Spy Dance

by Allan Topol

  “Time to go to work,” he said glumly.

  They showered and dressed. Then, pretending she wanted to take pictures, she climbed to the deserted roof of the hotel, with him holding her camera bag. The noon sun was beating down on them as they found a position near an air-conditioning vent to avoid being too obvious. Their backs were to the sea. In front of them there were only sand and desert. It was two hundred miles to the Saudi Arabian border.

  After she set up her camera, with a powerful telephoto lens on a tripod, David focused on the long road from the highway to the hotel. They had to make sure Fox wasn’t being followed.

  He studied the passengers in each car or taxi approaching the hotel. About half an hour later, he spotted Fox in the back of a taxi, wearing a tan suit, flowered tie and brown straw hat. There weren’t any other cars on the road behind the taxi. Even when Fox’s cab pulled up in front of the hotel, the road was empty.

  “He’s alone,” David said.

  “Good. Let’s get out of here.”

  She began to disassemble the tripod and camera.

  “Wait in our hotel room,” she said. “I’ll check the lobby to make sure there’s no one who came ahead to watch him.”

  “Good idea. I’ll take the camera gear back. Call me if he’s by himself.”

  As Sagit emerged from the elevator on the lobby floor, she looked in vain for Fox for several minutes. Finally, she found him, sitting alone at the hotel bar. From the doorway, she watched him sipping a Perrier, obviously preoccupied, deep in thought. She didn’t have a good feeling about him.

  Back in the room, she told David: “My instincts say that we shouldn’t use Fox. We’ve got to find another way. Using him will come back and bite us. I’ve seen it happen again and again in intelligence work, and I’m sure you have, too, when you deal with a guy who’s consumed with personal problems.”

  David grimaced and thought carefully about what she said. Finally he replied, “I can’t argue with you about the risks, but I don’t see another way, and time’s running out on us.”

  “So what? Let it run out. Suppose you don’t get your revenge on Chambers for forcing you to abandon your former life? So what?”

  He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He was so close to nailing Chambers, but he needed her support. That meant appealing to her rationally. “It’s not that. I want to establish the answer to Margaret Joyner’s two questions.”

  “C’mon, David, it’s me. You answered one of them with Khalid. They won’t be able to argue you didn’t cooperate. Your desire for revenge will ruin us.”

  “I’ve got to do it. Please, Sagit, try to understand.”

  She sighed. “As long as you understand the risks, I guess it’s your call.”

  “Where’ll you be?”

  “Up here in the room, watching from the patio. Take him out on the beach and then to the poolside restaurant, so I can see you.”

  * * *

  David sat down on a bar stool beside Fox. Before the CIA station chief had a chance to look at him, David whispered, “Remember it’s Gunther, from Portland, Oregon.” Then he slapped Fox on his back and raised his voice, “Bill Fox, how the hell are you?”

  “Real good,” Fox said, blaring out the words. “Even better since you decided to come to the region and visit.” He called to the bartender. “Get my friend from home here a drink.”

  “Just tonic for me,” David said.

  They faked a reunion conversation for a few more minutes in case anyone was listening. Then David said, “The beach here is great. Let’s take a look before lunch.”

  There was a jetty built of rocks that reached out into the gulf. It was deserted and would let them talk in total privacy. David led the way.

  “Who the hell tried to kill us in London?” Fox asked.

  “I think I was the target. At least the first one, but I haven’t been able to find out a damn thing. What about you?”

  “Zero as well. Of course, I didn’t want to tell anybody I was there. I’ve kept totally quiet about our meeting. When I got the call from you yesterday, I was ecstatic. I figured that you might have a way of helping me do something about the fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia, or getting me out of the country and into hiding with Jameelah.”

  Nothing’s changed about Fox, David thought. He’s still thinking of himself. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. I’ve learned a lot about what’s happening in Saudi Arabia since our London meeting, and we’re going to have to solve your problem in stages.”

  Fox was sweating profusely. He took off his straw hat and mopped the perspiration from his forehead and face with a handkerchief. Then he began fanning himself with the hat. In the meantime, David was studying Fox’s face carefully. He wanted to know if Fox would answer the next question truthfully.

  “Do you know anything about an October 6 coup in Saudi Arabia?”

  “What?” Fox asked incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

  “Then you haven’t heard anything?”

  “Not a word. Is something being planned, and I don’t know about it?”

  “It’s very possible.”

  “Oh shit. How’d I miss it?”

  Because you’re a moron and sex has taken over your mind, but he concealed those thoughts and responded as if they were colleagues and partners. “I’m trying to get solid confirming information. If I get that information, I plan to take it back to Washington where I can trade it for immunity from prosecution for myself. At the same time I’ll be able to persuade Margaret Joyner to accept your information about Nasser and the fundamentalists and get the Saudi king to crack down on them, which is what you want. So we’ll both come out of it winners.”

  “And you want me to help you get that confirming information? That’s why you wanted to see me today?”

  David snapped his fingers. “You’re still as sharp as ever, Bill.”

  Fox laughed. “And you’re still as full of crap as ever.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably true. But anyhow, I’ve learned since our London meeting that there’s a coup being planned for October 6, and General Chambers is right in the middle of it—on his own and without any authorization from Washington.”

  Fox’s eyes popped wide open. “You’re bullshitting me.”

  “Wish I were.”

  “Who’s working with him from the Saudis? Some of their military people?” Fox resumed, fanning himself with his hat.

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  “I guess I don’t look too good as the Company’s station chief if I didn’t know about any of this.”

  “That’s only half your problem.” David sounded concerned and sympathetic. He was Fox’s friend, confidant and supporter. “I came to warn you, Bill, that if this thing goes down, Chambers is going to get your ass thrown out of Saudi Arabia and fired from the agency. You’ll never be allowed in the country again, and you’ll never see Jameelah again.”

  “He can’t do that? Why, Margaret Joyner would never…”

  “C’mon, Bill. Your personal life has hardly been a model of propriety.”

  Fox was crestfallen. “And unfortunately Chambers knows about that.”

  David nodded. “You know these things always get out.”

  “But Chambers has been so friendly to me on his last two visits. He’s brought me a case of Johnny Walker each time. We’ve had one-on-one private briefings. He’s treating me with respect.”

  A cigarette boat shot by in the Gulf. David paused to watch a couple of oil-rich Gulf playboys push the speed higher and higher. He was waiting for the engine to explode, but instead it just died. As they floated with the current, they waved for help.

  David turned back to Fox. “He’s conning you, Bill. He’s always been a wily bastard. You know that. What’s he want from you in return?”

  Fox hesitated. David held up for a minute, not wanting to appear too anxious. C’mon Bill, he thought. Grab the hook. When Fox didn’t respond, David continued, “Look, Bill,
I’m trying to save your ass. If you don’t want my help, that’s all right.”

  Feeling defensive, Fox tried to rationalize. “He wants all my reports to Washington to be blindly routed through his office. He’ll read them and immediately pass them on.”

  “And you agreed to do that?”

  “He promised to make me deputy director of the DIA, the first of the year. He wants to evaluate my work till then.”

  “And the coup’s scheduled for October 6. David was losing patience with this fool. His tone was scornful. “What’s that tell you?”

  “That he’ll kill the messages he doesn’t want anyone to see. That he’s playing me for a fool and a sucker.”

  “You got it.”

  “And what do you think I should do about the bastard?”

  Relieved that he now had Fox precisely where he wanted him, David was ready to move on. “I’ve got an idea that will help both of us.”

  Fox looked at him warily. “Yeah, what?”

  “Chambers is arriving in Saudi Arabia tomorrow.”

  “I know that.”

  “When he’s there, he’s going to have a meeting with an air force colonel by the name of Khalid.”

  “Your old friend Khalid?”

  “Exactly. My hunch is that they’ll be discussing the coup in that meeting, and—”

  Fox interrupted. “Sorry, Greg, I doubt if I’ll be invited.”

  “I’m sure you won’t be, but I want a tape of that meeting.”

  Fox took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face again.

  “How do you propose I do that?”

  “You used to be very good at that sort of thing, as I remember,” David said, trying to make it sound simple, “and you have all of the Company’s toys at your disposal.”

  Fox was suspicious. “And what’ll you do with the tape if I can pull it off?”

  “Take it to Washington and destroy General Chambers—the one big obstacle in the path of both of our future pursuits of happiness.”

  Fox curled up his lips pensively. His hand with the hat trembled. “I don’t know, Greg, bugging the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. You’re asking for a lot.”

  David put his arm around Fox’s back and turned them toward the hotel. “Well, you and I are going to have lunch now. You think about it while we eat.”

  David led the way back to the outdoor restaurant alongside the pool. It was late now. They were the only patrons for lunch. That suited David. When their cold seafood salads came, he said to Fox, “I assume that you’re still seeing your Saudi Princess?”

  “Jameelah. Yeah.”

  “It’s a risky business.”

  Fox was defiant. “Some things are worth running risks for.”

  Not wanting to unnerve Fox at this critical juncture, David backed off. “You’re the only one who can judge that.”

  “It’s really all Alice’s fault,” Fox finally said. “She wouldn’t move over here. Neither of us could live like that, seeing each other every couple of months, year in and year out. And when we were together, things didn’t go so well even then. Sexually, I mean. I guess, you use it or lose it. Now with Jameelah, I feel like a young man again.”

  What an idiot, David thought, but I’ll play your silly game. “And if you help me and do what I asked, you’ll be able to continue on in your relationship with Jameelah for a very long time.”

  “That’s what I want. To live with her in the lake region of northern Italy, where nobody’ll bother us.”

  “Takes big money to do that,” David said gingerly, not wanting to confront Fox directly with his suspicions of the Henri Napoleon payoff from Madame Blanc, for fear that Fox would panic and refuse to make the Chambers tape.

  “Money’s not a problem,” Fox replied quickly, adding further fuel to David’s suspicions.

  For several minutes, they ate in silence. Finally, Fox put his fork down and said, “I’ll make the tape you want of Chambers’ conversation under one condition.”

  David was elated, but he kept his reaction in check, wanting to hear what Fox wanted. “What’s that?”

  “You won’t tell anyone how you got it.”

  “Agreed.”

  “How do you want me to deliver it to you?”

  Under the table, David rolled his hands into fists, and squeezed them in a sign of victory. “Chambers’ meeting with Khalid is tomorrow. Have a courier dressed in a business suit come to the lobby of this hotel the following morning at eleven a.m.. Tell him to put a white flower in his lapel. He should turn the package over to the man who identifies himself as Gunther.”

  * * *

  Back in Riyadh, Fox went to work making calls to the various high-ranking military people who would have knowledge about the general’s plans for the next day. The general’s recent open closeness with Fox, along with his position as CIA station chief, gave him easy access to information.

  He learned that Chambers’ plane was scheduled to arrive at 0800 in Riyadh. The meeting with Colonel Khalid was set for 1400 in the office of General Foreman, whose office Chambers regularly used when he visited Riyadh, holding court and having his visitors come as if he were a foreign potentate. Fox’s last meeting with Chambers had occurred in that office.

  Armed with that information, Fox opened the combination lock to the Company’s storage room that housed the “toys,” as Greg had described them. In a matter of minutes, he found exactly what he was looking for, a tiny microcassette recording machine that could be taped to the bottom of the conference table in Foreman’s office, and was sensitive enough to pick up any conversation in the room. He programmed it to turn on at 1400 and operate for two hours.

  With the recording device in his briefcase, he drove to the four-story building that housed General Foreman’s office. It was almost midnight. All of the lights in the building were off except for those in the front entrance hall. A Sergeant Prescott was on duty, just inside the front door.

  Fox flashed his ID, but it was unnecessary. Prescott know that Fox was the CIA station chief and a confidant of General Chambers.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the sergeant asked.

  “Just here on a routine security check of the building before the general’s visit tomorrow.”

  Prescott was surprised. “I thought DIA already did that.”

  “Redundancy on security checks is never a bad idea. We can’t be too careful with a chairman of Joint Chiefs coming.”

  “I agree with that, sir,” Prescott said as he waved Fox through. Once he reached the top floor of the building, where Foreman’s office was located, he turned on a single light in the far end of the corridor, away from the office. In semidarkness, he advanced down the corridor. Inside Foreman’s office it was almost pitch dark. Fox extracted a small flashlight from his briefcase, and he crawled along the carpet and under the oak table. With trembling and perspiring hands, Fox fixed the recording device to the bottom of the table.

  * * *

  At ten minutes before eleven, David stationed himself in front of the newsstand in the lobby of the hotel, appearing to glance at the periodicals in half a dozen languages. He spotted the thin, slight young man with the white carnation in his lapel as soon as he walked through the automatic sliding glass doors. In his right hand, the man held a dark brown knapsack.

  As David moved across the lobby to meet the man, he said softly, “Gunther.”

  The courier reached into the knapsack and extracted a cardboard box wrapped extensively with heavy tape, which he handed to David. Trying to conceal his excitement, David walked slowly to the elevator and went back to their room, where Sagit was waiting.

  Quickly, they cut off the wrapping tape.

  Inside, there was a microcassette and a small machine for playing it. David searched for a note from Fox, but there wasn’t one. That was smart, he decided. Fox was using his brain again.

  First, they listened to the entire tape once. The key segment was twenty two minutes into the tape. They played that p
ortion again:

  General Chambers: You’re doing a good job, Colonel Khalid. I’m certain that your effort will succeed. In eleven days it’ll be the end of the House of Saud, and the beginning of your rule in Saudi Arabia.

  Colonel Khalid: I don’t want a bloodbath here.

  General Chambers: You won’t have one. Not the way you’ve planned it.

  Colonel Khalid: Unless the American government intervenes militarily on the side of the Saudi king.

  General Chambers: You worry too much. I told you in our first meeting that won’t happen. The American government won’t send a single soldier to the aid of the king.

  Colonel Khalid: But have you told your President about the coup? Has he agreed not to intervene? Or is this just your prediction or hope?

  General Chambers (irritably): Your carping on this point is beginning to annoy me. I speak for my government. That’s all you need to know.

  David clicked off the machine and said gleefully, “We’ve got the bastard. He’s mine.”

  Sagit didn’t share his enthusiasm. “Don’t get too confident,” she told David somberly. “Everything we have depends upon Bill Fox. With that guy’s personal problems, it could all prove to be a house of cards.”

  * * *

  That afternoon Carl and Alexandra Holt stopped at the desk of a travel agent in the hotel lobby and booked a flight to Indianapolis, Indiana, with connections in Frankfurt and Washington. As the travel agent repeated the word “Washington,” David felt apprehensive. What would be waiting for him in the American capital after these long five years?

  Sagit told the hotel clerk that a family emergency had developed at home, and unfortunately they had to leave early, but they hoped to return to Dubai soon and “to your beautiful and exotic country.” That seemed acceptable to the clerk. Sagit doubted that he would report anything suspicious to the police about his American visitors. They had hidden the microcassette inside one of Sagit’s cameras. She disposed of the machine in an airport trash bin in the women’s restroom, immediately before clearing customs.