of the state who did so with an absence of innocence.
All three men fit the composite of the neo mole. They had the motives to maintain their lifestyles, opportunities due to the access their positions permitted .. . what was lacking was the abstract "why cubed." What drove any of them to go beyond all that and become a traitor? A Nazi who had killed two captured Nazis. And then he thought he might have -found it, but only might have. Each candidate was essentially a messenger, a liaison between superiors; none ha d real authority himself. Payne studied [email protected]@s of applicants, and those he advanced soon made far more money than he did. Withers could only recommend extraordinary purchases, purchases that made those demanding them' even more efficient and how many were on the receiving end of kickbacks while he got nothing? SOP. And Vasquez-Ramirez was really a messenger, collating sealed envelopes A, B, and C, secrets for others to evaluate, while he stayed out of the loop. And each had been at his innocuous job, his decisions easily overruled, for a number of years with little chance of advancement. Such men were hotbeds of resentment.
There wasn't time to intellectualize any longer, to analyze further. Either he was right, considered Sorenson, or he was Wrong, which meant going back to the drawing board. As he had taught Drew Latham in the early stages of his training, sometimes a frontal assault was best, especially if it was totally unexpected. He wondered if Drew had used the strategy in trapping the neo minister. If not specifically, concluded Wesley, certainly a variation.
With the constraints of time, there wasn't much alternative. He reached for the telephone.
"Peter Mason Payne, if you please?"
"This is Pete Payne, who's this?"
"Kearns at the Agency," answered Sorenson, using the name of a relatively well-known deputy director.
"We've never met, Pete, and I'm sorry to bother you at this hour-"
"No trouble, Mr. Kearns, I'm watching television in my den. My wife went to bed; she said it was rotten and she was right."
"Then you don't mind breaking away for a few minutes?"
"Not at all. What can I do for you, sir?"
"It's a little touchy, Pete, but the reason I'm calling you now is that you may be asked upstairs in the morning, and it's possible you might want to consider your answers."
" What answers? What questions?" Peter Mason Payne might not be the killer mole, thought Wesley, but he was taking something from somebody. It was in the gasp that had preceded his words.
"We've had severe problems in. recruitment, so we're holding evaluation meetings, have been holding them damn near around the clock. Several of your recommendations have been sorely under qualified costing the Company a lot of wasted man-hours."
"Then it was the [email protected]@s, or the applicants were rehearsed for interviews, Mr. Kearns. I never advanced anyone I didn't believe could do the job, and I never took money under the table for a recommendation!"
"I see." So that was it, mused Sorenson. The denial was too quick, the inference had not even been made.
"But I didn't suggest that, did I, Peter?"
"No, but I've heard the rumors-wealthy families wanting their kids in the Agency for a couple of years because it looks good when they go after other jobs.. .. I'm not saying it's not possible a few slipped through, due, as I say, to false information and rehearsed interview responses, but you'd have to look to other recruiters for those things. They could supply that information, I never didr,
Thank God you've been kept out of the field, Mr. Payne, thought the Cons-Op director, you'd last eleven seconds. However, Peter Payne had just led him to the conclusive question.
"Then maybe one of the others is trying to lay something on you. You see, the parents of one of our under qualified say they met with a recruiter in the early morning hours the night before last to make their final payment."
"For Christ's sake, not me!"
"Where were you, Pete?"
"Hell, that's easy." The relief in Payne's voice was, well, painful.
"My wife and I were up the street at Congressman Erlich's home for a late-night neighborhood barbecue-late because the House stayed in session. We were there until around two-thirty in the morning, and frankly, Mr. Kearns, none of us cared to get into a car and drive anywhere."
Candidate Rejected
"Mr. Bruce Withers, please?"
"No one else lives here, pal. Who are you?"
Sorenson repeated the Deputy Director Kearns introduction, now zeroing in on the constant and considerable overruns