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

You know people like that?”

“Sure. Some of them are my cousins.”

“Could your cousins take a load of stuff across for us?”

“Why not. Business is business. What you got?”

“Books, mostly.”

“Books? Books is bullshit! You listen to Ali. If you smart, you send VCRs and porno tapes. That is what they want in Baku. Debbie Does Dallas.”

“We’re sending books, you horny son of a bitch. Books and tapes. Religious stuff, nationalist stuff.”

“What for?”

“To make a fucking revolution, that’s what for!”

“Okay, but porno tapes better bet. Honest. Even old ones. Deep Throat. Behind Green Door.”

“Forget the goddam tapes! How soon can your cousins get a shipment moving?”

“Right away. You give to Ali. We get it there a few weeks later. But it cost you plenty. This not cheap. My cousins very greedy.”

“I’ll bet they are. How much do you want?”

“As you like.”

“Cut the crap. Name a price.”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“Fuck off. I’ll give you twenty thousand, if you make it.”

“Ali cannot ask cousins to risk lives for less than seventy-five thousand. In advance.”

“Thirty thousand. Tops.”

“For you, Ali will do it for sixty-five thousand. At this price, no money for Ali himself. But okay. We are partners.”

“Forget it. No deal.”

“You hurt me too much. Sixty thousand.”

“Maybe I’ll go to thirty-five thousand. If you can promise to get it there in two weeks.”

“No. Sorry. Find someone else. Go ahead, turn Ali over to Greek police. I don’t care. Pride is all I have.”

“Forty thousand. Final offer.”

“Fifty-five thousand.”

“Forty-five thousand. Absolute final offer. And I keep the Greek passport for insurance.”

“Why do you hate Ali? Fifty thousand. Best price. You can take out gun and shoot Ali, but still not less than fifty thousand.”

“My friend,” said Hoffman, extending his hand. “You have a deal.”

Anna returned several hours later to find Ascari gone and Hoffman asleep on the couch. A messy tray from room service was on the table, along with a half dozen empty beer bottles. Hoffman had been celebrating, apparently.

“Wake up, Frank,” said Anna.

“Whaaa?”

“Wake up!”

He roused himself and sat up on the couch.

“You were magnificent,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“What are you talking about?”

“With Ascari. That was a textbook lesson in how to establish control. It was worth a whole year of training, just to watch you.”

“Aw, bullshit,” said Hoffman. “That kind of thing only works with a real slimeball like Ascari. Otherwise, it’s useless.”

“Come on! As somebody once said, if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

“Baloney. Don’t listen to all that macho crap. Fear is a lousy way to motivate people.”

“You’re too modest. What’s better than fear?”

“Positive control,” said Hoffman. He reached over to one of the beer bottles and drained the last few drops. That seemed to refresh him.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that when you’re trying to recruit someone, you want him to do things because he’s going to benefit from the relationship, not because you’re about to bust his balls. Except in the case of someone like this guy Ascari, who’s just an asshole and only wants money.”

“It’s funny. But you sound like a woman case officer I know. She tried to tell me the same thing a few months ago.”

Hoffman smiled. “Margaret Houghton,” he said.

“That’s right. How did you guess?”

“Because there ain’t that many woman case officers, sweetheart. At least not ones that know the business. How do you know Margaret anyway?”

“She’s an old family friend. She knew my father years ago, when he was starting out in the foreign service. I’ve known her all my life.”

Hoffman thought to himself a long moment. “Remind me what your real name is. I have trouble remembering real names.”

“Barnes. Anna Barnes.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I knew a guy in the agency with that last name once, in Germany. I can’t exactly remember his first name. Frederick. I think, or Philip.”

“My father’s name was Philip.”

“Maybe it was the same guy.”

“Probably not. My father spent most of his career in the State Department.”

“He became an ambassador, right?”

“Yes. To Kuala Lumpur, then to Helsinki.”

“Same guy. He worked with me in OPC, right after the agency was formed, in 1948 or ’49. Then he joined the striped-pants set.”

Anna shook her head. She had suspected it, imagined it. But still, it was a shock to hear someone say it. “My father was in the CIA?”

“Yup!”

“What did he do?”

“A shit job. That’s why he left.”

“What was it? I’ve always wanted to know what my father did after the war. He never talked about it.”

“I’m not surprised. What he did was send a lot of poor Russian sons of bitches off to get killed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It wasn’t his fault. That was the job. We were prospecting for Russian agents in the DP camps, looking for people we could play back into the Soviet Union. The Russians were terrified. They had fought with the Germans in Vlasov’s army, a lot of them. Or they had just deserted. Stalin wanted them back. Your dad’s job, if I remember rightly, was to decide which ones were usable.”

“What did he do with the rest?”

“He sent them back to Russia.”

“To get killed?”

“Most of them. It was a bad scene. These poor guys would hang on to us, pleading, sobbing. Anything to keep from getting on that train. A lot of them would throw themselves under the wheels rather than go back to the Soviet Union. It was an awful job.”

“What did my father do about it?”

“After a while, he decided it was all bullshit. The agency, I mean. So he left. Didn’t he ever tell you about it?”

“Just once, sort of,” said Anna. “Before he died.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me never to be a spy, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

“So why the hell did you join up? You should have known better.”

Anna thought a minute. “I wanted to do something that would make a difference.”

“Make the world a better and safer place?”

“I guess that’s right. I know it probably sounds ridiculous.”

“No, it doesn’t sound ridiculous,” said Hoffman. “It sounds dangerous.”