Frederic Forsyth - The Cobra

He attended Boston College High School, the main feeder unit for one of the leading Jesuit universities in the USA. There he was tagged as a very high flier indeed. He was as devout as he was scholarly and seriously thought of entering the priesthood as a Jesuit. Instead he accepted an invitation to join another exclusive community, the CIA.

To the twenty-year-old who had swept through every exam his tutors could throw at him and was mastering foreign languages on a yearly basis, it was a question of serving his God and his country by fighting communism and atheism. He just chose the secular rather than the clerical road.

Inside the Company, he rose fast because he was unstoppable, and if his detached intellectualism did not make him Langley's most popular, he cared not a fig. He served in the three main divisions: Operations (Ops), Intelligence (Analysis) and Counterintelligence (Internal Security). He saw out the Cold War in 1991 with the collapse of the USSR, a goal to which he had devoted twenty hard years, and remained en poste until 1998, when Al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies, in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Devereaux had already become a skilled Arabist, holding that the Soviet division was too crowded and too obvious. Mastering Arabic in several different dialects, he was the right man for the job when the Company formed a Special Ops unit to concentrate on the new threat-Islamic fundamentalism and the global terrorism it would spawn.

His departure into retirement in 2008 fell squarely into the category of the old puzzle: did he jump or was he pushed? He, naturally, would maintain the former. A charitable observer would call it mutual. Devereaux was old school. He could recite the Koran better than most Islamic scholars and had absorbed at least a thousand of the leading Commentaries. But he was surrounded by bright young things whose ears appeared seam-welded to their BlackBerrys, a device he despised.

He loathed political correctness, preferring courtly good manners, which he practiced to all, save those who were clearly the enemies of the one true God and/or the United States. These he destroyed without qualm. His final departure from Langley was occasioned when the new director of Central Intelligence indicated most firmly that, in the modern world, qualms were a must-have.

So he took his leave with a quiet and insincere cocktail party-another convention he could not stand-and retired to his exquisite town house in the historic town of Alexandria. There he could immerse himself in his formidable library and collection of rare Islamic artworks.

He was neither gay nor married, a speculation that had once occupied much chatter around the watercoolers along the corridors of the Old Building at Langley-he had flatly refused to move into the new building. Eventually, the chatterers were forced to concede what was obvious. The Jesuit-trained intellectual and ascetic Boston Brahmin was not interested. That was when some clever fast-track boy had remarked that he had all the charm of a cobra. And the name stuck.

The young staffer from the White House went first to the residence at the junction of South Lee and South Fairfax streets. The housekeeper, the beaming Maisie, told the lad her employer was at church and gave him directions. When the young man returned to the car by the curb, he looked around and thought he might have regressed two centuries.

And well he might. Alexandria was founded by English merchants in 1749. It was "antebellum" not just in the sense of existing before the Civil War; it preceded the War of Independence. Once a river port on the Potomac, it had prospered from sugar and slaves. The sugar ships, creeping upriver from Chesapeake Bay and the wild Atlantic beyond, used old English building bricks for ballast, and it was of these the merchants built their fine houses. The effect was still more Old Europe than New World.

The man from the White House climbed back beside the driver and gave directions for South Royal Street and to look for St. Mary's Catholic Church. He eased open the door and left the hum of the streets for the silent calm of the nave, looked around and perceived a single figure kneeling up by the altar.

His feet made no sound as he crept the length of the nave past the eight stained-glass windows that were the only illumination. A Baptist, he caught the faint odor of incense and the wax of the burning votive candles as he approached the kneeling silver-haired figure praying before the white-clothed altar surmounted by a simple gold cross.

He thought he was quiet, but the figure raised a single hand to admonish him not to break the silence. When the praying man had finished his orisons, he rose, inclined his head, crossed himself and turned. The man from Pennsylvania Avenue tried to speak, but another hand was raised, and they proceeded calmly back down the nave to the vestibule by the door to the street. Only then did the older man turn and smile. He opened the main door and spotted the limo across the street.

"I have come from the White House, sir," said the staffer.

"Many things change, my young friend, but not the haircuts or the cars," said Devereaux. If the staffer thought "White House," which he adored using, would have the usual effect, he was wrong.

"And what does the White House wish to say to a retired old man?"

The staffer was perplexed. In a society paranoid about youth, no one called themselves old, even at seventy. He did not know that in the Arabic world, age is revered.

"Sir, the President of the United States wishes to see you."

Devereaux remained silent, as though thinking it over.

"Now, sir."

"Then I think a dark suit and a tie is in order, if we can pause by my house. And as I do not drive, I have no car. I trust you can bring me there and home again?"

"Yes, sir. Of course."

"Then let us go. Your driver knows where I live. You must have been there to see Maisie."

At the West Wing, the meeting was brief and took place in the office of the chief of staff, a hard-nosed Illinois congressman who had been with the President for years.

The President shook hands and introduced his most trusted ally in all Washington.

"I have a proposition to put to you, Mr. Devereaux," said the Chief Executive. "In a way, a request. No, in every way a request. Right now I have a meeting I cannot butt out of. But no matter. Jonathan Silver will explain everything. I would be grateful for your reply when you feel able to give it."

And with a smile and another handshake, he was gone. Mr. Silver did not smile. It was not a habit of his except rarely, and then only when he heard an opponent of the President was in deep trouble. He took a file off his desk and proffered it.

"The President would be grateful if you would first read this. Here. Now." He gestured to one of the leather armchairs at the back of the room. Paul Devereaux took the file, sat, crossed his elegantly suited legs and read the Berrigan Report. When he was done, ten minutes later, he looked up.

Jonathan Silver had been working on papers. He caught the old secret agent's gaze and put down his pen.

"What do you think?"

"Interesting, but hardly innovative. What do you want of me?"

"The President wishes to know this. Would it be possible, with all our technology and Special Forces, to destroy the cocaine industry?"

Devereaux gazed at the ceiling.

"A five-second answer would be valueless. We both know that. I will need time to conduct what the French call a projet d'etude."

"I don't give jackshit what the French call it" was the reply. Jonathan Silver rarely left the USA except for his beloved Israel, and when he was away, he loathed every minute of it, especially Europe, and even more especially France.

"You need study time, right? How long?"

"Two weeks, minimum. And I will need a letter of empowerment requiring every authority in the state to answer my questions frankly and truthfully. Otherwise the answer will still be valueless. I presume neither you nor the President wish to waste time and money on a project doomed to failure?"