Agents of Innocence (39 page)

“Hinkle?”

“Correct. Chuck Hinkle. Which means I am close to power but have very little of it myself.”

“Who is this guy Hinkle, anyway?” asked Hoffman.

“He’s a friend of the president. He ran his campaign in California. Years ago he was briefly with the agency under commercial cover, posing as an overseas rep for one of the airlines, so he thinks he knows everything about the business. He’s not a bad guy. A little skittish sometimes. Spends too much time lecturing us about management by objectives and other gems of wisdom from the corporate world. But he’s learning.”

“So what’s his game?”

“Technology,” said Rogers. “That’s everybody’s game these days. People are sick of running agents. It’s too much work, and if you’re not careful you end up in trouble with Congress. People nowadays figure why take the risks. Machines are so nice and clean. They listen in on conversations. They look inside buildings. They take pictures from the sky and then study them and tell you if anything has changed on the ground since the last time they made a pass. You don’t have to recruit them, run them, hold their hands when they get nervous. You just turn them on. That’s what I spend most of my time on, actually. Technical collection.”

“What a waste,” said Hoffman, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I still keep my hand in,” said Rogers. “I get to Beirut every year or so for a walk-on with some of our old friends. But I’m basically out of it.”

“How’s old donkey dick?” asked Hoffman.

“Who?”

“The Palestinian.”

“Oh. He’s fine. In fact, he has been invaluable to us the last few years.”

“Is he still getting as much pussy?” asked Hoffman.

“He’s married now,” said Rogers.

“So?”

“Seriously,” said Rogers. “The guy has been a lifesaver for us since the Lebanese civil war began. We had a bad spell before that. Black September killed two of our diplomats in Khartoum in 1973, and to this day nobody is sure whether our man knew what was going on. But these days he’s a hero. You remember the evacuation of the Beirut embassy in 1976? Well, he managed the security for it. He’s everybody’s buddy now. Even the Christians like dealing with him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Hoffman. “But is he still banging the German girl with the big bazoooms?”

“His secret,” continued Rogers, ignoring his former boss, “is that he has built Fatah intelligence up into an outfit that has something to trade.”

“You’re kidding me. Those guys couldn’t pour piss from a boot if the directions were written on the heel.”

“Times have changed,” said Rogers. “In the last five years, Fatah intelligence has helped save the lives of the leaders of Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. They trade information with everybody in the Arab world now, and they know everything. They feed it all to our man, and he tells us. It’s a gold mine. When he gets information about a plot against one of our diplomats now, do you know what he does with it?”

“What?”

“He sends his own people to arrest the terrorists for violating Fatah policy.”

“Bullshit,” said Hoffman.

“It’s true,” said Rogers. “The guy is a hero back at Langley. The Director even invited him to come to Washington in 1976, after the civil war ended. It was in December, right after the election. Our boy met with the outgoing DCI and the incoming Secretary of State. Some very heavy hitters.”

“How did he do?”

“Smooth as silk,” said Rogers. “Mr. Reasonable. He made a lot of friends.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?” said Hoffman. “The person I remember was a wild-ass kid who had trouble keeping his pecker in his pants. The guy you’re talking about sounds like he graduated from Yale.”

“Same guy,” said Rogers. “Something happened to him after you left. He grew up.”

“I’ll tell you what happened to him. The Israelis scared the shit out of him. That son of a bitch is lucky to be alive. If he’s become such a sweetheart these days, maybe it’s because he thinks that snuggling up to Uncle Sam will keep him alive.”

“That’s ancient history,” said Rogers. “The Israelis aren’t still after him.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Hoffman. “The Israelis have very long memories, my friend.”

The waiter was hovering near the table, waiting for Monsieur Hoffman and his guest to place their orders.

“I’ll have the filet of sole,” said Hoffman. “And a steak.”

The waiter’s eyeballs expanded as he wrote the order on his pad, but he said nothing.

“Just the steak for me,” said Rogers. “And a salad.”

“Do you have any chocolate sauce?” asked Hoffman.

“Of course,” said the waiter.

“I’ll have that for dessert,” said Hoffman. “No ice cream. Just chocolate sauce. Hot, please.”

The waiter smiled. He evidently regarded Hoffman as a culinary idiot savant.

Rogers had been mulling over a question during this interlude, and when the waiter left, he spoke up.

“There is one thing that confuses me,” he said.

“What’s that, my boy?” said Hoffman.

“I wonder sometimes whether the Israelis really did try to kill our man.”

“They say they did. They brag about it! How they killed twelve of the leaders of Black September. How they nailed Abu Nasir in his apartment. How they tried to kill our boy in Scandinavia and blew it. Just read
Time
magazine.”

“Then why did they fail?” said Rogers. “If they tried so hard to kill our man after Munich, why didn’t they succeed?”

“Maybe they’re not quite as brilliant as you think they are,” said Hoffman.

“Or maybe they’re even smarter.”

“Bullshit,” said Hoffman. “If you want my opinion, they’re overrated. They’re hot dogs. That’s what I tell my Saudi clients. They love to hear that.”

“Do you believe it?”

“Actually, no,” said Hoffman. “The Israelis run a nice little service. But they make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes.”

The first course arrived. The waiter deftly fileted the fish while Hoffman looked on approvingly.

“What about us?” asked Rogers when the waiter had left. “How do we look to you now that you’re out?”

“You really want to know the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Pathetic.”

“Why?”

“Let’s face it,” said Hoffman. “The United States, strictly speaking, doesn’t have an intelligence service any more. Once the Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Intelligence Committee and this committee and that committee are finished pulling on the yarn, there isn’t much sweater left. Honestly, now, would you entrust your life to an intelligence service that turned its secrets over to a bunch of fucking congressmen? These people must be insane.”

“So what are we, if we aren’t an intelligence service?”

“As near as I can tell, the agency today is a collection of lawyers, accountants, lobbyists, and bureaucrats. With a bunch of fancy hardware up in the sky. But when it comes to making things happen on the ground, there’s nothing left. It’s amateur hour. In my humble opinion.”

“That’s great,” said Rogers. “A real morale booster. Is that what your Saudi friends think?”

“They can’t understand what’s going on. They’re so mesmerized by America that they can’t believe we’re as incompetent as we look. Every time we fuck something up, they invent a new conspiracy theory to explain how it’s really a devious new American plot against the Arabs. Want to hear the latest conspiracy theory?”

“Definitely,” said Rogers. “Maybe it will cheer me up.”

“The Saudis think we’re behind the rise of Khomeini in Iran.”

“But that’s silly,” said Rogers. “Why would we threaten our own client?”

“Think about it. Maybe it’s not so crazy.”

“Frank,” said Rogers. “You’ve been out in the desert too long. You’re beginning to think like them.”

“Maybe so,” said Hoffman. “Maybe so. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m very glad I am
not
, in fact, one of them. Yessiree. I thank my lucky stars every night that I am not a reasonable, pro-Western Arab trying to keep it together. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because if I was, I’d have to depend on the United States for help. And that, my friend, is a losing proposition these days.”

London; September 1978

Levi scanned the group of several dozen men gathered in a corridor in Whitehall, looking for Rogers. He had a recollection of him from Beirut: tall and thin, dressed in a corduroy suit, looking sensible and self-possessed, peering over the top of his glasses. But that was nearly ten years ago, and that general description seemed to fit half the men in the corridor.

There were no name tags, of course. It wasn’t that sort of group. Indeed, the very fact of the conference was a secret. They were meeting under the nominal auspices of the British Foreign Office, in a secure conference room in the interior of a great gray pile of a building along Whitehall. The arrangements for the meeting, the speakers list, and the guest list had all been drawn up by officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

A British junior official was serving coffee from a silver urn as Levi approached.

“White or black?” said the official.

“White,” said Levi. When he saw the vast amount of milk poured into the coffee, he wished he had said black. His hand jiggled as he took the coffee, and a small white wave lapped over the top of the cup and into the saucer.

Levi was nervous. Not in the way that he used to be, when he was collecting intelligence from dead drops in Kiev and Aleppo and the sweat dripped down his sleeve in a trickle of fear. This was different. It was a fear of failure. Levi, in all his career, had done very little recruiting. How would he establish rapport with Rogers? What would he say to him after so many years of watching him from the shadows? It was the anxiety of a blind date.

The talk in the corridor, as best Levi could hear from the buzz of conversations in various languages, was about two recent developments in the Middle East: the Camp David peace agreements between Egypt and Israel, which had been signed two weeks earlier; and the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iran. A German was praising the bold diplomacy of the American president. A Frenchman was complaining about the weakness of the Shah. It was like hearing two sides of the same argument. The competent and incompetent faces of American foreign policy, walking side by side.

The British junior officer had moved away from the coffee urn and was ringing a small brass bell, signalling that the morning session was about to begin. There was still no sign of Rogers. Levi joined the line heading into the conference room. He took his place at the table, marked with a small Israeli flag rather than a name card.

A tall man in a blue suit entered the room just then and took the seat marked by an American flag. There were traces of gray in his hair, but otherwise he was as Levi remembered. Levi tried not to stare. The American was smiling, shaking hands, studying the program, scribbling some notes. Then, Levi noticed, he stared off into space for a moment, looking at nothing in particular, lost in a cloud of thought.

The first presentation was from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior about its success in dealing with Basque terrorism. What success? Levi wanted to ask. But he didn’t. It was much too gentlemanly a gathering for that. The Spanish official was very calm and earnest. He didn’t ask the French representative seated across from him the awkward question: Why do you allow these Basque bastards to cross the border along the Pyrenees? Of course not. That would be impolite.

After an hour of Basquing, the delegates took a coffee break. The same junior official returned to the same silver urn. Despite the lack of name tags, most of the delegates already seemed to know each other. It was an old boys’ reunion. Find Rogers, Levi told himself. He looked for the American and, to his relief, saw him standing alone in the corridor, regarding the other delegates dubiously.

Levi approached carefully, not wanting to scare Rogers off.

“What’s next on the program?” asked Levi offhandedly.

“Let me see,” said Rogers looking at a program. “A presentation by the Dutch on South Moluccan terrorism.”

“Perhaps that will be interesting,” said Levi.

“Perhaps,” said Rogers.

There was a pause. Go ahead, Levi told himself. Do it.

“Aren’t you Tom Rogers?” asked Levi.

“That’s right,” said Rogers. “How did you know?”

Levi smiled.

“My name is Yakov Levi,” he said, extending his hand. “I am from Mossad.”

“Pleasure,” said Rogers.

“I have heard a great deal about you. I have looked forward to meeting you for many years.”

“Is that right?” said Rogers, eyeing Levi. “Should I know you?”

“Maybe so. Maybe by a different name.”

“Maybe,” said Rogers, though he couldn’t place the face.

There was silence. Rogers looked at his watch.

“What are you doing here?” said Levi, trying to make conversation.

“The same thing as you,” answered Rogers.

Levi stared at his shoes and then spoke up again.

“I served in Lebanon once, actually. At the same time you were there. That’s why I know about you.”

“Is that right?” said Rogers, with a flicker of genuine interest. “So you were in the Mossad station in Beirut? We always assumed there must be one, but we never knew where it was.”

“We are better at keeping secrets than you,” said Levi.

“Where was it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“West Beirut.”

“But where?”

“Sorry,” said Levi. “That’s a secret.”

The British host was ringing his little bell again.

“I don’t suppose you feel like sitting this next session out?” asked Levi. “We could go and take a walk.”

“Afraid not,” said Rogers. “I’d like to hear the Dutch presentation. They had a hostage rescue operation last year that was first-rate. Israeli quality.”

“I know,” said Levi. “We trained them.”

They walked back toward the meeting room together.

“Perhaps we can meet later,” said Levi.

Rogers thought a minute. Why not? He was curious about this inquisitive Israeli intelligence officer who claimed to know so much about him.

“Sure,” said Rogers. “Let’s meet outside after this panel breaks up. At the entrance to the building on Whitehall.”

Levi nodded.

The mysteries of Dutch anti-terrorism policy were duly explained, and an hour later Rogers and Levi were strolling up Whitehall toward Trafalgar Square. It was a brisk British fall day, cold and crisp, with clear skies. Rogers noticed that Levi walked much faster than he did: with short, quick steps that outdistanced Rogers’s slower, ambling gait.

The conversation proceeded by indirection, each man feeling and probing, neither quite sure what the other was up to. It was a game of cat and mouse, except that they were both cats.

“When were you in Lebanon?” asked Rogers.

“Late 1960s, early 1970s.” answered Levi.

“Before the deluge.”

“Yes,” said Levi. “Before the first deluge.”

“There will be another?”

“Of course,” said Levi. “In Lebanon, there will always be another deluge.”

There was a pause. A double-decker bus full of tourists rumbled by. What is he telling me? Rogers wondered. What is he getting at?

“It’s your show now,” said Rogers over the rumble of the bus.

“What?” asked Levi.

“Lebanon. It’s yours. We’re out of it. Israel has all the players.”

“We have some,” said Levi. “We have the Christians.”

“You’re welcome to them,” said Rogers, thinking of some of his old contacts.

“But you have some players, too,” said Levi.

“Such as?”

“The Palestinians.”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” said Rogers, narrowing his eyes.

“Nothing,” replied Levi.

They walked in silence, each man trying to understand what the other had meant by each maddening fragment of conversation. It was like trying to start a game of chess with only pawns on the board.

“What do you handle in the Mossad, exactly?” asked Rogers. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“A little of this, a little of that,” said Levi. “But mostly I deal with the Palestinians.”

“I know a little about the Palestinians.”

“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Rogers.”

“You must be busy these days.”

“With what?” asked Levi.

“With Camp David.”

“Not so busy as you might imagine,” said Levi. “In my opinion, there is less there than meets the eye.”

“How so?” asked Rogers.

“Do not misunderstand me. We are very pleased to have a peace treaty with Egypt. But the rest, about the Palestinians, is meaningless. I must tell you honestly, our new government has no intention of giving the Palestinians a homeland in Judea and Sumaria. But I’m sure you understand that, don’t you? You understand very well the hostility of our new government toward the Palestinians.”

“What are you telling me?”

“Simply that the new government is prepared to take the most extreme measures.”

What did that mean? Rogers let it drop. He was waiting to see a pattern in Levi’s questions, but so far all he saw was that he was the target for something. The Israeli wanted to send him a message, but what was it?

They reached Trafalgar Square. There was the usual squadron of pigeons gathered on the statuary, and the usual throng of tourists competing with them for the available space. Rogers looked for a place to sit down, but every available space was covered with bird shit. He took out a pack of cigarettes and offered Levi one. The Israeli accepted. Rogers lit a match, and cupped it against the wind. He lit Levi’s cigarette and then his own. They continued strolling up St. Martin’s Lane.

“Mr. Rogers,” said Levi. “I would like to mention something.” He cleared his throat.

Okay, thought Rogers. Here we go.

“There is one Palestinian in whom we have a special interest.”

Rogers’s brow furrowed slightly. “Oh really? Who’s that?”

“His name is Jamal Ramlawi. He is the head of Fatah intelligence.”

“I know who he is,” said Rogers. “What about him?”

“You know that we hold him responsible for the Munich massacre, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Rogers. “But that was six years ago. I thought that whole business was over.”

“Not for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jamal Ramlawi is still on the top of our list.”

Rogers looked at him curiously? Why do they want to get him? Why now? And why are they asking me for permission? We’ve been through this once already, and they know the answer. The answer is silence. What do they expect me to say? ‘No! Don’t kill him! He’s ours!’ That was the very thing that Rogers, by the rules of the game, could not say.

Rogers smiled an impenetrable smile.

“Is that right?” he answered blandly. “Still on the top of your list, eh?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of list might that be?”

“You know what I am saying, Mr. Rogers. You know what kind of list.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Rogers. “You are telling me that the new Israeli government is planning to kill Jamal Ramlawi?”

Levi said nothing. His face was turning red. He gave a slight nod.

“And why are you telling me this?”

“Because I thought it might be of interest to you.”

Levi looked at Rogers, so deliberate in this conversation, dragging out every word. He wanted to shake him: Say it. Say it! Say no. Say we can’t kill him because he works for you. Say you want him alive. Just say it. Tell us. That’s all we ask.

But Rogers said nothing. He walked in silence for what seemed like a minute, his face utterly still, his head lost in thought. At length, he spoke again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Please tell that to your colleagues back in Tel Aviv. Tell them that Tom Rogers doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Very well,” said Levi. He looked crestfallen. He had failed.

“It’s time we got back,” said Rogers. “We’ve got the Canadians on Quebec separatism.”

They crossed Trafalgar Square again and walked in silence back down Whitehall. Rogers lit another cigarette. This time he didn’t offer one to the Israeli. When they neared the Foreign Office, Rogers excused himself and sat down on a bench in Parliament Square. He had an unsettled feeling in his gut, like what you feel when you remember a promise made long ago that you had almost forgotten. Rogers mentally reviewed his schedule over the next few weeks and decided that he could spare a few days to see some old friends in Beirut.