Free Arc Light by Eric Harry Page A

few that seemed somewhat exciting and dangerous.
    Success at DIA had come quickly and unexpectedly. Having studied Russian at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, he had been assigned the tedious job of compiling the increasingly dismal Soviet economic data from the late eighties. At the end of his reports, he had always thrown in unsolicited opinions about the Soviet Union. Unwittingly, he had chronicled the demise of the U.S.S.R.
    In 1991 the intelligence community had still been reeling from its failure to predict Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait the year before. As the Soviet Union’s impending collapse became more and more apparent, his reports had been dusted off and he’d been trotted out as having predicted it years in advance. Quotes from his reports had been taken out of context. He had been put forward by the DIA to give testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Insiders” atcocktail parties were abuzz with paraphrased “predictions” he had supposedly made. He’d quickly become known as the guy who first “called” the decline and fall of the U.S.S.R., and it was the call of the century. His fifteen minutes of fame.
    Two months after the collapse, an engraved invitation had arrived. A private dinner with George and Barbara Bush. The conversation had turned to calls for a “peace dividend” that were just beginning to circulate. The President had been concerned they would cut defense only to wake up one morning to find hard-liners at the other end of the hot line. He had been fishing for an opinion, for a call.
    The wine had left Greg at ease, and his opinions had come freely. Jane had kicked him repeatedly under the table, but he had plunged into an area, strategic military affairs, for which he had no formal preparation. Russia was going to hell in a handbasket, he had opined. Their military would suffer right along with everything else. “Just stay one step ahead of them, Mr. President. Let them collapse faster than we reduce. Defer the cuts a little bit. Stay ahead of the game.”
    â€œYou seem sure of yourself, Greg,” Bush had said as he refilled Greg’s wineglass.
    â€œA peace dividend now is too fast, too soon,” he’d said, enamored of the position he had developed only moments before. “I’d slow-play the cuts. Let the bottom drop out from under the Russians first.” Jane had kicked him so hard that the water glass on the table shook. Barbara Bush had laughed and then taken Jane on a tour of the White House while Greg looked over the preliminary force reduction plans in the Oval Office.
    He had said the right things, and from that evening he’d been on the fast track. He had learned military affairs on the job. Even though administrations changed and the bureaucracy forgot why it was that he was a star, the lights on his career path had remained green. Greg was moved from one Crisis Action Team to another, spending more and more of his time in the White House—actually 100 feet beneath the White House, in the Situation Room.
    When President-elect Livingston’s transition team had requested a national security briefing, the DIA had sent Lambert. Two weeks later Jane’s mother had telephoned. Greg’s name and picture had been in U.S. News & World Report under a list of candidates for national security adviser in the new White House. He and Jane had run out in the rain to buy a copy. The issue, crumpled and fat from having been soaked, still sat in their nightstand. Jane had refused to throw it out. She never threw anything out; the closets were full ofold cheerleader uniforms, basketball trophies, and her wedding dress, of course.
    â€œYou know we’ll have to clean all this stuff out when we have a baby,” he’d said the weekend before last. From the look—the smile—on her face he had said the right thing. He had a knack for saying the right things. They had started