Her workstation gave her the ability to pull up vast amounts of information, so long as she had the appropriate clearances. For example, she knew that yesterday a congressional delegation, or codel, headed by Bob Dole, had met with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. Whenever such a meeting took place, someone at the local embassy—usually a State Department employee—would write up a codel memo and cable it to D.C., where it would become available to anyone in government who had a need to know about it. Betsy typed in a short command telling the system to bring up all recent items, including the keywords “Dole” and “Iraq” and “codel,” and within a few moments the document was there on her screen.
Senator Dole was quoted as having said, “I kept thinking that I was watching Peter Sellers imitating a dictator.” Saddam had denied any knowledge of the Supergun project, recently very much in the news, and had said that his recent statement about binary nerve weapons had been meant merely to intimidate the Israelis. Dole was quoted again: “To see that guy talk about being a humanitarian is about as convincing as hearing Mother Teresa claiming to be a hit man.” Dole had been shown official Iraqi documents “proving” that the Ag subsidies had been spent only on food supplies from the U.S. or U.S. subsidiaries.
From there Betsy could have typed in more commands and brought up more documents, following one reference to the next, tracking down leads to her heart’s content.
But her heart’s content wasn’t part of her job description. She was only supposed to access information on a “need to know” basis.
She had learned this the hard way a month ago, when she had let her curiosity get the better of her and gone snooping in places where she didn’t have any real need to know. The CIA kept careful track of who had accessed which documents. It didn’t take long for word to reach her boss. His reaction had been vicious: he had waited until they were alone together in the vault, then hauled her up out of her chair and slammed her against a filing cabinet.
Someone else entered the vault. She saw him reflected in the curved screen of her workstation: a compact, trim man with a short and simple military-style haircut that looked out of place above the starched white collar of his tailored shirt. It was Richard Spector, the division chief, her boss’s boss. He ran half a dozen or more vaults there at the Castleman.
He didn’t bother with greetings or small talk. “Today be a good listener,” he said. Even when he was saying momentous things, he always spoke in a quiet voice, as if he were only musing to himself. But it made him seem formidable, rather than mousy. “Answer direct questions directly, but try to figure out who’s got what agenda vis-à-vis Iraq.”
“Can you give me any more background? What should I look for?”
“This is strictly my read, not official at all. Commerce wants back into Iraq to sell some technology and to influence oil distribution. Agriculture wants to sell. That’s what Agriculture does.” He said this dryly, barely masking his contempt for those amoral hucksters over at Ag. He began twiddling the Annapolis ring on his left hand; its pale-colored stone caught the light from Betsy’s monitor. “Defense knows something they’re not sharing with us. Based on circumstantial evidence, I’m guessing it has to do with nonconventional weapons.”
Spector was exmilitary intelligence and was probably as qualified as anyone to read Pentagon tea leaves. “Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is, as usual, running behind the parade, convinced that they ought to be running things.” Spector nodded at the window still open on Betsy’s screen. “As you’ve already noticed, Millikan’s going to be there from the National Security Council.” One of Spector’s tics was a refusal to use acronyms; he always spelled out the full names of agencies and departments, seeming to take great pleasure in the ones with the longest and most unwieldy titles. It enhanced his air of preternatural calmness and enabled him to put an ironic spin on everything, which made him much hated around town.
“This is big-time, isn’t it?” Betsy said.
“Yeah, and I’m sorry to say that King is going to represent your branch.”
Betsy was thrown off stride by Spector’s frankness. “I noticed that his name had been added to the list,” she said carefully. “You want me to go anyway?”
Spector nodded. “It’s Howard’s job to do the talking. It’s your job to keep an eye on things. I want your own report—’Eyes Only’—to me by this afternoon.” He checked his watch and took a couple of steps toward the door, then thought better of it and turned back to her. “You will obviously not follow the usual distribution on this.”
In other words, Spector wanted Betsy’s report on, among other things, her own boss’s performance. Spector moved away at a racewalker’s clip; seconds later Howard King showed up. Betsy had been around just long enough to suspect that this was not a coincidence. Spector had known when King was going to arrive.
“Good morning, Betsy,” King smarmed as he brushed by her back on his way to the office. “Ready for the meeting? You can ride with me.”
Betsy had anticipated this and said, “I left my briefcase at home, so I’ll take the metro. See you there.”
King muttered something indistinguishable and went into his office.
Betsy had not left her briefcase in her apartment, she had actually strategically covered it with herraincoat.