Free Direct Action by John Weisman Page A

points. Holy Mother of God.
Just to make sure, MJ logged onto BigPond and pulled up the original picture. The photo had been obtained in September 1988 by a Hezbollah penetration agent working for a Beirut-based Arabic-speaking case officer named ]]]]]]]. It showed Mugniyah, surrounded by seven of his IJO colleagues, watching CNN’s coverage of the aftermath of the July 1988 shoot-down of a civilian Iranian Airbus by the USS Vincennes.
There was significance to this. In December 1988, Pan Am’s Flight 103 from London to Washington exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Among the 259 passengers were five CIA officers, including the son-in-law of the Agency’s deputy director for operations and ]]]]]]], 9 a former Beirut station chief who had come close to killing or capturing Imad Mugniyah twice. Despite the fact that the Libyan intelligence service had ultimately been convicted of bombing Pan Am 103, there were those at CIA—and MJ’s boyfriend Tom Stafford was among them—who believed it was the Vincennes incident that led to the bombing, that Iran was ultimately responsible, and that Imad Mugniyah was somehow complicit in the atrocity.
MJ printed out the BigPond photo and compared it with her afternoon’s work. There was a slight resemblance. Imad Mugniyah had been born sometime in the 1960s: 1962 or 1963 was what came to mind. He’d be in his forties now. Which was more or less the age of the man in the Reuters photograph. But Imad Mugniyah? At the site of a bombing in Gaza? Such things were way above her pay grade.
MJ decided to let Mrs. Sin-Gin handle the problem. She wrote a halfpage single-spaced memo, clipped all of the photos together, slipped them into an envelope, which she sealed and then put inside an orange-tabbed folder. At 8:15 P . M ., MJ walked the folder down the corridor to Mrs. ST. JOHN’s office suite. The outer door was locked and the receptionist had long since left. So she pushed the file through the letter slot in the top of the receptionist’s secure documents repository, returned to her own cubicle, removed the hard drive from her classified computer, slid it into the safe that sat adjacent to her desk, put the pen drive with the original photos on top of the hard drive, locked the door, and gave the knob an extra twirl. Mrs. SJ could deal with Imad Mugniyah in the morning.
17 OCTOBER 2003 8:03 A . M .
    8 This officer resigned covertly in 1997.
9 ]]]]]] was a covert-operations officer. His name has never been made public. The star that denotes his death on the memorial wall at CIA headquarters is one of the anonymous stars.
    MJ was still shrugging out of her coat when she saw the Mugniyah file on her desk. There were two light green Post-its on top of the file, both handlettered in Mrs. SJ’s distinctive penmanship. On the first was the single word REJECTED . On the second, You have a daily quota of analysis to fulfill. Deviation could result in disciplinary action. MJ tucked the folder under her arm like a football and tore down the corridor toward the chief’s suite.
    She made it as far as Mrs. SJ’s outer office. Sylvia N. HIGGINBOTHAM, the chief’s special assistant, looked up as MJ barged through the door.
“Is she in?”
     
Sylvia rose out of her chair and stepped between MJ and Mrs. ST.
    JOHN’s door. “I wouldn’t push this one, Hester.”
“Why?” MJ slapped the folder on Sylvia’s desk. “This has to do with
Americans being murdered. Didn’t we all hear the president say we won’t
spare any effort to track down and punish anybody who kills Americans?” “Hester—don’t go there.”
“Why the hell not?” MJ stood her ground, fists clenched. “Christ,
Sylvia, people died.”
“I know. And it stinks.” The special assistant flicked her head in the direction of Mrs. ST. JOHN’s office. “Who can tell. C’mon, Hester.” Sylvia
took the file, came around the desk, put her arm around MJ’s shoulders,
gave her a look that said, Don’t talk in front of the