Metzger's Dog

23 It was a small red brick façade in the middle of a block of stores that sold antiques and gentlemen’s furnishings. Its lattice windows differed from the others because the brass and wood and leather inside were partly obscured by fresh flowers. The door was a narrow maple slab with a single small window cut into it at shoulder height, and a brass plate that said, “The New Haven: Members and Their Guests.”

As Porterfield opened the door and entered, the hostess looked down into the open menu she cradled in her arms as a singer holds music. Her broad, plain face seemed to contract as she looked at him, and then she opened her mouth too wide to say, “This way, please” so quietly. He followed her down a corridor paneled with dark, gleaming wood, the Oriental runner on the floor slipping slightly with each step.

The room was small and contained one round table broad enough for a dozen people, but only two straight-backed chairs, and a bottle of white wine in a silver ice bucket.

“Hello, Ben,” the Director called, bobbing forward from the fireplace across the room. Porterfield counted the steps—six—and the Director took another to catch up with his outstretched hand. “Glad you were able to make it.”

“Nice to see you,” said Porterfield. He submitted to the handshake, the Director’s left hand grasping his forearm at the same time.

“Have you been here before?”

“I don’t belong.”

The Director hesitated, then said, “It’s about as secluded as things get unless you leave town. I get pretty bogged down in the office. I don’t think I’ve eaten anything but commissary food in three weeks, so this is my lunch out.”

“It’s good of you to share it with me.”

“I invited you for a chance to pick your brain in private, I’m afraid. It’s time to turn to the old guard.”

Porterfield nodded.

“I’ll be completely open with you, Ben. I made some decisions that didn’t work out. In my own defense I’ll have to add that I didn’t take the Donahue matter away from you and give it to someone else, I took it on myself. It seemed to me that it was too big and too crucial to delegate. There are big issues at stake here.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“At the moment I want advice. You know where we stand. How do you suggest we get to safe ground?” He poured two glasses of the white wine and handed one to Porterfield.

Porterfield answered without a pause. “You have the same two problems you had a week ago—how to get rid of these people, and how to cut the Company’s losses if you don’t. At this stage I’d say the proportions have changed, and you ought to concentrate on cutting our losses.”

“In what way, exactly?”

“First I’d get our people out of countries mentioned in the papers. I told both Deputy Directors to do it, and it doesn’t seem to have made much impression. Maybe it will now. The second thing I’d do is get an appointment for a special briefing session with the President. Tell him everything so he can do something to save the friendly governments.”

The Director seemed to hold a sip of wine in his mouth for a long time, as though he couldn’t swallow it. At last he said, “That’s a little extreme.”

Porterfield shrugged. “All right.”

The Director leaned forward. “Well, isn’t it? I mean, think about it, Ben. This thing goes back twenty years or more, and what’s involved is devastating. And then the steps we’ve taken to contain this thing—no, if we can’t handle this ourselves, we’re lost. My God, Ben, I could end up in jail.”

“You asked me for my advice. That’s my advice. While you’re at it I’d also advise you to try again to see if you can pay these people off.”

The Director smiled. “That sounds a little more hopeful. What’s the strategy?”

“No strategy at all. No tricks, no traps. You give them a pile of money and hope for the best. Ten million dollars ought to be enough.”

The Director’s eyes seemed to water, and Porterfield watched him fluctuate between despair and anger. For the first time he appeared tired. He shook his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t. These people are criminals. Blackmailers.”

Porterfield sipped his wine. “I hope that’s all they are, because if they’re not, you’ve already used up just about all your options.”

“What you offer aren’t options. They’re consequences, just different kinds of defeat. What you’re saying is that there’s nothing I can do that will permit me to retain viable control of this adminis—agency.”

“If people in the Company start deciding that you’re a disaster, you won’t hear it from me. The President might ask you to sign a letter of resignation, but he won’t do more than that. It might be the best way out, because if you leave even a few agents in this mess, one of them is sure to come to see you.”

“That’s ridiculous. No Director has ever been placed in that position. Why you’d even suggest such a thing is beyond comprehension.”

Porterfield said, “I said it because if I were in Mexico City and knew you’d blown this, you’d already be history.”

APPENDIX XXIII: The Seismological Disaster Preparedness Task Force.

Background: During the 1960s and 1970s the government of Mexico became increasingly interested in the possibility of using modern technology and organizational methods to respond to natural disasters. After the earthquake of December 23, 1972, in Managua, Nicaragua, the Chamber of Deputies authorized the expenditure of funds for a two-year study. On August 28, 1973, a major temblor occurred in central Mexico, killing 527 and leaving two hundred thousand homeless. The confessed inability of the government to respond quickly and effectively to the problem elicited additional support within the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) for the idea, and the project’s budget was doubled before it had begun. A geological institute was established at the University of Mexico and began collecting seismological data.

On February 4, 1976, the Guatemala earthquake killed an estimated 23,000 people and left approximately one million homeless. The proximity of this major earthquake combined with its extreme devastation prompted the introduction of several bills in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, all designed to contribute to the disaster-preparedness program, which was beginning to take on the character of a movement within the PRI.

On July 28, 1976, two major earthquakes destroyed the industrial city of Tangshan, China, causing an estimated eight hundred thousand deaths. Within three weeks the Mexican government transformed the former geological institute into a seismological disaster-preparedness project. As a matter of standing policy copies of these proposals were forwarded to the Central Intelligence Agency, which assigned several operatives to the project as observers and established client relationships with several others, including four geology professors, a civil defense official on temporary leave from the state of California, and an urban planning professor.

By 1977 the normal routing of projects concerning Mexico included the members of the ULTRA research team, who recognized immediately the potential value of active participation in the Mexican disaster-preparedness project. The possibility of understanding seismic disruptions well enough to predict them brought to mind the possibility of inducing them. Of more immediate concern, however, was that the Mexican government was now committed to exert its full powers to perform a realistic estimate of the nation’s susceptibility to a sudden and catastrophic event. Because of its size and importance, Mexico City was to be the inevitable subject of the most intensive studies.

Chinese Gordon rested his bare feet on the big dog’s warm side beneath the table and closed his eyes. “Am I supposed to read all of this?”

“Of course.” Margaret was in the bedroom.

“Did you read all of it?”

“Yes.”

“But I still have to?”

“Yes.”

Chinese Gordon lifted Doctor Henry Metzger from the box of papers, pulled another stack out, and set the cat back down. “It’s like a zoo in here.”

“Then take a bath.”

Chinese Gordon read on. Doctor Henry Metzger stared at him for a long time, the wide green eyes narrowing in infinitesimal gradients until at some point they closed. The dog, slumbering deeply, dreamed he lived on a great sunlit empty plain and that far in the distance his clear, sensitive eyes saw a shape he recognized as enemy. The shape was large and very dangerous, but that was part of the pleasure, and the big dog’s jaws began to grind in anticipation as he dreamed that he was taking great powerful leaps toward it, building up incredible speed. As the dog dreamed, Chinese Gordon heard it first give a little growl of joy, almost like a man’s laugh. Then Chinese Gordon felt the dog’s paws begin to quiver as the motor neurons received the tiny false messages to run. Chinese Gordon lifted up the corner of the tablecloth and watched the great black dog, flattened on its side like a frieze of an ancient nightmare creature. The dog’s thick neck muscles were clenched now, the head held forward in stiff eagerness. Chinese Gordon leaned down and whispered, “Go get it.” The dog’s legs began to move, his big paws churning at the invisible ground, the frantic dash bringing him closer and closer to his prey. Chinese Gordon watched the dog until the dream subsided and the dog seemed to sigh with pleasure. “Good boy,” he whispered. “You got it.”

Margaret stepped back from the door and waited until she heard Chinese Gordon take up the sheaf of papers again, then quietly climbed back onto the bed. She lit a cigarette and stared into the darkness. She exhaled and watched the smoke curl and fold and float upward into a shaft of light that came from the doorway. While she watched it, she smiled.

Mexico City consists of a densely populated central core surrounded by newer and less compact suburbs, to form a metropolitan area of approximately fourteen million inhabitants. The complex is precariously held together by a network of major traffic arteries, the most important being route 190, which runs southeast to Guatemala City; 85, which runs north to Laredo, Texas; 45, to El Paso, Texas; 15, which crosses the U.S. border south of Tucson; and 95, south to the coast at Acapulco. Each of these national roads passes through Mexico City and carries a portion of its daily commuter traffic. Of immediate concern to the experts of the Center for Disaster Preparedness was that any severe damage to the Distrito Federal would not only totally immobilize the capital itself but also disrupt mobile communication for the entire country. The situation is similar to that in the major metropolitan areas of the western United States such as Los Angeles, which contains the only major north-south routes as well as the western termini of the east-west routes carrying two-thirds of the interstate traffic.

Chinese Gordon picked up Doctor Henry Metzger and petted his head. Then he gave a short laugh. In the bedroom Margaret whispered to herself in the darkness, “Go get ’em.”