The voice of the President of the United States was tempered with static and fury on the secure teleconference circuit. No man for finesse was Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man of Normandy. In the blurry black-and-white face projected on the screen in the study of Ezra, he was flanked by the Dulles brothers—John Foster at State and Allen at the CIA—grim and accusing faced. The atmosphere was charged with the stench of fear and the heated quest for someone to blame.
"Mr. Prentice," began Eisenhower, bypassing the preliminaries. His voice, normally a grandfatherly baritone, was as stern as Kansas rock. "The citizens of America have just learned that you're the man who stands the secret sentinel against our enemies. They're convinced that you're the architect of defense for the United States. Now, you tell me: how in the hell did this happen on your watch?"
The title, "Architect," had transformed in the blink of an eye. Yesterday, it was a crown. It was now a yoke. Ezra, hiding the storm of his own shock in an uncompromising mask, seemed to radiate an aura of ultimate, unflappable composure. He was the rock in the ocean of presidential frenzy.
"Mr. President," replied Ezra, his voice stern and measured, "a Soviet weapon was always inevitable. Laws of physics aren't patented. Our efforts were directed at deferring that inevitability, which we did, gaining this nation years of precious time it would not otherwise have had." He stopped, letting that take hold, a fine redefinition of failure to selective success. "A wild military response at this moment would be a disastrous blunder. It would cement their success and convey a message of fear. We must convey one of strength."
He took advantage of the moment and pressed the advantage, turning their predicament into his moment. "This moment is not the end of our advantage, but the beginning of a new kind of race. While they have replicated our past, we must worry about building the future. I am speaking about a new generation of war, Mr. President. Not merely bigger bombs, but smarter munitions; guidance-equipped missiles that can't miss' predictive computers for battlefields; eye-in-the-sky satellites that can watch our adversaries from heaven." He paused, letting the picture take hold. "Now is the time for a majestic, unified investment in a new agency, an Advanced Research Projects Agency. We must ensure the superiority of America is complete in the war of the next decade before it gets underway."
He adroitly deflected blame by painting the picture of a bright, high-tech future that only he could deliver. Panic had been replaced by resolve by the conclusion of the call. Ezra had restrained the situation, but the noose appeared to cinch one step further around his throat. He was individually, in public, accountable for winning one Cold War that had unexpectedly gone hot, much too hot.
That evening, the dark mantle of national crisis was with him as far as the Rockefeller family residence at Pocantico Hills. His weeks-old dinner party had been turned into a wake by the news of Joe-1. John D. Rockefeller Jr. sat at the table's head with funeral-like gravity. His binary morality was unable to process the kind of universe in which godless communists had divine weapons' power. The family spoke in frightened, hushed voices.
It was David Rockefeller who burst the gloom. He rose out of his seat, his young face set with new and startling power. No longer was he the brilliant student; he was the challenger.
"For decades," David began, his voice steady and powerful, his eyes locked intently with Ezra's along the long, polished table. "This family, and this nation, has taken the path of hard power. Of illicit arsenals, of covert wars, of nuclear threats. Today, we witness the end of that path: a world frozen in this terrible arms race, which can only end in mutual annihilation."
He let his words hang in the air, personal criticism of his uncle's lifetime of labor. He looked around the table, his eyes connecting with his cousins, his brothers, the next generation. "My uncle's work," he continued, a careful measure of deference lacing his revolutionarily passionate tone, "was perhaps the fruit of necessity in the days of all-out war. Instruments of war, however, can hardly secure peace of long standing. Brinksmanship is not strategy; it's a blind alley."
Ezra sat, frozen, as David sketched out his counter-vision. He would set up a new global council, a private corporation backed by Rockefeller finance and power. Its job would not be to build weapons, but to build bridges. It would create interlocking patterns of global finance, culture, and commerce—a system of immense interdependence designed to render war commercially and socially unacceptable. It was, in effect, a direct ideological challenge, an attempt to set the kind of parallel, "soft power" empire that would render the military-industrial complex of Ezra outdated.
The younger generation was captivated. David's picture was optimistic, new, and bright. It held out hope of escape from fear. Even Junior, the man always suspicious of global engagement, was touched by the hope of a more "civilized," Rockefeller-style administration of world affairs. Ezra noticed the subtle shift in the room's center of gravity. For the first time, there was credible challenge to his dark realism.
However, most dangerous of all came after dinner. In the dark quiet of the master library, among the rows of the centuries-worth of accumulated knowledge, Alta sought David. Her husband was in the room down the hall, the focal center for the older group, a faraway, powerful sun. Alta's face, once the image of tired despair, was set in stern, full-of-resolve lines.
"David," she said, her voice quiet but clear, "your father is cautious man. The board of the main Trust would never unconditionally advocate the one thing that so unequivocally challenges the ascendancy of Ezra." She looked at her nephew, not at the opponent of her husband, but at the possibility of another sort of universe. "I, however, shall."
David stared at her in shock.
"The family trusts that I oversee personally are sizable," Alta continued, her gaze unyielding. "They're separate from the central family office. Should your new council requires... unobtrusive seed money to launch, you will be given it."
At that time of silence, at the heart of the Rockefeller empire, was secretly forged the insurrection of Alta Prentice, the unobtrusive partner, the sombre wife, who had ceased to be the observer. She had seized one of the weapons—the one she possessed in the shape of her massive fortune—and had adopted sides. She was secretly funding her husband's major internal challenger.
Ezra returned to his townhouse on Fifth Avenue later that night, the pains of the day's wars eating away at him. He felt the earth moving beneath his feet—in D.C., where his legend had turned against him, and in his own household, where there was the ascension of new power to replace him.
Sullivan was in the study, his face oddly sombre. He was not standing uncomfortably, but at attention, as if supporting himself against something intangible.
"Sir," explained Sullivan, his tone brief. "This came for you by special delivery about an hour ago. No return address."
He had pulled out a plain, mundane manila envelope. It was unnervingly light in the hollow of Ezra's palm. It was torn open by him. No epistle, no ransom note, no well-spaced threats typed neatly on the page. Merely one glossy photograph.
The photograph was grainy, clearly taken from a distance with the aid of a high-powered telephoto lens, but the man was recognizable. It was Thomas Riley, his valet, his victim. The photograph showed him standing on one of the street corners of the less salubrious part of the city, looking back in fear as it seemed. It had certainly been taken the same day he died—when the men of Ezra had "questioned" him.
A cold fear, an ancient dread, which had not come upon him in years, wormed its way along his spine. He rotated the photograph in his trembling palm. Duct-taped to the back was a small piece of paper, the kind torn off the pad of a notebook. Typed on, in the neat, impersonal style of the office typist, was one, immobilized sentence. A quotation which he recognized instantly.
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
The New York Times had assigned the Thomas Riley story to the obits. He had assigned it there himself. But someone had gone digging for it. This was not a rival looking to get the jump. This was not a reporter looking for copy. This was a specter. This was a specter armed with camera and typewriter, grumbling the threat his greatest crime could not outrun.