The Director

11

Graham Weber had visited the White House over the years as a business leader. He had even been to a state dinner once for the president of China, when the entire house had been decorated in a phantasm of American hospitality, but he had never felt comfortable in the place. This time, he felt he had no choice. He was an employee. He had Marie call the office of Timothy O’Keefe to make an appointment as Cyril Hoffman had advised. The national security adviser suggested that he stop by the next afternoon, around six p.m., when the other business of the day was done. O’Keefe seemed to be expecting Weber’s call, but that wasn’t a surprise. Hoffman would have given him a preview.

O’Keefe was waiting in the national security adviser’s office at the north end of the West Wing. The walls smelled of fresh paint, a creamy off-white; O’Keefe had the painters in every few months, just after the security team. He had the proper décor for a senior national security official: a chunk of the Berlin Wall; a page from Osama bin Laden’s personal diary; a Frederic Remington sculpture of a cowboy atop a bucking horse; and finally, several nautical paintings of American warships under sail.

O’Keefe welcomed Weber, but just as they were about to sit down the phone rang. It was the president, and O’Keefe scurried off to the Oval Office while Weber waited in the narrow hall next to the stairs that led down to the Situation Room. The national security adviser returned perhaps three minutes later, looking flushed as he bustled back into his chamber. He was a fussy man, and he was obviously in a bad mood.

“What was that about?” asked Weber, taking a seat across from O’Keefe at a small wooden conference table.

“The markets,” muttered O’Keefe, rolling his eyes. “The president keeps getting calls from overseas. He is… worried. There’s a witching hour this week, all the central bank notes roll over; much whining from our British friends, as usual.” He didn’t elaborate, and Weber didn’t ask.

O’Keefe was waiting impatiently for the visitor to state his business, so Weber plunged ahead.

“I’m sorry to bother you.” Weber could see that his host was stressed.

“That’s my job, to be bothered, so that the president isn’t. What is it?”

“Cyril Hoffman told me to come see you. He probably explained what it’s about. I have a young man working for me named James Morris. I gather he used to work at the White House, and that people here think highly of him. Hoffman said I shouldn’t do anything without talking to you, so here I am.”

O’Keefe looked away, toward the window and the front lawn of the White House. This was his palace and his prison. He turned back to Weber.

“Clever boy, Morris. He’s a bit dark sometimes, moody. Handle with care.”

“He just offered me his resignation. He made a mistake on a very important case. I’m wondering whether it’s best for the agency if I let him go.”

O’Keefe’s face was like a white balloon, with a thin moustache above the lip that looked like it might have been drawn with a pencil. He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped the lenses with the end of his tie while he pondered the move that would be most useful to him and the president. Weber was bringing him a problem that he didn’t need, at the end of a busy day.

“Well, my friend, it didn’t take you long to get in trouble, did it?” His voice sounded grouchy, like someone who hadn’t had enough sleep.

“I’m sorry, Tim. I promised you a new beginning out there, but it’s a moving target.”

“And now you want my permission to fire someone important, two weeks into the job.”

“I want to do the right thing. The agency feels like a company in Chapter Eleven. Someone has to say no.”

“You prize your independence, from everything I hear. You don’t take orders from anyone. That’s your style, right?”

“I guess so,” answered Weber. He was trying to remain genial.

“But the reality, my friend, is that you are not independent. You work for the president; which, as a practical matter, means that you work for me.”

Weber raised his hand.

“Sorry, Tim, I didn’t come here to pick a fight. I wanted your counsel. I know I work for the president. I follow his orders, so long as they’re legal and proper. If I decide I can’t follow an order, I quit and you find someone else. Simple.”

“I must say, you have an annoying habit of threatening to resign, for someone who just got his job. Hoffman tells me you did it a week ago. Please don’t do it again.”

Weber held silent. This was not a playground argument. He was in the White House. He served at the president’s pleasure. He waited for O’Keefe to continue.

“What you need to understand,” said the national security adviser, “is that there is a political side to everything. If Morris resigned from the CIA, it would become public, inevitably. And then people would ask why he resigned. And then some people might realize that an agent he had traveled to meet had ended up dead, and the president hadn’t done anything about it. And then all of this would be my problem.”

“I wouldn’t announce it,” responded Weber. “I think Morris is under cover, so the newspapers couldn’t report his name, legally. He runs the Information Operations Center, which is a part of the agency that we don’t talk about. So maybe it would stay secret. But what difference does that make? If we need to replace him, we should do it.”

O’Keefe raised a finger.

“Please! Of course it would become public. What century do you think this is? The Senate and House Intelligence Committees would hear about it before the day was out, and they’d call you and me both, asking why they weren’t consulted. And then they’d want to know what Morris was doing in — where was he?”

O’Keefe was getting flushed again. He couldn’t help himself.

“Hamburg,” answered Weber.

“Yes, the committees would ask what he was doing in Hamburg. Who got killed there, and was he really trying to defect, for god’s sake? And for that matter, what was Morris doing in general? What were these Information Operations of his that the White House had not thought necessary to disclose? Sorry, Senator, sorry, Congresswoman. I guess we should have briefed you about those, now that it’s all blown up. Oops.”

O’Keefe continued, wagging his finger now, trying to stay cool but not succeeding.

“And then there would be a staff investigation, and then a closed hearing, and then a newspaper leak, and then a public statement, and then, well, fuck, just shoot the pooch. And it wouldn’t be your problem, Weber, oh, no, you just took the job. Your friends in the press would spin you as the hero, no doubt. No, it would be my problem.”

Weber tried to interject. He wasn’t forcing Morris out. He was just seeking advice. But O’Keefe was intent on delivering his message.

“And then it would be the president’s problem. Some jackass would shout out a question during a photo opportunity with the visiting president of, I don’t know, Ecuador, and the president would have to deal with it. It would be another sign of the White House’s inability to address disarray and illegality at the CIA, while you, no doubt, would maneuver your way out of it, leaking to your friends that this was about accountability and good management, while we took the shit. Is that a good idea? you ask me. No, thank you.”

O’Keefe’s face, the torrent released, returned to that placid tapioca.

“I’m not trying to maneuver out of anything,” said Weber in a low voice. “That’s not my style.”

“What a relief,” answered O’Keefe.

There was silence as the two men glowered at each other.

“Shit does not flow uphill, Graham.”

“It does at the CIA,” said Weber.

“That’s your problem. And one more thing: We’re not entirely defenseless here. If we got wind that you were spinning a version of a Morris firing that made you look good, at our expense, we would have to respond.”

“And how would you respond?” Weber enunciated each word.

“We would tell the truth. We would remind people that this happened during your short watch as director, and that you were asking a subordinate to take the fall.”

“Stop threatening me, Tim. I don’t want to fire Morris. I want advice.”

“Okay, here’s my advice. This isn’t about Morris. He may be as weird and geeky as they come, but he’s not the issue. Think about appearances. Don’t make trouble for the president. Manage the CIA, but don’t drop a bomb on it.”

Weber nodded. He got it. He didn’t want to be the shortest-serving CIA director in history.

“Okay, Morris stays. The fact is, I need him. If what he’s told me is true, our problems are just beginning.”

“No. Your problems may be. Not my problems. Not the president’s. Are we clear on that?” Even his thin moustache seemed to bristle.

“We’re clear,” said Weber. “I’ll do the right thing.”

“I’m sure you will. And if you should by mistake do the wrong thing, well, you have been warned.”

Weber’s personal life intruded in a way that that was oddly comforting late that afternoon when he returned from the White House. He received a call from the headmaster of the prep school that his sons were attending in New Hampshire. That had been his ex-wife’s idea; she thought it would be better if they had “their own place” after she remarried, even if it was an austere institution that celebrated athletics and admission to Ivy League schools above lesser matters. Weber went along; he’d had the boys most of each summer since the divorce, though he suspected that it would be different this year, and every year he remained at the CIA.

The headmaster apologized for disrupting the “director,” as he called him throughout the conversation. It didn’t seem appropriate to leave a message with Marie, he said. He explained that Weber’s older son, David, was “acting out.” When queried, the headmaster advised that the boy had been reported smoking weed at an off-campus party, and had been drunk to boot. It was his son’s senior year; final college recommendation letters were being prepared. This was serious, in other words.

Weber said he would be in New Hampshire that evening; travel was a bit uncertain, he said; he didn’t know whether his security men would let him take the last commercial shuttle to Boston, but one way or another he would get there that night.

David was waiting. He was taller than his dad, nearly six feet two inches, and fit from football. When he saw his father walking toward him, the boy burst into tears.

They spent the night at a motel in Concord. The boy was eating himself alive with the stress and loneliness of adolescence. The headmaster seemed to have done his best to convince him that there would be national security consequences for his having smoked pot. Weber laughed and told his son stories about his own mistakes when he was growing up. Weber said he couldn’t care less where his son went to college, which made the boy cry again.

“It’s hard being a kid, isn’t it?” Weber said as they parted the next morning. His son nodded. “Try not to make mistakes, but I’ll love you anyway.” The boy extended his hand to say goodbye, but Weber hugged him and didn’t let go.