Free The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer

in favor of more assured goals.
    ASSUMPTIONS
    ¶2. (C) Signs that the assumptions of instability, outlined in the May 2009 proposal by Jibril Aziz (CIA), are mistaken include:
    --The failed September 2009 protests in al Jabal al Akhdar Governorate, dealt with by government forces in less than 24 hours.
    --A November 2009 increase in salary to the Revolutionary Guard, which reports say have solidified the regime’s control.
    --Most importantly, the recently signed oil contracts between the regime and China’s CNPC, which has made the regime more flush with cash than in recent years, and would facilitate the easy purchase of mercenary support from throughout Africa.
    NEXT STEPS
    ¶3. (C) Given the low probability of success with STUMBLER, this office suggests the following course of action:
    --Continued support of underground resistance groups within the country, including the ALF and the WRAL.
    --Support for the IFG, which, despite central policies that contradict our own, could be moved into our sphere of influence. They have on numerous occasions attempted Muammar Gadhafi’s assassination.
    --Support to a variety of exile groups in order to pave the way for a post-Gadhafi regime educated in the methods and practice of democracy. See the list included in section 3.
    CONCLUSION
    ¶4. (C) With all that has been stated above, and will be detailed in section 2, the prospect for STUMBLER’s success is, in all likelihood, doomed to failure. To go forward would cost not only money and lives but American influence within the Arab and Muslim worlds, as Gadhafi would certainly use a failure to maximum propaganda effect. Instead, this office proposes a continuation of support for democracy groups within Libya, and the rise in funding of exile groups based in Washington, London, Rome, Geneva, and Paris.
    WOLCOTT

 
    PART II
    WE SHOULD LOOK AT OURSELVES

 
    Stan

 
    1
    He first discovered Emmett’s treachery in March 2010, though he had been following clues for at least a month. In early February Langley had sent a classified directive via one pale, sweating official from Internal Affairs who waited at Stan’s apartment, holding a file flown over in the diplomatic pouch. He sat in the kitchen while Stan called Virginia for verification, then in the living room he opened the file and laid out four pieces of intercepted communications from three Washington embassies, with the simple explanation, “The Bureau passed this on to us.” Syria, Libya, and Pakistan had been using material from top-secret communications that had originated in Harry’s office, material that covered aspects of trade, military analyses, and in two cases undercover operations. One was still in play, while the other—an exfiltration from Libya a month ago—had ended when the operative’s body was discovered, cut into pieces, in the desert outside Homs.
    “Christ,” Stan said as he went through the papers. He had personally known the dead undercover agent, whose names—both his birth name and the one on his documents—were right there in capital letters. Yet the emissary was treating this like business as usual. “Who’s selling us out?”
    The emissary shrugged. “That’s why we’ve come to you.”
    “I’m that squeaky clean?”
    “The easiest. We don’t have the manpower to send over a team at this point, so we decided to clear one of you and have you continue the investigation.”
    Stan knew what he meant by “easiest”—his father, Paolo Bertolli, was a legend in Langley circles, and the Bertolli name still carried weight eight years after his death. Stan said, “You want me to do this on my own?”
    The emissary smiled. “Is it really true your father spent six years undercover in the Brigate Rosse?”
    “What do the files say?”
    “Six years, entirely on his own.”
    Stan scratched at his nose. “Is this what the office told you to say? In case I resisted?”
    The emissary shrugged. Of course it was.
    He and Sophie had been