Anna wanted to make a good impression on Stone, but she was still not clear, after all the months of training, just what a woman intelligence officer was supposed to look like. Was she supposed to be sleek or bulky? Plain or pretty? Hard or soft? Anna wasn’t sure, and she suspected that nobody else quite knew either. Women case officers in those days were still rather rare, and women NOCs were almost nonexistent. Which meant, Anna decided, that she could look however she pleased. She chose a sober outfit: blue suit and white cotton blouse. Almost a uniform. Even in this dull garb, she was an attractive woman, with luminous blue-green eyes and shoulder-length black hair, whose dark color was accented by a few strands in the middle that were prematurely turning gray. She had the look of a sleek animal: well bred, but with a distant memory of life in the wild.
Anna arrived first at the Holiday Inn and went straight to the room. It was as tacky and depressing as only a motel room on an interstate highway can be. She closed the drapes, then sat on the bed and looked around. It seemed possible that in the entire room there was not a single object made of a natural substance. Certainly not the brown fire-retardant drapes; not the green, fringed polyester bedspread; not the wood-grain plastic of the desk and bed tables; not the sooty tan rug; not the grainy bedsheets. Anna was gazing at this artificial landscape when there was a knock at the door and into the room walked a man who was all leather and wool and starched cotton.
“Hello, my dear,” said Edward Stone, extending his hand. He was a courtly man in his early sixties, well groomed and well spoken.
“How do you do, sir,” said Anna. She wanted to sound like a military officer, which in a sense was what she was.
“I do fine. But don’t call me sir. It makes me feel old.”
So he’s a flirt, thought Anna.
“I brought you a little something,” said Stone. He walked over to the bed, sat down, and opened a brown shopping bag. Inside was a bottle of French champagne. He forced the cork, which exploded noisily and hit the ceiling, just missing the automatic sprinkler.
“I didn’t bring any glasses, I’m afraid,” said Stone. He went to the bathroom and retrieved two squat motel-issue tumblers, into which he poured champagne up to the rim.
“Welcome to the club,” he said, raising his glass.
Anna lifted her glass and took a long drink. The fizz of the champagne tickled her nose and throat.
“To success,” said Stone.
“To not screwing up,” replied Anna.
Stone smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll find that the job is actually very easy. Absurdly easy, when things are going right.”
They sat down in two Holiday Inn chairs by the window. Anna had pulled the drapes for security, but Stone opened them again. The winter sun was shining, glinting off the tile at the bottom of the empty pool. Stone took off the jacket of his gray pinstripe suit and unbuttoned his vest. He looked at once elegant and weary.
“Always close the drapes,” said Anna, repeating a nugget of tradecraft that one of her instructors had dispensed several months before.
“We’re in Rockville,” said Stone. “Nobody cares.”
Anna nodded. She felt like a greenhorn.
Stone had another drink of champagne and turned to his young companion. “Tell me a bit about yourself,” he said. “I gather you were studying Ottoman history. That sounds exciting.”
“Not to most people,” said Anna. “My dissertation topic was ‘Administrative Practices in the Late Ottoman Empire.’ ”
“And what was it about?”
“It was about how empires try to save themselves in their declining years.”
“How timely,” said Stone. “And how did the Ottomans try to save themselves, if I may ask?”
“By keeping their subjects at each other’s throats. The Ottomans were masters at sowing dissension. It was one of the few things they were good at, actually.”
“Not really an option for us, is it?”
Anna shook her head.
“Why did you leave this sublime work and decide to be an intelligence officer?”
“I was bored,” said Anna. It was the truth, or at least part of it. After her third year of work on her dissertation, she had felt as dead as the Ottoman texts she was studying. She was falling out of love with an associate professor of English whose idea of a big time was buying an ice-cream cone at Steve’s, and she wanted a change. She had delivered a paper on the Ottomans at an agency-sponsored conference, been approached afterward by a recruiter, and never looked back.
“Dubious motivation,” said Stone.
“Why?”
“Because you’ll find that the work of an intelligence officer, when performed competently, is also extremely boring.”
Anna studied Stone’s face. He didn’t look bored. He just looked tired.
“More champagne?”
“Definitely,” said Anna. He filled both glasses.
“And how did you learn all those languages?” asked Stone.
“I had to,” said Anna. “It’s sort of a union card for Ottomanists.”
“Is it?”
“The Ottoman historians have a joke,” she explained. “A young graduate student goes to the professor and says he wants to be an Ottomanist. ‘Do you read Turkish?’ asks the professor. Yes. ‘Do you read Arabic?’ Yes. ‘Do you read Persian?’ Yes. ‘Do you read German?’ Yes. ‘Do you read Russian?’ No. ‘Well, come back when you learn to read Russian.’ ”
Stone laughed. “That’s very funny,” he said.
“I used to think so, too,” said Anna. “Until I tried to study
