The Director: A Novel by David Ignatius Read Free Book Online Page B

tell you the real story, the secret history.”
    “Of what, K?”
    “Of the CIA. He’s a historian. He used to work at the agency, retired now. He was a friend of my father’s. It will rock you, what he says. His name is Arthur Peabody. I’ll have someone send you his number.”
    “Not now,” said Morris, shaking his head. “In a week or two. It’s too busy now. I have a new boss. The place is vibrating.”
    “Is Weber for real?” asked Kyle. “If he’s serious, they’ll destroy him.”
    “I don’t know,” answered Morris. “I guess we’ll find out.”
    They walked a little longer, but it was getting dark. She nudged him back toward the parking lot and told him to get home before it was too late. “You’re a shit driver,” she said. “They shouldn’t let you have a car.”
    She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss.
    Kyle called the Boonsboro taxi to come pick her up. She ate dinner alone, as she did most meals. The only decent restaurant in town was a steak house. She was a vegetarian, but they let her make a meal of grilled mushrooms and steamed broccoli.
    The next morning Kyle met a fourth visitor. This one was more careful about the rendezvous even than she was. He took a bus to Frederick, then a taxi to Boonsboro, then walked the three miles northeast to Greenbrier State Park, an isolated pocket of woods that was empty even on a good day. He was of medium height, solidly built, his features obscured by a cap and sunglasses. Someone who knew him would have noticed that his well-cut hair was concealed by a shaggy wig. He spoke to others only when he had to, in language-school English that was nearly flawless, so that you barely heard the foreign accent. He called himself “Roger,” in this identity.
    The man waited under a wooden shelter as the low October sun cast its beam on the water. The morning was still, almost windless. He didn’t turn when the taxi crested the access road from Route 40 and turned into the parking lot to deposit a passenger. A woman emerged from the backseat and, as the car revved back toward the highway, she strolled toward the lake, taking the long way toward the pavilion to make sure the park was empty.
    Kyle sat down on the park bench across from the visitor.
    “We only have fifteen minutes,” she said. She leaned toward him across the picnic table and spoke so quietly that even someone sitting at the next bench could not have heard what she said.

6
    WASHINGTON
    K. J. Sandoval’s message arrived at Headquarters late Friday morning, Washington time. She sent it in her pseudonym, which wasn’t Kitten or even Helen, but “Mildred G. Mansfield.” It was transmitted on the “restricted handling” channel, personal for the director. In cablese, she described the Swiss walk-in (REF A) to the Hamburg consulate (LOC B); she summarized his claim that the agency’s internal communications had been compromised, including true names of officers of an organization she referenced only by cryptonym.
    She sent Rudolf Biel’s true name and the location where he had appeared in separate cables for security. She described his warning that agency systems were insecure, and his supporting evidence in the list of officers’ names in Germany and Switzerland. She noted his references to Friends of Cerberus and the Exchange, but left out his self-description as “Swiss Maggot.” She asked that any traces on him be run off-line. She concluded by saying that he had refused to stay in an agency residence, believing that it was unsafe, and that he would return to the consulate on Monday morning.
    The message was restrained and professional, but it rang alarm bells. It was routed to Graham Weber through the Europe Division, to which Sandoval reported, with a copy to the director’s chief of staff, Sandra Bock. When the message landed on the seventh floor, Weber was at lunch on Capitol Hill visiting the chairman and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. The