The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,82

that he must be especially careful now. The dangerous part was just beginning. He repeated to himself a Persian proverb. Nafasat az jayeh garm darmiyad. You are breathing from a warm spot. In other words, don’t get over-optimistic. He would feel the cold in his bones again soon enough. He would wait. They would come. He turned the key of his apartment door and sat on his couch for a time, with the light off.

WASHINGTON

For those who understood the looming confrontation with Iran, Washington felt like an echo of March 2003, the month America invaded Iraq. This was a city where nobody wanted to be the last to know, so people in and out of government were suddenly possessed with the certainty that the United States was going to attack the Islamic Republic. It was a matter of winks and nods, of inferences and messages between the lines. Questions about a possible U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities began to surface at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department briefings. The spokesmen declined to answer, but then, they would, wouldn’t they? Journalists began badgering government officials to come clean about the secret planning, and when they were rebuffed, the reporters implied that the officials were engaging in a cover-up. Think tanks began producing instant studies, with the help of terrier-like retired military officers, examining what targets the United States would hit in Iran if it chose to attack.

The question wasn’t whether the United States was going to strike Iran, but when. The major news organizations began asking the Pentagon about arrangements for covering the conflict. Several newspapers even asked if it would be possible to embed reporters with U.S. forces—this for a military operation that wasn’t declared, wasn’t discussed, hadn’t been agreed even by the principals. Yet already, in the floating island of the nation’s capital, it had assumed the status of fact. Washington was talking itself into war.

Harry’s alibi for the London trip had been the flu, so when he arrived at Persia House early on the morning of his return, people asked if he was feeling better. He wheezed on cue. In his absence, someone had put a bull’s-eye on the chest of the poster of the Imam Hussein that graced the entryway. Harry laughed, but he took it down. He looked for Marcia Hill, but she was on the phone when he got in. At eight-thirty, he summoned the division’s senior staff to his windowless office for the morning meeting. Even his team seemed to have been affected by the war fever.

Marcia Hill opened the meeting with a summary of new developments since last week. Before she began, she gave Harry a little wink. It was spooky: What did she know? She had a woman’s intuition about people—when they were lying, when they were dissatisfied, when they were ready to bolt. That’s what had made her a superstar, back in the day. After thirty years, she could read Harry better than his own wife. Whatever it was that she intuited, Harry she knew she would keep her mouth shut.

“We better talk about the Persia House surge,” said Marcia. She turned to the group. “I briefed Harry on it while he was home sick. But I should give everyone else a fill.”

“Go ahead,” said Harry. So that was what she had wanted to tell him when he was in London. They were flooding the Iran zone, and she was covering for him. He loved her for the effortless, unbidden duplicity.

“On orders from the director over the weekend, we are sending additional officers into Dubai, Doha, Istanbul, and Yerevan. They will be on temporary assignment to our division. We’ll have more bodies in a few weeks, but no tasking as to what they should do. Any suggestions, Harry?”

“Have them write cables to each other. Stay out of the way. Who are the surgers, anyway? Do we know yet?”

“Half of them are contractors. The rest are retirees. Sounds like a joke, I know. But that’s all we have. The White House wanted bodies. People on the Hill were complaining that we weren’t doing enough about the Iran target. So we are surging. I surge, you surge, we surge. I think the Senate committee chairman put out a press release last night.”

Harry shook his head. There was no point in pretending to his colleagues that he thought this was a good idea.

“What can I say? These people are nuts, honestly. But you all know that already, right?” Harry looked around the