Free The Mulberry Bush by Charles McCarry Page A

all of them, were smart—amusing when they wanted to be. Father never brought a dullard home.
    Fred said, “Any questions?”
    â€œYes. What can I expect, and how long is this phase going to last?”
    â€œYou can expect interesting stuff and a certain amount of what will seem silly stuff. Keep an open mind about both. The course will last a month, maybe six weeks, depending on what we’re instructed to teach you. You were sprung on us out of nowhere and at short notice. The syllabus is still under construction.”
    â€œI thought you trained people in groups.”
    â€œUsually we do. You’re a special case.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Fred said, “There are quite a few becauses. You’re coming in with much more rank than is usual for a beginner. You’re going to be working on the outside, undercover, as what is called an Undoc or undocumented operative, so no one in Headquarters is supposed to know you under your true name except the people who will eventually handle you directly. That category doesn’t include me or anyone else you’ll meet in this house, so don’t tell us who you really are. The director and the rest of management don’t
want
to know about people like you, so they can truthfully say they’ve never heard of you should the need arise. We work in compartments in this business. Nobody outside your compartment will ever know everything about you and most will know nothing.”
    Oh.
So that’s how Father’s sympathizers were managing this—by hiding me in plain sight. I was a penetration agent already and wonder of wonders, my target had made this happen. How amused, how unsurprised Father would have been.
    I said, “Are you in my compartment?”
    â€œFor the time being, for the purpose at hand, we are together in a temporary compartment. When we’re done with the job we came to do, the compartment will cease to exist and for all intents and purposes, so will I. I have a job to do, cluing you in, and when I have done the job, that’s the end of our relationship. Forgetting faces and names is my specialty, and anyway I don’t know your true name or even your crypt and never want to know, so as a matter of self-discipline you should never let it slip. You did exactly the right thing by not telling me who you are, and you should never tell me or anyone else you meet in this house. This is the place where you learn to trust no one under any circumstances. When this is over, you’ll walk out of the house and out of my mind and never come back to visit at either place. If we meet on the street in Islamabad or hiking all alone across the Sahara Desert in opposite directions, andsuch things do happen, we’ll be mutually invisible. No eye contact, no smile, no nothing. Thus endeth the lesson.”
    â€œSo now what?”
    â€œNow we make some coffee—espresso, I understand you prefer it. We converse. Apart from your duty to remain anonymous, you have unconditional freedom of speech, and you’re expected to speak your mind no matter what the subject. This is a bedrock principle. Otherwise you’re not much good to us. I’ll show you training films and talk shop. Other people, specialists in the skills of the craft, some of which may seem laughable to you. I assure you they are anything but. Mostly, we wait for the others to show up. That may be the most useful part of the process—learning to wait, getting used to uncertainty, living with frustration. You’ll be doing a lot of all three in this business. That’s what field operatives do—wait for someone to show up, wait for someone to tell them something they want to know or ask them to do something Headquarters wants to get done. It’s important to know how to endure the ennui, how to recognize the right moment when it comes, how not to look to others like you’re desperate to take a leak, and all this without going