of its Pakistani ISI tailings. He looked at this one for a long while, and then put his head in his hands.
“ Haram,” he muttered, using the Arabic word that in Lebanon connotes wrongdoing, for Christians and Muslims alike.
Marx spoke now with a harder tone in her voice.
“I hope you can see now why it is so important that you help us, Mr. Sabah. These documents connect you with a man who is a terrorist. If you do not work with us, we will have to assume that you are working against us. You would not be happy with that situation, I’m certain.”
Sabah sighed. He knew that he was caught, more tightly now than before when he had been hooded.
“So I do not have a choice,” he said.
“No. Not really. There is only one good answer for you.”
“I will do what I can,” he said glumly. “What is it that you want?”
“We want you to help us catch him.”
“You mean that I am the cheese, and he is the mouse?”
“Yes, that’s the idea,” said Marx. “But this man is no mouse. He is somewhere between a rat and a snake. He has a motive, and he wants to kill, and right now you are the only chance we’ve got. I hope that makes you feel better, knowing that you are important.”
“It does not make me feel better,” said Sabah. “Nothing will make me feel better until I am rid of all of you.”
They took a break. Everyone was tired. Sabah’s contact records and datebook were in his laptop computer at home. They needed the computer, and every digit of email and phone information it contained about the man who had posed as George. Sophie Marx would take Sabah to his apartment, where they could retrieve the computer files.
But right now the dog Emile was barking annoyingly in the hallway and Sabah went to check what was wrong.
32
Jeff Gertz had a two-part rule for dealing with trouble. It dated back to when he worked for the Counterterrorism Center traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan: First, always have a plan for what to do if something bad happens; and second, always be the first to move when danger strikes. Don’t wait for others to run for shelter when a mortar round comes in, or to open fire at a hostile checkpoint, because by then it will be too late: Have a plan, move first. The threat in this case wasn’t shrapnel or bullets, but it was deadly nonetheless. Gertz had one other rule. It was the cardinal precept of the rational man: Save yourself first, and worry about the others later.
The morning Cyril Hoffman called him to report that someone had tried to kill Sophie Marx in Islamabad, Gertz understood that the structure he had built was collapsing. He didn’t know how or why Sophie Marx had been targeted, or even what she had been doing in Pakistan, but it was clear that every outpost of his network was vulnerable. It wasn’t a matter of physical danger; he was deft enough to stay alive. His problem was more mundane: He needed to clean up the mess before it created an open scandal that would lead to his political and legal ruin.
He cursed Sophie Marx for her disloyalty and, more, for being smarter and tougher than he had expected. But he couldn’t afford the luxury of personal animosity now.
Gertz called Ted Yazdi at the White House. There was no answer on the STU-5, so he sent a message to Yazdi’s BlackBerry and got a quick, ostentatious message: In Oval. Can’t Talk. Gertz responded: We have trouble. Must see you in DC soonest to explain. After five minutes, the White House chief of staff sent back his answer: Meet me at ten tonight. Same place in Bethesda. Don’t do anything stupid.
Gertz called the Burbank airport and alerted the crew of the Gulfstream that he would be leaving in an hour for Dulles. Then he had his secretary send out a book cable to everyone in the system, saying that he would be holding an emergency staff meeting in twenty minutes. Overseas personnel could watch on secure videoconference.
That left just enough time to call back Hoffman at Langley. When they had spoken earlier that morning about Sophie Marx, Gertz had been angry and flustered, but now that he’d had some time to digest the news he was cold as a stone.
“We’re shutting it down,” he told Hoffman. “Fire sale. Everything must go. It will take about a week. Then, bye-bye birdie. Finita la commedia, as you opera buffs would say.”
“Isn’t that a bit rash, Jeffrey? We don’t know how serious the damage is yet.”
“Yes, we do. We know there’s a leak. We know the boat is going to sink. It may take a week or a month or a year to go under, but we know how the story ends. You and Miss Priss can do what you want, but I’m not sticking around.”
“What do your chums in the White House think about your liquidation plans? They seemed rather enthusiastic about this business enterprise.”
“They don’t know yet. I see them tonight. But they’ll agree when I tell them the alternatives. They’ll love me for it.”
“Everyone loves you, Jeff. Always. We’re just never sure what you’re doing.”
Gertz ignored the rebuke. He didn’t have time to joust with Hoffman. The staff meeting was in ten minutes.
“Here’s what I need from Headquarters. Number one, silence. This organization never existed. It doesn’t exist now. So that will make it easy when it doesn’t exist in the future. Do we agree on that? No statements, no briefings, no IG reports. Deaf and dumb.”
“We will be silent as lambs. What’s number two?”
“I may need help with relocation, severance, all of that. We have some decent people. I want them taken care of. Otherwise, they’ll talk.”
“I thought you had arranged all of that, dear boy. Weren’t you supposed to be self-funding?”
“Nobody’s perfect. And it appears that my funding mechanism isn’t quite as airtight as I thought. Contamination problem. It could even involve fraud, the lawyers tell me. I put the Brits on the case a few days ago. Serious Fraud Office. They love catching rich Americans who have been gaming the system.”
“Oh, do they, now?” Hoffman chortled. “It really is sauve qui peut , isn’t it?”
“That’s the Gertz family motto, Mr. Hoffman. Along with, ‘Don’t get caught.’”
“You are an unpleasant man,” replied Hoffman.
“So what?” he said.
“I have one piece of advice for you in this self-demolition exercise: Don’t leave any loose ends. They have a way of catching up with one, or should I say, with you.”
“I won’t. Speaking of which, where’s my faithful employee, Miss Marx? I take it she works for Headquarters now. What’s she doing?”
“Well, that’s just it. She’s looking for loose ends. Clever girl, Brave, too.”
“She won’t find any. But if she can figure out how this mess happened, more power to her.”
“That’s very generous of you, old boy. And unless I’m mistaken, she’s well on her way.”
“This is a fun conversation, Mr. Hoffman, but I’ve got to go. I have a staff meeting and then a flight to D.C. Give the director a kiss on the bum for me, eh? That’s your specialty.”
“You are a most unpleasant man,” Hoffman said emphatically as he hung up the phone.
The double doors of the conference room on the third floor were open wide, but the staff trickled in single file, as if it were a TSA security line at the airport. People were mostly silent. They looked tired and on edge; many of them had been sleeping at the homes of friends of relatives for the past week; they had been taking the bus or borrowing vehicles from neighbors, instead of driving themselves to work in their own cars. Most of them had stopped using credit cards. The rumor mill had it that anything with a digital address, even in alias, was insecure,
