This is clever. It breaks the ice and both of them laugh. Katharine looks up and gives me a broad, flirty smile.
“Would you like to know something about what we do?” she says. “Would that make it easier for you? Get it down to a more realistic level?”
“Sure,” I say. “But I’m sitting here wondering why you need me. Why don’t you just bug the Abnex phones and get the information you need from a satellite somewhere?”
That was always going to be a naive question, but Fortner gives it a patient, considered response.
“Only about ten percent of our intelligence is scooped by birds. We still need guys like you on the ground. The Agency has a budget of twenty-eight billion dollars a year. Only six of that goes for satellites. Agents like Katharine and myself still provide the backbone of the intelligence operation, and guys like you are our lifeblood.”
“So this is what you do all the time? Jesus, it’s overwhelming.”
Fortner smiles, like he’s glad to have everything out in the open.
“This is it.”
They are looking at each other, an undisguised relief shuttling between them.
“So what kind of stuff do you get up to? I can’t believe this, it’s so…”
“Primarily nowadays the Agency is involved in reducing the influence of Russian organized crime,” Katharine says, with the confidence of someone moving into an area of expertise. “Last June, for example, we arrested three guys who were trying to sell nuclear-grade zirconium to some of our federal agents posing as Iraqis in New York. That’s just an example.”
“FBI agents. Not the CIA?”
“That’s right,” she replies. I am amazed at her candor.
“More and more since Ames we’ve been working with the FBI,” says Fortner.
I should ask who Ames is.
“Who’s Ames?”
“You know. The trait-” Katharine stops herself short and adjusts swiftly. “The CIA agent who was spying for the KGB. He was our head of counterintelligence in Washington.”
“Oh yeah. I think I read about him.”
Fortner sits on the sofa beside Katharine and juts his chin toward the floor. Bad memories.
“How long have you guys been doing this?”
He looks up.
“Let’s not talk too much about it now, okay? We can fill you in on everything you need to know some other time.”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.”
Almost to himself, he says, “Shit, it’s not like you’ll be doing anything in the same sphere as Rick Ames. What we’re asking you to do isn’t anything like that. What you’ll be doing for Andromeda isn’t gonna get people killed.”
“I understand that. I wouldn’t do it if it did.”
“Good,” he says, looking at Katharine. “That’s good to know. I think it’s important to have standards, and I respect you for that, Alec, I really do. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t even compare the two. So let’s not get sidetracked. What remains to be said right now-the most important thing as far as you’re concerned-is that there’s a common misconception about how all this works.”
Katharine, who has been listening quietly, stands and offers us coffee. We both accept.
“All you gotta do is bring us as much information as you can without arousing suspicion with any of your colleagues or with Abnex security. Those offices are under twenty-four-hour camera surveillance, ditto the Xerox room.”
“So you want me to photocopy stuff?”
“We’ll go over it. I’m just giving you some basic ground rules. Everything you do on your computer terminal will be logged.” He starts to chop the air with his hand, marking out each point. “Presume that your telephone is tapped. Never communicate with us using e-mail or cell phone. These are just basic precautions.”
“I see.”
I hear Katharine in the kitchen taking down mugs from a cupboard.
“There’s also a problem that’s unique to your situation. We share a lot of intelligence with your government, and a lot of the codes and ciphers we use are identical to those employed by Five and SIS. We start using them, and they’d be on to us right away. So we can’t encrypt text or scramble conversations. I wouldn’t wanna scare you. You just have to be smart. We can go over all this in much finer detail when we’re a lot less pumped up. For now, all I would emphasize to you is to keep it simple. Go home with that thought. Don’t ever try to do too much, especially at first. Just make everything look as natural as possible.”
“That’s it?”
Fortner laughs.
“That’s it. If you don’t make a big deal about it, no one else will. Years gone by, we might have asked you to take a couple of weeks’ vacation so we could get you off to a safe house back home and give you some basic training in equipment and communications. In your case, none of that will be necessary. This is just a small operation. Like I said, we’re just gonna keep things real simple. That’s the mistake a lot of people make. They make things too complicated for themselves, start feeling like the whole world is watching them when in fact the whole world doesn’t have a goddamn clue what’s going on. You’re just plain old Alec Milius to Abnex, and it’ll stay that way as long as you don’t do anything that’s gonna arouse anyone’s suspicion. Don’t go looking for extra information that wouldn’t ordinarily cross your desk. Keep it real simple. We’ll get into isolated dead-drops, surveillance exercises, and audio penetrations only when it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise, it doesn’t need to get complicated.”
“What sort of information do you want? Memos, financial reports, business plans…?”
“That kinda thing, yes,” he says, though his expression hints at greater prizes. “Get us everything you safely can. Even information about your operation that you might consider to be of no interest to us. Don’t make any judgment on the validity of documentation on our behalf. Are we clear?”
“Sure.”
Katharine comes back in with the tray of coffee. She distributes the mugs quietly, settles back down on the sofa, and says, “Did you say anything about Caspian exploration, Fort? Did you mention 5F371?”
Fortner does very well here. She has made a bad mistake, but he betrays no sign of it.
“How do you know about that?” I ask. “How do you know about
5F371?”
And he says, very coolly, “It’s common knowledge, right? Look, we’ll get to that some other time. Later. No need to talk about specifics at the moment.”
“All we need for you now is a code name,” Katharine says, also recovering well.
“Yes,” says Fortner, sipping his coffee, then putting the mug on the table. “Kathy came up with JUSTIFY. How do you feel about that?”
I like it.
“Sounds fine to me. Why do I need one?”
“In the unlikely event that there’s any kind of an emergency, that’s the name you would use to contact us. We call it a cryptonym. It’s also how you’ll be known to our case officer at the Agency.”
“I see.”
“So are we clear?” he asks, rubbing his hands together with a broad smile. “Is this thing under way?”
“Oh yes,” I reply. “I’m clear. Absolutely.”
This thing is definitely under way.
