LITMIR.BIZ

       5

      Washington

      Ray Spinner was thinking about a pretty woman named Jennifer when his phone rang and a man named McKinnon asked him if he could step around to his office for a sec, please? That McKinnon had an office was enough to suggest his status; he also had a title; but, most to the point, he could end Spinner’s career with a word.

      “Sir.”

      McKinnon looked up from a crowded desk. He was fifteen years older than Spinner, infinitely more impressive in Washington terms: eight years in State and then Defense in the Reagan administration, four more in the National Security Council and Defense under Bush One; then exile to an Ivy League professorship during Clinton. He had published two books. His name was never in the media—a contradictory achievement in a media-mad town, but one that had put him where he was, because some specialties require reticence.

      “Yeah. Shut the door. Sit down.” He made a point of closing a folder, the point being that he was allowed to see it and Spinner wasn’t. But Spinner had had time to make out “Classified Special” and “PERPETUAL JUSTICE.” Perhaps oddly, “perpetual justice” didn’t sound unusual to him; it sounded like a lot of other code names in those days.

      Spinner sat. It was like being back in college, he thought, called into the professor’s office because of a bad paper. McKinnon was balding and thus big-domed, unquestionably an “intellectual.” Spinner found himself sweating. Until then, only his father had been able to make him so nervous.

      McKinnon handed a single sheet of paper across the desk. “That yours?”

      Spinner had only to look at the From and To. It was the blind copy of the message he’d sent Mike Dukas in Naples about the dead Navy guy in Tel Aviv. Suddenly, the message didn’t seem like a very good idea.

      “Well, you see—”

      “Is that yours?”

      “Unnh—yes. You see—”

      McKinnon shut him up merely by hunching his shoulders. His jacket was off, revealing a pair of the red suspenders that Spinner so admired. He also wore one of those baggy shirts that you learn to recognize as expensive. He said, “So what’s the story?”

      “I got the initial, uh—” Spinner cleared his throat “—initial data that the person in question—the name is there on my message—”

      “Qatib.”

      “Right.”

      “Arab name.”

      “I suppose.”

      “No ‘suppose’ about it. You don’t understand Arabic? You don’t know Arab culture?”

      “Well, my background—”

      “Your background is the Navy; I know all about it. I don’t expect much as a result. You were saying?”

      “Unnh—the person—Qatib—died in Israel and because, because he had US connections—studied here, Navy reserve—I checked the Purgatory list. He was on it. So I thought, unnh—” He glanced at McKinnon, whose eyes were fixed on him. “I thought I should pursue it.”

      “Good for you! Exactly what you should have done. And?”

      Encouraged, Spinner told him about NCIS and the dominion of the Naples office.

      “Who is this Michael Dukas?”

      Spinner thought of lying and saying he’d picked the name out of a directory, but he suspected that McKinnon already knew who Dukas was. This was a test, he decided. The prof already knew the answers. So Spinner said, “He was a nosy bastard who framed me and forced me to resign my commission.”

      McKinnon leaned way back in his chair and inhaled deeply, as if he wanted to smell Spinner’s answer. He tapped a pencil twice on his desk and, without looking at Spinner, said, “So, you saw that we needed more data on Qatib. Good. So you dumped it on somebody you don’t like, and sent it over the title of the deputy assistant. Not good.” He looked at Spinner, a comical expression on his face—mouth rubbery and pulled down at the corners: clown grimace. “C minus.”

      They stared at each other until Spinner had to look away. He knew he was about to be fired.

      “You’re here because your father has clout,” McKinnon said. “Okay, I can live with that. Believe me, you wouldn’t be here otherwise, because a military background is the last thing we need. Correction: second last; what we need last is somebody with a background in intelligence.” He leaned forward again. “You know what’s wrong with military people?”

      Spinner tried to think of all the things he’d found wrong. “They’re dorks?” he said.

      McKinnon laughed. Actually laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. They’re mediocre. And they’re tentative. And they’re self-seeking. Ranks, medals, privileges. They’re fucking bureaucrats in fancy clothes, and they’re not smart. They’re timocrats.” He looked to see if Spinner knew what a timocrat is, saw he didn’t, smiled with delight. He stood; Spinner suspected that he was reverting to his academic self, that all he lacked was a blackboard. “There are only so many smart people in the world, and they don’t gravitate to the military; if they get into the military by mistake, they soon get out. Therefore, policy can’t be left to the military. They’re like mechanics—they can fix the car, but they can’t design it.” He leaned back against the wall. “Smart people come here. They come here because we recruit them. We’ve been looking at some of the people here for as long as ten years. Why?”

      Spinner knew he wasn’t supposed to answer.

      “Because people—ordinary people—can’t run a democracy. You know Plato?”

      Spinner clawed back through his undergraduate classes and came up with The Republic.

      “Right. The current president of the United States is the modern version of the philosopher-king. He is surrounded with a group of special people. Smart people. They must inform him so he can make wise decisions, and they must keep him from getting wrong information that would harm those decisions. They must also advise him on how to manage information about his decisions so that the people will accept them.”

      Despite himself, Spinner frowned. Wasn’t there a contradiction there somewhere?

      “To advise wisely, to screen out the false, to manage the true. Do you know who Leo Strauss was?”

      Spinner, committed now to the truth, shook his head. McKinnon shook his head in response, as if disgusted, but he grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled on it and shoved it across. “Read Leo Strauss,” it said. Spinner said he’d go right out and get some.

      “You won’t understand it, but keep reading. Strauss is—” McKinnon stared off at the bewildering problem of what Strauss is. “Have you read Alan Bloom? No matter. The point I’m trying to make is that there is a deep philosophical basis for what we do here and for the way we do it. You have to keep reminding yourself that we are special people and that we have a special responsibility. This is not just another dickoff government job!” He sat again, wearily, as if his lecture had exhausted him. “I want you to take this Qatib thing and run with it. I’ve got you screening inputs now; I’d have kept you there, frankly, but you went ahead and sent this message and I’m going to see if you’re equal to that act of folly. It’s a test, okay? Let’s be frank. It’s a test. I have a suspicion you can’t cut it at this level, but because of your father, who’s given us good data, and because

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