Agents of Innocence

23

Rome; July 1970

Rome was hot and sticky. The vines on the stone walls in the Villa Borghese looked wilted. The shops on Via Frattina closed early for the afternoon siesta. Even the lizards on the Palatine Hill hid beneath the rocks until it was dark.

Marsh made a point of not minding the heat. He believed that physical sensations, like fatigue or fear or heat itself, could be overcome by an exercise of will. With this in mind, he had purchased a pair of sunglasses when he arrived in Rome: the kind with thick black frames that the Italians liked. They made him feel cooler. So did his suit, a blue suit of tropical wool made by the tailor in Hong Kong he had befriended when he was stationed there. Many of his colleagues had left Asia in the 1960s with bullet wounds. Marsh had left with suits.

“Anyone for tennis?” Marsh asked his luncheon companions. They were eating at Il Buco, a small outdoor restaurant on Via Sant’Ignazio near the Pantheon. The other luncheon guests, sweating in the midday heat, looked incredulously at the visiting American. Except for a vivacious young Italian woman named Anna Armani. She was married to one of the generals who headed the Servizio Informazione Difesa, as the Italian intelligence service was then called.

“Andiamo!” said Anna. Let’s go! Her husband gave her a wink.

The general’s wife collected Marsh an hour later at the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto and drove him to a tennis club north of the city. It was an elegant Roman establishment, with red-clay courts and street urchins in white shorts acting as ball boys. As they began to warm up, a look of disappointment showed on Anna’s face. Her American guest, though dressed in expensive tennis clothes from head to toe, was a player of modest skills. After they had played a set, Marsh proposed that they take a breather. As they walked toward the clubhouse, Anna Armani noticed that her guest was limping slightly.

“War wound,” said Marsh.

It was true. He had sprained his ankle badly once in Saigon running along the pavement during a rainstorm. The general’s wife nodded sweetly and led him to the clubhouse. She rubbed the tender ankle and held an icepack against it. The American’s spirits improved markedly.

“What a wonderful country!” said Marsh as he sat on the clubhouse patio, gazing out at the courts and the Roman hills beyond. He was sipping a Campari soda. The midday heat had passed and the courts were beginning to fill up with Italians: members of parliament, prominent journalists, executives of the Italian national oil company, ENI. Anna Armani explained that the club was frequented mostly by people connected with the Socialist Party.

“Do you know what I love about Italy?” said Marsh grandly. “You can buy anything here. Clothes. Ideas. People. That’s why this country is so stable beneath the surface. Because everything has its price!”

“Everything?” asked Anna coquettishly.

“Everything but love,” answered Marsh. He imagined that he was being charming.

“Perhaps you will live here someday, since you love Italy so much.”

“Perhaps,” said Marsh. “But my area of expertise lies a bit further east.”

“I hope you will come to Rome. My husband says you are a clever man.”

“Oh does he really now? He should be more discreet.”

“Come now!” said Anna. “It is not a secret that you are a clever man.”

She adjusted the icepack on his ankle. Marsh chided himself, Don’t be so uptight. Her husband already knows enough about the CIA to fill a book.

“Will you be in Rome long?” asked Anna. “We would love to have you to dinner.”

“I’m afraid it’s just a short trip. Just one meeting, really. I’ll probably be leaving in a day or so.”

“What a shame!” said Anna. “To come so far.”

There was a lull in the conversation. They gazed toward the tennis courts and watched the players, chattering in Italian as they batted the balls back and forth on the red clay. Marsh noticed a tall Arab playing on one of the courts. He was a distinguished-looking man, with long legs and a slice backhand.

“Who’s he?” asked Marsh.

“I don’t know,” said Anna. “One of the Arabs.”

“Are there many Arabs living in Rome these days?”

“They are everywhere!” said Anna disgustedly. “They are ruining prices in the stores. Soon the signs in the shops on Via Condotti will be only in Arabic.”

“And Palestinians?” asked Marsh, thinking he might gather a little intelligence. “Are there many Palestinians in Rome?”

“I don’t know,” answered Anna. “They all look the same to me.”

“Do you find them attractive?” asked Marsh.

“Ugh!” said Anna Armani. “I am one of those things in Italy that Arab money cannot buy.”

Marsh was in heaven. He chatted for more than an hour with the Italian woman. She seemed fascinated and besides, Marsh told himself, she was practically one of the family. But despite her ministrations with the icepack, his ankle still hurt. On the way back to the hotel, Marsh stopped in a store near the Via Veneto and bought himself a carved wooden cane.

Marsh sometimes struck people as a fool, but he wasn’t. Shy by nature, he had taught himself to be outgoing and enthusiastic by an act of will. Like many insecure people, he sometimes behaved with a certain pomposity and braggadocio. But he cared as much about the agency as any of his colleagues. He simply had a different style.

Marsh was more cautious and less instinctual than some of his fellow officers. He was one of those people who believed that slow and steady would win the race, who regarded himself as the tortoise in life’s never-ending contest with the hare. He brought this methodical approach to his handling of agents. He was determinedly uncreative. Creativity got people killed, Marsh told himself. Playing by the book kept them alive.

In the world of recruiting agents, playing by the book meant contracts that were clearly understood by both sides, ones that imposed on the slippery and deceitful world of espionage some of the order of the legal world. Marsh liked relationships that were clear and straightforward. I buy your services for an agreed-upon price; you agree to deliver certain material in exchange; we both profit by the relationship. He understood that sort of arrangement, and he believed in it. Each side knew the risks and rewards. It was a transaction between adults. What troubled Marsh were relationships that were more complicated, where subtler and less orderly motivations prevailed. Those relationships-based on frail human emotions like friendship, respect, and loyalty-were the dangerous ones. And perhaps also less moral.

Anna reported her conversation with Marsh to her husband that night. He rubbed his eyeballs and lit a thick French cigarette.

“How long is he here?” asked General Armani.

“Long enough for one meeting. Perhaps only a day.”

So he is meeting an agent, the general thought to himself.

“What was on his mind?” asked the general.

“Let me see,” said Anna. “He talked about buying things. He talked about Italy. He asked about an Arab who was playing tennis. He asked whether there were many Palestinians in Rome. He asked whether I found them attractive. He seemed interested in Arabs.”

“He has Arabs on the brain,” said the general.

“Yes, maybe. And me. He has me on the brain, too. I think maybe he wanted to sleep with me, but he was too shy to say so.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said General Armani, giving her a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the bottom. He lit another cigarette and went to the phone.

“The American is in Rome to meet an Arab agent,” said General Armani in crisp Italian to one of his colleagues. “We could arrange surveillance, but what does it matter? He isn’t meeting an Italian!”

He hung up the phone. General Armani had done his duty and notified the appropriate authorities.

But nothing in Italy is ever quite that simple. The SID at the time was split into two factions. One was pro-Arab, the other pro-Israeli. General Armani was part of the latter faction. He made it a practice, from time to time, to pass along to the Israelis bits of information he thought would interest them. They reciprocated with information that was useful to the general. It was a trade, the universal commerce of the intelligence business.

“I’m going for a little walk, darling,” said the general. He strolled to a pay telephone several blocks away and dialed the number of an Israeli friend. The general knew the phone was tapped-his own people did the tapping-so he muffled his voice and arranged a quick rendezvous in a bar near his house.

When the Israeli arrived, General Armani came quickly to the point: A CIA man named Marsh was in town. He hadn’t said why, but it was a safe bet that he had come to meet an agent. It was also a good bet that his trip involved an Arab. Perhaps a Palestinian, the general said. He thought the Israeli government would like to know.

The Israeli asked where Marsh was staying and what name he was travelling under. But the general begged off. There were limits, he said.

The information went into the Mossad files in Tel Aviv. It was one more bit of evidence to support a thesis that the Israeli intelligence analysts had speculated about often enough, but never explored in detail: the possibility that the Americans had secret contacts with the Palestinian terrorists. The subject raised the most awkward sort of question. If a friend has dealings with your enemy, is he still your friend?

Fuad arrived in Rome that night with Jamal in tow. He had reserved a suite at the San Marco Hotel, a modern and anonymous establishment on Monte Mario, overlooking the city. When the two Arabs pulled up to the entrance, the lobby was nearly empty and Fuad got nervous about security. He preferred a crowd. He told the taxi driver to take them into the city for dinner.

“Where you go?” asked the driver. Jamal spoke up, answering in Italian that they wanted to go to Sabatini in Piazza Santa Maria di Trastevere. It seemed that Jamal had been in Rome before.

They returned to the San Marco just before midnight. Jamal sat in the cocktail lounge, listening to a guitarist named Carlo Mustang, while Fuad checked in and went to the room. Thirty minutes later the Palestinian called Fuad on the house phone and discreetly made his way upstairs. The hotel, thinking that Fuad must be an Arab oil potentate, had sent up baskets of fruit and an arrangement of flowers.

The concierge called and asked in broken Arabic if the Pasha would like female company. Jamal answered the phone and said yes enthusiastically.

“Quattro, per favore!”

Fuad overruled him. Business before pleasure, he admonished his ward. Deprived of women, Jamal fixed himself a whisky and soda from the mini-bar and turned on the television, which was broadcasting American cartoons dubbed into Italian.

At eleven the next morning Marsh arrived and knocked twice on the door. “Is this Mr. Anderson’s room?” he asked.

“No,” said Fuad. “But Mr. Jones is here.”

Marsh, who liked tradecraft, had cabled the passwords to Beirut the previous week.

The American solemnly entered the suite, leaning on his new wooden cane and nodding to Fuad as if he was the maitre d’ in a fancy restaurant. Jamal stood in a corner of the room, wearing his usual black shirt and trousers. His hair, still wet from the shower, was combed back slick against his head. Marsh cleared his throat and extended his hand.

“I represent the National Security Council,” said Marsh. “I bring you greetings from the President of the United States.”

Jamal said nothing. Fuad suggested that everyone sit down.

“My government is very pleased with the work you have done for us,” Marsh began.

Jamal cut him off.

“I haven’t done any work for your government,” said the Palestinian.

Marsh peered at him over the rim of his glasses and then continued as if he hadn’t heard.

“My government hopes that our relationship can become stronger and more clearly defined.” He looked toward Jamal and smiled.

“Shu al haki?” said Jamal angrily to Fuad. What is this guy talking about?

Fuad excused himself for a moment and asked Jamal to join him in the bedroom. They talked noisily for a minute or so. An Arabic speaker could have heard Fuad repeating several times an expression that means: Calm down. Eventually they returned and the conversation resumed.

Marsh pressed on as if nothing had happened.

“We would like to hear your assessment of the situation in Jordan,” Marsh said. Jamal turned toward Fuad and answered the question in Arabic. It was intended as a sign of disrespect to the American, but the gesture was lost on Marsh. He assumed that the Palestinian spoke English poorly.

“The road to Jerusalem passes through Amman,” translated Fuad. “The King should go back to the Hejaz. If America isn’t worried that the King is finished, then why are you here, talking to a man from Fatah?”

“Hmmmm,” said Marsh. “That isn’t very helpful.” He posed another question, this time about Fatah’s contacts with Soviet intelligence. Again Jamal gave a vague and elliptical answer.

Marsh then asked the number of people under Jamal’s command in his section of the Rasd, the Fatah intelligence organization. He sounded like a man at a cocktail party who is running out of things to say.

“Very many,” said Jamal in English, smiling at the American.

“One hundred?” pressed Marsh.

“Perhaps. Perhaps more, perhaps less. I don’t know.”

The discussion meandered in this way for forty-five minutes, producing little of value for either side. Jamal asked several questions about American policy toward the Palestinian problem, eliciting long and ponderous answers from Marsh. As the discussion progressed, Jamal concluded that the American-though evidently a fool-was probably harmless. He missed Rogers.

Lunch was ordered. Fuad intercepted the waiter at the door to prevent him from glimpsing his two guests. Jamal poured himself a double whisky from a bottle in the bedroom and drank it down in several gulps.

Marsh proposed a toast to the future of U.S.-Palestinian cooperation. Jamal responded with a Lebanese toast -Kaysak!- which literally means: “Your glass!” Then he smiled and repeated the toast, changing the pronunciation slightly. Mispronounced in this way, the word meant: “Your cunt!”

When lunch was done, Marsh turned to Fuad and asked him to leave the room. “We have some matters to discuss,” the American said. Jamal protested, but Fuad was already out the door.

Marsh removed from his pocket a device that looked like a small tape recorder and turned it on. It made a babbling noise, like the sound of five conversations taking place at once.

“Security,” said Marsh with a wink.

Jamal clucked his tongue.

“Let’s talk business,” Marsh began. “As you may have guessed, I am an intelligence officer. I am familiar with the details of your case and I have read the full transcripts of all your previous meetings.”

Jamal winced.

“Oh yes!” said Marsh, nodding his head for emphasis. “We have all of those meetings on tape!”

Jamal lit a cigarette and seemed to disappear in the clouds of smoke. Marsh pursued him intently.

“I must also advise you that I am a senior official of my agency, unlike the people you have dealt with previously, and I am thus familiar with the broad aspects of this case.”

“What case?” muttered Jamal. He was slumped in his chair, like a teenager listening to an especially unwelcome parental lecture. His head was tilted so that he looked at Marsh out of half-closed eyes.

“Am I going too fast for you?” asked Marsh.

“No,” said Jamal, slumping even deeper in his chair.

“Good. Now then, I believe that our relationship with you has gotten off to a bad start because we haven’t clarified in a businesslike way the nature of our dealings. We are in the business of acquiring information. You have information that is of value to us. Therefore, a basis exists for a relationship that is mutually beneficial. But there must be no mistake-I repeat, no mistake-about who is running the show. There will be severe consequences for you if you fail to live up to your side of the bargain. Would you like me to detail those consequences?”

Instead of answering, Jamal sat up in the chair and spit on the rug.

“Stop that!” said Marsh. Control your agent, he reminded himself.

The American picked up a leather attache case he had brought with him and placed it on the coffee table in front of Jamal. He turned it toward the Palestinian and popped the locks. The case was filled with $100 bills, neatly stacked and bound. The money, gathered covertly from a half-dozen banks in Europe, was dog-eared and dirty.

“I hope we can reach a businesslike agreement,” said Marsh. “There is $100,000 in that briefcase as an initial payment. You may count it if you like.” He picked up a wad of bills and rifled them with his thumb.

“As in any business arrangement, I must request that you sign a contract.” He removed a sheet of paper from his inside coat pocket and placed it face up on the table, next to the money. From another pocket he removed an ink pad, to take the fingerprint that would form his receipt.

Jamal lit another cigarette. His face had the tight surface tension of a balloon that is nearly ready to explode.

Marsh was oblivious. In his own nervousness, he had barely looked at the Palestinian.

“As you will see from the contract,” continued Marsh, “we propose to pay you a sum of three million dollars over the next five years. The balance will be paid in regular installments to a numbered bank account in Switzerland. We have taken the liberty of opening the account already.

“Three million dollars!” Marsh repeated the sum like an incantation. With this final, gross invitation to bribery, the balloon burst.

Jamal rose from his chair, muttered an oath in Arabic, and kicked the attache case-dumping the neat stacks of bills on the floor. He loomed over Marsh’s chair. His hands were shaking with rage. Hundred-dollar bills were scattered on the rug in front of Marsh.

“You bastard!” said the Palestinian. “If I had a gun I would shoot you!”

With that, Jamal went to the bedroom and began packing his bag.

Marsh, suddenly frantic, walked to the bedroom and began making blackmail threats. He talked about photos, tapes, incriminating evidence that would be sent to the Soviets, warrants that would be issued for Jamal’s arrest in Italy, Lebanon, and Jordan. When it was obvious that these threats were having no effect, Marsh picked up the phone and called a number that reached the switchboard of the Rome station. With a few prearranged code phrases, he signalled that he had a problem and needed a backup team in a hurry.

Jamal ignored the American. When he had finished packing, he walked briskly past Marsh to the door. He took the stairs to the ground floor and slipped out a side entrance, escaping into the heat of the Roman summer.