The room looks at him, full of hope, but he just shakes his head. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know. We just need an excuse to clear everyone out.”
I think he knows, just as the rest of us do, that this won’t work. All we’re doing now is grabbing at straws.
As I reach the door, Vick says, “Moment, Celia.”
I turn.
“Keep this quiet,” Vick says to all of us. “I don’t want anyone—not even on the floor—knowing about our friend Ahmed.”
All of us, with deference, nod.
8
My second meeting, with Sabina Hussain, turns out to be a bust. Sabina, an organizer with the Muslim Women’s Foundation, calls as I wait in a depressing little café in Simmering. She’s apologetic, but in her voice there’s a very definite enthusiasm, for the drama at the Flughafen has brought on a rush of work for her, unnerved women seeking advice out of a fresh fear of recriminations from tough, stupid Austrian youth. “It’s a zoo here,” Sabina tells me, and I know she feels no regret. I wouldn’t, either. Unlike conversation with me, there’s nothing abstract about the faces of the desperate women she has devoted her life to helping. In a way, I envy her.
I call Henry and tell him to make those dinner reservations for now.
As I drive my embassy Ford back to the center of town, Bill calls. I put him on speaker. “Where are you?” he asks.
“Leaving a canceled meet. Heading to dinner.”
“With Mr. Right?”
“Who else?”
“Listen,” he says after a moment. “Our friend got in contact. Says his hosts have been talking Russian on the phone. What do you make of that?”
“I don’t know what to make of it,” I say, gliding down the Rennweg inside a constellation of brake lights. Then: “Wait. Ilyas…” I hesitate, trying to figure out some code for the Chechen Ilyas Shishani, but Bill’s already understood.
“He speaks Russian,” he says.
“Exactly.”
“Which suggests?”
“That he really is in town,” I answer, though we both know that it’s just a suggestion, not evidence. But with his arrival in Barcelona the stars seem to be aligning. “Should I come back?”
“Have a proper dinner,” he tells me. “Talk to Mr. Right about this, too. His time over there, and all.”
When I find Mr. Right at the Restaurant Bauer on Sonnenfelsgasse, I’m thinking less about Ilyas Shishani than I am about fashion, because it occurs to me that my lover dresses down. I’ve dated more men than I care to think about, most for less time than it takes to read a menu, and by and large they were fastidious about their appearance, keeping a comb in their pocket for emergencies, shaving once or twice a day, ensuring their clothes were pressed, often by ancient local women who performed the service for pennies an item.
Henry, though, is his own kind of anomaly, the first field agent I’ve taken to bed. His primary duty is to blend in, to look like everyone else, which on the streets means looking disheveled. Were he to get an assignment spying in a government office, I’m convinced some untapped vanity would erupt in him, to the point of suspected homosexuality. This evening it’s no different, but with the addition of a black necktie—tied correctly, I note—it’s obvious he’s making an effort.
He’s already ordered drinks, and as he manhandles his martini, a Blauer Portugieser waits for me. He gets up and kisses my lips before helping me into my seat, all gentlemanly and suspicious. As we sit, he asks, “Progress?”
I shrug, then tell him about the most recent revelation from Ahmed Najjar. His eyebrows rise, then narrow. “Are they thinking the Russian embassy’s involved?”
“Ilyas Shishani speaks Russian, doesn’t he?”
He frowns, thinking about this, nodding, then says, “I never told you about him, did I?”
“Just that you’d met him in Moscow.”
Moscow is not a topic we bring up often. I know of the letter he sent to Langley, disparaging the administration’s reaction to the Dubrovka Theater hostage crisis, and the disillusionment that led him to flee Russia. Now a look crosses his face. It’s pained, as if he’s been stuck with a knife from behind, and I get the feeling we’re crossing into sensitive territory.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head, waving it away, but gives me something. “I told you I was ordered to hand the FSB a list of my sources, right?”
I nod. “That’s why you wrote the letter.”
“It’s one reason,” he says, his eyes darting around the busy dining room before returning to me. “Ilyas was one of them. One of my sources. A week later I tried to make contact, but he had disappeared. No one knew what had happened to him.”
“He left town?”
“Maybe, but there was no reason. His life was there, had been for at least fifteen years. He baked bread, for Christ’s sake. Why would he pick up and leave?”
“You never found out?”
He shakes his head. “After I wrote my letter, they pulled me off the street. Then I came here. Later, I heard he’d ended up in Tehran. But he wasn’t a radical when I knew him, and I wonder sometimes if my giving his name to the Russians pushed him over the edge.”
“You blame yourself,” I say, and as the words come out I realize that I like this about him. I like this nugget of self-hatred. It makes him human.
But he just shrugs.
I watch him a moment, and then the waiter arrives. He’s an aging Austrian with a grandiose mustache, a throwback these days but somehow fitting in the gemütlich setting, and when he takes our orders—rabbit risotto with chorizo for Henry; stuffed squid with lemon and pepper sauce for me—he does so with an almost surreal level of cheerfulness. Once he’s gone again, I say, “What do you think? You think he’s here?”
His face settles, and for an instant I think I can see what he’ll look like when he’s very old. “I don’t know. I’m almost ready to admit defeat.”
“Doesn’t sound like you.”
He rocks his head from side to side.
“And that necktie doesn’t look like you. What’s up?”
Self-consciously, he tugs at it, then looks past me, toward the entrance. I wait. He reaches a hand across the table to hold mine. “I’ve been thinking.”
“You know how I feel about thinking,” I tell him.
He smiles. “You want to move in?”
It takes a moment to register. I leave my hand on the table, under his. It’s warm. “In?”
“Well, we have choices. You can move into my place, I move into yours, or—and I think this is the better option—we get something bigger. In the Innere Stadt. Down by the river.”
“You’ve got it all figured out.”
“Well, not really,” he says, leaning back and bringing his hand with him. “It’s just—well, we’ve been at this a while now, haven’t we? There’s not a lot of next steps available to us.”
“We could just get married,” I say.
He laughs aloud at that, as if it’s a joke. It is, but still. I give him a smile in return, a comforting one. He calms a little. “Well?”
Holding on to the smile, I shrug. “Let me think about it.” When I see his expression, I say, “Not the answer you expected?”
He leans forward again, pushing aside the martini so he can reach both hands across the table to grip mine. “It’s exactly what I expected, Cee. You’re a careful girl. It’s something I love about you.”
But I’m not careful, and I think he knows this. I think he knows that a part of me gets a thrill from being with a field agent who sometimes comes to my house with bruises he refuses to explain, or stands me up because of “last-minute things” that, I know in my heart of hearts, he might not survive. A part of me wonders if domestication will kill what we have, while another part, which tingles down my back as he squeezes my hands, imagines the danger of cohabitation, of sudden departures in the night, of the potential for enemies to know where I live.
I give him a sl
y wink, or as sly a wink as I know how to pull off, and I wonder how it would look, that dangerous life. As we sip our drinks and play at significant silence, I wonder how far it could be pushed. First, we share the mortgage. We share towels and orange juice. We share friends and a Facebook account. We share vacation photos with family and at some point share the pedestal in a chapel, either here or back in the States, telling a small, select crowd that we’re going to share our lives permanently. We send off Christmas cards, like clockwork, with shots of us sharing a shore in Martinique or Dubrovnik, and eventually we share genes, making one or two little ones whose lives we’ll share unto death even if the marriage doesn’t work out.
I’m jumping ahead of myself, I know, but if I’ve learned nothing else from the Agency, I’ve learned that it pays to think ahead. Eighty percent of an Agency brain is devoted to repercussions and possible futures, even when you’re just thinking about moving in with your boyfriend.
I sip my wine and wonder if he’s thinking the same thing.
9
We return to the embassy just in time to get shuffled back into Vick’s office to listen to a message from the Austrians, relayed through Ernst: They’ve discovered Ilyas Shishani’s lodgings, a run-down boardinghouse in Floridsdorf. Though Shishani’s not there, they’ve gone through his few possessions and staked out the room, waiting for his return. Ernst announces this with the intonation of a high priest, as if it were something he had predicted from the outset. Sensing his self-satisfaction, Henry says, “They can sit there as long as they want. Ilyas isn’t coming back.”
“And you know this how, Henry?”
My lover gives him a thin smile, stands up, and begins to walk to the door. “Because Ilyas’s not an idiot, Ernst.”
Once we’ve been dismissed after a half hour of fruitless talk, I look around the office for Henry. I’m told he stepped out, and though I consider it, I decide against calling. If he wants to be alone, that’s his prerogative. I’ll have ample opportunity to nag when we’re cohabitating.
An hour later, he still hasn’t returned, and Leslie drops by to call me back to Vick’s. There’s been a fourth message from Ahmed Najjar. It’s ten thirty.
Scratch attack plan. They have a camera on the undercarriage. I don’t know how, but it is clear they know what they’re doing. Very serious. I suggest we give them what they ask for, or everyone will end up dead.
We puzzle over this. Vick says, “How the hell did they get a camera on the outside of the plane?” But we’re laymen. It’s like asking a sous chef to explain quantum mechanics.
Yet we try. Ernst points to Amman airport security. “I’ve been suspicious of them for a while. All it takes is a baggage loader to attach a camera to the hull. Operates remotely.”
“But has anyone seen this thing?” Bill asks. “The Austrians and the TV stations have had cameras on the plane all day long—and no one noticed anything out of the ordinary?”
Leslie has come prepared, and she’s attaching a laptop to the flat-screen in Vick’s cabinet. Together we go over footage from throughout the day. Most of it’s from ORF, but about five minutes are hi-res shots the Austrians have shared with all the concerned embassies. The quality is amazing, but I get the feeling we don’t even know what we’re looking for.
Unhelpfully, Owen says, “Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“Have we shared this last message with the Austrians?” I ask.
Vick shakes his head no.
“Then I think we’d better let them check on it. They’re in a better position than we are.”
My suggestion provokes a moment of hesitation. Not silence, but something tenser, and Ernst looks at Vick, who looks at Bill. Bill turns to me and, in a voice that suggests he’s telling me of a loved one’s passing, explains. “The Austrians don’t know about Ahmed. We’re trying to keep it quiet.”
I feel a little stupid but recover as best I can. “Well, maybe it’s time to start sharing with them. If we want to get any of those people out alive.”
“The voice of cooperation,” Vick says, smiling. “We’re just not sure we can trust the Interior Ministry, Cee. We didn’t vet those people.”
I stare at Vick, then at Ernst. He’s chewing the inside of his cheek, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. I know what I’m thinking; I’m thinking that Agency paranoia has just driven us off a cliff. I take a breath, wondering how to make the obvious clear to them, but then Bill comes to my aid. “She’s right,” he says. “We’ve taken this as far as we can on our own. If we don’t start trusting the Austrians this operation’s going to be stillborn.”
Vick rocks his head from side to side and scans the room, avoiding my eyes. “Opinions?”
Owen shrugs, then nods. Leslie just blinks rapidly. Ernst shakes his head slowly, but it’s not a dismissal, for he sighs aloud and says, “Agreed.”
Vick tugs at his lower lip, thinking a moment. “Ernst, make it so.”
Ernst gives me a look, then takes his phone from his pocket and walks out of the office.
“Other thoughts?” Vick asks.
After a moment of hand-watching, Owen says, “It might not be him.”
We raise our heads.
“Go on,” says Vick.
“He may have been discovered. The only way we know that’s our agent is that he’s sending messages from our agent’s phone.”
“The code,” Leslie says. “Each message is prefaced by his identifier, which is…” She goes through her papers, then reads it out. “Aspen3R95.”
“Then it was him,” he says, “but it’s not anymore. If he forgot to delete the previous messages, then the code is on his phone for anyone to read. Or he’s been forced to give them his ID—they have children on there, after all. He’s discovered, maybe killed, and they take over his phone.”
“But how?” I ask. Attention shifts to me. “How is he discovered? Ahmed may be just a courier, but any decent courier knows how to communicate in secret. It’s what he does. How did he get caught?”
Owen shrugs. “It’s just an idea.”
Vick’s frowning at his desktop, pulling at his lower lip. “Pretty lousy idea. But it’s a serious option, and we should keep it in mind.”
“Or Ahmed’s wrong,” Bill says, placing a large hand on his knee. “What’s his evidence? He doesn’t say. He’s convinced they have an external camera, but maybe he’s made a mistake. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“First time for him,” Vick says, “or for the Agency?”
“Both.” Bill straightens in his chair. “Ahmed’s good, but there’s a reason he’s still a courier. Back in ’93 he was team leader on an operation in Beirut. He thought some Palestinian gunrunners were preparing to ambush his team, so he ordered them to open fire. They were construction workers. Two killed, six hospitalized.” Bill pauses for us to absorb this. “He makes mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes,” I say despite myself. I try to keep my disagreements with Bill to a minimum in front of the others, but I feel like I’m just stating what everyone else is thinking. “And that was thirteen years ago.”
Bill shrugs, either unable to debate the point or unwilling to humiliate me in front of them—perhaps he’s more loyal than I am. Either way, Vick says, “Everything’s a possibility.”
Everything is possible, I think, then stifle an involuntary smile. It’s just hit me. Henry and I are going to move in together.
10
Bill finally leaves the office to spend some time with Sally, giving me permission to use his office for the rest of the night. When he gets into his coat and waves good-bye, I can literally see the gloom sinking into his shoulders. It’s ironic that a man can stare all day long into the face of a hundred and twenty possible deaths, even be invigorated by it, while a single healthy wife can break him. Banally, I think of that old Stalin quote about tragedies and statistics, and, sitting at the desk, I can’t even think of the problems in front of me. I’m wrapped
up in relationships. Bill and Sally, and the miserable path they’ve taken. Henry and me, and our uncertain future. Is that death spiral of endless power plays in the cards for us? We are, after all, both trained in manipulation. We are both less than trustworthy.
I get coffee from the break room, mulling over this, happy to have much of the floor to myself. Gene Wilcox is dutifully processing incoming messages at his desk, and Owen is behind his closed door, lost in a world of codes and ciphers. The others are gone, Ernst meeting with his Austrian opposite number, Vick getting a late dinner with one of his numerous girlfriends—all chosen, for security, from the embassy pool—while Leslie has run upstairs to brief the ambassador’s staff. For the moment, I’m the ranking officer on the floor, but at ten before midnight that doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot.
So I return to Bill’s office and go through the reports again, waiting for something to jump out at me. I think of a hundred and twenty terrified people locked on an airplane—for the hijackers, I imagine, are terrified, too. I think of Ilyas Shishani, a Chechen baker who became radicalized—maybe because of Henry’s betrayal, maybe not—now running a major act of terror in Vienna. I think about Ahmed Najjar, a retirement-aged courier stuck on a sweltering plane, bravely sneaking out messages. There’s a copy of Ahmed’s file on Bill’s desk, and I browse deeper into it. There it is—1993, the ill-fated operation in Beirut, his subsequent removal from leadership positions, and his assignment, two years later, to Pakistan to act as courier for a politically motivated general named Musharraf. This led to more jobs throughout the region, until Terry O’Reilly asked for him to be brought into the operations section permanently. There were no black marks against him after 1993, a feat that’s almost suspicious.
How suspicious? Has he turned? Perhaps Ahmed boarded that plane as part of the hijacking and is being used to feed us misinformation?
It’s a sign of my desperation that I even consider this. It goes against what we learned at the Farm: You go with what the evidence suggests, not with what makes an entertaining narrative. So I return to the only evidence I have: four text messages.
All the Old Knives Page 8
