The Sandler Inquiry Part 84

"My father," said Thomas coldly Those two words hung in the air for what, to Thomas Daniels, seemed like an eternity. He felt the six other eyes on him, almost Xraying him. And he recognized now their att.i.tude toward him all along. In their own way, they'd been as perplexed with him as he'd been with them. They'd had his father pegged as a spy, of which sort Thomas still didn't know. But what the men in this room had wondered all along-and probably still wondered, Thomas concluded -was how much the spy father had pa.s.sed on to the attorney son.

Whiteside finally chipped the silence.

"What you lack in speed, Mr. Daniels' he said, 'you regain in diligence. Of course, the question we now' must ask is the question."

"Sorry?"

"We know," said Whiteside with feline smugness, 'that your father was a spy. A specialist in recruitment, at that. What we must know is, for whom?"

"For whom?" Thomas repeated in perplexed tones. And for whom?"

"Do you speak any Russian, Mr. Daniels?" asked Hunter flatly.

"What?"

"How about the Cyrillic alphabet?" asked Grover.

"Know it?"

"Where would I have learned it?" asked Thomas angrily.

All three men shrugged. Whiteside, his eyes fixed on Daniels, spoke bluntly.

"At your father's knee, perhaps?"

Daniels was shaking his head, failing to comprehend.

"What are you angling at?" he demanded.

"What the h.e.l.l are you people after?"

Whiteside sighed.

"The extent to which we've been compromised he intoned.

"That's what we want to know. That's what you have to tell us."

"You're not making sense "Oh, no?" Whiteside shot back, the white eyebrows rising quickly.

"Here, then!"

He explained.

Many of the most enterprising intelligence networks of the Second World War, said Whiteside, had been joint Anglo-American endeavors. That was thirty years past, of course, and such past history would hardly have mattered were it not for one simple fact: "A proven network is a proven network' Whiteside pontificated, and good, sound alliances aren't tossed away for the fun of it.

They're kept intact. Sometimes for twenty or thirty years. Even longer."

Thomas listened, uncomfortable under the gaze of Hunter and Grover.

"Do you see the' problem inquired Whiteside.

"Your father was a recruiter. He headed a network. The network functioned through the war, into the postwar period, and was intact at the time of his death " "Intact?" asked Thomas, almost incredulous.

"Yes, intact," said Whiteside intensely, his voice low and serious.

"Intact, but very, very rotten from within. Sandler was no friend of Great Britain, you know that by now. Ergo, he was no friend of the Anglo-American alliance" ,I follow."

"He was a double, d.a.m.n it!" Whiteside erupted.

"And we want to know who else was running him. Maybe the Huns themselves recruited him after the war. Maybe our friends the Bolsheviks to the East, or maybe he was a double cross by some moralistic cowboys in Washington. In any event, he wasn't on our side in any way. Yet he was in a network we took part in." Whiteside nodded toward Grover, his own free-lancer. Whiteside drew a breath and concluded.

"We find out who Sandler's ultimate allegiance was to, and we find out how much our postwar networks have been compromised."

"That simple?" asked Daniels, knowing it wasn't.

"Almost," responded Whiteside with equal cynicism.

"Aren't you missing something?"

"What?"

"You're more concerned with finding Sandler's control than with finding Sandler. Why?"

"Last time we spoke," Whiteside reminded him,

"I said there were things I couldn't tell you. Not yet. That answer is one of those things. At the proper time, you'll be informed."

Daniels grimaced.

"And yet Sandler, if you found him, could answer your questions for you."

Whiteside shrugged noncommittally. Thomas frowned.

"Perhaps " Whiteside offered, his gaze squarely upon the younger man before him.

"But someone else, someone in this room, might also be able to answer a key question, something which might tuck it all in place' ' Thomas felt the gaze of the three other men upon him.

"What are you implying? I don't know a d.a.m.ned thing."

Whiteside sighed.

"No," he said,

"I don't think you do. But if you take the question with you from here and examine it, maybe the solution will appear." He paused.

"This is why you're caught up in this, naturally. It's the whole match, for our part. Your father might have said something, anything at one point or another."

"Like what?"