Lie down with lions - Ken Follett [38]
Winderman put down his fork and lit a cigarette. He definitely has an ulcer, Ellis thought. Winderman said: “This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.” Ellis could see he was already figuring out how to take the credit for the idea. By tomorrow he would be saying We cooked up a scheme over lunch and his written report would read Covert action specialists assessed my scheme as viable. “What’s the downside risk?”
Ellis considered. “If the Russians caught the agent, they could get considerable propaganda value out of the whole thing. At the moment they have what the White House would call ‘an image problem’ in Afghanistan. Their allies in the Third World don’t enjoy watching them overrun a small primitive country. Their Muslim friends, in particular, tend to sympathize with the rebels. Now, the Russians’ line is that the so-called rebels are just bandits, financed and armed by the CIA. They would just love to be able to prove it by catching a real live CIA spook right there in the country and putting him on trial. In terms of global politics, I imagine that could do us a lot of damage.”
“What are the chances that the Russians would catch our man?”
“Slender. If they can’t catch Masud, why would they be able to catch an undercover agent sent to meet Masud?”
“Good.” Winderman stubbed out his cigarette. “I want you to be that agent.”
Ellis was taken by surprise. He should have seen this coming, he realized, but he had been engrossed in the problem. “I don’t do that stuff anymore,” he said, but his voice sounded thick and he could not help thinking: I would see Jane. I would see Jane!
“I talked to your boss on the phone,” Winderman said. “His opinion was that an assignment in Afghanistan might tempt you back into fieldwork.”
So it was a setup. The White House wanted to achieve something dramatic in Afghanistan, so they asked the CIA to lend them an agent. The CIA wanted Ellis to work in the field again, so they told the White House to offer him this assignment, knowing or suspecting that the prospect of meeting up with Jane again was almost irresistible.
Ellis hated to be manipulated.
But he wanted to go to the Five Lions Valley.
There had been a long silence. Winderman said impatiently: “Will you do it?”
“I’ll think about it,” Ellis replied.
Ellis’s father belched quietly, begged pardon and said: “That was good.”
Ellis pushed away his dish of cherry pie and whipped cream. He was having to watch his weight for the first time in his life. “Real good, Mom, but I can’t eat any more,” he said apologetically.
“Nobody eats like they used to,” she said. She stood up and began clearing away. “It’s because they go everywhere in cars.”
His father pushed back his chair. “I’ve got some figures to look over.”
“You still don’t have an accountant?” Ellis said.
“Nobody takes care of your money as well as you do,” his father said. “You’ll find that out if you ever make any.” He left the room, heading for his den.
Ellis helped his mother clear away. The family had moved into this four-bedroom house in Teaneck, New Jersey, when Ellis was thirteen, but he could remember the move as if it were yesterday. It had been anticipated literally for years. His father had built the house, on his own at first, later using employees of his growing construction business, but always doing the work in slack periods and leaving it when business was good. When they moved in, it was not really finished: the heating did not work, there were no cupboards in the kitchen and nothing had been painted. They got hot water the following day only because Mom threatened divorce otherwise. But it got finished eventually, and Ellis and his brothers and sisters all had room to grow up in it. It was bigger than Mom and Dad needed now, but he hoped they would keep it. It had a good feel about it.
When they had loaded