files. I don’t believe in coincidences, do you, Ms. Navarro? Eleven of
the men named in these files have died in a very short interval. The
actuarial odds of this happening by chance are … remote at best.”
Anna nodded impatiently. As far as she could see, the Ghost was seeing
ghosts. “How long is this assignment for? I’ve got a real job, you
know.”
“This is your ‘real’ job now. You’ve already been reassigned. We’ve
made the arrangements. You understand your task, then?” His gaze
softened. “This doesn’t seem to quicken your pulse, Ms. Navarro.”
Anna shrugged. “I keep coming back to the fact that these guys are all
in the graduating class, if you know what I mean. Old guys tend to pop
off, O.K.? These were old guys.”
“And in nineteenth-century Paris, getting trampled by a carriage was
pretty commonplace,” Bartlett said.
Anna furrowed her brow. “Excuse me?”
Bartlett leaned back in his chair. “Have you ever heard of the
Frenchman Claude Rochat? No? He’s someone I think about quite a bit. A
dull,
unimaginative, plodding, dogged fellow, who, in the 1860s and 1870s,
worked as an accountant in the employ of the Directoire, France’s own
bureau of intelligence. In 1867, it came to his attention that two low
level clerks at the Directoire, apparently unacquainted, had both been
killed in the course of a fortnight–one the victim of an apparent
street robbery, the other trampled to death by a mail coach. It was the
sort of thing that happened all the time. Quite unremarkable. But
still he wondered, especially after he learned that at the time of
death, both of these humble clerks had on their persons costly gold
pocket watches–in fact, as he confirmed, the two watches were
identical, both with a fine cloisonne landscape on the inside of the
watchcase. A small oddity, but it arrested his attention, and, to the
exasperation of his superiors, he spent the next four years trying to
figure out why, and how, this small oddity had come about. In the end,
he uncovered a spy ring of extraordinary intricacy: the Directoire had
been penetrated and manipulated by its Prussian counterparts.” He
registered her darting glance and smiled: “Yes, those pocket watches in
the case are the very ones. Exquisite craftsmanship. I acquired them a
couple of decades ago at an auction. I like having them nearby. It
helps me to remember.”
Bartlett closed his eyes for a contemplative moment. “Of course, by the
time Rochat completed his investigations, it was too late,” he went on.
“Bismark’s agents, through a cunning diet of misinformation, had already
tricked France into declaring war. “A Berlin was the great cry. The
result was disastrous for France: the military dominance it had enjoyed
since the Battle of Rocroi in 1643 was completely destroyed, in just a
couple of months. Can you imagine? The French army, with the Emperor
at its head, was led straight into an ingenious ambush near Sedan. And
that was the end, needless to say, for Napoleon III. The country lost
Alsace-Lorraine, it had to pay staggering reparations, and it had to
submit to two years of occupation. An extraordinary blow, it was–one
that shifted the whole course of European history irreversibly. And
just a few years earlier, Claude Rochat was tugging at a little thread,
not knowing where it would lead, not knowing whether it would lead
anywhere. It was just those two lowly clerks and their matching pocket
watches.” Bartlett made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Most of
the time, something that looks trivial really is trivial. Most of the
time. My job is to worry about such matters. The tiny threads. The
boring little discrepancies. The trivial little patterns that just
might lead to larger patterns.
The most important thing I do is the least glamorous thing imaginable.”
An arched eyebrow. “I look for matching pocket watches.”
Anna was silent for a few moments. The Ghost was living fully up to his
reputation: cryptic, hopelessly obscure. “I appreciate the history
lesson,” she said slowly, “but my frame of reference has always been the
here and now. If you really think these deep-storage files have ongoing
relevance, why not simply have the CIA investigate?”
Bartlett withdrew a crisp silk pocket square from his suit jacket and
began to polish his eyeglasses. “Things get rather awkward around
here,” he said. “The I.C.U tends to get involved only in cases where
there’s a real possibility of internal interference or anything else
that might preclude a thorough inquiry. Let’s leave it at that.” There
was a hint of condescension in his voice.
“Let’s not,” Anna said sharply. It wasn’t a tone to take with the head
of a division, especially one as powerful as the I.C.U, but subservience
wasn’t in her skill set, and Bartlett might as well know at the outset
whose services he had engaged. “With respect, you’re talking about the
possibility that someone in, or retired from, the Agency may be behind
the deaths.”
The director of the Internal Compliance Unit blanched slightly. “I
didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t deny it.”
Bartlett sighed. “Of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing straight
was ever made.” A tight smile.
“If you think Central Intelligence might be compromised, why not bring
in the FBI?”
Bartlett snorted delicately. “Why not bring in the Associated Press?
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has many strengths, but discretion
isn’t among them. I’m not sure you appreciate the sensitivity of this
matter. The fewer people who know about it, the better. That’s why I’m
not involving a team just an individual. The right individual, I dearly
hope, Agent Navarro.”
“Even if these deaths really are murders,” she said, “it’s highly
unlikely you’ll ever find the killer, I hope you know that.”
“That’s the standard bureaucratic response,” Bartlett said, “but you
don’t strike me as a bureaucrat. Mr. Dupree says you’re stubborn and
‘not exactly a team player.” Well, that’s precisely what I wanted.”
Anna forged ahead. “You’re basically asking me to investigate the
CIA.
You want me to examine a series of deaths to establish that they are
murders, and then ”
“And then to amass any evidence that would allow us to conduct an
audit.” Bartlett’s gray eyes shone through his plastic-rimmed glasses.
“No matter who’s implicated. Is that clear?”
“As mud,” Anna said. A seasoned investigator, she was used to
conducting interviews with witnesses and suspects alike. Sometimes you
simply needed to listen. Sometimes, however, you needed to goad, to
provoke a response. Art and experience came in knowing when. Bartlett’s
story was perforated with elisions and omissions. She appreciated the
need-to-know reflexes of a wily old bureaucrat, but in her experience,
it helped to know more than you strictly needed to. “I’m not going to
play blindman’s bluff,” she said.
Bartlett blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You must have copies of these Sigma files. You must have scrutinized
them closely. And yet you claim you have no idea what Sigma was about.”
“Where are you going with this?” His voice was cool.
“Will you show me these files?”
A rictus like smile: “No. No, that won’t be possible.”
“Why not?”
Bartlett put his glasses on again. “I’m not under investigation here.
As much as I admire your tactics of interrogation. Anyway, I believe
I’ve been clear on the relevant points.”
“No, dammit, that’s not good enough! You’re fully acquainted with these
files. If you don’t know what they add up to, then at least you’ve got
to have your suspicions. An educated hypothesis. Anything at all. Save
your poker face for your Tuesday-night card game. I’m not playing.”
Bartlett finally erupted. “For Christ’s sake, you’ve seen enough to
know that we’re talking about the reputation of some of the major
figures of the postwar era. These are clearance files. By themselves,
they prove nothing. I had you vetted before our conversation did that
implicate you in my affairs? I trust your discretion. Of course I do.
But we’re talking about prominent individuals as well as obscure ones.
You can’t simply go stomping around in your sensible shoes.”
Anna listened carefully, listened to the undertone of tension in his
voice. “You talk about reputations, yet that’s not what you’re really
concerned about, is it?” she pressed. “I need more to go on!”
He shook his head. “It’s like trying to fashion a rope ladder out of
gossamer. Nothing that we’ve ever been able to pin down. Half a
century ago, something was hatched. Something. Something that involved
vital interests. The Sigma list encompasses a curious collection of
individuals some were industrialists, we know, and there are others
whose identity we haven’t been able to figure out at all. What they have
in common is that a founder of the CIA, someone with enormous power in
the forties and fifties, took a direct interest in them. Was he
enlisting them? Targeting them? We’re all playing blindman’s bluff.
But it would seem that an undertaking of enormous secrecy was launched.