| 28 October 2006 Series End I walked into the place last night, still in my tuxedo, black tie still proudly fixed under the points of the wing collar of my pleated shirt. It was the annual professional affair, the gathering of the Spooks. They were in from all over the world, from the War and from the far-flung isles of the Pacific. The Washington crowd, who jostle in the Pentagon and at Bolling Air Force Base where the new Spook establishment is rising. I talked to some old comrades who are doing pretty well. Some of them are wearing fat bands of gold on their sleeves and have their pictures on the cover of the trade magazines. I am happy for them, really, since I like being away from the clandestine rat-race. I have had such an education of late, watching a leviathan of a public company slowly and ponderously sink into the waves. This is what life is like for so many, watching pensions and future tied to the machinations of some distant executives, who hold global phone conference calls to tell the work force the sad news about the traditional raise which will not be granted this year, or any other, and the depressingly small amount of cash that is available in the bonus fund, regardless of the vigorous performance and hard work of the fourth quarter. I heard nothing about the fifty million dollar bonus that the CEO will harvest on the successful completion of the sell-out of this proud American Institution to overseas investors. I wondered, doodling figures on a pad as I listened, what that bonus would amount to, if shared with the employees. My calculation indicated it might be around $1,600 dollars apiece, based on thirty-thousand active in the work-force. But I could easily be wrong. I'm sure it is all sheltered somehow, perhaps in Euros. I removed my tie as I clicked on Game Fie of the Series. The Tigers were down by two in the top of the eighth. I mixed a martini and opened the door to the balcony, listening to pattering of the rain outside. The optimism I felt from the dinner, about seeing the Service in good hands, evaporated. The dinner speaker was a General I have known a long time. He is a superb speaker, and eschewed the podium, walking around the tables with a cordless microphone. He had been headed off to the War to be the Chief of Staff in the Green Zone. I pondered that, since we are of an age, and he is still in the machine, one of the grown-ups. I am outside it all, blowing with the leaves in the endless series of the seasons. He was diverted from the War to another one, the bureaucratic conflict attending the establishment of the National Clandestine Service. The re-organization of spying- the conduct of Human Intelligence collection- had resided only at Langley, in the Directorate of Operations, and in the Defense Department. The Director of the CIA is no longer the Chief Spook. That resides elsewhere, with the new Director of National Intelligence, and the system had to be taken away from the DO managers. And so, the General said, stalking by table eight, he got a call from Mike Hayden telling him he was going to go and keep an eye on the CIA folks, and make sure things worked. The General demurred, saying he had a date with the insurgents. Hayden responded by saying that his call was not in the manner of an invitation. The General did what he was told, and he says that the experiment has been good. Those elements of Spooks that once had a tendency to go their own way had been brought back within the tent, and the fractious tribe is playing better together. “It is like what Lyndon Johnson said, when he was asked why he had picked Hubert Humphrey to be his Vice President,” said the General, smiling broadly. “Humphrey was known as a busy-body, and Johnson said he would rather have him in the tent, pissing out, that outside pissing in.” The fellowship that followed the speech was grand. Based on the young people I talked to, the latest crop of Spooks who are taking on this uncertain future are doing so with an ironic gallows humor, just as we went off to wrestle with the Bear. This series is unbroken. I passed up the chance to venture downtown in the rain with the younger officers. The game was on at home. Rain blew against the window, and I stood in the door, watching the batters advance to the plate and swing without effect. Tigers and Cardinals. When this chance comes again, as it does every quarter century, I will be lucky to be sitting with my oxygen bottle and querulously waving for the night-nurse, who will ignore me. If it is the next time we have a chance to event the pattern of the win-and-lose against the Cards, in the same ponderous motion of the decades, I will be long in the grave. Damn. I put the studs and the cufflinks away in a place where I can find them next year. IN the top of the ninth, there was a chance. The Tigers had men on first and third, the go-ahead run at the plate. The count went to two strikes, and I gripped the plastic cup tight as the pitcher hurled and the bat arced around. It hit nothing but air, It was over. I shut off the television to avoid the waves of celebration that would begin on the field and in the stands. The silence echoed, and I took my drink out on the balcony to watch the rain. Damn. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |