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!”
“I’m saying no one except the few of us who were in the Oval Office that day knew Joplan was ready to give up the name of his contact and that his contact had deep pockets. My Buyer X learned this from one of us who was at that meeting.”
“Who was present at that meeting?” Quinn asked.
“The three of us, Stern and the president. And Paula was there. But it wasn’t X himself who debriefed Joplan and killed him. X put someone inside the prison to do it.”
“And after that, X knew how to contact Seth. That your conspiracy theory, Kunnel?”
“Call it that if you want to. Seth’s representative, some Frenchman, Suri thinks, met with Joplan’s replacement in Paris on 22 April last year. Now jump ahead six weeks to 9 June. That’s the date Boris Petrevich crossed the border from Turkey into Iraq. Whether he had the uranium at that time is irrelevant to this discussion. I think Petrevich was the name supplied to Seth by X. Petrevich and the uranium ended up in Japan and we know the rest of that story.”
“What is the point here, Kunnel, in spinning this tale of yours?”
“The point is we still have an internal security problem and we’re going to have more losses until we find it. Unless you can discredit what I laid out here, you can start looking for another mole. It wasn’t Ana Koronis.”
Earl Fullwood looked self-assured. With elbows on the table, cigar in hand, he said, “Kunnel, I believe even you would say this story of yours is based on a lot of speculation — the girlfriend of a terrorist, some dark spy-meetin’ in Paris, a conveniently mysterious murder in a prison. We can’t run around witch-huntin’ because of your phlegmy hallucinations. Might as well be readin’ tabloid newspapers and tarot cards. Pretty soon it’ll be the man in the moon spyin’ on us.”
Warfield was at a loss as to why the director would refuse to consider the possibility of a mole.
Quinn asked, “Learn anything else on your Paris trip?”
“Few things I’m check—”
Fullwood cut Warfield off. “Quinn, you’re askin’ for more fairy tales. Save your breath. I don’t know what’s goin’ on here. Warfield is guessin’. Like he did about that uranium, for example. There’s not an ounce of proof that the Russian at Habur is the one in Japan. Warfield’s tryin’ to make hisself look good after his big fiasco there.”
Fullwood crammed his cigar between his teeth and stood up to leave. “I got Bureau business to take care of.”
There was a tap on the door and Cross walked in. “This just came in. Might be of interest to all of you.” Cross placed a thick folder on the table. “It’s a translation of Yoshida’s diary.”
That Jotaro file! Warfield wanted to jump up onto the table and dance. The authorities in Tokyo had kept it but Warfield requested a copy be sent to Cross. Incredible timing, and it might contain some information for Fullwood.
Warfield sat back as Fullwood and Quinn began going through it. As Cross was leaving, he caught Warfield’s eye with a look that said everything Warfield had told him about Petrevich and Seth was there in the diary. That meant Fullwood’s rhetoric would crash before his eyes.
Twenty minutes later Quinn looked over at Warfield. “In skimming this, Warfield, I see some support for your position, but I’m not convinced of another mole. And how much can you believe this girlfriend, Suri?”
Warfield fired back. “Are you two going to stick your head in the sand? Look at Rick Ames, CIA. Operated right under Stern’s nose for ten years before he was caught. FBI’s Robert Hanssen spied twenty years. Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 World Trade Center terrorists hid in open view for two years right here in our country while they planned their destruction. Think of the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the murder of our Ambassador Chris Stephens and three other Americans. Look at how many Americans died because of these people. And there’s Habur crossing. There were warnings and signals in each one of those cases but nothing was done. No one wanted to believe it. Haven’t we learned anything about being proactive?”
“If you knew so much about the Russian, why didn’t you act before he moved the stuff?” Quinn asked.
Warfield wondered how many times he’d explained this and wasn’t ready to talk about his conversations with Rachel Gilbert again. Now he was angry. “Look, it boils down to this. Either the CIA’s source lied to the CIA, or somebody at CIA lied to the FBI, or somebody at FBI revised the intelligence that came from the CIA. Two out of three of those scenarios point to a mole. If you buy my theory that only a mole could have known how to contact Seth, it becomes pretty damn convincing that we’ve still got a mole. If you don’t, then you convince me.”
“You were saying you had other information?” Quinn asked.
Warfield decided to play that hollow carrot for what it was worth. “Yeah, from Ana, but nothing I’m going to talk about until I check into it.”