“She knows about it,” Hall replied. “The president told her why he wanted everybody to send me everything . . . why she was to send the memo.”
“I will be goddamned!” Powell said, white-faced.
“Charley thought, after he’d gone through all the material Natalie’s memo produced, that the obvious place for him to start was in Luanda. I agreed, and that’s where he went.”
“You’re telling me, unless I’m getting this wrong, that the president authorized you to sniff around on my lawn,” the DCI said.
“He did. Yours and everybody else’s,” Hall said.
“I wonder whose idea this was?” the DCI asked, almost of himself.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? The president ordered that it be done.”
The DCI turned to Castillo.
“Castillo, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did you come into possession of this?” the DCI asked. “How do you know that it was sent to Langley?”
Castillo looked at Hall, who nodded.
“The officer who wrote it gave it to me,” Castillo said.
“And who is this officer?”
Castillo looked at Hall again and Hall nodded again. “H. Richard Miller, sir.”
“And he is?”
“He’s the CIA station chief in Luanda, sir,” Castillo said. “His cover is assistant military attaché at the embassy.”
“And why would he do any of the foregoing?” the DCI asked, icily.
“Easy, John,” the secretary said.
“. . . Reveal his CIA connection?” the DCI went on, angrily. “His cover? Give you access to classified CIA files?”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“Answer the question, Mr. Castillo,” the DCI said, not pleasantly.
“That sounded like an order, John,” the secretary said. “I think you should keep in mind that Charley doesn’t work for you . . .”
The DCI glared at the secretary.
“. . . And that the only superior authority either one of us can appeal to is the president,” the secretary went on. “Given that, I think we should really make an effort to deal with this between us.”
The DCI looked at the secretary for a moment but didn’t speak.
“Answer the director’s question, Charley, please,” the secretary said. “Tell him what you told me.”
“Yes, sir,” Castillo said. “Sir, I informed Miller that what I was doing was at the direct order of the president,” Castillo said. “I can only presume that he felt that orders from the commander in chief carried greater weight than any others to which he was subject.”
“Disclosure of classified material to unauthorized persons is a felony under the U.S. Code,” the DCI said. “As is the receipt by unauthorized persons of classified material.”
“The operative word there, John, is ’unauthorized,’ ” the secretary said. “Charley was authorized to see the file first because of Cohen’s memo, and, second . . . or maybe first . . . because he was acting at the orders of the president. There has been no disclosure of classified material to unauthorized persons. Let’s get at least that straight between us. I don’t want Miller to get in trouble over this.”