To Free a Spy (35 page)

“When?”

“As soon as possible. After you get the judge’s approval, set the meeting up for me.”

“You’re pretty confident Hartrampf will agree to it.”

“You can do it. If it starts to look impossible, get the president involved. If anyone requires reasons, say I have new information about Ana.”

* * *

Ana Koronis read the form a second time. Cameron Warfield had obtained approval from a judge to visit her. No reason was given but she knew it was no social call. Without Warfield’s role in her ordeal, she might still be on the outside.

Even given Warfield’s involvement, Ana had been surprised at her jury’s verdict, but she had no doubt that ethnic prejudice played a role. A
big
role. She might have understood a guilty verdict if there had been some hard evidence for the prosecutor to point to, say, the tapes in the safe under her desk at the law firm. Those would have been hard for her to explain to a jury. But there was nothing like that. Everything prosecutor Harriman gave the jury was circumstantial except the testimony of Helen Swope, Austin Quinn’s housekeeper, and that was one person’s word against Ana’s.

She thought of the first time she met Colonel Warfield. What was it now? Seven, eight years ago? The U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Spiro Koronis, had invited Ana’s senior partner Roy Addler of her law firm to join him at a roast for Austin Quinn in Atlantic City. Addler and Ana were friends as well as law partners and he asked Ana to accompany him. She agreed, even though she would know no one at the table and wasn’t particularly political. And it had been awkward at first, that night. Ana, Roy Addler and Warfield had been seated at the Spiro Koronis table long before their host arrived. The Ambassador finally showed up muttering apologies for his tardiness. Some diplomatic matter had come up as he was about to leave his room, he told them. Garrison Cross, the current president of the United States, who was head of CIA back then, was even later, muttering something about never having all the parts to his tux in one place.

Warfield was still in the army back then and Ana thought he was a friend of Cross’s. At any rate, she remembered that Warfield saved the evening. She liked Addler but he could be as boring as watching paint dry, and Warfield made the time fly by with some wit and a couple of colorful war stories. Ana recalled that Frank Gallardi, the emcee for the event, and some of the others seated at the dais were late getting there, too. The whole thing was off schedule all evening and Gallardi was in a foul mood. But thanks to an abundance of food and booze—and, in Ana’s case, Cam Warfield—no one seemed to mind.

Ana remembered trying to discreetly scope out the guests in the ballroom. She’d never been in the presence of so many important people. Just about every person who ever had his picture in
The Washington Post
was there. To top it off, then-president McNabb made a brief appearance.

When Quinn’s friends, including Cross and Spiro Koronis, were finished stinging him with mock insults from the stage, he dropped by Spiro Koronis’s table and talked with everyone for a minute or two. Quinn held Ana’s eyes with his own during that brief meeting. Years later, after her marriage to Spiro and his death, Ana and Quinn began seeing each other.

Ana stared out the tiny window of her cell now and shook her head. She never could have guessed in a million years that three men she met that night—Spiro Koronis, Austin Quinn and Cameron Warfield—would in turn have such a major impact on her life.

And she was certain the Cam Warfield who was coming to visit her in jail would not be so full of good humor and cheer as on that night in Atlantic City. Neither was she.

* * *

Warfield had to drag himself out of bed after the Paris round-trip but felt better after a run and shower. He wasn’t back up to five miles yet but increased his distance with each run. Paula had left a message on his voicemail that Judge Hartrampf approved a meeting with Ana, and she had arranged it for one o’clock that afternoon. The Bureau of Prisons still kept Ana Koronis at Alexandria Detention Center under a special arrangement pending availability of space at a suitable federal facility that housed females.

Warfield arrived at the ADC at twelve-forty that afternoon and was greeted by Aubrey Holden, the lieutenant he’d met when he had visited Joplan. As they walked to the interview room, Holden, now a captain, mentioned his brother again. “Tom’s here in D.C. now, the FBI Building.”

“Maybe I’ll run into him one of these days.”

Warfield didn’t know Ana on any personal level, but he knew she wouldn’t view him as a friend. Although he hadn’t testified at her trial, Ana knew he had been the impetus for her ordeal. And when reporters contacted him after the trial, Warfield had voiced contempt for her. “Ana Koronis did what spies do. Get the trust of somebody that’s got access to useful information and betray him. In Ana Koronis’s case, she got to the director of CIA.” Ana wouldn’t have missed that on TV, and she wouldn’t have forgotten it was Warfield who said it. He remembered how she stared at the jurors on the day of closing arguments and wondered if she was still as angry.

He was surprised at Ana’s appearance. She was frail at her trial but looked strong now.

Ana interrupted when Warfield started to introduce himself.

“We’ve met.” Ana looked straight at him but he read no emotion in her eyes.

“Yes, we have.”

They weighed each other for a moment.

“Being treated okay?” he asked.

“They complicate my social life some, and the air in here smells a little personal at times, but otherwise it’s not bad. But you’re not here to check on my well-being.”

“Ms. Koronis, an intelligence source contacted me with new information that might affect your case. I went to Paris to check it out. Maybe together we can make more sense out of it.”

“When you say,
affect
my case, do you mean it could help me?”

“It’s only a possibility.”

Warfield read her forced smile as an indication she didn’t believe a word he said.

“I’ve never had the feeling you were interested in improving my situation.”

“It was never personal. Hoped you were not involved. Still do.”

“Do you need to hear me say it? All right,
I didn’t do it
! Now what do you want me to do?”

Warfield studied her for a moment, then said, “I met Suri.” He watched for a sign of recognition.

“Suri?
Yes, I knew her.”

“She turned against Seth. She’s on the run. A resistance group in Paris took her in and she’s been talking.”

Ana nodded.

“She involved in Seth’s operations?” Warfield asked.

“I don’t know. A girlfriend I think. Know why she left him?”

“Thought Seth was going to kill her. Suri said he’d murdered Hassan.”

“
Hassan?
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at anything in Seth’s world, but how does all of this help me?”

“Suri told us your reaction when your brother told you what he wanted you to do for him.”

Ana stared at Warfield.

He continued. “It’s only a start, but with Suri we have someone backing your claim that you rejected Seth and left him when you learned what he was involved in.”

Ana stood up and walked around the small room. The young lines on her forehead deepened. “Look, I’m not a criminal lawyer but I
am
a lawyer, and I know this information from the ex-girlfriend of an international terrorist is not going to get me out of here.”

“As I said, it’s a start.”

“That all she told you?”

“She knew about a meeting in Paris. Thinks it was one of Seth’s men and an American. The date was soon after we arrested Joplan, the CIA mole.”

“What do you make of the meeting?”

“I think Joplan told somebody how to contact Seth, and—”

“And that
somebody
is the person who met with Seth’s man?”

“Could be. Joplan’s contact needed a nuclear scientist and nuke materials. That’s what Joplan told me right before he was killed. The CIA has a list of post-Cold War Russians they consider security risks in that category. We know from your trial that Petrevich was on that list. Given the timing and other parts of the puzzle, it’s not too far out to believe Petrevich and the uranium left Russia as a result of Joplan telling someone who his contact was.”

“Someone who had access to that CIA file. A significant part of my trial.”

“Right.”

Both sat without speaking for a few seconds before Warfield stood up to leave. “If you don’t mind me asking, I…I’m curious…the name Seth—”

Ana smiled a little. “I think he was around seventeen—it was near the time he left our family here in the States and moved to Iran—when he adopted the name after reading about Seth in Egyptian mythology. The name our parents gave him is Ali.”

* * *

Back in her own quarters, Ana lay on her mattress pad and stared at the ceiling. She thought of Suri.
“Yes!”
she breathed.

* * *

Warfield sat in his car in the jail parking lot for twenty minutes, staring at nothing, mulling over the information he got from Suri and now from Ana. Ana Koronis was a cold number. To him at least. Was it because he tipped Joe Morgan about her, or was that her baseline?

He roughed out a timeline of events and made a few notes. It was time to play his best card. Risky because, while he had a few solid facts, he was shooting from the hip. He couldn’t see the target well enough to take direct aim, but this card might draw the mole into the open.

Back on the expressway, he phoned Paula Newnan and thanked her for setting up the meeting.

“Glad to help, Cameo.”

“Then you get another chance.”

“
Thanks, mouth.
Okay, what is it now?”

“Need to meet with Fullwood, Stern and Quinn. Together.”

“Any special time you’d like this. I’m sure they will cancel everything to make themselves available at your convenience.”

“Same as always.”

“I know. ASAP.”

“Subject is national security. They’ll ask.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“And no substitutes.”

“Substitutes?”

“Deputies won’t do.”

“Got it, Cameo.”

Warfield started to sign off, then said, “Oh, yeah, Paula, whadda you know about mythology?”

“Excuse me?”

“Seth. There’s a Seth in Egyptian mythology. Thought you might fill me in on him.”

“Sorry, can’t help with that one.”

* * *

Paula arranged the meeting for noon the next day and reserved a small room at the White House. Warfield briefed Cross on his agenda for the meeting before going to the conference room, but told the president he wanted to meet with Fullwood and Quinn alone. Otto Stern had cancelled.

Quinn was first to congratulate Warfield on his handling of the Yoshida matter. Fullwood grunted something about it but whatever he said wasn’t clear. Fullwood still held him in contempt.

Warfield opened by saying he wanted to give them information about Joplan’s contact.

Fullwood couldn’t wait. “Learned that at the Koronis trial, Kunnel. That why we’re here? So you can remind us that the terrorist Seth recruited his sister to steal secrets from Austin’s computer?”

“That’s what the trial came up with and I agreed with it. But now…maybe not.”

Quinn looked surprised. Fullwood, acrid still.

Warfield went on. “Seth’s girlfriend has turned against him, run away. She’s at a safe house in Paris now. I saw her two days ago.”

Fullwood rolled his eyes and asked Warfield how he came by this information.

Warfield remembered detailing Abbas’s history earlier but went over it again before returning to Suri. “She filled in gaps in what I already knew. Based on the information I have from all sources, here’s where I think we stand. Joplan’s contact was Seth. Seth had instructed Joplan to get the names of former Soviet scientists who were CIA-listed security risks. One of Seth’s clients—Fumio Yoshida, of course, using Japan’s money—wanted nuke materials and expertise. Yoshida agreed to pay Seth a few million dollars for it on delivery. Seth was going to use part of that money to pay Joplan if Joplan produced. Joplan knew how to signal Seth when he had the information, but before he got back to Seth the FBI snagged him. That was 6 April last year. After that date—while Joplan was on ice—
Buyer X,
I’ll call him, got word to Seth that Joplan had been arrested. If Seth wanted the information he had requested from Joplan, he would have to deal with Buyer X.”

“And what conclusion do you draw from that?” Quinn asked.

“That Buyer X learned how to reach Seth from Joplan himself.”

“And how did he do that?” Quinn asked.

“After Joplan agreed to cooperate with us, Buyer X went in and downloaded from Joplan the information he needed in order to step in where Joplan left off.”

“Why
after
he agreed to cooperate?” Fullwood said. “He could have told someone after he was arrested, but before he agreed to cooperate. Say, someone who was in on it with him.”

“Joplan was a loner. I don’t believe he had any partners to tell it to. And he refused to cooperate with us until some unlucky soul’s balls showed up in his cell and he realized that in this new world of his they could have been his own.”

“So, what’re you saying, Warfield?” Fullwood asked with his usual scowl.

“Somebody who knew that Joplan agreed to cooperate with us—someone who also knew there was a lot of money at stake for the right information—got to Joplan there in prison and milked the Seth information out of him. Wouldn’t have been too hard to do, given Joplan’s state of mind following the Red Russell castration. Then X killed Joplan that night, or had him killed, so Joplan couldn’t reveal anything to the FBI.”

“Got any thoughts about who X is?” Quinn asked.

“Since Joplan received no official visitors after he agreed to cooperate, my theory is that Joplan’s killer—our mole—was spawned at our meeting in the Oval Office, the meeting when I turned Joplan back over to the FBI.”

Fullwood jumped out of his chair. “Wait up here, Warfield! You sayin’ one of us clandestinely visited Joplan that night, got the name of his contact and killed him? You’ve gone around the corner for sure!”