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  The Turkish winter had begun with a massacre at a place called Kahramanmaras, in eastern Turkey. The trouble there had started a few days before Christmas, with a march by local leftists to protest the death of two schoolteachers. The leftists painted slogans on the walls, shouted epithets against the regime, and began throwing rocks. The army opened fire. By Christmas Day, 109 people had died at Kahramanmaras, more than 1,000 had been wounded, and over 500 shops had been destroyed. The violence soon spread to other cities, and on December 26 martial law had been declared in thirteen provinces. The murder rate from terrorism was climbing into double digits, and it seemed entirely possible in early 1979 that Turkey was heading the way of Iran.

  Why was America letting the string unravel? That was what the Turks wanted to know. Why couldn’t somebody do something? The American ambassador in Ankara sent home a tart cable: “Turkish concerns about U.S. reliability as an alliance partner have deepened as a result of our inability to prevent the fall of the Shah of Iran and the perception that the U.S. is losing strength in relation to the Russians.” That was about as blunt as they got in the striped-pants set, but it didn’t do any good. When the subject of Turkey came up back home, the only thing anybody seemed to want to talk about was human rights.

  Taylor didn’t know what to tell his Turkish friends, so generally he didn’t say anything. The chief of staff of the Turkish Air Force sought him out at a party in Istanbul in late January and warned him that the Iranian situation was a strategic disaster. Why wasn’t America doing anything about it? “I can’t talk about it,” said Taylor. The general looked relieved. Of course the Americans were doing something about it; they just couldn’t talk about it.

  Taylor liked opening the pouch every morning. It was a gesture of optimism, an expression of hope that among the endless sequence of bureaucratic directives and memos from headquarters might lie a rough gem of insight, a new plan of action, a sense that somebody back at the central cortex had a clue about what was happening out in the elbows and kneecaps of the world. He was nearly always disappointed, but he came back again each morning with, if not always hope, at least curiosity. He was waiting for something to happen, something that would force the issue, something that would order the puzzle of his life. And it finally did, one day in late January.

  The day began badly, when the code clerk brought Taylor the latest missive from headquarters. At first he thought it was a joke, an elaborate parody of the bureaucratic morass into which the agency had been sinking in recent years. It was a lengthy dispatch from “Edward J. Ganin,” the pseudonym of the new director of central intelligence, Charles (Chuck) Hinkle. It had been sent via the director’s special communication channel, whose messages carried the cryptonym LWSURF but were known informally as “Chuckgrams.”

  “Management by Objectives” read the heading. Taylor leafed through the long memo. It was written in the earnest gibberish of a Dale Carnegie seminar, with a list of ten rules for better management (“No. 6: Dare to Delegate!”) and a brightly colored poster-size sheet that said: tough but fair—the manager’s credo! Taylor skimmed the document and got to the “action plan” on the last page. It mandated every CIA station and base around the world to draw up a detailed list of its current intelligence “objectives” and confirm that they accorded with the master list back at headquarters. If taken seriously it meant days of drudge work. Taylor decided he had better call his boss, Stanley Timmons, the station chief in Ankara.

  “Has someone back home gone crazy?” asked Taylor.

  “I beg your pardon,” said the station chief, a gentle man who was nearing retirement and had every reason not to rock the boat. Timmons spent most of his time worrying about the agency’s listening posts on the Black Sea and playing golf.

  “What the hell is ‘Management by Objectives’?”

  “Read it yourself,” said Timmons.

  “I read it. But I don’t believe that anyone could take it seriously.”

  “Believe it. I need your list in a week.”

  Taylor groaned. “Where did Hinkle get this silly idea?”

  “From the President.”

  “That’s reassuring. Maybe I’m in the wrong business.”

  “Maybe you are,” said Timmons. “By the way, don’t forget about the Bulgarians.”

  “I’m working on it. But I’m not sure it’s there.”

  “Work harder. The White House is convinced the Bulgarians are sending weapons into Turkey. They want evidence.”

  “Who told them?”

  “The Romanians. The French. How should I know? Just do it.”

  Taylor was going to say “Fuck the White House,” but Timmons had hung up. Taylor put down the phone and looked at the “Management by Objectives” directive. He read a passage at random: “The way to stay ahead of the competition is to think smart, and the way to think smart is to avoid making the same mistakes, which create a negative feedback situation that prevents you from realizing your objectives!”

  “What an asshole,” muttered Taylor. He looked at the memo and gave it the finger. It was a childish gesture, but there was a part of Taylor that had never quite graduated from high school. He was the sort of man whose moral code had not progressed too far beyond the conviction that rules were a bad idea and that people, in general, should do what made them feel good.

  “Alan, you have a call,” shouted Taylor’s secretary through the door. Taylor insisted on first names in the office. One of the many things that disturbed him about the CIA was that people were beginning to call each other “Mister,” just like the State Department.

  “Who is it?”

  “Wouldn’t say.”

  Good for him, thought Taylor. Someone who refused to be objectified.

  5

  The call was from a Turkish intelligence officer named Serif Osman. He ran the Istanbul office of the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, the Turkish National Intelligence Organization. The Americans usually referred to it by the English acronym TNIO, just as they called the government of Turkey the GOT. Taylor stubbornly insisted on using the Turkish initials, MIT. Serif was Taylor’s principal liaison contact in Istanbul, and he had been trying hard for nearly a year to cultivate him. “Cultivate” wasn’t the right word, exactly. He had invited the MIT man to lunch twice and tried to get him drunk, once unsuccessfully, once successfully.

  The Turk suggested they meet for coffee. Taylor proposed the Hilton near Taksim Square, about a mile from MIT headquarters in Besiktas. The Turk suggested a cheaper, less conspicuous hotel nearby. That whetted Taylor’s curiosity. He called downstairs to his driver and departed several minutes later in one of the consulate’s bulletproof Chevys—glad for a momentary chance to escape the bunker.

  Serif was waiting in the lobby. He was a robust man, with high cheekbones and a neat goatee. Like many Turkish men, he had a limited range of facial expressions. When Serif didn’t like something, he narrowed his eyes. Otherwise, his face gave nothing away. Taylor smiled and shook his hand warmly, but the Turk was squinting.

  The Turks were an odd people, Taylor had concluded soon after his arrival. Prickly and difficult, like their language. They didn’t crack jokes, they rarely laughed. They rarely talked to foreigners. They did their part in NATO, but they suspected they were being had.

  It was said in the agency that Turks were notoriously hard to recruit. Taylor hadn’t believed it at first, but after a few months, he understood why. They didn’t have handles or rough edges or secret dreams. They weren’t mercenary, so money wouldn’t do it. And they didn’t have the sort of complicated mind, like the Arabs, that allowed them to rationalize betrayal. They were intensely patriotic. The only way to get them to do something was to convince them that it was best for Turkey.

  Serif didn’t speak until they were seated at a table in the corner of the coffee shop.

  “I have something for you,” he said solemnly. Despite the grave manner, he looked pleased with himself. “Something we cannot use.”

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p; “And what might that be?”

  “You know Kunayev?”

  “Of course,” said Taylor. He was the Soviet consul general. Kunayev was a figure of some interest. His cousin was the party first secretary in Kazakhstan, and his wife was a beautiful blonde from Vilnius.

  “This morning he went to the Bit Pazar in Horhor to look at some old furniture …” Serif paused for emphasis.

  “… He saw something he liked.” He cleared his throat. “… An Ottoman chair.”

  Taylor didn’t get it right away. Big fucking deal, he thought.

  “A chair?” repeated Taylor dully.

  “Yes,” said the Turk. “An Ottoman chair. Kunayev asked the shop owner to clean it up. He is half Kazakh, Kunayev, from Alma Ata. We think he will come back tomorrow and buy it. For his office maybe.”

  “Oh Jesus!” said Taylor. He finally got the point. What Serif was describing so solemnly was one of those serendipitous moments that underemployed base chiefs dream about, when your adversary does something stupid and allows you to do something smart. Like install a microphone in a piece of his furniture. All Taylor could think of to say was “No shit?”

  The Turk looked embarrassed. Like most of his countrymen, he abjured profanity.

  “How did you come across this lovely piece of information?” asked Taylor.

  “The owner of the store next door told us. He’s a Circassian. He hates the Russians.”

  “Why are you telling me about it?”

  “Because we cannot do anything with it,” said the MIT man. “There is no time for us to install a proper microphone that would not be detected. We do not have the equipment. The Soviets would find it, and we would have a flap with Moscow. So we have decided to do nothing ourselves. But we feel it is some waste!”

  “Definitely,” agreed Taylor. “Much waste!”

  Taylor pondered the situation a moment. Bugging a piece of furniture wasn’t as easy as Serif seemed to think. There was also the possibility that he was being set up. “Does Ankara know you’re seeing me?” he asked.

  “Of course!” said Serif. “Do you think I am a crazy man? This is strictly above the boards!”

  “Just asking.”

  “This is a present from us to you,” said Serif.

  “We are most grateful,” said Taylor, putting his hand over his heart.

  “We ask one thing,” said Serif, returning to his initial solemn tone. “That you share with us the product of this operation. Otherwise, no deals.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Taylor. In fact, he hadn’t a clue what headquarters would say.

  “You give me your promise?”

  “Sure,” said Taylor. What the hell.

  The Turk smiled slyly and stood up from the table. As he did so, he removed from his pocket a slip of paper and placed it gently on the table. On it was written the name of the antique shop and a description of the chair the Soviet had admired.

  “Be very careful, please,” said the Turk. “If you get caught, we never heard of you.” He turned and walked away. Taylor wanted to kiss him. Into the enervating, paint-by-numbers world of the Istanbul base had fallen something unexpected.

  6

  Taylor’s car left the hotel and moved slowly down the hill and along Dolmabahce Avenue toward the city. Ordinarily, Taylor didn’t mind the traffic. It gave him a chance to watch women in the streets. But today it was a nuisance. He looked at his watch. It was after three, which meant he had about fifteen hours. He leaned out the window and shouted at a man driving a vegetable cart, then pulled his head back in. His eyes were stinging from the winter smog, which settled over the city in November, when Istanbulis began lighting their dirty coal fires to stay warm, and hung on until April. Taylor looked across the waters of the Golden Horn, toward the old city. He could barely glimpse the spires of the mosques through the haze—Aya Sofia and Sultanahmet and Suleymaniye—a forest of stone, lost in the fog.

  Byzantium. The city where spying was invented, whose very name had become over the ages a synonym for deceit and double-dealing—for what Yeats delicately called “the artifice of eternity”; the city where, in Ottoman times, the very functioning of the realm had been secret, hidden behind the gates of the “Sublime Porte”; the city where, in the time of the penultimate sultan, Abdul-Hamid II, half the population was said to be employed spying on the other half; an infinitely exotic realm of janissaries and concubines and black eunuchs—and come to what? To monstrous traffic jams and a haze of sulfurous smog.

  That was the shock of places like Istanbul. They were so ordinary. The land of the seraglio had become a typical Third World country, struggling to stay afloat politically and economically. It had a moderately left-wing prime minister, a mountain of foreign debt, a population so sharply split on politics that left and right were becoming two separate cultures. Turkey, in short, was like too many other friends and clients of the United States in the late 1970s. It was an in-between country: between Europe and Asia; between capitalism and socialism; between the Third World and the First. The prime minister typified the national schizophrenia. An amateur poet, he had translated T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound into Turkish and was said to love “modernism.” Yet somehow he did not love America.

  When Taylor finally got back to the consulate, he tried to reach Timmons in Ankara. Timmons had left the office. His secretary thought he had gone to play golf. Just as well, Taylor decided. Timmons would have gotten in the way. Taylor knew what he wanted to do and—more important—whom he wanted to do it. He drafted a cable requesting the immediate dispatch of George Trumbo from the Athens field office of the Technical Services Division. He sent headquarters and Timmons an information copy, to cover his ass. If they didn’t like what he was doing, they still had a few hours to complain. It was now well after four; the antique shop would open the next morning at eight. Fortunately, George Trumbo was in the office when Taylor’s cable arrived. More fortunately, there was still time for him to catch the last commercial flight of the day from Athens to Istanbul. And most fortunately of all, George was not drunk.

  George was a technical genius who, by any reasonable measure, had wasted his life in the agency. His specialty was electronic surveillance. He believed, as a matter of professional pride, that there was no such thing as a conversation that could not be overheard—in the same way that a Broadway ticket agent might insist that there was no such thing as a sold-out play. George had proved the point many times over. The agency liked to place technicians like George in big stations around the world—London, Rome, Athens, Bangkok, Hong Kong—to be ready for emergencies. It was a good idea, except the TSD men tended to go to seed. Out in the field there were too few technical operations and too many bars.

  George had most definitely gone to seed. That was part of why Taylor liked him. He had stopped taking seriously the things in life that are not serious. George was a big, friendly man—a former jock who had been recruited by the agency in the mid-1960s after a knee injury ended his athletic career at a Catholic college in the Midwest—who had become interested in electrical engineering as a sort of hobby, like fixing cars. In agency parlance, he was a “knuckle dragger,” a term that ascribed apelike characteristics to anyone who did “manual” work, like installing bugs or running paramilitary operations. George did indeed look dumb—until he began taking apart a piece of electrical equipment; then, unless he was very drunk, he looked like a genius.

  Taylor liked him. But then Taylor liked everybody, at least until they proved themselves incompetent or hopelessly dull. That was why he was a natural recruiter. He called George “Georgie,” the wireman called him “Al,” and together they burgled people’s apartments and bugged their telephones.

  Taylor passed the next few hours in a blur. He first arranged a support team of two Turkish agents and drove them to Horhor to case the site. Then he returned to the consulate and sent a second cable to Timmons and headquarters. The cable assessed in more detail the possibility that Kunayev was a KGB
officer and stressed again the time constraints that had made it impossible to obtain normal operational approval. Taylor even threw in a reference to potential intelligence about Bulgarian weapons shipments into Turkey. He signed the cable with his pseudonym—Amos B. Garrett—and then drove to the airport to pick up George.

  It was almost nine o’clock when the big, smiling American emerged in the arrival hall carrying the canvas overnight bag that contained his tools.

  “You fucker,” said George loudly as he shook Taylor’s hand. “I had a date tonight. This better be good.” Several Turks turned and stared at them.

  “It is,” said Taylor, holding his finger to his lips.

  “As good as the last one?” He was still nearly shouting.

  “Screw you,” said Taylor. “And be quiet.”

  “The last one was a beaut!” said George, a little less loudly. “All my work, up in smoke.”

  It was true, quite literally. The last time Taylor had called on George’s technical services, it had been to install a hidden microphone in an Ottoman dueling pistol. Taylor had arranged for a Turkish businessman to present the pistol as a gift to the Bulgarian military attaché in Istanbul. Taylor and George had gone off to a little shop in the Kapali Carsi, purchased the gun, and lovingly installed the bug. It was an ingenious device—absolutely undetectable. And the Bulgarian loved it. He placed it on the desk in his office and for a week it broadcast a delicious flow of raw intelligence (not, alas, concerning shipments of weapons into Turkey). But then the Bulgarian colonel did something nobody had expected. He took the gun home with him, bought some gunpowder and bird shot, and tried to fire it. It was a natural enough thing to do, but of course the ancient gun exploded. The Bulgarian escaped serious injury, but the microphone was mortally wounded.