Extraordinary Powers Read online

  Now she got up and knelt on the floor facing me, her hands on my knees. “I don’t want you working for them again. You promised me that.” She was rubbing her hands back and forth on my thighs as she spoke, seducing me away, and fixed me with a beseeching stare, more inscrutable than usual “Is there anyone you can talk to about this?” she asked.

  I thought for a moment, and at last said, “Ed Moore.”

  Edmund Moore, who was retired from the Agency after thirty-some years, knew more about the inner workings of the CIA than just about anyone else in the world. He had been my mentor in my brief intelligence career—my “rabbi,” in intelligence argot—and he was and remained a man of rare instincts. He lived in Georgetown, in a wonderful old house, and he seemed to be busier now, since his retirement, than in his active days in the Agency: reading seemingly every biography ever published, attending meetings of CIA retirees, luncheons with old CIA cronies, testifying before Senate subcommittees, and doing a million other things I couldn’t keep track of.

  “Call him,” she said.

  “I’ll do better than that. If I can clear my calendar tomorrow afternoon, or the day after, I’ll fly to Washington to see him.”

  “If he can spare the time to see you,” Molly said. She had begun to arouse me, no doubt her very intention, and as I leaned forward to kiss her neck, she suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, great. Now the damn puttanesca sauce is burning.”

  I followed her into the kitchen, and as soon as she had turned off the burner—the sauce was now a hopeless cause—I encircled her from behind. Things were so charged between us that with a little nudge in either direction, we could be embroiled in an endless argument, or …

  I kissed her right ear and made my way slowly downward, and we began to make love on the floor of the sitting room, plaster dust or no plaster dust, pausing only long enough for Molly to go find her diaphragm and put it in.

  That evening I called Edmund Moore, who delightedly invited me to join him and his wife for a simple dinner at their home the next evening.

  The next afternoon, having postponed three eminently postponable meetings, I caught the Delta shuttle to Washington National Airport, and as dusk began to settle over Georgetown, my taxi crossed the Key Bridge, rattled over the cobblestones of N Street, and pulled up to the wrought-iron fence in front of Edmund Moore’s town house.

  THREE

  Edmund Moore’s library, in which we sat after dinner, was a magnificent two-story affair lined with shelves of oak inset with cherry. The second tier was ringed with a catwalk; several library ladders rested against the first-tier cases. In the dim lighting the room seemed to glow amber. Moore had one of the finest personal libraries I had ever seen, which included an impressive collection of books about espionage and intelligence. Some of them were accounts by Soviet and East Bloc defectors, which Ed Moore had placed with American and British publishers, in the years when the CIA did such things. (Openly, anyway.) Entire bookcases were devoted to the works of Carlyle, Dickens, Ruskin. They had the look of those books you could purchase by the yard from an interior decorator to simulate the look of an old baronial library, but I knew that Ed Moore had painstakingly collected them all at auctions and in bookshops in Paris and London, and in secondhand stores and barns throughout the U.S., and no doubt had read them all, at one time or another.

  A fire crackled in the fireplace, illuminating the room with a cozy ocher light. We sat in worn leather armchairs before the flames. He sipped a 1963 vintage port of which he was especially proud; I had a single malt.

  I appreciated the atmosphere Moore had so carefully arranged for himself. In his town house we were no longer in Georgetown in the 1990s, crammed with video rental places, Tan-O-Ramas, and Benettons, but in Edwardian England. Edmund Moore was a midwesterner, really an Oklahoman, but over his years with CIA he’d become as tweedy and Ivy League as any Yalie or Princetonian in his generation. It wasn’t an affectation; that was simply what happened after enough time in an organization like the CIA. In fact, the Agency had changed around him. During the sixties, when Ivy League campuses were torn by strikes and drugs, the Agency began to recruit from safer, midwestern schools of more fundamental values. Thus, as one Company friend put it, the “polyesterization” of the CIA. And here was this quaint Oklahoman who could have walked into a lecture room at Linsley-Chittenden Hall at Yale in the forties and no one would have batted an eye. “Gentility,” Moore once told me, “is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone.” In fact, though, Moore had married into a lot of money—Elena’s grandfather had invented something essential having to do with the telephone.

  “You don’t miss it at all, do you?” he asked with a mischievous smile. He was a small, almost pixielike man in his late seventies, with a small dome-shaped bald head and heavy black-framed glasses that magnified his eyes enormously. His brown tweed suit hung on him, making him seem even more diminutive. “The glamour, the travel, the first-class hotels…?”

  “… The beautiful women,” I added helpfully, “and the Michelin three-star restaurants.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  Moore, who had been chief of the Europe Division of the Operations Directorate while I was stationed in Paris—my boss, to put it simply—knew full well that the life of a clandestine operative actually meant unending tedious “fitness reports,” cables, lousy restaurants, and cold, rainy parking lots. After Laura’s murder, Moore had all but shoved me out the door of Langley headquarters, arranging my interview with Bill Stearns in Boston. He felt strongly that it would be a serious mistake for me to remain in the Agency after what had happened. For a while I resented him for it, but I soon came to realize that he had my best interests at heart.

  Moore was a shy, bookish man—an unlikely operations type, where the prevailing personality is boisterous, aggressive, canny. You would have pegged him for an analyst, an intelligence type, according to Agency nomenclature. Not at all a spymaster. He taught history at the University of Oklahoma at Norman before he was recruited to Army intelligence in the Second World War, and he was still an academic at heart.

  Outside, the wind howled, driving torrents of rain against the tall French doors at one end of the library, rattling the glass. The doors gave onto a beautifully landscaped garden, at the center of which was a small duck pond.

  The rainstorm had begun during dinner, which was a somewhat overdone pot roast served by Moore’s diminutive wife, Elena. We chatted about innocuous subjects—presidential politics, the Middle East, the upcoming German general elections, gossip about mutual acquaintances—and the painful one, the death of Hal Sinclair. Both Ed and Elena expressed their sincere condolences. After dinner Elena excused herself to go upstairs, leaving us to talk.

  Her entire married life, I imagined, had been spent excusing herself to go upstairs, or out of the room, or out for a walk, leaving her husband to talk shop with whatever spook happened to have dropped by. But she was far from colorless and retiring; she wielded her strong opinions, laughed often, and, at once playful and feisty, she reminded me of the actress Ruth Gordon.

  “I take it, then, that the sedentary life suits you well?”

  “I like the sedateness of my life with Molly. I look forward to having a family. But being an attorney in Boston isn’t the most exciting way to earn a living.”

  He smiled, took a sip of port, and said, “You’ve had enough excitement for several lifetimes.” Moore knew about my past, about what the Agency disciplinary board termed my “recklessness” in the field.

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “you were something of a hothead. But you were young. And you were a good agent, which is the main thing. God, you were fearless. We were afraid we’d have to rein you in. Is it true you put a Camp instructor out of commission?”

  I shrugged. It was true: during my training at the CIA’s Camp Peary, a martial arts instructor had scissored me in a choke hold in front of my fellow students and proceeded to ta
unt me, goad me. And suddenly I was overcome by a slow, cold wave of anger. It was as if some corrosive fluid had seeped into my abdomen, then flooded the rest of my body, giving me a glacial composure. Some ancient portion of my hindbrain seemed to take over; I was a primitive, ferocious animal. I reached out with the heel of my right hand and slammed his face, breaking his jaw. The incident immediately passed into Camp lore, told and retold, embellished and embroidered over drinks late at night. From then on I was regarded warily, like a hand grenade with the pin out. It was a reputation that served me well in the field, and it caused me to be selected for assignments that were deemed too risky for the others. But it was at the same time a trait that sickened me; it warred with my sober, analytical side; it simply wasn’t who I was.

  Moore crossed his legs and sat back. “So tell me why you’re here. I assume it’s nothing we could have discussed over the telephone.”

  Not, certainly, without a secure phone, I thought; the Agency takes those privileges away from you upon retirement, even from such an institution as Edmund Moore.

  “Tell me about Alexander Truslow,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said, and arched his brows. “You’re doing some work for him, I take it.”

  “Considering it. The truth is, Ed, I’m in a bit of financial trouble.”

  “Ah.”

  “You might have heard about a small firm in Boston called First Commonwealth.”

  “I think so. Drug money or something?”

  “It’s been shut down. Along with all my liquid assets.”

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “So suddenly Truslow Associates is looking quite a bit more appealing to me. Molly and I could use the money.”

  “But isn’t your specialty intellectual property, or patents, or whatever it’s called?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’d have thought Alex would require the services of someone—”

  He paused for a moment to sip his port, and I put in, “Someone more adept at hiding money in international bolt-holes?”

  Moore gave a faint smile, and nodded. “Yet perhaps you’re just what he needs. You did have a reputation as one of the finest, most highly skilled operatives in the field—”

  “A loose cannon, Ed, and you know it.”

  * * *

  A “loose cannon” was, I imagine, just one of many labels given me by my colleagues and superiors in the Agency. I was regarded with fear, wonder, and a good deal of puzzlement. It was the fieldwork, the exposure to danger and the threat of violence, that would bring out my dark side. Some considered me fearless, which wasn’t true. Others considered me reckless, which was closer to the truth.

  The fact was that at certain times, a ruthless and frightening Ben Ellison would take over. It was something that, once I was aware of it, deeply unsettled me, and eventually led to my leaving the Agency.

  Before Paris I was detailed to Leipzig to get my feet wet. My cover was as a trade official. One of my first assignments was to debrief and protect a rather nervous informant, a Red Army soldier stationed nearby. They’d chosen me because I had studied Russian at Harvard, and was almost fluent. And I carried out the mission flawlessly, and so I was rewarded—promoted, in a sense—with a far more dangerous task.

  I was ordered to escort an East German defector, a physicist, from Leipzig to a border crossing a good distance away, at Herleshausen. The Mercedes I was driving had been fitted with a specially constructed compartment behind the seat, in which the physicist was concealed. At the checkpoint we went through the routine, the wheeled mirror apparatus shoved under the car to check for Germans trying to escape that miserable country, all that. A BND man had been sent up from headquarters in Pullach to meet us on the other side. As I went through the passport and immigration block, congratulating myself on a job well done, the BND man made the mistake of showing himself. Someone on the East German side recognized him, and suspicion instantly fell upon me.

  Suddenly three, then seven Volkspolizei emerged from the booth and surrounded the car. One stood before me and indicated with an outstretched hand that I should halt.

  According to Agency procedures, I should have acted innocent and perplexed, and stopped. Under no circumstances was a human life to be taken. That wasn’t how the game worked.

  And as I sat there, I thought of the small, sweaty physicist curled up in the tiny airless compartment between the backseat and the trunk. My precious cargo. The man was brave. He was risking his life, when it would have been so much easier to do nothing.

  I smiled, looked to my left and my right, and then straight ahead. The Vopo blocking my way—a Stasi Kommandant, I later learned—gave me a smug smile.

  I was boxed in. It was a classic box technique; we had learned it at Camp Peary. The only thing to do was to surrender. You did not take a life; the consequences would be grave.

  And then something came over me, that same glacial fury that had come over me when I broke the martial arts trainer’s jaw. It was as if I were in another world. My heartbeat did not accelerate; my face did not flush. I was calm—but overtaken by a desire to kill.

  Break the box, I told myself. Break the box.

  I floored the gas pedal.

  Never will I be able to expunge from my memory the sight of the Kommandant’s face as it rose up to meet the windshield. A rictus of terror; disbelief in the eyes.

  Tranquil, floating in a reptilian calm, I stared straight ahead. Everything was in slow motion. The Kommandant’s eyes locked on mine, pools of abject fear. He saw in my eyes the supreme indifference. Not fury, not desperation—but that icy calm.

  With an awful thud the Kommandant’s body was thrown into the air. There was a shower of gunfire, and I was across the line, my cargo safe.

  Later, of course, I was reprimanded by Langley for taking “unnecessary” and “reckless” measures. But off the record my superiors let me know in subtle ways that they were secretly pleased. After all, I had gotten the physicist out, hadn’t I?

  But what remained with me was not pleasure in an assignment accomplished, not pride in an act of bravery or heroism, but a queasiness. For a minute or so at the border crossing I had become almost an automaton. I could have driven right into a brick wall. Nothing scared me.

  And that scared me.

  * * *

  “No, Ben,” Moore continued. “You were hardly a loose cannon. You were possessed of a rare combination of prodigious intellect and … brass balls. What happened to Laura wasn’t your fault. You were one of the best. Moreover, with your photographic memory, or whatever that’s called, you’re quite an asset.”

  “My … eidetic memory, as the neurologists call it, may have been a big deal in college and law school, but these days, with electronic databases all over the place, it’s nothing special.”

  “You’ve met with Truslow?”

  “I met him at Hal’s funeral. We talked for about five minutes. That’s it. I don’t even know what he wants me to do yet.”

  Moore got to his feet and walked across the room to the French doors. One of them was rattling more than the others; he adjusted and locked it, quieting the noise. As he returned, he said: “Do you remember that famous civil rights case that was filed against CIA in the early 1970s? A black man applied for an analyst position there and was turned down for no good reason?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, it was Alex Truslow who, in the end, resolved the case. And saw to it that the Agency’s personnel office never again discriminated on the basis of race or sex. It was extraordinary—he had a vision of a CIA that was a true meritocracy, that wouldn’t permit its old guard to trample the rights of minorities to enter its ranks. A lot of old-timers still bear a grudge against him for that—he let all those minorities into the lily-white old-boys’ club. And, as you might have heard, he’s probably going to be named to replace your father-in-law.”

  I nodded.

  “How much do you know of what he’s doing?” Moore asked.
>
  “Virtually nothing. ‘Security work’ for the Agency, I understand. Procedures Langley can’t or won’t do.”

  “Let me show you something,” Moore said, once again rising, this time beckoning me to follow. With a grunt he mounted the wooden spiral staircase to the library’s second level. “Someday soon I won’t be able to climb these stairs,” Moore said, short of breath. “At which point I’ll move all my Ruskins up here, where I need never see it again. Vile stuff—never liked the nasty old son of a bitch. That’s what happens when cousins marry. Here we go. My booty.”

  We had advanced about ten feet along the catwalk, past drab-looking morocco-bound volumes, until Moore came to a stop at a wainscoted stretch of wall between shelves. He nudged a panel until it popped open, revealing a metal file drawer painted institutional gray.

  “Nice,” I said. “Did you have the boys from Technical Services build that for you?” In truth, it was rather a poor hiding place to anyone who knew the first thing about breaking and entering, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  He pulled the drawer open. It gave a low, rusty moan. “No, actually it was here when I bought the house in 1952. The rich old manufacturer who built this place—some coot out of an Edith Wharton novel, I’ll bet—liked secret compartments. There’s a sliding panel in the fireplace mantel I never use. Little did he know his town house would eventually end up in the hands of a bona fide spook.”

  The drawer seemed to contain intelligence files, at least from what I could tell by scanning the index tabs. “I didn’t know they let you take files with you when you retired,” I said.

  He turned to me and adjusted his eyeglass frames. “Oh, they don’t.” He smiled. “I’m trusting your discretion.”

  “Always.”

  “Good. I haven’t violated any national security acts, really.”

  “Did someone give these to you?”

  “You remember Kent Atkins, from Paris station?”