He thought about that a moment. In other reports, the subject had been self-explanatory: Agent Meet, Surveillance, Courier. He decided on Transport.
Security Classification: Secret.
Subject: Jibril Aziz.
Below was a blank space without the aid of directions. Here, then, was where he was to explain a failure that had cost the life of an American agent. He began with the particulars of the operation, the orders he’d received, and the pickup at the Semiramis. He described the route they’d taken and the stop in Marsa Matrouh, including the meeting with the man in the red-checked ghutra, their movement through the border, and Jibril’s purchase of the Kalashnikov.
He spent some time on their disagreement over the road they were to take, even admitting to having believed Jibril’s traffic excuse. “However,” he wrote, “once Mr. Aziz met a contact in Al `Adam, it became obvious that his reasons were not limited to our narrow timeframe. Traffic was less a reason than an excuse.”
“Hey, John,” he heard. Stan Bertolli was approaching, a laptop bag hanging from his shoulder.
John gave him a nod.
Stan frowned at his face. “Harry putting you through the ringer?”
A ripple of worry passed through him—Harry had told him to keep his Libyan trip quiet, yet all Stan had to do was take three steps forward and peer over his shoulder to get a good idea of what had been going on. John considered replying, but feared that anything he said would be an invitation to approach, so he just shrugged.
“That the report?”
John tensed, then nodded.
After a moment’s uncomfortable silence, Stan unlocked his office and went inside. John exhaled and, after staring blankly at the screen for a few seconds, gathered his wits enough to get back to it.
He described the contact, but realized that the description was too wordy and deleted it in favor of “a tall man, dark-skinned, in traditional Bedouin dress.” Though he nearly put it into words, he avoided mention of the leather book that he had promised to burn.
By then the sentences were flowing and, as if he had been taken again by the anxiety of the events he was remembering, his fingers flew over the keyboard as he described that last stretch of road that led to the bandits. He brought up the conversation about their families and even Jibril’s explanation of his obsession, via his father’s tragic murder, before remembering that he had lied to Harry about what Jibril had shared. So he deleted that paragraph. Then they were at the Toyota truck. He paused, closed his eyes, and tried to see it all again. He slowed it down, smelled the dry, cool wind, saw the bright green bandannas on their sunbaked heads, squinted into the darkening sky, and heard Fuck you English! Then he typed.
Stan
1
They shared the same bed, but he did not consume her. It was too soon for that, he knew, though it was a struggle to convince his hand on her hip to remain where it lay. She was there with him, but a part of her was still with Emmett and would be for a very long time. Hadn’t that always been true? Yes—but now, Emmett Kohl had graduated from cuckoldry to sainthood, and that would not blow over quickly. She fell quickly to sleep, proving that they were not really strangers, or perhaps it only proved how exhausted she was. Either way, he was left staring at the smooth curve of her shoulder rising out of the sheet, asking himself if just one small bite would wake her.
He wondered how many nights his father had lain in Italian beds, unable to sleep for all the clashing thoughts in his head. Though he had shared some things with his son, Paolo Bertolli had preferred to avoid discussions of dirty reality, detailing only his moments of glory—the afternoon in early 1978 when he wore a wire to a meeting to plan the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, the intelligence he passed on about the location of the kidnapped Brigadier General James Dozier in 1981, and the 1983 arrest of Vanni Mulinaris. Nothing about how he had learned to sleep when the fear was eating him up, leading to a midlife of chronic ulcers that had required three separate surgeries. His mother, when she had chosen to speak of his father at all, told Stan that he wept in his sleep. Unforgivingly, she would say, “And what kind of a man does that?”
A man with things on his mind.
He knew too little, and as he dwelled on the few facts in front of him he remembered Harry’s expression from the day before, when he’d asked about John’s under-the-table job: the forehead suddenly full of wrinkles, as if it had been slapped. He remembered it because it was the same expression he had seen when he’d brought evidence of Emmett’s crimes to Harry the previous year, asking that it be passed on to Langley. That expression had shrunk Harry’s face, and after a long moment of reflection he’d said, “I’m not giving those smart boys back home an excuse to reshuffle my station. We take care of this on our own.” Taking care of it on their own, it turned out, had simply meant sending a bad apple to another orchard.
Zora Balašević had told Dragan Milić that Emmett hadn’t leaked information. Dragan was right to doubt this—for why else would the Egyptians have hired her? But what if she’d been telling the truth, and she had found another embassy source? Harry? Could Harry have been the leak, using Emmett to cover his tracks? We take care of this on our own.
Or was Stan growing paranoid? By then it was after two in the morning, and he was lying beside a woman who filled him with cannibalistic desires. How could he think of trusting himself?
He remembered a single piece of advice his father had given him toward the end of his life, when he was confined to a hospital bed, tubes poking out of every orifice: Stan, when you live in a house of mirrors, the only way to stay alive is to believe that every reflection is real. The downside is that this can cost you your sanity.
Then it was Saturday morning. Coffee, fresh orange juice, and bagels that the embassy shipped in from America. With cream cheese on her lip, Sophie tapped at the surface of her iPad, checking mail over his Wi-Fi. “Thirty-two messages,” she groaned.
“Ignore them.”
“His parents want to know why I’m not with his body.”
“Ignore them,” he repeated. “Or tell them you’re fine but don’t give details. In fact, don’t tell anybody you’re here.”
She frowned at him. “I’m here now—no one stopped me. So it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said, “and we might as well not contradict each other.”
Briefly, a look of understanding flashed across her face, but just as quickly it faded away. “Why am I a secret?”
“I told you before: Harry will want to handle you. If he knows you’re in town, he’ll figure out you’re staying with me, and he won’t be as open with me as he would otherwise. I’m just trying to buy us some time.”
“You think he knows?”
“What?”
“About us.”
Stan smiled. “If he didn’t before, he’ll figure it out once he knows where you’re staying.”
“And that would be a problem for you.”
“I suppose,” he said, as if he hadn’t thought of that already. The fear of exposure had ruled his life last year, and now that she was back in his life the fear had returned. “It’s not like you coming here is a secret—your passport left Hungary and entered Egypt. The Budapest embassy should know where you are. Soon enough, they’ll call Harry just to let him know you’re around. They’ll probably say you’re unstable. Let’s give ourselves the weekend before going to Harry.”