Gable’s gaze turned cold. “Ultimate matters. I forgot that you spoke to the priest briefly.”
“I was there when you had him killed.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten involved. He shouldn’t have made trouble.”
“He would never have revealed what he heard in confession,” Pittman said.
“So you claim. But in my career, I have known diplomats who conveyed all sorts of confidential information to trusted associates, only to have that information repeated back to them by third parties. God only knows what Jonathan had already confessed to the priest, but I know for certain that what he intended to tell the priest on his deathbed would have been ruinous. I was visiting him in the hospital, and all he could do was keep telling me that he had to see Father Dandridge. He had to clear his conscience. He had to save his soul.” Gable said the last word with contempt. “Then the Justice Department leaked its report that it was investigating rumors about a covert plan to buy nuclear weapons from the former USSR. Jonathan was implicated as having acted as an intermediary.”
“Intermediary? Stop hiding behind words. What you mean is, Millgate was functioning as an arms dealer,” Pittman said with disgust. “The worst kind of arms. What possible reason could justify-?”
“The safety of the world,” Gable said indignantly.
“Yeah, right. That’s the excuse you and your buddies always came up with. The safety of the world. It doesn’t matter how self-serving the idea is, you always justify yourselves by saying it’s good for everybody.”
“Are you so naive as to think that the fall of communism and the dissolution of the USSR mean the end of a threat from that region?”
“Of course not,” Pittman answered. “The bloodbath in Bosnia shows that any damned thing can happen over there. After decades of being repressed, the provinces of the former USSR might all go in the opposite extreme. Soon they might all be out of control.”
“With access to nuclear weapons about which neither the former government nor the disbanding military is responsible.” Gable gestured for emphasis. “If a new government, a rogue government comes into power, there’s a very real danger that those nuclear weapons will be used to allow that new government to consolidate its power. What’s unscrupulous about trying to stop that from happening?”
“The way you put it, nothing. But I’ve been a reporter too long not to be able to read between the lines.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Justice Department’s accusation was specific: Jonathan Millgate was implicated in buying nuclear weapons. Not paying to have them destroyed in Russia, nothing wrong about that, but buying them. What the hell was he going to do with them once he owned them? Bring them all the way to the United States to have them destroyed? Sounds a lot more expensive than it needs to be, not to mention dangerous, all those warheads being moved around. And who’s paying for these nuclear weapons, anyhow? The U.S. government? Not damned likely. It would be political suicide for anyone in the government to get involved in such an outrageous scheme. So you’ve got two problems: how to pay for the weapons and what to do with the weapons once you own them. Those problems bothered me ever since I heard that Millgate was under suspicion. And then the solution came to me. Of course. The way you get rid of the nuclear weapons enables you to pay for them in the first place-you sell them to someone else.”
Gable squinted. “I’m impressed, Mr. Pittman.”
“The compliment doesn’t sound sincere.”
“But I am impressed. You see to the heart of the issue. You understand the brilliance of the operation.”
“Brilliance?” Pittman asked in disbelief.
“The threat of the nuclear weapons in the former USSR is eliminated,” Gable said righteously. “At the same time, it’s possible to maintain the balance of power in other troubled regions. For example, it’s no secret that North Korea has been working furiously to develop a nuclear capability. What do you think will happen when its nuclear weapons are functional? It’ll control Southeast Asia. But if South Korea also gains nuclear capability, there’ll be a stalemate. They’ll balance each other.”
“Wrong. They’ll destroy each other. And maybe get the rest of the world involved,” Pittman said.
“Not necessarily.” The emotional strain of the conversation was having an evident effect on Gable. His breathing was more labored, his posture less erect. He lowered his voice. “To save the world, sometimes risks have to be taken.”
“And bank accounts fattened? You hypocrite. You and your friends pretended to be selfless public servants, and all along, from the forties onward, from the postwar anti-Soviet policy to the Iran-Contra arms-dealing scandal, you’ve been making a fortune in kickbacks from the weapons industry. How much money did you earn arranging to use American funds to arm Iraq so it would act as a counterweight against Iran? And then we went to war against Iraq, and you received kickbacks from the arms industry because you recommended that war.”
Anger made Gable regain his rigid posture. “I refuse to discuss the nuances of foreign policy with a mere reporter. You are not privy to classified information. You are not in a position to judge the delicacy of various negotiations that I have successfully concluded for the good of the United States and the world.”
“Right. The old excuse. There’s always secret information that justifies becoming rich by starting more wars and selling more weapons.”
“These matters are beyond your understanding,” Gable said. “You are here for one purpose only-to try to settle our differences, to undo the disastrous effects of your blundering into matters that do not concern you. After the leak implicating Jonathan in the purchase of Russia’s nuclear weapons, it was only a matter of hours, perhaps minutes, before reporters would have shown up at the hospital in hopes that Jonathan would be strong enough to make a statement. We had to get Jonathan out of the hospital to keep him from telling reporters what he intended to tell the priest. You were there when my men took him from the hospital. You followed them to Scarsdale. Damn it, what were you doing in his room? If only you hadn’t gone into his room.”
“His IV tubes had slipped out. His oxygen prongs weren’t attached to him. He was having some kind of seizure. I was sure he was going to die.”
“That was the idea,” Gable said with barely subdued irritation. “My colleagues and I said good-bye to him. Everyone except his nurse and doctor left the room. They removed his life supports. Then they left. He was supposed to die. But you had to get into the room and reattach the supports. And he finally had a chance to confess. If the nurse hadn’t come back into the room at that moment, we never would have known that Jonathan had betrayed us.”
“If only we’d stopped right there,” Sloane said.
“We couldn’t,” Gable said. “Because as far as we knew, this man”-Gable pointed toward Pittman-“saw our first attempt to kill Jonathan. And this man”-Gable pointed harder toward Pittman-“had information that could ruin us. One of our security team riding in the escort car noticed a taxi following the ambulance. As soon as he reached the estate and told me about the taxi, I sent him to locate it before it disappeared from the area. The driver’s passenger was gone. But the driver could identify the passenger because of a check that the passenger had written to cover the expense of the ride. Imagine our concern, Mr. Pittman, when we researched your background and discovered that you were a reporter. What were we to do? Allow you to write a story about our attempt to kill our friend and about the information he revealed to you? Certainly not. But we did have another option. Our investigation revealed that you’d harassed Jonathan seven years ago, that you were currently having an emotional collapse. It wasn’t any effort to make it seem that you killed Jonathan. We had the check you’d given to the taxi driver. We had your fingerprints on the door to Jonathan’s room and on his life-support equipment. In a twisted personal vendetta, you killed Jonathan, then continued with your plans to kill yourself.”