Free The Once and Future Spy by Robert Littell Page A

walking back a cat for Wanamaker; might put two and two together
     and realize the love letters came from the Weeder. And he would be out on his ear, job-hunting in academia.
    The Weeder shook his head. “That’s it.”
    “Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to scrub all targets that are non-Russian, non-East European. I want you to
     destroy every trace of these intercepts. If our friends at Oversight ever get wind of what you’re up to, they might sit still
     for it if the targets are Russians and East Europeans. But they’ll go straight through theroof—we’ll have a major scandal on our hands—if they find out we’re bugging journalists and one of their own.”
    The Weeder nodded. “Only foreign nationals from here on out.”
    The DDI glanced at his watch, which was gold and curved so that it hugged his wrist. “Why do you stay with the Company, Mr.
     Sibley? With your skills you could command a lot of money in the marketplace.”
    “To use a very old-fashioned word,” the Weeder replied, “I consider myself a patriot. I want to be useful.”
    “Do you have a feeling you are being useful?”
    “I see myself as a small cog in a large machine that is America’s first line of defense,” the Weeder said, and he meant every
     word.
    “You believe in this Company of ours?”
    “I believe in this country of ours. To the extent that the Company protects the country, I believe in the Company.”
    The DDI stood up and offered his hand across the desk. The Weeder stood on his side and accepted it. “I am told you are a
     descendant of …” the DDI started to say.
    The Weeder cut him off. “Not of him. Of his brother. My greatgrandfather’s great-grandfather was his brother.”
    “Good bloodline,” the DDI commented. “When will you be coming down to Washington again?”
    “I have three weeks leave on the books,” the Weeder said. “I was planning to take them now if you see no objection.”
    “What do you do with yourself for R and R? Are you an angler? A skier? A mountain climber?”
    The Weeder grinned sheepishly. “I am a bookworm, Mr. Rudd. For play, I bury myself in the corners of libraries and read.”

16

    T he head archivist, E. Everard Linkletter, was tickled to see the Weeder. He polished his eyeglasses with the tip of his tie
     and fitted them back over his eyes. “Always a pleasure to see one of my old boys,” he chirped. Linkletter, who had the delicate
     bone structure of a bird and eyes that watered at the hint of an emotion, lifted a mountain of dossiers off his desk and set
     them down on the floor. “Pull over a chair. I’ll get us some Darjeeling. Things haven’t been the same since we lost you. You
     had a way with computers, didn’t you? Oh, dear, which of these buttons do you think connects me with the woman who claims
     to be my secretary?” He tried them one after the other, shouting, “Anybody home?” at each stop until he found signs of life.
     “Tea for two, two for tea,” he called. He looked at the Weeder and rolled his head from side to side in satisfaction. “You
     haven’t decayed as much as you might have,” he said.
    “You never change,” the Weeder said, but Linkletter swatted away the compliment as if it were an insect. “I’m feeling very
     short and very fat today,” he said morosely. He pouted as if the words themselves had a bad taste. “And very old—too old,
     too old. You know what they say about old age? Old age, they say, is not for sissies. Well, I’m not sure where that leaves
     me. My sight’s going. My hearing’s going. My lower back, my knees have long since gone. My digestion is reasonable if I don’t
     drink too much. But who wantsto go through what’s left of life not drinking too much? Tell me what you are up to these days, Silas?”
    The Weeder offered up one of his sheepish grins. “This is not the kind of shop where you want to ask that sort of question.”
    Linkletter sighed. “Don’t I know it. The