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

that. She had no interest in getting married anytime soon. Still, she didn’t think she wanted to end life alone, remembering all the married men she had slept with.

“Would you like to hear some female success stories?” asked Margaret.

“Absolutely. The more successful, the better.”

“You may not like them.”

“Of course I will.”

“All right, but I warned you.” Margaret lowered her voice further, so that it was barely above a whisper.

“The most successful woman operator we ever had began as a secretary. Audrey, I believe her name was. She had no education past high school, and she was married to a mailman.”

“A mailman?” Anna lit another cigarette. “No wonder she went into the business.”

“The mailman divorced her, leaving her with three children to support. Audrey needed a larger salary. Everyone in the clandestine service liked her, so she was promoted to be a clerk in the registry. It turned out that she had a fantastic memory for names and dates, so she was promoted again, to be a research analyst in counterintelligence. And she was superb in that job, so we decided to give her a chance as a case officer overseas, in Europe. Are you getting my point?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Audrey’s secret was that everybody liked her. You couldn’t help it. She had a quality that you find sometimes in a good salesperson in a department store. The woman who’s so warm and friendly that you can’t help talking to her while you’re trying on dresses, and pretty soon you’re telling her your life story and buying something much more expensive than you planned. Audrey was like that. And she had those three children, which made her respectable and safe, and discouraged foolishness on the part of men. Even though she was quite attractive. Bosomy, with very blond hair, nail polish, that sort of thing.”

“Cheap, in other words.”

“No. Not cheap. Just down-to-earth. We sent her to Europe, as third secretary in one of our big embassies, and targeted her on an engineer who had access to very secret research. He was in his late fifties, with a wife back in the provinces, and he was quite lonely. So Audrey began seeing him in the evenings. They would go out to a restaurant, or a movie. But never to bed. Audrey made sure of that, and the three children helped reinforce it. If it got late, she would remind the engineer that she had to get home to her children. Or sometimes she would invite him over to dinner, and he would play with the kids. They became like a second family for him.”

“So how did she recruit him? Or did she leave that to one of the boys?”

“I’m getting to that. Audrey encouraged the scientist to talk about his work, as any woman would with a man she liked. And at some point she said, ‘Listen, someone in my office is very interested in this subject. Could you help us by pulling together some newspaper articles about it?’ And then, a few months later, she asked if maybe he could write a little analysis of his own, and then, maybe a longer study? And before long, the engineer was bringing Audrey documents out of his safe. He loved her, you see, even though it wasn’t sexual. It was a classic case, in its way.”

“Very sweet,” said Anna. “But I’d love to hear a success story that doesn’t involve an ex-secretary with a heart of gold.”

“Don’t be a snob, dearie.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it must have sounded. It’s just that Audrey’s approach—the three children and all that—doesn’t seem very relevant for a single, childless Ottoman historian manqué.”

“Fair enough,” said Margaret. “I’ll give you another example. But I’m not sure you’re going to like it any better than the first one.”

“Try me.”

“I’m thinking of a woman whose background was very similar to yours. She was an economist, with a degree from Bryn Mawr and a doctorate from somewhere or other. A charming, cultivated woman from a good family. And she proved to be one of our better women recruiters.”

“What was her trick?”

“She played to her strengths. She was an elegant, upper-middle-class woman who traveled easily in that world and used it to her advantage. We put her in the proper milieu in Western Europe, where she could make contact with foreigners of a similar background. We gave her appropriate diplomatic rank, high enough that she could entertain people who mattered. Eventually, she began to get access to real information.”

“That’s a marvelous story. Why did you think I wouldn’t like it?”

“Because the woman in question was a bit heavy. That was probably one of her advantages. It helped her men friends feel more comfortable with her. The sexual tension wasn’t there.”

Anna frowned. “You make it sound as if men are only comfortable with ugly women.”

“You misunderstand me,” said Margaret. She finished the last of her oysters and laid the shells in a row. “What I am saying is that in this era of sexual freedom, it is more difficult than you might think for a young, attractive American woman to get a foreign man to think about something other than sex. There is a notion abroad in the world that American women are easy lays.”

“Outrageous!” said Anna. She studied the neat row of oyster shells. For such a personal subject, the conversation seemed awfully impersonal. “Margaret?” she ventured.

“Yes.”

“What did you do when someone you were trying to recruit made a pass at you?”

“Ah,” said Margaret. She closed her eyes and brushed one of those invisible hairs away from her face. “What did I do? Generally, I would pretend that it wasn’t happening. I would maintain distance in the thousands of subtle ways that a woman can. Some women, without realizing it, often seem to be saying yes—through the tone of their voice, the look in their eye, the way they sit in a chair. Generally, I tried to make sure that I was saying no.”

“Generally?”

“Every case is different. Sometimes it’s