Terminal Compromise Part 83

The Oyster Bar resides on the second lower level of Grand Cen- tral Station, located eighty feet beneath Park Avenue and 42nd.

Street. It had become a fairly chic restaurant bar in the '80's; the seafood was fresh, and occasionally excellent. The patronage of the bar ranged from the commuter who desperately quaffed down two or three martinis to those who enjoyed the seafaring ambi- ence. The weathered hardwood walls were decorated with huge stuffed crabs, swordfish, lifesavers and a pot pourri of fis.h.i.+ng accouterments. The ceilings were bathed in worn fis.h.i.+ng nets that occasionally dragged too low for anyone taller than 6 feet.

Away from the bar patrons could dine or drink in privacy, with dim ten watt lamps on each table to cut through the darkness.

Tyrone was sitting at such a table, drink in hand when Scott craned his neck from the door to find his friend through the crowd. He ambled over, and Tyrone stood to greet him. Scott was cool, but willing to give it a try. As usual Tyrone was elegant- ly attired, in a custom tailored dark gray pin stripe suit, a fitted designer s.h.i.+rt and a stylish silk tie of the proper width.

Scott was dressed just fine as far as he was concerned. His sneakers were clean, his jeans didn't have holes and the sweater would have gained him admission to the most private ski parties in Vermont. Maybe they were too different and their friends.h.i.+p had been an unexplainable social aberration; an accident.

Scott's stomach tightened. His body memory recalled the time the princ.i.p.al had suspended him from high school for spreading liquid banana peel on the hall floors and then ringing the fire drill alarm. The picture of 3000 kids and 200 teachers slipping and sliding and crawling out of the school still made Scott smile.

"What'll you have?" Tyrone gestured at a waiter while asking Scott for his preference.

"Corona, please."

Tyrone took charge. "Waiter, another double and a Corona." He waved the waiter away. "That's better." Tyrone was already slightly inebriated. "I guess you think I'm a real s.h.i.+t hole, huh?"

"Sort of," Scott agreed. "I guess you could put it that way."

Scott was impressed with Ty's forthright manner. "I can think of a bunch more words that fit the bill." At least Tyrone admitted it. That was a step in the right direction.

Ty laughed. "Yeah, I bet you could, and you might be right."

Scott's drink came. He took a thirsty gulp from the long neck bottle."

"Ease on down the road!" Ty held his half empty drink in the air. It was peace offering. Scott slowly lifted his and their drinks met briefly. They both sipped again, and an awkward silence followed.

"Well, I guess it's up to me to explain, isn't it?" Tyrone ven- tured.

"You don't have to explain anything. I understand," Scott said caustically.

"I don't think you do, my friend. May I at least have my last words before you shoot?" Tyrone's joviality was not as effective when nervous.

Scott remembered that he used the same argument with Doug only days before. He eased up. "Sure, ready and aimed, though."

"I'm quitting." Tyrone's face showed disappointment, resigna- tion.

The beer bottle at Scott's lips was abruptly laid on the table.

"Quitting? The FBI?" Tyrone nodded. "Why? What happened?"

For one moment Scott completely forgot how angry he was.

The din of the Oyster Bar made for excellent cover. They could speak freely with minimal worry of being overheard.

"It's a long story, but it began when they pulled your article.

G.o.d, I'm sorry, man," Tyrone said with empathy. The furrows on his forehead deepened as he searched for a reaction from Scott.

Nothing.

Ty finished off his drink and started on the refill. "Unlike what you probably believe, or want to believe, when you called me that morning, I had no idea what you were talking about. It was several hours before I realized what had happened. If I had any idea . . ."

Scott stared blankly at Tyrone. You haven't convinced me of anything, Scott thought.

"As far as I knew, you were writing an article that had no par- ticular consequence . . ."

"Thanks a s.h.i.+tload," Scott quipped.

"No, I mean, I had no idea of the national security implica- tions, and besides, it was going to be in the paper the next day anyway." Tyrone shrugged with his hands in the air for added emphasis. "Tempest meant nothing to me. All I said was that you and I had been talking. I promise you, that's it. As a friend, that was the extent of it. They took it from there." Tyrone extended his hands in an open gesture of conciliation. "All I knew was that what you'd said about CMR shook some people up in D.C.. ECCO has been quite educational. Now I know why, and that's why I have to leave."

The genuineness from Tyrone softened Scott's att.i.tude some. "I thought you spooks stuck together. Spy and die together."

Tyrone contorted his face to show disgust with that thought.

"That'll be the day. In fact it's the opposite. A third of our budgets are meant to keep other agencies in the dark about what we're doing."

"You're kidding!"

"I wish I was." Tyrone looked disheartened, betrayed.

"At any rate," Tyrone continued, "I got spooked by the stunt with your paper and the Attorney General. I just couldn't call you, you'll see why. The Agency is supposed to enforce the law, not make it and they have absolutely no business s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with the press. Uh-uh." Tyrone took a healthy sip of his drink. "Reminds me of times that are supposed to be gone. Dead in the past. Did you know that I am a const.i.tutional lawyer?"

Scott ordered another beer and shook his head, no. Just a regular lawyer. Will wonders never cease?

"Back in the early 60's the South was not a good place for blacks. Or Negroes as we were called back then." Tyrone said the word Negro with disdain. He pulled his tie from the stiff collar and opened a b.u.t.ton. "I went on some marches in Alabama, G.o.d, that was a hot summer. A couple of civil rights workers were killed."

Scott remembered. More from the movie Mississippi Burning than from memory.

Civil rights wasn't a black-white issue, Tyrone insisted. It was about man's peaceful co-existence with government. A legal issue. "I thought that was an important distinction and most people were missing the point. I thought I could make a differ- ence working from inside the system. I was wrong, and I've been blinded by it until now . . .you know.

"When I was in college the politicians screamed integration while the poor blacks no more wanted to be bussed to the rich white neighborhood that the rich whites wanted the poor blacks in their schools." Tyrone spoke from his heart, his soul, with a touch of resentment that Scott had not seen before. But then, they had never spoken of it before. This was one story that he had suc- cessfully neglected to share. "Forced integration was govern- ment's answer to a problem it has never understood.

"It's about dignity. Dignity and respect, not government inter- vention. It's about a man's right to privacy and the right to lead his life the way he sees fit. Civil rights is about how to keep government from interfering with its citizens. Regardless of color." Tyrone was adamant.

"And that's why you're gonna quit?" Scott didn't see the con- nection.

"No, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, no," Tyrone shouted. "Don't you get it?" Scott shook his head. "They want to take them away." He spoke with finality and a.s.sumed Scott knew what he meant. The liquor fogged his brain to mouth speech connection.

"Who's gonna take what away?" Scott asked, frustrated by Ty's ramblings.

"I know it's hokey, but the Founding Fathers had a plan, and so far it's survived two hundred years of scrutiny and division. I would like to think it can survive the computer age." Tyrone quieted down some. "My father used to tell me, from the time I was old enough to understand, that law was merely a measure of how much freedom a man was willing to sacrifice to maintain an orderly society."

"My father was a radical liberal among liberals," Tyrone remem- bered. "Even today he'll pick a fight at the family barbecue for his own entertainment. And he'll hold his own."

Scott enjoyed the image of a crotchety octogenarian stirring up the s.h.i.+t while his children isolated their kids from their grand father's intellectual lunacy. What was this about?

Tyrone caught himself and realized that he wasn't getting his point across. He took a deep breath and slouched back in the chair that barely held him.

"From the beginning," he said. "I told you about ECCO, and what a disaster it is. No authority, no control, no responsibility.

And the chaos is unbelievable.

"I don't pretend to understand all of the computer jargon, but I do recognize when the NSA wants to control everything. There's a phenomenal amount of arrogance there. The NSA reps in ECCO believe that they are the only ones who know anything about computers and how to protect them. I feel sorry for the guys from NIST. They're totally underfunded, so they end up with both the grunt work and the brunt of the jokes from the NSA.

"NSA won't cooperate on anything. If NIST says it's white, NSA says it's black. If NIST says there's room to compromise, NSA gets more stubborn. And the academic types. At long last I now know what happened to the hippies: they're all government con- sultants through universities. And all they want to do is study, study, study. But they never come up with answers, just more questions to study.

"The vendors try to sell their products and don't contribute a d.a.m.n thing," sighed Tyrone. "A bunch of industry guys from computer companies and the banks, and they're as baffled as I am."