“Just old ones. None current that we’ve been able to procure through
the normal means. All of them have relocated in the past year.”
“The past year? They could be anywhere in the world.”
“That’s a logical possibility. The probability is that they’re in the
same country, likely in the same general locale at a certain point of
life, one becomes subject to a sort of field of gravitation. It’s
difficult for old men to completely uproot themselves. Even when their
safety is at risk, there is a level of personal tumult to which they
will refuse to subject themselves. All the same, they haven’t exactly
left forwarding addresses. Evidently, they’re keeping a low profile.”
“Hiding,” Anna said. “They’re afraid.”
“It would seem they have reason to be.”
“It’s like there’s some geriatric grudge match going on. How could
something that started even before the CIA was founded still have such
power?”
Bartlett craned his neck, resting his gaze on the velvet-lined display
case before he turned back. “Certain things grow more powerful with
age. And, of course, it’s a grave mistake to confuse size with
influence. Today, the CIA is a vast, solid government institution with
endless layers of bureaucracy. At the beginning, personal networks were
where true power resided. It was true of Bill Donovan, the founder of
the OSS, and even more so of Alien Dulles. Yes, Dulles is known for his
role in creating the CIA, but that wasn’t the most impressive of his
accomplishments. For him, there was one battle, the battle against the
revolutionary left.”
“The ‘gentleman spy,” they called him, didn’t they?”
“The ‘gentleman’ part made him as dangerous as the ‘spy’ part. He was
never more formidable than when he was a private citizen, back in the
days when he and his brother Foster ran the international finance
division of a certain law firm.”
“The law firm? What did they do, double bill their clients?”
Bartlett gave her a slightly pitying look. “It’s an amateur’s error to
underestimate the reach and range of private concerns. Theirs was more
than just a white-shoe law firm. It had genuinely international reach.
Dulles, traveling around the world, was able to weave a sort of spider’s
web across Europe. He enlisted confederates in all the major cities,
finding them among the Allies, the Axis, and the neutrals.”
“Confederates?” Anna interrupted. “How do you mean?”
“Highly placed individuals contacts, friends, ‘assets,” call them what
you will whom Alien Dulles effectively had on retainer. They served as
sources of information and advice, but also as agents of influence.
Dulles knew how to appeal to people’s self-interest. After all, he
facilitated an extraordinary number of deals involving governments and
multinational corporations, and that made him an invaluable man to know.
If you were a businessman, he could ensure that a large government
contract was steered in your direction. If you were a government
official, he might provide you with a crucial morsel of information that
would further your career. Money and intelligence Dulles understood
that one could be readily converted to the other, like two currencies,
albeit with constantly shifting exchange rates. And, of course, Dulles’s
own role as a go between an intermediary, depended upon him knowing just
a little bit more than everyone else.”
“A go-between?”
“Maybe you’ve heard of the Bank for International Settlement of Basel?”
“Maybe I haven’t.”
“It was essentially a counting house where businessmen on both sides of
the war could settle down and parse the distribution of dividends. A
very useful institution to have if you were a businessman. After all,
business didn’t cease simply because the cannons began to fire. But the
hostilities did interfere with the conduct of corporate partnerships and
alliances, giving rise to all sorts of impediments. Dulles figured out
ways to circumvent those impediments.”
“That’s not an attractive picture.”
“It’s the reality. Dulles, you see, believed in the ‘network.” It’s
the key to understanding his life’s mission. A network was an array of
individuals a whole, a complex configuration, that could have an
influence vastly greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a striking
thing to contemplate. As I say, it always comes down to the crooked
timber of humanity.”
Anna raised an eyebrow. “It sounds a little frightening.”
A vein pulsed on Bartlett’s temple. “It is a little frightening, and
perhaps more than a little. The nature of these networks, after all, is
that they are invisible to those who are not part of them invisible even
to some who are. And they also have a tendency to survive the
individuals they initially comprise. You could say they take on a life
of their own. And they can have powerful effects on the organizations
that they invade.” He adjusted his French cuffs again. “I talked of
spider’s webs. There’s a curious parasitic wasp, very tiny, of the
genus Hymenoepime-as a clever little creature that stings a spider into
temporary paralysis, and lays its eggs in the spider’s abdomen. Soon
the spider goes back to work, as if nothing had happened, even as the
larvae grow inside him, nourished on its fluids. Then, on the night
that the larvae will molt and kill the spider, they chemically induce it
to change its behavior. On this night, the spider is induced to spin a
cocoon web, useless to the spider but necessary for the larva. As soon
as the spider has finished its work, the larvae consume the spider and
hang the pupal cocoon in the special web. It’s quite extraordinary,
really, the parasite’s fine-grained manipulation of the host’s behavior.
But it’s nothing compared to what we humans can devise. That’s the sort
of thing I think about, Ms. Navarro. Who’s inside of us? What forces
might be manipulating the apparatus of civic governance into building a
web that will serve their own purposes? When will the parasite decide to
consume the host?”
“O.K.” I’ll play along,” Anna said. “Let’s say half a century ago,
some dark conspiracy stings us, in effect implants something that’s
going to grow and cause damage. Even if all that’s so, how would we
ever know?”
“That is an excellent question, Ms. Navarro,” Bartlett replied. “Webs
are hard to see, aren’t they, even when they’re big. Have you ever
walked into an old basement or storage area in a dim light, seeing
nothing in the gloom? Then you switch on a flashlight, and suddenly you
realize that the empty space over your head isn’t exactly empty–it’s
filled with layers of cobwebs, a vast canopy of glassy filaments. You
direct the beam in another direction, and that canopy disappears–as if
it were never there. Had you imagined it? You look straight up.
Nothing. Then, directing the beam at just the right off-angle, focusing
your eyes on some intermediate point, it all becomes visible once more.”
Bartlett’s gaze searched her face for comprehension. “People like me
spend our days looking for that one odd angle that brings the old webs
into view. Often we look too hard, and we imagine things. Sometimes we
see what’s really there. You, Ms. Navarro, strike me as someone not
prone to imagine things.”
“I’ll accept that at face value,” Anna replied.
“I don’t mean to imply that you lack imagination–only that you keep it
under tight control. No matter. The point is simply that there were
alliances forged among some individuals with considerable resources.
That much is part of public history. And as for what became of this? I
only wish we knew. All we have are these names.”
“Three names,” Anna said. “Three old men.”
“I’d direct your particular attention to Gaston Rossignol. He’d been
quite a powerful Swiss banker in his heyday. The most prominent person
on the list, and the oldest.”
“All right,” she said, looking up. “The Zuricher. I assume you’ve
prepared a background file on him.”
Bartlett opened a desk drawer, withdrew a file festooned with
classificatory warning stamps, and slid it to her across the desk. “It’s
fairly extensive, aside from the obvious lacunae.”
“Good,” Anna said. “I want to see him before they get to him, too.”
“Assuming you can locate him.”
“He’s lived his entire life in Zurich. As you say, there’s a field of
gravitation there. Even if he’s moved, he would have left behind
friends, family members. Tributaries leading to the source.”
“Or moats, protecting a fortress. A man like Rossignol has powerful
friends, highly placed ones, who will do whatever they can to protect
him. Friends who are, as the French say, branche. Powerful and plugged
in. They have the ability to remove him from the grid of visibility,
the bureaucratic files and computer records. Do you have some clever
subterfuge in mind?”
“Nothing like that. Subterfuge is what they’ll be on guard against.
Rossignol has nothing to fear from me. If his friends and confederates
are as well informed as you suggest, they’ll realize that and spread the
word.”
“So you’re envisaging a simple “I come in peace’?” The words were wry,