The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,84
traveling. And try to keep Fox and his friends from doing anything crazy. And keep your mouth shut.”
“And if the balloon goes up?”
“Which balloon are you talking about? War with Iran?”
“No. I’m talking about you, Harry. What should I do if you get caught, doing whatever it is that you’re not doing?”
“Lie.”
She smiled and took a last puff on the cigarette.
“You got it,” she said.
Harry called Arthur Fox. His secretary said he was on the seventh floor with the director. So Harry called the admiral’s private line and asked if he could come up. The admiral said of course, he had been meaning to call Harry to ask him to join the meeting. He sounded embarrassed.
The view from the director’s suite was a bland vista of trees, parking lots, the dome of the bubble-shaped auditorium where the agency gathered for what were usually tedious ceremonies. Long ago, when the CIA had reigned supreme, this must have seemed to Allen Dulles and his coterie the very height of modern elegance—this “campus” on the Potomac. Now, it was a monument to mediocrity. Even a middling state university had more panache among its faculty members than did the agency in its espionage corps.
The director was playing with one of his ship models when Harry entered the room. It was a battleship, long and fat in the hull. Evidently he had been waiting for Harry to show up. Fox was sitting on the couch with his back to the window. He was in shirtsleeves, wearing his green-striped Ivy Club tie as a secret signal to any Princeton man he might encounter. He had a sour look on his face, as if he had just eaten something that didn’t agree with him.
“Harry Pappas, back from the dead,” said Fox. “Sorry about your cold. We missed you.”
“I’m sure you did, Arthur. But somehow I’ll bet you managed on your own.”
“Easy, shipmates. One big happy family here,” said the director. “We were just talking about where we are going. Now that the White House has given us new Codeword policy guidance on Iran.”
“And what might that be?” asked Harry. “If I’m cleared for it.”
“You missed that too,” said Fox. “Another NSC principals meeting yesterday. People asked after you. ‘Get well soon.’ That sort of thing.”
Harry ignored Fox. He was like an unpleasant dog. The louder he barked, the more you wanted to take out a gun and shoot him.
“They want to go public,” said the director. “Disclose the new evidence about the nuclear program in a big prime-time press conference in a week, maybe two. Then declare the embargo on Iran. Naval first, then air.”
“Just like the Cuban missile crisis,” said Harry.
“Precisely,” said Fox.
“They don’t want to take it to the United Nations?” asked Harry.
“No. Bad memories. Nobody wants another Colin Powell show.”
Harry shook his head. He knew they had been heading in this direction, but the rush worried him.
“How much detail does the White House plan to reveal about the bomb program?”
Fox answered for the director, to whom the question had been addressed.
“We’ll roll out everything we’ve got. Appleman’s orders.”
“But what we’ve got is ambiguous. And it will get our guy killed.”
“Can’t be helped. Casualty of war.”
Harry turned to the director. He was playing with another ship model, a submarine this time. It looked like a big gray knackwurst. “Do you agree, Admiral?”
The admiral nodded. He looked uncomfortable. “Afraid so, Harry. This is crunch time. The Iranians have to know we mean business.”
“What if the Iranians resist the embargo? Because they will. Some crazy asshole in the Revolutionary Guard will decide that he can win a one-way ticket to paradise if he takes out one of our ships in the Gulf. What do we do then?”
“We attack, of course,” said Fox.
“I get it,” said Harry. “You want them to attack. So you’ll have a pretext.”
“Let’s just say the White House won’t be unhappy.”
“Oh shit,” said Harry. “This is a big mistake. Everything tells me you’re reading this wrong, Admiral.” The director was silent. What his feelings might be, Harry wasn’t sure, but he suspected they were similar to his own.
“You know what?” broke in Fox. “It doesn’t really matter what you think, Harry. It’s too late. This is a decision. What we are talking about now is implementation. And what you should think about is tactical intelligence. To support our brave soldiers and airmen who may soon be in battle.”
“How long do we have?” asked Harry.
“Until the press conference? A week, two at most.”