Stan went to his file cabinet, and from the middle drawer removed a slender folder in which he’d kept the documentation he’d collected to establish Emmett’s guilt. Among the list of files from Emmett’s computer was a ten-digit code that, he saw now, matched the Stumbler documents. Yes, Stumbler would have reached Zora Balašević as well.
As he was returning to his seat, John Calhoun tapped on his door. “I’m free if you need anything.”
Stan blinked at him, still caught in the myopia that had taken control since visiting the Semiramis. He considered pulling in John for some legwork, or even to grill him on Jibril Aziz, but then changed his mind. The man didn’t look well, and as soon as he started asking about Aziz John would go to Harry—that was a given. “Go get some lunch,” he told the big man. “Take it easy.”
Once he was alone again, he closed his eyes, shoving away his fears for Sophie, imagining instead the sequence of events. Emmett copied the Stumbler plans from his laptop onto a flash drive and passed them on to Zora Balašević, who sold them to Ali Busiri. Months later, Emmett discussed Stumbler with Aziz, and both he and Aziz soon perished. From these sketchy details, it certainly did look as if Omar Halawi was right in at least one way: Emmett, and presumably Aziz, had been killed to keep them quiet. Quiet about what? Emmett’s treason? Stumbler? Or … the identity of the real leak?
And who really wanted them silenced? CIA? Egypt? Dragan Milić, covering up a plateful of lies he’d been feeding to Stan? Without knowing the answer to one question, the other could never be answered. Without knowing who was behind this, he would never find Sophie.
His computer dinged an incoming e-mail. It was from LogiThrust LLC about the wonderful world of penile enhancements. The codes were ridiculous but effective. He checked the text against a list of translations and learned that Ali Busiri would be waiting for him at al-Azhar Park at five thirty that evening. Finally.
He went back to the memo, but there was another tap at his door. It was Nancy. With a smile she told him a single word: “Harry’s.”
6
You know,” Harry began once his guest had taken a seat, “a lot of people think of our station as a backwoods outpost, even now.” There was a spot of red against his pale chin; he had nicked himself with a razor that morning. “We stumble into our intrigues, which from our perspective seem world-shattering and life-and-death. But from Langley’s perspective our time is taken up by tempests in teacups.”
Harry paused, as if this were something Stan needed a moment to comprehend.
“They’re wrong, of course. They often are. What they forget is that Washington is not the center of the world, and it hasn’t been for at least a decade.”
That he was referring to 9/11 before his after-work cocktail wasn’t a good sign.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Harry said. “They pay us lip service like it’s going out of style. They throw money at us and pass on our reports to members of Congress. But don’t ever fool yourself, Stan: Anytime one of us has an idea that contradicts one of Langley’s starched collars, it ceases to be a battle of ideas; it becomes a battle of school ties.”
He was getting at something, but he was taking the long way around to it. Like Stan’s own father, he showed his anxieties by launching into overstatement and weak metaphor. “We’re not the British, Harry.”
“And how does that make any difference?”
Stan shrugged. “You really think it’s that bad?”
“Worse,” he said, finally engaging with his eyes. “It’s why Cairo station has to be seen—from the outside, at least—as better than Langley. As more ironclad, more impeccable. More pristine. It’s the only way to stand a chance against the old-boy network. You and me, we have to be more; we have to be better.”
Stan nodded. Harry seemed to have woken in a mood of constructive self-criticism, or maybe he was misinterpreting.
“And then, Stan, there’s you.”
“Me?”
Harry rubbed his eyes and avoided Stan’s for a second, saying, “A senior member of this station making calls to people he’s not even supposed to know.” Their eyes met. “You know what I mean?”
Stan went through the calls he’d made recently. Who was he not supposed to know? Sophie? Saul? “I’m not sure I do.”
Harry took a breath, opened his desk drawer, and took out a single sheet of paper. “One Inaya Aziz, of Alexandria, Virginia.”
“Right,” Stan said, hesitant relief slipping into his shoulders. “That was Saturday, before you and I talked. Just a few seconds—I never identified myself.”
Harry knitted his brow, forehead contracting, and spoke in a hard voice. “Don’t lie to me, Stan.” He looked down at the paper in his hand. “Twelve-oh-nine in the afternoon on Sunday, from your landline, twenty-eight minutes of conversation.” He looked up at Stan, his expression pained. “Landline? Jesus, Stan. Are you working for the Egyptians? Because if you aren’t, then you might as well ask them to pay you for all this volunteer work.”
There it was, the trap opening up in front of him. Stan hadn’t been at home at 12:09 P.M. yesterday. Sophie had. Stan had been in the office, running through Frankfurt surveillance footage. A glance at the front desk’s entry/exit records would have told Harry this, but he apparently hadn’t checked that yet.
Which was the worse crime? Calling the widow of a man he wasn’t supposed to know about, or harboring the widow Sophie Kohl without telling anyone?
In this case, he wasn’t sure.
How had Sophie gotten Inaya Aziz’s number?
Harry said, “I believe I told you to forget about Aziz. Wasn’t I clear?”
“I had to verify some things.”
“You had to verify some things? What does that mean, Stan?”
He took a breath. “Look, Harry—if you’re not going to be up-front with me, then I’ve got no choice but to follow up on my own. Jibril Aziz met with Emmett, and soon afterward both were dead. You’re not telling me how or why Aziz was killed. So I kept digging, and it turned out that you used to run Aziz—you ran him for four years. You didn’t think I should know this?”
“There’s a reason it’s called undercover,” Harry told him, features stiff.
“Undercover. Okay. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of reasons to keep me stupid, but did you expect me to sit on my hands? So I called his wife to find out if she knew where he was.”
Harry rubbed his left eye. “And what did she say?”
“That she didn’t know where he was.”
“And what did that verify for you, Stan?”
“The only thing it verified was that you know more than you’re sharing, and it’s time to stop playing games. Talk to me about Omar Halawi.”
“Who?”
“RAINMAN. He works out of Ali Busiri’s office.”
Harry raised his head, squinting.
Stan said, “Omar Halawi says that we killed Emmett.”
There it was—the slap, square in the forehead. “He says what?”
“He sent me this message through Paul. I haven’t had a face-to-face with him yet. I want to talk to Busiri first.”
Harry leaned back, fingers threaded together across his narrow chest, and said, “Why, pray tell, did we kill Emmett?”
“To keep him quiet.”
“About what?”
Stan shrugged. “Stumbler? Or maybe the identity of another leak in the embassy.”
Harry sighed and, with a loose left hand, pointed at the ceiling. “It’s raining shit.”
It was an unexpected thing for him to say, but Stan held his tongue.