Margolis took a big glug of his wine. “I don’t understand.”
“I can tell you that on paper, there is now a counterterrorism task force based in Paris, specifically working on the information that the Iranian gave you.”
“Who told you?”
“We have our sources, Adam.”
“Okay, let’s say, for argument’s sake, you’re correct. But what good does it do if the whole thing’s a mirage?”
“It does the DCI a lot of good. He can go up to Capitol Hill and tell the intelligence oversight committees he’s recruited a well-placed unilateral source in Paris who has twenty-four-karat information about the AQN’s capabilities and intentions.”
“But it’s a lie.”
“The intelligence oversight committees don’t know it’s a lie. So the short answer to your question is that making up a story about a new, forward-based counterterrorism task force gets Congress off CIA’s back.”
“But there won’t be any results if there’s no real task force.”
“Results?” Tom snorted. “Congress doesn’t care about results. Know what we used to call the members of the oversight committees? Mushrooms. Mushrooms, because we’d feed ’em manure and keep ’em in the dark and they’d grow fat and happy. Congress never gave a damn about results. Neither the House nor the Senate ever cared whether CIA was doing its job.”
“Mushrooms.” Margolis giggled. “That’s funny.” He turned serious. “But it’s inconceivable to me. I mean, I didn’t get any information from the Iranian. All he wanted was money.”
Thatwas a surprise. Tom fought to keep his reaction neutral. “The Iranian asked for money?”
“He wanted the whole twenty-five mil reward we’ve posted. Half a million up front and the rest when he brought him in and we verified the DNA is what he told me.”
“Him?”
“Theguy. Thebig guy.”
It was time to let the kid correct him. So Tom went for the obvious choice. “UBL?”
Margolis gave him a negative wag of the head. Tom gave the kid the reaction he wanted. He looked puzzled. He stroked his chin. He scratched his cheek. Then he leaned forward far enough to make sure his lips couldn’t be read, and stage-whispered, “Imad?”
“Bingo.” Margolis’s head bobbed up and down once. “You got it.”
“Wow. What else did the Iranian tell you?”
“That was all. That he could lay his hands on the big guy-if we came up with a down payment.”
“He didn’t talk about anybody else?”
“Not to me.”
“Hmm.” Tom played with his wineglass. He let the kid watch him think. After about half a minute, he rapped the table with his knuckles. “Adam, sooner or later the story’s going to come out.”
“What story?”
“The story about your contact.”
“Why?”
Tom looked at the kid earnestly and lied through his teeth. “Because it will. Because they leak stories from the seventh floor. Lots of finger-pointing. ‘This division screwed up.’ ‘That case officer screwed up.’ It’s all smoke screen-to save their own jobs. And you’ve got a problem because when themerde hits theventilateur and it comes out that there is no task force-that it’s all been make believe-the fingers are going to start pointing at you.”
“Whose fingers?”
“The head office. Harry Z. The press.”
“But I didn’tdo anything,” Margolis said, alcohol-motivated anger bubbling to the surface. “I just met with the Iranian.”
“You’re the junior man.” Tom let that thought sink in. “You’re the disposable, Adam. Remember what they taught you about disposables at the Farm?”
Tom watched the kid’s face metamorphose. Margolis stuck his lower lip out. “That pisses me off.”
Showtime.Tom looked at the younger man solicitously. “Maybe I can help.”
The youngster spread butter on a slice of baguette, topped it with two slices of sausage, and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. “How?”
“Look, I have-wehave-really good contacts back at”-Tom leaned forward-“the home office. You realize that, right?”
Margolis nodded. He looked at Tom. “Y’know, I really think it was the money.” He chewed and swallowed. “Now that I think about it, Harry said the home office was very pissed about the money, but they thought the info might turn out to be pretty good.”
That was another revelation. Tom checked to see whether Margolis had any awareness of what he was saying. The kid’s eyes told him the answer was no. Tom took things up a notch. “Where did you meet the contact?”
“The Iranian? He came to the embassy.”
“When?”
“That was the strange thing. He called on Friday the tenth of October.”
“You’re sure of the date?”
“Positive.”
“When did he call?”
“Late in the day.”
“When,Adam?”
The kid’sin vino veritas expression displayed confusion. “I told you. Late.” He caught the piqued look on Tom’s face. “Oh,when. After five. I spoke to him for a couple of minutes. He introduced himself. He told me he’d had dealings with us before. He said he had something big that-and he said this right on the open line-that he could lay his hands on…you know, the big guy. But it would cost us plenty. I knew I’d have to get back to him, of course. So I did everything by the book. I was noncommittal. I asked for a twenty-four-hour phone number and explained we’d be in touch.”
“Then?”
“I took my notes to Harry Z, dropped them off at about five forty-five, then I went home. Harry must have walked it up the ladder back at HQ because he called me Saturday afternoon. Told me to be standing on the front steps of the embassy on Sunday morning at eight forty-five, to have a pad and a tape recorder with me, and to talk to this guy under alias.”
“What alias were you to use?”
“Jeff Stone.”
The order sounded odd to Tom. CIA’s walk-in debriefing room on the embassy’s ground floor had audio recording capabilities, and he mentioned that fact to Margolis.
“Seemed strange to me, too. But Harry was very specific. He described the Iranian to me. I was to watch for him-that’s easy enough, given the maze of barriers we have out front-wait until he was admitted to the gatehouse, then pick him up, walk him into the embassy, and listen to what he had to say. I was to make absolutely no commitments then write a report and have it on Harry’s desk by nine Monday morning.”
Something wasn’t right. “When Harry called Saturday, what did he tell you about the contact?”
“Tell me?” Margolis blinked. “He described him physically, if that’s what you mean.”
“No-I mean what he said about who the guy was-his background, his past relationship with…where you work.”
“Harry?” The kid popped the last chunk of sausage into his mouth. “He didn’t say a thing.”
“And what checking did you do?”
“None. I told you-he called late on Friday and we close the office promptly at six. I was told to be at the embassy Sunday morning.” He looked at Tom. “I was operating blind.”
Close the office promptly at six? Clock-punching spies? It was frigging inconceivable. Still, if this drivel was true, and Tom had no reason to believe he was getting a runaround because none of the kid’s body language suggested the faintest hint of deception, then Margolis was a bigger schmuck than Tom had thought and Shahram had been totally mishandled.
Even an idiot would have Googled Shahram’s name to see if anything came up. But Margolis had done nothing. Tom groaned inwardly but kept a poker face. “How did it play out?”
“Just like Harry said it would. I was a couple of minutes early. I waited. The Iranian was late-he showed up at nine, on the dot. I guess there’d been some misunderstanding about the time. I went down to the gatehouse, walked him in, we talked for about half an hour.”