chapter 8 - Layout

Sammy showed up at the Washington Monument at precisely quarter to noon. He wanted to be able to scope out the situation and to determine whether or not there was any surveillance around the monument. He thought, correctly, that with Patterson leaving his stronghold he would undoubtedly be followed. He sat at one of the newly furnished benches surrounding the base of the monument, his eyes searching the grounds for Patterson's protectors. He didn't find them and, quite frankly, didn't expect to since Patterson surrounded himself with the best. He decided to use up his remaining time before the Director’s appearance by reading the latest on the presidential panel.

Unfolding the paper to page one, he read the headline,

FIRST APPOINTMENT MADE TO CIA PANEL


President Walter Jenkins' press secretary Roger Davies announced today that the first appointment to the now‑called CIA panel will be freshman Senator Joseph Humphreys (D‑NY). Senator Humphreys, a first term senator, was previously the District Attorney for Albany County, New York. Previous to his election as District Attorney, Humphreys was a third generation police officer with the Albany Police Department and it was during this time that he went to Albany Law School, graduated with honors and became an Assistant District Attorney, quickly rising through the ranks to head the homicide bureau and then running for election on his record. "We believe that this first appointment highlights the President's promise to the American people to investigate all acts of malfeasance within the CIA," Davies said in a prepared statement. "Senator Humphreys' able law‑enforcement background will enable the Presidential panel to focus its energies on investigating the activities of the CIA that has so concerned the President in a time‑efficient manner."

So, Sammy thought as he looked up to see if Patterson showed up yet, maybe he could find out information from his friend, Bill. He'd have to look into this. But not now. In good time. When the time was right. He continued to read and his eyes jumped out at the name in the next paragraph.

Senator Humphreys' office was ecstatic at the appointment. In a prepared statement from the Senator's offices in Albany, New York, Humphreys' top aide, William Williams, said, "While Senator Humphreys is only a first‑term senator, he feels he could retire tomorrow and be complete; however, to do so he would not fulfill his mandate to his constituents. Having spent most of his life in the law enforcement world Senator Humphreys will brook no compromise in uncovering any evidence of wrongdoing and bringing any wrongdoers to account for their crimes against the state."

So much for Bill helping out, he thought.

Many on Capitol Hill agree with this assessment; however, there are many detractors. Senior Senator Richard Cadbury (R‑Wy) often a critic of the President's, but one of the loudest supporters of the CIA panel said from his Washington office, "This is pure window dressing. A freshman senator. I don't think there is much that can be accomplished by this man, no matter how many years in law enforcement he has. If he doesn't know his way around Congress, he won't get anything done."

Sammy's reading was interrupted by a large shadow looming over the paper. He looked up to see the Director staring down at him.

"Punctuality," he said. "I like that. You never cease to please me." Despite the beautiful weather this late spring day, with clear skies and temperatures in the low seventies, the Director was bedecked in his usual outfit of dark wool suit, raincoat and hat. Nothing, Sammy thought sarcastically, like remaining inconspicuous. "Do you mind if I sit down with you on this lovely bench? You do know that this bench probably cost $10,000 given our government's antiquated bidding systems." He sat, without waiting for a response. "Do you know that in communist countries a bench like this would probably cost $200 to buy. That's the beauty of that system. Probably the only one. But think about it. Do you think that we would be in this position we find ourselves in if we were living in a truly prosperous country. I think not. The more prosperous we are the less critical the populous will be." Although the last thing Sammy wanted to hear was the incessant, incoherent ramblings of this man, he merely listened quietly in order to avoid an outburst, such as the one he had prompted earlier.

"How come people line up in communist countries for rolls of toilet paper that they pay $5 for?"

"That's because the government holds onto the supplies. If we cut the federal deficit we would have true supply and demand and we wouldn't be in the fix we're in today." He paused and lazily looked at the surroundings, his eyes finally resting upon Sammy. "Well, I could talk economics all day long with you but we have more important things to talk about. Let's walk."

They got up and started walking along the boundary of the reflecting pool. They did not talk for several minutes as they admired the spring day. They appeared to be two friends merely out for a walk, even looked like father and son enjoying a special moment between themselves.

Sammy was the first to break the silence. "Why do you want me to do this?" he asked with a measure of chagrin in his voice.

Patterson's sneaky grin was all the answer Sammy needed but Patterson answered anyway. "Because my young friend, if this presidential panel is allowed to continue the CIA will cease to exist, plain and simple. Let me tell you what will be found. There are documents, mind you not many, but they do exist, that show the Company's complicity in many domestic operations."

"How could those things exist? Why would they be documented?"

"Because in many instances the operations were carried out with the full knowledge and consent of the President of the United States. Nixon and Johnson had an especially fruitful field day in this area. It came to be pattern and practice. While we maintained secret files, the staffs of the Presidents would cover their asses with memos regarding the operations in true Washingtonian fashion. True, no executive orders were ever issued but enough hard digging and the memos are found. And, due to my foresight the memos are carefully worded and have been placed in innocuous files, totally unrelated to operations. As has been explained to you the only thing that can stop the momentum of this panel is something of such epic proportion that the country's attention will be diverted."

"The President." It was a statement, nothing more.

"Yes. I wish there were some other way to do it. I personally like the President. He has something a President hasn't had for a long time, high moral character. He's squeaky clean. Personally, I'd rather have you terminate that fucking Lambert Wardeck. Never have I had the displeasure of knowing such a sneaky son of a bitch as that Chief of Staff. And I've known them all. Unfortunately, I do believe that the majority of the country feels the same thing about Wardeck. So, if we got rid of him nothing would change. There'd probably be parties here in Washington to celebrate." He started to cackle at this thought.

He continued. "From here on in, you are Paul Kalvin. We have established records going way back. I'm sure Connolly filled you in and gave you the appropriate documents to examine. You only have today to read the materials over. You have a meeting scheduled for nine in the morning with Lambert himself."

"Tomorrow morning? That's not enough time to memorize the file. It's gotta be three or four inches thick."

"Five inches, to be exact." He stared at Sammy, his coal black eyes gleaming. "Don't bullshit me now, Samuel." His voice was ice‑edged. "I've read your file. Yes, your file. Did you think we wouldn’t have a file on you. Did you think we just picked you up off the street. No, you were not approached until we had a full profile on you. When we were satisfied, Connolly called Armstrong and had him recruit you. But have a file on you we do. We have information from Dr. Feintuch, remember him. You only met him once but he thought you were something very out of the ordinary. He felt you had a computer for a brain that needed to be tamed. He felt that you were lying to gain attention and the very lies you even thought of showed great potential. When Bennett Armstrong first noticed your potential in college, we searched your room. We even found your notebooks."

Sammy sat speechless, uncomprehending. He knew what he was hearing but could not believe it. "What?"

"Haven’t you been listening to what I said? Did you think we take a recruit without doing a background investigation? Come on. Well, anyway, as I was saying, we found these notebooks, some obviously many years old, nothing current, but, oh boy, what did it show us. To the untrained eye, it showed a pathological liar in training. What our company psychs saw, however, was someone with a computer for a brain, someone with the ability to be a chameleon, change personalities and adapt to any situation. And that's something we hadn't had for a long time. We scooped you up faster than anyone before. Of course, we didn't rave about you before we signed you. Your asking price might've gone up.” He laughed aloud at his own joke. “Of course, we would have paid it, but you've made up the difference quite tremendously, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I guess I have."

"And I'm very glad that you've decided to stay on after this assignment. You won't regret it."

Sammy turned abruptly and faced Patterson. "Well, I'd better be going. I have some reading to do." With that, he turned and walked away. Patterson shouted something after him but he didn't hear it and couldn't care less.



Later that afternoon, as Sammy started to read his new dossier, he thought, morosely, that he would be unable to enlist the assistance of his friend Bill Williams. If Humphreys was as gung‑ho as the papers reported, even if Sammy wanted to turn state's witness, he might be unable to do so. No, he thought, Bill would have to wait. He turned to the file and opened it.

Paul Kalvin was 23 years old, grew up on Long Island, where his parents still lived. Edith and Charles Kalvin were real people. He called information for the 516 area code and sure enough they lived in Cedarhurst, New York, the hub of Long Island's fabled Five Towns. They were most likely Company fronts used for deep background. Charles was a stockbroker for the huge investment firm of Perry, Hobson & March. He was 55 years old and had been with the firm since he graduated from Brooklyn College 34 years earlier in 1948. He made over one million dollars a year and lived in the back of town on the water in a sprawling ten bedroom Tudor style house that he purchased in 1958 for $200,000. It was now estimated to be worth over $5,000,000. His wife, Edith, lived to spend his money in the exclusive shops that lined Central Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Cedarhurst, and lucky for Charles, she couldn't spend all of what he made, so successful he was. But she came close once or twice.

Paul had a sister, Emily, aged twenty, who would be entering her senior year of college in the fall. She was a business major at the State University's Buffalo campus and hoped to go into retail management when she graduated.

Paul, for his own part, had eschewed attempts by his father to get him with a position with Perry Hobson upon his graduation from Georgetown University, where he double majored in Political Science and Business. Rather, he decided to take a position as a government research analyst with the National Security Agency. His acumen led him to a group leader position in intelligence, monitoring activities of the intelligence community worldwide.

Kalvin had no need for his father's line of work because of the trust fund his father established when he was an infant. Some twenty plus years later he was financially independent and did not need to work at all.

Charles Kalvin, despite his financial status, sent his children to public schools as he felt that this was where the best education was obtained. Paul and his sister went to the Number 5 school on Cedarhurst Avenue, the Lawrence Middle School on Broadway and Lawrence High School off Peninsula Boulevard. He drove to high school in a restored 1970 Mach 1 Mustang that he found rotting in a junkyard. He still drove that car to work from his apartment in Georgetown, having maintained it in excellent condition since having it restored in 1978. After graduating high school, Paul attended Georgetown University where he was a double major in Political Science and Business.

He had three aunts, one of whom he maintained constant contact as she also lived in the Five Towns. The other two aunts, on his father's side, lived in Brooklyn and he really didn't have the time to visit them; however, he was close to his father's brother, who lived three thousand miles away in Pomona, a suburb of Los Angeles. His cousins also lived on Long Island and when he was in town his mother would set up dinner inviting his aunt, her sister, and the cousins, her sister's children. His cousins were older than him and sometimes treated him as they would a younger brother. This pissed him off to no end. Many times he'd fight with his mother about her inviting them to dinner. When he came home, he'd tell her, he wanted to spend time with his parents, especially his father, whose sense of humor and overall lack of seriousness Paul had inherited.

His uncle, that is his father's brother, the one who lived in Pomona, worked in his own business selling silk flowers, which sold nowhere in the world except Southern California, La-La Land, in which it was a cottage industry. He had previously worked in swap meets, where he sold everything from cowboy hats (which sold phenomenally well since J.R. Ewing was shot) to used records, a market that his uncle knew would never die, despite the invention of cassettes.

His other uncle, the one married to his mother's sister, recently retired from the garment industry where he sold, of all things, boxes. "Fashions may come and go," he'd say, "and I've seen some doozies, but everybody will need boxes no matter what people are wearing." As goofy as he was, he was right and made a fortune selling boxes.

Paul's interests lie primarily with playing basketball and watching movies. If someone cared to check the computer records of the video store near his apartment, Vinnies's Video, they would see that he rented two or three videos a night, primarily action movies or comedies, although he had nothing against a good drama. Never, though, had he rented a musical, not even a good one like Guys and Dolls.

He played basketball at a local schoolyard every few days with some guys from the neighborhood. Just a quick game of pickup but he enjoyed it especially as it had a slightly different cast of characters every time he played.

He was seeing a girl that he had met at a Baltimore Orioles game. Her name was Betsy Rowan. She was twenty‑two years old and graduated from Duke University in December of 1981, having completed her studies in less than the allotted time. It turned out that she was a low‑level researcher at the NSA, who got her job through an uncle who worked in the State Department. She and Paul had being seeing each other exclusively for two months and considered themselves a couple. They had gone away for a week to a resort in Cancun. That week had been glorious. They made love, swam, laid in the sun, drank and made more love. Betsy was pushing for a commitment this early in the relationship and Paul was seriously considering it.



Sammy stopped reading. He'd wing the rest of it, like he'd done in the past. He shook his head. Betsy Rowan. He couldn't be lucky enough to have his own Betsy, could he. Well, he didn't want to think about it. He got up to pee. When he returned to his reading, he laid his head down to rest and shifted into a confused slumber.