John Weisman - Direct Action

“Not these days. There’s a problem with Israel these days.”

“There seem to be a lot of problems, Tony.”

“There are a lot of problems, son.”

“What’s up with Israel?”

Wyman adjusted his right shirt cuff. “We’re about to experience a huge hiccup with our Israeli friends. Something to do with Iran policy, classified documents making their way to Mossad via a leak somewhere in the Pentagon. The FBI’s gotten into it within the past couple of weeks and Langley is keeping Gelilot 26at arm’s length these days.”

“Christ.”

“I took some heat over our Israeli associate.”

“Reuven?”

“They said they don’t like the fact that we have foreign nationals working for us.”

Tom was incredulous. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m serious.”

“I love it. Most of our embassies are run by foreign nationals. CIA depends on foreign nationals-liaison relationships. And Langley’s upset because we have a retired Mossad officer working for us?”

Tony Wyman played with his monocle. “There are those who insist retirement’s just another form of cover when it comes to Mossad combatants.”

Tom cocked his head toward the window, which was covered with three layers of antisurveillance drapery. “Sam Waterman used to say that all the time about everybody.” He paused. “You don’t happen to know what Sam’s up to?”

“No idea. Saw him about a month ago at the club. He was having lunch with Ed Kane.” Wyman shifted in the big leather swivel chair. “Anyway, the seventh floor is unhappy about Reuven Ayalon.” He looked at Tom reassuringly. “But they’ll get over it.”

“Hope so. Because we’ve made progress because of Reuven, Tony. You saw the messages from Israel. Reuven and I know who, and we know where. We just don’t know when, or what the targets are. That’s why I wanted to get inside the safe house.”

“Understood.” Wyman shifted himself in the chair. “Still…”

Tom looked at his boss’s face. “What?”

“There’s something else. I haven’t mentioned it because neither Bronco, Charlie, nor I is sure how to handle things.”

The remark was uncharacteristic, and Tom said so.

“We’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that our contacts at Langley are lying to us. The reluctant conclusion is that they’re trying to push us away.”

“But why?”

“Ah,” Wyman said, “there’s the rub. It doesn’t make any sense. We’ve produced incredible product for them over the past twenty months. Charlie’s work in Libya helped result in Qaddafi’s decision to end his WMD programs and allow inspections. Bronco’s done a lot to repair the rift between the U.S. and Russia. And so far as al-Qa’ida goes, 4627’s been responsible for developing the intelligence instrumental in the capture of sixteen top-level AQN 27operatives. Sure, we butted heads over Iraq-the WMD material. But…” His voice trailed off. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

Tom started to speak, but Wyman cut him off. “Look, this isn’t your concern. What does affect both you and Reuven is that Langley won’t pay 4627 to follow up on the Gaza murders, even if they were to track to Imad Mugniyah and Ben Said.”

“It makes no sense.”

“When has absurdity ever been eliminated as a factor when we’re talking about the seventh floor?”

Tom looked at his boss. “You think it’s coming from the seventh floor?”

“I think the whole seventh floor is running scared. There are four separate reports due out next year from Congress, from the 9/11 Commission, and from CIA’s inspector general. Each one will be more devastating to CIA than the last. So how bad do you think it will look when it’s revealed that CIA leadership has had to outsource the war on terror because they didn’t have the internal resources to develop adequate human-based intelligence to be able to satisfy the administration’s demands for answers and results?”

“ That’s why they’re shutting me down? Goddamn seventh-floor egos? Frigging executives worried about job security?” Tom was furious. “People are dead, Tony. And there’ll be more corpses soon. We know that.”

“Langley’s beginning to think like an automobile manufacturer.”

“How?”

“Let’s say carmakers discover a flaw in a vehicle’s ignition system that might lead to fires. They estimate it will cost X dollars to fix the problem for the two hundred thousand autos with flaws. If there’ll only be Y number of fatalities, and the lawsuit factor is Z, they decide that it will be more cost-efficient to allow the flaw to remain than spend the money to recall every imperfect vehicle.”

“That’s immoral.”

“What’s your point? We’re in a business that sometimes confronts us with nothing but immoral choices,” Wyman said.

He slapped his palm on the desk. “Enough of the thumb-sucking, Tom. Here’s something you can act on: I learned that as of last week, headquarters dumped the whole Imad Mugniyah-slash-Tariq Ben Said mess onto Paris station.”

That didn’t make sense at all. If Reuven was right-and Tom had no reason to doubt him-Imad Mugniyah had slipped back into the shadows-he was either in Lebanon or Iran. It was Ben Said who’d returned to Paris to put the finishing touches on his backpack IEDs. Tom gave his boss a quizzical look. “I thought you said Langley’s opinion was Ben Said doesn’t exist.”

Wyman gave Tom a jaundiced look. “Strange development, ain’t it? We’re told it’s not Imad Mugniyah in the photos and there is no Ben Said, and now Paris station is ordered to poke around for them.”

Tom thought about it. “Very weird.”

“Of course it could just be RUMINT. I was having dinner with an old colleague. He said he’d heard some corridor gossip about a meeting in Paris with an Iranian source-couldn’t give me a name or any other specifics. The Iranian offered us Imad Mugniyah’s head on the proverbial platter. But he wanted the twenty-five-mil reward State’s posted. He asked for a down payment of half a million dollars-seed money for baksheesh and payoffs in Tehran was how it was described to me-and the balance of twenty-four mil five hundred thou to be paid on delivery.”

“Tony…” Tom’s antennae went active. “When was that offer made?”

“When…” Wyman took a Palm Pilot out of the desk drawer, turned it on, screwed the monocle into his right eye, tapped the screen with the stylus, and peered. “Sometime in mid-October. I was told it was put on the table within a couple of days of the Gaza flap.” He looked at Tom. “About the same time you were meeting with your Iranian friend Shahram Shahristani.”

“Uh-huh.” Tom’s mind was kicking into overdrive.

“My contact said RUMINT was the Iranian met with someone from Paris station.”

“Do we know who?”

“I thought you’d want to know, so I checked. The name that was floated to me is Adam Margolis.”

“Who?”

Wyman squinted at the screen again then let the monocle fall onto his vest. “Margolis. Adam Margolis. He’s the deputy to the deputy CT branch chief. A greenhorn. I checked. This is his second tour. First was Guatemala-consular cover. Decent ratings but nothing spectacular.”

“Are you sure?”

Wyman’s eyes locked coldly onto Tom’s. “I said I checked.”

When Tony looked at you like that, Tom thought, you could see he was capable of ordering someone’s death.

Tom broke off from his boss’s lethal stare. “That’s odd.”

“Why?”

Odd, Tom explained, because Shahram had specifically said he’d telephoned the embassy on October 16-and he’d been deflected. Never made it past the gatekeeper was how Shahram put it.