“We didn’t know, and if we had been there, we’d be in the river too,” said Nate. “That guy wasn’t going to let anyone walk away.”
“I should have been there,” said Dominika.
Nate stopped in the middle of the pathway and shook her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. Not your fault. A little less guilt and a lot more thinking about surviving. Will this Shlykov take a whack at you in Moscow?”
Dominika shrugged and shook him off. “In the Rodina anything can happen.”
“Then fucking him up in Istanbul is critical. Will you be able to finish him if we can complicate his life?”
“If he fails and embarrasses the president, he is lost. But what will you do?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” said Nate. As they walked, he outlined the plan to burn Major Shlykov, and her part in the operation. She stopped crying, her eyes blazed, and she thought of Ioana.
* * *
* * *
In Washington, the ponderous process of selecting a new DCIA heated up and Langley was told to prepare for briefings for the candidates’ use during congressional testimony. Benford contemplated this requirement with unease.
The only policy position of the president that preoccupied Benford was the former’s oft-stated distrust of CIA and the president’s conviction that it was an anachronistic organization, organically prone to misdeeds and illegal acts and, consequently, overdue for demolition and a thorough reorganization. Happily, said the president, a new DCIA would begin critical reforms. To this end, the White House was putting forward three candidates for DCIA, one of whom would be selected by his staff for Senate confirmation. The unsympathetic SSCI approved the plan and ordered CIA to brief the three candidates equally in preparation for confirmation hearings. Briefing sources and methods to candidates before a formal nominee had been selected was heresy, but both the sitting director and the congressional bootlicker Duchin saw to it that division chiefs complied.
Benford sat at the end of the massive oval conference table on the seventh floor of Headquarters, sourly listening to Forsyth finish briefing the three nominees for DCIA on a sensitive EUR Division asset—the representative of the Palestinian Authority to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which case was producing voluminous intelligence on Iranian support to the PLO and Hezbollah. Forsyth’s presentation had been preceded by a briefing from Chief of Latin America Division, the garrulous Johnny Cross—with a pencil mustache and as handsome as a matinee idol—on a case in Caracas, the recruited deputy minister of Petroleum, who had developed into a gold mine of information on the moribund Venezuelan petrochemical industry, including secret payments in the billions from China to keep the spavined government afloat. Next up was Chief of East Asia Division Brenda Neff, blond, busty, and profane, who would tell the nominees about an EA asset, a captain in the Philippine navy who was providing useful assessments and imagery of the fortified atolls in the South China Sea being constructed by Beijing.
Benford wryly noted that his colleagues were briefing on important, but midlevel assets. No division chief was going to totally lift his or her skirt and give up any crown jewels, at least not yet. Duchin knew enough to suspect they were slow rolling, and when the Acting Director heard—as he certainly would from that woodpecker Duchin—the chiefs would be ordered to open the books to the nominees completely. Only a matter of time.
The three nominees sat at the opposite far end of the table, respectively bored, attentive, and mystified. US Senator Celia Feigenbaum was seething: based on her many years on the Senate Appropriations Committee, she was utterly convinced that duplicitous CIA needed to be radically downsized if not abolished, commencing with the ceding of various Directorates to the DOD, the NSA, and the FBI. If confirmed as DCIA, she was determined to clean house, and to Benford, this was a calamitous notion, made trebly astounding by the senator’s expressed view that the abiding clandestine tenets of the Agency—stealing secrets and exploiting vulnerabilities to suborn human targets—were immoral. “It’s not who we are, it’s not what America stands for,” purred the senator frequently and piously to any reporter who thrust a microphone in her face. She was a leading contender, in part because her Pecksniffian views mirrored the president’s.
The senator had arrived with her senior staff director, Robert Farbissen, and she blithely demanded he receive the same briefings as the nominees, to which Congressional Affairs Chief Duchin immediately agreed, seeing as how Rob also had TS clearances. Benford gritted his teeth; it was an outrageous concession. He knew all about Farbissen: he’d been a fixture in Washington for decades, flitting from staff to staff, wreaking havoc with his revanchist fevers and partisan distemper. Short, and squat, with a lopsided mouth and capped teeth beneath a hedge-apple nose, Farbissen triumphantly sat down at the conference table to listen to the cherished secrets from the vaults of the detested CIA. He turned to notice for the first time that Simon Benford was sitting next to him, made a face of great distaste, got up, and moved three seats away, as if Benford were “patient zero” in a plague ward. The measure of the man, thought Benford, is the distance of three seats at the table.
More attentive was US Navy Vice Admiral Audrey Rowland. Trim in her service dress dark-blue uniform, she sat with hands folded on the table, the thick gold sleeve stripes of her three-star rank resplendent against the dark walnut conference table. She had been named Distinguished Student after advanced studies at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at Fort McNair in Washington. During the next twenty years, she’d held increasingly more important positions, most recently as commander of the Office of Naval Research on the shores of the Potomac River in Virginia. At ONR, she energetically supervised nearly three thousand scientists, permanent civilian researchers and contractors, while managing an annual research budget of more than a billion dollars.
Audrey had risen meteorically, passing through flag ranks of rear admiral (bottom half) to rear admiral in two years, and three years later, her third star as vice admiral was awarded. Benford watched her through lowered lashes, noting that she wore more fruit salad on her chest than Bull Halsey, including the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal (three awards), the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (four awards), and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. None was an award for combat or sea duty.
At forty-nine years old, VADM Aubrey Rowland was the modern empowered woman of the twenty-first-century US Navy: brilliant, an able administrator, and decorous. She had never married—the inevitable gossip occasionally floated around, mainly among envious male peers who were still lowly captains commanding destroyer groups out of Yokosuka—but VADM Rowland otherwise was discreetly considered a benign maiden, totally dedicated to the navy and its mission. When the call went out for prospective nominees for DCIA, Rowland’s name was immediately proposed by the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, and seconded by POTUS.
There was precedent: an admiral had helmed CIA in the midseventies; it was too long ago to remember the lasting damage caused by that dour interloper’s so-called Halloween Massacre in 1977 when two hundred operations officers were fired as nonessential, followed by another eight hundred case officers through 1979, uprooting in one stroke an entire generation of experienced street veterans, most with near-native language skills, a priceless commodity. But that was thirty years ago, and today the navy would be tickled to have one of its own again running CIA, none of whose ops officers ever showed much respect to naval intelligence or NCIS, the criminal investigative service. Benford studied the admiral’s long mannish face, jutting chin, and salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a braided bun in back, but with a poufy prairie-wife curl in front that, even to Benford’s blind fashion eye, was bizarre. Rowland noticed Benford looking at her, nodded across the table, and smiled pleasantly, flashing a protruding left incisor. Okay, maybe physicist admirals don’t have to be lovely looking, especia
lly not the brainy ones, he thought. As DCIA, she predictably would focus on the science and technology side of the house, but with luck she’d at least support a clandestine service in dire need of resuscitation.
At the far curve of the table, clearly mystified by at least two-thirds of what had been briefed so far, sat the third nominee for DCIA, Ambassador Thomas “Tommy” Vano, who had starred as a B-film actor in the 1980s (Space Rage, Maniac Brainiac), and was voted sexiest man alive in 1985, but started fading and got out of Hollywood before he permanently crashed and burned. Using modest earnings from the movies, he began buying strip malls in Florida, together with an entrepreneur brother-in-law, at the start of the nineties real-estate boom. More lucky than prescient, Vano made millions, then formed a company, a consortium of investors buying global commodities, including rare and precious metals. Over the next two decades, he followed his partners’ leads and made additional millions, several of which he donated to the right campaign, and in 2008 was named ambassador to Spain. He stayed for four years in a perpetual, if pleasant, state of mild bewilderment, where he first encountered and was transported by the wines of Rioja and caparrones, the earthy Riojan stew of white beans and smoky pimentón pepper.
Inexplicably retained by the State Department after his return from Madrid, he became Ambassador at Large for Intelligence, which meant he had a shabby office in an interior corridor at Main State, with a two-person staff, and attended countless meetings. The position had been unfilled for eighteen months, primarily because no senior State Department diplomat wanted to wet his shoes in the squishy peat bog of the spy world. But Ambassador Vano found liaison meetings with various intelligence agencies around town tolerably interesting, if not particularly demanding and as the State Department rep he was rarely asked to participate (the leper at the square dance, one NSA wit had muttered). He’d had intel briefs as Chief of Mission in Madrid, and found them thrilling, sort of like movie scripts.
However, one day Tommy Vano interrupted a discussion about strategic metals being purchased and hoarded by Moscow and Beijing, and casually mentioned that his consortium was familiar with the global commodities markets, government ministers, commercial buyers, extraction mines, and stockpiles. All of it. From that day, he had a seat at the table and, despite being more affable than discerning, was accepted as a subject-matter expert.
When the call went out for nominees for DCIA, the milk-and-water outgoing secretary of state (who still believed in the code of conduct which held that gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail), proposed the Honorable Thomas Vano for DCIA, citing his business acumen, his foreign experience as a diplomatist, and his attributes as a current Ambassador at Large for Intelligence, with deep ties to, and contacts within, the intelligence community. It was Washington-speak to be sure, and patent nonsense, but Vano made the cut for the final three.
He was tall and bird chested, with a buccaneer’s wavy black hair, limpid pools for eyes, and a Cary Grant cleft on his chin. Benford noted with interest that the sole visible respondent to Vano’s money-Hollywood-sex vibe was EA Division Chief Neff, a known free spirit once referred to by the deputy of the organized crime section in Counternarcotics Division as a habitual receiver of swollen goods. Senator Feigenbaum was too old and mean to care, and Admiral Rowland didn’t move her gold stripes an inch, and seemed oblivious.
God preserve us, thought Benford. A harpy from the Hill intent on destroying the Agency; an awkward physics bluestocking from the navy; and a stuffed-toy millionaire who as ambassador in Madrid thought the Basque terror group’s acronym ETA stood for estimated time of arrival.
Benford had demurred in today’s briefing session, “in the interest of time,” to discuss any Russian cases, and was determined to stall for as long as possible. MAGNIT was still out there, Nash had just reported that the GRU was gunning for DIVA, and all hell was going to pop in Istanbul if they didn’t do something immediately. Istanbul was going to be a disaster.
The WOLVERINEs. In Sevastopol. God help us, I hope they’re as sharp as Forsyth swears they are. The First Cold War ended thirty years ago. We’re fighting the second one now.
RIOJAN CAPARRONES STEW
Fry sliced chorizo and chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add pimentón (hot Spanish smoked paprika) and red chili flakes and continue frying. Add chopped fresh tomatoes, water, vegetable stock, canned chopped tomatoes, and tomato paste. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered. Add chopped parsley and white beans (cannellini or navy) and continue simmering until thickened, somewhere between the consistency of a soup and a stew. Let stand an hour (or overnight), and reheat to serve piping hot, with a drizzle of olive oil and a poached egg floating on top.
16
The WOLVERINEs
During the salad days of the Cold War, the breathless arrival in bustling Rome Station of first-tour case officer Tom Forsyth, fresh out of training at the Farm, was greeted variously by colleagues. A number of them helpfully showed Tom around Rome and pointed out the best trattorias for Roman cucina povera, peasant home cooking, and where to find a bottle of Cesanese del Piglio from Lazio. His branch Chief got him on the invitation list for half a dozen national day celebrations at foreign embassies where he could begin trolling for developmentals on his own. The reports chief sat him down and went over the target lists, so he’d know what to look for.
Senior Rome Station officer Gale Stack was fifty-five years old and close to retirement. Earlier in his career he’d had opportunities at management, but it hadn’t worked out due to competing priorities that included three-martini lunches, creative accounting on his ops revolving fund (RF), and chatting up bar hostesses. Stack resented that he’d never been appreciated for what he brought to the mix. He’d been stepped on and stepped over—plenty. The arrival of young Forsyth—they were in adjoining office cubicles—presented an opportunity for Stack to unload a bothersome case encrypted VZWOLVERINE. It was going nowhere, at least not with the amount of effort Stack was willing to put into it. The asset, a young Polish émigré named Witold Zawadzki had volunteered as an embassy walk-in, and Stack had elbowed other officers aside for the case. He thought it would be a gravy train—lots of intel for little work—as well as a nice line item on his RF for charging off lunches and dinners.
VZWOLVERINE was from an aristocratic family in Kraków, one of the szlachta, the Polish nobility, dating back to 1360 and King Casimir III the Great. Sent to Rome as a boy to live with an aunt, Witold, now twenty-five and an Italian citizen, hated the Soviets only slightly less than he hated the zdrajcy, the traitor Poles who sold out their own country. At their first agent meeting, the firebrand young Pole—nervous, thin, blond hair slicked back—looked intently at his white-maned case officer with the manicured fingernails, whose hand shook as he pulled the martini olive off a toothpick with his large white teeth. Witold leaned forward and told this CIA officer that he was willing to return to Poland, and that his family knew patriotic like-minded Poles in the government, the Party, and the military. Stack burped, signaled for another martini, and told VZWOLVERINE to order anything he wanted off the menu, anything at all.
At a second boozy lunch at the fabulously expensive seafood restaurant La Rossetta in the shadow of the Pantheon, VZWOLVERINE brought a list of influential Polish families who would, with careful encouragement, provide information on Polish Communist Party leadership, Soviet intelligence activity in Poland, and Warsaw Pact military readiness levels. Putting down his lobster claw, Gale Stack took the paper with a butter-slick thumb, put it into his coat pocket, and told Witold he’d “run traces” on the names. Stifling his ready temper, VZWOLVERINE told Stack that he wanted to talk to someone else in his organization. Alarm bell. Bad idea to let another Station officer get his nose under the tent to see how Stack was expensing meals off this case, never mind letting this wannabe freedom fighter complain about his handling officer.
Stack the next day told the branch Chief that VZWOLVERINE was a bitter émigré with no access to int
el, and that he was recommending that Station cut the asset with a $1,000 termination bonus (he’d give the young man $500 and keep the rest as pocket money) and stop wasting time. The branch Chief wearily said okay, but something made him change his mind, and he told Stack, instead, to turn over the case to another officer, that maybe changing the chemistry would help. Alarm bell. An experienced Station officer would see the real story and report back. Then Stack remembered that new kid Forsyth in the next cubicle. He wouldn’t know the ropes yet; he’d be perfect. How about it? asked Stack. Easy case to cut his teeth on, push the asset to develop access, nice and slow. The branch Chief shrugged and said to go ahead.
That was the start of the WOLVERINE network. After a bibulous turnover meeting, Tom Forsyth and his new agent Witold Zawadzki warily began to feel each other out: Witold saw that his new rookie case officer was honest, energetic, and driven to be successful; Forsyth saw that the impatient young Pole’s fierce commitment needed to be controlled. Nothing would be accomplished by running suicide missions. VZWOLVERINE’s return forays to Poland started slowly—covered as commercial buying trips for an Italian design company—letting the SB, the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, the Soviet-controlled Polish intelligence service, get used to seeing the young man with the Italian passport come and go.
After two trips, VZWOLVERINE recruited a childhood friend, now a Polish Army captain, who was encrypted VZWOLVERINE/2. Family friends, VZWOLVERINE/3 and /4, a comely former art student, now special assistant in the party secretariat, and a police sergeant respectively, were acquired in the next six months. Witold’s next recruitment was VZWOLVERINE/5, his cousin, who was coincidentally a communicator in the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior, who processed KGB message traffic between Warsaw and Moscow. The intelligence streams started slowly. Reports were collected from those subagents by WOLVERINE/1 (as principal agent) and brought to Forsyth in Rome.
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