American Spy

by Lauren Wilkinson

  “As I’m sure you remember we’re involved in the ULCR. CIA funds it and one of our agents leads it. The party’s agenda is to undermine Sankara’s government.”

  I nodded. “He told me he believed as much.”

  “We don’t just want to create multiple parties, we want to use the ULCR to splinter the government and weaken it. Of course, Sankara’s livid about this and trying to prevent it. He’s calling for a series of meetings to dissolve the different parties and reunite the government around the CNR’s guiding philosophies. He wants a dozen of the most valued politicians in the government to sign a joint declaration. It’s basically a loyalty pledge”—he looked down and read from the papers in front of him—“ ‘to overcome our respective ideologies with a view to the construction of one political organization.’ We’re sending you out there to help make sure he can’t strong-arm the politicians back into line. So the goal in Ouaga is the same as it was here: to get you close to Sankara.”

  “Ross, why don’t you level with me?”

  “Meaning?”

  “I saw your surveillance van, the one parked in front of my building. I know this is a blackmail operation. You want to prove that he’s unfaithful.”

  He thought for a few moments before he spoke. “I keep forgetting how smart you are.”

  I preened.

  “Yes, Dan’s going to ask for a few intimate photos of you with Sankara. We want you in the country after the revelations come out so the press can have access to you. Much of his support is based on his reputation as an honorable man; you’re going to help us discredit him. Reveal him as a hypocrite.”

  “Why do you have to rig the election? Isn’t there a chance that your agent in the ULCR might be elected?”

  “The country’s still a few years from voting in its best interest. We’re installing a candidate now to open the door to true democracy later. And it could be worse. There’s a contingent in the military that wants to have him executed and to install a general as president.”

  “Does that align with what CIA wants?”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him and said as much.

  “Really,” Ross said. “We don’t want to raise a single eyebrow in the international community.”

  “The station office doesn’t want any blowback.”

  “Yes.”

  “What does Slater do out there exactly? What’s his title?”

  “He’s our operations officer. He’ll fill you in on anything else he’ll need when you get there. Or at least whatever’s need to know. Dan has an office set up in an American NGO. You’ll be doing most of your work there, so the house you’ll be staying in is close by.”

  I asked him the name of the nongovernmental organization and he said it in such terrible French that I asked him to write it down for me.

  “Le Havre des Femmes,” I read. “Haven for Women. Is it a shelter?”

  “Yeah. Apparently they house women who’ve been accused of witchcraft.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. Sounds like you’ll have to prepare yourself for a bit of a culture shock.”

  “You’ve never been to Burkina?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “The closest I ever got was to Tamale in the north of Ghana. There are a lot of bikes up there, and I hear it’s the same in Ouagadougou. Other than that though the countries seem like they’re worlds apart.”

  “When do I go?”

  “The first CNR reunification meeting is scheduled for next week. We want you in Ouagadougou for it.”

  “How long will I be out there?”

  “No more than a couple of weeks. And you start back at the bureau when? First week of November?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll be back before then.” He pulled open a drawer and reached inside his desk for a large interoffice envelope.

  “Even though you won’t be at the embassy, I’m sure you’ll meet the station chief and everyone else at the station office, so I had an ID made for you.”

  I looked inside and pulled out a plane ticket. It also held two passports, one of them with the alias I’d been using, the other a backup with another identity, and the embassy employee identification he’d mentioned. I looked them all over: He’d managed to get his hands on the photo of me that the bureau had on file.

  There were a few more items in the envelope: African francs and new francs, several maps of Burkina Faso, and a State Department guide to the country. I looked up at him. “Anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  I shrugged even though I knew exactly what I’d meant: In all the time I worked as a contractor for Ross, he never actually gave me a contract to sign. Coming from the FBI, I was very aware that there was no paper trail, and none of the legitimacy that such a trail would’ve lent the operation.

  I stood, took the envelope, and thanked him for the opportunity. He wished me good luck. “I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

  I left the office. As I walked to my car, my mind wandered to my time at Quantico, to a class called Defensive Tactics that I’d taken there. We had to rotate sparring partners, and in one of our last classes before graduation, my partner was much bigger than I was. Although I knew he could beat me in any fight, I was confident that we were better matched than we looked because of my speed and good form.

  I started off all right. Then his fist connected with my headgear, and as lights burst around my eyes, I struggled to stay on my feet. I shot a couple of jabs his way, and he sent me back a stunning wallop to the chest that made it hard to breathe.

  In the locker room after class, I took off my headgear in front of the mirror. I have to admit, boys—I’m more fragile than your average hero: My face was bruised, the redness and swelling on my temple was already starting to deepen to purple in places. I was going to have a black eye.

  Our graduation ceremony was two days later. I sat beside my roommate, Peggy, who was from Wisconsin. I’d been surprised to find I liked her. Before Quantico, she’d been a contract lawyer for a corporation, and on our first night in the dorms she said she’d joined the FBI because she hated being afraid. She’d applied to the bureau to make the world a place where no one had to live in fear of nuclear war.

  Because I’d scored highest in the class in academics, I’d been asked to speak at the ceremony. I remember Peggy giving my arm a squeeze of reassurance as the program director called me up to the podium. And standing there, looking out at the crowd, absolutely humiliated because my face was still a mess, I thought of my sparring partner, thought I could feel him gloating. He’d scored second highest in academics, and I’d heard that he’d asked to see some of my exam results to make sure I’d really beaten him.

  Pop was there with Mr. Ali, who’d present me with my badge and credentials during that part of the ceremony. The point of the story—the thing that reminds me of the way I felt after Ross laid out his plans to use me, and how I reconciled my choice to let him—was a memory I have of my father from that day. He’d seen my face earlier, before I’d gone up onstage, and told me if I didn’t want to speak I didn’t have to. He said, “You don’t owe them anything. You give them what you want to give them. But it’s easier if they think you’re one of them. It’s easier to work from the inside. That’s what I try to do. I’ve been a spy in this country for as long as I can remember.”

  I didn’t know what side I was on. While I knew I couldn’t trust Ross, I didn’t know if it would benefit me to let Thomas in on their plans. But I’d get what I wanted. My meeting with Slater. And I knew too that I’d only give them what I wanted to give, once I figured it out.

  I thought of Pop sitting toward the front of the amphitheater at the end of the aisle, his old Minolta up to his face. I’d decided to present my speech even though he said it wouldn’t disappoint him if I didn’t. We were twin sp
ies. That thought tamped down my embarrassment. I smiled at him, cleared my throat, and began to speak.

  PART THREE

  15

  MARTINIQUE, 1992

  AFTER DINNER TONIGHT, I GOT YOU two into your pajamas, then set up a VHS tape for you, some paper and crayons. While you lounged on the floor of the living room, I sat beside Robbie on the sofa and wrote in this journal. Tommy, you sat up on your knees and turned toward me on the sofa, “Maman! Look.”

  You held up your picture.

  “Come show me.”

  Standing beside me—on my foot, to be more precise; you lovingly treat me like a piece of furniture—we looked at your drawing. I pointed at one of the people. “It’s beautiful! Who is this? Is it me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Uncle Robbie.”

  Robbie looked over from the cartoons on the screen, a smile lighting up his face.

  “Will you take it? On your trip?” you asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I want to come.”

  “I want you to too. But only grown-ups allowed.” I kissed you on the top of your head. “It’s bedtime. You too, William.”

  “No!” you said, even though you were half asleep.

  “Yes,” I said, and scooped you up from the floor.

  By the time I’d finally managed to get you tucked in, and got you both water, and read a story, it was later than I’d hoped. I poked my head into Agathe’s room and told her Robbie and I were headed out. I was no longer as angry with her—not because anything had changed, but because it was too tiring to stay mad. She wished me a good night. If she wanted to ask me any questions, she didn’t show it.

  I hid this journal in my room. Your grandmother hasn’t asked me what I’m writing, and she won’t. There are oceans of silence between us. I trust her not to read it, which I resent in a way because I believe it’s mostly out of a lack of interest. Still, I stuck it in the very back of the drawer under some sweaters whenever I went out.

  Robbie was still on the sofa. He was trying to lift the corner of his passport with his fingernail, testing its resiliency I guess. It was a fake he’d traveled to Martinique on, which Mr. Ali had grudgingly had made and dropped off for him. Mr. Ali didn’t like having to supply a passport for Robbie, but I didn’t care. He’d helped stitch me up. At the very least, he owed me and my associates federal-quality fake identification for the rest of my life.

  “Stop messing with that,” I told Robbie.

  “You stay talking to me like I’m one of your kids.”

  “That’s ’cause you stay acting like one.”

  “All right, bet,” he said. But he was being sarcastic, and when he put the passport on the coffee table it was with a look to let me know he was doing it just to humor me.

  I felt a little better with him around. During the day, we bickered a lot, which occupied my mind, sometimes keeping me distracted from the frightening, intrusive thoughts I had about killing that man. The nights were still bad though.

  We took Agathe’s old truck toward downtown Sainte-Anne, on a road that curved along the coast and passed the picturesque cemetery on the outskirts of town. The mausoleums there were white tile, as were the tombs, which were aboveground—out of necessity, I assumed, because the land was too close to the coast to be very deep.

  Although it was dark, I knew the vases near each grave held vivid artificial flowers that were so uniformly distributed I believed the town was responsible for them, and that they were the tokens of a civil servant’s aesthetic vision and not of collective loss. Just beyond the cemetery, several hundred feet below it was the still bay, dark, the sailboats docked there that seemed so cheerful during the day were now gray.

  I thought about that cemetery a lot, mostly because I wondered if they still buried people there. If there were any practical requirements like having to be notable and from Sainte-Anne. I was neither, but thought it would be a beautiful place to be dead.

  At the restaurant we sat outside on the patio, ordered a couple of beers and some food. The night was warm; it smelled like the sea and the citronella candles on each table. Robbie sipped from his bottle and waited quietly for me to start talking. I’d given him the broad strokes about that night in Connecticut, having told him that a man had broken into our house and tried to kill me. Of course he’d had follow-up questions, and I’d felt overwhelmed by having to think about all that had happened, and told him that I wanted to wait just a few more days before we talked about it. Now was that time.

  “The man who came to my house was hired to do it,” I began. “There’s another man who thinks I wronged him.”

  “Why?”

  “I hurt a friend of his,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “He’ll send someone else. Unless I go after him, my kids will never be safe. So that’s what I want to do. I wanted you to come out here to ask for your help, but I understand if you can’t give it. I know you’ve got your son to think about.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Wait a second. I want you to think about it. This man is dangerous. He’s CIA.”

  He exhaled. “How’d you tick someone like that off?”

  “I was working for them. The Company sent me to West Africa.”

  “The answer’s still yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Marie. Haven’t I always been there for you?”

  “You have,” I said, and was overwhelmed with gratitude for that fact. And frustratingly I wanted to dissect it: Why would he put his life at risk for me? There was so much I lacked, so much about me that was broken and had been that way for so long that I wasn’t even trying to find a fix. I didn’t deserve his loyalty.

  “I’ll need a weapon,” he said.

  “I have one for you.”

  “You do?” he said, and I watched his eyes light up.

  I’d gotten a package from Mr. Ali the day before. I hadn’t opened it yet, but I knew the 9mms I’d asked him to send were inside.

  Robbie and I disagreed about guns. He believed that owning one was his right as an American, which he must’ve picked up when the Panthers out in Oakland were arming themselves. That was screamingly funny when I thought about it: a black man, one who’d been locked up twice, clinging to the Second Amendment. The strongest gun laws the country had ever passed were to prevent the men who’d inspired him, the Oakland Panthers, from having guns. If he’d been a little more intentional about his stance, it would have been subversive. But he wasn’t. He owned a gun because he liked them, and thought he was entitled to do so.

  Pop raised me to believe that guns weren’t for civilians. I think that stance was too soft; I think he shouldn’t have taught us how to shoot. It wasn’t a beneficial skill, or even a neutral one. It was knowledge that had attracted and bred the violence in my life.

  Even if your uncle Robbie and I were able to do what we had to, I wasn’t sure it would remove me from the cycle. But I’d remove you. Pop was under strict orders never to teach you how to shoot a gun.

  I looked into his eyes. “Robbie. Thank you.”

  “Sure.”

  “No. I mean it. And I just want to say—I do see it. When you try to take care of me.”

  “What?” he said.

  “The day you showed up you said something about trying to take care of me. I know that you try. And I appreciate it.” I looked down at the table, embarrassed by my sincerity. “It’s not that I can’t see it. I have trouble trusting it.” Almost everyone who made me feel that way when I was a kid left.

  “But I trust you,” I added. “That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  He put his hand on mine and squeezed it. A part of me still loves Robbie, but I can’t tell him that—he’d take it as an invitation. I can only confess that to you two, here in these pages. To tell anyone el
se how I feel about him is to blow my cover. Throughout my life, the most consistent way I’ve revealed who I really am is through whom I’ve chosen to love.

  16

  OUAGADOUGOU, 1987

  I WOKE WITH A START AND LAY still in bed for a moment as my disorientation receded. It was my third full day in Ouagadougou, and realizing where I was still excited me. As I sat up I glanced around the room in the house I’d been provided with. The décor was pleasing: a blue kplé-kplé mask hung from the wall, and the mosquito net dangling from the vaulted ceiling was also blue to match. The black handwoven cotton comforter was patterned with diamonds and matched the curtain fluttering over the small window.

  I would finally be meeting with Daniel Slater that afternoon, and I was nervous.

  After my shower I returned to the bedroom. There was a large wardrobe in the corner beside the window that I crossed to. As I was choosing the clothes I’d wear, my eyes fell on the locked case tucked in beside a pair of heels. At the last second, I’d decided to bring my service automatic with me to Ouagadougou. I had a license, a hard case for the gun, and was a federal agent—they’d tucked it in alongside the other checked baggage with no problem.

  I locked the bedroom behind me and went to the kitchen—the cook, Djeneba, was there, squatting beside a range that was a couple of feet off the floor, waiting for water to boil. We were around the same age. She had a round, dimpled face, microbraids, and was wearing a plain white T-shirt and a colorful wrapper around her waist.

  “Hello.”

  “Good morning,” she answered as crisply as she always spoke to me. “Wait outside, please. I’m almost finished here with your breakfast.”