Portrait of a Spy

part?”
    “All of it, frankly. If we’re running the show, the president has complete deniability with the Saudis if something goes wrong. But if Langley is in charge, any chance of deniability goes right out the White House window. It’s as if he’s trying to block a blow with his chin.”
    “You know, Gabriel, I never looked at it in those terms.” Carter picked up the last potato chip. “Do you mind?”
    “Enjoy.”
    Carter popped the chip in his mouth and spent a long moment thoughtfully brushing the salt from his fingertips. “You have a right to be angry,” he said finally. “If I were you, I’d be angry, too.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I sailed into town with a cheap story thinking I could slip it past you, and you deserve better. The truth is that the president and his faithful if ignorant servant James A. McKenna aren’t concerned that the al-Bakari operation is going to fail. In fact, they’re afraid it’s going to succeed.”
    “Try again, Adrian. It’s been a long few days.”
    “It seems the president is head over heels in love.”
    “Who’s the lucky girl?”
    “Nadia,” murmured Carter into his crumpled paper napkin. “He’s crazy about her. He loves her story. He loves her courage. More important, he loves the operation you’ve built around her. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’s been looking for. It’s clean. It’s smart. It’s forward-leaning. It’s built for the long haul. It also happens to dovetail nicely with the president’s view of the world. A partnership between Islam and the West to defeat the forces of extremism. Brainpower over brute force. He wants Rashid’s network taken down and tied up with a bow before the next election, and he doesn’t want to share credit.”
    “So he wants to go it alone? No partners?”
    “Not entirely,” Carter said. “He wants us to bring in the French, the British, the Germans, and the Spaniards, since they were the ones attacked.”
    “What about the partridge in a pear tree?”
    “He works for a private security firm now. Doing quite nicely, from what I hear.”
    “Need-to-know,” Gabriel said. “It isn’t an advertising slogan, Adrian. It’s a sacred creed. It keeps operations from being blown. It keeps assets alive.”
    “Your concerns have been duly noted.”
    “And dismissed.”
    Carter said nothing.
    “Where does that leave me and the rest of my team?”
    “Your team will quietly withdraw from the field and be replaced by Agency personnel. You will stay on in an advisory capacity until the show is up and running.”
    “And after that?”
    “You’ll be eased out of the production.”
    “I have news for you, Adrian. The show is already up and running. In fact, the star of the show is making her debut here in Zurich tomorrow afternoon.”
    “We’re going to have to postpone that until the new management team is in place.”
    Gabriel saw the lights of Rapperswil glowing faintly along the shoreline. “You’re forgetting one thing,” he said after a moment. “The star of the show is a diva. She’s very demanding. And she won’t work with just anyone.”
    “You’re saying she’ll work for you, the man who killed her father, but not us?”
    “That’s what I’m saying.”
    “I’d like to test that proposition for myself.”
    “Be my guest. If you wish to speak to Nadia, she can be reached at her office on the Boulevard Haussmann, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris.”
    “Actually, we were hoping that you might work with us on the transition.”
    “Hope is not an acceptable strategy when lives are at stake.” Gabriel held up the envelope of snapshots. “Besides, if I were advising Nadia, I’d tell her to stay as far away from you and your Farm-fresh field operatives as possible.”
    “We’re grown-ups, you and I. We’ve been through the wars together. We’ve saved lives. We’ve done the dirty jobs that no one else wanted to do or had the guts to do. But at this moment in time, I am resenting the hell out of you.”
    “I’m glad I’m not alone.”
    “Do you really think this is something I want to do? He’s the president, Gabriel. I can either follow his orders or quit. And I have no intention of quitting.”
    “Then please tell the president that I wish him nothing but the best,” Gabriel said. “But at some point, you should remind him that Nadia is only the first step toward breaking Rashid’s network. In the end, it won’t be clean or smart or forward-leaning. I