Free The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer Page B

Sophie had been clouding his judgement. The facts couldn’t be ignored: His lover’s husband was a traitor. He thought of that undercover agent whose mutilated body had festered under the desert sun. How many other agents had been killed or kidnapped because of Emmett’s misdeeds? Stan’s own mideeds paled to insignificance, and he lost all sympathy for Emmett Kohl. He even allowed himself to hate.
    He waited for Emmett on a street near the embassy. It was a warm day, and Sophie’s husband looked harried. Stan asked about The Nutcracker, and Emmett gave a noncommittal shrug. “Take a walk with me, will you?” Stan asked as he led him down a sweltering Cairo alley he had scouted beforehand, to a little courtyard café with yellow paint peeling off of old stone walls. Emmett had grown anxious by then, but Stan reassured him with aimless talk about personal problems he desperately needed help with until, finally, they were sitting across from each other at one of the plastic tables.
    Neither of them had a lot of time—end-of-the-month meetings were filling both of their schedules—so Stan didn’t bother easing into it. He showed Emmett the photographs of his meeting with Balašević and a CD-ROM that he assured him proved that Emmett had been loading secret files onto his laptop. “Jesus,” Emmett said, seeming to shrink before Stan’s eyes.
    “This is about as serious as it gets,” Stan told him.
    Emmett looked like a little boy who was going to be sick, his round, smooth face preternaturally young. Hiding his contempt, Stan reached across the table and patted Emmett’s hand.
    “Just consider yourself lucky that I’m the one who discovered it.”
    Emmett couldn’t manage an answer.
    “Let’s start with who this woman is.”
    He gave Stan the name he already knew, Zora Balašević, then the name of her employer: BIA, the Security Information Agency.
    “You want to tell me what she has on you?”
    A firm shake of the head. For the moment, it didn’t matter. “But I refused,” Emmett said.
    Despite himself, Stan let a smile slip into his face. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
    “It’s the truth.”
    “Listen, Emmett. I don’t need to come to you with this. The information you gave her didn’t sit around in the Serbian embassy—it traveled . The Serbs sold it on to at least three different governments. By now it’s common knowledge. With what I’ve got, Harry can send you home in shackles.”
    His eyes had grown into saucers. “I’m telling you, Stan. I didn’t give her anything. She asked— threatened, really—but I refused.”
    People lie. During his ten years with the Agency Stan had listened to more lies than he could count, and he’d lied at least the same number of times. Being his father’s son, he was pretty good at it, but in his experience diplomatic staff were among the most skillful liars around. So it was no surprise that Emmett told him these things with a straight face. He went on to say that, yes, he’d brought home his work, even brought home material that wasn’t supposed to leave the embassy. “I’m loose with the rules. I’ll admit to that. But I’m not a traitor.”
    “What does Balašević have on you?”
    “It doesn’t matter, Stan. That was a year ago. She asked, I said no—end of story.”
    “Then why didn’t you report it?”
    “Because I didn’t know you. I didn’t know Harry. I was worried about my job.”
    Stan gave him a good long stare to show that he wasn’t buying any of this. He said, “You’re going to close it down. Tell her the truth—you were uncovered, and now it’s all over.”
    “It never started.”
    “I’m trying to close a leak, Emmett. I’m not here to abuse you. I’m not even going to make you feed them disinformation—the Serbs aren’t worth it. But you have to be open with me. What you need to do now is admit it to me.” He opened his hands. “I’m not carrying a wire, I swear. You and I just need