American Spy

by Lauren Wilkinson

  “I was hoping you’d still be asleep,” he said. “You snore. You’re not a beautiful sleeper, which I like. That’s how Helene was too.”

  “Good morning,” I said. Obviously, I was terrified but I refused to show it.

  “I heard Thomas was here,” he said as he sat up. He’d removed the film from the radio and was now holding it up.

  “We’re kissing. That should be good enough for your journalist to use.”

  “Journalist. What are you talking about?” He paused to think for a moment before he said: “Oh yeah, that’s right. You think this is about blackmail.”

  A maniacal smile leaped onto his face, and he got to his feet.

  “You know what my big problem is?”

  “No.” Yes: He was out of his mind. I was still in a towel, and considering how anxious I was about him being there, it was a real struggle not to show it.

  “I need to learn to trust. Everyone says that. The analyst they sent me to after I came back from Kolwezi. Ed. It’s true. I need to learn to trust. So I think it’s time to tell you everything.”

  “All right.”

  “You know SQLR is one of our projects. I want to show you the other.”

  “All right,” I said again.

  “All right,” he mimicked.

  “Do you mean now?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I get changed first?” I gestured toward the door.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said as he left. “I’ll be in the car.”

  As I dressed quickly, I considered going out the window. I’d have to climb over the wall into the neighbor’s yard. I settled for bringing the gun; for the first time since I’d been in Ouaga, I pulled it out of the hard case and tucked it into a holster that I strapped on under my blouse.

  I went out into the street and found him wearing shades in the driver’s seat of his 4x4. I climbed up into it, examining the idling vehicle’s interior. There was a tiny Burkinabè flag on the dash, and red dust ground into the grooves of the black window crank and every other nook into which it could possibly be ground.

  I’m still in the habit of running my finger along the underside of the seat before I start up my car or your grandmother’s truck. The behavior is residual paranoia from working with the division’s tech squad at the bureau. They’d install listening devices in a suspect’s car, home, or business that I’d later analyze at the field office. It’s a minor compulsion, like going back to the door to try the knob, even though I know I’ve locked it, or checking and rechecking the seatbelts on your car seats. If there were any bugs hiding, they would require at least a screwdriver to uncover them.

  It was unlikely the CNR would spend money to bug Slater’s vehicle, but other foreign agencies were active in the country. Our allies of course—the French—but there was also a Soviet embassy that hosted as a station office for its own intelligence officers. But I didn’t know who I was most suspicious of: Slater or a Soviet agent.

  “How far are we going?” I asked as we drove through Zogona.

  “It’s just a few miles outside of the city.” When we stopped at a light, I considered jumping out of the car, but dismissed doing so as hysterical overreaction. And where would I go if I did? I looked out and saw a daisy chain of boys on horseback at the side of the road. They were in earshot, but I didn’t call for help, although I considered it until the very last one, who was barefoot and sitting tall on a square of yellowed Styrofoam, disappeared from view.

  We left the city limits and stopped at a péage, a tollbooth. Two soldiers were there, and we waited for a while as they decided how much they were going to charge us. My eyes wandered to white graffiti on the walls of a municipal building: THE PF IS SCHIZOPHRENIC! Three more soldiers were sitting in the back of a truck parked in front of the building, laughing and joking. I didn’t think I could ask any of them for help either—for all I knew they were Slater’s agents.

  We continued. After a little while Slater spoke. “Since you got here, I’ve been thinking about Helene nonstop. You remind me so much of her.” He reached out and put his hand on my knee as he drove. I suppressed the desire to jerk away.

  “I want you to know that I did what I could. When we were on our road trip. In Vegas, I mean.”

  Was he saying he’d been in the car when Helene had been in her accident? I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I didn’t respond, afraid that if he learned he was telling me something I didn’t know he’d stop talking.

  “Say something,” he demanded. “You’re always so quiet.”

  “So after she got back from Long Binh, you met her in California.”

  “Yeah. I drove that old brown car she had out there.”

  “Chocolate Chip.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “We wanted to get married in Vegas; it was this really crazy, spur-of-the-moment thing. I remember we were in Arizona and it was so hot…I thought she was fooling around,” he said. “The steering was wandering. Like this.” He jerked the wheel so that the 4x4 swerved on the road and I nearly screamed. I looked away from him, out the window at the passing savanna.

  “We were nearly to the motel when we just swerved off the road and hit, uh, this rock formation, I guess is what you’d call it. We weren’t even going that fast, but she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Worn ball joints,” he said. “That’s what they told me caused it. It really messed me up. If I’d been driving, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe…”

  He’d seen her die. I hadn’t realized that. Maybe he could’ve done something differently. Maybe he could’ve prevented it. We were crawling up an incline. I looked ahead and saw the glimmering dome of a Quonset hut. We crested the hill, rode past a yellow truck and a large roll of metal fencing, around the hut where several soldiers were at work.

  On the other side of it were two small buildings that were under construction: One was complete, while only the foundations had been poured on the other. Slater got out of the car.

  “Coming?” he asked, seemingly oblivious to the effect what he’d just said had on me.

  “I need a minute,” I said.

  I waited until he was safely inside one of the buildings before I started to weep. I cried until I was empty, did my best to compose myself, then climbed out of the car.

  As I walked toward the building, I heard a humming generator. A soldier was standing in the corner of the sweltering room; his Kalashnikov leaned against the wall beside him. I realized he was the same one who’d been following me.

  “You said you didn’t think anyone had been tailing me,” I said to Slater.

  “Oh,” he said, barely acknowledging that I’d caught him in a lie. “Yeah, I asked him to follow you. For safety.”

  “Whose?”

  “What do you mean? Yours.”

  He was standing at a minifridge and I went toward him, picking my way through the construction materials there, including the disassembled parts for several bunk beds and a couple of mattresses and—I was startled by what I saw in the corner.

  They’d built a jail. A man was inside, curled on the floor, facing away from us. Blood stained the back of his collared shirt.

  “Welcome to our first SSI construction,” he said.

  “Who is that?” I stared at the prisoner.

  “Oh, good news,” he said as he looked through some boxes in a corner. “We found out who set that fire during the ULCR meeting. Just like I said, he’s an agent for the KGB.”

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. Not yet. The KGB knows where to find me if they want him back. So if he does die it’s their fault, not mine. They paid him to start that fire. And one of my agents has dropped off the face of the Earth; I’m starting to think they’re behind it now. An eye for an eye.”

  I felt nauseated. These were people, not pieces to move around
on a chessboard. Slater had made me culpable in whatever he was going to do to that man—I couldn’t help him. And he’d made Helene culpable. I thought of the time in North Carolina—they’re gonna get us even if they don’t want us. SSI was the vision she’d laid out for me there. I’d been focused on her ambition and her talent. But in practice, what she’d wanted, now with these men in charge, was ugly. “Ah. Here it is.” He removed a small package from the fridge and pushed it into my hands. “Unwrap it.”

  I did. There was a syringe inside and a small vial of clear liquid.

  “Marie, you’re SQLR. You’re what will help set SSI apart. I didn’t want to lie to you about it, and Ross explained that we weren’t. Not really. He told me that you came up with the idea that this was a blackmail job yourself. He said we were just letting you believe that, that it was easier to let you come up with the reason that you’re out here. You’d always believe yourself over us. He’s very smart.” He squinted his eyes and tapped his temples with both hands. “Has a very tactical mind. And he’s right: You convinced yourself that we’d brought you all this way for something as simple as a smear campaign.”

  That was all disorienting to hear. It made me question my motivations: I’d thought I’d gone out there to speak to him. To get answers. No, I decided. What he was saying wasn’t true. Ross—through Slater—was gaslighting me. I hoped.

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on you for years,” he continued. “You were getting nowhere in the FBI. Not your fault, of course. They’re not an organization that’s capable of appreciating your talent. But we can. I believe that with a little grooming you could be an excellent assassin. You’re cold and you’re calculating, and by choice, you don’t have many close social attachments. You’re beautiful. And you’re also lethal. You did all of the work you needed to do to get Thomas to let his guard down without ever really challenging me on it. You’ve insinuated yourself very well into an extremely challenging target’s life; all that’s left now is the easy part.

  “Next time it won’t take so long. You won’t need the training wheels that we were. And it won’t take nearly as much effort on your part. Thomas is an unusually difficult target—if I’d had my choice, I would’ve started you out with someone easier. Next time, I promise, one meeting and you’re out. One and done. But this is where I was stationed.”

  Slater and Ross were both megalomaniacs, and greedy ones at that; I could finally see that clearly. They were doing all this for ideology in the sense that a quest for money and power were the guiding principles of imperialism. Saying as much would be dangerous—I was miles away from the city, and the base was crawling with soldiers. I chose to be cautious.

  “Where is he? Thomas, I mean.”

  “The day after tomorrow he’s going to Ghana for a meeting at Mole National Park. It’s a wildlife refuge near Tamale. They’re going to talk about wildlife preservation, mostly for the press, but really they’re meeting to sign an agreement about sharing the hydroelectric dam in Ghana.

  “There’s a change in the government coming. That’s inevitable. What we have some control over is how efficient it is. The station office is pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into setting up an electoral system and putting Blaise Compaoré in power. But unless they’re willing to commit to killing Thomas it’ll backfire. He’s been a political prisoner a few times now, and it’s always galvanized support behind him when his adversaries put him in jail. He’s too popular. As long as he’s alive no one else can seize power. We at SSI see ourselves as supplementing the CIA’s electoral system project. We’re doing the work that they don’t have the balls for.”

  “Who’s paying you?”

  “Who do you think? We’re getting money from lots of sources. There are many people, and corporations, and a couple of governments who’ll benefit from this service. We’ve reinvested some of that money into this base.

  “Thomas’s death is inevitable. What’s not inevitable is the international community knowing that the United States is behind it. At least it doesn’t have to be. If he’s killed in a coup by the head of a political group we’re giving money to, it’ll be obvious that we’re involved. But if there’s no financial paper trail, if he’s killed quietly, and all anyone can prove is that we were here trying to create an electoral system, that gives us plausible deniability. A bonus is if he dies in Ghana. That’ll cast suspicion on Jerry Rawlings, which will damage his reputation.”

  I nodded. Jerry Rawlings had come to power in a coup and was Ghana’s head of state. Of the two economies, Ghana’s was substantially stronger; it was his government that the CIA had been caught spying on. Rawlings had several of those Ghanaian agents executed. And it occurred to me that Ross had been station chief in Ghana when all this was happening. “He needs to be reeled in too; he’s a dangerous Communist. Two birds, one stone. You see?”

  “I see,” I said as I followed him toward the exit. I glanced back once at the dying man in the cell—he still hadn’t moved—then stepped into the scalding daylight.

  * * *

  —

  I KNEW IT WAS risky, but I needed to call my father. I couldn’t say for sure what was going to happen, and I wanted the chance to say goodbye. Slater dropped me back at the house, and I immediately went to the phone and dialed his number. I sat on the edge of the bed with the receiver. He picked up and I said, “It’s me.”

  “Hello, Marie? That you? I’m so glad I answered! I thought—” Whatever he’d said was drowned out by a click and a quick succession of pops on the line.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I thought you wouldn’t be able to call.”

  Ross had told me to tell him that. He’d also said I could tell him that I’d be in West Africa, but give no specific information about the assignment.

  “This is important.”

  “What was that? I can barely hear you.”

  “I’ll call you right back. Okay?”

  It could’ve been innocuous—just a poor-quality long distance call. But the noises I’d heard were also sometimes the symptoms of a wiretap. I pulled a screwdriver out of my bag and unscrewed the faceplate on the phone jack in my room. Nothing. I unscrewed the receiver on my phone. Also nothing. When I dialed him back, the connection was much better. He said, “Sorry ’bout that. Something’s been going on with my phone lately.”

  “Pop. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. I can tell when you’re upset. What’s going on?”

  “I want to ask you something about Helene’s funeral. Do you remember the group of her army friends?” After I described Daniel Slater there was a long pause—so long in fact that I thought we’d been disconnected—before he told me he did.

  “Why are you thinking about him now?”

  “He’s the one who brought me out here.”

  “He is? Why’d he do that?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “He told me about the accident. That he was in the car. Why’d you keep that from me?”

  He exhaled into the phone. “It was all a long time ago.”

  “Pop.”

  “I didn’t want to talk about him.”

  “You’d met him?”

  “Yeah. You and Helene had some kind of fight before she deployed. You weren’t talking to each other. So I called her. But I remember, I couldn’t get an answer—her number had been changed. I tried to catch her at the base but I couldn’t. I even called the police station in North Carolina, and they were no help. So finally I went down there. I went to her house, and I found out she’d moved. I went to the base, and one of her friends took pity on me and told me she was living with that guy, Daniel Slater.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Yes. I rang their bell and she answered the door. I asked her if we could go for lunch so
we could talk. He came to the door then too, and she asked him for permission to go out with me. He said no.

  “I’ve never been able to get that look she gave him out of my mind. I asked her to come back to New York with me but of course she said she couldn’t go AWOL. He threw me out. But he still had the nerve to smile up in my face at the funeral.”

  “Is that why she stopped calling me? Do you think he was isolating her?”

  “Yeah. A little bit.” He asked, “What was your argument about? I know it was a long time ago.”

  “I don’t know, Pop. That was the hardest thing about it.”

  “You were mad that she wasn’t at your graduation. I remember that.”

  “She was being distant though. If I knew what I’d done to her, I could’ve apologized.”

  “Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe she was pulling away from all her friends.”

  “Maybe,” I said, even though it didn’t quite seem true. She’d seemed so angry at me when we’d boxed that last time. Although I had criticized Slater. Maybe that was what set her off. “You should’ve told me about this back then.”

  “I was upset. I didn’t like thinking about it.”

  “Why didn’t you do anything else to help her?”

  Emotion rose in his voice. “I stayed there for three or four days, just trying to get her to talk to me. After I got back to Queens, I kept on calling her. I called so much that he told me he’d call the cops if I kept it up. I told him go ahead. What else could I have done, kidnapped her? She was an adult.”

  “You could’ve told me.”

  “And what would you have done? Gone down there and busted his head open? You were a kid.”

  “Did you know they got married? When she got back to the country. That’s what he says. But I have to say that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Because if he didn’t want her seeing her friends and family, by marrying him she was choosing him over all of us.”