by John Weisman
“What alias were you to use?”
“Jeff Stone.”
The order sounded odd to Tom. CIA’s walk-in debriefing room on the embassy’s ground floor had audio recording capabilities, and he mentioned that fact to Margolis.
“Seemed strange to me, too. But Harry was very specific. He described the Iranian to me. I was to watch for him—that’s easy enough, given the maze of barriers we have out front—wait until he was admitted to the gatehouse, then pick him up, walk him into the embassy, and listen to what he had to say. I was to make absolutely no commitments then write a report and have it on Harry’s desk by nine Monday morning.”
Something wasn’t right. “When Harry called Saturday, what did he tell you about the contact?”
“Tell me?” Margolis blinked. “He described him physically, if that’s what you mean.”
“No—I mean what he said about who the guy was—his background, his past relationship with…where you work.”
“Harry?” The kid popped the last chunk of sausage into his mouth. “He didn’t say a thing.”
“And what checking did you do?”
“None. I told you—he called late on Friday and we close the office promptly at six. I was told to be at the embassy Sunday morning.” He looked at Tom. “I was operating blind.”
Close the office promptly at six? Clock-punching spies? It was frigging inconceivable. Still, if this drivel was true, and Tom had no reason to believe he was getting a runaround because none of the kid’s body language suggested the faintest hint of deception, then Margolis was a bigger schmuck than Tom had thought and Shahram had been totally mishandled.
Even an idiot would have Googled Shahram’s name to see if anything came up. But Margolis had done nothing. Tom groaned inwardly but kept a poker face. “How did it play out?”
“Just like Harry said it would. I was a couple of minutes early. I waited. The Iranian was late—he showed up at nine, on the dot. I guess there’d been some misunderstanding about the time. I went down to the gatehouse, walked him in, we talked for about half an hour.”
“Did he bring any paper?”
Margolis shrugged. “Nope.”
“Nothing? Then how did he substantiate his claim?”
Margolis’s expression started to change and he crossed his arms.
Tom eased up. “You know what I’m saying—if a walk-in doesn’t offer a piece of paper…”
“…We’re always supposed to ask for something. Insist. I know that,” Margolis said peevishly. “But he claimed he wasn’t carrying any paper. He kept saying that within seventy-two hours after he got a down payment, he’d pass us a twenty-four-karat package.”
“Those were his words?”
“Uh-huh.”
Tom looked into Margolis’s eyes. “What did he tell you, Adam?”
Margolis blinked. “They orange-tabbed what he said, Tom.28 I don’t think I’m supposed to get into that. It would look bad on the polygraph.”
“Suppose I tell you, then. The Iranian told you there would be an attack somewhere in the Middle East within the next week to ten days.”
The astonished look on the kid’s face was confirmation enough. But Adam didn’t disappoint. “How did you know? Who told you?”
Tom smiled, and deflected. “Remember—I have a lot of friends at your headquarters.”
The answer, of course, was that Tom hadn’t known. Not exactly. It had been a guess. But an educated guess. He’d gone over all the notes from his lunch with Shahram. Obviously, Shahram had put some of the puzzle pieces together. At lunch, he’d tied the Gaza bombing to the other two blasts. Which told Tom that Shahram had realized before October 15 that Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said were both in Israel and something nasty was imminent.
The question, of course, was that if CIA had the information, why had Langley not acted? Because it hadn’t. There had been no warnings sent to Tel Aviv—or anywhere else. There had been no proactive security measures taken. It was as if Langley hadn’t given a damn.
But Tom wasn’t sitting at Le Griffonnier to figure out what Langley had or hadn’t known—or to decipher the motives behind its negligent behavior. He wanted to know everything about Shahram Shahristani’s embassy meeting. Because that meeting was the key to everything that had followed.
25
IT WAS TIME TO START the cold pitch. Tom looked into Adam’s eyes. “I told you I knew what the Iranian said.” He paused, his eyes entreating. “I need your help, Adam.”
Margolis’s voice took on a solicitous tone. “You were right on the money, Tom. He said he could provide the big guy on a platter. His words. Dead or alive. His words. He said he had information on other operations, but they’d cost us more.”
“That was all?”
“Like you said, he said one attack was imminent.”
“Did he say where?”
“He told me it would occur in Israel within the next week to ten days.”
“And what did you do?”
“I put it all on tape, just as I’d been ordered to. I took notes, too.”
“And?”
“And then it was finished. I told him we’d get back to him.”
“And you escorted him back to the gatehouse?”
“Yes. I’d just picked up my stuff and was ushering the Iranian down the front steps when Harry Z came charging through the lobby and called to us from the portico. That surprised me, because I didn’t even know he was in the building.”
Tom said nothing.
“Harry introduced himself to the Iranian—under alias, of course.” Margolis picked up his wineglass and drained it. “We all walked together down to the gatehouse. Just before we got there, Harry said he’d forgotten something upstairs, but he’d wanted to meet Shahram and thank him for his help. He gave Shahram an envelope. Said it wasn’t much, but he hoped it would compensate Shahram for his time, just in case the other thing didn’t work out.”
“What was the Iranian’s reaction?”
Margolis tapped his fingertips together. He cocked his head in Tom’s direction. “Reaction?”
“When he got the envelope.”
Margolis pondered the question. Tom could see the gears in the kid’s head engaging. Margolis’s face screwed up. He bit his lower lip. “I dunno, he…he just kind of gave me this strange look—he stared at me. And he stared at Harry Z, and then he slipped the envelope into his pocket. Never looked inside. And he said, ‘Au revoir,’ and I escorted him down to the gatehouse.”
“That was it?”
“Yup. Never said another word.” Margolis paused while Tom emptied the last of the Bourgueil into the kid’s glass. “But the look on his face. It was…strange, Tom.”
“Describe his expression if you can.”
The kid thought for about half a minute. “He was…kaleidoscopic. His face went from, like, bewilderment—no, it was darker than that. Bemusement. To…resignation, and then he looked at both of us with this incredible, smoldering contempt. It was amazing, actually.”
Of course it was. Shahram had realized at that instant he was a dead man walking. Tom had seen the amount of static surveillance around the embassy. On a Sunday morning the watchers could be anyone: dog walkers, trysting lovers, tourists, joggers, or bored cabdrivers. The French, the Arabs, the Israelis, al-Qa’ida—they’d all be there. Some would have video. Shahram had probably gone straight back to Cap d’Antibes—until he’d reached Tom and confirmed the lunch at Gourmets des Ternes. No wonder DST had had a team waiting at the airport.
Obviously, Shahram had understood—he was a professional after all—that he’d been set up. He’d had to realize, when Harry handed him the envelope right in front of all that static surveillance, that someone at Langley wanted him targeted.
But why? Maybe because Shahram knew how deaf, dumb, and blind CIA really was. Or maybe because he knew about Imad Mugniyah and the Palestinians running joint ops. Or perhaps just because Shahram had screwed with Langley for two decades and
the Langley bureaucracy was sick and tired of losing. And the look on Shahram’s face had said it all—except Adam Margolis had been oblivious.
Tom had seen a similar expression on the face of a man about to die once before. It was in a photograph that hung in Rudy’s cubicle back at 4627’s Washington offices.
One of the paramilitary agents Rudy’d run in the old days was a Cuban-American B-contract named Felix Rodriguez. Felix was a Bay of Pigs veteran who’d been fighting Castro since 1959. In 1967, when he was twenty-six, CIA dispatched him to Bolivia to help capture Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
Felix did his job well. On October 8, 1967, acting largely on information Felix had developed, Bolivian forces captured Che. On the ninth, Felix flew to the tiny village of La Higuera to debrief the legendary Marxist guerrilla and terrorist.
There is only one photograph of Che alive on that day. It was taken with Felix’s camera. He and Che are standing, surrounded by Bolivian soldiers. The look on Che’s face tells you he knows he’s going to die. It is an expression that merges bemusement, resignation, and contempt. Tom had spent a lot of time staring at the photo, wondering what had gone through Che’s mind.
Now, remembering Shahram’s phone call, he had some idea. “I have an engaging story to tell you,” Shahram had said. “Très provocateur. You will be fascinated. We must meet tomorrow. Must. I will not accept an excuse.”
But it hadn’t been Shahram’s coaxing words that had made Tom change his schedule. It had been the man’s urgent tone. But now that he thought about it, he understood that Shahram hadn’t projected urgency at all. He was signaling desperation—oougah, oougah, dive-dive-dive desperation. And Tom hadn’t caught it. He hadn’t. Not until now, goddamnit.
He fought his way back through the memory to focus on Adam Margolis. “Adam,” he said, “what did you do…with the tape?”
“I transcribed it, checked it, and handed everything to Harry Z.”
“Your notes, too?”
Margolis nodded. Tom remained silent, as if he was thinking. Finally, he said, “I think we can help fix things.”
“Fix what?”
“Your problem.”
“Problem?”
“Merde. Ventilateur.”
Margolis’s head bobbed up and down once. “Gotcha.”
So far so good. The kid hadn’t thrown his wine in Tom’s face. That meant he was approachable. Now Tom had to set the hook. He had to make sure Margolis thought of this as a team effort. “There are three small snips of information at the embassy. Once we’re sure about them, we can protect your back.”
“Which are?”
Tom’s gut was churning. Thank you, Jesus. Margolis just bought in. There’d been no “but-but-but.” No reticence. Just “Which are?” Tom knew his foot was in the door, so he wasted no time. “One, we need to know what Harry Z did with the information you passed him. Two, we need to know who got hold of him with the instructions about the Sunday-morning meeting. And three, we need to see a copy of the transcript you gave Harry Z.”
The kid emitted a low whistle. But he didn’t object to any part of Tom’s demands—either in body language or eye movement.
Margolis looked at Tom. “What time frame?”
He’d asked a specific question. The door cracked another inch. “Over the weekend in question. Harry called you on Saturday. Who messaged him?”
Margolis’s eyes went wide. “How do I find that out?”
“I’d check the message logs,” Tom said as matter-of-factly as he could.
“Message logs.”
“Right.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re in the administrator’s section of the SIPRNET.”
That caused Margolis’s first sign of vacillation. “They’re on the secure network?”
Reinforce. Support. Bolster. But don’t ask him to commit a crime. “It’s nothing you’re not cleared to do.”
“But…but it’s the secure net.”
“And you’re on it every day, aren’t you?”
Margolis shrugged. “Sure. But I’m not an administrator.” His eyes narrowed. “Who is the administrator?”
“If things work the same as they did when I was in Paris, Harry Z.”
“But he has a password. I don’t know it.”
“When I was in Paris, the administrator’s password was GUEST.”
“You’re kidding.”
“All caps, of course.”
“Jeezus,” Margolis said. “My SIPRNET password is ten characters long and alphanumeric, and if I didn’t have it written down on a card in my wallet, I’d never remember the damn thing.”
Tom smiled indulgently and made a mental note for Reuven to get hold of Margolis’s wallet at some point. Who knew what other jewels the kid kept on his person.
Margolis had no idea what was going on in Tom’s head. “Okay, I’ll try.” The kid’s mouth suddenly pruned up—like he’d licked a styptic pencil. “But what if they find out? They box me, you know.”
“Nobody’s going to ask you how many times you were on the secure network, Adam. You know as well as I do they’re more interested in unauthorized meetings with foreign nationals or your sex life.”
Margolis snorted. “As if I had one these days.”
Tom tried to be avuncular. “The message log is easy, Adam. Piece of cake.” He paused. “Now, as to what Harry did, it’s all a matter of checking his out-box.” He paused. The kid wasn’t being balky, so he pressed on. “And as for the transcript, does Harry still take those afternoon breaks?”
“You know about them, too, eh?” Margolis’s lips curled disparagingly. “Every damn day.”
“As I recall, Harry’s habit is to go to lunch, come back to the office, then leave again at about three for an hour or so.”
Margolis’s slight nod confirmed to Tom that the pattern hadn’t changed. Tom winked roguishly at Margolis. “He just about always forgets to lock his safe, y’know.” He caught Margolis’s sudden smile. “Nuff said?”
“Gotcha.” Margolis scrunched his chair closer to the table. The kid nodded and leaned forward conspiratorially. “When do we need the poop?”
Tom kept a straight face. “By the weekend, Adam. You’re going to be a busy guy tomorrow. You may even have to work late.” He paused and watched the kid drain the wine. “Don’t worry—it’ll all go smoothly. I’ll come out to your place Saturday morning and we’ll go over the stuff then.” He caught the look on the kid’s face. “Don’t worry—I’ll be clean.” He gave Margolis a reassuring smile. “What’s your cell-phone number?”
“Zero six, twenty-four, sixty-six, fourteen, eighty-two.”
“I’ll ring you if there’s any kind of hiccup.”
“Is there anywhere I can contact you?”
“You can leave me a voice mail at 4627.” Tom recited the number.
“Got it.” Margolis checked his watch, scraped his chair away from the table, and retrieved his yellow pad. He stood up, brushing crumbs from his suit as he did. “Gotta be going. Got a train to catch.”
“Have a safe trip.” Tom cocked his head at the younger man. “See you Saturday.” He paused, then said, “How’s eleven o’clock?”
The kid nodded and backed away from the table.
“You be waiting outside. I’ll drive by and pick you up. We’ll go someplace nice for lunch.” Tom was gratified to receive a circled thumb-and-forefinger okay sign.
6:24 P.M. Tom watched Margolis go, fighting an uncharacteristic inclination to kick the kid’s ass into next week. He just didn’t get it. The meeting had been a setup. Shahram had told them there’d be an attack in Israel sometime in the next week to ten days. That had to be Gaza. Langley had done nothing—and Jim McGee had died. In fact, instead of checking on Shahram’s information—which was on tape, according to Margolis—someone at Langley decided to paint a huge target on the Iranian’s back, then step back and see what happened next. If nothing happened, then Shahristani was fabricating. And if Shahr
istani was murdered, then maybe his claims were worth following up.
Jeezus. And Adam Margolis and his boss, Harry Z—disposables who’d take the fall if Shahram was, in fact, murdered and the decision to dangle him was traced back to Langley—were the guys with the cans of Krylon.
It wasn’t the first time a potentially valuable source had been screwed in that fashion. Tom remembered a 1988 case in Damascus that was equally appalling. There’d been a walk-in—a Lebanese Shia calling himself Hassan—who came to the embassy gates and asked to speak to an American diplomat.
He’d been met by an energetic young case officer named Bryan V. OFUTT29 and ushered into the ground-floor debriefing room. Hassan claimed to know where three of the hostages who’d been captured by Islamic Jihad in Beirut were currently imprisoned. When OFUTT pressed for details, it became apparent to the case officer that Hassan was the real thing. Hassan knew, for example, the precise medicines being taken by one of the non-American hostages, an Indian engineer. He described in detail the appearance of Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American priest who’d been kidnapped by Imad Mugniyah in January 1985.
Most important, Hassan not only told OFUTT precisely in which building of the Sheikh Abdallah barracks compound in Lebanon’s Bekáa Valley the hostages were being held, he also knew that their captors were not Hezbollah guerrillas but, in fact, Iranians. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps troops—the Seppah-e Pasdaran.
OFUTT slipped Hassan about twenty dollars in Syrian dinars and told him to wait. He went upstairs to the embassy’s second floor, punched a combination into the cipher lock on the heavy door to the CIA station, and reported what the Lebanese had told him to his boss, Martin J. POTTER,30 the station chief.
POTTER was a wreck of a man. Alcoholic, thrice divorced, and afraid of being up-and-outed, his instinctual reaction was to do nothing. But OFUTT was adamant—American lives might be at stake. And so POTTER used the secure phone and called Langley. The NE desk duty officer put POTTER on hold while he ran the message up the chain of command.
The CIA’s director at the time was Judge William H. Webster. Webster was known inside the DO as the Stealth DCI because of his judicially cautious disinclination to sign off on high-risk recruitments or operations. When asked what to do about Hassan, the DCI delegated the decision to his executive assistant, whom he’d brought from the FBI. The whole operation looked like a risky scheme to the G-man. And so, the seventh floor punted, tossing the decision back to NE Division.