Siro by David Ignatius (short books to read txt) 📕

Taylor. “Don’t fight with this security guy anymore. It’s not his fault. Just be honest with him. Answer the questions he and his friends put to you, and everything will come out fine. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

But Munzer barely heard him. He was still muttering Uzbek curses.

Taylor was formally placed on administrative leave the next day and ordered to return to Washington. Before he left the consulate for the last time, his deputy asked to speak with him. He was elaborately apologetic, in a way that only highlighted his pleasure at the prospect of replacing Taylor. Still, something impelled the deputy—whether genuine concern for Taylor’s operation or a desire to hedge his bets back home—to confide a final bit of intelligence. There was one thing, he said, that Taylor and his friends should probably know. The Soviet consul general and his wife had been called home suddenly to Moscow, and a special team of KGB headhunters had set up shop in the salmon-pink palace on Istiklal Avenue. Taylor nodded. Stone had evidently played his last card.

Stone’s other calls that day proved no more successful than the one to Taylor. He tried Anna, but she had left her hotel in Paris a week before. The assistant manager there said she had gone to Deauville for a brief holiday. The assistant manager thought that was very strange—going to the Normandy coast in October—but yes, the American woman had left the address and telephone number of the hotel where she would be staying. Stone tried the number and asked for a Miss Morgan. Nobody by that name was registered. He asked for Anna Barnes. Yes, said the desk clerk, a woman by that name was staying in the hotel, but she was out. Stone left his name and said he would call back.

Stone’s final call that day was to Frank Hoffman in Athens. A tape-recorded message said that all calls were being handled by Hoffman’s administrative assistant, a certain Mr. Panos. Stone telephoned this gentleman and demanded, in his most authoritative tone, to know where Hoffman was.

“Are you from the embassy?” asked Mr. Panos.

“I’m from higher up, in Washington,” answered Stone.

“I tell you same thing I tell embassy man today,” said the Greek. “Mr. Hoffman is not here. He is gone. Traveling.”

“Where?”

“He is gone traveling to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Hoffman has a Saudi diplomatic passport, you know.”

“Remind me of the name on that passport.”

“Rashid al-Fazooli.”

“What about the Iranian gentleman who has been working with Mr. Hoffman. His name is Mr. Ascari. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“He is gone, too.”

“Where?”

“Back to Tehran.”

“What happened to him?”

“Mr. Hoffman fired him. He got very angry, Mr. Hoffman.”

“Why?”

“I am not sure I should tell you,” said the Greek.

“Yes,” said Stone crisply. “You should tell me. Mr. Hoffman would be angry with you if you didn’t.” There was something hypnotic about Stone’s voice that commanded respect, even from strangers.

“Mr. Ascari wanted more money,” explained Mr. Panos, lowering his voice even on the phone. “He want to be vice president of Arab-American Security Consultants. Open Tehran office. But Mr. Hoffman said no.”

“Then what happened?”

“Ascari try to get even, and Greeks find out. They tell Mr. Hoffman that Ascari no good.”

“How’s that?”

“Ascari no good. Rotten apple.”

“How did they know? Did he do something?”

“They photograph him going into Russian embassy in Athens, and they tell Mr. Hoffman. That’s why he fire him. Then Mr. Hoffman leave real quick. He decide this is good time to go to Saudi Arabia, visit clients. You got any message?”

“No. No message. I’m sure Mr. Hoffman can fend for himself quite adequately.”

41

Stone continued to come to work each morning, repairing to his small office hidden amid the maze of Langley. The day after the big raid, several people from the Office of Security stopped by to ask about the missing Karpetland files. Stone said he didn’t know what they were talking about. He retained a lawyer later that afternoon, from a Washington law firm whose leading partners were, like Stone, fanatical tennis and squash players and, perhaps as a consequence, had a reputation as especially fierce negotiators. Stone’s lawyer advised him to say nothing to anyone. Everything would work out. That advice cost $250 an hour, a reduced rate since Stone was a friend.

The Inspector General himself paid a visit after several days, looking very embarrassed. He said he had recused himself from the case, owing to his long-standing friendship with Stone, but he wanted to ask one favor. The director was planning to request the French police to issue an arrest warrant later that day for Anna Barnes, unless Stone agreed to help find her.

“How unpleasant,” said Stone. Of course he would help. He wrote out the address and telephone number of Anna’s hotel in Deauville, and by the next morning she was on her way back to Paris, accompanied by a woman case officer from the Paris station.

Then things were quiet for several days. It was as if the solons of the seventh floor, having come this far, were unsure what to do next—unsure what might come unraveled if they began pulling hard on this particular string. A few of Stone’s most loyal friends took to calling him at home in the evenings and meeting him in parking lots to pass along whatever rustlings of gossip they had heard.

As best Stone could piece it together, the operation had been compromised not so much by one sudden leak as by a long, steady drip of information. In midsummer, the director’s office had instructed the Inspector General to investigate rumors from Radio Liberty’s headquarters in Munich of an unauthorized CIA operation involving Soviet Central Asia. The investigation had been perfunctory at first—people going through the motions, building the necessary alibi files, but not really digging for the truth. At some point, it had become more serious. Apparently, an ambitious young officer in his early forties, who had recently been transferred to the