Satori - Don Winslow [7]
Haverford hated him, his class, and what they threatened to do to America’s relationships in Asia.
John Singleton, head of the CIA’s Asia Desk, sat behind his broad desk observing the debate. His white hair lay over his craggy face like snow on a rocky mountain, his pale blue eyes were the color of ice.
He was truly a “cold warrior”; in fact, the coldest man that Haverford had ever known.
Singleton’s ruthlessness had made him a legend. The éminence grise of the Washington intelligence community, he was respected — even feared — from Foggy Bottom to Capitol Hill, even to Pennsylvania Avenue itself.
For good reason, Haverford thought. Compared to Singleton, Machiavelli was a naïve choirboy and the Borgias subjects of a Rockwell painting. Standing beside Singleton, the devil himself would appear as the angel Lucifer before the fall.
Chief of the OSS Asian Bureau during the war, Singleton was reputed responsible for guerrilla operations in China and Vietnam and was even thought to have been influential in the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
After the war he had politically survived the “loss” of China, the surprise invasion of Korea, and even attacks from McCarthy and his cohorts. In fact, Singleton was probably more powerful now than ever, a fact that his many enemies, albeit quietly, attributed to his close relationship to Satan.
Now he looked across his desk at the two rival officers.
“Is Hel unstable?” he asked Haverford.
“To the contrary,” Haverford answered. “I’ve never met a man as self-possessed as Nicholai Hel.”
“What are you, in love with the guy or something?” Diamond chimed in, his mouth leering with the crude homophobic implication.
“No, I’m not in love with the guy,” Haverford answered tiredly.
“Kill this mission, sir,” Diamond said to Singleton. “It’s too risky and Hel is a loose cannon. I have much more reliable assassins in southern China that we could send to —”
“Hel is perfect,” Haverford said.
“How so?” Singleton asked.
Haverford laid out his reasoning — Hel was fluent in Chinese, Russian, and French. He was a trained martial artist who could not only execute the sanction, but do so in a way that would leave the manner of death ambiguous, a crucial factor in achieving the maximum positive result.
“Why is French important?” Diamond asked, smelling trouble.
“It’s why we brought you in for briefing,” Singleton said. “Ellis?”
“Hel’s cover will be a French arms dealer,” Haverford said, anticipating Diamond’s discomfiture with great pleasure, “selling weapons to the Viet Minh.”
Indeed, Diamond’s lips bent into a grimace.
“As that affects your Indochinese bailiwick,” Singleton said, “we thought you should know.”
Great, Diamond thought. I don’t have enough trouble trying to keep the Frogs from punting another war without my own team sending aid to the enemy? “You’re not telling me that you’re actually going to —”
“Of course not. It’s just a cover to get Hel to Beijing,” Haverford said. “But we didn’t want you overreacting to any radar pings you might pick up.”
Diamond glared at Haverford. “Keep your boy the hell away from my turf.”
“Don’t worry.”
But Diamond was worried. If knowledge of Operation X — and his real role in it — ever reached Washington … “X” was an Indochinese op, run by the Frogs, so he thought he had it nicely contained. Now this Hel business threatened contamination.
Diamond turned to Singleton. “Sir, I’d like to be kept current with all phases of the operation, if you don’t mind.”
“You’ll be briefed,” Singleton assured him. “Ellis, keep him posted on everything you do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Ellis, if you could stay for a moment.”
Diamond left the meeting. Nicholai Hel free, he thought in the elevator. He felt the involuntary tremor in his leg. Face it, he thought,