Siro

by David Ignatius

  “No comment.”

  “And that there’s a flap.”

  That got Anna’s attention. “What flap?” she asked. “I don’t know about any flap.”

  “There is an interagency committee that oversees CIA operations dealing with the Soviet Union. It’s called the Soviet Working Group, or something innocuous like that.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Stone should have told you about it. But of course he didn’t, for obvious reasons.”

  “What obvious reasons?”

  “Because the interagency committee exists to keep people like Stone from going off the reservation.”

  “Don’t play games with me. This is serious. You said there was a flap. What’s the flap?”

  “It’s just a little one, for now. Someone from the State Department heard a rumor that the agency was running a covert action involving Soviet nationalities. They were concerned, because the State Department disapproves of that sort of thing.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then it won’t surprise you to know that the State Department queried the agency through channels—meaning through this Soviet Working Group—and the official answer came back that the rumor was false. The agency wasn’t doing anything new with Soviet nationalities.”

  “I see,” said Anna.

  “But that’s nonsense, isn’t it?”

  “Please, Auntie. Don’t push me. I’d talk about it if I could.”

  “Watch out, my dear. That’s all I really wanted to say. Be very careful. This really is much more dangerous than you realize. Not simply to you and your career, but to others who may come to rely on you.”

  “Listen,” said Anna gently. “I think you’re more worried about this than you need to be. I can’t talk about what we’re doing, but I promise you that Stone has no real covert-action program of the sort you describe.”

  “What do you mean ‘real’? Does he have a phony covert-action program?”

  “I’m sorry. I told you, I can’t talk about it.”

  “Well then, I repeat: Be careful.”

  “Why are you so upset, Margaret?”

  “Because I can see it on your face. The look in your eye, the tone of your skin. You are suffering, my dear, from the exhilaration of working on something very secret and very exotic. And I’m happy for you. But I have to warn you: Men like Stone are at their most attractive when they are slightly out of control. But that is also when they are most dangerous.”

  “Really, Auntie. I think you’re going overboard. If you can’t trust men like Stone, who can you trust?”

  “My dear,” said Margaret, shaking her head, “I fear you are a lost cause. You’ve been in the business six months and you are already beginning to sound like Stone himself. Let’s order dinner, shall we?”

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” said Anna.

  But she stopped sulking after a few minutes and another glass of wine, while Margaret told a long, cautionary tale. It concerned a woman case officer whose husband had been killed in the line of duty. Driven by grief and a desire for revenge, she had studied Russian and volunteered for duty in the Moscow embassy. The mandarins had been only too happy to give her the chance. They were looking for women that year, to fill drops and service agents in “denied areas” like Moscow. What the woman didn’t know was that Moscow Center had her made from the moment she arrived at Sheremetievo Airport. They finally nailed her as she was filling a dead drop for a putative agent. They held a press conference and showed off the goodies: one-time code pads; secret-writing equipment; even a poison capsule. It was a great show. The poor woman went home in some embarrassment.

  “Somebody should have warned her,” said Anna.

  “Of what?”

  “Not to get caught.”

  30

  The empty desolation of the Karpetland office in its early days had disappeared. The fluorescent-lit showroom was now stacked with boxes—books, cassette tapes, manifestos and handbills printed in the various Turkic languages of Central Asia—that were arriving every few days from clandestine printshops and audio labs around the Washington area. The provenance of this material was something of a mystery. Taylor hadn’t ordered it, nor had Anna, and Marjorie certainly hadn’t ordered it. That left Stone, who as usual was conducting most of his activities out of view.

  Marjorie moved the boxes from the couches at the back of the showroom, clearing an area for her colleagues to sit. Stone would be arriving shortly for a meeting to discuss what he vaguely described as “Phase II.” Anna mounted the stairs, then Taylor a few minutes later. The artifice was lost on Marjorie, who was too busy tidying to notice whether they were arriving separately or together. Taylor and Anna parked themselves on separate couches, in the shadow of a stack of boxes of Korans that had arrived the previous week from Pakistan.

  Anna looked tired and preoccupied. In the days since her dinner with Margaret, she had been brooding about her personal and professional life. She had put up a brave front at the Italian restaurant, but the conversation had unstopped a mental dam of some sort, and she had slept uneasily ever since—tossing and turning, wondering where her noiseless steps were carrying her. Taylor had been away in New York much of the past week, which had given Anna more time to brood, and to contemplate her world in the cold, flat light of day. To pass the time, she had done some reading about Abdul-Hamid’s intelligence service, the hamidiye, hoping it would give her some ideas about organizing networks in Central Asia. But it seemed, reading the books, as though Abdul-Hamid’s only notable success had been in organizing pogroms against Greeks and Armenians. She found that worrying, too.

  Anna wasn’t frightened, or even all that worried; she was mostly confused, and she had decided, in the middle of one of these restless nights, that it was time to voice her uncertainties to her two male colleagues. And if they didn’t like it, or thought her weak and feminine for asking questions, then tough shit.

  “Hello, my friends,” said Stone cheerily when he arrived.

  “Hello, boss,” said Taylor.

  Anna didn’t say anything. In addition to her other concerns, she was becoming tired of Stone’s relentless politeness.

  “Today’s the day,” said Stone when they were all seated on the two fat couches in the back.

  “For what?” asked Anna.

  “For reviewing the order of battle, my dear, and deciding where we go next. The time has come to talk of many things, as the Walrus said to someone or other.”

  “The Carpenter,” said Anna.

  “Thank you. Now then, Alan, where do you stand with Mr. Munzer?”

  “Munzer’s on board,” answered Taylor. “I’ve made three trips to Brooklyn to see him, and we have reached an understanding.”

  “What are the arrangements?”

  “He’ll be a contract agent, on a six-month contract. We’ll pay him six thousand a month, plus expenses.”

  “What about termination?”

  “He’ll get an annuity of a thousand dollars a month when he reaches sixty, which is next year, on condition that he signs a quitclaim and keeps his mouth shut. He says we owe it to him anyway because of the work he did for us in the 1950s, although Marjorie says personnel doesn’t have anything in its files about a pension. I say fuck it. Let’s pay him.”

  “Fine. Have you promised him anything else?”

  “Not financially, no.”

  “I meant, spiritually.”

  “I went through the usual bullshit about the cause.”

  “What particular bullshit was that?”

  “About liberating Turkestan from the Russians, and how we’ll never betray him and all that. He was pleased when we got the radios to broadcast his poem, but he was still skittish about working with the agency again. So I arranged a dog-and-pony show for him last week with a buddy from the Near East Division who owes me a favor. He gave Munzer a briefing on Central Asia, all about how the Moslems are rising up to overthrow the atheists and infidels. Munzer loved it
.”

  “What does he think he’ll be doing for us?”

  “Liberating Turkestan.”

  “And he assumes it’s all for real?”

  “Of course.”

  “How loudly will he scream when we pull the plug?”

  “He won’t be very happy, but so what? He’s been claiming the CIA betrayed him for the past twenty-five years anyway. Why should anyone pay any more attention to him now?”

  “Um-hum,” said Stone coolly. “Well, that sounds reasonable enough, Alan. Thank you.”

  Anna bit her tongue. She wanted to say something, but it wasn’t her turn, and Munzer Ahmedov wasn’t her agent. Stone seemed to sense her uneasiness and turned to her.

  “Now, what about you, Anna? Are you all set with Frank Hoffman?”

  “I think so. He’s signed a contract, but he refuses to accept any money from us. He says he’s too rich already.”

  “And when will you be handing Mr. Ascari over to him?”

  “Next week in Athens. Ascari is flying in from London.”

  “And what do you think of Hoffman?”

  “I like him better than I thought I would at first. He doesn’t play games.” She meant it to sound cutting, but Stone seemed not to hear.

  “So the pieces are in place, then. Which means that it is time for us to move on to the next stage.”

  “Mr. Stone?” said Anna. Her heart was racing.

  “Yes, my dear.”

  “I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “Certainly. What is it?”

  “What does the State Department have to say about our operation?”

  “The State Department? Why do you ask?”

  “I was just wondering. I thought they had a policy against stirring up Soviet nationalities. In fact, during the first conversation you and I had, at that motel off I-270, I remember you saying that the State Department was worried that anything involving the nationalities would cause problems with Moscow.”

  “Nuclear war, I think I said. They fear it could lead to nuclear war. That’s nonsense, of course. But you’re entirely correct. That is what they think.”

  “Right. So given that, you’d think they might object.”

  “I’m sure they would, if they knew about it. But fortunately, they don’t.”

  Anna tensed. She was afraid that if she pushed, Stone would lie to her, which would force her to make a decision. But she had to ask; she had promised herself that much.

  “Are you sure,” she said, “that the State Department hasn’t objected?”

  “Let me think,” he replied, studying her face. Anna held her breath. “There is one thing, now that I think about it. One of their people apparently heard a rumor that the agency was up to something and asked the front office about it. They responded, in all candor, that it was rubbish. Why? Are you concerned about who’s authorizing all this?”

  “A little.”

  “Of course you are,” he said gently. “And you should be. But we’re not some rogue elephant operating on our own, I can assure you of that. We’re operating under explicit guidance from the White House.”

  “From the President?”

  “From his National Security Adviser, which amounts to the same thing. We have authority from the highest level. It’s not a straight line, I grant you, but it’s there.”

  Anna let go a deep and genuine sigh of relief. “That’s great. I hadn’t realized that.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought I had mentioned it before.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m glad you brought it up. Because we need to be very careful about this legal business. We unfortunately are living in a land of pygmies, who would like nothing better than to catch us violating one of their rules. So we must be very careful, especially from now on. No more special requests to the radios in Munich, please. Alan briefly required the services of a friend of mine there, but I’m afraid that’s the last of it.”

  “Why?” asked Taylor. “The radios could help us a lot.”

  “Because the management in Munich has issued a new order forbidding broadcast of anti-Russian tracts.”

  “How did they find out?”

  “Someone was clumsy, or perhaps the Russians complained. How should I know? But the whistle has been blown, officially.”

  “What else can’t we do?” asked Taylor.

  “Oh, goodness,” said Stone. He straightened his tie, making sure the ends were the same length. “Let me see. There was a phase of the operation I never mentioned to either of you, because it was too boring. It involved gathering data on Soviet nationalities. I wanted to collect underground religious and political material from Central Asia and the Caucasus, to give us a better idea of what was already happening there, so that our propaganda material would fit. But I’m afraid that won’t be possible now.”

  “Why not?” asked Anna.

  “The usual reason. Someone in the front office began asking questions.”

  “But what’s wrong with that? Why shouldn’t the front office know, if the project has the blessing of the White House?”

  “Because it is a covert program, my dear. And because of its extreme sensitivity, it is being handled outside normal channels. As I told you, the line of authority is there, but it wiggles and waggles a bit. Some people know, and others—whom you might expect to know—do not. Do you follow me?”

  “I guess so,” said Anna.

  “Good. Then let’s get on with it.” Stone rose from the couch and gestured to the showroom, now cluttered with boxes. “You have undoubtedly been wondering what the accumulating stack of debris in your office is all about. So I will give you a brief tour.”

  Stone led them to a stack of six boxes in the center of the room, next to Karpetland’s modest display of Oriental rugs. He opened one of the boxes and took out a small pamphlet, five by seven inches. The title on the cover was in a Cyrillic script. He handed it to Taylor. “This is for you, Alan.”

  “What the hell is it?” asked Taylor.

  “This, my friend, is a classic of sorts. It is a manifesto called ‘Turkestan Under the Soviet Yoke,’ written in 1935 by a man named Mustafa Chokay. I have taken the liberty of reprinting it in a format that could fit into the pocket of a Caspian Sea boatman or a shepherd in the wilderness of the Tien Shan mountains.”

  “How in God’s name do you know about Mustafa Chokay?” asked Taylor.

  “I just do. I am not entirely an idiot, you know.”

  “Chokay is Munzer’s hero. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln rolled into one. Did you know that?”

  “I’d heard that, yes.”

  “From who?”

  “Let’s not get bogged down in details. You’re not the first case officer who’s ever dealt with Munzer Ahmedov, for heaven’s sake.”

  “So what do we do with the propaganda?” asked Taylor, pointing to the stack of boxes.

  “I would like you and Mr. Munzer to take one box with you to Istanbul, where you should distribute copies in such a way that a few of them will come into the hands of your old friend Mr. Rawls. These will be your bait, these little tracts of anti-Soviet propaganda. I guarantee you that Rawls will swim toward them like a fish toward a floodlight.”

  “What do we do then?”

  “That’s the hard part, so obviously I intend to leave it to you. Rawls must discover Munzer, and he must imagine that he has stumbled across a Turkestani underground organization previously unknown to him. Munzer should make it known that his ‘organization,’ among its other activities, is smuggling thousands of these pamphlets into Turkestan. You figure out the details. I’m sure you’re cleverer at this sort of thing than I am. My only advice is that you shouldn’t stick things under Rawls’s nose. Make him work. Let him assemble the puzzle himself. Otherwise he’ll never believe it’s real.”

  “What happens to the rest of the boxes?” asked Taylor. “You said we should send one to Istanbul, but there are five more.”

  �
�The rest, dear boy, will be going into the Soviet Union.”

  “How?”

  “Through Afghanistan, most probably. We have friends in Pakistan who are quite active with the rebels there—have been for months. It shouldn’t be any trouble to get them across the Afghan border. A box to Dushanbe, in Tajikistan. A box to Tashkent, in Uzbekistan. A box to Ashkhabad, in Turkmenistan. They tell me that the Afghan border is quite porous. And if the Soviets should catch our little smugglers on the way, so much the better.”

  “Slick.”

  “Thank you. Let’s continue our tour, shall we?” Stone walked a few steps across the room to a smaller stack of boxes, next to the table that displayed the showroom’s samples of wall-to-wall carpeting. As before, he opened a box and removed one of the books. It was in pamphlet format, like the first, but had on the cover, in Arabic calligraphy, the first sura of the Koran. Below that was the book’s title, written in Cyrillicized Turkic.

  “Here,” said Stone, handing the pamphlet to Anna. “This one is for you. Read us the title, if you would.”

  “ ‘Guide to the Holy Places of Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus,’ ” read Anna.

  “These are for your friend Mr. Ascari. It’s a guide to Islamic shrines. Wondrous places! A rock in the village of Buzovna in Azerbaijan that supposedly contains the imprint of Ali’s foot. Mount Shalbuz Dagh in Daghestan, from which the Prophet is supposed to have ascended into heaven on horseback, leaving behind a hoofprint. Glorious! The book also lists the tombs of various Sufi martyrs who died fighting the Soviets. It’s a lovely little book. A better version of the one you gave to Ascari in Istanbul several months ago, which I gather he quite liked.”

  Anna nodded. “Mr. Ascari likes to think of himself as religious.”

  “Well then, he’ll love this. We have five thousand of them. I would like you and Frank to arrange with Ascari to get these over the Iranian border into Azerbaijan. For a man of Mr. Ascari’s commercial acumen, that shouldn’t pose any great problem. And again, if he’s caught with the goods, it may actually suit our purposes.”

  “How are you going to backstop it?” asked Anna.