Exile Hunter (15 page)

When the President
finally delivered his
Speech Heard Around the World
announcing
the unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from its far-flung military
and intelligence bases overseas, Linder knew that time had run out on
his privileged life as a clandestine services officer posted abroad.
The “every spy a prince” era in American intelligence had finally
come to an end. Field officers would no longer enjoy a
government-paid apartment and car, or collect hazardous duty pay,
cost of living allowance, and a virtually unlimited entertainment and
operational expense stipend.

Back at Headquarters,
not only would he lose the perks and extra pay, but he would lose the
freedom of movement and relaxed supervision that had been fundamental
to clandestine intelligence operations abroad. Until now, the
guarantee of job security, the good life while abroad, and the
relative brevity of Headquarters assignments had made tolerable the
prospect of living like a pauper on a mid-level officer’s salary in
Washington. But once the President dropped his bombshell, it was
clear that most of the Agency’s personnel now posted abroad would
likely be deskbound or unemployed before year’s end. If leaving the
Agency and taking his chances as an émigré abroad had seemed a
non-starter, being sacked by the Agency and left to search for a job
in Washington with a six-year gap in his resume seemed scarcely
better.

Now he wondered what
his family would think if he told them that he intended to quit the
Agency in favor of the newly created Department of State Security.
Perhaps he was being too alarmist. His most recent Agency performance
reports had been strong and he thought he had a good shot at another
promotion this year. If so, he might survive the next cut or two,
weather the storm, and hang on until retirement, or at least long
enough to wangle a transfer to another federal agency or possibly a
gig with a defense contractor who needed an Arabic-speaking sales
rep.

But then again, what if
he lost the game of musical chairs and had to compete for a job in
the real economy against thousands of cashiered counter-terrorism
operators like him? All at once, he recalled how he had started his
Agency career as a reckless, ambitious, pedal-to-the-metal operator
who rarely blinked at outsized risks. Yet now, six years later, he
was prepared to cast his lot with a motley crew of Unionist Party
hacks in the newly formed DSS at the first sign of career turbulence.

* * *

A Bluebird bus with
its telltale tinted windows awaited Linder and a half-dozen other
Agency staffers outside the Amtrak Station when the train arrived.
The drive to the main gate took less than ten minutes. At an inner
gate, out of view from the main one, an armed security guard checked
the papers of each passenger before allowing the bus to enter. The
base had not changed much in six years, Linder thought. The wind
still whispered through the tall groves of longleaf pines, and he
could still spot the foundations of razed World War II barracks and
supply depots here and there among the tall grass. Linder looked
forward to running and biking along the little used road network that
extended into every corner of the base and gaze at the white-tailed
deer, cottontail rabbits, raccoons, and an occasional gray fox that
he might come across.

He stepped off the bus
at the admin building and left his suitcase at the curb. In the
lobby, he found a squad of clerks seated behind a row of folding
tables that resembled the registration desk at a college reunion.
Having identified himself as a participant in the Ops Refresher
Course, he was directed to another table, where he showed his
passport and his training orders, and received a course schedule, an
information packet, a base ID card, and a key to his room in the
Bachelor Officer Quarters.

Linder had been
notified of his assignment to the course within days of reporting
back to Headquarters from Cairo. Unlike most field officers who were
recalled following the President’s unilateral withdrawal order,
Linder had opted not to take the four weeks’ annual leave granted
upon arrival, for he was sure it was intended to give Human Resources
enough time to decide whether to reassign him or add him to the list
of those who would be selected out. Instead, he had chosen a training
course to stay in touch with colleagues and network his way to an
onward assignment.

Linder found his room
in the BOQ, unpacked, took his three-mile run, and settled in for a
short nap before showering up for Happy Hour. He arrived just as the
five o’clock siren sounded. Per military custom, he stopped and
stood at attention while the base flag was lowered and, as it came
down, shuddered to think that, at U.S. military bases on every
continent around the world, the American flag was being lowered for
the last time.

But a moment later he
shook off that gloomy thought and made a beeline for the Officers’
Club to reconnect with friends and get sloshed on cheap PX booze.
Since the bar had just opened, the crowd was still thin. A few older
officers whom Linder recognized as instructors had taken their
accustomed places at the rail while assorted couples and foursomes
occupied tables and booths around the room. At its center, a
bartender laid a spread with pretzels, peanuts, chips, dip, cheese,
crackers, and a chafing dish of the club’s renowned Bambi Balls,
venison meatballs prepared from animals culled during the base’s
annual deer drive.

It took only a few
moments for Linder to detect the subdued mood among the club’s
patrons. Despite the relief that many of the new arrivals must have
felt at remaining on the payroll for another month, tonight’s crowd
seemed far less spirited than he would have expected on the opening
night of a new course for veteran officers.

It had been barely a
month since the President had called a surprise mid-week press
conference to declare victory in the war on terror, tyranny, and
villainy around the world and order U.S. military and intelligence
withdrawn from their overseas facilities. The resulting contraction
in America’s military-industrial complex, the President promised,
would generate an unprecedented peace dividend that his
administration would earmark for the rebuilding of America’s
infrastructure following the devastation suffered during the Events.

At Agency Headquarters,
the Pentagon, and the plush office suites of defense contractors in
Rosslyn, Arlington, and Crystal City, grizzled veterans of bygone
wars recalled the dark days after the Fall of Saigon, when Southeast
Asia hands and counterinsurgency experts suddenly became a dime a
dozen. Now Arabists and counter-terror experts would take their turn
at being redundant. But this time, rather than being permitted to
walk the halls and lobby their friends for new assignments, the Human
Resources people were keeping as many returnees as possible out of
the capital, sending them instead on home leave, to remote training
sites, or to temporary duty assignments, trying to isolate them and
reduce the opportunity for collective action during this wholesale
liquidation of America’s warrior class.

Rumors were already
circulating among those accepted for the Ops Refresher Course that
course performance evaluations would be used to assess each
participant’s prospects for future advancement in the Agency and
that, unlike previous course sessions, which had little impact on
careers, the final evaluation interviews would represent a “come to
Jesus” moment for many of the participants.

Linder approached the
bar and ordered a double bourbon on the rocks. While he waited for
his drink, he scanned the room for familiar faces and allowed his
mind to wander back to his first stay at the Farm for the
Introductory Ops Course. It had been his first taste of spying and he
had loved everything about it, scoring near the top of his class. On
his return for the full Intelligence Operations Course later in the
year, he had been a standout.

Though the role-playing
exercises had seemed contrived at first, Linder found that he
possessed a unique combination of traits that suited him to human
intelligence collection, including a keen insight into motives, a
facility for thinking on his feet, adroit problem-solving abilities,
and an uncanny intuitive sense. While gifted at building rapport and
trust during role-playing exercises, he also did not shirk from lying
when necessary and possessed the predatory instinct to detect
exploitable weaknesses in others. In Linder, Agency trainers found a
willing and adept pupil in the art of suborning the flawed, the vain,
and the weak, expanding their range of conscience to include
betrayal, and otherwise bending them to his will.

To his delight, Linder
also achieved a maximum score on the Modern Language Aptitude Test
and was selected for accelerated Arabic training, initially in
suburban Virginia and later in Beirut. By the time he left for the
field, his superiors and colleagues in the Middle East Division
considered him an emerging talent.

Linder had a vivid
recollection of the moment when he realized that he had found his
calling. It was in his first or second agent recruiting exercise at
the Farm. After he had pitched the target, he knew he could do this,
and, even more, he knew he could do it better than most of his
classmates without breaking a sweat. One instructor wrote in an
evaluation that his gift was equivalent to someone stepping on a golf
course for the first time and having the kind of perfect, embedded
swing that an instructor just can’t teach.

As he relived that
heady feeling, Linder realized how depleted he felt after three
consecutive tours of duty in the field. His pride and ambition had
driven him to seek continual recognition and to expect continual
praise as his due. By the time he left Cairo, he was setting
unrealistic goals and becoming frustrated at not meeting them. He
took offense at minor slights and setbacks and sensed that his
self-confidence had turned brittle.

Maybe I’ve lost my
edge, he thought. Maybe I just don’t have the level of passion and
commitment to keep doing this job. Maybe it’s time to walk away for
my own good. He thought of the champion boxer who saw himself in the
mirror one morning after partying too heavily and said, “Now,
that
guy should stay out of the ring.”

While Linder mulled
over his career options at the bar, he felt a gentle tap on the
shoulder. It was Jack Moran, one of Linder’s former instructors in
the Ops Course, who had served until recently as Chief of Station at
a midsized post in Central America. By coincidence, Moran had been a
middleweight boxer in the Navy and still maintained his fighting
weight on a wiry five foot ten inch frame. He was one of the most
likable Agency men Linder knew and, except for his broken nose, few
would suspect that he had been a knockout expert in the ring or was a
highly decorated intelligence officer.

“Mind if I join you?”
Moran asked with a gentle smile. “Looks like you were doing some
serious thinking.”

“Yeah. Watch out, it
might be contagious,” Linder replied, gesturing toward the solemn
faces seen around the room. “Let me buy you a drink, Jack,”
Linder offered. “I’m just killing time till an old buddy of mine
shows up and we go out for some dinner. I could use the distraction.”

Moran ordered a scotch
and soda and, when it arrived, the two men settled into a booth at a
far corner of the room.

After catching up on
recent events for each, Moran revealed that he had come to the Farm
to serve out one last year before retiring, as the extra year would
make a big difference in his retirement pay. He had been hoping to
serve another tour as COS in Latin America but a heart condition had
blocked his medical clearance. Like many other senior Headquarters
officers, he had been pulled into the training assignment soon after
the President’s speech to accommodate the volume of returning field
officers who were to be kept busy in courses like this until it could
be decided who would stay and who would go.

Since Moran was
teaching the Introductory Ops Course this month rather than the
refresher course, Linder asked if he might ask him for some career
advice.

“Frankly, I’ve been
thinking of getting out,” he told his former mentor.

“Don’t expect me to
be shocked,” Moran answered, scooping a handful of salted peanuts
from the dish between them.

“Why, don’t you
think I’ll make the cut?” Linder answered, suddenly stiffening.

“No, it’s not
that,” the older man assured him, laying a hand on his arm. “I
happen to think you’re a fine officer. In a normal world, there’s
no limit to what you could achieve in this Agency. But these are not
normal times, and the Agency isn’t what it was when you or I joined
it. If there’s something you’d rather be doing with your life,
I’d say now’s the time to go for it.”

Linder recalled how
Moran had risked his career rather than to be drawn into the war on
terror in the decade after 9-11. The older officer had once confided
to Linder that he had become an intelligence officer to steal the
kind of secrets that made America strong, not to build target files
against whoever landed on the government’s enemies list. Back when
Linder had just completed the Ops Course and was choosing a career
specialty, Moran had cautioned Linder against becoming a targets
officer, advice that Linder had promptly ignored.

“Look, Warren, the
President has offered you a golden opportunity,” Moran went on
“Your old career is over. But now, you have an opportunity to do
something useful instead of marking time till retirement in an
organization that’s lost its way. Don’t waste your best years
clinging to a corpse.”

Linder was surprised by
Moran’s uncharacteristic pessimism.

“Come on, Jack, the
President isn’t so stupid that he would stop spying completely,”
he protested. “He’s got to keep some of us out in the field.”