The Once and Future Spy Read Free Page A

subjected to the indignity of a lie detector
     test, which he had failed. At which point the Director of Central Intelligence, never one to wash dirty linen in public, had
     pensioned Toothacher off to early retirement at the American Naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba.
    The secretary with the repaired fingernail and the plaid miniskirt barged in with a tray and set it down on Wanamaker’s desk.
     She caught sight of the Admiral sharpening the crease on his trousers with his fingers and discreetly averted her eyes as
     she left. Wanamaker skidded a mug across the desk top toward the Admiral and offered him a saucer filled with tiny paper envelopes.
     Toothacher poked at an envelope, read its label. “
Powdered milk!
“ He let his eyes take another turn around the room. (Was he looking for a way out?) He noticed the impossibly tacky color
     photograph of the President hanging on the wall above the bricked-over chimney. He noticed the wilting plants in plastic flower
     pots on a dusty battleship-gray combination safe. He noticed the conference table overflowing with empty cans of classic Coke
     and diet cola and low-fat cottage cheese containers and paper plates with crusts of sandwiches on them. “My God, Wanamaker,”
     the Admiral said in a fierce whisper, “what are we here?”
    Wanamaker hit the lever on his squawk box. “No calls. No visitors. No nothing,” he barked. He swiveled three hundred and sixty
     degrees in his chair, as if he were winding himself up, then settled back to stare at the Admiral. A muscle over Wanamaker’s
     right eye twitched. “What we are here,” he said with quiet urgency, “is anoperations subgroup of SIAWG, which stands for Special Interagency Antiterrorist Working Group.”
    “Is this a United States government agency?”
    Wanamaker managed a nervous giggle. Clearly retirement had not dulled the Admiral’s appetite for irony. “Very quick,” Wanamaker
     said. “Very clever.” He squirmed impatiently in his chair, then leaned forward and lowered his voice to indicate that the
     conversation had crossed a threshold. “SIAWG was set up after the humiliating failure to rescue American hostages in Iran
     in 1980. Our particular subgroup—we are Operations Subgroup Charlie—is staffed by Middle East experts. We save string on a
     dozen terrorist organizations so secret the people in them aren’t always sure what cell they belong to.”
    Watching his former protégé’s performance, the Admiral was reminded that Wanamaker had the narrowest range of emotions he
     had ever come across in a
homo politicus
. He seemed to have winnowed his repertoire of facial expressions down to a derisive smirk, often, though not invariably,
     accompanied by a giggle, and another expression that was expressionless. It was the expressionless expression that was being
     deployed now, a tired army taking up position on a worn rampart. “I don’t quite see what your problem is,” the Admiral ventured.
    Wanamaker began deforming another paper clip. “Our product is tightly held—it is BIGOT listed, stamped NODIS, NOFORM, ORCON,
     stamped anything we can get our paws on. Despite this, we seem to have sprung a leak. Somebody outside our subgroup, somebody
     outside our distribution list even, appears to have access to our product. To the product of our single most sensitive operation,
     to be exact. Which is why you’re here. I am hoping you can walk back the cat and quietly plug the leak so we can get on with
     our work.”
    When it came to methodology the Admiral never leapt; he crawled in what he took to be the general direction of conclusions.
     “What makes you think there has been a leak?” he inquired now.
    A derisive smirk replaced the expression that was expressionless on Wanamaker’s face. He produced a cardboard portfolio from
     a desk drawer. On the cover, in large block letters, was stamped BIGOT LIST and NODIS and NOFORM and ORCON. Inside the portfolio
     was a page of computer printout