“Langley’s beginning to think like an automobile manufacturer.”
“How?”
“Let’s say carmakers discover a flaw in a vehicle’s ignition system that might lead to fires. They estimate it will cost X dollars to fix the problem for the two hundred thousand autos with flaws. If there’ll only be Y number of fatalities, and the lawsuit factor is Z, they decide that it will be more cost-efficient to allow the flaw to remain than spend the money to recall every imperfect vehicle.”
“That’s immoral.”
“What’s your point? We’re in a business that sometimes confronts us with nothing but immoral choices,” Wyman said.
He slapped his palm on the desk. “Enough of the thumb-sucking, Tom. Here’s something you can act on: I learned that as of last week, headquarters dumped the whole Imad Mugniyah-slash-Tariq Ben Said mess onto Paris station.”
That didn’t make sense at all. If Reuven was right-and Tom had no reason to doubt him-Imad Mugniyah had slipped back into the shadows-he was either in Lebanon or Iran. It was Ben Said who’d returned to Paris to put the finishing touches on his backpack IEDs. Tom gave his boss a quizzical look. “I thought you said Langley’s opinion was Ben Said doesn’t exist.”
Wyman gave Tom a jaundiced look. “Strange development, ain’t it? We’re told it’s not Imad Mugniyah in the photos and there is no Ben Said, and now Paris station is ordered to poke around for them.”
Tom thought about it. “Very weird.”
“Of course it could just be RUMINT. I was having dinner with an old colleague. He said he’d heard some corridor gossip about a meeting in Paris with an Iranian source-couldn’t give me a name or any other specifics. The Iranian offered us Imad Mugniyah’s head on the proverbial platter. But he wanted the twenty-five-mil reward State’s posted. He asked for a down payment of half a million dollars-seed money for baksheesh and payoffs in Tehran was how it was described to me-and the balance of twenty-four mil five hundred thou to be paid on delivery.”
“Tony…” Tom’s antennae went active. “When was that offer made?”
“When…” Wyman took a Palm Pilot out of the desk drawer, turned it on, screwed the monocle into his right eye, tapped the screen with the stylus, and peered. “Sometime in mid-October. I was told it was put on the table within a couple of days of the Gaza flap.” He looked at Tom. “About the same time you were meeting with your Iranian friend Shahram Shahristani.”
“Uh-huh.” Tom’s mind was kicking into overdrive.
“My contact said RUMINT was the Iranian met with someone from Paris station.”
“Do we know who?”
“I thought you’d want to know, so I checked. The name that was floated to me is Adam Margolis.”
“Who?”
Wyman squinted at the screen again then let the monocle fall onto his vest. “Margolis. Adam Margolis. He’s the deputy to the deputy CT branch chief. A greenhorn. I checked. This is his second tour. First was Guatemala-consular cover. Decent ratings but nothing spectacular.”
“Are you sure?”
Wyman’s eyes locked coldly onto Tom’s. “I said I checked.”
When Tony looked at you like that, Tom thought, you could see he was capable of ordering someone’s death.
Tom broke off from his boss’s lethal stare. “That’s odd.”
“Why?”
Odd, Tom explained, because Shahram had specifically said he’d telephoned the embassy on October 16-and he’d been deflected. Never made it past the gatekeeper was how Shahram put it.
“Hmm.” Tony Wyman pushed back, tilted the big chair, rested his Ballys on the desk mat, and closed his eyes.
After half a minute, Tom grew itchy. “What?”
“But Shahram never denied he went to the embassy.”
Tom thought hard about Wyman’s query before he answered. “No. In fact, he went evasive when I pressed him.”
Wyman put his arms behind his head and interlocked his fingers. “There’s something funny going on here.” He looked at Tom. “Somebody’s trying to run a game on us.”
“Who?”
“Maybe the seventh floor. Maybe your friend Shahram. Didn’t you say he was down on his luck? Could be he was hoping to score a quick half mil and disappear.”
“Isn’t Langley smarter than that?”
“Langley,” Wyman scoffed, “once paid a Lebanese fifty thousand cash for a map of the Beirut sewer system. The Agency was going to infiltrate a Delta team through the sewers and have them come up next to the house in south Beirut where two Americans were being held hostage.”
“So?”
“There are no sewers in Beirut, Tom-except the open sewers in the old Palestinian camps.” He paused. “Look-Shahram was smart. He knew Langley’s vulnerabilities as well as anyone. And he had a score to settle. He’d been labeled an untouchable. He was out in the cold.” Wyman looked at Tom. “Possible?”
“Possible, Tony.” Tom sighed. “But I don’t think Shahram would run a game on me. Hegave me the photographs-never mentioned money.”
“Okay-here’s another scenario. It’s the seventh floor. You know how that crowd loves head games. Maybe they’re trying to manipulate us to do their work for them but they get away without paying. Hell, for all I know, this Adam Margolis is marking the deck so he gets a promotion and a big performance bonus. Who’s doing what here, Tom? Not sure. But some-one’s trying sleight of hand-and we’d better find out who damn fast, or we’re gonna end up holding the short end of the stick.”
Wyman’s monologue had set Tom’s head spinning. Had Shahram played him? Not according to the photographic evidence. Not according to MJ’s results on her photo analysis software-and Langley’s negative reaction to it. Tom leaned forward and drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. “I should talk to this Margolis. Maybe I can shake something loose.”
Wyman lifted his monocle and examined it, exhaled on the lens, used his silk pocket square as a polishing cloth, then let the instrument fall back onto his lapelled vest. “I agree, Tom. Perhaps you should.”
22
6 NOVEMBER 2003
2:48P.M.
RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORÉ
SCARF FLAPPING IN THE BREEZE,the collar of his sport coat turned up against the chill in the air, Tom slalomed his way past Place Beauvau, where submachine-gun-toting guards in crisp blue-and-white uniforms manned the ceremonial gates of the Ministry of the Interior. He stopped long enough to admire a pair of old Roman amphorae in the window of a posh antiques store, sprinted across the rue des Saussaies against the light, then pushed through the meandering knots of afternoon window-shoppers crowding the Faubourg’s sidewalk.
The day was bracingly cold; the cloudless sky the distinctive shade of azure cum cerulean that makes Paris skies in the fall, well, Paris skies in the fall. The Christmas decorations were already up in the windows of the dozens of haute couture shops crowdedcôte-à-côte on the Faubourg, and the intense woodsy perfume of chestnuts roasting on a charcoal brazier swept suddenly and mercilessly over him as he strode past the rue d’Aguessau, causing his mouth to water involuntarily.
Tom hadn’t been to the embassy in months. Indeed, he seldom came to this part of town unless it was to share a bottle of young Bourgueil with his old friend Robert Savoye, who ran Le Griffonnier, a cozy wine bar sandwiched between a pair of shoe-box office buildings on rue des Saussaies opposite the Ministry of the Interior. So he was, if not amazed, then certainly taken aback at the overwhelming amount of security personnel present in this most upscale of Parisian neighborhoods.