Agents of Innocence Read Free

revenues to collect the garbage.
     
     
    It was all very exhilarating to the Lebanese. But outsiders saw the warning signs that most Beirutis ignored. The government bureaucracy had become so corrupt that it had difficulty performing the services for which officials solicited bribes. The old aristocracy had become so cynical that it was using radical rhetoric and gangs of armed thugs to maintain political power, and in so doing was unleashing forces that threatened to bring down the regime.
    The Palestinians, everyone agreed, were a problem. They were the piece of the Lebanese mosaic that didn’t quite fit. Their gunmen were becoming bolder in West Beirut, sitting in the cafés of Hamra Street with guns bulging from the tops of their blue jeans. It was a problem nobody quite knew how to handle, except to join in the Arab chorus of invective against Israel.
    The Palestinian refugees, the uninvited guests at Lebanon’s party of self-congratulation, lived in a string of camps around Beirut that were known as “the belt of misery.” In the Lebanese way, two big Sunni landowning families named Sabra and Shatilla had found a way to profit from the influx. They offered derelict land near the Beirut airport for the refugees to build tin-roofed shacks and stucco houses.
    The camps became a familiar sight for air travellers: the MEA jets would turn right from the Mediterranean, begin their descent above the shops and cafés of Hamra Street, and roar over the miserable camps of Sabra and Shatilla, so close that the frail houses seemed to shake, and then touch down their wheels in the Paris of the Orient.

2
     
    Beirut; September 1969
     
    Rogers had to wait a week before meeting the station chief, Frank Hoffman, who was away on a trip to Saudi Arabia. He was curious to meet his new boss, who had a reputation for being an outspoken character in an organization that prized discretion and anonymity.
    Hoffman’s secretary, a woman in her fifties named Ann Pugh, scowled at Rogers when he arrived at the station chief’s office.
    “You’re five minutes late, Mr. Rogers,” she said. Miss Pugh walked to a heavy oak door and knocked twice. There was a growl from inside. With an electronic buzz, the door swung open, revealing Hoffman at his desk.
    Hoffman was short and stocky, with a meaty face and a bald spot in the center of his head. He looked—and talked—more like an FBI agent than a CIA man.
    “So you’re my new case officer,” said Hoffman dubiously.
    “Tom Rogers,” said the younger man, approaching the desk with his arm outstretched. Hoffman grunted and shook hands.
    “You look the part,” said Hoffman, surveying his new case officer. Part of Hoffman’s anxiety about being overweight was expressed by caustic remarks to anyone who wasn’t.
    “Sit down,” barked Hoffman. Rogers sat on a fat, red leather couch.
    “Now then…,” said the station chief, shuffling through the papers on his desk. “Your cover job is political officer.”
    “Much obliged,” said Rogers. To maintain his previous cover, as a consular officer in Oman, Rogers had spent half his day processing visa applications. Before that, in Khartoum, his cover had been commercial officer, which required shuffling through import-export papers part of the day. Cover as a political officer was the easiest and best in any embassy, since the requirements of the nominal job weren’t very different from those of an intelligence officer.
    Hoffman took out a pack of Lucky Strikes.
    “You don’t smoke a pipe, I hope,” said Hoffman. “I don’t like professor types who smoke pipes.”
    “I’ll take a cigarette,” said Rogers.
    Hoffman handed him a Lucky. Rogers took a wooden match from a box on the desk and lit it against the sole of his shoe.
    “Is that how they light matches at Yale?” said Hoffman.
    “I didn’t go to Yale,” said Rogers. Hoffman was beginning to get on his nerves.
    “Good,” said the station chief. “There’s hope.”
    “It