The Coldest Warrior Read online

  “Where can I find Phillip Treacher?” Gabriel asked. A woman pointed to a desk at the end of the corridor, and he thanked her.

  Gabriel loomed over Treacher’s conscientious secretary and gave his name, startling her.

  “Mr. Gabriel! Go right in,” she said. “He’ll be right back.”

  Gabriel entered the office, taking in everything at once. Gabriel’s previous meetings with Phillip Treacher had been in conference rooms, and this was his first visit to his office. The full calculus of power was prominently on display: three ground-floor windows with a view of the South Lawn, a large desk telephone with parallel columns of preset numbers, three televisions, framed photographs of Treacher golfing with the president, and a picture of an ebullient Treacher, arms raised high in victory, crossing the finish line in his racing shell.

  Gabriel stepped to the wall opposite the credenza, where a trio of Hudson River School paintings hung. Gabriel’s fascination with the Romantic era had begun freshman year of college. He’d been drawn to the calming images of dreamy naturalism, and his fascination deepened when he learned they’d been painted during the carnage of the Civil War. He’d spent one summer driving to the locations that inspired the paintings, and he had discovered, to his disappointment, the rude, sprawling, nasty character of those places. Nature itself was chaotic, bug-infested, humid, and hard to match against the bucolic serenity on the canvas. Art usurped the essential truth and left behind the tormenting black flies.

  “Like them?”

  Gabriel turned, startled. He was embarrassed to discover that his quiet contemplation had been rudely observed.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” Treacher said. “Who else would it be? You’re in my office. I’m returning your call.”

  Gabriel hesitated, caught off guard by the mention of the old message, left two weeks before.

  Phillip Treacher smiled. He pointed to the middle painting—the tamed beauty of fully leafed trees shading domestic animals grazing by a calm river. “Pastoral Landscape by Durand. Borrowed from the Smithsonian. Perk of this office. This is Scene in the Catskills by Weber. I remember you set out that summer to find the spot that inspired the painting, but failed. You always have been a dogged investigator. I admire that in you, but I also thought your trip was a ridiculous waste of time.”

  “You went sailing, if I remember, and got very drunk.”

  Treacher laughed. “But you did find this office.” His arm swept the room. “Five months since I moved in. Feels like a lifetime.” He pointed at the scuffed paint on the walls. “This was Haldeman’s office. He called it his bunker. People were angered by what went on here, so we’re not painting it just yet. We don’t want to give reporters an easy shot at a bad joke.”

  Treacher directed Gabriel to the sofa and took a high-backed armchair, promptly putting his feet on the glass coffee table, displaying his polished cordovan wingtips.

  Gabriel saw a man content in his life, happy to be a few steps from the Oval Office. He’d always been ambitious. Gabriel knew his story: pushed by his parents, mentored by their close personal friend, Cardinal Spellman; a young man openly motivated by success but privately ashamed of it. His privileged upbringing made it unseemly to want status too much or to covet power too openly, and yet he did—which was his conflict. To want success, but not to appear to want it.

  Gabriel and mutual friends made fun of Treacher for this, nicknaming him Reacher Treacher. They had celebrated one of his promotions in a private room at Harvey’s and had given him a varsity letter sweater emblazoned with a large blue A. Treacher resented having his insecurity put on public display and had blamed Gabriel for the joke. The two didn’t speak for years.

  “What’s up?” Gabriel asked.

  Treacher dropped his shoes to the floor and lurched forward. “Jesus fuck, Jack. Wilson. Wilson is what’s up.” Treacher settled back in his chair. His eyes turned to the night view of the South Lawn; then he looked at Gabriel again. “We need to move on. We had the family in the Oval Office. There was a need to show decency, to put money in their hands, but now it’s time to put this to bed.”

  Treacher’s fingers were a steeple on his lips. For a moment the two men were silent.

  “You know,” Treacher said, “we Americans are the only nation in the world that believes we have a monopoly on morality. The French, the Soviets, even the English practice common sense. But we get all knotted up in right and wrong. We think of ourselves as idealistic, which of course we are, except when we aren’t, something that happens from time to time. And when it happens, we are consumed by chest-beating hypocrisy. The married senator, a family man, who is always seen in public with his wife but dies in the arms of his mistress. It’s fine when no one knows, but when it becomes public, there is sanctimonious outrage from other congressmen, themselves secret adulterers. This, Jack, is the American paradox. We are a nation that sets a high ethical standard, but we lapse into cycles of disclosure, umbrage, outrage, and mea culpa, followed by recidivist behavior that brings on another cycle of outrage and mea cupla.”

  Treacher paused. “It’s unique to us. The Soviets have prisons where they send political prisoners. They are public about it. It’s their reality. You don’t hear the Soviet intelligentsia complain, Oh, how could that happen here?” Treacher’s voice had acquired a sarcastic bravado.

  Gabriel waited for him to continue, but the outburst had exhausted itself. The civics lecture surprised Gabriel, coming as it did, out of the blue. He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  Treacher stood abruptly, signaling the end of the meeting. The men stood briefly at the office door, close enough for Gabriel to sense Treacher’s disquiet. He was now settled from his outburst.

  “I hear you’re asking questions,” he said. “You’ve talked to the Wilson family. That is decent of you. He was your friend, as I remember. It plays well in the press. I understand you’ve been asking questions about me.”

  “Where are you hearing that?”

  “Where does anyone hear anything in this town?” Treacher smiled. “You need to practice some common sense. It’s time you wrapped this up.”

  Gabriel had always found it hard to respect Treacher’s willingness to accommodate convenient answers and march to the tune of men he worked for. His expression became conciliatory. “Good advice.”

  “Your colleagues are angry at you for asking questions. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Gabriel had moved past the secretary’s desk when he heard Treacher call lightheartedly, “How’s Claire? Give her my regards.” Then he added, “You still row? Day after tomorrow. Potomac Boat Club.”

  DENSE FOG ON the Potomac River shrouded two men pulling hard on the oars of their one-man shells. They traveled through a cottony mist that was beginning to lift under the waking sun’s streaking rays. Dawn’s chill fogged their breath as they moved down the middle of the river. Each labored effort came with the sucking breath of fierce exertion. They moved in tandem toward the looming stone arches of Key Bridge, bows breaking the calm water and leaving little waves that propagated toward the dark shore. The quiet of the empty river was broken by the steady rhythm of dipping oars and throaty grunts.

  “Tired, Jack?” Treacher asked, glancing left.

  Gabriel didn’t answer.

  “You look tired. You could beat me once.”

  “I still can.” Gabriel made his claim but felt his age. He was the taller one, but height wasn’t an advantage on the water. His sweatshirt was wet with perspiration and his sight blurred, but he didn’t wipe his forehead. He knew he would lose a stroke and drop half a boat-length behind.

  Treacher laughed caustically. He pulled harder on his oars to keep the lead.

  “Wilson,” Treacher said.

  “Wilson what?”

  “What’s the director’s interest?”

  Gabriel looked straight ahead. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

  Gabriel felt the ache in
his shoulders, but he pulled harder on the oars. He glanced across the ten feet of water separating them. Innocent question? Probing? He put his shoulders into a heroic effort and made for the bridge with a quickening pace.

  “Put it to bed, Jack.”

  “What?”

  “I said put it to bed.”

  “You’re repeating yourself. So unlike you. It’s the third time you’ve said that.”

  “There are things you don’t know.”

  “That’s supposed to make me less interested?” Gabriel’s voice had become husky with fatigue, and he tapped reserve energy to try for the lead.

  “Not less interested, Jack,” Treacher said easily, glancing sideways. “What’s on your mind? Who’s put you up to your little investigation?”

  “Weisenthal.”

  “Weisenthal?”

  “He’s been on my mind. Hard to understand him.”

  Treacher grunted. “You’re flagging, Jack. Three miles is your limit. You are covered in sweat. I didn’t expect you to keep up. I do this three times a week. What about Weisenthal?”

  “His testimony. I was there. As I recall, you worked with him.”

  “We were one big team.”

  “He approached me. He’s angry. His name was left on FOIA documents when other names were redacted.” Gabriel had Treacher’s attention. Silence settled between the two men moving on the water.

  “He’s in the boat club, you know,” Treacher said, nodding past the approaching bridge to the white-frame boathouse on the river’s edge. “I got him in a few months ago. It was a tough sell. Wrong pedigree, wrong appearance. I can get you in too, if you want. It’s a two-year wait for anyone else.”

  Treacher added, “Ellsworth. Remember him? Clement, Hadley, Butterfield, Whitten, Faehter, Bigelow. All of them on the board with me. A good bunch of old WASPs.” Treacher laughed lightly. “You’re one of us. Sort of.”

  Gabriel had always looked for a reason to like Treacher, but he invariably found his sense of entitlement distasteful. And yet his unlikable entitlement gave Gabriel a thing to mock, and that made him tolerable.

  “Be careful of him,” Treacher said.

  “I’m careful of everyone, including you. Those are the rules of the game.” Gabriel turned to Treacher. “Who is Nick Arndt?”

  The two men were moving swiftly when Gabriel asked his question. Gabriel, who’d let the conversation diminish his effort, pulled hard again, unwilling to concede the race. The two men were later-aged athletes, and their muscles had lost tone. Treacher was the confident competitor, Gabriel the dogged adversary. Treacher was fitter, stronger, and shorter, with a sinewy neck, and he had drawn ahead, putting great effort into each arm stroke. His face was grim with victory.

  Gabriel too raced hard, and each man was silent in his determination to embarrass the other. Two sleek shells skimmed the dark water, making for the finish line on the near side of the bridge. Gabriel’s chest tore with each hard pull, and streaming perspiration stung his eyes. The space between the boats had narrowed, and each man’s desire to win brought the boats to a sprint finish.

  Then they were there, crossing the imaginary line. The shells glided quietly, and both racers slumped forward, exhausted. Neither man claimed victory. Each drew deep, labored breaths that drifted across the silent river. The boats moved through the shadow of the bridge and out of sight of any casual witness standing on shore.

  Gabriel felt the blow to his head. Momentarily stunned, his hand came off the back of his skull, and he saw a scarlet stain on his palm. He woke up to the shocking cold all around him. Suddenly, he was aware that he was underwater, sinking into the heaving darkness below. His hair floated loosely above, and his arms extended out like those of a crucified man. He saw death rise up and pull him down to her labyrinth. He felt cold but also calm, surrendering to luxurious sleep. Then his active mind awoke. He kicked fiercely and worked against the water, pulling himself to the surface with long, reaching strokes.

  He gulped air when he broke through the water’s surface. Sucking breaths came one after the other until danger lost its claim on his consciousness. He put his hand to the stinging pain on his head, and he saw the dark stain again.

  “You’re bleeding,” Treacher said. “Here, take this.” He extended the long oar and swung it for Gabriel to grab.

  Gabriel ignored the offer and swam the short distance to his shell, which had drifted in the current. He pulled himself up, working against the weight of his soaked sweat suit. He shivered from the cold and the shock and pulled his sweatshirt over his head.

  “Here.” Treacher drew near and offered his dry shirt.

  Gabriel looked at Treacher warily.

  “You came too close, Jack. You were greedy to win and you forgot to look out for my oar.”

  Gabriel pondered the truth of the statement. “Right. My fault.”

  “Let’s take a look. A little blood, that’s all. You’ll live.” Treacher maneuvered his boat. “I had to pull my oar from the water. It was a race, Jack, a gentlemen’s contest that you made into a blood sport.”

  Gabriel again took his hand off the back of his head. More blood. He squeezed water from his soaked sweatshirt and bound his head in a makeshift bandage. Gabriel took up his oars and made for the boathouse ramp. The two men rowed in silence, but as they approached the ramp, Treacher pulled alongside Gabriel. He leaned toward him. “Nick Arndt doesn’t exist. Never existed.”

  Treacher rested his arms on his oars and spoke pleasantly. “I could make a case for not telling you, but you’d find out sometime. You might already suspect. We were asked to create an alias for the hotel. There is nothing to learn from him, and there will never be anything to know about him, except wild suspicions that your fevered imagination invents.”

  Early-morning traffic had begun to cross Key Bridge and the rising sun burned off the mist. Treacher looked at Gabriel. “Wilson was distraught. Did we handle it as well as we should have? No. He was gone before we could help him. The family deserved their apology. They deserved their money. Money doesn’t change the tragedy, but it’s better than not having it. Nothing good will come from getting close to this. Understand?”

  Gabriel said nothing.

  “I’m telling you this in confidence,” Treacher said. “If you repeat it, I will deny it. My word against yours.”

  Untouchable, Gabriel thought. All of them.

  Treacher smiled. “We’ve known each other a long time. Nothing is going to change if suddenly the world knows that Phil Treacher knew Wilson back then. You care. The family cares. No one else cares. It’s a cold case. Wilson took his life. I did the decent thing and got them an apology from the president and a ton of money.” Treacher looked at Gabriel. “Let it go.”

  GABRIEL WAS AT his desk in Headquarters early. He had covered his wound with bandages from the boat club’s medical kit, and he wore a hat to hide the wound from his secretary. It was Treacher’s admission that bothered Gabriel, because it was so easily offered, so inconsequential, so at odds with the viciousness of his attack. Gabriel spent the morning looking through the Wilson files for Treacher’s name, and he wasn’t surprised when he found no mention of it. But he was surprised when he found nothing to indicate how Treacher knew Nick Arndt was an alias. There was nothing to connect Treacher to Wilson’s death, and yet Treacher wanted to disassociate himself. Perhaps Treacher felt remorse, but that wasn’t the Treacher he knew.

  15

  An Evening at Home

  Gabriel stood hatless in the vestibule of their Georgetown home, facing Claire, who’d opened the front door as she often did when he was late.

  “What happened?” she gasped, staring at the white gauze wrapping his head. “Come into the light. Let me look.”

  He followed her into the kitchen and allowed himself to be seated at the table, where she took a scissors to the gauze dressing, moving his hand out of the way. She stared at the angry wound matted with dried blood, and in the moment, they assumed their role
s. She became the competent doctor and he the compliant patient.

  “Be still. You need stitches. What happened?”

  “How does it look?”

  “Terrible. It’s open, drying poorly, and I need to debride tissue to get at debris inside. You waited too long. How did this happen?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters to me. You come home with a gash in your skull. How can it not matter?”

  “I said it was an accident.”

  “You didn’t say that. You’re lucky it’s not infected. When did it happen?”

  “This morning.”

  “Jesus!” She met his eyes. “Maybe you forgot about it. Is that possible?” she said sarcastically. “Oh my, I’m bleeding. How could that be? Maybe it knocked the sense out of you.”

  “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

  “I’m sure it does.” Claire had pulled out her black leather medical bag and arranged several surgical instruments on a clean towel on the kitchen table. Overhead light illuminated her tools, and bright red blood flowed from her probing.

  “You’ve been walking around all day with this bloody bandage. I guess I don’t have to call the police.”

  “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “You saw the person who did it?”

  “It was an accident. I was with Phil Treacher. His oar came out of the water.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Which part?”

  “That it was an accident.”

  Gabriel didn’t protest, but neither did he elaborate. Over the years Gabriel had complained about Treacher, and while he had never been totally honest, he had mentioned Treacher’s ambition. In a moment of candor, he had told Claire how much he disliked the man, and he’d said they’d always been competitive. Claire had resisted Gabriel’s suggestion that the two couples meet socially. For what? she said. To watch the two of you go at each other?

  Claire met Gabriel’s eyes. “Why would he hit you?”

  “He didn’t. It was an accident.” He touched his wound. “Are you worried?”