Point of Entry by Peter Schechter

Author:Peter Schechter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061844454
Publisher: HarperCollins

Marta

CIA Headquarters

Langley, October 7

2:03 p.m.

Seventy-two hours had gone by. At CIA headquarters, Ellen O’Shehan and Ruben Goldfarber were now on their third day with practically no sleep. They had not gone home. They had not showered. Ellen was on her fifteenth Diet Coke and her seventh steak and cheese sandwich from the CIA cafeteria. Ruben Goldfarber seemed to exist on coffee alone.

They were exhausted. Mostly, they were physically tired. But they were also mentally beat from frustration. Two days had gone by, and nothing. Like Willy Perlman, they knew that the chance of coincidence was too great. But Perlman’s urgent orders asking CIA station chiefs around the world to mobilize informants, contacts, and intelligence had not gotten them any further information.

Information flowed in, but none of it seemed relevant. Nonetheless, they followed every lead emanating from the approximate date of the discovery of the corpse in Telavi. They sorted through everything.

The CIA station in Baku informed them that the president of Azerbaijan had welcomed the prime minister of Malaysia. Ruben wired Baku to find out who was in the Malaysian delegation.

The U.S. embassy in Moscow reported on a convention of biochemists in Saint Petersburg. Ellen ignored the time change and woke up the ambassador’s assistant in the middle of the night and ordered somebody to get them the list of participants.

Chechen rebels blew up a bus transporting Russian soldiers in downtown Grozny. Willy Perlman issued orders to CIA agents in Chechnya to query their rebel informants regarding plans to escalate their anti-Russian activities to nuclear levels.

The CIA Georgia station reported that the only activity in the country of any note was a regularly scheduled UN meeting on Abkhazian refugees. Goldfarber e-mailed back for the list of participants.

In Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, agents of the United States government were pressing informants, paying for information, scouring newspapers for unusual events. Whatever was found was reported back to Langley, which, in turn, requested more information. Who met with whom? Who was on a delegation? Who attended a conference? Were there any unusual movements?

There was nothing. The only piece of news that seemed to be of any relevance was the absence of any information on Farooq Rahman. U.S. embassy inquiries with the University of Karachi, the Pakistani government, and officials in the intelligence agencies went nowhere. Nobody had seen or heard from Farooq Rahman in at least two or three years. Willy Perlman ordered an undercover operation to go directly to Rahman’s home.

A secretary entered the room and dumped more paper on the conference table in Ellen and Ruben’s office. Responses from embassies and CIA stations. More lists. More schedules. More reports on meetings, conferences, and summits in faraway places.

“Maybe we overreacted,” said Ruben. “Maybe there is nothing here. Maybe the corpse is not Rahman,” he concluded, looking up at the blown-up grainy likeness from the Georgian newspaper that was now pinned on the office’s bulletin board.

“Maybe,” answered Ellen, too tired to even talk about it. She reached for the top sheet of paper from the folder recently placed on the table.

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