Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2) André Gallo (top 100 books of all time checklist TXT) 📖

Turks, had also been an enemy of the Syrian regime creating doubts about the true nature of Radu’s contact.

They reached the blue elevators and waited. Radu, treating Steve like a new visitor to the building, said, “Years after we moved into this building from the Ohio Drive World War II OSS Quonset huts, someone had the bright idea of painting each elevator bank a specific color. A ‘Decorating Committee’ chose the colors. It would be good for morale they said.”

“Yes, someone told me that the first time I came into the building. My father Marshall said that it was the first sign that the CIA was losing its unique identity and becoming just another Washington bureaucracy.” Radu’s clearly not in my corner, Steve thought. Maybe it was his “civilian” status, the fact that Steve was an outsider. Radu’s condescension only made it worse.

They reached the first floor and started walking toward the front entrance. “My first stop will be St. John’s to visit my cover office and my new boss,” Steve said. He was following up on the briefing from the Chief of the Cover Staff who had informed him that his cover company was small but real.

“O’Reagan, the owner-manager, is a retired Spec. Ops guy. Worked for us in Iraq. Loves to hunt and fish. He gathered his pennies and, two years ago, set up a small manufacturing plant in St. John’s, in Newfoundland, to make sensors and systems to optimize heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning in office buildings. He’s now in the sweet spot of energy efficiency and of climate change, and he’s expanding to keep up with the demand. Got his engineering degree from West Point. Good guy. In Tehran, you’ll be the expert on St. John’s and no one will be able to trip you up.”

Fingering his ever present worry-beads, a habit he had picked up from his Arabic language instructor and which had resonated when posted to Damascus, Radu said, “Actually, I’d prefer you left for Tehran when your alias passport is ready, in a couple of days. This is an urgent assignment. No time for a Canadian vacation. Besides, we don’t have the funds.”

Steve picked up on Radu’s tone. They reached the glass front doors of the Old Headquarters Building through a marble lobby big enough for two single-family homes with yards. On their left was the Wall of Honor. On the right past the doors was an inscription, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

“If you guys want me to take this on,” Steve said, “it’ll be my way. As I understand the job, it’s not a walk in the park. One thing no one managed to explain in Thérèse’s office is what happens if I get picked up. Is the cavalry waiting in the wings? No? I didn’t think so. Maybe you want me to go with a CIA seal on my back. If I go, I want to get out alive. If that’s a problem for you, then let’s go back upstairs, and I’ll bow out and tell Thérèse why. What do you think?”

They had stopped outside the building. On the right of the entrance was the Bubble, a dome-shaped building that housed the auditorium. A massive concrete overhang rested on pillars that widened as they reached the roof. Sheltered steps leading up on three sides to a wide platform reminded Steve of a church parvis. Appropriate, he thought. Being a case officer in the NCS was like belonging to a religious order. Its members sacrificed in the name of goals and principles that few understood.

Radu swallowed, licked his lips and said, “Well, okay, okay. Don’t worry. You’ll have everything you need.” He turned and went back in the building. Steve grinned. Radu was putting out turf markers, somewhat awkwardly. Or he had plans that Steve didn’t know about.

He walked to his car in the VIP parking lot, put his sunglasses on, and waved to the guard at the entrance to the lot. He valued the parking privilege more than the medal the agency had bestowed on him. He drove out of the CIA campus, or what some called “Disneyland East.”

Steve had mixed feelings about the CIA. When he was a teenager in Tel Aviv, his father had felt compelled to explain the bodyguards and the unusual activities focused on their house due to a Director of Central Intelligence visit. It was then that he had revealed to Steve that he was not really a State Department diplomat but the CIA Chief of Station. After his father gave him the short version of what that meant, Steve had exclaimed, “Wow! How do you get a job like that?” From then on he had looked down his nose at his friends’ fathers who were mere diplomats. “Why don’t they get real jobs?” he asked rhetorically one night at dinner. His father had laughed in agreement sealing the bond.

Steve turned left on Dolly Madison Boulevard and took it to the George Washington Memorial Parkway, heading down the ramp toward Alexandria. He had several errands to run. The housekeeping chores had accumulated during Kella’s absence. She was coming back that evening, and he didn’t want a lecture on American laziness from a girl who had begun life in the North African desert but had quickly gotten used to life with servants after she was adopted by an American diplomat and his high-society French wife.

 

8. Tehran: Former American Embassy Grounds, Mousavi’s Office

Yazdi understood that the “Steltzer” meeting was coming to a close when Ali Mousavi looked at his watch. Mousavi had judged and convicted the German professor. His execution had just become Yazdi’s responsibility. He finished his coffee and got up from his chair a split second after Mousavi, disheveled as ever, started to rise.

Yazdi could feel Mousavi’s deep personal satisfaction as he glanced at his office, what had been the master bedroom of the