Siro

by David Ignatius

  All Taylor really wanted to do, he decided, was to needle the bureaucrats, to let them know he had discovered their little game in Istanbul and deliver a polite “Fuck you.” So he drafted the most innocuous sort of cable—a simple request for traces, for any pertinent information in the registry—on one Jack Rawls, filmmaker, with a particular request that he be informed if said Mr. Rawls was a CIA asset, so that he could help protect his cover. Then he settled back into the routine of life in the Istanbul base and waited for the return mail.

  18

  It was a condition of CIA life in 1979 that you saw the fabric of American power unraveling around the world, perhaps even understood why it was happening, but were powerless to do anything very useful to stop it. If you were at all conscientious about your job, you began to feel bad, like a fireman who has to watch a tall building burn out of control because his hoses and ladders won’t reach the flames. And in the winter of 1979, there was most certainly a three-alarm fire ablaze in the world. Iran was burning. The fire was spreading. The agency seemed willing to do almost anything—except put out the fire.

  New schemes were floated every few weeks. In early March, someone back home decided it would be wise to recruit more Kurdish agents, to threaten Khomeini with a revolt by his Kurdish population. Jolly good idea! So the call went out to the stations and bases of the imperial legion, and a few days later Taylor was visiting a toothless old buzzard from Diyarbakir who had been suggested by the CIA base in Los Angeles (Southern California seemed to be the heart of the Kurdish diaspora) as a man who might lead a Kurdish exile army. The old man hadn’t entirely lost his wits. He demanded as a condition of his participation in the Kurdish War of Liberation that a large sum be remitted immediately to a numbered bank account in Switzerland. Taylor duly relayed his message to headquarters, with an information copy to Los Angeles.

  Taylor’s biggest headache was recruiting Iranian agents. Headquarters decided it could trade visas for intelligence, so an edict went out that Iranians would receive special-status visas if—and only if—they could demonstrate clear intelligence value. By now, thousands of Iranian refugees had gathered in Istanbul, all clamoring to come to America and open beauty salons or manage 7-Eleven stores or drive taxicabs at Dulles Airport. And every one of them was prepared to tell whatever preposterous story was necessary to obtain the golden visa. Taylor couldn’t bear the thought of listening to so many earnest lies, so he turned most of the interviewing over to his secretary. A more sensible procedure. Taylor suspected, would have been to require, as a condition of granting a visa, that every Iranian promise not to provide intelligence to the United States.

  A minor flap developed in mid-March when it was discovered that an Iranian local hire in the visa department had been selling places in the queue to his compatriots for sums as large as $10,000. Investigators were dispatched from Washington, and they proceeded to interview everybody in sight. Evidently this was the sort of crime the bureaucracy could get really excited about—petty larceny. The Turks eventually agreed to prosecute the visa clerk; the poor Iranians who had given him payoffs were stricken from the roll of eligibility. Taylor, who knew nothing about the scheme but had unwisely told one of the investigators that the Iranian was the sort of entrepreneur who would do well on Wall Street, was officially found blameless. But unofficially it was clear that the bean counters back home were not pleased.

  Taylor muddled on. What continued to interest Washington most were the Bulgarians and their putative plot to smuggle guns into Turkey. Taylor had uncovered little evidence that it was true. The unhappy fact was that guns flowed into Turkey from every direction—Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Greece, and yes, Bulgaria—but the problem was the demand for guns, not the supply. Yet every few weeks, another nagging message would arrive from headquarters requesting new intelligence on Bulgarian guns. Feed the goat, Taylor had concluded. He put out regular queries on the subject, which generated a regular flow of useless information.

  Taylor worried about Turkey, despite his inability to do anything about it. His anxieties had started soon after he arrived in Istanbul, when he realized that he could tell young Turkish leftists and rightists apart just by looking at them. He had been walking out of the subway, known as tunel, at the lower end of Istiklal when he saw a group of teenage boys across the street.

  “Leftists,” he said to himself without thinking very much about it. They were wearing parkas, jeans and military boots. That was leftist garb. Rightists looked different. They wore long wool overcoats and dark glasses. Taylor had taken a closer look. Definitely leftists. They had leftist mustaches. All Turkish men had mustaches, of course. But the leftist version was like a bush, sprouting out over the lip and sometimes straggling into the mouth, while the rightist mustache was thin and closely clipped, like a string. And at that moment, when it dawned on him that Turkey was polarized even along sartorial lines, Taylor had decided he needed an agent in the student movement. Purely for intelligence purposes, he assured Timmons. No covert action.

  What he got for his trouble, in that first fishing expedition, was a skittish young Turkish professor of political science whose cryptonym was EXCHASE/1. He had been assigned “1” in the hope that he would go out and recruit his own string of subagents, who would be known as EXCHASE/2, EXCHASE/3 and so forth. But in truth, he wasn’t much of an agent. His “intelligence” didn’t go much beyond what was in the newspapers, and his chief interest seemed to be staying alive himself. Taylor didn’t mind. For all his shortcomings, EXCHASE/1 still seemed to know more than the Turkish police. If you heard an explosion somewhere in Istanbul and called police headquarters to ask about it, the captain would say: “Don’t worry. It doesn’t involve Americans.” And that would be it. EXCHASE could at least tell you the gossip.

  EXCHASE’s real name was Bulent. The schedule called for Taylor to meet him once a month in a safe house in Kadikoy, on the Asian side. Taylor’s deputy, who took care of such administrative details as renting safe houses, seemed to like the Asian side. Perhaps he thought it was more secure to meet someone there than on the European side, nearer the consulate. That struck Taylor as a dubious proposition, since the only Americans likely to be stumbling around Kadikoy on a weekday afternoon were drug dealers or spies. But never mind. The rents in Kadikoy were cheaper.

  Taylor took the ferry across the Bosporus to Uskudar. The sun was out, momentarily poking through the haze and soot of late winter, and the trip reminded Taylor why Istanbul, for all its egregious faults, remained so lovable. The city was made to be seen from the water, and the view of the skyline as the ferry pulled away from the dock near the Galata Bridge was one of the most spectacular sights on the planet. Taylor stood on deck counting the spires of the five great mosques, pink in the morning sun, as the ferryboat churned through the inky black water.

  “Salep! Salep! Salep!” cried a vendor making his way through the crowded afterdeck; he was selling a frothy hot drink of the same name, made of milk and salep root and flaked with cinnamon. “Salep,” ordered Taylor. He spent the rest of the trip breathing in the aroma of cinnamon and spice as the magnificent wreckage of old Istanbul receded in the distance and the jumble of modern Anatolia approached off the starboard bow.

  EXCHASE was a rather sad fellow; an earnest young man with reddish hair and complexion and a dazed look in his eye. He had the leftist mustache, but it was a somewhat sparse version. His problem was that he was too thoroughly Americanized, having taken a doctorate in political science at the University of Wyoming several years ago. Now he was back home teaching at Istanbul University, and he felt uncomfortable and undignified. His way of reassuring himself that he wasn’t really caught up in the squalid mess of Turkish life was to spy for the CIA.

  “You‘re late, Bulent,” said Taylor when the young agent arrived at the safe house. He was only fifteen minutes late, but Taylor chided him anyway. Agents were never supposed to be late.

  “I’m frightened,” said the Turk.

  “Why?”


  “It is getting very dangerous at the university.”

  “For who?”

  “For everyone. My students are afraid even to go buy a newspaper. In some neighborhoods, I myself am afraid to buy a newspaper.”

  “What for?” asked Taylor. He wondered whether perhaps EXCHASE was losing his nerve.

  “Because if I buy the wrong newspaper in the wrong place, there may be trouble. If I ask for the leftist paper Cumhuriyet in a rightist area, and a rightist sees me, he may attack me. So at the newsstand I just nod at the paper I want, and when the man gives it to me, I fold it up so that no one will see it. Better to play it safe.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Bulent looked hurt. “It happened just last week,” he said solemnly, “near the campus in Bayezit. A rightist was buying a copy of Tercuman, and a leftist saw him and shot him.”

  “Shot him?”

  “Of course. At the university, everyone has a gun now. Except the women.”

  “So I gather.”

  “Excuse me, I am wrong. Among the Maoists, the women also have guns. But they are strange women. They are short and ugly, and they have sex with other Maoists. We have a saying at the university: The further left you go, the uglier the women are—and the easier to get in bed.”

  “We had the same saying where I went to school,” said Taylor.

  Bulent didn’t crack a smile. He was a very serious young man.

  “What about the guns?” pressed Taylor. “I know I’ve asked you this before, but it’s important. Where do they come from?”

  “Bulgaria,” declared Bulent. He had gathered from previous conversations on this subject that that was the right answer.

  “How do you know? Have you collected serial numbers on the guns, the way I asked you to at our last meeting?”

  Bulent shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “It was not possible.”

  “Why not, goddammit?”

  Bulent looked stricken. On his lower lip was the beginning of a tremor. “Because it is too dangerous for me,” he said quietly.

  “That’s part of the deal.”

  “I know. But if I look too hard for the guns, the others will know that I am a spy, and they will kill me.”

  “And you’re frightened.”

  “Yes. I am frightened. I am sorry.”

  Taylor felt sorry for the Turk. He was pathetic. “Chin up,” he said, patting the Turk on the shoulder.

  “Okay, okay,” said Bulent.

  Taylor changed the subject. The hell with Bulgarian guns. “What’s new with your leftist friends at the university?”

  “Ahhh!” said Bulent, pleased that at last he had some useful information to impart. “I have a big report for you. There is a new split between the Dev-Yol and the Dev-Sol.”

  “Remind me which is which.”

  “Of course. The Dev-Yol believes that the revolution will begin in the countryside and then spread to the cities. The Dev-Sol believes the revolution will begin in the city and spread to the country. Now they are very angry and shooting at each other.”

  “What are the police doing about it?”

  “Which? The Pol-Bir or the Pol-Der?”

  “Give me a break, Bulent.”

  “The Pol-Bir is the rightist faction of the police. The Pol-Der is the leftist faction.”

  “Right. So what are they doing about the problem?”

  “Neither of them is doing anything about the problem?”

  “Neither of them is doing anything about the Dev-Yol or the Dev-Sol. They both think the CIA is running things.” He looked at Taylor expectantly. Even a well-educated person like Bulent still harbored the fantasy of American omnipotence, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Taylor didn’t want to disappoint him.

  “Shhh!” he said. He gave Bulent a wink. Bulent nodded. The thought of this powerful, faraway America—which had deigned to take him up in its hands—seemed to be all that kept him going. Taylor looked at his watch.

  “One more question and then I’ll give you your money,” said Taylor. “What’s the word on campus about Iran? Is anyone joining the Islamic Students Association?”

  “A few people,” said Bulent. “Mostly they are poor boys from the country and ugly girls. Do not worry about them. They are losers.”

  “How much money is the Islamic Students Association giving to its members?”

  “Some. Less than the leftists give out. About the same as the rightists.”

  “Where does the money come from?”

  “Iran,” said Bulent. It was probably true, but he was just guessing. What a waste of time, thought Taylor. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew an envelope.

  “Here’s your stipend,” said Taylor, handing the envelope to the Turk. Inside was eighty dollars.

  “Thank you,” said the Turk. He looked absurdly grateful, given the meager amount that the agency was paying him. Meanness was good tradecraft, Taylor had long ago learned. The rule was never to pay someone so much that his new affluence might make him conspicuous. That was part of why spying was such a rotten business. You couldn’t even make real money selling secrets.

  The next day was Taylor’s regular liaison meeting with Serif Osman of the Turkish intelligence service. The Turk looked haggard. The usual assured and dignified manner of the Byzantine spymaster was gone. Instead, he had the frazzled appearance of a Third World cop surrounded by a population he couldn’t control. Even his goatee, usually precisely cut and combed, looked unkempt.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Taylor.

  “The eastern provinces,” said the Turk. That was a kind of code. It meant “Kurds,” a word Turkish security men preferred not to speak out loud.

  “What’s happening in the eastern provinces?”

  “Foreign elements are creating disorder.” That, too, was a kind of code, a reference to the Soviet Union. It was an article of faith in the Turkish security service that Moscow was supporting the Kurdish rebels in an effort to destroy the Turkish nation.

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Another funeral. It was exploited by leftist agitators. The army was forced to respond.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Crack down, of course.”

  Serif walked to the window of his office. It looked out over Yildiz Park, where Sultan Abdul-Hamid had hidden for several decades in the late nineteenth century from the problems of his decaying empire.

  “I will say this for Abdul-Hamid,” said Serif, gesturing toward Yildiz Palace. “He knew how to deal with the Kurds.”

  “He let them kill Armenians,” ventured Taylor.

  Serif narrowed his eyes.

  “Just joking.”

  “The sultan had many faults,” continued Serif, “but he was in many ways the first modern intelligence chief.”

  “Um,” murmured Taylor. What a distinction. The truth about Abdul-Hamid was that he was a nut. He had been so afraid of conspirators that he rarely ventured from Yildiz. He kept a hundred parrots in cages around the palace grounds to warn of intruders. He kept a loaded revolver in every room of the palace so he could shoot assassins. He drank milk only from his own cows, which were guarded twenty-four hours a day. He had his brother, Izzet, try on his clothes first, to make sure they weren’t poisoned. He was, in short, a lunatic.

  “Do you know Abdul-Hamid’s secret?” continued Serif. “His secret was technology.”

  Taylor’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

  “It is true! Abdul-Hamid used the telegraph to control his network of spies in Europe. And to gather intelligence about his empire, he sent out teams of photographers. I have one of Abdul-Hamid’s albums here in my office.”

  “Is that right?” said Taylor. Feigning interest was an essential aspect of liaison meetings with local intelligence officials—looking at photo albums, sending greetings on Ataturk’s birthday, listening to the hoary myths of independence.

  “Would y
ou like to see it?” asked Serif hopefully.

  “Of course.”

  Serif removed from a desk drawer a thick album of old prints, each mounted in a frame bearing Abdul-Hamid’s tughra in elaborate Ottoman script. It was a catalogue of neatness and order, just the thing to please a paranoid sultan. In the pictures, Taylor noticed, everyone seemed to be wearing a uniform: firemen, policemen, soldiers and sailors, all posing proudly in their distinctive costumes; schoolboys wearing tunics with gold buttons and child-size red fezzes; fencers and gymnasts at play; medical students in double-breasted cloaks, arrayed behind half-dissected cadavers. If nothing else, thought Taylor, the album illustrated the Turkish passion for order: catalogues and lists, neat rows all arranged the same way. It almost didn’t matter what the object was, so long as it was arranged neatly. Visit a Turkish fishmonger and you would see the same thing: the fish displayed in a neat fantail, the big ones and little ones all in perfect rows, heads together, tails together, just so. They were a disciplined, strong-willed people, the Turks. But sometimes a bit paranoid.

  “Beautiful photographs,” said Taylor. “But bad intelligence. If that’s all the sultan saw, he must have thought the empire was in great shape.”

  “He didn’t believe any of it,” answered Serif. “It only convinced him that his enemies were more devious than he had imagined. So he would recruit more spies!”

  Taylor nodded. That was a standard Turkish response, even now. If MIT wasn’t getting enough intelligence about terrorism, it would hire several dozen more informants to hang around in leftist coffeehouses. And it would “interrogate” a few more leftists and Kurds. That was the other constant in Turkish security policy. Interrogating prisoners, now as in Abdul-Hamid’s time, was what the authorities seemed to like best.