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This was by no means the first, or even the tenth, time that he’d met Murov at Morton’s. He knew what was going to happen: There would be some very good whisky at the bar, and then, when they had moved to a table, some really first-class wine, and one of Morton’s nearly legendary steaks.
People often quoted Whelan’s evaluation of Morton’s Steakhouse: “The food is so good in Morton’s that it’s almost worth about half what they charge for it.”
And afterward, Murov would not only insist on paying the check, in cash, but also would leave the actual bill lying on the table, from where he knew Harry would discreetly—and thinking Murov didn’t notice—slip it in his pocket.
Murov had diplomatic privilege, which would allow him to turn the bill over to the IRS for a refund of the tax. He had decided, the first time he’d seen Whelan grab the bill, that the Russian Federation could easily afford forfeiting the returned taxes if that meant a very important—and thus potentially very useful—journalist would come to the conclusion that he was putting something over not only on the IRS but also on the rezident of the Russian embassy. It is always better if one’s adversary thinks he is far more clever than oneself.
“How are you, Sergei?” Whelan greeted Murov.
“What a pleasant surprise!” Murov said. “Have you time for a drink, Harry?”
“I could be talked into that, I think,” Whelan said, and slipped onto a bar stool.
He ordered a Famous Grouse twelve-year-old malt Scotch whisky with two ice cubes and half as much water as whisky.
As the bartender was making the drink, Murov said, “I saw you on Wolf News, Harry. ‘Straight Scoop something’?”
“You and four million other people,” Whelan said somewhat smugly.
“I thought your ‘arf-arf’ business was hilarious, but I wondered what it did to your relationship with President Clendennen.”
“It went from just-about-as-bad-as-it-can-get to worse.”
“What was that all about, anyway, at Fort Detrick?”
“I don’t know, Sergei. I think you know what really goes on out there.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“The hell you don’t. Okay, they have a biological weapons laboratory out there. That’s probably classified Top Secret, but it’s really about as much of a secret as McClarren’s wig.”
“Really? That red hair isn’t his?”
“That’s why they always shoot him up,” Whelan said, demonstrating with his hands a low camera angle pointing upward. “If they shoot him down, or even straight on, you can see the cheesecloth or whatever it is under the hair.”
“You really are a fountain of information, Harry,” Murov said.
Whelan thought: Actually, of disinformation.
As far as I know, all that red hair comes out of Ol’ Andy’s scalp.
But the bartender heard what I just said, and before the night is over, it will be all over Morton’s.
And before the week is out, Jay Leno will have made a joke about Old Baldy and His Red Rug.
Whelan said, “So, what happened at Fort Detrick was that they had an accident. Somebody dropped a bottle or somebody forgot to close a door. They’re prepared for something like that. The emergency procedures were put into play. Since the world didn’t come to an end, we know that the emergency procedures worked. But in the meantime, Homeland Security, the Defense Department, every other agency determined to prove it’s on the job protecting the people, rushed up there, and the Wolf News photographers in the helicopter got those marvelous shots of everybody getting in everybody’s way. Chasing their tails. Arf-arf. ”
Twenty minutes and two drinks later, Murov called for the bartender, told him he was ready for his table, and asked for the bill. When it was presented, Murov laid three twenty-dollar bills on the bar, and told the bartender to keep the change. The headwaiter appeared, bearing menus and trailed by the sommelier bearing the wine list.
C. Harry Whelan, Jr., slipped the bar bill into his pocket and followed everybody to a table set against a wall behind a folding screen.
Ten minutes after that, a waiter had delivered a dozen oysters on the half-shell and the sommelier had opened and poured from a bottle of Egri Bikavér, which Murov told Whelan he had learned to appreciate as a young officer stationed in Budapest.
“‘Bull’s blood,’ they call it,” Murov said. “The Hungarians have
been making wine for a thousand years.”
“What were you doing in Budapest?” Whelan asked. “As a young officer?”
