An Absence of Light

Again she was silent He was surprised at himself, that he could not discern what she might be feeling. He was sure that he would be able to read her reaction in her manner, in her face, but he was wrong. He saw nothing. He felt like a gambler waiting for the dice to stop spinning. But, deep down, he didn’t believe she would refuse to help him.

“I’ll do this,” she said finally, looking up. “But you’re right, this is as much a personal favor as a professional one. It’s both, really… and then it isn’t.”

Her eyes burrowed into his eyes. In this brief moment, by her manner, by her tone of voice, by the expression on her face, she was letting him know that such a request from him, and her agreement to it, would not be without its consequences.

Graver waited.

“The reality is that you are now asking for something of Lara Casares, not of your secretary,” she said. “And I will gladly do this, not as your secretary, but as Lara.” She raised a dark eyebrow slightly, wanting to know if he understood.

Graver nodded.

“I trust you,” she said. “Completely. But I’m not a fool. I understand enough of this business now to know that sometimes it’s necessary for you to lie-to withhold the truth-whatever it is you find yourself having to call it” She paused, her black eyes still holding him across the short distance between them. “I have only one request: never He to me. Lie to your secretary, if you must I’m not so naive as to think I can ask you not to do that. But never lie to me… to Lara.” She paused again. “And if you don’t understand the difference between the two, well, then, I guess it’s time for me to know that about you.”

She stopped and looked at him, almost sadly, he thought, and suddenly he realized there was a story here, behind this request, a story that had much to do with who she was and which had been entirely invisible to him for all these years until this moment Either Lara was a master of secrets herself, or he had been shamefully obtuse, having been too self-absorbed to detect a vulnerability where he had thought none existed.

“This is important to me,” she said. “Do you understand that? No lies… between you… and me.”

Graver nodded. “I understand,” he said. “Agreed.”

“I believe that,” she said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

Graver was tremendously relieved and, at the same time, chagrined. In a real sense he already had lied to her by his vague approach. Or, if he had not exactly lied to her, he had not been entirely honest either. She saw that, and that was precisely the kind of thing she was talking about Even so, she had consented to work with him under decidedly bizarre circumstances. She had consented, but she also had put him on notice. Gently.

Chapter 24

He called them into his office separately. Paula first, because she did not yet know of his conversation the night before with Neuman. When Graver told her of Neuman’s discovery, she was uncharacteristically quiet Like many deskbound thinkers, Paula’s understanding of life, while brilliantly analytical, was largely acquired through theories and paradigms rather than experience, and she was visibly disquieted by this harsh and untidy intrusion of flesh-and-blood reality. It was one thing to read and write about subterfuge and betrayal and quite another to find yourself wiping away the actual sweat of it.

She was sobered but not intimidated. She immediately agreed to work with Graver without any higher authority for what they were about to do. Graver was a little uncomfortable that she so readily assented to step into unchartered country with him. On the other hand, though, it was Paula’s characteristic refusal to shrink in the face of the formidable that recommended her to the job they were about to take on.

After Paula, he called in Casey Neuman.

“At this point only the three of us know about this,” Graver said. “Since I don’t know where in the hell this thing goes, it’s got to stay that way.”

The two of them were sitting in Graver’s office again, and it was late in the afternoon. Everyone had gone home. Neuman was turned almost sideways in the straight-back chair in front of Graver’s desk, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, his left arm draped over the back of the chair. As Graver spoke, Neuman was looking down at a piece of paper he had been using as a bookmark and which he was now folding and unfolding as he listened.

“What you’ve got to consider now,” Graver continued, “before you even agree to go along with this, is that something like this could go both ways. At some point down the road, next month, next year, if we deal with this thing successfully, we could be testifying for the prosecution. Fine. On the other hand, it could blow up in our feces. Let’s say we’ve discovered the breach, but we’ve botched the inquiry, or we’re hauled up on charges of running a rogue investigation that should have had authorization and direction from a higher level.”