Between the mole and the traitor was the man clearly destined to lead the operation. He was what I think we would all want in that position. Privately I believe that a cross-referenced graph of the rise and fall of mental versus physical capabilities in men would show a clear composite peak at about the age of thirty-five. Previously—when I have had a choice, that is—I have worked with men not younger than that and not older than forty. I estimated that the man facing me fell neatly in that range. He was compact, neither light nor heavy, clearly comfortable in his mind and body, and clearly comfortable with his range of competencies. Like a Major League second baseman, perhaps. He knew what he was doing, and he could keep on doing it all day, if he had to. He was not handsome, but not ugly either; again, the athletic comparison was, I felt, apt.
He said, “I’m guessing this is my show.”
I said, “You’re wrong. It’s mine.”
I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize the way he had spoken: was he a humble man pretending not to be? Or was he an arrogant man pretending to be humble pretending not to be? Obviously it was a question I needed to settle, so I didn’t speak again. I just waited for his response.
It came in the form of an initial physical gesture: he patted the air in front of him, right-handed, his wrist bent and his palm toward me. It was a motion clearly intended to calm me, but it was also a gesture of submission, rooted in ancient habits: he was showing me he wasn’t armed.
“Of course,” he said.
I mirrored his gesture: I patted the air, wrist bent, palm open. I felt the repetition extended the meaning; I intended the gesture to say, Okay, no harm, no foul, let’s replay the point. It interested me that I was again unconsciously thinking in terms of sports metaphors. But this was a team, after all.
I said out loud, “You’re the leader in the field. You’re my eyes and ears. You have to be, really. I can’t know what you don’t know. But let’s be clear. No independent action. You might be the eyes and the ears, but I’m the brain.”
I probably sounded too defensive, and unnecessarily so: casting modesty aside, as one must from time to time, I was, after all, reasonably well known among a narrow slice of interested parties for my many successful operations in charge of a notably headstrong individual. I was competent in my role, no question. I should have trusted myself a little more. But it was late, and I was tired.
The government liaison man rescued me. He said, “We need to talk about exactly what it is we’re going to do.”
Which surprised me for a moment: why had I assembled a team before the mission was defined? But he was right: beyond the fact that we would be going to Iran—and let’s face it, today all of us go to Iran—no details had yet been settled.
The traitor said, “It has to be about nuclear capability.”
One of the women said, “Of course—what else is there, really?”
I noted that she had a charming voice. Warm, and a little intimate. In the back of my mind I wondered if I could use her in a seduction role. Or would that get me in even more trouble, with the powers that be?
The communications man said, “There’s the issue of regional influence. Isn’t that important? But hey, what do I know?”
The government man said, “Their regional influence depends entirely on their nuclear threat.”
I let them talk like that for a spell. I was happy to listen and observe. I saw that the two bruisers at the back were getting bored. They had above-my-pay-grade looks on their faces. One of them asked me, “Can we go? You know the kind of thing we can do. You can give us the details later. Would that be okay?”
I nodded. It was fine with me. One of them looked back from the door with his earlier expression: Don’t get us killed too soon.
The poor bloody infantry. Silently I promised him not to. I liked him. The others were still deep in discussion. They were twisting and turning and addressing this point and that. The way the Eames chair was so low to the ground, it put the government man’s face right next to the right-hand woman’s legs. I envied him. But he wasn’t impressed. He was more interested in filtering everything that was said through the narrow lens of his own concerns. At one point he looked up at me and asked me directly: “How much State Department trouble do you want exactly?”
Which wasn’t as dumb a question as it sounded. It was an eternal truth that very little of substance could be achieved without upsetting the State Department to some degree. And we worked with liaison men for that very reason: they quelled the storm long enough to let us conclude whatever operation was then in play. I thought his question implied an offer: he would do what it took. Which I thought was both generous and brave.
I said, “Look, all of you. Obviously I’ll try to make the whole thing as smooth and trouble-free as possible. But we’re all grown-ups. We know how it goes. I’ll ask for the extra mile if I have to.”
Whereupon the transport coordinator asked a related but more mundane question: “How long are we signing up for?”
“Eighty days,” I said. “Ninety, maximum. But you know how it is. We won’t be in play every day. I want you all to map out a six-month window. I think that’s realistic.”
Which statement quieted things down a little. But in the end they all nodded and agreed. Which, again, I thought was brave. To use another sports metaphor, they knew the rules of the game. An operation that lasted six months, overseas in hostile territory, was certain to produce casualties. I knew that, and they knew that. Some of them wouldn’t be coming home. But none of them flinched.
There was another hour or so of talk, and then another. I felt I got to know them all as well as I needed to. They didn’t leave until well into the morning. I called my editor as soon as they were through the door. She asked me how I was, which question from an editor really means, “What have you got for me?”
I told her I was back on track with something pretty good, and that a six-month deadline should see it through. She asked what it was, and I told her it was something that had come to me while I was high. I used the tone of voice I always use with her. It leaves her unsure whether I am kidding or not. So she asked again. I said I had the characters down, and that the plot would evolve as it went along. Iran, basically. As a private joke I couched the whole thing in the kind of language we might see in the trade reviews, if we got any: I said it wouldn’t transcend the genre, but it would be a solid example of its type.
Guy Walks Into A Bar...
She was about 19. No older. Maybe younger. An insurance company would have given her 60 more years to live. I figured a more accurate projection was 36 hours, or 36 minutes if things went wrong from the get-go.
She was blond and blue-eyed, but not American. American girls have a glow, a smoothness, from many generations of plenty. This girl was different. Her ancestors had known hardship and fear. That inheritance was in her face and her movements. Her eyes were wary. Her body was lean. Not the kind of lean you get from a diet, but the Darwinian kind of lean you get when your grandparents had no food — and either starved or didn’t. Her movements were fragile and tense, a little alert, a little nervous, though on the face of it she was having as good a time as a girl could get.