Quintero leaned back in his chair. “Suspicion, for some reason?” he asked. “An inkling? Some insidious rumor that you may have picked up from somewhere?”
She took a more aggressive tone in return, truthful but keeping Janet at arm’s length. “I worked with Mr. Cerny on an operation that stretched from Ukraine to France and possibly incorporated a massacre in South America,” she said. “Several people lost their lives, including my fiancé. It’s only natural that I might want a final look at the files of some of the people involved. So I attempted to access those files.”
“For what purpose if the operation is over?” Quintero asked.
“I just answered that question,” she said. “That operation changed my life. Additionally, Mike Gamburian asked me once again to contact Mr. Federov. It’s only natural that I would wish to review.”
Quintero listened without speaking.
“Quite frankly,” Alex continued, “I’m resentful that I can’t access those files. I’m weighing resignation. There are a lot of other things I can do rather than put my life on the line here when I’m not getting the proper support and feedback from above.” She could tell from their expressions that her feint had worked. She spoke politely and calmly. “I’m sure you understand.”
Three pairs of eyes were steadily upon her.
“Of course,” Quintero said. “Let’s just not get ahead of ourselves.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she said not so politely. “You know as well as I do,” Alex added, “that operations evolve. They never completely end. But for personal reasons, I’d like some closure on this.”
Quintero snorted. “Well, wouldn’t we all?” he asked rhetorically.
He opened the file that sat in front of him and handed several sheets of paper across the table to Alex.
“Sorry,” he said. “I have to give you these.”
The papers were the confidentiality bonds. She knew the drill. She was about to be brought into a CIA operation, whether she wanted to be or not, or at least continued into an operation that was ongoing.
She looked at the documents. Alex scanned. “The usual crap, huh?” she said.
“The usual crap,” Quintero agreed.
She signed and handed the documents back across the table.
“Excellent,” Quintero said. He accepted the documents, made sure that Alex had signed the proper spots, and returned the documents to the file.
“Well,” Quintero said, “if you’re looking for personal closure, you won’t find it here.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Alex asked.
“Michael Cerny is alive,” Quintero said.
“How is that possible?”
“He was wounded in Paris,” Quintero said. “You saw right. He was hit as he sat in a car on the street. Our people did a follow-up and took him to a private medical clinic. And as things evolved, we realized, or maybe Michael realized and suggested it, that we were presented with an astounding possibility. Declare Michael dead, ship back to America a body that we bought from a local morgue, and have a cheerful funeral. Then give Mike a new identity, and he has the deepest cover that anyone in the world can have.”
“Brilliant,” she said, with an obvious edge. “And where did the best-made plans of men with mice-sized brains go off the rails this time?”
“What makes you think it did?”
“I wouldn’t be here if things were going smoothly,” she said. She glanced to the others at the table. “All four of us know that, and I have a scar in my left arm that tells me that I’m justified to think that.”
“Alex, do people ever tell you that you’re too clever sometimes and maybe just a bit too sarcastic?”
“Frequently. I’ve even told myself that from time to time. And my arm hurts this morning, and I’m still flying from the Vicodin, so I’d like some answers.”
She caught Harris glancing away, suppressing a grin.
Quintero glanced to the confidentiality bonds, double checking. “You signed everything, right?”
“No. I made paper airplanes out of it. Of course, I signed everything.”
Harris glanced at the papers and gave Quintero a nod.
“Michael threw the operation off the rails himself,” Quintero said. “Not with anything he did afterward. Not immediately, anyway. But with what he had done previously.”
“Namely?”
“We have a spy case going on in Federal court in Philadelphia right now,” Quintero said. “A military engineer has appeared in court in the US on charges of passing classified information to Israel. A man named Solomon Isaacman is charged with selling US military secrets involving information about nuclear weapons, fighter jets, and missiles to Israel in the years from 2003 to 2007. He has been charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit espionage, including disclosing documents relating to national defense and acting as an agent of Israel.”
“So he’s in custody?”
“He was released on $300,000 bail. His passport was taken also.”
“I haven’t seen anything in the press about this.”
“So far, it’s been under wraps because of its sensitive nature. But the Agency feels that Isaacson borrowed several classified documents related to national defense from the army’s research centre between 2003 and 2007, took them to his home in New Jersey, where he would then hand over the documents to an Israeli consular official, who would photograph them in the basement. He took documents linked to modified designs for F-15 jets and several others related to nuclear weaponry. Everything was classified as ‘Restricted Data.’ The documents contained information concerning the weapons systems used by F-15 fighter jets that the United States had sold other countries.”
“Which other countries?” Alex asked.
“Well, modified F-15s have been sold to Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and South Korea.”
“So where does this come back to Michael Cerny?” Alex asked.
“Right here,” Quintero said, opening a second file. “Isaacman’s handler was someone operating in the United States under the code name of ‘Ambidextrous.’ Look at this.”
Quintero pushed forward a series of surveillance photographs taken at restaurant rest stops along the New Jersey Turnpike. He identified Isaacman in the photograph. With Isaacman was the man that the FBI had identified as “Ambidextrous.” “Recognize him?” Quintero asked.
Alex looked carefully. The man she saw looked like a younger version of Michael Cerny, from the years just before she had known him.
“I recognize him,” Alex said. “But I don’t get it. Was Cerny one of your CIA people or not?”
“Cerny worked for us as an outside contractor for many years,” he said. “He was recruited in the Czech Republic during the 1990s. In previous generations he would have been a Marxist and probably a KGB snitch. But by then there was no place for a good young Red to go, so he went into capitalism. Clever mind. Well, you had experience with him so you know. He had nothing to sell so he created his own product by spying on people. His mother was an instructor at the university in Prague, and his father was a dockworker on the Danube who hated educated people. Unofficial marriage, rocky relationship as you might imagine. The son of a dedicated teacher and an antiintellectual. Do you like that? Just think how screwed up the young man must have been.”