this reason that an employment agency in Rome, in reality a CIA subsidiary, had placed him at the Cairo University as an Arabic-speaking instructor of American Literature.
There he had met the Rashads, a lovely couple who became an important part of his life. At Payton's first faculty meeting, he sat beside the renowned Professor Rashad, and in their pre-conference small-talk he learned that Rashad had not only gone to university in California, but had married a classmate of MJ's. A deep friendship blossomed, as did MJ's reputation within the Central Intelligence Agency. Through talents he had no idea he possessed, and which at times actually frightened him, he discovered that he was an exceptionally convincing liar. They were days of turmoil, of rapidly shifting alliances that had to be monitored, the spreading American penetration kept out of sight. He was able, through his fluent Arabic and his understanding that people could be motivated with sympathetic words backed up with money, to organize various groups of opposing factions who reported on each other's movements to him. In return, he provided funds for their causes—minor expenditures for the then sacrosanct CIA but major contributions to the zealots' meagre coffers. And through his efforts in Cairo, Washington averted a number of potentially explosive embarrassments. So, typically of the old-school-tie network in DC's intelligence community, if a good fellow did such a fine job where he was, forget the convergence of specific factors that made him good where he was and bring him back to Washington to see what he could do there. MJ Payton was the exception in a long line of failures. He succeeded James Jesus Angleton, the Grey Fox of clandestine operations, as the director of Special Projects. And he never forgot what his friend, Rashad, told him when he reached his ascendancy.
'You never could have made it, MJ, if you had married. You have the self-confidence of never having been manipulated.'
Perhaps.
Yet a test of manipulation had come full force to him when the headstrong daughter of his dear friends had arrived in Washington, as adamant as he had ever seen her. A terrible thing had happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she was determined to devote her life—at least a part of her life—to lessening the fires of hatred and violence that were ripping her Mediterranean world apart. She never told 'Uncle Mitch' what had happened to her—she did not have to, really—but she would not take no for an answer. She was qualified; she was as fluent in English and French as she was in Arabic, and she was currently learning both Yiddish and Hebrew. He had suggested the Peace Corps and she had slammed her bag down on the floor in front of his desk.
'No! I'm not a child, Uncle Mitch, and I don't have those kinds of benevolent impulses. I'm concerned only with where I come from, where I was born. If you won't use me, I'll find others who will!'
'They could be the wrong others, Adrienne.'
'Then stop me. Hire me!'
‘I’ll have to talk to your parents—'
'You can't! He's retired—they're retired, and they live up north in Baltim-on-the-Sea. They'd only worry about me, and in their worrying cause problems. Find me translating jobs, or a floating consultant's position with exporters—certainly you can do that! Good God, Uncle Mitch, you were a small-time instructor at the university and we never said anything!'
'You didn't know, my dear—’
'The hell I didn't! The whispers around the house when a friend of Uncle Mitch's was coming and how I had to stay in my room, and then one night when suddenly three men came, all wearing guns on their belts, which I'd never seen—'
'Those were emergencies. Your father understood.'
'Then you understand me now, Uncle Mitch. I have to do this!'
'All right,' consented MJ Pay ton. 'But you understand me, young lady. You'll be put through a concentrated course in Fairfax, Virginia, in a compound that's not on any map. If you fail, I can't help you.'
'Agreed,' had said Adrienne Khalehla Rashad, smiling. 'Do you want to bet?'
'Not with you, you young tigress. Come on, let's go to lunch. You don't drink, do you?'
'Not really.'
'I do and I will, but I won't bet you.'
And it was good for Payton's wallet that he did not bet. Candidate No. 1344 finished the excruciating ten-week course in
