The Faithful Spy

Pretending you hadn’t heard the subject’s denial was another old trick.

“I told you I didn’t know beforehand.”

“So you failed.”

“I failed.”

“What was your role in the Los Angeles attack?”

“I wasn’t involved.”

Walter stepped back and looked at the monitor. “You’re lying.”

“No.”

“The box says you’re lying.”

“Then it’s wrong.”

“When did you enter the United States?”

“A week ago.”

“You’re lying again.”

Wells shook his head. “No.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“About fifteen.”

“About?” Walter sneered.

“I don’t keep an exact count.”

“Americans?”

“No.”

“How many Americans, John?”

“None. Never.”

The questions were coming fast now.

“But you want to kill Americans.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“What?”

“That’s what al Qaeda does, right? And you’re an al Qaeda agent.”

“I infiltrated Qaeda on the orders of this agency.”

“Did this agency order you to convert to Islam?”

“No.”

Walter leaned in close to Wells. “Does al Qaeda have WMD?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Walter spoke as if Wells were a rebellious but not very bright five-year-old. Wells wished he could jump out of the chair and break Walter in half, but he kept his voice even.

“Getting those weapons was a priority, but I never saw any evidence that they were successful.”

“You infiltrated al Qaeda all these years and you don’t know if it has weapons of mass destruction? You’re not much of an agent, are you?”

“I guess not.”

“Or maybe you’ve been doubled.”

Wells stood and pulled off the electrodes and the blood-pressure cuff. The door opened and Dex came in, his hand on his 9mm.

“Relax,” Dex said.

Wells sat. “Tell Vinny this little show is over,” he said. “Ask me whatever you like, call me a fool, but stop telling me I’m a traitor.”

Walter walked out as Dex sat on the corner of the desk, hand on his gun.

“Let me guess,” Wells said. “Just following orders.”

in the adjoining room, Exley and Shafer watched the examination through the one-way mirror along with Regina Burke, another examiner, who was seeing a real-time data feed from the exam.

As the interrogation progressed, Regina, a small woman with short gray hair, leaned closer to her screen. Occasionally she clicked her mouse to mark one of the lines scrolling across the monitor. Exley wished she knew how to read the response charts. But she didn’t need to be a professional polygrapher to see that Walter had gotten under Wells’s skin.

When Wells blew up, Regina picked up her phone. “Could you inform Mr. Duto that the subject has discontinued the examination?”

She paused. “Thank you.” She hung up. “Duto’s secretary says he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Walter walked in.

“So?” Shafer said.

“He’s telling the truth,” Regina said.

“Yes,” Walter said.

“How sure are you?” Exley said.

“You can never know one hundred percent,” Regina said. “But his responses are physiologically consistent. He didn’t shut down under the stress, which is what he’d do if he were trying to lie.”

“If he’s faking he’s really good,” Walter said. “I think he’s loyal.”

Exley looked at Wells, who was staring into the one-way mirror, his face set and unsmiling. Occasionally he would walk around the room, sliding from corner to corner with slow long strides as Dex watched. A few weeks before, Exley had taken her kids to the Washington Zoo. Now, watching Wells, she recognized the controlled fury of a tiger pacing his cage. If they weren’t careful, he might not bother to control that fury much longer, she thought. du to s c ow l e d w h e n he heard Walter’s assessment. “You let him stop? You let the guys in the chair tell you what to do?”

“It’s not there,” Walter said. “He’s not lying.”

“Maybe he’s too tough for you. Maybe he needs a more coercive environment.”

Coercive. The magic word. Coercive meant weeks without sleep inside a tiny cell with no heat or running water, sensory deprivation in a dark, windowless room until the hallucinations began. Coercive wasn’t quite torture, but it was close.

Exley decided that if she didn’t say something now she might as well resign. “Vinny, you can’t do that.” She kept her voice steady.

“Did I ask permission?”

“Forget that he’s an American citizen and it’s illegal. He can help us.”

“Let me spell it out for you,” Duto said. “He hasn’t produced anything for us in a very long time. And this Islam crap is the last straw.”

“He’s the only agent we’ve ever placed inside al Qaeda,” Exley said.

“He’s not inside anymore. For all you know he’s lying about meeting Zawahiri. And even if it’s true, what did he get? A few bucks and a ride home? They don’t trust him any more than I do.”

Duto had just revealed the real reason he was being so hard on Wells, Exley thought. He didn’t care whether Wells was loyal. In his eyes Wells had failed, and Duto would do anything to distance himself from failure.

“Vinny. Coercion is unacceptable,” Shafer said.

“Unacceptable to who?”

“Drop it.”