“Your relations with law enforcement have not always been friendly,” Alden said, flipping through pages of the classified file.
“Excuse me, does that file have my driving record in it?”
“Your friendship with senior people has been helpful to your career.”
“I suppose so, but that happens with a lot of people. I generally accomplish my missions, and that’s why I stayed around so long. Mr. Alden, what is the purpose of this interview?”
“Well, as deputy DO I have to be familiar with people in the Clandestine Service, and looking over this, I see that you’ve had a most colorful career. You’re lucky you lasted this long, and you can now look back on a singular career.”
“And my next assignment?”
“There is no next assignment. Oh, you can go back to The Farm as a training officer, but really my best advice would be for you to take your retirement. It’s well earned. Your retirement papers are ready for processing. You’ve earned it, John,” he said, with the cold hint of a smile.
“But if I were twenty years younger, you would not have a place for me?”
“Maybe an embassy posting,” Alden said. “But neither one of us is twenty years younger. The Agency’s changed, Mr. Clark. We’re getting out of the paramilitary business, except when we have people assigned directly to us from Delta Force, for example, but we’re trying to get away from the hands-on stuff that you and Chavez have specialized in. The world is a kinder and gentler place.”
“Tell that to New Yorkers, maybe?” Clark asked evenly.
“There are other ways to deal with things like that. The trick is finding out ahead of time and encouraging people to take a different path if they want to get our attention.”
“How, exactly, does one do that—theoretically, of course?”
“That’s an issue we address here on the seventh floor, on a case-by-case basis.”
“Out in the field, issues like that one don’t always arrive in your lap in a manner which allows referral to headquarters. You have to trust your people to take the initiative, and support them when they do so intelligently. I’ve been there. It can get awfully lonely out there in the field if you do not have confidence in the people behind you, especially when they’re five thousand miles behind you.”
“Initiative works well in the movies but not in the real world.”
When’s the last time you were out in the field in the real world? Clark wanted to ask but did not. He was not in here for an argument or even a discussion. He was here only to listen to the voice of God, and relayed from this academic asshole. It had happened before at the Agency, but back in the 1970s, when he’d avoided involuntary retirement for the first time, with the help of James Greer, he’d made something of a name for himself working in the Soviet Union on “special” missions. It had been nice, once, to have an enemy everyone believed in.
“So I’m out?”
“You will retire honorably, with the thanks of the nation, which you have served well, and at peril to your life. You know, reading through this, I wonder why you don’t have a star on the atrium wall.” He referred to the white marble wall with gold stars that memorialized the names of field officers who’d died in the service of the CIA.
The book that listed those names—it was in a glass-and-brass case—had many blank spaces showing only dates, because the names were themselves classified, even fifty years after the fact. In all likelihood, Alden took the executive elevators up from the security parking under the building, and so was not routinely forced to look at the wall—hell, not even to walk past it.
“What about Chavez?”
“As I told you, he’s eligible for retirement in just ten more weeks, counting his time in the Army. He’ll retire as GS-12, with full benefits, of course. Or if he insists, he can have a training post at The Farm for a year or two, before we send him off to Africa, probably.”
“Why Africa?”
“Things are happening there—enough things to keep us interested.”
Sure. Send him to Angola, where they’ll take his Spanish accent for Portuguese and help him get whacked by some leftover guerrillas, right? Not that you’d care one way or another, Alden. These kinder and gentler people never really cared much for individuals. They were too interested in the big-picture issues of the day, forcing square reality pegs into the round theoretical holes of