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

“Quite wrong,” repeated Stone. He smiled back at her.

“And in the unlikely event that I should ever meet one of these untouchable characters, who should I tell about it?”

“Oh, I’m probably as good a person to contact as anyone,” said Stone, still smiling. He didn’t look quite so tired anymore.

Stone drained his glass of champagne and glanced at his watch.

“Alas,” he said, “I must attend a meeting back at headquarters. How much nicer it would be to spend the afternoon talking with you about the real work of intelligence. But that would offend the paper pushers, I’m afraid.”

He rose from his chair and shook her hand. “You are a person of considerable talent. I expect great things from you.”

“Thanks,” said Anna.

“You must come see me on your next trip home.”

“I’d like to,” said Anna. “Very much.”

She was going to ask Stone how she could contact him, just in case she ever needed to reach him in a hurry. But he was out the door and gone.

2

The night before Anna Barnes left for London, she had dinner with her mentor, Margaret Houghton. It was a fitting send-off, since it was Margaret who in a sense had gotten the whole thing started. “Aunt Margaret,” though not actually an aunt, was an old friend of the family, a slender, soft-spoken woman who came to dinner on Christmas and Easter and brought the children exotic gifts from around the world.

Anna had known for years, in the way that one knows something mildly scandalous about a relative, that Margaret Houghton did something mysterious for a living. No one would ever say what; apparently it was too awful to be discussed. Anna had forced the issue one Christmas and asked her father where Margaret worked. He had rolled his eyes and said: “You know … up the river.” He might have been talking about the Amazon, for all Anna knew. But when she finally caught on, she found the idea quite titillating. Aunt Margaret worked at the CIA!

Margaret’s cover had always been her gentility. She was a slight woman now in her early sixties, who wore her hair in a neat bun, and would occasionally brush an invisible wisp of it off her scarcely lined forehead. She had a fine, long neck and a graceful carriage, and a trace of an old southern accent in her voice. But there was something about her that hinted that she was a woman who at some point had lived a great adventure. A tragic romance, perhaps, or a fortune squandered. A hundred years ago, people would have described her as “European,” and not meant it entirely as a compliment.

The two of them seemed an innocent enough pair as they entered Jean-Pierre restaurant on K Street: Margaret dressed in a brown tweed suit that hid her figure; Anna in a gray cashmere dress that flattered hers. Two generations of handsome, well-educated women. Mother and daughter, perhaps; or, more likely, a stylish maiden aunt taking her favorite niece out for dinner. A fellow diner would have taken them for anything but what they were. And that, as Margaret liked to say, was only one of the advantages that women had in the intelligence business.

Anna let the maître d’ remove her coat. It had been chilly outside. She tilted her head forward to remove a silk scarf, and back, so that her long black hair fell free. She followed the maître d’ and Margaret to a quiet table in the rear. Anna’s movements were easy and uncontrived, but she caught the attention of several male diners in the restaurant.

“I still have one reservation about you,” said Margaret when they were seated. “You may be too attractive for this line of work.”

Margaret had made a similar observation a year before, when Anna first expressed an interest in joining the clandestine service. She was still a graduate student then, writing the dissertation that she couldn’t seem to finish, living with the man she didn’t quite love, and feeling ready to explode. Initially, Margaret had discouraged her from joining the agency. “If you have something to prove, stay away,” Margaret had said. “We don’t need women with chips on their shoulders, or slits in their skirts.” Margaret’s remark had seemed unfair to Anna then, but the point had been made. Beauty was insecure. It called attention to itself.

“I’m celebrating!” said Anna. She lit a cigarette.

Beauty aside, Anna had struck everyone as a natural for the CIA. Her father had been a foreign service officer, so she had traveled the world as a girl, learning languages and studying strange cultures. Her mother had died of cancer when Anna was in her early teens, so she had drawn even closer to her father. She was still the ambassador’s daughter—still fascinated by his world, still peering through the door of his study to the smoke-filled room where he read his books and drafted his cables. Except now the door was wide open, and she could walk through. In that sense, Anna was part of the new line of succession that had begun to develop in the 1970s among children of the Establishment. The sons might be living at the summer house in Maine year-round, or studying astrology in New Mexico. But the daughters were there, waiting to take their places at the great law firms and banking houses. And yes, even at the CIA.

“Who’s Edward Stone?” asked Anna, exhaling a big puff of smoke.

“Why on earth do you want to know that?”

“I met him a few days ago. He seemed like an awfully nice man, but I couldn’t tell what he wanted.”

“That’s his style,” said Margaret. “He never says what he wants. He lets you figure it out.”

“So you know him.”

“Of course I know him. You forget. I know everybody.”

“What does he do?”

“I’m not entirely sure. He used to run the Near East Division. But I gather he has his own compartment now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I