Read Online The Once and Future Spy by Robert Littell - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Littell
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knew that Wanamaker
worked for the Company. As new recruits, their paths had crossed during basic training at the Farm; they had even found themselves
in the same classroom when the famous Admiral Toothacher turned up for three days of guest lectures on the fundamentals of
intelligence methodology. “So what governments are you stabbing in the back these days?” the Weeder asked Wanamaker as they
stood in front of the statue of Nate.
Wanamaker, suddenly expressionless, was all business. “What’s your clearance?”
“High enough so I can know if the President can know.” The Weeder noticed Wanamaker’s clothes. He had dressed his squat American
body in a rumpled Italian suit. As far as the Weeder could see, neither did anything for the other.
“Sorry,” Wanamaker shot back. And he flashed his smug mailorder smile that never failed to set the Weeder’s teeth on edge.
“Maybe I’ll ask around,” the Weeder said. He would have given anything to wipe the smile off Wanamaker’s face.
“Maybe you won’t ask around,” Wanamaker snapped in annoyance.
“What’ll happen if I do? What’ll happen if I find out? Will the world come to an end? Or even better, your career?”
“If you were to find out”—other members of the class of 1973 were approaching so Wanamaker lowered his voice—”I suppose I’d
have to get you murdered.”
It was a challenge if the Weeder ever heard one. Like Nate, there was never one he wouldn’t rise to. It had taken the Weeder
two months to discover that Wanamaker had been farmed out to an interagency working group; another month to learn about the
existence of Operations Subgroup Charlie; several more weeks to get hold of the subgroup’s telephone number (the Weeder finally
wormed it out of a secretary in Disbursing who believed the story about Yale wanting to offer Wanamaker an honorary degree).
At which point the Weeder had slipped Wanamaker’s phone number onto the list that his IBM mainframe was monitoring.
14
T he streets of lower Manhattan were teeming with New Yorkers who had seeped out of their apartments at the first hint of sunshine.
Most of them, the Weeder noticed, were going around in twos; he couldn’t help thinking that from a historical point of view,
it was curious that the basic social unit of Western civilization had become the couple. In older, more heroic times, men
had been able to validate their maleness in ways that had nothing to do with women: hunting, fighting, voyages of exploration,
or in Nate’s case, confronting death with courage. Nowadays it appeared as if most men validated their maleness by seducing
women. Which meant that no matter how the deed was dressed up, seduction was essentially a self-serving activity. The women
the Weeder had been intimate with in his life—his ex-wife for one, the half dozen or so who had come before and after her
also—seemed to have sensed this; seemed to have held part of themselves back, as if the principal sentiment they had for the
men in their lives was resentment.
It was an odd trend of thought for a sunny Sunday morning. Were the Weeder’s anonymous love letters to Wanamaker his way of
getting back at him, seventeen years after the fact? Or was there more to it than met the eye? Was the Weeder—laboring away
in his SoHo cubbyhole on a project far from the mainstreams of history, and notably unsuccessful in establishing long-lasting
relationships with the women in his life—was he validating his maleness by jousting in themodern manner with an old foe? Was he taking out his frustrations on someone who was doing roughly the same thing he was doing,
and for the same employer? Or as Admiral Toothacher used to say when he outlined alternative scenarios in his course on the
fundamentals of intelligence methodology: All of the above, or none of the above, or any combination thereof.
In short: Whose truth? Which truth?
The Weeder was still mining this vein
worked for the Company. As new recruits, their paths had crossed during basic training at the Farm; they had even found themselves
in the same classroom when the famous Admiral Toothacher turned up for three days of guest lectures on the fundamentals of
intelligence methodology. “So what governments are you stabbing in the back these days?” the Weeder asked Wanamaker as they
stood in front of the statue of Nate.
Wanamaker, suddenly expressionless, was all business. “What’s your clearance?”
“High enough so I can know if the President can know.” The Weeder noticed Wanamaker’s clothes. He had dressed his squat American
body in a rumpled Italian suit. As far as the Weeder could see, neither did anything for the other.
“Sorry,” Wanamaker shot back. And he flashed his smug mailorder smile that never failed to set the Weeder’s teeth on edge.
“Maybe I’ll ask around,” the Weeder said. He would have given anything to wipe the smile off Wanamaker’s face.
“Maybe you won’t ask around,” Wanamaker snapped in annoyance.
“What’ll happen if I do? What’ll happen if I find out? Will the world come to an end? Or even better, your career?”
“If you were to find out”—other members of the class of 1973 were approaching so Wanamaker lowered his voice—”I suppose I’d
have to get you murdered.”
It was a challenge if the Weeder ever heard one. Like Nate, there was never one he wouldn’t rise to. It had taken the Weeder
two months to discover that Wanamaker had been farmed out to an interagency working group; another month to learn about the
existence of Operations Subgroup Charlie; several more weeks to get hold of the subgroup’s telephone number (the Weeder finally
wormed it out of a secretary in Disbursing who believed the story about Yale wanting to offer Wanamaker an honorary degree).
At which point the Weeder had slipped Wanamaker’s phone number onto the list that his IBM mainframe was monitoring.
14
T he streets of lower Manhattan were teeming with New Yorkers who had seeped out of their apartments at the first hint of sunshine.
Most of them, the Weeder noticed, were going around in twos; he couldn’t help thinking that from a historical point of view,
it was curious that the basic social unit of Western civilization had become the couple. In older, more heroic times, men
had been able to validate their maleness in ways that had nothing to do with women: hunting, fighting, voyages of exploration,
or in Nate’s case, confronting death with courage. Nowadays it appeared as if most men validated their maleness by seducing
women. Which meant that no matter how the deed was dressed up, seduction was essentially a self-serving activity. The women
the Weeder had been intimate with in his life—his ex-wife for one, the half dozen or so who had come before and after her
also—seemed to have sensed this; seemed to have held part of themselves back, as if the principal sentiment they had for the
men in their lives was resentment.
It was an odd trend of thought for a sunny Sunday morning. Were the Weeder’s anonymous love letters to Wanamaker his way of
getting back at him, seventeen years after the fact? Or was there more to it than met the eye? Was the Weeder—laboring away
in his SoHo cubbyhole on a project far from the mainstreams of history, and notably unsuccessful in establishing long-lasting
relationships with the women in his life—was he validating his maleness by jousting in themodern manner with an old foe? Was he taking out his frustrations on someone who was doing roughly the same thing he was doing,
and for the same employer? Or as Admiral Toothacher used to say when he outlined alternative scenarios in his course on the
fundamentals of intelligence methodology: All of the above, or none of the above, or any combination thereof.
In short: Whose truth? Which truth?
The Weeder was still mining this vein
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