Paramour (6 page)

Morgan was inside . . . standing at the window, staring out.

"Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger," he said, without turning around, "but I didn't want to start the rumor mill by calling you to my office."

He moved to a table.

"I want to thank you for the way you and Landry handled everything on the Stryker matter. It looks like the precautions worked. The press has missed what for them would have been a nice little news tidbit at Mr. Stryker's expense. I say fuck them."

"Yes, sir."

"Jack, let me get right to the point. I just received a call from the CIA-from Director Patterson himself, as a matter of fact. He tells me his people are working a defector operation: a Syrian colonel"--Morgan took out a small leather pad, opened it, and flipped a couple of pages-"named Terek Nassiri, a high-ranking officer in the Syrian Secret Service. He walks into our embassy in Paris early yesterday and defects. The Agency is skeptical at first but verifies his bona fides. The balloon goes up. The CIA flies him out of Paris direct to Andrews Air Force Base. He's met by CIA interrogators and taken to a safe house and questioned all night. Well, he's singing like Pavarotti."

"Yes, sir?"

"Patterson says much of what he has provided has been verified," Morgan said, thumbing another page. "Early this morning, when their debriefing is nearly complete, Nassiri suddenly says he has another piece of information and insists on speaking to the President himself."

"He must be a mental case."

"That's the problem," Morgan said. "Patterson believes the man is sane."

"What kind of information?"

"He won't say exactly, just that it relates to the security of the President of the United States. The spooks told him no chance; no matter what he had he couldn't give it to the man directly. So then he insists on speaking with a member of the White House Detail of the Secret Service. Obviously he doesn't trust the CIA."

"And you want me to see what he has to say?"

"You got it, Jack. Any questions?"

"Why didn't Director Patterson go through normal liaison channels? It's not like we haven't handled situations like this before. Why go directly to the Chief of Staff?"

"Only he can answer that," Morgan said, shoving the note pad back into his inside jacket pocket. There was a thin briefcase resting on the table. He reached inside. "Maybe he wants to make sure the CIA gets credit as the original source of the information rather than the Secret Service." He took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Powers. "I'm sure that kind of foolish bureaucratic rivalry doesn't surprise you."

"Not really," Powers said. And since you happen to be the biggest showboat in the White House, I'm sure it doesn't surprise you either, he thought.

"The safe house is at Rehoboth Beach. This is the address. I want you to go over there and find out what the good colonel has to say. Interview him alone, where you can't be overheard by the CIA people. Report to Sullivan when you return."

"The CIA people are going to want to know what he tells me," Powers said.

"Your orders are to report to Sullivan or to me before talking with anyone else."

Powers nodded. He wanted to ask a number of questions but settled for one. "Why are you sending me to handle this?"

"To be frank, if it turns out to have something to do with Ray Stryker's death, then we haven't had to let anyone else in."

"Does Landry know?"

"Landry is a supervisor and is tied up with the advance arrangements for the trip to the Coast. I suggested sending him, but Sullivan pointed out that if I pulled him off his regular duties at this point, the other agents might suspect something was up. He knows how inquisitive you SS guys are. No disrespect intended."

"None taken." Prick.

As Powers drove across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and onto the heavily wooded Highway 404, he went over what Morgan had told him. Morgan wouldn't have given him the assignment unless he thought it had the potential to be sensitive ... more sensitive than just some defector trying to make points by getting the attention of the White House. Nor was it Powers's first sensitive assignment. Years ago, he'd been dispatched to cover the tracks of a President's daughter who'd spent a weekend with four Jamaican rock stars. And recently he'd been sent to interview one of the members of the President's kitchen cabinet who was convincing rich foreign investors to buy gold from his brokerage house by telling them the President was suffering from a terminal illness. In both cases, the more Powers learned, the less he wanted to know. But that was the way with political chores: molehills threatening to become mountains.

About an hour later, he turned south on U.S. 1 and, minutes later, arrived in town. Checking his automobile club map for 1025 Seahorse Lane, the address Morgan had given him, he wound through narrow streets of beach cottages and residential homes hidden by pine trees to a beach boardwalk lined with shops, arcades, motels, and trendy restaurants. Near a miniature golf course, he spotted a street sign and turned right. Seahorse Lane, a cul-de-sac ending at the strand, was comprised of wood-frame one-story houses, many with FOR RENT signs--ideal for a safe house, because the neighbors would be used to seeing strangers. At the end of the street, Powers pulled up to the curb one door down from a two-story white clapboard house with dormers and a gray slate roof. Its number, 1025, was on the mailbox. Behind the house, sand dunes led to the boardwalk.

He climbed out of the car. At the trunk he leaned down, opened his briefcase, and took out a transistor radio he carried to listen to sporting events when on boring protection assignments. Dropping it in his jacket pocket, he made his way along a cracked, bumpy sidewalk toward a screened-in front porch. Inside, a husky young man dressed in a red Budweiser T-shirt and Bermuda shorts was sitting in a chair. Powers assumed he was the lookout.

"Jack Powers, U.S. Secret Service," Powers said, showing his badge and identification card. The man stepped forward. "I'm Dick Jones." He examined the identification, then reached down and knocked on the wall twice.

The door was opened by a tall, sandy-haired, freckled man of Powers's age. He was wearing a brown sport shirt with a button-down collar, pleated gabardine slacks, and utilitarian shoes. His eyeglasses had clear plastic frames, the kind perennially popular with Ivy Leaguers. His right hand was behind his back. Unlocking the screen door latch with his left hand, he allowed Powers inside.

Powers showed his identification again.

"I'm Bob Miller," the man said, closing the door.

"Jack Powers. Are you in charge here?"

"I guess you could say that."

Miller moved his hand from behind his back and shoved the Beretta he was holding into the front waistband of his trousers. "I guess you're here to talk with our guest."

To Powers's right, a short middle-aged man wearing Levi's and a polo shirt was standing behind the door holding a shiny Heckler and Koch submachine gun. He set the gun down on the sink and introduced himself as Tom Green. Powers figured CIA people preferred simple pseudonyms because they were easy to remember.

"What's he like?" Powers asked quietly, in case Nassiri was in a nearby room.

"Very confident, upbeat," Miller said. "My guess is that he's planned his defection for a long time. He doesn't seem to have any remorse."

"I understand he's been polygraphed?"

"Our best examiner administered four polygraph tests to him. He showed no signs of deception-but of course the Syrians are good at training disinformation agents to beat the lie detector."

Powers nodded. He had little faith in lie detector tests anyway. Unless the person undergoing the test broke down and confessed, nothing was proven other than a person's heart rate and perspiration might increase when asked certain questions. "I understand you've verified his bona fides?"

"Our main file shows him as being in intelligence work since Hafez al-Assad came to power. In 1984, he was in Paris when a former Syrian prime minister was assassinated outside the InterContinental Hotel. We believe he was in command of the operation. He's been a case officer in London and Vienna under diplomatic cover. He's fluent in Russian and English."

"What kind of information has he given you?"

"He provided details of a new tank being used by Syrian forces, some valuable biographical information about the people he worked with, the name of a Syrian resident agent operating a network." He smiled condescendingly. "I hope you're not asking for specifics. That would be strictly need-to-know."

"I'm just trying to determine if the man is for real."

"We wouldn't have called you here if we didn't think he was for real."

"If they ask when I get back to the White House, may I mention your name?"

Miller bit his lip anxiously. "What you're asking is whether the information he provided is too valuable to be turned over as part of a disinformation operation. The answer is yes. It's too valuable, and we believe the man to be a genuine defector."

"Is there anything else you can tell me before I talk with him?"

"Only that he asked to speak with you alone," Miller said.

"I'm aware of that."

"You know how defectors are: masters of manipulation."

"Playing all sides against the middle," Green chimed in.

"I wouldn't trust a defector as far as I could throw him," Powers said.

"If you're ready, you may interview him in the back bedroom," Miller said.

"I prefer to interview him outside."

Miller shook his head. "No way."

"I'm not going to interview him in this house."

Miller and Green exchanged a look-a look that was too obvious to be genuine.

"He's a defector. And he's in our custody," Miller said. "If you want to interview him, you'll have to interview him here."

"I'm going to take a walk with him along the beach. We'll remain within your sight."

"No can do. This man is my responsibility."

"Perhaps we should phone the White House and have the Chief of Staff make the decision," Powers said.

The others just stood there as Powers moved to a telephone on a coffee table and picked up the receiver.

"There's no need for that," Miller said at last. "But if you try to walk more than a hundred yards away from this house, the interview is over."

Miller led him down a hallway and opened a door. Nassiri was lying on a bed covered with a blue chenille bedspread. There was nothing else in the room-no chest of drawers, nothing-and the window had been nailed over with thick plywood. Nassiri came to his feet, rubbing his eyes. A man in his fifties, about 5 feet 8 inches tall, he was wearing a wrinkled long-sleeved white shirt and an equally wrinkled pair of trousers. His black hair was thick and short, and he had a two-day growth of beard. His lips were thin and dark, and his shoulders were broad. He was unmistakably a soldier.

Powers introduced himself and showed Nassiri his badge and identification card. Nassiri studied both carefully. Finally, he nodded.

"Outside," Powers said. Miller stepped out of the bedroom doorway. Powers led Nassiri down the hall, through a small kitchen, and out the back door onto the dunes.

Walking without speaking, Powers led him past the boardwalk and onto the sand. At the edge of the wet sand, where the waves were breaking, Powers stopped and turned. There were solitary men about fifty yards in either direction on the beach. The curtains in two rooms of the beach house were pulled back slightly. Powers assumed Miller and Green, probably using directional microphones, were prepared to eavesdrop on what Nassiri would tell him. But, as he'd learned from his pals in the Secret Service Technical Security Division, the crash of waves is one of the most effective audio interferences with the sounds of human speech.