The Director

41

The meeting of the Special Activities Review Committee the next day was delayed for some minutes by procedural issues. Ruth Savin and Earl Beasley were sitting in their seats, but Cyril Hoffman argued via his video link from Liberty Crossing that the committee couldn’t hold a session because the required quorum wasn’t present. The chairman, Timothy O’Keefe, wasn’t returning phone calls. Savin excused herself to consult some records in the general counsel’s office.

When Savin returned, she said that the meeting could indeed take place. The administrative rules required that a majority of the five members be present. The tinny sound of Hoffman’s voice came through on the speaker of the video monitor.

“But there are only two of you! How can you have a meeting?”

“Three,” said Savin. “O’Keefe is on his way from the White House.”

“No, he’s not,” said Hoffman.

“I just talked with him,” said the general counsel. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Hoffman’s screen went dark.

Timothy O’Keefe arrived looking more than usually flustered. He greeted Savin and Beasley and took his seat at the head of the table and asked where Hoffman was. When informed that Hoffman was boycotting the meeting, O’Keefe got on the phone and ordered him to plug in, by the secure VTC line. In another minute, Hoffman’s face was visible once again on the screen. His demeanor, usually so calm, was marred by a slight tic at the corner of his mouth.

O’Keefe rattled a coffee cup with his spoon to call for order and begin the meeting.

“The president has asked me to thank the members for attending. We have one piece of business only today. The general counsel will make her report.”

O’Keefe nodded to Ruth Savin.

“I wish to report that at the written request of former director Graham Weber, the committee conducted a review of certain unauthorized actions by the director of National Intelligence in contacting a senior intelligence officer of the Russian federation named M. V. Serdukov. In the course of that investigation, the committee obtained a written statement from the FBI’s National Security Branch describing the DNI’s unauthorized activity in flying to France. We have been informed by French civil-aviation authorities that the tail number of his plane was N85VM.”

On the monitor, Hoffman’s face was growing more agitated. He coughed, stood up, walked away from the camera and then returned with a tissue, which he used to wipe his brow.

“That trip to France was approved by the White House,” interjected Hoffman on the video monitor.

“No, it wasn’t,” said O’Keefe.

Savin looked to O’Keefe, who nodded. She continued.

“The committee received corroborating testimony this morning from a witness who said she spoke personally with DNI Hoffman about his planned trip to meet with the Russian official concerning James Morris. This witness met with me this morning for an hour and reviewed details of the DNI’s activities, including classified documents that she gave him for delivery to the Russian official, at DNI Hoffman’s insistence.”

“Impossible,” said Hoffman on the monitor. “Ariel Weiss would never do that. She intends to submit evidence charging Graham Weber, not me.”

“I think you are mistaken,” said Savin. “Dr. Weiss is down the hall, meeting with my lawyers. I can send you a copy of her affidavit as soon as it’s finished.”

“Perfidious,” said Hoffman quietly.

“We have confirmed that the documents Dr. Weiss prepared were marked for transmittal to you. Office of Security personnel at the Information Operations Center have reviewed the paperwork that Dr. Weiss provided them before your unauthorized trip to France.”

“Weiss is a liar. She’s in love with Weber. He tried to seduce her.”

“That’s out of line, Director Hoffman.”

“Shut up, Ruth,” said Hoffman. He moved to turn off the camera.

O’Keefe’s firm voice intervened.

“Sit down, Cyril. The FBI is outside your office now. Be quiet and listen.”

O’Keefe turned to Savin. She continued once more.

“I should caution you, Director Hoffman, that Dr. Weiss has told us the audio and video surveillance material was created under duress. She says you were monitoring her visit to Mr. Weber’s apartment, and that you threatened to fire her if she didn’t perform the actions recorded on tape. That incident is part of the criminal investigation that my attorneys have begun.”

“Are you all mad?” said Hoffman. “I have files that implicate every one of you.”

Savin looked at O’Keefe, who nodded once again for her to speak.

“I warn you, Director Hoffman, that such threats will only raise further questions about your misuse of office. I should also remind you that these VTC exchanges are being recorded.”

Hoffman looked at them all, dumbfounded.

“They’ve won,” he said.

“Who has?” asked O’Keefe.

“The ‘enemy,’ for lack of a more precise term. The people who want to give away the nation’s secrets and bring down the house. The naïve innocents. Morris, Weber, all of you.”

“We’re not enemies of the United States, Cyril. You are mistaken.”

“I am serving my country. Politicians are transitory but the nation’s interests are permanent. We cannot escape the responsibility of leadership, dear friends. If you think that’s possible, then you are the mistaken ones, grievously so. You are summer soldiers.”

“Cyril, I would suggest that you retain a lawyer,” said O’Keefe.

Hoffman rose once again. The monitor showed his large form moving toward the camera.

“Don’t turn off the camera,” said O’Keefe. “That’s an order.”

“I don’t care,” said Hoffman.

The monitor crinkled with static and then went dark. But the audio microphone was still working and the speakers carried a voice that spoke, oddly, with a combination of menace and good cheer.

“I’ll be back,” said Hoffman. “Of that you can be assured.”

O’Keefe looked at the two others at the table and nodded, really in deference, to another person, unseen.

“Can we please conclude this meeting, so we can all get back to real work?” said O’Keefe.

“Don’t bet against the billionaire. Didn’t I say that?” said Beasley, with a croupier’s smile.

“At the request of the president,” O’Keefe continued, “I am seeking a motion to dissolve this committee, effective immediately. Its mandate for deception and special activities will be reviewed by the National Security Council, but its authority is suspended pending completion of that review. Do I hear a motion?”

Savin responded.

“I move that we dissolve the Special Activities Review Committee, and transfer to other, existing committees, such legitimate business as the committee may have.”

“Do I hear a second?” asked O’Keefe.

“Second,” said Beasley.

“All in favor?” asked O’Keefe.

“Aye,” said Beasley, Savin and O’Keefe together.

“The motion is adopted, and the committee is hereby dissolved.”

“Now, where is Mr. Weber?” asked O’Keefe.

“Outside,” said Savin. “He’s waiting in the deputy director’s office.”

“Bring him in,” said the national security adviser.

Weber walked into the room, looking as if he hadn’t slept in a week.

“You need a vacation, brother,” said Beasley.

“Sit down,” said O’Keefe.

Weber took the empty chair next to the national security adviser.

“The president has asked me to tell you that he has chosen to ignore DNI Hoffman’s order that you be fired. The White House received a letter this morning from Dr. Ariel Weiss, saying that the evidence against you presented by the director of National Intelligence was fabricated.”

Weber closed his eyes, just for a moment, and then opened them again. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means that you are CIA director.” O’Keefe extended his hand. “You remain the proprietor of the ghost hotel.”

Graham Weber didn’t want to be in the office the rest of that day. He didn’t want to be anywhere, really. He thought of calling Ariel Weiss at the general counsel’s office, where she was still closeted with the lawyers, to ask her why she had done it, or to apologize, or to thank her. He wasn’t sure which, and he doubted she would answer, at least not until some time had passed. As he thought back over the events at his apartment that night, he realized she had assured him in her oblique way that Hoffman’s extortion gambit would fail because she would disavow it. “It won’t work,” she had said. She might have been living a triple life, but she had a single and admirable purpose.

James Morris broadcast a video message from Caracas. He was accompanied by Ramona Kyle, the founder of Too Many Secrets, the civil liberties group that had renamed itself “Open World.” Off camera were members of an international emergency assistance team that had been formed to help defend Morris and argue his case in the media. In that group, unseen by the reporters, was a handsome man with a slight East European accent who called himself Roger, and a starchy Yankee liberal, dressed in an old gray flannel suit and a striped rep tie, named Arthur Peabody. Peabody later gave interviews to selected reporters, on deep background, in which he disclosed that he was a former CIA officer and revealed new details about the conspiratorial activities of the agency to maintain what he called “the post-imperial order of 1945.”

Morris spoke passionately. He was doing the work he had dreamed of, and he was a charismatic spokesman, if not an entirely convincing one. He admitted he was responsible for the attack on the Bank for International Settlements, just as the newspaper stories said. Indeed, he fairly boasted about what he had done, explaining that under cover of the cyber-attack he had transferred money from the accounts of wealthy nations to those of needy ones.

“I do not apologize for my actions. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t torture anyone. I didn’t listen to people’s telephone calls or steal their secrets. They claim that I broke the laws of the United States but I didn’t break any of the laws of humanity. I left the criminal Central Intelligence Agency as an act of conscience. I revealed its secrets to give liberty to others. I took from the rich and gave to the poor. I’m proud of what I did.”

Many newspaper stories, including those in the United States, described James Morris in the lead paragraphs as a “Cyber Robin Hood.” A German website briefly posted an item after the press conference alleging that a Swiss hacker named Rudolf Biel had been killed by the Russian intelligence service in Hamburg to protect the secret of Morris’s identity, but this information quickly disappeared and was nowhere else mentioned.

A month after he was reinstated as CIA director, Graham Weber went to the White House to see the president. He told the chief executive that, after thinking about it carefully, he wanted to submit his resignation. The CIA had been given a new start, he said, just as the president had wanted when he appointed Weber. But now it needed a professional.

Weber said that he wanted to suggest a candidate as his successor. He had run the name by Timothy O’Keefe, the national security adviser, who agreed that it was a good idea. He urged the president to nominate Dr. Ariel Weiss, who would be the first woman ever to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It would be a signal, said Weber, that the agency had really broken the bonds of the past and was moving into the future.

The president didn’t say yes on the spot, but O’Keefe had already told Weber that he liked the idea. It would be politically popular, and it had the additional benefit of being the right thing to do.

What was left for Graham Weber was empty space, to be filled, and the satisfaction that he had helped set free the haunted, necessary institution of the Central Intelligence Agency, so that it might become part of the American fabric, rather than a threadbare relic that had been crafted on the loom of another nation.

Perhaps the country would grow to love, or at least respect, an intelligence service that was its own creation rather than someone else’s. Weber wanted to think about the best way he could help make that happen as a private citizen. But that could wait. Right now he wanted to take a walk along the river and watch the water cascade along the muddy banks, and let his mind go gray and quiet as the winter sky.