“It was better than a hunch,” said Rogers. “It was a strong probability.”
Hoffman looked at his young case officer with a combination of puzzlement and new respect.
“You’re crazier than I thought,” said Hoffman. “In fact, you’re almost as crazy as I am.”
Rogers took it as a compliment.
“So Jamal thinks the CIA helped to pressure the King to stop the crackdown?” asked the station chief.
“Perhaps,” said Rogers with a trace of a smile. “But I doubt he’s that gullible.”
Hoffman called Rogers into his office several days later.
“Guess who’s packing his bags and leaving sunny Beirut?” said the station chief, his eyes twinkling.
Rogers shrugged his shoulders.
“A certain French diplomat.”
“Oh shit,” said Rogers.
“Hold on. It’s not what you’re thinking. The wife did it!”
“What?” said Rogers. “Why?”
“It seems,” said Hoffman, “that Madame Plateau got angry at her husband one day for being such an asshole and told him the whole story. How she was fucking her brains out with one of the Palestinian guerrillas and loving it, and what did he think of that? Apparently she didn’t tell him who, because the thugs from SDECE are making inquiries all over West Beirut trying to find out. The charge got so angry that he beat her up. They had to take her to the hospital. It’s the talk of Beirut.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” asked Rogers.
“The French Ambassador is mucho embarrassed. Frenchmen are supposed to screw other people’s wives, not vice versa. Anyway, it doesn’t look good for Mr. and Mrs. Froggie. They’re being recalled for extended consultations back home. Looks like bye-bye, Beirut.”
“And the photographs?” asked Rogers.
“I didn’t have the heart to give them to the Frenchman. The guy is miserable enough as it is. He didn’t need to see the smile on his wife’s face. Anyway, there wasn’t much we could have squeezed from him. Even if we had threatened to run the pictures in An Nahar.
“One more thing,” added Hoffman.
“When you see your Palestinian friend, tell him to keep his pecker in his pants for a while. People take sex seriously in this part of the world. Around here, if you touch the merchandise, you’ve got to buy it.”
13
Kuwait; March 1970
Rogers arrived in Kuwait three days early. He wanted to get the feel of the place, to look over the safehouse, prepare the food and drinks, ready himself emotionally for the encounter. It was a bit like practicing before a basketball game. The exercise probably didn’t improve your aim, but it steadied the nerves.
Kuwait was a flat little smudge of sand at the western end of the Persian Gulf. It had three distinguishing features: a vast reservoir of oil, which was transforming the sheikdom into the richest country per-capita in the world; a class of merchants and traders that dated back several centuries, which gave Kuwait the semblance of a mercantile elite and spared it the indignities of Bedouin culture; and a huge influx of Palestinian migrant workers, which made Kuwait an important staging ground for the Palestinian Revolution.
Kuwait was in many ways an ugly country, made more so by the oil boom. It was ferociously hot in the summer-over 120 degrees in July-so hot that the air seemed to burn your lungs and had to be breathed in small gulps. Kuwait City was on the coast, and the heat there wasn’t the dry baking heat of the desert, but the humid heat of a steam bath. The temperature wasn’t so bad now, in mid-March, during the brief Kuwaiti spring. But in all seasons, the place seemed to smell of oil, which was so plentiful in Kuwait’s vast Burgan field that it bubbled out of the ground on its own, without a pump.
As Rogers drove in from the airport, he saw a spasm of spending and construction. Everywhere there were new buildings, erected as fast and cheaply as the British and American contractors could build them. Along Fahad al-Salem Street, approaching downtown, there was a traffic jam of bulldozers and cement mixers and dump trucks, all caught in the rush to build more ugly new buildings. He noticed that the Kuwaitis were all driving big American gas-guzzlers. Cadillacs, Lincolns, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, the bigger and gaudier the better.
Kuwaitis seemed to understand that these automotive behemoths were the mother of their prosperity. Though the country lacked modern highways, it had nearly as many cars as people, and the downtown area resembled a vast parking lot. As the traffic slowed to a halt, the Kuwaitis sat in their velour-upholstered cars, power windows up and the air conditioning on full blast, enjoying the accident of geology that had made them, at least momentarily, the richest people on earth.
Soon after arriving, Rogers stopped by to see the local station chief. His name was Egbert Jorgenson and he ran a small, three-person shop-himself, an operations officer, and a code clerk-in a cluttered wing of the embassy.
Jorgenson’s cover job was agricultural attache. It was a silly cover, since there wasn’t any agriculture to speak of in Kuwait, but that seemed to be the least of Jorgenson’s problems. He was a small, intense man with a loud voice and a look of perpetual harassment.
“Hey, great to see you. How’s the family? What are you doing in Kuwait?” asked Jorgenson in one long sentence as he ushered Rogers into his office.
“I can’t tell you that, Bert,” said Rogers amiably. “Sorry.”
“Yeah sure, I know. Okay.” said Jorgenson. He looked hurt.
“How about you?” asked Rogers. “What’s cooking?”
“Are you kidding? Plenty! You know the Sovs have an embassy here now? I’m going crazy! Never been so busy. Day and night.”
Rogers asked what particular battles of the Cold War were being waged in Kuwait these days.
“Media!” said Jorgenson emphatically. “The Sovs have got people on the payroll at all the local papers. Indians from Kerala who do the editing and make-up. The KGB resident feeds them articles-written by some clown in Moscow-and they run the stuff as is. Verbatim. Word for word. The Kuwaitis don’t know the difference. They don’t read the newspapers anyway. But the Palestinians love it.
“You gotta see this shit. You won’t believe it!” said Jorgenson.
He scurried over to his file cabinet, unlocked the top drawer, and pulled out a thick file of clippings.
“Look at this!”
He handed Rogers an article headlined: “Kremlin Endeavors to Give People More Homes.”
“Can you believe that? Isn’t that a gem? Look at this one.” Jorgenson pulled out another article, headlined: “Afro-Asian Peoples Protest American Mideast Policy.”
“Unbelievable! Who writes these headlines? Joe Stalin? Wait! There’s more,” exclaimed Jorgenson. He was considerably agitated now, handing Rogers story after story with headlines like “Kim Il-Sung Strongly Supports Anti-Zionist Armed Struggle” and “Imperialism Behind Food Shortage in Sudan.”
“The Sovs are shameless!” said Jorgenson, bursting with indignation. “And the Keralites print this crap for a few dinars a week. It’s pathetic. No wonder we’re in trouble around the world.
“Fortunately,” said Jorgenson with a sly smile, “I’ve got a few Keralites of my own. We’re getting into this game, toe to toe. Want to see some of what we’re putting out?”
“Are you sure you should be telling me this?” asked Rogers.
“Yeah, sure. Who gives a shit?”
Jorgenson removed another folder from the file cabinet, much thinner than the first, and opened it with a flourish.
“Check this out,” said the Kuwait station chief.
He handed Rogers an article headlined: “Hard Facts About Air Pollution.” And another titled “Alaskan Oil Potential Enormous,” and a long feature piece titled “Will U.S. Shift to All-Volunteer Army?”
“This stuff is subtle,” said Jorgenson. “I’m getting it from Langley. A little pro-American spin for a change. What do you think?”
“Great,” said Rogers, almost speechless. “Really great.”