Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

“Sometimes five thousand dollars.”

“Mary’s a professional woman,” I replied in her defense. “Impressions are important in her line of work.”

“Of course they are,” she responded. Then she said, “The point is, nothing jumped out at me, and I doubt anything jumped out at them.”

I added, “And you have to figure, Mary’s father is sitting on a big pot of gold, and she’s an only child. Instead of all the hassle involved in treason, Bill could’ve just bumped off the old bastard and ended up filthy rich overnight.”

“We should all be so lucky,” Katrina agreed.

“So, let’s not waste more time on money,” I ordered, and they both nodded. This might not sound like any great leap forward, but when you’re facing infinite possibilities, anything that ushers you into the realm of the finite is a huge relief. If Eddie tried to claim Morrison sold his loyalty, I felt fairly confident we’d stick that where the sun never shines.

I looked at Imelda. “Get the evidence and inventory under control, then start wading through it.”

Katrina said, “Some of the tapped phone conversations are in Russian. Dog-ear those and give them to me.”

Imelda blew some bubbles, flapped her elbows, and stomped out to get started. Katrina shot me an anxious look. She said, “That’s a lot of boxes to go through. And there’s more coming.”

“It’ll be a cakewalk for Imelda,” I assured her with the kind of bold self-confidence that comes only when it’s someone else doing the work.

I then shooed her out of my office and called a think tank up in New York City. I made an appointment to be there at three o’clock, and then called and booked two seats on the shuttle.

The Society for International Affairs, or SIA is one of those stodgy old institutions everybody always wants to join as it means you have become part of the Establishment. It was founded back in 1917, according to the shiny brass plaque tacked on the wall beside its entrance, and is a collection of out-of-job diplomats, former power-wielders, and lots of folks with big money who like to make one another’s acquaintance.

The ex-government people like the rich people because they pay the foundation’s bills, allowing the ex-government folks a cushy, prestigious, well-paid nest while they wait for some political patrons to fight their way back into power and give them new important-sounding jobs. The well-heeled bill-payers like the arrangement because it gives them tax writeoffs, and the ex-government types introduce them to people in power overseas, who then help the rich people get richer.

At least this is my understanding of how this kind of nonprofit organization works, which does beg the question of why it’s called a nonprofit, because frankly it strikes me that all kinds of people profit wildly from it.

Anyway, it’s housed in a granite-faced mini-mansion on Park and 54th, and the receptionist inside the door asked if we were expected, and, if so, by whom, to which I politely replied that the “whom” was Mr. Milton Martin, former roommate of a guy who no longer wielded power.

He asked us to wait, which we did, till a fairly attractive, mildly buxom young woman in a conservative blue flannel business suit came down to retrieve us. Her name was Nancy, she pertly informed us with a manufactured smile, and wouldn’t we care to follow her up the marbled staircase?

We took a left on the second floor and ended up in a large suite at the end of the hallway, Katrina asking Nancy things like what does SIA do, and how long had she worked for Martin, and our escort was saying, “You’re so lucky to have caught him in today. He’s in such demand. He’s always traveling. He’s so intelligent and accomplished, and he has such great contacts over there.”

The “over there” obviously being the former Soviet states, because after all, Milt Martin spent eight years managing every tiny particle and pinnacle of our relations with that vast foreign group of lands. And Nancy was wasting her sales spiel on us-we couldn’t afford to rent two minutes of this guy’s time.

I mumbled, “Yeah, we’re just damned lucky.”

She nodded that indeed we were. “If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll see if he’s free.”

Which I assumed to be an oxymoron, because what Milt Martin was doing since he was no longer a government employee was renting his thick Rolodex to the highest bidder and reeling in the lucre as fast as he could. The word “free” had slipped out of his vocabulary, dictionary, thesaurus, whatever.

I spent my minute studying the assortment of photographs placed strategically on the walls, showing Martin in a variety of poses with a variety of faces I mostly didn’t recognize, aside from a shot of him and Yeltsin playing tennis. The rest I presumed to be the potentates of the other countries created out of the Big Bang. There were also plenty of brass plates and other trinkets that foreign leaders like to present to one another to show folks back home how internationally esteemed they are.

Why had I flown up here to meet with this guy? Well, he had worked beside Morrison for four of the years he’d supposedly committed treason and might be able to shed some light on that. But principally because the first thing every aspiring defense attorney learns is to test the credibility of his client. The problem with our profession is that their lies become your lies. That can be okay if you know they’re lying. It can be less than okay if you don’t but the prosecutor does.

Adding to that, Morrison’s veracity was all the more crucial to us because Eddie was hogging the important evidence, so all we had to go on were Morrison’s insights.

My clever ulterior motive-the only real lead Morrison had given us thus far, aside from Alexi Arbatov, was Milt Martin. Martin was about to become a barometer to Morrison’s integrity, and along the way we’d twist his arm to become a character witness, since he’d obviously liked Morrison enough to make him special assistant and get him a job in the White House. It never hurts to have a world-famous figure say what a great guy you are.

Nancy came back out and primly ushered us into Martin’s office. Over the years, I had seen plenty of pictures of Martin in the newspapers and watched him doing his thing on the talk show circuit, but that still didn’t prepare me for him in the flesh.

He had the biggest nose I’d ever seen. The rest of his features were fairly tiny and ordinary, making his schnozz seem even more extravagantly gigantic. He wore large-rimmed glasses in an obvious effort to deflect attention from his nose, but it was futile. It looked like the Eiffel Tower bent over sideways. If the man sneezed, we’d all be dead.

He popped up from his chair with a big frothy smile and stuck his hand out. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. You’re obviously Major Drummond, and you’re obviously Miss Mazorski. Please, call me Milt.”

Knowing our names and acting effused to meet a pair of complete strangers is one of the oldest diplomat’s tricks in the books. It is meant to impress and I was, as intended, impressed. This guy was best buddies with presidents and an array of foreign muckety-mucks, and to be treated as the high point of his day was seductive.

I said, “Mist-uh, Milt, thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice. General Morrison told me you two were very close.”

He gave me a surprised glance. “Close? I wouldn’t say we were close. No… definitely not close.”

I took a step back. “Well, isn’t that odd? He gave me the impression you were nearly Siamese twins.”

He appeared perplexed, then suddenly relieved, almost amused. He said, “Why don’t we sit? Nancy, perhaps our guests would like something? Coffee? Tea?”