American Spy

by Lauren Wilkinson

  A few days after I’d received Gold’s memo, I went down to squad bay B and sat beside him at an expansive white table, our backs to windows that looked over the city. We waited quietly, Gold working a toothpick between his teeth. I remember the wall clock being exceptionally loud, although that memory might just be an expression of my anxiety at the time.

  An officer approached the squad bay—I could tell from the way Gold straightened his back and nervously smoothed his blazer that he was CIA. As he came into the room, both Gold and I stood to shake the officer’s hand.

  The first few moments after you meet someone are precious, because the data on them is plentiful and your own subjectivity has yet to interfere. I’ve always been good at making guesses about who people are, and often used the skill when I was recruiting informants. I generally kept what I knew to myself though; my talent for observation put most people on guard, and my memory could cause the same problem. When it’s a question of how much you remember about an acquaintance, a colleague, or a snitch, there’s a fine line between what’s flattering and what gives them the creeps.

  The officer gave me some deliberately direct eye contact, his face wide open, his eyebrows up as he smiled slightly. When I first approached a target, I did so with this very same look on my face. It was a basic step, one of many I used to suggest to my targets that I was trustworthy. I imitated his expression; right from the start we were working each other.

  He introduced himself as Ed Ross. He was in his early forties and handsome in a corn-fed kind of way. The strong light pouring in on us from the window had a clarifying effect on his features that worked in his favor, illuminating a dusting of light freckles that made him look boyish and the laugh lines etched around his eyes that made him seem warm.

  “Good to see you again,” Ross said as he vigorously shook Gold’s hand.

  “You too, Ed, you too.” Gold smiled. “Season’s coming up fast. You betting on Duke this year?”

  “Do what now?” Ross asked.

  A few years earlier, a sociolinguist I admired had published an excellent book on a university press, an enormous work that I’d liked so much I’d gone to the one sparsely attended book event that was held for it in the city. In the book were a series of overlays on maps of the United States representing the influence of race, class, gender, education, socioeconomic status, and a handful of other factors on American regional dialect trends. The book had also come with hundreds of dialect samples on tape, which I listened to all the time: in my car, or while cooking, or sometimes when I was jogging back home from the gym. I found them oddly soothing. I listened to them so much that I’d wound up committing most of the notable linguistic characteristics to memory, augmenting my natural talent for accents.

  I knew from Ross’s accent and from the turn of phrase he’d used (do what now?) that he was from what the linguist had categorized as the inland South, which included small swatches of Tennessee, Georgia, and western North Carolina. His strong aversion to the idea that Duke might win suggested an allegiance to the Tar Heels. My guess was that he was from North Carolina.

  A thicker version of his accent didn’t seem far out of reach. I supposed that one of the first things he’d found out about himself was that how he spoke led people to presume a lot about him. As a younger man he’d learned to shift his voice, his speech, to make them different things for different people, and he could now do it without much thought. I hope you can see me well enough in these journals to understand why I instinctively recognized this ability in him.

  I saw other things about Ross. His suit had been cut from very high quality wool and fit him well. Truth be told, it looked so expensive that it raised practical questions about how he could afford it on a federal salary. As Ross and Gold continued to talk, I glanced at Gold’s suit. His was what I’d become used to seeing in a government office: ill-fitting polyester, plastic buttons. It was a suit that belonged to a man who had children and a mortgage. Who couldn’t afford to have taste. The three of us sat, Gold and me on one side of the table, Ross on the other.

  “You two know anything about Thomas Sankara?” Ross asked.

  “Only a little,” I said, when in fact I knew a lot. I’ve accused Helene of being secretive, but I’m not in the habit of tipping my hand either. General knowledge wasn’t a trait that was rewarded at the bureau; it wasn’t a game show. Hard work and ambition and the benefits of favoritism were how you got ahead. In fact, I preferred for my colleagues to believe I was ignorant. That way they didn’t see me as a threat.

  “Yeah. He’s the president of, uh, Upper Volta,” Gold said.

  I glanced at him. Thomas Sankara was the president of what was formerly Upper Volta, and the story of how he’d seized power in the country was a fascinating one. I’d followed it closely.

  Ross gave us fact sheets that outlined Thomas Sankara’s biographical information, which we both only skimmed for different reasons: me because I knew much of it, and Gold because he wasn’t interested. Obviously, I can’t remember everything on the sheet, but I should tell you what I remember of the history.

  It’s important to understand that he came to power backed by a popular movement. In the early 1980s, there’d been a quick succession of military governments in the country, each of them toppled by coups. In May 1983, Sankara was prime minister. Clashes he’d had with the president, Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, led to Sankara’s removal from his post and his arrest, triggering widespread student-led protests in Ouagadougou, the capital city.

  Sankara’s closest friend, Blaise Compaoré, was the head of a military training center in Pô, a city in the south of the country. He organized a rebellion there, which put political pressure on Ouédraogo that led to Sankara’s release. The second he was free, he began to organize his coup. He was in Ouaga, the beating heart at the center of a network of dissenters.

  On August 4, Compaoré began leading his troops from Pô toward Ouaga in trucks seized from a Canadian construction site. It was night when they arrived. As Sankara had instructed, civilian members of his revolutionary network cut the power lines in the south of the city, disorienting the president’s armed guards who were stationed there. Meanwhile, other members of Sankara’s network helped guide Compaoré’s troops through the darkness toward the presidential palace.

  Employees of the national telecommunications company, led by Mousbila Sankara, Thomas Sankara’s uncle, cut the phone lines near the palace, effectively isolating Ouédraogo from his guards at different outposts throughout the city. Suspecting something was up, Ouédraogo fled from the palace to his home. When Compaoré’s troops arrived at the palace, the presidential guards there, realizing that their leader had deserted them, immediately surrendered.

  At 10 P.M. on August 4, 1983, Thomas Sankara went on the radio to declare himself president of the National Council of the Revolution, the CNR, and appointed his friend Compaoré minister of state, effectively making him the second most powerful man in the government. Right from the beginning, they functioned as a pair—Thomas Sankara being the strategist and Blaise Compaoré being the force.

  Thomas Sankara renamed the country Burkina Faso—the Land of Incorruptible People—and wrote the national anthem. He’d been young when he’d come to power—just thirty-three years old. He was charismatic, an excellent public speaker who played guitar in a jazz band, and sped around Ouaga on a motorcycle. And troublingly, he considered himself a Marxist revolutionary.

  When I looked up from the pages in front of me Ross said, “He’s coming to New York next month to speak to the UN General Assembly. And the next day he’ll be speaking at a rally the Patrice Lumumba Coalition is organizing. Mitchell, we want you to help us keep him under surveillance when he’s talking to the PLC.”

  “Is there specific intel that you’re hoping my asset can get you?” I asked, wondering if I could pay Aisha for a one-off job.

  “Yes. We wa
nt to know how much Sankara knows about our involvement in the ULCR, a political party that we’ve formed within his government.”

  “What’s his government called?” Gold asked.

  “It’s in the fact sheet. That’s why I gave it to you,” Ross said, a little testily. “The CNR.”

  “You have operatives in the CNR?” I said.

  “Yes. Our problem is that while Sankara’s government presents itself as a coalition of several political parties who all get a say in decision making, in fact only a small handful of his closest allies truly do. We don’t yet have access to anyone with any real power.”

  “Sounds like he’s a dictator,” Gold put in.

  “Unfortunately, you’re right about that,” Ross said. “But we’re completely in control of the ULCR, and through the party we’re agitating for electoral reform. Over the last year, we’ve been putting increasing pressure on Sankara’s government to create a multiparty system.”

  “Why’s the CIA precipitating that push?” I asked.

  “Because a multiparty system is a basic element of democracy,” he said, chiding me.

  “It’s an odd agenda for the CIA to have when our government isn’t a multiparty system.” My tone was just a shade away from flat-out sarcasm. I didn’t like being spoken to as if I were a child. And it wasn’t unreasonable for me to assume that the CIA was meddling in a foreign government out of more than just the goodness of the agency’s heart.

  “Well, this is a former French colony,” Ross said. “An electoral system similar to what the French have is one that will be a better fit. The people are more familiar with that.”

  “So you’re trying to establish a French-style electoral system. A two-round system.”

  He shook his head. “We only want to embrace the French way up to a point. But this is all too big picture. Let me lay out what we want from you—”

  “Why’s it so important to know if he knows that the CIA is in control of the ULCR?”

  “Mitchell, come on.” Gold, tired of my questions, shot me an angry look.

  “There are a couple of ways to answer that question. For now let me just leave it at contempt.”

  “Contempt,” I repeated with some contempt of my own for his having given me such a vague answer to a direct question.

  “Sankara has contempt for the politicians in his country that he considers corrupt, and it makes him underestimate his rivals. We want to know just how much that contempt blinds him. If we can understand that, we can better understand how to give his more prodemocratic rivals an advantage come election time.”

  “Hm,” I said, because I didn’t believe him. I said slowly, “Let me be sure I understand you. The CIA wants to establish a French-style electoral system in Burkina Faso.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not a two-round system and therefore not actually French—”

  “We don’t think it needs to be.”

  “Because you hope to create a free and open election—”

  “Yes.”

  “Of the candidate that the CIA plans to back. You already have your pro-American candidate picked out, don’t you?”

  “Prodemocratic,” Ross corrected. “He’s a prodemocratic candidate.”

  “I don’t think their long-term goals in the country are any of your business,” Gold said. He seemed embarrassed. “Or at least not anything you should be interrogating him on.”

  “I just want to understand the nuts and bolts. Don’t you? Obviously, it’s an elaborate sham, which is interesting.” I smiled despite my clear hostility. I was annoyed. This man had approached me to participate in an operation, but didn’t have enough respect for me to be honest about what he was up to.

  Ross seemed amused by my reaction. Speaking to Gold, he said, “I didn’t think she’d be able to connect all those dots. It was a mistake to underestimate her.” He turned back to me and looked me deep in the eye. “One I won’t make again.”

  “Look, it’s win-win,” he continued. “We’re giving a fledgling government a recipe for democracy. Admittedly, it’s a poor country, but their loyalty to our ideology matters. Sankara has visited the Soviet Union several times, and they’re supporting his government financially. They’re supporting his dictatorship. We need to win back hearts and minds from them.”

  “That I can understand,” Gold said. “If they’re funding his government, that’s just a way for them to expand the scope of their power.”

  “I agree,” Ross said. “Which is why we have to counter their threat everywhere it crops up in the world.”

  I thought about this as I observed Ross. The subtext, of course, was that we would be countering Soviet expansion with our own—the plan was that they’d remove a wildly popular president from power in favor of a rigged electoral process that would install a pro-American candidate.

  But that didn’t bother me, despite the irony. What bothered me was my nagging awareness that Ross was leaving something out. I could tell from his expression and my intuition.

  “What’s your asset in the PLC like?” Gold asked me. “Could you get your guy to wear a wire and take Sankara and his delegation out to a strip club? They might talk politics in front of him.”

  “That approach isn’t going to work on Sankara. He’s not that type,” Ross said.

  “They’re all that type,” Gold said. “They come to New York, and they want to have a little fun.”

  “Does your asset even speak French?” Ross turned back to me, politely ignoring Gold.

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, that’s a shame. Because we really want someone who can speak the language. That way they could spend a little time with Sankara after the rally, and try to find out what he knows about the ULCR. Maybe also learn what his next steps will be.”

  I stared across the table at Ed Ross. It didn’t seem at all like a coincidence that I spoke French and that he wanted to use an operative who spoke it. I realized then that from the start, his agenda had been to involve me in his operation. And it was unsettling—why all the subterfuge?

  “Yeah,” I said. “That really is too bad.”

  “Wait a second, Mitchell,” Gold jumped in. “Don’t you speak it? Isn’t your mother French or something?”

  “I speak a little,” I conceded, surprised—and annoyed—that one of my biographical details had managed to stick in Gold’s mind.

  Ross lifted his eyebrows. He said, as if it were the first time it had occurred to him, “Well, we could post you at the UN. If you wanted to go undercover. I know someone in the chief of protocol’s office.”

  “Oh, is that right?” I said, my tone equally as performative as his. I noticed him catch it.

  “You might be a better fit than your informant,” he said. “Sankara likes women. Respects them.”

  “And what a thing to use against him.” It was out of my mouth before I realized it. His condescension had gotten to me. In my rush to prove that he was underestimating me, I’d let slip things about myself that were too revealing.

  “I think we could get you closer to him than we could get a man,” Ross pressed.

  On the surface it looked like exactly the operation I’d been waiting so long for, the one that would give my career a boost. The target was a president, so it would be a high-profile case. But while Ross had told me that I’d just be gathering information, and there was nothing illegal about that, I’d seen the way his eyes lit up as he’d taken in my appearance. He wanted to use me because I was a woman, because I was black, because they expected Thomas to find me attractive.

  So I had to turn it down. There was just too good a chance that accepting his offer would backfire on me. I looked to Gold. “Perkins speaks French too, doesn’t he, sir? Maybe he could help them instead.”

  “So you’re not interested,” Ross said.

&
nbsp; “No. But I’m sure there’s someone else here who could help you get the intel you need.”

  “Mitchell.” Gold was glaring at me. “There aren’t too many people here with your, uh, profile. I can’t think of anyone else who—”

  “I’m sorry.” I was speaking to Ross. “I’ll give you information about the PLC—maybe you can find someone on their roster who can help you. But I’m not interested in going undercover.”

  “Not a problem,” he answered. The expression on his face was difficult to read. “We’ll just have to figure something else out.”

  He smiled—it almost looked sincere—and asked to see the reports I’d mentioned.

  I left the squad bay for my desk. As I was looking through the file organizer, I saw Gold approaching and braced myself. “What the hell was that?” he hissed. “They want to run a joint operation with us. It’s always good to make nice with those guys. Build bridges.”

  “I’m being helpful, sir. They’ll find someone else.” I held up the folder I’d been looking for.

  He snatched it from my hand. “You’re not a team player. That’s your whole problem. Fix that or you won’t get very far here. I’ll field the rest of the meeting. You stay.”

  I watched him walk back to the squad bay. I couldn’t let Ross use me. When Mr. Ali had let the bureau use him, it had trapped him professionally. It’s only a fool who doesn’t learn from the experience of others. Fuming, I left the office as soon as Gold was out of sight.

  * * *

  —

  THERE WASN’T TOO MUCH to my neighborhood boxing gym: a ring, of course, two heavy bags dangling over the thin strip of linoleum floor, and walls that were covered in peeling white paint.

  “Shoulders down. Keep ’em down!” the trainer said as I hit the focus mitt on his hand. “One-two-three-two. Come on! Forty-five more seconds!”