Deputy Director for Operations McGill was apparently in one of his pacing moods. He walked back and forth in front of the windows in his office, coffee mug in hand, pipe in mouth, as he listened to Allender’s report of the reception encounter with Chiang Liang-fu. It was late in the afternoon, and the building was beginning to clear out. When Allender had finished, McGill began shaking his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s no way that his people won’t suspect a honey trap.” He emphasized his words with the ornate pipe, which Allender had never seen actually lit. “No way in hell.”
Allender disagreed. “Look,” he said. “A honey trap traditionally involves a woman planted by one country’s service to snare and then embarrass or even blackmail someone in another country’s service. She is always under deep cover—a schoolteacher, a medical person, even a straying wife, but in no way connectable to our business. Sloan was with me. Chiang and I know of each other. She even admitted she worked for the Company. Said she was senior, and complained about how hard it was to find decent Chinese linguists. In other words, I do work for your opposition, General, so if we do hook up, it’s not going to be about business.”
“If one of my senior people brought me that scenario I’d warn him off in the strongest possible terms,” McGill said. “So would you, I hope.”
“Neither of us allows his groin to lead his brain,” Allender said. “This one does, and regularly, and his boss is not pleased, apparently. If he weren’t some senior party boss’s brother or cousin he’d probably be a tour guide on the Great Wall by now.”
“Okay, but: When I brought you into this one, I explained that this wasn’t about mousetrapping a single spy. It was about breaking their entire organization by doing something extraordinary. So what’s this bright idea you’ve given to David Smith—that’s not his name, by the way—that’s going to achieve that objective?”
“Smith works for you; ask him, why don’t you.”
“He won’t tell me, if you can believe that. Says it won’t work if anyone but the controller and a few assistants know what the plan is.”
“Well, then, Carson, there you have it.”
“Goddammit, Preston—it’s your idea. You’re the expert manipulator who also knows the damned Chinese. So what are you going to do to him, assuming he can’t keep away from the delectable Sloan?”
Allender smiled. “That’s a secret for now.”
“Fuck that noise, Preston—I’m the DDO.”
“That’s the difference between creating a black swan and every other op you can think of,” Allender said. “That was your tasking to me, remember? I’m not an operator, but if you want to cause a black swan within the MSS, then you must leave your controller to it. It will not disappoint. By the way, how high have you briefed this?”
“I’ll have to tell our beloved director about this, eventually,” McGill said. “By law, actually. But for now, I’m as high as this one goes.”
“I think you should at least let me brief Hank.”
“Before or after?”
“Before. I agree with you about the director, but Hank’s the Company’s wise man. If there’s a reason not to proceed, Hank will see it.”
“Perhaps,” McGill said. “Let me think about that, but if Hank does get briefed, I’ll do the briefing, understand? So what’s the deal, again?”
Allender smiled. “Nice try.”
McGill broke out in expletives. Allender waited patiently.
“This cannot ever be acknowledged as a Company affair, Carson,” Allender said. “It goes down and then it goes dark, for ever and ever. No backgrounders for reporters, no leaks to our best friend over there on Capitol Hill, just panic and pandemonium within MSS and its senior leadership and a united ‘Who, us?’ here at Langley.”
McGill groaned at Allender’s reference to Congresswoman Martine Greer, chairwoman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Agency’s current nemesis in the House. “The way you’ve set this up, the Chinese will know it was us,” he pointed out.
“That’s the best part,” Allender replied. “You still keep some Scotch in that cubby over there?”
* * *
By the time he’d arrived home he was more than a bit pleased at how the mission was shaping up. He had met earlier with David Smith to review some details for the actual strike. Smith had suggested giving Chiang one more taste of the eye candy before they executed the mission.
“Think of it as a photo op,” he’d said. “I think we should let him see her one more time, exchange a look, maybe, but not actually talk or interact. This time she’ll be with someone under deep cover. An innocent encounter, recognition across the room, a sexy smile from her, then back to paying attention to whomever she’s with. No looking back.”
“And if he makes a move?” Allender asked.
“We’ll have an interceptor in place,” Smith said. “Someone who stops his move by recognizing him as a long-lost acquaintance, or a senior Chinese official—whatever, but takes up enough time for Melanie to make her creep.”
“‘Melanie’ is it now,” Allender had said.
Smith had the good grace to blush. “She is by God the best-looking thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And nice, too. Down-to-earth. Real people.”
Oh, dear, Allender had thought. Maybe the op needed a new controller. On the other hand, he now knew that Smith would certainly be paying attention, so he’d agreed to the additional “viewing,” as Smith had phrased it.
He brought a bottle of chilled white Burgundy and a stemmed glass to the tower office while he decided whether to go out or burn something in the kitchen for dinner. He still hoped that McGill would let him go brief Henry Wallace, the deputy director of the Agency. Hank Wallace was something of a legend at Langley, the man career Agency people thought of as the Company’s executive flywheel, especially with Hingham in the front office. He was the closest thing in the American government to what the British called a permanent undersecretary. British cabinet officers came and went at the whim of the electorate, but the PUS remained in place so that whatever member of Parliament was given the portfolio, at least someone in the front office knew what time the tea lady came around.
Wallace had seen several directors come and go in the unending whirl of high-level presidential appointees during his twelve years. He was in his early sixties, a bit crusty, a cunning bureaucrat, a keeper of both bones and secrets, but fiercely loyal to the Agency and its people. He kept himself firmly in the background and, as best he could, tried to steer newly appointed directors away from the traditional minefields peculiar to running the CIA in the rough-and-tumble world of Washington factional politics. Some listened, some didn’t. The ones who did tended to last longer than the ones who didn’t. McGill was, of course, correct in demanding that he, the DDO, brief Wallace, but Allender had made it a condition of his own participation that motormouth McGill was not to be briefed on just exactly what was coming. Allender knew, however, that it would be foolish to keep Hank Wallace in the dark. He was going to have to think of some way to get around McGill’s sense of the Agency’s pecking order.
One thing he did know: If this thing worked, the damage to the MSS operation here in town was going to be substantial. Chiang was part of an important faction in the Chinese government, which meant that the dozens of Chinese based out of the embassy owed their jobs and careers to him. Hit the warlord, take out the clan.
He thought about the way Sloan’s ample front had spilled invitingly out in front of the poor general. Then he chided himself—he was supposed to have been watching Chiang. He smiled and had some more wine.