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

has one. He also claims to have some very hot poop. We haven’t known what to do with him, so we haven’t done anything. He’s kind of an oddball, to be honest. I don’t suppose that would have any interest.”

“Are you kidding?” said Anna. “Of course it would. When do I start?”

The embassy man smiled. There was something about Anna that made people remember their own first blush of enthusiasm. “Listen,” he said. “I ought to warn you. This guy may be a big nothing. In addition to being weird.”

“No problem,” said Anna. “What’s his name?”

“Ali Ascari. At least that’s the one he’s using with us.”

“When can we arrange a meet?”

“Hold on, sweetie. We need traces. We’ll ask headquarters and Tehran whether they’ve got anything on Ascari, any past connections with us or anybody else. For all we know, we’ve already got a 201 file on him back home, under some other name.”

“So how am I going to meet Mr. Ascari?”

“That shouldn’t be too hard. We’ll use SDFIBBER.”

“Who’s SDFIBBER?”

“He’s an Iranian journalist here in London. His real name is Farduz, or Marduz, something like that. He knows everybody, sees everybody. He’s a perfect access agent. We’ll have him arrange a lunch with you and Ascari.”

“SD is the prefix for Iran?”

“You got it.”

“What’s my rationale for being there? If you don’t mind my asking a dumb question.”

“That’s not a dumb question. That’s a good question. Let’s see. You’re a pretty woman, a friend of SDFIBBER, like to meet interesting people.”

“No way,” said Anna. “He’ll take me for a hooker.”

“Okay. You’re a terribly serious young investment banker with a passionate interest in the Iranian economy. Like that better?”

“Much better.”

“I’ll see what headquarters has to say and get back to you. But they ought to buy it. They’ve gone Iran-crazy back home, now that everything has turned to shit. They’ll approve almost anything.” Anna barely heard him. She was going to handle a case. She was going to swim in the big pool.

12

As Anna lay awake that night, tense with the anticipation of her first assignment, she thought of Dr. Marcus, the agency psychiatrist. He had been Anna’s instructor for a two-week tutorial, “The Psychology of Agent Recruitment,” conducted in one of those crummy motel rooms back in Arlington. And in the way that psychiatrists do, even when they’re making conversation at a cocktail party, he had asked her questions and nodded gravely and said “Um-hum” as she tried self-consciously to answer. Anna hadn’t been sure at first whether she was Dr. Marcus’s pupil or patient, and then had realized that she was both.

When she first met Dr. Marcus, she had been surprised that someone like him could possibly work for the CIA. He looked like an aging graduate student, tall and shabbily dressed, balding with a fringe of matted red hair and dark circles under his eyes. It was the face of a man who had had too much caffeine over the years and too little sleep. He looked, in fact, like a walking illustration for one of his theories about recruitment: a man who hadn’t achieved all that he might have in life, and was therefore vulnerable to an approach. Except in his case, he wasn’t vulnerable. He asked all the questions.

The first few sessions had been like psychotherapy. The point was simply to talk, Dr. Marcus said, and cover any personal details that might have been skipped during the initial screening. Anna soon discovered that Dr. Marcus had a habit of pausing in mid-conversation, often for a very long time, and she found herself blurting out odd things about herself to fill the dead space. She wanted to be helpful. Dr. Marcus would ask a simple question about her graduate work and Anna would volunteer: “My father never wanted me to go to graduate school.”

“Um-hum,” Dr. Marcus would say in his flat, affectless voice. “And why was that?”

“I think he wanted me to go into the foreign service.”

“Um-hum.”

“But probably not the CIA.”

“And why not?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was afraid of it. Foreign service officers don’t usually like the CIA.”

“And does that make the CIA more attractive for you, Anna, the fact that your father didn’t approve of it?”

At this point Anna would want to punch Dr. Marcus in the nose. But he looked so hungry for words, and so harmless, that she was soon offering up some other morsel. She would talk about her useless brother in New Mexico, or her ex-boyfriend in Cambridge, or her brief and laughable experience with marijuana in college. Anything to keep poor Dr. Marcus from looking so forlorn. He seemed especially interested in Anna’s life as a woman. “Would you describe yourself as a feminist?” he asked during their second session.

“Yes, of course,” answered Anna.

“Why do you say ‘of course’?”

“Because for a woman my age it’s like saying you’re a woman.”

“Um-hum. And why is that?”

“Because. It just is. If you live in America and believe in your country, you say you’re an American. If you’re a woman and you believe in yourself, you say you’re a feminist. It’s no big deal.”

“Why not?”

“Okay. It is a big deal, to some people.”

“But not to you.”

“Yes, it is to me, too.”

“And what does it mean to you to be a feminist?”

“It means you stand on your own. You make decisions for yourself. You don’t just do what men tell you.”

“What if men are telling you to do something sensible?”

“Then you do it, of course. Give me a break, Dr. Marcus.”

“I see. And do you like men?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“What do you mean ‘of course’?”

“I mean I like men. I like talking to them. I like going to the movies with them. I like sleeping with them. I like men. Get the picture?”

“And do feminists like men?”

“Jesus Christ! How should I know? Some do. Some don’t. It all depends on their personal experience.”

“I see. And what has your personal experience been?”

“Good, mostly. Occasionally bad. But I’m careful.”

“Careful of