The Increment (21 page)

For those who understood
the looming confrontation with Iran, Washington felt like an echo of March 2003, the month America invaded Iraq. This was a city where nobody wanted to be the last to know, so people in and out of government were suddenly possessed with the certainty that the United States was going to attack the Islamic Republic. It was a matter of winks and nods, of inferences and messages between the lines. Questions about a possible U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities began to surface at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department briefings. The spokesmen declined to answer, but then, they would, wouldn’t they? Journalists began badgering government officials to come clean about the secret planning, and when they were rebuffed, the reporters implied that the officials were engaging in a cover-up. Think tanks began producing instant studies, with the help of terrier-like retired military officers, examining what targets the United States would hit in Iran if it chose to attack.

The question wasn’t whether the United States was going to strike Iran, but when. The major news organizations began asking the Pentagon about arrangements for covering the conflict. Several newspapers even asked if it would be possible to embed reporters with U.S. forces—this for a military operation that wasn’t declared, wasn’t discussed, hadn’t been agreed even by the principals. Yet already, in the floating island of the nation’s capital, it had assumed the status of fact. Washington was talking itself into war.

Harry’s alibi for the London trip had been the flu, so when he arrived at Persia House early on the morning of his return, people asked if he was feeling better. He wheezed on cue. In his absence, someone had put a bull’s-eye on the chest of the poster of the Imam Hussein that graced the entryway. Harry laughed, but he took it down. He looked for Marcia Hill, but she was on the phone when he got in. At eight-thirty, he summoned the division’s senior staff to his windowless office for the morning meeting. Even his team seemed to have been affected by the war fever.

Marcia Hill opened the meeting with a summary of new developments since last week. Before she began, she gave Harry a little wink. It was spooky: What did she know? She had a woman’s intuition about people—when they were lying, when they were dissatisfied, when they were ready to bolt. That’s what had made her a superstar, back in the day. After thirty years, she could read Harry better than his own wife. Whatever it was that she intuited, Harry she knew she would keep her mouth shut.

“We better talk about the Persia House surge,” said Marcia. She turned to the group. “I briefed Harry on it while he was home sick. But I should give everyone else a fill.”

“Go ahead,” said Harry. So that was what she had wanted to tell him when he was in London. They were flooding the Iran zone, and she was covering for him. He loved her for the effortless, unbidden duplicity.

“On orders from the director over the weekend, we are sending additional officers into Dubai, Doha, Istanbul, and Yerevan. They will be on temporary assignment to our division. We’ll have more bodies in a few weeks, but no tasking as to what they should do. Any suggestions, Harry?”

“Have them write cables to each other. Stay out of the way. Who are the surgers, anyway? Do we know yet?”

“Half of them are contractors. The rest are retirees. Sounds like a joke, I know. But that’s all we have. The White House wanted bodies. People on the Hill were complaining that we weren’t doing enough about the Iran target. So we are surging. I surge, you surge, we surge. I think the Senate committee chairman put out a press release last night.”

Harry shook his head. There was no point in pretending to his colleagues that he thought this was a good idea.

“What can I say? These people are nuts, honestly. But you all know that already, right?” Harry looked around the room. “I mean, you people understand that this is crazy. You don’t just throw bodies at a target like Iran.”

Heads nodded. They understood that their boss didn’t want to be rushed. But there was excitement in their eyes, too. They liked the fact that their little division was at the center of the agency’s universe.

“We’ll manage the surge…slowly,” said Harry. “Don’t be in a hurry to get people out there. And when they do come online, make sure they don’t bother the people who are actually doing the work. Okay? What’s next?”

“You’re not going to like this,” said Marcia.

“Try me. Humor me.”

“New tasking for tactical collection. Came over from the Pentagon last night.”

“Shit. Does that mean what I think it does?”

“I’m afraid so. We are supposed to coordinate with Centcom, through our liaison officer in Tampa.”

“What do they want?”

“Target acquisition. Target surveillance. Reporting on military movements and logistics—by the Rev Guard and the regular military, both. Weather reporting from the Iraqi and Turkish borders.”

“Shit, shit, shit. They’re going to do it, aren’t they?”

“Who knows? But they’re definitely getting ready.”

“Well, give them what they’re asking for. I’m sure Centcom isn’t any happier about it than we are.”

“Roger that,” spoke up Martin Vitter, the operations chief. “I spoke to Tampa this morning. They were doing the rope-a-dope last night, hoping it would go away. But now they’re moving a third carrier task force into the Gulf. And they are flying B-2s in from the States to Al-Udeed in Qatar.”

“Is this supposed to scare the Iranians? Because it’s definitely going to scare the shit out of our friends. What else you got, Marcia?”

“We need operational approval to recontact BQBARK-2 when he arrives in Geneva.”

“Remind me. Who is BQBARK-2?”

“He’s in the Iranian foreign ministry. He was spotted by BQBARK-1 when they were both in Paris. He broke off contact when he was recalled home. Now he’s being sent to their UN mission in Geneva on a six-month TDY. We want to renew contact. Pitch him again.”

“Does he know any secrets?”

“Probably not. But it’s another scalp.”

“Okay. It’s a waste of time, but so what? Use one of those ‘surge’ retirees to pitch him. Don’t burn anyone who we might want to use later. Anything else?”

“Well…” she looked at Harry, not sure he wanted to go in this direction. “There’s the restricted handling case. The ‘Dr. Ali’ case. I assume you’re running that.”

“Yup. Close hold. RH, plus. Sorry, gang.”

Harry didn’t want to say any more, but looking at the eager faces around the room, he knew that he had to. They were all cleared for the special-access program. If he didn’t say anything, they would go away confused.

“I can tell you the basics: We’re working with a liaison service that has access in-country that we don’t. We are trying to establish physical contact. As soon as we do, we will set up a normal operational protocol. If we don’t make contact, well, we’ll just keep looking in the email in-box. Right?”

The heads bobbed up and down. They didn’t understand what the boss had said, but they knew he was on the case, which would have to do. Still, they looked anxious, as if they were waiting for something more that would put it all right. Harry gave them a big smile.

“Lighten up, gang. You know what Warren Buffett said when they asked him what his strategy was?”

“Who’s Warren Buffett?” asked Vitter, the gung-ho ops chief. People around the table groaned.

“Only the richest man in the world. He said his strategy was to answer the phone. The best deals are the ones you don’t plan for. So let’s not get frazzled.”

Marcia stayed behind after
the others had filed out. She lit a cigarette, which was against the rules. Blue trails of smoke curled around her head.

“What’s going on, Harry? Cut the crap. I know you too well. Where were you over the weekend?”

“Between us?”

“Of course. After all these years, who else would I tell? My cat?”

“I was in London. I’m working on some stuff with SIS. They have capabilities and authorities that we don’t. We have a name and address for Dr. Ali. We need to talk to him in a hurry. Obviously. Otherwise these crazy fuckers downtown are going to get him killed.”

“Does the admiral know what you’re up to?”

“Sort of. Enough to give me a fig leaf.”

“Well, don’t get caught. That’s all I can say. In the meantime, how can I help?”

“Cover for me, the way you did today. I have to do some more traveling. And try to keep Fox and his friends from doing anything crazy. And keep your mouth shut.”

“And if the balloon goes up?”

“Which balloon are you talking about? War with Iran?”

“No. I’m talking about you, Harry. What should I do if you get caught, doing whatever it is that you’re not doing?”

“Lie.”

She smiled and took a last puff on the cigarette.

“You got it,” she said.

Harry called Arthur Fox.
His secretary said he was on the seventh floor with the director. So Harry called the admiral’s private line and asked if he could come up. The admiral said of course, he had been meaning to call Harry to ask him to join the meeting. He sounded embarrassed.

The view from the
director’s suite was a bland vista of trees, parking lots, the dome of the bubble-shaped auditorium where the agency gathered for what were usually tedious ceremonies. Long ago, when the CIA had reigned supreme, this must have seemed to Allen Dulles and his coterie the very height of modern elegance—this “campus” on the Potomac. Now, it was a monument to mediocrity. Even a middling state university had more panache among its faculty members than did the agency in its espionage corps.

The director was playing with one of his ship models when Harry entered the room. It was a battleship, long and fat in the hull. Evidently he had been waiting for Harry to show up. Fox was sitting on the couch with his back to the window. He was in shirtsleeves, wearing his green-striped Ivy Club tie as a secret signal to any Princeton man he might encounter. He had a sour look on his face, as if he had just eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

“Harry Pappas, back from the dead,” said Fox. “Sorry about your cold. We missed you.”

“I’m sure you did, Arthur. But somehow I’ll bet you managed on your own.”

“Easy, shipmates. One big happy family here,” said the director. “We were just talking about where we are going. Now that the White House has given us new Codeword policy guidance on Iran.”

“And what might that be?” asked Harry. “If I’m cleared for it.”

“You missed that too,” said Fox. “Another NSC principals meeting yesterday. People asked after you. ‘Get well soon.’ That sort of thing.”

Harry ignored Fox. He was like an unpleasant dog. The louder he barked, the more you wanted to take out a gun and shoot him.

“They want to go public,” said the director. “Disclose the new evidence about the nuclear program in a big prime-time press conference in a week, maybe two. Then declare the embargo on Iran. Naval first, then air.”

“Just like the Cuban missile crisis,” said Harry.

“Precisely,” said Fox.

“They don’t want to take it to the United Nations?” asked Harry.

“No. Bad memories. Nobody wants another Colin Powell show.”

Harry shook his head. He knew they had been heading in this direction, but the rush worried him.

“How much detail does the White House plan to reveal about the bomb program?”

Fox answered for the director, to whom the question had been addressed.

“We’ll roll out everything we’ve got. Appleman’s orders.”

“But what we’ve
got
is ambiguous. And it will get our guy killed.”

“Can’t be helped. Casualty of war.”

Harry turned to the director. He was playing with another ship model, a submarine this time. It looked like a big gray knackwurst. “Do you agree, Admiral?”

The admiral nodded. He looked uncomfortable. “Afraid so, Harry. This is crunch time. The Iranians have to know we mean business.”

“What if the Iranians resist the embargo? Because they will. Some crazy asshole in the Revolutionary Guard will decide that he can win a one-way ticket to paradise if he takes out one of our ships in the Gulf. What do we do then?”

“We attack, of course,” said Fox.

“I get it,” said Harry. “You
want
them to attack. So you’ll have a pretext.”

“Let’s just say the White House won’t be unhappy.”

“Oh shit,” said Harry. “This is a big mistake. Everything tells me you’re reading this wrong, Admiral.” The director was silent. What his feelings might be, Harry wasn’t sure, but he suspected they were similar to his own.

“You know what?” broke in Fox. “It doesn’t really matter what you think, Harry. It’s too late. This is a decision. What we are talking about now is implementation. And what you should think about is tactical intelligence. To support our brave soldiers and airmen who may soon be in battle.”

“How long do we have?” asked Harry.

“Until the press conference? A week, two at most.”

“That’s insane,” said Harry. “What’s the rush? Why be in a hurry to make a mistake?”

“Because the president is determined to be firm. This problem isn’t going away. Leadership is about making the tough decisions. But that’s not your game, is it, Harry? You people always want more time. But we’ve run out.”

“Why, for God’s sake? Nobody knows anything about our new intelligence. Why don’t we take the time to understand what it means?”

“That’s not exactly true, Harry, that nobody knows. The Israelis have found out. The prime minister called the president over the weekend. He said that if the United States doesn’t take action, others will.”

“Shit! How did the Israelis find out?” Harry was glowering at Fox.

“Don’t be so naïve, Harry. This is Washington. Nothing stays secret for very long.”

Fox had such a smug look on his face that Harry suspected he must have been the leaker himself.