The Director

12

James Morris kept an apartment in Dupont Circle, in a building that had resisted the gentrification that had turned much of the neighborhood into a hipper extension of Georgetown. He had the top floor of a row house, with a little roof garden from which he could see parts of the Washington skyline between the chimneys and façades of neighboring buildings. He liked to visit his roof when he was feeling wired, as a way of calming himself. One of the complications of working for the CIA was that you had to be careful about taking drugs or seeing a psychiatrist if you were feeling out of sorts. But Morris had always managed to keep himself together enough to avoid attracting notice. That was part of how he lived. Every intelligence officer had a secret life; Morris’s was just a little more secret than most.

Morris had learned to master the polygraph along the way, as well as his emotions. These “lie detector” sessions were meant to frighten people, but they were easy enough to finesse. Morris had smoothly handled his last polygraph six months before: Ramona Kyle had been his best friend since college. He had mentioned her in his first interview with the agency, and several times since. His visits with her didn’t register stress. There were other questions that would be harder now, but his next polygraph probably wouldn’t come until the following year, and by then he expected that he would be gone from the agency.

When Morris returned from Germany, he remained closeted in his apartment for a day. He felt secure inside. The windows were barred and the door was triple-locked. He had motion detectors and thermal monitors to make sure that he wasn’t disturbed. And he had his computers. He could use these to roam and maneuver, without having to worry that his keystrokes would be monitored and analyzed by a hidden “threat analysis” system of the sort that ran on agency machines. Pownzor wanted his own life. He didn’t want to be powned, especially by his workplace.

Morris was having trouble sleeping those first nights back, so he would bring a blanket up to the roof along with a mug of Chinese herbal tea, and let his mind race until it began to exhaust itself. He would stare at the stars, or sometimes imagine them through the clouds, until his eyelids became heavy. What kept Morris awake so late was the burden of his mission. Governments wanted to control the free space of the Internet; hackers wanted to keep it free. It was Morris’s destiny to be the man — no, the circuit — in the middle. He knew why people hated the agency as an instrument of repression: They were his people. That was why he could be on both sides, and neither.

The plans and patterns would flash through his mind like bright lights, laser beams of thought, and he would follow the tracers until his eyes were heavy and the light gun in his head stopped firing. In the early morning, two or three, or sometimes not until dawn, he would pick himself up off the mat atop his roof, shivering in his wrap of blankets, and take himself downstairs to his bed.

The second day Morris was back in Washington, he contacted Arthur Peabody, the man Ramona Kyle had recommended. The contact numbers had arrived by mail, in an unmarked envelope. Ten minutes’ research revealed that Peabody had retired a decade before as the agency’s chief historian. Morris called and introduced himself as an agency employee who wanted to know more about CIA history, and Peabody immediately said, “Oh, yes,” as if he had been expecting the call. He invited Morris to come visit that afternoon around cocktail time.

Peabody was a widower who lived alone in a genteel suburb known as Spring Valley, in the far northwest corner of the city. This was a neighborhood that had been built for the gentry back in the 1940s and ’50s when Washington was still a segregated town. The homes were mostly brick, with big lawns, front and back, and servants’ rooms inside to keep a cook or housemaid. From the street, it might have been Richmond or Atlanta, big old houses, screened porches, pools and fountains out back. The houses didn’t glisten like the modern ones out in Potomac or McLean. The brick pathways up to the front door were often cracked with age, and the cracks were filled with old green moss. It was the sort of place where wellborn CIA officers had moved when they were young men, and a few of them, such as Arthur Peabody, were still hanging on.

Morris climbed the red walkway and rang the doorbell. It was old, like everything about the house. The bell stuck in the “on” position, bringing an annoying, repetitive ding-dong that only ended when Arthur Peabody opened the door. He stuck his long, thin arm around the corner and fiddled with the button until it stopped.

“This damned thing,” grumbled Peabody. “No wonder nobody comes to visit.”

Peabody was a relic of the WASP ascendency, a gaunt body, slightly stooped; a long aquiline nose; a high austere forehead, and a face specked with age spots and small scars from surgeries to remove cancerous spots from too much sun on the boat in Maine.

Morris followed the old man through the doorway. The entry hall was dark and musty. To the right was a forbidding study, lined with dark wood shelves that couldn’t contain all the volumes. They were stacked two deep on the lower shelves, some books horizontal or upside down. A few of the shelves had just given way, so that books were heaped on top of each other. To the left was an old parlor, whose wallpaper was meant to be gay but was yellowing and peeling with age. Peabody led the way back through a dark dining room to an area that seemed the only place in the house that got any light. This was a breakfast room, facing the back lawn, where an old-fashioned sprinkler was cascading a jet of water.

“Sit down, James,” said Peabody. “Can I get you a beverage?”

“Tea, please,” said the guest. He looked restrained and studious this afternoon, like a young man visiting his grandfather. The only signs of stress were the deep circles under the eyes, and the inflamed look of the eyes themselves, on red alert.

Peabody padded off to get the tea. He was wearing a worn tweed jacket purchased long ago at J. Press in New Haven, tan chino slacks, baggy at the knees, and lace-up oxfords, one of which was untied. Tortoiseshell reading glasses were low on his nose,

Morris examined the morning newspaper still on the breakfast table, and a copy of the American Historical Review on a sideboard. The journal was open to an article: “Sudden Nationhood: Microdynamics of Intercommunal Relations in Bosnia-Herzegovina after World War II.” Morris perused it for a few moments and then tossed it aside.

Peabody returned a minute later bearing a silver platter with a teapot and two cups, along with a plate of Walkers English shortbread cookies. The young man helped himself to a cup of tea and one of the sweet biscuits.

“I’m just back from Germany,” said Morris. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance, somewhere between the window and the trees beyond. “I’ll be heading back overseas soon.”

“That’s nice,” said Peabody. “I’m sure I shouldn’t ask what you were doing.”

“Let’s say I’m opening the curtain on a new play.”

Peabody lifted his brows, as if to say: Aha! Morris’s comment had reminded him of something apposite.

“Open the curtain! I must warn you, Mr. Morris, that this conveys a metaphorical illusion of control.”

Morris propped his glasses on the bridge of his nose and leaned toward the old man.

“How so, Mr. Peabody? I’m not tracking.”

“The play ‘unfolds inevitably once the curtain is raised.’ I quote Count Metternich in a passage cited by, forgive me, my former doctoral supervisor, Dr. Henry A., you know the rest. Metternich’s point was that the play is already scripted. Therefore, and I quote, ‘The essence of the problem… lies in whether the curtain is to be raised at all.’ That’s the thing: You didn’t have to raise the curtain, James, but you did, and now everything unfolds as scripted.”

“Scripted by whom?”

“I don’t know,” answered Peabody. “I’m an Episcopalian.”

This was nonsense talk, but Morris wanted an answer. His eyes, ringed as they were with fatigue, were alive.

“Seriously, I wonder sometimes who writes the script, not in general, but at the agency. I’m told you know the real story. The ‘secret history,’ that’s what a friend said. And I’d like to know the truth. That’s why I’m here.”

Peabody’s eyes widened. A thin smile crossed his lips. It was as if he had been waiting for someone like Morris to walk into his lair.

“Ramona said I’d like you, and I do, already.”

Morris winced a moment at the mention of her name. It was the biggest secret he knew.

“Roger that. I need to understand the agency; not the ‘what,’ but the ‘why.’”

“Oh, yes, I can tell you a bit; quite a lot, actually. But it will surprise you, if you’ve never heard it. It will make you question the institution where you are employed.”

“I’ve been asking questions since the day I walked in the door. I want answers.”

Peabody chortled. His visitor was so eager.

“Well, now, let me get some books, so I can confide these mysteries properly.”

Peabody retreated to his study and returned with several volumes whose pages had been marked with yellow stickers. One fat book, nearly six hundred pages, had the bland title Donovan and the CIA. A slimmer volume was called Wild Bill and Intrepid. They were both written by one Thomas F. Troy.

“Not exactly bedtime reading,” said Peabody. “But in their way, they are page-turners. Mr. Troy was my colleague at the agency, if you’re wondering. The big book was compiled originally as a secret agency study, but it was declassified some years ago. Troy wrote the second book after he retired. For reasons you will soon understand, the agency has not called attention to them.”

“What’s controversial? If they’re unclassified histories, why would anyone care?”

“Because, my young friend, they suggest to the careful reader that the CIA may have been created by another intelligence service, namely the Secret Intelligence Service of Great Britain, aka MI6.”

Morris sat back in his chair. He hadn’t known what to expect from Peabody, but certainly not this.

“That’s pretty rad,” he said.

“Indeed. What I am going to explain is the origin of the species, as it were.”

Peabody opened the fat book to page 417 and pushed it across the table to Morris.

“Here,” he said. “Read this.”

It was a letter, dated April 26, 1941, from William J. Donovan to Frank Knox, secretary of the navy and one of the closest confidants of President Franklin Roosevelt.

“Read it, aloud, please.”

Morris studied the first few lines of the letter and then began:

Peabody took back the book.

“You understand the implications, I trust. It is more than seven months before Pearl Harbor. FDR’s man has asked Donovan to research how the Brits run their intelligence service, and Donovan is reporting back the British system so the Americans can… well, let’s just say it… copy it.

“But that’s not the official version, mind you,” Peabody continued. “The cover story is that Donovan created the CIA in a sort of clandestine version of the immaculate birth. Allen Dulles described the CIA as, and I quote, ‘Bill Donovan’s dream.’”

“But the official version is a lie,” broke in Morris.

“Indeed. When there was discussion of making the full details public in the 1980s, the CIA’s inspector general, Lyman Kirkpatrick, argued it would be ‘extremely questionable’ and ‘shocking indeed.’ Here, again, I am indebted to the scholarship of my friend Troy.”

“You’re saying the Brits wrote the operating system. We would say in geek-speak that they owned the firmware.”

“In any speak. It was a controlled operation.”

Peabody turned the pages until he found another yellow marker.

“I’ll show you another little something. It is a memorandum dated June 27, 1941. The subject is the proper organization of the Office of the Coordinator of Information, which was the predecessor of the Office of Strategic Services.

Peabody opened the marked passage for Morris to see.

“Note the author, please. Commander Ian Fleming, the man who wrote the James Bond novels. As you can see, he goes through the whole order of battle: headquarters; chief of staff, country sections; liaison officers. It’s all there, on the SIS model. Our friend Troy found a note from him talking about ‘my memorandum to Bill about how to create an American Secret Service’ and calling it ‘the cornerstone of the future OSS.’

“And there’s more, my friend. The Brits were quite pleased with themselves, as well you might imagine. Churchill’s office was licking its chops, as if the kingly lion had devoured the innocent and bewildered lamb.”

Peabody took the smaller volume, Wild Bill and Intrepid, and leafed through the pages until he found the passage he wanted.

“Here’s what Churchill himself knew, in black and white, according to his personal office. It is a letter dated September 18, 1941, written by Sir Desmond Morton in the PM’s office to Colonel E. I. Stark. Perhaps you would read it to me.”

“Out loud?”

Peabody nodded. Morris adjusted his glasses and began reading the words on the page:

“There it is,” said Peabody. “Can it be any clearer? They’re the hidden hand. Of course they own the CIA. They created it! Read the history, Mr. Morris. It’s all there.”

Morris looked left and right, as if he feared someone were listening. But it was just the two of them. Two agency hands, having a conversation.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Morris.

“Because you need to know, first of all. You need to understand why our agency has been such a menace in American life. I searched for the answer my whole career, but it’s so obvious, once you grasp it. The CIA is a foreign implant. It was created in secret by another government. It is a covert action. That is a puzzle it took me years to solve and I want you to understand. We all do.”

“Who is ‘we’?” asked Morris quietly.

“Like-minded individuals. American patriots. People who believe in liberty. You know one of them, our dear Ramona. But there are many more, unseen. And we are all looking to you, sir.”

“Why me? I’m the computer guy.”

“Because you can do something about it. You can break free of the monstrous secret history that I have narrated. You have the access, and the power. You can strike a blow that nobody else can. This is your moment, if you have the mettle to grasp it.”

Morris stood as if to go. But Peabody fixed him with his cunning eyes and shook his head. Morris knew in that instant that it was true, what Ramona Kyle had said. He had to keep going. It was impossible to turn back once he had started down this road. Morris sat back down in his chair across from his host.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

Peabody nodded. The thin smile returned.

“Have you ever heard of the Bank for International Settlements?” he asked.

“I know a little,” answered Morris. “It’s in Switzerland, in Basel, right? It’s sort of a central bank for central banks.”

“All correct,” said Peabody. “But in a deeper sense, it is one of the cornerstones of the Anglo-American plan for the postwar world. It is a surprising fact, perhaps, that FDR wanted to kill the BIS in 1944, because it had done some rather unpleasant business with the Nazis. But the British wouldn’t hear of it. They insisted. This was to be a symbol of the post-imperial order, the Anglo-American condominium which would control the world of finance, by managing the accounts of every central bank. And so it sits in Basel, a quiet, unobtrusive but unshakable symbol of the permanent order of things.”

“And what do you want me to do about the BIS?”

Peabody smiled again, more broadly this time, a grin that stretched nearly ear to ear. He spoke with a vulgarity that was unlikely for his age, but underlined his patrician rebellion.

“We want you to take it down, my boy. We want you to hack it up the ass until its electronic eyes turn brown.”

Morris returned to work at the Information Operations Center the next morning. He’d had a fitful sleep, but drove out early to suburban Virginia in his Prius. He buried himself in his vaultlike office at the far end of the operations room, as he always did when he was in Washington. Ariel Weiss stopped by for a brief chat, to go over pending personnel decisions.

In the afternoon, Morris visited Headquarters, at the director’s request. It would be the first time he had talked in person with Graham Weber since he’d returned from Germany. Morris was dressed a bit more traditionally than usual, in a collared shirt and a blue blazer. With the addition of a tie, he would have looked like an associate professor of computer science going to meet with the dean. Morris was nervous, wondering if the director was going to fire him. That would complicate things.

Weber greeted Morris in the sitting room of his private dining room, under a portrait of the implacable Richard Helms, whose profile made him look like the last of the Caesars. Tea and cookies, which seemed the essential nourishment of the intelligence service, were promptly delivered.

“You look tired,” said Weber.

“I’ve been working too hard,” said Morris. “Too much stress on this German thing. But I’ve got some leave coming. Maybe I’ll take a week. First, I’ve got some work overseas.”

“You’re no use to anyone if you get exhausted.”

“Yes, sir.” Morris adjusted his glasses.

“I’ve been thinking about what happened in Hamburg,” said Weber. “And I’ve been talking to some people around town.”

Morris tensed.

“I appreciate that you offered your resignation, but I’m not going to accept it. The death of that boy wasn’t your fault, and I need you for what’s ahead. You’re the only one who really understands these systems. The others pretend to, but they don’t.”

Morris blinked. He swallowed hard.

“Thank you, sir.”

Weber put up his hand.

“Don’t thank me yet. The hard part is just beginning. Have you come up with anything?”

“I just see ripples in the water, so far. We’re working some new penetrations of the hacker networks. We’re trolling the groups where Biel was active.”

“You’re doing this under your ‘special authority,’ I take it.”

“Yes, sir. It’s the joint program I told you about. I have some new… ideas. Things I’m experimenting with.”

“Will they get me in trouble?”

Morris laughed. His eyes were pinpricks.

“Heck, no, sir. They’re in a good cause. Down with the old, in with the new. That’s your mantra, isn’t it, Mr. Director?”

Weber studied the young man. He prized himself on his judgment, on his willingness to take the right risks, to do the unconventional thing when it was necessary. That had led him to James Morris, and now he was doubling down on the bet he had made. As a businessman, he knew he should lay off some of that risk, but it was harder in government.

“I can count on you, right? I need strong hearts.”

Morris gazed back at him. His head was motionless, but at the last moment before he spoke, there was the slightest tremor.

“Yes, sir. I’m good as gold. We’re going to go to the center of this thing and take it down.”

Weber smiled. Morris’s handshake was firm, too tight a squeeze perhaps, but a show of strength. The director said something genial as he walked Morris to the door. On his way back to his desk, Weber felt oddly not quite as reassured as he had hoped by the conversation. Morris was just fatigued, he told himself. Even computer geniuses had their off days.