Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

He continued: “An entire military aircraft is treated as a diplomatic pouch, allowed to leave the country uninspected. And of course there are sealed trucks. Quite a few methods that the CIA has access to, which we did not, because we were being watched so closely. There were informants everywhere, even among my own personal secretaries.”

Something didn’t entirely click, however. “But how did Sinclair know he could trust you? How the hell could he be assured you weren’t one of the bad guys?”

“Because,” Orlov said, “of what I offered him.”

“Explain.”

“Well, he wanted to clean up CIA. He believed it was rotten through and through.

“And I gave him the evidence that it was.”

Orlov looked up at the door as if he expected one of his guards to appear. He sighed.

“In the early 1980s we finally began to develop the technology to intercept the most sophisticated communications between your CIA headquarters and other government agencies.” He sighed again, then gave a perfunctory smile. It was as if he’d told the exact story before.

“The satellite and microwave equipment on the roof of the Soviet embassy in Washington began to pick up a broad range of signals. They confirmed information we had already received from a penetration agent at Langley.”

“Which was?”

Another perfunctory smile. I began to wonder whether that was simply the way he smiled, a quick twitch of the mouth, the eyes unchanging, wary. “What was the CIA’s great mission from its founding until, oh, 1991?”

I smiled, one case-hardened cynic to another. “To defeat world communism and generally make life hell for you guys.”

“Right. Was there ever a time when the Soviet Union was realistically a threat to the United States?”

“Where do I begin? Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia? Hungary? Berlin? Prague?”

“But to the United States .”

“You had the bomb, don’t let’s forget.”

“And we were as afraid to use it as you were. Only you used it; we did not. Did anyone at Langley seriously believe that Moscow had either the means or the will to take over the world? And what were we supposed to have done with the world once we took possession — run it into the ground the way, I’m sorry to say, our great esteemed Soviet leaders did the once-great Russian empire?”

“There was self-delusion on both sides,” I conceded.

“Ah. But this... delusion ... certainly kept the CIA working overtime for years, did it not?”

“What’s your point?”

“Simply this,” Orlov said. “Your great mission now is to defeat corporate espionage, is that right?”

“So I’m told. It’s a different world now.”

“Yes. International corporate espionage. The Japanese and the French and the Germans all want to steal valuable trade secrets from your poor, beleaguered American corporations. And only the Central Intelligence Agency can make America safe for capitalism.

“Well, by the mid-1980s, the KGB was the only intelligence service in the world equipped to fully monitor communications coming out of CIA headquarters. And what we learned simply confirmed the darkest suspicions of some of my most deeply-dyed Communist brethren. From intercepts obtained between Langley and its outposts in foreign capitals, Langley and the Federal Reserve, et cetera, we learned that CIA had for years been rather busily engaged in directing its formidable espionage abilities against the economic structures of ostensible allies like the Japanese and the French and the Germans. Against private corporations in these countries. All for the sake of protecting American national security.”

He paused, turned to look at me, and I said, “So? Normal part of business.”

“So,” Orlov continued, settling comfortably back in his chair, and lifting both palms at once as if he’d made his point. “We thought we’d picked up the contours of a normal money-laundering operation — you know, money flows out of Langley’s accounts at the Federal Reserve in New York to the various CIA stations around the world. Wherever it’s needed to fund covert operations for democracy, yes? New York to Brussels, New York to Zurich, to Panama City, to San Salvador. But no. Not at all.”

He looked at me and twitched another smile. “The more our financial geniuses dug—” He noticed my skepticism, and said, “Yes, we did have a few geniuses among all the fools. The more they dug, the more they confirmed their suspicions that this wasn’t standard money laundering at all. Money wasn’t just being channeled. Money was being made. Money was being amassed. Earned from corporate espionage. Intercept after intercept proved this.

“Was it the CIA as an institution? No. Our asset inside Langley confirmed that it was just a few people. Privateers. These operations were controlled by a small cell of individuals in CIA.”

“The ‘Wise Men.’”

“An ironic name, I must assume. A tiny group of public servants inside CIA was becoming enormously rich. Using the intelligence they obtained from these espionage operations to enrich themselves. Rather handsomely, too.”

The fact is, it’s quite common for CIA operatives to skim from their budgets, their funds, which are fluid and poorly documented (for reasons of secrecy: no CIA director who’s ordered a covert operation in some third-world country wants to leave a paper trail for some congressional oversight committee). Many operatives I have met make a habit of leeching — tithing , some of them call it — ten percent of the funds to which they have access, and squirreling it away in a Swiss numbered account. I never did it, but those who did, did it to provide themselves with a security blanket, protection in case anything went wrong. The green-eyeshade accounting types back in Langley routinely write off these sums, knowing full well where they’ve gone.

I said as much to Orlov, who shook his head slowly in response. “We are talking about vast sums of money. Not tithing.”

“Who were — are they?”

“We had no names. They were too protected.”

“And how did they amass their fortunes?”

“It doesn’t take a deep understanding of business or microeconomics, Mr. Ellison. The Wise Men were privy to the most intimate conversations and strategy sessions in boardrooms and corporate offices and automobiles in Bonn and Frankfurt and Paris and London and Tokyo. And with the intelligence thereby gathered... Well, it was a simple matter to make strategic investments in the stock markets of the world, particularly New York, Tokyo, and London. After all, if you knew what Siemens or Philips or Mitsubishi was up to, you knew what stock to buy or sell, isn’t that right?”

“So it wasn’t embezzlement, really, at all?” I said.

“Not at all. Not embezzlement. But manipulation of stock markets, violations of hundreds of American and foreign laws. And the Wise Men did quite well, really. Their bank accounts in Luxembourg and Grand Cayman and Zurich flourished. They made quite a fortune. Hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.”

He looked up again at the double doors, and went on, a small look of triumph on his pinched face. “Think of what we could have done with the evidence — the transcripts, the intercepts... The mind reels. We couldn’t have asked for anything better to use in propaganda. America is stealing from its allies! We couldn’t have anything better. Once we leaked that, NATO would have been destroyed!”

“My God.”

“Oh, but then came 1987.”

“Meaning what?”

Orlov shook his head slowly. “This is not known to you?”

“What happened in 1987?”