All the Old Knives (11 page)

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.

4 attackers, 2 guns. Children in 1st class. Rest in econ—Muslims starboard, rest opposite. Am with Muslims, aft. Two women in critical. Water running out. No power
=
no cameras. Suggest rear-undercarriage attack.

Old man died of coronary. Austrian, I think.

Lead hijacker on phone. Speaks Russian. Don't know enough to translate.

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.

Only with all of them in front of me do I realize what should have been obvious to each one of us sitting in Vick's office. The words, the grammar. Ahmed's earlier sentences are incomplete, telegraphed, while the fourth message contains complete sentences, the leisurely use of “it is” instead of “it's,” and articles:
a
camera,
the
undercarriage.

I'm flushed, dizzy. The last message
is
from someone else.

Ergo: Ahmed has been discovered.

Involuntarily, I stand up. Then, realizing I don't know where I'm going, I sit down again and read it through once more. My impulse is to call Bill, shake him out of his marital malaise, and shout it at him. I even put a hand on his phone, but don't pick it up because the inevitable follow-up question has come to me: How?
How
was Ahmed discovered?

How is anyone discovered?

Either he made a mistake, or the hijackers received the information from the outside.

I close my eyes, remove my hand from the phone, and lay it over my forehead. If Ahmed made a mistake, we won't know about it until after the situation has ended, when witnesses tell us what happened.

If any of them survive.

Since there's no way for me to prove that Ahmed was discovered because of his own ineptitude, I have to set that theory aside and look at what's left. Namely: Someone told the hijackers about Ahmed.

Someone who spoke Russian? Ilyas Shishani?

I open my eyes, the world a little blurry, and blink until I can see through Bill's window to where Gene, our data-entry specialist, sits drinking a Coke. I look down at the messages again.

Ahmed Najjar, I know from his file, works solely for us; his name is not on any records outside of the Agency. If what Ernst told us is true—that he had not shared Ahmed's identity with the Austrians—then his identity has remained inside this office, among a small number of people. Me, Vick, Leslie, Ernst, Bill, Owen, Henry, and by necessity Gene out there.

It's not inconceivable that someone at Langley leaked the information, and it wouldn't be unprecedented, but at the moment that's not my concern. I have no way of monitoring Langley—it's beyond my reach. The only thing I can investigate is the possibility that the hijackers are getting information from someone inside this building.

Russian, I think again. Ilyas Shishani, yes, but there's only one fluent Russian speaker in the office: my Henry.

I put that away because it makes no sense. Whether or not he's the right man for me, Henry Pelham is racked by the question of rightness. He risked his career raging against our policies back in Moscow, and more than any one of us pencil-pushers he regularly risks his life for the defense of our aims. When it comes to betrayal, anything is possible, but Henry is the least likely of all possibilities.

Where to start?

For a moment, I don't know. Do I tell someone? Who? If the senior members of this station are suspects, then none of them—not even Henry—can be told anything yet. I have to start with the most basic research I can do on my own, and then work up from there. Start with embassy phone logs, in case someone was stupid enough to use an office phone. Move to cell phone records—if, in fact, I can access them without setting off alarms back at Langley. Then take another look at the personnel files, with an eye toward connections.

Keep it simple, I think.

So I get up and head over to Gene's desk among the maze of cubicles that take up most of the floor. His collar's undone, and he's bleary-eyed, already too tired to ogle me. I ask him for the phone logs.

A half hour later, after listening to Gene's patronizing refusal, then going to Sharon, Vick's secretary, for approval, I'm sitting at Bill's desk, and there it is: the line that makes my heart stop. At 9:38
P.M.
, a call from extension 4952. A twenty-seven-second call. To country code 962, city code 6. Jordan, Amman.