“So what do we do?” asked the operations chief.
“We maintain radio silence. And we do nothing-I repeat, nothing-that would suggest any link between Mr. Frankel and this organization or its parent in Langley. Remember, we do not exist. We have been given a license to operate as a true clandestine service. That is very precious, and we have to guard it, especially now.”
Rossetti pressed ahead, even though it was obvious to all that his intervention was not welcomed.
“But we’ve lost two officers now, sir. I’m worried about the safety of our people. Around this building, people are asking what’s going on.”
Gertz could sense the uneasiness in the room-the fear that can turn into revolt, and disorderly retreat, and failure. He had to give them something.
“Thank you, Steve, for raising that. I want to address it directly. The case of Howard Egan worried us all. He was taken by people who evidently knew that he had a secret role separate from his business cover. We believe he’s dead, which is perhaps a blessing. As you may know, I have asked our chief of counterintelligence, Sophie Marx, to conduct an aggressive internal investigation to figure out what happened. The case of Alan Frankel is quite different. I have talked with Headquarters, and we think this is unrelated to the other attack.”
“What is it, then? Who hit Frankel?”
“From what we’ve seen so far, this looks like a Russian mob hit. It was not the sort of thing that terrorist operatives do, much less intelligence services. Too bloody, too much out in the open. I’m guessing at this point, but I think Chechen businessmen ordered the hit. They were worried that our young man was pushing into their territory.”
“Why would they think that?” asked Sophie Marx from the back of the room. “So far as anyone knew, he was just a kid selling ads, right?” It was the first time she had spoken in a big staff meeting. Her tone was hardly deferential.
“Within this room only, let me explain why local mobsters might have been upset: Mr. Frankel met in Moscow with representatives of a publishing company owned by one of the Kremlin’s pals. That may have been his mistake. My guess is that somebody thought he was muscling in on their territory. Or maybe the Kremlin got nervous. But the point is, there’s no reason to think that his cover was blown.”
“Except that he’s dead,” said Sophie. She was pushing him, in a way that even Rossetti wouldn’t have dared. That was the advantage of being the boss’s pet.
“Listen, folks, I am trying to level with you. I know this is hard on all of us. But this looks to me like a mafia hit. That’s what the initial reporting on Moscow television is saying. And that’s what I told Headquarters a few minutes ago.”
“What does Cyril Hoffman think?” asked Rossetti. He was skeptical that the associate deputy director would buy into this explanation quite so quickly.
“Hoffman thinks it’s our case,” answered Gertz. “He trusts our judgment.”
The meeting broke up, with the members of The Hit Parade’s leadership team a bit calmer than they had been an hour before, but still not sure they understood what was going on.
Gertz had left out only one thing in his valedictory mention of Cyril Hoffman. Although the associate deputy director had deferred to Gertz’s handling of the Moscow case, he had also asked him to come back to Washington promptly for a visit to talk things over, one on one. The personal touch.
That afternoon, before he left for LAX to catch the red-eye to Washington, Gertz stopped by Marx’s cubicle. He looked gray, worn out by a day of treading water.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said. “Get an ice-cream cone.”
“Sure, but I don’t eat ice cream.”
She went to the ladies’ room and put a little more masking cream under her weary eyes and joined him at the elevator.
Studio City looked particularly seedy that afternoon. There was a low sticky heat, not the usual dry desert feel of the Valley but something more like the humid Atlantic Coast. Gertz took off his tie and threw his blazer over his shoulder. The cars were whizzing by on Ventura Avenue, providing the only bit of breeze on the hot day.
“Were you really as confident as you sounded in there?” asked Marx.
“No,” he answered. “I needed to buy some time…for you. So you can investigate this, quietly.”
“Do you believe that line to the staff about how the Moscow killing was a mafia hit?”
He looked at her blankly. His eyes were so hard to read.
“Maybe it’s true. I don’t know what to believe. That’s why I have you. You’re going to figure it out and tell me.”
“So this is my problem now?”
“And mine. But you’re the person who’s going to figure it out.” He put his arm around her shoulder. She pulled away, but gently.
“I thought Alan Frankel went to Moscow to meet with a Pakistani diplomat,” she said. “This wasn’t about Chechens.”
That shot hit its mark. Gertz took a step back, as if to regain his balance.
“How on earth do you know that? I didn’t say anything about what he was working on.”
“I went to the files. That’s what you told me to do. So I did it. I checked all our Pakistani cases. Alan Frankel was running one of them. He was meeting someone from one of the big political families.”
Gertz narrowed his eyes for a moment, then his face went back into neutral.
“You’re sharp,” he said. “That’s why I wanted you for this job. Yes, he was working on Pakistan. So are some other people. We are moving mountains there, or trying to. But be careful. There are things involved here that nobody-no- body -knows about back at the Death Star.”
She was puzzled.
“Who knows about it, if Headquarters doesn’t? I don’t get that.”
“It was approved by the man we work for, the president of the United States.”
She stood on the sidewalk of Ventura Boulevard while the cars revved their engines a few yards away.
“Is that why there’s no record of Pakistan disbursements in the file? And no finding or mission directive?”
Gertz’s eyes flashed again, then he laughed.
“What a little snoop you are. Well, knock it off. If there’s something I think you need to know, I’ll tell you.”
“How do you plan these missions, Jeff? How do you know what doors to knock on?”
Gertz shook his head. This time he wasn’t smiling.
“You are asking too many questions. This is out of your lane. Don’t outsmart yourself.”
They walked on for another fifty yards in silence, until they neared a traffic light. Gertz had said his piece, and Marx waited for the tension to pass. She needed as much information as he was willing to give her. She was operating outside the wire.
“Did you read my cable from Dubai?” she asked.
“I skimmed it. I gather that Akbar passed his polygraph.”
Marx nodded. “It wasn’t just that. He could have finessed the poly. It was more the feel of the guy. The more we talked, the less likely it seemed to me that he was working with the bad guys. He’s a chump, a scared rich boy who went to study in America. I was barking up the wrong tree.”
“So how was Egan blown, if it wasn’t Akbar?”
“I don’t know. I worry that we have a bigger problem, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Well, I hope you figure it out before another of our people gets waxed.”
“So you don’t believe that fairy tale about the mafia in Moscow.”
“Hey, lighten up. For general consumption, I believe it. Between us, I am agnostic.”
She stopped walking and studied him. His face was hard, with that bristle of goatee giving him a look that, for a moment, reminded her of a poster of D. H. Lawrence. What was real, in all his tough talk and secretiveness?
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Good luck.”
“What are we doing in Pakistan? Help me out. I mean, what was Egan trying to set up when he got kidnapped? I don’t think Hamid Akbar had a clue. But what is it?”