The Increment (7 page)

The White House, curiously,
was one of those places that reminded a visitor what Washington used to be, before the layers of institutional deception had hardened and the staffs had expanded like replicating zombies in
Night of the Living Dead
. The West Wing was so small it didn’t fit many people, for one thing. The president and his top aides were all jammed together in adjacent offices, so that they couldn’t escape each other’s company. And you realized, once inside the Secret Service cordon, that the president of the United States was just a
politician
, surrounded by courtiers and glad-handers and people seeking favors. He was as prone to making stupid decisions as any other politician, maybe more so. The real secret about the White House was that it was so ordinary—mediocrity on steroids.

The West Wing lobby was like the sitting room outside a governor’s office—and not a very big state, either. A secretary manned a desk to the right of the door; sofas and easy chairs were arrayed at the three other corners of the room. Primping on the upholstery were cabinet secretaries, presidential chums from back home, conniving lobbyists, and shopworn members of Congress—all waiting to see the president and his top aides. The walls were decorated with old paintings—cowboys and Indians and landscapes of a frontier nation; Washington crossing the Delaware, that founding myth of American determination. If you added a spittoon and the smell of stale cigars, you would be back in Lincoln’s White House.

Intelligence briefers didn’t enter through the main lobby, though. They usually took the side door on the ground floor, which opened onto the little street between the West Wing and the Old Executive Office Building. They would arrive by car from Langley, or on foot from the intelligence community’s hush-hush office on F Street. Often they would descend to the Situation Room and other hidden bunkers crammed with electronics. The CIA emissaries in this respect were part of a different White House, one that had no connection with spittoons and cigars but was a product of the imperial superstate that had emerged after 1945. They were the side-door boys, unaccountable to the politicians and petitioners camped out in the West Wing lobby.

They arrived just before 7:00 p.m. The director was wearing his summer dress navy uniform. Starched white, accented by the gold of his admirals’ stars and the multicolored battle ribbons. He always looked more comfortable in his uniform, like an actor in his proper costume. Fox and Pappas followed along behind in their business suits, the former sleek and well tailored, the latter creased and baggy.

The president was hosting a cocktail reception that evening in the Yellow Parlor upstairs for a few members of Congress and their spouses. He hated that sort of socializing, it was said, but they were desperate for votes. The plan was for the agency team to brief the national security adviser, Stewart Appleman, and then, if he decided it was appropriate, to summon the president.

The director climbed the stairs from the ground-floor entrance, followed by Fox and then Pappas; upstairs they took a left down the narrow corridor toward Appleman’s office. The NSC intelligence liaison was waiting there, and the visitors could barely fit in the anteroom. Eventually the door opened and the adviser peered out of his corner office. He was an uncannily youthful man, for all the secrets he had digested over a thirty-year career as a national security bureaucrat. He dressed in the tidy, timeless look of a Brooks Brothers lifer, still wearing the same style of penny loafers and button-down shirts that he had in prep school.

“Can we do this here?” asked Appleman, motioning to his inner office. The last sunlight of the late summer afternoon was filtering through his windows. The room was the bland color of eggshells, decorated with nautical paintings and the inevitable tableaux of the Old West. Appleman stood at his door deferentially, waiting for them to enter. He was so polite, even the president tended to treat him dismissively, barking out his last name as if he were a house servant.

“Perhaps downstairs,” said the director. “This is a little sensitive.”

So they went down to the Situation Room. Through the big door at the bottom of the stairs, past the guard post that was staffed twenty-four hours a day, just in case. They made a peculiar parade, descending the stairwell and assembling around the conference table. The national security adviser took off his suit jacket, even though the room was chilly as a wine cellar, and everyone else did the same.

“The Iranians have restarted the weapons program,” said the director. “They’re working on a trigger.” He wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

“Holy Toledo!” said Appleman. He did not like to use curse words. “Are you sure?”

“We have an agent inside. Or so it seems.”

“At last!” said Appleman. He ventured a thin smile, but it was hard to read: at last they had an Iranian agent, or at last they were telling him about it? Fox had probably briefed him weeks ago.

“The president had almost given up on you fellows. But what’s this ‘so it seems’? Either you have an agent or you don’t, right? Or am I missing something?”

The director’s navy cap was sitting on the table, all gold braid. He was out of his element. He turned to Pappas. “Harry can explain.”

“He’s what we call a virtual walk-in,” said Pappas. “He came in through the website. He’s like the Soviet defectors who walked into our embassies in the old days, but the computer-era version. We call him ‘Dr. Ali,’ but we don’t really know who he is. We can make some educated guesses based on the information he has sent us, but we’ve never laid eyes on the guy. He first pinged the website in June. We messaged back and got nothing, so we were suspicious. But a few days ago we got some good stuff. Very good. So I’m thinking he’s the real thing.”

“Tell me more about this ‘good stuff,’ please.” The national security adviser was leaning across the table toward the agency visitors.

“Stewart, if I might,” broke in Fox. “Let’s not make this too complicated. Our asset in Tehran has sent proof that the Iranians are making a bomb. Not thinking about it, not preparing the fuel, but doing it. They are working on the neutron generator. Bingo. This is what we’ve been looking for. The smoking gun. Next thing, they will be conducting an actual nuclear weapons test.”

The air seemed to go out of the room suddenly, suspending everyone in a vacuum. Fox was trying to look grim, but there was a smile of satisfaction on his lips, just a trace. It escaped no one’s attention that Fox had used the national security adviser’s first name. They were social friends, it was rumored at the agency. Political friends, too.

“How can you be sure, Arthur?” said the national security adviser, breaking the silence. He nodded in Harry’s direction. “I mean, if you don’t even know who he is.”

Appleman was a believer, but he didn’t want to get burned if the intelligence was wrong. He had watched that movie play out with Iraq.

“We don’t
have
to know his identity, Stewart,” replied Fox.

“Why not?”

“Because his information is his bona fides. He has sent us documents that could only come from inside the nuclear program. The first message was a summary of their enrichment of uranium. It told us two things: that they were moving toward weapons grade on their highly enriched uranium track, and that they might—might—have a second track to produce plutonium. We briefed it to you, but we didn’t have any collateral. Now he sends this new document. It describes Iranian experiments with a neutron generator. This fits with either a uranium or a plutonium track, but that’s not the point. The fact is that they are assembling the pieces of a bomb, Stewart. They are nearing a breakout. They’re having trouble getting the hardware to work, but they’ll figure it out. We’re running out of time.
That’s
the point.”

The national security adviser asked the director if he agreed with Fox’s technical assessment. The director nodded. “If Arthur and his team at CPD say it’s the real thing, I’m ready to weigh anchor.”

Harry winced inwardly as he listened to the simple formulation offered by Fox and endorsed by the admiral. They were making it sound too easy. Open and shut. He looked toward the screens and monitors that lined the walls. This room had been designed as a command post for the president to wage war. Those were the stakes.

Harry cleared his throat to speak. Fox pulled back uneasily, but Appleman was attentive.

“Can I say something?” asked Harry.

“Of course,” said the national security adviser.

“We need to be careful, sir. I’m sorry to sound like a pussy, but I have to tell you that. This case is murky. We don’t really know the source, or where he’s coming from. To the extent we understand this document, it says they’re having trouble making things work, not that they’re about to break out. You policy folks have to make the big decisions, but as an intelligence officer, I wish I had better information for you. That’s all, just a blinking yellow light from an old case officer who has been burned too many times.”

Appleman removed his tortoiseshell glasses and polished them against the silk of his striped orange-and-black tie. He was a Prince ton man. He shared that distinction with Fox. Pappas had gone to Boston College, hustled his way into ROTC, and felt lucky to graduate. Appleman put his glasses back on and raised his hand, palm outward, as if he were stopping traffic.

“Caution noted. Registered. Appreciated. But, ah, before we go any further, the president needs to hear this. Right away, I think.” He paused, thinking something over, and then continued. “The president doesn’t like crowds, so I want just two of you to join me.” He turned toward the director. “Whoever you like.”

The director nodded to Fox. He was the designated briefer on this case, anyway. “Arthur?”

“Whatever you say, sir.” He relaxed his squint for a moment.

The president was contacted
in the family quarters. He would be down in fifteen minutes, as soon as he finished making his apologies to the congressmen. Pappas went upstairs and waited in the anteroom outside the national security adviser’s office. He had been there nearly an hour when his stomach began to growl. He thought about going over to the snack bar in the Old EOB and getting something to eat, but he wanted to be there when the director returned. That was his ride. It was also the only way he would know what had been discussed outside his hearing.

When the director and Fox finally trundled back upstairs, it was nearly 9:00 p.m. Fox looked disappointed that Pappas was still there, but the director seemed pleased. He wasn’t stupid. Fox apologized that he would be going back to the agency separately. He had a dinner meeting downtown, he said, and he would summon a car from Langley when he was done. Pappas rolled his eyes. Fox was so obvious. He was going to have dinner with Stewart Appleman. Why didn’t he fucking say so?

“Let’s go home,” said the director.

He didn’t say another word until they were in the limousine, heading toward the George Washington Parkway that would take them back to Langley. The silence was oppressive in the big car.

“So?” said Pappas when they had gone a few blocks.

“So…what?” answered the director.

“So what did the president say, for chrissakes?”

“He said ‘holy shit,’ or words to that effect. He said we need to prepare military options if the Iranians are moving toward a nuclear test. He also said we need to know more. About the neutron gizmo, and the plutonium track, and the whole damn thing. I told him he was right. The truth is, we don’t really know very much.”

Pappas smiled. He was relieved. He was never sure the director really understood how imperfect a picture was drawn by intelligence information. And he had no sense at all of how the president made decisions. But this had turned out about right.

“Arthur must be disappointed,” said Pappas. “It sounded like he wanted to launch the cruise missiles tonight, from the way he was talking to Appleman.”

“He gave the president a hard-edged briefing. As you would expect. But he didn’t go beyond what we have, if that’s what you’re worrying about. He was…appropriate.”

The director looked tired. Weighed down by all the secrets he was carrying around. Even his uniform didn’t look quite as starchy as usual. Pappas put his hand on the boss’s shoulder. They weren’t friends, really, but he looked like a man who needed one.

“This is dangerous,” said Pappas.

“No shit.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find out more about Dr. Ali. Who is he? What does he really know? What else can he tell us about the program? How can we run him effectively? That’s just for starters. They’re going to want to squeeze him hard, and rattle the cage some. After tonight, we can’t make any mistakes with this case. None.”

“Not so easy, Admiral. We have nothing on the guy, and we don’t have good ways of finding out more. We don’t have a station in Tehran. And I don’t want to send in a non-official cover. If a NOC got caught, he wouldn’t have diplomatic immunity. A few days in Evin Prison and even the toughest son-of-a-bitch would give it up. Dr. Ali would be dead and we’d have no information.”

They were humming along the George Washington Parkway now. There was a full moon out and the river was bathed in pale light, the few boats upriver outlined in half shadow. Harry looked down at the broad estuary. A new species of fish known as snakeheads had invaded these waters in recent years. They had come originally from Asia, nobody quite knew how, and now they were eating the local fish. Someone in NE Division had suggested that perhaps the thing to do was to get an even bigger and meaner fish from somewhere else, and let them eat the snakeheads. That was what it was coming to.

“What’s the alternative?” asked the director. “If it’s too dangerous to send in a NOC, what do we do?”

Harry thought a moment. He had been pondering this question himself for several weeks, even before the receipt of this latest message. How could they identify a frightened Iranian computer geek who insisted on remaining in hiding? How could they reach into the miasma of Tehran, a city of nearly 12 million people, and pluck out the one person they needed? You couldn’t do it from Dubai. You couldn’t do it from Istanbul. You certainly couldn’t do it from Langley. You had to be there. That was the puzzle Harry had been trying to solve, and he knew he needed help.