“So just call it a regional issue?” another senior diplomat asked. Adler’s head turned slowly. Was Rutledge building a consensus?
“No, it is not that,” the Secretary of State pronounced, making his stand within his own conference room. “It is a vital security interest of the United States. We have pledged our support to the Saudis.”
“Line in the sand?” Cliff asked. “There’s no reason to do that yet. Look, let’s be sensible about this, okay? Iran and Iraq merge and form this new United Islamic Republic, fine. Then what? It takes them years to get the new country organized. In that time, forces which we know to be under way in Iran weaken the theocratic regime that’s been giving us such a royal pain in the butt. This is not a one-way deal, is it? We can expect that from the influence the secular elements in Iraqi society will necessarily have in Iran. If we panic and get pushy, we make life easier for Daryaei and his fanatics. But if we take it easy, then we
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lessen the imperative for them to stoke up the rhetoric against us. Okay, we can’t stop this merger, can we?” Rut-ledge went on. “So if we can’t, what do we do? We think of it as an opportunity to open a dialogue with the new country.”
There was a certain logic to the proposal, Adler noted, noting also the tentative nods around the conference table. He knew the proper buzzwords. Opportunity. Dialogue.
“That’ll really make the Saudis feel warm and fuzzy,” a voice objected from the far end of the table. It was Bert Vasco, the most junior man here. “Mr. Rutledge, I think you underestimate the situation. Iran managed the assassination–”
“We have no proof of that, do we?”
“And Al Capone was never convicted for Valentine’s Day, but I saw the movie.” Being called into the Oval Office had enlivened the desk officer’s rhetoric. Adler raised an amused eyebrow. “Somebody is orchestrating this, starting with the shooting, continuing with the elimination first of the military high command, and then second with the slaughter of the Ba’ath Party leadership. Next, we have this religious revival now under way. The picture I have of this is one of renewed national and religious identity. That will attenuate the moderating influences you referred to. The internal dissent in Iran will be knocked back a full year at least by these developments–and we don’t know what else might be going on. Daryaei’s a plotter, and a good one. He’s patient, dedicated, and one ruthless son of a bitch–”
“Who’s on his last legs,” one of Rutledge’s allies in the room objected.
“Says who?” Vasco shot back. “He’s managed this one pretty sharp.”
“He’s in his seventies.”
“He doesn’t smoke or drink. Every tape we have of him in public, he looks vigorous enough. Underestimating this man is a mistake we’ve made before.”
“He’s out of touch with his own people.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know that. He’s having a good year so far, and everybody likes a winner,” Vasco concluded.
“Bert, maybe you’re just worried about losing your
f
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desk when they form the UIR,” someone joked. It was a low blow, aimed by a senior man at a junior, with chuckles around the table to remind him of that. The resulting silence told the Secretary of State that there was a consensus forming, and not the one he wanted. Time to take control again.
“Okay, moving on,” Adler said. “The FBI will be back tomorrow to talk to us about the purloined letter. And guess what they’ll be bringing?”
” Not the Box again,” someone groaned. Nobody noticed the way Rutledge’s head turned.
“Just think of it as a routine test for our security clearances,” SecState told his principal subordinates. Polygraphs weren’t exactly unknown for the senior people here.
“God damn it, Scott,” Cliff said, speaking for the others. “Either we’re trusted or we’re not. I’ve already wasted hours with those people.”
“You know, they never found Nixon’s letter of resignation, either,” another said.
“Maybe Henry kept it,” a third joked.
“Tomorrow. Starting at ten o’clock. Myself included,” Adler told them. He thought it a waste of time as well.
HIS SKIN WAS very fair, his eyes gray, and his hair had a reddish tinge, the result, he thought, of an Englishwoman somewhere in his ancestry, or such was the family joke. One advantage was his ability to pass for any Caucasian ethnicity. That he could still do so was the result of his caution. On his few “public” operations, he’d tinted his hair, worn dark glasses, and let his beard grow–that was black–which resulted in jokes within his own community: “Movie star,” they said. But many of the jokers were dead, and he was not. Perhaps the Israelis had photos of him– one never knew about them, but one did know that they rarely shared information with anyone, even their American patrons, which was foolish. And you couldn’t worry about everything, even photographs in some Mossad file cabinet.
He came through Dulles International Airport after
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the flight from Frankfurt, with the requisite two bags of the serious businessman he was, with nothing more to declare than a liter of Scotch purchased in a German duty-free store. Purpose of his visit to America? Business and pleasure. Is it safe to move around Washington now? Terrible thing, saw the replay on the TV news, must be a thousand times, dreadful. It is? Really? Things are back to normal now? Good. His rental car was waiting. He drove to a nearby hotel, tired from the long flight. There he purchased a paper, ordered dinner in, and switched on the TV. That done, he plugged his portable computer into the room’s phone–they all had data jacks now–and accessed the Net to tell Badrayn that he was safely in-country for his reconnaissance mission. A commercial encryption program transformed what was a meaningless code phrase into total gibberish.
“WELCOME ABOARD. My name is Clark,” John told the first class of fifteen. He was turned out much better than was his custom, wearing a properly tailored suit, button-down shirt, and a striped tie. For the moment, he had to impress in one way. Soon he’d do it in another. Getting the first group in had been easier than expected. The CIA, Hollywood notwithstanding, is an agency popular among American citizens, with at least ten applications for every opening, and it was just a matter of doing a computer search of the applications to find fifteen which fit the parameters of dark’s PLAN BLUE. Every one was a police officer with a college degree, at least four years of service, and an unblemished record which would be further checked by the FBI. For the moment, all were men, probably a mistake, John thought, but for the moment it wasn’t important. Seven ” ere white, two black, and one Asian. They were, mainl;. from big-city police forces. All were at least bilingual.
“I am a field intelligence officer. Not an ‘agent,’ not a ‘spy,’ not an ‘operative.’ An officer,” he explained. “I’ve been in the business for quite some time. I’m married and I have two children. If any of you have ideas about meeting a sleek blonde and shooting people, you can leave
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now. This business is mainly dull, especially if you’re smart enough to do it right. You’re all cops, and therefore you already know how important this job is. We deal with high-level crime, and the job is about getting information so that those major crimes can be stopped before people get killed. We do that by gathering information and passing it on to those who need it. Others look at satellite pictures or try to read the other guy’s mail. We do the hard part. We get our information from people. Some are good people with good motives. Some are not such good people who want money, who want to get even, or who want to feel important. What these people are doesn’t matter. You’ve all worked informants on the street, and they’re not all Mother Teresa, are they? Same thing here. Your informants will often be better educated, more powerful people, but they won’t be very different from the ones you’ve been working with. And just like your street informants, you have to be loyal to them, you have to protect them, and you’ll have to wring their scrawny little necks from time to time. If you fuck up, those people die, and in some of the places you’ll be working, their wives and children will die, too. If you think I’m kidding on that, you’re wrong, people. You will work in countries where due process of law means whatever somebody wants it to mean. You’ve seen that on television just in the last few days, right?” he asked. Some of the Ba’ath officials shot in Baghdad had made world news telecasts, with the usual warnings about children and the sensitive, who invariably watched anyway. The heads nodded soberly.