EK: What’s this about?
MK: Isn’t everything about the security of Americans? (Pause.) Listen, Emmett, I’d prefer not to talk out in the open.
Khalil motions toward Kohl’s gray Audi, two car-lengths away.
MK: I swear I’ll just be five minutes.
Kohl takes out his car keys and walks around to the driver’s side door, then pauses before opening it.
EK: We’ll talk outside, or we won’t talk at all.
MK: Emmett, this stuff is private. Some of it concerns your wife, Sophie.
EK: What about her?
MK: Not the kinds of things you want passers-by hearing.
After another pause, Kohl unlocks the car, and both men sit inside.
Source: Microphone installation
MK: First things first. I need to ask you about a meeting you had last week with one Jibril Aziz.
EK: Who?
MK: Let’s not play around. This is serious business.
Pause.
EK: But he’s one of us. (Pause.) He is CIA, isn’t he?
MK: Yes, Mr. Kohl. He is.
An audible sigh, assumedly from Kohl.
MK: So?
EK: We discussed an old operation. A theoretical operation. From my time in Cairo.
MK: Stumbler.
EK: You know about Stumbler?
MK: Of course. The Bureau had a look at it as well.
EK: Well, I … (Pause.) It was never put into motion, only discussed.
MK: Then why did Mr. Aziz fly to Budapest to talk to you about it?
EK: Because he’s delusional.
MK: Oh?
EK: He’s convinced that the plan wasn’t buried. He’s convinced it’s been started up again.
MK: What makes him think that?
EK: Disappearances, first of all. In New York, Mohammed el-Keib and Abdel Jalil of the FLO; and in London, Yousef al-Juwali of the ADLF. Other disappearances, too—Paris and Brussels. Names I don’t remember.
Pause.
MK: Right—that was the initial phase of the operation, wasn’t it? Leaders of these exile groups are plucked off the street. They convene in Marsa Matrouh and Medenine, set their watches, and cross into Libya to spark the uprising. (Pause.) Wait a minute—are you saying that Aziz believed we started what’s going on in Libya?
EK: That’s just the point. According to him, they disappeared days after the protests started in Benghazi. So, no. He doesn’t believe we started it. What he believes is that we’re trying to hijack the revolution now that it’s already under way.
MK: Is he angry about this?
EK: He’s livid.
MK: But he came to you. Why does he think a deputy consul in Hungary can help?
EK: Because I’m one of the people who rejected the plan in Cairo.
MK: So did Harold Wolcott. So did Stan Bertolli. And they’re Agency.
A pause, and through the windshield we can see a large smile on Kohl’s face. Pride?
EK: That’s because I’m the only one, among the two dozen who looked at the plan, who made a moral argument against it. I sent my assessment separately, in a direct to the Office of Collection Strategies and Analysis. I said that our country had made the moral error of trying to unilaterally bring about regime change in Iraq, and that the new administration should learn from the mistakes of the previous one. I said that in my line of work I’m called upon to defend my country, and while I can cite economic and military reasons for people to support the United States, the moment I’m unable to fall back on our moral strength, my arguments will fall on deaf ears.
MK: So you were against Stumbler on moral grounds.
EK: Primarily, yes.
MK: And this convinced Aziz that his plan was wrong?
EK: Not at all. But he respected my position. He knew that I was the one person he could come to with a moral problem and expect an honest answer.
MK: And what did you tell him?
EK: I told him that if the American government was putting Stumbler in motion in order to thwart the popular revolution in Libya, then I would find a whistle and blow it.
MK: Is that true?
EK: Absolutely, but it’s beside the point now. Because Jibril is wrong. I tried to tell him that. We simply wouldn’t do it. Forget the moral reasons—the risks are too great. But I promised to look into it myself. Which is what I did. And, no, we’re not running Stumbler. (Pause.) Someone else is.
MK: What?
EK: Jibril’s partially right—someone is working off of the Stumbler blueprints, but it’s not us. Yesterday, London ID’d the man who took away Yousef al-Juwali. His name is Mutassim Jallud. He’s not an exile, and he’s not one of us. He’s a member of Mukhabarat el-Jamahiriya.
MK: Gadhafi’s intelligence service?
Kohl nods.
MK: What do you think this means?
EK: Maybe you should talk to the embassy.
MK: I’m talking to you.
Kohl shakes his head.
EK: I’ve given you enough. You said you had information about my wife.
MK: I did.
EK: Well?
MK: Tell me what you suspect first.
EK: Don’t be an ass.
MK: I’m just doing my job.
Pause.
EK: Look, okay? Stumbler isn’t happening. What we’ve got is someone worried it’s going to happen. And by someone, I mean Muammar Gadhafi. He’s sending people to get rid of the central players in the plan. The real question is: How did he find out about Stumbler?
MK: Maybe he’s just getting rid of exiles who hate him. It wouldn’t be the first time.
EK: But these exact exiles? The ones listed in the original plan? No, Gadhafi’s people have a copy of the Stumbler documents. The question is: How? Who gave it to him? It leaked—for a variety of reasons I won’t go into, I’ll lay odds it leaked from the Cairo embassy—but to whom? And how did it then make its way over the border to Tripoli? That’s what we need to be worrying about.
MK: Have you taken a look at WikiLeaks lately?
EK: The cable from Cairo—yes, I saw it. But that’s just an assessment of Stumbler, not the original plan. They only got hold of the introductory cable—no operational detail, no names. Gadhafi isn’t using WikiLeaks to track down the exiles.
Pause.
MK: And this is what you’re working on now? Figuring out the path the documents took?