To Free a Spy Page 13

  “Initial intelligence that this would be a dry run came from CIA. And as to Kunnel Warfield’s involvement, my own men dug up that information.”

  Dug up was a good way to put it, Warfield thought.

  “Tell me about the CIA intelligence,” Cross said.

  Fullwood twisted in his chair. “Okay, well I, uh, I don’t have all those details with me at the moment.”

  Cross turned to Bill Reynolds, who told the president he’d received late notice to attend this meeting and wasn’t familiar with the details of the case. He’d research it and get back to him.

  Cross looked at Warfield. “Okay, Cam. What about Habur gate.”

  Warfield took a moment to decide how much to tell. Habur had been no different than the other times he’d taken life and death matters into his own hands. Sometimes you were the hero for it and sometimes the goat. Decisions like this one weren’t often so clear-cut—reliable intelligence that weapons-grade uranium was destined for a region where terrorists were supported by government and revered by zealots; deaf ears at the FBI. But the president had not authorized that specific action and Warfield wondered if he himself could land in court over it if Fullwood and Justice pushed it. That would be disastrous for Cross. So there was but one course for Warfield now. “I’m flattered the director thinks I could set up such an operation.”

  “You denyin’ you were behind it?” Fullwood said.

  Warfield displayed only mild irritation. “Russians could’ve set it up. How about the CIA? But whoever it was, you said your people were there at Habur that day. I informed Rachel Gilbert it was not going to be a trial run. You could have stopped it but you ignored the information I gave her. You instructed her to have no more communication with me and now you’re trying to dodge the blame.” Then Warfield looked directly into Fullwood’s eyes and dropped a bomb: “Mr. Director, it would be easy to believe you knowingly let the Russian go through with the uranium so you could serve some other agenda of yours.”

  Fullwood was speechless for a moment, as his face turned crimson. Finally he said, “Last time I checked the rules, the Bureau was not takin’ orders from retired army kunnels. Who the hell are you Warfield to tell the Federal Bureau of Investigation how to run its affairs? I’ve never seen the likes of your audac’ty. But let me get this straight. You actually disputin’ our initial intelligence from CIA?”

  “I am.”

  Fullwood pressed. “And if you’re flatly statin’ that the uranium crossed the Iraqi border with the Russian, I suppose you got some evidence to support that.”

  Glancing at his watch, Cross brought it to a halt before Warfield could answer.

  Warfield was saved. He wasn’t about to reveal his collaboration with Abbas, or any other part of his involvement, but he didn’t want to lie to Cross.

  “We’re getting nowhere,” Cross said. “I’ve got a press conference in a few minutes. We’ll meet here again at noon tomorrow for fifteen minutes and get to the bottom of this. I want your sources, Earl. Same for Warfield and CIA. I expect everyone to be prepared. And, Earl, I’m spending more time on your problems than on the rest of the country.”

  Fullwood crammed his papers into his attaché case and left without saying anything. Stern and Reynolds, more amiable, followed. Cross cornered Warfield in the hallway. “Listen Cam, we’re in a tough spot here, you and me.”

  Warfield nodded.

  “I probably don’t want to know the answer to this question,” Cross said, putting his hand on Warfield’s shoulder, “but I have to ask—”

  “About the attack at Habur crossing.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cross had saved him from answering that question in the meeting, but now he wanted to know, and Warfield wouldn’t mislead him. Not that he couldn’t lie. In the dirty business of espionage, lies, deceit and betrayal were the essence of the job. CIA and other intelligence operatives had to guard against letting this professional behavior become their personal baseline and they often failed, but Warfield had kept that part of his life—the set of skills he used to deal with the enemy—in a separate compartment from his personal values and conduct. When he answered the President’s question now, he was factual.

  “I authorized it on certain conditions. Those conditions were met. The operation was carried out accordingly. Now you have to tell me if you want to know more.”

  Cross understood the protection from knowledge Warfield was offering but said, “I do. Go ahead.”

  “I may have gone too far, sir, but to let the Russian cross into Iraq was a risk the United States couldn’t afford, in my judgment. Given the intelligence we had—I had—the operation at the Habur border gate should have been almost routine—and carried out by the FBI.”

  “And you notified the FBI in advance.”

  “Yep, twice, and they didn’t want it.”

  “But you didn’t talk to Fullwood?”

  “Asked for him. He put Gilbert on me both times.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That they had their own sources. I think it’s possible she gave some credibility to my information but doesn’t have the balls to defend it to Fullwood. So I set up a safety net to stop the smuggler if and only if the FBI didn’t stop him before he entered Iraq.”

  “You were certain there was uranium in that car?”

  “There were radioactive emissions from the car and from the Russian himself when he was out of the car. I’m absolutely sure of that.”

  “How did Fullwood know you were involved?”

  “He’s bluffing. Couldn’t know.” Warfield was that certain Abbas didn’t leak it. No one else knew—except Fleming.

  “What about Earl’s story that CIA was the source for the trial-run intelligence?”

  “If it’s true, could mean another mole. Maybe in the CIA. Or the FBI.”

  “That’s a jump, Cam. Could just be bad intelligence. It’s not a perfect world, you know.”

  “If they got the dry run story from the CIA, their intel was wrong and mine was right, if you believe the Geiger-counter. So one possibility that has to be considered is that the dry run report was engineered.”

  “And it couldn’t have been our boy Joplan.” Cross was thinking out loud.

  “Right. It was long after Joplan’s arrest that the FBI said they received the intel from CIA. Me too.”

  “What about your source?”

  Warfield nodded. “I’d bet my life on him. Fact is, I have, more than once.” He told Cross of Abbas’s return to his own Iran after he graduated from MIT, and his eventual escape to Paris with his family and most of their wealth just before the religious regime took over Iran in the seventies; of his engineering firm in Paris that was a front for his operation to undermine terrorists and rogue regimes; and that Warfield and Abbas had cooperated in several operations over the years.

  “CIA know him? Abbas, I mean.”

  “He worked with CIA twenty years ago.”

  Cross thought it over for a minute. “Look, don’t worry about this. I’ll handle Earl when we meet tomorrow. Keep your nose clean ’til then.” He patted Warfield on the back and left him standing there.

  * * *

  Warfield stayed over at Fleming’s that night and when he stepped out of the shower the next morning his cell phone was ringing. He grabbed the phone next to the bed as Fleming, now waking, rolled over, revealing the whiteness of her breasts in the tangle of sheets.

  “Yeah,” he answered, somewhat preoccupied. Fleming was teasing him.

  “Garrison here. Read this morning’s Post yet?”

  Warfield was caught off guard. Cross didn’t place his own calls.

  “Uh…no, sir.”

  “Call me when you’ve read it.”

  The front page showed a ten-year-old 2x3 photo of Warfield in uniform, and the headline, “Cross Assistant Foils FBI Operation in Turkey”. The story quoted “most-reliable unnamed” sources as saying Cross recruited Warfield to work behind the scenes, and that had
led to Warfield’s interference in an FBI operation that compromised national security. Cross and Warfield may have operated in violation of federal law, according to the sources. Warfield was described as a forced-out army colonel who was handed a lucrative government contract to run a small training center subsidized by Congress. It went on to describe the border incident with details that could have come only from someone present at yesterday’s Oval Office meeting.

  Fleming was reading over his shoulder. “Know who leaked it?”

  Warfield couldn’t rule out Otto Stern or Bill Reynolds, but he put his money on Fullwood.

  “Fullwood. Welcome to politics,” Warfield muttered.

  Now the President would take plenty of heat, and any retaliation by Cross against Fullwood would give credibility to the story. Warfield knew he couldn’t so much as empty the president’s wastebasket now without it showing up in the news, leaving one avenue for him: He had to resign the White House post, and there was even a chance Lone Elm could be in political jeopardy if the story lingered on.

  * * *

  Later that morning in the Oval Office, Cross told Warfield, “I’ve put you in a lousy position. You could’ve gone into politics if you wanted this kind of harassment.”

  “It’s my own doing.”

  “You mean Habur? I hope I would have had the guts to do what you did.”

  “I’m a liability to you now, Mr. President. If I disappear, so will the story. And you can get back to work. You hired me to handle this but you’re having to spend time on it.”

  Cross weighed that for a moment. “Let’s hang in there, Cam. Years ago, I was naïve to think I could get into politics and stay above this part of it, but now that I’m in, I can play the game.”

  Warfield shook his head. “It’s no good. The advantages I held for you—my anonymity, independence—that’s gone now. And the longer this lives, the worse it’ll get. Congressional hearings, investigations, special prosecutors. There’d be no time left for me to do what you hired me for. I leave, the problem goes away.”

  Cross thought it over. “Tell you what, Cam, don’t jump yet. Spend your time at Lone Elm instead of this office, but keep working on this. It’ll be unofficial. We’ll say you’ve resigned the post here at the White House. I’ll keep the followup meet with Fullwood and Reynolds at noon and see what they have to say about their sources.”

  * * *

  Paula Newnan sat with Warfield while he packed up the personal items he’d brought to the White House. She cursed Fullwood. Warfield put the boxes in his car and headed to Lone Elm.

  * * *

  Cross called Warfield after his noon meeting with Fullwood and Reynolds.

  “Told them you decided to go back to Lone Elm.”

  “Made Fullwood a happy man.”

  “Looks like the CIA source came through Quinn himself via a former KGB officer he met in Russia when he was in the Senate. Quinn doesn’t want to identify his source—a commitment he made to him.”

  “This was direct from the KGB officer to Quinn?”

  “So it seems.”

  Warfield thought about that. It sounded too much like his own relationship with Antonov. An incredible coincidence. What about Antonov? Could he be Quinn’s source also, playing both ends against the middle? Could Quinn, the CIA director, be lying? Not possible.

  “You there?” Cross said after a few seconds.

  “Just thinking. Now what about Fullwood’s claim that I set up Habur? He tell you how he got that?”

  “Nope. He chewed on that cigar and tried to explain but he’s shooting in the dark.”

  “What about the Post story?”

  “Fullwood knows that I think he leaked it,” Cross said.

  * * *

  Warfield was putting his Lone Elm office in order the next day when Abbas Mozedah called. “This may or may not be important, Cameron, but very interesting. Our friend Seth has a sister in America—right there in Washington.”

  “Yeah? Seth, the terrorist?”

  “Name is Ana Koronis.”

  “Koronis.” Warfield knew the name. “Married to—”

  “Spiro Koronis. Was. As you know, he is dead now.”

  The former U.S. Ambassador to Greece! Warfield was stunned. Not only was Seth’s sister the widow of the ambassador, she had been the constant companion of Austin Quinn for some time! Also a prominent lawyer and high-profile Washington socialite, Ms. Koronis was often in the news.

  This woman was the sister of a Middle East terrorist?

  “Abbas, you sure about that?”

  “It is from Hassan. And what he has told us to now has proved true.”

  Hassan again. “What does he have to say about her?”

  “He does not know of any communication between Seth and his sister now, but he says she lived with Seth in Iran for six or seven months, then moved back to Washington. That was a few years ago, after her family was killed, but Seth was the same outlaw then.”

  “So you’re confident about this.”

  “I am, Cameron,” said Abbas in his baritone voice.

  Warfield hung up knowing he had a decision to make. Ana Koronis couldn’t be condemned simply because her brother was a terrorist, but it would be flat-out irresponsible to ignore the connection. He searched the Internet for “Ana Koronis” and came up with three-hundred-ninety-eight hits, not an extraordinary number for a person of notoriety, many of which were newspaper and magazine references that included everything he knew of her and much more.

  None of the information he found was in-itself damaging but the irony was too great. Talking to the FBI was not an option but he remembered a United States attorney he’d met on a case a couple of years ago and trusted. He dialed Joe Morgan and reintroduced himself.

  “Sure,” Morgan said. “The Rattarree case. Been a while. How’s it goin’ Warfield?”

  * * *

  They met at Louie’s Blue Plate in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, outside the Washington Beltway. It was a retro joint with plastic laminated table tops and chrome chairs, and its reputation for vegetables and chicken fried steak was legendary. Earth Angel by the Penguins was playing on the juke box when they arrived. It was loud enough to assure a private conversation.

  Warfield told Morgan what he’d learned from Abbas and the Internet about Ana Koronis. Her life resembled a Greek tragedy as much as it did a spy case. During her courtship with Spiro Koronis, society magazines pictured a beautiful, olive-skinned Ana along with the ambassador week after week, referring to him as one of the most eligible men in the world and describing Ana as a charming, brilliant young attorney who grew up in Chicago and moved to Washington to practice law. It happened that her law firm had ties to the State department, where she met the ambassador.

  People photographers had found a way into the palace in Greece where the couple married. They had a child soon, and Ana left her law practice so she and son Nikko could be with the ambassador in Athens.

  The press coverage was no less frenetic during the three years after their marriage. There were photos of them aboard their yacht, at the embassy in Athens, on Santorini with friends and always with beloved Nikko, who never failed to favor the cameras with a happy smile. They became America’s Couple. But the fairy tale was cut far too short by a terrorist incident at the airport in Athens. Spiro and little Nikko were taken hostage inside an airport restroom and dragged onto a hijacked passenger jet as the other armed terrorists covered them. The other passengers had been ordered off the plane.

  A pair of U.S. warplanes sandwiched the hijacked plane as it crossed the Mediterranean but despite military communications that reached all the way to the Pentagon—and to the White House, some later said—the airliner crossed into Syrian air space before the F-15 Air Force pilots were given authorization to take any action. The U.S. fighter jets impotently turned back at the border.

  Months later, after the U.S. had refused to meet the abductors’ demands, photos were released to the international press show
ing the slain bodies of Spiro and Nikko Koronis. It was never clear what the Air Force fighter pilots could have done even if authorized, but the American press blasted the Pentagon and the White House for allowing the ambassador and little Nikko to be taken to their deaths with impunity.

  Warfield found no record of any negative public statements attributed to Ana, but the New York Times reported that she had privately expressed bitterness, even to the extent of threatening to find a way to set things straight with the U.S. Government for standing around with their hands in their pockets while her loved ones were taken to their eventual deaths. Ana had denied the story.

  In the aftermath, it was revealed that the ambassador had lived beyond his financial means for years and had nothing but debts to leave Ana after his death.

  Morgan looked through the magazine and Internet articles Warfield had printed out and made notes while he talked. It was a sensitive matter given Ana Koronis’s high standing in the Washington community but Morgan left the meeting saying he would look into it.

  They were out in the parking lot, about to get into their cars to leave when Morgan said, “See much of Stern when you’re at the White House? He’s the national security advisor now, right?”

  “In a meeting now and then. You know Stern, though. Doesn’t say a lot.”

  “Little surprised Cross put him in the sensitive job he’s in.”

  “Never thought much about it. He was cleared after the Ames case,” Warfield said.

  Morgan looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

  “Anything I should know about Stern?”

  Morgan opened his car door. “Nah. That case is closed.”

  * * *

  Warfield hadn’t seen Fleming since the morning before, when the Washington Post carried the story about Cross and him, and they hadn’t been out to dinner in a week. He parked in the turnaround at Hardscrabble and let himself in through the garage. Fleming was standing in front of her bedroom mirror adjusting the straps on her dress when he walked in. The ivory dress accented her tan and her hair was cut above her shoulders the way he liked it best. Fleming’s look was always fresh, a little different, never routine—even when he was with her every day. His concerns about Fullwood and Ana Koronis and Boris Petrevich moved for the moment to an obscure fold in his brain.