The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,11

and formulas? Reddo wasn’t sure what they meant. What do they tell you?”

Fox’s nuclear expert spoke up. He was a young man named Adam Schwartz. He had graduated from MIT a few years ago. Pappas wasn’t sure why such a talented young man had joined a screwed-up government agency rather than making megabucks like the other smart kids.

“So I can’t say whether our mystery informant is part of the Iranian nuclear program, but he certainly has access to what’s going on,” said Schwartz. He looked down at the paper in front of him, as if to double-check. “His hexafluoride formula has several unusual signatures that match some anomalies in the samples we have from the Iranian program. He must know that. I think that’s why he sent the message. This is his statement of bona fides. So if I had to guess, I would say that, yes, he is a part of the program.”

Schwartz looked at his boss, who was frowning. “But I don’t know,” the analyst added.

“Dr. Ali,” said Harry quietly, half to himself.

“Say what?” queried Fox.

“Dr. Ali, you piss me off.” Harry spoke the name louder, as if the Iranian himself were sitting with them in the secure conference room. “I mean, give me a break. We’ve been killing ourselves trying to recruit someone like you, and now you walk in the door. Except you don’t even do that. You send a message to our website, like you’re signing up for summer camp. Are you fucking with me, Dr. Ali?”

“Maybe he’s real,” said Fox. “Maybe not. But how would you know, eh? This is pretty technical stuff, Harry. Easy to get suckered.” Fox was playing Pappas. His manner said that he wanted control of the case.

“Tell you what, Arthur. I know one problem with this case already, which is that too many people have copies of this message. A distribution list this wide and we’ll be reading about it in the New York Times. And then we can kiss Dr. Ali goodbye, whoever he is. This is an RH case, starting now.” RH was the agency’s term for “restricted handling.”

“Then close it down,” said Fox brusquely.

Pappas just nodded. He had already done that, before the meeting even started. He had created a special-access program, an “SAP,” many of whose members were sitting in the room.

“We need to create a legend for this guy,” Pappas said.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we’ve got to kill Dr. Ali off in cable traffic so nobody asks, ‘Hey, whatever happened to that Iranian VW who sent the nuclear stuff?’ We lay a trail that leads everyone off in the wrong direction, and then we handle the case in the SAP. Is everyone cool with that?”

“Who runs it?” asked Fox. The natural set of his eyes was a squint.

“We both do. IOD and Counter-Proliferation. It will be a joint case. We’ll bring in the Info Ops Center for computer support, plus the director and the head of the clandestine service. That’s it.”

“Who briefs the NSC?” pressed Fox. Meaning, Who gets face time with the president?

Fox was still bargaining. He lived for turf battles like this. Pappas decided to give ground. He didn’t like going to the White House. They got all wound up in the Situation Room, and then they did the wrong thing. The people who paid the price for their mistakes were kids like his son. Let Fox spin them if he wanted.

“You do it,” he said. “It’s about nuclear. Your people will do the briefings and the technical support. We’ll run operations, like he’s a real agent. And we’ll work our asses off trying to find him and make actual contact, as opposed to this virtual bullshit. How’s that?”

Fox smiled. What he wanted was to control access to the policy makers. This was potentially a very hot case. Pappas had given away the customers. He was a fool, in Fox’s book.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Fox said. Everything was provisional with him, in case the wind changed. “What do we do next?”

Pappas shrugged his shoulders. It was an effort for him to tolerate Fox, who was one of those intelligence officers who had never run a big operation, never recruited an agent whose life was on the line. He didn’t have the feel of the work on his fingertips; the sticky-sweet touch of espionage. Nobody did anymore. That’s why they were reduced to waiting for the VWs.

“We fucking well answer Dr. Ali’s message, that’s what we do next. But we do it very