Siro

by David Ignatius

  Stone didn’t answer, but Taylor knew he would do it. If there was any consistently reliable aspect of Stone’s character, it was his ability to discern and act upon his own self-interest. Taylor walked up the flagstone terrace of Stone’s garden, through the French doors, and let himself out onto the early-morning commotion of N Street. It wasn’t a new beginning. That would be unlikely for a man of Taylor’s age and temperament. But it was at least an end.

  42

  Stone proposed to meet Anna at the place where they had begun nearly a year before—the Holiday Inn off I-270. “How sweet,” said Anna sarcastically when he suggested it. It seemed like one of Stone’s typical ploys, and she wondered what the old man could possibly want from her now. But when she got to the motel, and saw the too bright wallpaper and the tacky furniture, she felt something like nostalgia. It was like the compulsion that brings people back to high school reunions; they might not care any longer about the place or the people, but they still want to mark the distance traveled.

  The I-270 industrial park surrounding the motel looked the same a year later, only more so. A new Mexican restaurant had opened, along with several more office buildings to house the new companies that had come to feed at the federal trough. Many of them seemed to specialize in the defense establishment’s latest obsession, known as “C-three-I,” for communications, command and control, and intelligence. One of the newly arrived firms, headquartered across the highway from the Holiday Inn, proposed to build “hardened” facsimile machines that would be able to send messages even after a nuclear war. The machines would cost several hundred thousand dollars apiece, but as the company’s executives liked to say, you couldn’t put a price tag on the nation’s security.

  Stone was already in the motel room when Anna arrived. A year ago, he had seemed a figure of measureless mystery to Anna. Now she felt she knew him as well as her own father; rather better, in fact. Gone, too, was the look of intense fatigue that had struck Anna at their first meeting. In its place now was a kind of empty glow, like the look retired people get when they begin spending their time playing golf in Florida.

  “This will all blow over,” said Stone after shaking hands.

  “I’m not so sure,” said Anna. “They’re asking a lot of questions, and they already seem to know most of the answers.”

  “They have to do that, make a show of it. But when they’re finished, they will realize how awkward this whole business is for all concerned. Not just for you and me, but for the director, the President, even a few members of Congress. Then they’ll come to their senses and the whole thing will gradually fade away. Take my word. I’ve seen it happen before.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  “What questions did the interrogators ask you?”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

  “Oh, they always say that. They want to isolate people and intimidate them. Don’t worry. You can certainly tell me. I already know all the information.”

  “They wanted to know about the Armenian operation. They seemed to have most of the details about everything else.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Not much. My lawyer told me not to, at least not yet.”

  “Lawyers always say that.”

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about the investigation. Not because of the lawyers, but because it depresses me. The only reason I came to see you was because Alan said you had something you needed to tell me.”

  “So you’ve seen Alan?”

  “No. I don’t want to see him. I talked to him briefly on the phone.”

  “Did he tell you what I was going to say?”

  “No. He just said it was important.” She looked at Stone. He had that Palm Beach undertaker’s look. It was obvious he had bad news.

  “It’s something that concerns you,” he said softly.

  “Let’s stop beating around the bush. It’s about the Armenian doctor, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “Nothing, yet. But it appears that the Soviets have learned a good deal about our activities. So there is every likelihood that your friend Antoyan will be apprehended when he tries to pick up the shipment we’ve sent him.”

  Anna shook her head, as if to shake off what she had just heard, but the words stayed in the air. It took a moment to match them with her memory of the real person, the deep brown eyes and determined voice of the man she had said goodbye to in Paris a few weeks before. For the first time since they came to get her in Deauville, Anna felt like crying. But not now, not in front of Stone. She struggled to control her emotions, so that she might do something useful to help the Armenian doctor. She cleared her throat.

  “How did the Russians find out?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” said Stone, not quite truthfully. “Perhaps one of Ascari’s smugglers got caught and confessed. Maybe Ascari himself defected. You always said he was unreliable. But I don’t really know. All I’m sure of is that the KGB has pulled its people out of Istanbul, and that they’re conducting an investigation.”

  “What can we do to help Antoyan?”

  “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mr. Stone. I knew you’d say that. But it can’t be right. There has to be something.”

  “There isn’t. I’ve checked with Hoffman. The shipment has already left Iran. It’s on its way. There’s no way to call it back.”

  “What about Moscow station? Headquarters can cable them and have them send someone down to Armenia to warn Antoyan.”

  “The director would never approve it. Why should headquarters help us? In any event, it wouldn’t work. It might make you feel better, but it would only put your man in greater jeopardy.”

  “Why? Why can’t Moscow station pass a simple message, for God’s sake? Why is everything that’s obvious always impossible?”

  “Because our case officers in Moscow are all blown, my dear. The Soviets have identified every one of them. Anyone who tried to go to Yerevan would be under heavy surveillance the moment he left Moscow. It would only make things worse for your Armenian friend. The Soviets would think he was a real agent, rather than a young dissident who managed to charm an overeager young female case officer.”

  Stone’s last remark silenced Anna. She wanted to curse him, to tear the seamless mask from his face. But she knew that what he had just said was true. The recruitment of the Armenian doctor was Anna’s responsibility. She had no business asking Stone, or anyone else, to fix what had gone wrong. It was her problem to solve, and she would somehow have to do just that. Stone could continue circling forever in his moral cul-de-sac if he liked. But Anna wasn’t chained to the seat with him.

  “I need some air,” she said. “I’m going to take a walk.”

  “I’ll join you,” said the old man.

  “No, you won’t. I want to be alone for a little while. I need to think.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  She was gone for nearly an hour. She walked along the service road next to the interstate highway, oblivious to the rush of the traffic, turning over in her mind the situation facing Aram Antoyan and the possibilities for escape.

  Anna found herself wondering, reflexively, what her father would have done. But that thought passed out of her mind. That yardstick, against which she had measured so much of her life and surroundings, no longer fit. A few months ago, Anna would have recast the question: What would Edward Stone do? How would the old boys, the glistening heirs of 1945, cope with such a dilemma? But Anna had discerned a truth about them. Over the years, while they were toasting their famous victories at the Athenian Club, they had tended to abandon the little people in places like Laos and Vietnam, the mountains of Kurdistan, the Bay of Pigs. They had a nasty habit of leaving their agents hanging. And Anna, however green she might be, didn’t intend to make the same mistake.

  A last model went fleeting
ly through Anna’s mind. It was ill formed, impulsive, full of daring but weak on delivery—all qualities shared by the person Anna had in mind. What, she wondered, would Alan Taylor do in a situation like this? Or more precisely, what would he think was the right thing to do, even if he was prevented by some missing spark plug of the soul from carrying it out?

  Anna continued walking, moving her feet through the rough pebbles at the edge of the highway. She kept returning to two central facts: The first was that the Armenian doctor’s predicament was almost entirely of her making; the second was that unless she did something to warn him, he would almost certainly walk into a trap on November 10, just over two weeks away. An idea began to form in Anna’s mind, born of these two inescapable facts. You couldn’t call it a plan, exactly; it was too ill formed and imprecise. Its only real virtue was its simple audacity; it was the sort of thing that no one in his right mind would consider, which meant, by Anna’s calculus, that it had a modest chance of success.

  Stone was doing the crossword puzzle from The New York Times when Anna returned. He looked up from it with a kindly twinkle in his eye, and that maddening look of perfect composure. He gazed for a long moment at her earnest and resolute young face.

  “You’re going, aren’t you?” he said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “To Yerevan. You’ve decided to go rescue the Armenian doctor yourself.”

  “What makes you think that?” asked Anna unconvincingly. Her face was flushed.

  “You are transparent, my dear.”

  “It’s none of your goddamned business. I don’t work for you anymore. For once, you are out of the loop.”

  “Fine,” said Stone calmly. “But if you are planning some sort of mad adventure, you should listen to a few words of advice.”

  “I’m sick of your advice.”

  “I can’t entirely blame you. But you had better listen to this last bit, because it could save your life, and his.”

  Anna said nothing. But she listened.

  “If you go, you must go entirely on your own. Stay away from the agency completely. Do you understand? Stay away from the embassy.”

  “What’s your point?” She looked at her watch.

  “The point is that nothing the CIA touches in the Soviet Union is secure. Nothing. There is no such thing as a secret conversation in our embassy, even in supposedly secure areas like the bubble and the communications vault. The KGB has penetrated everything. They have us wired, literally. They have a network of tunnels under Tchaikovsky Street. From there, they can run cables up the walls of the building, with microphones and even tiny cameras. They can tap into the grounding wires in the basement and read half of the electronic signals in the building. By listening to the sounds of electric typewriters and cipher machines—just the sound, mind you—they can reconstruct most of the classified traffic going in and out. Our people take the Russians for fools, people who drink too much and wear bad suits. But they are the best in the world at what they do. I’m telling you, nothing is secure.”

  “Okay,” said Anna. “What else do you want to tell me?”

  “I assume you’re planning to go in as a tourist, on a regular tourist visa. I have no idea whether you’re clean—whether the Soviets have tumbled to the fact that a woman named Anna Barnes with your passport number works for the agency. They may have, with all the recent commotion and cables whizzing back and forth. And then again, they may not have. Evidently it’s a risk you’re prepared to take.”

  “Evidently,” she said.

  “I must warn you that time is crucial. The Soviet consulate normally requires two weeks to grant a tourist visa. If you apply immediately and everything goes smoothly, you will just barely have time to get to Yerevan and warn your friend. So you’ll need to move quickly. The Soviets require three photos, a brief application form and a photocopy of your passport. You’ll also have to buy a package tour from Intourist. Fortunately, they send planeloads of tourists to Armenia every month. Half of Fresno has been to Yerevan. So it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “What else?” asked Anna, no longer bothering to maintain the fiction that she didn’t know what Stone was talking about.

  “I suggest you let a travel agent make the arrangements. That’s what a tourist would do. And that way, you won’t have a chance to say anything stupid to the Soviets at the consulate. They probably won’t give you the visa until the day before you leave. That’s one of their childish habits. They apparently think it puts visitors on edge and makes them easier to manipulate. When you do get the visa, disappear. It will take the agency a few days to realize you’re gone, and by that time you should be out of the woods. Or into them.”

  “Go on,” said Anna. By now, she had taken out a pen and begun to make notes. “Keep talking.”

  “You must embrace your cover as if it were the very skin you were born with. You are a tourist, first, last and always. You are not a spy, you have never met any spies, you wouldn’t know what one looked like. Don’t do anything—anything—that would suggest any familiarity with tradecraft. Don’t look for surveillance, ever. Not even in the slick, hard-to-detect ways they taught you in training. Don’t look in shop windows to see the reflections of people. Don’t turn your head when you light a cigarette so you can casually check what’s behind you. And for God’s sake, don’t play counter-surveillance games. Don’t change cabs or buses. Don’t ride the subway and reverse direction. Don’t take the phone off the hook or run the water when you’re having a conversation.”

  “Slow down,” said Anna, struggling to keep up.

  “In short, don’t act like a spy. Because the Soviets are wise to these tricks. Every one of them is a tip-off that you may be on an intelligence assignment, and the Soviets routinely follow anyone who looks the least bit suspicious. And don’t forget, they have virtually unlimited resources to throw at you. They have been known to use as many as fifteen cars on one surveillance. Don’t try to beat them. It’s impossible. If you think you’re being followed, give up and come home. Any attempt to evade surveillance will only make it worse. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes. Any more advice?”

  “Not much. If you get to Yerevan, play it straight. You met Antoyan in Paris. He’s a handsome young man. You’ve come to Armenia. Why shouldn’t you pay him a visit? It’s the most natural thing in the world. Don’t try any elliptical code words on the phone. Don’t try anything. Get in, get out. With luck you may make it.”

  “Is that it?”

  “One last thing. Stay away from everyone in the agency, but especially Alan Taylor.”

  “Why Taylor?”

  “Because he has a guilty conscience. If he finds out, he’ll never let you go.”

  “It’s none of your business, but Taylor is the last person I would tell.”

  “Good luck,” said Stone. He shook her hand warmly. Anna reciprocated, but there was still a wary look on her face.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said.

  “Why not? By this time I should be an open book to you.”

  “Not quite. Walking back here just now, I was sure that if I told you what I was planning to do, you would try to talk me out of it.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because if there’s one thing I have learned in working with you, it’s that you always have an angle. You don’t say or do anything that doesn’t fit into a larger scheme. I haven’t figured out what it is in this case. And to be honest, I don’t care.”

  Stone smiled. “I was right about you, Anna, from the beginning. You really are a most remarkable woman. It has been a great pleasure to work with you.”

  43

  Anna awoke over the North Atlantic with the sensation that she was choking. She struggled toward consciousness as if she were trapped underwater, trying to reach the surface before she ran out of breath. The terror ended only when she realized that it had been a dream, one that had afflicted her several times over the past ten years.
The images of this dream were drawn from the pages of Ottoman history. It was the story of a particularly cruel sultan, who became convinced that one of his concubines had been unfaithful to him and interrogated every woman in the harem. When none of them confessed, he ordered that every woman in the household—more than two hundred of them—should be drowned. They were seized, tied into sacks weighted with stones, and thrown into the Bosporus.

  In the dream each time, Anna was diving off Seraglio Point. As she dove deeper in the water, she heard a ghostly chorus of women’s voices. When she reached the bottom of the Bosporus, she saw a vast underwater forest of sacks, each containing the body of a woman, swaying gently with the current. Anna swam in horror toward the surface, as the arms in the sacks reached toward her imploringly. She always made it, breaking the surface of the water just as she broke through to consciousness. But the dream was terrifying, every time. And never more so than that night on the plane, halfway to Moscow—sewn by her own hand into a heavily weighted sack and falling, with each second, toward the deepest abyss.

  Anna had done everything Stone had advised. She had obtained her visa from the Soviet consulate in the necessary two weeks. She had booked the shortest available itinerary from Intourist: an eight-day trip with a brief stopover in Moscow on arrival; continuing on that night to Yerevan for three days; three days in Tbilisi; then back to Moscow for the return trip home. The schedule was tight, but not impossible. Anna left New York the afternoon of November 7. That meant that she would arrive in Moscow midday November 8, catch a flight to Yerevan that night, and have all of the next day, November 9, to track down Dr. Antoyan.

  Her first clutch of fear had come at Kennedy Airport, when she checked her suitcase and realized it could be redeemed only in Moscow. Anna still had ninety minutes to kill before departure time. Act like a tourist, she told herself. A long line of people were crowding the newsstand and pharmacy, stocking up on life’s essentials. She joined the queue, buying extra deodorant, tampons, chewing gum, Kleenex, sleeping pills. She bought magazines, a half dozen of them, on the theory that if she was too nervous to concentrate on a book, she could always read a magazine. But when she sat down in the departure lounge, she had trouble getting through People. She closed her eyes and heard loud Russian voices. A group of Russian men had arrived in the departure area. They were dressed in leather jackets and tight blue jeans, smoking American cigarettes. They had a kind of rough sexuality, like blue-collar American men of the 1950s. Members of an athletic team maybe. Why shouldn’t they be boisterous? thought Anna. It may be their last chance.