Loose Lips

by Claire Berlinski

  I packed up my studio and moved to Virginia, renting an airy, modern apartment with a balcony in the completely uninteresting suburb of McLean—condos, cul-de-sacs, lawns with little swing sets—about ten minutes from CIA Headquarters. It was easily four times the size of my place in Manhattan and half the price.

  The move was uneventful save that it was the first time I’d driven a car on my own. Like many New Yorkers, I’d never really learned to drive. The deficit marked me as an alien elsewhere in the country, quite likely mentally infirm or dangerously unpatriotic. I hadn’t needed to drive when I lived in India; I’d spent most of my time in a village with exactly one car, a 1978 Lada that was more rust than engine. Judging from the garlands strewn lovingly around its antenna, that car had functioned primarily as a religious icon.

  I bought myself a used Ford Taurus, the safest car in its class, and captained it through the suburbs of Virginia like a Sherman tank. I hesitated at every intersection. I braked when the wind blew. I signaled when I shouldn’t have and I didn’t when I should have. I couldn’t read a road map. My sense of direction was terrible and I kept getting lost: I tried to go to the grocery store and found myself well on my way to the Appalachians before I realized my error and corrected my course. The mirrors confused me; I couldn’t figure out the relationship between the reflected image and reality. If objects in the mirror were closer than they appeared, did that mean I should merge faster or not at all? Why did people keep honking at me even when I was driving exactly the speed limit? On my third day in Virginia, I stopped at a tollbooth and tossed my change successfully into the basket. Then I threw the car into reverse rather than drive and promptly rolled into the car behind me.

  On the morning of my first day at the CIA, I dressed in a fresh cream-colored winter suit with gold buttons and brocade trim. I wore silk panties, sheer nylons, pearls that looked real, and earrings to match. My Ferragamo pumps came from a thrift store, but they didn’t look it. I put expensive serum in my hair to make it shiny, and I wore three very thin gold bracelets on the same wrist as my watch. I checked myself in the mirror one last time before I left: I decided I would look right at home in the photograph on the CIA website.

  I had been told to return to the same anonymous office building where I had been polygraphed. I left an hour early in case I got lost, then waited in the parking lot, fussing with my lip gloss and adjusting the seams of my nylons. I was still the first of my classmates to walk through the sliding glass doors. Then more appeared—three women and a man. We introduced ourselves with pleasantries and affable, firm handshakes. Presently we were met by a silver-haired man, well into middle age with a careworn face; he introduced himself as Ned. Ned told us that he would drive us to Headquarters in a minivan, where we would meet the rest of the class. We bundled ourselves into the van, and Ned pointed out the local landmarks as we drove. “I remember my first day,” he said. “You’ve got an adventure ahead of you, that’s for sure.” He blinked quickly a few times. “I wish I could start all over again.”

  We eased into the left-turn lane on Route 123 at the sign that said CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, pulling up beside a small makeshift memorial to the two Agency employees killed at that traffic light by a deranged Pakistani gunman. They had been ambushed while waiting for the light to change. The site was marked by two small wooden crosses and a straggle of limp pansies. I looked at the memorial with dismay; the light seemed to stay red for a long time.

  At last we turned into the long driveway, cruising past ominous signs that said WARNING: OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FACILITY and a barrage of other prohibitions: no photography, no firearms, no recording devices, no cellular phones, no unauthorized entry, no alcohol, no tourists. We drove past twelve-foot-high gates topped by razor wire and over a mechanized road barrier designed to rear from the ground and flip unwelcome vehicles like pancakes. Once, Ned told us, a flustered security guard, new to the job, had accidentally upended a visitor from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who had hung inverted in the air until the rescue crews arrived. The damage to his car had been considerable. But on the day we arrived, the armed guards seemed on top of their game. The motion they made to wave us in was something between a beckon and a salute, a welcoming but respectful gesture, full of gravitas.

  Our minivan continued down a road that circled the vast parking lots. Ned explained that titles to the reserved spaces, close to the building, were bitterly contested. “It’s not worth it,” he advised, describing the viciousness of the battles for parking supremacy. “Don’t get caught up in that game. So you walk a few minutes every morning. It’s good for your heart.” The lots were full of dark economy sedans, mostly Dodges and Fords. There were a few SUVs; some had bumper stickers. MY SON IS AN HONOR ROLL STUDENT AT MCLEAN MIDDLE SCHOOL, read one.

  Ned showed us where we should park our cars. The lots open to trainees were practically in Montana.

  The Headquarters compound was something like a small college campus. The two main buildings were adjoined; the older building, heavyset and somber, was made of precast concrete; the newer one, of steel and glass. A walkway linked the old building to a freestanding, domed auditorium. This nucleus was surrounded by woods, lawns, and endless parking lots from which soared satellite dishes and radio towers of surreal gigantism. The scene conveyed business and motion: Rolls of chicken wire and PVC piping sprouted from a large construction site near the main buildings; helmeted workers rattled pneumatic drills. From somewhere in the middle of the compound a generator pumped steam into the air.

  We took a footpath from the lot through a small wooded park, which led to a lawn with picnic tables and a triptych made from a fragment of the Berlin Wall. A cluster of smokers, shivering in the cold, stood outside the entrance to the main building. Ned ushered us past the guards and the security turnstiles. The CIA seal, carved in granite, spread magnificently over the floor of the foyer. Ned pointed to our right, showing us the stars on the marble walls that commemorated the Agency’s fallen. There were seventy-seven stars, he told us. A glass-encased book below the stars listed forty-two names: The names of those remaining were, even in death, too sensitive to be revealed. Etched into the wall ahead of me was the famous legend And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

  We proceeded down the hall and assembled in a dark-paneled, carpeted auditorium. A heavy, matronly woman rose to take the podium, standing between the Stars and Stripes and a flag with the CIA seal. She moved only with effort, but her deliberate stride and sturdy carriage conveyed enormous confidence. An assistant rushed up to her with a glass of water; she acknowledged him with a nod. She waited until we were all seated.

  “Welcome to the Central Intelligence Agency,” she began, then allowed those words to sink in. “Some of you may know me as Maxime Shroeder.” Her matron’s lips creased into a knowing, sly smile. I recognized the name: She had signed the letter offering me a job. “In fact,” she said, “my name is Brenda Argus, and for the next eighteen months, I am your boss.”

  There it was, my first secret—the real name of the head of the Clandestine Service Trainee Program.

  She gave a rousing speech. We were embarking not only on a challenging career but an honorable one. We would serve the people of the United States with little recognition but with much satisfaction. She expected the very highest standards of integrity and accountability, and we in turn would have the pride of knowing that we worked for the finest intelligence service in the world, an organization that was more than just a service; it was a family. We had been chosen because we were outstanding, talented young people. We would work hard, and we would have extraordinary lives.

  When she finished, we took our oaths. We swore to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States. I held up my hand with everyone else, and when I repeated the words, I felt profound conviction, a deep, thrilling pride.

  The trainees spent the rest of the day in a large conference room, where long tables were arranged in the shape
of a horseshoe. There was a Central Intelligence Agency seal on the wall. I met the rest of my classmates. As instructed, we introduced ourselves by our first names only and said a few words about our backgrounds and our hobbies. There were twice as many men as women. Many of the men looked as if they had arrived straight from military service. They had very short hair and excellent posture; they addressed the authorities as sir and ma’am. My new colleagues were athletic and trim, with healthy, pink complexions; the men had large and well-developed upper bodies, from what I could discern beneath their sober suits and neatly pressed shirts. There were a handful of attorneys, a few former investment bankers, and a man who had worked for Microsoft. One woman had worked for a multinational energy corporation headquartered in Singapore; another had been a regulator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

  To my right sat a woman from Vermont named Allison. Crisp and professional in a slim gray suit and an eggshell silk blouse, she was a champion triathlete and a prizewinning show-jumper. To my left was Kevin, from Florida, a licensed scuba instructor who had learned to speak Farsi at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. Most of my new colleagues had graduated from mid-rank universities—Dartmouth, Penn—where they’d majored in political science or government. There were two graduates of West Point. Some had master’s degrees. One woman had an MBA.

  My classmates were largely from midsize cities such as Philadelphia and Atlanta; they enjoyed vigorous outdoor sports such as rock climbing and white-water rafting. Several of the men had served in the Gulf war. The men were mostly married and the women mostly single. There were no nerds or geeks; even the man from Microsoft seemed hearty and sociable. No one but me seemed eager to go outside to smoke during the breaks. When it came my turn to introduce myself, I thought I noticed a look of polite bewilderment in everyone’s eyes as I described my former life.

  At the end of the day, we were taken to an office to be photographed for the laminated identification badges we were to wear around our necks at all times while in the compound. In the photograph, I appear eager, flushed, excited. A great adventure, my expression seems to say, lies ahead of me.

  The woman in the photograph is gone now, of course. Gone to wherever people go when things don’t work out the way they planned.

  CHAPTER 2

  The first three weeks of my intelligence career were spent in an introductory course called CIA 101. On my second day, I was assigned a pseudonym to use on all Agency paperwork. It would be impossible to tell from CIA records that someone named Selena Keller had ever set foot in the Headquarters compound: I was to be Caesaria A. HESTER for the rest of my career—the capital letters and middle initial signifying that the name was an invention. All the pseudonyms used internally were by long tradition bizarre, although aliases used in the field were commonplace and unremarkable. Someone told me that the pseudonyms came from a 1926 London phone directory, which accounted for such rare treasures as Lundquist X. FENSTERWASSER.

  I read and signed hundreds of documents during those first days. I promised never to reveal any classified information, to be drug-free and low-profile and wary of strangers who asked probing questions, to report the names of all of my foreign friends. I catalogued everyone I could recall meeting in India; the list went on for pages. I’d made friends with my entire neighborhood in Gujarat. There hadn’t been much else to do. The form requested addresses as well as names. “Vishnu,” I wrote, thinking of the one-legged man whom I’d often found sleeping on the steps outside my flat. “Last Name Unknown.” Address? Finally I wrote: “Second landing outside the largest concrete-block house directly northeast of the train station, opposite the paanwalla.”

  I asked the security officer directing the proceedings for clarification about the regulations: Was Vishnu really the kind of foreigner they had in mind? She asked if I felt bound to Vishnu by ties of affection. I thought of the times I had brought Vishnu my leftover chapatis or crouched with him on the landing, smoking bidis and chewing paan, exchanging trivia about our favorite Hindu movie stars as the red sun set and the day cooled. What was that if not affection? I suppose I did, I answered. “Report him,” she said briskly. So I did, although I am not sure that had he known or understood, he would have seen being reported to the Central Intelligence Agency as a token of affection.

  What about romantic liaisons? someone asked. Must we report them? “First time is free,” she said. “Second time, you have to report it.” I wondered whether Agency officers ever spurned advances overseas because it wouldn’t be worth the paperwork. It was a beautiful night we shared, Boris, but I am afraid it is never to be repeated, because I cannot face filling out any more forms.

  We were given a lecture about protecting our covers. Only discreet members of our immediate families were ever to know where we really worked. We could tell them nothing about what we did. We practiced answering awkward questions about our daily commutes and why we didn’t know cousin Lenny’s wife, who’d worked at USDA for fifteen years and knew everyone there. I wondered how serious they could be about never discussing our work with our families. It seemed unreasonable to expect that we could really keep our lives a secret from people who knew us that well. My mother had already called three times asking how the first week had gone. If they thought I could say, “Sorry, Mom, you changed my diapers and paid for my college education, but I’m afraid from now on I will be a complete cipher to you,” they obviously didn’t know my mother—the woman who had figured out that I’d been smoking at summer camp even though the offense took place a full week before I returned home. (I had gone swimming, showered, and scrubbed at least a dozen times in between.)

  The majority of the briefings involved the Agency’s leviathan bureaucracy and its security regulations, and after the sixth or seventh lecture, I felt the first stirrings of impatience. For someone who had planned to spend her life in a university, I’d never much liked lectures. The instructors spent a day explaining the details of the retirement program and the thrift savings plan, showing us an animated feature-length film about a talking nest egg. An attorney from the Office of General Counsel explained the Agency’s policy on frequent flier miles: We couldn’t keep them, but we could use them to upgrade—but only to business class, not first. The American taxpayer did not want his public servants flying first class, period. We learned to use the internal computer system and how to file our time sheets; we learned the regulations for taking sick leave and collecting disability insurance. We were warned to be particularly cautious about using the telephone, even with one another. There was always a chance—even in the United States—that someone was listening. There was a lecture on computer security, but when they began to explain how far from the window we should keep our computer screens, measured in millimeters, I tuned out. I figured I’d pick up what I’d missed later.

  Then came the presentation from Officer Molly, the bomb-sniffing Labrador retriever. She took her job every bit as seriously as any other officer in the Agency. She was very proud and very responsible. I could tell. Officer Molly could detect more than thirty kinds of explosives. What did she do, someone asked, if she smelled a bomb? Did she bark? “Er, no,” her handler explained, shifting back and forth on his feet. “No, Officer Molly wouldn’t bark. With some of the things she might be finding, that could be, er, counterproductive. She’d just sit down real quiet, like she’s been trained. She doesn’t make any sudden noises at all.” Officer Molly looked at him with working-dog dignity, her silky ears cocked, and swished her tail from side to side.

  I noticed Paul for the first time during CIA 101. I hadn’t spotted him at first, but during some of the dull moments I caught him eyeing me, hands behind his head, fingers interlocked, leaning back in his chair. I decided I didn’t mind. He was an Army captain from Mississippi, still serving in the Reserves, and a long-distance runner. He had a very lean athlete’s body and a predatory, vulpine face, with hollows under his high cheekbones. He spoke with a slow Mississippi drawl. He flirted with me d
uring the breaks, but he flirted with the other women, too.

  During the lectures on CIA accounting principles, I imagined Paul pulling my head back with my hair and exposing my neck, then pinning my arms against the wall.

  February brought a heavy snowstorm that shut down the federal government for two days, putting CIA 101 behind schedule and forcing the lecturers to rush through the material. By the time we completed the class, we were tired of learning how to fill out paperwork and eager to get on with spying. At the end, we were assigned to rotations in various operational divisions. Brenda Argus told us she had tried to match our assignments to our interests and experiences. I was sent to work in the Indian Subcontinent Operations Group.

  I was pleased by her choice. It was logical: It could fairly be said that I was an India specialist, at least in some respects. I was an authority on the iconography of the ancient Indian monastic tradition, at least. Whatever my qualifications, I certainly believed the CIA’s mission in India was worthwhile.

  Few things in the world frightened me more than the Indian nuclear program. I realized how outrageous it sounded to the Indian ear when someone like me proposed that America was mature enough to have the Bomb but India wasn’t. I realized it, but it didn’t change the fact that it was true. I had lived in India long enough to see that most Indians had a wondrous inability to calculate risk; it was an aspect of the national character as evident as Italian sensuality or Prussian militarism. Indifference to danger can be a fey and thrilling trait, but not when it’s mixed with nuclear technology.