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

like joining a private conspiracy, hearing these tales of suffering and redemption, and to a Radcliffe freshman from an old Yankee family, they left a taste as sharp as a ripe fig.

Anna’s problem was that in addition to liking Armenians, she also liked Turks. She found them, on the whole, a rather attractive and disciplined people. That deepened for her the mystery of what had happened in Turkey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It would have been simpler if the massacres had been conducted by utterly despicable people. But that would have made the moral dilemma too easy. What interested her, Anna decided, was when civilized people did monstrous things. Those were the events worth studying.

Once Anna became an Ottoman historian in earnest, her studies evolved into a search for the moment at which the world had jumped the tracks and the horrific history of the twentieth century—the two world wars, the slaughter of six million Jews, the death of twenty million Soviets during World War II and a like number in Stalin’s gulags—could be said to have begun. Anna suspected that it was Ruth Mugrditchian who knew the true answer. The world went mad on April 8, 1915, the day Ottoman Turks began to march the Armenian population of Anatolia, more than a million people, across the deserts to their death. Like a good scholar, Anna began to look for the roots of that madness. And the search carried her toward the secret world where all great tragedies begin. Eventually, one of her professors approached her and made the necessary introductions. He saw in Anna the ability to work alone, which every scholar must have, and also an idealism and a need to act that could be harnessed to the purposes of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Anna took a big drink of her gin martini. “Here’s to women in the business!” Her bravado didn’t quite conceal the edge of anxiety in her voice.

“Shhh,” said Margaret, clinking her glass.

“I probably shouldn’t say this,” said Anna, “but I’m a little nervous.”

“Of course you are,” answered Margaret. “I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

“Tell me something honestly,” said Anna. “Can a woman really do this job as well as a man?”

“Absolutely,” said Margaret. “I am living proof of it.”

Anna smiled. She knew enough, by this time, to understand the limits of Margaret’s experience and accomplishments. Margaret was a trailblazer, yes. But she had worked mostly at headquarters, mostly in administration. Her recruitments had largely been of American professors and businessmen, nice, gentle, patriotic fellows who traveled to conferences in the Eastern bloc. When she finally made station chief, it was in one of those nondescript little countries of Western Europe where the biggest threat to national security was that somebody might steal the secret recipe for making the national brand of cheese.

“I guess I need a little handholding,” said Anna.

Margaret took Anna’s hand in hers.

“I didn’t mean literally,” said Anna. But she left her hand in Margaret’s for a moment.

“You must remember that women have some big advantages in our line of work,” said the older woman.

“Name one.”

“I’ll name several. We can control our emotions better than men. We can be braver, more disciplined, more discreet. And we can be invisible where a man would immediately be suspect.”

“How can a woman be invisible?”

“What is ordinary is invisible. And there is nothing on earth more ordinary than a woman meeting with a man. That’s why an American woman can go to dinner with a foreign man, even in Moscow, without arousing suspicion. People will look at them drinking and talking, and assume they know what’s going on.”

Anna looked around the restaurant, at the tables of men and women talking. It was true. There was no better cover.

“But women do have one great disadvantage,” said Margaret.

“What’s that?”

“They must deal with men.”

Anna laughed.

“It is a sad fact of life.” Margaret continued, “that the people with secrets are likely to be men. And it is another fact that most men don’t regard women as equals. Consequently, they don’t trust women, and that means they don’t feel comfortable putting their lives in the hands of a woman.”

“They would rather hit on women.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a modern expression. When you say a man is hitting on you, it means he’s trying to go to bed with you.”

“Precisely my point,” said Margaret. “And this presents an obvious problem in our line of work. Because in the early stages of any case, you will have to be alone with the man you hope to recruit. You won’t have told him yet what you really do, but in his mind there will be just two possibilities to explain your interest. Either you want to sleep with him …”

“Or you’re a spy.”

Margaret nodded. “Either way, you have a problem. That is why it would help you professionally if you were less attractive. I don’t mean to be a bore on this subject, and I certainly don’t expect you to go out and gain fifty pounds for the good of the firm. But it would help.”

“You’re not fat,” said Anna.

“No, but I’m old.”

The oysters had arrived. Anna picked one off the plate, held it to her mouth, tipped it upward, and let the oyster slide gently down her throat. Margaret used her fork.

“Let me describe the perfect woman case officer,” said Margaret when the waiter had left. “She would be attractive, but not sexy. She would be confident, without a chip on her shoulder. She would be comfortable about being a woman, but not a women’s libber.”

“What about the perfect male case officer?”

“He doesn’t exist.”

“All right then, the typical male case officer.”

“There is only one useful generalization, from your standpoint. Your male colleagues will be tremendously tempting as sexual partners, because they will be the only people you can fully relax with. My advice is: Don’t do it.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Sleep with them.”

“Of course I did. Every chance I got. But I’m still single, and most of them are still married.”

Anna thought about