by Noel Hynd
Quintero laid out more photographs, a nice set from each of the aforementioned capitals. In the photographs she saw Michael Cerny again, flanked by two men whom Quintero identified as Russians, known as Victor and Boris. Both men favored Western suits with open collars. They had a thuggish look about them. Boris was the larger of the two, and each time they were seen with Cerny they appeared to be in the midst of negotiating something.
“Our theory is that Cerny made off with a basketful of goodies to sell,” Quintero said. “And he set up to sell them to his Russian friends. We’ve intercepted a few messages. He shuttles back and forth to Cairo from somewhere else in the Middle East. His code name, ‘Ambidextrous,’ is a self-congratulatory nod to his own abilities, I’m sure.”
“Ambidextrous,” she repeated. “Wonderful.”
“He probably has the information on a series of memory sticks, which I’m sure he has copied. Our guess is that this is his retirement plan. He’ll sell to the highest bidder, but he’s starting with the Russians because he knows them. We all know that the Russians are trying to beef up their nuclear clout again, so they’d be prime customers for anything Cerny might have stolen.” Quintero paused. “But here’s the other disturbing thing,” he added. “Cerny’s Russians have links to the Mossad.”
“Israeli intelligence?” she asked, surprised.
“That’s the way we’re reading it right now,” Quintero said. Then he pushed another file toward her.
“Sit here and read this,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’m going for coffee. May I bring you some?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
She accepted the files.
“I’ll be back in half an hour,” he said. “This should give you some background.”
Quintero departed from the room. Alex broke open the seals on the set of files and began to read.
TWENTY-SIX
Alex began her journey through the hardcopy files on Michael Cerny. William Quintero had given her a selection of eighteen cases that Cerny had worked, his entire investigative file within the CIA. Cerny had brought every one of them into the Agency himself on a freelance basis.
Alex looked at the paperwork of the first case:
Case overview: Lester Chamberlain, retired from the CIA, but formerly a low-level case officer assigned to the US Embassy in Vienna. Chamberlain had a Canadian wife named Verna who liked to wander. Verna had had a brief affair with the son of a Russian diplomat during Chamberlain’s final posting to Vienna. Was it a setup? A trap?
Resolution: Michael Cerny had interviewed all the principals and determined that Verna Chamberlain had passed along low-level information overheard from her husband and gleaned from unsecured documents her husband had brought home after work. Chamberlain was allowed to retire from government, but with diminished pension.
Alex closed the file and continued to the next one.
Case overview: James Thomas Barlow, Dept. of US Treasury, assigned to Boston, (2001-2007). Barlow approached by manager of classical Hungarian music quartet and offered cash to intercede on tax collection. Barlow accepted cash bribes of $1500 and $2500. Hungarians had connections into political apparatus of governing party in Hungary.
Resolution: Barlow arrested and terminated from position with Treasury. IRS investigation continuing. (9/2009)
Alex scanned this for a moment. Nothing monumental. She moved through file after file. Cerny’s investigations were mid-level stuff, the type of thing the Agency might buy for inventory or keep on record in case it became a detail from a larger picture. Alex was looking for some such pattern to occur.
Onward she went.
She continued past four o’clock, through a take-out iced coffee. She forged ahead through several more cases. Cerny’s work seemed to be solid. But it was not until she arrived at Cerny’s penultimate case with the Agency that something startled her. It was the case that the man known as Michael Cerny had been involved in immediately before sending her to Kiev. It was a file that had recently been added to the CIA’s inventory and had been shared through British intelligence.
Case overview: Scotland Yard investigates death of billionaire spy.
The body of a mysterious Egyptian billionaire was found below his Mayfair flat just weeks after accusations that he had spied for Mossad. The death is part of an ongoing investigation by a new team of Scotland Yard detectives.
The death of Dr. Ishraf Kerwidi is now being overseen by Scotland Yard’s elite Specialist Crime Directorate. Dr. Kerwidi, 62, a chemical engineer, businessman, and a former security adviser to President Sadat, died on 13 December 2008 after falling from the balcony of his large flat in Central London. He has been described by intelligence sources as the “most infamous spy in the Middle East.” Kerwidi had worked closely with security agencies including MI6, the CIA, the Mossad, and the KGB.
One witness has told Scotland Yard that in the moments after Kerwidi’s death “two large men of Slavic appearance,” both wearing suits, were seen leaning over a balcony ten flights above his body as it lay twisted and sprawled on a public sidewalk.
Several witnesses told Scotland Yard that they had observed the men seconds after Ishraf Kerwidi’s plunge to death. “I saw two men standing on a balcony,” said one woman, a Briton. “They were doing nothing, just gazing down. Their calmness struck me as highly suspect. An Indian lady was screaming in the garden. People were rushing around trying to help or call. But these two men were just watching. They seemed pleased, then turned and left.”
Family members were highly critical of the police investigation into Ishraf Kerwidi’s death. The shoes he had worn on the day he died had disappeared from the inventory of Scotland Yard detectives. The shoes were deemed to be crucial because Ishraf Kerwidi would have had to step into a plant pot and climb over an air-conditioning unit to have jumped over the meter-high patio rail. If he had done so, material such as soil from the plant pots or paint would have been left on his shoes.
Ishraf Kerwidi suffered from leg disfigurement from a previous attempt on his life (See CIA Ishraf Kerwidi/5-23-04; attempt on life via car bomb). His widow insists her late husband could not step into the bath without assistance. She also has informed Scotland Yard that her husband warned her three times that he might be murdered. Detectives from the Specialist Crime Directorate have recently been to Rome and Geneva to interview other potential witnesses.
Police have not ruled out suicide. Ishraf Kerwidi had a history of heart problems. He moved to Britain after Sadat’s assassination in 1981. Yet Israeli sources maintain that he was murdered by Egyptian intelligence officers for being the Jewish state’s most important agent in the run-up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Egyptian commentators claim he was murdered by Mossad as he prepared to expose Israel’s secrets in an explosive book.
The investigation is currently headed by Rolland Fitzgerald of Specialist Crime Directorate.
Resolution: An inquest was due to be held last month but was suspended because of ongoing investigations. A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police admitted that the shoes worn on the day of his death had disappeared, but declined to comment on the family’s complaints.
“The reason the investigation has been handed over to the Specialist Crime Directorate is because it is a complicated case and followed a review of the file in January,” she said.
The door opened. William Quintero came back into the room and sat down. He sat for several minutes as Alex finished reading the final file. She made special note of the Scotland Yard investigator in charge of the case. Then she looked up from the file, closed it, and handed it back.
“So what do you want from me?” Alex asked.
“We need to apprehend Michael Cerny before he passes information on to his Russians.”
“How do you know he hasn’t already?”
“We don’t. But our theory is that he hasn’t completed his transaction yet, or he and his Russians wouldn’t still be in Egypt.”
“What’s taking so long?”
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Quintero shrugged. “Conventional wisdom? Cerny and Moscow are haggling over the price. Once they’ve agreed, there would probably be a cash transfer as well as a transfer of highly classified information.”
“Why not exchange them both electronically?” she asked. “Isn’t that how it would be done these days?”
“Not at this level,” Quintero said. “There would be internet fingerprints all over anything that traveled across the web. Strange as it sounds, it’s now cleaner with cash and all the information stored on a powerful flash drive. This all assumes that this is what Cerny is doing.”
“And you’re not sure?”
“We think,” Quintero said. “It’s gone as high as the director of the CIA.”
“Must be a pretty fancy bit of information that he’s peddling,” Alex said.
“Must be,” he agreed. “Questions?”
“A ton of them.”
“Fire away.”
“Why me?” Alex asked. “If Cerny was here at the CIA, surely he had a boss. A case officer. You have people who were closer to him to track him down. He must have worked with someone.”
“Most recently, he worked with you,” Quintero said again, avoiding the question.
“Not to pick out the flea feces from the pepper,” she said, “but I was his subservient employee. So who was his boss?”
“He never had the same boss for any two operations,” Quintero said. “It’s very possibly you who knew him best.”
“You fellows certainly run a sloppy operation sometimes, don’t you? Eventually, you’re going to need to have some woman sit on the top floor and straighten up your various messes.”
“Again,” Quintero said with a sigh, “I’m here to help clean it up. Same as you. None of the principals who initiated this remain with the Agency. They’re all sport fishing in Florida by now. How’s that for a reward for burning millions of taxpayer dollars?”
“Typical,” Alex said.
“I can’t say I disagree with you,” Quintero said. “Look, that’s why we’re asking you to work with us.” Quintero paused. “You’re one of the few people who has actually met Michael Cerny. Cerny came to us when we wanted to act against Yuri Federov. He was a special consultant with a heavy background in Ukrainian affairs. He seemed a good risk.” He paused. “Speaking of Federov, I’m told you’ve been in touch with him.”
“That’s correct. He’s in New York for some sort of medical treatment,” she said. “I’m not sure that he’d be of much use right now.”
“But you’re not inhibited from asking, correct?” Quintero asked.
She thought about it. “Probably not.”
“Good,” he said, with an air of conclusion. He stood up from the table. “Now, you’re with us on this, correct? You’re officially on this assignment?”
“I’m with you,” Alex said. “As long as I have the option of calling some of my own shots while I’m in the field.”
“You’ll be working with a team in Cairo,” he said. “We have one of our top Middle Eastern people there. A man named Bissinger, whom you’ll meet at the embassy. He’ll direct you to your field contact. The field contact is known only by his code name. That’s all I can tell you here; you’ll be thoroughly briefed when you get there. You’ll have the latitude you’re asking for, though,” Quintero continued. “You’ve earned it, and you’ve demonstrated that you use it prudently.”
“Then I’m on board. Perhaps against my better judgment.”
“This whole Agency operates on people going against their better judgment. Maybe it should be called the Counterintuitive Intelligence Agency.”
“What about passport? Identification? Weapon?” Alex asked.
“Before you leave here today, give us a name and birth date that you’re sure to remember. We’ll have new IDs operational within twelve hours. Have some new pictures taken before you leave here today. Pick them up tomorrow. You’ll get a new weapon at the embassy in Cairo. I’m told they’ve got quite a collection.”
“Cool,” she said with an edge.
“Have a name that you might prefer?” he asked. “For the new IDs?”
“No,” she said. “Surprise me.”
“Really?” he asked. She had just surprised him.
“We’re inclined to give away subconscious clues to a real identity when we choose our covers,” she said. “If someone else picks a name and identity for me, I’ll learn it. But at least it won’t give away anything.”
“Very well,” he said, rising from where he sat. “How’s your arm?”
“Still attached to the rest of me.”
“Good. Keep it that way.” He led her to the door. “Now. There’s something else you should see. Follow me,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“Private TV screening,” he said. “Foreign television, a special show starring one of your favorite people.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Alex and William Quintero walked down a quiet corridor of mostly closed doors, a few with names on them-but primarily numbers. Quintero spoke in a low voice.
“How much do you know about Vladimir Putin?” Quintero asked.
“I know he’s the former Russian president and still pretty much running the country,” she answered. “Sort of a neo-Stalin for our times.”
“That would be Vladimir Putin, yes,” Quintero said.
“Well, I read the newspapers and speak Russian,” Alex said. “So I know more than your basic citizen but less than your experts. Or maybe I know more than your experts when they’re having a bad day. How’s that?”
“Pretty good,” Quintero said. “And I give you an A for self-assurance.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. I like it. Russia and the old Soviet territory are my field,” Quintero said. “I speak the language okay. Could never master it, though. I read it better than I can hear or speak it. Learned it as an adult. You probably learned it earlier.”
“Boarding school. University. A work-study program in Moscow,” she said.
“Boyfriends in Moscow when you were studying?”
“Maybe.”
“There you go,” he said. “Your file says you’re gifted with languages as well as with people.”
“The file flatters me. That, or it libels me.”
“And you do deflect a question well. Okay, Brother Putin is one of the dominant figures of our time,” Quintero said as they continued down the hall. “He took a Russia that was bankrupt and coming apart at the seams in 2000 and restored it as a world power. No small trick. Like him or not, and like most Americans I don’t, Putin’s brilliant, cunning, vulgar, occasionally charming, possibly sociopathic, and probably the most cold-blooded bastard on the world stage since Stalin or Hitler. On top of that, he’s much beloved by his countrymen. So he’s here to stay unless we get lucky and some Slavic sorehead shoots him. But I never said that, right?”
“Not to me, at least,” she said.
“Thanks. God knows, power loves a vacuum in Russia. Any ruler who’s soft gets replaced by a dictator within a few months. It’s like the Middle East. How do you hope for democracy where they’ve never had it?”
She let the question fly off into space without a response. She didn’t know a short answer anyway.
Quintero arrived at the door he wanted and unlocked it with a swipe of his ID card. The lights went on automatically as he led her into a small viewing room. There was a large screen on the forward wall and a dozen large chairs. Whatever Quintero had to show her, it was going to be shown on a big screen.
“You’re going to be dealing with Russians again in the near future,” he said. “I’ll get you the proper background files. Electronic transfer. Put it on your own laptop, but be careful to keep it behind your own security wall. Okay?”
“Done.”
“Grab a seat,” he said. “Any seat.”
She did.
“No popcorn,” Quintero said as he went to a control panel.<
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“I’ll survive.”
Quintero flicked a few controls. The lights went down and the screen came alive with encrypted graphics, codes for what they were about to see. Quintero slid into the chair next to Alex with a control in his hand.
“This is from Russian television. December of 2005. Let me know if you’ve ever seen it before.”
An image came alive on the screen. The colors were faded and distorted, as if from bad video tape. There was an empty conference room on the screen.
“Here’s what’s going on,” Quintero said. “Vladimir Putin appears on television in broadcasts to the Russian-speaking people of the world. That way he reminds people who’s in charge. He is.”
On the screen, Alex could see the figures of various men coming into view and taking their seats at a conference table. There appeared to be five men, all in suits. She caught glimpses of faces but didn’t recognize anyone.
She shook her head. “Whatever this is, it’s new to me,” she said.
“It’s fairly new to all of us,” Quintero said.
“These appearances are daily occurrences on Russian TV,” Quintero said. “Putin holds staged meetings in important-looking conference rooms. In reality, the rooms don’t exist. They’re sets built with government money and kept at various points around the country. So wherever he is, Putin can give a fake meeting.”
“When was this again?”
“December 12, 2005. We recognize the conference room. Or the set. This was recorded at Novo-Ogaryovo.”
“Novo-Ogaryovo?” she asked. “That’s a new one to me.”
“Putin’s suburban estate outside Moscow,” Quintero explained. “Notice the Christmas tree. Nice homey touch, huh? The ‘conference room’ is a TV set at Putin’s estate.”
Alex had already noticed the tree. “Seriously. My eyes are getting damp, I’m so moved,” she said. “I’m sure there were cookies baking, also.”