Legends

DR. TREFFLER TURNED AROUND THE STATUE OF NATHAN HALE outside the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters at Langley, Virginia, studying the expression on the face of the young colonial spy from various angles, trying to imagine what might have been going through his mind as he was being led to execution. It occurred to her that nothing had been going through his mind; perhaps he had been too distracted by the lump in his throat, which is called fear, to think clearly. She couldn’t remember if Nathan had seen the elephant (though the term probably didn’t come into use until the Civil War) before he set off on his mission behind British lines in Manhattan Island. She wondered if the British executioners wore striped shirts; wondered, too, if they had wedged a cigarette between his lips before they hanged him on the Post Road, what today is Third Avenue in Manhattan. It is a matter of tradition, Lincoln Dittmann had remembered the executioner saying. A man condemned to death is entitled to a last cigarette.

A whey-faced young man with a laminated card pinned to the breast pocket of his three-piece suit approached. “He was the first in a long line of Americans who died spying for our country,” he noted, looking up at Nathan’s wrists bound behind his back. “You must be Bernice Treffler.” When she said In the flesh he asked to see her hospital identity card and driver’s license and carefully matched the photos against her face. She peeled off her sunglasses to make it easier for him. Apparently satisfied, he returned the cards. “I’m Karl Tripp, Mrs. Quest’s executive assistant, which is a fancy name for her cat’s-paw. I’m sorry if we’ve kept you waiting. If you’ll come with me …”

“No problem,” said Dr. Treffler, falling in alongside her escort. She was mesmerized by the laminated card on the suit jacket with his photo and name and ID number on it. If lightning struck him right now, right here, would she have the good sense to tear it off and send it to his next of kin?

“First visit to Langley?” he asked as he showed his ID to the uniformed guard at the turnstile, along with the signed authorization to bring in a woman named Bernice Treffler.

“I’m afraid it is,” she said.

The guard issued a visitor’s pass that expired in one hour, and noted Dr. Treffler’s name and the number of the pass in a log book. Karl Tripp pinned the pass to the lapel of her jacket and the two of them pushed through the turnstile and made their way down a long corridor to a bank of elevators. She started to walk into the first one that turned up but Tripp tugged on her sleeve, holding her back. “We’re taking the express to the seventh floor,” he whispered.

Several young men relegated to the plebeian elevators eyed the well dressed woman waiting for the patrician elevator, wondering who she might be, for the seventh floor was, in naval terminology, admiral’s country and outsiders went there (the elevator didn’t stop at other floors) by invitation only. When the door finally opened on the seventh floor, Tripp had to walk Dr. Treffler through another security check. He led her down a battleship-gray corridor to a door marked “Authorized DDO staff only,” unlocked it with a key at the end of a chain attached to his belt and motioned her to a seat at a crescent-shaped desk. “Coffee? Tea? Diet coke?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

Tripp disappeared, closing the door behind him. Treffler looked around, wondering if this tiny windowless cubbyhole could really be the office of someone as important as Crystal Quest, whom she had spoken to several times on the phone since she first began treating Martin Odum. A moment later a narrow door hidden in the paneling behind the desk opened and Mrs. Quest appeared from a larger, airier office. She was obviously a good deal older than she sounded on the phone, and wearing a pantsuit with wide lapels that did nothing to emphasize her femininity. Her hair, cropped short, looked like rusting gunmetal. “I’m Crystal Quest,” she announced matter of factly, leaning over the desk to swipe at Dr. Treffler’s palm with her own, then sinking back into the wicker swivel chair. She reached into the bottom drawer of the desk and pulled out a thermos. “Frozen daiquiris,” she explained, producing two ordinary kitchen tumblers but filling only one of them when her visitor waved her off. “So you’re Bernice Treffler,” she said. “You sound older on the phone.”

“And you sound younger—Sorry, I didn’t mean …” She laughed nervously. “Heck of a way to start a conversation.”

“No offense taken.”

“None intended, obviously.”

“Which brings us to Martin Odum.”

“I sent you an interim report—”

“Prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” Quest flashed a twisted smile. “No offense intended.”