“Of course not,” he said gently. “You’ll be a confidential source. And we’ll protect you, just the way you protect your sources.”

That bland reassurance didn’t matter. I knew what I was doing.

“I could get fired if anyone finds out what I’m doing,” I said soberly. “This is absolutely a violation of the Mirror’s rules.”

“Nobody will find out.” His voice was so reassuring. “This stuff is all technicalities. It’s just paperwork, but I thought I needed to go over it with you. We have obtained similar waivers before for other reporters. I can’t give you examples, but take my word. It has happened more than once, and the world never knew a thing. We’re good at keeping secrets.”

He shook my hand before I had a chance to say anything more, and then looked at his watch. “I have to go,” he said. “Call me if you have any more questions. The guard will take you downstairs.” He opened the conference-room door. A guard was waiting in the hall outside.

Often, the biggest decisions we make in life aren’t really decisions at all. They’re the product of habit and momentum—things that have been going on for long enough that they’ve built up their own speed and force and have become difficult to stop or deflect. So you let them happen. A lot of marriages are like that, and career choices, and decisions about where to go to college, or whether to have children, or where to live. We call them decisions, but they really aren’t. They come to us pre-made—the sum of so many previous events and determinations that they have a weight that feels like a layer of time. My trip to China was like that. If there was a decision, it had been made a long time before that visit to the unmarked building on I-270.

And then the automatic reflexes took over. There were all the details of getting ready for the trip—buying my plane ticket, arranging hotel accommodations, getting shots. Bob Marcus suggested a roster of stories, but I told him I wanted to concentrate on the communications contract and the broader French commercial relationship with China. That was fine with Marcus; he had learned that in matters involving me and Bowman, it was best not to interfere.

A few days before I was scheduled to leave I received a call at home from Rupert Cohen. He sounded ecstatic, more voluble even than his usual staccato speech. “I did it!” he screamed into the phone “I did it! I did it! I did it! I did it!”

“You did what?” I asked.

“I QUIT. I fucking quit. I’m a free man! I’m a journalist!!!”