The denials made it through the first news cycle intact, and the story held up over the next few days. There were some breathless expose stories in the Pakistani press, but they were always making wild claims about American intelligence activities, so nobody paid much attention. The ISI press cell in Islamabad was unusually silent, and the reporters there assumed that was because the ISI itself must have links with Al-Tawhid. That was true enough, though even the ISI knew less than it would have liked. The reason for silence was more complicated. The director general of the service, Lieutenant General Mohammed Malik, was trying to decide what to do.
Jeff Gertz responded in character: He toughed it out. He maintained his composure and confidence, and looked for ways to project it to others. He held a “town hall meeting” with his staff in Studio City late that first day and reassured them that their security was his primary concern. He arranged protection details and armored vehicles; he provided counseling to help employees deal with stress; he hosed The Hit Parade and its global staff with money and perks.
Gertz called Sophie Marx in London and told her that she was running out of time. Unless she came up with something in a few days to explain to the White House why America’s most secret warriors were being killed, he would bring her home and send someone else. He needed the frame of a story, quickly; they could fill in the details later, when they had more time.
26
Cyril Hoffman did not make the mistake of believing propaganda, least of all when it came from his own government. After the videoconference about Al-Tawhid with Gertz, the president and his chief of staff, the State Department had issued its statement, which Hoffman knew to be a bald lie. The claims by Al-Tawhid were essentially correct: The United States was running a covert-action campaign against Pakistan aimed at bribing key leaders and perhaps, over time, halting actions against America and gaining control of that country’s nuclear weapons.
It wasn’t that Hoffman thought these were bad ideas, necessarily, but he didn’t like the fact that the project had been assigned to a jury-rigged start-up agency behind the CIA’s back. It worried Hoffman, too, that Al-Tawhid had somehow penetrated the supposedly perfect security of The Hit Parade and was killing its operatives. That had to be stopped, but the magnificent Gertz seemed unable to find the leak.
Hoffman had been keeping tabs on Gertz for years, and more so since he had set up shop in Los Angeles for The Hit Parade. But despite Hoffman’s efforts to contain the experiment, it had morphed and grown to the point that it posed a risk to the U.S. government as a whole, including the CIA, which Hoffman was sworn to protect. American agents were getting killed; jihadist groups were issuing statements; the spill was widening.
One of Hoffman’s vanities was the idea that, when the Gertzes of the world had made a mess, people like him would have to clean it up. He had a favorite poem by Rudyard Kipling, which had been given to him years ago by his Uncle Frank, another cleaner-upper of other people’s disasters. It was called “The Gods of the Copybook Headings,” and Hoffman kept it in his desk drawer, to reread whenever he encountered something particularly stupid. He turned to the poem now and reminded himself of the power of these gods to outlast the ambitious do-gooders: As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man- There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
How to stop the terror and slaughter? That was becoming Hoffman’s responsibility now, too. If Gertz could not stanch the flow, then Hoffman would have to help. He thought back over his conversations with Lieutenant General Mohammed Malik. The ISI director had been trying to tell him something when he had visited Islamabad. But Hoffman had been so intent on delivering his own message that he hadn’t listened as carefully as he might have.
The Pakistani general had protested about the operation in Karachi. Well, fair enough, of course he would. Countries never liked it when other countries conducted unilateral intelligence operations on their territory. But there had been something else that the general had wanted Hoffman to understand. There was a leak of information; the kidnapping of Howard Egan wasn’t an accidental bit of good luck for the “bad guys,” but something more fundamental.
Hoffman had done the obvious things after he returned from Islamabad. He had talked with the top Pakistan analyst at Langley, and contacted his own most sensitive private sources, but he had come away with nothing. He wondered now why had he not listened more carefully to what the Pakistani general was trying to tell him.
It is never too late to apply good sense as a corrective to stupidity. The call to arms, as it were, came to Hoffman late on the night after Meredith Rockwell’s death. It was early morning in Islamabad, the time when Mohammed Malik would be having his morning tea in the office, and reading his cables, and planning what to do next. So often, Hoffman’s prescription was: When in doubt, do nothing. But he had a different instinct now, and he knew there wasn’t any more time to waste.
Hoffman picked up the phone and called Malik’s private number at ISI headquarters. The general himself answered, on the first ring, with a starchy hello.
“This is your friend Cyril Hoffman,” he began. “I think we need to talk. What do you say to that?”
“Talk or shoot, it must be one of the two. Your boys have been very naughty, Cyril. The Tawhid statement has set the cat among the pigeons. We are angry, I must tell you that, sir.”
“Let’s try talking. And they’re not my boys, or girls, either. That’s part of what I want to talk about. It will be worth your time, Mohammed, I promise you. And just for the record, it’s your boys who have been doing the shooting, not mine.”
“Where do you suggest that we have this talk, Cyril? The telephone would not be a good idea, for either of us. And I regret to say that I am not able to welcome you here in Islamabad at present. The mood is a bit sour, as you can imagine.”
“Let’s meet tomorrow in the Gulf, neutral territory. I’ll fly over to wherever you like. Just name it.”
“Not Dubai. Your service owns Dubai. I would suggest Doha, if I were prepared to say yes.”
“Come on, old boy. Don’t play games. We need to do this. People are getting killed, and it’s going to get worse unless sensible people get involved. This situation is dangerous, my esteemed brother.”
“I am glad that I am still included in your club of ‘sensible people,’ Cyril. And I am amused that you choose to call me ‘brother’ at such a time. It is either a sign that you are sincere, or that you are an unprincipled rascal.”
“You know very well that I’m a rascal. That’s why we get along. Now, say yes. Meet me in Doha tomorrow night. I’ll be staying at the Four Seasons. We’ll have dinner, my treat. Do we have a date? Come on, now, don’t make me beg.”
The phone was silent for several moments, as General Malik considered the situation, both the aspects that Cyril Hoffman understood and those that he didn’t.