The Cube Root of Time
by
Herbert Cohen

Vapor Trails

November 10 1988

Neoprene rollers pinched the sheet of paper, dragging it down to be caught in the shiny teeth of the serrated cutting wheels, where it was ribbon-sliced into eighth-inch strips. Horizontal scissor-arms snipped with tiny chirping sounds, shearing the ribbon ends into fine confetti before they fell into the disposal sack.
      Ellie Passworthy, her long thin body bent over the shredder, cried softly into a damp tissue as she fed the last sheet of the file into the slot. She'd been his secretary for thirty-one years.
      "More than half my life," she murmured. She stood up and walked over to the window, standing perfectly still with one anguished fist in her sweater-pocket and the other hand braced against the window frame. She stared east across Arlington and the river. The red aircraft light atop the Washington Monument blinked rhythmically in the distant night.
      "He's only seventy," she pleaded with the flashing light. "That's not old."
      How could she work for anybody else? No! Next week she would hand in her retirement papers. It was done! She'd made the decision.
      It had started as any ordinary Thursday evening, with Ellie checking their bank statement at the roll top desk, and Tom watching LA Law on the big Sony, when she felt that funny prickle just before the phone rang. She recognized Dirkson's voice as she lifted the receiver, remembering he was the watch commander tonight.
      "Ellie, I have bad news."
      The trigger words sent that depersonalized electric flutter through her like the time just before their old Buick skidded off the road and hit the tree.
      "Dennis Slater died at 9:10 PM, of an apparent heart attack."
      On some level she had known it all evening as a feeling; something out of place. She recalled a glimpse of Denny as he left the office that afternoon.
      "I must be coming down with a bug," he'd said, a little out of breath, as he put on his coat.
      "Denny Slater just died," she told Tom over her shoulder, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
      "Ellie! Listen," Dirkson's firm, smooth voice went on. "I know it's a shock but you know what you have to do now."
      "Huh, oh, yes," she recited mechanically. "I'll have to account for his Q Files and shred them."
      "Ellie!" Dirkson shouted. "Shut up! This is an unsecured phone!"
      "I'm sorry, Eric. That was very unprofessional of me. I'm leaving now."
      The ten-minute drive to Langley had been a blur of old memories and traffic lights.

The Italian Ambassador had been hastily called back to Rome for a weekend conference. He regretted having to miss the opening of Death of a Salesman at the Kennedy Center. A note was sent to his friend, Nate Hawley, the Director of the CIA, asking if he would like to use the Ambassador's box that evening.
      He genuinely liked Hawley, who reminded him of Dean Acheson with his short-cropped hair and military mustache, but being an instinctive politician he tried to turn the incident to his advantage.
      Two or three little favors like this one, he calculated, and he could ask for a little favor of his own.

Nate Hawley jumped at the chance. His wife, Natalie, would love it - an opening night performance with Dustin Hoffman. Then, there was a new senator on the Appropriations Committee who could use some strokes.
      Hawley called the Ambassador and thanked him, saying he was forever in his debt.
      Owing to the rain and the traffic they arrived at the theater a few minutes late. Dustin Hoffman had just come on stage as they tiptoed into their box. At the intermission they wandered down to the lobby. Since Hawley had got the box, the Senator and his wife were obligated to buy a round of drinks while Hawley and Natalie collected chairs and captured one of the tiny cream-and-gold plastic tables that festooned the lobby.
      "What do you think of it, Fred?" Hawley asked the senator, who was distributing plastic cocktail glasses.
      The Senator's wife interrupted him with the casual assurance of one whose words on any subject were far more important. "Well, Lee J. Cobb had an entirely different approach. As I remember Miller changed the character after Cobb auditioned for the role. The part was originally written for a man of small stature like Hoffman, a bantam rooster. Miller saw the advantage of a large man brought down. The pitiful giant has more emotional grip than the pitiful dwarf." She gave everybody a how-bright-I-am smile.
      "That's fascinating, Dora," Natalie responded, realizing she intensely disliked this brittle, clever woman.
      "Dora studies drama at Georgetown," the senator murmured sourly, propping himself against a column. "At least it keeps her busy."
      "Who played the son, Happy, in the original?" Natalie asked, trying to cast oil on the turbulent marital waters.
      "Damned if I remember," the Senator remarked, sipping his whisky.
      "Cameron Mitchell," Hawley said.
      "You know, you're right," Dora said, eyeing Hawley with undisguised interest. "I haven't seen him in years."
      "I think he died," Natalie said, catching Dora's look.
      Just as the bell rang Hawley noticed Edward, his chauffeur, scanning the crowd. He excused himself and crossed the lobby to meet him.
      "I didn't want to disturb you sir, but it was a blue priority."
      Hawley nodded, following him out the tall front doors and down the steps to the limo. Edward slid into the black leather driver's seat, automatically hitting the partition button that raised the soundproof glass separator, and went back to the Washington Post crossword puzzle. Hawley lifted the phone and pressed the scrambler button, then waited.
      "Dirkson here, I'm watch commander tonight. I'm afraid it's bad news, sir; there's a message from the Christchurch Chief of Police. Quote - Dennis Slater, address, Elton Lane, died at 9:10 PM tonight of cardiac arrest on the way to Saint Agnes Hospital - unquote."
      "What? Oh, my God!" Hawley caught himself. "Acknowledged, I'm coming in." He hung up.
      When the chauffeur glanced up again he saw something he'd never seen before: Hawley was crying. His face showed no grief, just astonishment, but large tears rolled down his cheeks. He gazed past the chauffeur into the darkness, slowly shaking his head. Edward had sense enough to look down at his puzzle. When Hawley recovered, he blew his nose and wiped his eyes before knocking on the partition.
      "Stay here, Ed; I'll be right back."
      As Hawley entered the box he touched Natalie on the shoulder. She turned in exasperation, knowing what was coming.
      "Denny Slater died," he whispered.
      Her face softened in astonishment. She squeezed his arm with one hand as she covered her breast with the other. A kaleidoscope of images flashed through her mind: The four of them fishing on the Columbia River on what she and Rachel laughingly called their Erma Bombeck vacation. The bridge games every Thursday night. Sharing a house on the Keys: Denny crying on Nate's shoulder at Rachel's funeral.
      "Poor Denny, to die alone like that. Do you have to go?"
      Hawley leaned over the senator and his wife, putting a hand on each shoulder. "Business," he whispered, "sorry, have to go. With luck I'll only be an hour. Drive back to our place for a drink after the show and tell me how it ends."
      They laughed politely at his little joke.
      "I'll send the car back for you," he told Natalie as he patted her cheek. His control suddenly cracked and she saw the hurt child look. "He was like the brother I never had." He shook his head as if to clear it, and left.

When Ellie entered Slater's office the first thing she did was stand over his chair and run her hand along the cushion, still molded to his body. His Mennen aftershave clung to the headrest.
      Vapor trails of the living, she thought, and started to cry again.
      She called Security for the override code on Slater's safe. Dirkson had OK'd it. She had never opened his safe before. Kneeling down in front of it she felt it was the final intimacy between them. The door swung open. There wasn't much in it; some ledgers with brown stickers indicating low security, and on the top shelf, the Q files. A rack of folders, each with a small gold sticker in the upper left-hand corner and its file number underneath.

She had once chided him about his Q Files. "Isn't it lovely," she mused teasingly, "to have files nobody can see, your own dirty secrets. A diary of your special covert operations. All in the name of plausible deniability."
      "Yeah, us boys have all the fun," he said sardonically.
      Eyeing him speculatively over her horn-rimmed glasses, she finally asked, "OK, buster, own up. Is the Lowenstein File one of them?"
      He broke out in a cackle of laughter. "You really buy into that old chestnut?"
      She looked back at him skeptically.
      "Let's see." He looked up at the ceiling and started to count off on his fingers. "I got a transcript of Rosemary Wood's eighteen minutes of tape, unerased. I got four of Judge Crater's parking tickets. I got pictures of little green men in hanger 18. I got a motel receipt for the crew of the Marie Celeste." He looked sideways at her and smiled that charming Irish grin of his.
      "Kids," she shouted. "You're like little kids playing, 'I double dare you'. I could understand it during the war, but that ended thirty-four years ago and you and this whole damn agency could never let it go. You had a taste of the game and it became your sweet narcotic."
      She stared down at her glass. "Adventure. What a drug that must be to men. Adventure to men is as glamour is to women. It's really rotten; everybody chases a mirage. And look what it got you. Thirty-eight years of being operational. Four bullet holes and God knows how many broken bones." She stopped short of saying: "And a wife who used to shake when you were out on a mission."

Ellie lifted the rack out of the safe and put it on the tray beside the shredder, aware that she was now destroying unique bits of history. Each sheet was shredded face down; even when destroyed she wasn't allowed to look at them. The empty folders were neatly stacked face down so she couldn't see the file numbers. When she was done, she blew her nose and looked at her compact mirror. The blue eyes were red and the thin long jaw was grim. Everybody told her she looked like Pat Nixon.
      The phone rang and she sniffled and cleared her throat before answering. It was Dirkson.
      "Ellie, how many files are there?"
      "Seven."
      "Seven? You're supposed to have eight. Ellie, turn them over and read off the numbers attached to each file."
      She did so, feeling as though she were betraying Denny.
      "806225 should be there," Dirkson said in a studied neutral tone.
      "It's not here, Eric." She began to worry.
      "Stay there. I'm sending over a search team."

Hawley was on his way back to Langley when the scrambler phone rang.
      "It's Dirkson, sir. We have a problem. One of Slater's Q files is missing. We searched his office and it hasn't shown up."
      There was a tension-laden pause as Dirkson waited for Hawley to tell him what to do.
      "The file name … is it Lowenstein?"
      "Yes." Dirkson heard Hawley inhale sharply.
      "Have a box man meet me at Denny Slater's house in twenty minutes. Oh, yes …" he said as an afterthought. "I want the Christchurch Chief of Police there also."
      It was still raining but the traffic had eased. They made Christchurch in fifteen minutes. When Hawley got out of the car, he stood there looking at the large corner house that was so familiar to him. As he approached the front door it opened and the police chief asked: "Director Hawley?"
      "Yes."
      The Police Chief ushered him in. "May I see some ID?"
      Hawley pulled out his ID card.
      "It's a privilege, sir. What can we do for you?" The Chief was a stubby little man with gray muttonchops. He looked slightly ridiculous in his tan-and-blue striped uniform. Thick gold braid looped through one epaulet and under his armpit, yet Hawley had a feeling the man knew his business.
      "Is anyone else in the house?"
      "No, sir."
      "Good. Please post guards on the house tonight and tomorrow until noon. Both front and back. As of now, no unauthorized personnel allowed into the house."
      "Should we put off notifying next of kin?"
      "I'm his executor. I'll handle all of that tomorrow. Look, I know you're a small town and there's no reason we can't pay for your services. Send the overtime bill to me at the agency."
      The Chief smiled appreciatively.
      "One more thing, tomorrow morning some agency people will show up. Let them in. After they leave, the place is yours."
      The doorbell rang with a soft chime. Hawley walked over and opened it.
      A gaunt man in a black raincoat stood in the doorway. He was holding a square wooden box at his side by its leather handle.
      "You're Jutlow, aren't you?"
      "Yes sir," he said, showing Hawley his ID card.
      The pale, thin, almost ascetic face reminded Hawley for some reason of a yeshiva student. He ushered Jutlow into the foyer, then turned to the Chief. In a smooth well-rehearsed motion he put his arm around the chief's shoulder and walked him to the front door. "Chief, I want to thank you for you cooperation, and, ah, oh, yes, add your own services into the bill."
      "Thank you very much, sir." The Chief actually tipped his hat as he left.
      "In here," Hawley pointed, showing Jutlow through the foyer, and turned left into the study. Jutlow followed carrying the wooden box.
      It was a man's room furnished with heavy leather armchairs around a brick fireplace. Black oak bookshelves lined three walls from floor to ceiling. Photographs decorated the fourth wall alongside the fireplace.
      Hawley pointed to a safe behind a cherrywood desk. Jutlow recognized it as a Tuckson V-4. "No problem," he said, hardly looking at the safe. He folded his coat neatly and laid it on the floor before he snapped open the clips on the box and carefully removed an oblong gray plastic instrument. The device had a three-inch-diameter hole completely through it. On the rear side, four suction cups were attached to each corner. He delicately fitted the hole over the safe dial and attached the suction cups with their valve locks. They held the box securely to the safe like a leech. With a spin of the knob to see that it was free, Jutlow threw the ON switch, then entered the reset code on the calculator-style keypad. An LCD display came to life, black letters dancing against a yellow-green luminescent background. A motor whirred as rubber fingers gripped the dial and slowly started it rotating.
      "It will take five minutes." Jutlow spoke without looking up. He wondered what was in the safe that was so important that the director himself should get involved. He knew they were old war buddies, Mustache Petes from the old days. Jesus, they were both about seventy, though Hawley didn't look it. Jutlow picked up a book from the desk. Feuerbach and the Pre-Marxist Philosophers.
      Hawley glanced over his shoulder at the cover. "He was interested in philosophy."
      "If you don't mind me saying, sir, he never seemed the intellectual type."
      "He never liked to show it much."
      Jutlow studied the photographs on the wall over the safe. "Is that you two during the war, sir?"
           Hawley squinted at the photo, remembering. They were both very young. The camera had caught Denny in the midst of telling a joke, his mouth puckered, his finger pointing in the air. Hawley with his head back was laughing. Hawley nodded. "That was in Yugoslavia. January 1943. Bill Casey took the picture."
      "Was Slater as good as they say?" Jutlow asked, making conversation.
      "Operationally he was one of the best we had," Hawley said, ending the sentence but in his mind he added: The problem was we kept him operational too long. He made one serious mistake and could never forgive himself. He turned away and opened a two-door cabinet, removing a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses and silently offering one to Jutlow.
      "No thank you, sir. I don't drink."
      "Don't worry, life will cure you of that habit," Hawley said bitterly, throwing his head back and downing the shot.
      The instrument made a clacking noise and a piece of thin paper tape emerged from a slot under the LCD display. Jutlow tore it off and handed it to Hawley, then started to remove the instrument from the safe.
      When he was finished, Hawley dialed the combination and tried the handle. He was rewarded with a click, and the door sprang open a quarter inch.
      Jutlow methodically put the instrument away in its case and donned his coat before asking: "Anything else, sir?"
      "Thank you, Jutlow, no." Hawley waited until he heard the click of the front door before opening the safe.
      The top shelves were neatly laid out with stacks of municipal bonds, insurance contracts, and bankbooks. Hawley leafed through them, knowing Slater's net worth to be just short of two million. There were no safe deposit keys.
      A small box of Rachel's jewelry was tucked in the corner along with their son Eben's Distinguished Service Cross, Vietnam Medal, and Posthumous Purple Heart.
      On the bottom shelf a large cardboard carton sat atop a thick manila envelope. Hawley lifted them out and put them on the desk. He opened the envelope first, half-knowing what was inside. As the file folder emerged he saw the red diagonal slash of a top-secret file. The gold sticker was in the left-hand corner. Underneath the file number, 806225, the label read, "Lowenstein File".
      He poured another Jack Daniels and pushed the folder aside to examine the lid of the carton. A blue label at the left upper corner read, "American Embassy Diplomatic Pouch". A Special Courier tag had been stapled to it with Slater's home address typed in bold print.
      Hawley thought about that for a minute then carefully scanned the date stamp below. It was smudged but he could make out, Nov. 18, 1986.
      He opened the cover and peered at what looked like a corroded carriage lamp. It was very old, with glass windows on all four sides. Its ancient bronze base sat on hand-carved lions' paws. Hawley lifted it out of the box and placed it on the desk next to the file folder. When he peered into the rough-cut glass, a dim shadow of a rectangle could be seen at the bottom of the lamp.
      Something puzzled him. There was no cup to hold oil, no candleholder. What kind of a lamp was it?
      Of course! It wasn't a lamp; it was a reliquary, an ancient container to house holy relics. He examined the inside of the carton. A manila envelope was tucked into the packing material. Hawley opened it and pulled out a thin stack of papers. The top sheet was a letter addressed to Slater...