Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2), André Gallo [ebook reader color screen .txt] 📗

Kella Hastings?” Thérèse, leaning slightly, whispered to Walter Deuel who kept a poker face as Tremaine’s gaze shifted again in their direction.

As everyone filed out, Deuel approached the president and held LaFont back with him. “Mr. President we need another few minutes alone.”

After everyone else filed out, Deuel said, “We have a leak problem. The Washington Tribune is threatening to publish the fact that we have a case officer in Tehran. That would be disastrous for our operation, and we can forget about obtaining the additional information we need. I called Glick a few days ago and he’s held off so far, but he called me again early this morning to tell me that he has Representative Langdon’s support, the Chair of the House Intelligence Oversight committee. The article wasn’t in this morning’s paper but I’m sure it’ll appear tomorrow. Maybe if you called him...”

“That’s one thing I can’t do; interfere with the press. First Amendment rights are sacrosanct as far I’m concerned. It’s a matter of principle. Leaks are your problem. You have to control your people.”

“Mr. President, if the Tribune gets our asset arrested, that’s the end of any hope to obtain further information.” LaFont said—though she was thinking, The Tribune helped you get elected. “We might have to pull our officer out quickly. His cover company received a call to confirm his credentials. That’s unusual. It means that Iran security is suspicious.”

* **

As Deuel, LaFont, and the president talked, the rest of the group took the elevator back to street level. On the way up, a male voice said, “Rookie! Short deadlines equal bad staff work. He thinks he’s captain of a speedboat, but he’s going to find out that it’s a supertanker with very little maneuverability.”

The comment elicited knowing chuckles reflecting on their conviction that the president had handed them a “mission-impossible” task unless they received more intelligence, and quickly.

 

31. Tehran: Ketaki Restaurant

Steve admired Kella’s body as she walked toward his table, knowing well what was hidden under that loose clothing. She sat down. The restaurant was large, popular, and noisy. The sounds of chairs and tables moving against tile floors were like bullet ricochets off the non-absorbent surfaces while the customers’ voices added a persistent background of waves breaking on the rocks but without the rhythm.

“Be careful, that hijab is slipping. Allowing the men to see your hair is going to drive them crazy. What’s going on?” he said. “Miss me?”

She didn’t return his smile.

“We have a flash message from home,” she said in a voice that Steve had to lean forward to understand. “It’s a warning. Your company Magnum Controls in St. John’s received two calls asking for you by name. Your boss said that you were traveling overseas. So far, so good, right?”

“Two calls? From the same person?”

“No. The first seemed to be checking up on you, an English speaker but with an accent. The second was an American voice. Said he was your tennis partner.”

Steve took a sip of juice. “The first one must have been part of the Mousavi investigation to see if there was a real company in Newfoundland and whether they had ever heard of Christopher Breton. The second one could only be Firuz. I don’t know why he would call me in Canada. He has my hotel number. What else?”

“Hold on to your seat! The Washington Tribune will print an article in the Tuesday edition, that’s tomorrow their time, that,” and her voice became lower, “dot, dot, dot, is running a clandestine operation in Tehran and has a case officer on the ground. Asking why take the risk when Iran is playing nice and allowing us to talk to them, and Iran did us the favor of also allowing our own diplomats into Tehran, etc.” She was shaking her head and Steve put his hand up to his forehead in disbelief, understanding the dot, dot, dot to stand for CIA.

“Jesus! Who gains by this article?” he asked.

Kella looked around nervously and motioned with her hand for Steve to keep his voice down. Steve lowered his voice but his anger was unabated.

“The country? No. Our foreign policy? No. The American people? Hell no. It’s a ‘gotcha’ piece to sell papers and to claim to be the number one paper in the country. More probably, it’s the unelected folks of the media running our foreign policy. Either way, it’s disgusting!”

Two young men tried to squeeze past in back of Steve, and he had to move his chair closer to the small table.

“The only winner here is Iran,” Steve said thinking of the impact of the article on their mission. “Mousavi is going to go ballistic. An article like that is a direct challenge, a red cape in front of the bull. If he can’t arrest somebody, his head will roll.”

“That’s not all. The president has our report and is taking action on it, emergency action. He, the president lui-même, wants more information, such as when is this cyberattack going to take place and against what targets specifically. NSA, and the whole national security establishment, it appears, is getting involved. NSA is going to submit a specific list of questions.”

“So if I get this right, they’re telling us that our running room is less than it was, but that we need to run further.” He sat back, feeling helpless. “What about life with Farah? I can’t wait to meet her.”

“Calm down. She’s too old for you.”

“The sequence is wrong,” he said his mind still on Kella’s news. Replying to her puzzled look, he said, “I’m talking about the two discoveries that we’re here. First, Mousavi learns that there is an American spy on his turf. He organizes a huge dragnet. Then, but only then, does this article appear in Washington. So, Mousavi didn’t get his info from the Tribune.”

“Could he have gotten wind of