Need You Now (27 page)

54

C
onnie and I drove nonstop to Boston and reached Lemuel Shattuck Hospital around nine o’clock. It was after the prison unit’s regular visitation hours, but this wasn’t a regular visit. Even so, the corrections officer at the ground-floor entrance told us that only one visitor at a time was allowed in the room.

“You go,” said Connie. “He asked for you.”

I completed the visitation paperwork, and my sister returned to the main lobby, where the Celtics game was playing on a flat-screen TV so small that Kevin Garnett looked like a Lilliputian, albeit one who could dunk. Searches were mandatory for all visitors, but in my case it was made all the more necessary by the fact that the metal detector showed no cell phone on my person, which the guard found utterly unbelievable for anyone whose work address was on Wall Street. He rode with me in the express elevator to the eighth floor, where another officer was posted at the locked entrance to the prison unit. Dr. Alice Kern met me in the waiting area, on the visitors’ side of the security doors, and introduced herself.

“How is he?” I asked.

“We had to give him something for his pain, which, of course, makes him drowsy. He’s asleep.”

“But he asked me to come because he had something to tell me.”

“Honestly, you got here much faster than I expected. You’ll have your time with him. He’ll come around in an hour or so.”

“So, his passing is not . . . imminent?”

“It’s not a matter of hours, no. But it could be any day. You can stay here as long as you like.” She glanced at the corrections officer, adding, “It’s been approved.”

I signed my name on the register, and the guard inside the glass booth buzzed Dr. Kern and me into the unit. I followed her down the brightly lit hallway, my heart pounding. Once the secured entrance was behind us, the prison unit looked much like any other hospital, with the exception of the corrections officers posted at each end of the corridor. There were probably a few more security cameras than in a regular hospital, but this was definitely not San Quentin. We passed several more rooms and finally stopped outside an open doorway.

“When is the last time you saw your father?” she asked.

“When I was fifteen years old.”

She arched an eyebrow. “In that case, I guess what I was about to say goes double: you should be prepared for a change in your father’s appearance.”

I had thought I was prepared, but hearing her say it made me realize that I wasn’t. “You’re right, I should be.”

“Do you want me to go in with you, or do you prefer to be alone?”

I had not yet thought about it, but the answer came quickly. “Alone.”

“That’s fine. If you need anything, you can push the red call button by the bed.”

“How much longer will you be here?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be around.”

I thanked her, which she acknowledged with a supportive nod. Then she retreated down the long corridor, and I turned to face the dark opening to my father’s room, where he lay deep in drug-induced sleep. After one tentative step forward, I stopped, the prognosis replaying in my mind.

It could be any day.

I was suddenly wracked with guilt, my feet nailed to the floor. The last five days had been all about my father, and this was the third time since Monday that I’d tried to see him. That made for a grand total of three such attempts since my fifteenth birthday. Did that make me a lousy person? An angry young man, forever bitter that in finding his conscience, my father’s choice to turn against the mob had ended in the death of my mother? Or was I a good son who respected the courage of a father who had come to the painful realization that the only way to protect himself and his children was never to see them again? The answer was complicated, but I had no doubt that guilt was the reason I had jumped at Agent Henning’s offer to arrange for first-rate cancer treatment in exchange for six months of spying on Lilly in Singapore. I wondered if my father knew what I had done. I wondered if he would care.

I wondered, too, if guilt was the reason I felt the way I did about Lilly—that I was so desperate for
something
good to come out of a bad situation.

“Sir, you can’t hang out in the hallway,” the corrections officer said. I hadn’t even heard her come up behind me. “It’s not allowed. You either have to go into the room or go back to the waiting area.”

“Sorry,” I said, breathing out some of my anxiety. “I guess I’ll go in.”

55

B
arber’s mind was on anything but charity, but he was stuck hosting a table for ten at a black-tie gala for yet another organization that had conferred “philanthropist of the year” honors on his wife and his checkbook. Vanessa lived for these events, and it annoyed her to no end when he checked his BlackBerry in the middle of one of her stories. But he might well blow his brains out if, yet again, he had to hear about Todd, “the world’s most fabiola-amazing decorator,” who had raced across Midtown, loaded up Vanessa’s Range Rover, and rescued $11,000 worth of ice sculptures that had been mistakenly delivered to the Waldorf instead of the Pierre.

Barber froze. Finally, the message he’d been waiting for: “Mr. W. will take your call now.” It was from the office of the national security advisor. He rose quickly, angry for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that an intellectual inferior like Brett Woods had the power to make him jump.

“Excuse me, everyone,” he said to his table guests, loud enough to be heard over a twenty-piece band that was playing Gershwin.

Vanessa shot him a death ray. She hadn’t even gotten to the part where a sudden stop on Fifth Avenue had broken a swan’s neck, but “clever Todd” had just told everyone it was a stuffed turkey.

“My apologies, but this may take a while,” said Barber.

“The White House calling again, Joe?” his tennis buddy asked with a smile.

Barber forced a little laughter. “No, those days are over.”

“Please hurry back,” his wife said flatly.

Barber walked quickly through the ballroom, weaving between banquet tables, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might grab him by the sleeve and corner him for a networking opportunity. He exited to the hotel’s mezzanine level, at the end of a long row of carved oak doors, leaving the buzz of the band and the crowd behind him. A staff member directed him down the hall to a vacant room, where he could make a call in private. It was a cozy, windowless business suite with a conference table, a fireplace, and a brass chandelier. He tipped her a twenty, closed the door, and dialed Brett Woods.

“I’ve been trying to reach you for three hours,” said Barber. “Did they not tell you it was urgent?”

“I was in a meeting with Clark,” he said, meaning the CIA director. “More trouble with Operation BAQ. The collateral damage is much broader than we thought.”

The innocent investors were collateral damage. “I thought all of Cushman’s investors had been accounted for.”

“Different kind of collateral damage. It seems that our intelligence on the terrorist connections of some of our targets was faulty.”

“Meaning what?”

“A number of the ‘suspected’ terrorist funders that were pulled into the Ponzi scheme had nothing to do with terrorism.”

Barber leaned against the marble mantel, not quite believing his ears. “The whole justification for Operation Bankrupt al-Qaeda was that these investors were financing terrorism. Are you telling me that we targeted a bunch of rich Arabs with no terrorist connections?”

“To some extent, yes.”

“Damn it! I should
never
have listened to you in the first place. I conceived this as a Treasury operation—but,
noooo
, you had to bring in the CIA. Thanks to your stroke of genius, we have a rogue CIA agent named Mongoose putting the screws to us. And now, to top it all off, you’re telling me that the CIA didn’t even have the intelligence right.”

“I didn’t say
none
of the investors had links to terrorism. But it now appears that many were, well, like I said: collateral damage.”

“You assured me that the CIA had nailed down the terrorist-financing connection. I would never have given the green light otherwise.”

“That’s bullshit, Joe. Now that we got bin Laden, everybody wants to forget how desperate the administration was to strike a deathblow against al-Qaeda.”

“I wasn’t desperate. I wanted to get this right.”

“You knew this was an ambiguous situation. That’s the reason I recommended that we go to the CIA instead of the Justice Department. Justice couldn’t simply freeze their accounts under the Patriot Act—we
suspected
they were terrorist financers, but we couldn’t
prove
it.”

Barber took a seat at the conference table, nearly collapsing into the leather chair. “The fallout from this will be unbelievable.”

“Only if it gets out,” said Woods.

“That’s why my call was so urgent. Mandretti is on his deathbed. He summoned his son because he has something to tell him.”

“He might just want to say good-bye.”

“Or he wants to be at peace before he dies. My guess is that his son will come out of the meeting believing the same BS that his father believes—that the government forced him to confess.”

“Is Mandretti’s son with him now?”

“They’re in the hospital room together, but my sources tell me that Mandretti is not conscious.”

“What are the chances that he will regain consciousness?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to take the risk.”

Woods did not respond, and Barber sensed the need to address his apparent reservations. “Don’t get sanctimonious on me, Brett. We’re talking about a little acceleration for a terminally ill man who has a matter of hours to live. A man who, by the way, is clearly talking out of school about his role in Operation BAQ.”

“What are you proposing?”

“I’ve already sent Mongoose.”

“What do you mean you
sent
him? You can’t send a rogue agent to do anything.”

“I had no choice. If he thinks we’re taking out Mandretti without his involvement, he’ll smell a rat. I’m living under a standing threat from Mongoose: If I double-cross him, the decrypted version of my memorandum outlining Operation BAQ will go viral over the Internet.”

“You said taking Evan Hunt’s computer would eliminate that threat.”

“I said reduce, not eliminate.”

“A civilian casualty is a high price to pay for threat reduction.”

“Nobody expected a ninety-eight-pound weakling to fight to the death over his computer.”

Woods was silent, but an aura of acquiescence came over the phone. “Where is Mongoose now?”

“In Boston, one block away from the hospital,” said Barber. “Got him there by helicopter but had to put him on hold. I need you to pull a few strings to get him inside the room.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Mandretti is receiving a variety of potent medications intravenously. Mongoose will simply make an adjustment to the IV, and Mandretti won’t be talking.”

Woods considered it. “You said the son is there. Can you trust Mongoose to confine his mission to the old man?”

Barber didn’t respond right away. “That’s impossible for me to answer.”

“I want to know what you think.”

“Here’s what I think,” said Barber. “If Mandretti wakes up and talks to his son, I can guarantee you that Mongoose
won’t
confine his mission to the old man. Mongoose wants his money.”

Woods seemed to appreciate the conundrum. “All right. Let me make a phone call.”

“Call me right back.”

“Yeah,” said Woods. “Give me five minutes.”

56

I
couldn’t believe I was in the same room with my father.

I’d been standing at his bed rail for several minutes, unable to move, watching him sleep. I wasn’t sure what to do.

Do I lean over and give him a kiss?

Do I touch his hand?

Do I even know him anymore?

The room was quiet and dimly lit. It felt more like a hospice than a hospital, which had made the first thirty seconds even more painful. The last time I’d seen him, my father had been a handsome man in his prime. The image of him sharply dressed, not a hair out of place, ready to take my mother out on a Saturday night was firm in my memory. Even after I’d learned he was sick, my mind had never allowed me to conjure up what my father would look like when he was dead. Now, it wasn’t much of a stretch to picture someone pulling the sheet up over his face.

That initial shock faded sooner than I would have guessed. I began to see little signs that reminded me of how full of life he’d once been. I laid my hand on his head, covering the baldness from his treatment, imagining him with jet black hair. That alone helped. I smiled at the sight of the scar that was still on his forehead. It had happened during our reenactment of the seventh game of the World Series. Connie had been at the plate. I was pitching. Dad was the unlucky catcher who’d learned the hard way that Connie threw her bat.

“Any signs of coming around?” asked Dr. Kern as she entered the room.

“Still sleeping,” I said.

“You can try to wake him, if you like. But as I said, he’s likely to be quite confused if you do.”

“I’ll wait,” I said. “This quiet time is giving me a chance to adjust.”

She went to the IV. “Let me just shut this thing off. I had him down to twenty-five milligrams, but that doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.”

“I don’t want him to wake up in pain,” I said.

“He can’t get more than six hundred milligrams every twenty-four hours anyway. We’re there.” She walked around to the side of the bed and made the adjustment.

“If there’s anything you need, let me know.”

I thanked her, and she left the room. Then I looked at my father, reached through the railing, and touched his hand. His breathing was steady, but quiet.

“If there’s anything
you
need, let
me
know,” I said.