The Peregrine Spy (5 page)

The lights came back on, “That may be a sign,” said Frank. He studied the room again, glanced at his candle, waited. He set the candle down on the dresser, waited another moment, then blew it out. The lights stayed on. “That is a sign,” said Frank, “I’ll take the room.”

He headed downstairs for his luggage. He and Gus shuttled up and down, maneuvering a bag at a time on the narrow stairway.

“There’s some cans of chicken soup in that kitchen cupboard,” said Gus as he struggled to the top of the stairs.

*   *   *

The steaming ceramic bowls and the cold Formica tabletop conspired to form beaded webs of moisture. Frank stirred his soup, letting the steam spiral up to his nostrils. He could detect no smell. He tried a spoonful. Lukewarm and tasteless. Probably good for a cold, he thought.

“We have to find a better way,” said Gus.

“To eat?”

“Please, Lord,” said Gus, raising his pale, watery eyes over the wire rims of his glasses. Frank guessed that under better circumstances those eyes would be hazel.

“I promise we will,” said Frank. “I’m a good cook.”

From what he knew of Gus’s past, Frank guessed him to be in his mid-fifties. He peered at Frank over the wire-rimmed glasses balanced on the tip of his nose.

“How much warning did you have about this?”

“None,” said Frank. “I got off a plane in Washington, yesterday I think it was, expecting to go to work down that way. Instead, the old buddy who met me at the airport said, ‘Boy, have I got a surprise for you.’”

“Yesterday?”

Frank nodded. “I think yesterday,” He told Gus of the hyperkinetic hours he’d spent in and around Washington.

“Word I got in Rome,” said Gus, “was you’d been briefed at Langley and would fill me in on whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing over here. At least until Archie Bunker got on the scene.”

“Do people really call him Archie?”

“Well, not to his face. Fred Bunker’s his rightful name, and he’s really not an Archie Bunker type, but he’s the kind of good gray bureaucrat that old field farts like me find it hard to take seriously.”

Dan Nitzke’s description had been about the same. “Not much field experience, and for a guy in Covert Action he doesn’t seem to know anything about news media, but, God help you, he’s going to be head of your team.”

That made no sense to Frank, but it seemed consistent with the rest of their assignment. None of it made much sense.

“Let me break it down to you as best I can, the way I got it from Dan Nitzke and a couple of guys in Near East. The idea seemed to originate in the National Security Council. I’d have to guess Pete Howard had a hand in it.”

“Your rabbi,” mumbled Gus.

“People say so,” shrugged Frank. “I got the idea the Near East guys didn’t much like Pete, or me and other Covert Action types.”

“A lot of people resent Pete,” said Gus, “because he’s so good at what he does. And maybe a tad arrogant about it. You can also figure the Near East guys don’t like having to handle an assignment from the National Security Council, which they see as a branch of the White House.”

“What’s wrong with being a branch of the White House?” asked Frank.

“You might be foolish enough to think State, the CIA, the National Security Council, the FBI, the White House, and so on were all on the same side. And the enemy is the Soviet Union and all its Eastern Europe satellites and Communist China. But that would be wrong. Our first and primary enemy is all those other bureaucracies we have to compete with for attention and budget. Plus, within the agency, you and I report to Dean Lomax, Covert Action, right?”

“Right,” said Frank. “I guess.”

“Covert Action has its own turf to protect, and the enemy at the gates is all the other divisions, Near East, Soviet, Eastern Europe, Africa, Far East, and on and on. Not to mention other shops like Counter Intelligence you don’t even want to know about. Competition in house is even worse ’cause it involves career advancement, promotions, pensions, paychecks, all that really important stuff. It’s only when we’re done kickin’ ass with all those other outfits that we can pay some attention to the Soviets.”

“I’ve got a terrible feeling you’re right,” said Frank.

“Yeah, I’m right about all that,” said Gus. “But I still don’t have much of an idea what the job is. And why the hell we got elected.”

“Okay,” said Frank. “You know the Shah has a world of troubles on his hands. Protests. Shootings. Talk of torture. Demonstrations, not just here but Washington, New York, Paris, London. Just about any place that’s got Iranian students. The agency and, I guess, NSC believe the Russians pull the strings.”

“What about this holy man?”

“Khomeini, or whatever his name is?”

Gus nodded.

Frank had seen only a few brief references to the man identified as Ayatullah Khomaini by the
Journal
and Ayatollah Khomeini by the
Washington Post
. How important can he be, Frank wondered, if our leading papers aren’t sure how to spell his name?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I get the feeling both State and Langley think the real problem is the Soviets.”

“Sounds like World War III,” said Gus.

“Maybe not quite.”

“Yeah, it is.” Frank had barely touched his soup. Gus had finished his. “You may as well hear it now. My favorite after-dinner topic. Simpson’s theory of World War III. It’s all the border wars and mad bombers, all the tribal shootups and head bashings that go on all the time all over the world. That’s your World War III, my friend, and it doesn’t matter whether we or the Russkies get involved or not. Fact, unless we think, usually by mistake, that our own national interest is involved, we won’t get involved, and unless some worldwide television cameras stumble into it the rest of the world won’t even much know it’s goin’ on and sure as hell won’t give a damn.”

Frank’s soup had turned cold. He thought of warming it up but knew it would still be tasteless. “I wish we had some booze.”

“Capital idea,” said Gus. “The gentlemen retire to the drawing room for brandy and cigars.”

“And discuss world affairs. Including the Gus Simpson World War III Protocol.”

“Right,” said Gus. “I wish I could drink to that. You know, your old friend Pete Howard for years has been trying to convince our frozen-stiff cold warriors that nationalism has become more important and more of a threat than Communism. The old-school types think World War III will happen between us and the Commies, like their version of what went on in Vietnam. To the Viets, they fought a war for national independence, independence from the French, the Chinese, and then, of course, from us. But we didn’t want to hear that. For us it was a proxy war, just like Korea, us against the Soviets and Chinese Communists with the locals caught in the middle.”

“Still doesn’t sound like a world war,” said Frank.

“Not if you just look at Vietnam. But this world war goes on everywhere, from Northern Ireland to South Africa, from the Philippines to Central America, India and Pakistan, Afars and Issas, Hutus and Tutsis, Jews and Arabs in the Middle East, Arabs and Christians in the Sudan, all the time all over the fuckin’ world.”

“What about here?”

“Sure, here. I mean, I just got off the boat, but I got a hunch what the Iranians want is to run their own country. By now they must be gettin’ pretty tired of the game of nations bein’ played on their lawn. They had the Russians and the Brits tearin’ up their pea patch for more than a century, and the last thirty years or so they got our boots muddyin’ up the carpet. But I got a hunch our friends in Near East Division didn’t have much to say about that.”

“Not hardly,” said Frank. “Our side just wants the military to take over the country and use the Iranian news media to wage a, you know, ‘win the hearts and minds of the people’ campaign.”

“Like we did in Vietnam,” said Gus.

“I didn’t say it was a good idea,” said Frank. “I just said that was the idea. The Shah sent word to the military to set up a joint committee. The acronym, God help us, is Jayface. The Joint Armed Forces Ad Hoc Committee on Enlightenment.”

“God help us is right,” said Gus. “What’s Jayface supposed to do?”

“Learn how to use the news media to enlighten the people about the wonderful role of the armed forces in preserving the nation.”

“And killing its troublemakers?”

“Maybe not too heavy on that,” said Frank. “Maybe we could cook up some worthwhile civic action programs. Publicize that.”

Saying it out loud made him feel uneasy. Gus peered skeptically at him over the rims of his glasses.

“As for why you and me, I guess we’re among the few guys still around the agency with real news media experience and who know how things work in Third World countries.”

“More like how things don’t work,” said Gus.

“Maybe more like that,” said Frank. “Anyway, the ambassador bought into the idea and sold it to the Shah. Seems the Shah had started to wonder if the Americans are still on his side. Jimmy Carter keeps talking about human rights and repression in Iran, and the Shah thinks this just encourages the opposition.”

“I guess it might,” said Gus.

“So maybe our real mission is to show the Shah that the U.S.A. wants to do what it can to help. The final word from one of the Near East guys was something like ‘just show the flag and don’t stir up any trouble.’”

“Wish I’d known,” said Gus. “I would’ve brought a flag.”

Frank wondered how much else he should tell Gus. About all that Pete Howard had said. About the Shah. And about what Pete had called “your one real mission,” Vassily Lermontov—“your hidden agenda,” Pete had added. Frank took that as a warning to keep it hidden.

“Anyway,” he said, “after the Near East guys got done telling me what not to do, Dan took me up to Dean Lomax’s office.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Gus. “Lemme guess. Pete Howard was there.”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “He was.”

“What words of wisdom did they have for you?”

“Well, enough to convince me to take the assignment.”

“You had reservations?”

“Didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, I did. And my wife wasn’t too happy about me flying off into somebody else’s civil war. Again. But I guess my curiosity got the better of me.”

“I can relate to that,” said Frank. “And Pete and Dean Lomax think the job has some real intelligence potential.”

“With our friends in Jayface?”

“That, plus the fact that our Jayface meetings will be at Supreme Commander’s Headquarters, where all the top military brass hang out. If there’s a chance of a military takeover, that could be the place to find out about it.”

“Makes sense.”

“Maybe,” said Frank. “But the guys in Near East told me they had all that covered. That this was just a goofy idea cooked up by NSC that nobody likes except the ambassador.”

“Anyway,” said Gus, “I’m glad the ambassador’s on our side.”

“Yeah, but problem is, our chief of station doesn’t think much of the idea. Or of me.”

“Rocky Novak?” Frank nodded. “What’s he got against you?

“Long story, but we had a run-in a couple of years ago in Rome.”

“On that books-to-Russia deal?”

“You know about it?”

“I inherited it,” said Gus. “Couple years after you fired half the people involved.”

Pete Howard, then still with the agency, and Dean Lomax had been part of what they called a board of directors with oversight of a proprietary company that openly produced Russian-language books, everything from Bibles to Dostoevsky to Solzhenitsyn, and covertly smuggled them into the Soviet Union. With offices in New York and throughout Europe, the operation, particularly in its Rome office, also became deeply involved with Russian refugees during the great exodus of the early 1970s. Sensing problems with the organization, the board recruited Frank to do an efficiency study and make recommendations for changes. Frank uncovered far more problems than the board had ever imagined, including an American agent in charge of the office in Rome who had become deeply involved with the Soviets.

“Rocky was gone by the time I got to Rome,” said Gus, “but word was one guy you got rid of was a big favorite with Rocky.”

“I didn’t fire anybody,” said Frank.

“But some people got fired,” said Gus.

“Yeah, well, some people got fired. Some offices got shut down. Some people got shifted around. Some quit.”

“All because of a report you wrote.”

“No,” said Frank. “All because they’d been fucking up. The guy Rocky was so high on even tried to defect. Good chance the Russians had been playing him for some time.” When Lermontov arrived, he took over the development of Rocky’s prize agent, a bearded, long-haired American who happened to look like Frank. He smiled at the memory. Lermontov had tried to recruit them both. Frank had wondered if he could tell them apart.

“Word I got was Rocky even blamed you for driving his boy over to the Soviets. And he dearly loved that book project because it gave him access to so many Soviet targets.”

“Not that they ever recruited anybody worth a damn,” said Frank.

“You expect more trouble from Rocky?”

“Yeah.” Frank nodded and looked up at Gus. “I guess I have to.”

“So why did you take the job?”

“Good question.” Don’t lie, he cautioned himself, but he knew he would hold back the truth About Lermontov. About the Shah. About himself. He stared into the bowl of unappetizing soup. “I guess I got tired of being an outsider.”

“Meaning?”

“I guess I started out like you. Hired by a body shop. Working on contract. Starting pretty high up on the ladder, GS-14, without going through all the training and low-level assignments most everyone else goes through.”

“And being resented for it,” said Gus.

“Except I guess you went inside.”

“Long ago,” said Gus. “I got tired of being out in the cold.”

“Yeah, I got tired of that and I got tired of being what amounts to a temp. I guess I wanted a steady job.”

“But that job you went down to Washington for, I know a little bit about that job. If you took that, so I heard, they’d have brought you inside.”

“That’s the idea.”