have proof of this, of course.”
“That photograph was taken just yesterday,” she said. “I know, because I took it.”
“You were in the field again?”
“Yes.”
“Alara, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times...you are not to perform fieldwork without first my express permission and second my knowledge.”
“I was off work,” she said. “I pursued this on my own time.”
“You’re not authorized to do that.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Bindler cut in. “Now I’ve told you before and this is the last time. One more transgression, even a minor one, and I’ll pull you from duty and ship you back to an assignment in the States. Is that understood?”
Serif didn’t say anything at first but when Bindler repeated the question, she finally nodded and muttered an affirmative.
“Now as to this Amocacci character, I assume—” Bindler nodded at the folder “—you have a full report in that folder.”
“Yes.”
“Good, leave it with me. If I think what you’ve put together has merit, I’ll consider pursuing the matter.”
Serif looked extremely hopeful so Bindler realized he’d need to put a damper on her enthusiasm. “But only if I think it has merit and I give the go-ahead to assign an agent to it. That won’t be you.”
“What? Why not?” she cried.
“Because you’re too close to this thing. It’s like some kind of obsession. It’s causing you to disregard procedures and endanger our position here.” Bindler handed her the picture and she placed it in the folder before he snapped his fingers and held out his hand.
Serif gave the entire package to him, albeit reluctantly, and then rose from her chair. “You’re not going to pursue it. You’re going to mothball it, Alan, just like you have all my other reports. Apparently nobody here or at the Pentagon considers this a priority.”
“I’ve already told you—”
“And I believe you, Alan. But you still answer to others, and it’s them I don’t trust. You’ll read the report, you’ll forward it to them, and everyone will conveniently forget about it. And in two or three months when I ask you about it, you’ll tell me you haven’t heard anything and all will be forgotten.”
“You know how it works here, Alara. We take the good with the bad.”
“Yes,” Serif replied. “I know how it works. It just leaves me wondering why nobody here is interested in something that could well affect the security of our nation.”
“That’s just not true, and you know it.”
As Serif turned to leave his office she asked quietly, “Do I?”
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
“HEY, AARON?” BARBARA Price said as she walked into the Computer Room.
“Yes?” Kurtzman replied.
“What do you think the chances are that a DIA intelligence analyst would be filing reports about a secret group of former intelligence officers at the same time as this leak in military intelligence occurred?”
Kurtzman grinned as he shrugged his wrestler-like shoulders. Despite the bullet that had put him in a wheelchair, he still found time to work out a couple of hours every day. Such activities had left him in top physical condition. He may not have been able to walk but he’d never let it stop him. His physique, coupled with his booming voice and warm disposition, had earned him his “Bear” nickname.
“I’d have to say the chances are about a million to one. What have you got?”
“Pull up DIA file number 607P9.”
Kurtzman returned his attention to the keyboard, punched in some codes and numbers and a moment later the entire contents of the file were displayed across three massive screens on the far wall. Kurtzman squinted at the center monitor in an attempt to make out the photograph of the key agent behind the reports.
“Alara Serif, Defense Intelligence Agency,” he read mechanically. He muttered his way through the next few statistics, her physical characteristics, date of birth and such. Then he continued aloud, “Current assignment’s in Turkey?”
“Istanbul,” Price confirmed, shuffling through the papers she held. “She was assigned there eighteen months ago under the title of assistant to the military Marine officer in charge, Colonel Alan Bindler.”
“What would the commanding officer of a U.S. Consulate Marine guard need with a DIA analyst as an assistant?”
“I’m sure the Turkish government would like to know the same thing if they had her real credentials,” Price said. “Since 9/11, we’ve been slowly switching out standard military clerks with our intelligence analysts from various agencies. NSA works up a thorough cover for each, and the U.S. gets approval on each assignment from the host government before sending them in. Of course, those governments think they’re seeing the real dossiers.”
“But what they’re really seeing are the cooked papers.”
“Correct,” Price said. “They forge just about everything from names to birth dates to closest living relatives.”
“Naturally. So what’s so special about this one?”
“Alara Serif is half Turkish,” Price said. “Her father is a Turkish citizen. Married an attaché to the U.S. ambassador of Turkey at the time.”
“So she knows the territory.”
“More than that, Aaron. She knows the politics of the country and who’s who behind every button. A lot of wheeling and dealing goes on behind the curtains in Turkey. Something few people outside the most inner circles know about that country. Of course, it’s no secret to our intelligence communities, but the better part of Washington seems to want to turn a blind eye when it comes to seriously looking at the intelligence coming out of Ankara.”
“Except us,” Kurtzman said with a knowing wink.
Price didn’t hold back a chance to smile at her friend’s mock attempts to be surreptitious. “Right. We actually look at everything as a matter of policy instead of dismissing it out of hand.”
“So you think something she’s reporting has merit?”
“I do,” Price replied. “In fact, I think it may even be related to this case.”
Kurtzman gave the information some attention. He’d learned a long time ago that if Price keyed on something that seemed far-reaching, there was usually a good reason. From what he’d just read, however, he couldn’t see any link to the compromise of U.S. military intelligence operations and Serif’s reports.
“Okay, I give up,” Kurtzman
