Clyde nodded.
“Clyde, I’m a three-pack-a-day smoker with four kids and three ex-wives, and I didn’t draw up a will until a couple of years ago. What’s going on with you?”
“Bullshit,” Clyde said. “That’s bullshit.”
“Pardon me?”
“You’re CIA,” Clyde said. “I don’t think they’d let you out of the country without a will.”
Hennessey raised his eyebrows and whistled. “Okay. Let me rephrase. I know some heavy smokers with kids and ex-wives who don’t work for the CIA, and who didn’t get around to thinking about their wills until they were twice as old as you, and a whole lot closer to the end of their life expectancy.”
“What’s the CIA doing inside the United States?” Clyde said. “That’s unconstitutional.”
“Oh, nice change of subject, Clyde. Don’t think I won’t come back to this. By the way, it isn’t unconstitutional. It’s just illegal as hell,” Hennessey said.
“What are you doing illegally, then?”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Yup.”
“Cross your heart and all that shit?”
“I either promise or I don’t.”
“Okay. Clyde, I shouldn’t tell you any of this, but I know my secrets are safe with you. None of the people who want to know this stuff will take you seriously—which is their fault, not yours. But that doesn’t matter. You’ll never tell because you promised you wouldn’t. You’ll never reveal what I’m going to tell you here at the Happy Chef, any more than you’ll describe to me the face of Mohammed Ayubanov. Just as Fazoul entrusted you with the face of Mo, as we affectionately call Mr. Ayubanov in certain precincts of northern Virginia, I’m entrusting you with the Tale of Ed.”
The waitress came by. Hennessey ordered the number five, with extra hash browns on the side, and Clyde ordered the same thing; he reckoned that Hennessey would probably pay the tab, and so the extra potatoes did not seem extravagant.
“Okay, Sherlock. As you have correctly deduced, I really work, and have always worked, for the CIA, which happens to be a dangerously screwed-up and mole-ridden organization. We recruit the most wonderful youngsters from places like Wapsipinicon and send them off to exotic lands and they never come back. Someone is selling them out—perhaps several someones are. We call these someones moles. Now, if you were running such an organization, how would you find the moles, Clyde?”
“I guess I’d try to hire better people.”
Hennessey threw his head back and laughed delightedly. When he’d got calmed down, he said, “But it’s the fucking federal government, Clyde. That’s not an option. We take what they send us. Now, in all seriousness, if you knew that moles existed, and you were pretty certain that they were posted here in CONUS, what would you do?”
In the last couple of months Clyde had seen enough military paperwork to know that CONUS meant “continental United States.” “Well,” he said, “it’s illegal for you to actually do anything here.”
“Right.”
“Doesn’t the FBI handle counterintelligence?”
“Yes. They keep saying so, anyway.”
“Wouldn’t that extend to mole hunting?”
“So far you are one hundred percent right, Clyde. It’s just that, at this point, there is a little hitch. See, catching foreign agents is one thing. Usually they are posted at foreign embassies, or at places like Eastern Iowa University. They are on alien soil. They are more vulnerable. They are easier targets for the FBI’s counterintel people. But a mole is a different thing. A mole is an American, hence operating on his own home territory, which makes everything a hundred times easier for him. And rather than having to penetrate our institutions from outside, he’s already ensconced in the holy of holies—the CIA. Do you have any idea how hard it is for the FBI to tackle a problem like that?”
“Pretty hard, I guess.”