Warren Murphy: Last Call

It never occurred to Admiral Wingate Stantington that there might have been a time in Washington when things were done differently and better. When people charged with the safety and security of the nation did what they knew had to be done and didn't spend all their time looking over their shoulders, watching for someone who was getting ready to hand them up.

As he drove into Washington the words of the former CIA director rang in his ears: "One day they'll change the rules in the middle of the game and your ass'll be grass, just like mine. I'll save you a spot in the prison chow line."

That's what he had said. It had sounded like a threat and already it seemed to be turning into a prophecy. Only on the job a few days, and Stantington was already facing decisions that he knew could make or break him. He felt something a little more like sympathy for his predecessor.

The President was waiting for him in the Oval Office and Stantington felt a tinge of relief when

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he saw the familiar slope-shouldered figure wearing an open-collared shirt and a light blue cardigan sweater. The role reversal was strange. He had been ahead of the President when they both went to the Naval Academy and later he had been the younger man's commanding officer on assignment to sea duty. The younger man had always looked up to Stantington as a leader and as a commander.

But now, here he was, the President, the Commander-in-Chief, and Stantington felt relief at being able to dump his problem in the Presidential lap. It was the almost-mystical power the office had. Stantington had no children but he thought this must be the way children feel when they turn a problem over to their parents. That sense of there, now it'll be taken care of.

"How you doin', Cap?" the President asked in his soft voice. "Sit down."

"All right," Stantington said. He lounged easily in the chair in front of the big mahogany desk.

"So who's killing all these Russians?" the President asked.

"You heard about it?"

"State told me. That's why I figured you were on your way here." The President paused for a moment and Stantington nodded.

"Well, Mister President, I don't quite know how to tell you this," said Stantington.

"Try me." The President lounged back in his chair, holding a yellow wooden pencil between the fingertips of both hands.

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"You asked who's killing all these Russians. I think maybe we are."

The President came half up out of his chair. The pencil dropped from his fingertips, unnoticed, to the floor.

"We what?"

Stantington raised his hands as if warding off an invisible enemy. Then he quickly sketched out for the President what had happened to the two ambassadors and Vassily Karbenko's visit to his office that morning.

"Why in the name of anything that's holy did you end Project Omega?" the President asked.

"Just following orders, Mister President," said Stantington.

"I don't remember giving any orders like that."

"But you did say you wanted to cut out the waste in the CIA. You said that at your press conference when I was confirmed, remember? And what's more wasteful than a project like this one where nobody knows anything about it or what it's supposed to do ?"

"The only thing more wasteful might be World War III," the President said. "And if Russian ambassadors keep getting killed off by our people, that's just what we're going to have."

A heavy silence descended on the room.

"What about the woman in Atlanta?" the President asked.

"That's the first thing I did, sir. My men found her in her house. She died. It looked like a heart attack. There was nothing in the house that could tell us anything."

"You sent your men in to search the house ?"

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Stantington realized that he had already broken a law by doing just that. When he went on trial, he knew, he could talk about fears of World War III, but a jury five years from now wouldn't want to know about that. All they'd want to know was that he had illegally sent CIA agents breaking into the house of an American citizen without a warrant and without proper authorization. "Yes, sir," he said. "I did that." "I didn't authorize that," the President said. An alarm bell went off in Stantington's head. He knew what the President was doing. He was dissociating himself from the CIA director's actions.

The hell with that, Stantington thought. He didn't get to be an admiral because he hadn't known how to play the game.

"Are you telling me, sir, that I did wrong?" "Yes," the President said. "What you did was technically wrong."

"I think, then, that I ought to make amends," said Stantington, thinking fast. "I think I will announce to the press what I did and apologize to the American people. If I do it now, I might minimize the damage." He looked at the President to see if the threat had registered. Such a statement by Stantington might well topple an administration whose popularity, according to the polls, was the lowest in thirty-five years of post-war administrations.

The President sighed.

"What do you want from me, Cap ?" he said. "I want you to have authorized that entry into that old woman's house in Atlanta."

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"Okay. I authorized it. Satisfied?" "For now," said Stantington. "But it'd be nice to get it in writing. No hurry, of course. Anytime today would be fine."

"You don't trust me," the President said. "It's not that. We've been friends a long time. It's just that I met the old CIA director yesterday. In jail."

"Where he belongs," the President said. "For doing just what I did today," said Stantington. "I don't want to join him. In writing today will do nicely."

"All right," said the President. "You'll have it. Now what else about Project Omega? You can't mean that you haven't one word about it in all your files ?"

Stantington decided not to tell the President about the havoc that the new director had wreaked on the CIA's secret files with his freedom-of-information policy. No sense in bothering the commander-in-chief with too many details.

"Only one reference," he said. "And that is?"

"The program was started back about twenty years ago by a CIA employee, now retired." "Who's the employee?" the President asked. "His name is Smith. Harold Smith. He's some kind of a doctor and he runs a sanitarium named Folcroft. In Rye, New York."

The President's face tensed, then opened into a slow wide smile.

"Doctor Smith, you say?" "That's right."

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"Did you talk to him ?" the President asked. "I tried to but I got his secretary and she told me he was out. A nasty thing, she was. She said she used to work for the CIA." The President nodded.

"She sounded like she was black," Stantington said.

The President just smiled. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "Snotty little snippet. She told me that Smith wouldn't come to see me, but I should come to see him. I told her that that was impossible, but she said that I would come to see this Smith, whoever he is."

"Like a threat?" the President said. "More like a promise," Stantington said. "She was a cool thing. Do you mind, Sir, if I ask why you're smiling?"

"You wouldn't understand," the President said. "Is there something special you want me to do?"

"Not really," the President said. "Just keep trying to find out whatever you can. I'll speak to the Soviet ambassador and assure him of our total confusion about this whole matter. And you exhibit all possible speed, Cap."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Stantington, rising to his feet. "Anything else?"

"No. Oh. Did you wear a topcoat to work today?"

"I carried one. I thought it might rain. Why?" "You might need it. It gets cold in Rye, New York."

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"Are you telling me to go there, Mister President?"

"No," the President said. "It's out of my hands."