The Coldest Warrior Read online

  “He said the same of you.”

  Coffin smiled. “We know each other too well, or not at all. You’ve heard? Someone smells blood.”

  “Heard what?”

  “We have another name in the Wilson case. It came out in the documents, I believe, or rose from its grave, entering our consciousness like a bad dream. A name someone forgot to redact: Nick Arndt. Name mean anything to you?”

  Just like Coffin to raise a point thinking that he was clarifying when he was, in fact, adding a layer of obfuscation, Gabriel thought.

  “The name doesn’t exist in Human Resources. There is no record of a man employed by us with that name.” Coffin laughed smoke from his nostrils. “We are good record keepers. Better than the Gestapo. We have a prodigious need to record our history, which is why, when you look at the records on Wilson, it’s so baffling. We can’t rule out that records were destroyed or doctored. Yes?” Coffin smiled. “How is your daughter? Have you had the conversation yet?”

  Gabriel knew it was Coffin’s style to suddenly switch topics to unbalance a conversation and leave it to Gabriel to bring things back. “Not yet.”

  “Don’t wait long. She’ll surprise you one day and ask, ‘Daddy, do you work for the CIA?’ It’s the wise father who understands his own child.”

  “Good advice,” Gabriel said. “Nick Arndt. What about him?”

  “We have plenty on Weisenthal. A few bits on Ainsley. But not a whit on Arndt. So, there is your answer. Nick Arndt. Sounds like a cryptonym created by the boys in Technical Services. A man who isn’t is called Arndt.”

  Coffin threw back his bourbon, tolerating the taste, smiling. His eyes came off the brightly lit conference room where the boisterous laughter brightened with alcohol. “We want our family jewels out in a public purging. That’s our posture now. Redeem ourselves and move forward. Who is hurt here by having the full story come out? Answer that. Then you’ll know where to look.”

  Gabriel understood the bleak paradoxes of Coffin’s worldview. The man lived in isolation in a world of fact and counter-fact, where everything was subject to doubt, including doubt itself.

  “Fill me in on Ainsley’s puffery after you’d gotten to him,” Coffin said. “A bitter man. Passed over twice.” Coffin started back to the conference room, then abruptly stopped. “Talk to the family. Talk to the Times reporter, Ostroff. Our records won’t help here. Someone made sure of that long ago. Approach this orthogonally.”

  7

  Watergate East

  Death draws the living like moths to light.

  Gabriel had spent the morning reviewing Ainsley’s personnel files that Dora Plummer had provided, and he’d brought two files with him to his meeting with Ainsley in the Howard Johnson coffee shop across from Watergate East’s serpentine façade. Gabriel had been surprised to discover that Ainsley had spent much of his time in Technical Services at the mid-level, GS-10 pay scale, a career plateau that usually drove good men to leave. Gabriel looked for something that stood out or looked odd in the bland ordering of an undistinguished career. And he kept coming back to one thing: Ainsley’s annual performance reviews were uniformly poor, and his low job assessments included specific mention of heavy drinking. It begged the question—why hadn’t Ainsley been sacked?

  Gabriel had still not shaped a good way to pose the question when he looked out the Howard Johnson’s window and saw a crowd assembling around police cars parked haphazardly in front of Watergate East’s lobby entrance. Their roof lights were rotating, and their doors were thrown open. He was early to meet Ainsley, so he dodged traffic crossing Virginia Avenue to see what the commotion was all about.

  Hastily placed yellow tape marked a wide perimeter on the sidewalk and held back a dozen men and women with handbags and attaché cases. In the distance, there was the wailing siren of an approaching ambulance. Anxious tenants looked down from their balconies at the restive crowd that pushed toward a fallen railing, necks craning to get a look at the body.

  Someone pointed to the seventh-floor balcony where a section of broken railing dangled. “He came from there. I heard him hit the ground. It was an awful sound, like a sandbag.”

  A Good Samaritan knelt beside the stricken Roger Ainsley and dabbed his forehead. He was on his back, and a bloody femur protruded grotesquely from a tear in his pants. His eyes were open, and he was making a great effort to speak, but only pinkish foam came from his mouth. His words were garbled and lost. The woman continued to comfort him, but then he was dead.

  Gabriel looked up at the balcony, his hand raised against the bright sun, and he felt himself pushed from behind. “Excuse me,” Gabriel said indignantly to the policeman.

  “Behind the tape.”

  “What happened here?” Gabriel asked.

  “I’ll handle this,” a big plainclothes detective said, waving off the policeman. The detective was tall with a beer-belly gut, and his loose-fitting linen suit had lost its crease. He wiped perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief and motioned Gabriel forward. His tie and shirt collar were loosened against the midday heat, and his cheeks were flushed.

  “I’m Detective Potter. You a friend of his?” the detective asked, wheezing.

  Gabriel hesitated before admitting quite so much. “No.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Never met him,” Gabriel said. He explained that he was walking by and saw the police cars. He looked down at Ainsley. “Who is he?”

  “What’s your interest?” the detective asked, breathing heavily. He held up a bolt, tossing it in his hand like a juggler, gauging Gabriel. “Just walking by and you happened to run over to see what happened?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  Potter caught the bolt and presented it. “It popped out of the wall. The railing collapsed, and he fell.” He nodded at the sheeted corpse but kept his eyes on Gabriel. “At that height it’s three seconds of fall. Not much pain. Not a bad way to go. Last week we had a woman crushed by a garbage truck that was backing up. She took an hour to die. Gunshots are rarely quick, unless the bullet goes in the head.” His finger made a pistol to his temple. “I see a lot of death in this job, as you can imagine. I could give you a lecture on the many ways people leave this world.” Detective Potter pointed at the body. “I have two theories here. He was thrown off. Or he was drunk and jumped.”

  “Pushed or jumped?” Gabriel said.

  “Yeah. That’s right. Pushed or jumped. But why do you care? You didn’t know him. Just a guy passing by who happened to see a corpse, right?”

  GABRIEL CROSSED THE avenue, but as he approached the other side, he happened to look back. It was an instinct he acquired over the years—the feeling of knowing when he was being observed. Ainsley’s body was being lifted onto a stretcher by two EMTs, who slid the sheeted form into the back of the ambulance, and it was then, as he looked away from the ambulance, that he happened to see two men sitting in a car across the street. The black Ford sedan was parked illegally, and the men inside were watching him. Gabriel didn’t think anything of it, but as he walked away, he looked again, and the two men hadn’t moved, nor had their attention shifted. They had middle-aged faces and looked intent, respectful, and tough. Grim faces, he thought, that kept looking at him.

  LANGLEY HEADQUARTERS. All afternoon Gabriel had been at his desk struggling to understand the turn of events. Gradually, a spare profile of Ainsley emerged from the documents that he had requested: a native of the Florida panhandle; military family; divorced twice; no children; master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Michigan; twenty-five-year CIA veteran; heavy drinker.

  Gabriel read the details of Ainsley’s life looking for signs of depression, but he found none, nor did his psychological profile fit that of a middle-aged man who would jump off his balcony. From time to time he was interrupted by his secretary or the ringing telephone, but he found himself returning to the detective’s suggestion that Ainsley had been pushed to his death.

  It was late when h
e put together his papers. He was still perplexed why Ainsley’s poor record and notorious drinking hadn’t led to being fired. It was then, as he was finishing up, that he came to his conclusion. Someone had kept him inside over the years rather than unmoored on the outside. It was a theory that explained why his undistinguished career hadn’t led to a dismissal, and it also explained why he was now dead.

  Gabriel pulled an index card with the list of names from his wallet. Dulles, Wisner, Edwards. Each was crossed out. Gabriel took his pen and drew a line through Ainsley’s name. The next name on the list was Phillip Treacher. Gabriel dialed the White House switchboard from memory and was transferred through. Treacher’s secretary put him on interminable hold, and while he waited, Gabriel doodled a man falling from a hotel window.

  “I’m sorry for the wait, Mr. Gabriel, but Mr. Treacher is with the president. Can I take a message?”

  Gabriel pondered how long it had taken her to respond. “Have him call me. Tell him I’m leaving the office. We can talk tomorrow. It’s nothing important.”

  Gabriel considered what was next. It was convenient that he hadn’t gotten Treacher on the line because he could say, in good conscience, that he’d done what the director asked. He’d looked into the matter, examined the files, such as they were, and contacted the two living men who might know what happened in the Hotel Harrington. All he’d found was one dead man and two dead ends. He had nothing to compromise the official story. The whole story wasn’t out, but he’d only agreed to take a look. Interview those involved. Collect information. Everything by the books.

  Gabriel typed a brief report for the director on his manual Remington. He described what he’d done, amplifying the spare facts with enough detail to fill out the substance of his effort. He concluded that he had found nothing to contradict the official story, and more work, if it was to be done, was of a police nature, and he wasn’t the man for that. Gabriel reread the note and then added his postscript: “You’ve already got my resignation, so I don’t need to submit it again.” Gabriel folded the note into an envelope that he addressed by hand and locked it in his desk drawer.

  He could do more, but that was the nature of work in the Agency—there was always more that could be done. The trick was to learn when to stop and when to put the thing to bed. He was glad he hadn’t gotten Treacher on the line.

  Gabriel crossed Headquarters’ vaulted lobby as he did every night. The reaching height and the tall dark windows made it cold, and it was a quiet space, except for his echoing footsteps on the huge Agency shield set in the mosaic tile floor. The security guard greeted Gabriel by name, and Gabriel returned the man’s smile with a brisk nod.

  He had arrived later than usual that day and felt lucky to have found a coveted parking spot near the Headquarters’ entrance. And now the large employee lot was almost empty. This too was a reason to leave the Agency. He would find himself at his desk at midnight every day if he didn’t set his own limits. Crises followed crises, and always the unreasonable demand to produce an instant analysis for the White House. Crushing workloads burned out the best of them, and if you didn’t believe in the work, you didn’t last long.

  These thoughts went through his mind as he approached his Volvo, and it also struck him that this would be one of his last trips across the lot. Key in hand, he went to open the car door but saw the button was up. He was a creature of habit, and there was nothing more habitual than locking his car door. Had he forgotten to lock it? Instinctively, he glanced around the empty lot, but seeing no one, he brushed off the oversight and slipped behind the wheel.

  Gabriel was suddenly aware of a presence in the back seat.

  “Close the door.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror.

  “This won’t take long,” the man said.

  A tall streetlamp behind the Volvo shadowed the man’s face, but even in the darkness Gabriel saw that a knotted woman’s stocking masked his face and distorted his voice.

  “We’ll talk for a moment, and then I’ll leave.”

  Gabriel closed the door and stared at the man’s disguised face. “What do you want?” He took his wallet from his jacket and held it up for the man.

  “This isn’t a robbery.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Wilson.”

  Gabriel’s brow knitted, and he began to turn his head.

  “Better if you don’t see my face. It’s not important who I am.”

  “Not important to you, but I want to know who I’m talking to. Get out of the car.”

  “If that’s what you want. But you won’t hear what I have to say.”

  Gabriel knew that no one got into the parking lot unless they had CIA clearance. He was talking to an Agency employee. “Who do you work for?”

  “That doesn’t matter. What matters to me, and it should matter to you, is that there are men inside who don’t want the facts about Wilson out. They think the director is throwing them under a bus. Good men, angry men, who feel they’re being sacrificed because the climate in Washington has changed. They’re pissed off.”

  Gabriel listened through the distorting nylon, but he couldn’t make out the man’s voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “What do you think happened to Ainsley?” the man snapped. “Suicide? Really? How convenient. The new regime pushed him out, and he was a liability.”

  “Liability to whom?”

  “Who has the most to lose?”

  Gabriel found himself disliking the man. “What was his role?”

  “Fix-it man. That was his reputation. Weisenthal used him to fix things when they broke, or do dirty work if necessary.”

  “Weisenthal’s responsible?”

  “He’s got facts in his head, but he’s a scientist. He’s one man.”

  “Someone still inside knows what happened?”

  “Too soft.”

  “The men responsible are still here.”

  “That sounds right. When you put your finger on the men who handled what happened in the Hotel Harrington, you’ll turn up more dirty laundry. This isn’t just about Wilson. Wilson is a symptom.”

  “Names?”

  “Who are you looking at?”

  “I can’t give you that.”

  “I can’t help, then.”

  Gabriel snapped, “For all I know, you’re the man I’m looking for.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Don’t waste time going down that rathole.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “We’ve met.”

  Gabriel glanced again in the rearview mirror.

  “I can’t afford to have you know who I am. You’re on your way out. You can burn your bridges, but I’ve got a good career here. I need to work with those angry men. I won’t jeopardize my job. I need their trust. No one is cooperating with you. People avoid you. You’ll have to break your own glass. Whoever was responsible for Wilson didn’t know anything about political scruples, but they thought they did. Weisenthal is like that, but there are others.”

  “Can you confirm a name if I give it to you?”

  “I can’t confirm what I don’t know.”

  Gabriel considered the report he’d written the director, then pondered the man in the back seat. He didn’t have to do this.

  There was a long silence in the car.

  “I can point you in a direction,” the man said. “Give you questions to ask. That’s how I can help.”

  Gabriel stifled an impulse to turn and get a better look at the man’s face. He felt the man’s skittishness. “How do I reach you?”

  “There is a mailbox at the end of your street. You drop letters in it while walking your dog. One vertical chalk mark means you have a question. Two means you want to meet. I will get you instructions on where to go and what to do. Here is a number to call in an emergency. It’s unlisted, so don’t bother tracking it. Use it only in an emergency.”

  Gabriel heard the door open and then watched a tall man with an umb
rella walk to the underground parking garage. He waited, thinking he’d see the man drive out, but no car emerged.

  They would meet five times in two months, following the routine agreed in the car.

  8

  P Street in Georgetown

  All of this was on Gabriel’s mind when he arrived home. He parked on the street as usual and glanced down the block at the mailbox. It bothered him to know that he had been watched and his routines observed, and the thought made the muscles on his neck constrict. As he approached his town house he looked back but saw no one.

  Finding an affordable Georgetown home had felt like a victory, and it eased his family’s return to stateside living after two years in South Vietnam. By the end of his tour, Saigon had begun to seem normal, but upon returning to Washington, they realized how absurdly surreal life had been—bombs, sweltering heat, constant danger, and the growing toll of American casualties. For weeks after they moved onto P Street, the slightest noise at night pulled Gabriel out of bed and he’d stand at the window, 9mm Glock in hand.

  Gabriel climbed the cast-iron stairs that curved gracefully up from the cobblestone path. Their three-story Federal home sat between grander Victorian houses, but they were drawn to the simple colonial style and the red front door, which the former owner had brightened with flowering vines.

  Gabriel knew something was wrong when he entered the front door. His daughter’s open backpack spilled clothing onto the vestibule floor, and camping gear formed a debris field of haphazardly dropped equipment. He placed the backpack on the bench, closing the zipper, and then he noticed Claire’s pocketbook on the floor. His daughter’s dog was not there to greet him.

  He stood perfectly still and listened for sounds in the darkened home. “Claire?”

  Gabriel moved through the living room and continued to the rear of the house, where he saw the kitchen light. As he walked, he was alert to everything—the glossy magazines on the coffee table, luggage dropped where it didn’t belong, and the Washington Post and the New York Times scattered violently on the floor.