mr. President.”

  “I hope so. It’s what you recommended, what you pushed for.” The president studied Treacher. “I understand there was another hearing. The family was there?”

  “The son.”

  “The one who didn’t shake my hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t like him. He didn’t smile. Too angry. Anything I should know?”

  “No, Mr. President. The director of Central Intelligence is on board.”

  “Not a bad man. Probably as good as you get for that job, but he needs to understand his loyalty is to this office. I can’t have him genuflecting to those senators.” He looked at Treacher with a grim expression. “I can’t find myself defending, or even talking about, our use of biochemical weapons a quarter century ago. Understand?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  The president’s eyes had drifted to the brightly lit White House, but they settled again on Treacher. “A man takes his life. As regrettable as that is, and it is a sad thing, particularly for the family, the act of one unbalanced man long ago can’t be the undoing of this presidency. We are going to Beijing in November to meet the new guy, Deng.” He looked at Treacher.

  “Deng Xiaoping.”

  “Yes, and Mao. It would be supremely awkward if I had to cancel the trip because it came out that we dropped anthrax on North Korean villages in that goddamned war. I don’t know if we did or didn’t. I don’t want to know. But if it was the case and Wilson was involved, then it’s very unhelpful now—for diplomacy, for hearings in Congress, for voters. For this presidency.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “You’re handling this?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “We are not having this conversation, understand?”

  Treacher knew the president’s apparent simplicity masked an uncommon sophistication, which made it easy for adversaries to dismiss the man, but only at their peril. “Yes, sir.”

  The president looked toward the festively illuminated marble fountain on the South Lawn. “Nixon was a son of a bitch. My pardon has cost me votes. Another public relations catastrophe would put a kibosh on the election.” He turned to Treacher. “Understand?”

  14

  West Wing

  The call to visit the West Wing came late on Tuesday as Gabriel was leaving his Langley Headquarters office. He thought he misheard his secretary, but she repeated Phillip Treacher’s request to meet. He offered two appointment times the next day, but in the demure manner of an efficient career secretary who wouldn’t permit her boss to slip away, she replied, “Tonight. He wants to see you now.”

  Gabriel stopped at his office door, raincoat in hand. His first thought was that he had promised Claire he would be home for dinner.

  “You can be there in thirty minutes,” his secretary said. “There isn’t much traffic at this hour. Shall I confirm?”

  He closed his eyes against his bad choices. “What’s the subject?”

  “Sh
e didn’t say.”

  “Get me the Mount Kenya files. I need to take a look before I go. And call my wife.”

  “What should I tell her?”

  “I was called to the White House. She’ll be upset. I would rather you made the call.”

  “You’re a coward, Mr. Gabriel,” she said, smiling.

  Gabriel was the designated CIA contact who initiated wire transfers requested by the White House. Money came from Saudi banks into a special numbered account Gabriel had set up at Riggs Bank, and when instructed, he wired the funds to numbered accounts in Zurich or Paris. Gabriel wasn’t told who got the money or what it supported, but he knew the White House had found a way to go around the CIA, and he suspected it funded the White House’s pet projects in Africa. These covert operations were off the CIA’s books and invisible to Congress. Gabriel was the ignorant errand boy.

  GABRIEL MOVED THROUGH the narrow West Wing hallways following the security guard’s directions, but he had missed a turn or misheard the guard, and he found himself wandering past the small closet offices coveted by every political hack in Washington. Men dressed in navy-blue suits, wide ties, and starched white shirts, but a few defied the conforming fashion with muttonchop sideburns and aviator glasses. There was an urgent air about these men as they darted past Gabriel or emptied from a conference room, comporting themselves as if what they were doing mattered more than anything else in Washington. Ad hoc meetings in the hallway were held in clipped voices, and Gabriel sensed that the place was in permanent crisis.

  Gabriel paused at a glass-enclosed work area where young staffers sat hunched at their desks. The dual and dueling demands of life and work were on display. It was long past the end of the normal workday, and these ambitious young men and women were sacrificing their Friday evening for the insular energy of the West Wing. Three televisions were turned to CBS, ABC, and NBC, and occasionally one of the staffers looked up and stared at the live sports coverage.