Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [23]
“Your modesty is overwhelming, Pauling.”
“Anyone else I’ll be working for? I don’t like reporting to a committee.”
“Ten in the morning, at Langley. Thanks for coming in.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it.”
Chapter 8
That Afternoon
George Washington University
Jessica Mumford tried to get her students in post-Soviet Russian-U.S. relations back on track but was losing the battle. By the time they’d arrived at the three o’clock class in GW’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, the only thing on their respective and collective minds were the day’s airline tragedies and the unconfirmed reports that missiles had been involved. Professor Mumford could have dictated an end to that discussion and insisted upon returning to the subject of the lecture— the Duma, Russia’s lower house, and the new structure of power within it—but she decided doing so would only result in the students missing the salient points of the lecture.
Her fifteen disciples that day proffered many theories, all based upon speculation, an exercise for which Jessica had little patience. Since becoming an adjunct professor of diplomacy and international relations at the university, she’d taught what she believed—that too many of the country’s diplomatic decisions and actions or inactions were rooted in supposition and conjecture, rather than formulated from verifiable international reality. Facts! Focused decision making based upon them. These were her mantras.
When at her full-time job as an analyst specializing in post–Cold War, post–Soviet Russia at the Department of State, she applied that belief to auditing the volumes of information crossing her desk each day. Some of her less methodical colleagues found her approach to be mildly annoying at times, and downright abrasive at others. A Siberian expert in the department once remarked to an associate, “No wonder her husband walked out on her. You say ‘I love you’ and she’ll want to know what you base it on.”
“Shame,” said his friend. “She’s good-looking. I wouldn’t mind a little of that myself.”
“Probably sex by the book. She’s got a computer for a heart.”
Jessica was aware of the assorted attitudes but dismissed them. Reacting would, she knew, only dignify them. She also wasn’t displeased that there was speculation about her personal life. Let them fantasize how she spent her time away from State, who she had dinner with, what movies she saw and enjoyed, the men she slept with. If compartmentalism was now in vogue in Washington since the Clinton years, she was all for it.
She ended the class a few minutes early and issued an admonition to her students the way a judge would to a sequestered jury being dismissed for the evening: “Don’t jump to conclusions until you’ve heard all the facts. Remember, we don’t know whether the planes were downed by missiles. We don’t know whether, if they were, the missiles were foreign or domestic. We don’t know whether it’s organized terrorism or miscellaneous madness. We don’t know who or what, only where and when. Why is an even bigger question. One thing no one needs is knee-jerk finger pointing at groups or individuals. See you next week.”
As she watched them leave the room, she experienced a sense of pleasure and purpose. Some of them, ideally the best and the brightest, would go on to play important future roles in how the country conducted its relations with other nations—friend, foe, or the conveniently neutral. If she could help shape them into persons who viewed their world realistically, and humanely, her efforts in the classroom would be more than validated.
She packed up and stopped in an office she shared with other adjunct professors. Her boss at State had called earlier that day about the aircraft crashes and told her to be ready to report at any time. She’d mentioned she had a class to teach in the afternoon. “No need to cancel,” he’d said. “Now.”
Jessica sat down at the nearest phone and quickly dialed his number.
“It’s Jessica. I just dismissed my class. Need me?”
“No, but keep your beeper on.”
“What’s new?”
“Looks like a missile,