Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [21]
Barton shrugged. “I’m meeting with Harris at the Bureau at three. I’ll know more then.” Harris was Barton’s counterpart at the FBI’s counterterrorism division. “In the meantime, we’re on twenty-four-hour alert. Coordinate your movements through Ops. Nothing for the press. Nothing!”
“Does the president or Secretary plan to make a public statement?” Barton was asked.
He ignored the question. “Let’s get cracking.”
Pauling watched the others in the room get up and head for their respective offices. Since coming over to State from the CIA, he’d been impressed with the organizational structure and smooth teamwork within the agency’s departments. There was a more clearly defined chain of command and a smoother interplay between departments than he’d experienced at the Company. He wasn’t quite as sanguine about some of the larger political and diplomatic decisions made at the top, like the gloved-hand approach to nations run by dictators and deemed important, at times, to America’s foreign policy, while a harder line was taken with countries whose loyalty to the American diplomatic agenda was solid.
But lofty decisions weren’t part of Pauling’s job description. Before this new assignment, he’d been an agent, an operative, a “spook,” and loved it. Why wouldn’t he? You were sent on an assignment, handed enough untraceable cash to buy a small country—or at least its leader— and instructed to tell no one where you’d be or how long you’d be there.
“I’m leaving tomorrow on an assignment, Doris.”
“Where are you going? How long will you be gone?”
“Can’t say.”
There was the requisite icy stare as you packed your bag in the bedroom where you’d made love the night before. The kids asked, too, where Daddy was going, and you answered with a pat on the head when they were little. Once they got older, they didn’t bother asking because they knew there wouldn’t be an answer.
Hugs and kisses when you were leaving. A modicum of guilt, tempered by the excitement of the assignment, another important one, national security, defending their way of life, someone has to do it—plenty of rationalizations at the ready. The waves good-bye—“I’ll be in touch”— when you knew you probably wouldn’t be. Then, the relief when you were on your way, alone, pumped up, anxious to do what you’d trained for and were good at. Of course he loved it, like almost every other spook.
Now, since coming to Washington, he spent most of his time behind a desk in the Department of State analyzing information gathered by a variety of sources, including people doing what he’d happily done while in Moscow and elsewhere, and filling in gaps from his personal experience and knowledge. As far as he was concerned, he’d been booted upstairs, and was in the process of giving credence to the Peter Principle.
He wandered down to Room 2109, the nerve center for State’s public affairs and press operations, where a bank of television monitors were tuned round-the-clock to CNN and MSNBC. All personnel there were also on a twenty-four-hour cycle, tearing stories off the wire service machines, taping relevant TV news and other reports, and at the moment fielding calls from the press and the public about the unfolding story of three aircraft crashing that morning.
“Can you believe it?” a young PA employee said, pointing to one of the monitors:
“CNN has learned from a highly placed source that the planes were shot down by missiles launched from the ground near the three airports. The president, we’re told, has scheduled a meeting of Cabinet members and other top administration officials. Meanwhile, the FBI’s antiterrorism unit has issued an alert to state and local law enforcement officials across the country to put into effect contingency plans formulated following the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, and airports have elevated their security systems to top-readiness status. Stay tuned for further information as CNN receives it.”
Two of the networks had broken into their normal afternoon programming to issue brief reports