Atropos Page 3

“Sam,” she said, “this meeting is about how Worldwatch is going to cover the election. The local papers have nothing to do with it. You get back to the people in Keokuk and tell them to forget it.”

  “Regina,” Sam said. “Miss Hudson, I mean.”

  “Regina is okay,” she said, then wondered if it was. What the hell, she decided. He’d known her since she was a little girl. Besides, she’d called him “Sam.”

  “Regina, we could save millions using those people. It’s a big advantage we’ve got. Time and U.S. News don’t have any papers to help them, and Newsweek’s got a lot fewer than we do.”

  “One of them is the Washington Post,” someone pointed out.

  “Since when is there an important primary in Washington?” Sam retorted.

  “That’s not the point, Sam,” Regina said. She caught herself fiddling with her pencil. She made herself stop and look Sam in the eye. “The Hudson Group is committed to the independent operation of all the local papers. If they serve their communities and make a profit, the people stay on, period. I’m not about to pre-empt or co-opt any of these people. We promised them independence when we hired them, and we’re not about to go messing with it.”

  “Regina,” Sam said wearily, “when you’ve had as much experience as I have, you’ll find out you’ve got to make the occasional compromise on things like this.”

  It was true she didn’t have all that much experience. Before becoming Publisher and Chairman of the Board, she’d been the editor of the Kirkester Chronicle, a job her mother had given her the way a carpenter would give his kid a piece of wood to play with. But she’d made the job real, the way she’d make this one real. Also, she hated Sam’s goddam patronizing attitude.

  “That’s bullshit, Sam. You’re acting as if the company’s on the verge of bankruptcy. Unless you’re fudging the books you snowed me a couple of weeks ago, we’re making record profits.”

  “There’s never so much money around you couldn’t piss it away by being careless.”

  “I’m not being careless, I’m sticking with the practices that led us to the record profits in the first place.”

  “Part of the record profits—forgive me, here, Regina—come from the fact that your mother turned out to be a Russian spy.”

  Sean Murphy spoke for the first time. “That’s really unfair, Sam,” he said quietly.

  “I’ll handle it, Sean,” Regina said. Her hands were fists on the table now; she was leaning out over them as though ready to spring.

  “Yes,” she said. “My mother came to this country as a spy, to infiltrate my father’s business and run it to make the Kremlin happy. I won’t forget that. Don’t you forget that she found herself so in love with this country and this business that when the Russians called on her, she risked her life rather than compromise the Hudson Group.”

  Sam shrank back. “All right, all right. Don’t get so excited.”

  “I’m sorry,” Regina said. She supposed she was, too, but not much. She sat back and took a breath. “Okay,” she said. “I know you’re doing your job. I also know you tried this local-paper—Worldwatch tie-in business on my mother like clockwork every Presidential election since 1964. It didn’t work with her, and it’s not going to work with me.”

  She turned to Murphy. “Sean, why don’t you take up manpower allocation?”

  There, she thought, half-amused and half-proud. Now that I’ve shown my authority, I can delegate some. Anyway, the small details of manpower allocation bored her silly. The important thing was that the allocation should be made in accordance with their reading of the way the campaign was going to shape up, something she’d already been through in detail with Murphy and her senior people, as well as with independent analysts and pollsters.

  It really looked as if November was going to be a formality. The real contest was going to be in July, at the convention of the party in power. It was going to come down to Stephen Abweg of Missouri, House Majority Whip, or Carl Babington, Governor of New Jersey.

  The Worldwatch bureau editors felt the same way.

  “The other guys should all drop out by Super Tuesday.”

  “Yeah, they’ll hold on that far in the hope that us or Time or CBS or the Miami Herald will turn up with a picture of Mr. A and Mr. B taking turns at the Ayatollah’s camel or something.”

  Laughter. “The Gary Hart syndrome. I can hear it now. ‘I wouldn’t be the first camel humper to enter the White House.’”

  “Do you think the President is going to endorse one of these guys?”

  Sean Murphy scratched his head. “They’d love him to. He’s a lame duck, and he’s made a lot of mistakes the last year or so, but he’s still enormously popular. His endorsement this early would swing a lot of weight.”

  “The new President would owe him a lot,” somebody speculated. “Not that he’d especially need it, what with the pension and the lecture possibilities and the books and the rest of the automatic elder-statesman business.”

  “Oh, he’d like to do it, all right,” Murphy said. “But I don’t see how he can. Since the Teddy Roosevelt-Taft thing worked out so badly, Presidents have avoided trying to hand-pick their successors. Our incumbent is superconscious of what history thinks. Besides, he can’t really pick either of them without looking like an ingrate. Abweg’s worked like a dog to get his programs through Congress, and Babington’s his oldest friend in politics, the one who talked him into running for office back when he was starting out.”

  “So the President sits it out.”

  “Right. Then after the convention, he goes all out for the nominee.”

  “Well, he’d do that anyway.”

  “All right, if the President’s going to stay out of it, whose endorsement is the big trophy?”

  “Van Horn.”

  “Hank Van Horn?” somebody said, and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “No, no, you’re right. He’s got a stranglehold on a state with a lot of votes, he’s senior enough to have a lot of juice in the Senate, he’s the acknowledged leader of the liberal wing of the Party, and a lot of Americans still see the family halo around him, burnt-up girlfriend and all.”

  “Campaign associate.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “Those are all reasons his endorsement could make the difference.”

  “I’m not saying it won’t.”

  “You laughed.”

  “I laughed because I cover the Senate. I’ve seen that guy make endorsements in every election since ’76. It’s hurt him worse than a man with hemorrhoids shitting peach pits. He looks at the White House the way Moses looked at the Promised Land.”

  “A lot of people think he’s lucky not to have gone to jail,” Regina said.

  “I know what a lot of people think. I was telling you what Hank Van Horn thinks.”

  “So,” Sean Murphy said, “we’ll have people with all the candidates, but as they thin out, we’ll quietly redeploy to Abweg or Babington.”

  “What about the other party?”

  “It looks like Milton, for them, but it could be anybody.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Whoever it is is meat.”

  “That doesn’t matter, either,” Murphy said. “We’ll cover them exactly as though they had a chance to win. Strange things can happen in politics.”

  “Jimmy Carter,” someone suggested.

  Someone else asked, “Who is Worldwatch going to be for?”

  “Worldwatch has never endorsed candidates,” Regina said.

  “I know that. I asked who we were going to be for.”

  “We,” Regina said, “are going to be impartial.”

  Silence fell. “My God,” someone whispered at last. “An idealist.”

  “Okay, okay,” Sean Murphy said. “Back to business.” They talked about travel arrangements and expense accounts, and egos of star reporters, who did not wish to grace with their celebrity candidates of insufficient stature. It went on for a long time. Regina was glad when it w
as finally over.

  She headed back to her office. Sean Murphy caught up with her.

  “You did fine,” he told her. “Your mother will be proud.”

  “I knew you were reporting to her.”

  “I’m not spying on you or anything—”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t want Mother to lose all touch with the company.”

  Murphy grinned at her. “You’re going to be fine. Anything you want to talk over?”

  “No. Thanks, Sean, but it’s—” She looked at her watch. “My God, past eight o’clock already. Of course I’ll stay if there’s anything we need to go over. Is there?”

  “No. I think it’s going to be fine.” They walked along in silence for a while, then Murphy said, “You’re going to see Trotter tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I think so.” Actually, she was damned sure of it. “Why?”

  “Be careful about him, okay? Everything about him on the surface is fine, but I’ve got a feeling ...”

  Regina laughed. “So did I, when I first met him. It’s okay, Sean. You’d like Allan, if you could get to know him.”

  “Then it’s unanimous. Your mother tells me not to worry, too.”

  “Good. But you’re sweet to care. Good night.”

  “Yeah,” Murphy said. “Good night.”

  Chapter Four

  TROTTER PULLED THE EVENING report off the Teletype machine in the locked room next to the study. His “Special Assistant” tag was a convenient excuse for him to have a Teletype room in his house, in case anyone noticed. He didn’t go around bringing it to anyone’s attention. The machine itself was unremarkable, though the circuitry included sophisticated tamper-alarms and the latest in anti-bugging devices, specially installed by Jake Feder, who’d once again come out of a Florida retirement to help the Agency.

  Three times a day (more if necessary) the machine brought detailed reports of what the Agency was up to. The reports were compiled by the Washington staff, most of whom thought they were working for a crooked international cartel instead of an independent, hyper-secret agency of the government of the United States. The fact that it was much easier to recruit people to gather intelligence for (supposedly) a group of conscienceless economic royalists that it was to find them willing to do the same for their country was a sign of something unhealthy, Trotter wasn’t sure what.

  The reports were in code. Code was much safer than cipher. With computers as smart as they were these days, any cipher could be broken, if you got a big-enough sample for it. A code on the other hand, where the word “ELBOW” could have the previously agreed-upon meaning, “Meet the Cuban defector at 9:15 P.M. on the north end of parking lot AA at Kennedy Airport,” and the phrase “URGENT NO HITCH IN SARCASM EFFACED—THEY LOOK LIKE BEARS—PLEASE ADVISE” could mean (as it did today) “nothing to report,” was practically unbreakable, assuming, of course, the key to the code did not fall into the wrong hands. Since the copy of the book in Washington was as safe as vaults and personnel screening could make it, and Trotter’s copy had been memorized and dissolved in acid months ago, he didn’t worry about it.

  The reports had shown a quiet day. The biggest news was that the operative they had infiltrating a racist skinhead group in Colorado was now a fully accepted member of the gang. There was no sign yet of any foreign influence, should he keep looking? Trotter had sent a ten sentence reply that meant “yes.” The afternoon report was all various forms of “nothing to report,” which suited Trotter fine. The evening report was more of the same.

  Except at the very end, where it said, “BIRDS CLOGGING FEEDER PIPE—SUMMON ELECTRICIAN.”

  That meant to report to the Congressman. In person. As soon as possible.

  “As soon as possible” in this case meant grabbing a plane tomorrow morning about eight—for years, Trotter had made it a point to memorize all the public transportation schedules of any town he happened to find himself in—which would get him to Washington about ten-thirty or so, which meant he had something like twelve hours to wonder what the hell the old man wanted.

  It was, of course, useless to try to guess, so that’s what he did. The paper shredder hummed background music as he got rid of the day’s reports and speculated.

  It could be a personnel problem. Fenton Rines, who had resigned from the FBI and now ran the Agency’s Washington operation, had had too much and was packing it in, and the old man wanted his son to come down to talk over a replacement.

  Or perhaps Rines had finally recruited the Congressman in his campaign to force Trotter to move to Washington. That was a never-ending battle. Rines’s point was that it was inconvenient and time-consuming to send coded reports. Trotter pointed out that the Congressman, when he had been running things day-to-day, had routinely kept up-to-date by means of coded reports.

  Trotter, on the other hand, had several good reasons to stay where he was. If the big one came, and Washington got wiped out in a nuclear attack, the Agency wouldn’t have to lose a beat—the acting head had his operation set up several hundred miles away in an insignificant little town that was unlikely to be a major target.

  Also, it was more secure. The Congressman had designed the Agency in the wake of World War II because he had seen that the soon-to-be formed CIA, even in those relatively untrammeled days, was going to be too bureaucracy-bound to do some of the things that had to be done. He’d picked a small group of men and women and sent them out to do all the dirty little jobs that needed doing in a hurry.

  When Watergate and related scandals broke, and it became apparent that Congress was going to have a much bigger say in the running of the country’s intelligence operation, the General (as he had been) found an exploitable district in his home state and got himself elected to Congress. A little sophisticated wheeling and dealing, some pressure judiciously applied, and the Congressman now found himself in charge of the committee that was supposed to regulate all the government’s intelligence agencies. The Congressman made sure his own Agency remained a deep dark secret from everyone but himself and the President, whoever that happened to be. Over the years, a couple of Presidents, learning of the existence of the Agency on Inauguration Day, had been horrified, and had ordered the Agency disbanded. As General, and later as Congressman, the man in charge of the Agency had acquiesced gracefully, asking only for sixty days to wind things up. No President had been able to function in office for sixty days without finding a use for the Agency, and, Trotter was sure, none ever would.

  Maybe that’s what it was. Maybe the current President, to spare his successor the necessity of fighting with his conscience, was going to order the Agency out of existence now. Trotter wondered whether he would care. Strategically, it would be a catastrophic mistake—without the Agency, the Kremlin would be running the country, maybe not openly, within twenty years. Personally, Trotter decided he wouldn’t give a damn. He’d make an honest woman out of Regina, play at the news business for twenty years, and raise a couple of kids who knew how to survive with a certain degree of dignity in a police state. It could be done. It took a lot of self-control, and a lot of ruthlessness, but those traits can be instilled. A father can teach his child to be ruthless and self-controlled.

  After all, Trotter thought, my father taught me.

  Miles, names, and lives ago, Allan Trotter had been conceived as one of the General’s long-range plans. The General had planted him in the womb of a Soviet agent who thought she was using her sex to prey on the General’s weaknesses. Her mistake. The General didn’t have any weaknesses, at least not that kind. He had seen her, a dedicated, fearless, and successful spy (her capture had been a fluke), as ideal breeding stock with whom to create the perfect agent.

  Trotter often wondered how successful the old man thought his plan had been.

  Maybe the old man was dying, and he wanted to see his son before the end.

  Trotter laughed. No, it wouldn’t be that. No sentiment from that old man.

  To hell with it. Tomorrow would tell. Bash woul
d be here soon. He dropped the shreds of the day’s reports in a stainless-steel tub, opened a medicine bottle, and put one drop from an eyedropper on the paper. There was a flash of fire and the whoosh of a miniature explosion. As always, Trotter looked to make sure it was all gone. As always, it was. Not even a smudge of ash. Science was wonderful. He went to the living room to wait for Regina.

  Regina had a key to Allan’s house, but she had only used it once, the time she’d entered a darkened foyer, then stepped into the living room to find Allan behind her, holding a fireplace poker casually in one hand, and apologizing profusely. He had been, he said, raised paranoid, and that was probably never going to go away. After that, she used the doorbell.

  Allan let her in, and smiled. “Hello, Bash,” he said. He waited until he locked the door before he kissed her. It was worth waiting for.

  “Long day,” he said.

  “I know, I was there for every dismal second of it. The horrible part is, when I was a little girl, this is all I wanted to do when I grew up.”

  Allan grinned. “Maybe you just haven’t grown up yet.”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Regina said. “Can I have a glass of wine, or are you going to card me?”

  “Nah, I’ll trust you. Help yourself. I want to get the steaks on.”

  “One of these days I’ll have to learn how to cook,” she said. “I knew there were drawbacks to growing up rich.”

  “You make a salad. You can tear lettuce, can’t you?”

  “I could probably be coached through it. Do I have time to change first?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. They kissed again. Regina scooted off to the bedroom and switched to some of her hanging-around-Allan’s-place clothes, a faded pair of jeans and a Sorbonne sweatshirt. She got rid of her makeup, then went to the kitchen to tear lettuce.

  They ate at the small table in the kitchen—Allan’s dining room had been turned into a library. The steak was perfect—it crunched, then oozed, then melted as she chewed it. She wondered where Allan had found time to learn to cook. She didn’t ask. The way he took questions about his past, no matter how innocuous, varied wildly. He never flared up at her or anything, but he never told her much, either. Sometimes he answered, sometimes he brooded, as if he didn’t want to remember the answer himself, sometimes he shrugged it off with a joke. Regina had learned not to ask at all, unless it was something she felt she really had to know.