For a couple of days after Wells flew to Switzerland and Duto to Tel Aviv, Shafer didn’t try to contact Duffy. Shafer justified his hesitation by telling himself that the CIA was waiting for him to make a mistake. Like the White House, the agency had gone all in on the theory that Iran was the source of the Istanbul uranium. The DCI’s chief of staff and axman, Max Carcetti, had warned Shafer against trying to prove otherwise. Shafer would embarrass himself and the agency at a crucial moment, Carcetti said. And Carcetti had leverage, in the form of tapes of Shafer passing classified information to Wells and Duto — who no longer had CIA clearances.
The tapes gave Carcetti and Scott Hebley, the DCI, all the evidence they needed to fire Shafer. If they wanted to play hardball, they could even ask the Department of Justice to prosecute Shafer as a leaker. Shafer probably wouldn’t go to prison. Duto was a senator and the former DCI, and Wells had worked for the agency for more than a decade. Even so, fighting a federal indictment would take years and cost Shafer his life savings. Shafer figured the only reason Hebley and Carcetti hadn’t gotten rid of him already was that they wanted him in the office, where they could watch him easily. Best to tread lightly, especially since Duffy probably didn’t have anything useful anyway.
But the morning before, not long after the agency received reports of a terrorist attack in Riyadh, Shafer saw a message in his in-box from 2belizeprincess45@gmail.com. The body text was a cut-and-paste for counterfeit Viagra. The point of the message was contained in the sender’s address: Wells wanted Shafer to call him on his second burner phone in forty-five minutes.
For a moment, Shafer found himself oddly sympathetic to the jihadis he’d spent fifteen years chasing. Did he and Wells think they would beat the all-seeing NSA with these simple tricks? Inshallah, my man. Forty-three minutes later, he stood outside his car in the parking lot of the Tysons Corner Galleria as Wells recounted his conversation with General Nawwaf.
North Korea?
I don’t believe it either, Wells said. But since it’s all I got, I figured I’d mention it. Anyone you can ask?
I’ll think about it.
What about this bombing? We just got the reports. Were you—
I don’t want to talk about it. If I thought it was relevant, I would have mentioned it.
I’m sorry, John.
The show never ends. And I’m starting to think I know all the lyrics by heart.
Get some sleep. If you can.
Keep an eye on Evan and Heather, okay?
Of course. You’ll feel better in the morning.
Shafer wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Wells, or himself. Either way, he was talking to dead air. Wells was gone. And Shafer was furious with himself for his cowardice. Wells risked his life in the field every day, and Shafer was sitting on his hands because he was afraid to irritate the seventh floor? He left the burner in his glove compartment, found a cab to take him to the Clarendon Metro, the orange line. He didn’t think Carcetti and Hebley would bother with a live tail. But they might have stuck a GPS tracker on his car.
From Clarendon he headed east to Rosslyn. South to Crystal City on the blue line. Northeast to L’Enfant Plaza on the yellow. To the street, a brisk walk from the entrance at 9th and D to the one at 7th and Maryland, then back underground. Again the blue line. The run took nearly an hour and was probably unnecessary, a blur of silver trains puffing in and out under waffle-shaped concrete ceilings. But Shafer wanted to work his countersurveillance muscles. Feel like a real case officer again. He got off at Benning Road. The massive growth in the government and the lobbyists who sucked its teats had made Washington wealthier than it had ever been. Neighborhoods around Capitol Hill and all over Northwest had been prettied past recognition. But the gentrification boom hadn’t touched the low-slung housing projects that speckled the hills east of the Anacostia River. Here, crack vials still littered the sidewalks, and convenience-store clerks cowered behind bulletproof glass.
Shafer trudged along East Capitol until he saw the neon lights of a check-cashing outlet glowing in the dusk. In a world of cheap prepaid mobile handsets, check cashers were among the last places that could be counted on for old-fashioned pay phones. Of the four phones outside Ready-Chek! — Go, one had no handset. Another had inexplicably been mummified with electrical tape. Burns and scratches that couldn’t even be called graffiti covered the last two. As Shafer tried to pick the one less likely to give him hepatitis, two women in miniskirts sidled toward him. They were either prostitutes or doing their best to freeze to death. He expected an approach, but apparently he was too old for them to bother. The one on the left said something under her breath to the other, and they both giggled and kept walking. An entirely inappropriate flush of self-pity seized him. When even the whores ignore you, you might as well be dead.
He shoved quarters into the phone and dialed. “Global Pan-Asia Partners,” a woman said, her voice crackling through the broken plastic.
“Ian Duffy, please.” Shafer was shouting, trying to keep the mouthpiece away from his lips.
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Ellis Shafer.”
“And will he know what this is in reference to, Mr. Shafer?”
“Tell him it’s Farm business.”
Three full minutes passed. Shafer started to lose feeling in his fingers. He was nearly ready to hang up.
“This is an unexpected pleasure. The famous Ellis Shafer. How may I help you?”
Shafer didn’t know why Duffy was so chummy. Maybe they had met after all. “I’d love to tell you over a drink tonight,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.
“Tonight’s no good. Breakfast? Tomorrow?” Duffy’s voice combined his Michigan childhood and the decades he’d spent in former British colonies. The flat nasal tones of the Midwest and the elongated consonants of Hyde Park. He sounded like an aristocrat with a cold.
“Tomorrow would be great.”
“Eight a.m.? The Hyatt in Bethesda?”
“Looking forward to it.” Though Shafer wasn’t. He’d have to set his alarm at 5:30 for another Metro run.
“See you then.”
The sky was dark when he left his house the next morning. But not so dark that he didn’t notice the unmarked white van that picked him up when he turned onto Washington Boulevard. Then again, he would have had to be blind to miss it. It was a dented Ford Econoline with tinted windows and no commercial insignia, which only heightened its obviousness. Shafer looked for a front license plate to memorize, but the van didn’t have one. The omission wasn’t necessarily illegal. Several nearby states, including North Carolina and West Virginia, didn’t require front plates.
The van seemed to Shafer less a tail than a signal. We’re watching. We know where you live. The agency had already sent that message loud and clear. Which left Duberman.
He called home. “Sweetie. Can you do me a favor and look outside?”
She walked to the window. They’d been together forty years. Shafer believed he’d know his wife by her footsteps alone.