He looked like he was floundering, but he was determined not to cave in.
“The hearings are going to keep you busy for at least the rest of the week. In the meantime we have the NIE and Watch Report to get out.”
“Get out of here anytime you have to, I mean it, Dick.” Adkins nodded.
“Thanks.”
Elizabeth called a couple of minutes after nine from the Farm outside Williamsburg.
“Hi, Daddy, how’s Otto?”
“Good morning, sweetheart. He was banged up pretty good, but the doctor says he’ll be okay, Should be out of the hospital sometime today. What are you doing back at the farm?”
“We have a class of husband and wife recruits, and Stu has made Todd and me stars of the show. There’s lots to go over.”
Stewart Walker was the new commandant of the training facility. A former Green Beret full colonel, he’d been McGarvey’s first choice for the spot, and he was doing a very good job.
“How long are you going to stay there?”
“We’ll be home for the weekend. Todd doesn’t want to drive back until the snow lets up. Unless you want us to chopper back. Otto is going to be okay, isn’t he?”
“He’ll be fine. How about you?”
“Aside from the fact I’m grumpy all the time, and I’m fat, I feel great.” She hesitated. “Tell mom that I’ll call her tonight.”
“I will.”
“Good luck with the hearings. Are you sure you don’t want me to come back?”
“Stay there and do your job.”
“We’ll definitely be back for the weekend. Give ‘em hell, Dad.”
The Senate hearing room was filled to capacity, mostly with media. When McGarvey and Paterson came in and made their way to the witness table the noise level rose, flash cameras went off and television lights came on. Under normal circumstances presidential appointees came to their confirmation hearings with a cadre of attorneys and advisers. But McGarvey had vetoed the plan because, he explained to a reluctant Paterson, no one knew his background except himself. And if there was to be any fallout, he wanted all of it on his shoulders. McGarvey recognized many of the people in the audience; friends from the other U.S. intelligence services, the military, the FBI and from at least a half-dozen embassies around town. Dmitri Runkov, the chief of the SVR’s Washington operation was missing, however, which was bothersome to McGarvey. Connections within connections, or the lack thereof. He put the Russian’s absence at the back of his mind. Paterson took a number of file folders out of his briefcase, extracted a four-page document and laid it on the table in front of McGarvey as the clerk of the hearings came to the front. “Hear ye, hear ye. All those having business before the United States Senate Armed Force Subcommitttee on Intelligence rise for the honorable members: Senators Thomas Hammond, Junior, Minnesota, chairman; John Clawson, Montana, vice chairman; Brian Jackman, Mississippi; Brenda Madden, California; Gerald Pilcher, New York; and Arthur Wright, Utah.” Everyone stood as the senators filed in from a door at the side and took their places behind a long oak desk on a raised platform at the head of the chamber. Hammond was a stern-looking man with thick white hair and bushy Dirksen eyebrows. He looked like a Moses without a robe and tablets. He glared down at McGarvey and Paterson as he removed a number of fat file folders from his briefcase. Of the others, according to Paterson, his second worst enemy was Brenda Madden, a raging knee-jerk liberal who’d been one of the original bra burners at Berkeley. Hers was the same goal as Hammond’s. They wanted to punish the CIA for failing to warn the nation about the attacks of September 11. According to them, the Agency was riddled with incompetent, self-serving fools. The U.S.
intelligence community needed revamping and streamlining from the top to the bottom. They were happy just now to start at the top with McGarvey. Mississippi’s Jackman and Montana’s Clawson were for keeping a strong CIA, though they were asking for more efficiency for the same dollars. New York’s Pilcher and Utah’s Wright, both junior senators, and both fairly new on the committee, were still on the fence. Hammond brought the meeting to order, then swore in McGarvey. C-SPAN’s television cameras continued to roll. “Mr. McGarvey, I see by your witness list that you’ve brought only the CIA’s general counsel Carleton Paterson with you this morning.” “Good morning, Senator.
Yes, that’s correct.” “Will you be bringing other advisers or witnesses in the coming days? I ask because if you are, their names will first have to be presented to the committee.” “Mr. Paterson will be sufficient to keep me out of serious trouble, Senator,” McGarvey said. There were a few chuckles around the room, and a slight smile played at the edges of Hammond’s mouth. He had been waiting for just this sort of opportunity ever since Lawrence Haynes had become president when the former President had resigned because of health problems. Haynes and Hammond had been rivals and then bitter enemies in the House and in the Senate, their careers nearly paralleling each other’s. Haynes was a tough-talking, no-nonsense conservative Republican, while Hammond was what the New York Times called a “touchy-feely New Democract with teeth.” Haynes wanted a strong military and a national missile defense shield. Hammond wanted billions diverted from defense and plowed into social welfare and health care reform programs. Haynes promised to take back the fear of terrorism on American soil and against Americans anywhere in the world.
Hammond wanted to close ninety percent of our overseas military installations and start bringing Americans home, where they belonged.
Haynes was a president of the people. Hammond was a ranking senator for the people. McGarvey was the president’s fair-haired boy at the moment because of an incident last year in San Francisco when diplomacy would have worked much better than guns blazing. Showing the American people, and especially his fellow senators what sort of a monster McGarvey was, and why he should not be allowed to run the CIA, would be striking a blow at the President. One that would not go unnoticed by his party. Hammond wanted to be president. But for the moment Haynes’s numbers were too high. “Very well,” Hammond said. He fiddled with some notes. “We’ll have a light session today. I’ll make a brief opening statement, and I would ask that Mr. McGarvey or his counsel do the same. Afterward I will allow the general, non classified questions concerning Mr. McGarvey’s background.” He looked at his calendar.
“If we can cover enough ground today to everyone’s satisfaction, the next few days will be in camera.” Most of the operations that McGarvey had been involved with during his twenty-five years with the CIA were still classified. When the committee began delving into those areas the hearings would have to be held in executive session, closed to anyone without the proper security clearances and the need-to-know. “I wouldn’t give so much as a confidential security clearance to any of them,” McGarvey had told Paterson. “If they could get a political boost, they’d leak anything that they could get their hands on. The Bureau’s helpless to stop them.” “Their privilege,” Paterson replied laconically. “They could get people killed.” “That’s the fine line you’ll need to walk,” Paterson warned. “You have to make them think that they’re getting what they want while protecting our current assets. In the process you’ll take the heat.” McGarvey watched Hammond posturing for the TV cameras. It came down to the question of how much he really wanted the job, and why he wanted it. They were questions he’d been asking himself every day since the President had asked him to serve. Questions for which he still didn’t know if he had all the answers. A little over three months ago he and Roland Murphy, then the DCI, had been called over to the White House. They met the President, his chief of staff and adviser on national security affairs in the Oval Office. The meeting was Murphy’s call. He’d announced that he was retiring as DCI because of his health, and that he wanted McGarvey to succeed him. Murphy’s retirement had been hinted at in the media, and just about everybody at Langley knew it was coming, and yet it came as something of a surprise to McGarvey that morning. Probably because he’d been too involved in running the Directorate of Operations to see the larger picture. “I’d like you to take the job,” President Haynes had said. “Or at least give it some serious consideration.”