Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

She slowly tipped her seat back until it was almost horizontal, then closed her eyes, as if she were in analysis. “When he went overt, when he was publicly identified as a CIA officer, it wasn’t any easier then either. He worked all the time, a real slave to his career. So what did I do? I became a slave to my career, went into medicine, which in some ways is even worse.”

I noticed she’d begun to cry, which I attributed to her being tired, or the trauma we’d both just been through.

She continued, heaving a soulful sigh. “I guess I always thought that he and I would get to know each other better after he retired, and when I had a family. And now—” Her voice got small, choked, high-pitched. A little girl again. “And now, I’ll never...”

She couldn’t continue, but I stroked her hair to let her know she didn’t need to.

The last time I saw Molly’s father was on a business trip to Washington. He had been Director of Central Intelligence for several months. I was in Washington on legal business. There was no good reason for me to call him from the Jefferson, where I was staying. Probably I wanted, on some level, to share in the excitement of Hal’s new importance, of having my father-in-law in such a prominent office. Selfish? Naturally. I wanted to bask in the reflected glory. No doubt, too, I wanted to return to CIA headquarters in some triumphal manner, even if the triumph was someone else’s.

On the phone Hal said he’d be delighted to get together for a quick lunch or a drink (he’d become a health fanatic, had given up all alcohol; he’d drink some nonalcoholic beer or his favorite pseudo-cocktail, cranberry juice, seltzer, and lime).

He sent a car and a driver for me to take me to McLean, which made me nervous: what if The Washington Post caught wind of Hal’s abuse of office? Harrison Sinclair, that avatar of rectitude, had sent a government limo, at taxpayer expense, to pick up his son-in-law. Who could have gotten a cab. Would I see my picture on the front page of tomorrow’s Post , getting into a big black government limo?

Unlike my last time at CIA, when I skulked out with a cardboard box under one arm, trudging alone through the cavernous lobby to the parking lot, this time was indeed triumphal. I was met in the lobby by Sheila McAdams, Hal’s thirtyish, attractive executive assistant, who brought me up the elevator to Hal’s office.

He radiated good health. He really did seem delighted to see me. Part of it, I think, was that he was excited to show off his new digs. We had lunch in his private dining room: Greek salads and grilled-eggplant sandwiches and tall, icy glasses of cranberry juice, seltzer, and lime.

We talked for a bit, perfunctorily, about the business that had brought me to Washington. We talked about how the Agency had changed since the demise of the Soviet Union, about what he planned to do in his tenure as director. We gossiped about people we knew. A little political talk. Altogether, a pleasant if unremarkable lunch.

But I will never forget something he said as I left. As I walked out, he put his arm around my shoulders and said: “I know we haven’t ever talked about what happened in Paris.”

I looked quizzical.

“What happened to you, I mean—”

“Yes—” I said.

“Someday I want us to talk,” he said. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

I felt instantly nauseated. “Let’s talk now,” I said.

I was relieved when he said, “I can’t.”

“Your schedule must be—”

“Not just that. I can’t. We’ll talk. Not now, but soon.”

We never did.

When Molly and I arrived at Kloten airport, we took a Mercedes taxi into the center of Zurich. We passed the mammoth, newly renovated Hauptbahnhof, swerved around the statue of Alfred Escher, the nineteenth-century politician who’s credited with making Zurich a modern banking center.

I had booked us at the Savoy Baur en Ville, the oldest hotel in the city and a favorite among well-to-do American lawyers and businessmen. It had been nicely renovated, in 1975, and was right on the Paradeplatz, near everything — and, most important, next to the Bahnhofstrasse, where nearly every other building is a bank.

We signed in, and went up to our room, which was pleasant — a lot of brass and pearwood marquetry cabinets — and neither modern nor antique. We talked for a while until we were both too drowsy to continue. Once again she offered to get me a sedative; I refused. I watched Molly begin to drift off; I tried to join her. I desperately needed sleep, but it wouldn’t come. The pain in my hands and arms was surging with a tingling heat, and my mind was spinning with the events, the revelations, of the last several days.

In one of the vaults under the Bahnhofstrasse, just a few yards from our hotel, lay the answer to what had happened to more than ten billion dollars in gold stolen from the former Soviet Union, the answer to the enigma of Sinclair’s death. In a few hours, quite likely, we’d be much closer to solving the mystery. I wished it were morning already.

On the end table next to the base of the lamp was the International Herald-Tribune the hotel had left for us in the room. I picked it up and idly scanned the front page.

One of the articles, a one-column piece on the right-hand side of the page, was headed by a photograph of a face that was by now quite familiar. Although I was not surprised to see the notice there, its contents were ominous.

ROME — Vladimir A. Orlov, the last head of the Soviet intelligence agency the KGB, was discovered dead by local police at his residence 25 kilometers from Siena. He was 72.

Diplomatic sources here revealed that Mr. Orlov had been in hiding in the Tuscany region of Italy for several months since his defection from Russia.

Italian authorities confirm that Mr. Orlov was killed in an armed attack. His assailants have not been identified, but are believed to be either political enemies or members of the Sicilian Mafia. According to unconfirmed reports, Mr. Orlov may have been engaged in illicit financial operations before his death.

The Russian government refused to comment on Mr. Orlov’s death, but in a statement released this morning from Washington, the newly appointed head of the CIA, Alexander Truslow, said: “Vladimir Orlov presided over the dismantling of the greatest agency of Soviet oppression, for which we must all be grateful. We mourn his passing.”

I sat up in bed, my heart pounding along with my throbbing head, hands, and arms. The adjacent article concerned the new leader of Germany. “Vogel,” the headline read, “Embraces American Ties.”

It began: “Chancellor-elect Wilhelm Vogel of Germany, whose recent landslide election occurred just days after the German stock market crash plunged the nation into widespread panic, has invited the newly confirmed head of the CIA, Alexander Truslow, to Germany for consultations on how best to ensure stable U.S. — German relations. The new intelligence chief accepted the invitation immediately as his first official state visit, and is believed to be flying to Bonn for a meeting with the chancellor-elect as well as Mr. Truslow’s German counterpart, the director of the Bundesnachrichtendienst , or the German Federal Intelligence Service, Hans Koenig...”

And I knew that Truslow was in danger.

It was the juxtaposition.

Vladimir Orlov had warned about hard-line Russians seizing his country. What was it that my British correspondent friend Miles Preston had said about a weak Russia being necessary for a strong Germany? Orlov, who with Harrison Sinclair had tried to save Russia, was dead. A new German leader had been vaulted into power in the wake of a weakened, straitened Russia.