by Doug Raber
“I was at Dartmouth around the same time. A couple of years behind him. Maybe three, even. And I remember him vaguely from back then. But nothing like that. I had a few friends in his fraternity my freshman year, but I don’t remember hearing about him being an officer. And my roommate rowed freshman crew. He never mentioned him at all.”
“Maybe he was just very subdued about it. I mean, he’s never struck me as a braggart.”
• • • • •
Two young women approached one of the few groups that did not appear to be almost completely male. As they stood awkwardly among people whom they had never met and who seemed much older, a small voice penetrated the din.
“Hello, I’m Ginny. I hope you’re enjoying the reception.”
One of the women recognized her.
“You were his first case officer …”
“I don’t think we ever used that term, but I certainly knew him early in his career. I was working for Mr. Albertson at the time.”
A second conversation was taking place several feet away, and a man in his forties asked his question quietly.
“He never married, did he?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard.”
“He never struck me that way.”
“What way are you talking about?”
The man turned to the elderly woman standing nearby and brought her into the conversation.
“Ginny, you’ve known him for ages. Do you know the answer?”
“Know what answer?”
“If he’s … you know, gay?”
The older woman colored intensely.
“In my day, it was never considered polite to talk about such things. It’s hardly any of our business. But just to set the record straight, I think I can assure you that he definitely prefers women. Always has.”
The expression on her face brought the line of conversation to an abrupt end.
As she walked away, one of the younger members of the group asked, “Who the hell was that?”
“Careful, dude. She’s got a lot of friends here. She’s been part of this outfit for a lot of years. Name is Ginny. Virginia Huffington. I’m told she was kinda hot back when she was young. And tough, too. You still don’t want to mess with her.”
• • • • •
“One of the really odd examples was the time he came under suspicion crossing from Slovenia into Croatia. Turns out the Slovenian border guards had decided to walk up the road to have lunch in the village. There wasn’t much border traffic at the location, and Slovenians were on good terms with their Croat counterparts. The problem was that it looked strange to Timothy.”
“What did he do?”
“He started acting suspiciously, or at least in a way that made the Croat border guards really nervous. So, they searched the hell out of him and his car. He was lucky he wasn’t carrying anything that day. Otherwise he might have spent some time in the local jail. Maybe even prison.”
“But nothing happened?”
“Nope. He talked his way out, and there was nothing incriminating they could find. Just a businessman traveling to Zagreb for legitimate reasons.”
• • • • •
“He always worried about the information he was passing. That it would fall into the wrong hands and lead to the deaths of innocent people.”
“Was it really a risk?”
“I suppose it’s hard to give a definitive answer, but I have the most knowledge of what he did during the Bosnian wars. He was a brave man, driving into hostile territory, playing the role of an impartial businessman trying to bring in goods that would help the war victims. What he actually conveyed was far more valuable. In some cases, he provided raw intelligence on when an attack was planned and where it would take place. Innocent civilians were able to flee beforehand, so Timothy saved countless lives in this way.
“Also, he managed to get advance warning to the Russians. Russia was supporting NATO by that time, but a lot of Russian fighters were on the other side as volunteers or mercenaries. Timothy used his old network, first Reza Kashani and then Vasili Yevchenko. The Serbs were attacked as expected, but collateral damage was minimized. The Russians appreciated that.”
• • • • •
“What about his health?” a young man inquired. “Someone told me he’d been attacked with nerve agent a while ago. That maybe it was the latest generation of chemical weapon the Russians developed, even while they were negotiating the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
“You need to be cautious on that topic,” an older man answered. “There are things we know about that we don’t discuss. Timothy was always worried about that, especially after the time he was ill when he was working in Bosnia.”
“But that’s the question, isn’t it? Was he ill, or was he poisoned?”
“I don’t think there’s any way to know. The symptoms he described were similar those reported by people who were slightly affected the Sarin attacks in Japan in 1994 and 1995.”
“But they didn’t follow up with O’Connor and his symptoms?”
“Of course, we followed up. But he’d been fully recovered from his illness for several years by the time we learned about it. There wasn’t any evidence for us to analyze.”
“But his symptoms.” The younger man was persistent.
“That’s the problems. They’re consistent with nerve gas exposure, but they also correspond to PTSD.”
“Post-traumatic stress? From his work in Bosnia?”
“Damn right,” said another member of their small group. “He was involved in some pretty scary activity back then. I would have been scared shitless if you’d put me there.”
“So, you don’t think there’s anything to it?”
“Hard to say. And there’s still another possibility.”
“What’s that?” asked a middle-aged woman who had joined the group.
“Age. Timothy sometimes complained about forgetfulness. It’s something that’s going to happen to most of us.”
“Nonsense!” said the woman. “I was with him just last month, and he was as sharp as ever. I think we’re just contributing to some disinformation with this line of talk.”
• • • • •
“Do you remember his parties? He’d invite these Russian guys, and we’d all have to drink shots of vodka. There were more than a few times where I got really wasted. If those guys had been spies, they probably would have walked away with every secret they needed.”
“If they were Russians, they were probably intelligence. Those were good parties, though. And the women. They were something.”
“What do you mean? That part must have been before my time.”
“Some of the women were a little … we were never sure, but we suspected.”
“I don’t get it. What?”
“We always wondered if they were professionals. And I don’t mean accountants.”
“Did they get paid or something?”
“We never knew. Some of us wondered.”
Several others nodded their agreement.
“Always real pretty. And they dressed like it, too. Sometimes you could see halfway to their navels with the dresses they wore. There were always lots of men hanging around them. We just figured that the women would go home with the lucky guys. And nobody ever admitted doing that, so we were never sure.”
“But they were good parties?”
“Damn right!”
Nods all around. And smiles.
“Those were different times.”
• • • • •
“You’ve known him, like, forever, haven’t you Cindy?”
“Not quite forever, but since we were children.”
“Is it true that you’re related? I heard that once.”
“Cousins, I guess. But I’m not quite sure. My uncle was a close friend to his family. Helped out his mom when he was growing up. But Chris isn’t exactly my uncle either. My mom’s sister married his brother James.”
“That soun
ds confusing.”
“I suppose. But the point is, we’re not blood relatives. As kids they used to say we were kissing cousins.”
“Something you want to tell us about Cindy? Something else I should be asking about?”
“I don’t think so. At least not if you want to keep all your body parts.”
• • • • •
“You haven’t been around here in ages, Dave. It’s good to see you.”
“Thanks. It’s good to see you guys again, too.”
“And this is John?”
“Sure is. He started at Biggers & Hayes about two months ago.”
“A real chip off the old block.”
“I guess so. Got the whole family in it now.”
“Is Cindy here? I haven’t seen her.”
“Yeah she’s over there across the room.”
“Right, I see her now. Well, anyway, John — glad to have you with us. Your father must be really proud of you.”
“I think he is. And I’m proud of him, too.”
• • • • •
“Have you heard anything about the book he supposedly wrote?”
The two older men in the cluster glanced at each other before one of them answered the young woman’s question.
“That’s still something we have to be very careful in talking about. But it’s not a book. At least not in the sense of being sold on Amazon or in bookstores. As I understand it, it’s more of a journal. Kind of a private memoir. Although he doesn’t even have any family to share it with.”
The woman’s curiosity wasn’t satisfied.
“But it could be important, right? Maybe it will turn out like some of the stuff Agee published.”*
The two young men in their small group seemed befuddled by the reference. One of them asked, “Who is Agee?”
The older man answered.
“He was one of us, but he became disaffected. This was back in the late sixties. Among other things, he divulged the names of some two hundred and fifty of our people. It really screwed up a lot of operations and put people at risk. The first President Bush called him “a traitor to our country,” and some people think his disclosures were responsible for the assassination of our station chief in Athens in the mid-seventies.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead. He died in Cuba* in 2008. We can argue about whether he was a traitor, but he sure as hell wasn’t our friend.”
“How did he release the names? Did he just give them to the Cubans?”
“No, they were listed in an appendix to a book he published about the Agency. He wrote it like a diary.”
“That’s how you described O’Connor’s document.”
The older man paused, a flush rising on his face.
“Yes … I suppose I did. But the two should not be compared. Whatever Timothy’s faults, he has never shown any hostility toward us … or to the Agency. He’s a loyal American.”
• • • • •
“What about negotiations?”
“Absolutely,” said a man who looked to be in his seventies. “That was where he was indispensable.”
“What did he actually do? I’ve heard he was always behind the scenes.”
“Exactly. Behind the scenes and setting the stage. He made sure that everyone on both sides knew exactly what was on the table. And what was going to be on the table. He made sure there were no surprises that could derail the whole process.”
“So, he shuttled back and forth between the top diplomats?”
“No way. They didn’t even know who he was. That’s where he used his network. The other side knew what we wanted and how far we were willing to go in a compromise. And we got the same kind of information. It made everything work smooth as silk.”
“But if he was giving away our positions, wasn’t that … kind of illegal or something?”
The older man frowned. “Let’s just say it isn’t the sort of thing one does publicly. That’s the whole point. If it stays secret, then nobody knows, even if the secret has been shared.”
• • • • •
“Congratulations, Christopher. You must be a proud man today.”
“Thank you. I am proud. He’s had a fine career.”
“When did you decide to recruit him? After college? Or not until after graduate school?”
“Oh, that’s not quite how it went. He may not have realized it, but everything had been decided long before that. We always knew he’d be good at this. From the time he was a young boy. He even had a secret hideaway in his house back then. It was all just a matter of steering him in the right directions. We did that. And I had a little help from others.”
• • • • •
“Pamela! How are you? I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
“I’m good, Chuck. You?”
“Same here. I’m thinking of retiring. I’d like to get my golf scores down and enjoy myself. I don’t want to wind up the same as …”
Several others joined them, and the conversation shifted to an earlier time when the half-dozen agents had worked together.
“You worked with him more closely than any of us, Pamela. Do you have any idea why he was so convinced that Vladimir Putin was after him? He told me himself that he was afraid he was on a hit list.”
She shook her head slowly. “Unfortunate. It was all a misunderstanding, but I didn’t know about it at the time. It all goes back to Vienna, when we were negotiating the levels of military forces in Europe that would be allowed after German reunification. It was all about trying to get a deal between NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations.”
“He was part of that?”
“Yes. I’d given him the assignment. He was already in Vienna, when I had to go there for other reasons, and I didn’t want an accidental encounter that might blow his cover. Or mine. So, I didn’t make contact.”
“How did that involve Putin?”
“I needed to meet with an Austrian by the name of Heinrich Burmeister. Turns out he looks like Putin. A remarkable similarity.”
“And he saw you with Burmeister?”
“Exactly. I didn’t find out about this until much later, but he thought I was playing some sort of double game in which he might be Putin’s target. All because I didn’t want to blow his cover for the negotiations.”
“Did he ever find out actually happened?”
“Only much later. I still feel bad about the episode. It caused him a lot of anxiety for a long time. And I understand that. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to think Putin had made me a target for some reason. I wish I’d known about it much earlier so I could have corrected the problem.”
“Did it affect his work?”
“I don’t think so. Which is extremely impressive. There he was, afraid for his life, and he continued his role in making some really tough negotiations go smoothly. He was a consummate professional, no question about it.”
• • • • •
“So, you’re the famous Monika. Is it true that he helped you escape a Bulgarian assassination squad?”
“Romanian, not Bulgarian. But yes, he got me out of a tight spot.”
“I heard you wound up in KGB custody.”
She laughed.
“Not custody. They supplied the car and driver that got me out of Vienna, but all they did was drive me through the Czech Republic and across the border to meet up with our people in Germany. They were former KGB, but they posed no threat to me. It was all good.”
“But he thought he was turning you over to the KGB? To the other side?”
“I cannot say what he thought. I can only say what he did, and that was to get me out safely.”
Her voice turned combative.
“You must not criticize him. He is a good man. The best.”
• • • • •
“He helped with the P5+1 talks? That’s incredible. I thought he’d returned to the States and left field work behind by that time.”
“Yes and no. His network rem
ained strong enough that people came to him even when he didn’t leave Georgetown. The field became his own backyard.”
“But he wasn’t involved with the actual negotiations, was he?”
“No, not directly. His major role was to verify information. Or show it was false. By using his own channels. He had Reza Kashani from Iran, Dieter Volkmann from Germany, and Vasili Yevchenko from Russia. All of them were close to those directly involved in the negotiations, and he knew he could trust them. It was an incredibly valuable source of intelligence.”
“Did our negotiating team trust them?”
“Not entirely. But if what they gave us agreed with the information provided by the Iranian regime, we knew it was accurate. If they weren’t the same, then somebody was trying to set us up. And they didn’t know about Timothy, so we knew to disregard what had come directly to the U.S. government.”
“Sounds like it worked fairly well.”
“Yes.”
• • • • •
Amanda Roberts was talking with a younger group, more than half of them women. It provided a level of familiarity that allowed one of the younger women asked a clearly inappropriate question.
“Did you really have an affair with him that lasted seven years?”
Amanda smiled tolerantly at the questioner.
“We were involved for a while. He was always an attractive man, both physically and intellectually. And certainly, you’ve heard how much he’s always liked a good story. So, seven years is a bit on the long side.”
“But you helped him pass information?”
“Absolutely. When Pamela Tremont and others at the top learned I had met him through sheer coincidence, they decided we should take advantage of the liaison. It would protect our efforts, it would shield him from discovery, and it would greatly enhance all our back-channel efforts in dealing with Iran.”
“How did you decide that?”
“Because everything was a complex web of multiparty negotiations. We had to get agreement from Germany, Russia, France, the U.K., and China before we could even begin to approach Iran with a proposal. So, think about it. If we could ask first under a cloak of secrecy, we had the possibility of getting the P5+1 to sign on to a proposal that would be acceptable to Iran as well.”