David Ignatius: Agents of Innocence

“Does it involve sex?”

“Of course!” said Hoffman. “And it is personal! This morning I get on the British Airways flight in Dhahran to come see my old friend, Tom Rogers. I take my seat in the first-class compartment intending to get a little shut-eye when a worthy Oriental gentleman sits down beside me. He introduces himself. He’s a Saudi. Some sort of prince. Uh-oh, I think. There goes my nap.

“As soon as the plane is airborne, Abdul orders a drink. It’s only eight-thirty in the morning, but he wants a whisky sour. An hour later he’s smashed and telling me his life’s story. What can I do? I figure maybe this will be good for business. So I listen to his bullshit, have a few drinks with him, tell him a few stories. By the time we’re over the English Channel, I’m his closest friend in the world. He can’t do enough for me.

“ ‘Mr. Frank,’ he says to me. ‘When we land in London, do you know what I have waiting for me at my hotel?’

“ ‘No, Abdul,’ I say. ‘I do not.’ ”

“ ‘Mr. Frank, waiting for me at my hotel are two beautiful French whores. And because you and I are such close friends, Mr. Frank, when we get to the airport, I will make a phone call to the hotel.’

“Great, I think. He’s going to give one of the girls to me. But, noooo. That’s not what he has in mind.

“ ‘Mr. Frank,’ he says. ‘When we get to London, I will call my friends and get two French whores for you, too.’ ”

“Two?” said Rogers.

“These people are insane!” answered Hoffman. “What’s wrong with just one fucking French whore, for Christ’s sake? Honestly, the Arabs are completely nuts. As I was saying, we live in an age of excess.”

The waiter arrived to take their drink orders.

“I’ll have a whisky sour,” said Hoffman.

Rogers, who didn’t actually like whisky sours very much, decided it was futile to resist. It was, as Hoffman said, the age of excess.

“Me too,” said Rogers. “A double.”

The dining room was filling up with guests. Two men with very long hair arrived. They looked like rock stars.

“Faggots,” said Hoffman not very quietly as the two walked past the table.

“How’s business at Arab-American Security Consultants?” asked Rogers.

“Great,” said Hoffman. “Except we had to change the name to Al-Saud Security Consultants.”

“Why?” asked Rogers.

“My Saudi partner decided he liked the other name. What could I do? Everybody down there has a Saudi partner. He’s not a bad guy. Spends most of his time in Monte Carlo.”

“I gather his name is Al-Saud,” said Rogers.

“You got it.”

“And you’re making money?”

“Tons of it. It’s embarrassing, actually. I have never seen suckers like these guys. Guess what our hottest selling item is?”

“Tell me.”

“A $10,000 machine that can tell you, when your phone rings, who’s calling. So you can decide whether to answer or not.”

“That sounds great,” said Rogers.

“That’s what the Saudis all say when I show it to them. But they’re so fucking stupid they don’t realize it only works if you pre-program the machine to recognize the telephone numbers of everyone who could possibly call you. And do you know what? They never complain. Sometimes I wonder if they even plug it in. Maybe they just put it on the coffee table as a conversation piece.”

“The perfect market.”

“It is,” said Hoffman. “Although to be honest, I’ve had a few bombs, too.”

“Like what?”

“I had a scheme to import donuts into Saudi Arabia from New Jersey. Fresh, delicious donuts. I had the perfect guy to handle the air freight. We formed a company, Arab-American Aeropastries. I put a lot of money into it. But it was a bust.”

“Why?”

“The fucking Saudis don’t like donuts, that’s why.”

The waiter returned with the drinks.

“Do you have any bagels?” asked Hoffman.

“What are bagels, Monsieur Hoffman?” asked the waiter.

“Forget it,” said Hoffman.

He took a big swig of his whisky sour.

“How’s about you?” asked Hoffman. “I gather through the grapevine that you are a bigshot now.”

Rogers looked around him. The Arab at the next table was feeling up his girlfriend under the table and looked entirely preoccupied. There was nobody else close by. Even so, Rogers lowered his voice.

“The grapevine has it wrong,” said Rogers. “I am a mere special assistant to the new Director.”

“Hinkle?”

“Correct. Chuck Hinkle. Which means I am close to power but have very little of it myself.”

“Who is this guy Hinkle, anyway?” asked Hoffman.

“He’s a friend of the president. He ran his campaign in California. Years ago he was briefly with the agency under commercial cover, posing as an overseas rep for one of the airlines, so he thinks he knows everything about the business. He’s not a bad guy. A little skittish sometimes. Spends too much time lecturing us about management by objectives and other gems of wisdom from the corporate world. But he’s learning.”

“So what’s his game?”

“Technology,” said Rogers. “That’s everybody’s game these days. People are sick of running agents. It’s too much work, and if you’re not careful you end up in trouble with Congress. People nowadays figure why take the risks. Machines are so nice and clean. They listen in on conversations. They look inside buildings. They take pictures from the sky and then study them and tell you if anything has changed on the ground since the last time they made a pass. You don’t have to recruit them, run them, hold their hands when they get nervous. You just turn them on. That’s what I spend most of my time on, actually. Technical collection.”

“What a waste,” said Hoffman, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I still keep my hand in,” said Rogers. “I get to Beirut every year or so for a walk-on with some of our old friends. But I’m basically out of it.”

“How’s old donkey dick?” asked Hoffman.

“Who?”

“The Palestinian.”

“Oh. He’s fine. In fact, he has been invaluable to us the last few years.”

“Is he still getting as much pussy?” asked Hoffman.

“He’s married now,” said Rogers.

“So?”

“Seriously,” said Rogers. “The guy has been a lifesaver for us since the Lebanese civil war began. We had a bad spell before that. Black September killed two of our diplomats in Khartoum in 1973, and to this day nobody is sure whether our man knew what was going on. But these days he’s a hero. You remember the evacuation of the Beirut embassy in 1976? Well, he managed the security for it. He’s everybody’s buddy now. Even the Christians like dealing with him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Hoffman. “But is he still banging the German girl with the big bazoooms?”

“His secret,” continued Rogers, ignoring his former boss, “is that he has built Fatah intelligence up into an outfit that has something to trade.”

“You’re kidding me. Those guys couldn’t pour piss from a boot if the directions were written on the heel.”

“Times have changed,” said Rogers. “In the last five years, Fatah intelligence has helped save the lives of the leaders of Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. They trade information with everybody in the Arab world now, and they know everything. They feed it all to our man, and he tells us. It’s a gold mine. When he gets information about a plot against one of our diplomats now, do you know what he does with it?”

“What?”

“He sends his own people to arrest the terrorists for violating Fatah policy.”

“Bullshit,” said Hoffman.

“It’s true,” said Rogers. “The guy is a hero back at Langley. The Director even invited him to come to Washington in 1976, after the civil war ended. It was in December, right after the election. Our boy met with the outgoing DCI and the incoming Secretary of State. Some very heavy hitters.”