Will ignored the fact that Patrick was pressing his fingers deep into his arm. “Do it. And I think you’ll find out something quite surprising.”
Geoffrey’s eyes were wide. “No. We can’t betray a CIA agent!”
Patrick released his grip on Will’s arm and thrust a finger against his chest. “And even if we did something as crazy as that, we could be playing right into their hands by telling them that we know this was a Mossad operation.”
Will shook his head. “Rubner’s no longer a CIA agent. And whatever he was doing for the CIA, I’m certain it wasn’t set up by Mossad. Even if they had a requirement to get hold of an SVR officer, they would never have floated Rubner in front of the CIA with the remit to reveal the identities of their U.S. and U.K. agents.”
Patrick lowered his finger. “I agree with that.”
Geoffrey mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “So do I. In the United States, Rubner’s intel has enabled the arrest of fifteen Mossad spies; twice as many are under FBI surveillance. The Brits have got their claws into a similar number.” He pocketed his handkerchief. “But even though we might be able to rule out that this was an Israeli operation, we most certainly know for a fact that Rubner was working for us. And that fact cannot be disclosed to Mossad.”
“It’s going to have to be, in order for us to get closer to the truth.” Will looked at Patrick. “Please. Back me on this.”
“I can’t!”
“Please. It’s the right thing to do.”
“God damn you. You can’t ask me to do this.”
“I already have.”
Patrick stared at him. After a long silence, he muttered, “You’re taking one hell of a risk.”
“I know.”
Patrick was motionless for twenty seconds. While looking at the ceiling, he said in a loud, authoritative voice, “As the most senior officer in this room, I’m making the decision that Mossad should be made aware that Simon Rubner has been a CIA agent. If that decision is the wrong one, then I fully accept that I and I alone should suffer the consequences.” He lowered his head, looked straight at Geoffrey. “I’m instructing you to make the call.”
Geoffrey appeared taken aback, and spoke imploringly. “Patrick, this is wrong. You could be-”
“Do it!”
Geoffrey picked up the handset of one of the phones, held his fingers over the keypad, and glanced at Will. “Patrick clearly has a huge amount of faith in your judgment. I hope you respect that.”
He pressed numbers, held the phone to his head, waited, spoke fluent Hebrew to whoever was on the end of the line, and was silent for thirty seconds. No doubt the person he needed to speak to in Mossad was being summoned to the phone. He spoke again, his tone hushed, his words quick and urgent. The call lasted ten minutes. By the time the Head of Tel Aviv Station placed the handset down, his face was covered with perspiration.
“Indeed the Rubner case has been an almighty cock-up.” Geoffrey looked at Will. “Simon Rubner moved to New York six months ago with his wife and teenage daughter, one week after he’d resigned from Mossad.”
Patrick exclaimed, “He’s no longer Mossad? You’re sure?”
Geoffrey nodded. “Since then, the Israelis have been trying to ascertain who’s been compromising its U.S. and U.K. agents. Rubner’s been at the top of its list of suspects, given the timings of his departure and the first round of arrests, and the fact that the identity of every compromised agent was known to Rubner. Mossad’s been trying to track him down so that it can have a very blunt chat with him. A month ago it found out that Rubner had been in the States, but by then it was too late because he’d done his disappearing act. Mossad’s got no idea where he is now.”
Patrick looked at Will. “You suspected this to be the case?”
Will nodded. “That’s why I needed the call to be made.” He stared at nothing. “It was a clever setup. Simon Rubner moved to New York immediately after he left Mossad. Somehow, he deliberately made himself visible to the CIA, who then asked Geoffrey’s station to do a trace on him. The result suggested he was still a serving officer. CIA thinks for whatever reason that Rubner might be able to be recruited, and that cash is the best carrot. It approaches him using a deniable cover company called Gerlache. Almost immediately, it gets him to pass them secrets, then it declares that in truth it’s CIA. He agrees to continue working for them but only on one condition-that he can pretend to Mossad that he’s recruited a CIA officer. After all, he tells them, that’s what he’s in America to do. Terms are struck. The CIA gives Rubner chickenfeed U.S. intelligence. .”
“Congress would need to approve every piece of intelligence supplied to Rubner.”
Specifically, that approval would come from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence-an organization created in 1976 after Congress had investigated CIA operations on U.S. soil and established that some had been illegal. The SSCI comprised fifteen senators who were drawn from the two major political parties and whose remit included oversight of U.S. intelligence activities and ensuring transparency between the intelligence community and Congress.
Will agreed with Patrick. “And in return, Rubner continues giving them gold dust secrets-the identities of the Israeli agents. But he does it drip feed.” He looked sharply at Geoffrey. “Correct?”
“Correct. The agents were being sold out one by one, over a five-month time frame.”
“And that’s what’s so funny.” Will frowned. “And smart, for that matter. You’d have expected the CIA to be getting intelligence from Rubner on ongoing Mossad operations. But Rubner couldn’t give them that, because he was out of the loop, though his knowledge of U.S. and U.K. Mossad agents was still very relevant. He used that knowledge as a smoke screen to hide the fact that he simply didn’t know stuff that an officer in his position should. Drip-feeding it to them was crucial, because he had to get the CIA to the point where it would break rules to keep him on their books.” Will placed the tips of his fingers together. “That moment came around one month ago, at which point he ups the ante and says he knows the CIA has got a huge team of analysts covering Russia, that Mossad is struggling on the Russian target, that he needs to know the identity of an SVR officer who the CIA is certain would betray secrets. Maybe the CIA’s reluctant to help at first. Maybe Rubner threatens them that if they don’t give him what he wants, he’ll clam up. Careers and reputations are now resting on the Rubner intel. Knowing that the SSCI would never approve the sacrifice of a Russian CIA agent, Rubner’s case officer and his colleagues secretly give Rubner the name of the SVR officer I’m now looking for.”
Patrick shook his head, his expression somber. “And Rubner takes that name and runs, his objective complete. You think Simon Rubner is the man behind everything you’re working on?”
“Possibly, though my feeling is that I’m dealing with someone at a much higher level. And I’m wondering if it was that person who approached the SVR officer and told him that he had to do a job for him or else he would tell the SVR that he’d been working for the CIA. That man gave the Russian his name, a covert communications drill for them to be in contact, and some very specific instructions.” He was now thinking aloud. “Shortly thereafter, the SVR officer does what he’s told by stealing an extremely valuable piece of paper and escaping to Poland. But a day or two before then, he decides to find out who he’s dealing with. He trawls through SVR databases and stumbles across one report. It’s brief, and contains purely logistical detail pertaining to a meeting that happened in 1995. He prints it off, smuggles it out of SVR HQ, and hides it in his home.” He nodded. “One of the names on that report is the name of the man who approached him, the man who paid Rubner a lot of cash to leave Mossad and set himself up in New York, the individual who orchestrated everything.”