EXFIL by Anthony Patton (best book reader txt) 📕

into the wee hours of the evening, downing drink after drink, and then chat about the big cricket match with the cafeteria cooks the next morning over a glass of mango lassi. His wife Claire could handle the drinking, but Brett’s dalliance with a prominent Pakistani socialite was the straw that broke the camel’s back and resulted in a messy divorce. We enjoyed admiring the beautiful women on the diplomatic circuit, but cheating on Beth wasn’t yet in my repertoire.

One thing I found intriguing and troubling about Brett was the way Beth and other women responded to him. One moment, alone with me, Beth would roll her eyes and groan in disgust about how she thought Brett was such a pig, and the next moment she was beside herself with laughter or making intellectual chitchat with him. She was never disrespectful to me and never flirty with Brett, but there were times when I had to act as though it didn’t bother me when I observed it while I mingled. Brett had planted the seed in her mind that she was destined for academic greatness; he had also called in a few favors with professors and universities over the years, to provide her the branding she needed and deserved for her papers and articles.

Brett was never slimy enough to make passes at other wives, as far as I knew, but many secretly wondered why their husbands couldn’t make them laugh quite the same way he did, unaware that this same magic made possible what they found so offensive—the bad boy paradox. I shared many of his gifts but was foolish enough at the time to think nothing darker was ever lurking within me.

It was Brett who explained to me the difference between the art and the science of intelligence operations. We both aspired to run at least one operation that rose to the level of art, no matter what the cost, and recognized that getting approval for such a play might grind the bureaucracy to a halt. The most creative and talented Intelligence Officers eschewed the bureaucratic promotion ladder, which is not to say they avoided it altogether.

Brett and I crossed paths a few times during the next ten years. Although he never lost his charm, he packed on a few pounds and his drinking got worse. I heard he had a second failed marriage, but we never discussed it.

Brett was always a purist in terms of building rapport to advance the relationship with a would-be source over time, which probably explained why he was opposed to our coercive pitch for Chen, even though it conveniently fell right into our laps.

The biggest surprise was learning that our meeting would be held in the FBI Washington Field Office. The FBI ran Chinese sources inside the United States, not overseas.

I was hoping that Brett would reveal something meaningful or profound during this meeting, from one professional to another. What was their interest in Captain Chen?

After presenting my CAC, I was directed to a conference room on the first floor, where Brett and an FBI special agent were sitting in leather chairs and reading files at an oval table.

Brett met me with a firm embrace, looking professorial in his reading glasses and tweed sport coat. His belly was protruding over his belt, though, and the yellowish tinge of his eyes suggested a steady flow of liquor over the years.

I half expected him to call me a son of a bitch, but he merely poured me a cup of coffee in an FBI mug, gesturing to the clean-shaven, buff special agent in a crisp white dress shirt and tie.

“Colonel Reed,” I said.

“Supervisory Special Agent Adam Nguyen,” he said, with badge, holstered weapon, and handcuffs on bold display; you just never knew when you might need to arrest someone in your own office. “I’m the head of our China CI Squad.”

He looked like someone accustomed to seeing life through the black-and-white lens of federal law enforcement. One might have expected an ethnic Chinese to hold such a position, not someone from Vietnam, but the Chinese were often distrustful of their own.

Even of someone working for the FBI.

“I hear Beth’s doing a bang-up job at West Point,” Brett said. “She sent me an invitation to her book-signing event.”

“Then I’ll see you there,” I said and sat.

“Welcome back from Bangkok,” Nguyen said. “We were intrigued by the Captain Chen case.”

This was an odd way to begin the discussion in light of the hate and resistance we’d faced along the way. Given how detailed I had been in my proposal, I wasn’t sure what they wanted me to say, so I opted for a trusty metaphor.

“The scenario wasn’t ideal, admittedly, but we found a weakness and turned the screws.”

Nguyen nodded slightly and jotted a note as if taking testimony for a deposition.

“In your experience, does ‘turning the screws’ ever work?” He glanced at Brett with a shrug. “I mean, time and again, these coercive pitches backfire. Wouldn’t you agree?”

This was an odd statement coming from the FBI, which had a history of running agent provocateurs. I blithely turned my attention to Brett.

“I saw your response to our proposal,” I opened. “Your concerns about coercion were noted. Look, he’s a family man and we had a video of him with a prostitute. I prefer it when they volunteer to work for us, but the Chinese aren’t exactly lining up to give us secrets. Hey, it worked.”

“By ‘work,’ you mean he said yes?” Nguyen asked.

Brett smiled and sipped his coffee, sensing my pain.

“In which case we should expect some good intelligence after the next meeting.” Brett closed a file and removed his reading glasses. “We see he didn’t provide any intelligence during the recruitment meeting. I’m sure that was an oversight.”

I sipped my coffee and nodded—fair enough, but the good folks in D.C. always found ways to Monday-morning quarterback our work in the field. If they had read our cables they would know that Chen was a rising star with