The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,6
seemed to think that intelligence was a spigot they could turn wide open if they just spent enough cash. Harry kept saying no. He couldn’t target the officers he had now, let alone a dozen more. The last thing he needed was more people bumping into each other, sending each other make-work cables. But they appropriated the money anyway. It made them feel they were doing something.
“Don’t fight the problem.” That was one of Harry’s mottoes, which he had picked up years ago in a biography of General George C. Marshall. He had puzzled over what it meant until it occurred to him one day that all the great man was saying was, Solve the problem. Figure out what it is, and then get it done. And Harry could do that. He wasn’t one of the smart guys who needed to show everyone how hard they were thinking. He was from Worcester. He had come up as a knuckle-dragger in paramilitary. He was happy if people took him for granted.
So Harry was patient: he knew the Iranian agents were out there. They were angry and greedy and lonely and needy. This one had been disrespected by the Revolutionary Guard. That one hadn’t gotten the promotion he wanted. One man resented the corrupt officials who ran his program. Another man’s wife had cancer that could only be treated in the West. This father wanted his children to succeed. That father has lost his only child and wanted to fill the emptiness. One was idealistic. Another was avaricious. This man had a mistress who wanted money. That man was a homosexual. Take your pick. They were out there. Harry knew it. He had lists of dozens of people his case officers would pitch, if they ever got close enough.
What Harry didn’t realize was that his man had already arrived. His message was sitting in Harry’s in-box, waiting to be read.
Harry’s wife Andrea was out when he got home. She did volunteer work three evenings a week at a Greek Orthodox church in McLean. It was her form of penance. His daughter Louise was in the family room watching Sex and the City reruns. Harry sat with her for a while, drinking a beer, but he felt uncomfortable. The characters were talking about penises. He gave his daughter a good-night kiss and went up to bed. She was relieved to see him go, so she could watch television in peace.
Trying to get to sleep, Harry thought of his son, who had been killed in Iraq in 2004. The agency hadn’t been tough enough for him, so he had joined the Marines. “Makeshift roadside bomb” was the caption under his picture in the “Faces of the Fallen” gallery that ran in the Washington Post, which made it sound like a sort of traffic accident. Back then, at least, his son had been able to think it all might lead to something good. He had been spared as a last thought: What a fucking mistake. But not Harry. He didn’t sleep well that night, but he never did anymore.
WASHINGTON
Harry Pappas made his way to Persia House the next morning. He had a good parking spot near the front entrance now. They were all trying to be nice to him, as if he were a fragile instrument that might crack down the middle if it wasn’t handled with care. Harry walked through the electronic gate with his head down, ignoring the guard and the colleagues arriving for work. It was six forty-five, and most of the other early risers made a point of looking perky, but not Harry. Persia House was down Corridor C in the Main Headquarters building, past a glass display case that housed an old gray spy submarine. There was a little ramp off to the right, and at the top of the ramp a cyberlocked door. And next to it, so small that it was barely visible, was a sign that said IRAN OPERATIONS DIVISION.
The first face Harry saw when he opened the door was that of the Imam Hussein. It was a brightly colored life-size poster Harry had purchased in the central market in Baghdad when he was station chief. The image startled visitors, which was why Harry put it there. We’re not in Kansas anymore, boys and girls. He had mounted it just inside the front door of Persia House, next to the receptionist’s desk, so that young officers who knew the streets of Tehran only from overhead reconnaissance could