Gideon’s Sword

He leapt the curb and cut across the lawn toward the entrance. Figures raced forward to intercept him.

“Jesus Christ, stop him!”

He slipped on the grass, fell to his hands and knees, rose again. He could see only his father’s two feet, sticking out of the dark doorway into the sunlight, shoes pointed skyward, scuffed soles turned up for all to see, one with a hole in it. It was a dream, a dream — and then the last thing he saw before he was tackled to the ground was the feet move, jerking twice.

“Dad!” he screamed into the grass, trying to claw back to his feet as the weight of the world piled up on his shoulders; but he’d seen those feet move, his father was alive, he would wake up and all would be well.

2

Gideon Crew had flown in from California on the red-eye, the plane sitting on the LAX tarmac for two hours before finally taking off for Dulles. He’d hopped a bus into the city, then taken the Metro as far as he could before switching to a taxi: the last thing his finances needed right now was the unexpected plane fare. He’d been burning through cash at an alarming rate, not budgeting at all​—​and that last job he’d done had been higher-profile than usual, the merchandise difficult to fence.

When the call came he’d hoped at first it was one more false alarm, another attack of hysteria or drunken plea for attention. But when he arrived at the hospital, the doctor had been coolly frank. “Her liver is failing and she’s not eligible for a transplant because of her history. This may be your last visit.”

She lay in intensive care, her bleached-blond hair spread over the pillow, showing an inch of black roots, her skin raddled. A sad, inept attempt had been made to apply eye shadow; it was like painting the shutters on a haunted house. He could hear her raspy breathing through the nasal ca

Taking her hand, he tried and failed to think of anything to say. Finally he managed a lame “How are you, Mom?”—hating himself for the inanity of the question even before he’d finished asking it.

She just looked at him in response. The whites of her eyes were the color of overripe bananas. Her bony hand grasped his in a weak, trembling embrace. Finally she stirred weakly. “Well, this is it.”

“Mom, please don’t talk like that.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “You’ve talked to the doctor: you know how things stand. I have cirrhosis, along with all the lovely side effects — not to mention congestive heart failure and emphysema from years of smoking. I’m a wreck and it’s my own damn fault.”

Gideon could think of no response. It was all true, of course, and his mother was nothing if not direct. She always had been. He found it puzzling that such a strong woman was so weak when it came to chemical vices. No, it wasn’t so puzzling: she had an addictive personality, and he recognized the same in himself.

“The truth shall make you free,” she said, “but first it will make you miserable.”

It was her favorite aphorism, and it always preceded her saying something difficult.

“The time has come for me to tell you a truth—” She gasped in some air. “—that will make you miserable.”

He waited while she took a few more raspy breaths.

“It’s about your father.” Her yellow eyes swiveled toward the door. “Shut it.”

His apprehension mounting, Gideon gently closed the door and returned to her bedside.

She clasped his hand again. “Golubzi,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry?”

“Golubzi. A Russian salt-cabbage roll.”

She paused for more air. “That was the Soviet code name for the operation. The Roll. In one night, twenty-six deep-cover operatives were rolled up. Disappeared.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Thresher.” She closed her eyes, breathing rapidly. It was as if, having decided to take the plunge, she couldn’t wait to get out the words. “That’s the other word. The project your father was working on at INSCOM. A new encryption standard…highly classified.”

“Are you sure you should be talking about this?” Gideon asked.

“Your father shouldn’t have told me. But he did.” Her eyes remained closed and her body looked collapsed, as if it were sinking into the bed. “Thresher needed to be vetted. Tested. That’s when they hired your father. We moved to DC.”

Gideon nodded. For a seventh grader, moving from Claremont, California, to DC had not exactly been fun.

“In 1987, INSCOM sent Thresher to the National Security Agency for final review. It was approved. And implemented.”

“I never heard any of this.”

“You’re hearing it now.” She swallowed painfully. “It took the Russians just months to crack it. On July 5, 1988—the day after Independence Day — the Soviets rolled up all those US spies.”

She paused, releasing a long sigh. The machines continued beeping quietly, mingling with the hiss of the oxygen and the muffled sounds of the hospital beyond.

Gideon continued to hold her hand, at a loss for words.

“They blamed your father for the disaster—”

“Mom.” Gideon pressed her hand. “This is all in the past.”

She shook her head. “They ruined his life. That’s why he did what he did, took that hostage.”

“What does it matter now? Long ago I accepted that Dad made a mistake.”

The eyes opened suddenly. “No mistake. He was the scapegoat.”

She pronounced the word harshly, as if she were clearing her throat of something unpleasant.

“What do you mean?”

“Before Operation Golubzi, your father wrote a memo. He said Thresher was theoretically flawed. That there was a potential back door. They ignored him. But he was right. And twenty-six people died.”

She inhaled noisily, her hands bunching up the bedcovers with the effort. “Thresher was classified, they could say whatever they liked. No one to contradict. Your father was an outsider, a professor, a civilian. And he had a history of treatment for depression that could be conveniently resurrected.”

Listening, Gideon froze. “You’re saying…it wasn’t his fault?”

“Just the opposite. They destroyed the evidence and blamed him for the Golubzi disaster. That’s why he took that hostage. And that’s why he was shot with his hands up — to silence him. Cold-blooded murder.”

Gideon felt a strange sense of weightlessness. As horrifying as the story was, he felt a burden being lifted. His father, whose name had been publicly vilified since he was twelve, wasn’t the depressed, unstable, bungling mathematician after all. All the taunting and hazing he’d endured, the whispering and sniggering behind his back — it meant nothing. At the same time, the enormity of the crime perpetrated against his father began to sink in. He remembered that day vividly, remembered the promises that were made. He remembered how his father had been lured out into the sunlight only to be shot down.

“But who…?” he began.

“Lieutenant General Chamblee Tucker. An INSCOM deputy chief. Group leader of the Thresher project. He made a scapegoat of your father to protect himself. He gave the order to fire. Remember that name: Chamblee Tucker.”

His mother ceased speaking and lay in the bed, covered with sweat, gasping as if she had just run a marathon.

“Thank you for telling me this,” he said evenly.

“Not finished.” More labored breathing. He could see her heart monitor on the wall, registering in the one forties.

“Don’t talk anymore,” he said. “You need to rest.”