“Yes, sir. This is code-word stuff. I understand.” In fact, he didn’t, thought Hardesty. This was actually beyond code word, but that explanation would have to wait for another venue. “Please go on, sir.”
“You’ve been noticed by some fairly important people as a prime recruit prospect for a rather . . . a rather special organization that does not exist. You’ve heard this sort of thing before in movies or read it in books. But this is quite real, son. I am here to offer you a place in that organization.”
“Sir, I am a Marine officer, and I like that.”
“It will not prejudice your career in the Marines. As a matter of fact, you’ve been deep-dipped for promotion to major. You’ll be getting that letter next week. So, you’ll have to leave your current billet anyway. If you stay in the Marine Corps, you’ll be sent to Headquarters Marine Corps next month, to work in the intelligence/special-operations shop. You’re also going to get a Silver Star for your action in Afghanistan.”
“What about my people? I put them in for decorations, too.” It was the mark of this kid that he’d worry about that, Hardesty thought.
“Everyone’s been approved. Now, you’ll be able to return to the Corps whenever you wish. Your commission and routine advancement will not suffer from this at all.”
“How did you manage that?”
“We have friends in high places,” his guest explained. “So do you, as a matter of fact. You will continue to be paid through the Corps. You may have to set up new banking arrangements, but that’s routine stuff.”
“What will this new posting entail?” Caruso asked.
“It will mean serving your country. Doing things that are necessary to our national security, but doing them in a somewhat irregular manner.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Not here, not now”
“Can you be any more mysterious, Mr. Hardesty? I might start understanding what you’re talking about and spoil the surprise.”
“I don’t make the rules,” he replied.
“Agency, eh?”
“Not exactly, but you’ll find out in due course. What I need now is a yes or a no. You can leave this organization at any time if you find it not to your liking,” he promised. “But this isn’t the proper venue for a fuller explanation.”
“When would I have to decide?”
“Before you finish your bacon and eggs.”
The reply caused Captain Caruso to set his muffin down. “This isn’t some sort of joke, right?” He’d taken his share of razzing due to his family connections.
“No, Captain, it isn’t a joke.”
The pitch was deliberately designed to be nonthreatening. People like Caruso, however courageous they might be, often regarded the unknown—more properly, the not-understood unknown—with some degree of trepidation. His profession was dangerous enough already, and the intelligent among us do not blissfully go seeking after danger. Theirs is usually a reasoned approach to hazard, after first making sure their training and experience are adequate to the task. And so Hardesty had made sure to tell Caruso that the womb of the United States Marine Corps would always be available to take him back. It was almost true, and that was close enough for his purposes, if not, perhaps, to the young officer’s.
“What’s your love life like, Captain?”
The question surprised him, but he answered it truthfully. “No attachments. There’s a few girls I date, but nothing very serious yet. Is that a concern?” Just how dangerous might this be? he wondered.
“Only from a security point of view. Most men cannot keep secrets from their wives.” But girlfriends were a different question altogether.
“Okay, how dangerous will this job be?”
“Not very,” Hardesty lied, not skillfully enough to be entirely successful.
“You know, I’ve been planning to stay in the Corps at least long enough to be a light colonel.”
“Your evaluator at Headquarters Marine Corps thinks you’re good enough to make full-bull someday, unless you step on your crank along the way. Nobody thinks that’s likely, but it has happened to a lot of good men.” Hardesty finished his Cheerios and returned his attention to the coffee.
“Nice to know I have a guardian angel up there somewhere,” Caruso observed dryly.
“As I say, you’ve been noticed. The Marine Corps is pretty good at spotting talent and helping it along.”
“And so have some other people—spotted me, I mean.”
“That’s correct, Captain. But all I am offering you is a chance. You’ll have to prove yourself along the way.” The challenge was well considered. Young, capable young men had trouble turning away from one. Hardesty knew he had him.
IT HAD been a long drive from Birmingham to Washington. Dominic Caruso did it in one long day because he didn’t much like cheap motels, but even starting at five in the morning didn’t make it any shorter. He drove a white Mercedes C-class four-door much like his brother’s, with lots of luggage piled in the back. He had almost been stopped twice, but on both occasions the state police cars had responded favorably to his FBI credentials—called “creedos” by the Bureau—and pulled away with nothing more than a friendly wave. There was a brotherhood among law-enforcement officers that extended at least as far as ignoring speeding violations. He arrived at Arlington, Virginia, just at ten that night, where he let a bellman unpack his car for him and took the elevator to his room on the third floor. The in-room bar had a split of a decent white wine, which he downed after the needed shower. The wine and boring TV helped him sleep. He left notice for a seven o’clock wake-up call, and faded out with the help of HBO.
“GOOD MORNING,” Gerry Hendley said at 8:45 the next morning. “Coffee?”
“Thank you, sir.” Jack availed himself of a cup and took his seat. “Thanks for calling back.”
“Well, we looked at your academic records. You did okay at Georgetown.”
“For what it costs, you might as well pay attention—and, besides, it wasn’t all that hard.” John Patrick Ryan, Jr., sipped at his coffee and wondered what would be coming next.
“We’re prepared to discuss an entry-level job,” the former senator told him right away. He’d never been one for beating about the bush, which was one of the reasons he and his visitor’s father had gotten along so well.
“Doing what, exactly?” Jack asked, with his eyes perked up.
“What do you know about Hendley Associates?”
“Only what I’ve already told you.”
“Okay, nothing of what I’m about to tell you can be repeated anywhere. Not anywhere. Are you clear on that?”
“Yes, sir.” And just that fast, everything was clear as hell. He’d guessed right, Jack told himself. Damn.
“Your father was one of my closest friends. I say ‘was’ because we can’t see each other anymore, and we talk very rarely. Usually because he calls here. People like your dad never retire—never all the way, anyway. Your father was one of the best spooks who ever lived. He did some things that were never written down—at least not on government paper—and probably never will be written down. In this case, ‘never’ means fifty years or so. Your father is doing his memoirs. He’s doing two versions, one for publication in a few years, and another that won’t see the light of day for a couple of generations. It will not be published until after his death. That’s his order.”
It stuck hard at Jack that his father was making plans for after his own death. His dad—dead? It was a lot to grasp except in a distant, intellectual sense. “Okay,” he managed to say. “Does Mom know this stuff?”
“Probably—no, almost certainly not. Some of it may not exist even at Langley. The government occasionally does things that are not committed to paper. Your father had a gift for stumbling into the middle of stuff like that.”
“And what about you?” Junior asked.
Hendley leaned back and took a philosophical tone. “The problem is that no matter what you do, there’s somebody who won’t like it much. Like a joke. No matter how funny it is, somebody will be offended by it. But at a high level, when somebody is offended, instead of calling you on it to your face, he goes off and cries his eyes out to a member of the press, and it goes public, usually with a great big disapproving tone attached to it. Most often that’s careerism raising its ugly head—getting ahead by backstabbing somebody senior to you. But it’s also because people in senior positions like to make policy in accordance with their own version of right and wrong. That’s called ego. Problem is, everyone has a different version of right and wrong. Some of them can be downright crazy.
“Now, take our current President. In the Senate Cloakroom, once Ed told me he was so opposed to capital punishment that he couldn’t even have abided executing Adolf Hitler. That was after a few drinks—he tends to be verbose when he’s been drinking, and the sad fact is that he drinks a little too much on occasion. When he said that to me, I joked about it. I told him not to say it in a speech—the Jewish vote is big and powerful and they might see it less as a deeply held principle than as a high-order insult. In the abstract a lot of people oppose capital punishment. Okay, I can respect that, though I do not agree with it. But the drawback to that position is that you cannot then deal decisively with people who do harm to others—sometimes serious harm—without violating your principles, and to some people, their consciences or political sensibilities will not let them do it. Even though the sad fact of the matter is that due process of law is not always effective, frequently outside our borders, and, on rare occasions, inside them.