In his car, he took out his cell phone and called the office of the Secretary of the Treasury. He then called another number.

“What’s up?” a voice said.

Dunne recognized the voice. “Don’t say anything. I’m coming by in an hour. I’ll meet you in the front.”

34 - Adams Morgan June 29

34

Adams Morgan June 29

Rolando brought over two plates of grilled shrimp and two glasses of wine. Addis and Lancette were seated at the back of the first-floor dining room. This was where he had sat with Rudd three nights earlier.

“Okay,” Addis said after the owner left, “let’s have it.”

“Have what?”

“Your story.”

“My story? Like this is a date?”

“Sure, why not?”

“It’s not that interesting.”

“Then give me your cover story.”

“That’s even duller.”

“Okay, then how about those Wizards? Can you believe what a messed-up season they had. Nothing in the paint. No leadership—”

“Okay, you win,” she said. “My story.”

She went through it like she had done with Grayton, but with more details. She told him how she had found her way to the CIA. It started with her thesis at the Woodrow Wilson school: an examination of Tito’s campaign to undermine and absorb political dissent in Yugoslovia. Impressed by the paper, a professor had recommended her to a friend in Washington, a fellow at an institute dedicated to foreign policy. She had visited the friend, and they had chatted about prospects for democracy in the Balkans. He asked if she might be interested in working further in that area. She said yes. He picked up the phone and called an acquaintance in the CIA. I get five hundred dollars a head, he had told her. She was not sure whether he was joking.

“The rest is you-know-what,” she said.

“Current events,” he said. “But that whole flap?”

“Not now.”

“Something like, you wouldn’t go along with some report on …”

“Assessing the political strengths and weaknesses of various Serbian players.”

“They wanted you to fix it, give a boost to somebody?”

She stared at a couple at another table. They were laughing. The man was making faces as he told a story.

“Okay,” she said. “The thing was, they were shooting for the right policy. It was all about who should get a nod of support from us. But the folks who deserved it were the worst organized. And it doesn’t help to send a paper to the NSC saying the people we ought to be helping are a bunch of fuck-ups. So they wanted that shaved.”

“And you didn’t want to be a shaver?”

“It’s not what I was paid to do,” she said.

“Not even when it could have helped.”

“Not even. I was naive. I didn’t think it was up to me to rig the record.”

She looked at her hands.

“That’s about it,” she added.

“Commendable.”

“Or foolish and arrogant.”