‘Well, of course, Mr. Speaker, if you think it’s important.’
‘I wouldn’t call a shit-head freshman direct if I didn’t think it was important.’
‘Then I can only hope that a shit-head Speaker has a vital issue to discuss,’ replied Kendrick. ‘If he doesn’t, I’ll charge my hourly consultation rate to his state. Is that understood, Mr. Speaker?’
‘I like your style, boy, We’re on different sides but I like your style.’
‘You may not when I’m in your office.’
‘I like that even better.’
Astonished, Kendrick stood in front of the desk staring in silence at the evasive eyes of the gaunt-faced, white-haired Speaker of the House. The old Irishman had just made an extraordinary statement, which should have been, at the very least, a proposal but was, instead, a bombshell in Evan’s path of retreat from Washington, DC. ‘The Subcommittee on Oversight and Evaluation?’ said Kendrick in quiet anger. ‘Of Intelligence?’
‘That’s it,’ answered the Speaker, glancing down at his papers.
‘How dare you? You can’t do that!’
‘It’s done. Your appointment’s announced.’
‘Without my consent?
‘I don’t need it. I don’t say you had the clearest sailing with your own party leaders—you’re not the most popular fella on your side of the fence—but with a little persuasion they agreed. You’re kind of a symbol of independent bipartisanship.’
‘Symbol? What symbol? I’m no symbol!’
‘You got a tape of the Foxley show?’
‘It’s non-history. It’s forgotten!’
‘Or that little rhubarb you pulled in your office the next morning? That fella from the New York Times did a hell of a column on you, made you out like some kind of—hat was it? I reread it yesterday—”a reasoned voice among the babel of mad crows”.’
‘All that was weeks ago and nobody’s mentioned anything of substance since then. I’ve faded.’
‘You just sprang back to full flower.’
‘I refuse the appointment! I don’t care to be burdened by secrets involving national security. I’m not staying in government and I consider it an untenable position to be placed in—a dangerous situation, to put it bluntly.’
‘You publicly refuse and your party will wash you out of its hair—publicly. They’ll call you a few names, like a rich mistake and irresponsible, and revive that jackass you buried with your money. He and his little machine are missed around here.’ The Speaker paused, chuckling. ‘They beavered away for everybody with nice little perks like private jets and fancy suites from Hawaii to the South of France owned by the mining boys. Didn’t make a damn bit of difference what party you were with, they just wanted a few addendums on legislation—couldn’t care less where they come from. Hell, Congressman, you refuse, you could be doing all of us a favour.’
‘You really are a shit-head, Mr. Speaker.’
I’m pragmatic, son.’
‘But you’ve done so many decent things—’
‘They came from being practical,’ interrupted the old pol. ‘They don’t get done with buckets of vinegar, they go down easier with pitchers of warm syrup, like sweet Vermont syrup, get my drift?’
‘Do you realize that with one statement you just condoned political corruption?’
‘The hell I did! I just condoned the acceptance of minor greed as part of the human condition in exchange for major legislation that helps the people who really need it! I got those things through, shit-head, by blinking my eyes to incidental indulgences when those who got ’em knew my eyes weren’t closed. You rich son of a bitch, you wouldn’t understand. Sure, we got a few millionaires around here, but most aren’t. They live on yearly salaries that you’d piss away in a month. They leave office because they can’t put their two or three kids through college on what they make, forget vacations. So you’re goddamned right, I blink.’
‘All right!’ shouted Kendrick. ‘I can understand that, but what I can’t understand is your appointing me to Oversight! There’s nothing in my background that qualifies me for such an assignment. I could name thirty or forty others who know a lot more than I do—which isn’t hard because I don’t know anything. They follow these things, they love being on the inside of that dumb business—I repeat, I think it’s a dumb business! Call on one of them. They’re all salivating at the chance.’
‘That kind of appetite isn’t what we’re lookin’ for, son,’ said the Speaker in his now heavily pronounced down home, Down East accent that belied decades of sophisticated political negotiations in the nation’s capital. ‘Good healthy scepticism, like what you showed that double-talking colonel on the Foxley show, that’s the ticket. You’ll make a real contribution.’
‘You’re wrong, Mr. Speaker, because I have nothing to contribute, not even the slightest interest. Barrish was using and abusing generalities, arrogantly refusing to talk straight, only talk down. It was entirely different. I repeat, I have no interest in Oversight.’
‘Well, now, my young friend, interests change with conditions, like in the banks. Somethin’ happens and the rates go up or down accordingly. And some of us are more familiar than others with certain troubled areas of the world—you certainly qualify in that regard. As that beautiful book says, talents buried in the ground don’t do anybody a cow dung’s worth of good, but if they’re brought up into the light, they can flourish. Like your new flowering.’
‘If you’re referring to the time I spent in the Arab Emirates, please remember I was a construction engineer whose only concerns were jobs and profits.’
‘Is that so?’
‘The average tourist knew more about the politics and cultures of those countries than I did. All of us in construction kept pretty much to ourselves; we had our own circles and rarely stepped outside them.’
‘I find that hard to believe—damn near impossible, in fact. I got the congressional background report on you, young fella, and I tell ya it blew my good New England socks off. Here you are right here in Washington and you built airfields and government buildings for the Arabs, which certainly means you had to have a hell of a lot of conversations with the high mucky-mucks over there. I mean airfields; that’s military intelligence, son! Then I learn you speak several Arab languages, not one but several!’
‘It’s one language, the rest are simply dialects—’
‘I tell you you’re invaluable, and it’s no less than your patriotic duty to serve your country by sharing what you know with other experts.’
‘I’m not an expert!’
‘Besides,’ broke in the Speaker, leaning back in his chair, his expression pensive, ‘under the circumstances, what with your background and all, if you refused the appointment it’d look like you had somethin’ to hide, somethin’ maybe we ought to look into. You got somethin’ to hide, Congressman.’ The Speaker’s eyes were suddenly levelled at Evan.
Something to hide? He had everything to hide! Why did the Speaker look at him like that? No one knew about Oman, about Masqat and Bahrain. No one would ever know! That was the agreement.
‘There’s not a damn thing to hide, but there’s everything to let hang out,’ said Kendrick firmly. ‘You’d be doing the subcommittee a disservice based on a misplaced appraisal of my credentials. Do yourself a favour. Call one of the others.’
‘The beautiful book, that most holy of books, has so many answers, doesn’t it?’ asked the Speaker aimlessly, his eyes once again straying, ‘Many might be called, but few are chosen, isn’t that right?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake—’
‘That might well be the case, young fella,’ broke in the old Irishman, nodding his head. ‘Only time will tell, won’t it? Meanwhile, the congressional leadership of your party has decided that you’re chosen. So you’re chosen—unless you’ve got something to hide, something we ought to look into… Now, skedaddle. I’ve got work to do.’
‘Skedaddle?’
‘Get the fuck out of here, Kendrick.’
* * *
Chapter 20
The two bodies of Congress, the Senate and the House, have several committees of matching purpose with similar or nearly similar names. There is Senate Appropriations and House Appropriations, the Senate Foreign Relations and the House Foreign Affairs, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, this last with a powerful Subcommittee on Oversight and Evaluation. This counterpartism is one more example of the republic’s effective system of checks and balances. The legislative branch of government, actively reflecting the current views of a far wider spectrum of the body politic than either an entrenched executive branch or the life-tenured judiciary, must negotiate within itself and reach a consensus on each of the hundredfold issues presented to its two deliberative arms. The process is patently frustrating, patently exasperating, and generally fair. If compromise is the art of governance within a pluralistic society, no one does it better, or with more aggravation, than the legislative branch of the United States government with its innumerable, often insufferable and frequently ridiculous committees. This assessment is accurate; a pluralistic society is, indeed, numerous, usually insufferable to would-be tyrants, and almost always ridiculous in the eyes of those who would impose their will on the citizenry. One man’s morality should never by way of ideology become another’s legality, as many in the executive and the judiciary would have it. More often than not these quasi-zealots grudgingly retreat in the face of the uproars emanating from those lower-class troublesome committees on the Hill. Despite infrequent and unforgivable aberrations, the vox populi is usually heard and the land is better for it.