Direct Action (24 page)

Now it was so hard to gain entrance to the embassy that no sane walkin would dream of risking his hide by going anywhere near AMEMBASSY Paris. There were watchers in the street—Tom had no doubt al-Qa’ida, Tehran, and who knows who else had the embassy under constant surveillance. The bad guys could use teams of taxicabs driven by their agents— there were six cab stands on the Champs and the portions of avenue Gabriel that hadn’t been closed down. They could man static positions by renting rooms at the Crillon (UBL had the budget to go first class, if necessary). They could tag-team watchers moving back and forth. It was probable that any walk-in who approached the compound would be photographed.

The heavy, layered security itself was another inhibitor. The French police demanded identification before anyone could get within a hundred yards of the place. Anonymity was impossible to maintain. When Tom had been posted here, walk-ins could make their way to the consulate or speak to a Marine guard, not be forced to go through a local rent-a-cop. Now the Marines were hermetically sealed beyond the gatehouse, there was no exterior telephone available, and unfettered entry to the consulate was impossible. Which left French security personnel as any walk-in’s initial contact.

Tom had no doubt that the people behind the gatehouse’s U-shaped desk reported to DST. They’d transmitted a photocopy of his passport on the fax before they’d bothered to call Adam Margolis’s office. And to whom, pray tell, had the fax been sent? Tom was certain the bloody French would have completed a computer check on him by the time Adam Margolis came down from the station. DST would know he was going to meet with a CIA officer named Margolis.

The whole raison d’être of an embassy—to be able to soak up information that allows your nation to make intelligent foreign policy—had been perverted. From the CIA viewpoint, it was crazy. A majority of all successful agent recruitments began with a walk-in. But the embassy compound and its environs had been turned into a zone sanitaire and the obscene level of security made walking in virtually impossible. Indeed, between the barriers, and the watchers, and the ID checks, and the DST informers at the gatehouse counter...it was madness. Sheer madness.

3:19
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. Tom spotted Margolis as the tall, gangling youngster pushed through the embassy’s front doors, loped down the stairs, and headed for the gatehouse. Margolis was in his late twenties with longish, dark curly hair. His befuddled, deer-in-the-headlights expression was accentuated by a pair of professorial round tortoiseshell eyeglasses with pink-tinted lenses. He wore a baggy blue pinstripe suit, button-down shirt, rep tie, and rubber-soled maroon-cum-brown leather Rockports, all of which pegged him immediately as a junior-grade American diplomat. Margolis’s overall appearance, combined with the awkward gait and pouty lower lip, reminded Tom of the simpleton twit who’d been chief State Department spokesman in the second Clinton administration.

Margolis unlocked the gatehouse door with the pass that dangled around his neck on a long leash and made his way up the ramp, right hand outstretched, to where Tom was standing. “Adam Margolis. Sorry to keep you waiting but it’s been a bear of a day.”

“Tom Stafford. No problem.” Tom looked at the young case officer, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, Tom said, “Adam, can we go somewhere to talk?”

“Talk?” Margolis blinked uncomfortably as if no one had mentioned to him that Tom might want to actually converse. “What about right here?”
Was he insane? Tom nodded toward the two French security guards. “I’d rather go somewhere a little more private.”
“Well, we can’t go up to my office.” Margolis’s head moved birdlike, herky-jerky left, right, up, down. “It’s restricted.”
Tom felt like rolling his eyes. “It’s all right.”
The case officer’s eyes blinked wildly. “How about the commissary?” He looked over at the French security officer. “I can take him to the commissary, can’t I?”
“You will need a pass, Mr. Margolis.” The officer reached under the counter and extracted a laminated blue badge with a huge black V on it. “You must wear this visibly at all times,” he said as he painstakingly annotated the badge’s six-digit number in a ledger. He looked over at Tom. “Your passport, please, monsieur.”
Tom had no intention of passing through the metal detector. He focused on Margolis’s face and winked. “How about we take a walk? I’ll buy you a drink up the street.”
Blink-blink. Tom could actually hear the gears inside Margolis’s head engaging. Then the CIA officer’s head cocked in Tom’s direction. “Okay. But I have to go back and get a pad and paper.”

3:35
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. They walked east through the security checkpoints in silence. As they approached the corner of the rue Boissy-d’Anglas, Tom said, “So, how do you like Paris?”

“It’s okay,” Margolis said. “French are pretty standoffish these days, given the political situation.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve had a hard time meeting people.”
“How’s your French?”
“About a two.”
That wasn’t anywhere near fluent—it was something akin to high school French.
“Arabic?”
“Here and there.” Margolis shrugged. “But I’m a three-plus in Spanish.”
That would be helpful...in Madrid. Tom shook his head. And this kid was supposed to keep an eye on Islamists?
“Maybe you should take French classes. Or Arabic.”
“Why?” Margolis’s shoulders heaved once again. “Washington won’t pay. And with the euro so high . . .” His voice trailed off. “Was it like that when you were here?”
“Not really.” Tom’s small trust fund had made it possible for him to augment his meager CIA housing allowance and rent a decent twobedroom apartment in a high-ceilinged courtyard building just off the rue de Courcelles in the seventeenth. Plus, he’d spoken four-plus French and four-minus Arabic by the time he’d arrived in Paris. “Where do you live?”
“I’ve got a studio in Cormeilles-en-Parisis.”
Tom winced. That was perhaps a thirty-five-minute ride on the sardinecan commuter trains followed by a couple of stops on the metro every morning. Given the fact that walk-ins weren’t a possibility these days, how the hell were young officers like Margolis supposed to do their jobs properly—their jobs being to spot, assess, and recruit spies—when they weren’t provided with the right tools?
Yes, tools. In this city, a nice apartment in central Paris was a tool of the trade. Because in the style-conscious City of Light, where you lived, how you dressed, and how fluent in French you were all mattered. No selfrespecting functionary from the Ministry of Defense was going to take his chicly turned-out wife for cocktails chez Margolis if they had to take two or three metros from their flat in the seventh, then ride the local from Gare St. Lazare twenty-five kilometers northwest to some anonymous suburb, only to sit on a daybed, sip California jug wine, and eat microwaved rumaki bought at the embassy commissary. The French weren’t big on white Zinfandel and pizza rolls.
Worse: if the kid worked the normal embassy hours, which was nine to six, how the hell was he supposed to run a two-hour cleaning route, meet with an agent for a couple of hours, then run a second cleaning route, go back to the office and write a report, then take a cab all the way home because there were no trains to Cormeilles-en-Parisis at two in the morning?
The problem was ubiquitous. CIA spent billions willy-nilly on technical espionage but counted every penny when it came to setting up their clandestine service personnel in a manner that would allow them to operate effectively. CIA’s junior case officers, for example, were regulated by the same draconian rules on housing and expenses as their State Department colleagues. So everyone below the GS-15/FSO-1 level lived on the cheap. Housing was assigned by the number of people and grade. Young Adam Margolis, who was single—the studio apartment was Tom’s evidence— was obviously a GS-10 or perhaps an 11. Income? Seventy thousand dollars. It might sound like a lot, but it wasn’t enough to do the job in this expensive, cosmopolitan city, where each dollar bought only eighty euro cents—sometimes less.
“Got a car?”
Blink-blink. “I only wish.”
“What about a motorcycle?”
The kid looked at him with wounded eyes. “I never learned how to ride.”
Margolis was screwed. Full stop, end of story. Because the bottom line, when you crunched the numbers, was that central Paris was a financial impossibility. Therefore, Adam Margolis, American spy, would be forced to live in roughly three hundred square feet of space at a rent that could not exceed four hundred dollars a month and compelled by further economic constraints to commute by public transportation to and from his domicile. And entertainment? Tom guessed the bean counters at Langley had screamed bloody murder the first time the kid spent eighty-five euros taking a developmental to lunch. Naturellement young Adam Margolis didn’t meet anyone. And just as naturellement, therefore, the intelligence product he produced—if he produced any intelligence product at all—was going to be second or third rate at best.
Sure, you could recruit agents on the cheap in Cairo, Dushanbe, or Kinshasa. And Tom had spent his share of time in the City of Light’s Lebanese and Algerian restaurants, steakhouse chains, and fast-food cafés. You fit the level of entertainment to the lifestyle and social comfortability of the person you were trying to seduce. But there were times when a bottle of champagne at the George V or a meal at La Butte Chaillot were a necessity— and those cost money. So did a car—or even a motorcycle. Without your own transportation, going black became a lot more complicated. By forcing the kid to exist under such incredibly stupid limitations, Langley was dooming him to failure.
Tom led Margolis back through the maze of barriers, turned the corner onto the rue Boissy-d’Anglas, and headed north. He thought about stopping in the bar of the Sofitel, but marched Margolis past the entrance. He didn’t want Margolis running into anyone he knew. Better to take him somewhere he’d never been. Someplace quiet.

3.54
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. Tom ushered Margolis through the doorway of Le Griffonnier, walked past the neat bar to one of the small round tables close to the rear staircase, pulled out a chair, and gestured. “Please.”

Margolis dropped obediently into the chair and swiveled to take a look around as Tom slid between the marble-topped tables and sat on the tan leather banquette, his back to the wall. “Nice,” the kid said. “Nice place.”

“Quiet,” Tom said. “Private.” The proprietor, Robert Savoye, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Rufus, the friendly wirehaired griffon who’d been retired from hunting because his nose had given out. These days, he lived in the bar and grew fat on snippets of cheese and sausage supplied by willing customers.

“I’ve developed a taste for red wine lately,” Margolis said, almost guiltily.
“Nothing wrong with that. Had lunch?”
The youngster sighed. “Uh-huh. Commissary.”
“Gotcha.” Tom nodded. He signaled for the barman, ordered some saucisson sec, a selection of cheeses, a plate of sliced tomato, a bowl of baguette slices with butter on the side, and a bottle of Bourgueil—a 1997 Vaumoreau from Pierre-Jacques Druet.
When the man withdrew, Tom said, “So much for red wine.” He grinned. “And what vintage are you?”
Margolis gave him a shy smile. “I was accepted into DI in ’99. Went in right after grad school.”
The light in Tom’s brain switched on. The kid was one of Langley’s analysts turned case officers. “Where?”
“GW—did my undergraduate work there, too.”
“Major?”
“Poly sci. Minor in Spanish lit.”
“Why make the choice you did?”
“The truth? Kinda because I was at loose ends. Didn’t know what to do. Had no trade, really, although I really enjoy writing analysis. Plus, there was the patriotic thing. My father spent thirty years in the Navy. Retired as an O-6—a captain. My choice made my folks proud.”
“Didn’t you want to follow in your dad’s footsteps?”
“Nope. Or go to State, either. He was an attaché in Chile for three years. I went to school there. I dealt with embassy people a lot. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. So the other thing, it just, you know, made sense.”
“How are you finding it?”
“I liked the writing part a lot. I was assigned to L.A. Division,” Margolis sighed. “Even did one tour in Guatemala. But after 9/11, they came around and sorta kinda ordered a bunch of us to volunteer for DO training at the Farm.”
“ ‘Sorta kinda ordered’?”
Margolis leaned across the table. “You know how it was back then. Seventh floor leaked all sorts of stories about how we were gearing up, increasing the operational side—paramilitary and case officers. So they had to have bodies—and I was one of ’em.”
“How did you feel about the change of disciplines?”
“Not especially comfortable. But they said it was fast-track.” He shrugged. “I got my pseudo—Henry J. NOTKINS—and they put us through the training in eight weeks. Then I worked the desk at L.A. for six months—felt good about that. But then they assigned me to Paris and I went through eight weeks of French-language training. Came over to the embassy”—the kid counted on his fingers—“nine months ago.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Everything’s a lot tougher than I thought. Plus, they make it hard for you to do your work.” He leaned in toward Tom conspiratorially. “Most of the time you just sit around the office and read the papers.” He sat back. “I bet it wasn’t like that when you worked here.”
The kid was exhibiting vulnerabilities. How could he? That was one of the first things they teach you in basic—do not reveal. Tom decided to practice a little empathy tradecraft. “You’d be surprised,” he snorted. “Even in my day—which wasn’t so long ago—you had to fight the system to get anything done. It is worse now, though. I left last winter. Just couldn’t deal with the hurdles.”
“Know what’s the most frustrating thing? It’s the word can’t. It’s—” Margolis caught movement reflected in the mirror behind Tom and stopped midthought as the barman approached.
The barman set the food on the table, then showed Tom the Bourgueil. Tom looked at the bottle and nodded. The barman yanked the cork and handed it to Tom, who sniffed appreciatively, then pointed at his companion’s glass. “My friend will taste.”
Tom watched as Margolis swirled the wine and sniffed it. “Raspberries,” the younger man exclaimed. He looked up at the barman. “Framboises. C’est bon, ça!” Then he tasted, grinned, and looked at Tom. “That’s wonderful. Where is it from?”
Tom looked up at the barman. “Leave the bottle, please. I’ll pour.” He turned back to Margolis. “It’s a Loire wine from vineyards right opposite Chinon. Got a little bit more body than Chinon.” He grinned. “And it hasn’t been discovered yet—so let’s keep this all need-to-know.”
Margolis nodded eagerly in agreement. “I’ll create a compartment. Only mention”—he picked up the bottle and examined it—“Bourgueil in the bubble.” He took a second look at the label and did a double take. “Tom,” he exclaimed, “I don’t believe it. It’s already a classified wine!”
Tom smiled, then steered the younger man back on course. “So it’s tough.”
“Can’t. That’s the big word around the office. ‘Can’t do this,’ or ‘Can’t be done.’ What they mean is they won’t do it—or they’re incapable.” Margolis took a big gulp of wine. “Everything’s ‘Daddy, may I?’ and the answer’s always ‘No, you can’t.’ ” He snagged a piece of sausage on a toothpick, popped it into his mouth, and washed it down with Bourgueil. “Plus, there’s my languages. Like I said, I’m three-plus in Spanish. Frankly, I’d rather have gone to L.A.—do a tour in Buenos Aires, Santiago—even San Salvador. I understand the culture, and there’s lots of action these days—except nobody believes me when I tell them.”
Margolis leaned forward. “Did’ja know UBL’s people are starting to liaise with some of the Salvadoran gangs—paying big bucks to have themselves smuggled into Texas or Arizona? Boy, when I heard that, I thought to myself, That’s something. But all I got was, ‘What’s your point?’ I’m telling you, so far as the seventh floor is concerned, Latin America doesn’t exist. If you want to get ahead these days, you gotta be in DO, you gotta do CT, and you better do it in Europe or take a thirty-day Iraq tour.” He shook his head, poured himself more wine, drained the glass, then held it, toastlike, in front of his nose. “Baghdad? Me? Fuggedaboudit. So, here I am. Henry J. NOTKINS, Parisian counterterrorist.”